Left Back In The Changing Room

The Prince

2012-01-24T15:00:00.000-08:00

I have a few pieces almost complete but, in the meantime, I thought readers might enjoy a little video post about one of the most graceful players ever to play the game: Enzo Francescoli.

I can think of few players who are so lithe, so elegant and so fluid in their movement and who seem to possess those qualities when in control of the ball. Although his nickname was ''The Prince'', and he has a princely demeanour about him, in many ways ''The Swan'' would have been a better name. Elegance underpinned by enormous energy. Even when he surges past a player

There isn't the cockiness of Cruyff, or Prosinecki, but Francescoli's work in ''the tight'' is similar to both. Perhaps that is the princely demeanour. He doesn't need to be cocky. He doesn't need to show off. Of course, there are the impressive flicks and tricks but they do not seem to be intended for show but rather for go.
No, Enzo, seems to be about gliding past players and through defences. Sure, he can scream past them if needs be but he is one of those players who seems effortless.

What always impresses me about Francescoli is his directness, there is no messing about, there is no ''cat and mouse'' with the opposition. He seems to take the quickest route to goal.

It doesn't hurt that he can score absolutely astonishing goals.

One of the finest players of the 1980s, a man who inspired Zidane (he was Zidane's idol and a man he modelled himself on - one can see the similarities) and a River Plate legend. He, like Hugo Sanchez (covered here last week), is one of those players that is often overlooked when we discuss greats of the past.

RCM

The dragback that changed the world

2012-01-20T14:53:00.000-08:00

One of the most famous results in history is the famous England 3 - 6 Hungary game in 1953. The game was significant for any number of reasons and the result still resonates today.

The arrogance of Albion believed that they couldn't be beaten on home soil (in 90 years, England had never lost to a side from outside the British Isles on UK soil). For years, the FA had assumed that the English national team was superior to that of teams from around the world. They took little heed of the World Cup (a competition which had been taken on four occasions by 1953). This belief of superiority over the rest of the world included the belief they would beat the stunning Hungary team that arrived at Wembley that November day on an unbeaten run of 24 games.

So what happened in those 90 minutes?

The WM Formation was discredited. The English players were hapless in trying to grapple with concepts and tactics which, to them, were as alien as modesty is to Alex Salmond.

Heroes of the game - heroes to this day - like Wright, Matthews and Mortensen were outclassed and outshone. These men were titans of the British game.

The idea that the England manager didn't need to be a specialist was shown to be obviously laughable.

Six of the team, including Mortensen, never pulled on the white of England again.

Fifty years of British managers were affected. Busby, Revie, Nicholson, Ramsey (who played in the game), Clough, and Robson were all influenced by the Hungarians. The fall-out of that lives on. Sir Alex Ferguson was wowed by the Puskas-inspired Real Madrid in 1960. To a large extent, many of Britain's greatest teams were influenced and inspired by 11 Hungarians who not only beat, but destroyed, England in 1953.
Some may argue that some of the faults of that day still exist. That we believe that we are the rightful rulers of world football because of our founding role in the game; that we will, one day, rule the pitches of the world again; that we do not think enough about the game; that tactical innovation is a form of cheating; and that we lag behind the rest of the world in technical ability. There may well be some truth in all that. As important as that game was we still haven't learnt out lessons.

Still, the moment everything changed? Surely the dragback after 44 and 50 seconds in this game? If anything in that game typifies what happened it is Puskas making a fool out of the English defence.

The whole game was impressive but that dragback is outstanding. Even today it would be outrageous. Then, as Sir Bobby Robson described it ''We didn't know about Puskas... they were men from Mars as far as we were concerned''. They were men from Mars before the game and after the game - just in different ways.

RCM

Man Crush #1: Thierry Henry

2012-01-17T14:24:00.000-08:00

For some time, the excellent Twisted Blood has been running a series called ''Through Gritted Teeth''. This is a space for fans to praise a player they should despise. I owe TB one - I cannot decide which of the triumvirate of evil (Neville, Cantona and Keane) to write about. It is an excellent series covering everyone from Mourinho to Matty Holland, Andreas Moller to Landon Donavon.

Anyway, as a flipside, I'm going to invite bloggers, journalists and writers to submit pieces about players they adore a little too much. There doesn't need to be any teeth gritting, or gut wrenching, just put forward players you adore*. If you fancy writing, please just ask in the comments or drop me an email to lbinthechangingroom@yahoo.co.uk

So, first up, is my best man, Kenny Fleming who has previously written for the blog with his man crush: Thierry Henry. (For those interested in the man: I wrote about Thierry's return last week).

Can someone get Kenny a towel?

RCM

* Only one of you can have Riquelme.

Man Crush #1 - Thierry Henry

Thierry Henry is my favourite ever footballer. My Irish friends may not like this but it is true. I won’t say he is the most talented, or the best player of his generation, but no footballer has brought me pleasure the way Henry has. Growing up, Arsenal were always my English team. The first European club football I remember were Arsenal’s adventures in the European Cup Winner’s Cup under George Graham. I mean what Primary School kid couldn't fail to fall in love with the flair of a Graham eleven? However, it was the arrival and blossoming of Henry that really made me a fan. Beyond his talent and skill, he had a mixture of style, charisma and swagger that had me at bonjour.

I was a proper fan boy as well, with rather embarrassing consequences. I once bought a Ralph Lauren Polo Shirt with an oversized Polo figure and a long sleeved white T-Shirt to go under because I’d seen him wearing the same outfit. He carried off this casual look remaining chic and cool, I looked like a Glaswegian wally stuffed into a tacky top. Quelle surprise. His charisma did not go unnoticed by advertisers either. If I could drive I’d have probably bought a Renault. How could I resist Mr Henry as he said ‘Va Va Voom’ with his eyebrow raised with just a hint of self-deprecation?

I was further seduced by his intelligence. I had become used to seeing dull, inarticulate British footballers reel off a host of clichés, when - indeed - they managed to say anything at all. But Henry was something different. In post-match interviews, he was poised and articulate and managed to rise above platitudinous twaddle. He did all of this while not a native English speaker.

But above all else it was what he did on the pitch that mattered. In his prime, his pace was dizzying, confusing, discombobulating. Watching Henry could provoke feelings of nausea in those in the stands or on their couch, let alone opposition defenders. At points he would look disinterested, seemingly peeling off into the inside left channel with typical Gallic insouciance. However, it didn’t stay that way for long as he would explosively cut in from the right a blur of short twitch muscle fibres. The likes of Bergkamp, Pires, and Fabregas were the artists, but Henry’s athleticism was the canvas.

My favourite ever Henry goal, and I suppose it is my favourite ever goal scored as well, was his wondrous effort against Manchester United in October 2002. It was a goal not merely breathtaking in its execution, but in its imagination. Receiving a pass with his back to goal Henry did nothing as sensible or prosaic as pass and spin off. Instead, Henry flicked the ball in the air, and with a rapid turn struck a looping volley over the disbelieving Fabian Barthez. It was the audacity, the sheer audacity of trying something quite so outlandish that made it memorable.

Individual honours, silverware, they all came but one day he left and I was sad. The footballing icon of my adolescence was off to bag his Champions League with Barcelona. Yet improbably, Henry returned to Arsenal on a two month loan from New York Red Bulls. Many Arsenal fans were nervous about this. Would Henry embarrass himself? Could this loan spell actually be so calamitous that it would desecrate his place in Arsenal’s history? But return he did, and his with this shaved head and thick beard there was something of the wandering preacher in his appearance. An appropriate guise for what was to follow.

So the scene was set, a third round FA Cup tie against Leeds United with no goals scored. An Arsenal side moving the ball around with verve, but instead of a precise rapier up front, they had a rolled up newspaper in the form of Marouanne Chamakh. So Chamakh got the hook and this hastened the return of the King. At first it looked like the game was passing him by, the tempo and energy of the game leaving him look a step behind what was to follow. But this was merely setting the scene for what was to come. He received a neat pass from Song with a perfect first touch, so he could open up his body and then slot the ball in the bottom corner.

It was vintage Henry. It was a vintage football moment. Football seems to throw up moments like that ever more infrequently the older I get. (Not just because I’m an Arsenal fan!) Between Sepp Blatter, Russian oil Oligarchs and ugly racist incidents the game lacks the romance it had when I kicked a ball around the playground.

Rob had a poignant post a few weeks ago that talked about how football can show us that we are ageing. This is true. However, the game can also do something else. It can help us remember a time before we were heavy with the weary cynicism of experience, a time before mortgages, personal development reviews and break ups. It can let our favourite player open up his body, slot the ball in the bottom right corner and for a moment, just one fleeting moment, we can us experience the undiluted joy of our hero scoring the way he once did. Sometimes, just sometimes the game can make us feel young again.

From Hoof to Haan: The end of the centre-back?

2012-01-16T13:56:00.000-08:00

All innovations in football lead back to Amsterdam. At that World Cup in 1974, Arie Haan was not deployed in his customary position of midfield but rather at the heart of defence. This was a reaction to a series of injuries to specialist centre backs but, with a player as gifted as Haan at centre-back, it allowed Total Football's highest heights to be realised.

As Cruyff later put it ''We wanted to press forward and therefore had a huge space behind our defence. We needed fit defenders to the cover the area. Also, with Jansen and Nees in midfield, we felt we could cover the centre position and by adding a more football-player type libero we could get the upper-hand of the games''.

In recent seasons, we have seen a quiet trend which echoes Michels' decision in 1974. More and more midfielders are being deployed in central defence - either out of necessity due to injury or sometimes such positioning has been quite deliberate. Notable examples include Sergio Busquets, Javi Martinez, Javier Mascherano, Darren Fletcher, and Michael Carrick.

But why?

As more and more teams field formations with either one or two defensive midfielders we are likely to see more ''footballing centre-backs''.

Defensive midfielders, who snap and crackle between the normal defensive and midfield lines, tend to focus on gaining possession via interceptions and general pressing patterns. When they have gained possession they focus on hoarding the ball (e.g. playing short passes to more creative or forward thinking players). This means that their space is limited and that creativity may need to come from somewhere else where individuals have more space.

If a team sets up with two defensive midfielders it makes sense to have centre-backs who can play the ball. Indeed, such a system can put additional creative pressure on the centre-backs. (One could argue that the move towards dominating possession puts such an onus on centre-backs even if they do not deploy defensive midfielders. After all, there is little point looking to dominate possession if when your centre-backs get it they launch it forward aimlessly like The Great Panjandrum hoping it will hit its target.)

Moreover, a midfielder playing in central defence can be helpful in a number of other ways. As teams at the highest level look to play a ''False 9'', a centre-back who is comfortable tracking him will be of additional use. This may mean moving out of the main defensive line and into midfield. We hear, endlessly, the value of attackers ''drifting between the lines''. The ''spare'' centre-back, a converted midfielder, would be ideal for chasing such a player.

Other attacking formations allow more space for centre-backs as fewer and fewer teams are playing with two forwards (indeed, outside of England, 4-4-2 often has all the appeal of a shit baguette). If anything, that gives at least one centre-back more time on the ball, more space and more freedom. If those things exist, it makes sense for teams to exploit that with a centre-back who can pick a pass. Who better to do that than a converted midfielder?

Finally, teams that play an intense pressure game (such as Barcelona) rely on hard defensive work being undertaken by midfielders and attackers. That should mean less pressure, and less defensive work, for centre-backs.

Jonathan Wilson predicted that we would - at some stage - see the merging of the role of centre-back and defensive midfielder. If the teams at the top of the game, like Barcelona and Manchester United, are playing centre-backs in midfield we can see that he spotted the trend correctly.

As with so much in football this isn't new. One could have played any of Beckenbauer, Augethaler, Koeman, Krol, Baresi and Hierro in either defence or midfield. The apotheosis though was Haan. And that's the journey we are going to witness - watching our centre-backs move from ''hoof'' to Haan.

RCM

What we can learn from rugby #764

2012-01-14T04:05:00.000-08:00

A nice little video piece from our egg-chasing friends:

Volume is needed to appreciate it fully.

Whilst I am somewhat loathe to encourage more rugger buggers in the City, and in Edinburgh, getting on their high horse about how games are refereed. If nothing else, to my knowledge, no footballer has yet resorted to Hammer Horror blood capsules in the mouth.

I do think though we must acknowledge that sort of conversation is preferable to the behaviour we routinely see in football. Such behaviour culminates in the sort of antics that Scott Johnston decries here. I don't think the above cannot happen in football. We just need the FA, and referees, to be stronger on such matters and to start routinely carding people for backchat.

And whilst you are here, at LBITCR, why not read some of the week's new pieces? On Messi, on journeymen, and on how we feel when players retire. I think they are rather good but then I am an egomaniac so it is probably better you just leave your comments to keep me in check.

RCM

The beauty of the journeyman

2012-01-13T15:19:00.000-08:00

It is easy to understand why many in the game fetishise and hero-worship the one-club man. In many of our minds he typifies what football should be about.

When a player plays for one club for the entirety of his career many in the game view this as a more worthwhile career or a more virtuous career than those who chop and change clubs.

When that player is a local boy things are even better. The likes of Gerrard, Scholes and Terry are viewed as a throwback to days when things were better, when teams were truly representative of the fans in the stand and when clubs were an extension of the areas that supported them.

Admittedly there is much to be said for the loyalty of such individuals. It is natural that fans will warm to players who dedicate their careers to their club. I would contend there is more to be said for one-club men who stick with clubs slightly lower down the pecking order. It was easy - for instance - for Gary Neville to stay at Manchester United. Why would a Manchester United fan leave Manchester United (unless pushed) when they are going through their most successful period in history (all the while earning a fortune)? Some may argue that Matt Le Tissier had a fundamental lack of ambition or sheer sloth and those are the reasons he stayed at Southampton whilst bigger clubs sniffed around him. I think there is something admirable in Le Tissier staying at a club like Southampton when he could have earned more, and won more, elsewhere.

All that said, I think we often overlook a group of men just as worthy of our admiration and respect: the journeyman. Those men who are forever on the highways and by-ways of England, forever starting out at a lower league club, forever pulling on a new strip (slightly tighter than the last). Men who were once bright-eyed players wheeling away in celebration but, as time goes on, the look of grim determination and old pro guile becomes the defining feature replacing the vim and brio of youth.It is easy to imagine a journeyman suffering with aches and pains, physically making noise as he pulls on his boots, hauling his wearying body onto frosted pitches in the icy air of the provinces and shires of England. Journeymen tend not to reside in the footballing metropolises after all. One imagines him increasingly bitter and jaded and an inability to understand the youngsters he's playing alongside. The bitterness, that jaded quality, may be the reason why as time goes on they stay at clubs for shorter and shorter spells.

Why do these men persist in playing?

Is it because - despite the rumours of vast wealth in the game - they need to pay the mortgage? Trevor Benjamin, a man who rejects the definition of journeyman but who has played 27 clubs, once said ''This is a profession, a job and all footballers seek work. You hope you do a good job and that you earn money''. Of course, Benjamin is still only 32 (and said that aged 30) so perhaps that is a different answer to asking the player who keeps going until he is 40.

Is it because they just love playing football and will do anything to continue? Possibly. It might be that they are hoping beyond hope that they'll find their feet and form, scoring goals again like they did in the past and they too - like so many of us five-a-side dreamers - can touch their youth again. Or, less romantically, they just like kicking a ball around a pitch. Maybe the hoariest of ex-pro clichés ''the thing you miss most is the dressing room banter'' is enough to keep them going.

Or is there something more existential: they continue to play because they do not know what else to do? Those players who end up playing in front of three men and his dog, earning a pittance and playing at what must be a frustratingly low standard may be doing it because if they didn't they wouldn't have anything else. It is likely that the game is all they have ever known.

There are some similarities of all the great journeymen. There is usually a career high when they sparkle, briefly, in the Premier League. Trevor Benjamin had his day at Leicester City and alongside Terry and Defoe in the England U21s. Steve Claridge - the archetypal journeyman - also reached his heighest league finishes with Leicester. Neil Redfearn played in the bottom half of the Premier League for a number of years. Even the great but ultimately deranged John Burridge enjoyed time at Aston Villa in the 1970s (NB: The man slept with his ball for goodness' sake).

A true journeyman tumbles down the divisions from a career high.This tumbling turns into a rapid decline and, usually, the new clubs become more frequent and the number of games played each time dwindles. Perhaps, we should call this the Claridge Ratio?

Players like Claridge, Redfearn and Benjamin inhabit that great rump of England that HS2 speeds will one day rush through, rather than rush to, and in the sort of towns one only hears of when either cupsets or tragedies occur. But it isn't just those clubs in the lower leagues. As a journeyman winds through his thirties and - occasionally - forties they will take up arms for increasingly bizarre teams. Some will consider the Irish league, the lower Scottish leagues or obscure clubs overseas but most spend years dropping down the divisions until the difference is no longer between professional and amateur but rather amateur and talented pub player.

Benjamin spent time at Gainsborough Trinity, Northwich Victoria, Hendesford Town, Kidsgrove Athletic, Bedlington Terriers, Wroxham and Morpeth Town.

Claridge, after scrabbling around Division 1 and 2, trotted out Worthing, Harrow Borough, Weymouth and now - aged 45 - Gosport Borough.

Redfearn enjoyed spells at Bradford Park Avenue, Stocksbridge Park Steels, Frickley Athletic, Bridlingtown Town, Emley and Salford City.

There is something poetic about those names: Gainsborough Trinity, Stocksbridge Park Steels and Bedlington Terriers. That really is England. That really is football. Those teams and leagues are made up of the talented boys at school who weren't quite good enough to play in the big leagues who keep playing away at the base of the pyramid to ensure the whole thing stands strong. They are the men that keep the whole thing going.

RCM

Pentapichichi

2012-01-12T15:33:00.000-08:00

Whilst I finish off a piece about journeymen, why not enjoy some fantastic goals from one of the 1980s finest players: Hugo Sanchez

A truly outstanding player and one, I'm sure, you'll enjoy.

RCM

The Greatest?

2012-01-10T13:50:00.000-08:00

One day in the future you will be asked ''How good was Lionel Messi?''. Maybe you will be wearing a velvet jacket when you are asked the question by a grandchild. If so, you'll be in good company.

The more I consider that question - in the present tense - the more I am convinced that not only are we in the presence of genius but, more than that, we may very well be watching the finest player ever to play the game.

Pub debates will rage over whether he truly is better than Maradona or Pele or Cruyff. There is no doubt that each is a wonderful player but there is little doubt that we are increasingly debating the merit of those four players when we decide who is the finest to kick a ball. Increasingly, Best, di Stefano, Beckenbauer, Puskas and so forth are considered just a little further back.

On a technical level, there is very little between that magic four. Some may argue that Pele had better touch than Maradona or that Cruyff understood the game better than Messi but, in reality, the differences are minute.

That said, I cannot see a weakness in Messi's game. With many great players, there is an arrogance that comes with the job. That is lacking in Messi. With many great players, there is a selfishness and, again, that seems to have avoided Messi entirely. It is his all-round game that bewilders.

We know him to have unparalleled ball control and dribbling abilities. We know him to be able to score almost every type of goal imaginable. We know that some of the goals he scores - with frightening regularity and disproportionately in big games - defy belief. We do not always acknowledge that he is one of the finest passers of the ball in the modern game. Indeed, I can only think of Xavi - and possibly Cesc Fabregas - as being ahead of him when it comes to an entire range of passing.

If Messi wasn't a forward, we would be drooling over the passes. As it happens we generally ignore this facet of his game.

As I've eluded to above what sets Lionel Messi apart for me is something not related to the magic in his boots. Messi takes us all back to childhood because his play is child-like. He reminds us of the boy in the playground who couldn't be tackled, couldn't be hacked. But Messi is not doing this in the playground. He is doing it against some of the best defenders in the game marshalled by superb coaches.

I admire Cristiano Ronaldo. I do not like him. I do not gain joy from the way he scores goals or dominates games. I admire it, I can appreciate his genius and, in any other era, we would lavish him with awards but it does not give me the joy that watching Messi does. That may be because Messi is so obviously unselfish. It may be because he takes such obvious joy from playing and also from assisting his team-mates. It may be because he looks like he is having a hell of a time of it.

And that should matter. We can talk about passing completion rates until the Sam Allardyce explodes in sexual frenzy but we rarely talk about how players make us feel or how they play the game. As Cruyff said ''There is no better medal than being acclaimed for your style''. And boy, Messi has style.

There seems to be only one charge against him. That he doesn't cut it at international level.

Firstly, Messi is 24 years old. He is still some years from his peak. Maradona was at his finest at the 1986 World Cup when he was 26. Cruyff, at his only World Cup, in 1974 was 27 years old. Messi has time on his side. Zidane was 26 at France '98 (a tournament he really only shone at in the final). He has time on his side.

It is telling that at such a young age we are already considering him against the greats of the game. Barcelona have built one of the greatest teams in history around him. He may be the best player in the world but he is part of the team not separate too it.
Secondly, do we really believe that only players that have won the World Cup count? No. Clearly because we consider Cruyff as one of the greats and he didn't - sadly - win the World Cup. We consider di Stefano, Best and Weah who never played at the World Cup. We are saying that a player can only be considered the greatest in history if he happened to be born in a small handful of countries.
Thirdly, the idea that the World Cup is the be-all and end-all is dying away. The European Champions League is the highest level the game has to offer these days and Messi has totally and utterly dominated that tournament over the past five years. Maradona never really did anything in the European Cup - a European Cup which was easier to win and, when he was at his peak, deprived of English teams. The European Cup has got harder to win (if easier to qualify for) since Maradona's day and no player has shone as brightly or as often in it as Messi. That should be an enormous tick in his favour.

It is odd to base whether or not a player is the greatest in history because he shone for a handful of games one summer in his entire career rather than considering what he achieves over the course of that career. If Messi retired tomorrow there would be a legitimate case to argue he is the finest. If he continues at this pace for a few years there will be no debate.

This third point is particularly important when comparing with Maradona. Maradona, so the story goes, won the World Cup on his own in 1986. Messi didn't win the World Cup in 2010. Therefore, Maradona is better. We shouldn't rush to judgement. I would contend that the general standard of teams at the 2010 World Cup was higher than at the 1986 version. Maradona, for example, never had to deal with a team as elegant as the 2010 Germany team (let alone the 2010 Spain team).

The 1986 draw was kind for Maradona and Argentina in 1986. After the group stage, Uruguay, England (which was only achieved through an astonishing goal and an equally astonishing piece of cheating), Belgium and West Germany were dispatched. A team can only beat who is put in front of them but Argentina were fortunate to avoid Brazil, France and Denmark. England, Belgium and West Germany were decent teams but they will not resonate down the years.

Moreover, Maradona didn't ever have a manager who was quite so wired to the moon as, well, Maradona. Maradona's manager, Bilardo, in 1986 built a team to get the very best out of El Diego. Messi's manager in 2010 played a left-winger at right-back and setting up unbalanced teams. That Argentina were ruthlessly cast aside by Germany is barely Messi's fault and, let's not forget, Messi shone prior to that game. Rarely will we have a case of one of the contenders for greatest player so clearly undermining one of his rivals.

Those who insist on the importance of a player ''owning'' a tournament are curiously Euro-centric. The only tournaments that we consider are the World Cup (Cruyff - 1974; Maradona 1986) we consider the European Championships (Platini - 1984; van Basten - 1988). We do not speak of the Copa America because we do not know enough about it. We do not consider it an equal of the European Championships. We do not know, for instance, that Messi shone at the 2007 Copa America (aged only 20) but Robinho, of all people, shone a little more brightly.

Messi has time on his side. He also has a velvet jacket. He will be the greatest. Lionel Messi is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Let us enjoy that at least.

RCM

Mercedes Benz for the feet

2012-01-09T11:40:00.000-08:00

Most people who come to Left Back In The Changing Room are looking for something a bit different - a team made up of people whose surnames begin with K, a poignant piece on the wonders of Nicky Barmby or a contrarian piece on why Michael Carrick is the saviour of England. Well, today, you get a boot review. You weren't expecting that were you, old darling?

Away from this blog, I occasionally play the game. Zut alors!

And there you were thinking these bloggers just sat at their PCs endlessly stuffing Oreos into their face flicking between their latest blogpost on why Iker Muniain is the best thing since Juan Roman Riquelme and pioneering tactical innovations on FM12 (erm, isn't that exactly what you usually do? - ed.)

No, I do play. I am the only man to have scored a hat-trick and scored a half-century for Teuchters (the bar I frequent in the West End of Edinburgh). I also once scored a hat-trick in the Northern Hemisphere vs Southern Hemisphere game. Admittedly that was at the World Universities Debating Championships but a hat-trick is a hat-trick dagnammit and a 6-2 win is a 6-2 win! My friends - as you will no doubt have come to realise - have heard these tales before.

I was lucky enough to try out the Adidas Adipure IV TRX SG. I liked that the boots have got letters after the name. It made me feel like I was wearing a Mercedes. In a way, I was: German-engineered and designed, lots of plush leather and better than most things on the market.

Clumsily enough, I took them out for a test drive at the weekend and was seriously impressed with the quality. Luckily, no video footage exists of my performance. Needless to say if it had been good, I'd have been boasting. That wasn't the boots fault, they did their damned best and passing a ball with them felt lovely (as an aside, is there a better feeling in the world than striking a ball crisply in nice leather football boots and then standing back to admire the pass?). The boots were great. It is hardly their fault that the feet in them were attached to a body that's just been on a three-week honeymoon and two-week Christmas holiday.
There are three features I particularly like about the boots. They are slightly heavier than some of the boots on the market. Not heavy enough to notice but not so light, like many other boots, to make you worry about your metatarsals. I think this is an Adidas thing, as it happens, but not entirely sure why. Nike always seem a little flimsy to me.

Secondly, I prefer boots that do not have folded-over tongues. If you are going to hit a ball and put your laces through a ball, I'd rather just hit the ball. It adds a little bit of poetry if you ask me. It also, if you are good enough, allows better control - I don't know why this is the case but I'm fairly certain it is true.

The boots were kindly provided by Sports Direct. They are currently available half price over at the website so if you are looking for new boots you could do an awful lot worse than these beautiful looking and comfortable boots.

RCM

In search of lost time

2012-01-07T16:04:00.000-08:00

The way in which we view football changes over the course of our life.

As youngsters, we look up to footballers in awe. We pretend to be them in the playground. We all remember who we pretended to be when we played at school or after school in the park.

As teenagers we do pretty much the same although we may drop the pretending to be players and we seek out interesting types - for me, Ivan de la Pena, Alessandro del Piero and co. We still collect the stickers but we aren't quite so open about it in case the cool kids see.

In our twenties we still identify with players even if it is vaguely surreal to consider that the men you identify with earn in a day what you earn in a year.

And as we progress towards our thirties, things change again. We tend to identify with players of our own age and slightly older - players we remember from our teenage years, men who were men before we were. We begin to identify with managers more than we do with the men kicking the pig's bladder around a frozen park.

And therefore retirement becomes increasingly poignant. A generation of men's youth will come to an end when Ryan Giggs retires from football. I was a child when Ryan Giggs started playing for Manchester United. In that time I have been through high school, university, a gap year, two jobs of a reasonable duration and been married. Life is what happens to you when you are watching Ryan Giggs.

Therefore, it is fitting to consider Nicky Barmby who has announced his retirement. Barmby was one of those players, like Danny Murphy, who was always probably a little under-rated. It is sad that his greatest achievement in the game was being the one that no one can remember in the England starting eleven in that amazing 5-1 game against Germany. It perhaps typified his career - a performance of quiet excellence overshadowed by the glowing talents around him.

It is easy to bash footballers. It is easy to mock the way in which they spend their vast wealth. It is easy to find their man-child behaviour churlish. One can become sickened with their on-field and off-field behaviour. But there is a generation of players - a generation labelled as golden by some in the media - who, to an extent, are throw-backs to an gentler age.

Gerrard, Carragher, Scholes, Terry, Giggs and Neville have all spent, or are likely to spend, their entire career with the clubs that they originally signed. For all their personal flaws - either on or off the pitch - there is something admirable about a one-club man. Barmby wasn't one of those but there is something romantic, something loveable, about him being a driving force about taking his home-town club and the club that he loves into the Premier League for the first time. There is something charming about him being a player-manager. It really is Roy of the Rovers stuff. And there is something wonderful about the thought of him - quiet, old, family man Barmby - having a punch-up with Jimmy Bullard because Bullard was leeching cash out of a club that was withering on the branch.

Hull City used to be the answer to a pub quiz question. The honour of the biggest city without ever having had top flight representation now lies elsewhere. Barmby played a part in that and I would imagine that matters more to him than the England caps he gained and the cups he collected.

There will not be many of his sort in the future. I can't imagine many talented professionals who return to their home-town club to help write a comic book fairytale.

Why do these retirements sting? Well, partly because of the stories Barmby and co provided. But moreoever each time one of our generation - or one of the generation slightly older than ourselves retires - us poor deluded fans realise that our still lingering dreams of becoming a footballer are dyinh. We, of course, know in our more lucid moments that these dreams are a nonsense but that doesn't matter. We know in our more lucid moments football is nonsense but it is a wonderful escape from mortgages, interest rates, the school run and all the other tedium that clutters the rest of our lives. But moreover, it represents a change in how we watch the game. The men playing the game aren't like us any more. It is a psychological shift. We want these men to keep playing because if they do we feel young.

We do not identify with Emmanuel Frimpong and his 'Dench' (NB: he was born in 1992. How do we identify with anyone born in 1992?). I am sure Frimpong is a perfectly pleasant man but he is not a man of my time. I am sure he would feel the same way about me. We do not identify with Ravel Morrison. We worry about him. We project men of our generation onto him. We say he is the new Gazza and that Ferguson will be good for him.

Of course, one should not get too mawkish or maudlin about the men who retire even if each one stings and changes how we enjoy football. Scholes, Barmby and co all get to retire to their mansions and enjoy a life on the golf course or in the studio. No, our generation has been rocked by the deaths of Gary Ablett and Gary Speed. These men weren't supposed to die. These were men who had made their mark on the game as players and who would, in time, excel in management. It is always shocking when a man you looked up to dies. It is ever more shocking when they die young. It reminds us of our own mortality.
And it is all so very sad.

RCM

The return of the King

2012-01-05T10:15:00.000-08:00

Conventional wisdom is that you never go back - to your old football club, to your old girlfriend, to a one-night-stand, to Dundee.

There are plenty of examples of players rejoining clubs both successfully and unsuccessfully. In recent days plenty have thrown out examples of both ''Veron'', ''Rush'', ''Juninho'' et al.

To me, the most obviously analogous example is perhaps an odd one. Johan Cruyff, aged 34, returned to Ajax where he helped them to win the league title twice in succession.

Henry is a very fine player but he is no Cruyff. There are similarities Cruyff, too, had spent years playing at a supposedly lower level in the United States and in the Spanish Second Division. Cruyff too was returning to a club where he had become a legend - indeed, one could argue that without Cruyff there would be no Ajax but there would equally no Ajax without Cruyff).

Further both are probably the greatest player ever to play for their respective clubs and therefore returning to their former club is particularly momentous. The potential for disappointment is larger than for mere mortals. The potential for tainting an illustrious history or destroying a legacy is ever-present. It is worrying for those of us who appreciate narrative in football. Only those with a taste for schadenfreude on toast want a man who has just a statue erected at Ashburton Grove to fail. None of us really want an unhappy ending.

Happily, I can't see that happening.

There are many arguments to be made in favour of buying players in their thirties but as this is a very short-term deal, specifically to replace strikers going to the African Cup of Nations, those arguments do not need to be made here.
Henry is both physically and psychologically fit and scored a decent whack of goals in the MLS last season (a goal around every two games in 2011). Some of the slurs against the MLS in some UK press outlets have been astonishing. It is not Premiership standard but, at the same time, it is not as far away as many would have us believe.

Henry's move will give Arsenal fans a lift in the same way that Fowler's return boosted Liverpool fans morale. A feel-good factor amongst the fans is no bad thing. Henry's brief return will provide useful cover and, to be honest, he can't possibly be worse than Chamakh. Henry's return may be the first step to him returning to the club in some level of coaching capacity - and, one would hope, that some of his magic dust will rub off on the occasionally wayward Theo Walcott.

Henry will add a lot to the dressing room at an important time for Arsenal - this is a man who has won almost everything in the game in England, in Spain and at international level. He will bring a cool head and bucketloads of experience to Arsenal. Arsenal will be the better for that in the tight race for third in the league. All of a sudden Arsenal have a player who has been there, done that and got the hastily printed commemorative t-shirt. That's invaluable.

It is unlikely that Henry will hit the heights of his first spell at Arsenal. No one, bar the swivel-eyed loons in the Arsenal support, is expecting him to do so. He will, however, be a massively useful presence on the training ground and in the dressing room. That might be enough. If he scores a couple of goals, he will have more than justified this extremely well-calculated gamble of Mr. Wenger.

RCM

A little video post to start the year

2012-01-02T06:40:00.000-08:00

A few pieces are currently under development but, in the meantime, why not enjoy this video piece of one of the Premier League's most outrageous striking talent, Tony Yeboah?

Yeboah remains the only player to win ''Goal of the month'' two months running and was, for a brief while, a phenomenon at Elland Road. To a generation of English school children, the name Yeboah still means a shot that hits the bar before it goes in but he was more - much more - than those wonder goals against Liverpool and Wimbledon.

For Leeds, he scored an average of a goal every two games and scored just about every type of goal going.

Most of his goals are left-footed (Many are what might be described as ''muggers' snacks but two against Monaco stand out technique wise as does a volley against Wimbledon, a long-range shot against Blackburn Rovers and a lofted dink against Derby). However, his most famous goals are from his other foot - the no back-lift, falling backwards blast against Liverpool, the improbable run and finish against Wimbledon, the powerful run and low drive against Wednesday. Few strikers today could be so outrageous with both feet.

He could have gone on to become one of the league's superstars but is now remembered more as a cult hero, or a quiz curio, than as a striking legend. He deserves more than that.

His career in Germany is all but forgotten by those of us in the UK - but that is hardly unique. The contempt we hold for the German league, its great clubs and great players is an issue of enduring amusement for this writer - why, for instance, do we not hold Bayern Munich in the same respect as (say) AC Milan, Internazionale or Barcelona? He scored goals with Saarbrucken, Eintracht Frankfurt and Hamburg and plenty for Ghana but none of this shines as brightly as what he achieved in his short time at Leeds.

One wonders what he, and Leeds, would have achieved if he hadn't fallen out with George Graham?

RCM

The Christmas Quiz Answers

2012-01-01T15:05:00.000-08:00

So, here we are, Happy New Year one and all. I trust that you all had a lovely Christmas break and an exceedingly drunken new year.

So, here we go, the answers to the LBITCR Christmas quiz. The top score was a phenomenal 49.5. I will follow up with the winner via email - congratulations to him.

Nicknames

1. The Argentine player known as ''The Rabbit'' is Javier Saviola of Benfica.
2. The Red Lichties are Arbroath FC.
3. Los Cules translates into English as ''the cabbages'' and ''the cabbage and ribs'' are one of the nicknames of Hibernian FC. So if the ''Cabbages'' were playing ''the cabbage and ribs'', it would be Barcelona vs Hibernian.
4. The club named after a fig tree are, perhaps unsurprisingly, Figueirense Futebol Club of Brazil.
5. The Gas are Bristol Rovers.
6. 'The Mozart of football'' was Matthias Sindelar of Austria Vienna and Austria.
7. The Jaw, or ''Quixada'' was Ademir.
Quotations

8. Johan Cruyff said ''Coincidence is logical''.
9. Jose Mourinho said ''There is no pressure at the top. The pressure is being second or third'.
10. Berti Vogts, as Scotland manager, said ''If I walked on water, my accusers would say it is because I can't swim.

11. It was, of course, Bill Shankly who said ''At a football club, there's a holy trinity: the players, the manager and the supporters. Directors don't come into it. They are there to sign the cheques''.

12. And, finally, it was Howard Wilkinson who said ''There's only two types of manager. Those who've been sacked and those who will be sacked in the future.

The United Kingdom

13. Ten English clubs have won the Welsh Cup. The ten clubs are: Bristol City, Tranmere Rovers, Crewe Alexandra, Chester City, South Liverpool, Wellington Town, Oswestry Town, Oswestry White Star, Hereford United and Shrewsbury Town.

(NB: Some make the argument that TNS (The New Saints of Oswestry Town & Llansantffraid Football Club) are an English club as their ground is in Oswestry. They are, however, considered a Welsh club because they play in the Welsh league. The clubs above all played in the English league system).

14. Queen's Park's motto is ''Ludere Causa Ludendi'. As a truly amateur club, the clue was in the motto ''to play for the sake of playing''.
15. ''Audere est Facere'' may have been removed from Spurs' shirts but it remains their motto.
16. According to myth and legend, Rollo, Maine and Aquitane are the names of the three lions.
17. The only player to have captained England at both cricket and football is Reginald ''Tip'' Foster.
18. Cliftonville play at Solitude.
19. The first Edinburgh derby took place at the Meadows on Christmas Day in 1875.
20. The football section of Homerton College, Cambridge became Leyton Orient FC.
21. Manchester City started life as St Mark's (West Gorton)
22. And Birmingham City started life as Small Heath FC (technically Small Heath Alliance before becoming Small Heath - so a bonus point to any who pointed that out).
23. Nottingham Forest play in Garibaldi Red. I gave a bonus point for Arsenal (who started out playing in Forest's borrowed shirts but officially switched colours later on).
24. Danny Blanchflower, Dixie Dean, Duncan Edwards, Bobby Moore and Billy Wright appeared on commemorative stamps for Euro 1996 (in 1996 obviously).
25. The player who holds the record for most goals in an English top flight game is Ted Drake (7 for Arsenal).

Foreigners

26. Real Sociedad translates as Royal Society.
27. Anderlecht have won the Belgian top division most times.
28. Real Madrid, Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao are the teams never to have been relegated from the Spanish top division.
29. It was Ruud Gullit that Glenn Hoddle said ''it was like watching an 18-year old playing in a game for 12-year olds''.

30. Iker Muniain is the youngest goalscorer in La Liga history.
31. Silvio Piola is the all-time top goalscorer in Serie A.
32. Al-Saadi Gaddafi was on the books of Perguia, Udinese and Sampdoria.
33. Carlos Tevez has won South American footballer of the year on three occasions compared to Diego Maradona's two wins and Pele's solitary victory.
34. The team named after the 16th century Mapuche chief is Colo Colo.
35. Sir Stanley Matthews described Diego Maradona as''The best one-footed player since Puskas''.

36. Samuel Eto'o is the All-Time top goalscorer in the Africa Cup of Nations.

37. Paulo Rossi, of Italy, won the Golden Ball at the 1982 World Cup.

38. The four players who have scored in the final of two different World Cups are Vava, Pele, Paul Breitner and Zinedine Zidane.
39. The city which has won the most European Cups is Milan (10 over Madrid's 9).

40. The two teams have lost five European Cup finals are Juventus and Benfica.

Name that Brazilian

41. Sharing a name with a hero king of the Agiad age, this legend of the game is regarded as one of the finest players of the first half of the 20th century. He won both the Golden Ball and Golden Boot at a World Cup and was nicknamed both ''the Black Diamond'' and ''Rubber Man''. He is remembered by many as the man who created bicycle kick. Leonidas.

42. Born Waldyr Pereira, this midfielder won two World Cups and is considered to be one of the finest passers of the ball in the history of the game. He is best remembered for his ''falling leaf'' free kicks.  Didi
43. Born Thomas Soarez da Silva this attacking midfielder or winger is one of fewer than 30 men to be inducted into the Brazilian hall fo game. Pele rated him as the greatest player he ever saw and called him ''a complete player'. He shone at the 1950 World Cup and turned down invitations to play in the 1954 and 1958 tournaments.  Zizinho

44. One of the most under-rated players of the 1980s and early 1990s, the player born Antonio de Oliverira Filho shone at the 1986 World Cup and was part of the famous Napoli team - proving once and for all that it wasn't a one-man team.  Careca

45. Marcos Evangelista de Moraes is one of the finest full-backs of all-time and who gained his playing name from a Brazilian forward of the 1970s. Known for his overlapping runs he was nicknamed ''The Pendolino''.  Cafu.

And there we have it till roughly the same time next year.

RCM

The Left Back In The Changing Room Bumper Christmas Quiz

2011-12-22T15:00:00.001-08:00

A few days later than normal but then I have been on honeymoon and was banned from blogging. Quite rightly, I'd imagine.

So here we are, the thing you've been holding out for, the blogging equivalent of the Coca Cola advert, the first whiff of Bailey's and the double Radio Times, it is ''The Annual Left Back In The Changing Room Bumper Christmas Quiz 2011''.

The previous quizzes can be found here (2008, 2009, 2010). The answers were correct when the quizzes went to print.
As ever, I'd ask you not to Google or Wiki the answers - there really isn't much point (and some of the questions cannot be answered that way). It is supposed to a bit of fun and, as ever, the top scorer will receive a bottle from the Left Back Cellar (this year: Chateau St Bernard's Crescent). I am very sloppy at handing out these prizes as my good pal, JP Murphy, will attest.

Anyway, drop me an email to lbinthechangingroom@yahoo.co.uk with your answers. Results will follow early in the new year.

Nicknames

1. Which Argentine player is nicknamed ''The Rabbit''?

2. Who are 'The Red Lichties'?

3. If the ''Cabbages'' were playing ''the Cabbage and Ribs'' who would be playing each other?

4. Which club are named after the fig tree?

5. Who are ''The Gas''

6. Which inter-war legend was known as ''The Mozart of Football''?

7. Which Brazilian legend was nicknamed ''Queixada'' or ''Jaw''?

Quotations

Who said:

8. Coincidence is logical

9. There is no pressure at the top. The pressure is being second or third.
10. If I walked on water, my accusers would say it is because I can't swim.

11. At a football club, there's a holy trinity: the players, the manager and the supporters. Directors don't come into it. They are there to sign the cheques.

12. There's only two types of manager. Those who've been sacked and those who will be sacked in the future.

The United Kingdom

13. How many English clubs have won the Welsh Cup? (And an additional point for each one that you can name).
14. Which club's motto is ''Ludere Causa Ludendi'' or, in English, ''to play for the sake of playing''?

15. And similarly, whose motto is ''Audere est Facere'' or, in English, ''to dare is to do''?

16. Who, according to myth and legend, are Rollo, Maine and Aquitane?

17. Who is the only player to have captained England at both cricket and football?

18. Who plays at Solitude?
19. What took place at The Meadows on Christmas Day in 1875?

20. The football section of Homerton College, Cambridge became which English football club?
21. Which club started life as St Mark's (West Gorton)?
22. And who started out as Small Heath FC?
23. Who plays in Garibaldi Red?

24. What did Danny Blanchflower, Dixie Dean, Duncan Edwards, Bobby Moore, and Billy Wright do in 1996?

25. Who holds the record for most goals in an English top flight game?

Foreigners

26. Which team's name translates as Royal Society (or, technically, the Royal Society of Football?)
27. Which club has won the Belgian top division on the most occasions?
28. Name the three clubs that have never been relegated from the Spanish top division (1 point each)
29. About whom did Glenn Hoddle say ''it was like watching an 18-year old playing in a game for 12-year olds''?

30. Who is the youngest goalscorer in La Liga history?
31. Who is the all-time top goalscorer in Serie A?
32. Al-Saadi Gaddafi was on the books of which three Italian clubs?

33. What has Carlos Tevez done three times which Diego Maradona only managed twice and Pele only did once?

34. Which 16th century Mapuche chief is immortalised in the name of one of South America's leading teams?

35. Who did Sir Stanley Matthews call ''The best one-footed player since Puskas''?

36. Who is the All-Time top goalscorer in the Africa Cup of Nations?

37. Who won the Golden Ball at the 1982 World Cup?

38. Which four players have scored in the final of two different World Cups?
39. Which city has won the most European Cups?

40. Two teams have lost five European Cup finals. Who are they? (One point each)

Name that Brazilian

41. Sharing a name with a hero king of the Agiad age, this legend of the game is regarded as one of the finest players of the first half of the 20th century. He won both the Golden Ball and Golden Boot at a World Cup and was nicknamed both ''the Black Diamond'' and ''Rubber Man''. He is remembered by many as the man who created bicycle kick.

42. Born Waldyr Pereira, this midfielder won two World Cups and is considered to be one of the finest passers of the ball in the history of the game. He is best remembered for his ''falling leaf'' free kicks.

43. Born Thomas Soarez da Silva this attacking midfielder or winger is one of fewer than 30 men to be inducted into the Brazilian hall fo game. Pele rated him as the greatest player he ever saw and called him ''a complete player'. He shone at the 1950 World Cup and turned down invitations to play in the 1954 and 1958 tournaments.

44. One of the most under-rated players of the 1980s and early 1990s, the player born Antonio de Oliverira Filho shone at the 1986 World Cup and was part of the famous Napoli team - proving once and for all that it wasn't a one-man team.

45. Marcos Evangelista de Moraes is one of the finest full-backs of all-time and who gained his playing name from a Brazilian forward of the 1970s. Known for his overlapping runs he was nicknamed ''The Pendolino''.

And there we have it. Answers in the email box please. From Left Back In The Changing Room, I trust all readers have a very Merry Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous 2012.

RCM

Suarez and Evra: Mark II

2011-12-20T14:26:00.000-08:00

A warning: This post contains foul and, at points, examples of racist language. These words are used, at different points, to elucidate ideas. If you are easily offended please do not read the post. Equally, if you are the sort of person that gets upset by words which are not directed at you take a long hard look at yourself.

So the Football Association's judgement is in - or, at least, is in until Liverpool appeal which they inevitably will do. Luis Suarez has been found guilty. I wrote this piece at the time (if you are interested in background). As I said at that time, if Suarez is found guilty he should receive ''substantial punishment - I would guess some level of a fine, suspension and some kind of community service''. A rare level of prescience on this blog.

So let us look at the charge in-depth:

The telling extract is:

The Independent Regulatory Commission announced its decision on 20 December 2011, which is as follows:

1. Mr. Suarez used insulting words towards Mr Evra during the match contrary to rule E3(1);
2. the insulting words used by Mr. Suarez included a reference to Mr. Evra's colour within the meaning of Rule E3(2);
3. Mr Suarez shall be warned as to his future conduct, be suspended for eight matches covering all first team competitive matches and fined the sum of £40,000;
4. the (penalty) is suspended pending the outcome of any appeal lodged by Mr Suarez against this decision.

Let's leave the finances to one side. £40,000 is nothing to Luis Suarez, I'd guess, and seems (if anything) low.

Moving to the ban, on the one hand, eight games seems particularly harsh. I cannot think of many times when an individual has been given longer bans for on-field behaviour (two that spring to mind: Cantona attacking a fan got an eight month ban; Ben Thatcher got an eight game ban - plus a fifteen game ban which was suspended for two years - for his attempted decapitation of Pedro Mendes). On the other hand, given the seriousness of the offence - and that the FA are increasingly and rightly pushing an anti-racism agenda - seems lenient. The important thing isn't whether it is harsh or lenient but, as ever, whether it is just. We'll come onto that below.

I've been asked by a few folk as a - their quote, not mine - ''sensible Liverpool fan'' for my views on the matter. Without seeing the evidence and reasoning, I'm not sure what I (or anyone else) can add. With that in mind, what can I add?

So, first up, plenty of people have come out with the fairly nebulous phrase ''well, if a fan did that he'd be banned for life''. Yes, I suppose if you are a tedious ''lock 'em up and throw away the key sort' but...

Firstly, we generally recognise and accept (in England) that the behaviour of players on a football pitch is treated differently from the actions of people on the street. Whether that is right or wrong is a matter for debate but, by and large, we do not press criminal charges against individuals who commit crimes on a football pitch. (Exhibit A: Roy Keane admitting he set out to assault Alf Inge Haaland would undoubtedly have been either assault or grievous bodily harm if it had occurred off the pitch).

Secondly, as above, and more importantly, as the sage of Tupelo put it, only fools rush in. We just don't know enough to comment whether or not this is a fair judgement. Those Manchester United fans and Everton fans crowing should cool their beans until the appeal is heard. Those Liverpool fans talking about conspiracy theories should, again, cool their beans until we see the evidence that is apparently going to be presented. Hopping back, as promised, whether this is a just decision at this stage we cannot know. We have not seen much of the detail, we haven't seen the reasoning or the evidence. As the IRC admits at this stage.

The Independent Regulatory Commission will provide written reasons for its decision in due course setting out:
(a) the findings of fact made by it;
(b) the reasons for its decision finding the charge proved; and
(c) the reasons for the penalty.

Until we hear (or read) a, b and c it is almost impossible to comment on whether or not this charge is either harsh or lenient or, for that matter, just.

Thirdly, I'm not sure how the FA deals with racism but one might contend that racism is not (if you'll pardon the pun) black and white. I think we can agree that certain racist terms are worse than others and, if we agree that, we might say that certain things may be punished more harshly or more leniently. People calling for X ban for racism are foolhardy - not because their motivation is bad (it isn't) but rather because we acknowledge that their should be some level of discretion when giving punishments. Let's do a little thought experiment. Imagine the following examples:

A white player doing a Nazi salute to Tottenham fans. We might agree that this is anti-semitic or, at least, extremely offensive. (I don't have space to get into the is anti-semitism actually racism debate here...)
A black footballer calling a white footballer ''a white bastard'' We might agree that this was racist.
A white footballer calling a Hispanic footballer ''a spic''. We might agree that this was racist.
A black footballer calling a Hispanic footballer ''a fucking spic''. We might agree that this was racist.
A white footballer calling a black footballer ''a fucking dirty nigger''. We might agree that this was racist

I'd contend that all of the above were examples of racism. Even if you disagree with that, I think we can agree that all are offensive. We might, however, treat each individual case differently. Indeed, we should always treat each case on its merits. So to say, blithely, that a fan would be banned for life so Suarez should misunderstands that they might not be saying exactly the same thing. If we were handing out bans, I would hope that we would all agree that the bottom example is the most offensive and deserves the lengthiest ban.

It is one of the complexities of life that racists don't always use racist language and sadly, sometimes, people who are not racists can use racist language. Both Evra, and the FA, (according to the Liverpool statement... which we'll come to) have said that they do not believe that Suarez is a racist. Either way using racist term is offensive whether the motivation behind it is racist or not.

Moving swiftly on, out of the jaws of a defeat, Liverpool FC seem to be seeking utter humiliation. The club's statement released this evening - to be frank - was embarrassing (I doubt/hope that it will not be up tomorrow morning). Some of it was sensible, some of it was an understandable reaction to support the team's star player but some of it is bonkers. This response smacks of two things either (a) the club thinks that the FA has stuffed this up so spectacularly badly that they can go full guns blazing at this (b) the PR team didn't have a cooling off cigarette before publishing. I fear the latter.

Regardless: This story is going to run and run and it will only become more acrimonious. Liverpool are going to appeal and will push, I'd guess, for some form of punishment of Evra for his admission of using abusive language to Suarez (I hope they don't pursue the latter - I'm not sure it will be particularly helpful to anyone). Legitimate questions will be asked about why this took so long, why it was delayed and the basis for the ban. Eyes will turn to John Terry whose case prima facie looks more clear cut than this one. The FA may well have made a rod for their own backs. Can you imagine the howls of outrage from Liverpool - and, for that matter, Chelsea's competitors in the league - if Terry doesn't get any sort of ban or gets a two match ban? Can you imagine the media storm if the England captain gets banned for eight games?
Given the FA's recent use of the ''he's our best player so can we please get a reduction in the punishment'' defence for Rooney, it may be that Suarez's ban will be reduced. That said, the simple fact is if Suarez did racially abuse Evra - although I think, at this stage, the charge seems somewhat ambiguous and we haven't seen the evidence - then he should be harshly but justly treated.

It is a shame for my club to lose our star player for eight games. It is a shame for the Premier League to lose a player of his quality for eight games. I'm not sure that those are good enough reasons not to hand out a lengthy ban and, without prejudicing the appeal when the matter is sub judice, it is a shame that so many are looking at this issue through club-tinted spectacles.

RCM

Blogging: A slight return

2011-12-19T10:54:00.000-08:00

So here I am: back from my honeymoon which, as it happens, was my first extended break from blogging since I started this here blog. I spent a glorious three weeks in a land where everyone supports Manchester United. No, I didn't honeymoon in Godalming but rather Vietnam.

And what a lot has happened since I've been away. Some bad, some some sad and some beautiful.

The deaths of Gary Speed and Socrates were disturbing and upsetting in different ways. Many have written eloquently and touchingly about both men so I will not add words to those tributes - all I shall say is that both, in their own way, are embodiments of why I still love football.

The European Champions League group stage - so often derided as a convoluted process to ensure that the giants of European football get through to the knockout stage - threw up genuine stories. Manchester United, Manchester City, Porto, Valencia and Borussia Dortmund were all expected to get through to the next stage and happily didn't make it through. For the good of both the Champions League and the Europa League, some of those find themselves in the Europa League. It will be good to see Manchester United take on Ajax - that has a premium ring to it and should ignite interest in the Europa League.

It is also pleasing to see the likes of Apoel Nicosia, Bayer Leverkusen, Benfica, and FC Basel (for now at least) find themselves in the next stage. It would have been joyous if Ajax had joined them. A change is as good as a rest and, this year, there is a change to the Champions League.

That both Chelsea and Arsenal have given us new narratives in the Champions League has added to the enjoyment of the season: the tedious AVB out stories were kyboshed by their perfomance on the Champions League whilst Arsenal's excellent performance in the competition has gone hand in hand with a resurgence in the league.

The draw for the European Championships seemed to be met with both positivity and negativity. Some thought the draw was easy, others thought it was too hard. I suppose I will take the goldilocks version and say that it is a fair group. It could have been better (France are a nightmare) and it could have been worse (France could have been joined by Portugal and Spain).

Wayne Rooney will now only miss two games at Euro 2012. I am delighted for him and for England. I still think it sets an appalling example for the FA to have fought this - particularly as they weren't so kind to Rooney earlier in the year when he swore down a camera.

Finally, Barcelona won the Club World Championships. Hardly a surprise but Xavi's touch, in the build up to Lionel Messi's first goal, was a thing of utter beauty. At points, as ever, Barcelona were dizzying and poor old Santos couldn't get near them. Too many commentators wrote off Neymar - who, I thought, had a good game given that his team barely had the ball. He is one of football's true creative geniuses and he'll be wowing the same commentators soon enough.

So there we are - barely any football discussed. Is Jones the new Hierro? Is Messi better than Maradona? Can Suarez recalibrate his shooting two inches? Is Silva the best player in the Premiership? Is Carrick still the most under-rated player in England?

Ah my pretties - we'll discuss all of those and many more in the coming days.

RCM

Honeymoon

2011-11-25T04:43:00.001-08:00

On an extended break. Blogging will be light to non-existent.

Love etc

Rob

The ominous tale of the hare and the tortoise

2011-11-22T13:59:00.001-08:00

For those who are looking for a naughty little bet, Manchester United are looking tasty for the Premier League. Manchester City are, currently, 8/11 to win the league. Manchester United are, currently, 11/5.

This is understandable but I think there is value in that market.

Manchester City have started astonishingly well. More points after 12 games than any team for decades and scoring pots of goals. Yes, they have had a blistering start. Yes, many of their players are on top form. Yes, they've got the best player in the league. But, as I said in my interview with Republik of Mancunia, Manchester United have the manager, Manchester City have the players. What I meant by this was, if I were picking a combined Manchester XI, I'd probably have more City players than United players. I'd definitely have Ferguson in the dugout.

It is often stated that Manchester United are slow starters and they really change gear in the second half of the season. If that is true, and the analysis seems to hold, Manchester United's odds are longer than they should be. And this is the ominous part... Only twice in Premier League history have Manchester United started a season better than they have done this year (in 1993/1994 and in 2006/2007). History suggests to us that Manchester United will do even better in the second half of the season. The City players, and their manager, are likely to be met with a relentless whirlwind post-Christmas.

One thing which undermines this analysis is that Manchester United have lost, in the last 12 months or so, players who have been there in the heat of war and who understand a title race inside out. Will losing men who have been there, done that, and got the ''we won it 12 times t-shirt'' mean they are less likely to kick on after Christmas? I'm unconvinced.

There are still a number of players in and around the Manchester United starting XI who haven't been in that sort of battle before (Welbeck, Cleverley, Jones and Young). Sir Alex is just the man to ensure that those who have been involved in previous races marshal the young guns.

So there's is the bet: Will Manchester United do their usual post-Christmas? If you think the answer is yes, put a bet on United. They've rarely been in such a good position at this stage in the season. They tend to be in a very good position at the end of the season.

RCM

Pass and move it's the Liverpool groove?

2011-11-21T14:01:00.001-08:00

The team that Kenny Dalglish put out against Chelsea was arguably the most 'Dalglish' side he's put out for Liverpool thus far. This, for an old sentimentalist like me, was pleasing to see.

The back four was based around two centre-backs who can play a high defensive line if needs be (and who can pass the ball - particularly in the case of Agger), full-backs comfortable on the ball and happy going forward, a busy midfielder who does all the hard work (Lucas), a passing midfielder (Adam) and wingers and forwards whose game is based on pace, movement, and slick interplay.

Those last three features shone through for the Maxi Rodriguez goal was lovely which was a genuine showing of ''pass and move''. Adam, Suarez, Bellamy and Maxi all played a part.

Now, this should warm the cockles of Liverpool fans but there are problems ahead.

Firstly, the game against Chelsea was undoubtedly Charlie Adam's finest game in a Liverpool shirt. This - again - is good news. However, it is quite evident at this stage that Liverpool cannot line up regularly with a spine of Carragher-Adam-Carroll. It is not mobile enough, it is not quick enough and it just isn't as good as the alternative.

There are a number of reasons for this. Carragher is still the best reader of the game in the team and a fine defender. However, to cover up for his lack of pace, the entire defence has to play deeper. With Agger and Skrtel, Liverpool can play a higher defensive line if they please which means that the two centre-backs are far closer to Adam. He appreciates this (partly as there is less ground for him to cover) but partly because Liverpool genuinely build from the back. Skrtel also benefits from this. He looks more comfortbale alongside the elegant Agger than he does with Carragher.

A cursory look at Barcelona, and Liverpool, dear reader, are not Barcelona, will show you exactly how important it is to have a player at the centre of defence who starts the moves. Pique is arguably the most important player to the Barcelona system and Liverpool should look to ensure that we play a system that gets the best out of Agger. I would contend that such a system would also get the best out of Adam - defence, midfield and attack do not, or at least should not, exist in isolation of each other.

At the same time, Adam appreciates the movement, pace, mobility and work-rate of Suarez, Maxi, Bellamy and Kuyt. That sort of movement brings the best out of him - he's a superb reader of the game and can spot people making clever runs. The work-rate of those around him again allows him to get his head up and do what he does best. He was instrumental in the Maxi goal (dispossessing Mikel) and the Johnson goal (with a beautiful pass).

The problem is: If the system is working, does Carragher get back into the team? Recalling him brings in years of experience, great positioning and a fine football mind. It does take away the passing ability and drags the average position of Adam and company back. Such a system forces Adam to play more Hollywood Balls.

Moreover, if the system is working, how does Carroll fit in on a regular basis? And, if he does not, how do you handle Carroll? A £35m supersub sounds extravagant but it is particularly difficult when that player is clearly someone who needs substantial gametime to get fit and settled at Anfield.

Happier news is that the other big money signings could fit into the current system. Henderson, in many ways, has better technique than Kuyt and - at Sunderland - created a lot of goalscoring opportunities (as many, over the last two years, as Nasri and Modric). He is improving (he played very well when he came on against United and against Chelsea) and could easily fit into that whirling system of a front-four. He would benefit from playing behind Bellamy and Suarez. Downing, although not as clever in his reading of the game or in his movement, could start on the left in place of Maxi. Happier news still is that Gerrard will excel in such a system when he returns.

The problem comes back to Carroll: whilst Adam can provide balls for him to knock down to Suarez; whilst Downing, like he did for Rodwell for England, can put in sublime crosses for the big man; and whilst Henderson can create clever openings for any striker (or, at least, did whilst at Sunderland) all that is predicated on the idea that Kenny Dalglish wants to move away from pass and move. Or that he can turn Carroll into a pass and move striker. I don't see it even if I can see how the signings could all work with Carroll.

The issue is: I don't think he does want to move away from pass and move. I think that if you cut Dalglish in half, you'd see the legend ''pass and move'' embossed inside. Dalglish is a canny man, far cannier than most give him credit for (remember when he started three at the back last season), but I think - in his bones - he wants Liverpool playing the way that they used to play.

As we saw with the three-at-the-back, Dalglish is happy to change the system, innovate and play horses for courses. It may be that against City, Liverpool will play two defensive midfielders and bring in Carroll to pose a different threat. As I say, whilst he is a pragmatist, I believe that deep down he wants Liverpool to play, and win, a certain way. Two of his big names will, at this time, struggle with that system.

RCM

Why do I blog?

2011-11-20T14:08:00.001-08:00

For those of you who come to Left Back In The Changing Room for videos of long forgotten greats, ranting about why Team GB doesn't undermine the standing of the Scottish team and writing long posts on why I love Lucas Leiva/Dimitar Berbatov/Zlatan Ibrahmovic: come back tomorrow or pop down to the video below and watch Beardsley in his pomp!

This is blogging about blogging. It is, no doubt, going to be face-achingly dull. I apologise.

So why do I blog?

Largely because I enjoy it. Seasoned fans - such as they are - of LBITCR will know that I blog less often than I used to but, at the same time, when I blog less frequently the standard of the writing goes up. Further, I try and look at matters in different ways. I'm not, and never have been, a copy and paste merchant. I'm a lazy bastard but I'm not that lazy.

I think my writing stacks up pretty well. I'm not Jonathan Wilson nor am I Swiss Ramble but I don't think I'm too far off journalistic standards. I know this because, from time to time, I write paid pieces for the mainstream media and the reception is pretty good. I know this because, from time to time, people tell me. I know this because, on a couple of occasions, I've seen my content appear (rejigged admittedly) in mainstream media sources.

I occasionally get nominated for awards (although not NOPA this year... sadly!) and people in the community say nice things about the blog. There is always a little bit of a thrill when someone like Jonathan Wilson comments positively on something that you've written on.

A better question is: Why do I enjoy it? Well, I suppose, Left Back In The Changing Room fills a gap. I write about things I like in football, I can go off on tangents and, I hope, that this is sometimes of interest to the readers. I like thinking about football and the best way, other than debating about football in a pub, is to write about it. As I say, I always try to think about, and write about, the game differently. If I fail, tell me in the comments and I'll strive to improve.

I like the interaction of it. I like people commenting on my writing - whether it is ''great post!'', detailed analysis or criticism. I like the interaction of fans with other clubs and of fans from no club. The banter on Twitter can be very good. I learn a lot there and I learn a lot in the comments section on this blog.

There are a good bunch of guys on Twitter who analyse football very well, write well and heighten my enjoyment of football. Some of these are fans of other teams (R_o_M, Yids, Gingers4Limpar, ManUtd24, Dejonefc), some are the football blogging glitterati (SurrealFootball, Paul_Tomkins) and others are chaps and chappesses who like bantering about football and seem like good eggs (Cathithalia, Scott Johnston, Andrew Gibney, Steve Welsh, Rocco Cammisola, Mirko Bolesan, Les Rosbifs et al). I haven't listed exhaustively simply because I'd be here all day. I mean no slur on others that I haven't listed.

I shouldn't pretend that this is all one happy community. Many of the names above do not get on with each other. On Twitter, as I do elsewhere in life, I try to get on with folk - I stay out of the fights and try to add to the analysis. I don't go in for trash-talking. I just like talking about football.
Do I harbour journalistic ambitions? I suppose, to an extent, I do. I like the job I am in at present - it is interesting, it is challenging, I get to work on a daily basis with very smart people. Would I like to write about football full-time? Yes but... and the but is important. If I was churning out match reports from Stirling Albion or Rochdale then 'no'. If it was some sort of column where I had a free hand to write what I damned well please then 'yes, absolutely'. I realise the latter is all but impossible in this day and age (if it were ever possible). So, maybe, I will churn out one of the ideas I have for a football book one day and I'll continue to write on occasion for the mainstream media but, for now at least, I'm happy writing a couple of pieces per week that are a little different from what you'll get elsewhere.

Away from me, there are interesting debates going on - and I mean that in the truest sense. The launch recently of the Guardian Sports Network is an innovation and one that has many journalists worried. If bloggers are providing content for free then it should follow that newspapers and other media sources may eventually turn to journalists and say either ''lower your prices'' or, worse, ''get your bags, these bloggers will write for free''.

Some, including Surreal Football (on Twitter I believe but I'll edit to a link if they have blogged about this), have cogently argued that bloggers should be wary of engaging with GSN - particularly if they themselves harbour journalistic ambitions. After all, it is extremely unlikely that a newspaper will give you cash for stuff that you have previously given for free. Further, as every day there are new football blogs popping up, there would always be someone who thinks: Ok, I don't get paid but I might get 10,000 hits out of working with The Guardian. This will lead to more readers, my name in lights and some advertising revenue for the blog''. If I sign up to GSN in the hope of getting paid and demand payment down the line, some kid will take my place.

People can criticise the individuals involved in that scheme (and others like it). I can see where the criticism comes from. I'm not sure that the media industry itself is acting particularly cleverly.

A few points to consider:

This links to a much wider debate on the print media's almost total failure to deal with the age of the internet. Many media sources are losing money hand over fist. If that is the case, it is natural that they will look for different ways of acquiring content - whether that is copy and paste journalism, just reprinting news feeds, stealing content from bloggers or asking bloggers to write for free.

There are fewer journalists working at papers these days.
So journalists do have legitimate concerns over their existence and it is natural that they will turn their ire on the barbarians at the gates. This is both fair and understandable. That said, I became wary of some journalists when - as above - I saw my copy in a leading newspaper. To hear (some) journalists sneer about 'copy and paste merchants' sticks in the craw!
Do I threaten journalists? No. Whenever I've written for a newspaper, I've done it because I've been asked by an editor to do so. In that sense, I do not threaten a journalist's income any more or any less than any other journalist. With a hint of arrogance, I would contend that I tend to write specialist, quirky pieces when I'm asked which are unlikely to be the preserve of mainstream journalists. That isn't a criticism. They are the guys who get asked to write every day. I get asked to write every few months!

Some people may claim that me writing a blog at all undermines journalists because, as part of a wider movement of bloggers, people may choose to read our free content than pay for a newspaper. I apologise for that but my advice is this: make your content so good that it makes people, in a market, pay for it.

This may sound odd but it isn't. I don't read the Metro because it is fucking awful. It is free. I would rather pay for the content of the Guardian (£1.20 a day, £6.00 a working week). Plenty of people do every day.

If you think that the blogosphere is the problem, I would point you in the direction of the BBC website...
.
There have been a few spats in recent months. One between The Sun newspaper and Scotzine. My understanding is that Andy broke a protocol that he didn't know existed. Some of The Sun journalists mercilessly picked upon Andy and quite openly mocked him about this. Andy was very worried that this furore would undermine many years of hard work.

The idea of a News International journalist looking down their nose at anyone else's journalistic standards and ethics is laughable, of course, but it was the first of a series of spats that seem to be becoming more common place. The recent Les Rosbifs case is another example.
Ultimately, the market decides. There are football blogs out there who get huge hit ratings per year. They get these because they are (a) very good (b) very committed (c) good at marketing. I would rather read many blogs, or websites, over most traditional journalistic sources. Simply, many journalists are not as good as they think they are. That isn't to say they are all poor. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are very fine journalists working in most newspapers up and down the land and deserve our praise, support and continued buying of their newspapers.

If I were analysing my own blog, I'd say I was ''quite good'' rather than ''very good'', that I am not overly committed to the blog (and have become less since I got married!) and I'm crap at marketing.

So, I haven't called anyone names, I haven't threatened to hang up my laptop and I've managed, no doubt, to tread a depressingly middle of the road tack.

I blog because I enjoy doing so. Simple. When I stop enjoying it, I'll stop.

RCM

An under-rated gem

2011-11-19T04:42:00.000-08:00

In my piece earlier in the week I thought that the 1990s was a decade to regret for English football and listed a few players who I thought were under-rated in England or, more correctly, never shone at England as perhaps they should have done. The usual names (Hoddle, Cole, Le Tissier, Scholes were all there) but a few others also crept in (Merson, Sharpe, McManaman).

A slightly more contentious name is Peter Beardsley.

He got 59 caps for England, won the League (twice), the FA Cup and was an integral part of the Liverpool 1988 team (a team, I maintain, is the best these shores have seen since the end of the Second World War). He linked beautifully with Lineker for England and Aldridge for Liverpool and then, in later years, inspired both Everton and Newcastle. He was ranked in the Top 20 players ever to play for Liverpool and routinely regarded in the same bracket for Newcastle United. Is he ranked in the same bracket for England? I'd contend not but he should be.

Have a look...

I love the first touch of his at 3.46 - wonderful stuff.

I love players who are good in the tight, who can take the ball round a man (so many of Beardsley's goals see him flummoxing a keeper and walking round him rather than blasting it past him). Superb touch, a fine dribbler and a wonderful football brain. In many ways a very un-English player.

The reason I think he is under-rated is because if I were to ask the 10 best English forwards of the past 30 years very few would put Beardsley up there.

And the 1990s being a decade to regret? Beardsley was consistently overlooked by Graham Taylor in the early 1990s - would we have been better with him at Euro 1992? Would we have qualified with him in the team for USA 1994?

Very possibly.

RCM

A decade to regret

2011-11-14T13:35:00.000-08:00

Football may not have been invented in the early 1990s but it certainly became shinier at that point.

Part of this was down to the gentrification of the game as the English middle classes either were attracted to the game for the first time or came out of the closet as fans. Part of it was Sky's new style coverage - the influx of cash meant that world-class players came to our shores for the first time in numbers. Part of it was down to the new style stadia which were the right and proper reaction to the Taylor Report.

The pitches seemed greener, the sky seemed bluer, the players were more obviously aware that people other than the fans at the game were watching them. The cameras always seemed to be in those wide open corners of Old Trafford on a sunny day with devils in red running grinning at the camera. The cameras still seem to be fixed there. This was different to what had gone before.

In contrast, when one watches football clips from the 1980s, there seems to be a gloom around. The night games seem darker, the kits seem duller, the players seem more leaden. The crowds are either badly dressed and hirsute northerners who look like they have just walked off a picket line or a Ken Loach set or are very well dressed and are intent on battering seven shades of scheiße out of you.

That wasn't to say that football couldn't sparkle in the 1980s. Of course it could. The 1988 Liverpool team is one of the finest teams ever to play in England. Glenn Hoddle and Chris Waddle were both very fine players. Peter Beardsley was an early, and ugly, Jari Litmanen. England, before the awfulness of Heysel, ruled the waves - or, at least, European football.
It is odd that a decade that did so much for English football is one that we should regret. What should we be thankful for? Well, World In Motion; Gazza's tears; the resurgence of Manchester United (not something I wanted as a Liverpool fan but it was a fine story for English football); Football's Coming Home; Zola, Ginola Cantona, Bergkamp and all the other wonderful foreign talent; Shearer and the other English players that dominated the goalscoring charts; the demolition of Holland; Gazza's goal against the Scots; the coming of Beckham; the beauty of Scholes; and Owen's goal against Argentina. These are things that we should be thankful for.

However, as an England fan, there are many things to regret. The obvious stuff, like the disgusting behaviour of fans in Dublin, can be left to one side. From a purely footballing sense, we should regret what we didn't achieve.

The decade started well. More has been written about the 1990 World Cup and England's charge to the semi-finals but it looked, after 24 years of hurt, as if things were getting better. Few would have predicted England falling so far so swiftly. Few teams have fallen so far from the dizzying highs - built around Barnes, Waddle and Gascoigne in 1990 - to the unfathomable lows of 1992. Has so much dross ever represented a nation at the same time in the same place? It is enough to make you cry: Curle, Clough, Sinton, Palmer, Webb, Daley and Batty all in the same squad.

Two years later, England - along with the other Home Nations - didn't qualify for USA 1994. Admittedly, things got better in 1996 and 1998 but there is still - given the general giddiness of those years - plenty to ponder. Consider that a player as functional as David Batty (42) received more caps than Matt Le Tissier (8), Lee Sharpe (8), Les Ferdinand (17), Jamie Redknapp (17), Paul Merson (21), Robbie Fowler (26), and Steve McManaman (37). There is nothing wrong with David Batty as such. England built a whole bally empire on David Batty but, well, he wasn't as gifted as any of those players.
Some of those - and others - suffered injuries that curtailed their career. Paul Lake, a wonderfully gifted midfielder, also fits into that category. One wonders what happened in that parallel universe where Lake and Gascoigne played for a decade in England's midfield together. Add to their names the name of Rob Jones a man who should have deprived Gary Neville of a good number of caps. Sharpe fits, to an extent, in that category as well.

Some, however, never shone for England as they should have done. Consider that the players that won the PFA Young Player of the Year between the 1987-88 season and the 1990-91 never fulfilled their potential. This wasn't a case of bad voting. They deserved the prize. They were damn fine players. They weren't given the support or care they needed to dominate the English game. Gascoigne, Merson, Le Tissier and Sharpe were all fine players all of whom achieved a lot. The next English winner, Robbie Fowler (1994-95 and 1995-96) also never shone for England as he could have done. None of these fulfilled their potential.

Gascoigne is now more famous for his downfall than his unreal footballing ability, Merson for his cocaine and alcohol addiction, Le Tissier for his lack of England caps and loyalty to Southampton, Sharpe for sleeping with Abi Titmuss and Fowler for his moments of genius and insanity in a Liverpool shirt. When one considers that Scholes wasn't utilised properly in the white of England and Owen went from being the best young striker in the world to a simple goalpoacher things only seem worse rather than better.

So when we consider the 1990s we should perhaps consider that so many of England's talented players didn't make it. That is sad for them and the fans of the clubs they played for. Only in England could we let so many talented players not become superstars for the national team. Things seem to be better these days and we should be thankful.

The 1990s belonged to English clubs - as they rehabilitated themselves after the dark years of the late 1980s. With more care, more thought and better management, it could have belonged to England.

RCM

Kilted Sassenachs

2011-11-10T15:40:00.000-08:00

If Spain, Portgual, and Croatia are doing something when it comes to selection of their national football team, would you support Scotland doing the same? If not, why not? And if not, don't moan when Scotland next get schooled in Alicante.

The answer should be yes.

A country with as many gifted players as Spain consistently selected Marcos Senna 28 times. Senna is a player who became a Spanish citizen at the grand old age of 30 but one who shone as Spain won their first trophy in 44 years in 2008. He qualified because he had lived in Spain for a long-time. Eduardo da Silva moved to Croatia at the age of 16. If it hadn't been for that sickening leg break there is every chance that Eduardo could have been one of the finest strikers in Europe - as it is he has scored 22 in 42 for Croatia. And Portugal - the country that has given us Figo, Ronaldo, and Rui Costa - have had the benefit of Pepe (who became Portuguese at the age of 24) and Deco (who did the same at 25) over the years.

Now, if something is good for Portugal, Spain, and Croatia, why isn't a policy of recruiting players with little or, indeed, no blood connection to Scotland ok? When does someone become ''Scottish enough''? When they've been here 10 years? 20 years? Two generations? Are we seriously saying that immigrants can never say they are Scottish? I truly, truly hope not.

The trend of picking players who have been schooled in Scotland (like Jordan Rhodes) or whose Scottishness is questionable (so questionable that they don't admit they are Scottish but meet eligibility criteria) has come to a head. The questions should be this: (a) are they, under the laws of the game, eligible to play for Scotland (b) do they improve the Scotland squad? If the answer to both questions is 'yes' then what is the problem?

Now, I realise that Matt Gilks' saying ''My grandmother was Scottish and they've traced the roots back and checked it. I'm eligible and it's great to be in the squad. Everybody knows that I am English but England doesn't come knocking on the door of Blackpool Football Club'' may stick in the craw of many of the Tartan Army. It no doubt sticks in the craw even more that Levein seems to be trawling the Championship and League One to find anyone with some Scottish blood, Scottish schooling or similar. What a kick in the face for the likes of Charlie Mulgrew that rather than pick the Celtic captain, Levein is searching around the bargain bins of English football.

And that's where we reach the nub.

The bluster and bullshit brigade - the brigade who think singing the anthem loudly and caring enough will win - don't like the idea of a man who, to all intents and purposes, is English pulling on the blue of Scotland. They believe that because he doesn't feel it, because he didn't yearn for the shirt as a youngster, because he might - deep down - really want to be playing for England. It doesn't matter if he is good enough. He doesn't have enough Scottish points. He isn't Scottish enough. Too much is put on feeling, on the pride of getting humped but doing so playing well, on glorious defeat. I'd rather Scotland won games.

This isn't about whether or not Jordan Rhodes, Phil Bardsley, Matt Gilks or Craig Mackail-Smith are good enough to play for Scotland (that's a debate to be had amongst fans). It is about them being English. It is about many within the Tartan Army and wider Scottish support do not like the thought about the Anglicisation of the Scottish team. If Rhodes, Bardsley and co were Welsh, or Kiwi, it wouldn't cause a stir. (NB: It is more than a little unfair - as it happens - to pick on Rhodes. Rhodes was schooled in Scotland and has taken advantage of a recent change in the rules but Scotland would always have been his first choice).

I don't understand why the Scottish football team is so sacrosanct in Scottish sport. I suppose, that admission, will undermine my credibility. The Scottish rugby team has long welcomed long-lost Scots to the team - Nathan Hines, Dan Parks, Sean Lineen, Glenn Metcalfe et al. Plenty of English-born men have excelled for the Scottish rugby team. The England rugby team has welcomed Manu Tuilagi whose brothers play for Samoa. The England cricket team is stocked with South Africans with varying degrees of connection to England (some are in the side due to residency, some through parentage, some because they happened to be born in South Africa but all qualify)

Some will argue that Rhodes, Mackail-Smith, and Gilks aren't good enough to play for England and that's why they want to play for Scotland? Sure. I agree. None of them are good enough to play for England. As I say, that isn't the point: are they good enough to play for Scotland? The answer is very possibly.
At some point, or various points, managers didn't think that Deco wasn't good enough for Brazil. The manager of Portugal at the relevant point thought that Deco was (a) eligible and (b) good enough for Portugal. The same was true of Pepe, Eduardo and Senna. Spain, Portugal and Croatia all benefited.

For years, Arteta has been touted for England or, possibly, Scotland. Is he good enough to play for Spain? No - he's probably not even in the top 10 midfielders available to Spain. Is he good enough to play for England? Yes. Is he good enough to play for Scotland? That's such a laughable question I won't even dignify it with an answer.

Why does this matter? Why is the Scottish football team so different from the Scottish rugby team? If a player is eligible, what's the issue?

Is it because beer-bellied loons on the terraces who, when the going gets tough, boo their own players or - worse - don't turn up? It is because journalists write bizarre articles on the matter trying desperately not to appear controversial or, whisper it very quietly, talk about bloodlines? Why are Scotland different from Spain, Portugal or Croatia? Or are they not different and we are actually worried because these players are English rather than, say, Norwegian or South African?

There are legitimate concerns about the Scottish national team but this isn't the one we should be discussing. It doesn't undermine the Scottish team. It may make it better. It may inspire young Scottish children to do better. Mackail Smith, Bardsley and Rhodes may even be their heroes.

RCM

Happy Birthday Digger!

2011-11-07T14:51:00.000-08:00

A second video post in a day but, seeing a few Twitter tributes, I thought it only right to do a second one.

So Happy Birthday John Barnes - my favourite player as a child. A scintillatingly good player and, for a while, the best thing in England. What would Liverpool pay for a left-winger of his class these days?

RCM

PS - plenty of jokers will answer my above question with ''plenty'', ''£50m'' etc. Enjoy the comments, chaps and chapesses.

The Sparrow of Vejle

2011-11-07T14:07:00.000-08:00

As I finish off a couple of pieces, I thought I'd treat readers to an occasionally forgotten great of European football.

An absolute joy to watch. He has, like Prosinecki, or Cruyff, that total mastery of ball. His work in tight areas, with defenders around him, is wonderful. In particular, he loved to run at defenders and - at the very last second, almost as he was on top of the defender - flicked the ball away from them. This reeks of arrogance but it also reeks of class.

Like the true greats, he runs directly - not so much zig-zagging but rather like a knife through a defence, only going the long way around a defender when absolutely necessary. Tricks are only used to get past a man or to open a defence for a team-mate.

I particularly like his goal in the video below at 5.26. I give you Charlton Athletic's most gifted ever player, the man who, along with his fellow Dane, Henning Jensen, inspired Moenchengladbach in the late 1970s, part - though sadly not a huge part - of the Danish Dynamite team of 1986 and one of the finest players of his era: Allan Simonsen.

Enjoy!

Now, you can debate in the comments whether he, Brian Laudrup, Michael Laudrup, Molby, Elkjaer, H. Jensen or Schmeical was the greatest Danish player.

RCM

The rehabilitation of Pardew

2011-11-05T05:39:00.000-07:00

Over the summer, many Newcastle fans were not particularly happy little rabbits. This was a combination of transfer policy, a disastrous pre-season, years of mismanagement, a bungled sacking of a popular management and, well, because of Mike Ashley. Few held out hope for the season.

We had the Joe Kinnear rant, the messiah moments with Keegan and the bizarre way he left the club, we had the signings of the likes of Xisco, we had the Hughton imbroglio. Newcastle fans must have wondered what on Earth next.

Joey Barton's Twitter rants that he, Enrique, Nolan and Gutierrez would follow Andy Carroll out of the club seemed plausible and sparked worry. The fans had legitimate reason to worry. The clubs critics and detractors had legitimate reason to point and laugh.

Barton was almost correct - he, Nolan and Enrique did leave. The club's transfer policy had seen them lose what received wisdom had down as the best players. Carroll, the local hero, left earlier in the year and whilst this was a blow to Geordie pride it did, at least, come with a hefty cheque. Enrique, arguably the league's best left-back last season, followed Carroll to Anfield. Nolan went to the relegated West Ham - a man who had all but hauled Newcastle from the Championship to the Premier League on his Scouse shoulders. The boisterous Barton went to QPR.
Some tipped them for the relegation scrap, others tittered that the ongoing Toon soap opera was continuing. It has, over these past few years, been like watching Earls Park F.C. If it wasn't ludicrous signings, it was astonishing injury problems. If it wasn't sacking fine managers, it was police inquiries.

The Emperor Puts On Some Clothes

But we are living in the era of the rehabilitation of Pardew. Once upon a time he was in that murmuration of managers who were routinely tipped for the England managers job. He was part of a vanguard of managers who were going to change the game with new training regimes, scientific methods and a more cerebral approach. He, and others, were supposed to be the new brooms which would sweep away the likes of Redknapp.

Then Steven Gerrard met Alan Pardew.

There are few times in football when we can pinpoint the exact moment where their life, or footballing career, changed forever. Gazza's tackle on Gary Charles is one that springs to mind. David Beckham's astonishing goal against Wimbledon another. With Pardew, it is difficult not to feel that Gerrard's cartoonish goal in the 93rd minute in the 2006 Cup Final changed his career substantively. If that ball had drifted past the post, Pardew would have been a young, English manager who won the Cup - the first to do so in years. He'd have left West Ham and got a cushty job with Villa or, possibly, Spurs.

But the ball flew in and Liverpool, somehow, won the Cup. Pardew had every right to wonder what on Earth had happened to him.

It got worse. West Ham struggled in the early months of the next season and Pardew left. A series of disappointments followed as he dropped down the divisions. The idea that he had once been tipped for the England job was laughable. It seemed that Gerrard's goal had been the footballing equivalent of the Emperor's New Clothes. It was as if the footballing gods had spoken.

So it was unsurprising that Pardew jumped at the chance of managing Newcastle United - a massive club, with a massive support, and serial underachievers. He must have realised this was his last shot at the big-time and it is a chance he has grabbed with both hands. Whilst many of us still feel sorry for Chris Hughton, we cannot blame Pardew for exploiting an opportunity and building on Hughton's excellent work.

Many have made much of the importance of Graham Carr, the gifted scout, and his importance should not be overstated. Whilst Pardew's signing of Marveaux, Ba and Cabaye has proved extremely important, we should remember that Tiote and Ben Arfa joined last year. I am excited about Davide Santon and believe that, in the long-run, he could be an enormous talent for Newcastle.

All of a sudden Newcastle are not laden with highly-salaried, injury-prone man-children. As talented as Barton is, as monstrous a talent as Carroll may be, I would imagine Newcastle are better off without them.

The trend is three-fold. Firstly, Newcastle seemed to be adopting two, complementary, strategies. One, is a kind of moneyball approach - buying players from leagues where players are generally undervalued (not always, of course, as Hazard will prove in due course). Secondly, and related, a kind of Wenger strategy of finding young, French talent and bunching them together.

We see a shift from the yeoman to the technically excellent. Loathe as it may seem to the tabloid press, Tiote and Cabaye are far finer footballers than the likes of Nolan and Barton and are the embodiment of the technical difference between ''good players'' on the continent and ''good players'' in the UK. This shift allows better movement, better possession. It allows better football.

Finally, most obviously, and, perhaps least in keeping with this blog to notice, there are far fewer troublemakers in the squad. For years, Newcastle seems to have been the equivalent of the Mos Eisley Cantina - full of reprobates (Carroll, Barton), injury-prone players (Smith, Dyer, Owen), and egos (Nolan). Before anyone starts that Nolan is not an ego, let's not forget his previous BBC columns which were essentially a lobbying outlet for his thankfully non-existent England career.

This rebalanced squad - based around the work and technical excellence of Tiote and Cabaye - engenders team spirit and industry. It is equally shifted to the growing importance of Coloccini - one of the league's finest performers - who is now clearly the leader on the pitch.

These three players, in particular, epitomise what the new Newcastle are about. Solidity, but more importantly, possession. Pardew has not only changed the nature of the squad but the nature of the team on the pitch. The intelligent, but sometimes hopeful, passing of Barton and link-up play to Carroll has been replaced by patience and possession. Pardew - a man long obsessed with stats - has been frothing at the mouth about passing percentrages and, moreover, the number of passes completed in a game (often equalling City, United and Chelsea in how dominant they are with the ball). To do this, as we see with Barcelona, you need technically cute players but also a player who can start moves at the centre of defence. Coloccini is that man for Newcastle.

Questions remain: Will Ba stay fit? Even if he does (and it is an enormous 'if'), will he, Ameobi, Lovenkrands, Best and Ranger score enough over the season to stop them sliding down to a reassuringly average mid-table finish? Is there enough depth in the squad if a couple of stars get injured - if Cabaye and Tiote were both injured what would happen? Can they react to a run of bad games?

Still, these are hypotheticals. There may still be time for Pardew to sweep away Redknapp in that race for the England job.

RCM

Speeches in sport

2011-11-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

I will return to the blogosphere properly tomorrow with a piece about Newcastle United (I'm just making a few final touches).

In the meantime, my good pal, David Torrance launched a book yesterday called ''Great Scottish Speeches''. I was delighted that the speech below made it in. It's a rugby speech but I'd guess that any football fan watching it will feel the hairs on their arms tingle.

From a debating point of view, a very good speech. A crescendo in the middle, use of pauses and pathos as well as ethos and logos. Enjoy... and see you tomorrow.

If you've any other suggestions for great sports speeches, please put them in the comments box.

RCM

Things we could learn from the rugby world cup

2011-10-24T15:14:00.000-07:00

The rugby world cup is over. The winners were, pleasingly, the All Blacks.

Kiwis, with the devastating Christchurch earthquake and Pike River mining disaster, have had their share of heartbreak over the last 12 months. Nowhere else in the world cares about rugby union as New Zealand, as a whole, cares about rugby union and it feels right that on home territory they have finally regained the trophy.

Many readers - from non-rugby playing countries - will wonder why I am focussing on the sport but I think the tournament has a number of lessons for football. Not the hoary bromides about men being men and not diving, how wonderful it is to sit next to the away fans and the lack of booing during the national anthem. We've all heard enough about those.

I'm talking about proper lessons....

Small countries can win stuff

I've written before why small can excel at international sport. I genuinely believe small nations, or nations with small populations, can punch above their weight and succeed at international sport.

New Zealand has a population of 4.3m people. Rugby Union is the major sport - football, cricket and rugby league are small fry by comparison - and it is a national obsession. Even so, they are competing - and routinely beating - teams from Australia (21m), South Africa (49m), England (51m), and France (62m).

Some will argue that other sports dominate in these countries but even so there are far more registered rugby players in England, France, and South Africa than there are in New Zealand. The numbers don't stack up and it isn't just down to New Zealanders liking rugby more.

Not only are they better at rugby, they are getting better all the time. Since the start of Test Match rugby, they have a win record of 75%. Since 2004, that has creeped up to 85%. This is astonishing.

There are any number of lessons that nations such as Scotland could learn and adapt to football. At the very earliest level, Kiwis focus on four key skills taught at youth level (catch, pass, run and evade) is similar to Ajax's focus on TIPS (Technique, Insight, Personality, Speed). Indeed, football could easily change it to: Control, pass, run and evade.

That's before we get to the messy business of tactics, tackling, offside and all that jazz. But children who can control the ball, pass it, run with it, and evade tacklers? There's a bloody start.

There's a book to be written here, by the way, not a blog post.

Don't always sack unsuccessful coaches

When New Zealand crashed out of the 2007 World Cup at the Quarter Final stage, the opprobrium poured on the All Blacks and their coach, Graham Henry, was enormous. He was almost persona non grata in the land of the Long White Cloud.

Many wanted Henry to be sacked after New Zealand's worst ever World Cup performance - a World Cup that many had expected them to win. Few had expected New Zealand to perform so poorly. Fewer still had expected a phlegmatic, doughty England to get to the final or Argentina to reach the semi-final. All of this was very embarrassing for a nation, a group of players and a coach that had so comprehensively destroyed the British and Irish Lions only two years previously.

The NZRU made a ballsy call to re-apppoint Henry on but, four years on, it was Henry's team who had their hands on the trophy. Many of the men who lost to France in 2007 were part of the squad which won in 2011 (Woodcock, Hore, Mealamu, Williams, McCaw, Ellis, Carter, Smith, Toeava and Muliana). Others still (Nonu, Weepu, Thorn) have been in and out of the side since Henry started. This is a group of players that trusted their coach and his staff implicitly and who turned disaster into triumph.

We should remember the smiling man from Christchurch the next time we call for the head of a manager.

Don't believe in determinism

It is easy to look at England's continual losing on penalties at the Quarter Final stage of a major tournament and think that will continue to happen. It is equally as easy to look at Scotland continually not qualifying and believe that will also continue to happen.

Since their last win in 1987, New Zealand had not won a World Cup until this year. The term that was continually applied to the team was that of ''chokers''.

It was believed that if the greats who turned out in the All Black had failed to win in 1991, 1995, 1999, 2003, and 2007 that this would forever be the case. This was a huge psychological issue for the team, its players and the nation. It seemed that at each World Cup the team, or events, conspired for them to lose in ever more spectacular ways. In 1995 - it was down, apparently, to food poisoning. In 1999, they dominated half a game against the French only to be hit by the rugby equivalent of Istanbul 2005. In 2003, Stirling Mortlock inspired a fairly torpid Australia to beat the heavily fancied Kiwis in a semi-final. In 2007, their old nemesis, France, humiliated them - against the odds - in Cardiff.

The pressure, therefore, on the 2011 vintage was huge. Not only had they been selected to wear that magnificent shirt, they were doing so for a country that had been hit hard in the last year and were doing so at home. The legends of the game - Cullen, Lomu, Kronfeld, Wilson, Bunce, Hewitt, Umaga, Marshall - had all failed could this vintage. If players as gifted as Carter and McCaw had failed in 2003 and 2007, why would they succed now?

It had become a self-fulfilling prophecy. New Zealand were always the favourites who never won. That has been put to bed.

England - next summer - and Scotland - next qualification - should take note. History doesn't write our futures.

You can lose your best player and still win

Daniel Carter is the best rugby player in the world today. There is a credible argument to make that he is the finest fly-half ever to play the game. As the heartbeat of his team, this would eb the equivalent of Spain or Barcelona losing Xavi.

Carter didn't play in the quarter final, semi-final or final. Indeed, in the final, New Zealand were playing with their fourth choice fly-half, Stephen Donald. As it happens, a man who had to be called up to play for the All Blacks from fishing for Whitebait whilst drinking beer on the Waikato River is probably the most Kiwi thing that has ever happened.

Anyway, What was that about Mr Rooney's three-game suspension?

Exiles end up kicking themselves

Many, including myself, in the Scottish game would dearly love Steven Fletcher to return from his largely self-imposed exile from the Scotland international football team. One wonders how those exiles Carl Hayman, Luke McAllister and various others are feeling this week when they realise the decision to chase the pound or the euro has meant that they didn't get their hands on the Webb Ellis Trophy?

My favourite line in the West Wing is ''Decisions are made by the people who show up'. A sporting version might be ''Medals are won by those who show up'. Those self-imposed retirements or embarrassing fits of pique which lead players not to play for their country are always a shame. They are a greater shame when they miss out on the champagne.

RCM

Suarez and Evra

2011-10-17T14:50:00.000-07:00

As is so often the case, after a big game, we are not talking about the (admittedly limited) glories of the Liverpool versus Manchester United game at the weekend.

The problem is we aren't even talking about the referee and the decisions that he made or didn't make. The slight flurry of activity over whether a slight clip to an object as sizeable as Charlie Adam is enough to bring him down has been obscured by the rather nasty fall-out surrounding the alleged racial abuse of Manchester United's left-back, Patrice Evra.

As most of you will know Evra has accused Luis Suarez of racist abuse. Today the news has come out that Evra wishes to pursue these very serious allegations. Liverpool have said that they fully support their player and Suarez himself has denied the accusations categorically.

This is quite the impasse.

Further, both sets of fans have hardly covered themselves in glory here. Manchester United fans, perhaps unsurprisingly, have decided that because Suarez has a history of various offences he must be guilty of this. Liverpool fans, again, perhaps unsurprisingly, have decided that Suarez is innocent becuase of Evra's ''past behaviour''. This piece from Republik Of Mancunia sheds some light on Evra's ''past behaviour''.

A few things to consider:

Most of us - I would hope - believe in ''innocent until proven guilty''. This seems to have gone out of the window for many of those who want to see Suarez pinned to a wall. He is innocent until proven otherwise. As, for that matter, is Evra.

We should not immediately assume that Evra is making these claims up. We should investigate his claims fully and thoroughly. Victims of racial abuse often need support -even multimillionaire ones - so, for the good of all players in the game, we should not castigate Evra as a liar just because we accord Suarez the presumption of innocence. Indeed, we should extent the presumption to both men. Not doing so might put off future individuals who suffer racial abuse.

If the claims can be substantiated then Suarez should receive a substantial punishment - I would guess some level of combination of a fine, suspension and some kind of community service.
Regardless of the outcome of this, Suarez seems to attract controversy - either warranted or unwarranted. Last year, it was the handball that shook Africa and his biting of a player. Already this year he has attracted ire for his performance against Everton. I thought the reaction to him against Everton was unfair but it would be nice if we just could focus on his fantastic footballing ability for a week.
Even if you disagree with R_o_M's analysis, those saying that ''Evra is the boy who cried wolf'' miss part of the point of the story. The boy cried wolf falsely so many times people stopped believing him until, one fateful day, he had actually seen a wolf.

The moral of the story is primarily to stop people spreading false alarm. The second that one day you may not be believe. A third moral, often overlooked, is that even those who do cry wolf can be telling the truth.
That said, why did Evra not report this during the game to the match official? There may be a very good reason but I would imagine that legitimate questions will be asked as to why he didn't raise it on the pitch to any of the match day officials or his captain. I am sure there are - or at least could be - legitimate answers but that one element of the story seems a bit odd. It seems further odd to me at least that Evra refused to say in an interview what Suarez had called him. (NB: EDIT - Of course, Mr Evra was captain on Saturday and therefor my comment above should be changed somewhat. That said, the comment stands re: not raising it with match officials and, perhaps, becomes stronger because of his captaincy.)

Others may point out that Evra didn't comment in the previous incidents and, therefore, the fact he has said anything at all suggests something. What it suggests is open to conjecture.
There is another take on this matter: As ParaguayRalph has put it in two interesting tweets (a) ''Evra feels he has been racially abused yet Suarez feels he hasn't racially abused anybody. Prob. due to a v.different concept of racism here' (b) ''Suarez may well have believed what he (allegedly) said wasn't racist which is conceivable, what is acceptable in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay isn't in Europe'' .

Before we condemn Suarez as a racist or Evra as a liar, we should consider that this may be an issue of different cultural values or even of mistranslation. Numerous commentators have noted that South Americans are more likely to identify an individual's characteristics than those of us in Western Europe would. This is conjecture, of course, and, if true, doesn't justify the actions although it may cast them in a different light.
I am not even certain as to what Suarez is alleged to have said or in what language. The only reports I've seen are (a) a Canal+ interview where Evra refused to say what he had been called (NB: Before Suarez should answer to anyone he should at least know what he is accused of saying) (b) in today's Independent he is alleged to have called Evra a ''nigger'' on ''at least 10 occasions''. If that is true one must applaud Evra on showing remarkable restraint in the face of such persistent and filthy abuse but it is odd that neither he nor any other player of either side or the referee or the either of assistant linesmen heard any of these remarks.

One would imagine that a TV camera must have picked this up although we may be in lipreader territory which can be massively inconclusive. Remember the Zidane/Materazzi incident where any number of lipreaders came up with any number of contradictory reports. The Busquets/Marcelo case was similar.

It would seem strange on first viewing that someone so comparatively new to the English language that he would know such a horrifically abusive term. Although, when one buys a dictionary, one normally flicks to the filthiest words. Perhaps more plausible is an issue of mistranslation - remember that black in Spanish is ''negra''. Again, that doesn't necessarily justify Suarez's alleged behaviour but, again, may be a contributing factor in why we may be in a situation where both men are right: Suarez doesn't think he abused anyone and Evra thinks he was racially abused.
As the R_o_M article gets into, there is a difference between 'not proven' and innocent. This is the rub here. This is hardly news to those involved in Scots Law (I've always liked to think of the difference between 'not guilty' and 'not proven' as the difference between ''innocent'' and ''we ken you did it but we cannae prove it'')

If Evra's allegations are disproved and Suarez is cleared, Liverpool's stance that he Evra should be punished is correct. It is, however, almost impossible to prove innocence in such a case. Without corroborating evidence it is likely that this will end up as not proven - what would constitute corroborating evidence is either a recording from TV cameras or eyewitnesses. The problem is most eyewitnesses will be hopelessly biased.

The worst case scenario for Evra is that there is a recording which proves that Suarez didn't say anything of the sort (although that would have to be a fairly lengthy and extensive recording). In that instance, and that instance alone, Evra should be banned. My guess is that cannot or won't happen although we should recognise that a false accusation both hurts Suarez and, more importantly, people who wish to report such matters.

In reality, I would imagine that no such evidence either way will be produced. If that is the case, Suarez is stained because many will lament a lack of evidence as ''we ken you did it but cannae prove it'' rather than viewing him as innocent. If that is the case, Evra is stained because he is - regardless of the truth of the matter - the boy who cried wolf.

I can't see this ending particularly well for either player and, perhaps, regardless of outcome some level of mediation (as offered by Gordon Taylor) may be useful for both players, their reputations and to stop this going any futher.

That is, of course, pre-empting the result of the FA's inquiry. It is all rather sad that we are focusing on this rather than the football. C'est la vie.

RCM

Overseas TV Rights

2011-10-11T15:29:00.000-07:00

This story, in the Guardian, is massive. The reaction of many to Liverpool's announcement is, perhaps, typically ''why don't you go and walk alone, then?'.

A few things: Firstly, any such deal would need to be ok'd by 14 of the Premier League clubs. My guess therefore is that when the debate comes it will be ko'd.

The debate, as Ayres notes, must happen but in reality such a proposal would potentially financially harm 14 clubs in the long-term whilst skewing the dominance of 6 clubs in the longer-term (Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs and Manchester City). We have seen with the occasional mooting of Celtic and Rangers joining the Premier League that the ''smaller clubs'' generally vote against anything that threatens their own self-interest - and why the hell not?

Although it is Liverpool that have announced that they would like for this debate to happen it is equally clear that other clubs will be interested in these developments. It does, however, show a more business-like approach from Liverpool. Sir Alex Ferguson may well have said that the current TV deal is 'fair' - perhaps acknowledging that a competitive league is good for Manchester United - but he has also acknowledged that clubs deserved more. Further, the good knight is unlikely to be the man making the decision on such matters at Old Trafford and, even if he is, he won't be forever.

On the one hand, it seems right that the clubs that generate the income and interest from around the globe should get a commensurate share of the pie. Few individuals in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, Riyadh or Dubai are signing up to watch Norwich or Stoke. They, by and large, are supporting the ''big six''. If they are paying to watch the big boys, why should the money be redistributed?
On the other hand, there is the argument that those clubs require to play against the other fourteen clubs. Without Stoke, Norwich, Newcastle, Villa and the rest, the big six are fairly useless. Would those fellows around the world tune in to watch a hugely uncompetitive league? Is redistribution a price worth paying for a competitive league? I'd argue yes.

The big six always have the nuclear option - increasingly mooted in Spain given the dominance of Real Madrid and Barcelona - of a European league. I'd guess that this is unlikely in the short-term or even medium-term.

Furthermore, an unequal distribution of TV rights will further skew the uneven playing field in favour of the big clubs - they already have the biggest fan-bases buying more merchandise; more money coming over the tills in the grounds; wealthy benefactors and, generally, trophy-winning, decent league finishes and European income. The big six already have any number of things in their favour. Carving up TV rights will only entrench that position. The idea of a team from outside that number - laughable as it is at present - becomes impossible to envision.

There is an argument for saying that the short-term gain that additional revenue - and the ability to sign better players and, presumably, compete against Real and Barcelona - would bring would be mitigated in the longer term by the uncompetitive nature of the league. Already, voices this season have noted that Manchester United and Manchester City have struggled (comparatively, at least) in Europe because the Premiership is too easy for them and has not prepared them for the rigours of Champions League football this season. In my view it is too early to call.
This analysis is undermined by the fact that under such a system Barcelona and Real Madrid have accumulated the finest players in the world, have drawn numerous clubs into an arms race to try and match them and are the dominant teams in world football. For all United's recent Champions League finals, I cannot credibly argue they are a better team or squad than Real Madrid.

Admittedly, it is difficult to transpose such an analysis to English football. Although Manchester United and Chelsea have dominated the game over the past few years, there are other big market players who do not have equivalents in Spain (Liverpool, Arsenal etc). It is clear that English football is a different beast to Spanish football. This greater depth means that it isn't just 'el clasico' that matters but rather more games - even if the rest of the league became turgid, Manchester United (say) would still have 10 games against the other big boys. The league under such conditions, at least, would be somewhat more competitive than La Liga even if it would be less competitive than it is right now.

That said, despite my vaguely right-wing political leanings elsewhere (particularly on economic matters), it disappoints me that Liverpool are the ones leading the charge here. Sport is about more than money and winning doesn't mean as much if you've bought the cup.

The club, to me, is more than a club. It is about the history, the shared sense of identity, the clear and honest links to the people of Liverpool despite worldwide support and about any number of incidental things that all add up to the club being a major part in my, and many other people's lives. It is about an ethos set out by Shankly. It is about the traditions of the Boot Room. It is about the vibrancy that permeates across Merseyside when the Reds are doing well. We truly are, as many clubs are, more than a club. It doesn't feel like that today. It will, I guess, tomorrow.

RCM

Inglorious Failure

2011-10-11T14:12:00.000-07:00

This very evening, as I watched the BBC Scotland news, the sports presenter said ''will it be a glorious night or another glorious failure?'

And here it starts again: Scotland have failed gloriously in the past and, therefore, any failure must be glorious. If we can't win, at least we can lose in style.

There was very little glorious tonight or, indeed, the entire campaign. Bar the result against Spain at Hampden, where Scotland scored 2 and came back from 2-0 down against the World Champions, was there a result that Scotland could be truly proud of?

Whilst Scotland should be commended for their performance against Spain at Hampden and for a ten minute period of the game tonight (although that should be caveated with the fact that Spain were 3-1 up at the time and had taken off their best two players!). During those ten minutes, Spain seemed to have got bored with their hypnotic football and Scotland seemed to get into the game. For the rest of the time, Scotland chased and harried and puffed and blew but effort isn't enough again Spain.

The highlight was undoubtedly Goodwillie's supremely arrogant penalty which was beautifully executed. However, it was almost Scottish football writ large. We might not win but we've at least got something to be smug about.

But do we really?

Other than the seriously and serially delusional, we all knew that Spain were going to win this group. There is no shame in losing to a team as glorious as Spain (even this Spain with no Fabregas, Iniesta, Alonso et al). Scotland could, and possibly should, have scored more than their solitary goal against Spain in Alicante but realistically Spain could have netted at least double their three.

This campaign was one of various failures and few of them were glorious. There was nothing glorious about drawing 0-0 against Lithuania. There was nothing glorious about the 4-6-0 against a team ranked 12 places above Scotland in the world rankings - which ended up in a defeat. There was nothing glorious about a 97th minute win - at home - to Liechtenstein - an almost unbelievable game. There was nothing glorious about a 1-0 in Vaduz. There was nothing glorious about scoring 8 goals in 8 games. There was nothing glorious about isolating Scotland's best striker, Steven Fletcher, who really could have added to the campaign.

And can we put to bed, please, because we've heard about it endlessly, about that bloody penalty decision against the Czech Republic last month? Yes, Rezek dived and the penalty shouldn't have been given. We seem to have forgotten - completely - Adam's two-footed challenge which was a stonewall penalty in the first half. As Levein complained afterwards my only thought was ''it was you who decided to put out that prophylactic eleven in Prague, Craigy boy, and look where it got us''.

A glorious failure might have seen Scotland beating Spain either at Hampden or in Spain. A glorious failure might have seen Scotland beating the Czech Republic - and let us not forget that this Czech Republic is not the team of Nedved, Poborsky, Berger et al - rather than sending out a frankly embarrassing team in Prague. A glorious failure might have seen a thrashing of Liechtenstein or, hell, combined with a win against Spain, a defeat to Liechtenstein rather than one anaemic win and one that was secured in the 97th minute.

Liechtenstein has a population smaller than Cumbernauld and many of their players are amateurs or playing in the Swiss 2nd division. Scotland have players playing for Manchester United, Liverpool, Aston Villa and a whole host of other Premier League clubs. There are easy games in international football and Scotland should be pumping Liechtenstein.

So this was not a glorious failure. It was just failure - Scotland should have come 2nd in the group, and they didn't. Some may say that this campaign an inglorious failure. Others may note, as we have seen with Goodwillie's stop/start penalty, that it was a vainglorious failure. After all, few teams can strut and crow whilst losing like Scotland can.

And what next? I agree with Nevin's contradictory statement: on the one hand, this was a group to come 2nd in. On the other, the team did improve. For all Levein's failings, and they are legion, he may just have done enough to keep the job.

Qualifying for 2014 will be even more difficult. Maybe that will be the time for glorious failure?

RCM

On managers, fans and referees

2011-10-03T12:54:00.000-07:00

Let's get the simplest thing out of the way: Martin Atkinson made a terrible decision yesterday to send off Jack Rodwell. It wasn't a foul let alone a red card and, clearly, this affected Everton's chances in the game. It didn't, however, on its own, lose Everton the game.

(As an aside: it isn't quite as simple as ''I got the ball'' (though he did). Atkinson clearly thought that Rodwell was guilty of ''serious foul play''. The definition within the Laws is: ''A player is guilty of serious foul play if he uses excessive force or brutality against an opponent when challenging for the ball when it is in play... A tackle that endangers the safety of an opponent must be sanctioned as serious foul play''. Now, I do not believe that young Mr. Rodwell was guilty of serious foul play but can we all please stop the ''but he got the ball, he got the ball' rubbish'').

So I must admit to feeling more than a little sorry for Rodwell whilst also, perhaps perversely, have no little sympathy for Suarez. Those having a pop at Suarez (there are many: few better written than this piece by Surreal Football) should probably leave him for this one - even though he, like so many fine players, can be a truly woeful individual. For all I thought he over-reacted, I don't think the reaction was too awful - certainly no worse than anything that any number of other players across the Premier League would do. I don't think - given how swiftly Atkinson had his hand in his pocket - that the reaction changed or overtly influenced the decision. It was just bad refereeing. As I've argued before, I've got no major problem with diving and I don't think he dived this time (at least considering the conventional meaning of the term).

Imagine for a second if the tackle had been Fellaini or Lucas Leiva or, better still, if Suarez had done the same to Rodwell. I'm not sure that the English media would have focused on the incident so much as they have done.

Before I get into the meat of this post, one final thing that has been overlooked - almost entirely - is that Tony Hibbert was very lucky in a nasty challenge later on in the half. To me, on first viewing, Hibbert should have walked. Some agree, some disagree. He gave away neither a foul or a booking. Regardless, two wrongs don't make a right, they should make a demotion of Mr Atkinson.

We need to talk about reffing... no we don't, at least not as much

The thing that annoys me most has been that since the game all we have talked about is the referee. It is assumed that Rodwell being sent off not only changed the game in Liverpool's favour but, moreover, that this (a) excused Everton almost anything - we haven't discussed the shambolic defending for the second Liverpool goal (b) that no other outcome was possible - despite the fact that plenty of teams with 10 men win games or draw games. Remember this the next time that a team wins a game with 10 men. I guess this will happen, somewhere in England, in the next 7 days.

The focus has meant that we haven't discussed so much of the game - Adam's divine shot against the bar, the impact that Bellamy made upon arrival, Distin's wonderful turn and shot in the Liverpool box, the menace of Saha or Howard's astonishing save for the penalty kick. This is a shame. We have entirely focused on the mistake of Atkinson. There was so much in the game to enjoy - and not just for Liverpool fans.

One of the hoariest cliches in modern sport is that rugby fans - and players - are a different breed to their round ball counterparts. There is much to admire in rugby land and that we should adopt. Rugby fans could also learn rather a lot from football fans but let us hope that they do not continue the trend of blaming referees endlessly that seems to be be developing at Twickers and Murrayfield.

Last weekend, there was a depressing moment after Scotland's narrow defeat to Argentina. There were howls of outrage on my Facebook and Twitter feeds about how the ref had caused Scotland to lose the game. There was little focus that, for the 2nd time in 3 games, Scotland had failed to score a try or that Scotland's defence missed a number of tackles. There was even less focus that Parks instructed another ruck when he was in a good position for a drop goal; that there was no one outside him just in case or that he wasn't standing deep enough. No the entire focus was that Wayne Barnes hadn't called an offside decision. How depressing.

This is, perhaps, an anomaly in the oval ball game but it is common to the point of maddening banality in soccer. Barely a game goes by without fans, the manager or players saying that their team has been cheated out of a win by the referee. There is no doubt that I have, in the past, fallen foul of this but I have, in recent months, endeavoured not to blame referees

May I separate out two strands of thought: firstly, there is a difference between pointing out a referee's flaws, critiquing and criticising their performance and blaming a referee for a result. I have criticised referees in the past, I have probably blamed referees in the past, but the sooner that we recognise (a) referees are human beings who make errors and (b) we are all hypocrites, the better.

(NB: I concede that I have constantly criticised the performance of Howard Webb largely because he has - on a large number of occasions - got big calls wrong in games that involve Manchester United. This doesn't mean he is bent, that he is a United fan or that he was the sole factor that won them a game. It suggests to me that he is clearly not up to the standards we expect or, more likely, is overwhelmed at Old Trafford. I'm not sure - bar, potentially, whilst drunk - that I've ever blamed him for a result.)

On hypocrisy, those who have criticised Kenny Dalglish in recent days for lambasting referees for bad decisions earlier in the season and not doing the same here: football manager in hypocrisy shocker. Whatever next? Rugby players getting drunk on tour? Admittedly, Dalglish's rants about referees would have rung slightly less hollow if he had admitted his good fortune at the weekend and come out with some level of sympathy for Moyes rather than going all Arsene Wenger on us.

So why is this bad focus on the referee bad? Firstly, I think football is eating itself by doing so. We don't concentrate on what matters. We focus on the man who we should ignore. It is always the referees. It is never the manager. Or the players. It is always the split second rather than the 90-odd minutes.

Secondly, because by doing so - in the media and blogosphere - we are giving managers and players an easy way out. ''My team lost because of the referee'' should usually be interpreted as ''I couldn't adapt to the conditions''. Whether those conditions were brought about fairly is a pointless task: there are plenty of unfair things in the game. Indeed, one of the best things about the game is that sometimes unfair things happen - otherwise we wouldn't have very much to talk about. It was unfair when Luis Suarez handled the ball against Ghana but let us not forget that most of us would have done the same in that situation, it was compelling viewing and gave us a talking point.

Managers need a scapegoat. The black shirt of the referee fits. As above, I'm not saying referees should be immune from criticism but it should be fair. Remember that referees view things in real-time, from one angle and with only some level of assistance. The incidents are usually high-pace, multi-agent events in high pressure situations. That doesn't mean clangers don't happen - as Rodwell shows, they do - but we really need to live by the ''Golden Rule'': All involved in the game - commentators, pundits, players, fans and managers - must realise that mistakes, even in shiny, happy TV replay land - will happen.

And what about fans...

In many ways the more shocking incident was that Everton fans repeatedly threw things at Liverpool players. This has been commented on but not to the same extent as either the Rodwell incident or the filthy chanting of both Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur fans yesterday afternoon.

When these fans were criticised, the immediate reaction from many Everton fans was to point out that Liverpool fans weren't all that and should get their own house in order before criticising others. Quite astonishing hypocrisy (it takes real brass balls to do the opposite of what you are telling people to do after all). We should recognise this as misdirection - this wasn't to ''defend their fans'' or ''concentrate on the issues'' but rather ''let's stop focusing on the scumbag in my club's support'.

Of course, sections of the Anfield faithful have acted appallingly over the years. Only a fool would deny this. This is hardly unique - we've heard Munich chants at Anfield, Eastlands and Lord knows where else. We've heard Hillsborough chants around the land. We've heard the disgusting song about Sol Campbell and the disgraceful ones about Adebayor. This isn't confined to any particular group of fans - it happens across the land.

The usual cleverness is that the people who chant this nonsense, or throw stuff at players, are not real fans. I cannot put this plainly enough: Yes they are.

It would be a lot better if we just admitted that all groups of fans have repellent and repugnant individuals and all groups of fans have plenty of morons. To construct the cleverness that ''the disgusting ones among us aren't really fans'' both demeans us all and sets the debate on how to tackle these chants (i.e. if we do want to tackle them). We are lifting up the carpet and pushing the filth underneath it.

Indeed, think of all the groups that are often not considered real fans (a) the ''johnny come latelies'' who only started liking football when it went all middle class somewhere between Fever Pitch and Three Lions. (b) the people who don't go to grounds - which is interesting as these are the people who definitely aren't throwing stuff at players or chanting filth. If they are at least they are doing so in their own homes and even in these debased times the government tends to allow us to chuck stuff at our own televisions (c) anyone who changes allegiance during the course of their lives - which, according to Kuper and Szymanski, is actually a pretty large percentage.

If we discount the morons, the come-latelies, those who don't go to grounds and those who swap shirts: who is left?

None of that helps poor Mr. Rodwell. Let us hope that the FA do the right thing tomorrow.

RCM

The Sad Glory of Dimitar Berbatov

2011-09-28T13:58:00.000-07:00

It is barely a secret that I am a big fan of Dimitar Berbatov. He is a truly lovely player to watch and is one of the few players I'd pay to watch train.

In may ways his story is far more interesting than that of his fellow top-scorer in the league last season. Both Berbatov and Tevez have had a difficult start to this season but Berbatov's freezing out of the United team is one of the often overlooked stories of modern football. Tevez is the ultimate expression of modern football. Berbatov's quiet dignity isn't newsworthy.

Carlos Tevez has generated more column inches in the last 24 hours than Berbatov will in a year - largely because Berbatov seems like a decent human being. As we have seen with the likes of Kerry Katona, only indecent human beings sell newspapers or get newspaper editors excited (unless, obviously, a decent sort has just lot a family member in tragic circumstances and their phones can be listened in to)

Berbatov's cause doesn't get much support. There are few candlelit vigils for him or even a campaign to get him back in the side. This is largely due to the stunning start that Manchester United have had. However, with Hernandez and Rooney out, it would have been reasonable to suspect that a player as gifted as Berbatov might start against FC Basel last night.

That was not to be. Instead, he got 8 minutes at the end of the game. This follows on from being picked, for the first time this season, against Leeds United. A game where he ended up playing in the centre of defence. Wondrous as it is to see Berba on the pitch, and owning Championship strikers, it is almost like watching one of those Eastern European bears circle its cage endlessly. Bears are wonderful to see but, in that state, one wants to put them out of their misery.

Sir Alex Ferguson has three decades of success to call upon. I have three years of wittering on about football on this blog. Berbatov isn't like Owen - a player whose type is an outcast in the modern game and who has, as an individual, been ravaged by injuries. Nor is Berbatov an unmitigated arse like Tevez who has isolated and alienated themselves.

No. This comes back to a new found obsession with system. This is in keeping with the trends of modern football. The United system at present has pace, power and skill albeit with a hint of defensive frailty and a whiff of a soft middle. A system based around the increasing importance of Rooney, the blossoming of Cleverley, the re-emergence of Anderson and the mind-boggling wizardry of Nani and Young. The view is that Berbatov doesn't fit into the system as well as others. I disagree. A player of his touch, technique and vision could link wonderfully with an on-rushing midfielder or with switching wingers. I'm sure Ferguson will sleep easily with me disagreeing with him.

It seems that Ferguson views Welbeck's raw talent - for it is a raw talent - as better in a system to get the best from Nani and Young than a player as gifted Berbatov. That is a sad state of affairs. Sadder still is that many, including the Guardian live coverage - rejoiced that Danny Welbeck was selected.

Nobody can claim Welbeck played badly. Far from it, he played very well. He just isn't as fine a player to watch, in my opinion, as Berbatov.

And has there ever been such a dizzying or sickening fall? I have blogged about the fall, and funk, of Torres but Torres' decline can at least be attributable to a series of injuries, the disaster of the Hicks and Gillett regime and sheer exhaustion. Berbatov is one of the few players to have been sidelined for the greater good of the team. The mantra ''you don't change a winning team'' is patently absurd at the best of times but Manchester United have not only changed a winning team they have dropped, decisively and decidedly, one of their finest players last season.

For he was one of their finest players: Rooney finished strongly but was truly woeful at the beginning of last season, Hernandez settled in nicely but didn't really come alive until after Christmas and Nani dipped from the sublime to the ridiculous and back again. Berbatov was frozen out due to the emergence of Hernandez and the strike partnership that began to form between Hernandez and Rooney.

It is important to remember that Berbatov outscored the likes of Rooney, Torres and van Persie last season. Many will argue that Berbatov's 20 goals (in 32 appearances last season) were inflated by his hat-trick against Liverpool and his five against Blackburn. This is undoubtedly true but we must say that none of the other players filled their boots against Blackburn (or anyone else...). Nor, bluntly, is anyone saying that the likes of Rooney and van Persie also ''inflate'' their tallies each season by similarly scoring against teams such as Blackburn or by scoring penalty kicks.

In recent interviews, Sir Alex has listed Diouf, Macheda and Owen as competition for Berbatov. Comparing a player as beautiful to watch as Berbatov - who is under-rated, I believe, in his ability to link with forward runners - to those players is like comparing D'Artagnan to the Keystone Cops.

There are many facets to Sir Alex Ferguson's genius. Two stand out here - One, an unbelievable strength of mind: few other managers would drop a player as gifted as Berbatov on such little evidence (it isn't as if his form was bad). Two, the ability - even as he drifts towards 70 years old - to learn and adapt. The system is increasingly important in football. In Ferguson's eyes, Berbatov doesn't fit the system as well as others so he mustn't play.

That is the sad truth. And, thus far, the results - yet again - suggest he is right. That may be heartbreaking for aesthetes who love to watch Berbatov. But then aesthetes hearts are often better when they are broken.

RCM

One of the unlucky ones

2011-09-27T15:26:00.000-07:00

It is not easy for mere mortals to feel sorry for professional footballers. This is for two main reasons. Firstly, most are well remunerated. Even those that are not, get to play football for a living.

It is natural to feel some level of sympathy with those players whose careers are cut very short (Paul Lake, for instance) or those who have skills but do not fulfil their potential (Paul Gascoigne, for instance). There is a little less sympathy for, say, Steve Bruce who won almost everything bar an England cap. We do not feel sympathy for Bruce but we do find it laughable that Michael Ricketts has an England cap.

Some of the players who interest me - and generate some level of sympathy - are the cracking players who are overlooked because they were unlucky enough to be born in the same era as a great from the same country. One such example was a player I loved to watch: Johan Micoud.

At Bordeaux, he replaced Zinedine Zidane. But it was Zidane who blighted Micoud's career - a player of his class would have got 50-60 caps for any other nation. Instead, he was a perpetual benchwarmer. For France, Micoud only played 17 games - many as a substitute and rarely, if ever, starting in his big games. In his pomp, at Werder Bremen, he barely played at all for France.

Micoud won the German and French leagues and was the sort of lovely little player that England doesn't do very well at all and, when we do find one, have hee-haw idea what to do with.

Perhaps most wrenchingly is what happened to France after his retirement. Looking at the central midfield of the French 2008 squad, we see a central midfield. of Toulalan, Makelele, Viera and Diarra. The likes of Nasri, Malouda, Ribery weren't playing in the middle.

Micoud was a classy player as this goal shows.

If only Mr and Mrs Micoud had planned their family a few years later. Johan would have been Zidane's successor rather than his rival and the world would have been a better place.

RCM

The Olympics

2011-09-22T13:40:00.000-07:00

A plug, and an old plug at that, and not the usual fodder you get at LBITCR, but I recently re-stumbled across this video and I enjoyed it.

I have to say I think this is wonderful stuff. I like the story - I think it is magical - and certainly better than the normal fluffy animal. All the little touches (coming to life from girders, the taxi lights in their heads, the names linking to British connections with the Olympics) are lovely.

No doubt lots of people hate them. Lots of people need a sense of imagination. Enjoy!

RCM

Torres, Torres, Torres

2011-09-19T13:18:00.000-07:00

That dear readers is the sting of life.

Like any of the unbelievable misses that crop up from time to time no one could believe Torres missed yesterday. Nobody who loves football - bar Manchester United fans who are obviously excused and, possibly, some still bitter Liverpool fans who are not - wanted Torres to miss or were happy to see him do so. For us disappointment followed disbelief. The Premier League has lost too many stars in recent years to tolerate a sub-standard Torres any longer. One cannot help but feel that, despite the arrivals of Hernandez, Suarez and Aguero, the resurgence of Rooney and the blossoming of Nani that it isn't of the standard it was when Ronaldo, Torres, Fabregas and Alonso were strutting their stuff.

I didn't want him to score because I wanted Manchester United to lose. I'm past that stage in my footballing life and, anyway, as a Liverpool fan watching United play Chelsea and hoping for a winner is a bit like a Maltese person hearing about Molotov-Ribbentrop in 1939. We know that whatever the outcome things are likely to be bad for everyone even if it isn't of immediate concern to us.

Torres has been in a funk for the past 18 months. Part of this was down to exhaustion, partly down to a series of niggling injuries and partly down to a massive dip in confidence. All of this has led to arguably the finest forward to grace the Premier League bumbling his way around grounds across England. (I wrote here about 'What is eating Fernando Torres?'). No, I wanted him to score because firstly the game would have been an even better one that it already was and, moreover, it may well have cemented Torres' recent, tentative return to form.

After Nani, who had been devastating throughout, Torres had probably been the best player on the pitch. His exquisite goal had followed sumptuous play to set up Ramires for a sitter. This was on the back of a fine performance last week in the Champions League against Bayer Leverkusen where he had set up both goals. Indeed, the moment against Bayer when he could have shot but rather set up Mata for the goal showed not that he was short of confidence but rather the complete opposite.

It is unsurprising. Last season, under Ancelotti, the Chelsea team was not set up to support their star player. Villas-Boas, with his acquisition of the sublime Mata, creative Meireles, and his reconfiguring of Chelsea's midfield has helped Torres enormously. He is running better lines, finding space and looking both quicker and shaper.

There are probably only a handful of other players who would be so impudent as to take the ball around de Gea as he gracefully did. Suarez, Nani, Rooney, van Persie and Aguero are the ones that spring to mind. Even a few weeks ago, Torres wouldn't have made that run nor would he have tried that exquisite touch.

One hopes that the miss is a blip in a return to form. It would be good for the Premier League - and not just to make the title race a little more competitive - if one of its superstars was scoring goals left, right and centre.

And, before we start the was it worse than Ronny Rosenthal, let's consider that his miss was not in the same miss as either of David Villa's debacles...

.

Or even Cristiano Ronaldo...

Realistically, Torres' miss is probably in the Giggs ballpark.

Even the best players miss, although, of course, they usually score (check out, btw, football scores today).

Perhaps, I'll expand on this thought another day but it is interesting how narratives stick in football. Rosenthal's miss isn't the worst miss of all time (Rocky Baptiste holds that dubious honour, surely!) but in our desire to tell a story that everyone already knows we always reach for poor old Ronnie. Giggs, Ronaldo, Kanu, and Villa escape. Kids today will talk about Ronny Rosenthal's miss and they may not even have seen it. They certainly couldn't point to Rosenthal in a crowd. Scottish kids will say ''van Vossen'' for the same reason - he is their Rosenthal.

Other examples are Ricky Villa's goal in the FA Cup. It is routinely regarded as the best goal ever to be scored in the FA Cup. It is our desire for a narrative, for something to cling to, for something that we all know and understand that makes these things. Perhaps, in years to come, we'll consider Gerrard's 93rd minute net-buster against West Ham. Or Giggs' wondergoal against Arsenal in the semi-final. Or Sinclair's outrageous overhead kick. Or Gazza's semi-final free-kick against Arsenal. Or, perhaps, we'll forever bang on about Ricky Villa's goal.

In the same way, despite countless cup upsets since, we still find ourselves talking about Ronnie Radford's screamer against Newcastle every year in January. Some poor BBC type is sent off to Hereford to talk to the same locals about the same goal each year. I reckon none of them were there but they get their mug on the TV each year (in the same way, more people claim to have been at Munster beat the All Blacks in 1978).

It, perhaps, shows us that we aren't creative. Or, perhaps it shows us that myths spiral down the generations and tie the footballing watching public together.

How else do we explain us reminiscing over goals we never saw by players we couldn't recognise? How does such goals define and consider the game?

Perhaps, therefore, Mr. Rosenthal shouldn't get ready to hand over his title to Torres. Football fans have already given him a crown. Torres should be thankful for that.

RCM

Football/Rugby

2011-09-17T01:36:00.000-07:00

Blogging will return apace tomorrow but, as a nod to the events down in Aotearoa, I thought I'd dig out this advertisement.

Scottish, Irish and Welsh readers.... look away now.

RCM

Joe Cole - a riposte

2011-09-13T12:04:00.000-07:00

Joe Cole is in the news.

Over the weekend, he made his debut for Lille and he set up a goal with a scintillating burst past five players. Let us hope that he continues to be so joyous in France - it will be good for him, for England, and for the English footballing soul. Cruel wags who point out he has done more for Lille than he ever did for Liverpool should stop smirking at the back.

As well as this, none other than uber-blogger, Michael Cox of Zonal Marking, wrote this piece over at ESPN. Many individuals sent me the link because they know my views on Cole (for more, read here and here). It is an interesting, insightful and typically well-written, piece from Michael but I disagree with him.

Michael's view is that Cole's biggest misfortune is not the prevailing wisdom which says that English dogged football's culture or Mourinho's stifling tactics but rather Cole's biggest problem was the phenomenal hype around him as a teenager.

There is certainly truth in this. It is difficult to consider any other English player since Paul Gascoigne that has had comparable levels of hype around Joe Cole. Consider his contemporaries: Frank Lampard was always viewed as a solid player but not one that would go on to get 80-odd caps for England, Steven Gerrard wasn't hugely hyped (indeed, I remember, that many in the Kop - and at the club - rated David Thompson more highly).

The hype around Cole was both massive and no doubt stifling - he was hailed as saviour of both West Ham and England before he had kicked a ball in anger. Joe Cole signing for West Ham was done in front of a full house at the Boleyn Ground and the annoucer said ''You'll tell your grandchildren you were here the day West Ham signed Joe Cole''. Remember though that, as a teenager, Cole did score 7 goals in a game against a Spain team with a young Xavi in it. I suppose when any teenager does that hype is unavoidable.

So, Michael is right, Cole's entire career has to be viewed through that prism: we do not judge Cole on what he has achieved but rather we judge him against what we hoped he would become.

Where I do take issue with the article is the argument that Cole never looked good as a central player. It is probably correct that Cole is not a traditional central midfielder but I think there are three central positions where he could have succeeded. I think Cole could either have played as a classical playmaker (a trequartista, enganche or 10); as a False 9 ('in the hole') or as an inside forward. I don't think Cole has ever been played consistently in any of those positions but has either played as a central midfielder or as a wide player. The fact that he played off the striker a few times during Scolari's regime doesn't disprove this - he has never had more than a handful of games in these positions.

Some could argue that as part of the front three of a 4-3-3 that he was playing as an ''inside forward'. That may very well be true in some iterations of that formation but realistically, in Mourinho's vision, that team played closer to a 4-5-1 or 4-1-4-1 except in very specific circumstances. Cole was shunted to the wing and played very well, switching with Robben at will. Cole rarely played as an inside forward.

Many, including a regular commenter in this parish Peter Watts, argue that rather than Mourinho being the manager that killed Joe Cole he was instead the rather that made him. As Cox says ''Mourinho's arrival at Chelsea was actually the best thing that happened to him''.

There is no doubt that Cole, under Mourinho, had fine seasons. However, it is legitimate and fair to argue that Cole hit heights under Mourinho but could have gone higher still. I remember one game in particularly watching Cole as he got the ball out wide and had a right-back ahead of him - rather than trying to beat the player, he turned back inside and passed to Lampard. It was as if Mourinho had sucked the football from him. If it wasn't turning an attacking gem, with all the tricks one could imagine at his disposal, into a functional player, it was screaming at Cole when he did try anything. Or substituting him for the same offence.

Whilst playing for Chelsea, under Mourinho, Cole was excellent but one always got the feeling he was playing within himself and could have achieved more.

Yes, he was playing within the parameters that Mourinho set but one always thinks that those parameters could have been set wider. Cox quotes Sacchi ''A player needs to express himself within the parameters laid out by the manager''. My argument is not that Cole should have played with no parameters but rather that if we wanted Cole to fulfil more of his potential those parameters should have been tweaked. Mourinho would point to his medal collections. I would point to the player that England could have had and the player Cole could have been. It is a sad realisation that we would probably have got more from Cole if he had moved to Spurs, Arsenal, Manchester United or Liverpool rather than Chelsea. What he gained in trophies and success, he lost in development.

Sickeningly, It wasn't as if Mourinho was opposed to playing a skilful, thoughtful, creative player off the striker -or as an attacking midfielder - he routinely played Gudjohnsen in that position. Indeed, Cole's finest moment at Chelsea came through the middle.

A player of Cole's undoubted talent and ability becoming a dull functional is typical of the English story of these last 30 years.

I believe that Cole could have played in the position that Gudjohnsen often played for Chelsea and, if he had been born elsewhere, would have been the creative spinning top in a team, the sort of player who used to exist more widely but still exists in a classical form (Riquelme) or in a state-of-the-art form, Luka Modric (Wilson writes here).

No one can seriously argue that Cole deserved Riquelme-esque adulation or for him to be indulged in the way the King of the Bombonera has been. It is obvious that a playmaker these days must live within a system and play a part in it.

My view is that Cole - and England - would have been better served with him playing, as part of a system, in one of those positions between midfield and attack. Indeed, the player he reminds me of most - in terms of touch and movement - is Iniesta although, of course, the Blessed Andres is a finer version. Iniesta seems to excel when he plays in that inside left channel rather than as a left-winger, after all.

Such positioning would have got the best out of his creativity and his vision. The fact that he is a work-horse, to boot, is to his credit and Wayne Rooney is increasingly showing that a willing worker can excel in either a false 9 or trequartista role. It would have been better for him and for England if not, necessarily, for Mourinho and Chelsea.

RCM

A place for Gerrard?

2011-09-06T14:48:00.000-07:00

Is this England eleven the future or another false dawn? Seasoned England fans have been here before - that heady rush where youth combines to win a game. The humbling of Croatia by Walcott, the 5-1 game against Germany and, to that list, we now have the win against a fairly sluggish Bulgaria and a slightly shakier victory over Wales.

Many within the game are writing off any number of players. Johnson, Ferdinand, Gerrard and Lampard are the most obvious casualties of the march of the new generation of English players. It is interesting that Scott Parker - a player on a handful of months younger than Gerrard - is seen as part of this shiny new vanguard.

Some have written that now is the time to cast aside the players that have ''failed us'' over the years and to focus on this flush of youth. Failure seems odd. Last year's debacle was maddening but qualification was supreme. Crueler voices than mine would point out that the likes of Smalling, Henderson, Jones, Welbeck, Sturridge, Gibbs, Walker, Cleverley and Wickham failed miserably at the recent Under 21 European Championships.

However, this is overlooked, of course, and it is increasingly consensus that we should fast-track Smalling and Jones alongside Walcott and Wilshere to the England national team. There is something sensible in those suggestions (although, to be honest, right-back is hyper-competitive: any of Johnson, Smalling, Kelly, Walker or Richards could start for England) but something slightly less sensible about some of the suggestions to consign players like Lampard, Gerrard, Ferdinand and co to the scrapheap for good.

It isn't because I'm some sort of footballing traditionalist or some cheerleader for the establishment that I say this but for three main reasons.

Firstly, as Jonathan Wilson points out here, youth is important but so is experience (hardly news!). Secondly, it is always easy to over-rate the abilities of young players and it is always fashionable to bash the experienced. Thirdly, there - as we have seen - there are now an army of geeks with laptops who understand numbers but not necessarily the game. I do not claim to be some sage - I am a fan with a laptop who doesn't understand numbers - but my worry is that too many in the blogosphere focus on numbers and forget about the essence of the game. This leads to it becoming de rigueur to lambast certain players.

Stats fly out to undermine a player. I love stats, I think football could use them better but to use them solely to estimate a player is to know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Ball retention rate is a fine way to see value in a certain sort of midfielder but it isn't the only measure.

I cannot write that I am sad that Lampard's shirt is on a shoogly peg. I have been arguing for years that he should be dropped - not because I think he is a poor player but rather, and solely, because for too long successive England coaches have contemplated not ''what is the best team'' but rather ''how do I arrange the best eleven players in the country into a team''. Lampard, unlike Beckham, Scholes, Rooney, Gerrard and others, has been the constant, immovable object. Not because he is the finest but rather because he is the least adaptable. However, I would certainly have him in my England squad.

One player this army of geeks has focused on is Steven Gerrard. The view is that he is profligate with possession, that he has no tactical discipline, that he is - bluntly - more trouble than he is worth. (As an aside the best critique of Gerrard is here. The writer is neither a geek or a stat-attack - he is too good. I do not agree with the analysis even if I enjoy the writing). There is something to each of those allegations although all are over-stated. Gerrard's passing is under-rated, as his general thinking and control of the game. Incidentally, I once was in a discussion with a Times journalist on Gerrard. He managed to criticise Gerrard both for his low passing retention rate in the Berbatov hat-trick game (somewhere around 75%) and also for not playing enough speculative balls!

Let us consider Gerrard in recent years.

Over the last six months he has been injured. Prior to his injury, in a struggling team, he was a consistently strong player. In the early months of the season, as the wheels fell of the Hodgson bandwagon, Gerrard was one of the few players who played well. Gone was the bombastic, cartoonish performances of previous years and there was an increasing sense of understated excellence.

That said, two performances stand out. The first was a ''typical Gerrard'' performance against Napoli in the Europa League by coming off the bench, changing the game entirely and scoring a quickfire hat-trick. Barring Bale's masterclass against Internazionale, this was arguably the finest performance by a British palyer last season. The second was his quiet, hypnotic performance against Manchester United this year. He barely put a foot wrong - a game which will be remembered for Kuyt's hat-trick, of course, but Gerrard was incredible as a disciplined, deep-lying midfielder.

Prior to that, Gerrard was one of two England players to come back from the World Cup with his reputation intact. Over recent seasons, he has been consistenty Liverpool's best player and consistently England's most reliable midfielder.

In the World Cup qualification campaign, he linked well with Barry on the occasions that he was able to play centrally. That team worked at its best when Gerrard played on the left, Rooney played off Heskey and Ashley Cole bombed forward from left-back. The interchanging between Rooney and Gerrard - something sadly lacking at the World Cup - at points was terrific to watch and terrifying to play against.

Now considering that Gerrard and Rooney have always worked well together - blurring defences lines, generally creating havoc; that Gerrard was consistently excellent when playing behind a striker, as part of three interchanging attacking midfielders and ahead of two defensive midfielders; and, more contentiously, he is likely to fit into Capello's new system more obviously than Walcott.

If England are to move to thecurrent tactical gold standard of 4-2-3-1, I'd wager that a front three of Downing, Gerrard and Young behind Rooney would be better than Downing, Walcott and Young. Indeed, an England team of: Hart, Smalling, Cole, Ferdinand, Terry, Wilshere, Barry, Downing, Gerrard, Young and Rooney looks harmonious. It even looks a little vibrant. This is evolution rather than revolution. It is evolution that England need at this stage. We do not need to chuck out the baby. Indeed, we only need to release some of the bathwater.

The footballing world turns on. New players burst through and old players slink away as if their contribution to their country was nothing at all. There will be a time when Gerrard is not the right man for England. Assuming he returns from fitness, then that time is a little way away yet.

Where he fits into the Liverpool team, however, is a more difficult proposition.

RCM

Why do we ''support'' clubs?

2011-09-02T09:38:00.000-07:00

Comrade Massie recently highlighted this podcast in an email to me. Amongst various other bits and bobs, they menioned a study that found that around 80% of people like to support the underdog in a given contest.

It seemed to Alex, and seems to me, that football isn't really like that. For whatever reason, we will often pick a side for no reason. I have blogged about this before. Indeed, many of us will have some preferred team in leagues that we do not care about and will be able to pick out a favourite in a Derby.

I have blogged before about teams that I have an inkling for. This piece on Bilbao and this piece on PSG may be useful background reading.

Some people get very heated over this. They state you should support one team and one team only. Well, I suppose, if one must be so tedious of heart and turgid of mind but why? If you want to support one team only good on you - but don't limit it for the rest of us. Go back to your one-in-a-bed sex romps and arid life. Why can't we support our team but glance around the leagues and find a little cheer when seeing that Tranmere have recorded a victory away at Yeovil? Or that Queen of the South have defeated Raith Rovers?

Of course, I do not really ''support'' PSG, say, but rather I like them. Indeed, PSG are a fine example. The wilderness years, the lack of success, the elegant players failing made them endearing, cute almost. The new PSG, backed by money and craven for success, makes them seem like some parvenu or arriviste. No, PSG are losing their place in my heart and my attention will - no doubt - return to the lovable rich, Monaco.

Such criticism doesn't ''get'' football fandom. I don't really support, say, AC Milan over Internazionale or Lazio over Roma. I prefer them. It isn't an underdog thing or anything like that. It is either something totally random, something that links to a pleasing moment in the past or - sometimes - just a gut feeling.

Alex wondered how we got to these decisions? Most of us - most of us who really feel football - have a favourite side in a rivalry even if we don't actually care about those rivalries at all. Indeed, we may hold such a belief even when we do not look for the results of said teams! (one that was almost diametrically opposed to mine!) and he may be good enough to share his in the comments. When it comes to the crunch I'd support...

Hearts over Hibs
Arsenal over Spurs
Lazio over Roma
Boca Juniors over River Plate
Torino over Juventus
Sampdoria over Genoa
Red Star over Partisan
Liverpool over Everton (obviously... but I suppose one must include it)
Rangers over Celtic
Sporting over Benfica
Barcelona over Real Madrid
Milan over Internazionale
Forest over County
Sunderland over Newcastle
1860 over Bayern
Birmingham over Aston Villa
Club Brugge over anyone in Belgium
Norwich over Ipswich but Cambridge United over both

I have no real opinion or feeling towards the Dundee derby, the Manchester derby (a teenage antipathy towards United never lead to a desire to see City flourish) or the various battles amongst teams in Athens, Moscow, Seville or Bristol. The Brazilian derbies leave me cold as does the battle between Real and Atletico or Bohemians and Shamrock Rovers.

So how and why do we pick such sides? I don't support them as such but my little footballing world is a better place if Torino stuff Juventus or MIlan beat Internazionale. Why Torino and not Juventus? I really do not know.

Some of these I can explain. Others I truly cannot.

My support, or perhaps more accurately preference for, Rangers is not because of some link between Liverpool and Rangers but rather, during the 1990s, they were a breathtakingly good team. On frequent visits to the South-West of Scotland - a Rangers hotbed - I used to play football with a group of lads who all (bar two) were Rangers fans. The names McCoist, Gascoigne, Laudrup and so forth were heroes to them and became heroes to me. To those boys Ally McCoist was what John Barnes was to me - their first footballing hero, the one everyone wanted to be when playing football. Of course, Rangers - at Italia 1990 - were the biggest contributor to the England national team. For an England fan of my vintage they were the natural choice.

My preference for AC Milan is the same - there teams, in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, were everything a boy could want when it came to football. Considering AC Milan means remembering Boban, Weah, Savicevic, Gullit, van Basten and any number of other excellent players that graced the red and blacks. I prefer Barcelona - not because of my almost religious devotion to Xavi - but because I loved Stoichkov as a youngster. I prefer Ajax to any Dutch team because the mid-1990s Ajax team showed me what football could be.

Club Brugge was, I blush to admit, because I had a truly fantastic career with them on Championship Manager!

My support of Hearts is not some Protestant link with Rangers but rather that I used to live in Dalry and attended games at Tynecastle on a frequent basis. If when I'd moved to Edinburgh I had lived in Leith I'd probably have gone the other way entirely. But then, maybe I'd have been taken with Hearts' history?

Some, as I say, are meaningless and unexplainable! Some really are down to some gut feeling kicking in. Arsenal over Spurs? I'd like to say because I have always been friendly with Arsenal fans throughout my life (from primary school to now - my best man, and two of my ushers at my recent wedding, were Arsenal fans!) but I cannot. If anything it is because the train I used to get to London went past their ground. The fact that I could see Highbury from a train outweighs Michael Thomas' goal against Liverpool. I did not claim that support, or preference, was rational.

Equally, I've always preferred Boca to River. Why? I don't know - it isn't due to underdog status or the players (although Riquelme is a great argument these days) but it is just a feeling I have. Why Forest over County? What on Earth have County - glorious, ancient County - done to deserve my dislike? Again, I cannot explain it.

I have no idea why I prefer Besiktas to the other Turkish mega-clubs nor do I know why I don't care about Greek football rivalries. I cannot explain why Sporting beating Benfica is a good thing but I know that it is and I believe that many of you will feel the same sorts of emotions for similar games all over the world.
This, perhaps, links to why we support the teams we do. Supporting isn't a rational act and neither is how we watch the game. For some reason, football fans don't back underdogs otherwise no one would support the Big Four. Nor would we have feeligns like I have outlined above.

Some people support the teams that their family have traditionally supported, some pick their local team, some pick a team that plays good football, others select a team that wins a lot. I picked Liverpool because, when my father - a non-football lover - took me to buy my first strip I was presented with a choice between Liverpool, Everton and Manchester United. I plumped for Liverpool largely because they played in red, had some players I've heard of and, perversely, a slight speech impediment I had as a child made it almost impossible to say.

So, considering the list of clubs above, what are your preferences? Pleas use the comments box to explain.

RCM

Considering some of the great derbies of the world, Alex gave me his list

The death of the strike partnership?

2011-08-31T14:09:00.000-07:00

Football fans of my age will remember various football comic strips - Roy of the Rovers, Jon Stark (''Match winner for hire'' - surely the future of football!) and Hotshot Hamish and Mighty Mouse. Roy Race lives on in Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Jimmy Bullard - English heroes who manage to combine natural ability with cartoonish moments of improbability. Jon Stark never really existed but his day will come if FIFA allow it to occur.

Hotshot Hamish and Mighty Mouse live on in our minds. It is ingrained in the British footballing mindset that there should be two players playing up front - usually one big (Hamish) and one small (Mighty Mouse). It doesn't matter if that doesn't happen anymore. We think it is the case and, deep down, we wish it were still the case.

Sadly, however, various changes have done away with the classical strike partnership. The introduction of formations like 4-5-1, the 4-3-3 and the 4-6-0 have all rendered the idea of the strike duo obsolete. We now look at Nani, Rooney and Young as three musketeers, we consider the poetic spinning of Barcelona's multi-focus attack, we look to David N'Gog for Liverpool last season ploughing his own lonely furrow.

On top of that, these days of four strikers in a squad and squad rotation means that the even if a team plays two strikers in some form of throwback we do not see telepathic partnerships gelling. Keegan and Toshack wouldn't play together often enough to be linked, forever in the football mind, as one and the same. And that was the beauty of the strike partnership. It is difficult to imagine Sutton without Shearer, Hunt without St. John, McCoist without Hateley. In our mindset they are forever, inextricably linked, smiling, arms around each other, celebrating yet another goal.

Those days are gone. Look at Suarez and Carroll? Arguably a fine partnership in the making but already articles are being filed about how they will rarely play together. Berbatov and Rooney could be similar as could Rooney and Hernandez or, indeed, Berbatov and Hernandez. But rotation and the increasing tendency to play with numerous points of attack means we are unlikely to see that a proper partnership at United either.

Considering the partnerships of old it seems to me there were three basic types of strike duo:

First of all, there is the classic ''Little and Large''. In English footballing myth this is the ne plus ultra of the strike partnership. It is an image of football that echoes down the ages - like nippy wee wingers in baggy shorts, boys peeping over a wall to watch a game from the gasworks end, and smiling Brylcreem Boys being outclassed by Hungarians. Like the English obsession with 4-4-2, it stems from a false memory (we didn't play 4-4-2 in 1966 but everyone thinks that we did). Many examples of strike partnerships down the years haven't revolved around the little and large model - Gilzean and Greaves, Hunt and St. John, Keegan and Toshack etc.

Still in many of our heads, football should involve a gangly target man who would nod down chances for his little terrier of a team-mate to bang in goal after goal. This system has worked over the years for many - McCoist and Hateley in the early 1990s scoring bucketloads for Rangers, Phillips and Quinn for Sunderland, the fated SAS for Blackburn and Sutton and Larsson at Celtic.

The more aesthetically pleasing forward line is ''The Dagger and The Cape''. An out-and-out goalscorer alongside someone more refined, more skillful, more deep-lying. One subtle, one sharp. One show, one go. An out-and-out striker and a deep-lying forward or trequartista. Rather than lumping the ball forward to a big man, this duo relied upon the artistry and movement of one to create space and chances for the other.

Obvious examples from the English game are Lineker - a poacher extraordinaire - teaming up with the sumptuous Beardsley for England. A decade later, Shearer was complemented perfectly by the cerebral Sheringham. Perhaps the perfect example in the English game was Dalglish and Rush. Abroad, people may point to Del Piero and Inzaghi or - most sumptuous of all - Gullit and van Basten at AC Milan.

Another type, and perhaps the most exciting, is that of 'the explosive twins'. Wright and Bright, Romario and Stoichkov, and Cole and Yorke - similar sorts of players who just attempted to outgun each other.

Of course, as with any typology there is blurring. Some might argue that Yorke's ability to drop deep may mean that he and Cole fit more obviously into ''The Dagger and the Cape''. Others would point to, say, Butraengo (an out and out poacher) and Sanchez (an explosively gifted player) and argue that this should be a category in and of itself. Others still may say that to compare van Basten to Rush and Lineker is like comparing an Hermes Bag and a potato sack. The point, however, remains.

But the demise of the deadly duo in the game has been staggered. It could be argued that one of the most stunning strike partnerships showed that its days - for the time being at least, as these things tend to spin around - are numbered. Bergkamp and Henry were beautiful to watch but Henry wasn't a classical striker (for all his goals) and Bergkamp, arguably the finest player to play the game in England, again was more of a trequartista than a striker. They were a fine partnership, a fine strike duo but, in their own little way, both weren't really strikers. The term forward seems so much more appropriate. This was a little hint towards the future.

Others may argue that Huntelaar and Raul at Schalke are a pleasing throwback - a little and large show with everything that you would hope for from such a partnership. I agree. Others may point to how well Suarez and Forlan link for Uruguay (they would be categorised separately as ''intelligent explosive twins) and see life in the old concept yet. These are the exceptions, I believe, that prove the rule. Look at most clubs and you won't see a proper strike partnership for the reasons outlined.

It seems, however, that the trends of rotation, new formations and tactics which do not allow for two strikers, and the deepening of squads in general undermine the idea of having two players that play week in, week out and who form a symbiotic relationship. Whether that is good or bad is neither here nor there. It is happening and I, as a hopeless sentimentalist for the game, would rather like a modern-day Hotshot Hamish and Mighty Mouse.

Happily, nothing lasts forever in football and things that go out of fashion will come back into fashion in due course.

RCM

Break

2011-08-25T00:04:00.001-07:00

On honeymoon - will return to blogging with full intensity next week.

Love etc.

Rob

Jam yesterday and Jam tomorrow

2011-08-17T11:05:00.000-07:00

Fans around the country will snigger at Arsenal losing their captain, and best player, but in reality we are all poorer when a player of the quality of Cesc Fabregas leaves England. I always enjoyed the crispness of his passing, his vision and his all-round ability. It is a shame for all who love watching football in this country.

Just as when Xabi Alonso and Cristiano Ronaldo left, the Premiership has just got a little bit less sexy. One hopes that Fernando Torres can find his rhythm, that Aguero's debut augurs well and Suarez can fulfil undoubted potential.
On the plus side, Arsenal have got a very decent price for a want-away player who has given them a number of years fine service. They have made a huge profit on him (just as they did with Anelka all those years ago) and one should consider both that Fabregas has struggled with injuries in recent years and that Ramsey and Wilshere seem to be excellent players.

Despite all this it is difficult to conclude that this has ended well for Arsenal and it may get worse if Samir Nasri also leaves the club. It all seems to point to a wider malaise at the club.

Wenger recently said ''If we lose Fabregas and Nasri no one will believe that we're ambitious'' and it is the belief that matters here: players that Arsenal wish to sign will think twice about doing so, the fans are losing their belief in a manager who was previously unquestionable and the other stars of the side - most obviously van Persie - may begin to consider their own positions.

An interesting comparison is to consider when other big names left rivals? When Torres, Alonso and Mascherano left Liverpool or when Manchester United lost Ronaldo there was not a sense of surrounding gloom. Admittedly, Liverpool were caught in a wider maelstrom over those years so perhaps the leaving of big names was seen in that context. Ronaldo leaving United hurt the club in the short-term but the transfer never looked like unsettling the crowd, manager or club at large. Perhaps because this is part of what some Arsenal fans are viewing as an extended ''Death by a thousand cuts''. Arsenal seem like a club in a brown study and one wonders if Wenger is still the man to turn it round. I'd imagine, on balance, yes.

To me Wenger is football's futurologist. In 2004, Wenger glimpsed the future - certainly of English football - that invincibles team was powerful yet skilful, a team that could run over the top of a team or pass their way around them. Chelsea, Manchester United and - for a time - Liverpool copied that blueprint. Don't believe me? Even the comparative lightweight, Robert Pires, was over 6ft. Ferguson used to complain that Arsenal would overpower his team. He doesn't any more. He, like the rest of us, admires as Arsenal glide to an unthreatening position to his team.

Just as that Invincibles team was the prelude to the Drogba era at Chelsea and Rooney era at Manchester United, post-Invincibles teams are clearly part of a general trend - both in European and English football - towards more ''touch players'' who excel at pressing and possession. Of course, Barcelona lead the field here but Arsenal aren't too far behind (as their two performances last season showed).

I observed early this year that despite Wenger being generally ahead of the curve it is difficult to conclude that his club hasn't gone backwards in recent years. The midfield, only a few months ago amongst the most sumptuous in the world, may soon be shorn of its two brightest talents. For all Ramsey and Wishere's potential - and there is potential - it is doubtful as to whether they can really adequately replace one of the finest central midfielders in the game at this stage. It would be very Wenger to find something out of nothing but he must do it soon.

Yesterday evening, as Arsenal defeated Udinese (who, serendipitously, also lost their finest player to Barcelona recently) there was much comment about how Arsenal needed a left-back or another centre-back. Whilst this is possibly true, I think Arsenal need a central midfielder - and a world-class central midfielder at that - very swiftly. Whether Jadson, who is being linked to the club, is the man is another question. Arsenal bloggers have discussed Diego, Kaka and so on. Does anyone really believe that Wenger would sign such a player?

What must be particularly galling for Wenger is looking at Manchester United. Ferguson, in recent years, has seen his budget slashed. He has seen Rooney agitate for a move, Ronaldo go and Tevez waltz across the city. Only two years ago, the team of Neville, van der Sar, Giggs and Scholes was being laughed off as Dad's Army. In a series of very subtle changes, of evolution, Ferguson's team is now one of the youngest in the league.

The United team that started against WBA was - on average - 24 years old. United have lost many heroes but youngsters seem to have filled their gap in recent years - the transition from Neville to da Silva seemed painless and Scholes, who had been waning, seems to have been replaced (in the short-term at least). All of a sudden Rooney is a leader on the pitch in his 10th season in the Premiership and with 70 England caps.There are worries at Old Trafford but there also seems to be an abundance of hope not found at the Emirates. The trust, in the manager, is total.

Like the White Queen, Wenger increasingly basks in glories of jam yesterday and promising jam tomorrow. The future always seems to be over the horizon. Trophies will be here this season. As Liverpool get back in the groove, as City consolidate their position and as Chelsea recover from last season, it is difficult to consider Arsenal as a serious proposition for the league title. And that will only magnify if Nasri follows Fabregas out of the Ashburton Grove fire exit.

Arsenal fans want jam today. Those aesthetes who enjoyed the style and were willing to wait for trophies are beginning to look at their wristwatches.

RCM

Break

2011-08-16T14:37:00.001-07:00

As some of you know - I am getting married on Saturday.

Very unlikely there will be much blogging for at least a week or so!

Best, as ever,

RCM

If only he were English...

2011-08-14T13:51:00.000-07:00

Spain are currently the finest team on the planet. They have, in their striking ranks, Villa, Torres, Alvaro Negredo, Llorente, Aduriz and del Moral. That's before we consider forwards like Mata and Pedro and occasional starters like Bojan.

Consider that list of names again. Then consider that England have, in recent months, called up strikers such as Defoe, Zamora, Cole, Agbonlahor, Bothroyd, Davies and Welbeck. None of these are bad players as such and I, for one, hope that Welbeck reaches his potential.

But.... watch Raul's goal yesterday.

If he were English, would he still he be getting in the England squad? With 19 goals for a Bundesliga club last year methinks so. It is hardly news but we are miles behind.

RCM

Premier League Predictions

2011-08-13T05:33:00.000-07:00

So, the annual fool's errand (and for public record), here are my predictions for this coming season:

Top Six
1. Manchester United
2. Manchester City
3. Chelsea
4. Liverpool
5. Arsenal
6. Tottenham Hotspur

Relegated
Wigan Athletic, Norwich City, Swansea City

Top Scorer
Javier Hernandez
Champions League
Barcelona

Some additional thoughts

I caused consternation over at Republik Of Mancunia when I suggested that Manchester United had the manager but not necessarily the players whilst Manchester City had the players but not the manager. Cue lots of comments saying ''we won the League but 9 points last year''. This rather missed the point. It wasn't just the players that won the league but the way the manager managed to coax performances out of the team. Remember the relative disarray that United found themselves in last autumn - when Rooney was almost on his way out and Chelsea were romping away?

I think managers matter. Most people agree that managers matter. This is a relatively uncontroversial thought. If we agree that managers matter, that their decisions can make big differences, then it isn't unreasonable to suggest that a manager can be the determining factor that will win the team a league.

Mancini, I believe, hasn't yet formed a team or squad nor formed the necessary spirit around Manchester City. The spirit or culture of a dressing room, which isn't solely down to the manager but he plays a part, is important. Chelsea went downhill last year when Wilkins was sacked. That was something outside of Ancelotti's control but his inability to heal the wounds of that sacking massively impacted on his side's spirit and, over time, their ability to win games.

So the manger matters - in terms of selection, purchasing, backroom staff, training, tactics, motivation and so forth - and he plays a major role in shaping the nature and culture of the dressing room.

At present, when I see Manchester United walk onto the field I see an army. At present, when I see City I see a band of mercenaries. That may change in due course - and if Mancini can turn his team into a functioning, fluid unit who are playing for something rather more than their enormous wages then things will be very spicy.

I didn't intend to besmirch, or diminish, the ability of the players at Manchester United but rather to acknowledge that Manchester City have a number of individuals who would likely start in any team in the league. I would guess that Yaya Toure, David Silva, Vincent Kompany, Joe Hart and Sergio Aguero would start for Manchester United. The spine of the City team is very strong indeed. Many people have worries about United's starting midfield. Few have such worries about City's engine room.

I do believe that if Sir Alex Ferguson was in charge at City, Chelsea or (possibly) Arsenal those clubs would win the league. If Villas-Boas, Mancini or Wenger were in charge at United, I'm not sure that the same is true.

Still, that is either a thought-experiment or a pub debate. Post your predictions in the comments section.

RCM

Rondo, Rondo, Rondo?

2011-08-11T15:42:00.000-07:00

How we gasped as Manchester United scored that fantastic goal in the Community Shield - within seconds there were individuals calling for Cleverley's immediate elevation to the England team and within seconds there were people claiming that Ferguson had learnt more in the last 9 weeks than he did in the two years between Rome and Wembley. Big calls from one goal!

Critics of Ferguson will point out that his one weakness is often his tactical nous. He excels in every other area of management but there is a slight criticism that in Europe he has been found out more often than a manager of his undoubted quality should have done. Even the staunchest of United fans would - or at least should - concede that he set up his team entirely wrongly in the recent Champions League Final.

As is the way of the world these days whenever a team plays a few passes in a row to set up a goal they are compared to Barcelona. Looking at the goal - for it was a lovely goal - I didn't see Barcelona as such. Like Zonal Marking it was more reminiscent of Arsenal but, there we are, that is shades of grey stuff.

Those arguing that Manchester United are going through some process of Barcafication are jumping on a bandwagon and, moreover, misunderstand the state of affairs. To recreate Barcelona's style of play takes years, needs players throughout the team who can dominate possession and need central midfielders of the very highest quality. Maybe, over the long-term, this is where United will end up but it is a very difficult to just 'do'.

If they, or anyone else, want to beat Barcelona this year it will require them to out-think and out-play Barcelona rather than out-Barcelona them (My thoughts on how to beat Barcelona here). For all Cleverley's prowess and as under-rated as Carrick is, Manchester United simply do not have the players to consistently play the ''rondo, rondo'' and suffocating carousel style of football. That isn't a critique - we are comparing them, and everyone else, to arguably the best team in the history of the game.

A drum I constantly beat is that formation comes second to application and a 4-6-0 can be very defensive (Levein's Scotland vs the Czech Republic) or very attacking (that breathtaking United team where Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez swapped position). That, arguably, was the greatest United team and, moreover, was the first genuine tactical innovation that Ferguson will be remembered for. Generally, he has mastered more classical formations rather than innovate. I don't think he, or Manchester United's fans, will care very much.

Manchester United are the best side in England at present and probably, on balance, the third best side in Europe. It is, however, unarguable that they have stepped back considerably in quality since 2008 and, possibly, 2009. Manchester United were certainly more competitive in the 2009 CL Final than the 2011 CL Final. That is a hard pill to swallow but that is the reality of losing a player as gifted as Cristiano Ronaldo.

It looks like Ferguson is trying to recreate that side or at least create a version of that side. Losing players of the quality of Tevez and, in particular, Cristiano Ronaldo is very difficult to deal with and it is to Ferguson's credit that his team shorn of such players still performs to such a high level.

Berbatov is a wonderful player, Valencia and Owen are good players but are neither as good nor as fluid as Tevez or Ronaldo. They cannot fit so obviously into that anarchic formation that took the breath away a few years ago. It is likely that Rooney will excel this season if Ferguson looks to recreate that system with the likes of Young, Nani and Welbeck - all of whom are adept at position-swapping. It will be interesting to see whether Ferguson can work Hernandez into that shape-shifting system.

Bluntly, if Ferguson can get his forward players swapping positions, rotating at dizzying speed and popping up where they are not expected his side will win the league. It is almost impossible to defend against such a dervish-like attack as all the attacking players are breaking defensive lines, losing their markers and creating space.

It is a big if. He might very well have the players to do it.

RCM

PSG win something...

2011-08-06T02:15:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, a good friend of mine represented LBITCR at Indesit's Genuine Football Fan initiative. Pop over and have a look around - I'm sure it'll be a big thing over the next little while.

Rob (yes, another Rob) took part in the weekend along with the likes of Rocco Cammisola of The Football Express and played as part of the Paris Saint-Germain team that won on the Saturday. Highlights included skinning Vierchowod and getting clattered by Ray Parlour.

The video is well worth a watch.

The following day the boys were taken along to the Emirates to watch the Emirates Cup and, presumably, got to boo the Arsenal players like everyone else. Sounds fantastic, they were treated very well and - as you'll have guessed - am rather jealous of it all.

RCM

A disturbing post

2011-08-06T01:55:00.000-07:00

I was contacted by a reader who said that he was (turn away if you are easily nauseated) ''impressed that a Liverpool fan could write about Manchester United players like you do about Scholes and Berbatov''. He went on to challenge me to name my favourite ever United XI.

I undertook this exercise with Liverpool a few years back but United is a very different prospect. Many United players have, over the years, inflicted various psychological wounds to me. The activity of selecting a favoured Liverpool XI was a difficult treat. The same activity for a United XI is a terrible thing - can I really select Gary Neville? What does favourite actually mean?

When I announced this idea on Twitter, any number of Liverpool fans came back saying 'Taibi', 'Milne', 'Prunier', and so on.

However, I'll take the challenge at face value and take it seriously. There are a good number of players at United I've admired over the years and, admittedly, a few I have liked (Scholes, Berbatov, Carrick, Veron). It shouldn't be too hard...

Edwin van der Sar

Rafael da Silva Gary Pallister Rio Ferdinand Denis Irwin

Juan Sebastian Veron Michael Carrick

Cristiano Ronaldo Paul Scholes Ryan Giggs
Dimitar Berbatov

There you go - a little Saturday morning post.

I trust that keeps said reader happy!

RCM

Il Principino

2011-08-03T13:25:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite Sir Alex Ferguson quotes was him decrying various football journalists questioning Veron's ability:

''He (Veron) is a fucking great player. And you're all fucking idiots''

This sums up my feelings about Alberto Aquilani. I don't believe that you, dear reader, are an idiot but the general commenting about his ability has been woeful. He is the latest in a long line of foreign talents who have not been properly appreciated by the English media and another who, no doubt, fails the ''Stoke on a Wet Tuesday night test'.

When Aquilani was fit, he generally played well. It is now pretty well known that since August 2009, Aquilani created more goals than a player as gifted as Modric has in the last two seasons. It is also reasonably well known that by the end of that one season at Anfield, Aquilani had created more goals per minute than any player in one of the top five leagues in Europe (NB: I realise that I have argued elsewhere that assists aren't everything - they aren't but they are still at least a useful measure).
It isn't just stats that make me like Aquilani. He was, fleetingly, a touch of class in a Liverpool side sadly lacking in it. He was clever, his touch was great, he had good vision and he seemed to make things tick - a sort of Italian Xavi. Not as gifted, of course, but that sort of player. The individual who keeps the plates spinning, whose little passes can create acres of space, whose brains can think their way through a defence. Last year, he averaged over 50 passes per game with an accuracy of 82%.

But it wasn't Xavi but rather his compatriot Alonso, the Sainted Xabi, who was always Aquilani's biggest problem. The Kop loved, cherished and worshipped Alonso and saw Aquilani as his direct replacement. In reality, he wasn't that type of player nor was he supposed to be. When Benitez bought him he said that Aquilani was a more attacking player but the fans either didn't listen or forgot as we waited for Aquilani to get off the injury table.

He was unlike anything else at Anfield - for all Gerrard's bombast and for all Torres' majesty, Aquilani was by far and away the most beautiful player to watch.

One game in particular springs to mind. Against Spurs, he totally dominated the game and was the best player on show. Spurs fans who are friends of mine still say that they are astonished that Liverpool would consider letting such a player go - even considering his injury problems. He did play 33 games for Juventus last year which is a marked improvement.

Let us hope that those injury problems are behind him. Let us hope that this link means that Liverpool are keeping him.

RCM

Why small can be beautiful in international football

2011-07-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

From time to time some talking head or other will tell us that the reason that Scotland is being left behind is through no fault of anyone in particular but rather down to the unfairness of population size. Scotland is small. The harm of Scotland's size is worsened by Scotland's geographical position - the teams Scotland plays are generally either very good or good and therefore qualification becomes difficult.

As the old line goes from insufficiently endowed men ''size isn't everything''. And when it comes to producing football players and teams it really isn't.

Look at the city of Liverpool. Would a ''Scouse National Team'' be competitive on the international scene? Sure. Would it be more competitive than Scotland at present? I'd wager yes. Gerrard, Rooney, Barton, Nolan, Carragher, Baines and Dann are all strong players.

One could just as easily have picked Paramaribo or, on a national scale, Croatia or the recent Copa America Winners. Scotland should take heart from these examples.

It is true that, to an extent, football has got harder. The rise and rise of many African and Asian teams, the globalisation and knowledge transfer within the game and the post-Cold War proliferation of teams from the former USSR and Yugoslavia have all meant that qualifying for - and winning - World Cups has become more difficult.

All that said, we should not write off teams from nations with small populations. Look at the World Rankings - flawed as they are - and see Montenegro in 16th place (for reference, Montenegro has a slightly larger population than Glasgow).

Other gems are instructive, Croatia have been consistently strong for two decades but even the likes of Ireland, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia and Denmark are doing reasonably well and are struggling against the same issues Scotland are. Uruguay have just won the Copa America and they are hardly playing against donkeys.

Why are some small nations succeeding and some not?

To an extent, it links back to player development. From Boban to Modric, Croatia have produced excellent players consistently. Uruguay have produced Cavani, Forlan and Suarez.

Some will put this down to luck. I am enormously skeptical of luck generally. When a team has won the Copa America 15 times, the World Cup twice, and reached the semi-finals another two times it seems that Uruguay are doing something consistently right rather than merely getting lucky.

Regardless, we can't just grow excellent players for the here and now. Are there any things that Scotland could do to improve rapidly?

It will stick in the craw of many a Tartan Army but it might be useful to listen to the manager of the Auld Enemy. Fabio Capello once stated that an organised team with fewer players will usually beat a team with more players which isn't as organised.

The principle holds generally. Organised teams tend to win. This is hardly news. However, it is useful to remember that there are very specific demands put on international managers. They are limited as to who they can select, do not have long with their teams, they have to integrate players from many clubs (often across timezones) and they have to do so quickly. It is important to remember that every country in the world - from Spain to San Marino - deals with similar sorts of issues.

It is likely, in international football, that the teams you are up against will make defensive errors because of these issues. Scotland, therefore, will win more games simply by improving their organisation. If a team can sort out its defensive strategy (how it will mark, how it will defend set-pieces, how it will press) they are likely to grind out draws. Draws, as Greece in 2004 and Paraguay over the last two years have shown, are a very good starting point.

As time with international teams is limited, every moment spent on set pieces - both defending and attacking - is very valuable and has a great return on time spent. Charlie Adam's delivery from corners and free kicks could be Scotland's deadly weapon.

If organisation is key - and it is - the second most important thing for an international manager is motivation and morale. Years of Dutch teams, Spanish teams and, increasingly, Argentine teams have been undermined by divisions within the camp. A tight unit who fights for one another will help with the organisation massively.

If my suggestion that Levein should listen to Capello hurt, it might hurt even more to suggest that he should listen to Sir Clive Woodward. The mantra ''Think Correctly Under Pressure'' should be blazened around the Scotland dressing room.

Getting the team organised and motivated might sound simple, focusing on ensuring the team is marking properly and focusing on set-pieces might sound ugly. After not reaching a major finals since 1998, Scotland might learn to love winning ugly.

RCM

El Nene

2011-07-19T12:11:00.000-07:00

A little video piece for you. One of the greats of the game: Teófilo Cubillas. In many ways the perfect central midfielder - a fast, powerful midfielder with excellent technical abilities who could take the ball past people and could score lots of goals.
One of only two players to score 5 goals at two World Cups and he is the top scoring midfielder in World Cup history. That's before you consider he is still Peru's all-time top-scorer and scored over 500 goals in his career.

If he'd been from Argentina or Brazil, he'd be considered one of the all-time greats of the game. He really should be. Enjoy!

RCM

More thoughts on Moneyball

2011-07-16T01:36:00.000-07:00

I have written about Moneyball on a number of occasions and, given the presence of Damien Comolli at Liverpool and the recent splurge on various players, interest in the theory has resurfaced. If you want an excellent analysis of Liverpool's signings have a look here.
For those interested in the earlier pieces:

As well as my pieces, my good pal Alex Massie, wrote this piece ''Making Sure the Reds are using Red Sox Methodology'' for the blog.

Most posts on Moneyball in football refer to Kuper and Szymanski's attempt to import the theory into football. Their book is a fine one but only does part of the job it sets out to do.

Their work on transfers is excellent (Don't buy Brazilian*; exploit inefficiencies in the market; every player has a price; buy players in their early 20s; use more heads than just the manager; grow your own strikers; replace before you sell; help your new recruits). They do not consider the sorts of activity within a game that are currently under-valued. There is no football equivalent of ''on-base percentage'' according to Kuper and Szymanski.

To their work on transfer strategy I would add three things of my own: Focus on youth development (youth development both saves money and makes money over the longer term) and look outside traditional scouting areas (look at Wigan's success here).

I'd also say that there can be market inefficiencies elsewhere - sometimes a player not in his early 20s can present value. How much money has Davie Weir saved Rangers since signing when he was 35? How much money did Edwin van der Sar save Manchester United when he signed at 34? I really do believe that players in their mid-30s (especially fit players) could end up being very valuable signings.

Anyway, those of you who are on the ball will be saying that I've done the same thing as Kuper and Szymanski. I've talked about strategy but not considered under-valued activity. Indeed, so let me move on.

What things can we look for?

The number of touches a player takes. This reveals quite a few things: the fitness level, the number of times he gets into a position to receive a ball and - crucially - his team-mates willingness to pass to him.
Assists can be an ineffective measure of how good a player is. A wonderful midfielder could lay on lots of goal-scoring opportunities but, if paired with poor strikers, he may end up with few assists.

A better measure may be looking at the number of goal-scoring opportunities a player creates. It isn't perfect (one of the reasons the striker might miss is because the ball isn't as good as it could have been) but alongside assists can give you more information. Two of Liverpool's new signings have decent figures when it comes to creating chances.

Jordan Henderson has laid on as many Premier League goalscoring chances since 2009 as Luka Modric and Samir Nasri. All are sitting on 110.

Only four players have created more Premier League goalscoring chances since 2004 than Stewart Downing. Those four are Steven Gerrard, Ryan Giggs, Frank Lampard and Cesc Fabregas.
Ball retention. The contribution of players who are less directly involved in attack. As we have seen in the growing Barcafication of the game is that possession is 9/10ths of the footballing law. A player with 80% or 90% plus successful passes is a hugely important member of any team. Increasingly, Liverpool fans are understanding why Lucas is hugely important.
The number of balls won per 90 minutes. Like assists, clean sheets are an ineffective measure of how good a defender is. Good defenders - as Phil Jones may well show us - exist in leaky defences.

The number of balls won instead shows a number of things. It shows a defender's ability to tackle, intercept passes and - crucially - their positioning.

These may be the under-valued statistics in the game at present. We shall see if Downing, Adam and Henderson really are Moneyball players.

RCM

*Without a very important caveat! Both Porto and Lyon have excelled breaking that rule!

The J Team

2011-07-12T13:43:00.000-07:00

After the travails of The I Team, I thought I'd take some time out from my quirky - the more unkind amongst you may say deranged - alphabetical series. The J Team is slightly easier in most ways - nothing could be harder than the dratted I team - but harder in places.

The J Team seem to be a team of under-rated players. Players who the years have forgotten, players in teams that the world has forgotten. Bar the startlingly gifted right-winger, it is a team of revelations. Enjoy!

Goalkeeper

A difficult choice between a legend of the British game and a Dutch oddball. There is an argument that Milovan Jaksic of the Yugoslavia team in 1930 should be considered but, if I'm being honest, I neither know enough nor can find enough out about him for full consideration.

Jan Jongbloed was selected for the 1974 World Cup at the age of 34 and 12 years after his first (and, at that point, only) cap. Johnny Rep famously said that ''he wasn't that good a goalkeeper''.

Interestingly - given this blog's occasional interest in tactics - he was selected largely because of his footballing ability. In many ways, he was what a Total Footballing side needed: a player who could come out of his area and help his side play with a high-line, shorten the pitch and help the pressing game. He effectively played as a sweeper. Although he was part of a great team it would be a stretch to say he was a great keeper and, as such, we need to look elsewhere

One of the strange things about becoming a football fan is you learn little tit-bits of information as a youngster that stay with you throughout your life. I can't remember ever seeing Jennings play but I know - from football annuals and trivia books - that he was a colossus. There was a rumour when I was a child that he had once burst a ball by catching it (incidentally, the ball burst when a player struck the ball and Jennings caught the burst ball).

Unlike those players who have played on both sides of the North London rivalry since (Gallas, Campbell etc) Jennings managed to transcend that rivalry. He played 119 times for Northern Ireland - quite an astonishing feat considering their record for non-qualification - and is one of the few 'keepers to have been named Footballer of the Year.Positional sense, great at one-on-ones, narrowing the angle. Often didn't look spectacular due to his positionig.

Readers will know that I am obsessed with the Dutch team of the early 1970s so it hurts a little to choose Pat Jennings

Full Backs

Earnest bloggers the world over (some, according to the excellent Surreal Football, far too earnest) would have you believe that attacking full-backs are some sort of new trend. Whilst it is true that there seems to be a general move to ''flankers'' (e.g. players who can patrol an entire flank) the idea of an attacking full-back is not new.

The first choice right-back is a perfect example: Paul Janes of Germany. Hard as a bed of nails, quick and a huge attacking threat from his defensive position he was years - if not decades - ahead of the game. He, like Jonquet (see below), understood that attack was built from defence.

As well as understanding this, he was known the world over for his astonishingly hard shot although his nickname was not the snappy 'Die Hammer'' but rather ''World Champion of Precision' which makes him sound like some form of power tool.

Janes' full-back partner is a member of one of the most loved World Cup teams of all time - the Brazil 1982 team: Junior. Robert Jarni was a decent player but not worthy of inclusion for the team.

That side, with Zico, Falcao, Eder, Socrates and Cerezo is surely the greatest team never to win the World Cup. Junior is usually overlooked because of the class and explosive artistry ahead of him. However, like Janes, he was an attack-minded full-back.

Whilst the midfield of Cerezo, Socrates, Falcao and Eder take most of the plaudits from that era, it is telling that Pele selected him in his (admittedly flawed) 125 greatest living players. A more than solid full-back duo.

Centre Backs

Robert Jonquet, of France, is one of the forgotten greats of world football. It is routine, these days, to describe centre-backs that have a better turning circle than an Eddie Stobart and can trap a ball as ''elegant'' but Jonquet truly was an elegant footballer in a fine French team. The 1958 French team is more famously remembered for Fontaine and Kopa.

The 1958 World Cup is now best remembered for the arrival of Pele on the world stage. However, in the semi-final, a fine France team were level with Brazil as half-time neared. Vava - another forgotten star of the era - broke Jonquet's leg in two places. It wasn't intentional but was a turning point in the game and, possibly, to the future of football. Only two minutes later, France, now without their inspirational centre-back were behind again. History continued along its merry way.

Jonquet was the glinting rock that the great late 50s team of Stade de Reims was built around. Whilst many view Moore as the prototype of the centre-back who could bring the ball under control and stroke it around the pitch. Jonquet, amongst others, beat him to it. He wasn't a clogger or bruiser but rather a calm, clever player who based his game around timing and control. Jonquet starts.

Alongside him is a modern Brazilian: Juan. Others drool over Lucio, his usual centre-back partnership, and overlook this quiet, unassuming centre-back who has clocked up over 70 caps and two Copa America wins. Years of quiet excellence for Leverkusen and Roma are enough to have him as a rock at the heart of this team.

Central Midfielders

I have written previously that there are increasingly three sorts of central midfielder (creators, destroys, hoarders). Wim Jansen could play all three roles. Like Jonquet, behind him, he was a fantastic reader of the game but also a player of phenomenal stamina.

He was the most important player of the Feyenoord team of the 1970s. He was the fulcrum, the pivot, the guy who made it all happen. He starts in central midfield.

Next to him, there is a choice between two players: Jef Jurion and Alex James. Jurion was twice Belgian footballer of the year and one of the mainstays of the1950s and 1960s Anderlecht team which won the Belgian league with real alacrity. He could play anywhere across the midfield but, in this instance, doesn't make the cut.

Alex James, most famously of Arsenal and Scotland, could play either as an attacking midfielder or an inside forward. During his time at Arsenal, the club won four league titles and reached the FA Cup Final three times. That Arsenal are remembered for Chapman's genius and Ted Drake's goals but the main man was James. The official history of the FA describe James as ''a little midfield genius'' and the man who coined the phrase ''let the ball do the work''. He is the silk alongside Jansen's steel.

Wingers

The J Team is an odd thing. In some positions there is one outstanding candidate and little else. In others there are players that wouldn't even be fifth or sixth choice within their own letter. On the wings there is massive competition between heavyweights. On the left - Jones and Joya. On the right - Johnstone and Jairzinho.

Much as it will annoy the readers of Celtic Quick News and many Scotland fans I think it is inconceivable to pick Jimmy Johnstone (excellent as he was) ahead of Jairzinho.

Jairzinho is one of the all-time greats of the game. He is one of only three men to have scored in every game at the World Cup and part of THAT team in 1970. One wonders how players like Jairzinho would be remembered in Europe if he and his team-mates had moved to Europe at the height of their careers. A goalscoring right-winger, and one of such tremendous quality, is a shoe-in for the team. Sorry, Jinky.

Football changes over the decades. There are clubs who were once magnificent but are now shadows of their former incarnations. When I was a youngster, I remember discovering the team Penarol in some book or other and my Papa told me that they had once been a team whose very name struck awe and reverence in the hearts of football fans. They had been a fearsome team but had faded somewhat.

So it was a pleasing throwback to see Santos vs Penarol in the Copa Libertadores final recently as both really are names to conjure with. The greatest Penarol team - the team of the 1960s - had a number of stars. After the great Alberto Spencer, the greatest was probably Juan Joya.

During the 1960s, he won 6 Uruguayan league titles, 2 Copa Libertadores and two Copa Intercontinental. They truly were one of the great teams of the world game. He averaged a goal every two games from the left-wing.

He's up against one of the finest Spurs players in history - Cliff Jones. The Double-Winning side of 1961 was a truly beautiful team - the guile of Mackay, the cleverness of Blanchflower and the genius of Jones. He was, at the time, the best winger in the world and pops in ahead of Joya.

Strikers

Luckily for me, and for you, Joya could play as either as a left-winger or a striker so he does start up front.

The remaining place in the team is down to two. First, ''False 9'' Henning Jensen of Borussia Moenchengladbach and Real Madrid. He played, for both Moenchengladbach and Denmark, alongside Allan Simonsen and they had quite the double act for both teams.

However, with a converted winger up front, I need an out and out striker: Dražan Jerković of Yugoslavia fits the bill. Chronic injuries towards the end of his career robbed him of true greatness - but only just. He helped Yugoslavia get to the final of Euro 1960 (scoring two in the semi-final) and was Golden Boot at the 1962 World Cup. He is, as far as I'm aware, still Zagreb's second highest goalscorer - some sources claim he scored over 300 goals in 315 games.

He'll do for this team - with James, Jones, Jairzinho and Joya setting him up, Jerkovic would score pots of goals.

The J Team

1. P. Jennings (Northern Ireland)

2. P.Janes (Germany)
3. Junior (Brazil)

4. R. Jonquet (France)

5. Juan (Brazil)

6. W. Jansen (Netherlands)
7. Jairzinho (Brazil)
8. A. James (Scotland)
9. J. Joya (Peru)
10. D. Jerkovic (Yugoslavia)
11. C. Jones (Wales)

RCM

Sardines

2011-07-07T16:01:00.000-07:00

Many have been guffawing at Kenny Dalglish’s policy of buying too many central midfielders suggesting, for instance, that Liverpool will be playing a 0-9-2 and so forth.

Those commenters have stated that there are now too many midfielders at the club and, moreover, that Dalglish should be strengthening in other areas (an out-and-out winger; left back; central back; and a striker).

Just to run things down: Liverpool now have Gerrard, Leiva, Spearing, Meireles, Poulsen, Shelvey, Aquilani, Henderson and Adam. Joe Cole, sadly, is barely a footballer these days but isn’t really a central midfielder as such.

Firstly, it is blatantly sensible to buy before one sells.It is quite clear that Liverpool will sell at least two midfielders. Poulsen is on the way out (assuming someone will take him). Sadly, the divine Aquilani is also likely to leave (a player - that despite his woes and a season abroad - has more EPL assists than Modric since 2009) and Meireles may according to rumour head off to Italy.

Secondly, and more pertinently, look at last season’s squads of the top four clubs

Manchester United (6): Anderson, Giggs, Carrick, Gibson, Hargreaves, Scholes (although two of those have left. I would guess they would buy at least one and promote at least one youngster)
Chelsea (6): Essien, Ramires, Lampard, McEachran, Mikel and (arguably) Benayoun
Manchester City (6): Johnson, Milner, Barry, Silva, de Jong, Toure
Arsenal (8): Fabregas, Diaby, Nasri, Denilson, Ramsey, Song, Wilshere, Rosicky

It therefore isn't necessarily the case that having more than five central midfielders is a bad thing. Indeed, those clubs tend to have real strength in depth in the centre of the team. Liverpool, bar 2008/9 when they had Mascherano and Alonso at top form, have been overly reliant on Gerrard to play too many roles.

Last season with Gerrard injured, Aquilani on loan and Poulsen out of favour, Liverpool had to choose from Lucas, Meireles, Spearing and Shelvey. The argument that Liverpool are improving on a strength rings a little hollow – particularly as Gerrard has not, in recent years, played a traditional centre-midfield role.

But even if you disagree with the analysis that this was a ‘’false strength’’ for Liverpool, there are good reasons to buy both Adam and Henderson.

I will concede that I am not Adam’s biggest fan but he clearly does add a number of things. His set-piece delivery – from both free-kicks and corners – will add substantially to Liverpool’s threat going forward particularly with Andy Carroll playing football. Moreover, he does add a level of passing and creativity that the club hasn’t really got from Gerrard and Meireles.

An under-rated element of Adam’s game was that his crosses last season (crosses from open play) resulted in a number of goals.

Henderson is a different sort of player entirely. He can play both in central midfield as that sort of ‘’touch’’ player that keeps things spinning and dominates possession but can also play on the right-hand side of midfield.

Both are different sorts of players to what Liverpool already have. Again, for the first time in years, Liverpool have different types of midfielders. As excellently as Spearing and Lucas were at points last season it is difficult to argue that there was much creativity in the centre of midfield and the introduction of both Henderson and Adam should add that spark in different ways.

Another interesting variable is Gerrard. He can play in centre midfield (as he did excellently against Manchester United last season), on the right or off the main striker. In the past he has been able to sulk – on occasion – when he hasn’t got his way. This is unlikely to happen next year. Gerrard is massively popular at Liverpool but Dalglish is a colossus. If Gerrard has to play out of his favoured position the Kop will almost certainly side with King Kenny.

Finally, for the first time in a number of years Liverpool have genuine competition for places. I’d guess that this will make things better and not worse.

So, what team would I pick for the opening game against Sunderland (assuming Aquilani going and no other new arrivals)?

Reina

Kelly Agger Carragher Robinson

Lucas

Henderson Gerrard Meireles

Carroll Suarez

Keeping players happy - including the likes of Kuyt and Maxi who lose out in my system above - will be difficult. It will be easier, of course, if Liverpool are winning games.This scribe hopes that Mr Dalglish will now consider those other areas of the squad to make competition even more fierce.

RCM

The Need For Neymar

2011-07-04T10:12:00.000-07:00

Rugby fans will wring their hands about the fate of Pacific Islands rugby. Cricket fans do similar about the West Indies. Fans will mutter things like ''cricket needs a strong West Indies'' or ''rugby needs the Pacific Island teams challenging the best'' without ever really explaining why that is the case.

Whilst it appears obtuse it is easy to understand what they mean. Sport isn't just about competition, results and trophies. It is about stories, about narrative, about history. Sports and teams have identities, mythologies and souls. Cricket seems to be in a better place when a smiling Antiguan is blasting English medium pacers all over the ground and likewise rugby seems to be more contented whe a jet-heeled behemoth from Suva bending the rules of physics as he crashes over the try-line.

In football, there are equally obvious examples. Ajax and Holland are expected to play a certain way (consider the opprobrium poured on Holland after the World Cup Final - it was not just a nasty and cynical style of play it seemed so much worse because of the usual beauty the Dutch give us). As well as this certain players sum up their nation and style of play as I alluded to here .

For many of us, Brazil should play a certain way. It should be an expression of football at its most joyous. That brilliant shock of yellow symbolising a vision for the game - a type of game that is simply not possible for others to play. It is football with a smile upon its face.

We know in our hearts that the reason that the Brazilians tend to be better is because they tend to spend more time training and honing skills as youths. But, the myth and perception - as ever more important than the truth - is that the tricks and talent are really either honed on the beach or in a favela.

In recent years, especially under Dunga, Brazil have moved away from the ideal type of Brazilian football. Creativity has been subdued for the sake of discipline and work ethic. The appointment of Mano Menezes seems to be moving things the other way - indeed, last night's game against Venezuela had Neymar, Robinho, Pato and Ganso in the same team.

Like the cricket and rugby fans above, it matters to football fans that Brazil are not only a strong team but that they play their special brand of football. Moreover, it seems that Brazil have a player who is considered the best in the world or in that bracket. World football will be a poorer place if Brazil don't shine at the World Cup in 2014 and it will be poorer still if there isn't a Brazilian hero.

Since Kaka won World Player of the Year in 2007 no Brazilian has finished in the top three of that award. Last year, BackPageFootball's top 50 players in the world (which, by and large, I agreed with) contained only four Brazilians and none in the top 15. The fact that three of them were defenders - defenders who are a wonder to behold going forward but defenders nonetheless - tells us rather a lot about the state of Brazilian football.

It is true that Kaka was the last Brazilian forward to light up the world game. Others have shone intermittently (e.g. Robinho and Pato both had fine seasons for a resurgent Milan. Hulk is routinely outstanding for Porto) but none has challenged Messi, Xavi, Villa or Iniesta in recent years.

It is a curious form of snobbishness within the footballing world that Kaka wasn't really warmed to as other previous Brazilian geniuses were warmed to - I always got the feeling that this sumptuous, elegant player was admired rather than loved.

So, belatedly, we come to Neymar. The buzz around him is fast becoming cacophonous and, as with all such talents, his next move is an important one. That consideration is not really for here although I will say that I doubt whether Real Madrid or Chelsea are really the places for such a precious talent to head at this stage in his development.

Neymar is important for all who love football. If we want to see a free-flowing, breathtaking Brazil - especially at a World Cup in Brazil - it is likely that we need to see Neymar fulfil his potential. We have to hope that he doesn't become another Denilson or Djalminha or, even, a Robinho or Diego. Football doesn't need another good Brazilian. It needs one that can challenge Messi.

From what I've seen of him, he looks like he has everything. An unbridled confidence and impudent streak allow him to try astonishing things. As a dribbler, he has all the bases covered - fine ball control and freakish touch, real rapidity with and without the ball but, most worryingly for defenders, almost unrivalled acceleration and deceleration. Neymar seems to be a better finisher than Robinho and far more likely to use his trickery for the greater good rather than for self-aggrandisement.

The cloud on the horizon is Neymar's attitude. His confidence can spill into arrogance. An obvious example is his attitude to penalties:

Some work, some do not. To me there is something Cruyffian about his thinking rather than scoring the penalty he has to probe what is allowed, to try something new, to show off. On balance, I'd rather a young player was so obviously thinking and so clearly creative but I can imagine tearing my hair out if I were a manager. Away from this sort of showboating, there are worries about his attitude generally. His attitude has led to spats with coaches and opponents.

I'm not sure staying at Santos, where his ego will be massaged and indulged, is best for his long-term development.

Still, there is reason for him to be arrogant - 42 goals in 60 in his first full season for Santos and inspiring them to the Copa Libertadores in his second season. He is already leading the line for Brazil, aged 19, at the Copa America. He is clearly a special talent. He is the one whose face will be slapped on lunchboxes. Ganso and Douglas Costa will, no doubt, join Rui Costa, Boban, Litmanen etc as players that us bloggers cherish and who lead us to sneer at those who like better players. Such is life here on the blogosphere.

World football needs a strong Brazil but more than that it needs a Brazil that inspires the imagination and captivates the world. It needs a player - like Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Ronaldo, Rivaldo - who makes the world drool. Neymar could well be that player. We all need him. Football will be better if he succeeds.

RCM

Carlos Valderrama

2011-06-30T15:29:00.000-07:00

Isn't that an absolute pearler of a statue? Top stuff.

I've written before that people who truly cherish football love cultured central midfielders - and the shaggy haired Colombian wonder was one of them.

In the early to mid-1990s, Valderrama was one of the genuine cool cats of world football. He stood out partly for his looks and partly because he was such a fine player and - like so many midfielders of his ilk - an under-rated one.

Watching videos of him now a few things spring to mind. Firstly, extraordinary passing ability. Few in recent years had such great vision, touch and control (some who did are outlined in this piece). Secondly, that happy knack of truly great players to look like he has more time on the ball than other players. Thirdly, an ability to run a game.

Valderrama seems to me to be a genius in the numerous senses of the world. Kerouac's definition of the word (to beget) seems to fit the bill - he inspired his national team to heights that had not been hit previously or since. Moreover, in a more ancient translation of the word, he is a player who typifies his background and his geographical location. He was a very South American player and a particularly Colombian one.

His successors, though subtly different players, are not the likes of Xavi or Scholes but rather Veron and Riquelme - players who love the ball, who understand it, and who are adored - but more over sum up their nation's style of play.

The first goal in that video is all down to Valderrama (his touches between 13 and 20 seconds are wonderful. Particularly his assist). The lookaway pass on 1min 7 and tricks at 2min 53 would have modern football commentators drooling.

Enjoy!

RCM

A 1966 GB Team

2011-06-28T15:35:00.000-07:00

Sir Bobby Charlton once said that there was no surprise that a British team won in 1966. The biggest surprise was that it wasn’t Scotland.

On Sunday I blogged about Team GB and, over the last few hours, have begun to think – how good would various GB vintages have been? In this post I'll consider the 1966 team.

Some background

The mid-to-late 1960s was a golden era for British football – and really the only golden age for clubs from both sides of the border.

In 1964/65, West Ham – inspired by Peters, Hurst and Moore – won the Cup Winners Cup. In 1965/66, Liverpool lost the final to Borussia Dortmund and in 1966/67 Rangers lost to Bayern Munich. In 1967, Celtic became the first British team to win the European Cup and Manchester United followed in 1968. Individuals shone as well. In 1964, Denis Law won the Ballon d’Or. He was followed by Bobby Charlton in 1966 and George Best in 1968. Jimmy Johnstone came 3^rd in 1967.

And, of course, England won the World Cup.

Since that glorious day in the Sun, little English boys have been able to reel off the eleven who started for England and little Scottish boys have wished that they couldn't.

The league winners in 1966 were Liverpool yet only one Liverpool player started for England in the World Cup Final (Hunt). In second place were Leeds who had Jack Charlton and in third place was Burnley who had no one at all. The FA Cup winners were Everton and yet they only had one man start in the World Cup Final (Wilson). It is fair to say that the strength in depth was pretty deep.

Add to the English talent, the talent from around the UK: A GB team could have recreated any number of wonderful partnerships - the St. John-Hunt duo of Liverpool, the Gilzean-Greaves partnership at Spurs or, more obviously, the Law-Charlton-Best trinity at Manchester United.

Or Willie Irvine of Northern Ireland could have been shoe-horned in - he was top scorer in England that season, after all, with Burnley. Or bring in The Golden Vision, Alex Young from Everton and Scotland. That's just the strikeforce possibilities - and I haven't mentioned the chap who scored a hat-trick in the final.

Scots, in particular, could have filled in almost any position. Stiles position could have been filled - or possibly improved upon - by Bremner, Murdoch, Mackay or Crerand. It depends on the sort of player one would favour but Bremner and Mackay were - in my view - better at the Stiles role than Stiles. Murdoch is one of the most under-rated players in the history of the British game and, if we didn't require a midfield snarler, he would have swaggered in alongside Charlton.

If it hadn't been for an appalling injury at the time Bobby Collins of Leeds (and Scotland) would be up for consideration.

Peter Lorimer hadn't started playing regularly for Scotland in 1966 but both Jimmy Johnstone and Willie Henderson were ahead of him. Ball is, like Murdoch, an under-rated player by the footballing populous but I'd still pick Johnstone ahead of him - for dazzling natural ability! On the left, George Best should be selected ahead of Martin Peters (Jim Baxter also deserves a mention). Admittedly this shifts from a wingless wonders to a more audacious approach.

In central defence, Greig, McNeill, McKinnon, Yeats are all possibles whilst Tommy Gemmell and Eddie McCreadie are obvious contenders at left-back.

So if we'd had a GB Team, my suggestion for the strongest XI is:

1. G. Banks (England)2. G. Cohen (England)3. T. Gemmell (Scotland)

4. B. McNeill (Scotland)5. B. Moore (England)
6. B. Bremner (Scotland)
7. J. Johnstone (Scotland)
8. B. Charton (England)
9. D. Law (Scotland)

10. G. Hurst (England)
11. G. Best (Northern Ireland)

I think that is a better team than the team that won the cup that year. And the bench would have been stronger too.

RCM

PS - think of 1958 - a midfield of Finney, Haynes, Blanchflower and Cliff Jones!

Where's the beef?

2011-06-26T12:32:00.000-07:00

Gerry Hassan is one of the few genuinely thought-provoking writers in the mainstream media who sometimes focuses on Scottish football. I do not agree with him here. Despite that, as ever, it is well worth a read.

Let us look simply at the facts as they are:

The Olympic Games are being hosted in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland next year in London.

The team that will represent us all - whatever the various shades of Nationalist around these isles would like to be the case - will be Great Britain.

In all bar one sport this would not be a problem. Sir Chris Hoy will compete alongside individuals from elsewhere in the ''Home Nations'' as he did to such joyful success in 2008.

The only sport - typically - that differs from this is football.

Hassan, and many others (including Bella Caledonia), argue that the call for a a Team GB is not about football but rather about politics. I think there may be something in this but, let us be brutally honest, their opposition to the team does not centre on football and almost entirely about politics.

Other voices still have argued that this is about selling tickets. Again, there may be something in that but as the calls for this team have been around since at least 2009 (when I started my blog one of my first pieces was on the subject of the Olympic Football Team), it may be both about selling tickets and sport.

Some have argued that the GB Football Team is the latest in some grand Establishment plot to quell nationalist uprisings in Wales and, more obviously, in Scotland. My feeling on this is quite clear - if you want to guarantee Scottish independence in one easy stroke? Fuck around with the Scotland Football Team.

Hassan asserts that there is ''under the Cameroon Conservative coalition a deliberate and conscious attempt to brand as British national moments and events from the Royal Wedding to next year's Olympics and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee'.

The problem, of course, is that these are British events and many in the country (not just England) wish that to be the case. It might upset some to hear this but there are plenty of people - plenty of people who voted SNP too - who will roar on the GB Olympic Rowing team even if it is made of Englishmen, were pleased to be part the Royal Wedding celebrations and will celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. The Queen, after all, is not just the English Queen.

It seems to me that most (although not all) of the people who are publicly opposed to the GB team fall into two camps (a) Nationalists who oppose the concept of Britain as a whole – which is a legitimate stance, of course (b) People with some level of self-interest (such as SFA blazers). That is not to say there are not other objections to the team but these seem to do dominate.

Anyway, enough politics for now – let’s talk football for that is why you are (unless you are one of the many who googled ‘boys in Changing Room’ and are now getting a bit antsy about the lack of porn).

So where are we?

The Four ‘’Home Nations’’ have separate national football teams. This is solely down to the historic role that they played in the foundation of the international game.

Great Britain, as a unified entity, has not had a football team since it attempted to qualify for the Olympics in 1972. The various football associations (most vociferously the SFA) fear that a GB football team next year would set a precedent that would lead to the eventual destruction of the four football associations (i.e. SFA, FAW, The Irish Football Association and the Football Association).

A few sprinkled thoughts for you:

A precedent already exists. As above, GB has qualified or attempted to qualify before. If a precedent is harmful per se one already exists.
Even though I believe there to be little threat to the national associations (as we shall see) let us remember that the SFA blazers are not necessarily arguing from a position of objectivity.

There seems to be little evidence to suggest that there is any threat to the future of the various associations (or, more correctly, the existence of the four Home Nations teams).

Whenever I have asked for evidence of a credible threat to the teams nothing has come forward. Nothing. This article titled ‘’Why Team GB is a threat to Wales’ is extremely well-written and concise but doesn’t actually tell us why Team GB is a threat to Wales.

It mentions that Uruguay have previously questioned the existence of the four Home Nations. As Uruguay do not seem hell-bent on our destruction any longer(this was in the early 1970s after all) there seems to be, as far as I can see, no one actually calling for the abolition of the four FAs at this point.

What we do know is that FIFA and UEFA have given various assurances in recent years that there would be no threat to the various associations. In response to this we get sub-Daily Mail responses:

''Aaaah they say that now but how can you trust Blatter and Company?''
''They say that now but they might change their mind in the future''
''It is easier to defend the status quo without a precedent'.
''It is the thin end of the wedge. It is a slippery slope''.

No evidence. Just conjecture. Where is the beef?

The last one is particularly annoying. Away from football, I rather like debating. What debaters, and students of rhetoric generally, dislike is slippery slope arguments. The reason is simple? They are bad arguments.

The real issue for many nations around the globe isn't our existence but our power. The four Home Nations remember are disproportionately powerful in world football. Most people would agree that this is both wrong and unsustainable – and, as I say, the few that argue the other way tend to be association junketeers who see the weakening of the Home Nations’ power within the game as a bad thing.

How are they powerful? All four nations have a guaranteed position of Vice-Presidency on the FIFA Management Committee. Moreover, all four have a presence on the 8-person International Football Association Board (all the other countries in FIFA have four spots).

Separating the argument slightly. Whether we are in favour or against Team GB, I think we can agree that it isn’t right for all four of the Home Nations to have an automatic spot on the International Football Association Board. I’d be surprised if the SFA, FA, IFA and FAW agreed.

Would European nations really want a stronger team to compete against? I doubt it very much. Why would France, Germany or Spain want to compete against a team with Ramsey, Wilshere, Bale, Rooney et al? I reckon they prefer the current situation - because it is easier.

Further, there are plenty of anomalies in the world game. Derry City play in Eire, Toronto play in the MLS as will the renewed Vancouver Whitecaps, Berwick Rangers play in Scotland, Wellington Phonix play in the Australian league, some Brunei teams play in the Malaysian league, FC Busingen of Germany play in Switzerland, Cardiff and Swansea play in the English league*, Mexican teams compete in the Copa Libertadores despite not being members of CONMEBOL, Vaduz (and 6 other Liechtenstein teams) play in Switzerland and Monaco play in France.

On an international level: Macau and China both have international football teams but compete as one at the Olympics (an almost direct analogy). This is further complicated by Hong Kong and Taiwan competing in both international football and the Olympics. Nobody is calling for the amalgamation of the Macau team and China team. France and New Caledonia both have national football teams yet New Caledonia is an overseas territory of France.

Anomalies exist in football - and everyone seems to be able to live with that.

And what of UEFA? What would happen if we did see amalgamation of the four Home Nations into Team GB? There would be massive ramifications from this. The league structures, and qualification structures for UEFA competitions, would surely have to be overhauled – how could four different league structures continue to exist? I cannot see UEFA picking this fight. It would be more trouble than it is worth.

I am happy to admit that my argument is largely conjecture. I would hope that the conjecture is slightly more convincing than ''we don't know what FIFA will do in five years''.

RCM

* Remember when we heard that if Cardiff were in Europe this would harm the existence of the Welsh league/Welsh FA/Welsh national team....

Break

2011-06-22T12:49:00.000-07:00

As you'll have spotted I'm currently on a very short sabbatical. Why not enjoy some Davor Suker while you wait?

Lots of love

RCM

El Colorado - Some thoughts on Scholes

2011-06-15T12:41:00.000-07:00

I come from a football family. I don't mean, necessarily, the family who all go to the football together all wearing the kit of the club they support. My family is too naturally quarrelsome to all support the same team for starters. What I mean is, that on my mother's side, generations have loved and cherished football.

My Papa was obsessed with the game - we would be driving around the South West of Scotland and, upon seeing a Sunday league game, he would stop the car and watch the game. My uncle was a fair player in his day and spent many years playing, coaching, refereeing and just generally being involved in the game.

My mum, however, can read a game of football better than almost anyone I know. She doesn't watch football so much as she did as a youngster but she still has that sense for the game that anyone who has been hauled around grounds from all ages has. She knows a good player when she sees one and she saw one in Paul Scholes.

For years, when Manchester United or England were on the television she would look out for Scholes and insist he was better than the ''bigger names'' on the pitch - better than Giggs, better than Keane, better than Beckham, better than Cantona. She said similar about Veron and Molby both of whom, for all they achieved, probably didn't get the recognition they deserved in England.

This is not an uncommon reaction to a fine player - the many articles written on Scholes in recent weeks, bar the hit-seeking contrarians, say the same thing.

He wasn't necessarily a player's player but he was certainly a football lover's player. I've said before that those who really love football, who feel it in their bones, who obsess about it, who walk to work thinking about this eleven or that eleven or ''what if we started X here'' love elegant central midfielders. Not for them the wingers and the strikers. They are too obvious, too cloyingly obvious to really love.

As is this blog's want, I try and look at things differently. We all know that Scholes was a very fine player indeed and one of the finest passers the game has seen these twenty years. A little Twitter poll that I ran earlier today asking ''Who are the best five passers you've ever seen?'' garnered the following as the top five (no particularly order):

Xavi

Andrea Pirlo

Paul Scholes

Xabi Alonso

Zinedine Zidane

Fabregas, Beckham, Hoddle, Molby, Deco, Iniesta, Gerrard, Prosinecki, Laudrup, Redondo, Rui Costa, Veron, Riquelme and Bergkamp were all mentioned consistently. Some names to conjure with. I was disappointed no one mentioned Boban.

I was not consistent about the ''type'' of passer - some pointed out that there are fantastic long-range passers and there are some who can do the tiki-taka stuff. Others went into depth saying that Veron was the best in terms of the variety of passing but Fabregas was better at through balls. Most, I'd guess, looked for players adept at the whole spectrum of passing. My top five, for what it is worth, would have been roughly similar to the top five here. As above, football lovers love a regista or a trequartista.

I was struck by a Republik of Mancunia post which listed all the quotes from top professionals and managers about Scholes. We know that players can be sycophantic about their team-mates (Chelsea players nicknaming Joe Cole ''Zizou'' is an obvious example as is Steven Gerrard claiming that Cole can be as good as Lionel Messi) so it is perhaps unsurprising that many from within the United (and, on a smaller scale, England) ranks have gushed about Scholes - although, in this instance, I am sure it is sincere.

More telling was the list of names that did not have direct playing experience with Scholes who paid tribute to him: Xavi, Zidane, Iniesta, Davids, Guardiola, Viera, Henry, Fabregas, Mourinho, Lippi, Gudjohnson.

You may notice something about those names. All footballing greats but also all foreign. It is telling that so few English players gave such glowing testimonies. As far as I could see from RoM's list only Micah Richards and Alan Shearer were the only non-United England internationals who appeared (and Shearer played many times with Scholes when their careers overlapped).

This isn't to say that many England internationals who played alongside Scholes did not rate him (I am sure they did) nor is to say that many youngsters coming through the ranks did not idolise him (again, I am sure they did) but not only is Scholes a football lover's player, in many ways, he is not an English player. Scholes, a man with more pieces of silver than Judas, was never really treated the way he should have been treated by England or the English footballing establishment.

Is it not telling that Scholes never won the PFA Player's Player of the Year? Or the FWA Player of the Year? English football does not like its players to have a fine brain or to control games. It says so much about our footballing culture that Scott Parker has won one of the major awards of the game but Paul Scholes never did.

But then we prefer our centre midfielders a certain way. We prefer Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Bryan Robson and Ray Wilkins. Tellingly, each and every one of those got more caps for England than Paul Scholes.

Blood and guts, fire and brimstone, heart on the sleeve and all the other hoary cliches tha one could ever dream of. We want them to grab the game by the scruff of its neck and pull their team over the winning line. We want cartoonish improbability. We want Roy of the Rovers. We prefer Barry to Alonso, we prefer Savage to Veron, we prefer McMahon to Molby. We want our midfielders to snarl rather than purr.

Of course, using we I mean the collective ''we''. Not the select band of brothers on Twitter who worship at the Church of Riquelme but the vast ranks of fans up and down the land who will, week in, week out, tell us that a certain player couldn't cut it in the Premiership. How gloriously English? The guy with feet like Swiss Army knives, who can manufacture and manipulate space and who plays as if he has five extra seconds on the ball isn't good enough to cut it because he lacks such intangibles as heart, passion, and pride. The guy who can land a ball on a six-pence in a howling wind isn't good enough because he finds it morally repugnant to hoof the ball into row z - usually followed by the small South American forward he was tackling as he ''got the ball first''.

Andrea Pirlo and Xavi, these sages will tell us, could not cut it in Stoke on a Tuesday night. Let us point to Xabi Alonso, Cesc Fabregas and any number of others who have cut it in such places and snigger behind our hands at the utter lunacy of the point of view.

This is not to denigrate those English players - they are wonderful to watch, can do astonishing things on the football field and are an integral part of what all of us really do love about English football. Each footballing culture is different and each has strengths and weaknesses.

Gerrard, in particular, is under-rated in the brains department and many on the blogosphere now refuse to see the Rolls Royce excellence of many of his performances only to point at a chalkboard and scream something unintelligible about pass-completion rates. It is the truth, however, that the one time in his career that he has truly been surrounded by world-class players (Mascherano, Alonso and Torres) he excelled. This is a state of affairs that was the norm for Scholes throughout his career at Manchester United and it is conjecture to consider how he would have succeeded in the ''one-man show'' environment that Gerrard has endured for much of his career.

Some have - wrongly in my view - argued that Gerrard is a finer player than Scholes because, as well, sharing many of his attributes he can also tackle well. I disagree because I think they are very different players with very different attributes. It is not comparing like with like. This, however, is for a pub debate rather than a lengthy blogpost.

Scholes is perhaps the brightest star in a long line of talented individuals who were treated badly by the English football establishment because they were not typically ''English'' players - they did not fit into the neat box marked ''4-4-2'' and therefore were forever destined to mould themselves to the team rather than the team be moulded around them. Matthew Le Tissier, Joe Cole, Glen Hoddle, Steve McManaman amongst others are in that boat. Scholes, in my view, was better than them all and it is the greatest tragedy for England fans that he was allowed to shine so rarely at international level.

Scholes is the man, that from his England debut to his retirement, England should have built the team around. Rather than focus and fuss about Beckham (a fine player but not in Scholes' league) or worry about how to shoe-horn Gerrard and Lampard in the same team, successive England managers should have worked out that Scholes could and should have been the heart-beat of the England team: The man who subtly bossed the game and ran the shebang just as he did for Manchester United. Instead, he finished his England career playing on the left-wing. Can one seriously imagine Xavi or Pirlo or Alonso shifted to the left-wing? Not out of, say, some injury-caused necessity but out of design?

Paul Scholes achieved an awful lot in his career and won more medals than most players can reasonably dream of. Football should, however, be wondering how much he would have achieved - on an international scale - if he hadn't been born in Manchester but rather in Madrid, Milan or Marseilles.

RCM

Right Back In The Dog House

2011-06-13T13:46:00.000-07:00

The special relationship between Ajax and Barcelona has been written about extensively . The link, going back to the days of Cruyff, is a deep one and an important one but by and large the traffic has been from the Netherlands to Spain.

So I rather liked that Oleguer went the other way. From Camp Nou to the Amsterdam Arena is a route not particularly frequently travelled but it is typical of the player to depart from the cosy norms of modern football.

You may remember Oleguer playing in the Champions League Final in 2006 (when a prototype version of this Barcelona team beat Arsenal). Then, aged 26, the fact that he hadn't played for Spain seemed anomalous, He had been solid for some time, his form was improving and, along with Ramos, was the outstanding right-back in the league. A cap seemed inevitable except Oleguer did not want to play for Spain because Spain is a concept he disagrees with.

After that Champions League Final, the arrival of Thuram and Zambrotta pushed him down the right-back pecking order but as Oleguer could play anywhere across the backline he was still a useful enough player.

From that point his fall from grace has been spectacular. Since the heady days of lifting the Champions League trophy he has become an expensive bit-part player for Ajax - partly due to injury, partly due to the emergence Jan Vertonghen - he has barely played. With the greatest of respect to a club I adore that is a long way down in a very short space of time.

It was not just the arrival of Thuram and Zambrotta that hurt his own career but, rather, his off-field actions. Oleguer is an intelligent man, a politically motivated man and is, by no measure, an ordinary footballer.

As above, he is a left-wing Catalan nationalist who, unlike Xavi, Puyol and Fabregas, does not see himself as both Catalan and Spanish. This endeared him to many of the Cules.

This Economics graduate has been invited to speak to the Zapatists and play in a charity game at their behest in Chiaps, he has published articles in journals and, from time to time, in newspapers. It was one such article, published in Berria in 2007, that seems to have triggered his demise.

In his article entitled 'De Bona Fe' (In Good Faith) he considered human rights in Spain, the nature of democracy and the independence of the judicial system. Within that he considered a number of examples of the state of the rule of law including treatment of some members of ETA - most notably Inaki de Juana Chaos.

The fall-out from the article was intense. There is no doubt the De Juana is an exceptionally controversial figure. Oleguer was attacked by other players in the press, by his sponsors (who pulled out of a deal with him) and crowds booed his every touch. The Madrid press smelled blood and feasted on him like starved piranhas. He wasn't just booed for the article, of course, he was booed for his views on Catalan nationalism. All of a sudden there was an excuse.

His own manager, Frank Rijkaard, lambasted him publicly. A fellow Catalan nationalist the Barcelona club president, Laporta, followed suit. One can only imagine what was said in private. Laporta had backed Oleguer at other points - Laporta had pushed the full-back to go to a Spain training camp but only because he feared Oleguer would be banned for a year. Laporta echoed Oleguer's calls for more importance to be given to the Catalan national team. On this occasion, it seemed the full-back had gone too far.

In 2006, he was within touching distance (if he wanted it) of a World Cup place. The combination of his club signing of two of the world's great right-backs and his article on law led to his fall from grace. A fall from which he has never truly recovered as a footballer. He now, as above, sits on the bench in the Dutch league.

It also, whisper it quietly, undermines the idea and ideal of 'Mes que un club'. As soon as one of their own - and Oleguer was one of their own - says something controversial but certainly not without merit he was hung out to dry.

The club is keen to promote that it is more than a club, a symbol of Catalan spirit, a lone and important flame flickering in the face of Franco's forces, an important part of Catalan culture but its treatment of Oleguer was publicly shabby. Whilst his article focused on a controversial figure, it was just an opinion and a legitimate one.

And consider the feelings the other way! Oleguer said of Barcelona ''When Barcelona win the league, we become the Army of joy finally able to face up to Franco's troops. We imagine ourselves halting that pack of tanks, responding to their bullets with song, laughing in the face of the fascist ire'.

It is easy to see why opposition fans hated him. And why many in the Barcelona support loved him.

Few players speak out on political matters - Hakan Sukur, Lilian Thuram, Dominique Rocheteau, Vikash Dhorasoo spring to mind - and it is a shame that when they do that they will be lambasted. It is not surprising that they are treated in such a way. Most opposition fans do not need a strong excuse to boo their foes but the example of Oleguer is a telling one. It seems to me that there is a clear link between his political views being expressed publicly and the downward spiral of his career.

RCM