Archive for the 'Sport' Category

“Big Phil”? Really??

Published
by
David Herman
on June 12, 2008
in Sport
. 2 Comments

It’s hard to know who’s happier — Chelsea or the tabloids. For the tabloids, “Big Phil” is perfect. From central casting. He’s already got a nickname - which they never managed with Avram Grant. And he’s famous. He’s won the World Cup and has managed a very successful Portuguese team with household names like Figo, Cristiano Ronaldo and Deco. And he’s a character (apparently). As for Chelsea, he’s perfect. he’s famous. He’s won the World Cup and has managed a very successful Portuguese team with household names, etc, etc. He might keep Carvalho at Stamford Bridge and might lure Deco over from Barcelona and keep him out of the clutches of Mourinho. And, crucially, he’s big enough a name, to prevent the expected exodus this summer.

If he’s perfect for Chelsea, Chelsea also happen to be perfect for him. They’re rich, he’s inheriting a good side and they’re used to very defensive football.

1) Scolari likes money. After all, he spent much of the 1980s and early 1990s in the middle east managing three different clubs in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as well as the Kuwait national team (one of five Brazilian coaches in three years in the early 1990s) and a Japanese club side in 1997. So it’s not altogether a surprise that he returned Peter Kenyon’s call. Also, coincidentally, Palmeiras in Sao Paulo were the richest club in Brazil when he was there because of a sponsorship deal with the Italian dairy giant, Parmalat. That sponsorship deal finished the year he left for Cruzeiro, his last club job, where he won nothing — they came 3rd in the Brazilian leaguie in 2000 and 21st in 2001. He then left to manage Brazil.

Continue reading ‘“Big Phil”? Really??’

10 Reasons Why Ronaldo Should Stay at Man Utd and not go to Real Madrid

Published
by
David Herman
on May 31, 2008
in Sport
. 4 Comments

1) The Champions League is the biggest trophy in town. Real Madrid last won the Champions league in 2002. That was the great side with Makelele, Figo and Zidane in midfield. Since then, they have made it to the Semi-Finals once. They haven’t got to the Quarter-Finals in the last 4 years. Roma beat them home and away last season. They are a busted flush.

2) Remember the famous Galacticos? All gone. Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos (whatever happened to them?) were the last to go.

3) What about the Premier League Galacticos? With Beckham, Owen and Woodgate Real Madrid did nothing in Europe. After one year at Real Madrid Owen was lucky to get signed by Newcastle, Woodgate ended up at Middlesbrough and Beckham couldn’t even manage that.

4) What about domestic glory? Yes, they have won La Liga for the last two years. But they have only won it four times in the past eleven years.

5) They change manager every year. The last coach to last three seasons was Del Bosque who won the Champions League twice at the beginning of the century. Since then seven coaches.

6) Bernd Schuster? Really?? Schuster or Ferguson and Quieroz?

7) Here’s a hard choice. Who would you rather play with up front: Rooney and Tevez? Or Julio Baptista (remember his time on loan at Arsenal?), Saviola, Robinho and 31-year old sulkypants Ruud Van Nistelroy?

8 ) United are on a roll. Young players. Premiership winners two years in a row. Champions League winners and semi-finalists the year before. Saha will be replaced. Chelsea are about to go into meltdown. Arsenal too, if Hleb follows Flamini out of the door.

9) Who’s the most famous player in the world? Cristiano Ronaldo. Why? because he plays for a team that’s youthful, winning and plays exciting football. When was the last time you heard anyone talking about Saviola, Robinho and Julio Baptista? Yup. Thought so.

10) So what’s the all the fuss about? He’s trying to push up his wages at United and his sponsorship deals. Keep Real Madrid interested and he’ll stay in the headlines all the way from Moscow to the European Championships. If Portugal have a good run, he’ll be in all the sports magazines for another few weeks. That’s half the summer. His agent will be laughing. Real Madrid will not.

Likud on the terraces

Published
by
Tom Nuttall
on May 27, 2008
in Inside Prospect, Middle east and Sport
. 4 Comments

If we are to expect anything at all from the dying months of George W Bush’s lamest of lame duck presidencies, look to Israel/Palestine. Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, has been spending an increasing amount of time in the region, and Bush, the first president to explicitly endorse the goal of an independent Palestinian state, may feel that his middle eastern legacy could do with some bucking up.

Is a deal likely? Two-state-solution optimists often point to the fact that in opinion polls, a large majority of Israelis say they support the idea of an independent Palestinian state. And almost two thirds even want their government to talk to Hamas—a proposal which would probably kill stone dead any of the three remaining presidential candidacies.

Yet dig beneath the surface and you find that in many cases, the support of Israelis for Palestinian independence probably has more to do with a desire to rid themselves of their troublesome neighbours than a commitment to their political rights. Two thirds of Jewish Israelis say the border between Israel and an independent Palestine should be closed. Two thirds say they wouldn’t want to live in the same building as an Arab, and half would not even let an Arab into their home.

This widespread antipathy of Israeli Jews towards Arabs is reflected in the rise of Beitar Jerusalem FC, who have just won the Israeli title for the second consecutive season. Beitar’s fans, particularly the “La Familia” ultras, are notorious for their anti-Arab racism and their hostility towards accommodation with the Palestinians. Yet these attitudes, as David Goldblatt reports in the new issue of Prospect, are if anything spreading beyond the Beitar terraces.

John Terry and globalisation

Published
by
David Herman
on May 26, 2008
in Sport
. 0 Comments

What is it that got the media so excited about ‘JT’ last week? Obviously, there’s the appeal of Chelsea’s iron man inconsolable, in floods of tears. Just as obvious, there’s the drama of one of England’s best-known players missing a penalty. After all, no one gave two hoots about sulky Anelka. And Terry embodies Chelsea: for many supporters he is Chelsea.

But what does this mean? Of the fourteen players who started or came on as subs in Moscow, four are English, and three of these were bought from other clubs in recent years. Only Terry came up through the Chelsea youth team. When fans say, John Terry is Chelsea, this is what they mean.

The reality of big-time football is that the top teams are owned by foreign millionaires or corporations; they have foreign managers; and most of their players, let alone star names, are foreign. Increasingly coaches look beyond local council estates and comprehensive schools to Africa, Argentina and southern Europe for their stars. Terry, Jamie Carragher, Stevie Gerrard, Gary Neville and Paul Scholes are the last of a species. That’s why Everton fans mourned the loss of Wayne Rooney. Of course, he was a great player in the making. Anyone could see that. But he was also a local boy. He was one of us, in a way Yakubu or Arteta could never be.

Football has gone global. And fans are torn. They know that’s the way of the world. They know that brings more money, more stars, more great football. But there’s also a sense of loss: the break between the fans and their players. Footballers used to be one of us and when they retired they bought shops and pubs and local businesses. That has changed just as that whole world has gone.

In yesterday’s Sunday Times, Alex Ferguson was talking about the future of Manchester United. he was talking about one of his favourite films, You’ve Got Mail in which a huge corporation, owned by Tom Hanks, buys up a small local bookstore, owned by Meg Ryan. That’s the future of Manchester United, he said. He wants United to be the huge, unstoppable new force. So do his fans. But they also want local players. Hence the tremendous feeling for the last local players. They are local in the new global game, reminders of a game that’s gone and a world that’s gone.

Poor Avram Grant

Published
by
David Herman
on May 24, 2008
in Sport
. 0 Comments

Was it the width of a goalpost that cost Grant his job at Chelsea? Grant could hardly have come closer to winning the Premiership. At one point, before Giggs scored United’s second goal at Wigan, Chelsea were one goal from the title. Twice they hit the woodwork in the Champions League Final and then they were one penalty kick away. It was a tremendous achievement. Grant had to overcome injuries and the loss of key players during the Africa Cup and yet still they kept coming. In the last weeks of the season they beat Arsenal and United at Stamford Bridge, Liverpool in the Champions League semi-final. And through all the speculation about his job and through all the stress of the run-in, Grant retained his dignity. When he was appointed he was universally dismissed. It was insinuated that he only got the job because he was a ‘friend’ of the owner (code for the fact that they were both Jews). No one expected him to do so well. And yet, at the end, there he was in the pouring rain comforting John Terry.

There is one thing that could be held against Grant. Chelsea need re-building. The current squad might last one more season, but that depends on who can resist the siren call of Mourinho and one last big payday in Spain or Italy as they pass thirty. Can Grant be trusted to rebuild the team that others built, Mourinho and before him, Ranieri? That’s one thing he’s not been called upon to do yet. His one purchase in January — Anelka who scored two goals in 24 games and missed that crucial penalty in Moscow — was not a success. Everyone thought it was at the time. It raised morale at Chelsea and everyone agreed Anelka was a class act. But it proved a costly mistake. It is one thing, his critics point out, to inherit a great team built by others. It’s quite another to do what Fergsuon and Wenger have done so superbly, time and again, to tear apart a great team and rebuild again. Clearly, the money men didn’t trust Grant to do this.

So Chelsea have now fired two outstanding managers in eight months. Not bad going. Of course, this is the same megalomania which saw Sven and Benitez on the verge of being dismissed. Truly Ferguson and Wenger are the last of a species — the manager who is trusted to stay on season after season. After them, the deluge.

Crewe, Real Madrid and selling papers

Published
by
David Herman
on May 23, 2008
in Sport
. 0 Comments

On the front pages all the talk is of the Crewe byelection and ditching the Prime Minister. On the back pages it’s all about Moscow and ditching Avram Grant — oh, and Real Madrid wanting to buy Ronaldo. This speculation is all about one thing — selling papers and begging for viewers.

Papers need to sell copies. TV shows need ratings, especially twenty-four hour TV news shows, condemned to recycling the same clips hour after hour, like some strange punishment by the Greek gods. What they both need is news, any news, but ideally big news. The disappearance of a young girl is good, especially if she isn’t found. The story of a mad Austrian abusing his children is good for a week. But as Summer approaches, and New Zealand are touring, England aren’t in the European Championship, Paula Radcliffe has a stress fracture and the Olympics is in a different time zone, far, far away… So all eyes on Brown, Ronaldo and Grant (and Lampard and Mourinho).

Labour haven’t got a replacement for Brown, so they will stay steady if they have any sense. if Chelsea had any sense they would thank their lucky stars for Grant, sell Drogba, Shevchenko and Malouda, find some young players and stay steady. If Ronaldo had any sense he would look at what going to Real Madrid did for Robinho and the Galacticos and stay steady. But staying steady doesn’t sell papers. The pundits and editors need a story so they will press on regardless. On the back pages, they are more used to this kind of thing. They know that the three months between the Champions League Final and FA Charity Shield are a terrible time, the dog days. So they will push on with transfer stories. It’s the only game in town.

Champions League Final

Published
by
David Herman
on May 22, 2008
in Sport
. 0 Comments

Richard Williams (Guardian, 22 May) is wrong as usual. He dismissed last night’s Champions League Final as a typical Premiership match, all rush and bustle, but no finesse. Where, or where, he asks were the skills of the great European teams — Read Madrid in the 1960s or Ajax in the 1970s?

Last night’s final only lacked one thing: goals. There were two reasons for that: bad luck and superb defending. And this brings us to the flaw in Williams’ argument. The speed of the passing was at times awesome. The interplay between Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez, or between the Chelsea midfield during their great surge in the second half, was full of skill, played at tremendous speed. The move which started with Rooney parallel with his own penalty area, finding Ronaldo, running at full speed, with a 70-yard pass, who then crossed for Tevez, nearly produced one of the all-time great European goals. The skill which led Drogba and Lampard to hit the woodwork was exceptional. What more could Williams want?

One answer is goals. When we think of the great European or FA Cup finals we think of goals. How many times have Real Madrid’s 7-3 defeat of Eintracht Frankfurt or Man United’s 4-1 defeat of Benfica been shown? But would Real Madrid have put seven past Ferdinand and Vidic? Would the ‘68 United team really have scored four times against Terry, Carvalho and Cech? What has changed in the modern game is not the level of skill but the speed in midfield and the quality of defending. United and Chelsea not only had the two best defences in the Premiership, they had the two best defences in Europe. Until Lampard’s scrappy goal, United had conceded one goal in six games since the qualifying rounds (where they conceded four goals in six games).

Both defences were great, but they were also helped by superb defensive midfield players. Makalele has been a star for Cheslea and was superb against Gerrard, reducing his contribution. Joe Cole was underrated by nearly all the journalists in today’s papers. They all missed the fact that no Chelsea player covered as much ground before he went off and he tackled back through the second half. The reason Ronaldo was less effective in the second half was because Cole and Ballack were frequently set on him, to control his marauding runs which had destroyed Essien in the first half. Cole was superb. Carrick and Scholes were also unsung heroes, making the most number of accurate passes in the game (Carrick 60, Scholes 53).

Much of this isn’t pretty and some of it isn’t even visible, but it is crucial. Without the running and tackling of Joe Cole and the neat passing of Makalele, United would have continued to control midfield in the second half. Without Carrick and Scholes, United would never have bossed the first forty minutes. It’s not Best and Cruyff, but it was great football and made possible the fireworks produced by Ronaldo, Rooney and Tevez at one end and Lampard and Drogba at the other.

There were three turning-points in the match. Two which everyone saw and one which no one has commented on. The first, was Ferguson’s decision to play Ronaldo, Tevez and Rooney from the start (note that only one started against Cheslea at Stamford Bridge in the league — Ferguson wanted to rest Tevez and Ronaldo, along with Evra and Scholes, before the crucial Barcelona match). That and the decision to play Hargreaves, Carrick and Scholes in the middle, was adventurous and led to some exhilarating attacking football in the first forty minutes, cancelled out by Lampard’s goal. The second was Grant’s ability to reshape his team in the second half, setting Joe Cole and Ballack on Ronaldo, moving the luckless Essien forward. They were all over United and should have scored. The third moment turned the tide for United. Earlier Makalele had hit Tevez with his arm, unnoticed by the referee or his assistants. In the 72nd minute, Tevez got his own back. All eyes were on a United attack and without any officials noticing, Tevez clattered into Makalele and struck him with his arm. Makalele was laid out briefly and was never the same force. The tireless Tevez, United’s man of the match despite two missed goals, raised United’s morale and United came back stronger in the last 15 minutes and with Giggs replacing the tiring Scholes, held their own in Extra Time, despite Lampard’s shot against the bar.

Had Lampard’s shot, or Drogba’s gone in, or Giggs’ shot not been saved by Terry or had it not been for those two excellent saves by Cech in the first half, the match could easily have been 3-3. Then it would be remembered as a classic, one of the all-time great Finals. The fact that it was just 1-1 and decided only be penalties, and that some fo the best football was by defenders and midfielders practising the dark arts of their craft, doe snot mean that it was Premiership bustle. This was great football played by two great sides with hardly an inch between them. Everyone feared a repeat of last year’s dull Cup Final, a fitting legacy to ‘1-0 Mourinho’. It wasn’t. It was a match of great athleticism, tremendous tackling and some moments of sublime skill. The sad thing is not that Terry missed a penalty, but that this may be the last glimpse we will have of the team that Ranieri and Mourinho built with their owner’s millions and that Grant has managed with great acumen and dignity. The future does not belong to Terry, Drogba or Makalele. Nor, of course, to Neville, Giggs or Scholes. Only time will tell whether it will belong to Ronaldo, Tevez, Rooney, Nani and Anderson. Among other things, this match was the end of an era.

That Was The Season That Was

Published
by
David Herman
on May 12, 2008
in Sport
. 1 Comment

1. Most Dignified Managers

The most dignified in the face of defeat was Avram Grant, both because he was so close to victory, against all expectations, and because he was constantly underrated and sneered at.

The most dignified in the face of victory (just as hard) was Roy Hodgson at Fulham, who spoke generously of Reading and Birmingham, knowing full well how close he’d come.

2. Least Dignified Manager

Wenger was justified in feeling his team had deserved better—they had played wso well, scored so many goals and accumulated so many points and still ended up 3rd. And yet they had fallen short in too many crucial games against the other big teams (losing to Liverpool in the Champions League, only 1 point against United and thrashed in the FA Cup and overtaken by Chelsea thanks to a defeat at Stamford Bridge).

3. Most Silly Remark

It had to be Keegan: the Premiership has become too boring. Really? The closest race for the title of the top division in 40 years with two teams separated by goal difference until injury time in the last match and three teams fighting to stay up until Danny Murphy’s goal decided it in the last minutes at Portsmouth.

4. Most Welcome Return

It has to be Keegan. Not that he’s done anything yet, but fond memories of the beautiful game his Newcastle team played in the 1990s are not confined to Tyneside.

5. Best buy

Several categories here. a) Torres stands out among the big money buys. Runner-up: Tevez. who got better and better as the season drew on, scoring numerous crucial goals (most obviously at Blackburn and Tottenham). b) Santa Cruz at Blackburn as best buy among the smaller clubs.

6. Worst buy

Anelka started 23 matches for Chelsea and came on a sub nine times and scored—two goals. Even by the standards of Malouda (3 goals in 44 games) and Pizarro (2 in 52) that’s pretty poor. By comparison, Shevchenko (21 goals in 98 games, more than 1:5) was a great buy.

7. Worst moment for a player

Eduardo’s injury was the most shocking but will Riise ever forget that own-goal against Chelsea?

8. Best Achievement by a Manager

All the managers of the top clubs could lay claim to this. Ferguson because he rebuilt a Premiership winning team yet again, playing exciting attacking football but also conceding fewer goals than anyone else. Grant for defying all expectations and making Chelsea virtually unbeatable in the run-in. Wenger for all the beauty and entertainment with such small resources by comparison with the teams above him. Benitez for almost getting Liverpool to yet another Champions League final with all the chaos going on in the background at Liverpool.

And then there are the next level of clubs: David Moyes, getting Everton to 5th place without a single star player, Mark Hughes getting Blackburn to 7th and Harry Redknapp getting Portsmouth to the top ten and to Wembley on a shoestring.

And then there are the miracle workers down at the bottom: Roy Hodgson, of course; Gary Megson for rescuing Bolton; Roy Keane (the only manager of a club promoted last season to keep them in the Premiership); and Steve Bruce to have kept Wigan safe. The last three were out of the relegation dog-fight with a week to spare.

Tottenham fans will add that they won silverware, scored more goals than Chelsea and got to mid-table while conceding more than 60 goals. And Newcastle fans will say that Keegan brought them hope of exciting football again.

9. The George Graham prize for 1-0 wins

Ten of Chelsea’s 25 Premiership wins were 1-0. They scored fewer goals than Arsenal, Liverpool and 15 fewer than United. They even scored fewer than Villa and Tottenham. They were effective and sometimes exciting — but only rarely.

10. Best newspaper coverage

It has to be The Times, though strangely they faltered at the very end and both the Telegraph and, in particular, The Guardian provided much better coverage of the last round of matches. Brian Glanville award for best football writer: Martin Samuel of The Times.

The meaning of a maximum

Published
by
William Skidelsky
on April 28, 2008
in Sport
. 1 Comment

Ronnie O’Sullivan scored a maximum this afternoon in the final frame of his 13-7 victory over Mark Williams in the second round of the World Snooker Championship in Sheffield. You can watch it here. O’Sullivan’s last 147 was also in the final frame of a match, but in much more pressured circumstances, as it came in the deciding frame of his 9-8 victory over Mark Selby in the semi-finals of the UK Championship in December.

A maximum (that is, potting 15 all reds and blacks and clearing the colours in a single visit) is an interesting phenomenon, and I’m not sure it has an equivalent in any other sport. It is widely regarded as the supreme test of skill in snooker, but, at the same time, it has almost no bearing on whether a player wins a match. In the strict terms of the game, it is pointless; one gets no additional advantage from scoring a maximum over and above winning the frame (which one does long before one finishes potting the reds), and in fact a lot of frames must have been sacrificed over the years as a result of players attempting harder shots in order to keep their chances of a maximum alive. Of course, there is a financial incentive—Ronnie will get £157,000 as a result of today’s effort—but, aside from that, the only reason for going for a maximum is glory.

Of course, other sports have what might be considered similar supreme tests of skill—hitting a hole in one in golf, scoring a goal from inside your own half in football, serving a game of aces in tennis, hitting six sixes in a row in cricket. But all these things follow on naturally from simply trying to play one’s best (with the possible exception of six sixes: here a batsman might opt for the glory of the achievement despite it increasing his chances of getting out). But with a maximum a player makes a conscious decision: I am going to play in a way which marginally decreases my chances of winning this frame (and thus the match), in order to better demonstrate my audacious skill. Why is why, of course, Ronnie’s scoring a 147 in the deciding frame of his semi-final against Mark Selby was such a staggering achievement.

Wenger’s eyesight recovers

Published
by
David Herman
on April 9, 2008
in Sport
. 4 Comments

It is terrific news that Arsene Wenger’s eyesight has improved so dramatically. For some time, whenever he was asked what he thought of some terrible tackle by one of his players, he had to admit that he hadn’t seen it (the cursed Myopia Wengeris). Now, one penalty by Liverpool, and he has 20-20 vision. He saw every detail in HDTV.

The only problem is that Arsenal are in freefall. Humiliated in the FA Cup by Manchester United and in the Carling Cup by Tottenham, defeated by Chelsea in the League, knocked out of the Champions League by Liverpool, they have consistently failed against the best domestic opposition. If you include the two Carling Cup matches against Tottenham, Arsenal have played ten domestic games against top English clubs this season and won only one (1-0 against Chelsea in the League back in December), drawing 5 and losing 4. In these ten games they have scored 11 goals and conceded 21. In three matches they have conceded four or more goals.

The turning point, as Alan Hansen warned at the time, was the FA Cup defeat on 16 February. It wasn’t so much the score (4-0) as the manner of the defeat. They were completely overwhelmed. Since then they have played 12 games and won only 2 — the great triumph at Milan and a narrow 3-2 victory at poorly Bolton. Two wins in 12 games. 8 draws and 3 crucial defeats (against United, Chelsea and Liverpool).

Crucially, in these 12 games they have only kept a clean sheet three times (twice against Milan and once against Wigan). They have scored 14 goals, at barely a goal a game. The problem is clear: the defence is leaky (especially against the very best opposition) and the attack is just not clicking. When Adebayor’s golden streak ended, no one stepped forward to fill the breach. Since the United defeat, Adebayor has scored 3 goals in 11 games. Compare this with Ronaldo and Torres. And yet he remains Arsenal’s top scorer during this period.

Last night at Anfield, Arsenal were ahead twice but couldn’t defend their lead. They conceded two goals and nearly a third with the last kick of the game. In the golden age of Adams, Keown, Dixon, Winterburn and Seaman this would have been inconceivable. This is the story of their season. They have conceded 27 goals in the league (the worst of the top four).

Key requirements for next season are at least two new defenders (especially a replacement for Senderos) and at least one, ideally two, new strikers. It’s this lack, not bad luck with penalties, that has destroyed Arsenal’s season. And over all this hangs the big question: will Fabregas stay at Arsenal if they fail to win any silverware for the third season in a row? Third in the League, beaten quarter-finalists in Europe, not even quarter-finalists in the FA Cup. Players like Fabregas want glory, and it looks increasingly as if Wenger will have to pay big money to get it. Otherwise, Arsenal will remain the Graeme Hick of the Premiership: thrashing small clubs but falling short against the big boys.