Howdy sports fans,
Yes this is late and yes I’m very, very sorry but it couldn’t be helped. Why? Well because nearly all my Saturday and Sunday was taken watching football or playing table football or reading a biography of Jose Mourinho so I simply had no time to write IPSports best (and only) football column. But its here now, so I’m not all bad.
Have a butcher’s at these
Jeremy Botter finally gives us the full low down on Kurt Angle and TNA in the latest The Botterm Dollar. Personally, I’d rather him just do a few shows for ROH so we can have the dream matches and then he goes back to the ‘E and has a retirement match at WM23 and then we can the nice, shiny 4DVD box set. God, I’m selfish.
Kevin Mahoney shares with you his thoughts on a load of good comics like JLA, 52 and All Star Superman. Btw, All Star Superman is the greatest mainstream comic of this decade and I have an awful feeling that such a nostalgic comic holds that title says something really profound and negative about the comics industry.
Trent Pusey is YOUR scribe for the path of destruction that is Team Mojo and the bunch of whiney chokers that is Team No Love. It’s Ultimate Fighter 4 and its damn gooooood!
Lastly with ROH, Opinions, Etc Eric S somehow finds an eleventh level and produces one of the best recaps EVER! And if you want more ROH coverage (and who doesn’t?) then check out Scott Keith’s review of Joe vs Kobashi
European Championship Qualifying Round Results
Group A
Poland 1 – 3 Finland
Serbia 1 – 0 Azerbaijan
Group B
Georgia 0 – 3 France
Italy 1 – 1 Lithuania
Scotland 6 – 0 Faroe Islands
Group C
Hungary 1 – 1 Norway
Malta 2 – 5 Bosnia
Moldova 0 – 1 Greece
Group D
Czech Republic 2 – 1 Wales
Germany 1 – 0 Republic of Island
Slovakia 6 -1 Cyprus
Group E
England 5 – 0 Andorra
Estonia 0 – 1 Israel
Group F
Latvia 0 – 1 Sweden
Northern Ireland 0 – 3 Iceland
Spain 4 – 0 Liechtenstein
Group G
Belarus 2 – 2 Albania
Luxembourg 0 – 1 Holland
Romania 2 – 2 Bulgaria
Well the result that screams out is from Group B where Roberto Donadoni’s difficult start as Italy boss continued with a disappointing 1-all draw with the mighty Lithuania, more shockingly still was the fact that for Lithuania briefly held the lead against the World Champions. Still, Italian haters shouldn’t get their hopes up too much, Italy are one of those countries that never get out of third gear during qualifying only to turn it on at the competition proper. Still, to make matters worse for the Italians, the other heavyweight team and World Cup runners up France classily put the sword to Georgia with a 3-0 victory as Henry stepped into Zizou’s shoes with a commanding performance. However, sitting at the top is Scotland whose thumping 6-0 victory has to be the best Scottish performance since…well…er…I’ll get back to you on that. What was particularly impressive was the way Walter Smith had set his side out to attack, with a bold 4-3-3 formation adopted to make the most of the Faroe Island piss poor defence. Kris Boyd was particularly impressive with the man’s razor sharp eye for goal and relentless running getting its reward with a brace on his home debut. Whilst they have little chance of qualifying, Scotland do seem to be on the up under Walter Smith so underlying how mind boggling stupid it was to appoint the German Berti Vogts as manager. I mean, for Christ’s sake if there’s one thing the Scottish aren’t short of, its world-class managers.
The German’s began life after Klinsmann by making hard work of Steve Staunton’s Irish side only managing a 1-0 victory and needing a Robbie Keane Own Goal to do it. To be honest I wasn’t overly impressed with the Irish, they seemed to have been given no tactical plan beyond running around like crazy, relying on Shay Given to keep them in the game and hoping that Damien Duff may in a moment of brilliance create a goal. I doubt that the inexperienced Staunton has the tactical awareness to get the Republic anywhere near the Finals. The other British Isles side in Group D Wales narrowly failed to grab an away point against Czech Republic with a late strike by Lafata breaking more Welsh hearts than Charlotte Church’s crappy new Channel 4 show. The other Irish side underlined the futility of their existence as they entered a poor performance on route to being decisively beaten 0-3 by the mighty Iceland with the criminally underrated Eidur Gudjohnsen having a great game to show Jose why he truly is a special one. Lawrie Sanchez must have felt that one.
There were also a number of turkey shoots that pitted ridiculously bad teams against pretty good teams. Firstly there was England vs Andorra, with the latter having a population smaller than the capacity of the stadium (Old Trafford) they were playing in. England won 5-0 with Peter Crouch again scoring against crappy opposition to trick people into thinking he’s an international level goalscorer and Lampard having another dismal game in an England shirt. The way he’s going, it’ll be him not Downing that’ll make way for Joe Cole. Although after seeing how Haregreaves excelled when going forward I’d quite like to see Haregreaves/Nigel Reo-Coker in the middle with Gerrard and Joe Cole on the wings. And best of all we finally, after some six years got to see England play 3-5-2, which gives McClaren massive brownie points in my book. The second turkey shoot was between the men of Spain and the mice of Liechtenstein with a comfortable 4-0 victory being the predictable result. The last turkey shoot was between Holland and Luxembourg, and incredibly Luxembourg managed to keep the deficit down to one solitary goal. There were also big wins for Bosnia (against Malta) and Slovakia (against Cyprus) as there were increasing calls for a pre-qualifying round to be introduced to weed out some of the minnows. Of course it’ll never happen when (to use one example) 58,000 will pay good money to watch England thrash Andorra and TV stations will pay good money to buy the rights for such a game.
Interesting News
The Claude Makelele saga continued with FIFA basically coming out and saying that Raymond Domenech is an ignorant wanker by saying that any player is perfectly free to retire from international football as long as they give written notice and that such players are only banned from playing for their clubs during the international call up period. Makelele did play on Saturday and will play against Italy on Wednesday but has repeated his desire to retire and with FIFA on his side almost certainly will get his wish, despite what the French FA, Domenech and Thuram say. So there!
Staying with Chelsea and temperamental Frenchmen William Gallas’ bitter transfer from Chelsea took a strange turn on Monday as Chelsea released a statement saying that William Gallas had refused to play against Liverpool in last season’s FA Cup Semi-Final and had said that if he was picked against Manchester City on the opening day of this season he would score an own goal, make deliberate mistakes and/or get sent off. Naturally William Gallas has responded, releasing a statement of his own that (rightly) accuses Chelsea of having no class and suggesting that the Chelsea statement was only an attempt to deflect attention away from rumours that Mourinho is unhappy at Gallas being allowed to leave.
The way Gallas fell out with Chelsea was very strange, as he basically became a victim of his own versatility. Gallas is a great central defender, certainly one of the top 5 in the Premiership and IMO is a more rounded player than his former captain John Terry. This was never disputed by Mourinho, who at the beginning of last season told Ricardo Carvalho (and letter the press) that Gallas was a better defender than him and that if you looked at the statistics Chelsea performed better when Gallas partnered Terry. The problem was that Mourinho kept having terrible luck with his left-backs either with them getting injured (Wayne Bridge), being crap (Del Horno) or being midfielders (Geremi), so he kept playing Gallas on the left. And you know what? Gallas was great on the left, with his runs up the channel paying dividends at some key moments for Chelsea. However, he wasn’t as good at left back as he was in the centre and he soon begun to become unhappy at him being the one whose game was sacrificed. This fuelled other problems he had with the club, particularly the feeling that he wasn’t being paid or given the level of respect that his contribution to the club deserved. By around February/March last year he was making it clear that he wanted to leave, possibly playing in Spain for Barcelona and ever since then its been only a matter of time until he left, especially when he refused to play for Chelsea this season. Why he’s suddenly decided to play for Arsenal after talking about seeking new horizons isn’t clear, although one can’t help but wonder whether the likes of Henry, Pires and Vieira didn’t put in a good word for Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal.
The Portuguese game is in something of a crisis as Gil Vicente intensified their fight against relegation (well more technically being denied promotion from the second) for fielding an ineligible player by going to (and winning in) the civil courts. To then make matters worse, another club Leixoes also went to court claiming that they not Belenenses should have been promoted in Gil Vicente’s place, a claim that was dismissed. Matters reached a head when the league president Valentim Loureiro had to suspend all season openers involving the three clubs as Gil Vicente and Leixoes threatened to turn up to the Stadium of Light to play Belenenses match against Benfica. Now FIFA takes a zero-tolerance attitude to any judicial or political interference in football and is currently threatening severe sanctions against Portugal if the situation isn’t sorted out soon, sanctions that could lead to the national team being barred from the European Championships and Portuguese teams being chucked out of the Champions League and UEFA Cup. FIFA have given Portugal a reprieve or sorts, with FIFA putting back the date when they decide what sanctions to take to the 14th September. The Portuguese FA will have to pull something out of its hat fast if it’s to avoid an embarrassing ban from international football.
Lastly, the great Sir Clive Woodward experiment ended at St. Mary’s when England’s former Rugby World Cup winning manager left his job as Southampton’s Director of Football. Woodward’s bizarre attempt to make it in football despite having no experience in the game was doomed to failure and he has only succeeded in burning all his bridges in Rugby. To which I say; Ha-Ha!
Mediocre club signs two GREAT players
The most shocking transfer for an awful long time grabbed all headlines on Thursday as Argentine superstars Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano signed for that most exciting of clubs West Ham United. Of course, once the initial shock of two world-class players in their prime had decided to play for a so-so club that offered no Champions League football people started to smell something, something fishy. Perhaps it was the fact that the Hammers issued a statement that all elements of the detail would not be disclosed, perhaps it was the fact that Tevez alone is worth £20million and is therefore out of West Ham’s financial league, perhaps it was that their chairman Terrence Brown said he would be receptive to a good offer for the two on the day they signed and perhaps it was the fact that no one would even confirmed that West Ham even owns the duo outright.
You see, West Ham didn’t buy Tevez and Mascherano from their former club Corinthians but from a company called Media Sports Investments. Long story short, one day Corinthians were sitting at the bottom of the table and were about to go bankrupt. So they sold all the rights to their players to MSI in return for the money that kept the team afloat. The next season, MSI brought in Tevez and Mascherano, with Tevez by all accounts winning the Brazilian league by himself. However, last season wasn’t such a success and with the Logan’s Run rule of South American football (all talented players must leave for Europe by their 23rd birthday) it soon became clear that it was time for the two to make their move. So MSI began offering the two to a multitude of big European clubs, including Manchester United who turned them down. Many thought they’d end up at Chelsea given the rumoured close links between MSI and Roman Abromvitch and Tevez’s statement in the summer that ‘Chelsea intend to take me. It is difficult to distance myself from them because they have shown a lot of affection towards me and my family.’ So the question remains, why the hell did they sign for West Ham?
Well the first and most obvious reason is the one Tevez and Mascherano gave at the press conference, that they love the Hammers exciting style of player and had grown up idolising such famous Hammers as Brooking, Peters and Moore and in Alan Pardrew they saw a manager who could take them to the next level…bwhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…Sorry about that just seeing if you were still paying attention. So if the players didn’t pick the club who did and why? At the moment there are three major theories.
The first and most serious conspiracy theory is that this is the work of Chelsea’s Mr. Moneybags Roman Abramovich. As eloquently (if a tad hysterically) put at State of the Game these are nothing more than Chelsea’s rentboys. These are two players Chelsea are interested in and they want to blood them in the Premiership so that in a year’s time they’ll be ready to play a full part in the Chelsea side. MSI have gone along with it because they’re secretly bankrolled by Roman Abramovich. Its certainly a plausible enough theory, after all we know that Abramovich’s money has a reach far beyond Chelsea, most notably his company Sibneft’s ridiculously generous sponsorship deal with CSAK Moscow that has funded that club’s shopping spree in Brazil. We also know that Abramovich is willing to do “favours” for his business associates, for example the move of CSAK’s Smertin to Chelsea for an inflated fee despite the fact that Chelsea had no need for yet another holding midfielder. However, I don’t buy it at all, its just too complicated a deal for it to make sense for Chelsea to do. Firstly, if these two play well this year then their fee will be inflated and even Peter Kenyon isn’t stupid enough to construct a deal that will result in Chelsea paying more money. Secondly, if Chelsea wanted to buy these players then blood them then they could quite easily have bought the players outright and then loaned them out to a club either in the Premiership or another European league (something they have done with a number of promising young players). Thirdly and finally, whilst Chelsea may have some use for Tevez there’s certainly no need for Mascherano as they have the world’s most accomplished holding midfielder Claude Makelele, the man they (mistakenly IMO) believe is his successor Essien* and the man who could be Essien’s successor the young French midfielder Lassana Diarra. There’s simply no need for Chelsea to buy these players or to take such a convoluted, self-defeating route to buying them.
The second conspiracy theory centres on former MSI head, Iranian businessman Kia Jooraabchian. Although Jooraabchian resigned from MSI in June he still retains an investment in the two Argentines and was by all accounts at the centre of this deal (to the extent that he gave an interview with BBC’s Five Live on Thursday). MSI under his leadership unsuccessfully tried to buy West Ham in 2004 and on Friday it was revealed that Georgian businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili was considering investing in the club with one Kia Jooraabchian. It sort of makes sense, except why would Kia Jooraabchian make a deal that has massively inflated the cost of a club he is reportedly trying to buy? The only way that would make sense is if Jooraabchian isn’t so much as buying the club but working as a fixer for West Ham’s current board and is attempting to get them the best deal. This would square with the fact that West Ham chief executive Terrence Brown approached Pardrew about the prospect of bringing the two players in. Even so, it seems an extremely convoluted route to take to buy a club and it begs the question what does MSI gain from this?
The third and final conspiracy theory is the one that makes the most sense. South American football is broken backed and perhaps the most shocking failure to make the most of a licence to print money in the history of humankind. Because of the poor financial position of all South American clubs and the general ignorance many big clubs have about South American football the big transfer money is never made when South Americans first come to Europe, instead the big money comes when they make their moves inside Europe. For example, the first European club Ronaldo played for was PSV Eindoven and the big transfer fees were paid when he moved to Barcelona, Inter Milan and Real Madrid. MSI not unreasonably wants to get some of that and even if it has sold say a third of Tevez and Mascherano to West Ham for £10million they could still make far more money on a transfer from West Ham to a big European club than they would if they had sold the two players straight to a big club (especially as a big club wouldn’t put up with such nonsense as a third party owning part of their players). So if all goes to plan Tevez and Mascherano will play well this year on a bigger stage than the Brazilian league and then earn themselves a big money move.
So is this a good thing for football? Well it’s certainly a good thing for West Ham, who have got two world-class players who even if they only hang around for a year that’s still long enough to elevate West Ham to a level where they could seriously compete for a Champions League place. For the rest of football it’s almost certainly a bad thing. The extent to which companies that are little more than asset strippers dominate South American football is a massive reason its in such dire straits with clubs not having any true control of their players (Corinthians President is reported to have came to England ten days ago in a futile attempt to stop the transfer) and money from transfers isn’t reinvested into the game but instead flows out of the game. That’s not before you start to factor in the way such deals corrupt football either in a financial sense (Corinthians have been accused of money laundering) or a moral sense (Brazil’s ridiculous Nike demanded touring program in the build up to the France 1998). The danger of such a system being exported to Europe is something that should be fiercely resisted, for the good of the game. In an ideal world FIFA would get a grip on the issue and ban third parties owning player registration and make all transfers transparent. Of course with the South American-Emerging Nations axis that has dominated FIFA since Joao Havelange defeated Sir Stanley Rous to become its first non-European President and keeps his successor Sepp Blatter and his cronies “comfortable” that’s unlikely to happen any time soon.
Slightly less interesting transfer news
Last Thursday saw the last day of the transfer window, and was predictably dominated by British clubs running around like headless chickens because we’re still not use to the idea of transfer windows. I mean Jesus Christ fellas wouldn’t it be sensible to get things done in advance? Anyway here’s the big stories from Thursday…
Yes its finally over, the two most boring and protracted transfer sagas of recent years have ended as the world’s best damn left-back Ashley Cole moves to Chelsea whilst the world’s best damn part-time left-back William Gallas and a cool £5million have made a new home at Arsenal. This is one of the few deals where neither side loses, Chelsea get a genuinely world class player whose defensive qualities are criminally underrated and whose pace and willingness attack will give them the width on the left that they have at times lacked this season. Arsenal gets one of the world’s best central defenders, a defender who given a proper run at central defence will prove to be a better, more rounded footballer than English lionhearts John Terry and Jamie Carraghar. And they’ll hardly miss Ashley Cole when you consider that both Cliché and Flamini can play at left-back. The only possible negative is that it will leave Chelsea with only three recognised central defenders, although given that Terry is a freak of nature who rarely gets injured they should be able to make it till January without a defensive crisis. A good deal all round, and let’s thank our God and everybody else’s that the FA extended the transfer deadline by 10minutes to put us all out of our misery. I don’t think I could’ve handled another three months of these two sagas.
Staying with Arsenal, their busy Thursday continued with the equally long running and equally boring transfer saga surrounding want away winger-cum-forward Jose Reyes finally getting his Dream Move (TM every single f*cking Spanish newspaper) to Real Madrid, albeit only for a season long loan. Going the other way is longstanding Arsenal transfer target and Madrid misfit Julio Baptista, with Wenger hoping that the powerful Brazilian forward will settle better in London than he did in Madrid. On the whole a good move for both clubs, with neither player needing a fresh start to their career and it would be surprising if the two players didn’t make the moves permanent. Another interesting Arsenal transfer move was their signing of the Brazilian Under-19 Captain Denilson for 3.4mil from Sao Paulo. This is interesting because it is an insight into what has and will keep Arsenal at the top table despite their relatively meagre resources. Wenger is a footballing geek; a man whose idea of pleasure is watching obscure football matches from obscure leagues and who has a tremendous knowledge of the world game. Now in any situation this would be an invaluable weapon for a club looking for the past bargain but a rule quirk allows Arsenal to take full advantage of their boss’ geekiness. You see the Premiership is pretty much unique amongst European leagues in that its possible to give Under 19 players full professional contracts. Therefore when it comes to the kids, Arsenal can offer better wages than even the likes of Milan and Barcelona and this is the exact reason why the proud Catalan Cesc Fàbregas left Barcelona for Arsenal. Seriously, unless the rest of Europe changes their contract rules fast this could result in England having the cream of young talent.
New Sunderland boss Roy Keane was a busy man on Thursday as he looked through his address book and found Sydney FC’s Dwight Yorke on the Manchester United page. On the Celtic page he found former Sunderland defender Stanislav Varga and 21 year left sided midfielder Ross Wallace. Whilst the Irish page had Liam Miller (signed on a free from United) and Wigan’s David Connolly and Graham Kavanagh scrawled on it. A decent enough first batch of signings, with Dwight Yorke being a revelation playing in midfield for Trinidad and Tobago at the World Cup with committed, energetic performances (he was the player who made the most tackles per game at Germany) whilst Connolly is a quality player who knows the division well, having performed well for Leicester City before he moved to Wigan. The ease of these moves and the proposed loan move for Solsjaker that collapsed at the last moment suggest that Roy Keane is going to be able to call in plenty of favours from friends in football as he attempts to be a manager.
Thomas Gravesen’s Spanish holiday finally ended as he once again became a full time footballer by leaving Madrid’s bench and joining Celtic. It’s a good deal for Celtic, as Gravesen is a quality player who will easily cope with the demands of the SPL. Just one more thing, Gravesen is a funny example of a player’s career being stymied by his looks. Due to his slightly brutish appearance and some gutsier moments at Everton (including having his dislocated finger ‘popped’ into place so he could continue to play) convinced Real Madrid that he was the holding midfielder they had been searching for. He was of course nothing of the sort, being more of a muscular, no-nonsense playmaker in the Stefan Effenberg mould.
After shipping in 4 goals against Portsmouth Gareth Southgate had some retail therapy, bringing Robert Huth and Jonathan Woodgate to Teeside. They also brought in Charlton misfit Jason Euell for reasons I don’t understand… PSV were one of the few continental sides to do big business on the last day with Kromkamp bidding adieu to Liverpool whilst they managed to grab big Patrick Kluivert from Holland’s dance floors…Newcastle signed Manchester United’s hot young Italian hotshot
Giuseppe Rossi on a four month loan with Fergie hoping that Rossi will come back in January with more experience although its more likely he’ll come back without a hamstring. Btw, something interesting was going on at Old Trafford on Thursday with Ole Gunnar Solsjaker about to follow Rossi out on loan this time to Sunderland whilst rumours were circulating of a “big story” was about to break. Presumably, they were about to sign a striker possibly Juventus’ David Trezeguet but it fell through (possibly due to the hamstring injury Trezeguet picked up on Thursday)….Aston Villa missed out on James Milner with Newcastle cancelling the move despite Milner having agreed personal terms, probably due to a proposed moved for Viduka collapsed….However, they did get Celtic playmaker Stilian Petrov.
Final Thoughts
Thing I Learnt This Week: Apparently in Spain, Portugal and Italy a football manager will be referred to by the English ‘mister’ in a manner similar to how some (pretentious) people refer to chefs as ‘monsieur’. I thought this is a pretty cool little fact.
Rant of the Week: This week was an international week, therefore all the top leagues in Europe were on a break. This includes England’s second flight The Championship, presumably trying to make itself feel more important. However, Leagues One and Two were playing this weekend and yet ITV decided that they didn’t need to put out a highlights program out for the 24 games that were being played that weekend. I mean its bad enough they give the program a crappy time slot (11am on a Sunday) and that it’s a complete analysis free zone because they’re trying to cram in coverage of 36 games into an hour but not bothering to show the program this week because a third of the game’s aren’t being played is pathetic. Its crap like this that will makes me long for the day when ITV finally gets taken over by Disney or Murdoch.
Funny Moment of (last) Week: Sky Sports News was covering the live draw of the Champions League Group Stage and afterwards the presenter was talking to Paul Merson about Arsenal chances of getting through their group. All well and good, until the presenter asked infamous gambling addict Paul Merson “who he’d put his money” when it came to getting out of the group, and then increased the hilarity by adding “if you were a betting man”. What made it all the funnier is that you knew deep down Paul Merson was thinking of a way to pawn his teeth so he could have one last flutter down the bookies.
Well that’s your (late) column, see you Thursday when I will bring you the results of Wednesday’s European Championship Qualifiers and match reports of Brazil vs Wales, FYR Macedonia vs England and if I can be bothered Lithuania vs Scotland.
