Saturday, June 24, 2006

Little Footsteps

Round One is done and dusted, completed with victories by France and Switzerland last night to ensure their qualification to meet Spain and Ukraine in Round Two respectively. The French were more clinical and purposeful than they had been in their previous two matches, despite (or because of) the absence of Zinedine Zidane. Thierry Henry seemed more comfortable with a strike partner although I am unconvinced by Trezeguet this season and quite why Arsenal and Manchester United were so interested in Franck Riberry is not apparent from his displays thus far where he has shown that he could not hit a cows arse with a banjo.

Time to review the original predictions and see how hopelessly wrong they were. My forecasts for the winners and runners-up turned out to be fairly accurate with some notable exceptions - Ecuador threw most people as did Ghana. Australia crept through ahead of the Croats but otherwise pretty much spot on.

So as Round Two starts today, I would expect Germany, Argentina, England, Holland, Brazil, Switzerland, Italy and Spain to progress. Of those matches, the only ones where I can see alternative outcomes are Switzerland v Ukraine, Portugal v Holland or Spain v France. Should any of the others go against my original list, it will be a surprise. Or if Ghana or Australia progress, a major shock.

Without doubt, Argentina were the most impressive team in qualifying but it will be interesting to see how they are defensively as surely they will be tested more from here on in than they were in qualifying. Spain and Germany provided the pleasant surprises of the Group Phase, the hosts showing a marked improvement in form although against limited opposition. Spain showed that they have an excellent blend of youth and experience available to them and in the attacking third should give the French plenty to think about but it is midfield where the battle will be one, Xavi, Xavi Alonso and Iniesta supported by either Reyes or Luis Garcia will be too much for Vieira, Zidane, Malouda and Riberry / Wiltord. Puyol will need to improve on his performance against Tunisia or Henry may well exact his own personal revenge for Paris.

England are reportedly playing 4-5-1 against Ecuador, with Owen Hargreaves at right back, Carragher set to replace Ferdinand if he is not fully fit and Michael Carrick in central midfield. Rooney is supposedly going to play the lone striker role. If this is true I would be very surprised as Rooney always strikes me as being more effective playing off of another striker. Although England only have Crouch as an "experienced" striker to replace the injured Owen, it makes little sense to leave him out as he played reasonably well against Sweden. The only possible reason for this formation is Erikssons belief that in a 4-4-2 formation, the team is not good enough to defend a lead, the additional midfielder allows Gerrard and Lampard to play the same roles for their country that they do so effectively for their clubs.

Graham Poll is coming in for deserved criticism for his performance in officiating at the Australia v Croatia match on Thursday, widely quoted as being ready to pack his bags for the first flight out of Germany today. Having missed two penalties and allowed a goal where Harry Kewell was seemingly offside would probably have been enough to warrant his flight tickets but to book a player three times is unquestionably daft. What puzzles me is why the two Assistants and Fourth Official failed to tell him of his error. Surely that is part of their remit? Perhaps they did and he chose to ignore it although it seems unlikely to be the case. What is noticeable is how the English media have picked up on this, to the extent that The Sun even asked his wife for a quote on her husband's performance - she declined to comment, understandably. Since when has the performance of an English Referee warranted this type of media coverage? I cannot ever recall a Referees performance on the pitch making the front page of a paper before. Increasingly in the last twelve months, former referees are becoming media rent-a-quotes in particular Clive "The Book" Thomas - incidentally, he was one of the first referees to publish an autobiography about his career - and Jeff Winter, who laid the boot into Poll quite savagely this morning, to the extent that it was patently obvious that he has little or no time for the newly crowned, "Thing From Tring". What is amazing is that neither Thomas or Winter covered themselves in glory during their careers, although Thomas was widely respected until 1978 when he idiosyncratically allowed Brazil to take a corner and then promptly blew for full-time, nanoseconds before the ball hit the back of the Swedish net. The teams left the pitch in a state of confusion. If he had done that in this World Cup, FIFA would have sent him back before the end of the Group Phase. It is an interesting phenomena that is starting to build. Criticism from former players in nothing new but who in the hell is interested in what a former Referee thinks? Another example of the media hypocrisy that surrounds football - build the Referee up so that he believes the hype and then kneecap him with criticism. Perhaps it is time to go back to basics and ignore the official, unless they are truly incompetent.

Todays Tunes are from John Mellencamp, a bootleg entitled Hurts So Good from 1988. Thanks to Joe at Human Wheels for these.

Check It Out

Small Town

Pink Houses

Friday, June 23, 2006

Running Down A Dream

England’s “Dream Team” is taking shape for the post – Eriksson era, with rumours abounding that Alan Shearer and Terry Venables will be joining "The Management once the World Cup is over, for England at least. These to me seem good choices to compliment those staying on, as presumably Sammy Lee and Ray Clemence will retain their posts. At least it will sort out the staff party pantomime for 2006 with the roles for Mary Poppins, Fagin, Humpty Dumpty and Pinocchio all filled. Barwick will no doubt be called upon to play Widow Twanky whilst for the moment, McClaren can fill the role of Aladdin should England win in Germany.

Fallout from the Italian “Match Fixing” scandal continues unabated with Patrick Vieira being linked to a move to the Glazerbucks Disneydome or a return to North London. Vieira has been non-committal over his future when questioned about the investigations in Italy. The bigger issue is the impact on transfer fees that must surely be forced downwards if the four clubs charged have to hold fire sales to release players. This will impact on other transfers that are mooted for this season such as Fernando Torres move to just about every major club in Europe which was expected to be in excess of £20m, could be driven downwards or put on ice. A surplus of top quality players being available will cause prices to fall, to the detriment of lower league clubs who tend to overvalue their “stars” anyway. After all, using Buffon as an example, why pay out for English ‘keeper who has a lot of potential for say £3m when you may be able to pick up the finished article for £10m? The £31m paid by Chelsea for Shevchenko is beginning to look even more extravagant knowing that they could have paid up to 30% less had they waited for the outcome of the trial. One wonders how much the investigation contributed to the Ukrainian’s decision to move, knowing that he would be missing out on Champions League football for at least one season, probably two if Milan were to be demoted.

Unsurprisingly, The FA has ruled that Arsenal has no case to answer for their “relationship” with Beveren. The announcement on the FA website is as follows:

"Following a report on BBC Newsnight regarding the relationship between Arsenal FC and Belgian club Beveren, The FA was asked by FIFA to conduct an investigation.

The FA has since conducted inquiries with the assistance of The FA Premier League. As a result of those inquiries, we can confirm that we have not identified any evidence to suggest that Arsenal have breached any rules of The FA or The FA Premier League in relation to their dealings with Beveren and specifically any breaches of the FA and FAPL rules concerning dual interests or associations between clubs.

In order to protect the integrity of matches and competitions, these rules prohibit clubs in the same competition from being owned, influenced or controlled by the same person or entity.

In this case, the relevant competitions are The FA Cup and The FA Premier League. The rules also prevent a Premier League club from owning or controlling another Premier League or Football League club.

The FA has provided all the material obtained during its inquiry to FIFA for its consideration.


Newsnight meanwhile have issued a statement,

"The FA has established that Beveren is a Belgian football club and therefore does not compete against Arsenal in the Premiership or the FA Cup. This is not what Sepp Blatter asked for"

as is quoted on the BBC Sport site. The Newsnight quote shows again that they have missed the point. FIFA asked the FA to investigate yet the only remit that the FA have under FIFA regulations is to investigate any breach of FA or FAPL rules. So rather than accepting that the FA have done their job, they are readying themselves to accuse football of a whitewash. The statement further shows how little the Newsnight team know about football. If they were true followers of the game, they would know that what FIFA say publicly and do privately are two very different things.

Interestingly, the BBC do not give this turn of events as much coverage as they did with their original story something I find deeply surprising. However, very kindly BBC Sport give you a link to follow to see the full text of their response which at 17:45 BST is taking you to Page 404 error. Honestly, you could not make it up. This genuinely is what happens when you follow the link to the Newsnight response from the BBC Sport site, and happened every time I tried it from about 17:10 BST until 18:00 BST when this blog was posted.

Spain changed all eleven of their starting line-up for today’s match against Saudi Arabia and it showed. They started brightly enough but the match definitely had the feel of an end of season friendly for their part. Reyes and Fabregas were both substituted although the former supplied the cross from which Juanito thumped home a header. The Ukraine joined them in the next round with a Shevchenko penalty separating them from Tunisia in what was apparently an equally uninspiring match.

Colchester United have successfully sought an injunction to prevent Phil Parkinson joining Hull City although according to the latter they have attempted to discuss compensation with the U's. Despite having an employee who has resigned, the Colchester Board have refused to accept this turn of events and steadfastly hold him to his contract of employment. This is all well and good except that more and more, the EU or the ECJ are becoming involved in all aspects of Sport and the day is not too far away when a manager will successfully sue for normal working conditions to apply to their contracts and be able to walk away within a suitable notice period, the managerial equivalent of a Bosman, if you like.

Todays Tunes are from Tom Petty, Live at the Bonnaroo Festival this month:

Gloria

Don't Come Around Here No More

Saving Grace

Thanks to Pete at Ickmusic, where the whole of the concert is available for downloading.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Colour Me Impressed

Within hours of the Azurri qualifying for the Second Phase of the World Cup with a comfortable 2 - 0 victory over the Czech Republic, that condemned the vanquished to an unexpectedly early exit, the Italian FA have announced charges against thirty subjects - twenty six people and four clubs - in response to investigations into irregularities over the appointment of match officials and match fixing. The four clubs involved, Juventus, AC Milan, SS Lazio and Fiorentina, face a range of punishments including fines, points deductions and relegations. Three of the four had qualified for next seasons Champions League whilst Lazio were in the UEFA Cup. The biggest target appears to be Juventus, winners of the Scudetto, and Milan, perennial challengers for the Champions League. Should they be found guilty at their trials next week, the Italian media is speculating that Juve will find themselves playing Serie C1 football next year, Milan in Serie B whilst Fiorentina and Lazio would receive fines and points deductions, adversely impacting their finishing positions in the 2005 / 06 season to ensure that they miss out on European football in the coming season. None of the twenty six people charged are players yet over half of the Italian World Cup squad would be impacted, more still from the squads of other participating nations. It remains to be seen if this has any effect on players such as Dida, Imbrahimovich and Kaka. Whilst they may not feel the consequences now, should any guilty verdicts be returned, it would seem that a large number of top quality players will come onto the market, perhaps instigating a shift of power in the European Club competitions even further away from the Italians, more towards the Spanish and English clubs. Make no mistake, Chelsea will not be the only club who suddenly find themselves with deep pockets if Buffon, Kaka et al came onto the market.

Another interesting aspect arises from UEFA's point of view. Should Juve, Milan and Fiorentina be dismissed from the Champions League, do they automatically "promote" replacement teams from within Serie A? If that is the case, Christmas has come early for the "victims". Internazionale would be bumped up from Qualifying Rounds into the Group Phases where the would be joined by Roma, who would move from the UEFA Cup. Chievo and Palermo would make up the Italian quartet in the Competition. UEFA Cup places would then go to Livorno, Parma and Empoli. However, given their idiosyncratic manner, it is possible that UEFA may decide not to increase the Italian quota back to its level of four but decide to leave Internazionale as the sole representatives, in which case, Arsenal, Liverpool and Valencia (the three highest ranked seeds - let's face it, UEFA will want to ensure their main moneyspinners are in the Groups if they lose the Italian contribution so there would not be a free draw for the the vacant slots) would all suddenly be believing Santa Claus does exist and is a fat, balding Swiss man called Sepp. Next week will no doubt muddy the waters further with appeals being lodged against verdicts and / or punishments but the start of the football season could be in disarray before it has even begun.

Talking of which, the fixtures for 2006 / 07 have been announced, subject to Sky's intervention in two weeks time. Arsenal kick-off at the moment with their qualifying round match in the Champions League being the bread in the Premiership sandwich, a home fixture against Aston Villa being the filling. Rumours abounded that the club had requested an opening day home fixture, no doubt the Portugeezer will be filling our pages tomorrow about how the list has been rigged once more to suit Arsenal. It is not a bad set of fixtures for the club, which when considering Chelsea's run-in, gives them a reasonable chance of catching them with a home victory in the penultimate game of the season. That assumes two things of course; (a) that we actually are in touch with them at the start of April 2007 and, (b) we win on May 5th when they visit Ashburton Grove in the last home game of the season.

On the subject of the whinges by the Setubal Smirk, Arsenal may well feel that his complaints have unduly influenced the fixture lists around the Champions League matchdays. Should they qualify, Arsenal play at home before each game but away in the next fixture. Manchester United and Chelsea are both at home after each fixture. Hmmm, conspiracy theories will no doubt abound. Curiously enough, my paranoia went into overdrive when you notice that Manchester United entertain Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City in fixtures directly after Champions League Matchdays....although I hasten to add that Arsenal actually stay within a thirty mile radius of London on four of the six fixtures following the Matchdays, visits to Charlton, West Ham, The Kremlin and Reading all feature. The other is a trip to the happy hunting ground of The Reebok.

The World Cup continues apace with Italy, Ghana, Brazil, Australia, Argentina, Holland, Portugal and Mexico all joining the Golden Girls in the next phase since I last posted. Since England play Ecuador, it is a fairly reasonable assumption that they will get through to the Quarter Finals where they will need to be on their toes to defeat either Portugal or Holland. Whilst I am not overly impressed by the Portuguese, they will pose the Dutch considerable problems. England on the other hand have to snap out of their sonabulism in the second half of their matches. It is as if Eriksson is dropping sleeping pills into their half time Lucozade. Either that or simply boring them to tears. What does raise concern though is that McClaren is in the dressing room as well and is failing to inspire the troops which bodes ill for his reign in charge. That neither of them is capable of stopping the repeat of these perfomances in important matches speaks volumes. Unless they find a cure for the comedy defending, England's stay in Germany will be over in the next seven days. Not that they will be alone as it would appear that following tonight's match between Croatia and Australia, Graham Poll will be on a play home soon having cautioned Simunic three times before sending him off. FIFA tend not to look too kindly on that sort of thing as well as, in my opinion, he had a fairly crap game, missing two penalties although in fairness, he did well to spot the Croatians offence that led to the Sheilaroos first equaliser.

One interesting comment I read is that Michael Owen is looking forward to seeing Sven on the 9th of July. So at least we know at whose house the England Team are having their World Cup Final Barbie then.

Todays Tunes are from a BBC Session by Supergrass.

Pumping Up Your Stereo

Mansize Rooster

Caught By The Fuzz

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

All This and Swill Too

England's final Group match against Sweden takes place tonight, a point guaranteeing both teams qualification to play Germany or Ecuador who meet this afternoon. After the matches against Paraguay and Trinidad & Tobago, the nation expects better performances. Lars Lagerback, the Swedish coach, has however poo-poohed the notion that it will be an open, attacking match by commenting, "We will try to stick to our way of playing, defend as much as we can". Great. Ninety minutes of England's aimless passing with the Swedes strung across the pitch in their own half. Exactly what we needed to hear. Although in fairness, his job is to get his country out of the Group, into the knockout phase where who knows what will happen.

It is well - documented that England have not beaten the Swedes since 1968, the eleven games since then have contained four Swedish victories although only one of those games was competitive. Of those matches, England have failed to find the net in six of them and only scored more than one goal on one occasion, Elland Road in 1995 during a 3 - 3 draw in the build up to Euro 96, rescuing a two - goal deficit.

England will hopefully be improved by the return of Rooney, which may kickstart the teams campaign in terms of passing, and also Owen's World Cup as he cannot complain about the long-ball game with Crouch absent. Or hopefully he won't be able to anyway. Gerrard is likely to be missing due to a yellow card; those received in Group Phase are rescinded for the start of the knockout stages. It is interesting that he is considered more important to the team, and publicly acknowledged as such by Eriksson, than Fat Frank is. Lampard has been the most consistent club player in midfield positions over the past three years yet still does not have the impact for England in terms of inspiring play. Nor is he perceived as being a matchwinner in the way that Gerrard is.

Assuming a draw as the likely outcome, England should face Ecuador who I expect to lose quite badly to Germany.

Yesterdays's matches confirmed that Group G is going to the wire with the Swiss putting pressure on the French. A three goal victory is now their minimum requirement to qualify and that assumes that the other match ends in a no scoring draw. If it finishes 2 - 2 or higher the French could be in deep doo - doo given the vagaries of the Head to Head criterian being used ahead of simple Goal Difference as the primary driver for Qualifying. Spain in the end won comfortably against Tunisia having spent an hour chasing an equaliser. Rumours abound that they are to rest their first XI in the final match which for some reason people think will upset FIFA. Why? They have already won the Group by virtue of beating Ukraine 4 - 0 so cannot be topped. Let them do it if they want to. Surely that is the point of a Squad system otherwise FIFA should lay down a regulation that states "Your first XI must be named before the tournament begins and can only be changed for suspension or injury. Any injuries will be adjudicated by the FIFA Medical Team and they decide if the player is fit for a match or not".

Arsenal are being heavily linked with numerous players. Javier Saviola is the latest but Barca apparently do not want to sell to Arsenal, Dirk Kuijt may be on his way to Ashburton Grove, Anfield, St James Park or staying put at Fejenoord depending on which line of the articles you read whilst Amo Diana is on his way here if he doesn't go to another Italian club. Michael Carrick is going to move a couple of miles across North London but this could be via The Disneydome if the Tiny Tots decide to sell for around £20m. But all of this is irrelevant as Le Boss is off to Real Madrid as one of the prospective Presidential candidates said he is and they never lie, do they?

Todays Tunes are from Swill and the Swaggerband, erstwhile lead singer of The Men They Couldn't Hang, Odgers and Simmonds and Liberty Cage. Check out the various myspace pages for TMTCH, Liberty Cage and Swill & The Swaggerband, not to mention TMTCH's website. Also, check out his new album Elvis Lives Here, available on Irregular Records. These are from his gig at Stripes in Brentford on 26th May 2006.

Marjory and Johnny

Pieces Of Paradise

Ready To Blow

Sunday, June 18, 2006

There's A Warning Sign On The Road Ahead

What had been a fairly predictable tournament in terms of results burst into life this weekend. Saturday's comfortable win by Ghana over the Czech's was completely unexpected, given the drubbing that the Eastern Europeans gave to the USA. And a completely deserved win it was to. Appiah is unsung by the English media, driving the midfield forwards, Essien though is showing why Chelsea paid a considerable lump of change for his services. He has competed for every ball and surprisingly, not launched into his trademark two-footed lunge. That the Ghanains took the lead after a minute will have helped to calm nerves no doubt but the composure they showed on the whole was reminiscent of the Cameroon in 1994 and a pleasant antidote to the panic-stricken play of Angola et al in this tournament. Even before Ujfalusi was rightly dismissed, the Czech's had been unable to get back into the game, Pavel Nedved was unable to read the game, and continually caught offside leading to the thoughts that perhaps this first appearance in the World Cup for him was a tournament too far. Having seen the Iranians make the Portuguese work damned hard for their place, that was surely the upsets done for the day.

But no, the Italians reverted to type. Scoring early, Gilardino scoring a well taken header and the Italians proceeded to sit back. In years gone by, this would have been game over but yesterday saw some uncharacteristically nervous defending saw Zaccardo slice the ball into his own net and De Rossi lost his cool and Brian McBride nearly lost conciousness when the formers elbow connected with the latters head. Pope and Mastroeni deservedly saw red, the latters lunge an appalling tackle but still the Italians could not break down the US. This result left the Group wide open. The winners of the final games will qualify. A draw would be enough for the Italians irrespective of the other result but the USA could sneak through if the Czech's are defeated.

Brazil improved on their performance against Croatia but still could have conceded if Harry Kewell had kept his head down and Dida not made one acrobatic save to prevent an Australian equaliser at 1 - 0. But like most winners of the World Cup, starting quickly is not a pre-requisite. The Australians will still qualify if they avoid defeat against Croatia whilst the Croats qualify if they win. Unless of course, Japan win which makes the race for second sort of open.

And what of the French? In deep crap basically. They have to win against Togo, assuming of course the Africans turn up. If, as expected the Swiss win tomorrow they join the Koreans on four points, facing each other on the final day. A draw in that game would leave the convulted path to the Second Round wide open, head to head results would all be draws, goals scored, goal difference similar unless someone wins comfortably. How is it that the French are in this position though? Having been totally in control for 80 minutes, they contrived to throw it away, spurning chances, hitting the woodwork, conceding a soft goal and almost losing it in the final minutes. They face Togo without Zidane and anything less than a win could mean that this match was his last in a World Cup.