http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/ en Copyright 2010 Thu, 25 Nov 2010 18:36:12 +0000 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
Real Madrid celebrate after Cristiano Ronaldo scored in Amsterdam. © Getty Images
This week has allowed me the welcome opportunity to view a pair of the big contenders to be playing at Wembley in May. Tuesday saw me in Amsterdam to see Real Madrid mark everyone’s card with a rather impressive 4-0 despatching of Ajax. I was there as a guest of one of the competition’s sponsors, and must thank them for their hospitality, part of which included a never-ending supply of their product, a premium lager familiar around the world. Despite the associated haze of mass consumption of that heady brew, it was clear to me that the Jose Mourinho version of Real Madrid should not be expected to go out in the second round, as their predecessors have done every season since 2003. To follow the pattern of much of the season, there was grit to match the flair, and there looked a hard, professional edge that evaded them for much of the galacticos era. Ajax did not offer much but they were swatted aside with perfunctory ease, with all four goals taken with some aplomb.]]> http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/11/a_tale_of_two_cities.php http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/11/a_tale_of_two_cities.php Thu, 25 Nov 2010 18:36:12 +0000 l'affaire Jean-Marc Bosman began to abound.]]> http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/08/bellamy_move_is_no_fairytale.php http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/08/bellamy_move_is_no_fairytale.php Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:51:31 +0000 A long, long European season has ended, giving us barely a couple of weeks to recharge our batteries and retune our engines for the World Cup. Mine's a pint of engine oil... Time then to list my top players of the European season, and compare them to the rankings my selections gained from our friends at the Castrol Rankings. In true Jimmy Savile/Casey Kasem style I shall run through the toppermost of the poppermost in descending order. http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/05/top_of_the_pops.php http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/05/top_of_the_pops.php Thu, 27 May 2010 09:22:05 +0000 Just the Champions League final to go before European club football wraps itself in a tight ball for the summer? Not a bit of it if you happen to follow a team wrapped up in the agonising process of the Football League play-offs. Saturday's somewhat bloodless FA Cup final - unless you are Michael Ballack - was the latest addition to the laments about the world's oldest knockout competition and its inability to recapture the focus of the nation. While Champions League football, or the reaching of, now draws the focus of the leading lights, those in the lower divisions get their winner-takes-all kicks in an end-of-season knock-out on which footballing futures are placed fully on the line. Monday night saw me granted my first taste of such a torturous and fingernail unfriendly fixture. A pal granted me the opportunity to be "Swindon till I die" for the evening as Wiltshire's finest took the fragility of a 2-1 lead to Charlton Athletic in the League One semi-final. To the victor, the spoils of a turn on that not-so hallowed-these-days Wembley "turf". To the vanquished, a summer of regret and inertia. http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/05/a_different_kind_of_tension.php http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/05/a_different_kind_of_tension.php Tue, 18 May 2010 14:18:54 +0000 Using public transport in London often means you come into unwanted contact with the personal views of some of the capital's great thinkers. And so it proved on Wednesday evening when yet another crash of my rapidly ailing iPod left me unable to escape the inanities of others' conversations as we crawled along the dread Hammersmith & City Line. A bunch of jabbering tele-salesmen were loudly discussing the upcoming World Cup and Fabio Capello's initial 30-man selection. Relief was expressed at John Terry's lack of a serious injury after the ridiculous rollercoaster of wild speculation that followed a Chelsea training-ground incident but then a special ire, delivered with no little bile, was aimed at none other than Paul Scholes. Scholes was recently asked by Capello to reconsider his six-year self-imposed exile from international football. Having been given the time to "sleep" on it, Scholes was not for turning, leaving Capello to plaintively say: "I tried." This, to my rapid-fire correspondent was proof of Scholes' status as a traitor to his country, a status shared by Alan Shearer for his own refusal to play beyond Euro 2000. http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/05/absentee_scholes_is_no_traitor.php http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/05/absentee_scholes_is_no_traitor.php Thu, 13 May 2010 13:24:00 +0000 "Més que un club" is the motto of FC Barcelona, the self-appointed guardians of that rather tiresome cliche "the beautiful game". Roughly translated as "more than a club", the phrase is described by the club's official website as being "open-ended in meaning". It goes on thus: "It is perhaps this flexibility that makes it so appropriate for defining the complexities of FC Barcelona’s identity, a club that competes in a sporting sense on the field of play." Yet Wednesday night's exit at the hands of Inter Milan showed that they lose just like any old modern football team - very badly indeed. And, while Jose Mourinho is a manager accused of seeking victory by any means necessary, Barcelona were the team whose Machiavellian methods drew the most truck and looked somewhat lacking in "a sporting sense". ]]> http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/04/barca_no_more_than_bad_sports.php http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/04/barca_no_more_than_bad_sports.php Thu, 29 Apr 2010 12:27:11 +0000
Red Bulls sing of tossed salads and lacks of skill © Getty Images
As a result of the extended global terrorism being carried out by the country who brought you Einar from the Sugarcubes, Eggert Magnusson and Jon Pall Sigmarsson, I am enjoying an extended stay on the eastern seaboard of the United States. As a result of that unpronounceable volcano, I largely missed out on a momentous weekend of Premier League action, and was sometimes even forced to follow matters on Soccernet... So, a sporting fix was required, and notwithstanding an abortive attempt to visit the new Yankees stadium that collapsed after being quoted the type of price that may well have given Uncle Malc Glazer his lead, it seemed right and proper to check out soccer played US-style. So began a trip to Harrison, New Jersey and Red Bull Arena, the spanking new home to the New York Red Bulls. ]]> http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/04/under_the_volcano.php http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/04/under_the_volcano.php Sun, 18 Apr 2010 20:47:04 +0000 Golden Foot Awards to follow my attendance at last year's ceremony. I will not reveal my nominees but, as a side question, I was also asked for my favourite footballers of all time. My answers? Eric Cantona, Johan Cruyff, Zinedine Zidane and Steve Burr. The first three need little introduction, though I am not quite old enough to have seen Cruyff's golden era. My admiration for him draws from poring over the old videos and coming to the decision that he is the player I would most like to have seen in the flesh. But what of Steve Burr, my wilfully obscure other choice? A Wikipedia search will reveal to you that he is current manager of Conference National side Kidderminster Harriers and not much else beside. The key to my ardour lies in his 1984-1992 spell at Macclesfield Town, where, as a barrel-chested part-time HGV-driving goal machine, his scoring feats powered the Silkmen to many a famous day - if you're from Macc, that is. ]]> http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/03/we_all_live_in_a_stevie_burr_w.php http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/03/we_all_live_in_a_stevie_burr_w.php Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:07:17 +0000 Chelsea TV's ‘The Best of Jose’ - a series of edited-together press conferences - and it was easy to see why so many agreed with his own self-styling of being special. ]]> http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/02/more_of_mourinho_if_you_must.php http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/02/more_of_mourinho_if_you_must.php Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:54:21 +0000 Before Tuesday, the last time David Beckham was involved in a European game of such magnitude involving Manchester United, he made an exciting but by no means decisive late contribution to the 4-3 classic with Real Madrid in 2003 - scoring two goals from the bench in a lost cause, during a time when he was at loggerheads with Sir Alex Ferguson. In one of his legion of autobiographies, Beckham later irked United fans by admitting he had gone home to tell his sons of "daddy's special night", when United had actually exited the competition, serving of proof to some that he had set his sights on a move to the Santiago Bernabeu. The football media is nothing but predictable and I'm sure our readers would argue that the Soccernet team are often prone to taking an obvious line. However, watching certain broadcasters' seeming intention to relegate a Champions League match between AC Milan and Manchester United to becoming another chapter in the David Beckham Story (TM) was somewhat depressing. That Beckham put in a largely anonymous performance did little to lift the spirits; he still remained the focus. While my colleague Harry Harris saw enough to suggest that Beckham can be an asset to England in South Africa, his editor was left wondering what function he performed for AC Milan. The arrival of a somewhat heavy-looking Clarence Seedorf showed Milan what they had been missing on the right-hand side of a midfield three. Suddenly, his team looked possessive of energy in midfield and had someone to play the sharp and incisive passes that the likes of Inzaghi, Pato and Ronaldinho could thrive on. http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/02/brand_beckhams_bad_night_out.php http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/02/brand_beckhams_bad_night_out.php Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:39:55 +0000 For at least seven days, ‘Staying Alive’ may soon be superseding the ‘Pompey Chimes’ at Fratton Park. Sympathy must go to the poor souls who find themselves within earshot of John ‘Portsmouth Football Club’ Westwood's attempts at emulating the Gibb brothers' falsetto. Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs seems to want to land the felling blow of execution, such has been their exasperation with football clubs going into administration and football debts being paid ahead of tax, as over 50 have done in the Football League. Pompey would be the first club from the Premier League to go into administration - or, worse, extinction - meaning the division’s supremo, Richard Scudamore, can no longer use that fact as evidence of the prudence of the English top-flight. A week is a long time in Pompey, especially where club ownership is concerned. In their defence against the winding-up order, the club submitted that they have two potential new owners to save them from the £11.5 million the HMRC demands. http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/02/pompey_are_victims_of_sullied.php http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/02/pompey_are_victims_of_sullied.php Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:21:56 +0000 Which route to take through the John Terry moral maze? Unless you have an admiration for highly-paid supposed role models behaving with the same devil-may-care attitude to monogamy as the courtiers of Caligula, it's fair to say he's been a very silly boy. Not least for getting caught. Perhaps most damaging to Terry and by his extension his fellow members of the football millionaires' club is that no-one seems particularly surprised that the self-styled strong man of the King's Road is a love rat. Indeed, the sense of moralising towards such people would seem to have long since passed. It's been obvious for years that footballers live by their own rules and indulge in practices, sexual and otherwise, that are not considered normal by or accessible to the man in the street. The money and privilege now afforded to footballers would seem to offer access to a lifestyle and opportunity akin to that of the classic rock ‘n' rollers of days gone by. Without the drugs, of course. The late Sid Vicious was once asked about the public's response to the Sex Pistols. "I've met the man in the street and he is a c***," came the response. Similarly, when Oasis singer Liam Gallagher was asked at the height of his fame whether his lifestyle of heavy refuelling and acquiring ladies was anything to be ashamed of, his response was this: "You'd 'ave it, wouldn't you." Keith Richards famously told a court that "we are not old men and we are not governed by petty morals". Some of the recent pratfalls of a group of young men whose brains are obviously restricted to below the waist would suggest a prevalence of similar attitudes, though perhaps without the style or articulacy. http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/02/loose_hips_may_sink_terrys_shi.php http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/02/loose_hips_may_sink_terrys_shi.php Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:42:50 +0000 English football's unwanted American families again dominate our headlines and it is a delicious irony that the country's greatest footballing rivals share such similar problems. Around the time Tom Hicks Junior's email abuse of a member of a fans activists group forced him to resign from the board of Liverpool FC came news of the Glazers' latest financial plan for Manchester United, a £500 million corporate bond that, in the 24 hours following its release, has come under severe scrutiny. Neither story should provide much comfort for followers of either club. Hicks stepped aside but his father remains in co-control with George Gillett. The source of the ire that caused the younger Hicks to pen the fateful words of "blow me f**kface" is believed to be the sending of an article about Rafael Benitez's transfer policy being forced to service the club's debts. Andriy Voronin and Andrea Dossena may be gone for a combined £6.5 million but a paltry £1.5 million is all the Spaniard has been granted to spend. http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/01/as_debts_rise_so_only_can_unea.php http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/01/as_debts_rise_so_only_can_unea.php Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:37:47 +0000 There are many dissenters of the transfer window system. Not least those of us who are in the business of generating football news stories. The intrigue surrounding the type of megadeals that used to happen mid-season was always a reliable way of filling column inches. Andy Cole's move from Newcastle United to Manchester United in January 1995 had me and my university chums crowded rounded the only telly we knew with teletext while a year later my Toon-supporting pals were celebrating the arrival of Faustino Asprilla as the final piece in the jigsaw. No such fun these days.The phrase "cutting your cloth accordingly" is one overused in football parlance but it's what clubs have to do. And the same goes for us in the reporting trade. http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/01/fear_of_an_opening_window.php http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2010/01/fear_of_an_opening_window.php Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:16:50 +0000 It has been a week for the veneration of legends. Ryan Giggs was honoured on Sunday as BBC Sports Personality of the Year for 2009, voted for by the people of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. An additional reward was his being scoffed at by many a critic. Giggs' winning of PFA Footballer of the Year in May for season 2008-9 also happened to much consternation. Sentiment clearly played a part in the delivery of both gongs to Giggs' Worsley mansion and it is that emotion that it is in overflowing supply over on Merseyside where Liverpool FC are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the arrival of Bill Shankly at Anfield. The Scot, hewn from the type of industrial working-class background that has yielded British football its greatest leaders, casts a shadow over the club he took from the obscurity of the Second Division to the precipice of their unprecedented glory of the late 70s and early 80s. Sunday was a day to relive all our yesterdays, as Ian St. John, Liverpool forward of the 60s, was called into the Sky studio to reminisce about the Shankly era ahead of his still-beloved team's clash with Arsenal. "Saint", previously full of anecdotes and those vocal impressions of the great man all his former charges seem to do (the word "son" gets plenty of airing amid a guttural Scots burr), ended the match looking as disconsolate as he probably did when his legendary ITV show "Saint and Greavsie" got axed in 1992. As tears welled in his eyes at Liverpool's current plight, he desperately needed Jimmy Greaves to steal in with a gag about Scottish goalkeepers to cheer him up. http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2009/12/across_the_great_divide.php http://blogs.soccernet.com/editorblog/archives/2009/12/across_the_great_divide.php Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:22:39 +0000