a busy christmas schedule has my mind spinning, wondering what to write about and what to leave out. i’ve watched a lot of football, and talked about even more… although my family probably would have preferred a different subject matter to dominate my holiday plans. oh well, they should know better by now, right? and, as always, the best way to keep up with the craziness is to post another round up. let’s see if i can keep this one under a thousand words!

telegraph best sports quotes of the year 2009 – telegraph.co.uk so not all of these are football quotes, but some of the best on the list are. the usual suspects are there as always (mourinho, wenger, ronaldo) and there are even a few wildcards (definitely check out arsenal’s andrei arshavin’s quote about midway down the list). my favorite though came from inter milan manager jose mourinho, which also just so happens to be at the top of the list:

“even jesus christ wasn’t liked by everyone. what hope is there for me?”

i swear, i would volunteer to be his personal assistant for free just so i could hear all of the awesomeness that spills from his mouth on a near daily basis.

redknapp reprieves spurs partygoers – independent.co.uk
tottenham manager harry redknapp has long frowned upon in-season drinking by top class footballers, so it came as no surprise to me when i read that ‘arry was banning his side from having a christmas party. it also came as no surprise to me when i learned that club troublemaker captain robbie keane organized a pub-crawl christmas party, disguised as a “golf outing,” in his native ireland for sixteen of the spurs first teamers. even less surprising was the fact that the sun tabloid broke their cover, noting that several of the players had even booked a private jet to get them there and back. obviously, redknapp was not pleased by this news and vowed to bring down a stern hammer of justice on any player who went against his wishes. a week later on though, ‘arry softened his stance and backed off the yid stars: instead of a club fine, each participating player must now donate around £2,000 to a charity of the clubs choosing. that, and it’s unlikely the manager wanted to ruin the good atmosphere created by the club’s recent run of good form.

chris rolfe to aalborg – bigsoccer.com
yes, i know that this is extremely old news. but while surfing the tubes the other day looking for a way to score an aalborg jersey (which, is apparently impossible unless you live in denmark), i ran across this interesting message board posting. a linguistically gifted poster by the name of “ForZaAaB” had translated a video interview of AaB director of football lynge jakobsen heaping huge praise on my buddy from dayton. trust me, you’ll want to click on the story to read the translation, unless of course you can speak danish. i found it particularly interesting the the only video footage the news station could dig up of rolfe was from youtube. but either way, it seems that the club has high expectations for the former MLS star. i, for one, firmly believe he can reach and exceed the lofty praise he’s received.

how will football tactics develop over the next decade – guardian.co.uk
there is no doubt that the beautiful game has taken on some interesting changes in the last ten years, especially in the realm of tactics. a decade ago it would have seemed ridiculous to put out a starting line-up in a 4-5-1 formation, yet it’s commonplace in today’s game. it’s a fact that the game’s tactics are ever evolving; a chess-match of changes where offensive strategies change to take advantage of defensive frailties, defenses adapting to exploit weaknesses in offensive schemes, and so on and so forth. the guardian took on the intimidating task of trying to predict how the tactics of football will change in the coming years, and it came up with some rather interesting points. well worth the read, at least if you’ve got a half an hour to blow.

real rubbish reports of bid from man city’s owner – soccernet.com
in the world of real madrid, bid’s of audacious nature are as regular as the sunday paper. but £1 billion bids to buy the club? now those are rare events indeed. but let me tell you now that without having even read the full story, i knew these reports were complete BS. and i’ve got three reasons:

1. real madrid are the only super club in the world that are owned by the club’s members, and in spain that is almost the norm. president florentino perez loves pulling off big money moves, but he loves the power and prestige of running the people’s club more than he loves money. there is no way the club’s members would be willing to sell the club to a single owner.
2. £1 billion is equal to about 12.5 ronaldo’s (at least with ronaldo valued at around £80 million), and i certainly doubt that the club view themselves as worth only the same as 12.5 of just one of their players.
3. sheik mansour, who owns city, is legally not allowed to own another club in europe since he already owns man city. running two super clubs in europe who compete against one another is, by definition, a conflict of interests. he would have to sell the citizens before he could even consider purchasing madrid… which will never happen anyway.

sorry rumor mill, i’m not buying this one. not for a second.