La Gazetta Dello Swanadoni

The Zombie Nation: Notes on Scottish football’s demise.

2011-12-08T17:50:00.001Z

There has been an inordinate amount of wailing , moaning and vacant stares around Glasgow this past week, sadly not all has been confined to the set of “World War Z”, Brad Pitt’s film in which he tries to prevent a zombie Apocalypse, which is currently filming in the city. The film’s premise could be used as a metaphor for Scottish football.

For the Scottish football community has not yet woken up to it’s own end of days, or it cannot understand what has happened. The nation has no clubs left in European competition before the autumn leaves fall from the trees. The media have gone into overdrive, whole rain forests have been felled to provide newsprint for the punditocracy to condemn as shameful (an adjective used more and more frequently by the hysterical tabloids to describe every aspect of Scottish favourite pastime these days!) the attempts by the Old Firm and Heart of Midlothian to qualify for the group stages of Europe’s secondary competition, the Europa League, Rangers having already been eliminated from the premier competition, the Champions League, at the first hurdle by average Swedish champions Malmo on yet another “night of shame”.

Quite how the famous old Edinburgh club can be tarred with the same brush as the wealthier Glasgow “giants” is a bewildering as the reaction of some women of a certain age to the presence of a Hollwood actor in their city. All rational thought seems to evaporate. Anyone surprised by Hearts’ five nil demolition by Tottenham Hotspur in the first leg at Tynecastle must have had the same full frontal lobotomy that Mr. Pitt’s adversaries in his blockbuster have endured. Spurs could have put him in goal and fielded his good lady, Angelina Jolie, at centre half and still destroyed the “Jam Tarts”, such is the difference in wealth and class between the two sides.

Those who doubt that wealth matters in such competitions can point to Shamrock Rovers’ progression at the expense of Partizan Belgrade, but the reality is somewhat different. European football has changed in important ways, to the detriment of Scottish teams, as I shall explain below.

Until Scottish football accepts these realities and deals with them, qualification for Champions League group stages and the odd U.E.F.A Cup final appearance will become rarer and rarer and all of the radio phone- in waffle and ten point plans to save Scottish football that I have been hearing for the best part of thirty years will continue to be superfluous flim -flam.

Our so called experts in the game and in the press need to recognise the following truths :

Firstly, European football does not want us. They are not interested in us. The problem with Scotland is that we are a small country of around five million souls and when that is translated into television revenue that is pretty small beer, despite the potential worldwide television audience of the Scottish and Irish diaspora, we don’t count when compared to the larger, more lucrative markets of the larger European countries who now have up to four teams in the “Champions League”, so obstacles are erected at every turn to deny us entry.

In the late eighties Ramon Mendoza, then president of Real Madrid, was aghast at drawing the champions of Italy in the first round of the European Cup two years out of three. The threat to his revenues of an early exit from the continent’s premier competition was too much to contemplate and so he and the industrialists and businessmen at the head of Europe’s top clubs formed plans for breakaway European super leagues financed by satellite television millions. U.E.F.A., desperate to retain their power and influence, butchered their own competition, the European Cup, turning it into the Champions League, a Frankenstein’s monster of a tournament where the teams from the largest European countries, or those who could provide the largest television revenues were provided with safe havens of seeded places in group sections, guaranteeing them at least six games in the competition and usually straightfoward passage to the lucrative final knockout stages.

UEFA then abandoned the principle that entrants had to be national champions, in the wake of more pressure from the larger nations and now we have the absurdity of teams like Napoli, who last won Serie A in 1990, and Villareal, who have never won La Liga, in the group stages by virtue of the fact they play in Italy and Spain, two of the favoured nations. The inclusion of these imposters at the expense of legitimate national champions makes a mockery of the competition’s title. So, the champions of proud footballing nations such as Scotland are forced to play qualifying ties earlier and earlier in summer, while the big boys relax on beaches, to scrap for the few remaining places in the groups not gifted to the also rans of the Premiership, the Bundesliga et al.

Should they manage to negotiate their way to the group stages, their chances of progression are hindered still further by the way the sections are created . In each group there are usually two clubs from the favoured leagues and two minnows to ensure that the usual suspects make it through to the knockout stages. This makes for sterile group games in front of half full stadia and a lot of meaningless matches; as the places are usually decided by the third round of matches. But for UEFA’s favoured sons the financial rewards mean they can continue to distance themselves from competitors in their domestic leagues and form a cartel of four teams who each year contest the top four places in their division, leading to qualification for the following seasons Champions League.

Until this inequality is corrected, legitimate national champions will find it harder and harder to enter the promised land of the Champions League . Sadly this is not likely to happen anytime soon. As former England captain Bryan Robson opined on the undercover sting by Channel 4 programme “Dispatches”, football is a business now, part of the entertainment industry and all that matters is tv ratings and audience figures. Arsenal Versus Barcelona is worth more in television revenue than Rangers versus Barcelona, the days of fair play and level playing fields are long gone. This is the reality that Scotland must wake up to. We don’t count. The men running football are not interested in us, which is why they kindly created a second division of the European Super League- the unloved and ignored second son – the Europa League. The refuge for those teams not considered “sexy” enough for prime time, that is where we must now try our luck, but for now, our clubs struggle even to make that grade.

Chelsea: A Bridge Too Far for Marco Van Basten

2011-06-20T23:00:00.004+01:00

As respected English football writer Martin Samuel says, any manager taking the job at Stamford Bridge now is there purely for the money.
That can be the only motivation for accepting the job where you will be continually undermined by Roman Abramovich and the coterie of sycophants who advise him, find your trusted and respected assistant sacked one day and replaced by someone you hardly know the next, with transfer policy conducted without you being consulted.
Could you imagine Sir Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger tolerating such a situation?
Carlo Ancelotti may have been used to such a transfer policy during his time coaching in Italy, but I would imagine even Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi and general manager Adriano Galliani discussing potential transfers with their coach.
When Chelsea spent, some would say wasted, £50million on Fernando Torres, it was apparent that Ancelotti had no burning desire to see the Spaniard in a blue shirt .
Rather, it was the kind of ego fuelled marquee signing that club owners love to make. There was no great need to add the under performing Torres to the strikers already at the club.
Had the power brokers at Chelsea listened to their manager, a man with more football knowledge than the whole board combined, the Blues may have added some much needed strength in depth to their threadbare squad. If they had also added one or two pacy wide men perhaps Ancelotti may have guided the club to the the league title or European Cup that was a prerequisite for him retaining his job.
Just contemplate that statement for a moment and consider that this is Chelsea we are talking about . A club with only three league championship wins in the last 50 years, one of which was engineered by Ancelotti last season, along with an F.A. Cup triumph and has never even won a European Cup now expects their manager to achieve either one of these tasks or he is history!
This is management of the madhouse, second place in the Premiership and a quarterfinal place in the European Cup is such an abject failure that the manager must pay with his job!
The managers of Chelsea's two main rivals Manchester United and Arsenal have been in their positions for 25 and 15 years respectively, no such continuity at the Bridge where six men have occupied the managers office during Abramovich 's eight-year reign.
The wily old foxes at Old Trafford and Highbury must be licking their lips at the prospect of another lamb to the slaughter, if, as my colleague Willie Gannon revealed on Sunday, Marco van Basten arrives as manager. Even with the experienced and highly successful Guus Hiddink installed in the nebulous position of "director of football" this has all the makings of a disaster waiting to happen.
One can only assume Abramovich has been dazzled by van Basten's playing career. He was the finest striker of his generation but, unlike his mentor Johan Cruijff, his managerial career has failed to blossom.
As Dutch national team coach, his feuds with senior players including Ruud van Nistelrooy and Clarence Seedorf hindered attempts to win the 2006 World Cup, and may bode ill for his appointment at Chelsea where there are potential clashes with the group of egotistical senior players who appear to have run the team for some time.
At the 2008 European Championships Holland set the pace in the early stages destroying France & Italy before succumbing to Russia, coached, ironically, by Hiddink.
Van Basten left his post after the tournament to coach his former club Ajax but instead of a glorious return of the prodigal son. he resigned at the end of his first season due to the failure to qualify for the European Cup.
Quite why this qualifies him to coach Chelsea is beyond me. Like Cruijff he seems to have an unshakable belief in his vision of how his teams should play and will brook no dissent, it will be interesting to see how he deals with the more opinionated and vocal in the Chelsea dressing room.
Unlike Cruijff, he has yet to prove he can turn the vision into positive results. Hiddink would be a far more sensible choice, but his agent insists he will not be joining Chelsea this summer. Van Basten may just be a highly paid stop gap until Hiddink extricates himself from his contract as coach of the Turkish national team after next summer's European Championships, if Marco lasts that long!
I fear Abramovich may live to regret going Dutch!

This article first appeared on The Bleacher Report

San Fernando Rally as Dalglish Begins to Turn the Tide

2011-01-16T23:16:00.006Z

Lo! it came to pass , that on the Feast of Epiphany the three wise men from the East(Coast of America) did beckon the chosen one back from the Holy Land and he was proclaimed the messiah.
Joy at the return of the prodigal ( if I may mix my Biblical metaphors!) was short lived. Two defeats on the trot , the first from their hated rivals, Manchester United eliminating them from F.A. Cup , their best chance of silverware this season, the second plunging them into the relegation mire.
Dalglish looked less like "King Kenny" and more like King Canute, unable to turn back the tide of despair that has engulfed Liverpool and threatens to wash them up on the less salubrious beaches of the Coca Cola Championship if they are not careful.
But at Anfield on Sunday there were the first signs that "The Second Coming " may produce a miracle after all. Whilst Liverpool's first half performance hardly brought back memories of their seventies and eighties heyday,there were signs of improvement , it was a typical derby , played at breakneck speed,full of passion and commitment, but with little skill and sophistication - indeed the most invigorating moment was the Kop's welcome for Dalglish complete with an impassioned rendition of the club album "You'll Never Walk Alone" before kick off. There were however, a couple of moments that suggested better days ahead for the home fans.
One was the opening goal scored by Raul Meirelles , one of Roy Hodgson's  many summer signings who have yet to fully convince the faithful that they have what it takes to play for the once mighty reds, the other was a run and shot by Fernando Torres which cannoned of the post.
It was the Spaniard's best moment in a first half performance that suggested  Dalglish  may be able to coax out of him something like the displays that delighted English football in his first two seasons in the Premiership. It was the lack of such that has, more than anything, marked Liverpool's decline over the past two seasons.
Dogged by injury last season which preceeded a dreadfully disappointing World Cup, despite Spain's victory, Torres returned to Merseyside  lacking fitness and with a new manager; Roy Hodgson having replaced his Spanish mentor, Rafael Benitez. The striker has lived up to his knickname El Nino - the kid , by appearing to sulk like a child at the departure of the man who brought him to these shores from Madrid. During the opening half of the season as Hodgson struggled to steer the reds through the takeover battle and poor run of form Torres contributed little to the cause.
To this observer, Torres' body language was indicative of someone who was working his ticket. He never seemed happy under the Hodgson regime as he battled for fitness and form and, had Dalglish not been appointed , it seemed odds on that Torres would engineer a transfer this summer. Although where he would have gone remains a mystery , his star has waned since the days Chelsea and Manchester City were allegedly willing to pay £50million for his services and a return to his native land seems unlikely as the only clubs that could afford him and satisfy his ambitions ; Barcelona and Real Madrid have better options . With Benitez  recently losing his job as coach of Internazionale, another door appears to have closed
Torres , who reputedly earns £110,000 per week owes Liverpool : it was the former European Champions who put him on the footballing map following his transfer from AtleticoMadrid in 2007. In Spain he was a promising youngster , nothing more, it was at Anfield in his first two seasons that he became a scoring sensation and made the continent take notice.
In his defence, the twenty six year old has been the victim of Benitez 's unfathomable transfer policy . First Peter Crouch was allowed to leave Anfield, then Robbie Keane was hired expensively and then inexplicably sold at a loss six months later, leaving Torres to shoulder most of the striking duties on his own without a partner or adequate back up when his notoriously weak hamstrings would fail him. Let's not forget , also that footballers are human beings. There may be some other, unpublicised factors in his private life that may be affecting him.
That said, Hodgson and the Liverpool fans that idolise him should have expected more from their star striker than a couple of sensational goals against Chelsea and the surly demeanour he has shown recently. To quote Liverpool's most famous sons , the club face a " long and winding road" back to where they once were but if Dalglish can get Torres back on track they may find the streets paved with gold and silver once again.

This article first appeared on The Bleacher Report and Backpage Football.com

Keep Smiling Jose -Why Mourinho may be the REAL winner from Camp Nou capitulation

2010-12-01T00:51:00.004Z

Barcelona, Tuesday.

When Jose Mourinho woke this morning he may have felt a little less special, his ego has been battered every bit as much as the Real Madrid defence had during the Monday night's El Clasico mauling .
Mourinho's matadors were well an truly gored by Barca, but the five nil humiliation may well be a blessing in disguise for the self styled "Special One".

Real lined up at Camp Nou with four forwards - Ronaldo, Benzema, Di Maria and Ozil- leaving just Khedira and Alonso to protect the vulnerable Madrid defence. This is the way Mourinho has set his team up for most of the La Liga season so far, but against the Champions his team unravelled almost from the kick off. Barcelona were able to slice through their opponent's midfield at will, allowing them to torment the back four, pulling them one way then the other, sucking the full backs into the centre, providing space for Villa, Messi and Pedro to run riot on the flanks. By the time the Real coach had corrected this, by swapping Ozil for Lassana Diarra, the damage had been done and the Catalans were two goals ahead.

This was most unlike a Jose Mourinho team. He has built his reputation as a master tactician and his success with Porto, Chelsea and Inter, including victories against Barcelona, has been based on a 4-4-2 formation with a water tight defence , hard working midfield and counter attacking mentality. These are the methods he favours.

One of the many questions raised by his appointment at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu was how this tactical approach would work at a club who demand a style of football befitting the true aristocrats of the European game. Against his will, Mourinho bowed to the demands of his troublesome president Florentino Perez and attempted to play a more expansive game. Everything was going well until in their first real test , Los Blancos' hated rivals unceremoniously removed them from the summit of La Liga.

This disastrous setback may actually have some benefits for the Portuguese. At a club where politics is never very far from the surface , he can now make the argument that the first clasico shows Real must change. If they try beat Barcelona at their own game , the Catalans will destroy them. Mourinho can now argue that they have tried the Perez way and failed miserably. It is now time for a more pragmatic approach and who better to have as coach than the man who has won the Champions League twice doing it his way?

The Clasico calamity may also give Mourinho some room for negotiation during the forthcoming transfer window. He does not appear entirely happy with the players at his disposal. It is no secret that he wanted a big centre forward in the Didier Drogba mould. In fact, it was claimed that Madrid signing his old Chelsea talisman was a prerequisite for Mourinho accepting the job at the Bernabaeu. Perez and director of football Jorge Valdano failed in that task and will almost certainly be required to remedy that situation in January.
Also on Jose's post Christmas shopping list must be a left back . Marcelo was found completely wanting in that position on Monday night and his clearly not good enough. On the other flank, Spain's World Cup winning right back Sergio Ramos may find himself surplus to requirements. The suspicion with Ramos is that he is better going forward than defending and he had an awful night in Barcelona, capped by his red card for punching Carlos Puyol in the last minute .

Thirdly, this defeat will give credence to the arguement that he needs time. Real are a work in progress , just five months into the Mourinho Project. Barcelona are the finished article. They are a team in every essence of the word and have grown together in the last few years into the formidable force they are today. it is no surprise that seven of the starters on Monday came up through the youth ranks where they learned the Barca way from an early age. How many millions could Real have saved over the last decade if they had followed the same route?

Even if Mourinho does win the battle over tactics and gets the players he wants , there can be no doubt that this is the biggest challenge of his career.Barcelona completely dismantled the expensively remodelled Real team , so much so that Pep Guardiola's side are being talked about in the same breath as the great sides of European history, such as the Milan side of the late 1980s, the Ajax "total football " team and even the legendary Real Madrid team of Di Stefano, Puskas et al. So dominant were they, that Barca captain Puyol was able to take a break from his defensive duties to assist the match officials in refereeing the match!

If Jose can build a team to put this Barca in the shade he will be a very special one indeed.

This article first appeared on The Bleacher Report on December 1st 2010

The Professor's New Clothes- The British Press and The Cult Of Arsene Wenger

2010-11-18T22:05:00.002Z

It is back to the bread and butter of league action this weekend , chaps after sampling international cuisine during the European Championship qualifiers and one Fabio Capello can return to the shadows after a few days of opprobrium and ridicule from fans and media alike.

How he must wish that he were Arsene Wenger! Feted by his followers in the media who hang on his every word as the Israelites did on Mount Sinai when God informed them of the Ten Commandments. Every pronouncement from the Frenchman is celebrated as a far sighted vision, every recommendation is seen as sound, every discovery of a new young talent compared to a scientist making a new medical breakthrough.

On Sky Television’s excellent “Sunday Supplement” Brian Woolnough , not for the first time , quizzed the doyens of punditry about whether Wenger could remain in the job for as long as he wanted, without pressure from the board or fans to actually win something and looked on incredulously as the three wise men: Holt, Dickinson and Hayward conferred on Wenger the wisdom of Solomon , Nostradmus’ gift of prophecy and proclaimed him a genius ! Holt revering the Arsenal manager for delivering a new stadium, I don’t recall Arsene in a hardhat pouring over architectural plans for the Emirates Stadium , or raising the finance! The Arsenal board delivered the stadium.

Richard Keys was at it again a few days later , during the last round of Champions League games, looking bewildered as he talked of Wenger’s critics as if they were dribbling idiots who should retire to a padded cell.

Is Wenger untouchable at Arsenal?

How ironic that the stout yeoman of the English press can lose their hearts to a prickly, pig headed Frenchman ! and how fortunate for Wenger that he does not have the pressure of winning that Roberto Mancini, Carlo Ancelotti , Roy Hodgson and Alex Ferguson do.

I don’t proclaim to know which teams these writers support, but I will wager it is not Arsenal. If it was might they have some sympathy for the denizens of North London who would like to see some silverware now and again and grow weary at hearing yet another neutral laud them for the attractive football their team plays.

Some of us were aware of him before he arrived at Higbury in 1996, unlike the majority of football writers in England . He was successful in France with Monaco before departing to the obscurity of the J League. The Monaco title winning team of 1988 had artists like Hoddle but also robust physical types such as Mark Hateley and Manuel Amoros and Luc Sonor.

Likewise , during his glittering early successes at Highbury, his team had as many artisans as artists, but since the middle of the decade he has eschewed the tactics that made him successful, much like a pop star would dismiss his early commercial successes when he wanted to become known as a serious artist.

But football is not art , it is competitive , it is about winning, Wenger is in danger of become football’s equivalent of the obscure and talented artist, adored by critics but ignored by the public. His problem is that he does not know how to win or finds the means distasteful. This pig headed belief that his way his correct despite any discernible evidence of success is bordering on negligence and yet his critics are rounded upon as unsophisticated barbarians.

Unfortunately, the abomination that is the Champions League has created a comfort zone for the top English clubs. As long as Arsenal can stay in that elite club their finances won’t suffer and they can continue every year to challenge for top honours without actually winning any. Slowly the competitive streak is being eroded from the English game.

One thing is for sure, if the tide of feeling in the Arsenal boardroom or in the stands ever changes it is a good job that Wenger would not consider Glasgow as a potential new home . Here , if you manage the Old Firm you have to win and win regularly or you are out. Second is nowhere and while the Scottish Premier League is poor in quality the pressure is unique and would be too much for the sensitive Frenchman, just ask one of his proteges Paul Le Guen , whose disastrous reign at Rangers lasted six months before he fled in despair.

If he does take up semi retirement at Paris Saint Germain as their director of football when he leaves Arsenal , a certain Signor Capello should rush straight to the Emirates with his c.v. in his hands. Where better to redeem himself for past transgressions in the eyes of the English media than at a club where winning is clearly not everything?? One hopes he gets there before a certain Mr. S.G. Eriksson.

Can Wenger continue at Arsenal until he wishes to leave or does he have to start winning trophies?

This article was first published on The Bleacher Report and Football Talk websites on October 18th 2010

Liverpool F.C. - The Decline and Fall Of the Reds and a Football Empire

2010-11-18T21:59:00.004Z

Not everybody looks back fondly upon the 1980s. For the legion of bitter little socialists that inhabit the media establishment, it was the decade of Thatcherism. For fashion snobs, it was the time that taste forgot. But for the Merseyside clubs and Liverpool fans in particular, it must seem like a golden age following the week that wasn't.

The era of two European Cups, seven League titles, two F.A. Cups and four League Cups must seem a lifetime away after the past seven days. Defeat to bitter rivals and usurpers Manchester United, exit from the League Cup at the hands of Northampton and then a scraped draw against Sunderland at Anfield on Saturday that owed much to refereeing generosity, sees the once mighty Reds consigned to sixteenth in a league they once dominated.

Yet in 1988, when the negotiations for a breakaway Superleague began, the top two in the "Big Five" conducting negotiations were the two Mersey giants (the others being United, Arsenal and Spurs).

Liverpool won their last title in 1990, and since then there has been a drastic change in English football. The model that proved so successful for Liverpool, careful fiscal planning and letting their football do the talking, has been swept away by the debt laden style of commercial behemoths like Manchester United and Chelsea.

The baton has passed from Anfield thirty miles along the road to Alex Ferguson's marauding Red Devils who have dominated the Premiership era. What must be galling for the Liverpool fans is that the only resistance to United has come from Leeds, Newcastle, Blackburn and Chelsea. Only Arsenal of the old order has had any success in the intervening years, using a financial model similar to the old Anfield bootroom plan. But the Gunners have not won a trophy in five years and their move to the Emirates Stadium was tacit acceptance that the old model could no longer compete in the cash laden new era.

The old Moores dynasty realised this and reluctantly made plans to introduce new capital and find a new home. Alas, as David Conn magisterially records in his article in "Four Four Two" this month, Americans Hicks and Gillette saddled the club with huge debts that they incurred during its purchase. As a result, Liverpool was limited in its ability to produce the a better stadium that could allow them to compete with other top tier clubs financially. At a time when the Reds were ready to reclaim their throne under the guidance of new management, they became subdued by debt and the spectre of administration that presently stalks the fallen giant.

Given the travails of the last couple of seasons, the Champions League triumph of 2005, the Final appearance in 2007 and the runners up position in the 2008 Premiership season demonstrates over achievement during the era of Rafa Benitez as manager. Yet for all the quality he brought in, such as Torres, Reina, Alonso, Mascherano, Agger etc., there was also a lot of money wasted in purchases of £15m and £20m for Glen Johnson and Alberto Aquilani respectively.

As a consequence of the dire financial situation, at least one top star must be sold every summer. It was Xabi Alonso to Real in the 2009 season, Mascherano before the start of 2010, and next year likely between Fernando Torres or Steven Gerrard. Unfortunately, the replacements have not matched the quality of the players exiting the club.

When Benitez decided to leave in the summer, the likes of Jurgen Klinsman, Gus Hiddink, and other top talent were out of reach. Liverpool's next best option was found in Roy Hodgson, an experienced, talented manager with a good track record of success. Up for the national team job in 2012, Hodgson sacrificed this opportunity to focus his efforts on recapturing past glories for Liverpool.

Hodgson's decision to lead the Reds' resurgence was aided by the presence of reliable players such as Pepe Reina, Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard. Now, however, the present condition of the club casts these players' future into doubt. Only a brave man would wager that all three will remain at Anfield for the start of next season, and it has become apparent that the pressure has begun to affect their performance: Reina has made uncharacteristic and costly lapses already this season, and the injury ravaged Torres looks like a pale reflection of "El Nino" who blew the Premiership away in 2007.

Hodgson has not been helped by the fixture schedule, hosting Arsenal in the opener and having to travel to the two Manchester clubs in quick succession. But, truth be told, in these games against the main title challengers Liverpool has always looked second best.

Liverpool is known to give managers time to adjust and become comfortable with the club. Hodgson will hope that new signings Cole, Poulsen, Konchesky and Meireles will settle quickly. The team will have to adapt to the manager's new tactics, which differ tremendously from Benitez, as the New England Sports Consortium aim to rectify Liverpool's financial situation. But if none of these events occur, Liverpool could soon be considered one of the weaker establishments involved in the English and European games.

Will Liverpool recapture the glory days of the seventies and eighties or are they in terminal decline? A question that seems debatable today but that would have been unimaginable in the glory days of the 1980s

This article first appeared on the Bleacher Report and Football Talk websites on October 18th 2010

Calm Down Dear! it was only a friendly …. against the Faroes!

2010-11-18T19:55:00.005Z

Glasgow, Scotland.

Oh dear! Following Scotland’s three nil victory against the Faroe Islands on Tuesday night, some of the football community have lost their heads and are now guilty of the same hyperbolic drivel that usually enrages the Tartan Army and Scottish media alike when uttered by English commentators about their team.

Yes, Scotland played well and Barry Bannan, in particular, had an impressive debut, but the poor loves now comparing the diminutive 20 year old to the likes of Xavi Hernandez, Andries Iniesta and, God forbid, Jimmy Johnstone, really need a long lie down in a darkened room.

Listening to this nonsense, my mind drifts back to a spring evening at Ibrox Park in 1993, when a young Duncan Ferguson “terrorised” the German defence , in a friendly international but failed to score. No matter, in the days that followed he was proclaimed as Scottish football’s new saviour.

The hype was enough that summer for Rangers chairman David Murray, whose ego trip was by then in full flow, to blow his club’s entire transfer budget on the raw , inexperienced Ferguson , making him the most expensive player in British football, as if to prove a point to Murray’s English rivals that he was a major player in British football.

Alas, with Mark Hateley firmly established as number one striker at Ibrox, the move backfired; Ferguson was no more than a reserve de luxe during his brief time there and any hopes that Scottish football had of him becoming another Dennis Law or Joe Jordan ended when he turned his back on the national team, following a jail sentence and subsequent twelve match S.F.A domestic ban for an alleged head butt on an opponent while playing for Rangers.

During my time following the Scottish national team, others have been hailed as our new messiah only to fail to fulfil their potential: Charlie Nicholas, Paul McStay, Ian Durrant, Derek Ferguson, Eoin Jess and Charlie Miller, to name but six, have all fallen by the wayside despite promising much in their youth.

A few years ago, James McFadden was the next big thing, but he has struggled to hold down a starting place at either Everton or his present club in the English Premiership and despite his “wonder” goal for Scotland against France three years ago, the Birmingham forward has failed to develop into the player many expected him to become when he first emerged. Injuries have been a major factor, but the weight of expectation has also played a part.

It is perfectly understandable given the dreadful start to Craig Levein’s reign as national team coach, that he and the media try to accentuate any positive they can find, but some balance is required. It was only a friendly against the minnows of international football and heaping pressure on young players is counter productive.

While it must be hoped that Bannan avoids the pitfalls off the field that befell Duncan Ferguson, Charlie Miller and Charlie Nicholas and the injury problems that dogged Durrant and Jess, this is a boy who has made only six appearances for Aston Villa in the Premiership!

Danny Wilson, the eighteen year old centre half who scored on his debut on Tuesday, is another being tipped to lead the nation to a new footballing promised land, but has yet to start a league game for his new club, Liverpool, and may regret leaving the Rangers first team squad - where he gained experience in the S.P.L. and Champions League -for the obscurity of the Anfield reserves.

Until these players and others are completing a couple of seasons as Premiership regulars, we should leave them in peace to develop as footballers as well as men instead of burdening them with the expectation that they will reverse Scottish football’s decline.

Charlie Adam is a case in point: arguably our best player on Tuesday night, until his injury, he was written off by many when he failed to make the grade at Rangers, but he rebuilt his career away from the limelight at Blackpool and is now one of the stars of the English Premiership. Rangers and their supporters will rue the day they let him leave for a song. Had he been given time to develop at Ibrox, he would have been a key player by now, but the pressure on him to be an instant superstar proved too great.

It is understandable that since Scotland’s record of producing homegrown players over the past two decades is so poor, that any young player who shows promise is instantly hailed as our new star, but the people doing this should know better.

Today’s bright young thing can easily become tomorrow’s forgotten man, usually propelled there on a tidal wave of hype.

Bannan, Wilson and others may develop into a team of world beaters but they are more likely to do so if we give them time and peace to learn their trade, rather than go overboard following a good start to their international careers against the Faroe Islands!

This article first appeared on the Bleacher Report and Scotzine websites

Vive Le Revolution- Why the French are no longer revolting!

2010-11-17T23:33:00.001Z

Wembley Stadium, London , England.

A few months ago at the World Cup , the French were in disarray , exiting the World Cup at the Group stages without a win to their name and with the squad fighting among themselves and on the point of mutinying against their unpopular coach Raymond Domenech.
Since their ignominious return home , Domenech, the nutty professor, who allegedly selected players because of their starsigns, has gone to be replaced as coach by the eminently more sensible Laurent Blanc.
Also in exile are the troublesome trio of Thierry Henry, Nicolas Anelka and William Gallas, whose international careers have met Madame Guillotine.
The malign influence of Zinedine Zidane, the eminence grise and suspected instigator of the revolt against Domenech in South Africa also appears to have diminished with the elevation of Blanc, his team mate in the 1998 World Cup winning squad.
Discipline has been restored as has desire and pride in wearing the national team's shirt. Indeed, after the controversial victory over the Republic of Ireland in the qualifying playoffs and the constant rows with the coach it looked as if the French did not want to be in South Africa and could not wait to get home.
Back has come the discarded trio of Phillipe Mexes, Samir Nasri and Karim Benzema, none of whom are tainted by the shame of the World Cup debacle, along with Yoann Gourcouff , frozen out of the squad in South Africa on the insistence of Anelka and Franck Ribery and who ended the tournament with a red card against the host nation. All four were prominent in les bleus' victory over England at Wembley this evening. Along with a rejuvenated Florent Malouda, now showing his Chelsea form in the blue of France, and new blood Mathieu Valbeuna and Yann M'Vila they dominated the midfield and mesmerised the English for long periods with their passing and movement.
Benzema, who must be a target for Premiership clubs when the transfer window opens, found plenty of space behind the English defence(and a goal) while Malouda and Valbuena highlighted an old English defensive weakness by inhabiting the no man's land between their midfield and back line , finding the room and time to test the English goalkeeper Ben Foster or set up Benzema.

A late English rally reduced the score to two - one in favour of the visitors, but for long spells they were second best.
England it must be said were missing several key players, but compared to the French, their squad lacks depth and quality.Why else would Arsenal's reserve left back have started the game and striker Jay Bothroyd , playing in the English second tier , have entered the fray as a second half substitute for Andy Carroll , himself only two years into his senior career?
France's nouvelle vague has no such problems , most of them are starters for their clubs and Blanc can call on players with experience of La Liga, Serie A and the Premiership as well as the top division in France. None of the English squad has ever played club football beyond the white cliffs of Dover, another traditional failing of their game.
While Fabio Capello still has problems redeeming himself in the eyes of the English footballing public, following their equally disastrous summer, Blanc's charges are sitting pretty atop their European Championship Qualifying group as the renaissance gathers pace.
Vive la revolution!

This article first appeared on The Bleacher Report.

The End of the Affair

2010-07-13T00:22:00.002+01:00

That is it for another four years !
As the circus leaves South Africa , it is back to the drawing board for many teams and for Nike's scriptwriters.
The stars of their excellent "Write the Future" advert, unveiled at half-time during the European Cup Final (although my readers were given an exclusive sneak preview on the morning of the game!) failed to shine at the tournament. Drogba, lacking in fitness, Ribery and Cannavaro exited in the first round, the goalless Rooney and Ronaldo out in the second round , the latter now the talk of the gossip columns rather than the football ones, Ronaldinho did not even make the finals and even Rodger Federer lost his Wimbledon title!!
At least Kobi Bryant won the N.B.A. !
The world's top stars were unable to define a tournament the way Puskas, Pele, Cruijff and Maradona were once able to.
For all the hype, the cult of the personality was eclipsed by the team ethos.
Those that were united: Spain, Germany, Uruguay and ,amazingly, Holland and Argentina, prospered.
Those that were not: France, Italy , England perished.
For many players, that was their last chance of eternal glory at a World Cup.
Reputations are in tatters: Capello, Rooney, Terry, Lampard, Anelka, Gallas, Evra, Lippi, Cannavaro, Dunga, while those of Forlan, Sneijder, Ozil, Schweinsteiger, Muller, Iniesta, Villa etc, are enhanced.
Lionel Messi, the man who should have been King, was overwhelmed by Maradona's requirements of him . In the absence of an authentic, effective midfield trio behind him, he was forced deeper and deeper in search of the ball, asked to be both playmaker and attacking spearhead, he fell between two stools and out went Argentina.
Spain's golden generation are triumphant, England's like Portugal's four years ago has expired ; with nothing to show for it but tabloid excess and national disgust.
The dark horses: Serbia , Cote D'Ivoire, Ghana, Mexico, U.S.A remain just that , nearly men , who are unable to take the giant step into the big league. Only Uruguay took the leap of faith.

Now it is back to the bread and butter of the domestic leagues and the transfer silly season: £100m for Torres? £40m for Balotelli? £25m for Milner ? do me a favour?!

For La Gazetta, the golf course beckons , thank you for your kind words and comments regarding this blog it is very much appreciated.

Roberto Swanadoni will return.
Ciao!

Final Thoughts

2010-07-12T23:11:00.005+01:00

A poor World Cup final showcased a desperately poor tournament, but at the least the result was correct.

The best team in the world won the cup, even though they only showed fleeting glimpses of their real quality, most notably in the second half of the semi final against Germany.

Too many teams erred on the side of caution, preferring overly physical , sterile, defensive performances to trying to win games and God forbid , entertain.

As the worst example of that side of football ,Holland, reached the final more teams will be encouraged to play that way.

Thankfully, there were a few examples , Spain, Germany, Uruguay and most gloriously Argentina! but they were the exception rather than the rule.

HOMAGE TO CATALUNYA

At last Spain join football's aristocracy by adding the World Cup to the European Championship victory of 2008.

It is remarkable that one of the giants of European football has taken so long to dine at the top table, especially given the number of great club sides the country has produced .

One of the theories for the repeated failure of Spain to make their mark at international level was that the ethnic tensions between the various groups in the squad, Basques , Galicians Andalucians, Catalans and Castillians prevented them from pulling together for the greater good of Spain.

The biggest source of tension was said to be between the players of Catalunya's Barcelona and Castille-Leon's Real Madrid, the two giants of Spanish football.

Although Catalan's want autonomy from Madrid, their club has provided Spain with the backbone of the team that finally elevated La Furio Roja to the higher echelons of international football. Spain played the Barcelona way, despite fierce resistance from the Dutch and it eventually paid dividends, although it was the man from La Mancha (by way of the Barcelona youth team team) Andries Iniesta who sealed the victory and a man from old Castille, Iker Casillas who saved them time and again. This squad gelled as a team and it is that ethos that has brought them the success that had hitherto eluded the nation, along with a belief in playing the game properly.

But it was a close run thing. For now until the end of his days, during the long watches of the night, Arjen Robben will be tormented by what might have been. He had not one , but two clear cut chances to win it for the Dutch.

But, not for the first time, Spain emerge from the new world with treasure and in doing so defied history: a European team has now won the cup outwith its own continent and a team losing it opening game has ultimately emerged victorious.

RAUL AND THE KINGS OF SPAIN

While Spain rejoices a thought should be spared for one Raul Gonzalez Blanco, their record goalscorer, former captain and the man on whom ,at one one time, so much depended. He carried the hopes of a nation on his shoulders for so long and when those hopes were dashed , was branded the scapegoat, condemned for having too much influence and denigrated for being overrated, he is only the record goalscorer in the Champions League! How pleasing it was to see Spain play good football and win, how sad it is to see him on the sidelines watching.

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF ORANGE

Bert van Marwijk what have you done? you created a monster. What made you trade your heroes for gold? your artists for artisans? You may recant your belief in total football , but total football is a chimera , the only time the Dutch played that way was when Cruijff was in the team, because it was a system designed specifically for him. That didn't stop the 1988 side winning the European Championship playing delightful football in a 4-4-2 formation. You have sold your nation's football soul in a tawdry transaction for gold and thank God you failed

So scarred have Holland been by their disappointments on the international stage, that they have completely lost faith in their ideas and traditions. It is a travesty, for the team they took to South Africa was good enough to win the competition playing the traditional Dutch way. Sneijder, Robben, van der Vaart, Elija and van Persie should have been allowed to play their natural game, instead he turned them into hard running defensive automatons and even "The Kray Twins" van Bommel and De Jong can play football when they are not trying to decapitate their opponents.

Holland set out to play the role of bull to Spain's matador in the final and gored some of the midfield toreros, knocking them off their stride, especially in the first half , but thankfully the footballing Gods saw fit to punish them even if the referee did not.

The Final Countdown

2010-07-11T02:08:00.004+01:00

La Rioja has matured just in time! having uncorked a vintage performance in the semi final, Spain must defy history in the final.

No country in a World Cup Finals has lost their opening game and won the cup. Since losing to Switzerland , the European champions and pre- tournament favourites have been living on the edge, another defeat and they would have been eliminated, which may explain why they have produced subdued, inhibited performances so far in the competition, at least until they defeated Germany in Wednesday's semi final.

The Germans had been the best team in the tournament up until then , defying their critics with uncharacteristically bold and exciting performances, but against the Spaniards, they retreated to the safety of their traditionally cautious mindset, just as Prince Prospero, in Poe's Gothic masterpiece , "The Masque of the Red Death" , hides in his abbey as a plague sweeps over the land. Poe describes the pestilence as causing " sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores leading to death within half an hour." Vincente Del Bosque's " red fury" swarmed all over the much vaunted German midfield , draining them of energy and confidence , the coup de grace coming in the seventy second minute.

Having defeated the Germans in the European Championship final two years ago, Joachim Loew's side held no fears for the Spaniards and they were able to play their normal passing game against a side who were trying to win the match, unlike their opponents in the previous rounds, Portugal and Paraguay, who erected nine man barriers in front of them and challenged " La Furio Roja" to breach them.

For the first time in the tournament Xavi Hernandez , Xabi Alonso and Andries Iniesta were able to take control of a game and dictate its pace. Although they too often indulged in their favourite pastime , over elaborate passing , they were a joy to watch , especially in the second half when they were dominant and the Germans could not muster a response.

This is the Spain we had looked forward to seeing at these finals. On their day, they are the best team in the world , exhilarating to watch , football as an art form , words that used to describe the Dutch , the team Spain will meet in the final.

But the Holland of 2010 is a very different animal , happy to play on the break and with two rugged central midfielders in De Jong and van Bommel who will aim to disrupt the smooth running Spanish engine room. The onus will be on Spain to take the game to the Dutch, a scenario in which they have struggled previously. The Achilles heel is their predictability, everyone knows how Spain will play, whereas the Dutch have the ability and personnel to mix up their tactics .

If Spain are finally to fulfil their potential in a Word Cup, they must slow the game down to their pace and deny the Dutch possession by pressing them high up the pitch, thereby isolating the dangerous Arjen Robben. If they allow the Dutch to frustrate them and knock them off their stride then it will be those other perennial underachievers, Holland whose celebrations will drown out Spanish sighs.

However , Spain will probably never have a better chance of returning home from the new world as their forefathers once did, laden with gold. If their big players perform, if they are able to play their own game and score first, then champagne corks may well popping instead of rioja!

Tangerine Dream

2010-07-10T23:21:00.002+01:00

Far be it for this column to disagree with Paul, the octopus oracle who has predicted all of Germany's scores so far and who selected Spain as the winners of tomorrow's final, but the Dutch have already won this World Cup.

Even if the current Holland squad that is doing a passable imitation of the German and Italian teams of years gone by, reaching the final by stealth rather than scintillating skill , suffer the same fate as befell the legendary Dutch teams of 1974 and 1978 and lose another final, it will be a triumph for two Dutch philosopher kings.

I refer, of course, to Johan Cruijff and Louis Van Gaal , two old Dutch (pass) masters who have done so much to influence Holland's opponents in tomorrow's final, Spain.

It is Spain who carry the beacon of hope in the final, it is they who follow Cruijff's vision of total football that he and his mentor Rinus Michels transplanted to Catalunya in the early 1970's when they left Ajax Amsterdam for Barcelona.

Since then Holland's pass and move has metamorphosed into tiki-taka , the short passing Spanish game , the two finest exponents of this style Xavi Hernanadez and Andries Iniesta were nurtured at Camp Nou by Dutch coaches Van Gaal and Frank Rijkaard respectively.

Another aspect of Dutch football that the Spanish and Barcelona in particular have mastered in recent years is youth development , which Cruijff and then van Gaal were instrumental in setting up during their separate spells in the Barca dugout.Watch any international youth tournament and you can be sure the Spanish will be successful in it, if not outright winners .

Of the players lining up in red tomorrow, six will have come through the ranks at Barcelona (Puyol, Pique, Busquets Xavi , Iniesta and Pedro ) with another, Fabregas, likely to feature at some stage. The youth set up at Camp Nou can now rival the world renowned system Cruijff and Van Gaal helped to develop at Ajax, nine of whose alumni are in the Dutch squad (Steklenburg, van derWiel, Heitinga, De Jong, van der Vaart, Sneider, Elia, Huntelaar and Babel).

But Cruijff , who lives in Barcelona, must feel like a prophet without honour when he looks at the way the nation of his birth have progressed through these finals. The current generation of Dutch footballers have lost faith in his gospel, disheartened by years of glorious international failure (The only honour being the 1988 European Championship triumph)

AT the 2008 European Championships the players mutinied against the tactics of coach Marco van Basten, a Cruijff disciple. Led by Marc van Bommel and Ruud van Nistelrooy they demanded to play in a more defensive style, a bitter feud ensued and it was clear that after the finals either van Basten or the dissenters would have to go.

As it was, Holland, having set the tournament alight with swashbuckling football, destroying World Champions Italy and runners up France in the group stage were inexplicably dumped out by Russia, incidentally coached by Guus Hiddink , born Varrsveld, Holland!

Exit van Basten to be replaced by van Bommel's father in law, Bert van Marwijk who would have no truck with the old religion and created a new "Holland".

Brawn rather than brains has been the watch word for Van Marwijck's team. One striker, two hard tackling midfielders, a hard working Dirk Kuyt on one wing and only two players who play in the traditional Dutch style -Sneider and Robben . Van Marwijck's supporters will point to the fact that under him the Oranje have not lost a competitive game , his detractors will argue that they qualified for the finals out of a weak group, have been drawn against average sides in South Africa , Brazil in the quarters notwithstanding, and have been lucky.

Be that as it may, they have reached their third World Cup final, the first where they do not have to play the host nation and after the crushing disappointments of the total football generation ( against Germany in 1974 they took a first minute lead and then, with memories of the war still fresh, set about attempting to humiliate their hated neighbour, only to succumb to a disputed penalty and some instinctive Gerd Muller poaching , while in 1978 Rensenbrink hit the inside of the post in the final minute of normal time before Argentina emerged victorious in extra time) they will believe that Dame Fortune will decree that it is finally their time, whatever the grand old men of Dutch football think of them.

Hat Tip: Simon Kuper

Reality bites or modern life is rubbish

2010-07-05T10:33:00.056+01:00

"There is a compulsion to gamble deep in the human psyche, only a fool would deny the romance of it"

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Adios Diego! For an all too brief period you and your team were the shining stars of the tournament.

With his wilfully playful press conference responses and Baroque attacking formations he was football's renaissance man amid the gathering gloom of a dark age, where even teams such as Brazil, Holland and Portugal renounce their belief in exciting attacking football to play the percentage game.

Maradona's Argentina were different, they made us believe in magic again. They were a reminder of the days when that other Argentinian legend Alfredo Di Stefano and Real Madrid bewitched Europe with it's attacking prowess and European Cup finals ended in ludicrous scorelines such as 7-3. The days when teams tried to win matches instead of trying not to lose them, when five men forward lines were common and to have one holding midfielder would have been seen as cautious and selecting two , timid to the point of cowardly.

Ironically it was an Argentinian who brought an end to the golden age. Helenio Herrera, sacked by Barcelona for failing to topple Real, devised the catenaccio defensive system, when coach of Internazionale, and the rest of the game followed suit until , briefly, Brazil's "joga bonito" and the Dutch "total football "system promised a return to the glory days.

In more recent times, teams playing with just one striker and in the more extreme cases no recognised forward at all has been the norm. Argentina gloriously bucked the trend fielding three forwards and a winger in the group stages and second round. Deep down , we all knew this delicious, swashbuckling madness would meet its match against some of the stronger sides, but it was delightful to watch nonetheless.

Germany were one such team and ruthlessly exposed the deficiencies in Maradona's system. The worry before the competition was that Diego was unbalanced and did not have the correct temperament for coaching.In the end it was his team that lacked balance. Inexplicably dropping Juan Sebastian Veron, for the quarter final, left Javier Mascherano as the only recognised midfielder with two wingers and three forwards for company. Commendably bold, but sadly suicidal against a well organised, disciplined German side. The increasingly impressive Bastian Schweinsteiger shackled Lionel Messi in a way reminiscent of the marking job Lothar Matthaus performed on Maradona in the 1986 Final , the only difference being Maradona escaped for long enough to expertly release Jose Luis Burruchaga to score the winner. Messi wasn't so fortunate and with their star man unable to influence the game Argentina's attacks yielded nothing.The Germans, having gained a vital early lead, played superbly on the counter and tore Argentina's vulnerable defence to shreds three more times to run out convincing winners.

Having shed their image of efficient but sterile plodders , Joachim Low's young side would be worthy winners of the tournament . Not as flamboyant as Argentina,they possess the balance the South Americans lack. Difficult to score against with attacking players that can punish opponents , especially on the break, they have been a pleasant surprise. Mesut Ozil and Thomas Muller have been particularly impressive and Schweinsteiger reborn in his role as central midfielder must be a future national team captain.

Maradona ` s reign as coach of Argentina will probably be over . He looked distraught at the final whistle on Saturday. It is to be hoped his replacement does not opt for a radical overhaul and instead adds a little more organisation and tactical nous to the attacking riches he has at his disposal. Boys need teams like this Argentina side to either ignite or maintain their love affair with the beautiful game, just as previous generations needed Di Stefano's Real Madrid, Pele's Brazil and Cruijff's Holland.

Argentina and, to a lesser extent, Germany apart, there have been precious few moments of inspiration in this tournament. Without such teams to fill the void , boys will retreat into the fantasy world of video games or suddenly discover that cricket, rugby or tennis etc are more entertaining after all.

(Not) Loving The Alien

2010-07-03T14:11:00.002+01:00

Usually Brazil's premature exit from a World Cup provokes crushing disappointment , not only on the beaches of Rio, but around the world as every neutrals supposed favourite team leaves the stage to less attractive and exciting rivals.
Will the same emotions be felt after the selecao's quarter final defeat by Holland yesterday? Why was this Brazil squad so difficult to love?
The diving was annoying. In the second round match against Chile, Maicon scandalously avoided a booking when , having lost the ball near the touchline, he threw himself to the ground in order to win a free kick. He was following the example set by his captain , Lucio. The Inter centre half is one of the finest defenders in the world, but seems to have spent as much of his career writhing is apparent agony, trying to win fouls as he has repelling opposition attacks. For a man of six feet two inches and weighing over thirteen stones to fall over so much when barely touched by an opponent is frankly embarrassing , but when you are captain of Brazil this disgraceful behaviour is apparently acceptable and seldom punished.
Diving is hardly a new phenomenon and not exclusive to the men in the golden shirts of Brazil, but it is because that shirt has near mythical status , given the wonderful players who have worn it through the history of the World Cup, that the disappointment is felt so much more keenly when these "footballing gods" resort to tactics of mere mortals. T
If the diving and petty fouling is a disappointment , the tactics cause even more dismay. For men of a certain age, the name "Brazil" conjures up images of Pele, Carlos Alberto, Garrincha, Jairzinho, Rivelino et al and the joga bonito (beautiful game) . It is the way the Brazilian fans and media expect their team to play, but the current coach Dunga neither played nor coaches in that manner. He is a pragmatist. Brazil 2010 play much the same way that the 1994 winners ,which he captained , did. Cautious hard running ball winners in the centre of midfield and what little flair there is restricted to the forward positions.
Brazil is scarred by the memory of one of its finest sides failing to win the tournament. In 1982, a side boasting a midfield of Zico, Socrates, Falcao, Eder and Cerezo crashed out to Italy in the second round. Looking at that quintet , there is not a tackler or a ball winner among them and to compound the problem, the two full backs Junior and Oscar wanted a piece of joga bonito too, playing like wingers. The Italians played on the counter and picked them off, reborn predator Paolo Rossi helping himself to a hat trick
Dunga, eighteen at the time and not in the squad , may have learned a formative lesson: that the "Joga" that is too "bonito" causes problems . Brazil may have still have triumphed had injured star striker Careca not missed the finals. His replacement Serginho had all the mobility of a statue and the touch of a pregnant hippo in the throes of labour. When the remnants of that team again failed in 1986, a new, defensive approach was adopted.
Ever since then , there have been elements in Brazil favouring a more "European " approach, providing Brazil still won. That was the tightrope act Dunga performed in South Africa. Increasingly alienating the media with his confrontational approach and disappointing the fans by refusing to select flair players such as Ronaldinho, Pato and Adriano, as long as he returned home with the trophy he would be forgiven. Tolerated but not loved. Elimination and he would be thrown to the wolves.
Brazil , while never inspiring great joy in the competition, marched onwards , even taking control of the quarter final against Holland and the lead. But they failed to find a second goal and when Julio Cesar, imperious in goal for Internazionale and Brazil all season , came for an early second half Dutch cross and missed it , causing Felipe Melo's disastrous own goal , their aura of invincibility evaporated and with it went their discipline . Holland scored again from a cross the hitherto secure Brazilian defence failed to deal with then Bastos and Alves lost their positional sense , committing silly fouls that disrupted the Brazilian rhythm and Melo , having endured a torrid season with Juventus, he was voted worst player in Italy, lost his head, stamping on Arjen Robben and was dismissed by the Japanese referee.
Dunga's men , behind for the first time in the competition and reduced to ten men, were unable to find an escape route , becoming more and more desperate and reckless . Kaka their one real star , looked as if he had not fully recovered from his injury plagued season in Madrid and could not save them. Out they went looking shell shocked after forty five minutes of madness to the metaphorical sound of knives sharpening back home.

The clamour for Dunga's head will reach fever pitch in his native land now , his gamble of sacrificing style for substance has backfired, as the players he trusted failed their first big test of the competition, with the path to semi final and final beckoning.
The only thing more galling for Brazil would be if their bitter rivals, Argentina negotiated a route to the final through the more difficult half of the draw and won the cup playing football that would not look out of place from the men in gold: an exciting front three and expansive midfield compensating for a less than watertight defence and erratic goalkeeper.
Might silver be the new gold?

Fool's Gold

2010-07-01T20:51:00.004+01:00

The second round of World Cup 2010 brought the first heavyweight clash of the competition, unless you count the insipid , group match where Brazil and Portugal played out a cynically manipulated 0-0 draw that allowed both teams to qualify for the knockout stages.
Two old adversaries squared up in Bloemfontein on Sunday and four days on from the latest instalment of England versus Germany , the English remain punch drunk and bemused by yet another failure at international level of the "Golden Generation " and are looking for someone to blame.
Naturally , the referee and linesman are prime suspects, following one of the worst refereeing decisions at an international tournament in living memory. They can be the only two people who did not think Frank Lampard's shot had crossed the line, thus denying England an ill deserved but crucial equaliser just before half time. Going in level at the interval, the initiative would have been with the three lions and they would not have had to chase the game.
Perhaps, but England were only trailing by a goal at the restart , there was no need for them to embark on the sort of senseless kamikaze attacking play , reminiscent of the Japanese Imperial Air Force circa 1944!
Wave after wave of desperate English attacks foundered around the German penalty box and it was only a matter of time before their opponents capitalised. Not since Lord Cardigan led the British cavalry headlong towards the Russian guns at Balaclava have such futile , senseless tactics been employed. The slick, counter- attacking Germans took full advantage, inflicting on the English their worst defeat in a World Cup . Indeed there was more danger of Thomas Muller falling over from laughing than anyone in red preventing him from scoring the third and fourth goals.
It is no surprise then, that coach Fabio Capello has also borne the brunt of criticism. Hired at a cost of £6m per year to install some discipline to the squad and finally deliver on the promises this team has been making for eight years, he has severely damaged his reputation during the debacle. Rumours of unrest in the camp and stories of David Beckham having to intervene to prevent an altercation between Steven Gerrard and John Terry undermined his supporter's claims that his man management skills would be a valuable asset in the campaign and Capello's trusted 4-4-2 formation , which had brought him so much success over the past two decades seemed particularly ineffective against the fashionable 4-2-3-1 tactics adopted by many of the nations at this tournament, including Germany. The English midfield appeared to be overrun on several occasions as Frank Lampard and Gareth Barry seemed unable or unwilling to track the energetic and willing Teutonic runners .
Another criticism that can be levelled at Capello is one which plagued his immediate predecessors, Sven Goran Erikson and Steve McLaren: that there were too many " sacred cows" in the squad that the coach was unwilling to sacrifice. On the morning of the game, former Scottish international Craig Burley suggested that Capello should consider dropping Wayne Rooney , who looked unfit and out of sorts , but Burley doubted that the Italian had the guts to make such a big decision in a such a vitally important match. This column agrees with Burley and suggests that Lampard, who has rarely replicated his Chelsea form in the white shirt should also have been dropped ,allowing two sitting midfielders and three attackers to play behind a lone striker .
It is almost inconceivable that Capello would be wary of benching his top stars, given his reputation for ruthlessness at Milan and Real Madrid where several top dogs, including David Beckham,
were brought to heel , if not neutered. However, this does seem to be the case and the team lined up as expected , with the usual suspects in place.
Also , the aforementioned second half tactics employed by England in Bloemfontein were unrecognisable from the ones Capello has favoured throughout his managerial career. The cavalier replaced the cautious, which may suggest that the players decided to ignore their coach's half time instructions and improvised, to disastrous effect. It would certainly explain Don Fabio's manic facial expressions and frantic hand gestures on the touchline!

The long English season, without the winter break that is common in most other European countries is also blamed for the lifeless performances of the team. Unlike the majority of their continental rivals, English clubs play in two domestic cup competitions. With the expanded European competitions, it is surely time for the meaningless League Cup to be abolished and the twenty team Premiership to be cut to a more manageable size. It can be no coincidence that the majority of top players who missed the World Cup, Essien, Ballack. Ferdinand, Bosingwa, or struggled for fitness during the tournament: Rooney, Torres, Drogba, play in the English top division, widely regarded as the most physically demanding in the world. But others, such as Tevez of Argentina and Kuyt of Holland appear not to have been affected by the rigours of a Premiership season.

The bottom line however , is that this squad is not very good ! For all the hype and excitement of the Premiership, there are not enough good English players playing in it and those that do, lack the tactical flexibility evident in other national teams. While Lukas Podolski or David Villa, nominally centre forwards, can adapt to playing on the German or Spanish left flanks respectively, Steven Gerrard, a midfield player, clearly cannot when asked to do so for England.
John Terry, allegedly one of the best defenders in the world, ran about like a headless chicken, unable to deal with a British style punt from the goalkeeper that led to Germany's first goal, nor the more sophisticated and intelligent play of Mesut Ozil and Thomas Muller. Ozil plays in a position completely alien to the English game, in the "hole " between the midfield and the striker, and which seems to baffle every English defence that encounters it. Ronaldinho for Brazil in 2002 and Figo and Cristiano Ronaldo in 2006 have caused English back fours all sorts of problems playing such a role.
In those two tournaments, England were expected to play a lot better than they did and progress beyond the quarter final stages,but could not . Add to those disappointments, a quarter final exit in the 2004 European Championships and a failure to qualify for that competition two years ago and it is a wonder that the nation retained such confidence in this team. Sadly for them it was misplaced. The "Golden Generation" were made of iron pyrite after all.

Dumbo Italiano

2010-06-25T18:13:00.003+01:00

Even if the Italian football association had left a horse's head on his pillow last night, there still would have been be no clearer sign that Marcello Lippi's reign as coach of the Italian national team was over than the abject performance of the team against Slovakia and the uncharacteristically graceless reaction of the normally charming Lippi to Italy's expulsion from the competition.
Finishing bottom of one of the easier groups is a sad way for the international careers of players such a Gigi Buffon, Fabio Cannavaro, Mauro Camonaresi, Luca Zambrotta and Andrea Pirlo to end. But end they must and the managerial career of Lippi must also conclude with a bitterly disappointing final chapter. What would be the point of continuing and inviting further opprobrium ? This sorry episode has tarnished their reputations enough without running the risk of the memories of them in their prime fading completely.

The old footballing adage that you should never go back has never looked so accurate. But , having won this competition with the Azzurri four years ago, Lippi couldn't resist one last hurrah, even though the writing was on the wall for this team two years ago at the European Championships, when they were outclassed by the Dutch and only qualified for the quarter finals by beating an equally appalling France (there is a pattern developing here).The team looked over the hill then with only Pirlo and Cassano providing any sort of invention.

Lippi then returned in place of Roberto Donadoni and through an uninspiring but relatively comfortable qualifying stage, the notoriously critical Italian sports media savaged him for the faith he showed in the old guard This column had expressed doubts about whether La Nazionale had the "legs" to go on and reach the final again but they were at least expected to win their group.The old guard were retained , though way past their best because adequate replacements had not been discovered.
Of the Italian new wave in South Africa, Claudio Marchisio was anonymous ,Simone Pepe earned at least one man of the match award for running up and down the wing to no discernible purpose and Ricardo Montolivio looked completely out of his depth in place of the injured regista Andrea Pirlo. Indeed it was only when the gifted Milan playmaker made his first appearance of the finals , with twenty minutes remaining of the final match against Slovakia, that Italy started to play , he actually started to take the ball from his defenders playing passes and beginning attacks. The fact that some of the Italian forwards spurned a number of those chances created in a grandstand finish may have had been down to the culture shock of actually having chances following 180 minutes of sterile football against Paraguay and New Zealand. Italy , as is too often the case, waited until they were on the brink of elimination before they showed any inclination to take risks and try and win the game. They eventually paid the price for this and the fact that the English match officials made dreadful errors in disallowing two Italian goals will not shield coach and players from the responsibility for this debacle.
The biggest criticism that can be levelled at Lippi was the negativity of his tactics and squad selection. Playing with one man up front and a tall striker (Iaquinta) hopelessly miscast as a wide player , a worryingly common trend in football these days ,showed a distinct lack of ambition, not taking a player like Antonio Cassano, who had a superb season with Sampdoria and was a major influence on Samp. striker Pazzini being third top goalscorer in Serie A, seems in hindsight to be a mistake, bordering on negligence. Cassano has his critics, he is an unpredictable maverick with a potential for indiscipline, but he makes things happen on a field. That is just the type of player Italy was lacking ,to link a solid , industrious but prosaic midfield to an isolated forward line starved of service. That Lippi did not take him is not a surprise, players like Cassano have been ignored or underused in calcio for years now , certainly since Roberto Baggio retired.
Italian football is at the crossroads and ,as Fabio Cannarvaro said today on announcing his retirement, it must change. Riven with match fixing scandals and wedded to the cautious , ultra defensive belief of catanaccio , matches are played in decaying stadia ( the exceptions being the Meazza in Milan, the Luigi Ferrari in Genoa and the Stadio Olimpico di Torino) to fewer and fewer people. When the English Second Division(now ludicrously repackaged as the "Coca-Cola Championship"!) has a higher average attendance than Italy's Serie A ,where football is considered an alternative religion ,something must be badly awry.
In the mid eighties the English ruled Europe at least a club level, then came Heysel and the subsequent ban on their clubs competing in European competition.As England withdrew into herself , Italy filled the void . Restrictions on foreign players had recently been relaxed and the cream of world football flocked to the peninsula. Calcio was booming and at the vanguard was Milan, rescued from disaster by media magnate Silvio Berlusconi . To the consternation of the media and coaching fraternity he plucked an unheralded young coach Arrigo Saachi from the obscurity of Serie B Parma. Sacchi had never played professionally, uttering the immortal line when his credentials were doubted "I never realised that in order to become a jockey you have to have been a horse first, but he had been reared on the attacking football of the great Hungarian side of the 1950s , the legendary Real Madrid side of PuskasGullit, van Basten and Rijkaard, allied with Italian stars Baresi, Maldini Ancelotti and Donadoni were moulded into an attacking unit unseen in Italy since Helenio Herrera invented the catanaccio defensive system at Inter in the sixties. Two European Cups and one Italian championship were won in the four years Sacchi coached at San Siro and the attitude of Italian coaches began to change. When Italy failed to win the World Cup they hosted in 1990 with the decidely old school Azeglio Vicini at the helm , the obvious choice to replace him was Sacchi.
He guided the Azzuri to the final in America in 1994 but when Roberto Baggio's decisive penalty kick soared over Brazil's crossbar into the Pasadena sky it was the beginning of the end . By 1996 he was gone and Italy's decline began as England re-emerged from its self imposed exile. Fuelled by satellite t.v. money and a reconfigured top division now called the Premiership, the top stars began the migration from Italy to England and English clubs were soon dominating European competition as Italian tactics at club and international level reverted to type.
By 2006, the Premiership was the richest and most popular league in the world while Italian football struggled to sell its foreign broadcasting rights .Even the improbable Italian World Cup victory that year failed to stop the rot.
There is talk in Italy of copying the English example, creating it's own Premiership and the sooner it happens the better but until another Sacchi arrives and is given time in the cut throat world of Serie A to develop attacking teams that are successful, Italy may struggle to qualify for international tournaments in the future let alone win any them.

------------------

Curious Oranje

2010-06-24T23:01:00.000+01:00

Oh dear it would appear that some of the sensitive souls over at Goal.com are in a tizzy .
"One of the unfortunate consequences of the media in a fairly insular country such as the United Kingdom is the members of the pundit-ocracy, who fail to appreciate the game beyond British shores, continually bombard the viewing public with lazy stereotypes that are as commonplace and as irritating as the cacophony of vuvuzelas on show in South Africa.

The English play with passion, the French with flair, Germany are efficient who win despite being devoid of creativity and the Dutch, well they fall out with each other and try to play Totaalvoetbal." opines one Gary Niblock.

Perhaps Mr. Niblock has been smoking some of the exotic cigarettes enjoyed by the patrons of some of Amsterdam's ahem! racier nightspots (WHOOPS ! there goes another one of those lazy stereotypes to which he refers!) and he has forgotten that most stereotypes have at least a modicum of truth.
Germany is renowned for the ruthless efficiency that sees them usually progress further than the "flair" teams. That is because it is undeniable, the fact that Germany 2010 are experimenting with a more expansive style does not make this stereotype any more crude or any less valid. Before this years tournament, the only German teams that could be said to have been easy on the eye were the 1990 winners that had a midfield of Matthaus, Moller Hassler et al and strikers of the calibre of Klinsmann , Voller and Riedle and the 1974 champions who, although overshadowed by Cruyff and his Totaalvoetbal playing Dutch (sorry Mr.Niblick , but again it is true) could still boast players such as Beckenbauer, Overath , Muller , Schwarzenbeck, Netzer(although he spent much of it on the bench)Breitner, Heynckes etc. The other German squads have been physical, athletic and uninspiring.
Ah , the Dutch ! the team whose star man, Johan Cruyff, walked out on the eve of the 1978 tournament following arguments with the coaching staff. Holland, who in 1990 saw Thijs Libgrets ousted as coach by senior players on the eve of the tournament and whose star striker Marco van Basten sulked throughout the competition because his choice for Libgrets' replacement, none other than his mentor Johan Cruyff, was overlooked in favour of Leo Beenhakker, Holland ,who had to send Edgar Davids home from the European Championships in England in 1996 after he had clashed with coach Guus Hiddink over alleged favouritism shown to the white players in the squad.
I am sorry , dear reader, if the remainder of the this article is dripping with "lazy stereotypes" but your correspondent hails from "insular Britain", surely a lazy stereotype in itself? but I digress .
Holland have been a disappointment at the tournament so far, their performances are usually as colourful as their orange shirts and excitable supporters and their bust ups are usually highly enjoyable . Thank heavens for the French, who appear to have been fighting like ferrets in a sack have expelled a player and managed a mutiny that would have made Fletcher Christian swell with pride, for providing the entertainment that has been sadly lacking on the pitch.
One of the culprits is Holland.
The Dutch, who can be usually be relied on to provide such thrills and spills have been positively boring. So much so, that one is tempted to shout at the television "Are you Germany in disguise?!" when the tedium becomes unbearable.
Indeed there appears to be some footballing cross dressing going on as the Germans appear to be trying their own take on total football.
Bert Van Marwijck ,the Dutch coach wants his teams to "run and run and run"; instructions that would have had some of the legendary "Oranje" of yesteryear running for a taxi to take them from their training camp to the airport and the first flight home, away from this nonsense. Has years of under performing at international competitions taken their toll on the Dutch psyche ? especially as their hated rivals Germany often emerge victorious . Have they decided that as they can no longer beat them they must copy them? Imitation may be the most sincere form of flattery, but it does seem a waste given that the Dutch squad has technically excellent players in abundance: Sneijder, van der Vaart, Elia, van Persie, and Affellay are hardly prosaic .
Perhaps the Dutch have decided that they did not need to exert themselves too much to graduate from their group and are saving themselves for the latter stages. It is to be hoped that this is the case, as the competition badly needs a team to explode into life and take the competition by storm . Argentina look capable of doing such a thing but apart from them there are few other candidates.
Brazil , twice the Dutch nemesis in the World Cup in the 1990's, loom large in the quarter finals but they too have lost their nerve and no longer seek to win and entertain simultaneously .
Or perhaps van Marwijck hopes to bore his players and exhaust them so that they have neither the energy nor the enthusiasm to derail this years bid by questioning his authority.
Whatever the reason, it makes for a duller World Cup all round and is a worrying precedent for the future of the sport.
For the neutral, looking for a footballing thrill before the onset of the predictable and uninspiring Scottish league season the future used to bright and orange, if even the Dutch have turned to pragmatism the game may be up.

La la La la La(tin) America!

2010-06-19T14:19:00.001+01:00

While its pretend currency plummets in value and its government falters ,on the brink of collapse, Europe's footballers are also failing , seemingly unable to lift the curse on its teams in a World Cup held in the new world.

No European team has ever triumphed out with its own continent and the signs are that this year will be no different.

Spain, the favourites, must do what no other country , European or otherwise, has ever done and shrug off a first game defeat to win the cup, England are doubly hindered by history, as no country has ever achieved success with a foreign coach. France are on the brink of elimination just like in 2002, when as holders they crashed out in Asia without scoring a goal, Italy may have to do without their first choice goal keeper for the rest of the tournament and are finding scoring goals difficult, even Germany have stalled after a promising start. Only Holland , currently playing Japan, of the fancied European nations can look forward in confidence.

Meanwhile, the South Americans and Mexico could be set to dominate the latter stages. Might the vuvuzela be drowned out by the samba beat of Brazil, the tango of Argentina or even Mexico's la cucaracha ?

Even the less celebrated teams such as Paraguay and Chile have made good starts and Uruguay look likely to win their group . Clearly the South African winter has not disagreed with these teams as some had feared and perhaps the intensity of four weeks of tournament football suits the Latins , who are used to sometimes manic situations while playing on their home continent, more than their European counterparts.

Even the long, hard European club season, which appears to have taken its toll on players such as Wayne Rooney, the English talisman ,cannot be blamed for a less than sparkling display by its top teams, as the majority of the South American players earn their living there. Indeed Internazionale , the Italian and European champions have only a handful of Europeans in their squad , the rest made up of sundry Brazilians and Argentinians with a Colombian and African for company.

The European game is still built more on effort and endeavour than the South Americans though, and perhaps some such as France and Italy are running out of steam.

France appear to be fighting among themselves , Thierry Henry ,reclining on the bench against Mexico looked disinterested in that typically French way, while his coach Raymond Domenech has perfected the Gallic shrug and looks to be longing for the tournament to end, so that he can relinquish the post to Laurent Blanc. His selections become more bizarre ; throwing on Gignac on Thursday night , not to play in his normal position as centre forward, but wide on the right where his strength and height cannot be fully exploited and ignoring Yoann Gourcuff, when his midfield was lacking a playmaker and being overrun. His centre half, Gallas is refusing to speak to the press, sulking, it is claimed ,because Domenech overlooked him for the captaincy. Unruly teams, run by the players rarely triumph .

Spain have other problems , over confidence maybe, and a style of play that can be countered. "The Special One", Jose Mourinho may not be coaching at these finals, but his influence was there for all to see in Switzerland coach Ottmar Hitzfeld's way of containing "La Roja" until they became more and more "furia"( furious).It was reminiscent of the way Mourinho's Inter eliminated the free flowing Barcelona from the European Cup, at Camp Nou, last season, stifling their creative players , denying them space and limiting them to , on the whole, speculative long range shooting. Spain are reliant on their full backs providing width, as their midfield players like to play centrally and play the tiki tiki (touch, touch) short one touch passes that can be delightful to watch but can lead them up blind alleys. Ramos and Capdevila did not have the best of games in the full back roles against Switzerland and eventually Spain passed themselves to a standstill. Future Spanish opponents, including Brazil, possibly as early as the next round ,will have taken note.

Germany will rue the absence of Miroslav Klose , top scorer at the 2006 World Cup, for their next game against Ghana and their young team may lack the experience needed to beat Argentina , their potential opponents in the quarter finals.

Brazil may be described as "European" by their more disillusioned fans, because they have eschewed some of the flair of previous incarnations, but they still have the likes of Kaka , Robinho and Maicon to turn it on when they need to and against North Korea were able to win when not playing particularly well , a vital gift in tournament football.

Argentina and Uruguay both struggled to get to South Africa and both can be fragile defensively ,but which other country can boast of forward players like Messi, Higuain, Milito, Kun Aguero and Tevez or Forlan , Suarez and Cavanni respectively? Maradona appears to have found a way of getting the best out of Messi and he, himself, has reined in most of his excesses. Argentina look well placed if the competition comes down to a test of firepower. If they can secure the back door and retain their discipline, they have a great chance.

We are only entering the second week of the competition and shocks are occurring every day, but it is looking likely that for the next four years the golden bauble that is the World Cup will reside south of the Rio Grande,

Breaking The Law! Breaking The Law !

2010-06-19T11:41:00.002+01:00

If , as the saying goes, possession is nine tenths of the law, then England's performances so far have been criminal.
No less a sage than the Kaiser himself (Franz Beckenbauer) looked down imperiously from his ivory tower and decreed that England were a kick and rush team with outdated tactics. Of course, this was said in a fit of Teutonic triumphalism, following Germany's impressive victory over Australia and before the unholy trinity of wily Serbs, a Spanish referee on an apparent one man crusade to outlaw tackling and a wasteful Lukas Podolski derailed the German juggernaut .
But , while his comments were grossly exaggerated, there can be no doubt that the English performance against Algeria was as grey as David Beckham's expensively tailored suit. Their inability to retain possession for long periods in both of their opening games has cost them much in expended energy to regain the ball and, possibly, four points. At no time, save for the opening twenty minutes against the U.S.A. have they been in control of a game , indeed against Algeria some of their leading lights were struggling to control the ball!!! and as every saloon bar philosopher will tell you the teams that keep the ball , control games and ultimately their own destiny. This view is no less accurate for it being spouted by pub bores the length and breadth of the kingdom. However, English teams down through the years have seemingly been unable to grasp this basic fact. The game in the English league is played at a rate of knots far exceeding anything
played elsewhere( with the possible exception of my home country Scotland , last seen at a World Cup in1998 and yet to progress out of the group stages) This is not conducive to the kind of controlled , intelligent probing that is usually successful in international tournaments, even if this style of football does not always excite British fans and commentators alike.
Another key factor in a successful team is balance. The English seemed to lack this against Algeria, on the right flank they deployed Aaron Lennon, an out and out winger with plenty of pace, on the left was Steven Gerrard, a right footed central midfielder whose natural instinct is to come inside, shuffled out there because coach Fabio Capello refuses to accept what is becoming more and more apparent, that the Liverpool man and Frank Lampard cannot happily co habit in a midfield. When wide players continually come inside it makes the pitch smaller and easier to defend for the opposition and like the Swiss against Spain, Algeria were able to pack the midfield and contain , harry and frustrate the men in white. With Lennon on the right , the attacking right back Johnson had no avenue to make his marauding runs, a feature of much of England's best play in qualifying.Likewise on the left , Ashley Cole has hardly been
seen in an attacking sense in the tournament so far and as Brazil and others have shown , overlapping full backs can be a potent weapon in international football.
Ashley's namesake Joe Cole, has not been seen at all , but remains, in this observer's eyes, the most gifted technically of a "Golden Generation " that is losing it's lustre. He possesses the craft and vision to unlock well marshaled defences and release Rooney to take up scoring positions. Sadly like many a "number ten" in the past he seems to be distrusted by his coach, who appears to be unwilling to risk playing a maverick for the fear of leaving his team vulnerable to a swift counter attack.
But as the ancients advised, fortune favours the brave and many a cautious team has prematurely exited tournaments, cursing their lack of adventure and contemplating what might have been.
So where stands England and her pampered Premiership Princes this night ? There does not appear to be a Lionheart or a Prince Hal among them to stir them to greater endeavour, instead the men in white resemble Hamlet, the tortured , bewildered regent apparently on the brink of madness.
For all the blooming of the English game , watered by Gascoigne's tears in Turin in 1990 and fertilised by great dollops of money from Sky T.V. it is an inescapable fact that the majority of players in it are now foreign. There can be no more damning an indictment of a nation's footballers than the fact that their own clubs won't employ them. Add to this the fact that none of the players in the squad have experienced a football culture other than their own, and maybe there are answers to the vexed question of why their performances appear so one dimensional and predictable. The comfort zone of the English Premier League , where players are revered like rock stars and enjoy some of the
excesses that are concomitant with that profession, while collecting salaries that would not look out of place at a Wall Street investment bank, dissuades them from fully developing as players.While this column does not begrudge people being paid well, even if it allows them to live in the sort of luxury that would make the Sun King himself blush, the suspicion is that the English players get too much too easily and it has blunted their appetite for battle and their desire to push themselves that extra mile when required.
What of Fabio Capello ? his record as a club coach is impeccable and even his dismissal by Real Madrid can be worn as a badge of honour given that that club sacked Vincente Del Bosque even though he had delivered La Liga and the European Cup. But, as I alluded to in the tournament preview, there is one gaping hole in his C.V. He is untried in tournament football , unlike that other great "don" of the Italian coaching environment, Marcello Lippi , the victorious coach of the azzuri four years ago, Capello
Previously, when England have been struggling in the group stages they have had to change , to evolve. In Mexico in 1986 they found the Lineker - Beardsley partnership and progressed, in Italy in 1990 they discovered the joys of the 3-5-2
formation and reached the semi final.
Can Capello change? He may have to, for if England exit at the group stages this year the gentlemen of Her Majesty's press , will, like Brutus , come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

Never Mind The Ballacks , Here's The New Germany

2010-06-16T21:01:00.000+01:00

After a generally mediocre opening round of the World Cup , it is a rich irony that the one team to have quickened the pulse is Germany.
Usually, the Germans earn grudging praise for their uninspiring efficiency rather than dazzling attacking play, more artisan than artist, more war of attrition than Blitzkrieg!
The redesign of Die Mannschaft was begun by Jurgen Klinsmann ,the coach at the 2006 World Cup in their homeland and has been continued under the tutelage of Joachim Low , Klinsmann's former assistant.
So much so, that you could have mistaken the Germans for the " Total Football" era Dutch such was the interchanging of positions from Low's front four.
Compared to the uninspired , leaden footed Italians, the conquerors of Klinsmann's team in the 2006 semi final , the cautious , functional Dutch , the disjointed, dissentious French and sundry other negative Nancies, the Germans were a breath of fresh air.
Surprisingly, one of the main reasons for this new outlook may be the loss of their star player, Michael Ballack to injury. Too often in the past, Ballack's team mates would look him to carry the fight to the opposition, in his absence, Khedira and Ozil, two of the players integrated from the successful U-21 side, have been forced to take on more responsibility and their youthful energy has been a contributing factor to Germany's success, where Ballack's older legs would have slowed the pace of the German attack.
Another new aspect of the team is the ethnic mix , Sammi Khedira has a Tunisian father, Mario Gomez's is Spanish, Mesut Ozil's parents were Turkish gastarbeiter (guest workers) and Cacau is Brazilian , in a way they are reminiscent of the multi ethnic French side that won the competition in 1998.

Of course the Germans have only won one game , albeit 4-0 and it was against an Australian side who looked as flat as a crate of XXXX left out too long in the midday sun and as wise , old World Cup watchers will tell you, the team that sparkles in the group stages rarely triumphs in the end, far better to grow into the tournament , don't you know?!
Indeed , for all of the sparkling forward play their main goalscorer Miroslav Klose , may pay the price for spending a season warming the bench at F.C. Bayern when the knockout stages come around. Klose version 2010 passed up several gilt edged chances against Australia that the 2006 vintage would have scored with his eyes closed.
But at the very least , it is to be hoped that Low's visionary approach may inspire other teams to throw off the shackles and try and win games instead of the caution and negativity that has plagued the tournament thus far.
Vorsprung durch Technik, as they say on German training pitches!

NO FOOTBALL PLEASE , WE ARE BRITISH

2010-06-14T15:39:00.001+01:00

Someone at E.S.P.N. Europe clearly has a sense of humour!
Devoid of any actual content from this years World Cup, the E.S.P.N Classic channel decided to broadcast the mind numbingly awful England- Republic of Ireland match from Italia'90.
A match so lacking in skill, touch , control , finesse or tactical sophistication that it prompted the headline above from one of the Italian daily sports papers , I think it was La Gazzetta dello Sport.
If you think some of the games in this years competition are sub standard , you should have seen this horror show !

Too many of the coaches are more concerned about losing the opening game than trying to win it .
When a nation as gung- ho as Australia turns up for the opening match without fielding a striker then you know that caution is the order of the day

The Lost Boy

2010-06-13T22:38:00.001+01:00

"You've done much too much, much too young"
The Specials

Watching the United States against England last night ,I was struck by the thought that for all their possession, for all of their pace in wide areas, for all of Altidore's play as the target man, the final piece in the jigsaw was lacking.
To be among the real contenders for the final stages they need what the Italians call the "fantasista", that elusive player of quality who may not be seen for much of the game, but can provide killer passes or make telling incursions into the opposition penalty area.
The kind of player who may not always conform to the coach's disciplined, tactical team structure, but who by taking risks and adding"" fantasy may bring greater rewards than the more prosaic approach of his teammates.
Argentina have Messi , England could have had Joe Cole but chose to leave him on the bench against the Americans, Germany appear to have unearthed one in Mesut Ozil , the Italians have one in Cassano but left him at home (proving that coaches may be distrustful of the maverick quality of the "Number 10"). For Brazil, it is Kaka, for the U.S.A. might it have been Freddy Adu, had his career not run to a standstill on the periphery of European football?
Adu , anointed at the age of 14 as the once and future King of American football , was born in Ghana, but left Africa for the United States aged eight and six years later had the world of football at his feet, when he became the youngest player ever to play in Major League Soccer .
He had already caught the eye of European giants Internazionale when, aged ten, he was top scorer in an Under 14 competition.
With a million dollar contract from Nike and suitors such as Manchester United and Barcelona , the future looked bright and after only three years in Major League Soccer he joined Portuguese giants Benfica in 2007.
He may have been better advised staying in Salt Lake City and developing both physically and tactically as his career has been on a downwards spiral ever since setting foot in the Old World.
One season with only fleeting appearances in Lisbon was followed by a season at French league side Monaco, with only ten appearances and no goals to his name . Loan spells at provincial Portuguese side Belenenses and Greek middle of the table Aris Thessaloniki have failed to rekindle the spark.

Freddy was not included in the U.S.A.'s provisional squad for this World Cup as his star continues to fade.
Who knows, had he been allowed to develop away from the hype , the expectation and publicity he may have become the first US footballing superstar many thought was his destiny.
Coming of age just as this years World Cup started, this tournament could have been the moment for him to announce himself on the world stage. How Bob Bradley would have loved to have had a fully developed Adu at his disposal and how relieved England must be that someone of that quality was not lining up against them, struggle as they did against the eleven Americans who did get the call.
Adu may yet reach the heights his prodigious talents once promised, but the sneaking suspicion must be that he has missed the boat and will join a long list of European and South American players who were unable to fulfil the huge early potential.

2010-06-10T23:32:00.001+01:00

So it begins !

Thirty two teams have descended on South Africa like modern day Conquistadors searching for gold.
But which one will have something rather beautiful to declare on passing through customs on July 12th?
Will the nation from whence the original Conquistatdors sailed for El Dorado, Spain, finally come good in a World Cup after several not very glorious failures or will the 2008 European Championship triumph be the high point for La Roja?
What of that other set of perennial underachievers , England? The Sons of Albion heading for the Cape are part of a Golden Generation, but their lustre is beginning to fade after two unsuccessful stabs at glory in this competition.
England , as ever ,expects but shorn of the talismanic "Goldenballs " himself, David Beckham, with Michael Owen finally having run himself into the ground and out of contention and with a dislike of penalty shoot outs resembling a vampire's aversion to garlic and crucifixes, the golden
boys are looking a little tarnished.

But at least the English have a wily coach in Fabio Capello, another contender , France , as befits a country once led by a king who was mad as a hatter and believed he was made of glass, have a fruitcake of a coach. Raymond Domenech is a stargazing crackpot who is allegedly more concerned with his player's star signs than their ability.Reports leaking out of the French camp suggest that the players , true to their nation's history,are revolting , questioning the coach's authority and refusing to pass to each other.Monsieur Domenech is more likely to have a date with Madame le Guillotine on July the 11th, than emulating his feat of four years ago of leading France to the Final.

The team that beat the French in the final in 2006, Italy , resemble a clapped out old Fiat with too many miles on the clock. With no fewer than twelve players from the 2006 squad likely to be heading for South Africa it would be a major surprise if this jalopy had not run out of petrol long before the finish line and was badly in need of some new parts.
The Germans make better cars than the Italians, and like their automobile industry their football teams tend to eschew flashiness for ruthless efficiency. This may well take the 2010 model so far, Germany always seem to find their way to the latter stages of a competition however uninspiring the journey, but without a few added extras and some innovative features they are unlikely to be lining up in Johannesburg on Final Day. The one player capable of giving them a jump start ,Michael Ballack ,will miss the tournament through injury. Die Mannschaft remains a reliable model but will surely be overtaken by sportier versions.

Less reliable but more exciting to watch is Holland , but like the talented artists that their nation has produced, the current Dutch masters are fragile, with a suspect temperament. They are liable to be sublime one minute and sub prime the next. That artistic temperament is liable to flare up at any moment causing disharmony and discord in the ranks resulting in their bold brush strokes eventually being whitewashed.

What of Argentina? will they be returning to the land of silver with gold in their pockets? Having exited the last two finals due to the incompetence of their coaches , this time around Argentina have decided to select a man who was a genius of a player to lead them to glory. One Diego Armando Maradona. The problem is that there is a fine line between genius and madness and worryingly for their supporters Maradona is more likely to choose the latter than the former. Indeed, it takes a rare kind of genius to struggle to qualify for the Finals, while blessed with players as talented as the boy king Lionel Messi, Milito, Higuain and the hidden gem, Angel Di Maria. While a semi final place is not out of the question, it is unlikely that Marardona will remain calm enough or sane enough to emulate his feat as captain in 1986 and actually win the trophy.

Which leaves Brazil , the team of jogo bonito , the beautiful game . They have won the competition more times than any other nation and are synonymous with samba soccer, but coach Dunga prefers an approach so pragmatic, he can make the Germans look dangerously reckless. Why have one holding midfielder when you can have two? Select a free spirited maverick like Ronaldinho ? no thank you, that may look good on the beaches of Rio , but this is the World Cup , a competition the Brazilian nation believe is theirs by right to win and while the neutrals may be less than impressed , one of Brazil's great failings in the past was to prefer style over substance. The 2010 vintage ,while retaining some of the former, will also have plenty of the latter and should be worthy of a place in the Final.

Of the other teams, the African challenge is unlikely to bear much fruit , although Ivory Coast could be dark horses , Serbia are dangerous outsiders and the U.S.A. should give the old country , England, a scare in their opening match and run Germany close for a place in the quarter finals.

In fact, the winners of the competition could be decided by whichever team is able to field eleven fit players by the day of the final. Such has been the number of withdrawals through injury in the week before the tournament begins , that, rather than have Shakira performing the official World Cup song it should be Elton John with that old classic "I'm Still Standing"!
Sadly, my country Scotland , like several other nations with proud footballing heritage such as Hungary, Sweden, Austria and Russia, will not be taking part and will perform a role, much like that of the eunuch in the harem, of distant, but fascinated observer!
Whether your team is competing or not enjoy the footballing feast as it will be four years before it comes round again.