Dear Gunners,

We all came here to celebrate winning the fourth place cup. Arsenal’s only trophy in the last 8 seasons. So - Congratulations! Please enjoy St. Totteringham’s Day as well.

We can now start speaking on the important summer ahead.

First order of business: Schedule for the summer.

19/5/2013 – 21/5/2013: Relax

22/5/2013 – 1/6/2013: Get an experienced goalkeeper. Sell or release players who are just not good enough for one of the richest clubs in the world. You know who you are guys – get your agents on the phone.

2/6/2013 – 1/7/2013: 1. Get a striker who will add variety and creativity to the squad; 2. Add a new centre back – three are not enough; 3. Buy a new midfielder who can play box-to-box and will add more brawn to the team’s light-weight squad.

2/7/2013 – 1/8/2013: 1. Preseason. 2. Try to make a statement in the transfer market. Buying a player who can upgrade the team is something that sends the right message to the squad and fans. It will also change the perception that Arsenal are satisfied with being fourth best. Nobody wants to play for a team that is satisfied with that. Oh, yeah – win the Emirates Cup.

1/8/2013 – 25/5/2013: Attack!

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Nobody prepared his team for a match like José Mourinho. His famous dossiers, DVDs and motivational speeches were second to none.

Mourinho’s strength was also his ability to turn inner-conflicts and conflicts with the media or the referees into pure motivational fuel for his players.

There were a few managers who got so close and personal with their players like Mourinho did. He always said: “The most important thing is to always be together, as a team – after a win we’ll hug and after a loss we’ll hug”. Yesterday night he wasn’t on the field to hug his players after their lose to Atlético Madrid.

Mourinho’s teams were always extremely hard to beat. They were better prepared, better coached and more motivated than their rivals.

However, it seems to me that Mourinho’s Real Madrid collapsed into anarchy in the dressing room. Mourinho lost the dressing room like never before but more worryingly for him – it seems to me that his Real Madrid are not the most prepared team in the world anymore.

Other coaches caught up with Mourinho’s techniques and methods. His antics don’t have the same crippling effect on the opposition anymore. Teams are no longer blown out of the water by Mourinho’s brand of powerful, direct, smart, counter-attacking football. Teams are no longer afraid of Mourinho.

Did Mourinho lose his deterrent force? Have we witnessed an end of an era yesterday?

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There is a consensus that Zinedine Zidane is one of the best footballers ever.  David Beckham, on the other hand, will never be considered as one of the greatest ever players and I have the feeling it’s only because he is good looking.

His good looks made him more famous than most footballers alive and made him one of the richest athletes ever. I think that  made people scoff at his amazing achievements as a footballer. He was dismissed in Spain as “Super-model”, In Italy they called him “prima donna” and even in England some minimized his contribution to being  a “shirt seller”.

However, Beckham won the Premier League title 6 times, the FA Cup twice, and the UEFA Champions League in 1999. He then played four seasons with Real Madrid winning the La Liga championship in his final season with the club. He also won the league in the USA and France. In every club he played for he was one of the most important players in the squad. A set-piece specialist with a thunderous right foot. Rivals’ managers feared him and asked their players not to foul his teammates near the box.

Beckham made good goal scorers great and great goal scorers unstoppable. He assisted 145 goals. He himself scored 97 club goals in 534 top-flight league games. He won 115 caps for England (17 goals).  He might not have won anything with England but who does?

If we compare Beckahm’s career to Zidane’s, then one might wonder why on earth anyone would question the Englishman’s greatness.

At club level Zidane won La Liga and the UEFA Champions League with Real Madrid and two Serie A league championships with Juventus. He scored 95 career goals in 506 appearances at clubs he played for – assisting 92 goals. He won 108 caps and scored 31 goals for France.  He led France to a world cup win and a Euro win. Are these wins alone making him a greater player than Beckham? Maybe.

But what if Beckham was an average looking man? Would we have considered him as great as Zidane or at least at his greatness level? I think so.

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Beckahm. Only “very good”

Bacary Sagna has been less than average for Arsenal this season. Yet, according to him, he has offers from PSG and Monaco – two clubs owned by billionaires and are looking for big name signings and experience players.

I see some Gunners are upset about Sagna’s comments (“It makes me proud to read PSG are interested. They are a very attractive club” and “Monaco would be a new challenge”). These comments might be disrespectful to Arsenal but on the long run – PSG and Monaco offer Arsenal a “safety net” which Gunners should appreciate.

It’s not a secret that Arsène Wenger loves to sign players from the French league – despite the fact that the standards there are declining.

As a result it is a few years now that Arsenal are “stuck” with many players who are just not good enough for the Premier League but their wages are too high for them to return to the French league. Therefore Monaco and PSG, who will over-pay for almost anyone because of their owners, are the perfect solution for many of Arsenal’s expensive outcasts.

Marouane Chamakh, Gervinho, Park Chu-Young (Ex-Monaco player), Abou Diaby, Sébastien Squillaci and even Francis Coquelin can finally have a “home” to return to. They are all on more than £50,000 per week at Arsenal (a part from young Coquelin). That’s a huge waste of money that Moncao and PSG can help reduce.

Arsenal have poured millions into the French first division – and I have the slightest feeling it will continue. It is time for the French to pay back!

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In the last few weeks I had a lot of arguments with people about Real Madrid and Barcelona. After their Champions League semi-final exit, people were saying that it is “an end of an era”. Barcelona fans were talking about the need to replace Xavi and Iniesta (!) and Real Madrid fans said that the new coach will need to overhaul their “mediocre squad”.

A lot of the people were also surprised the German teams’ success that “came out of nowhere!”

I asked these people, who talked about disassembling Barcelona and Real Madrid, if they believe in God. Many of them said yes. I wasn’t surprised.

I’ll explain.

Barcelona is not in need of an overhaul. This is a club that’s been playing the same way for more than 25 years. In the past couple of seasons, they are coming back down to earth after the magnificent highs they have experienced in the heyday of Pep Guardiola’s regime. This season has been tougher than the last, as several key players succumbed to injury, and Xavi may have lost a step due to his age. The team may have also lost some of its desire to conquer, while several new players have struggled to make an impact (Fabregas, for example). The fact that coach Tito Vilanova had to fight for his life during the season couldn’t have helped, either.

It’s true, though, that Barcelona need some new players. They should start by signing a centre-back (it’s long overdue). They also have to consider acquiring a right-back, as Dani Alves looks like he may have run his course at Camp Nou. One thing is for sure – Barcelona will need to add a new player to their attacking game, as they are looking for someone who will be more creative and skillful than Pedro, Alexis Sanchez and David Villa. Malaga’s Isco and Santos’ Neymar are rumoured to be on the club’s shortlist, and they might fit in wonderfully.

They definitely have money to spend, and they are certainly not looking to make drastic changes.

Another team that shouldn’t go too crazy this summer is Real Madrid. While many people have said that these past few seasons have been a failure, this is not the case. This club has reached the Champions League semi-finals 3 years  in a row, and they have won the championship last season despite the efforts  of one of the best football teams in history. While Jose Mourinho will leave, Carlo Ancelotti is rumoured to be replacing him. A world-class manager,  Ancelotti will make sure that the Blancos remain one of the top clubs in the Champions League.

Real Madrid’s squad is full of quality players. They might need some “freshening up”, but no one is going to demolish a squad that cost more than 400 million Euros to build. Selling Higuain and di Maria, who are simply not good enough for them, and replacing them with players like Gareth Bale and Edinson Cavani should be more than enough.

Now, let’s look at the other 2 clubs who played in the CL semi-finals.

As I wrote, many people seem to be slightly surprised by the German teams’ success in the Champions League. People say they “did not see them coming”, with some even regarding the rise of German football as some sort of a “fluke”. They claimed that if Leo Messi wasn’t injured, the result would have been different.

FC Bayern certainly did not “come out of nowhere”. This is a team that reached the Champions League final in 3 of the past 4 seasons, losing last season’s trophy in a penalty shootout. Borussia Dortmund is not such a “great surprise” either, after winning consecutive league titles in Germany.  These two clubs are built on the foundation of their great youth academies, while doing great things in the transfer market.

Bayern Munich’s success is the result of having to deal for years with the English clubs’ strength and depth, the Spanish passing game and Dortmund’s energetic style of play. This team did not appear out of thin air – they are a product of a long and painful process, of defeats and renovations.

FC Bayern and Borussia Dortmund did not simply become great overnight, so when so many people suggested this exact thing, I asked if they believe in God. Why? I think the way people see football has to do a lot about understanding the concept of evolution. A religious man does not believe in evolution.

Many of the people I know believe in God, or some sort of spirit or life force.

I don’t.

After years of growing up in a country that teach more bible than biology, I sobered up by reading books of Friedrich Nietzsche, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and many more atheists. It helped me understand the concept of evolution better. It has nothing to do with “belief”. Evolution is overwhelmingly validated by scientific evidence unlike creationism. Evolution is scientific, religion is belief based on nothing but “leap of faith”.

The belief that something needs to be “torn down and rebuilt” in order to fix it is based on the idea that things that are “created from scratch” can also disappear in an instant. The Bible is full of stories about how God destroyed, drowned, burned down and punished things that he himself created in order to rebuild it the way he really likes.

It seems as if many people simply can’t grasp the idea of things evolving through conflict, and creating better methods to survive and flourish. People who believe in “salvation” in football through wrecking the existent and rebuilding from “scratch” – simply don’t understand the concept of evolving.

Evolution means that you fall down and get back up. It means to live and learn, and is the exact opposite of a quick fix. Evolving means finding a long-term solutions, and not only thinking about “here and now”. Evolving is to try, fail, find another way, fail again, and try again… It requires a long-term vision. Failures are not in conflict with genius – they are part and parcel of it. “Talent” is not a gift, it’s a product of hard work.

Football teams are not “created” great – they are built and developed. Even clubs bought by billionaires need to go through some kind of process in order to become great.

Most players believe in God or in some sort of spirit. I am well aware of that because many of them have religious rituals they are doing in public – praying, pointing towards the sky (either to thank God or to salute to someone who died), wearing “I belong to Jesus” T-shirts, etc – but that is why they are players and not in charge of building teams.

I’m not sure how many of the great managers are atheists. I know for a  fact that Johan Cruyff, perhaps the most important figure in modern football, is atheist. I know that Mourinho “believes” in God and is even writing his own “Football bible” for him.

Maybe that is the fundamental difference between Mourinho and Cruyff and his disciples (pardon the irony). One (Mourinho) believes that “the greatest lie if football” is when a coach says he needs time to make the team play the way he wants – and the other (Cruyff) believes in the patient evolution of a club through conflict and solving problems. I believe most managers understand the concept of evolution.

Bottom line is that great teams are not “created”. They are a result of an evolutionary process. I think that atheists understand this better than religious people.

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Porto acquired Falcao for €3.9m from River Plate of Argentina in 2009, and sold  him to Atletico Madrid for €40m euros two seasons ago. As part of his move to the Spanish club, €1.8 — about 5 %of the fee — went to Dutch financial holding company Natland Financieringsmaatschappij BV.  Huh? Yup. A Dutch bank made profit from the transfer of a Colombian striker from a Portuguese club to a Spanish club. Globalization in a nutshell.

Falcao’s agent, Jorge Mendes and Peter Kenyon, former Chelsea chief executive, have also made nice profit from selling their Colombian stallion.  Some barons and oligarchs, who figured out a way to get money from the football world without investing in a team, have also made great profits from the transfers of Falcao.

Nobody really knows how Falcao’s transfers have benefited the bank accounts of the world’s richest because in the murky business of third-party investment funds transparency is a bad word.

Falcao will now join Monaco for about €60m. It’s an odd transfer that will prevent the Colombian striker from playing Champions League football for at least one more year.

Falcao was wanted by the best teams in the world. He could have certainly played for the best teams in the world. However, it won’t be happening for reasons that seem 100% financial.

The “invisible hand” has signed Falcao’s contract at Monaco. I’m not really sure Falcao had a real say about that. Nobody knows if he was pressured to sign a contract with Monaco or who pressured him to do so. There are some very powerful people who bought “Falcao shares” and as shareholders they want to have a say.

There are some serious questions about the purity of this transfer. It seems that the sporting reasons are completely marginalized by the financial reasons.

3rd-party ownership should be totally transparent or totally banned.

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Thanks to science and research, we know more than ever right now. In two years time we’ll know even more.

Because we know a lot more, we need to remember a lot more. Simple logic.

Because we know a lot more and need to remember a lot more, there are more experts in each field.

It’s true in football as well.

Once upon a time, about 10 years ago, scouting was done by one person – today it takes a department to scout efficiently.

Once upon a time, a coach had 3-4 drills, today there are more than 100 drills to choose from just for coaching pressing.

Once upon a time clubs didn’t coach players under the age of 12 but now there are clubs that understand it’s essential to train kids as early as possible. That means that some clubs have under-4 teams. “Bambino teams” they call it.

Obviously, 3-4 year olds need different training than 12-13 year olds – this means you need more coaches and experts for the younger ages.

Once upon a time, a coach chose between 4-4-2 or 4-2-4. Today teams are lined up in a 3-4-3 formation or a 4-3-3 formation – or 4-2-3-1, or 5-4-1, or 4-5-1, or 4-3-2-1 and so on.

The football industry is a huge industry and it is getting larger and more sophisticated each year. One manager, no matter how talented and determined, can’t do everything on his on.

The “English Model” of one manager that controls every professional aspect of his club is dying.

Alex Ferguson might have chosen every youth team coach in Manchester United and knew every cook in the Carrington Training Centre by first name  - but without decentralization of his authority, he wouldn’t have survived so long as a top manager.

There are a few more “football managers” out there. They are in full control of clubs but in the future they will be gone. Managing a football team is not a job for one man.

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Ben Watson jumped for this ball like it’s the 90^th minute of the FA Cup final.

He jumped for this ball like he plays for a small team with no chance to win one of the biggest prizes against one of the  richest teams in the world.

It seems like he leaped about 12 feet  high.

And then he headed the ball like his career is depended on it.

He headed it like if he’d score it, his career would change and he’ll be a hero remembered for the next 50-6o-70 years.

And he nailed it.

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We know that the Spanish football league is investigating a game between first division clubs Levante and Deportivo La Coruna for possible match-fixing. It’s also common knowledge amongst football reporters, administrators, players and even fans that a vast majority of countries in Europe suffer from match-fixing with up to 400 games per season rigged.

According to Europol at least 680 games globally were suspicious, 380 of which were in Europe. A few weeks ago, Sportradar Security Services, which employs 35 highly experienced staff and monitors bookmaking activities across the entire industry, exposed the true extent of a crisis regarded by FIFA and UEFA as currently the gravest issue to attack football.

“We uncover between 250 and 300 matches a year that are fixed,” said Ben Paterson, integrity manager at Sportradar Security Services to InsideWorldFootball. “Out of 53 UEFA member countries, we have seen problems in upwards of 45 of them in varying degrees.”

The majority of matches that are fixed go through the Asian markets. said Paterson. “There is so much money there and the odds are so competitive that match fixers can bet vast sums anonymously”, Paterson said. “We highlight to the relevant people that such and such a match is suspicious, and wherever possible also highlight individuals.”

This is a real threat to the football industry. Once the fans suspect every game of being corrupt, they will not buy tickets, sponsors will not sign deals and TV companies will prefer to invest their money in reality TV for the brain-dead rather if football.

So, how can football fight the match fixing cancer? Not with money – because the betting industry is a lot larger.

The match fixing industry is based in the far east, and is run in very organised and sophisticated methods.

These people change the course of football matches for over a decade, and have many different ways to do it – either by simply bribing a referee, or by putting a fake Togo “national team” in a match. They have “agents” in football clubs and football association. They are ruthless, unafraid to threaten or even murder those involved in the game at every level. Their only goal is financial gain.

According to estimates, about $3 billion are gambled on football every day. That’s about $1 trillion per year.

Theoretically, even a player that earns $3m a year can be easily bribed, so think about how easy it is to bribe a player whose club is in debt, who plays in unimportant matches, who doesn’t get paid well enough by his club (or worse – isn’t paid at all).

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The connection is this: The 733 top-tier European clubs have fixed assets with a sum total worth of about €21.8 billion. The total income of these clubs stands at about €16 billion per year. Football may be a big industry, but it is nothing compared to the match fixing industry that makes money off of it. So, it seems that the European football financial muscles are just not robust enough to fight the huge betting industry on its on.

In the past 5 years, European clubs have shown a financial growth that averaged at 5.6%. This is a great statistic when compared to the average growth of the European economy, which stands at a mere 0.5%. In 2011, Europe’s top-tier clubs have enjoyed a total income of €13.2 billion – a sharp increase from 2009 (€11.7 billion).

The income is up a lot because of Television income is also on the rise, averaging a yearly improvement of 8.2% over the past 5 years. Sports on television is a great asset for TV companies (You can read why here: “European football is not making enough money“).

These numbers might tell the story of great financial growth, but that is only one side of the story. While “growth” may be a code name for “success”, it is also a way of disguising other pieces of data. These “hidden numbers” are very alarming.

The bottom line shows that in 2011, European football clubs have shown a loss of €1.68 billion. This is mainly due to the 43% increase in player wages shown over the past 5 years. Players have received €9.4 billion from clubs, who have shown a tendency to spend way more money on players than they actually have. The teams that compete in UEFA competitions have fixed assets (mainly stadiums
and training grounds) worth about €4.8 billion, yet they spent over €6.9 billion to purchase their players.

In 2007, European clubs have shown a loss of €600m. This number has dramatically risen in 2011, as clubs have shown a €1.7 billion loss.

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This is a very troubling trend. UEFA claims that 1 out of 7 clubs can be described as “worrisome”, while 38% of clubs have a debt that is larger than the total worth of their assets. Above all of that, the sum total of debt in European football stands at over €18.5 billion. 68% of clubs’ debt to current or former players or other clubs.

Another worrying trend shows that the billionaires, who usually view football clubs as nothing more than a “cool toy”, have created a great divide between the “haves” and the “have nots”. The Deloitte Money League even tells us that a new group has been created – the “have a whole lots”.

In 2006, top ranked Real Madrid had an income that was 3 times larger than Lazio, who were ranked at number 20. In 2012, Real had an income 4.5 times larger than Newcastle, also at number 20.  The margin will probably only increase, which means that clubs at the top of the pyramid will have an even greater power in the transfer market.

Financial Fair Play says that clubs will not be able to spend more money than they earn, and that outside investors will be able to spend money on infrastructure, but not on players. This basically means that clubs such as Newcastle will not be able to attract investors, making it nearly impossible to bridge the gap between them and the elite clubs.

This will create a state of super-power clubs, who will use their advantages to weaken the big clubs. The big clubs will weaken the medium-sized clubs, who will in turn hurt the small clubs. It’s basically the upside-down version of trickle-down economics.

This also means clubs will have plenty of games with nothing at stake. That “soft belly” of football is also where the illegal betting masters can strike. Games with no real sporting meaning are too easy to fix. For match fixers they are money on the floor.

A Tuesday night game between to “medium” sized football clubs with nothing real to play for can turn into a feast for criminal masterminds in the far east. This happens a lot in smaller competitions, but it’s probably happening in the major leagues as well. Even in the Champions League, where at least 20% of group stage matches have no real sporting edge can be “sold” to bettors.

So how can a financially fragile industry resist this brutal, wealthier force? It can’t. At least, not in the way it’s being run today.

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Football needs to embrace the Spartan spirit. Remember the battle of Thermopylae, when at least 250 thousand Persian soldiers invaded Greece, and were fought by about 5,000 Greek soldiers, led by 300 Spartan warriors. This battle is a great example of how a small army can, with good education and training, defeat (or come close to defeating) a much bigger force. It’s a great example for quality over quantity.

Decreasing the number of teams in the top-tier leagues will improve the ability to monitor and supervise them. A higher quality of management, players and referrers will improve standards. The smaller, higher-quality leagues will have a higher standard of regulations, and will be more effective in their fight against match fixing. Smaller leagues also mean that each game will have more sporting significance – meaning they are much less exposed to match fixing.

The question is - can FIFA and UEFA, “football regulators” fix the match fixing problem by professionalizing the game?

No. These are political bodies with an interest to expand as much as possible.

Michel Platini has opened the Champions League for teams with no real chance of doing anything meaningful and for what? For the votes of the smaller football associations? This has deluded the quality of The Champions League and turned many of the games in this prestigious to unimportant.

FIFA, for ages now, give small, unorganized, unprofessional football associations - the same treatment as they give to the biggest football  associations and federations. Why? Yup, you guessed it – for their votes.

Can UEFA and FIFA, turn the leagues and their tournaments to more professional, better regulated and less exposed to match fixing?

They don’t even want to to it. That’s why football is so exposed to match fixing. And that’s why the match fixing problem is not going to be fixed anytime soon.

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I think of two great recent teams: Bayern Munich and Barcelona. Both signed a manager who “wasn’t perfect” for them: Pep Guardiola, who did not coach a real team before he managed Barca and Jupp Heynckes – a journeyman with plenty of successes but many failures in his career.

However, Pep knew exactly what Barcelona is all about and Heynckes played during Germany’s glory days – shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Uli Hoeneß and Franz Beckenbauer.

A Hungarian woman-friend of mine said something about it, that is only reserved to women-intelligence:

“I don’t believe in love or perfect people. I believe in chemistry”. 

Last night I read James Corbett’s “Everton – the school of science” and I found out that David Moyes’ father was a football coach of a team named Drumchapel Amateurs, that produces many professional players. Amongst their former players you can find a young Alex Ferguson and another young chap named Kenny Dalglish.

Moyes is from Glasgow – like Busby and Fergie. It’s not just a trivia fact. He came from the “Glasgow school” of coaching and management. He might not be a “United man” but he knows exactly how the club thinks. He knows What the nearest community to the club – the people who come to the stadium, the people of Manchester – expect from the club. He knows
what is “a Manchester United player”.

It’s like the old weary king said: “Who is the best son of Glasgow – let him be my heir”.

Moyes will protect the unique character of Manchester United. The club will allow him to train better players and use larger funds of money.

It’s a chemistry I believe in.

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Football clubs are somewhere between a brand, a cooperation and a social symbol. Once upon a time football fans joined a club because of a tribal thing but now many of them are customers. Two of these aspects exist in Manchester United.

But what Matt Busby and Alex Ferguson gave Manchester United in the 52 out of last 68 football seasons a personal story of men. Their successes, their failures and their style.

That is why I am now afraid.

Will United now be weaker because Fergie left or stronger because they have more money? That hardly bothers me. What bothers me now is that I don’t really comprehend the fact that I may need to be a fan of a regular football club.

Do I now pledge my alliance to the crest? Was I just a fan of this man? Everything that changed in the last 30 years – when football became commercial and a child became a man – will happen for me in a day. It’s scary.

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I want to write about Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem.

Many did that already and here are links to stories about them:

Hapoel Katamon football team, owned totally by fans, wins promotion to professional league

A Katamon Love Story

The little fan-owned, anti-racist soccer team that could

What I would like to do is emphasize the commercial value of this great club.

Beitar Jerusalem are sharing a city with Katamon. They are the team of the nationalistic party of Israel. Most of their fans are sympathetic to racist groups and they are owned by an Oligarch - Arcadi Gaydamak. They club has a very weak link to the community around it and makes no effort become more sustainable.

Katamon are like a team from a parallel world. They are owned by their supporters, they are sustainable, democratic  and they are open to all races and religions (and there are plenty of them in Jerusalem). They also invest in the neighborhoods  around the club. Even FC Barcelona are impressed by their community schemes.

This weekend, Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem won promotion to Israel’s professional league and now they need some serious money to survive and thrive.

I know there are many strange  donors who help Beitar – “redemption” seeking American Evangelists and such – but I think Katamon are a much better asset for any company, or organisation that want to promote peace and help the Jewish-Muslim relationship in Israel and the middle east.

A coalition of  peace loving investors and sponsors from around the world can really help good causes with a modest investment in a Hapoel Jerusalem Katamon,  a club that can really make a difference in a region that is looking desperately for inspiration and feelgood stories.

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