wrong side XI: left mid

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this is part X in the “wrong side XI” series, where i’ll be selecting my very own starting eleven, assuming of course that i could choose any player from any team in the world. you can read the rules i’ll be following to make my team selection, and what formation i’ll be squeezing them into, on the first post in the series.

Ezequiel Lavezzi, Gareth Bale, Eden Hazard, Cristiano Ronaldo, Juan Mata

my shortlist for left mid compiles players from all over the world: argentina, wales, belgium, portugal and spain.

At long last… we finally reach the front three of my hypothetical team. It’s been a long time coming, considering that this series was originally intended to wrap up prior to the end of Summer 2012. And while I’ve spent roughly the last 10 months (occasionally) working on this project debating relatively boring positions, we’ve now crossed the threshold into the so-called “glamour” positions.

Whether you want to call this player a forward, an outside midfielder, or a winger, this player is almost exclusively an attacking player. Sure, my formation defines this position as one of the five in the 4-5-1. But in practice, it’s a position that behaves much more like one of the forward three in a 4-3-3.

In general, I expect these players to attempt to receive the ball high and wide on the touchline. From there, they can do what they like: drive further forward through the middle or on the flank, cut into the middle, or drive in a cross. In fact, I expect a large majority of my attacks to funnel through the left or right mid’s feet as I would instruct my players to look to the wings as option #1. Defensively, I just want them to high pressure when the ball is near, and maybe track back whenever the other side breaks.

The job of picking this player, as you might expect, isn’t very easy. This is especially true since many modern wingers are becoming more and more ambidextrous in their wing of preference. But I’ve got a good set of contenders in mind that I doubt many would argue with… jump past the break to see if you would or not.

Continue reading →

ten words or less #47

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stevenage vs tottenham

the last time the minnows of stevenage graced this blog, it's because their scott laird was punched by one of his own fans as they upset newcastle in last year's FA cup.

If this wasn’t a vintage “FA Cup Magic” weekend, I apparently don’t know what one is. One “upset” was on the cards, as the O’Neil bump effect continued on as Sunderland definitely thumped Arsenal and sent them crashing out at the Stadium of Light. Stevenage triumphantly/frustratingly held — and let’s be honest, outplayed — Spurs, earning themselves a lucrative replay at White Hart Lane. Liverpool thumped an unlucky Brighton side to temporarily re-over-inflate their fan’s expectations for the rest of the season. And Chelsea… well they continued to look piss poor as Birmingham City forced a replay at St. Andrews where they’ve only lost once all season.

The FA Cup’s been enough to fill a hundred story lines on its own, which has predictably delayed my job of finishing my next full length article. So as I struggle to push out the next post, enjoy these articles by writers who are a bit more diligent and focused than myself.

Why Chelsea are stupid not to let Mata reign centrally. – guardian.co.uk

Smart. Someone buy me this. – thebeautifulgear.com

Behind the scenes video from Alex Morgan’s SI photo shoot. – theoriginalwinger.com

Adidas HQ gets a shiny, futuristic makeover. – contemporist.com

Villa taking advice from Cleveland Browns. This will end poorly. – foxsports.com

I bet you didn’t think that futsal was that dangerous. – kickette.com

Potential bidding war brewing? Anfield Cat up for adoption soon. – dirtytackle.net

Am I to take a female “model only” club seriously? – theoffsides.com

Americans buying Tottenham? Not sure how I feel about that. – express.co.uk

This year’s football feel-good story is undoubtedly “Zambia”. – inbedwithmaradona.com

the long awaited cinderellas

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Over the last five to six years, the UEFA Champions League has become a bit of a dull affair. Season after season, we get to see the same super clubs battling it out with one another to see who gets to be this year’s queen of the ball.

APOEL nicosia

when i first watched APOEL play in the champions league this season, i was very confused. did someone let tottenham back in and force them to wear odd, yellow-stained kits?

Don’t get me wrong: the football on display over that time in the Champions League has generally been fantastic. We’ve been lucky enough to witness some dazzling individual and team performances. How can I really complain about getting to watch the best players in the world competing for the world’s preeminent title?

Well as it turns out, I can find something to complain about within just about anything.

Taking a closer look at the participants in the UCL Round of 16 over the past five seasons (’06-’07 through ’10-’11), only 15 of the 80 clubs have come from outside the traditional top five European leagues (England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France). That 18.75 appearance percentage for clubs outside the top five leagues drops to 15% for the quarterfinals and all the way to a donut for the semifinals onward.  In fact, looking back over the last 15 seasons, only Porto’s magical run to the trophy in 2003/2004 featured any club outside the top three leagues taking part in the final.

If that type of trend isn’t concerning to you, it should be. Participation in the group stages and later of the Champions League is the footballing equivalent of a club hitting the lottery. The €5.5 million guaranteed to each of team might just be enough to sign a reserve player at a Bayern Munich or Real Madrid, but for clubs from the smaller leagues, it could be enough to stave off extinction. And the more the Champions League group stages are dominated by the bigger sides from the bigger countries, the greater the divide becomes between the big and the small. It won’t take much more than that to sentence an entire class of club acorss Europe to their doom.

Some don’t see that as much of a problem for the sport, as it’s just football prescribing to the “survival of the fittest” mentality that’s bound to come with the influx of money into the sport. They believe we’ll all be better off watching Barça and United square off again anyway, what with their superior skill and marketing might.

barcelona vs manchester united in the champions league final

thanks in large part to fc basel, we have been "spared" another barcelona vs manchester united final.

So despite Michel Platini’s best efforts to boost the participation of non-marquee league clubs, it’s clear that this is a tournament steadily becoming one for the have’s rather than the have-not’s. And to me, that’s a really sad thing.

While I’m always a fan that loves to take in and lay witness to extraordinary players doing extraordinary things, I’ve got an unmistakable urge to root for an underdog, too. Maybe that’s something ingrained in me as a Tottenham fan (and which duly made last year’s adventure extra special), or perhaps I’m conditioned to it from growing up in a country with wildly popular knockout tournaments that are primed to launch a Cinderella or two. But ever since the rise of the Premier League and the revamp of the European Cup into the Champions League, the tournament has had an increasingly distinct lack of underdogs for which we can root.

This season, however, has been a departure from that trend.

This Champions League campaign features a comparatively massive five clubs from outside the Big 5 Leagues, or 31.25% percent of the field. Not only is that the most we’ve seen since the 2001/2002 edition, but it’s the same as the previous two editions.. combined. There’s no way Platini can keep from cracking a smirk every time he hears those statistics.

Now, admittedly, three of those five sides aren’t exactly newcomers to this elite level of European football. And unsurprisingly, all of them all come from Europe’s best-of-the-rest leagues. Benfica of Portugal (League Rank – #6) is the most successful of that group, having won the competition twice, and finished runners up once. Russian Premier League (#7) sides Zenit St. Petersburg have a UEFA Cup to their name, and CSKA Moscow have made numerous appearances in Europe’s top competitions.

But, those two remaining clubs — Switzerland’s FC Basel and Cyprus’ APOEL Nicosia — are the real, live Cinderella teams that this tournament has been sorely awaiting.

FC Basel’s home Swiss Super League is ranked 13th in Europe, which most years would have enough to make them the team hailing from the lowest league in the Round of 16. But this year, they’re joined by an APOEL side that hail from a league ranked 21st in the 2010 Coefficient rankings from which this year’s tournament field was decided. At least In the 10 years of Champions League data that I’ve poured through, no league has ever contributed a Round of 16 (or equivalent) side with a lower UEFA Coefficient than the Cypriot Championship.

Now before anyone bites my head off for calling these teams Cinderellas, I am aware that both sides have at least made previous forays into the Champions League group stages.

APOEL Nicosia — or ΑΠΟΕΛ Ποδόσφαιρο if we’re writing it in proper Greek — have only once qualified for the group stages, in the 09/10 edition. Though they finished bottom of their group, they did manage split the spoils three times in group consisting Chelsea, Porto and Atlético Madrid. That campaign was highlighted by an impressive 2-2 draw with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, in which Nenad Mirosavljević scored an 87′ equalizer. Prior to that year, APOEL hadn’t ever managed to advance past the 3rd qualifying round.

xherdan shaqiri of fc basel

underdogs with star talent -- like basel and xherdan shaqiri -- are breathing life into a tournament that was starting to feel stale.

Basel, meanwhile, have performed slightly better than their fellow Cinderella side in Europe’s top competition. They’ve managed to reach the Group Stage four times, the most ever for a Swiss team, but they’ve even done one better by reaching the final 16 when they qualified for the now-defunct Second Group Stage in the 2002/2003 tournament. That magical campaign included a number of impressive results, such as two thrilling ties with Liverpool, tying Manchester United away, and defeating Juventus at home.

But just because both teams have had (relatively minor) successes in Europe before, that doesn’t mean they’re not true Cinderellas.

Though the Swiss side are probably better known for being “the side that looks like Barcelona that’s not actually Barcelona”, their qualification to the group stage was historic in that they’re the first team from Switzerland to ever directly qualify for the stage by winning the league. They Swiss champions have also boasted one of the most impressive young players in the tournament in Xherdan Shaqiri, though the impressive winger will depart for Bayern Munich in the summer. It’s always easier to root for an underdog when they’ve got an exciting star player to watch.

APOEL are the debutante Cypriot side at this stage of the competition. As a club based in an island nation of only around a million residents, they’re pitted against a Lyon side that hail from a metropolitan area of around 1.4 million residents and the second largest in France. Just to even reach the Group Stage, they had to navigate through three qualifying rounds against stiff competition: Albania’s Skënderbeu Korçë, Slovakia’s ŠK Slovan Bratislava and Poland’s Wisła Kraków. Thanks in large part to these exploits, APOEL manager Ivan Jovanović was named Serbian Manager of the Year. If that’s not a Cinderella side, I don’t know one that is.

Perhaps understandably though, neither side are being favored to advance any further in the tournament. But that doesn’t mean they won’t move on, either. Despite losing their first leg yesterday 0-1, APOEL are capable of upsetting an unusually weak Lyon side… especially with the second leg at home. Basel’s chances of advancing are slightly less likely, with their tie against mighty Bayern looming next week. Bigger upsets have happened though.

Regardless, even if neither team advances, both clubs have proven that there is room in European club football’s ball for an unfancied side or two. Other small clubs from around Europe have undoubtedly taken notice, and will use Basel’s and APOEL’s success as inspiration for their own ambitions. Coupled with Platini’s Financial Fair Play coming into effect in the coming seasons, it could be just the boost those clubs need to find the belief that they too can make an impact.

And if that’s the case, perhaps we’ll get a yearly dose of the Cinderella magic in the Champions League, instead of once every blue moon.

playing the game

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When the clock struck midnight GMT on Tuesday and brought an end to another hectic transfer window for Spurs, I admit that I was initially left a bit dumbfounded by the moves the club made. Who did we bring in? They’re both over 33! Has Levy lost it?!?!

tottenham's ryan nelsen

spurs signing blackburn's ryan nelsen (above) and everton's louis saha, both considered past it by lower clubs, didn't exactly show "ambition". or did it?

I angrily hashed out an outline for a scathing post — rife with references to nursing homes and a need for another ambulance on match days — detailing how these aren’t the type of players that a club supposedly harboring title ambitions should be signing, and that they shipped off players who were better than the players replacing them. However, as fits of rage tend to do to me, I was too worn out and frustrated to complete the article that night.

The workday on Wednesday provided me ample opportunity to further reflect on the transfers. And the more I thought about it, a potentially bigger plan seemed to unfold from them. Maybe there was more to these signings than I had initially thought.

Let’s take a deeper look at the departures from White Hart Lane, first:

  • Roman Pavlyuchenko finally engineered his long awaited exit from the club with a reported £7.5 million move to Lokomotiv Moscow. Aged 30, he’s nearly four years younger than the man who replaced him in Spurs strike corps. Yet despite showing flashes of an ability to produce brilliance, his inconsistency led him to spend most of his time in North London on the bench, bitching about lack of first team chances and/or pining for a transfer. Either way, Pav moving on was always the most likely move to happen this January.
  • Sébastien Bassong — another player frequently linked with a move away from Spurs — departed to Wolves on loan, with an option to buy at the end of the season for what’s expected to be a fee of around £4.5 million. Though not a bad player when not caught with his pants down, he was rather prone to a major error now and again.  At nearly a decade the junior to his replacement, and with a severely depleted Tottenham back line, Bassong’s departure was one that left me the most worried.
  • Steven Pienaar’s return to Everton on loan was also another puzzler. With Lennon struggling for fitness, and Gareth Bale’s style of play always seeming to invite a crunching tackle, Spurs aren’t exactly up to their teeth in wingers at the moment. Though not as direct as Bale or Lennon, Pienaar was a great player to be able to bring off the bench. But thanks to a long injury lay off, Harry never really grew that fond of the guy, so a move wasn’t that unexpected.
  • former tottenham striker, roman pavlyuchenko

    getting rid of pav's high wages and poor attitude will be more beneficial than if spurs had held on to him through the summer.

    Vedran Ćorluka’s loan to Bayer Leverkusen, much like Pienaar, leaves Tottenham dangerously thin at the right back slot. At 25, he’s also significantly younger than his replacement, and he was never a player I bemoaned to see on the pitch due to his comfort on the ball. But, with speed a priority in Spurs style of play, Charlie’s propensity to look like he had a refrigerator strapped to his back while running made him a prime suspect to move on. Although I suspect this move is more to do with him securing a spot in Croatia’s Euro squad than a want to leave the club.

What’s the one thing all of those players has in common? They’re all players in their prime that were desperate for first team football.

Securing money now for Pavlyuchenko was clutch, as a poor performance at the Euros would have severely deflated his sell on value in the summer — something strikers are particularly at risk of during major tournaments. But loan moves for the rest were brilliant bits of business, too. All three are likely to feature prominently for their new temporary sides for various reasons (injuries, league position, etc.) so if they perform well, Spurs will be in position to ask for larger sums for them all come the summer.

Now let’s take a look at Spurs two arrivals:

  • Louis Saha comes with the stigma of being old and injury prone. Despite that, and much like Pav, he’s still capable of producing a moment of magic. Even better though — and very unlike the Russian — is that he’s actually still capable of producing a match-dominating performance. Though with only two goals this term, one would hope being surrounded by higher quality players will bring that out of him more frequently.
  • Ryan Nelsen also arrives with a dodgy fitness history, but a boatload of experience to balance. He captained the only side at South Africa 2010 that left the competition without a loss. Nelsen has 172 Premier League caps to his name, and was a major contributor to Blackburn Rover’s relegation-staving efforts last season after forming a formidable partnership with oft-Spurs target Chris Samba. And his four year spell with D.C. United also inspires… confidence. Yeah.

So what do these elder statesmen have in common? They are proven veterans — a.k.a. Premier League Experienced Players – who know that they’ll have to fight if they want to see playing time, and won’t pitch too big a fit if they don’t make the starting XI. Oh yeah, and they were both FREE and are likely on significantly less wages than the players they replaced.. Considering that both have signed relatively short contracts, if neither works out, we’ll be rid of them quickly without having to pay anything extra.

Effectively, we’ve swapped skilled back-ups with problematic attitudes for slightly-less skilled back-ups AND stayed cash-positive. On closer inspection (and assuming that our loaned players perform well), the moves actually set the stage for Spurs having enough to make a bid for a world class player or two in the summer.

Combining the £8m for Pav, plus conservative estimates for cash from the sales of Bassong (£5m), Pienaar (£6m), and Ćorluka (£6m) in the summer, and you’re left with at least £25 million. Further sales of fringe players such as Giovanni dos Santos and potential Champoins League money could easily raise that total.

athletic bilbao's fernando llorente

with levy saving money this window, it could clear the way for a massive buy in the summer. i'd prefer that move to be for this guy.

For that kind of money, you could make a pretty big big splash in the transfer market. Loïc Rémy, Bafetimbi Gomis, Leandro Damião and — most preferably – Fernando Llorente, are all players within reach with that much cash in Levy’s back pocket. Even if they have to pay over the odds for that elite striker we’ve all been craving, there should still be enough left over to buy cover at right back, on the flanks, or in the center of defense.

So while this revelation obviously has me excited, I’m not stupid enough to not see that this plan also has tons of potential pitfalls.

The most glaring and obvious problem Levy’s thriftiness has caused us is the current crisis at right back. With Walker picking up a hamstring injury in the win against Wigan on Tuesday, Ćorluka off to Germany, and the young Adam Smith loaned to Leeds, there are no fit, natural right backs in the side. Sure, Kaboul and Nelsen can deputize, but they’re not exactly comforting options.

Even more concerning is how confident Levy seems to feel that Tottenham are going to finish in the top four. If he wasn’t that confident, would he have resisted his penny-pinching ways and kept the better players on the books? I don’t know the answer to that question, if you’re waiting for a response… hence my concern.

Look, Dan Levy has played the game that is the transfer market far better than any other manager/sporting director in the top six over the last two years. And though this January’s moves don’t seem the shrewd on the surface, they could pay off and pave the way to Tottenham establishing themselves as a new force in the Premier League.

But if we somehow manage to shit the bed and slip out of the top four, I have no doubt that the whole house will go to hell. Falling out of the Champions League means we’ll no longer have any incentive to offer Bale or Modrić to stay. They’ll likely have to sell one, if not both. While that’s another £70 million to spend, it’s even more to replace.

And if that happens, I’ll be really, really pissed that I didn’t write that scathing post I had originally planned.

ten words or less #46

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louis saha rushed in for tottenham medical

louis saha was rushed in for a late medical to complete his move from everton to spurs.

As the dust settles after another underwhelming transfer deadline day, I’m sure all of you readers are fed up with transfer news and gossip. I am, at least. In an effort to stray away from that topic of conversation, and to give your brain a break from digesting it all, I’ve put together this TWOL that contains absolutely zero transfer news. Except for the mocking picture above. So if you’ve come here look to catch up on yesterday’s “madness”, you might want to navigate elsewhere.

Barça’s kits next year: taking Blaugrana to literal the extreme. - football-shirts.co.uk

Milan disrespecting a man to whom they owe so much. – foxsports.com

The perfect artwork for me: one part nerd, one part Spurs. – onasixpence.bigcartel.com

FIFA’s looking into allowing four subs… only in injury time. – guardian.co.uk

I want to play Norwegian Bubble Football right now. – kckrs.com

Trolling Atlético fans, Spanish press, and knock-off kit manufacturers. - reddit.com/user/coolinwithcosta

Pushing your best player out the door, Philly? Bad idea. – delcotimes.com

Don’t click this unless you have a lot of time. – si.com
courtesy of an old high school frenemy, @Ryan7Hurley

Bravo to whomever “amended” Dan Borislow’s Wikipedia profile. – kickette.com

Someone needs to make Twellman and Wynalda watch this. – youtube.com

awakening of the sleeping giants

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Between them, India and China house a staggering 36% of the world’s population. They’re the only two countries in the world with over a billion people living within their borders, with the next closest country boasting only a “paltry” 312 million (Hooray, 3rd place U.S.A.).

there has to be a world class chinese footballer somewhere in that crowd.

The general consensus amongst the “experts” is that the two Asian countries are both budding superpowers on the world stage, and will play major roles in global politics and business alike in the coming decades. Considering the might in manpower and brainpower that their massive populations provide, I’m frankly a little amazed they haven’t taken over the world yet… though if you visit any American outlet mall, you could be forgiven if you think they already have.

Anyway, one would expect that this same power in numbers would also be of huge benefit for them when it comes to footballing dominance too. If nothing else, India and China would have significantly larger pools of players from which to choose. With governments that have been supportive of athletic excellence in other sports, one would also expect them to have vast resources being poured into a game that is so important globally.

Fortunately for the rest of the world, none of that’s been the case.

As is well known, both the Chinese and Indians are minnows when it comes to the beautiful game. India’s current FIFA World Ranking of 138 is the more horrific of the two, while China languish in a slightly less anemic 74th.

But to truly appreciate just how bad India and China’s ranking plight is, it’s best to compare their populations and rankings with those of other countries around the world.

Country FIFA Ranking Points Population Pop. Rank Points per Capita Rankings Ratio
Spain 1 1564 46,196,278 28 0.00003386 0.036
Netherlands 2 1365 16,727,255 61 0.00008160 0.033
Germany 3 1345 81,768,000 15 0.00001645 0.200
Uruguay 4 1309 3,203,792 135 0.00040858 0.030
England 5 1173 51,446,000 23 0.00002280 0.217
Brazil 6 1143 192,376,496 5 0.00000594 1.200
Portugal 7 1100 10,561,614 80 0.00010415 0.088
Croatia 8 1091 4,290,612 124 0.00025428 0.065
Italy 9 1082 60,757,278 22 0.00001781 0.409
Argentina 10 1067 40,117,096 31 0.00002660 0.323
China PR 74 455 1,339,724,852 1 0.00000034 74.000
India 158 138 1,210,193,422 2 0.00000011 79.000

Take a closer look at those last two columns, Points per Capita (PPC) and Rankings Ratio (RR). Re-ranking each of FIFA’s 208 member associations on RR — a comparison of football and population rankings — they finish 207 and 208 respectively, also known as dead last. The only reason they’re spared the embarrassment of finishing on the bottom of the PPC rankings too — which compares the average number of points earned for each person in the country — is because none of Montserrat, San Marino nor Andorra have been able to earn any points yet.

India's Baichung Bhutia

unless you're a fan of bury, i doubt you've ever heard of india's most famous footballing son: baichung bhutia.

Suffice to say, the two Asian superpowers are punching well below their weight class.

Both countries have demonstrated an insatiable appetite for top class football, as is evident by their growing demand for European leagues on their televisions and pirated streams originating from their internets. So you know that their poor international showings aren’t to be blamed on a lack of interest in the sport. Unsurprisingly, at the heart of their troubles are the horrible domestic set-ups within each country.

The Chinese Super League has only been around since 2004, and in its short lifespan it has earned a worldwide reputation for corruption and violence. India’s poor footballing output is the result of it being looked over by investors and the public due to the popularity of cricket in the country. Both countries lack proper infrastructure when it comes to developing players. There’s also a severe shortage of proper pitches in both China and India: hardly surprising when space is at such a premium due to population constraints

However, recent news has suggested that football may finally be on the up and up in both China and India.

The Chinese Super League, fresh off a lengthy “clean-up” process to rid the game of match-fixing, recently announced its most prominent signing ever. Intended to be the CSL’s “Beckham signing”, capital club Shanghai Shenhua were able to lasso in former Chelsea, Bolton, Liverpool, PSG, Real Madrid, Fenerbahçe and Arsenal striker Nicolas Anelka. Though probably past his peak, the Frenchman would still be a valuable commodity for a number of high profile team’s around the world. Word is, former Blues teammate Didier Drogba could also be following him to China in the summer.

India, meanwhile, have announced the formation of a new professional league that will feature at least seven formerly high-profile players from around the world’s game. Robert Pirès, Fabio Cannavaro, Fernando Morientes, Robbie Fowler, Hernán Crespo, Maniche and Jay-Jay Okocha have all been recruited with a pile of cash at least $600,000 tall to play in a seven week long season. The model for the new league looks to build on the success of the MLS and cricket’s Indian Premier League models to kick start Indian football’s progress.

Yet despite these massive signs of progress, I can’t help but shake the feeling that both of countries’ moves to advance their footballing statures are deeply flawed… but for very different reasons.

shanghai shenhua's nicolas anelka

i'm skeptical that anelka will stick around chinese football long enough to make an impact.

While signing a player of Anelka’s quality definitely shows ambition, the CSL and Shenhua sure picked an odd basket to throw the all of their eggs into. For the low cost of just £175,000 a week, Shenhua have bought themselves a player whose personality is so warm and marketable that he’s earned the nickname Le Sulk.

Remember though that the Chinese Super League isn’t like MLS, where the gulf in quality between that and the Premier League isn’t too massive. The Chinese league’s talent level is an order of magnitude lower. And due to Anelka’s moody disposition and tendency to look disenchanted on the pitch, I worry that he’ll either implode the squad or simply quit when he inevitably becomes frustrated with the lack of quality in his teammates.

More concerning though — regardless of whether or not Anelka’s stay is long/short/successful/unsuccessful — is the lack of public announcement about equal investment in the league’s young domestic Chinese players. If that’s not happening, no matter how much attention the Frenchman draws to the league, it will all be a waste.

India’s new league announcement, however, did contain some hope for youth development. When announced by the Indian FA, the new league was identified as a sort joint-venture between them and Celebrity Management Group (CMG). The partnership promised to not only bring in famous “world class” players to help fill seats, but also brought a requirement of each team containing at least six under-21 Indian players in each squad. So if nothing else, you at least know that this league is planning beyond the 30-something “stars” that have agreed to buoy the league in its infancy.
But a few potential problems immediately spring to mind with the Indian model.
howrah's robert pires

here's hoping that an aging pires doesn't have any problems with his old man legs in india... too much is riding on them.

First, with a fourth of each team’s $2.5 million salary cap likely going to be eaten up one of their “marquee” players, what happens if that star player picks up an injury that keeps them out for a while? That seems highly likely when the average age of these players is 36. Will they be able to fill the stands — something the current league struggles with outside of Bengal — without a big name in the starting XI? 
Secondly, how will the creation of these brand new franchises affect the current I-League clubs? One would imagine that all of the u21 Indian players required of each new team are currently playing in that league. Do the new clubs have to pay the existing ones for those players? And will the I-League continue to run during the new league’s off season, providing the players with the amount of training needed to develop outside of a paltry 7-week season for the new set up? And what of the rivalries and history between the existing clubs… is that all just being trashed to push the new league to the forefront? If so, it would be a blow to big matches, such as the Kolkata derby between East Bengal and Mohun Bagan, which drew 90,000+ last season.
And lastly, I’m highly skeptical of the entire set up being a joint venture with a celebrity booking agency. Not only does that stink of exploitation, but the partnership is also a thirty year deal. Think about that for a second: thirty years ago there wasn’t an English Premier League, there were only 24 teams in the World Cup, and goalkeepers could pick up back passes. A lot can happen in 30 years, and I’m hoping that the Indian FA had enough foresight to not give away the farm without extra precautions.

Unfortunately for all of my skepticism, nobody really knows how these India and China’s latest moves in the world of football will work out. It could all come crashing down, or it could all work out and we’ll be talking in 20 years about how we wish these moves hadn’t happened… we’ll look back and classify these events as the “awakenings of the sleeping dragons” or some other overused Asian idioms.

But if that time comes and neither China nor India’s massive populations have produced one world class player, we can use this posting as a massive “I told you so.”

big brother is watching

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Modern technology, and the way it’s seeped into our everyday lives, sometimes blows my mind. That I can sit in my living room in Cincinnati and watch a live Premiership match – taking place nearly 4,000 miles from said living room — unfold on a picture so clear I can literally see blades of grass kick up on a slide tackle, or beads of sweat explode off a player’s head while heading the ball, is something truly to marvel.

premier league cameras

premier league cameras are like the eye of sauron: all-seeing and ever-watching.

While these HD telecasts are definitely luxuries, they’ve definitely enhanced the match day experience for foreign fans of the European leagues. Most of these fans will never be able to afford a ticket to their favorite club’s match, let alone the costs to travel there and back. Being one of those lucky enough to have watched a game in person, I can say with great certainty that watching on your high def television isn’t a bad substitute. Hell, you could even say it has its advantages: it’s cheaper, you can watch a wider selection of matches, and there’s the lowered possibility of getting cornered by hooligans after a match… I  mean, I don’t know what your friends are like.

But what really blows my mind about the dawn of the HD-era in worldwide football broadcasting is how the players could possibly forget that their every move is being broadcast to, and watched by, the entire world.

Premier League rules dictate that there are a minimum of 24 cameras in each team’s stadium in order to provide every viewing angle possible during a match. The players appear to be aware of at least some of them, judging by how often they tend to run in and kiss the camera during moments of celebration. But in times of frustration or menacing evil, some players just seem to think that nobody is watching them. Yet the video cameras are still there, ever watching. And if the TV guys somehow miss it, there’s an army of journolists and fans with camera phones there to serve as backups. Virtually nothing can go unnoticed.

Do the players think they’re too clever? Well, we all know that most footballers aren’t known for their minds, but that doesn’t mean they don’t think of themselves as clever. Just ask Joey Barton.

Perhaps they think their actions will be too quick to be noticed, or could at least be interpreted as unintentional. In a day of age where slow motion replays of player two-second player reaction being stretched into 10-second “emotion shots”, they shouldn’t be naive enough to think that their quick actions can’t be dissected by the millisecond.

Yet, whether through ignorance or arrogance, players persist to make these idiotic decisions. And for one reason or another, they always seem to come in bunches of three.

First up, Real Madrid’s Pepe gave us this boneheaded move during their midweek Copa del Rey first-leg tie with hated rivals Barcelona:

real madrid's pepe stamping on barcelona's messi

Pepe, we all saw you alter your stride and look down to make sure that you stepped on Lionel Messi’s hand. To brush it off as accidental in your “apology” is an insult to anyone with eyes. Each additional angle you bring into play makes your actions provides even more evidence against your cause. Considering the Spanish FA should still have you on a multi-year ban for this ludicrous attack from a few years ago, you’re lucky to have had the opportunity to be this stupid again. This kind of act is an embarrassment, and is one of the reasons that make me ashamed to publicly admit that I’m a supporter of Real Madrid these days.

Just why Pepe would choose to stamp down on something that has very little affect on Messi’s spectacular playing ability — like a foot, perhaps? — is further proof that players aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed.

Next in line for thinking that nobody will catch his dirty tricks is Manchester City’s Joleon Lescott:

manchester city's joleon lescott elbowing tottenham's younes kaboul

Perhaps not as obvious as Pepe’s stamp above upon first glance, Lescott’s elbow to Kaboul’s face also appears increasingly intentional the more angles you watch it from. Just why Lescott felt it necessary to raise his elbow to Kaboul is beyond me, since he’d already won the ball and the play was moving on.

Already on a yellow, the former Everton man was extremely luck to have not been sent off for the action. Yet his actions — just inches outside the City penalty area no less — somehow went unnoticed by Howard Webb.

Amazingly for Webb, a referee I normally rate as the best in England, he somehow missed another intentional assault on a Tottenham player just under ten minutes later. Could it be that Howard has traded in his United Red-tinted spectacles for a new pair with a City Blue hue? Unlikely. As a Spurs fan, it’s a conspiracy theory I’d be willing to hear, especially after watching this happen:

manchester city's mario balotelli stamping on tottenham's scott parker

I mean nobody — especially someone already on a yellow — while in the process of falling, will jam their heel backward away from the direction they’re moving. If anything, Balotelli’s momentum suggests that his right heel would foot would have moved away from Parker’s face. And just like Pepe’s stamp on Messi’s hand, you can see the controversial Italian adjust his stride so he could complete his heinous act. Adding insult to injury, a further ten minutes on from this incident and Balotelli was being taken down for and converting a match-winning penalty. Total bullshit, says this Spurs fan.

Apparently, Super Mario is incapable of learning from his past mistakes. For a man who’s been caught on camera trapped in a training bib, using an iPad on the substitute’s bench of an international match, and who was well aware that he’d draw massive amounts of attention for claiming “WHY ALWAYS ME?“, you’d think he would have developed a heightened awareness that the cameras were always trained on him. Nope.

Whether these ignorant, unprofessional and intentional acts to harm players are punished remains to be seen. But if nothing else, thanks to the onset of modern television technology, they’re not going unnoticed anymore. And if the court of public opinion has taught us anything before, it’s that it won’t be long until the authorities stand up and take notice, too.

By that time, if they players have any brains to them, they’ll have learned that big brother is watching, and they ought to be on their best behavior.