Let’s get serious

Bought to you in the spirit of Takeshi Okada

9/10/2010

Czech Republic v Scotland was a fight that should’ve been stopped far earlier

What happened on Friday night was not a football match. It wasn’t even sport. In my opinion it was nothing short of a complete disgrace. Scotland manager Craig Levein can bang on all he likes about the tactical need for a result but playing a 4-6-0 formation is, in my book, simply not an acceptable way to approach a football match. Let’s just look at the stats:

Czech Republic – Shots 20
On target 9
Corners 11

Scotland – Shots 2
On target 0
Corners 0

Say what you will about fans demanding results, as a supporter who would probably have paid a fair whack to get out there and represent my country I would’ve been ashamed of that strategy. In boxing, that kind of defensive attitude would see a boxer heavily booed and a referee calling the fight a day. What I find most disturbing about the belief Scotland ‘had’ to play this way is the fact that Czech Republic are most certainly not a Spain, or a Germany, with the ability to tear you apart at will. This was Czech Republic they were playing, who didn’t even qualify for the World Cup! If you feel that strongly like you’ve got no chance against them, then why are you even bothering trying to get to Euro 2012?

Defensive, negative football like this has long since been a huge problem in the game. Unfortunately, when Greece won Euro 2004 everybody realised that 11 men working tirelessly to kill a football game could work. So everyone started doing it. It’s what made the 2010 World Cup such a dire spectacle and it’s something that’s blighted the entertainment at lower league football grounds for some time. In the Premier League, it can quickly be forgotten by a world class piece of skill, or a breathtaking moment of creativity. But watch a standard Premier League game from 10 years ago and put it up against one now and I guarantee which one will provide more entertainment.

Although I’m sure it’d come under heavy criticism for changing the game, I really think it’s time to alter the rules of football drastically to stop this defensive yawn fest. In the same way the offside rule was probably created to stop forwards like Gary Lineker standing on the goal line, smoking a cigarette, constantly waiting for a tap in (goal hangers as I believe the school playground coined years ago), it’s time to stop defenders parking a heavy artillery tank in the penalty box and taking pot shots at oncoming attackers.

The only way I can think of successfully doing this, without clubs getting round it with loopholes, is to change the points system to award one point per goal. Scrap the 3 for a win and one for a draw, your points tally would based entirely on how many goals you scored that season. It would work perfectly. There would still be a reason for defence, to stop your rivals scoring as many as you, but the objective would completely shift. It wouldn’t be about clawing on to what you had; it’d be about going out and getting what you needed. Nothing would ever be mathematical. You could be 7 points behind the league leaders on the last day of the season and still have a chance of stealing the title. And imagine the game you’d be in for on the last game of the season.

If you apply the rule to last season, the top 3 would’ve have remained the same and in exactly the same order. Chelsea 103, Manchester United 86, Arsenal 83. But Birmingham, who finished 9th in the League table would’ve stayed up by the skin of their teeth on 38 goals, whilst Wolves, who finished 15, would’ve placed bottom of the table with a tally of 32. Burnley would have been the lucky team to benefit from the table switch.

I can’t think of a more entertaining way to set up a football season and it wouldn’t take too long for some of these teams to realise attacking isn’t that scary. A draw may be a good result in some cases, especially if it’s a thrilling 3-3 because you’ve taken some points. But between the top teams a draw would be useless, putting an end to these cagey affairs that often stifle out the skilful players and waste a potentially exciting matchup.

Scotland certainly wouldn’t have started with a 4-6-0 on Friday that’s for sure. And I think anything that stops such nonsense can only be a good thing…

3/10/2010


Sven Sven Sven boring Eriksson

Balancing your reputation and being willing to take on a challenge is clearly something very difficult for a football manager to achieve. It is clearly something Sven Goran Eriksson is completely incompetent at. This is a man who five or six years ago would’ve been (was) a front runner for any of the top jobs around. If Sir Alex had decided to follow Michael Owen’s path and concentrate solely on racehorses for example, the majority of United fans would’ve been delighted if Sven had taken the helm at Old Trafford. Now, he has stepped into a job looking to emulate the successes of Nigel Pearson…

Apologies if that is somewhat disrespectful to Nigel Pearson but Sven Goran Eriksson’s CV reads like a character who should be at the very top of his game. 3 Portuguese titles, an Italian title, 4 Coppa Italias, European Cup runner up, UEFA cup winner. How has he put himself into a position where taking the vacant managerial position at Championship Leicester hasn’t really surprised anyone? Five years ago, this would’ve been like Fabio Capello taking the managerial position at Leicester (please Milan, it’s still not too late to change your mind if you want to try him?).

Similarly a manager can effortlessly pluck a reputation from nowhere for seemingly doing very little. Take Bob Bradley for example. He was many people’s first choice for the Aston Villa job after Martin O Neil left, yet a look back at his career fails to find any achievement of real significance to the English Premier League. The biggest club he’s managed, excluding the USA national team is probably the Metrostars. Did he win anything with them? Nope. Was he fired? Yep. Yet, Bradley would’ve been the popular choice over someone like Alan Curbishley who only five years ago was being hailed as a future England manager due to his incredible ability to year on year produce a competitive team at Charlton Athletic, who with no coincidence, now find themselves fighting for promotion out of League One without him.

Curbishley wouldn’t be a popular appointment anywhere inside the Premier League now and why? What has he done wrong in those five years? Very, very little. So why the shun of poor old Alan? Why has Sven gone from being top of the market to a popular item in the bargain bins? And to answer a wider question, why is it that people claim foreign managers get more breaks in the English game? There is a very simple answer. It’s the air of mystery.

Chairmen evidently like to go with something called the ‘mystery box’ which could be the best thing sliced bread or the worst thing since Iain Dowie. A gamble, basically. Anti what they’ll say in a press conference about ‘bringing a club stability for the future’ or ‘bringing in experience to steady the ship’ board rooms actually like to do completely the opposite. They like to mix unknown quantities together and see if stuff blows up, much like a stereotypical crazy scientist might do in his basement lab. If stuff works, everyone get’s rich and famous, if stuff doesn’t they ditch the guy and try another formula. There is simply no short term benefit in hiring someone like Alan Curbishley because there’s no excitement. No mystery. No explosion. At least with Bob Bradley, anything could happen. Even if the likelihood is ‘anything’ would be a great pile of horses***.

Sven has ultimately lost his mystery, which is why, like any Englishman he has to take whatever job is offered to him. Paulo Sousa will unfortunately have to do the same. But right now, there will be some bloke winning a league somewhere in Turkey who’ll have an enchanting musk, a tweed jacket and a heavily trimmed moustache who’ll be making a big name for himself. He’ll speak in broken English, misunderstand the term ‘old fashioned centre half’ and have absolutely no idea where Bolton is. Yet the likelihood is he’ll soon be coming to a Premier League ground near you.

12/08/2010


Can we not just have a whip round to pay Capello’s severance package?

I will always try and defend the position that a manager needs time to bring real success. But that’s if that manager is actually in the slightest bit competent. It is one thing to pick Heskey. It is one thing to play completely the wrong formation. It is one thing to then blame everybody and anybody except yourself. No, in fact that’s 3 really annoying things. But Mr Capello finally lost all support from me this week by his utter, thoughtless stupidity.

David Beckham may have his footballing flaws but one thing that can never be questioned is his dedication to the cause. He could quite easily have packed it in after World Cup 1998 after being hung out to dry by Glenn Hoddle. He didn’t. He could quite easily have called it time after being made a public scapegoat by Steve McClaren. He didn’t. He could quite easily have packed it in after working so hard to make the World Cup only to have his dreams shattered by injury. He didn’t. It seems the reward for endless loyalty is to be continually humiliated by the incompetence around him. How Capello ever thought it was a good idea to publicly announce Beckham’s retirement for him before even consulting the winger is completely beyond me. Yes, he said he’ll give him a send off match, a testimonial as it were. But Beckham doesn’t want that. He wants to be considered as a real squad player, someone who still deserves to wear the shirt with pride.

Capello wouldn’t have lost anything had he just kept the door open, even if deep down he knew he didn’t mean it. Surely Beckham has done enough to leave things on his terms, and not to find out Capello’s plans after ITV did. How would you feel if ITV knew you were being laid off before you did?! If Adrian Chiles knew anything about me before I did I’d be tempted to purchase a very large bat and take things from there. To add to this distasteful moment Capello then proceeded to sulk on his seat stern faced all game like a man who’d just realised he’d super glued his a*** to his chair by mistake. Steven Gerrard was aware of the fact English fans just wanted to see some passion. He celebrated his equaliser like he’d just scored a last minute cup final winner, not because he was excited at scoring against Hungary in a pointless friendly (it’s not one he’ll tell the grandkids about probably), but because he wanted to prove the passion was still there. All Capello needed to do was jump up and clap, maybe even thrust his fist in the air with delight, just to show he cared. He couldn’t even be bothered to do that.

Some say the England manager’s job is second in importance to only the Prime Minister. I would have to disagree with those lunatics but at the same time they may just be on to something. The FA has proven they can not, for the life of them, pick a good manager from a line up. Why don’t we change the way they’re appointed? Because honestly how many people want Capello in charge right now? What we should do is have an England manager election. The process would be simple. All those who wish to be considered for the post would nominate themselves forward, and then begin a 3 month campaign to get people to vote for them. They could let us know in advance whether they planned to pick Heskey (although most would probably not want to divulge that if they wanted votes) and sell the fans on their styles and formations. Then we’d all head to the polls and nominate our favourite.

That way, as we watched the results come in from around the country, we’d know which regions to blame for appointing bad managers and thus pick on them endlessly. A manager would have to call an election every four years (in sync with World Cup years) to defend his position. Meaning we could get rid of the f***r if we, let’s say, got beaten by Germany 4-1 in the second round of the World Cup.

Fans would be engulfed in the election process, the media would have a field day and we’d finally have no one to blame but ourselves for the results. The FA would love that! So if you’re reading this, forget goal line technology, forget the new youth policy. Get rid of Capello and let’s get democratic on this bad boy!

01/08/2010

When did friendlies become such a ball ache?

‘They’ve got nothing left in the tank’, ‘they’re shattered’, ‘they’re absolutely dead’. All phrases checked off the list in the current ‘let’s make excuses’ bingo sweepstake that Premier League managers find themselves competing in. Well let’s get one thing straight right now. If my car had nothing left in it’s tank, it’d probably be reluctant to set off on a journey to Australia. If I was shattered I probably wouldn’t jump on the next plane to America for kicks. And if I were absolutely dead I certainly wouldn’t fancy rising from the grave to have a kick about against Spartak Moscow in the ‘Money,money,money, give me money Cup’.

If players are as tired as they’re being made out, why on earth are teams jetting off to the opposite sides of the globe to play tournament football? Everton and Blackburn – Australia. Man City, Spurs, Man Utd – America. Aston Villa – Portugal. Even Portsmouth!!! – America. Two months ago they couldn’t afford to keep the lights on at Fratton Park, yet someone in their glorious wisdom has seen it appropriate to ship the entire squad off on a trip to f***ing America! Admittedly they have no players so the airfare probably wasn’t that high, but what about all the backroom physios, magicians and fluffers that accompany any team these days?

For my money, managers can no longer use tiredness as an excuse. They’ve blown their shot at using that excuse. It’s like an adulterer being caught in the act by his wife, only to apologise and keep thrusting. If players are tired stop making them fly around the world and play in competitive tournaments. And make no mistake that’s what they are. Americans don’t want to watch Man City play football along the back four. Everton didn’t go to Australia to catch some surf. It has all turned competitive. Gone are the days when you could just nip down the road and give your nearest non-league side a thorough smashing for a bit of an ego boost.

And who’s to blame for all of this? Yes, that’s right. Our little friend money! And the greedy, greedy b*****s who don’t think the Premiership gains enough revenue as it is. If I was a cynical man, I’d say it’s almost as if someone’s tried to bring in some ridiculous idea, say a 39th game played around the world, only to fail miserably, and instead just set up lucrative tournaments around the world for clubs to play a camouflaged 39th, 40th and 41st f***ing game instead. Whoever hid that one from us all is a bloody genius! That would only be if I was cynical of course…

And teams don’t tour Luxembourg do they? Or Belgium? Oh no. They tour Australia, Asia, the States. It couldn’t be anything to do with the fact they’re the biggest, easiest financially pleasing consumers to target is it? No, surely not?

So I’ll agree with most Premier League managers, England Hungary has less point to it than a blunt pencil. The reunion of Busted would make more sense. The decision to make Katie Price minister of foreign affairs would make more sense. But until everyone stops being such a money grabbing muppet, you can’t use the excuse of tired. Jet lags a real b***h. Enjoy it lads.

20/07/2010

Why wouldn’t you take the money?

When Yaya Toure is picking up a weekly wage of £221,000 a week (…A WEEK!!!) you know something is desperately wrong. Here is a guy whose career revolves around stopping good players play football. So City fans reading this, there’s a great reason why your season tickets will steadily rise in price for the next few years, it’s because good old Yaya is being paid your money to stop any of that football nonsense breaking out. Yay! For anyone interested, I calculate 221,000 a week to be roughly 13 million pounds a year, just over 66 million during the course of his five year stint.

Let’s not forget that Nike or some other sucker will play Yaya for the privilege of him wearing their boots, that restaurant owners will say ‘hey you’re that Yaya guy who stops all that football aren’t you? Dinners on me’ and, sure as eggs are eggs, his range of Ferraris will all be supplied by the club as a getting out of bed bonus. It makes you wonder whether Bond villains like Ernst Blofeld did a four year stint in the Premier league and just built a volcano layer on a Caribbean Island out of sheer boredom, because they had no idea what else to spend the money on.

It’s too much money, we all know that. So spare a thought for Joe Cole only scrapping along on £90,000 a week (…A F***ING WEEK!). I must say though I find it bizarre to read just how many pundits and fans have criticised his move, suggesting that the former West Ham trainee was just waiting for the best offer. What I don’t understand is why wouldn’t he? What else have you got to base a move on? Let’s face it, once you’ve hit £40,000 a week you’re pretty much set for life. I’m sure all suitors offered him at least that. So you might as well take the highest offer, for natural common sense reasons if nothing else.

What else these days would sway you to join a football club? The top 20 clubs are all the same. If you exclude Blackpool every club has a fantastic all seater stadium, every club is full of talent from around the world, and every club plays all the other clubs exactly the same number of times. Yes, moving to Spurs or Arsenal would have seen Joe Cole play Champions League games in Italy, Spain and Germany but the guy’s already been there quite a bit hasn’t he? As a human, with an exploring instinct, wouldn’t you rather explore the outer realms of Moldova in the Europa ligue for a laugh?

Fans cling to loyalties, but unfortunately, they are the only people who have them. They are the community, they still have something to be proud of, to fight for. Their reputation is on the line. But for a player, the idea of representing your home town is dead. Look at the Arsenal first team for example. It’s like a who’s who of countries. Are they representing Arsenal? No. Are they representing themselves? Yes. Whilst we’d all like to think it, no one would throw themselves in the firing line for the cause anymore. They’d just get their agent on the phone to somewhere they didn’t have to…And maybe somewhere with beach side property too.

So blaming Joe Cole for taking the best offer seems a little harsh really. It’s not his fault that the Premier League has sucked the life out of local clubs. The Premier League is no longer aimed towards local. It’s all about the global. And that means that local loyalty is a thing of the past. Whether that’s a bad thing or not, you decide. But one thing’s for sure, to most players, a kit colour is irrelevant. As long as they know which way they’re shooting they’re on to a winner.

12/07/2010

The greatest game on earth? I’d rather play Monopoly with Dale Winton

I really couldn’t help but feel short changed by the ‘greatest game on earth’ last night. With all the hype building up to it, you could compare it to David Blaine announcing his next mystifying extravaganza is to guess which card you picked, or the producers of Lord of the Rings announcing that the next film will be shot on a budget of £9.50 and be filmed on location at Tesco, Wolverhampton East. That was not the greatest game on earth, that was s***.

And of course I’m no expert but I can tell you exactly why it was s***, and, in all honesty, why the whole tournament went off like a faulty firework into the neighbours back garden. It’s because everything now, literally everything focuses on the cup being half empty opposed to half full. I’ve often thought football is a mirror image of life played out on a field (possibly because I’ve been obsessed with football for as long as I can remember…and, not very intelligent). Everything that happens in life can be compared to an event in football. You can test me on this, I’ll find a comparison – even if you don’t agree that Des Walker’s own goal against Leicester in 1993 reflects your wife asking for a new sofa to compliment the new drapes. You’re wrong.

And if you look at life at the moment, everything is negative. No one ‘has any money’, the world is being beaten to a pulp by climate change and the media has created a pressure cooker in which no one wants to take a chance anymore. It’s all about covering your back and trying not to create an issue. Just look at the recent election campaign. That whole time period was basically 3 people trying really hard not to say anything stupid. Of course, some did better than others (at least whilst on microphone anyway) but no one set out to win it, they set out not to lose.

That’s exactly the same in football terms. Teams don’t just park the bus now, they f***ing nail it to the floor and cement it in just to be safe. Look at the attacking talent on that pitch last night. Ignoring the fact that Dirk Kuyt exists you had Torres, Villa, Robben, Iniesta, Sneijder, Van Persie and Fabregas all on one pitch. These guys are supposed to be the reason why people buy shirts, the ticket sellers as it were. But instead of both teams saying ‘right, let’s have a go at this, we’re better than them’ they both just flooded the midfield, killed any chance of a game of football breaking out and then blamed the referee for ‘ruining the spectacle.’ That’s like a bull taking a s*** and turning to a farmer to blame him for the smell.

Come on guys, where has the postive gone? I don’t want to watch you follow a guy round all game stopping him getting the ball. I want to watch you run past 5 players and get down on your hands and knees to nod the ball in with your head. Yes, the pressure is on, and losing is never enjoyable, but surely it’s better to be remembered as a team who gave it a go, rather than one who karate kicked their way through a God awful final?

It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of negativity. It’s easy to play defensive, to feel hard done by, to blame failings on others. It happens in every walk of life, just read any daily newspaper to see that. But football should start the trend of positivity going again. Let’s lay off our teams a bit, realise that winning doesn’t mean everything, and start celebrating the fact our centre half tried a 90 yard lob from his own half, rather than calling him a daft f*****g p**** who couldn’t hit a barn door with Emile Heskey. It’s time to start changing what we want out of football, otherwise the greatest game on earth could well and truly become something terrible like rugby or cricket…and no one wants that…

Are FIFA seriously taking the p***?

I would love to sit in a FIFA meeting sometimes, I really, really would. I can imagine taking my seat, being handed a tumbler of whisky and flicking through the agenda. ‘Guys, this is just a blank piece of paper?’
‘I know’, Slepp Blatter would reply, ‘I thought we’d play Twister! Who’s in?!’

Their tagline reads ‘for the good of the game.’ If ever somebody needs to be done under the trades description act it is surely FIFA for this absolutely ridiculous statement. Football is a game being ruined by sheer incompetence at top level and from an outsiders point of view, it seems FIFA are doing everything in their power to completely f*** it up, like a five year old child who’s cornered a slug in his back garden and is throwing on lavishings of salt, waiting for the carnage.

Talking of 5 year old children, FIFA’s ‘Let’s kick out racism’ campaign could hardly have been more patronising, with captains from each country left in the tournament being forced to read a small passage (terribly) to their supporters about how their team condones racist abuse. Most of them honestly sounded like they were reading a passage from Dr Zeus for a gold star and I’d love to know how many fans were actually swayed by the poignant argument. Bearing in mind, we’re in the country of South Africa, who know a few things about stamping out racism, I’m not sure FIFA’s best efforts to look like a messiah will fly.

How about actually watching the football and reacting to some of the disgraceful scenes we’ve seen throughout this entire World Cup. If I was an alien, hooked up with a dodgy satellite in the realms of outer space, I’d honestly think cheating was genuinely promoted by FIFA. Let’s just be clear about the rules here. You can get booked for kicking a ball away in frustration, or taking your shirt off to celebrate a goal. You seemingly can’t get booked for rolling around like someone’s just thrown acid in your face, insisting to the referee that your opponent gets booked because you’ve taken the trouble to roll round like someone’s thrown acid in your face, constant shirt grabbing and meticulously calling the referee a moronic c*** every time he blows his whistle.

Further still, you won’t get punished for deliberately cheating to keep your team in a tournament that is supposed to promote fair play. It was bad enough when Henry threw the ball towards the Irish net, receiving no punishment whatsoever for costing a country a World Cup dream. But when Luis Suarez decided he had a blossoming new career as Uruguay’s second choice goalkeeper against Ghana surely FIFA had to step in? Granted, the letter of the law was followed and Ghana had their chance for retribution but FIFA officials even came out after the match and said further punishment may follow for Suarez, due to unsporting behaviour. That was it! FIFA had their man by the book. Ban him from the tournament, prove justice was done, prove cheating is not the way to win things. Did further punishment follow? Did it b****ks! Suarez was paraded around like a hero and will play in the final should his team win the semi without him. What a jolly good message to all young kids out there ey?

Oh, and don’t worry about goal line technology, it’s not like many games are spoiled by such trivial matters. Maybe if such technology existed and worked effectively in other sports like tennis, cricket and rugby we could think about it but we all know this is still the 1980s and we’ve got a long way to go before anything like that could even be imagined. Let’s just keep showing the incident again and again to all the supporters and players in the stadium on a big screen, using all those goal line cameras we have, just to prove what an absolute a*** the ref(who can do nothing about it) has been. Yeah, that sounds like the really sensible option.

In fact FIFA, let’s leave all of that alone as it appears far too difficult to handle. Instead, let’s support Nigeria who have been banned by their government from playing football for two years due to their ‘embarrassing’ performance in the World Cup. How shall we support them at their time of need FIFA? It seems they could really use a big governing body to step in and help them out here, to give their international careers a real chance of survival. What’s that Slepp? Oh, ban them from international competition? Isn’t that kind of what their government was going for in the first place? F*** it, go get Twister.