The Beautiful Game


Shaky United victory betrays lack of strength in squad

Louis Saha celebrates his goal in the 2-3 FA Cup victory over ReadingUnited were very lucky last night. I’ve never seen such a free-scoring start to a football match. United looked superb in the game’s opening stages, but when they went 3-0 up so early a comeback was always on the cards.

From the middle of the second half onwards, I thought United were pretty disappointing. Van der Sar flapped uncharacteristically, the defence looked shaky, Heinze’s erratic involvements demonstrated why he has fallen so far behind Patrice Evra in the left-back pecking order, Kieran Richardson had a thoroughly forgettable game, Darren Fletcher’s usually reliable distribution was found lacking, and Ji-Sung Park buzzed around to no real discernable effect.

The forwards, though, were superb. Solskjaer’s movement was marvellous, and I thought Saha looked completely unplayable. Not many forwards give Andre Bikey the brush-off quite so easily, but Saha had him in his pocket all night. Rarely do you see a centre forward play with quite such confidence in his strength and ability, and I thought he took his goal superbly.

But United did look wobbly. In the last fifteen minutes they defended like schoolboys – literally. And while the first team continues to purr like a new Ferrari, the Robin Reliant feel of the second eleven suggests the squad is considerably weaker than Chelsea and Arsenal’s.



Not so sweet FA
February 27 2007, 10:38 pm
Filed under: Cardiff 1-0 Leeds, Cardiff City, Dave Jones, FAW, Leeds United, Simon Walton, The FA, Welsh FA

Cardiff City manager Dave JonesCardiff City manager Dave Jones and on-loan midfielder Simon Walton have been charged by the Welsh FA for their behaviour during and after the recent victory over Leeds, and Jones must be absolutely livid.

He’s been at loggerheads with the FAW all season over the tardiness with which they have acted regarding Cardiff’s appeals against red cards, and this may well be the final straw.

Walton was hugely unlucky to be sent off against Leeds (he was sent off for two bookable offences, the second of which was a non-existent dive). The FAW have accepted that he didn’t deserve to be sent off, but as they are unable to rescind yellow cards, they have just pressed ahead and charged Walton with improper conduct for kicking the fourth official’s electronic board as he walked from the pitch. Jones will be steaming.

Cardiff are already pursuing the possibility of leaving the FAW and joining the English FA, as they’re worried that, should they qualify for the Premiership and then for Europe, the FAW could block their involvement on the grounds that they shouldn’t be allowed to represent Wales because they play in the English system.

All this suggests that the simmering tension between the Welsh FA and Wales’s biggest football club is reaching boiling point. I wouldn’t like to get in Dave Jones’s way the next time the FAW crosses him…



Chelsea win the battle…

Players from Chelsea and Arsenal clash towards the end of the 2007 Carling Cup FinalChelsea 2-1 Arsenal. A gripping game. Goals, fisticuffs, controversy, near-decapitation and the occasional flourish of sweet passing football. Shame Chelsea won though.

I am a Man United fan, but I must confess that I love the football Arsenal play. And they began today’s game with such gusto and enterprise. Walcott took his goal so well, and I began to secretly hope that they would swarm all over Chelsea’s expensively assembled team of strop-throwing primadonnas, proving once and for all that, in the long term, you really can’t buy success.

But, inevitably, Chelsea came back at them. And when Drogba notched the winner, Wenger’s ‘Young Guns’ proved that they are just as much a bunch of strop-throwing primadonnas as Mourinho’s ‘men’. It was a shame the game had to end that way – particularly after the injury sustained by John Terry – but it did make bloody good television.

And yet, when the dust settles, how happy can Chelsea be? Yes, they have the season’s first piece of silverware – and Mourinho’s attachment to the League Cup is commendable – but they are now nine points behind United and once again without their inspirational skipper. Methinks the Premiership trophy is beginning to inch its way back towards the M6…



Swing and you’re winning
February 22 2007, 3:28 pm
Filed under: Barcelona, Barcelona 1-2 Liverpool, Craig Bellamy, Liverpool, Racing Post, gambling

Craig Bellamy celebrates his goal against BarcelonaYesterday morning: the Racing Post reveals that some bookmakers are offering odds of 100-1 on Craig Bellamy scoring against Barcelona and celebrating with a golf swing.

Yesterday evening: Craig Bellamy scores against Barcelona… and celebrates with a golf swing.

Anyone else think Bellamy’s gambling mates might have had more than a helping hand in inspiring last night’s celebration?

I wonder whether he got a cut of the winnings…



Advantage Liverpool

John Arne Riise celebrates his goal against Barcelona in last night's Champions League gameBarcelona 1-2 Liverpool. It sticks in the throat a bit, but I thought Liverpool were excellent last night.

The absence of a real, defence-stretching frontman in the Barca team meant they were forced to field a more compact team than they would prefer to, and Benitez robbed Deco, Messi and Ronaldinho of the space on which they thrive by packing the midfield with Sissoko, Alonso and Gerrard. It enabled Liverpool to play a classic counter-attacking game, and even though Barcelona just shaded possession, there wasn’t much between the teams in terms of shots on goal.

The lack of space in front of the Liverpool back four frustrated Barca’s attackers, and the persistent harrying of the Barca defence by Bellamy and Kuyt meant that the Catalans were frequently hurried out of their usual passing game. As a consequence Barca began to look ragged, but Liverpool retained commendable caution by sitting back and trying to pick them off on the break.

Before the game I thought the Liverpool team looked a little unbalanced with a left midfielder (Riise) and a centre forward (Bellamy) on the left, and two right-backs (Arbeloa and Finnan) on the right, but Riise and Bellamy did a great job of shackling Messi, and both Liverpool’s goals came from attacks down the right.

Frank Rijkaard’s post-match comments will not inspire much confidence in the Barca faithful: “We must always be positive, but we have to be realistic. It will be difficult to make a comeback.”

Hardly Churchillian, but it demonstrates the unyielding pragmatism of many European clubs. The never-say-die attitude synonymous with British football is something that a lot of Spanish and Italian teams just do not understand, but it’s looking stronger than ever in this season’s Champions League.



Five Great Left-foot Volleys

There are few finer sights in football than a well-struck left-foot volley. Right-foot volleys can be pretty special, but given the predominant right-footedness of most players, a left-foot volley is just that little bit rarer.

Robin van Persie and Matthew Taylor have both scored sublime left-foot volleys in the Premiership this season. But how do they compare to three of the best left-foot volleys scored in Europe over the past few seasons?

1. Silvinho, for Celta Vigo v Barcelona (h), La Liga, 2002-2003

2. Mariano Pernia, for Getafe v Barcelona (h), La Liga, 2005-2006

3. Francesco Totti, for Roma v Sampdoria (a), Serie A, 2006-2007

I was going to put these five goals into some kind of order, but I just can’t separate them. Football doesn’t get much sweeter than this.



Mullet over
February 14 2007, 5:57 pm
Filed under: Chris Waddle, England, France, OM, Olympique Marseilles, Turkey, Zinedine Zidane, football, soccer

Chris WaddleToday I have mostly been getting excited about… Chris Waddle.

Not for nothing was the Geordie wing wizard once included in an All-Time Greatest XI by Zinedine Zidane. Waddle was one of the stars of Le Championnat when Zidane was starting out, and I for one can certainly see glimpses of Waddle in the languid, lolloping style of the great Zizou.

And I wonder how many football fans are familiar with this goal? OK, the goalkeeping is a bit shoddy, but it’s still pretty tasty. And with his right foot as well!



Arrogant self-aggrandising alienates Henry’s admirers

Thierry HenryRob Smyth has written an interesting article about the increasingly petulant behaviour of Thierry Henry on the Guardian Unlimited website today.

The Arsenal captain’s taunting of Wigan keeper Chris Kirkland in yesterday’s game at the Emirates Stadium is the latest indication that the one-time ’nicest man in football’ is losing that certain va va voom that once made people so fond of him.

His childish post-Champions League Final rant at the referee was thoroughly embarrassing, and his conduct at times this season has been less than impressive. The goals haven’t been flowing that freely either, and while Henry’s form has stuttered, his younger team-mates have begun to intrude into the limelight that once belonged completely to him. His attempts to force his way back into that limelight by making himself the focal point of the team’s celebrations (even when he hasn’t been playing) have been toe-curling to say the least.

One suspects that, particularly given the injury that has kept Samuel Eto’o out of action for so long this season, Henry is beginning to wonder what might have been had he swapped London for Barcelona when he had the chance to last summer.



The problem with English football

England coach Steve McClarenEngland 0-1 Spain. A dismal home defeat against the notoriously underachieving Spanish, and calls for Steve McClaren’s head. There are big problems with English football. But they have nothing to do with passion or ‘balls’ or desire, and everything to do with coaching.

Chris Waddle makes some valid points in this article for the BBC from October last year. England just isn’t producing exciting players. And it’s a problem that stretches all the way down to grass roots football.

As soon as a boy shows any interest in football, he is given a shirt, put into an 11-a-side game and told that he is a goal-keeper, a full-back, a centre-half, a central midfielder, a winger or a centre forward. And he will play that position all his life, because the 4-4-2 formation always prevails. And it prevails to such a ridiculous extent that when an England manager dares to experiment with his formation, we hear stories about groups of senior players lobbying him to change his mind. A top player should be able to adapt to a change in formation.

Look at the last World Cup. Germany were the only team that achieved any kind of success playing 4-4-2. Finalists Italy and France both played a variation of the 4-4-2 that was closer to 4-2-3-1. England were the only ‘major’ nation who did not consistently employ at least one dedicated holding midfielder.

One problem is that England doesn’t produce dedicated holding midfielders. It produces all-action, box-to-box marauders like Lampard and Gerrard, but not patient, composed ball-winners like Claude Makelele and Javier Mascherano. And nor does England produce classic deep-lying centre forwards (with Wayne Rooney being the obvious recent exception). Why? The 4-4-2. If a player is a good all-rounder, he becomes a central midfielder. If he is pacy and skilful, he gets stuck out on the wing.

And the blame for this lies with the coaches. Look at the disdain with which a lot of managers regard coaching badges. Look at the mass support that Glenn Roeder and Gareth Southgate received in their battle with the League Managers Association. We in Great Britain like to think that our players know the game so well they don’t need to be taught how to become coaches. And so we allow players to go straight into management, and then decry their ineptness when their tactical limitations are inevitably revealed.

It is not so in Italy. It is not so in France. It is not so in most European countries. They understand the importance of injecting fresh thinking into the game. In Italy there is the Coverciano coaching school, where trainee coaches are taught about a plethora of different tactical systems, and encouraged to bring their own ideas to bear on how they coach. Giovanni Trapattoni, Fabio Capello, Claudio Ranieri and Marcello Lippi are all Coverciano graduates, and look at the success they have achieved.

And now look at the Premiership. The top clubs are all managed by European or Scottish managers. But there are very few genuinely innovative English managers. Too many are slaves to the 4-4-2, to the old, English way of doing things. Even Steve McClaren – a very highly regarded coach during his time at Derby County – appears to have lost his way. At least the influence of Jose Mourinho has encouraged a few more managers to experiment with the counter-attacking 4-3-3.

English football has to realise that it is no longer a world leader. The Premiership may be “the most exciting league in the world”, but that’s only because we have so many foreign players who can make up for the technical deficiencies of their homegrown colleagues. English coaches need to realise that there is no shame in being coached. And only when England learns to follow the example of places like Italy and France will it break the stranglehold of the 4-4-2 and begin to produce more players capable of producing that little piece of inspiration that is the difference between moderate success and greatness.



No friendly fire

Northern Ireland 0-0 Wales. Pretty dismal in the end. Not much to shout about, although Jason Koumas’s performance – from a Welsh perspective – was very encouraging. He played some superb passes, but his distribution has always been exceptional. It was his tackling and dribbling that impressed me tonight. If West Brom don’t get promoted this season, I’d really like to see a Premiership club come in for him in the summer.

And I’m still trying to figure out why John Toshack brought 19 year-old David Cotterill on at half-time, only to substitute him for Jermaine Easter midway through the second half. One from the Steve McClaren school of man-management, it would appear.

And why were Ryan Giggs and Gareth Bale on the bench? Toshack may have wished to keep his cards close to his chest prior to next month’s Euro 2008 qualifier against the Republic of Ireland, but you don’t have to be Nostradamus to realise they’re both likely to start.