‘Round Up’ is getting fairly dull, yes? I’ve renamed it ‘Behind The Times’, as the Times has a similar section called ‘Ahead of the Game’and I struggle to keep up with them. Arf.
1. Blatter reckons Brazil will be playing Brazil in years to come:Sepp Blatter is much maligned, but, as head of FIFA, he isn’t completely useless. Following on from his rather astute words on foreign quotas, and his interesting notion of a manager/coach transfer window, the rotund one has now quite rightly expressed a concern about the ease with which a player can become a national of a country in which he is only a resident. Blatter reckons there will be a time soon where half of the participants of the World Cup will field teams of Brazilians, and is looking for tighter laws on national eligibility. If only he kept his more nonsensical schemes to himself….
4. “Hello, my name’s Michael Owen, and I’m a FUCKING MORON.”The fallout from England’s failure to reach Euro 2008 continues to, um, fall out. Little Mickey Owen, usually so well behaved, has decided to rock the boat a bit, by claiming that none of the Croatian side who were so dominant last Wednesday could get into ‘Team England’. Terrifying Croatian coach Slaven Bilic understandably thinks very little of Owen’s comments.
5. Goal of the day: The goals from last night’s Champs league were fairly dull, so here’s one from a few weeks ago. Wales Under 16’s vs Scotland Under 16’s. Welsh defender (despite his very Scottish sounding surname) Lee McArdle, who is currently on the books at Everton, hits a breathtaking free kick from near the half way line. It’s a little reminiscent of that Roberto Carlos free kick from ‘97, which I’ve posted directly beneath it:
6. A Series of Unfortunate Events:
Paul Jewell leaves Wigan—->Chris Hutchings takes over as Wigan manager—>Chris Hutchings sacked as Wigan manager—>Steve Bruce leaves Birmingham—–>Billy Davies sacked by Derby—–>Steve Bruce joins Wigan—–>Alex McLeish quits as Scotland Coach—–>Paul Jewell joins Derby—–>Alex McLeish joins Birmingham—-> Billy Davies becomes Scotland Coach?
There is so much print about England at the moment that it’s getting quite dull. There were close to 20 articles in The Guardian alone today, and for some reason I read every one of them, even the joke questionnaire about ‘which type of prospective England are you?’(Mourinho, apparently) Pointless, utterly pointless. Anyway, for the reasons above I’m going to keep news on England down to a minimum.
1. England second seeds in 2010 qualifying. I mentioned that this might happen in yesterday’s round-up. Romania have sneaked past England largely thanks to their 6-1 win over Armenia, meaning the new England manager will have to negotiate a tricky group next year. On the plus side England can’t be drawn in the same group as the Scots who, on current form would make mincemeat of them.
2. O’Neill current favourite for England job. He shouldn’t be. He’s a competent manager, but he’s hardly pulling up trees at Villa. I’ve heard murmurs about Mark Hughes being approached, but I reckon that can be discounted. He left Wales partly because he didn’t enjoy the inactivity between internationals, so I can’t see him returning to that facet of management. He’s comfortably the best British manager in the reckoning though. And he has international experience too. Klinsmann’s my dark horse. He has proven himself to be a quality international coach, he’ll demand a solid infrastructure around him, he can speak excellent English, he adopts a policy of aggressive but attractive football (much like Hughes in this respect), and he gets the best out of ‘difficult’ players (Ballack was magnificent at World Cup ‘06). The Kaizer reckons he’s the best option. Best English candidate? Steve Coppell. But he’d wilt under the media pressure, as he did at City back in ‘96 . He’s a delicate flower.
UPDATE: O’Neill’s pulled out. Capello’s now favourite , mainly because he “wants it hard, he wants it fast and he wants it now” (quotation from Spaced, ‘not from Capello).
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Right, time for the good stuff.
1. Incredible Stat of the Day: If Premier League games only lasted for the first 45 minutes, Fulham wold be top. No, I’m not shitting you.
I reckon Fulham are a pretty decent side, who have suffered terrible luck so far. David Healy surely has to come good in club football at some point soon, and Diomansy Kamara, Clint Dempsey, Simon Davies and Danny Murphy are all fairly good players. They might even sneak into the top half of the table if they sort themselves out.
2. Next Premier League Manager To Go: Rafa Benitez? By all accounts he behaved very oddly at a press conference, and Fat-Cat owner Tom Hicks has had a real go at him in the press today. Toss in a disenchanted star player, a schizo rotation policy and general underachievement and you’ve got a fairly promising case for Rafa getting the chop soon. Coral have him at a tasty 16/1 and I reckon only a grumpy Mike Ashley (after finding out he could lose out big time in the wake of England’s capitulation against the Croats) losing patience with Big Sam, and Gareth Southgate continuing to be thoroughly rubbish, stand in Benitez’s way.
3. look out for: Ched Evans at Norwich City. Evans, 18, has been scoring for his own general amusement (I was trying to say ’scoring for fun’ in a less cliched way, but it sounds a bit shit) for City’s reserves and Wales U21’s , and Norwich City have signed him on loan in attempt to clamber off the bottom of The Championship. He’s the new Shearer. Mark my words. Also, his first name is Chedwyn. Tres cool.
4. Unenthusiastic Commentary of the day: In South America commentators are obscenely biased towards their own nations and tend to offer lukewarm responses when said nations concede goals. Listen to this commentator put a new spin on that elongated ‘GOOOAAALLL’ thing they do over there by making it sound as though he has fallen down a mine shaft, as his beloved Brazil go behind against Uruguay:
5. Which country is the worst in the world at the old pig’s bladder? Well, in the eyes of FIFA, it’s São Tomé e Príncipe, who sit bottom of their current world rankings. According to those brainboxes at Wikipedia, Sao Tome is “the smallest country in the world that is not a former UK dependency, a former US trusteeship, or a European microstate“, with a population of 157,000. So, unsurprisingly, they are utter gash at football. I imagine they could probably beat Sealand though.
6. New Football Weekly podcast available from Guardian Unlimited : James Richardson, the classy, bald chap who used to present Gazetta Football Italia on Channel 4 (“Goalazio-o-o-o-”, etc) and the gang discuss England and plenty of other stuff. It’s free, it takes no time at all to download, and it’s the best football podcast on the web. Well, until The Self-Destruct Button gets its own Podcast. Just to entice you, here are, in my opinion, Richardson’s top 5 Football Weekly quotes:
5. “What do Clarence Seedorf and Pete Doherty have in common? They both get caught in possession an awful lot.”
4.”Chelsea paid a levy for the Shevy but the Shevy went dry” (On the subject of Andriy Shevchenko’s lack of goals after being signed by Chelsea)
3.”It’s the last weekend of the season, and not since Guti discovered his girlfriend was a fella have players battled so hard against going down.” (there were rumours in the Spanish press last season that Real Madrid midfielder Guti had been, without knowing it, dating a transsexual)
2. “Liverpool with a score straight out of Posh Spice’s diary: 8-nothing.”
1.”The biggest title challenge since (Watford Defender) Danny Shittu tried to write his autobiography.”
Let’s go back to the 7th October 2000, back when Steve McClaren was animated and fresh-faced, lacking those obscene blotches that go a violent shade of maroon every time he does anything remotely embarrassing (which is, at least, 11 times a day), and tucked in next to his equally facially-challenged chum Fergie in the dugout at Old Trafford. Dietmar Hamann’s rapidly taken free kick has meant that the old Wembley goes out with a muted whimper, and Kevin Keegan’s career as England manager is dragged down into the grave with it. Keegan chose to fall on his own sword by resigning there and then, in the home changing room toilets, a move which prompted cruel humour in the following day’s papers, but, looking back in hindsight, deserves to be re-categorised as the action of a proud, principled man who recognised that he didn’t quite have the capabilities to manage at such a lofty level. Keegan admitted his failings and quietly moved aside. In retrospect it stands out as one of the less pathetic managerial departures of recent times.
Fast forward to present day, and a gloomy looking McClaren (now with added blotchiness) trudges out to meet the pack of salivating hyenas better known as the media, and announces that he does not intend to stand down following the miserable and costly defeat to Croatia. The ‘McClaren Refuses to Quit’ headlines that appear on the interweb immediately after make McClaren sound pugnacious. In actuality, McClaren uttered those sentiments with all the vigour of the poor sod who has to read the Shipping Forecast at some ungodly hour in the morning. He knew that he wasn’t going to be England manager for much longer but there was no way he was going to resign. Why on earth would he, when resignation, as hundreds of cynical (but spot-on) hacks pointed out the next day, would mean forfeiting in excess of £2 million in severance pay.
Now, to lambast McClaren for accepting such an enormous sum of money might be construed as somewhat harsh. After all, £2 million, even in the financially bloated world of professional football, is a mammoth amount . By avoiding quitting, McClaren is pocketing a sum that most of us will never come anywhere near accruing in our lifetime. Essentially he is simply taking what he is entitled to by law.Nevertheless, his stocked slipped further in the public eye when he refused to do the honourable thing and leave on his own terms.
Of course the real ire in this fiasco should be reserved for Brian Barwick. We have an old adage in my home country: ‘never trust large man with small moustache‘. Barwick is a vast man with the tiniest of moustaches perched precariously on his top lip, so we should really have seen this coming a mile off. This morning, when I read that McClaren was effectively shuffling out of the picture with a giant novelty cheque hidden under his Three Lions blazer, I thought, ‘how in hell has he managed that?’, before remembering that Barwick had tied him to a four year deal. Madness, especially when you think that, at Old Trafford, the most decorated British manager of all time is on a one year rolling contract, which is renegotiated at the end of every season. But, of course, Barwick had to suggest he had genuine faith in the man who was, in reality, roughly his 538th choice, and a lengthy contract was probably the most effective way of doing that. Unfortunately for Barwick, the squad, the fans, Umbro, the Polish factory workers who attach those miniature England flags to their little plastic flagpoles, no one at the F.A. had the prescience to think that a man who, as Middlesbrough manager several months before, had had a season ticket hurled at him by a disgruntled fan, might not hold out for the full four years of his contract in the most brutal job in world football. So 20 or so months later the F.A. has ended up hemorrhaging yet more money on very little. In terms of utter ineptitude from all parties involved, it’s going to be hard for anyone to top the McClaren years (well, year and a bit), but I have every faith in Barwick and co. making the hunt for the next manager an even more humiliating, farcical affair.
Right, let’s split this round up into England and Non-England. We’ll start with all matters English:
1. McClaren’s gone.He’s outta here. He might try and sneak onto the plane to South Africa in a Jack Bauer-like manner, but I doubt it.
2. “Plane to South Africa, you say?” Yep. The draw for the European Qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup is made in Durban on Sunday. McClaren had a seat booked on the F.A’s luxury aircraft, but then the suits realised that he was a dreadful manager and a fairly pathetic human being, and thought, “Hold on, Do we really want this simpering cretin on a 10 hour flight with us? Hell no!Let’s get a hooker instead!”
3. Seedings for Tomorrow’s draw: FIFA have decided that World Rankings will account for seedings. I’ve been doing a bit of amateur sleuthing and I’ve figured out that the top seeds will be: Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Portugal, Czech Republic, Croatia and either Romania or England. It’s hit or miss which of Romania or England will be top seeds. In the most recent World Cup rankings England were marginally ahead of Romania. Since then England have beaten Austria and lost to Croatia, while Romania have lost to Bulgaria but have hammered Albania 6-1. It all depends on how many points FIFA allocate Romania for that 6-1 win. England might just get away with it.
Elsewhere Scotland will be second seeds, thanks to that fantastic performance in Euro ‘08 qualifying. Northern Ireland will be third seeds, along with Republic of Ireland, while Wales will be fourth seeds. There’s a decent possibility that 2 or more home nations will be drawn together, as Rep. of Ireland and Wales were in the qualifying campaign just gone, and as England, Northern Ireland and Wales were in qualifying for Germany 2006.
4. Next England Manager: Well, Fabio Capello, recently sacked by Real Madrid for only managing to win them the La Liga title, has said he’d like the job. He’d be a good choice, in my opinion. Capello was sacked by Madrid for apparently promoting “negative football”, but I watched a lot of Madrid last season and they played some attractive stuff. I’m fairly certain as well that Capello can speak reasonable English, which would obviously be helpful.
Martin O’Neill is, inexplicably, the favourite for the job, according to the bookies, followed by Mourinho. Here’s the full list, courtesy of Ladbrokes.com:
Martin O’Neill
7/4
Jose Mourinho
7/2
Fabio Capello
6/1
Guus Hiddink
6/1
Luiz Felipe Scolari
6/1
Alan Shearer
12/1
Terry Venables
16/1
Marcello Lippi
20/1
Ottmar Hitzfeld
20/1
Stuart Pearce
20/1
Harry Redknapp
25/1
Jurgen Klinsmann
25/1
Sam Allardyce
25/1
Alan Curbishley
33/1
Mark Hughes
33/1
Paul Jewell
33/1
Steve Bruce
33/1
Steve Coppell
33/1
Arsene Wenger
50/1
Martin Jol
50/1
Alex Ferguson
50/1
Lawrie Sanchez
100/1
My choice would be Wenger. He clearly has an affinity for England, and he would demand change from grass roots upwards. Unfortunately, the 50/1 odds that Ladbrokes have given him tells us that there isn’t a chance in hell of his taking the job. Shearer 12/1? Jesus Wept.
5.Most pathetic moment of last night: It’s either McClaren looking completely defeated under that enormous umbrella or Motson animatedly shrieking, “England go out- unless Andorra can score in the next 3 minutes…We’ll keep you up to date with the news from Andorra.” I’ve made my opinion on Motson clear on this blog, but there was something desperately sad about his commentary last night, especially as he realised that England were definitely not going to qualify. Euro 2008 is widely expected to be Motson’s last tournament, and it was clear from his commentary last night that he was desperate for England to be there. I can imagine him sitting in a dilapidated old armchair at this very moment, absolutely crushed.
6. Wembley- £800 million and they can’t even be bothered to build a c**ting roof! No, instead they stick on some pointless panels which flap about a bit. The pitch was partly to blame for last night’s loss, as the ultra-slick conditions aided Croatia’s rapid counter attacks.If Wembley had a retractable roof (a la the Millennium Stadium) they pitch would have run a lot slower and who knows how the game would have turned out?Actually, we’d still have lost, as Croatia were by far the better side. But the point still stands. Also, no American Football at Wembley again, please. They can build their own sodding stadium if they care so much about expanding their fan-base over here.
7. What did I tell you about Modric?!He was marvellous. Unfortunately my prediction about England qualifying was as bad as he was good.
England’s capitulation last night has understandably cast a huge shadow over all other football news today, but there is still plenty of interest.
1. Head of Croatian F.A. arrested for shoplifting. If stealing our hopes and dreams wasn’t enough, Mr Srebric decided to try and pilfer our stationary at W.H. Smiths in Gatwick Airport.
3. Blatter criticism prompts Italy to consider foreigner quota. Interestingly, we aren’t the only nation debating the difficult issue of limits on foreigners. Some navel-gazing from Goal.com
4. Holland Lose at home to Belarus while the Germans draw at home to Wales. Unlucky Netherlanders. You thought you’d escaped being top seed, but Germany managed to scrape to a 0-0 draw with a Welsh under 8 side, so you can expect a ‘group of death’ with Italy, Spain and France (more on the seedings for Euro 2008 later).
5.Goalkeeping Howler of the Day:And it’s not Scott Carson-related! No, Carson’s error is quite forgivable in comparison with this from France’s Sebastien Frey:
