Barcelona are a disgrace, with the exception of:
1. Carles Puyol;
2. Victor Valdes;
3. Lionel Messi;
4. Possibly Bojan and Xavi.
The top three gave a **** against Real Madrid in midweek, Puyol throwing himself around with customary zeal, Valdes almost shaking with rage during the second half and Messi once again forced to take the game to the opposition entirely on his own.
Xavi I’ll let off because although he was crap I love him (and the absent Iniesta) for his past importance, while it was a lot to expect of Bojan; but I struggle to name another player for the Blaugrana that could be bothered.
Henry scored a cracker but seems peeved that people no longer view him as a god, Edmilson (who claimed Ronaldinho didn’t care enough) came on and slipped straight over to allow another Madrid goal, Abidal’s attacking play is just woeful this season and as for Marquez…
Henk ten Cate was visibly shocked in the Sky studio afterwards by the lack of commitment from men that he coached to consecutive Liga triumphs and the European Cup only two years ago.
I was prostrate on the sofa, watching with an eerie attentiveness - for want of a better word - swallowing more beer with every Madridista shown on the screen waving a Madrid/anti-Barca/Confederate flag.
How had the free-flowing total football of times so recent come to this? Barcelona have been afraid to go for the jugular - with the exception of Messi - in games for months, a shortcoming glossed over by the outrageous possession that their midfield commands.
In short, as I’ve said - with no little pang of despair - since before Christmas, it was time for Rijkaard to move on and allow someone new to have a go.
And in my opinion they’ve made the right choice. Guardiola knows the players that are coming into the side from the youth set-up, having been coach of the B side; they simply need a fresh face at the helm, some new ideas and direction, but not to be ripped out and gutted by a manager such as Mourinho.
However Pep needs to cut loose some of the mainstays of that 2006 dream team: Ronaldinho, Edmilson, Marquez and Deco. Zambrotta can also leave and I’m not keen on Giovani. And dare I say it: Samuel Eto’o can go, for the right price.
The manner in which Deco and Eto’o, unthinkable departures two years ago, earned cynical yellow cards to avoid playing in the Bernabeu says it all about their temperament. Guardiola should get rid of men like that who do not want to play for Barcelona against Real Madrid.
It’s a bit of a stab in the dark, and let’s hope it doesn’t go all Hristo Stoichkov (sorry Hristo, I still love you), but better a man that understands the ‘Masia’ way of doing things than another Louis van Gaal (yes, I know he won the title a couple of times, but what of it?)
Posted by Jon as SportingPolitics at 3:18 PM CDT
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It took me a week to get over losing to Cardiff and their generally inebriated mocking supporters. Enough of that though.
Since then things have been getting steadily better. I’ve been improving my diet, somewhat neglected since I moved flat for some unfathomable reason, taken up writing my novel with gusto and got back on my beautiful but damaged guitar.
I’ve tried to set up more interviews and such with work, resulting in some success - I got to interview the ‘Jester from Leicester’ Mark Selby (http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/15042008/58/crucible-countdown-mark-selby-q-amp.html , http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/22042008/58/60-seconds-mark-selby.html) in Sheffield (after somewhat bizarrely witnessing John Parrott and Shaun Murphy performing trick shots for kids on a table set up in Sheff train station).
There are more opportunities on the horizon - I’m off to Brand’s Hatch on Saturday to speak with Senna - Bruno, not Ayrton as my boss initially said (followed by the exclamation ‘he’s dead!’) - and perhaps Alain Prost.
All very good, all very boring - so let me relate the Mister Holloway tale. I conducted a phone interview with Akos Buzsaky (http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/25042008/58/championship-qpr-bosses-demand-promotion.html) last week and after asking all the crap about the owners of QPR etc, did an irreverent 60 seconds piece (as yet unpublished) like the Selby one above.
When it came to the crucial question of whether he preferred Uncle Ben’s or Mr Kipling, I had to explain the nature of Uncle Ben’s fantastic range of cooking sauces - but when I asked if he knew Mr Kipling, he went from a laid-back guy to a snarling beast.
“I know Meester Kipling,” he said. ” In Plymouth, we always eat Mr Kipling.”
“Was that Holloway?” I asked.
“Yes. He always made us eat cakes. And I don’t like cakes.”
Beautiful: a foreign footballer, keen to eat fruit and unsalted nuts for snacks in between meals, is instead force-fed cake by his strange silly quote-happy West Country boss.
I thought he was becoming a walking cliche, but Holloway is redeemed in my eyes.
And as for the last question in the second Selby link above - I’m sorry Mark, but your Kipling-stuffed Foxes players may just sink into League One after all; the final stage of my rehabilitation after Wembley came when we finally secured our own Championship status.
Let’s hope it’s Wednesday that go down next week, although it’s not likely.
Posted by Jon as SportingPolitics, Symco, Sooper Reds at 12:47 PM CDT
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God I hate it when blogs say ‘Hi, it’s me again, sorry I’ve been away…’
So now I’ve got that out of the way - I guess you could say I’m not in the real world and haven’t been since the Sooper Reds KO’d ‘Chelsea Chelsea’ in the FA Cup quarters.
Where did that come from?
The Liverpool game looked a tad poxy, although they deserved it for sheer effort, but we were better than the squad that cost 230-odd million. Eh?
Mum queued for eight and a half hours to get semi tickets today, bless her - and I saw her on Sky Sports News (’THERE’S MY MUM!!’) - so in just over two weeks I’ll be trekking up ‘Olympic’ Way to watch BFC, not England this time, lose in the great new ground.
Eh?
It’s 96 years since the last time we were there, when we won it, the Titanic sank etc. And we’re playing Cardiff. So we could win the bloody thing.
Need I repeat my exclamations? No more than my views after every bugger I see or email opens with ‘So, Barnsley, you must be over the moon?’
Too bloody right I am, and it means more than the ‘day out’ everyone keeps talking about. It’s about three weeks or more of walking on air and 50 years of ‘remember when…’
They’ll freeze and blow it and we’ll look back on it like Darren Barnard’s missed pen in the 2000 play-offs - but that memory hasn’t stopped me thinking back every now and again to shaven-headed Craigy Hignett streaking forward in the sun, letting fly and the ball cannoning down off the bar onto Richard Wright’s arm and… chaos.
But what if? What if they actually go and…
Nah, better not tempt it.
Posted by Jon as Symco, Sooper Reds at 10:55 PM CDT
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As we know it in England, anyway.
During the Super Bowl I made a bet with my Yank friend Jez that the Premier League would never ’sell out’ enough to consider playing matches in the States.
How wrong I was. Only days later it emerges that the chairmen have now decided to allocate a 39th match in the calendar, to be drawn at random and played in another country such as America, Australia or China.
How can they consider such an outrageous proposal? What if, taking the ongoing season as an example, an extra game were added that saw Fulham facing Derby, while Birmingham and Reading have to play Arsenal and Chelsea?
The whole premise of the English league calendar is based around the contesting of games against every other team in the division, home and away.
The Americans often have lopsided calendars and a culture of away matches without travelling support; the Oakland Raiders, to take an example, will journey to Miami in 2008 to face the Dolphins.
That is accepted; but here there are fans present for every match, for both sides, wherever it is played. And no matter how big the club is, and how rubbish the prospect, there will always be a few hardy souls making the trip.
Despite the creeping corporate presence, the FA Cup or play-off finals at Wembley are basically half-red, half-blue when Manchester United play Chelsea or Barnsley play Ipswich - and a sight to behold.
The Super Bowl crowd consists of those lucky enough to buy a ticket months in advance and those rich enough to pay for a ticket as the game approaches. In clear terms: few, if any, diehard fans.
Which model should we choose to follow?
This is it: the point from which there is no return. The financial climate that has already crippled several clubs and closed others has finally got what it wanted.
Like a savvy whore it wants to sell its wares to the highest bidder, with no thought given to the people watching in the stands. Middle-aged people who have collected programmes since the age of seven and still treasure their very first home shirt.
Many people will see this as the final straw, one that breaks their association with the game. They shell out hundreds or even thousands of pounds to watch their teams and buy overpriced merchandise for their kids; but even their money is no longer enough.
How soon before the big clubs take umbrage at the idea that Wigan and Middlesbrough get to play the same number of games as them abroad, despite their lack of a foreign fanbase? Until they demand ‘Super Games’ between the ‘big four’ in Miami and Beijing?
Someone has got to put a stop to this. Or when the first game is played outside the UK I will have to travel to wherever in the world Jez is lounging about and buy the swine a beer.
Posted by Jon as SportingPolitics at 4:50 PM CST
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It looks like we’re on the slide, though I’m in no position to comment having seen only the odd game. I even spurned a match at Loftus Road to play in Wimbledon on Saturday - only for the rain to call it off.
Werling gone, Nyatanga gone, Macken gone… and it shows, reckons my Dad. But Nardiello is back!
I wonder what reception the traitorous git expects after leaving journalists and the club waiting perplexed with the ink on his new contract drying… before ringing up an hour after the planned moment to say he was on the M1 to join QPR.
That turned out well for him, didn’t it?
It raises the question of club loyalty again. Barnsley by rights ought to tell him where to get off after he treated them with such little respect.
But the problem is, we need the goals - and that is what he provides. As my Dad said before he rejoined us on loan: Some players just fit into a club.
I can’t see a rapturous welcome for him at Oakwell, but if he bangs in a few goals like he did at the tail-end of last season then they will sing his name.
Posted by Jon as Sooper Reds at 5:39 PM CST
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Something that amused me on Thursday…
At the beginning of a Reading press conference - and what a pain in the arse it is getting out to their training ground in the sticks when you haven’t got a car - Steve Coppell revealed that he takes his tea ‘the colour of John Salako’.
People were a little stunned to begin with; so he showed us the liquid. “Look! See what I mean? Exactly the same colour.”
Perhaps Steve not only takes backroom staff with him when he changes clubs; perhaps he takes his tea lady too. Because how else would she know what on earth he’s talking about unless she was with him at Palace circa 1990?
I personally like mine with as little milk as possible - an ‘Ian Wright’, if you will.
Posted by Jon as SportingPolitics at 12:23 PM CST
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Christmas comes and goes in a flash, although each part of it seems to last a good length of time… it feels like a World Cup, where time stands still waiting for the next match (in Christmas terms this may be seeing certain members of family, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day then New Year) but when its over you think ‘where did the time go?’
As for the family part, my babies are growing up - their first Christmas where they can crawl/run about and begin to appreciate it - and it was lovely to see both Grandmas a couple of times. Mum and Dad came down to visit for a couple of days before heading up for the holiday and we had a cracking day of sightseeing in London Town, including the market at Covent Garden… mulled cider and bratwurst - enough said.
Grandma Lowe and our Matt were over for Christmas Day until Boxing Day and, having taught Kambi and Windle a few lessons on the football pitch on the 23rd - the ‘Parky reunion’ - I then kicked Matt’s arse on the crossbar challenge. Apart from a spontaneous run around the old Axle Lane triangle - somehow equalling my best time of 17:33 - that was the sumtotal of my exercise.
The Boxing Day 3-3 against Stoke was some match, with red cards, hat-tricks, disgraceful tackles and Ricky Fuller going nuts and starting on a whole stand…
http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/27122007/58/premier-league-early-doors-morning-briefing.html
Keep the Christmas programme!!
Posted by Jon as Symco, Babies, Sooper Reds at 12:16 PM CST
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Now that Barnsley have gone and lost at Hillsborough for the 11th straight time I can look back and slag off the national team from top to bottom.
Sitting at the new Wembley for the first time against Croatia my enthusiasm was dampened slightly by a clearly inept team selection and formation that obviously failed to consider the farce against Northern Ireland under Sven. Five in midfield getting under each other’s feet, an ocean of space between crab-like playmakers and the lone beanpole in attack… and the goalie.
I should have been livid before kick-off. When Carson shipped the ball then watched as Olic rounded him to slot home there was no need for further evidence. We all felt like walking out. We didn’t and the crowd got behind them, although they didn’t deserve it.
It was a long journey home although I live in West London - partly because while slagging off Bridge and Mac on the phone to my Dad I got on the wrong train, as I did before too to almost miss kick-off. I got soaked in Twickenham and Feltham getting buses, but there was a carrot ahead.
The club comes first and so the next week passed with more than one eye on the Owls. All would be right with the world if we could stuff them and their arrogant big club mentality. To add to the pleasure, three points would put us right up in fourth place. Wednesday poxed it again and the bloody M1 was reduced to one lane in parts, meaning my Dad and I didn’t get back until gone midnight.
While dropping off my cousin though we had a quick look on teletext and saw that The Sun reckoned Mourinho had said he was interested in England. Now we’re talking. Capello or Jose would bring management to the mess of egos that is the dressing room, not a couple of days of coaching and let’s see how we get on. The Portuguese especially would not be afraid to cull anyone who failed to cooperate aboard the good ship Mour.
That is what is needed as people around the country, back at their club grounds, boo the ’stars’ who are paid so much and seemed to care so little. It’d be good if all those who follow lower-division clubs also got the chance to let Gerrard and Lampard know how they feel about their biannual dose of patriotism falling by the wayside next summer.
If the FA bottle it and bring in a weaker character than Mourinho - and the job now is of such magnitude that it demands someone of his stature and conviction - they risk alienating the loyal followers of the Three Lions. Because for the first time the way I feel about those in charge and in the England set-up is beginning to outweigh my desire to see us win matches at any cost.
I’ve listened for a while to friends and colleagues say they don’t care how England do any more - that is something you never hear about clubs. Without the right choice we’ll soon be joining Austria in campaigning for the national team to be disbanded, or at least people will stop turning up. Maybe if there’s a Wales-sized crowd inside the national stadium Gerrard will feel a bit more urgency in closing down an opponent lining up a decisive goal and win back the fans.
Posted by Jon as SportingPolitics, Sooper Reds at 4:14 PM CST
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Another cousin married and the pressure builds. Uncles, aunties, cousins, friends and grandmas combine to try and force through a quick engagement and ‘happily ever after’ - but I’m not having any of it. We’ll get engaged when the time and bank balance suits. We’re happy as we are for now.
Makes you think though when your baby cousin - there’s only Matthew younger than our Caroline - ties the knot. Jamie will also soon be married, in February I think. It seems a bit young to me but there you go - each to their own.
I love coming back up to Sheffield/Mansfield and seeing my family. I’ve some good friends, but people have their own lives and that doesn’t always tie in with your own plans. When I’m up family comes first and I’ll get to see my grandmas as well as others in our clan, depending on circumstances.
Of course the newest additions to that family (not counting our Emma’s little boy) are my niece and nephew, who I must talk about once again. They are now marauding about the place with their little personalities displayed nonchalantly - that’s the best way I can describe them right now. When Grace laughs - usually in response to someone else doing so - nothing else matters in the world. My sis and Gary are lucky to have such adorable kids.
Speaking of Gaz, he’s sitting in the Wednesday end tomorrow night for the Sooper Reds’ big derby with Sheffield Scum. He’s a brave man: after disposing of league leaders Watford at the weekend, it’s about time we stuffed them at their place.
As usual there’ll be the personal reflection before the match though: who wouldn’t have a quiet moment with their thoughts sitting in the Leppings Lane end of Hillsborough.
Posted by Jon as Symco, Babies, Sooper Reds at 3:40 PM CST
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As Irvine Welsh, one time resident of Amsterdam, has it in ‘Filth’…
A surprise weekend away from my beloved turned out excellently, apart from the Amsterdam Dungeon - a pile of poo for 19 euros apiece. Should’ve known.
Anne Frank’s house was a humbling experience, despite the image-conscious Yank girl that complained about the steepness of the stairs leading to the attic where the family lived during the occupation. I haven’t read it unfortunately - but with the passages provided and the info on her life (I didn’t realise that she had only died a month before the allied liberation) I was awestruck.
No matter where we went in the fabled city (although we avoided the red light district, more by luck than judgment) we managed to keep away from Yanks and Brits and were surrounded by Dutch.
I’ve heard that the city is sleazy because of the drugs and sex industry; but my impression was one of autumnal beauty with canals almost on every street, and a genuinely relaxed and friendly place.
Posted by Jon as Symco at 4:25 PM CST
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