Professor Champions League

The last temptation of Andrea Pirlo

Paul Simpson — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 10:05:00 GMT

Paul Simpson – former FourFourTwo editor and now ed of the official UEFA Champions Matchday magazine – on an Italian icon

Andrea Pirlo must have the most intriguing beard in the UEFA Champions League. Since its appearance, Juventus’s iconic playmaker has variously been likened to Jesus Christ, a nobleman from the Italian Renaissance and all-action movie hero Chuck Norris.

For those of you who haven’t seen Norris on celluloid, he is usually a heroic lone wolf – although, as Anthony Lane noted in The New Yorker recently, he more closely resembles a lone marmoset. Norris is one of the stars of Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables 2, a flaccid blockbuster in which the superannuated male leads, Lane suggested, needed not only stunt doubles but also acting doubles.

Christ, Pirlo and Norris: Now that's a dinner party

Pirlo is still far from expendable for club and country. Understandably, he hasn’t started this season in the same spectacular form that had pundits’ jaws dropping in studios across the world during Euro 2012, but he is integral to a gutsy, intelligent Juventus team that has – as the manner of their comeback suggested against Chelsea – forgotten what it’s like to lose.

There will be those who pounce on every quiet match to insist that Euro 2012 was his Indian summer: that he should not, at the relatively ripe old age of 33, have succumbed to the temptation of testing himself in the UEFA Champions League, a competition he has already won twice. That said, if every player followed that safety-first approach, football would be a much duller sport.

But where did that beard come from? Beards are clearly on trend in Italian football at the moment. In the national side, Antonio Cassani, Mattia Destro, Alessandro Diamanti, Claudio Marchisio, Antonio Nocerino, Pablo Daniel Osvaldo and Giuseppe Rossi have all decided not to bare their chins to the world. Nocerino’s is so luxuriant you wonder if the midfielder is paying homage to the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, whose novels were regarded as pre-match inspirational texts by Gennaro Gattuso.

Pirlo certainly looks distinctive on the cover of the new Champions Matchday, out now. As one of the game’s pre-eminent, deep-thinking, deep-lying playmakers, Pirlo didn’t really need to acquire any more gravitas. But the beard has a poetic truth to it. If you’re going to be football’s equivalent of the beard-stroking intellectuals that once dominated the world’s cafes, you might as well look the part.

It means, for example, what when you are asked by Champions Matchday interviewer Paolo Menicucci to define the playmaker’s role, you can stroke your beard while you consider the question. In a nutshell, after reflecting on the role, Pirlo said that to be a real playmaker you need to be good at everything.

Off the pitch, Pirlo is as laconic as Gary Cooper in an old style Western. Even on it, as a sublime regista, his acting register is as narrow, yet effective, as the hero of High Noon – or Robert Redford, who modelled his style on Coop’s. A minimalist in an age of show-offs, fancy dans and loudmouths, Pirlo remains one of football’s low-key superstars.

Champions Matchday 2 magazine it out now. Check the Twitter feed at @ChampionsMag

Reinvention, rejuvenation & lucky underpants: The Champions League is back

Paul Simpson — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 11:16:00 GMT

For years, coaches, players and supporters have tried to define what it takes to win the UEFA Champions League.

The failure to resolve this conundrum has blighted the careers of some of football’s best and brightest. But football’s cognoscenti need wonder no more. Rafa Benitez, mastermind of Liverpool’s unlikely victory in Istanbul in 2005, has revealed that he owed his success to his lucky red underpants.

The revelation, in the Spaniard’s forthcoming memoirs, will certainly have prompted some coaches to scrutinise their selection of boxer shorts in a valiant attempt to detect the secret aura of good fortune. But most will resort to the old tried and trusted methods, putting faith in their players, their tactics and the obsessive detail with which they compile dossiers on their opposition.

Benitez and Liverpool overcame the odds to beat Milan in 2005

As this UEFA Champions League season kicks off, the magazine I edit has been reinvented as Champions Matchday. It will now come out, as the name suggests, a week before every matchday and will, for the first time, be able to give readers the full, remarkable story of a season of UEFA Champions League football.

While poring over the club-by-club previews for the new issue, it struck me that, for the first time since September 2009, there is no overwhelming favourite to win the competition. The dominant power in European football, Barcelona, are in transition – and it may not be clear for some months whatever that process will make them more vulnerable or even more stupendous.

Stepping into the dugout previously occupied by Josep Guardiola is the toughest job in European football. For all the clichés about No.2s struggling to become No.1s, there are enough precedents of apprentices who became masters – Bob Paisley and Fabio Capello to name but two – to give Barça hope.

And sometimes, a change in this kind of leadership can inspire players. Ajax’s squad were going stir crazy under their inspirational coach Rinus ‘The General’ Michels. When Piet Keizer heard that the architect of Total Football was leaving for Barcelona, he danced with joy on the tables in his father-in-law’s bar. Keizer, Cruyff and his gifted team-mates revelled in the freedom afforded them by Stefan Kovacs, the Romanian coach who succeeded Michels, and won two more European Cups.

Kovacs enjoyed great success at Ajax after taking over from Rinus Michels

With Barcelona in transition, this is the perfect opportunity for Real Madrid to win la decima. The club has the players – and the coach – to conquer Europe, but after 11 years of waiting and two successive semi-finals, the expectations are so great that it takes a man blessed with José Mourinho’s unique level of self-confidence to handle them.

Outside the Spanish giants, the usual contenders – Bayern, Chelsea and Manchester United – will look to make their mark. But they face an intriguing challenge from a resurgent Juventus, a lavishly rejuvenated PSG and the two free-spending clubs tipped by Carlo Ancelotti as outside candidates to win: Manchester City and Zenit.

It would be a major surprise if Benfica won the competition. Coach Jorge Jesus might need a wardrobe full of lucky red boxer shorts to ward off the effects of the Béla Guttmann curse. The great Hungarian coach, who won the European Cup twice with the Eagles, walked out of the club after a row of bonuses and is said to have put a curse on the club. This sounds like one of those great urban myths until you realise that Benfica have reached six European finals since and not won any of them.

Anyway, none of that has anything to do with why I mentioned Benfica. The real reason is that the new Champions Matchday includes an interview with their Brazilian goalkeeper Artur which sheds more light on the goalkeeping profession than any other Q&A I’ve ever read.

I’ve always wondered how keepers get their minds back on the job after conceding a goal. The Benfica No.1’s advice to his fellow members of the Goalkeepers Union is simple: "Take a deep breath and put the ball back into midfield as fast as you can. The faster the match restarts the less time you have to suffer."

Obvious really when you think about it, but it’s nice to have it in a keeper’s own words.

If you want to give us your thoughts on the UEFA Champions League season, you can now follow us on Twitter @ChampionsMag.

Fascinating final clash of styles which echoes down the ages

Paul Simpson — Sat, 19 May 2012 07:27:00 GMT

Paul Simpson, editor of FourFourTwo's UEFA-flavoured sister magazine Champions, on the Allianz Arena clash

The 2012 UEFA Champions League final isn’t just a contest for the greatest prize in club football; it is the latest instalment in a never-ending tactical argument.

Jupp Heynckes’ Bayern belong to the grand tradition of Bill Nicholson, Jock Stein, Rinus Michels, Johan Cruyff and Pep Guardiola in which teams dominate possession, take the initiative and feel obliged to win in style, as Danny Blanchflower once put it.

Roberto di Matteo’s Chelsea stand for a different, no less valid, tradition in which teams seek to draw the opposition out and punish them on the counter.

Catenaccio was pioneered by the great Swiss coach Karl Rappan in the 1930s, developed in Italy in the 1950s by Milan coaches Gipo Viani and Nereo Rocco and perfected in the 1960s by Helenio Herrera’s Inter.

The counterattacking style of Rocco and Herrera dominated European football in the 1960s. Milan’s triumph over Benfica in the 1963 European Cup final signalled a shift to a new age of austerity on the pitch. Herrera’s Inter emphasised the point by defeating Real Madrid and Benfica to win back-to-back European Cups in 1964 and 1965.

With the goalscoring genius of Giacinto Facchetti at left-back, the panache of Sandro Mazzola up front and the genius of playmaker Luis Suarez in midfield, Inter were a sophisticated, tactically shrewd, technically gifted team but their reputation has been undermined by the legions of moronic imitators who turned catenaccio into a blueprint for boredom.

As UEFA technical director Andy Roxburgh likes to point out, there are many ways to win a football match. The Herrera way came unstuck against Celtic in 1967. Stein admired Herrera and had studied the Argentinian’s methods, once telling his left-back Tommy Gemmell: “Your job is to play like Facchetti”.

In the heat of Lisbon, the immovable object of Inter’s defence crumbled under the irresistible force of Celtic’s attacking verve. The Lisbon Lions played, as Gemmell put it, “pure attacking football”. The left-back did his bit, scoring the equaliser that shattered Inter’s resistance.

1967: Celtic's brio breaks Inter's resolve

European football expected Rocco’s Rossoneri to restate the case for the counterattacking game in the 1969 final against Michels’ Ajax. But Milan attacked from the off. In the 67th minute, when Angelo Sormani made it 3-1 to the Italians, the outcome was settled.

Organised by Michels and inspired by Cruyff, Ajax exacted total revenge in 1972 and 1973, beating Inter 2-0 and Juventus 1-0 in two of the most one-sided finals in the competition’s history. The manner of these defeats was so comprehensive that even Italian football, which had championed catenaccio as “the right of the weak” in the famous words of Gianni Brera, realised a rethink was required.

At this point, the tactical war seemed over. In a sense, it was. As a philosophy of football, counterattacking had had its day. But coaches kept using the tactic when the occasion – or the opposition – demanded.

The most successful exhibition of counterattacking football in a European Cup final since the 1960s was probably Nottingham Forest’s 1-0 win over Hamburg in 1980. For whatever reason – possibly because it encouraged other coaches to underestimate him – Brian Clough perpetuated the myth that he knew nothing about tactics.

As Jonathan Wilson has proved in Nobody Ever Says Thank You, his compelling biography of Old Big Ead, this is errant nonsense. In 1980, with striker Trevor Francis injured, Clough told Gary Mills to move into midfield in a 4-5-1 that utterly stifled the German champions.

After the final (which Forest won 1-0 thanks to John Robertson’s goal), Hamburg coach Brnko Zebec sounded like a man who had just been mugged: “Hamburg carried the whole weight of that game. Nottingham only defended. I say this not as a criticism but as a statement of fact.” Enzo Bearzot, who would win the World Cup two years later with an enterprising Azzurri side, even accused Clough of reinventing catenaccio.

1980: 'Robbo eats Hamburgers' as Forest outwit the Germans

Although Arrigo Sacchi’s Milan proved that Italian teams – especially when illuminated by Dutch genius – could attack and entertain, winning the European Cup in 1989 and 1990, old prejudices lingered.

When Cruyff moved from the pitch to the dugout, he maintained his suspicion of the Italian style. “The Italians,” he famously said, “can’t beat you, but you can lose to them.” (To which Carlo Ancelotti replied: “If Cruyff wants entertainment, he should go to the cinema.”)

The Dutch icon cast the 1994 UEFA Champions League final, in which his Barcelona side faced Fabio Capello’s Milan, as a contest for the soul of football. But with Alessandro Costacurta and Franco Baresi suspended, Don Fabio decided, like Rocco in 1969, that attack was the best form of defence. Milan won 4-0.

1994: Fabio four, Johan nil

Pep Guardiola was one of the Barcelona players shaken by that defeat and, though he still reveres Cruyff as a mentor, he saw at first hand how dangerous over-confidence could be. In his short but spectacularly successful coaching career, Guardiola – along with Jose Mourinho – has raised the bar with the sheer meticulousness of his pre-match preparation.

Mourinho has replaced calcio as the principal public object of Cruyff’s ire, partly because of the Portuguese maverick’s abrasive brand of mind games but also because of the ruthless – and often effective – way he has organised his Chelsea and Inter teams to frustrate Barcelona.

The 2010 UEFA Champions League semi-final was Mourinho’s greatest riposte to Cruyff. As Sandro Mazzola points out in the latest issue of Champions magazine: “With typical Mourinho canniness, Inter didn’t confront Messi – they simply cut off his supply lines, employing a four-man cage tactic”. This was a huge gamble – Messi’s team-mates could exploit the space vacated elsewhere – but it worked. Inter had won and, whatever purists might say about their style of play, the tie was hardly devoid of entertainment.

2010: Inter put Messi in the cage

Two years later, Mourinho’s former club have reached their second UEFA Champions League final after similar heroics at Camp Nou as Roberto di Matteo, replacing Andre Villas-Boas, prioritised results over style.

One reason the debate between purists and pragmatists will never end is that the distinction between the two is not as clear-cut as many purists would suggest. Possession football isn’t always thrilling – the most enthralling match in Spain’s successful 2010 World Cup campaign was probably their 1-0 defeat to Switzerland – and teams that counter aren’t always dull: Chelsea’s 4-1 victory over Napoli in the round of 16 was as compelling as their disposal of Benfica in the last eight was efficient.

Nobody knows how Chelsea will play in Munich. Facing the same kind of defensive reshuffle as Capello in 1994, will Di Matteo decide attack is the best form of defence? Or will he choose containment? The rope-a-dope Muhammad Ali style tactics worked for 10-man Chelsea in Barcelona, but only with Messi missing a penalty.

With away goals irrelevant in Munich, Di Matteo will need Chelsea to compete in midfield, be resolute and disciplined on the flanks and, when the spaces open up behind Bayern’s wide players, make the most of them.

Heynckes faces his own tough choices. In 2010, Bayern were not simply undone by the absence of Franck Ribery. They were confounded by an Inter team so confident in its organisational nous they were happy to give the ball away. Louis van Gaal’s Bayern were too methodical, too slow and took so many touches – often five or six before finding a team-mate – that the Nerazzurri defenders had time to ensure they were perfectly in position.

2012: Which way will the coaches go?

With Ribery and Arjen Robben in the starting line-up, and Toni Kroos floating free in midfield, Bayern should be more fluent going forward than in Madrid. Mind you, just as Di Matteo is unlikely to emulate the old-school catenaccio of Herrera’s Inter, Heynckes’ Bayern won’t employ the gung-ho attacking football that worked so memorably for the Lisbon Lions in 1967.

Whoever triumphs in Munich, neither side will land a knockout blow in the eternal contest between the ghosts of Herrera and Michels.

The boy who never learned to bend it like Rivelino

Paul Simpson — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:15:00 GMT

Baseball, the American novelist Michael Chabon once declared, is the gift fathers give their sons. In Britain, that gift is usually football.

My dad died a year ago. One of the smaller consequences of his death was that it ended an intermittent dialogue between us about football that had lasted most of my life.

Our conversation started in the 1960s. Dad fervently admired Don Revie’s mighty Leeds United and, even though as an eight-year-old I had to admit they could knock the ball around a bit, I couldn’t bring myself to like them.

I never quite understood why. Sheer pig-headedness? Pre-adolescent rebellion? Perhaps.

Decades later, when I was watching Seinfeld, I found another likely explanation. When a friend of Jerry’s told him he would like a potential acquaintance, he replied: “Why would I like them? I don’t like anybody.”

Like Seinfeld – and like most journalists I know – I couldn’t stand someone else telling me something was good.

So whenever Leeds blew it – against Chelsea in the 1970 FA Cup final, Wolves to lose the league title in 1972 and Sunderland in the 1973 FA Cup final – I cheered, a gleefully gratuitous reaction which dad took in good part.

Chopper, Ossie and friends put a smile on the face of a young Paul Simpson

As I couldn’t support Leeds, I turned to Jimmy Bloomfield’s stylish Leicester City side, 16 miles from home in Nuneaton. A cousin and uncle were regulars at Filbert Street and within weeks my throat was raw as I joined in the Len Glover roar – a foot-stamping, ear-splitting, larynx-bursting noise that greeted the sight of Glover, on the wing. with the ball at his feet.

Coventry City were nearer but there were no family ties and, under Noel Cantwell’s management, they were one of the most sterile football teams in Europe. Dad often quoted Michael Parkinson’s appalled descriptions of the Sky Blues in which machine-gun-like Ernie Machin was forever mowing down anything that moved.

But Brazil, not Leeds, provoked the family’s first real football-related clash of generations. Although we are officially obliged to pretend, looking back, that we all supported that beautiful Brazil team in 1970, I didn’t. I supported England, wept after the tragedy of Leon and cheered on the Italians in the final because they had beaten the team who had beaten us and done so in a match so enthralling I can still recall particular scenes – Beckenbauer patrolling midfield with his arm in a sling, Riva stabbing home Italy’s third – as vividly as if I was watching it live today.

Luckily, dad was a shrewder judge and, after the final, decided it was time I, being nearly nine, learned to bend it like Rivelino.

Until then, my football practice in the back garden had been a kick and rush affair – five touches for me, playing as Team A, to get from one end of the lawn to the other and then I, as Team B, had five touches to get back to where I started.

This wasn’t, dad rightly concluded, the best way to train a footballer who aspired to play in the school team (ambitions that began and ended with one inconclusive substitute appearance, out of position, at left-back) and so, for much of that summer, he put the ball on a particular spot on the lawn and invited me to try and curl the ball over an imaginary wall.

I tried to curl it with every part of both feet – the outside, the inside, and the instep – and striking every area of the ball. But after four weeks, I began to lose heart. If the ball was curving, I couldn’t see it. So one night – after ten free-kicks went either infuriatingly straight or veered into the rhubarb – I rebelled, saying I wanted to revert to my old five-touch game.

Rivelino's set-pieces would hardly ever disturb rhubarb...

It was, in all fairness, a poor reward for his weeks of patient counsel. Looking at me with horror, dad complained: “You’re just like all the other Europeans, you just want to play kick and rush.”

Chastened, yet relieved, I ran down the other end of the lawn with the ball. I felt more at ease pretending to be Riva than Rivelino and dreamed of having a shot so powerful I could break a spectator’s arm, just like Riva, as my International Football Book Of The Year No13 informed me.

Yet for months, when dad wasn’t looking, I’d sneakily put the ball on that same spot, try a different method of kicking it and study the ball’s trajectory intensely, determined to calculate whether I had managed to make the ball deviate slightly from its normal path. I was never convinced.

When Revie left Leeds, I realised that dad belonged to that much-derided breed whose passion for the game was defined not by a particular club but by a commitment to, as he put it, “teams who play good football”. West Ham were always in favour – later I discovered his affection might owe something to family history: his dad, my grandfather, had enjoyed living in the East End in the 1920s when the Hammers had been in their pomp.

Apart from Revie’s Leeds and the Hammers, he admired Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest. If their game wasn’t exactly Brazilian in its adventurousness, Forest did recognise that football is best played on the ground. And Clough, in the Midlands in the 1970s, was a plain-talking, maverick deity.

After I left home, our talks about football were more intermittent, often consisting largely of a prolonged post-mortem on England’s latest failure during – or on the brink of – a major tournament. (I had learned the lessons of Leon in 1970 well and never wept again: West Germany 1972, Poland 1973, Argentina 1986, Netherlands 1993, Brazil 2002 and Germany 2010 were greeted stoically with resigned despair). He mercifully missed the debacle in Bloemfontein – he was in Cyprus at the time – but rang next day to ask: “How bad were they?”

Dad was ahead of his time in the sense that he never seemed to expect too much from – or even particularly enjoy – watching England. He was much more ecstatic when Denmark beat Germany at Euro 1992 than I ever saw him after an England game.

Denmark celebrate Euro 92 glory (Simpson Sr. not pictured)

Whenever I was back in Nuneaton for the weekend, we would watch Match Of The Day. Dad’s mode of viewing was to pour himself a large glass of red wine, settle in his favourite armchair, shake his head occasionally and tut a lot. The only Premier League side he could bear to watch, he once announced, was Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal.

When I asked once why he didn’t watch much football, he said: “I can’t stand all the mistakes”. At the time, I took this for the curmudgeonliness of age but, a year later, accidentally catching a dire bottom of the table clash one not-so-Super Sunday, I started counting the errors. After nine consecutive changes of possession, I had to stop because continuing to watch this serial ineptitude had begun to seem like an act of idiocy.

In the 1960s, dad had entranced me with heroic tales of the Nuneaton Borough v Bedworth United derbies of his youth. In his enthusiastic telling, these legendary games were spectacular, gladiatorial contests played out before an enraptured throng.

In the derbies I’d seen, this great local rivalry manifested itself in some shamefully crude tackles and a 90-minute debate over which set of supporters were less likely to have a job. The highlight of ‘my’ derbies was a half-time pitch invasion I staged with a mate in a valiant, albeit hopelessly misguided, attempt to fill up our autograph books.

Nearly 50 years after those indifferent derbies, three generations of the family – my dad, brother-in-law, son and nephew – miraculously went to watch Boro. Not a derby, but Boro were still at home. It was the first time we had all been to watch the Boro – or Town as they had been renamed as punishment for some mysterious financial irregularities – and the match became even more of a family do when attacking full-back Eddie Nisevic, a cousin’s son, came on in the second half as Boro chased the game.

Like those coaches who watch from the stands, Dad had by then retired to the back row where he delighted in pointing out, with all the authority of a retired midfield general, which unit of the team wasn’t moving forward or back in unison and supporting the play as they were supposed to.

That was the last game we watched together but this week, in dad’s memory, I will venture into the back garden, put our deflated UEFA Champions League matchball in the middle of the lawn, and try, with little hope and even less expectation, to bend it like Rivelino.

Germania: Is fussball coming home?

Paul Simpson — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 14:59:00 GMT

There were tears in the Basle dressing room when the players heard that coach Thorsten Fink was leaving.

Everybody knew that Hamburg would approach Fink but Swiss football assumed that, with Basle doing the business in the UEFA Champions League, their promising young coach would stay. But Fink couldn't resist this opportunity and, given the variables and vagaries that afflict the coaching profession, it’s hard to blame him.

If the 44-year-old coach had any doubt what his mission at Hamburg was, he only had to look at the clock in the corner of the club’s new stadium, which proudly counts down the months, days, minutes and seconds that the Red Shorts have been in the Bundesliga.

Before the Hoffenheim game kicked off, the clock stood at 48 years, 88 days, 33 minutes and 32 seconds, celebrating the fact that Hamburg are the only club to have played every season in the Bundesliga since it was formed in 1963. That is not a record the club plans to lose without a fight.

No pressure, then…

But has Fink instilled that urgency into his new players? Playing 3-4-3, they beat Hoffenheim 2-0 to earn three points that lifted them out of the relegation zone. But in the first 10 minutes, the Hamburg man who showed the most composure on the ball was probably Fink himself, trapping a ball on his chest on the touchline and calmly volleying it back onto the pitch. Some coaches would have turned this act into a piece of comedy, or self-congratulation, but Fink did it simply with minimal fuss and immediately focused on the game.

Peruvian striker Paolo Guerrero and German midfielder Marcell Jansen got Hamburg’s goals – Jansen made the second with a slalom through the Hoffenheim defence and scored with a calm finish – but the most assured players in red shorts were probably German international Dennis Aogo and Jeffrey Bruma. Given the challenges Chelsea face in central defence, the loan of Bruma – once hailed as the new John Terry (when JT was in his prime) – to Hamburg seems an odd oversight.

Fink (centre) with Arnesen and Bruma

The matchday programme’s cover star was Gokhan Tore, Hamburg’s tricksy, muscular Turkish wide player who – at the age of 19 – already looks as accomplished as Hoffenheim’s Ryan Babel. The 24-year-old Dutch winger, once tipped alongside Lionel Messi to be one of the stars of the 2006 World Cup, raised hopes with his mazy runs but, as he did so often at Anfield, cruelly extinguished them with a lack of end product.

Still, it doesn’t pay to be too dogmatic about such matters. To the layman’s eyes, the best that could be said of Hamburg striker Marcus Berg’s performance was that he was constantly on the verge of being effectual. After the game, the first question put to Fink was about Berg. The coach replied that the stats showed that Berg had set up more shots – five – than anyone else on the pitch so he was happy with his No.16’s performance.

Three points, after too many draws, was a step in the right direction for Fink. But we may have to wait until next season to see if one of Germany’s most promising coaches can really bring back the glory days to Hamburg. As I write this, it is 10,411 days since the great Ernst Happel’s Red Shorts won the European Cup.

Happel, the missing link
Orthodoxy has it that Victor Maslov invented pressing in the 1960s. The tactic was then used, in differing degrees, by Rinus Michels and Valeriy Lobanovskiy before Arrigo Sacchi triumphantly deployed it with Milan in the late 1980s. But when I discussed Happel with Uli Hesse, author of the seminal German football history Tor!, he reminded me that the Austrian had used this very tactic as Hamburg coach in the 1980s.

Happel in his Hamburg pomp

Happel was an eccentric, inspirational coach who won the European Cup with Feyenoord in 1970 before steering Hamburg to an unlikely victory over Juventus in 1983. His players were never quite sure what he was going to say to them before a match. Sometimes, he would barely talk at all – but the Hamburg players do remember that often, just as they were about to run out into the stadium, his closing words would be: “And don’t forget the pressing.”

The trouble with genius
Pressing isn’t one of the qualities you associate with Arjen Robben. The Dutch master of the wing is arguably the greatest conundrum facing Jupp Heynckes as he tries to win the Bundesliga and ensure Bayern take part in the UEFA Champions League final on their own turf next May.

Robben has the pace, trickery and technique to turn any match against any calibre of opposition, as he showed with that wondrous volley against Manchester United in April 2010. And yet his brand of greatness is, let’s be honest, more predictable than that of Franck Ribery (who, gratuitous plug, is the cover star of the latest Champions).

When Robben gets the ball, you know he isn’t going to run to the by-line to whip in a cross. It’s also not especially likely that he will pass. Robben is invariably looking to create the opportunity for him to score. And this single-mindedness presents the opposing defender with fewer uncertainties than Ribery or Thomas Muller, who has looked remarkably good on the right for Bayern this season. And to accommodate Robben, Heynckes has to play Muller infield, which means that Toni Kroos, who had a foot in both Bayern goals against Villarreal, has to change his game too.

Germany’s Dutch lesson
“English football,” the Austrian journalist Willy Meisl (brother of the great coach Hugo) liked to say, “has forgotten much and learned nothing”. The same cannot be said of the German national team. When they beat Netherlands 3-0 in their recent friendly, there was only one team playing in the style the Dutch have made famous – and it wasn’t the team in orange. You should never build too much on one result but that performance – and the national side’s record in qualifying (Played 10, W10, D0, L0, F34, A7) – suggests this could be the best German side since the one that won Euro 1972.

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“A goal isn’t the most important thing, it’s everything”

Paul Simpson — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 12:12:00 GMT

Azzurri’s greatest goalscorer opens up to discuss a striker’s psychology, physical power and the perfect modern striker

Outside Italy, Luigi Riva is now almost unknown, but in his late 1960s heyday he was such a compelling, legendary figure that two Sardinian bandits once came out of hiding to watch him lead Cagliari’s attack – and were promptly arrested.

Was Riva really that good? He probably had the hardest shot in football history – around 124mph if you take into account the way the ball has changed – and once famously generated enough power with his left-foot to break a spectator’s arm with the ball.

Thunderous acclaim

Between 1967 and 1970, Riva powered Italy to victory in the European Championships and the World Cup final in Mexico, won the scudetto with Cagliari and was top scorer in Serie A in 1967, 1969 and 1970. He is still the Azzurri’s record goalscorer (35 in just 42 matches) and would have won the Ballon d’Or in 1969 if Gianni Rivera hadn’t inspired Milan to victory in the European Cup final.

In this brief, but golden period, Riva was the most fascinating footballer on the planet. He was Cagliari – even more than Maradona was Napoli in the late 1980s: in his seminal book Calcio, John Foot recalls how one supporter watched a roadside game in Sardinia “where all 22 players wore Riva’s number eleven shirt”. His most famous goal, against West Germany in 1970, graced the greatest semi-final – and the greatest period of extra-time – the tournament has ever seen.

The great Italian football writer Gianni Brera once gave Riva the unprecedented rating of “9+” in a match report defending himself against charges of undue generosity by declaring: “I baptise him rombo di tuono (thunder-clap)… he is one of the most extraordinary athletes ever produced by Italian football.”

There is nothing Riva doesn’t know about scoring goals. He scored with diving headers, long-range shots, and overhead kicks. And what’s why I was so delighted he agreed to share his thoughts on the goalscorer’s art in our dossier on strikers in the 50th issue (count ‘em!) of Champions.

The power of Messi

Riva’s opinions are as bold as his play. In the interview he explains to Sergio Di Cesare why he often looked angry when he scored: “A goal isn’t the most important thing, it’s everything. When a forward doesn’t score, his character changes, he becomes sad, argumentative, insecure, stubborn, selfish and short-tempered in every aspect of his life.”

Unlike many greats of his era, he doesn’t denigrate today’s game; he celebrates it – while pointing out that some of what we think of as modern was invented in the 1970s. “Today an attacker must be a complete player,” he says. To be specific, they need to create space with their movement, flourish with their back to goal, make the most of tight spaces, contribute to the team’s collective play and have the guts to take the risks that may create a goal. “I’ve met peerless penalty takers who never missed but refused to take on in the dying minutes of a big match<’ he confides.

Technically and physically audacious, Riva had his leg broken twice and suffered countless other injuries. But he insists that today, more than ever, raw physical power is crucial: “Even Messi has it – and intelligence, speed and technique.”

The contemporary strikers he rates most highly are Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney. But asked to identify the definitive modern striker, Riva selects Johan Cruyff.

“Despite his slim physique, Cruyff was fast, tough and nasty when necessary. He was intelligent enough to know where the ball was going before the others, how to control it and never lose it. He directed the play,” says the artist formerly known as Rombo di tuono. “All that was 40 years ago. Cruyff played like the best attackers of today.”

The iconoclastic Italian movie director Pier Paolo Pasolini once said of Riva: “He plays poetic football. He is a realistic poet.” Icons like Riva and Cruyff may have hung up their boots years ago but their poetic realism lives on in the likes of Rooney, Messi and Ibra.

Champions is now available electronically. Aside from Riva’s thoughts on strikers, the 50th issue of the magazine reviews the 20 greatest moments in UEFA Champions League history, explores how Mats Hummels uses body language to fire up his team and reveals why Czech midfield legend Pavel Horvath is happy to have the physique of an ice hockey player.

Platini plays down talk of a crisis as calcio left hoping for Barca collapse

Paul Simpson — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 10:56:00 GMT

As another European football season kicks off, Italian football faces what F. Scott Fitzgerald once described as the ultimate test of human intelligence: knowing that things are hopeless but acting as if they aren’t.

At UEFA’s season kick-off in Monaco last month, calcio’s best and brightest were privately admitting that they could face an annus horribilis. Over a cup of café fredo in the Meridien Beach Plaza, one lamented: "Italian football is in its worst shape since the 1970s when we didn’t win the European Cup between 1969 and 1985. The difference is that at least then teams were investing in youth. Some do today, but too many are content to recruit all their players in the transfer market."

Eto’o’s departure or a lucrative exile in Dagestan, the lack of what marketers like to call a 'marquee signing' by the Milan giants, and the growing uncertainty over the Italian economy, have all contributed to the general depression.

Calcio’s greats have traditionally subscribed to the theory that football in general – and great teams in particular – works in cycles. If calcio was a superhero franchise it would seem to be currently stuck at the Batman And Robin stage. Sheer tact and the laws of libel prevent me, alas, from speculating as to who is the Chris O’Donnell of Italian football. The good news, of course, is that a Christopher Nolan-style rebirth lies ahead. But it took eight years from George Clooney’s bemused caped crusader to Christian Bale’s dark knight struck artistic and commercial gold. Will calcio have to wait that long?

Possibly not. In their desperate hours, Italians have looked to Michel Platini, the UEFA president, who, shortly before teeing off at a charity golf tournament in Turin, assured the media: "Is Italian football going through a crisis? In my four years in office, I have handed the Champions League trophy to two Italian teams – so I can’t see a crisis. I’m sure Italian teams will soon return to the top."

Michel's not wrong - AC Milan and Inter celebrate in 2007 and 2010

The bianconeri legend was especially optimistic about his old club: "Juve will rule again. It’s a great thing to have your own stadium: big clubs need that." It’s possible that the example of ‘NewVentus’ – and its £90m investment in its very own stadium – may be the catalyst that persuades other clubs to invest in the facilities today that will generate millions in revenue tomorrow. But so far there’s no great evidence of that. And even if there was, it would take a while to revolutionise calcio’s performance on and off the pitch.

So Italians have partly consoled themselves by constructing scenarios in which Barcelona’s domination of the European game collapses. Some put their faith in calcio’s prince-in-exile, Jose Mourinho who has made an already strong Real Madrid squad even more impressive over the summer and has what writer Phil Ball might call the 'morbo' to disturb Barcelona in the knockout stages.

Others cite the wise words of Sir Matt Busby and highlight what they claim is a change in Barcelona’s strategy. The first Scot to win the European Club with an English club famously remarked that: "Any team is apt to be over the top within five years of reaching it". Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona are in their third year – surely, some pundits suggest, they must start to exhibit some frailties soon?

Barcelona’s activity in the transfer market suggests, some cynics claim, that the coaches have evaluated La Masia’s next generation and found them wanting. This would not be entirely surprising: how do you ensure that your youth stars are as good as Xavi, Iniesta and Messi?

The deals which have seen Bojan Krkic, Jeffren and Orio Romero leave Camp Nou – for good or for an indefinite period – do suggest the difficulty many young players face breaking through.

Bojan was forced to leave Camp Nou for Serie A this summer

"Barcelona have a golden generation that has not just played together but trained together for years," said my Italian companion as he sipped his fredo. "How easy will it be to replace that? Especially if they have to buy in players who haven’t been trained in the La Masia way."

You might think that that sound you can hear in the distance is that of a once great football nation collectively reaching for the nearest straw as it tries to avoid drowning in a sea of troubles but the question is not entirely stupid.

The patterns Barcelona weave on the pitch are so mesmerizingly effective because they have become almost instinctive, so instinctive that even world class players like Zlatan Ibrahimovic and David Vila have not always been in tune with their teammates. And over the next few years, Barcelona will have to replace the likes of Puyol (34), Alves (28), Abidal (32), Keita (31), Villa (29) and Xavi (31) while Mascherano and Iniesta are both 27. How effectively they are replaced will determine how long this glorious cycle lasts.

The mere fact that such scenarios are being spun reveals calcio’s colossal lack of self-confidence. But it also reflects the fact that many Italians believe their chances of staving off another 15-year wait for the European Cup would be much improved if the greatest team since Arrigo Sacchi’s Milan showed signs of wear and tear.

The truth is that many others across Europe will spin such scenarios about the European champions. This isn’t Barcelona’s fault – it is just that in an age where football has become ubiquitous such greatness can, all too quickly, become oppressive. Especially if you’re trying to win the trophy they seem set to monopolise.

Still on the subject of Barcelona, the new issue of Champions includes a conversation with Andy Roxburgh, UEFA’s erudite technical director, about the secret of Barcelona’s possession play. (A clue: it’s not all about passing.) And we have an interview with Sergio Aguero, whose greatness has already begun to oppress defenders in the Premier League.

Kuper, Messi, Pele, pressing, Barcelona and historical revisionism

Paul Simpson — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 11:00:00 GMT

Champions editor Paul Simpson might be on a well-deserved summer holiday but you can't keep a good writer down...

On the plane to Verona, I took Simon Kuper’s The Football Men, a work of dogmatic genius. Kuper is such a gifted writer he almost creates his own football universe. In Kuperland, the Dutch are always right – even when they’re not. So, mysteriously, are Olympique Lyonnais.

The virtues of the French club’s approach to transfers was praised to the skies in Why England Lose, Kuper’s last book – which was published, with brilliant irony, at the very point Lyon’s approach to transfers jumped the shark.

In this new collection, Lyon’s fitness coach Robert Duverne is “brilliant” while director of football Bernard Lacombe is the “owner of one of the best pairs of eyes in the game”. With the club oozing genius from every department, Lyon’s failure to win Ligue 1 since 2008 is utterly baffling.

Kuper reveres most Dutch footballers but usually views English footballers with patronising contempt. His anatomy of the five stages of an English international’s career is telling, revelatory and funny – I hadn’t realised that Ashley Cole reprints his wedding speech in his autobiography – and he predictably blames the players not Fabio Capello for the debacle in South Africa.

The England players should take their share of the blame but Kuper’s verdict ignores Carlo Ancelotti’s revelation, in his entertaining memoirs, that even footballers as technically astute as the Milan squad of 1993/94 sometimes found it hard to understand Capello when he discussed tactics.

"Just smile and nod, George, smile and nod"

Sometimes, Kuper’s certainty leads him astray. In a fascinating profile of Franck Ribery (which reveals that he once picked up a 100kg club doctor and put him in the wash basket), he says: “There are two types of attacking players. The one type – the passer, Zidane – wants the ball to his feet so he can pass it. The other – the runner, Henry – runs deep so the passer can give it to him in space. Ribery, uniquely, is both types in one.”

Hang on, doesn’t a certain Barcelona No.10 do that as well?

And then there’s the profile of Florent Malouda which includes the startling sentence: “Malouda has no weaknesses”. As any Chelsea fan can tell you, Malouda can drift so completely out of a game that his very existence becomes the subject of abstruse philosophical debate.

All of which may sound like I hated the book. But I loved it. Kuper’s collection is so opinionated, interesting and challenging it will have you arguing with yourself. It has taught me more about football – and what I think about football – than any book I have read in the last five years

Total Barça!
When I’m on holiday, I conduct an informal census of football shirts as a crude popularity index. This July, on the shores of Lake Garda in northern Italy, I spotted seven Barcelona shirts (five of which bore Messi’s name) and two Argentina shirts (both with Messi on the back).

Only Inter – we were staying in Salo, only 65 miles from Milan – came close to Barca’s dominance with four shirts. After that came Bayern (three), Milan (two) and Spain (two), while Ajax, Brazil, Juventus, Manchester United and Mozambique had a shirt each. The other players to be honoured were Arjen Robben and Pato (both twice), Alessandro del Piero, Nigel de Jong, Fernando Torres and David Villa.

On a ferry, I was astonished by one Dutch family’s allegiance to all things Nike. Dad wore a Nike T90 shirt, the eldest son had an insipid pale blue Nike KNVB shirt, while his little brother wore a Barcelona shirt and a Manchester United cap. The bad news for Florentino Perez is that I didn’t spot a single Real Madrid shirt in 10 days in Italy.

Does this mean anything? Yes and no. Barcelona are now as ubiquitous and as inescapable as Elvis in the 1950s or the Beatles in the 1960s. I’d be prepared to bet that if you walked down the main street in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, you would probably find a boy running around in a Barcelona shirt with Messi’s name on the back.

Mini-Messis in Palestine

You can’t blame Pep or Messi, but Barcelona’s supremacy is so marked it has almost become oppressive. In the latest Champions, the likes of Gabriele Marcotti, Ian Hawkey, Uli Hesse and Phil Ball debate whether the current Barcelona team are the best in the history of the European Cup. They certainly look like the team most likely to retain the trophy since Arrigo Sacchi’s Milan in 1990.

Pele, Brazil 1970 and the joys of historical revisionism
On ESPN the other night I stumbled on a rerun of Brazil 1 England 0 at the 1970 World Cup. I hadn’t seen the match in years and was impressed anew by the intelligence of Bobby Moore and his ease on the ball as he drove England forward in search of the equaliser.

What I hadn’t noticed first time around was that the Brazil side, as beautifully as the played, were not averse to the darker arts. Pele was so sublime it was a shock to see him tumbling theatrically in the penalty area, just as I was stunned by how often some of his team-mates – including the gorgeously talented Jairzinho – left their foot in longer than was necessary.

Jeff Astle’s miss still astounds. It’s tempting to wonder what would have happened if Sir Alf Ramsey had stuck to his original plan and used Peter Osgood, the one England player who, in training, seemed to thrive in the heat, rather than wilt in it.

I was struck too by Martin Peters' selflessness as he diligently pressed Brazil on the edge of their area. England’s pressing wasn’t as concerted as Milan’s under Sacchi – Peters did most of the harrying in what was presumably a deliberate ploy by Ramsey to restrain Carlos Alberto – but the sight did raise the question: who invented the pressing game?

"Come on Peters, get after 'em"

Sacchi perfected it but admits he was inspired by Rinus Michel’s Ajax in the 1970s. The Dutch school certainly lies behind Barcelona’s pressing, but as Jonathan Wilson has pointed out the great Ukrainian coach Valeriy Lobanovskyi wrote an authoritative tome on pressing, The Methodological Basis Of The Development Of Training Models.

Steven Johnson’s brilliant new book Where Good Ideas Come From suggests that many discoveries are made simultaneously – the classic case being sunspots, found by scientists in four different countries in 1611 – and this may be true of pressing.

By hounding Brazil in their half, Peters was pressing in a way of which Lobanovskyi would approve. It wasn’t a tactic England deployed as a team – it might have been impossible in the heat of Guadalajara, even though the game was often played at walking pace – but the match left me wondering whether the evolution of pressing might be more complex and interesting than the orthodox history which draws a straight line from Michels to Sacchi and then on, via Cruyff, to Guardiola.

Marquee Messi, Wembley woes for Presidents & 1978's best manager

Paul Simpson — Fri, 27 May 2011 12:40:00 GMT

Champions editor Paul Simpson unleashes some random thoughts ahead of the Wembley final

A century before certain notable events happened in England, 1866 was a great year for Argentinian football: Angelo Messi was born. Seventeen years on, Lionel Messi’s great-great-great-grandfather set sail from Italy to Rosario, a journey that transformed football more than a century later. The glorious talent that so conspicuously lights up Argentina could have inspired the Azzurri.

Indeed, Barcelona’s essential No.10 could have starred for Inter, Juventus or Milan. Enrico Preziosi, who now owns Genoa, revealed a while back that little Leo could have joined Calcio Como: “He came to us for a trial. He was 15 and we rejected him. He cost $50,000. Every now and then one makes a mistake. Certainly when you see him now you can say we could have balanced the accounts for 30 years…

"We had someone following him, we spoke with his family, he was very keen to come to Italy, but nothing happened. We decided not to take him on also because of the approach we have [in Italy], the lack of interest in following young players. Almost no one takes on young players like that, with the idea of going through the whole process of turning them into an important player and then giving them a professional contract.”

Little Leo, 8: That's never in the quadrant, ref

Two years ago, Erik Bielderman, the great French football journalist, analysed Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo and his thoughts are worth quoting at length: “Ronaldo, you love him or you hate him. Messi you can only love. Ronaldo’s talent is condensed and overshadowed by his behaviour, which puts him in the same category as Maradona: absolute talents who cheat and whom we find bad-mannered, but who have this indispensible dimension of being at the top of the bill.

"Messi doesn’t have this dimension. He’s the young, middle class man who succeeds with discretion. Only his game is fantastic… I love Messi, but Ronaldo excites me. Messi has such a low centre of gravity he can pull off moves that are not possible for 99% of people. He surfs on a physiological quasi-handicap. Ronaldo, physically, has nothing to make him a player of genius. What he’s accomplished in being a great is for me more complicated than what Messi does.”

***

Whoever wins at Wembley, Messi’s eminence could change the balance of power in world football. Argentina just seem to be producing more “marquee names”, to use an odious marketing term, than Brazil right now. With a proper manager, they could even win the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. The Selecao desperately need to unearth a new Pele, Ronaldo or Romario.

***

While much of mainland Europe will cheer on Barcelona, many Italians have adopted Manchester United. In part, this is sheer resentment at the supremacy of such a heavily eulogised Mediterranean rival but it also reflects calcio’s deep, enduring concern for the art of defence. By becoming the first team not to concede away from home in an entire UEFA Champions League campaign, United have done something that resonates in Italy, with Gazzetta Dello Sport praising their “ironclad defence”.

"Italy loves us! Yay!"

***

Barack Obama has enough to worry about but I’m going to add to his stress anyway. As a keen student of American history (and apparent fan of football), he may be intrigued to know that no US President in office at the time of a Wembley European Cup final has left the White House of his own volition.

JFK, in power when Milan beat Benfica 2-1 in 1963, was shot six months later. By the time Manchester United beat Benfica in 1968, JFK’s successor LBJ had already announced he would not seek re-election on the very reasonable grounds that nobody wanted to re-elect him. Richard Nixon was in the Oval Office in 1971, when Ajax beat Panathinaikos, but he quit in 1974 to spare himself the indignity of impeachment.

Jimmy Carter (in office when Liverpool beat Bruges in 1978) and George Bush Snr (riding high when Barcelona beat Sampdoria in 1992) both lost their subsequent bids for re-election. Can Obama beat the Wembley European Cup final curse?

***

Until we started researching previous Wembley European Cup finals for the new issue of Champions (out now folks, with rare insight into The Flea by Graham Hunter, a fantastic look at Nereo Rocco and an intriguing analysis of the forgotten men of Total Football), I hadn’t realised how remarkable 1978 was for the great Austrian coach Ernst Happel.

On 10 May, he led Bruges out at Wembley in the European Cup final against Liverpool, having disposed of Juventus in the semi-final. Deprived of influential centre-forward Raoul Lambert and midfielder Paul Courant, Happel told Bruges to keep it cagey and lost 1-0 due to the combined genius of Graeme Souness and Kenny Dalglish.

Happel in the '70s: He's earned that drink

Six weeks later, he reached the World Cup final as coach of the Netherlands, and again found himself facing the host country. Preparing to face Argentina in the manic surroundings of the Estadio Monumental, Happel gave one of the most memorably succinct pre-match team talks – “Gentlemen, two points” – but the Dutch lost 3-1. Once again, absentees hurt Happel – Johan Cruyff didn’t travel to Argentina because he was still unnerved by a kidnap attempt in 1977 – yet he almost managed to achieve the highly improbable.

Happel is a vastly underrated coach. He was the first manager to win the European Cup with two clubs, Feyenoord and Hamburg, and in both finals he overcame the favourites (Celtic in 1970 and Juventus in 1983). As a free-scoring defender (he once smashed a hat-trick against Real Madrid in the European Cup), he had the sheer audacity to trap the ball with his backside in the quarter-final of the 1954 World Cup, when Austria beat Switzerland 7-5. They don’t make 'em like him anymore.

Champions, the official magazine of the UEFA Champions League, is out now. Buy it here

Why Sparta are better than Barça

Paul Simpson — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 14:00:00 GMT

Sometimes the best questions have no definitive answers.

We all relish the thrill of office one-upmanship when we know the answer to a seriously trivial football question. For example, on Champions this week, we were intrigued by a uefa.com story pointing out that the three Italian teams in the last 16 must overturn a first-leg deficit away from home, something only one team has done before in the UEFA Champions League’s knockout stages.

That team was Ajax in the 1995/96 semi-final, who lost 1-0 in Amsterdam to Panathinaikos and beat the Greek champions 3-0 in Athens. Perhaps the effort wore Louis van Gaal’s side out because they weren’t at their best in the final, losing a shootout to Juventus. With historical precedent so firmly against calcio, no wonder Gazzetta dello Sport has already written off the hopes of Inter, Milan and Roma, declaring “Goodbye Europe”.

Is the sun setting on Italian Euro-hopes?

Lies, damned lies and record books
Only a few weeks ago, Barcelona’s record-breaking la Liga run of 16 wins in a row prompted uefa.com to study the history books and declare that Benfica, who racked up 29 successive victories between 1971 and 1973, had the longest winning run in Europe. In England, the longest winning streak is 14, a record shared by Arsenal (2002-3 in Premier League), Bristol City (Second Division 1905-06), Manchester United (Second Division, 1904-05), and Preston North End (Second Division 1950-51).

Benfica’s tally isn’t a world record. As Uli Hesse (author of the lovely Tor!) pointed out in an email, rsssf.com – a sumptuous online archive where geeks like myself like to while away the hours – suggests that Jordan’s Al-Faysali racked up 32 wins in a row between August 2001 and March 2003.

The trail doesn’t end there. The same site’s celebration of unbeaten runs notes that Sparta Prague embarked on a run of 51 straight victories between 1920 and 1923. Digging deeper, Uli found more detail which suggested that Sparta also won all three games in an end of season mini-tournament in 1919, so the invincible Reds probably won a minimum of 54 matches in succession.

I say minimum because we don’t know yet know at which point in 1919 Sparta failed to win a match nor in what particular round of the 1924 season their victorious sequence came to an abrupt end.

Comedians and café owners
No wonder supporters call the team of this era “Iron Sparta”. Among the Sparta stars of the 1920s and 1930s, two stand out for contrasting reasons: goalkeeper Vlasta Burian later became the king of Czech comedy, while inside-forward Oldrich Nejedly scored 161 goals in 187 games in eight years with Sparta and was top scorer in the 1934 World Cup with five goals. He would have scored even more but broke his leg in 1938 when he was 29, retiring a year later.

Nejedly shared his goalscoring burden at Sparta with Raymond Braine, a Belgian café owner and striker who – with football in Belgium still an amateur affair – felt compelled to play abroad. Failing to obtain a work permit for Clapton Orient, Braine joined Sparta but couldn’t have been entirely mercenary because he turned down a lucrative offer to change his nationality to lead Czechoslovakia’s attack in the 1934 World Cup.

The Sparta sides of the 1920s and 1930s were great. And their record of at least 54 wins in a row makes Barcelona’s recent 16 on the trot look a bit puny. But can we conclusively say they have won more games in a row than any other team in the history of football?

Afraid not. Exhaustive research hasn’t found a team with a longer winning run than Sparta. But feel free to tell me otherwise.

Tall Poppies & Chris Waddle: The necessary ordeal of Thomas Muller

Paul Simpson — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 10:30:00 GMT

The Twitterati have spoken. Thomas Muller, the 21-year-old wunderkind who won the Golden Boot at last year’s mediocre World Cup, is officially a disappointment.

Against Inter, the great white hope of German football did a lot of running but – contrary to what those xenophobic dullards who continually slate Dimitar Berbatov for ‘laziness’ might have you believe – running is not in itself a guarantee of a player’s quality. And one header that missed the target seemed to crystallise the commentariat’s view that the possessor of the second most famous surname in Bayern’s history has gone off the boil.

In one way, this verdict has absolutely nothing to do with Muller’s actual form. It is partly inspired by the changing nature of football commentary. Gone are the days when the likes of Barry Davies or Huw Johns would polish their literary allusions or bon mots (one of John’s finest, politically incorrect, remarks was “He owns a flower shop this feller but he’s no daisy”).

Today many commentators have adopted the tone of a disappointed headmaster. This scolding tone has reached a monotonous, joyless crescendo with Chris Waddle’s analysis on ESPN.

Waddle (right) blathering on about 'pelanties' for ESPN...

The Waddler, as his pal Gazza used to call him, has become a professional scourge, taking every opportunity to grumble that such-and-such a striker really should have ‘made the goalkeeper work‘, bemoan the abysmal quality of any ball into the box, and rebuke a defender when a pass goes astray.

We don’t want commentators or pundits to be cheerleaders but Waddle picks fault so often and with such enthusiasm you would think he’d never tried something that didn’t come off, dropped a clanger or blasted a penalty over the bar in a World Cup semi-final.

That’s a cheap shot, I know, but Waddle’s bluster is irritating and paradoxical: in his diatribe about Theo Walcott’s deficiencies he sounded remarkably like the kind of blinkered coaches who forced him to play abroad in his heyday.

There’s only one Oleg Salenko!

Waddle is a particularly telling example of a joyless tendency Australians call Tall Poppy Syndrome. And right now Muller has become, for many, the tall poppy that needs cutting down.

The good news for the Bayern forward is that this is an ordeal every good player must endure. Despite thousands of years of evidence to the contrary, we like to pretend that people’s lives follow a simple arc.

If they start good, they ought to become great before, inevitably, spinning into decline. If they fail to conform to this pattern – and most footballers do, their progress is a stop-start, two steps forward, one back, kind of process – the idea soon spreads that they are overrated. This gap between how we believe players ought to develop – and how they really grow – is behind what many pundits call “second season syndrome”.

Thomas Muller: Tall poppy or previously overrated?

So now eight months after he was officially one of the most promising young footballers in the world, it is Muller’s turn. The worst-case scenario for the Bayern star is he becomes the new Oleg Salenko, the joint Golden Boot winner at USA 94, whose career petered out at Rangers where he showed more commitment in flare gun fights with Gazza than he ever did on the pitch.

Things haven’t sunk that far yet. Indeed, the stats suggest they haven’t sunk very far at all. In 38 games for club and country in 2010/11, Muller has scored 18 goals and created 15. In 46 games in 2009/10, he scored 19 and was credited with ten assists – the kind of crisis in form many Chelsea players would love to be suffering right now.

So why has the commentariat rushed to condemn him? Muller is not a perfect footballer – he can drift out of games, could be more ruthless in front of goal and might fare better if he was physically more robust. But he has more technique than most English players, doesn’t lose his cool, can play in a variety of positions and shows glimpses of impressive vision. Not bad for a forward who only made his debut for Bayern in August 2008 and is still younger than Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo.

An encouraging strangulation

I wonder if the real challenge Muller faces at Bayern isn’t about focus or quality but about imposing himself. That is why I find it deeply encouraging that Arjen Robben recently tried to strangle him for showing disrespect. Holding your own in an attack alongside such gifted egocentrics as Franck Ribery and Robben, especially with Mario Gomez emerging as first choice fox in the box, cannot be easy.

And Muller comes across as a pretty straightforward, level-headed young man who doesn’t indulge in the same power games as many of his peers. He has been tipped as a likely new Ronaldo. That might sound fanciful to those who saw him against Inter, but he has already amassed a third of the Brazilian striker’s record-breaking tally in World Cup finals.

If there’s one thing Muller could learn from the original Ronaldo, it is probably that great players achieve greatness by being selfish when necessary. If Muller is to silence the doubters, he needs to discover his inner devil.

Dyspeptic Pep, Arshavin's missing gloves & toys without batteries

Paul Simpson — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 13:12:00 GMT

Has anyone seen Arshavin’s gloves?

What I want to know is what did Andrei Arshavin do with his gloves? Arsenal’s diminutive No.23 hails from St Petersburg, where winter temperatures of –20ºC are not uncommon, but on a moderately chilly February night in north London he ran onto the pitch sporting dainty black gloves.

Fifteen minutes later, when his superb finish completed a remarkable counterattack and an even more remarkable resurrection, he was mysteriously barehanded. As I left the East Stand, an Arsenal supporter vehemently declared: “I knew Arshavin would come good in the end.”

If that particular Gooner appeared on Mastermind, his specialist subject would be being wise after the event.

Psychic Philippe

The euphoria was understandable: nobody expected this. Actually, that’s not quite true. Philippe Auclair, who covers English clubs for L’Equipe, had a tenner on Arsenal to win 2-1 at odds of 14/1. At half-time, the odds on a 2-1 home win had soared to 125/1 but his faith was vindicated. Psychic Philippe’s one regret? Not putting a fiver on Robin van Persie to score Arsenal’s first goal.

Van Persie’s strike is a perfect illustration that in football – as William Goldman once said of Hollywood – “Nobody knows anything”.

As Nicklas Bendtner came on for Theo Walcott, I lamented the fact that Arsene Wenger hadn’t brought van Persie off. Sixty seconds later, the yellow-booted genius had found the net with a superb strike that bisected the wide open space Victor Valdes had helpfully left between himself and the near post.

I felt partially vindicated by Valdes’s error. His kicking had been so erratic since the first minute I assumed that, if he was as out of sorts as his distribution suggested, it was only a matter of time before he dropped a clanger.

Yet when David Villa gave Barcelona what hack match reporters call a “richly deserved lead”, Valdes’s form seemed irrelevant. Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona spent most of the first half torturing Arsenal with possession.

In Row 28, the effect of all these pretty little triangles was almost hypnotic, trance inducing. Only one man in the stadium didn’t seem mesmerised with delight: Pep Guardiola.

Dyspeptic Pep

He cut an increasingly grumpy figure on the touchline, possibly because he could see that, while Barcelona ran through their training ground routines, they often had two on one and a prairie’s worth of space on the other flank.

Some coaches tell their team to break games into ten-minute blocks. The ebb and flow of any match is such that even Barcelona will, at times, allow opponents into the game. And Guardiola looked fretful as his side failed to capitalise on their utter dominance.

They created chances and were unlucky with some decisions, but they only managed five attempts on target (compared to Arsenal’s seven), a poor return for 61% of possession and 629 passes.

Perhaps there are some realities in football that even a team as immense as Barcelona cannot ignore. For the last few seasons, Andy Roxburgh, UEFA’s technical director, has emphasised the importance of counter-attacking in the UEFA Champions League. And the key characteristic of any counter — the former Scotland manager insists — is speed.

Many of Barcelona’s counters were so slow and methodical that even a relatively static Arsenal had thoroughly regrouped. For a while at the start of the second half, Barcelona did switch the play with a few crossfield balls – maybe Guardiola had had a word. But the principle that the last thing you learn is the first thing you forget kicked in and they reverted to more intricate play. As the Spanish daily El Pais put it, Barcelona became “more administrative and less ambitious”.

Arsenal’s second goal vindicated Roxburgh: a first time side-foot pass from the ever impressive Jack Wilshere, a touch and a beautifully weighted pass by Cesc Fabregas to Samir Nasri, a cut inside and a lovely rolled pass across the area and Arshavin made a tricky chance look like a tap-in.

The Spanish press felt the substitutions turned the match. Wenger gambled and was rewarded. Guardiola tried to hold on to what he had and lost it. Actually, Arshavin for Alexandre Song wasn’t a massive gamble. Song had committed six fouls, had been booked and was drifting into some very odd positions in his quest to change the game.

Arsenal looked more settled with Arshavin out wide and Wilshere and Fabregas organising midfield. Seydou Keita is hardly your clichéd holding midfielder but his arrival – in place of Villa – took much of the sting out of Barcelona’s attack. Bojan for Villa might have worked better.

Even so, Barca almost snatched a late equaliser as Arsenal’s defence nearly imploded. When the final whistle blew, the Gooners rose in triumph but you could hear the relief in their joy.

The only disappointment in this enthralling match was seeing Sergio Busquets, fairly early on, urging the referee to show Song a second yellow card. Still, I was impressed by Guardiola’s dignified response to the result: “It’s a pity we lost but these things happen in football.”

Away daze

Guardiola also alluded to an issue that must trouble him. If Barcelona are the best team in the world, they should convince on the road. Since 2009/10, their record away from home in the Champions League stands at Played 10, Won 2, Drawn 6, Lost 2.

Although the British press focused on Messi’s failure to score in his seventh game with Barca on English soil, the fault is not his alone. Since 2009/10, Barca have averaged 1.2 goals a game away from home in this competition – and 2.55 goals a game at Camp Nou.

Wenger can take heart from this game. Arsenal’s resilient spirit, Nasri’s return (he looked off the pace initially but grew to influence the match), Laurent Koscielny (who would earn even more plaudits if he’d learned the first rule of televised football: never look gormless when you’ve made a mistake – if in doubt, point), Wilshire’s eerie maturity and Arshavin’s renaissance are all positives.

Guardiola may console himself with the thought that his side were below par but, if they’d had a penalty and not had a goal wrongly disallowed, would probably have won.

Guardiola’s luck didn’t placate the Spanish media. In El Mundo, Julian Ruiz said Messi had “lost the thread of his dynamite”, accused Andres Iniesta of “sleep-walking” and labelled Barcelona a “club in crisis”. This seems outlandish but Ruiz’s remark that Barca played like a “toy without batteries” is not entirely absurd.

Without Carles Puyol, they seemed to lack a leader on the pitch. Maybe that’s another reality even Barcelona can’t ignore: great teams need the spirit to match their technique.

So what’s next? One thing is all but certain: Barcelona will score in the Camp Nou. They have now done so in their last 11 knockout matches in this competition. The more intriguing question is: will Arsenal score too? They will now believe they can.

The odds still favour Barcelona but Guardiola may yet rue losing a game his side could, at one stage, have won 3-0.

Zombies, rattlesnakes & ducklings - The Champions League is back

Paul Simpson — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 12:15:00 GMT

This blog is a literary experiment. Before you hit the back button, I'll explain. There is a silvery black hole on my laptop keyboard where the letter 'j' should be. I must therefore contemplate the last 16 of the UEFA Champions League without calling on the tenth letter of the alphabet. This does mean the usual lengthy, occasionally turgid analysis will be replaced with a few half-formed, probably derivative thoughts.

Chelsea's destiny may be decided on the flanks

Playing three at the back against Chelsea was a shrewd ploy by Kenny Dalglish, but it was no Einsteinian masterstroke. Even when they don't play the diamond, Chelsea's attack has often been far too narrow this season.

Instead of getting behind defences near the by-line, Chelsea have usually played it through the middle and, with so many of their talismanic players in inconsistent form, many promising attacks have petered out in front of the opposing penalty area.

Is Fernando Torres the answer? That depends on the question. One Chelsea season ticket holder gave Nando's arrival a muted welcome. "What I'd really like," he grumbled, "is someone who can pass the ball to him."

When Chelsea chase the game, as they did against Liverpool, they too often resort to hitting crosses from distance which drop near the edge of the area in the (usually vain) hope that a knockdown will create something out of not very much. These aren't crosses of Beckham quality, but a confession of desperation.

I couldn't help but contrast the Blues' unimaginative forward play – not simply against Liverpool but in many games this season – with the inventiveness shown by Inter and Roma in their 5-3 thriller. True, both defences were tarnished by gaping holes the size of Piers Morgan's ego, but their passing, movement and running was simply in a different class.

"Houses in London cost how much?!?"

Against a beautifully drilled Copenhagen defence, the Blues must exploit the full width of the pitch and free space for Ashley Cole, in particular, to unnerve the Lions' back four with his pace. On the other flank, expect Blues old boy Jesper Gronkjaer (hey, the character actually worked) to try and run rings around Branislav Ivanovic.

If they don't bring a lead back from Denmark, they will face an excruciating test of nerves at Stamford Bridge.

The second most miserable man in England after the transfer window shut (assuming Charlie Adams is the most gutted) is the head of Chelsea's academy. A laudable attempt to build a team of Chelsea's own – a successor to the Busby Babes, Drake's Ducklings and Fergie's Fledglings – has been shelved for reasons of expediency.

The pendulum has swung back in favour of big-name signings. Let's hope, as Gabriele Marcotti suggested, that this is merely Chelsea's attempt to spend big before UEFA's rules on financial fair play kick in.

Zombies and Hollywood: the final rematch

Since the draw, the odds in Bayern v Inter have shifted slightly in favour of the Italian champions.

Bayern's 3-2 loss to Cologne was the first time they had thrown away a 2-0 lead in 13 years. Mark van Bommel's switch to Milan looks oddly timed. Uli Hoeness, who – even more than Beckenbauer – is virtually the living incarnation of Bayern, has complained that Louis van Gaal is hard to work with. Sounds ominous, doesn't it?

And yet this is run-of-the-mill stuff for FC Hollywood. Van Gaal eats this kind of crisis for breakfast. Robben and Ribery have hardly played together this season and are returning to fitness. They were, let's not forget, in a far worse state in the group stages in 2009/10 and made the final.

"Crisis? Pah! Bring me a spoon and some milk...."

Inter's revived hopes have more to do with their new spirit under Leonardo. Pundits who specialise in tactical insight will bombard you with subtle explanations for this transformation, but to my untrained eye the explanation for Inter's revival is simple: they have stopped playing like zombies.

Every coach is a perfectionist but there might be something in Rafa Benitez's brand of perfectionism that reduces players to a trancelike state of anxiety. The Special One makes his perfectionism seem invigorating, fun. Benitez's seems, to the outsider, rather dour. And his last two teams – Liverpool 2009/10 and Inter 2010/11 – have both at times played in a semi-vegetative state that's even more bizarre when you compare it to the glory of Rafa's Valencia.

Rattlesnakes, constrictors and Barcelona

Arsene Wenger has a stark choice against Barcelona: stick or twist? Actually, as anyone who saw the Gunners blow a 4-0 lead against Newcastle, he doesn't have a choice. He cannot hope to close the opposition down and hold onto the nil he has at kick-off against an attack that has scored 2.94 goals per game in all competitions this season.

If Wenger was tempted to stick, Barca's 3-0 demolition of Atletico Madrid 10 days ago proved that a defensive strategy would be about as wise as asking what women know about the offside law.

Atleti coach Quique Sanchez Flores set his side up with one up front. Even though the 'one' was the sublime Sergio Aguero, the game was over as a contest after 28 minutes. Flores brought Forlan on at half-time and the mattress makers did disturb Barça's back four – even suggesting they might find a way back for a few moments – before Messi completed his hat-trick in the 79th minute.

Sadly for Barça, there's no Mikael Silvestre this year...

The best Brazilian teams pass back and forth until they have lulled the opposition into a false sense of security. Then, when a useful space opens up, they go in for the kill. UEFA technical director Andy Roxburgh calls this approach the "rattlesnake".

As for Barcelona, well, to quote the bloke in the Mitchell and Webb sketches, they play like that but not like that. They keep the ball but their possession is more purposeful, constricting the space their opponents can defend in. Their success is often reductively ascribed to Messi or to their sheer wealth of intelligent, attacking talent. That all matters, but what takes them to the very highest level is the breadth and depth of their bombardment.

Against Atletico, Messi scored his first goals in the 17th and 28th minute. But from the 15th to the 30th minute, Barcelona could – and probably should – have scored from five or six other attacks. Atleti never cleared their lines long enough for their defenders to regroup. Ultimately, it came down to mental stamina. Atleti's defenders began to acquire the desperate, haunted look of wanted men on the run.

If Barcelona have a weakness, it is their defence. And if Wenger is to succeed against the kinds of odds Phil Collins used to croon about, he must place the Blaugranas' back four at the heart of the battle.

Having only used the letter 'j' thrice in 1100 or so words (and two of those were to spell a footballer's name), I now completely understand why the tenth letter of the alphabet is worth eight points in Scrabble.

Roberto Baggio is still on the case

Paul Simpson — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:31:00 GMT

The hair, once jet black like a movie star’s, is silvery grey now. The famous ponytail is long gone - cut off in 1997. The most telling legacy of Roberto Baggio’s illustrious playing career is the pain in his knees. He likes to run to keep fit but “only in straight lines, every change of direction is a minor trauma.”

Italy’s freescoring fantasista, one of the few modern footballers to achieve mythic status before he hung up his boots, has a new job now. After a clean, prolonged break from the game, Baggio is back as president of the Italian FA’s technical sector. And as he makes clear in an exclusive interview in the current issue of Champions, he returns with an agenda – one that may ruffle the egos of the 35,000 coaches in calcio he will oversee his new role.

Revenge of the narcissists

As a boy, Baggio was inspired by players and their creativity. “Zico was my model as a child,” he told Sergio di Cesare, the respected Italian football writer who interviewed him for Champions. “In my time, I particularly liked Diego Maradona and Marco van Basten for their intelligent game and Franco Baresi and Paolo Maldini for their personality and leadership.”

The modern player he adores, predictably enough, is Lionel Messi. “He plays like a child in a playground, unaffected by tactics, teammates or opponents.” But Messi would not, he believes, be as great as he is if it weren’t for Pep Guardiola “who does not try to confine his talent but gives Messi all the space he can express it.”

And that, in a nutshell, is what Baggio would like more coaches to do: “One should never denigrate talent, as happens far too often at grassroots, when young players are told off for trying a backheel or some clever dribbling.

“For me, football has always been about trying something difficult, truly inventive or an action that will be truly remembered. I’ve never really been satisfied by the easily scored goal.”

That vision of football, he feels, has been undermined because “modern football is increasingly dominated by the coaches, their narcissism, their tendency to put themselves above the team and their players.”

Baggio is interviewed in the latest edition of Champions - out now

For Baggio, the tactical negativity that has begun to imprison players is an abominable mutation of the beautiful game. “Players are the true protagonists,” he insists. He has a point. I can’t remember anyone ever telling me they were going to a match to watch a coach.

The 2010 World Cup, surely the most sterile in living memory, produced few memorable moments of true invention – unless you count Luis Suarez’s handball or Nigel de Jong’s kung fu in the final – and was so short of magic that even as you read this Sepp Blatter and his blazered army of apparatchiks are devising cunning schemes to give the next mundial a serious makeover. When I say “cunning” I do, of course, use the word quite wrongly.

But their frenetic head-scratching reveals that even Fifa has recognised that even an event as iconic and resonant as the World Cup cannot afford too many tournaments as mediocre as last summer’s.

Baggio’s rebalancing act

Will Baggio succeed in rebalancing calcio, encouraging coaches to put players at the heart of their approach and ensure that the beautiful game shows us a bit more beauty?

His own career suggests the odds are stacked against him. A footballing deity to fans, he was often distrusted by coaches like Marcello Lippi, Fabio Capello and Carlo Ancelotti.

For a player with one and a half legs, as he likes to joke, he won many honours – but never the World Cup or the European Cup. As a player, he was probably most at ease at Fiorentina and Brescia rather than at Inter, Juventus or Milan.

Some men, as Bobby Kennedy used to say when quoting George Bernard Shaw, see things as they are and ask: why? Others dream of things that never were and ask: why not? Baggio dreams of “a kind of football where players are back at the heart of the game, ditching rigid, collective boring collective strategies” and asks: why can’t we have that back?

To many, his views will sound nostalgic, even reactionary. Unlike Gatsby, Baggio isn’t trying to repeat the past. He’s merely striving to rectify a flaw which he believes could endanger the game’s future. In his nightmares, he sees his creative heirs, marginalised and frustrated, unable to invent the kind of moments that live in our memory and football degenerating into an inferior variant of chess, with 22 pawns, a ball and a grandmaster in the dugout.

If you want to read the full interview with Roberto Baggio, in which he relives some of the most excruciating moments of his life – the stitches, that penalty at USA 94 – and reflects on Buddhism, Hemingway and Ayrton Senna, buy the current issue of Champions, available at all good newsagents and a few frankly mediocre ones.

Sturm und drang: A rough guide to coaching etiquette

Paul Simpson — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 16:21:00 GMT

When I first saw Steve Kean patrolling the touchline as Blackburn Rovers manager, I feared for him.

New managers, especially those filling a void as large as that created by the legend of Big Sam, must exude competence. And Kean didn’t. Truth be told, he had the slightly bewildered, moderately resentful air of a man who had arrived, slightly later than he’d hoped, at the bus stop, suspected his bus had already departed but was too embarrassed to ask anyone if that was the case.

Luckily for Kean, he has since acquired or discovered an inner calm. But his initial confusion set me thinking – increasingly rare these days – that one of the crucial choices facing any coach today is the persona they adopt on the touchline.

Jig, fists and rejigs

In the old days, when very few cameras covered matches, we barely noticed managers during a game. They might do an occasional jig (like David Pleat), or punch a fan (Brian Clough) but most of the time they were content to sit on the bench and make coded gestures to their players suggesting they were playing too far up or down the pitch (a technique perfected by the great Bob Paisley). Even a coach as demonstrative as Cloughie was usually happy just to shout a bit.

At some point this changed. Helpfully I have no idea when. Maybe when FIFA introduced the technical area in 1993. But while watching Aston Villa on TV a few years ago, with the camera constantly panning towards Martin O’Neill’s sturm und drang on the touchline, I realised how melodramatic coaches’ behaviour had become.

"No, I said hoof long balls to Heskey for 90 minutes, dammit!"

O’Neill ran through more emotions during a routine 1-1 draw against a middle of the road team such as Middlesbrough than Richard Burton displayed in a virile, passionate and sardonic take on Hamlet which enthralled Broadway in 1964.

I wasn’t sure what subliminal message O’Neill hoped to convey. Was he trying to prove he cared as deeply as the supporters? Was he conscious of the need to provide the kind of entertainment his team might not have been delivering? Did he think his antics would unsettle the other manager or influence the officials? Or was that just Martin being his loveable, passionate self?

To get ahead, get a coat

As a touchline performance artist, O’Neill has been surpassed by Jose Mourinho, who is just as emotional, but much better tailored. I mention tailoring because I am increasingly convinced that clothes maketh the manager. On a very basic level, the stylishness of a coach’s schmutter may do more to impress his players than the quality of his tactical insight.

Serie A coaches have long understood that one of the prerequisites for success is having a really nice coat. The best have aspired to the unflappably mysterious existentialist aura exuded by goalkeeper and raincoat connoisseur Albert Camus.

Like Camus’s idol Bogart, this type of coach rarely moves a facial muscle unnecessarily. (Carlo Ancelotti, the most minimalist Method actor on the touchline, signifies his moods largely through the manipulation of his left eyebrow – Roger Moore must be so proud.) The subtle implication is that these managers do not see the game as we do but are wrestling with some higher level of wisdom which will manifest itself in their next substitution.

Whether he's won the league or lost at Wolves, Carlo is understated

The trouble with this style is that existential mystery can easily be mistaken for hapless ineffectuality. Towards the end of Sven’s England reign, the calm that had once seemed such a reassuring contrast to Graham Taylor’s gibbering seemed, instead, to suggest that, like us, the Swede was an impotent bystander, with no more influence over the game’s outcome than the self-appointed tactical genius three rows behind you.

Something similar has happened to Capello. The passionate sergeant major shtick was initially more impressive than Steve McClaren’s wally with the brolly but when things fell apart in South Africa – and the centre of England’s defence couldn’t hold – the camera panned to reveal Don Fabio staring at his players with the same kind of enraged, stupefied disbelief as millions of fans at home.

Did we not loathe that?

There is no right or wrong way for a coach to behave in the dugout.

Actually, there is a wrong way – just watch the Channel 4 documentary Do I Not Like That. Lawrie McMenemy’s pained reaction to Taylor’s behaviour is almost as hilarious as the antics themselves.

Or, more recently, think of Cluj coach Soren Cartu kicking the glass out of the dugout in disgust after his side lost to Basel. (Cartu’s loss of the plot was swiftly followed by the loss of his job.)

Each coach must choose their own style but they must be convincing – otherwise it’s a bit like watching Jude Law playing Alfie instead of Michael Caine. And no manager’s style – even Mourinho's – will suit all seasons.

The statesmanlike gravitas Roy Hodgson exuded at Fulham seemed, in the cauldron of Anfield, more like anachronistic irrelevance. Under extreme duress, Hodgson indulged in manic face rubbing or reverted to a kind of bemused, fatalistic “Oh dearie dearie" reminiscent of Taylor’s immortal cry as England boss: “What sort of thing is happening here?”

Roy can be thankful he didn't get the root vegetable treatment...

Roberto Baggio, who gives a remarkably candid interview in the next issue of Champions, would probably suggest that “narcissistic coaches” indulge in all this sturm und drang because they can’t bear the spotlight to be on players.

We don’t need coaches to act as an emotional mirror to reflect what is happening on the pitch – we know how we feel when we’re losing – and we would, all things being equal, like managers to get on with the job they are paid to do and coach.

But if coaches feel obliged to perform, they could take their cue from Cloughie, whose occasional theatrics were often leavened with humour.

Once when Arsenal faced Nottingham Forest at Highbury, the linesman warned Cloughie to be quiet. Clough pointed at Terry Neill and Don Howe on the Arsenal bench and said: “They’re making just as much noise at me why aren’t you telling them to shut up?”

The linesman didn’t reply so Clough added: “Perhaps I should go over there and sit with them.”

“Come over and sit on my knee,” Neill chipped in.

Cloughie proceeded to do just that, nestling on Neill’s knee and asking the linesman: “Am I all right now?”

The linesman just flashed Cloughie a bewildered smile and ran off up touchline.

Chicken farmers, an octopus and the rise of the Belgians: 2010 remembered

Paul Simpson — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 20:30:00 GMT

If Sid Lowe can do it, why can’t I? The esteemed interpreter of Spanish football gives out the Sids at the end of every season, so I’m going to dish out the Simmos as I review a year in which football spectacularly lost the plot.

Some of the decision making – and I don’t just mean by referees – displayed a kind of crazed incompetence seldom seen since Caligula promoted his favourite horse Incitatus to the Roman senate. It was a year in which England contrived to lose two World Cups, Rafa Benitez lost two jobs and a Spanish newspaper declared that the sermon on the mount was “in fact a prophecy of Leo Messi”.

The mismatch of the year
No not Zilina v Marseille, or even Rooney v Ferguson, but Mahmoud Ahmadinejad v Paul the Octopus. The Iranian president accused the now late, lamented psychic octopus who correctly called the outcome of eight World Cup matches, of spreading “Western propaganda and superstition”.

The funniest example of English football’s insular closed shop mentality
All and sundry – from Sir Alex Ferguson to Lou Macari and Mark Lawrenson – have lined up to condemn the Indian chicken farmers who own Blackburn and had the unmitigated gall to sack ‘Big’ Sam Allardyce. Graham Taylor has even threatened to boycott turkey and chicken in protest.

The sub-text here is what makes a couple of “Indian chicken farmers” – and you have to say those three words with just the right amount of indignant disgust in your voice – think they know more about football than Sam, Sir Alex or Graham?

I’m not sure if the objection is to the fact that they’re Indian (surely not) or chicken farmers or whether the fact that they are Indian and chicken farmers somehow compounds the insult to Allardyce, Blackburn Rovers and English football.

But Allardyce’s departure doesn’t seem that odd or appalling to me. Playing Big Sam’s way, Blackburn were never going to be more than a middle of the road Premier League team. Every so often they would flirt with relegation while, with a bit of luck, they might qualify for the UEFA Europa League (where, with their style of football, they would win few converts and probably not progress very far). That’s not the kind of business plan which would persuade anyone to part with £23million of their hard earned cash is it?

The timing may have been stupid but I’m not sure the decision was.

The most compelling parallel between the works of Michelangelo and the career of Frank Lampard
In Alan Bennett’s diary in the London Review Of Books, his entry for 7 April 2010 reads: “The open mouth of Chelsea’s Frank Lampard, having scored a goal, is also the howl of the face of the damned man in Michelangelo’s The Last Judgement.” If you don’t believe him, see for yourself.

The most underrated trend
Belgian defenders. Vincent Kompany is now finally proving his quality at Manchester City (where his compatriot Dedryck Boyata is showing much promise). Marouane Fellaini has become a hero at Everton. Thomas Vermaelen settled brilliantly at Arsenal. Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen are first choice at the heart of Ajax’s back four. Nicolas Lombaerts has won the Russian title with Zenit St Petersburg. For a country that languishes at 57 in the Fifa rankings and has a population of just 10.4m that is some conveyor belt.

The most crushing disappointment
The World Cup bidding process. Transparent, understandable and free from any hint of corruption – the battle to host 2018 and 2022 should have been all of these and wasn’t. In public, Sepp Blatter may pillory the English as bad losers – even though the US, Australia, Spain and Portugal were just as disgruntled – but you would hope that privately, with such stalwarts as Franz Beckenbauer expressing doubts about the process, even he can see the need for change. Only one winner emerged from this flawed process: the construction industry which stands to gain £41bn in revenue from these two tournaments.

The most inspirational moment
Eran Zahavi’s bicycle kick for Hapoel Tel Aviv against Lyon. A breathtaking piece of swivelling, improvised, genius. The 23-year-old attacking midfielder has improved over the last five years with Hapoel and is enjoying the most prolific season of his career. Zahavi has already been linked with clubs in Belgium and may move on for a decent fee this summer.

The most transformational coach
Not the Special One. Not even Joachim Low who coached the most entertaining team in South Africa and reinvented, through brilliant improvisation, the two man screen in midfield. For me, the man who over-achieved most spectacularly in the dugout was Argentine coach Marcelo Bielsa, who helped Chile qualify for their first World Cup (they were hosts in 1962), beat Argentina for the first time ever in a competitive match and changed the national team’s culture, encouraging his young, gifted side to be more attacking away from home. It seems sadly typical that Bielsa quit in November because he felt he couldn’t work with the new president of the Chilean FA.

The most intriguing remark about the state of football
It’s hard to beat Blatter’s observation that “Football has become a monster, but a positive monster.” The longer you think about the remark the more baffling it becomes. “Monster!” was, of course, the catchphrase of uber agent Eric Hall who is now, so his Wikipedia page says, hosting a golden oldies Sunday afternoon show on BBC Radio Essex.

The least memorable pundit
Has to be Alan Shearer. I cannot remember a single observation he made in 2010. Actually that’s a lie: my respect for him soared when the shambles of England v Germany in Bloemfontein moved him to angry eloquence. Sadly, he doesn’t get that angry very often.

The most annoying cliché
That Dimitar Berbatov doesn’t run enough. The Bulgarian’s real flaw is that he doesn’t impose his very obvious genius on games often enough. Despite what many people in English football seem to think, running is not an end in itself.

The player of the year
Antonio Cassano, the maverick genius of calcio who has just strolled into the last chance saloon at Milan. The player who confided in his memoirs that at best he’d given not 110%, or even 100% but around 50% on the pitch has impressed and appalled in almost equal measure. But in an age where many football teams feature the bland leading the bland, Cassano is never dull. It would be great if Milan could find a way to make constructive use of a player who once ran away from Fabio Capello on the training ground prompting the coach to shout: “Don’t run, only cowards run”.

The team of the year
Mourinho’s Inter. They didn’t play attractive, expansive football but they knew precisely what they were doing, performed heroically at Camp Nou and clinically at Stamford Bridge and the Bernabeu. They were a proper team and the intelligence with which they played was fascinating to watch.

The Incitatus award for someone promoted above his or her level of competence
There are so many contenders but the clear winner must be Gigi Becali, the Romanian MEP who owns Steaua Bucharest, has a painting based on da Vinci’s Last Supper with himself as Jesus (and the players and coaches depicted as his disciples) upon his wall and sacks coaches faster than you can say ‘Indian chicken farmers’. In 2010, the Romanian giants have been managed by Ille Dumitrescu, Marius Lacatus, Victor Piturca and Mihai Stoichita. Piturca has had five spells as coach while Lacatus is now in his third stint in the hottest seat in European football. Becali is, as Tommy Docherty used to say, “a legend in his own mind”.

Lenny Kravitz, suicide & Wenger: The Champions League draw analysed

Paul Simpson — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 11:39:00 GMT

They think it’s all over in Nigeria. One Nigerian Gooner – named only as michotech49 – posted on uefa.com: “Arsenal we win am very sure by the grace of God”.

Arsene Wenger was a little more circumspect about facing Barcelona, the runaway favourites to win the 2010/11 UEFA Champions League, again, saying: “We want to knock them out. Is it difficult? Yes. Is it possible? Yes.” The coach was more sanguine than most fans whose reaction is probably best summed up by the headline on The Gooner which read simply: “The Barcelona suicide”.

In trying to Google The Gooner, I actually typed ‘The Gonner’ which could be an omen or what the great Sigmund would call a Freudian slip. Anyway, moving swiftly on, discontent among online Gooners has reached such a pitch that one supporter dared ask: “Oh, by the way, what does Pat Rice do?” Come on, Arsenal fans, this is hardly the time to be turning on your own legends. The general mood might be summed up by Brad who posted: “O cruel footballing gods why hast thou forsaken Arsenal?”

If Arsenal are to win, they might require divine intervention. Wenger’s Plan A is to take on Barcelona at their own game – assuming his players can get the ball off them. Plan B is – well there is no Plan B really. Unless Arsenal’s defence becomes significantly more rock-like between now and February, he can’t play the kind of spoiling game with which Jose Mourinho’s Inter beat Barcelona last season. He doesn’t even have the defensive steel in midfield to play the 4-5-1 that steered Arsenal to the final in 2006. This is especially ironic because one tactical innovation with which Wenger won a lot of silverware early on at Arsenal was the use of defensive screening midfielders like Patrick Vieira and Emmanuel Petit.

No tie is over before it has started – though even Lenny Kravitz might feel his most famous song doesn’t apply in this instance. But Wenger’s predicament underlines the competitive ruthlessness of this tournament. A poor 45 minutes against Shakhtar and an off-night in Braga have made Arsenal’s journey to Wembley significantly more arduous than it needed to be.

The other ci risiamo ties – that’s Italian for ‘here we go again’ by the way – are Lyon v Real Madrid and Inter v Bayern. Neither quite match Alien vs Predator in the 'clash of the titans' stakes, but both have intriguing sub-plots. The ties encouraged so many players, clubs and owners to join in remembrance of things past it might have been sponsored by the estate of Marcel Proust.

Will Lyon’s remarkable run of success – in three ties against los Blancos they have won at home and drawn in Madrid to progress – be ended by old boy Karim Benzema? Lyon keeper Remy Vercoutre didn’t sound that confident when he noted: “Last year they were complacent. They still haven’t got over it. We know we’re not favourites.” He has a point. On balance, with Mourinho in the dugout, Real don’t seem destined for a seventh successive exit in the last 16.

Bayern v Inter is the draw’s greatest gift to European football. Louis van Gaal’s Bayern are slight favourites but the big question hanging over the tie is whether Rafa Benitez will be coaching the Nerazzurri in February (at the time of this blog being published, we are awaiting confirmation of reports the Spaniard has left the club - ed).

The World Club Cup win (below) has done him some good but the mood in Italy was captured by the Gazzetta dello Sport headline: “Inter rules the world, so what next?” Benitez’s broadside about lack of trust and broken promises on new players won him some support from fans – one poll found most wanted the coach to stay – but owner Massimo Moratti deflected the speculation saying: “For the moment I don’t want to talk about Benitez.” The coach’s outburst recalls his famously indignant observation over new signings at Valencia: “I asked for a sofa and they bought me a standard lamp.”

Tottenham’s return to San Siro to take on the other half of Milan prompted Rossoneri coach Massimiliano Allegri to remark: “All the teams who have made it this far are good but it could have been far worse. Tottenham score freely and have quality up front, but they always give something away at the back.” Still, Allegri – and his defenders – may already be having nightmares in which they are carved apart by the lanky, jinking, blurred form of Gareth ‘Incredibale’.

Chelsea and Manchester United may feel reasonably satisfied with their draws, but Carlo Ancelotti and Sir Alex Ferguson know their ties are far from done are dusted. Copenhagen are efficient, especially at home, and are almost the polar opposite of Spurs. What they lack upfront they make up for at the back, conceding just five in Group D, not bad for a team that played Barca twice. And Chelsea will need their first choice central defenders back to face Senegalese bombshell Damien N’Doye, who looks like a young Didier Drogba.

They think it’s all over in Schalke too. On Bundesliga Talk, a writer with the poetic name of Dylan Thomas suggested: “Schalke couldn’t have had an easier opponent”. The key, Thomas correctly suggested, was whether Schalke could dominate midfield. Although the hype will focus on Raul’s return to Spain, the more intriguing clash is between two famously workaholic coaches. Felix Magath’s reputation – exemplified by his nicknames ‘Saddam’ and ‘Qualix’ (The Torturer) – is well known but have no doubt Valencia’s Unai Emery has already spent hours dissecting Schalke’s group games in forensic detail.

Claudio Ranieri doesn’t think it’s all over. Mindful that Shakhtar won the last ever UEFA Cup and very nearly did the double over Barcelona in this competition in 2008/09, he was at pains to point the stylish football the Ukrainian champions play.

Roma have become the kind of team that can lose or beat anyone depending on their mood and that may be Ranieri’s biggest concern. Shakhtar’s wily coach Mircea Lucescu will be scheming for an away goal at the Stadio Olimpico. The return in Donetsk may just help Lucescu steer Shakhtar into the last eight for the first time. Shakhar’s Romanian full-back Razvan Rat (spare us the ‘any relation of Roland” gags please) was certainly bullish: “I want to quote a famous chess player to say that to become stronger one must play against the strongest”.

It seems appropriate, then, to round off with a Mourinho-esque observation from another famous chess player, Bobby Fischer: “Genius. It’s a word. What does it really mean? If I win I’m a genius. If I don’t, I’m not.”

What is the purpose of Chelsea Football Club?

Paul Simpson — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 11:48:00 GMT

Or, to put it another way, what can Roman Abramovich learn from the children’s author and one-time striker Aivar Pohlak who runs Estonian champions Flora Tallinn and the Estonian FA?

Pohlak doesn’t look like a football club president, he talks more like a rock musician or a poet. But, perhaps because he and his colleagues had to create a club from nothing as Estonia became independent in 1991-92, he has thought long and hard about what purpose clubs serve.

Flashy underachievement, love and a Roman goddess

His view is simple: “Football is about love. You can’t force love, and you can’t buy it, you have to show people you’re worth loving.” To do that, he argues, a club must stand for something. An Estonian patriot, who watched his country’s love for the game almost wither away in the old Soviet Union, Pohlak believed Flora Tallinn should stand for the renewal of Estonia’s football. That’s why the new club’s name honours the Roman goddess of spring.

It takes a certain presumption to propose that your club should define a country’s football culture, but Flora has a mission that goes beyond accumulating trophies – although Pohlak admits it helps to win stuff as well.

Contrast that with Chelsea. What do the Blues stand for? Before Roman Abramovich, Bagehot, the Economist’s political editor confided: “I loved the club because of its reputation for flashy underachievement. For Chelsea, the pleasure was all about knowing that we could beat anyone on our day and lose to anyone on our off-day”.

The old Chelsea were maverick, stylish and puffed up with an inflated sense of their own importance. But they were seldom dull. You could say the same about the first manager Abramovich hired, Jose Mourinho. But Jose’s mysterious exit changed matters.

A Chelsea season ticket holder on the tube to the Zilina game a few weeks ago told a fellow supporter: “I was gutted when he left. I’m still gutted.” Mourinho is seldom far from a Chelsea fan’s thoughts but his memory had been rekindled by another mysterious departure – that of Ray Wilkins – which had rankled. “Proper Chelsea he was,” the supporter said indignantly.

By dispensing with Wilkins’ services, it was as if Chelsea had declared war on its own past, a civil war in which there could be only losers. (One immediate loss: the British media’s mysterious, but burgeoning goodwill for the club evaporated faster than you could say ‘sideways pass’.) Although Peter Osgood is an object of iconic worship at Stamford Bridge his maverick genius seems to have little authentic connection with today’s Chelsea. The club is now often seen as standing for one thing: winning – albeit with a nod to the obligation to be vaguely stylish implied by the example of Osgood, Zola and Hudson.

From Moscow to Barcelona (via Nuneaton)

The idea that football clubs ought to stand for something might strike you as pretentious balderdash. But most clubs do – even if that ‘something’ is as nebulous as their function in their local community.

Clubs often become a focus for particular social, religious, or political causes. In the Soviet Union, support for Spartak Moscow, which had few powerful sponsors in the Communist regime, became a quiet act of political protest. Other clubs come to embody a certain approach to the game. In any division in any league in any country there is always one club that insists it plays football as it should be played. (In England alone, I have heard such a view expressed at Arsenal, Charlton, Leicester City and Nuneaton Town.)

Even before Barcelona became synonymous with beautiful football, they were a potent symbol of Catalonia’s political aspirations. Real Madrid, once the idealised representation of Franco’s Spain, are famed for their enduring commitment to the glory game and great players. Manchester United’s image is still defined by romance, glamour and tragedy. The Busby Babes may have perished more than 50 years ago but that style of football is still embedded in United’s DNA. It would take a decade of 1-0 wins ‘boring boring Arsenal’ style to seriously erode that.

Consultancy Sport + Markt say Chelsea, with 21.4m fans, are the fourth most popular club in Europe. But the Blues still have ten million fewer supporters than Manchester United and Real Madrid. Barcelona aren’t even within touching distance: Sport +Markt puts the club’s European fanbase at 57.8 million.

The Blues cannot swiftly close that gap without a dramatic, transformative event – ergo all the speculation surrounding Pep Guardiola. Abramovich probably believes the best way for Chelsea to make the requisite great leap forward is develop a great team that lives in the memory like Ajax in the 1970s or Arrigo Sacchi’s Milan in the 1990s. Sacchi famously told Marco van Basten that the ultimate victory was to win so well nobody could ever forget you. Even under Ancelotti, one of Sacchi’s protégés and a double winner in his first season at the Bridge, Chelsea have not achieved that.

But even Pep might not be the answer: Barcelona’s gifted young coach is standing on the shoulders of such giants as Rinus Michels, Johan Cruyff, and Louis Van Gaal. The Barcelona way predated Guardiola and will endure after him. It is unclear how swiftly or successfully that model could supersede – or be grafted onto – Chelsea’s existing modus operandi.

Perceptions, perches and strategies

Under Mourinho, the Blues could have achieved a different kind of immortality, as a record-breaking club that dominated the world’s most popular national league and, given time, won the UEFA Champions League. But that is no longer an option.

Also off the agenda is the original goal of building the kind of ‘team of all the talents’ that made Sunderland famous in the 1890s. Yet if Abramovich was to spend big to make millions more people across the globe love Chelsea, a player might be more useful than a coach. It could be worth £80 million to find a footballer who, through sheer genius or iconic significance, becomes as globally synonymous with Chelsea as Lionel Messi is with Barcelona. But such a move seems unlikely.

So the strategy seems essentially to hope that Carlo Ancelotti can make the most of a squad that looks a bit short on depth, win the Champions League and, as the club’s promising youngsters are blooded, build on that momentum.

That might sound a long shot but there’s a lot of football to be played between now and May. And Wilkins even suggested on Sky Sports that Chelsea are the only team that could beat Barcelona in the Champions League this season. Asked how they could do that, Wilkins replied, with deadpan wit: “With great difficulty”.

Proving Chelsea are worth loving to a sceptical global audience won’t be easy either. Flora Tallinn’s example suggests that Chelsea won’t get the love they need to see them through their desire to knock Barcelona or Real Madrid off their perches if they are perceived as primarily standing for ruthless ambition. In an increasingly globalised football industry, even Millwall have realised that “No one likes us, we don’t care” doesn’t quite cut it any longer.

Say goodbye to a record-breaking midfielder, chimney sweep and genius

Paul Simpson — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 14:36:00 GMT

And now the end is near. I refer not to England’s flickering hopes of hosting the 2018 World Cup, or Frank Arnesen’s predicted departure from Chelsea, but to the retirement of former chimney sweep Roar Strand, the Sir Cliff Richard of Norwegian football, who has finally retired at the ripe old age of 40 and a bit, after winning his 16th Norwegian league title.

For those of you who would rather study an Ikea catalogue than read another blog about Scandinavian football, I apologise. I struggle to explain why I’ve come over so Scandinavian all of a sudden.

There may be four reasons. First, it’s that time of year when seasons end and titles are decided across the region. Second, I find it bizarrely pleasing to write about footballers with letters in their names that resemble the chemical symbol for boron (even if, under FourFourTwo’s no foreign accents policy, I don’t have to faithfully reproduce them). Third, I’ve been watching too much Wallander. (The Swedish version is so beautifully miserablist I have to play a few Leonard Cohen songs afterwards to cheer myself up.) Fourth, it’s probably because football in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden seems to belong to a more innocent, hype-free era than in England, Italy and Spain.

Mind you, this is changing. They don’t make ‘em like Roar Strand anymore – not even in Trondheim where, 21 years and a few months ago, as an impressionable 19-year-old, he made his debut for Rosenborg. A one-club man (apart from 22 games on loan to Molde), Strand became a legend in midfield and on the wing at the Lerkendal, playing 125 games in UEFA club competition, more than Beckham or Zidane.

Strand in action against Scotland during the 1998 World Cup

Like Ryan Giggs, Strand is adored even by fans who detest his club. The manner of his 40th birthday celebrations probably explains why. On February 2, the squad were training in Marbella. Strand woke his roommate Steffen Iversen up – getting a quick ‘Happy birthday’ in return – and was first out onto the training pitch insisting that he had to work harder compete with the younger players. His teammates encouraged him to relax with a cake and by buying him his first ever session at a spa centre.

Outside Norway, Strand is best known for the frequency with which he pops up in trivia questions. The hardy midfielder’s stint as a chimney sweep was on orders from coach Nils Arne Eggen who wanted all Rosenborg players to have a second job to keep them grounded.

Despite playing in the centre, on the wing and as a wing-back, Strand has scored in 21 consecutive top flight seasons, a record matched by Giggs and Pele and only exceeded by Romario. With 16 Norwegian titles, five Norwegian Cups, a Norwegian midfielder of the year award and a gold watch from the Norwegian FA, Strand may have won more domestic honours than any player in European football today.

Strand looks a tad geriatric in the photo on his English Wikipedia page, as if the mere act of running has made his back ache, but – possibly because of the stamina acquired as a chimney sweep – he remained remarkably free of injury for club and country. (He also won 42 caps for Norway, it would have been more but he quit in 2003 and refused all offers to reconsider.)

With defender Erik Hoftun, Strand was at the heart of the remarkable Rosenborg side that won 13 titles in a row between 1992 and 2004 and, in Europe, defeated the likes of Borussia Dortmund and Milan.

It’s worth reiterating that Eggen’s Rosenborg, the definitive version, played quick passing football in a 4-3-3, not the sterile long ball game deployed by the national side in the 1990s. A world class box-to-box midfielder, Strand could teach many more famous footballers a lot about the art of running off the ball.

In Europe, he found the net against such no-marks as Arsenal, Porto, Real Madrid and Sampdoria. Even Gooners were impressed by the power and precision with which, in September 2004, he side footed the ball into the roof of the net against them to score what many supporters of the Troll Kids insist was his best ever goal.

On top of the chimney sweeping, the loyalty, the records, the technical brilliance, there is the utterly marvellous fact that his first name is Roar. Okay, it’s the Norwegian form of ‘Roger’ but it still seems a perfect moniker for a footballer. To me, it brings back memories of a Sunday morning schlep to the newsagents to snap up a short-lived comic called Score And Roar.

One of his teammates joked about erecting a statue of Roar Strand outside the Lerkendal stadium. Rosenborg’s greatest No6 deserves no less.

Danish football's Lazarus man standing on the edge of greatness

Paul Simpson — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 11:20:00 GMT

When you’ve literally come back from the dead, it puts football in perspective. So FC Copenhagen coach Stale Solbakken will not have been unduly perturbed by the jostling with Pep Guardiola after the Danish and Spanish champions drew 1-1 in Copenhagen.

Guardiola was angry with Solbakken for saying that Barcelona keeper Jorge Manuel Pinto (who imitated the referee’s whistle in the first leg) ought to have been banned for five games, not two. Guardiola accused his rival of manipulating the media. Solbakken replied: “It was just a Norwegian making a terrible joke.”

Having interviewed Solbakken last time his side were in the UEFA Champions League – they came third in Group F in 2006/07 – I can understand Guardiola’s confusion. Even when discussing his own ‘resurrection’ – he had a heart attack during training on 13 March 2001 and was pronounced clinically dead before his heart started beating again in the ambulance twelve minutes later – he was hard to read, so matter of fact he could have been analysing a minor tactical innovation.

Solbakken: Not afraid of Kazan, Barca or death...

Detachment, it was clear, did not signify lack of determination. Still only 42, Solbakken has now won the Danish title twice as a player and four times as a coach. A fifth title – with the Lions 16 points clear halfway through the season – seems a formality.

In 2006/07, he steered Copenhagen to their first ever Champions League group stage. The Lions roared at home – taking seven points out of nine – but lost every away game. This time, they need a point in Rubin Kazan this week or, failing that, an eminently achievable home win against Panathinaikos to secure their first ever place in the last 16. That would be the best run by a Danish side in this competition since Brondby made the last eight in 1986/87.

Denmark’s dynamite shortage

This is all the more remarkable because as Marcellus, a sentinel in Hamlet, very nearly said, something is rotten in the state of Danish football.

Dennis Rommedahl, the consistently inconsistent winger who is now at Olympiacos, has just been voted Danish footballer of the year. Super League attendances – probably partly because of the Lions’ dominance and the national side’s travails – are down 24% this season. After a dire, dull, dour World Cup, the Danes may miss out on Euro 2012 (they face Portugal and Norway in Group H) at which point national coach Morten Olsen, linchpin of the legendary Danish Dynamite side, will retire.

Though no emerging Danish players have the explosive talent of the Laudrups, much hope – and hype – has focused on the slender frame of Christian Eriksen, the Ajax midfielder who became the youngest player ever to feature in a World Cup finals this summer. It’s worth noting that only five of the 13 players Solbakken fielded against Barcelona on matchday four were Danish.

Whatever happens, national service beckons for the Copenhagen coach. If the Norwegians don’t make it to Poland and the Ukraine, he will replace Egil Olsen as Norway coach in January 2012. If Norway do qualify, Solbakken will take over from Olsen after the Euro 2012 finals.

Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen

He will be missed at FC Copenhagen. Under Solbakken, the Lions have become the strongest Scandinavian side in European competition. No supporter will ever forget their 1-0 win over Manchester United, 3-1 rout of Celtic or that feisty draw against Barcelona in which Victor Valdes, at fault for the equaliser, did his Toni Schumacher impersonation.

Solbakken’s strategy of pressing Barcelona out of their stride – the footballing equivalent of Corporal Jones’s “They don’t like it up ‘em” in Dads Army – just about worked. His players were stubborn, resilient and intelligent. Though Barcelona dominated possession as usual, both sides could easily have scored the winner. One Barca supporter was impressed enough to suggest that if the Lions were in la Liga they would “finish in the top half for sure”.

Twenty five scouts from foreign clubs swelled the crowd at the atmospheric, compact Parken stadium. Defenders Oscar Wendt and Mathias ‘Zanka’ Jorgensen, midfielders Martin Vingaard and William Kvist and striker Damien N’Doye are the most prized players. Yet the renaissance of 33-year-old Jesper Gronkjaer, long regarded as the very definition of the stereotypically tricky but erratic midfielder, may be Solbakken’s biggest achievement.

Copenhagen has been chiefly famous for exorbitant bar prices, fairytales and Danny Kaye, as Hans Christian Andersen, singing “Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen”. Solbakken’s Lions have made Copenhagen one of the capitals of European football. The team’s results may earn the Danish champions an automatic place in the Champions League group stage in 2011/2012. If they do make this season's knockout round, they will be the underdog everyone wants to avoid.

This could be the greatest ever season for club and coach. Football is certainly not a matter of life and death for Solbakken. He just reckons his near death experience has made him more focused. And his focus right now is on winning.

Andy Carroll, Watergate and England’s national emergency

Paul Simpson — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 12:22:00 GMT

What has the Watergate scandal got to do with Andy Carroll’s suitability to lead England’s attack?

At the meeting that authorised the burglary of the Watergate hotel – and fatally undermined Nixon’s presidency – one manager reluctantly backed the scheme thinking: “It’s only a third-rate burglary. What could possibly go wrong?”

The Watergate scandal is the classic manifestation of a psychological phenomenon which Irving Janis dubbed “groupthink”. In essence, the term describes the mechanism by which members of a tightly knit group are so keen to reach a consensus that they don’t critically test, analyse or evaluate an idea, no matter how barmy it is.

Janis died in 1990 but if he were alive today – and read the football media – he would realise groupthink is flourishing. Especially, as we’ll discuss later, where Newcastle’s No.9 is concerned.

U-turns and turnips

This year we have seen classic examples of groupthink in the British football press. The most spectacular – both because of the scale and the speed in the change of attitude – was the way that, within days, a press that had condemned Fabio Capello as a turnip (or, as they say in Italy, Luca Toni) after the fiasco in South Africa did a collective U-turn and – with the exception of a few distinguished dissenters like Patrick Barclay – concluded the Italian was still the right man for the England job.

Once that collective decision had been made, nothing could challenge this view – not even the revelation that the vastly experienced Italian had been outthought by a bunch of German Ph.D students.

Capello would presumably struggle on University Challenge

In case you’d forgotten, the students’ masterplan to undo England wasn’t especially complicated or cunning. It boiled down to four points:

1. If you clog midfield, you stop most England attacks.
2. England’s defence doesn’t like it up ‘em so hit long balls.
3. Lure John Terry out of position.
4. Give the ball to Matthew Upson – he rarely passes it to a teammate.

Loving and loathing the Blues

A few weeks ago there was a minor outbreak of groupthink when the question: “Is it time to love Chelsea?” popped up in various parts of the media and was answered in the affirmative by such usually reliable stalwarts as Kevin McCarra.

The grounds for loving Chelsea were basically as follows:

1. Chelsea aren’t spending anywhere near as much as Manchester City.
2. Their coach is a very nice bloke, a proper football man.
3. Er, that’s it.

It’s a bizarre question anyway. If you’re a supporter of Arsenal, Fulham, Spurs or West Ham, there is never a time to love Chelsea. The Blues have been despised for decades, witness the rant by Terry (James Bolam) in Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads? back in the 1970s that “Chelsea represent everything I detest about football”.

Even if Roman Abramovich brought peace to the Middle East, discovered a cure for cancer and made world poverty a distant memory, large swathes of the populace would still find it hard to warm to the Blues.

How handy is Andy?

The latest, astonishing case of groupthink is the clamour for Andy Carroll to be included in the England squad. His strengths are obvious – aerial prowess, never say die spirit, a useful left foot – but so are the deficiencies.

If even 1% of what the tabloids say about him is true, the kindest you could say is that Carroll hardly has the kind of lifestyle that suggests he is a dedicated, focused, professional athlete.

Carroll has most pundits singing off the same hymn sheet

As I write this, he has scored seven goals in the top flight. Yet such sages as Jamie Redknapp confidently predict he could lead the England attack for the next decade. This is a terrifying prospect in so many ways.

First, the mere prediction suggests that Redknapp has learned nothing from the World Cup, a tournament ultimately suffocated by hype. When George W. Bush said “You can fool some of the people all the time and those are the ones you should concentrate on”, he was joking. Redknapp and other pundits have taken Dubya literally.

You expect this kind of knee jerk from Alan Shearer, the self-appointed patron saint of the Geordie nation, but the last time we had this kind of clamour, the striker who was good enough to lead England’s attack for the next decade was Andy Johnson, now rebuilding his career at Fulham.

If seven goals in the top flight is enough for a striker to be considered worthy of the Three Lions, how much lower can the bar go?

Doesn’t this represent some kind of national disaster? A crisis so deep that the sports minister should declare a state of emergency, assume extraordinary powers and order Stuart Pearce to spend very waking hour searching Genes Reunited until he’s found half a dozen decent young foreign strikers with an English grandparent?

The idea that Carroll is the new Shearer, Supermac or Milburn is appealing, especially to Toon sentimentalists. But as an England star, it’s almost as likely that Carroll could be the new Francis Jeffers, David Nugent or Chris Armstrong who amassed just two England goals between them.

I don’t have a convincing alternative to Carroll. I just believe we’re far better off not falling for all the hype. Carroll may be a useful makeshift, a striker of last resort, or he may rise to the challenge. But his top-flight goals have come against Arsenal, Aston Villa (in disarray after O’Neill’s exit), Blackburn, West Ham and Wolves. Hardly proof he’s a world-class striker.

And only a media desperate to convince us that a) England have a real chance in 2012 and b) the Premier League is not the new Championship (which is what it increasingly feels like to me) would say otherwise.

Ultimately this kind of groupthink metamorphoses into a much more devastating phenomenon. The phenomenon I’m thinking of starts with ‘mind’ and ends with four letters that rhyme with ‘luck’.

Inter's semi-crisis continues as Rafa fields a team of two halves

Paul Simpson — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 13:23:00 GMT

The Italian media usually answer such questions with scientific precision. In Gazzetta Dello Sport, Valerio Clari was clear: the Nerazzurri’s point at Brescia had “prevented the half-crisis from becoming a huge crisis”.

There were only two things wrong with Inter against Brescia. Their defence and their midfield. Brescia’s goal was almost comically simple: a long ball to Andrea Caracciolo who outfoxed three Inter defenders and the keeper with mysterious ease.

Watching the replay – and marvelling at the way one long lofted pass undid Inter – it was hard not to recall Rafael van der Vaart’s rumoured taunting tweet to Wesley Sneijder: “I met your defence in Milan. It didn’t look good, it was like cheese with holes in.”

Redesigning a football team is never easy. And the way Inter played in their treble-winning season gave the team its identity. Rafa Benitez is now trying to change that, as he urges Inter to play more attractive football, but his players could be forgiven if they started losing faith. Against Spurs, Lucio and Maicon looked especially disenchanted.

The major beneficiary of Benitez’s approach is Samuel Eto’o, who has already scored more goals this season than in the whole of 2009/10. But that gain is offset by the damage done to Inter’s rearguard.

They conceded six goals in two games against Spurs, five were created on the flanks. As long ago as the Super Cup, the chasms of space left out wide by Inter’s more attacking formation were as obvious as, well, a priest on a mountain of sugar.

Maicon should, as Benitez said, take his share of the blame but so should a coach who has proved himself one of the best tacticians in the UEFA Champions League and ought, after the first leg, have devised a cunning plan to deal with the force of nature known to the Italian press as “Incredi-Bale”.

Benitez probably felt he had to abandon the disciplined 4-2-3-1 with which Inter won everything. The margins of victory – against Barcelona in the semi-final – were too slender for comfort and rivals have had the summer to plot how to undo that system. But he has yet to find a formation that suits his players better. Sneijder says Inter need to rediscover their winning mentality. He’s half-right. What they also need to discover is a new way to win.

Against Brescia, Benitez plumped for a 4-4-2 which failed, as Gazzetta noted, “because the midfield line was formed by a former full-back like Zanetti, Sneijder, who hadn’t played in that position for a long time and two lads who are forwards, not outer midfielders”.

This wasn’t a game of two halves; it was a team of two halves. Five at the front and five further back and, after Maicon’s injury, only Christian Chivu striving to ensure the twain should meet.

For Moratti, Brescia probably wasn’t as wearying as the debacle at White Hart Lane. Yet the Inter owner has been reasonably restrained, saying: “It’s not that you have to react violently every time something like this happens but we have to appreciate that this is not the way to reach our goals”.

In his defence, Benitez points out that his side are only a few points shy of the summit of Serie A and just a win away from a place in the last 16 in the UEFA Champions League. He has been spectacularly unlucky with injuries, especially in the middle of the park with Esteban Cambiasso, Dejan Stankovic, Thiago Motta and McDonald Mariga sidelined. That misfortune, especially Cambiasso’s absence, did contribute to Inter’s discomfort against Spurs and probably explains the rumours of Rafa’s interest in Lucas.

This is still a half-crisis. Moratti is a seasoned owner who is not easy to panic. Benitez’s evolution of Inter may become clearer and more successful when half the squad returns from the treatment table. Till then, the coach must do his best to limit the damage. But the Milan derby, the fixture that defines the Interisti’s mood for much of the season, is only a week away.

When Europe’s national team coaches met in Madrid in September, there was much discussion about how reactive a coach should be and the importance of a team retaining its identity as it tries to outfox the opposition. One coach admitted that in the World Cup: “During the first half, I looked at my team and I thought ‘this is not us’. At half-time my priority was to persuade the team to be themselves.”

The question that hasn’t yet been answered, in Benitez’s reign at Inter, is: “What is ’us’?” At the moment, the Nerazzurri don’t play like Jose Mourinho’s Inter. But nor do they play like a team designed by Rafa Benitez.

Buffalo to Bristol Rovers: The story of Big Mal, the Great Gatsby & Supermou

Paul Simpson — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 11:00:00 GMT

Malcolm Allison’s death moved people in many ways, but it made me think of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels, and Jose Mourinho’s future.

Fitzgerald probably didn’t even know soccer existed. But in the final three paragraphs of his magnificent, flawed novel Tender Is The Night, he perfectly envisages the tragic fate that befalls most managers.

His hero, the psychoanalyst Dick Diver, is initially as commanding a presence on Fitzgerald’s French Riviera as Mourinho is at the Bernabeu. But in those final paragraphs he has become a nomadic exile, cycling between a series of smaller towns and smaller practices in New York State.

Fitzgerald even loses track of his erstwhile hero concluding: “In any case, he is almost certainly in that section of the country, in one town or another.”

From Buffalo to Bristol Rovers

Fitzgerald famously said: “Show me a hero and I will write you tragedy”. And Allison’s heroic tragedy could have easily have been written, suitably mythologised, by Fitzgerald.

The Guardian’s Michael Henderson saw Allison as a footballing Jay Gatsby who epitomised Fitzgerald’s description of his most famous hero: “If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life.”

Yet Mourinho seems more of a Gatsby, a self-created hero, than Allison. The coach’s personal bible of notes even recalls the young Gatsby’s schedule of self-improvement which includes the Mourinhoesque note: “No wasting time”. And that dismal schedule of Diver’s small towns – Buffalo, Batavia, Lockport, Geneva and Hornell – recalls the nomadic decline of Allison’s last years as a coach shuttling from Yeovil to Sporting, Middlesbrough, Willington, Kuwait, Vitoria de Setubal, SC Farensie and Bristol Rovers.

In his heyday, Fitzgerald declared that life was something you dominated if you were any good. Yet his fiction traced the many tragic ways life overwhelms even the very best. Personality – no matter how long your unbroken series of successful gestures lasted for – was ultimately not enough for Gatsby or Diver.

Tolstoy made the same point, tediously, in War And Peace, suggesting that the outcome of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia could not be wholly explained by the character, genius or behaviour of Napoleon, Tsar Alexander or their generals.

But the media ignores Tolstoy’s reproof and Fitzgerald’s tragic wisdom, preferring to interpret European football largely as a clash of personalities. These heroes and villains are eulogised and criticised like contemporary Napoleons.

This approach is not entirely wrong – it would be churlish and stupid not to recognise Mourinho’s part in ending Inter’s 45-year wait for the European Cup – but it is far from the whole story, as Liverpool’s travails have shockingly revealed.

Daisy, Judy and Jose

Whether Mourinho loathes Benitez or vice versa is an entertaining Punch and Judy show, but is it anything more than that?

If you look beyond the cult of personalities, what is most striking about European football is not how radically geniuses like Mourinho have changed matters but how much remains the same.

At the top of the game, though competition has varied in intensity since the late 1960s, the profound resilience of Ajax, Arsenal, Barcelona, Bayern, Juventus, Inter, Liverpool, Manchester United, Marseille, Milan has been impressive. They have all had their struggles but the sheer longevity and overall consistency of their success would be deemed phenomenal in any other industry.

To give you a point of reference, between 1970 and 1983 a third of the 500 largest global companies ceased to exist. The difficulty of merging and acquiring clubs skews the comparison a bit – mind you, clubs face far fiercer competition than the giant multinationals.

In this context, Mourinho’s rise looks slightly different. The Special One got his big break at one of Portugal’s big three, cemented his reputation at a rich, long-established English club (albeit one with a gift for flashy underachievement), reconquered Europe with one of Italy’s most successful, well-off clubs and now reigns as football’s greatest living superhero at the wealthiest club in the world which has won the European Cup nine times.

Once you set aside the matter of Mourinho’s genius, the other common factors in his remarkable story are pedigree (which implies a position of power, an expectation of success and, in many cases, a certain quality of infrastructure) and wealth.

One of Mourinho’s lesser spotted gifts as a coach is his instinct for selecting clubs with the financial resources to give him a temporary, but hefty, competitive advantage. There’s an echo of Gatsby here too. Fitzgerald’s doomed hero says of his beloved Daisy “Her voice is full of money”. Since he’s been able to pick and choose, Mourinho invariably joins clubs that are “full of money”.

So, for me, even if Mourinho rewrites history and becomes the first coach to win the European Cup with three clubs or the first to win it twice in a row with different clubs, his greatest feat will be winning the UEFA Champions League with comparative underdogs, Porto.

The haunter becomes the haunted

Mourinho’s alliance with the media has created a myth – let’s call it Supermou – that is so powerful it has diminished Phil Scolari – a coach who had merely won the World Cup – and haunted the likes of Avram Grant, Jesualdo Ferreira and Benitez.

But ultimately, as Allison discovered, such myths haunt the very person they celebrate. One of the recurring trials in superhero fiction is the moment the baying, betrayed mob turns on a superhero deemed to have lost his superheroic gifts.

Brian Clough avoided such nastiness by achieving a kind of success so unprecedented and spectacular that most Nottingham Forest fans never blamed him when the club fell to earth. The fans, owners and presidents of the clubs that hire Mourinho are less forgiving.

Mourinho does not talk like a student of football history. But as he basks in the deserved adulation in Madrid he might want to reflect on one line in Brian Glanville’s obituary of Allison: “The worst thing that happened to him was what, at the time, appeared the best: when, in 1971, he was made manager of Manchester City.”

Mourinho is more disciplined than Allison but Tolstoy, Fitzgerald and Glanville would probably suggest he ought to think ahead if he seeks to avoid the worst.

If he could avoid the Diver/Allison syndrome by bowing out at the top (as a World Cup winner with Portugal?), the legend of Supermou would remain untarnished. And that might just be the most special thing The Special One ever does.

Milk, Spurs and a prospect named Messi

Paul Simpson — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 12:28:00 GMT

There was a time – and I don’t think I’m indulging in false, misty-eyed nostalgia here – when football used to happen on the pitch. And we all talked about goals, saves and mazy runs with the ball not contracts, agents and injunctions in the famous jurisdiction of Dallas.

This week the UEFA Champions League did the immense public service of reminding us that football can still be about stuff that happens on the pitch even if, mysteriously, discussion of that stuff leads us to Rafa Benitez’s milkman who told us that, in Liverpool, the coach the Italian media have snidely dubbed Big Ben was a three semi-skimmed pints a day man. Given that Rafa once went to war with Valencia players because he ordered them to use skimmed milk in their ice cream, that seems a lot to me.

But at the San Siro it was Spurs, not Inter, Rafa or John the milkman, who showed a lot of bottle. True, the expanses of unmarked space on Inter’s flanks in the second half were so vast you could have driven a milk float down them, but you can only play whoever you’re up against. And Gareth Bale took superb advantage of the kind of slack defending seldom seen since England’s World Cup exit.

Clearly Inter’s internal debate over who should track back on each flank remains unresolved. Such indecision may prove fatal in the knockout rounds.

Dwight Yorke sticks his neck out

Still, those stern judges in the famous jurisdiction of the Italian football press didn’t mind. Gazzetta dello Sport hailed the “fantastic, unstoppable Eto’o” and celebrated the performance of Philippe Coutinho, the Brazilian attacking midfielder who looks almost as prodigiously gifted as Jack Wilshere. They barely acknowledged that skipper Javier Zanetti’s goal made him, at 37, the oldest player to score in the history of the Champions League.

But this was a tough week for opinion formers. Perched uneasily on a high chair in the Sky Sports studio, Dwight Yorke, perhaps unnerved by the unaccustomed proximity of his old sparring partner Graeme Souness, bizarrely described Lionel Messi as “one for the future” when debating whether Barca’s No10 was as good as, or better than, Maradona.

As much as Souness drooled over Messi he was even more amazed by the act of footballing alchemy that Harry Redknapp had wrought at Spurs. Souness made one substitute appearance in the UEFA Cup for the Cockney Tap Dancers between 1968 and 1972 and was simply astounded by the sight of a Spurs team fighting back. This wasn’t, he implied, the Spurs he knew and sneered at, the old Spurs that loved to be the best team on the pitch and still lose.

The stereotype of Spurs as congenital flatterers to deceive was set in stone in September 2001 when they managed to lose 5-3 to Manchester United after being 3-0 up at half-time. Sir Alex Ferguson’s team talk at the interval didn’t involve any crockery flinging. He calmly told his players: “Obviously, you know this is Spurs we’re playing. In their minds, they’ve already won. Get one back and they’ll panic. That’s the thing about Spurs. They’ve always played that way and they always will.” United proved him right then but nine years later Redknapp is finally proving him wrong.

Inter’s defending wasn’t the only echo of the World Cup to resonate this week. In South Africa, many pundits used the term “broken team” to describe national sides that didn’t really have a tactical plan but relied on the individual brilliance of their stars. On matchday three, Massimiliano Allegri’s Milan played like a “broken team”. It is probably too early for the rather lopsided array of talents Allegri has at his disposal to grow organically into a unit but against Real Madrid, they looked like the most un-Sacchi-like team the Rossoneri have fielded since the former shoe salesman left the dugout in 1991.

But back to Camp Nou. For me, the revelation of the night wasn’t Messi but Copenhagen’s Senegalese striker Damien N’Doye who twisted past a panting Carles Puyol to rattle the woodwork with a fierce half-volley in the second half. The Danish champions have scored three goals so far and N’Doye has grabbed two of them. No wonder Sampdoria have been linked with him.

Walternaccio and Rooneygate

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the week wasn’t Bale’s valiant hat-trick but the inventive football with which Rangers really should have beaten Valencia. True, los Che started out below strength but Walter Smith’s men created enough good chances to make the old gags about ‘Walternaccio’ as stale as the unsold bread in Covent Garden on this week’s edition of The Apprentice.

If Rangers can maintain this vein of form, Smith may yet fulfil his lifelong wish to (as he reveals in the next issue of that really surprisingly good magazine known as Champions) lead his men out at the Bernabeu.

This is already the most surreal football season since 1994/95, made so mirablis by Cantona’s kung fu kick. And for this I blame the media. (Not just the media, I think Rafa Benitez’s milkman, a gullible Texan judge and whoever asked Colin Murray to host MOTD2 should take their share of responsibility. I don’t know what the qualifications for hosting MOTD2 are, or indeed if there are any at all, but Murray’s competence is so immense he reminds me of LBJ’s famous remark about a rival who was so useless he “couldn’t pour water out of a wellington boot if the instructions were printed on the sole”.)

But to return to the point – I do have one honest – why was one tabloid billing Wayne Rooney’s desire to leave Manchester United as “Rooneygate”?

I haven’t read every column inch devoted to this controversy – who has the time or, indeed, the willpower? – but surely no one has credibly accused Wayne of secretly trying to subvert the democratic process by employing a team of disaffected Cuban exiles who were probably once in the employ of the CIA to break into a hotel room to find secret documents that were probably never there in the first place? Thought not.

The Rooney saga has many facets (most of them, I suspect, invisible to the supporters and the media) but none scandalous enough to warrant the use of the ‘gate’ suffix.

Stupefied to a mutter by Sven

Paul Simpson — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 09:27:00 GMT

After more than four decades watching football, it’s delightful, if professionally inconvenient, to know that the game can still stupefy me.

How do you feel about having Sven as manager? It’s a question I get asked everyday. And I always mutter something non-committal under my breath because the truth is I don’t know.

This is in itself an alarming state of affairs for someone who has been writing about football for 16 years. As a football journalist, you’re paid to have opinions, even – or should that be especially? – when you don’t have one.

Milan Mandaric, Eriksson and Aiyawatt Raksriaksorn

But how I do feel about Sven? On hearing the news, I was flummoxed by the surrealism of it all. It is easily the strangest thing to happen to my beloved Foxes since Leicester Fosse – as they were then known – notoriously lost a penalty shoot-out to an elephant. In the 1890s, four players took on a jumbo-sized goalkeeper from Sangers Circus with an oversized ball: only one, William Keach, managed to score.

Part of me smelled a hoax. Leicester had inadvertently been embroiled in football farce before. In Joe McGinniss’s sublime The Miracle Of Castel di Sangro, the village team that has somehow reached the dizzying heights of Serie B signs a promising African striker who is said to have played for Leicester City but astounds McGinniss by vowing, at his first press conference, to sleep with all the players' wives. The ‘Leicester striker’ turns out to be an uninspired publicity stunt by the club’s demented owner.

Even when I realised Sven was no hoax, I couldn't shake the feeling that City had been press-ganged into playing a largely unrewarding cameo role in someone else’s sitcom. This worry was partly inspired by the fact that I – along with, I suspect, many other Britons – could no longer distinguish between the man himself and Alastair MacGowan’s doleful, hen-pecked, ineffectual Sven.

So the mere mention of Sven as City boss prompted visions of McGowan in the dug-out and Ronnie Ancona’s Nancy in the director’s box, secretly texting her roving other half a series of increasingly furious reprimands about his latest peccadillo.

The confusion sounds absurd and yet at the same time it has the ring of symbolic truth. The Sven who won Serie A with Lazio, became the first coach to win the league and cup double in three countries (Sweden, Portugal and Italy) and did a half-decent job at Manchester City seems to bear no relation to the Sven who turned up in the east Midlands as the figurehead of the tinpot regime that briefly gave Notts County fans ideas above their station.

So which Sven had Leicester City hired? And was his appointment – and the investment by Thai duty-free retailer King Power – merely just the cruellest of false dawns?

After the 1-1 draw against Hull (managed by Nigel Pearson, who left City in the summer – possibly in a row over transfer funds, in a move which will surely stymie his prospects of a minor Premier League job in the next year or two), neither of these questions has been answered.

If I couldn’t decide how I felt about Sven I should, at least, be able to construct the kind of pithy riposte with which such enquiries are usually greeted in the workplace. But even that seemed beyond me.

My next thought was that I’d rather have Jimmy Bloomfield but he is sadly unavailable on account of having died of cancer in 1983 at the shockingly young age of 48. In the early 1970s, Bloomfield’s City – studded with such geniuses as Frank Worthington, Keith Weller, Alan Birchenall, Peter Shilton, David Nish, Jon Sammels and Len Glover – made me gasp as well as cheer.

In Julian Barnes’s seminal novel A History of the World in Ten and a Half Chapters, the narrator ascends to heaven where his beloved Leicester City win the FA Cup every year. (Note that even in a fantasy of paradise, Leicester only win the FA Cup – not the Premier League, let alone the European Cup. It’s as if the most inventive British novelist of his generation had decided that, even in a fictional utopia, to suggest that City would win the European Cup was just too outlandish.)

When I reread the book – something I do every other year – the City side I envisage monopolising the FA Cup is the one I first saw with uncle Ron and cousin Mick in the early 1970s in which the magnificent seven – Shilton, Nish, Weller, Sammels, Worthington, Birchenall and Glover – were ably supported by the likes of Dennis Rofe, Steve Whitworth, Graham Cross and Rodney Fern, who revealed in his Shoot! questionnaire that the person he’d most like to meet was Lester Piggott.

As I write this, I’m becoming accustomed to the idea of Sven. The real Sven. That’s partly because even the briefest scrutiny of the list of Leicester City managers confirms just how dire Paulo Sousa’s replacement could have been. Mark McGhee? Craig Levein, latterly famed as the pioneer of the new, shortlived 4-2-4-0 formation? The second coming of Gary ‘Suitcase’ Megson?

So my stupefaction is over. Sven will do. He’s a darn sight more encouraging than the return of Megson and not quite as bizarre as a penalty shoot-out with an elephant. (Mind you, if City’s new Thai backers are as hungry for publicity as some suggest, why not restage this classic conflict between player and pachyderm?)

But if you pinched me tomorrow and told me that Sven of the Foxes had been a dream, a hoax or a new Radio 4 satire like Lenin of the Rovers, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

Scrabble, Princess Diana and Armenia

Paul Simpson — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 15:36:00 GMT

For Europe’s football giants, qualifying for the finals of Euro 2012 is almost a formality. For many smaller countries, such as Armenia, ambitions are more modest. Earning more points than last time, doing well enough to move up to the next pot in the seedings.

These are not the kind of aims to inspire a nation, so if they are accompanied by the occasional night of unexpected glory – like Armenia’s 3-1 win over Slovakia last Friday – so much the better.

Armenia is a far away country of which most football fans know nothing. Till now, the Armenians have had only one thing in common: a sense of indignant grief over the murder of at least a million of their compatriots by Turkey during World War One. Armenians aren’t even united by geography: only three million of them live in the republic, another 11 million are scattered across the globe.

Afflicted by history and geography, this fragile young nation has long looked to individual celebrities such as chess master Gary Kasparov (a keen football fan) to embody the nation they dream of becoming. (This quest even led some eager patriots to calculate that Princess Diana was 1/64th Armenian.) Since their victory over Slovakia – and their 4-0 tonking of Andorra – the national football team has become such a symbol.

The 3-1 win was a shock but hardly undeserved. Armenia’s fast, short passing game outfoxed the Slovaks (who played like big-time Charlies convinced that victory was just a matter of turning up) and the new 3M forward line – Edgar Manucharyan, Henrik Mkhityaryan and Yura Movsisyan – gives the team something it has conspicuously lacked in recent years: a cutting edge in front of goal.

National coach Vardan Minasyan, who won 11 caps in midfield for Armenia and was caretaker manager when the national team beat Belgium 2-1 in 2009, has transformed the team. After losing 1-0 to Ireland, they came within a late handball of beating Macedonia away before settling for a 2-2 draw.

The victory over World Cup finalists Slovakia is arguably their most spectacular result in 18 years of international football. And the rather more expected win against Andorra means Armenia are on an unprecedented three-game unbeaten run.

How the 1998 World Cup was won… with Armenian help
Before the Slovakia game, the edited highlights of Armenia’s football history amounted to Ararat Yerevan’s Soviet league title in 1973, their subsequent run to the European Cup quarter-finals and that triumph over Belgium. The best Armenian footballer of all-time is, by common consent, midfielder Khoren Oganesian who won 34 caps for the USSR and scored the winner, coincidentally against Belgium in the 1982 World Cup.

On top of that, two members of France’s 1998 World Cup winning squad – Alain Boghossian and Youri Djorkaeff – are of Armenian descent. Djorkaeff has even speculated in public about coaching the Armenian national team.

The good news for Armenian players is that, since Scrabble changed the rules to allow proper names, a thorough knowledge of their monikers could help Scrabblers conquer all. Mkhityaryan is worth 26 points in the English version.

Armenia are still unlikely qualifiers for Euro 2012 finals: Minasyan doesn’t really have the strength in depth. Mkhitaryan, arguably their best player against Slovakia, is the only player in the squad with UEFA Champions League experience (with Shakhtar Donetsk) while the other most famous player, Manucharyan, has returned to Armenia’s perennial champions Pyunik after five wasted, injury-prone years at Ajax.

Movsisyan, whose family fled to the US for asylum eight years ago, looks a good prospect. The 23-year-old terrorised Martin Skrtel and scored the goals that kept Randers in the Danish top flight last season.

Pride, money and hope
Minasyan’s triumphs couldn’t come at a better time for Armenian football. Pyunik have won the last nine titles but are being pushed all the way this season by Yerevan rivals Banants. But Armenian football needs investment to bring more young players through: the best academies are run by Pyunik and Ararat FC. Meanwhile Hratch Kaprelian, who owns most of Ararat FC, is now investing in a French third division club.

If Minasyan’s team can become a serious focal point for Armenia’s national pride, the economic benefits could trickle down to clubs and the grassroots. If that happens, either fewer investors may follow Kaprelian’s example or, better still, the richer members of Armenia’s enormous global diaspora might be inspired to invest in Armenian clubs.

This might sound like a lot of hope to build on seven points from four games. But sometimes, goals, games and qualifying campaigns can change history.

Are tactics ruining Rooney's dreams?

Paul Simpson — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 12:18:00 GMT

The last thing Wayne Rooney needs right now is more advice. But as his 25th birthday nears, he must sense that, as a man and a footballer, his life is approaching a tipping point. One serious misstep and the genius once billed as the white Pele could become another English footballer who promised greatness but never quite achieved it.

Watching his games at Euro 2004 – and that hat-trick on his debut for Manchester United against Fenerbahce just over six years ago – I was reminded of Franz Beckenbauer’s famous analysis of Gazza at Italia 90: “A true footballer from the streets, defiant, crafty and intrepid like the leader of a boy’s gang. Behind his angular forehead, he would cook up ideas you just didn’t expect.”

And this summer, even when the Kaiser was at his most contemptuous of England’s kick and rush football, the Manchester United and England striker was exempt from Beckenbauer’s general scorn. The World Cup winner as player and coach noted: “If Rooney can catch a little on fire, England will be a threat to anyone.”

But the World Cup didn’t spark Rooney in the slightest. And in the months since, the star has dominated the tabloid front pages in a manner unseen since the absurdity of Gazzamania, prompting a thousand columnists to ask: what is wrong with Wayne Rooney?

Celebrity, peace and joy

Celebrity is, John Updike once suggested, the mask that eats away at the face underneath. Both George Best and Gazza discovered, at immense personal cost, the truth of Updike’s observation. Now Rooney is discovering it too. It didn’t take many years of tabloid scrutiny before Gazza confessed that the only place he felt at peace was on a football pitch.

You wonder if Rooney has already begun to feel the same. Except that, these days, his body language does not often suggest joy. Which does beg the question: has Rooney fallen out of love with football?

It happens. And given the colossal failure of England’s World Cup campaign, it would not be that surprising. Officially, professional footballers are supposed to put such disappointments behind them or use the rage to fuel their quest for self-improvement. But the reality is that failures, especially of such magnitude, are much harder to manage than such mantras might suggest.

Why, after all, did Rooney become a footballer in the first place? Because he was very good at it– and because he dreamed of emulating such geniuses as his boyhood idol, Maradona.

As daft as some of Rooney’s off the pitch activities might seem, nobody has ever suggested he is unintelligent about football. And the contrast between Maradona in 1986 and Rooney in 2010 will have hurt him. He now knows he has at best two more opportunities to live up to his idol in a World Cup. Even at 25, the opportunities for Rooney to prove his greatness are diminishing.

In Rome in May 2009, Rooney sat in the Manchester United dressing room, processing the unexpectedly comprehensive manner of his side’s defeat, and concluded: “We lost to the best team in the world.” Winning the UEFA Champions League was the best moment of his career. But in the two years since Moscow, United’s progress to the business end of this competition no longer seems assured.

The dreams that inspire players like Rooney are not necessarily the same as those that inspire their coaches. Arsene Wenger once said a coach’s duty is to encourage creativity, not destroy it. In that respect, Rooney has been lucky with the licence granted him by Sir Alex Ferguson – if not by successive England managers. He has the technique and the vision to do the unexpected but he has not inspired as many YouTube moments as Messi or Maradona.

In many ways Rooney’s all-round game has improved significantly, but it has also become less spectacular: for example, he has not scored from outside the area in 65 games for Manchester United.

He must watch Barcelona’s No10 with awe and envy. And he may wonder if it is his peculiar misfortune to have grown up in the wrong football culture. Because Beckenbauer had a point. The prevailing mentality in English club football is still kick and rush.

There’s only one Brian Talbot! 

Rooney, who has the best technique of any English footballer of his generation, is often celebrated not for what sets him apart from other footballers but for the very trait he shares with such mediocre midfield workhorses as Brian Talbot: he runs a lot.

We grant Rooney the freedom to use his legs when what he really needs to grow as a footballer is the freedom to use his brain. (To be fair, he might be given his head if he played in either Serie A or La Liga.) In many respects, Rooney’s predicament is symptomatic of the game, which is now dominated by discussion of formations, tactics and shapes. The triumph of the coach is symbolised by the fact that Real Madrid signed only one galactico this summer: Jose Mourinho. Great news for coaches and columnists with chalkboards, but is it really good for the game?

The implausible dreams that inspired Rooney to become a footballer are the fantasies that underpin football. If we can’t be the next Maradona, the next best thing is to watch the making of one. And if Rooney can’t fulfil his dreams, I fear for football.

When we look up this era on whatever YouTube is called a decade or two from now, what clips of action will we be watching: Rafa Benitez sitting in the dugout writing notes?

Megson, Blanchflower and Presley

Paul Simpson — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 10:33:00 GMT

The eight-point guide to this week's UEFA Champions League action...

1 Take it away Lionel!
The goal of the week has to be Lionel Messi’s second against Panathinaikos. In any other week, Thomas Muller’s curving volley with the outside of his foot would have stood out. But Messi’s dribble and shot was so good you still couldn’t quite see how he’d done it on the replay.

Messi is the supreme exponent of an endangered art: dribbling. We’ve all grown up with wizards of the wing who fall under their own spell and flatter to deceive. But Messi darts towards the goal, knowing that even if he doesn’t score, he will probably wreak enough havoc to set up a teammate. With the ball at his feet and running at defences Messi is as good as Maradona and Best.

Watching Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona is, let’s face it, so much more fun than watching Vicente del Bosque’s Spain. I agree with Mike Ticher who said in When Saturday Comes: “I watched Spain’s World Cup with a mixture of admiration and frustration. Yes, it was tactically and technically brilliant and sometimes ‘beautiful’. But was it gripping? Were those four 1-0 wins in a row the best football can be? To me, there was something repressed and clinical about Spain that sucked the drama from the matches.”

For me, the difference between watching Barcelona and Spain is like the difference between hearing Elvis sing Suspicious Minds and Proud Mary. There’s nothing wrong with the latter, it is sufficient, it does the job, but it doesn’t have the same charismatic, joyous urgency as El crooning: “Honey, you know I’d never lie to you...”

2 The night of the living dead
Transylvania’s finest pulled off the result of the week. With coach Andrea Mandorlini sacked 48 hours before kick-off, Cluj could have played like zombies against Basel. But they snuck a 2-1 victory thanks to ruthless finishing, the left foot of Juan Culio (who made both goals) and honest toil.

New coach Sorin Cartu, a stern disciplinarian, has had a chequered career. He was just 35 when he won the double as manager of Universtatea Craiova in 1990/91, but he has drifted around the league since like a Romanian Gary Megson.

Cartu should know that September is the cruellest month for Cluj managers. In September 2008, Ioan Andone was squeezed out despite having just won the first double in the club’s history.

Mandorlini paid the price for an indifferent start to the season and his startling decision to omit promising striker Cristian Bud, centre-back Nuno Diogo and experienced Argentine midfielder Sixto Peralta from the Champions League squad.

Cartu is Cluj’s eighth manager in five years, which suggests that owner Arpad Paszkany and chairman Luliu Muresan are taking the ‘Chelsea of Romania’ tag a bit too literally.

3 The perils of punditry
The “you never win anything with kids” award for heroically misguided punditry goes to, er, myself for bigging up Braga.

Professor Champions League, Tue 14 Sep: "Braga pose more of an attacking threat than Sporting Lisbon"

While marvelling at Arsenal’s quality, Michel Salgado wondered about their ability to read the ebbs and flows that are an intrinsic part of every match. If Arsenal were as good at making decisions as at passing the ball, he suggested, they might win the ultimate prize.

There’s something about Wenger’s Arsenal that makes seasoned pros like Salgado uncomfortable. It’s almost as if they are too pure, lacking the necessary understanding of realpolitik which most successful teams call on in times of need.

But their football can be magical, like Barcelona’s in 2009, Ajax’s in the early 1970s and Brazil in 1970. The cheap jibes about Arsenal’s recent dearth of silverware under Wenger slightly miss the point. Football isn’t just about trophies; it is, as Danny Blanchflower famously said, about glory and doing things with style. As Arsenal are doing.

4 Too many tweets...
Maketh a tw*t, as David Cameron memorably observed. The prime minister’s wisdom is obviously lost on Russian president Dmitri Medvedev who sarcastically congratulated Marseille defender Cesar Azpiliceuta for scoring the own goal that gave Spartak Moscow three points.

“Spartak beat Marseille, Azpiliceuta played brilliantly” tweeted the exultant pres. He might have done better just to congratulate Spartak keeper Andrei Dykan who fully deserved his “11 out of ten” rating from coach Valeriy Karpin (who by the way is interviewed in the latest issue of Champions).

5 Anoraks corner
Chelsea’s romp over Zilina was remarkable for stattos, anoraks and all-round saddoes like me. When 17-year-old Josh McEachran made his debut against the Slovakian champions, he became the first player born after the Champions League started to grace the competition. Chelsea’s promising young midfielder was born on 1 March 1993.

6 The bad news for Spurs
Losing their coach and some key players over the summer, Twente were cast as cannon fodder in Group A. But against Inter, the Eredivisie champions moved the ball around well, kept their shape for much of the time and exploited the spaces left by a Nerazzurri side that still seems caught betwixt and between.

Rafa Benitez’s attempt to make Inter play more expansively is leaving more space on the flanks for opponents to attack and, against Twente, led McDonald Mariga to stray too far forward leaving Lucio and Walter Samuel isolated.
Although Theo Janssen’s stunning free kick stole the show, forwards Bryan Ruiz and Luuk De Jong were exceptional. Michel ***’homme’s team could trouble Werder Bremen and Spurs in the race for the last 16.

7 Milacticos 2 Auxerre 0
Two moments of genius from Ibra – and Ronaldinho – were the difference between Milan and Auxerre. Jean Fernandez’s side were unlucky not to grab a point. Leonardo suggested his old club’s progress in this competition would depend not on the ‘Milacticos’ but on the fitness of central defensive intelligence Alessandro Nesta who will need to be at his most commanding if the Rossoneri’s lack of bite in midfield is not to cost them.

Kevin-Prince Boateng’s flick on for Ibra’s first goal is the latest memorable episode in a career worthy of a soap opera. Still only 23, Boateng has played for six clubs and two countries, missed a penalty in an FA Cup final, and registered an assist on his Champions League debut. As if that wasn’t enough, he has publicly admitted that, when depressed, he had a serious shopping addiction. He has looked good in midfield for Milan and could yet prove one of the bargains of the summer.

8 The wrong curse
Wayne Rooney’s troubles have been attributed to the curse of Nike. But the real curse may be much closer to home.

Since Bobby Charlton scored 49 goals for England, various misfortunes have befallen players who looked like smashing his record. Gary Lineker, who seemed destined to supersede Charlton, struck one of the oddest penalties of his career (against Brazil) when in sight of that record and hobbled into retirement with a dodgy toe, a goal short of Charlton’s total. Michael Owen racked up 40 goals at a fair rate but hasn’t played for the Three Lions in two and a half years.

Now 24, Rooney has scored 26 goals for England – Charlton had scored 23 by the time he celebrated his 24th birthday – and looks the best bet to break that record since Lineker. But will he?

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Jugglers, copycats and Sepp's dodgy knee

Paul Simpson — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 10:35:00 GMT

The editor of Champions Magazine shares some random observations on the week ahead in European football...

Can anything stop Chelsea?

“The only thing that can stop Chelsea [in the UEFA Champions League] is their appalling bad luck in this competition”. I read that on the internet so it must be true.

True the Blues have had their hopes cruelly dashed by a ghost goal, indifferent refereeing, a missed penalty and a late equaliser, but that isn’t what’s troubling Chelsea fans. They fret about central defence. Without the sly, strategic wit of Ricardo Carvalho, the Blues must rely on John Terry, Alex, Jeffrey Bruma and Branislav Ivanovic.

Away this week to MSK Zilina, it will be intriguing to see what kind of test 21-year-old Gambian striker Momodou Ceesay (who scored three goals in qualifying) gives Terry. Ceesay spent two years in Chelsea’s youth academy so won’t lack motivation.

Send in the juggler

Ajax’s return to the Bernabeu for the first time in 15 years is sufficient reason for a gratuitous revel in the audacious genius of Gerrie Muhren. On 25 April 1973, the Golden Ajax beat Real Madrid 1-0 at the Bernabeu. The result was almost incidental because during the game Muhren started nonchalantly juggling the ball just inside the Real half. Around 110,000 Madrilenos had the grace to wave their white handkerchiefs in appreciation.

Muhren scored the only goal as Ajax progressed to their third successive European Cup final (in which they beat Juventus 1-0 in Belgrade.) Later as the midfielder walked back to the hotel, he was surrounded by Real fans who mistook him for a Dutch supporter and wanted to know all about Ajax’s demon juggler.

Muhren loves to ruminate about that moment’s symbolic significance and declared: “Before then it was always big Real Madrid and little Ajax. When they saw me doing that, the balance changed.”

The balance has shifted again since. A 1-0 win by Ajax in Group G would be the shock of matchday one. Not least because Jose Mourinho has now gone 137 home games without defeat as manager.

There’s only Arsenal. Err, wait a minute…

Braga used to wear green and white, like Sporting Lisbon who they were kind of named after. But their Hungarian coach Jozef Szabo was so impressed by Arsenal on a trip to Highbury in the 1920s he remodelled the club on his return to Portugal.

Braga adopted Arsenal’s red and white kit, named their youth team the Arsenal of Braga and unsurprisingly became known as the Arsenalistas.

Szabo isn’t the only football aficionado to be inspired by Arsenal. In a province of Buenos Aires in 1957, brothers Hector and Julio Grondona launched a club called Arsenal de Sarandi. And let’s not forget Arsenal Maseru (who, coincidentally won the Lesotho title in 1989 and 1991, the same years George Graham’s Gunners won the league), Arsenal Kharkiv and Arsenal Kyiv (in the Ukraine), Arsenal (Honduras), amateur club Arsenal-Tula (Russia), Berekum Arsenal (Ghana), Arsenal Wanderers (Mauritius), FK Arsenal (Montenegro) and Arsenal Kragujevac (Serbia).

Not sure why Arsenal inspire so many clones. Many clubs have one doppelganger – Everton in Chile, Manchester United in Gibraltar, even Liverpool in Montevideo – Arsenal have lots of them. It may be as simple as the fact that Arsenal have always felt like part of the football establishment and, even as far back as the 1920s, people from within the game who visited them came away with feeling that that was a proper football club ought to be like.

This week two Arsenals clash in Group H. Although Arsene Wenger’s team should top the group, Braga’s demolition of Sevilla away from home in the play-off round was far more emphatic than the 4-3 scoreline might suggest.

If Wenger is right – and his team are now equipped to win this tournament – they will want all three points. But Braga pose more of an attacking threat than Sporting Lisbon who have perennially flattered to deceive in the group stages.

Brazilian striker Lima’s hat-trick defeated Sevilla, but his countryman Matheus is as much of a threat. Fast, mobile, with a knack for scoring crucial goals, the 27-year-old will be encouraged by the DVD of Arsenal’s defensive lapses against Bolton.

Who’s going to take off?

When he was manager, leader and the walking symbol of Auxerre, Guy Roux would use a particular gambit with players who wanted to move on. In his blunt, avuncular way he would compare them to a plane. If you want to leave, he’d say, that’s fine. But if you leave, do you have what it takes to really take off?

The speech served Roux’s interests. Often he would convince a player to stay on for a year or two. And for players moving clubs today, his question remains as relevant as ever. Too many move too early, are grounded at their new club and have to move on to soar again. (You’ll be delighted to hear that I have now exhausted my entire stock of aviation metaphors.)

So with Roux’s question in mind, the player I’ll be watching most this week is Yoann Gourcuff. His move to Milan epitomised Roux’s Law. Though he wasn’t particularly to blame, Gourcuff endured a turbulent, traumatic World Cup. But he has the chance to be the creative fulcrum of Lyon, the French club most likely to emulate Marseille and win this competition.

He has the talent and the vision, as he showed in this competition last season with Bordeaux. Does he have the character?

The strange case of Sepp Blatter’s knee

Famous leaders often become indelibly associated with a particular physical movement. Churchill had his V for victory, JFK was a great pointer and as for Sepp Blatter... the FIFA president has become legendary for his jerking knee.

His latest spasm is the proposal to abolish extra time at World Cups to encourage attacking play by going straight to penalties. His argument is curiously contradictory. If, as Blatter suggests, the thought that the penalty lottery is only 30 minutes away inspires teams to defend in depth, surely his proposal would reduce the amount of constructive play to 60 minutes?

Obviously, you try not to expect too much from the footballocracy but has Blatter forgotten such great, and utterly undefensive, extra times as England v West Germany in 1966, Italy v West Germany in 1970, West Germany v France in 1982, Soviet Union v Belgium in 1986, Germany v England in 1990 (no goals, but no shortage of excitement) and Italy v Germany in 2006?

Maybe Blatter’s other knee will come up with a better idea.

Houllier’s false memory syndrome

Gerard Houllier has celebrated his return to club management by declaring that: “My players won the Champions League for Liverpool”. His curious boast begs the obvious question: if really they were your players, Gerard, why couldn’t you get as much out of them as Rafa Benitez?

Expect more historical revisionism in this vein with such headlines as: “My players won the World Cup for France”.

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My Perfect 10: Vladimir Petrovic

Paul Simpson — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 07:00:00 GMT

The new issue of FourFourTwo is a 'Playmakers Special'. This week on FFT.com our writers will be celebrating their favourite fantasistas – and Professor Champions League starts us off with the discarded genius who played Wengerball before the term even existed...

Vladimir Petrovic could, as Arsenal historian Ivan Ponting noted, "drift through games with the detached air of a man out for a quiet afternoon’s plane-spotting" but that didn’t stop me loving him. The mercurial Serbian playmaker was, his Gunners team-mate Brian McDermott said, "like a messenger from the future, letting us know that one day English football would be ruled by players like him."

There is some justice in Brian Glanville’s pithy verdict: "Gifted but sporadic". But when you watched a side as fractured, aimless and infuriating as Terry Neill’s Arsenal in 1982/83, Petrovic’s visionary, inconsistent genius was easier to stomach than Brian Talbot’s running, the industrial pointlessness of which symbolised an era when British football confused activity with ability.

In 1982, eastern European football as almost as remote as the dark side of the moon so when a frail blond playmaker nicknamed Pigeon arrived at Highbury that winter, nobody knew quite what to make of him. Unfortunately one of the people who didn’t know what to make of him was his new manager who often used Petrovic, a playmaker revered for his talent by Red Star Belgrade fans, as a winger.

Luckily, the players recognised his ability. Tony Woodcock and Alan Sunderland would soon learn to cry "Vladi! Vladi!" and stretch their arms out appealing for the perfect through-ball.

The official stats – 22 appearances (three as a sub) and three goals – would seem to confirm the dismissive view of Ponting and Glanville. But he joined a team in transition, in the sense that Arsenal were going from bad to worse: a team that seemed mesmerised by its own decline. They didn’t play anything as pretty as Wengerball. Nor were they as soporifically efficient as George Graham’s Gooners.

Heady days: Vladimir Petrovic and Ashley Grimes

Though they had some talent – the North Bank could still sing "We all agree, Rixy is better than Hoddle" and almost believe it – few playmakers have been asked to make the play for such a dysfunctional outfit. Tenth in the old First Division in 1982/83 flattered that Arsenal team.

Watching from the North Bank, trying to blend in by perfecting the requisite amused fatalism, I was intrigued by Petrovic. If he did, as Stewart Robson told Jon Spurling in his book Highbury, "have a tendency to drift out of games completely", it was hard to blame him as Kenny Sansom thundered down the left (a tactic which was by 1982/83 merely underlining the law of diminishing returns), scrambled defensive clearances went astray and his through-balls found spaces his team-mates weren’t aware of.

A free-kick first alerted me to Petrovic’s spellbinding genius. Memory tells me that it was against Stoke City in January 1983. Arsenal had won a free-kick 35 yards from Stoke’s goal at the Clock End. The North Bank groaned, awaiting the usual dance of indecision that preceded every promising set-piece that season. But Petrovic strolled up to the ball, curled it around the wall and into the net.

Nobody cheered for a second or two. We weren’t used to free-kicks being taken that quickly and emphatically and, as the goal was at the other end of the pitch, many on the North Bank must have wondered if it was all a mirage. But as the Arsenal players drifted back towards the centre-circle, the North Bank realised it hadn’t been seeing things and let out a mighty roar.

Though the crowd began to chant "Vladi", his teammates quickly realised he wasn’t destined to stay. The Serb had only made his debut in December but by March Neill had decided he was surplus to requirements. (I asked Neill about this many years later and he said he’d desperately wanted to keep Petrovic but had been foiled by the ever-changing financial demands from his agent and Red Star.) The next game, an FA Cup quarter-final against Aston Villa, Petrovic was superb, turning two opponents inside out before scoring a blinder.

He never did anything that match-changing again. Yet those Arsenal fans still pining for the assured artistry of dear departed Liam Brady adored him. And on the last home game, against Sunderland, he ran rings around everyone. He was so brilliant it was like watching one of those impossibly perfect performances I’d only read about in comics like Score, Roar and Roy of the Rovers.

That was his last-ditch attempt to persuade Neill and Arsenal to keep him. Even with most of the stadium chanting "Are you watching Terry Neill?" it didn’t work. Petrovic was off that summer – to Paris and then to Antwerp. Neill would be gone a few months later, booted out in December 1983 with the Gunners just five points clear of relegation.

When Petrovic left, he told Spurling, he received a letter from one Arsenal fan saying: "Maybe one day Arsenal fans will enjoy watching a skilful team rather than a bunch of kickers and runners." As the Serb joked: "I wonder if Arsene Wenger wrote the letter?"

My Perfect 10: Riccardo Rossi on Roberto Baggio
My Perfect 10: Steve Morgan on Robert Prosinecki
My Perfect 10: Andy Mitten on Eric Cantona
My Perfect 10: Michael Cox on Rui Costa
My Perfect 10: Hugh Sleight on Zico
My Perfect 10: James Horncastle on Francesco Totti
My Perfect 10: David Hall on Zinedine Zidane
My Perfect 10: Sefa Atay on Gheorghe Hagi
My Perfect 10: Jamie Bowman on Michael Laudrup
My Perfect 10: Joel Richards on Juan Roman Riquelme

Videos: Football's finest playmakers in full flow

The 'Playmakers Special' issue of FourFourTwo is in stories throughout September 2010.

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Death, glory and Rocky Balboa

Paul Simpson — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 09:09:00 GMT

After Michel Platini slumped over a restaurant table in South Africa, I was curious to see how he was on his annual ‘meet the press’ session in Monaco.

His scare seemed to have reinvigorated him, not chastened him. Much as it may disappoint those in Britain who regard the UEFA president as a bureaucrat who insists on interfering with English football purely because he is French, he was in fine fettle and seems almost certain to be unopposed when he stands for re-election next year.

In a wide ranging Q&A, Platini stated that using two extra assistant referees meant there would be “zero tolerance” for bad referees. And the man enforcing that zero tolerance policy is none other than Pierluigi Collina.

In a more relaxed bull session with a few football writers on the terrace at Monaco’s Le Meridien Beach Plaza hotel he revealed, among other things, an amused and critical admiration for the Rocky movies, his memories of being humiliated by Bobby Robson’s Ipswich Town when he was at St Etienne and his unswerving belief that technology – even in the innocuous guise of a TV set watched by a fourth official who could radio the referee to tell him if he’d blundered horrendously – was the last possible resort in the game’s continued efforts to improve the standard of refereeing and the quality of refereeing decisions.

Michel and Gary discuss the finer points of Rocky IV

At one point, he stood up to physically demonstrate the black art of committing fouls on attackers in the box that are invisible to the referee.

It was a bravura performance which had the English press eating out of his hand. As he finished, I thought how odd it was that so little of the goodwill and sheer delight in his company showed by the assembled journalistic throng is reflected in the British media’s coverage of him.

Asked about the quality of the last World Cup, he shook his head in comedic exaggeration to show how woozy he was in hospital when the final was played. But he did suggest that if this tournament was anything to go by, “football is becoming too standardised, there used to be different flavours of football – a South American way or an African way, as well as the European way. Now the African teams are coached by Europeans and the best South Americans play in Europe so everything has become much more homogenous.”

Did you know this season ends in a 1?

And so to the draw. Monaco seemed to be crawling with Spurs fans, drunk on success. If I’d have had a pound for every time someone sang “Spurs are on their way to Wembley” or mentioned that this season ended in a 1, I’d have been able to buy trebles all round at Le Meridien’s bar. (And, given that a pint of cooking lager costs £11 at this upscale establishment, that is some statement.)

After the draw for what the sublime Melanie Vinegar kept referring to as the “Wafer Champions League”, the Spurs fans I met all wore virtually identical expressions of quiet satisfaction. Group A looked like a mission possible for Spurs and the tussles with Werder Bremen, a team with a flair for melodrama that the great Cecil B. De Mille would have envied, could be spectacular.

Wes looks thrilled to be travelling to White Hart Lane...

The Group of Death – Group G – is also the Group of Glory. Real, Milan and Ajax have won this competition 20 times between them.

The revolutionary Ajax of the 1970s were inspired by Alfredo di Stefano, Gento and Ferenc Puskas.

Milan and Ajax have met in two finals, winning one each – the Rossoneri triumphed in 1969, the Amsterdammers in 1995 – but the Italian press had no doubt about the real significance of this draw – as Gazzetta dello Sport’s headline put it: “Milan contro Mou”.

The Italian sports dailies, having already fallen into that pining, puppy dog state of longing for the Special One which has also afflicted Richard Keys on Sky Sports, gleefully seized on the excuse to plaster Jose over their front pages.

Without Mourinho, Inter are hard to read.

They have pretty much the same squad. The art for Rafa Benitez, one Nerazzurri fan in the European footballocracy told me, will be to change just enough to keep them successful.

Teams that stand still, even great ones, don’t often succeed. Benitez’s team talk, this Interisti suggested, should be: “If you don’t succeed, everyone will say it was all down to Mourinho. This is your chance to prove that it was you, the players, who won it.”

Meanwhile in Brazil, Alan Brazil…

If Group G is the Group of Death (or glory), Group H is the Group Of Logistical Awkwardness, with Arsenal having to travel to the opposite ends of Europe if they are to progress at the expense of Braga, Partizan Belgrade and Shakhtar Donetsk.

The draw was kind to Inter, Lyon, Manchester United (hailed by Gazzetta as the “loose cannon everyone wants to avoid”), Barcelona, Bayern and especially Chelsea. And Rubin Kazan, the surprise package of 2009/10, have a decent shout at the last 16, if they can find their scoring boots at home. They didn’t lose in Kazan in 2009/10, but they didn’t win either.

Spurs’ qualification makes London the first city to have three clubs in this competition in the same season since Athens in 2003. And William Gallas, if he features in the competition this year, will become the first man to play in this tournament for Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs.

So could London break its duck at Wembley next May? Platini declined to speculate when asked over buffet on the terrace and then denied that Spurs were his favourite English team. Ipswich, he suggested, now there was a team: “Wark, Mariner, Brazil, Butcher...”

Am off now to fur up the arteries with a continental variation on the great British breakfast.

One final thought which occurred to me in the lobby as football’s great and good greeted and avoided each other: David Dein really does look like David “cheep as chips” Dickinson, albeit with the day-glo orange tan turned slightly down.

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Who’s brainwashing who?

Paul Simpson — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:23:00 GMT

Is Sir Alex Ferguson a master of mind games? Most of us would agree he is although, as David Runciman has pointed out in the London Review Of Books, the primary evidence for that belief is his much-mythologized contretemps with Kevin Keegan as the 1995/96 title race reached its pulsating conclusion.

Keegan had been incensed by Sir Alex Ferguson’s mischievous suggestion that other teams wouldn’t try as hard as against Newcastle as against Manchester United. This provoked the most famous outburst in English football history; a furious fusillade which is still mesmerising today.

The popular conclusion is that the Newcastle players, watching their boss gesticulating and shouting, “I would love it” live on TV, decided Keegan had lost the plot and, losing faith in their leader, surrendered the title.

Watching it again now, Keegan isn’t as out of control as my memory, shaped by the media’s interpretation of the event, had suggested. Indeed, when Keegan says of Ferguson “He went down in my estimation when he said that”, his honest eloquence strikes a chord.

As Keegan’s fury mounts, his gestures become more frantic and by the time he reaches the “I would love it” passage that has haunted him ever since, he looks undone by anger. True, he can barely get the words out, but he doesn’t, to me, look like the gibbering wreck of popular legend. The only point at which he sounds completely daft is when he warns United that they have to get a result at Middlesbrough. The words “straws” and “clutching” instantly spring to mind.

That speech was delivered on 27 April 1996. That was 24 days after the meltdown many think really cost Newcastle the title: the 4-3 defeat at Liverpool. One of the most enthralling Premier League games ever (I can still play certain sequences from that game like a video in my head), this loss was the fatal blow for Newcastle’s challenge and the turning point in Keegan’s reign. David Ginola has since said: “If we had kept the score at 3-2, we would have won the league – definitely.”

It’s always tempting to look for a single explanation for any mysterious event, but sometimes the truth is more complex than that. Freakish early season form had given Newcastle a 12-point lead at the top of the table in January. But on 23 March, they lost 2-0 to Arsenal. That was followed by that glorious defeat at Anfield, a 2-1 win over QPR and a 2-1 defeat at Blackburn on 8 April. After taking just three points from 12, Newcastle were six points behind their rivals (albeit with a game in hand) and the title was Manchester United’s to lose.

All of this happened long before Ferguson decided to underline his mastery of mind games. So what Newcastle players thought about their boss’s outburst is almost irrelevant: they had already all but lost the title by then.

Yet the media, inspired by its own misinterpretation of this denouement, has consistently insisted that Ferguson is some kind of Einsteinian genius when it comes to mind games, without really offering any other indisputable proof of his Machiavellian brilliance.

Jonathan Norcroft did suggest in the Sunday Times that, in the psychological wars between Wenger and Ferguson, “Ferguson was getting under Wenger’s skin more than Wenger was getting under his” but again offered no supporting evidence.

There is no telling anecdote to convince us that the Scottish master had the sensitive Frenchman fighting back the tears as United and Arsenal duelled for honours. Indeed, in the most memorable joust, Wenger seemed to win on points with his suggestion that every man believes he has the prettiest wife at home.

But heck, why let the facts wreck a good story? It was Josef Goebbels who observed if you tell people a lie often enough they believe it. And as it has been officially decided, on the basis of evidence so partial and flimsy it wouldn’t convince the most gullible jury, that Ferguson is a master of mind games no football writer worth their salt is going to waste their time suggesting otherwise.

So in January 2009, when Rafa Benitez took on Ferguson at a press conference, the media reaction was utterly predictable and as one-sided as Pravda in Stalin’s heyday. Norcroft characterised Benitez’s remarks as a “white-lipped saucer-eyed rant” and, presumably appealing to the nation’s collective memory of the Manuel, the inept waiter from Barcelona in Fawlty Towers, lampooned the Liverpool manager’s pronunciation of “Meester Fer-goo-son”.

Yet as Musa Okwonga notes in his impressive new book Will You Manage? Gabriel Marcotti saw Benitez’s speech not as proof the Spaniard had lost his cool, rather as oratory designed to make the media and officials think about how referees were treating Manchester United.

The fact the gambit didn’t work had little to do with the merit of his case, it was just that the press, brainwashed by its own deluded nonsense about Ferguson’s Zen-mastery of mind games, decided the real story was that the Liverpool manager had gone crazy.

And when Liverpool failed to win their first title since 1990, the media decided Ferguson had done it again – even if it wasn’t clear what exactly “it” was. Although Liverpool did the double over Manchester United, if you compared the depth and quality of the two squads, United looked the most likely champions, something the media conveniently forgot.

The argument that a) Ferguson is the Muhammad Ali of mind games and that b) such mind games decide trophies is a convenient fiction which flatters certain managers, denigrates others, and gives journalists a narrative they can use to make sense of the season and fill a few column inches.

But the delusion may be self-perpetuating: any manager thinking of taking aim at Ferguson should know that the outcome of such a contest is (at least as far as the media is concerned) already decided.

By the way, I should add that I believe Ferguson is a master of mind games – with his own players.

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Why (some) Americans loathe soccer

Paul Simpson — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 09:02:00 GMT

Who invented football? Though China has a respectable claim, England usually gets the credit. But G. Gordon Liddy, one of the Watergate conspirators who has inevitably become a talk show host in America, sees it differently.

“Soccer comes from Latin America," he opines. "The game, I think, originated with the south Americans and instead of a ball they used to use the head – the decapitated head – of an enemy warrior”. Course they did, Gordon. (The "G." stands for George, by the way - not, as you might expect from the quality of his sporting insight, Gormless.)

Why am I quoting this nonsense from a man most famous for a dinner-party trick in which he held his hand above a lighted candle until his flesh started to singe? Because it goes to the heart of why the self-proclaimed land of the free has never fully embraced the sport of the free-kick.

Many American right-wingers believe a theory encapsulated by Mark Thiessen, a former speechwriter for baseball aficionado George W Bush: “Many years ago my former White House colleague Bill McGurn pointed out to me the real reason why soccer hasn’t caught on in the good old USA. It’s simple really. Soccer is a socialist sport.” (McGurn, by the way, was Bush’s chief speechwriter.)

So that’s cleared that up. Because ‘soccer’ wasn’t invented on their side of the pond, many American patriots can’t contemplate the sport without “beginning to smell a big fat Commie rat”, as George C Scott’s twitching reactionary General Buck Turgidson put it in the chilling satire Dr Strangelove.

Jack Kemp, a former Republican presidential wannabe, once took to the Congressional floor to oppose America hosting the 1994 World Cup, on the grounds that gridiron was “democratic capitalism” while soccer was “European socialism”. Kemp was joking. Liddy, Thiessen and many others aren’t.

The fact that Barack Obama, a West Ham United fan, likes soccer seems sinister proof to America’s far right that the game is just a Communist plot to subvert the good old US of A.

And things can only get worse. Soccer’s image in America will surely sink lower than a lizard’s armpit after an anthropologist called Scott Atran told the Senate that a Muslim’s enthusiasm for the beautiful game is a “reliable indicator of whether or not someone joins the jihad” and that most of the people behind the bombings in Madrid 2003 played soccer together.

Atran’s scaremongering tosh – sorry, that should read "authoritative insight into the ever-ongoing War On Terror" – has even inspired stories in Newsweek. One, under the not-at-all-inflammatory headline "The link between football and jihad", swiftly followed another (by the same author) which Newsweek.com can't decide whether to call "Why Islamists Love the World Cup" or the more straightforwardly confrontational "Why Jihadists Love the World Cup".

(Editor's note: FFT.com cannot be held responsible for the content of other websites. Don't blame us if it's a turgid, fatuous, ill-conceived waste of ones and zeros.)

It can’t be long before Osama Bin Laden’s apocryphal status as an Arsenal season ticket holder is used in evidence against ‘soccer’. And sure enough, it crops up in both of David A Graham's pieces for Newsweek, which has halved its subscriber base in the last two years and can barely expect to pick up new readers from the footballing fraternity.

The round-ball game has been used as a – oh go on then – political football for almost as long as it has been a sport. But so far, to the chagrin of many dictators, columnists and rabble-rousers, attempts to link the game with a particular political philosophy, government or terrorist organisation have all come to naught.

Football is too unpredictable, amorphous and organic to be easily tailored to a cause. If Atran had been alive when actor John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln, would he have urged the government to arrest every thespian as a Confederate insurrectionist?

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The brutal beauty behind Mourinho’s coronation

Paul Simpson — Wed, 26 May 2010 10:40:00 GMT

“Open, flowing finals? Only for teams who don’t know what they’re doing.” That was Gazzetta dello Sport’s verdict on Inter’s efficient despatch of Bayern Munich in the Santiago Bernabeu on Saturday.

Jose Mourinho’s Inter knew just what they were doing in a game that was more coronation than contest. Mourinho’s tactics – concede possession until they enter your half, regain possession and counter quickly – weren’t pretty but they were pretty effective.

In some ways, his approach is a strange twist on Arrigo Sacchi’s pressing game. Inter don’t press upfield, like Sacchi’s legendary Rossoneri, but they do compress the play, forcing opponents to attack in a confined space, and when they don’t have the ball, show a compactness – especially if you look at the distance between the front and the back lines – that Sacchi would approve of.

Arjen Robben was marginalised, showed wide by Cristian Chivu with Esteban Cambiasso designated to cover inside and outside if the Dutchman got through. Chivu never looked comfortable but it didn’t really matter.

Philip Lahm, presumably under instruction and knowing that tracking back isn’t Robben’s strong suit, rarely made the kind of runs expected of an overlapping full-back. Indeed, in the first 25 minutes he barely hit a forward pass.

Who’s that nutter in the UEFA seats? Oh it’s me

Even though Mourinho’s tactics were brutally pragmatic – striker Samuel Eto’o, once deemed an egotistical iconoclast, often became an extra full-back when Inter lost the ball – some of their play, especially their passing out of defence, was a joy.

Diego Milito’s movement – using the full width of the pitch and playing in front of and behind Eto’o at times – was simply wondrous. When the Argentine feinted past Daniel van Buyten to score Inter’s second, the goal was so technically perfect I jumped out of my seat and shouted “Yes!”, as if I was a demented, diehard Nerazzurri, to the mild consternation of the UEFA officials sitting around me. (I’m not a diehard Nerazzurri by the way – though I may be demented – I was just enthralled by Milito’s brilliance.)

The first goal was technically brilliant – and Route One. Presumably on Mourinho’s orders, keeper Julio Cesar spent much of the first half hoofing long balls up the pitch. Just as I was starting to find this tactic a) irritating, b) repetitive and c) counter-productive (Bayern mostly regained possession) Milito rose to head the ball to Wesley Sneijder who passed with accuracy and speed for the Inter No22 to float the ball into the net to make it 1-0. (Milito deserved his man of the match award although, for awesome efficiency and quiet brilliance, Cambiasso could easily have won that prize.)

Mourinho said defending deep was the best way to mask his team’s lack of pace. But it was Bayern’s lack of pace in attack that made this final so uncompetitive. On Sky Germany, Matthias Sammer and Stefan Effenberg felt Bayern’s lack of confidence was crucial.

Ulrich Hesse, Champions’ contributing editor noted on an email: “The interesting thing was that you just knew from looking at them at half-time that they both felt it was already over. They didn’t say the game was lost, you could just tell from their expressions.”

Sloth, omschakeling and serious downshifts

The only way to beat Inter was to attack them at speed – by that I don’t just mean physical pace but the speed with which the ball travels – and Bayern’s players sometimes took seven touches before passing.

The possession stats tell the story: Bayern had 66% of the ball but only six shots on target, one less than counter-attacking Inter. Apart from one cracking save just after the break from Thomas Muller, Cesar didn’t have much to do. Bayern’s sloth in attack was startling given that Louis Van Gaal has focused them on the importance of exploiting the omschakeling, the moment when a team regains possession and has the chance to strike before the opposition reorganises.

Would Franck Ribery have made a difference? The Wall Street Journal felt, in their best American sports jock prose, that his absence would “seriously downshift Bayern’s attacks”. And Franz Beckenbauer suggested the Frenchman’s fearlessness might have inspired Bayern. But on current form it’s hard to see Ribery changing the result.

It seems presumptuous to query Van Gaal’s tactics but, after Dejan Stankovic came on for Chivu, I was surprised he didn’t bring Muller into central midfield and switch Bastian Schweinsteiger to his old role on the flank to test the sluggish Serbian with his pace.

This might have prevented Inter deploying Cambiasso, Lucio and Walter Samuel to neutralise Robben. Schweinsteiger might also have beaten the defence to the by-line and produced the kind of crosses Miroslav Klose and Mario Gomez could have made something of.

In truth, it’s hard to blame the coach. Inter – especially their defence, Javier Zanetti (in his 700th game for the club), Eto’o, Sneijder, Cambiasso, Milito and Goran Pandev – rose to the occasion.

Too many Bayern players seemed overawed by it. They squandered corners and, as their desperation deepened, began pumping long balls into the box in the vain hope of finding Klose or Gomez.

Even though The Guardian picked Robben as Bayern’s best player (giving him a generous eight out of ten), the Dutch wizard was attracting some serious flak from the heavyweight coaches behind me who felt his failure to track back was stifling Bayern, making their attacks tediously predictable.

But between the 61st and the 68th minute, Bayern looked like they might break through. The Inter fans felt the shift in momentum too, expressing their anxiety and frustration in loud whistles. But Milito’s second goal made this the most one-sided UEFA Champions League final since 2004 when Mourinho won this competition for the first time.

The battle of the soulmates is over

As The Guardian’s Scott Murray noted, Mourinho went through “micro-cycles of emotion” at the end, “smiling, laughing and hugging, crying uncontrollably, then smiling, laughing and hugging again”. He shook Van Gaal’s hand.

The Bayern coach had confessed, in UEFA’s official matchday programme, that he and his opponent were “soulmates who texted each other often”. And they were reasonably generous in their post-match remarks.

The Dutchman had one dig: “People remember my teams”. Great teams, he insisted, live in the memory. They don’t just accumulate trophies. But after a 45-year wait for the European Cup, will any Inter fan ever forget this team?

It is tempting to draw lessons from such a result. It does, incidentally, mean that the city of Milan has now won more European Cups – ten – than Madrid (nine) and Italy, with 12 triumphs, has surpassed England (11). But the game provoked more questions than answers for me.

How myopic – or plain broke – must Premier League clubs be to spurn Milito last summer? Will Mourinho become the first man to win the trophy with three different clubs? He’s already only the second man to win it with clubs in different countries. (Ernst Happel, with Feyenoord and Hamburg, was the first.) Who will Van Gaal buy to bolster his attack and central defence? And does Inter’s victory mean that counter-attacking will become as fashionable as Barcelona’s reinvention of Total Football? (Probably not. The margin of error is so thin, most coaches and teams will struggle to emulate Inter’s feat. It’s still easier to win the game if you control the ball.)

The victory is great news for Massimo Moratti who has born the slings and arrows of Inter’s outrageous misfortune (and, on occasion, outrageous misuse of the family fortune on some naff players) with dignity. And good news for Mario Rosenstock, the Irish humorist whose impressions of The Special One are so convincing the man himself invited him to do them for the Chelsea players. Rosenstock will bring his cult football puppet show Special1TV to BBC3 this summer just in time for the World Cup.

The cult of the Special One triumphed at the Bernabeu in club football’s showpiece fixture. That cult will now face its most merciless scrutiny at the same stadium next season.

NEWS: Moratti: Real deal for Mourinho far from secured

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Madrid relieved to be hosting meeting of the ones that got away

Paul Simpson — Fri, 21 May 2010 07:30:00 GMT

The coaches are sparring, Bayern’s Croatian striker, Ivica Olic stands accused of being a fancy dan Steve Claridge – a pub footballer who has miraculously scored seven goals in Europe this season – both finalists are on the brink of a historic treble and although Real Madrid don’t feature in the final, they are trying to steal the limelight with some trademark wheeling and dealing. Yup, it can only be the UEFA Champions League final.

Chastened, terrified and ecstatic

The Champions League final will be a chastening experience for Real Madrid executives especially if, as is widely expected, the outcome is decided by Arjen Robben and Wesley Sneijder, both former Los Blancos.

There could be five ex-Real stars on the pitch on Saturday night – Inter’s Samuel Eto’o, Walter Samuel and Esteban Cambiasso have all also been discarded by Real – but, as the legendary Alfredo di Stefano is honest enough to admit in the official matchday programme, the worst case scenario for “all of those of Madridismo” has been averted.

After Real were knocked out by Lyon, Di Stefano was terrified by the thought that Barcelona would become the first team to retain the Champions League in Real’s own stadium. As the delightful Sid Lowe has noted, Di Stefano’s relief was shared – and in some cases surpassed – by Madrid fans, one of whom said Barcelona’s exit was “the happiest day of my life, well, after the birth of my kids”.

The Madrilenos will be even more ecstatic, for a while, if they can entrap the genius who masterminded this beautiful defeat.

Di Stefano certainly didn't revel in Barca's defeat to Inter...

Mourinho, Napoleon and supernovas

In 2004, Jose Mourinho won the Champions League with Porto in his last game as coach. He may well, if Gazzetta dello Sport is any guide, pull the same stunt this weekend, winning the tournament with Inter and heading to Real Madrid to occupy the hottest hot seat in football, a veritable supernova of dugouts.

Much as I admire the chosen one (as Mourinho was known in Portugal before, with a flourish reminiscent of Napoleon – who took the emperor’s crown and stuck it on his own head – he rebranded himself “the Special One”), I wonder if all this speculation hasn’t subtly tilted the odds in Bayern’s favour.

True, the Porto players probably knew Mourinho was leaving in 2004 but after Ludovic Giuly limped off, that final was more coronation than contest. He also faced a vastly less experienced coach, Didier Deschamps.

Even for a squad as gifted as Inter’s, Bayern – and Louis Van Gaal – are a stiffer sterner test, offering much less margin for error. Sneijder (who has described Mourinho as almost like a father) and Eto’o, who owe their comebacks to the coach’s guidance, wouldn’t be human if they weren’t distracted by unsettling thoughts of their futures without their mentor.

And for the team, there is a world of difference between approaching the final as if, like Ajax in 1971, you expect this to be the first act of a golden age and fearing that, shorn of your inspirational leader, this might be your only hope of winning this coveted prize.

In the latest Champions – available at all good newsagents and a few dodgy ones – Mourinho reveals some of the methods he has used to lead Inter to this final. One of his greatest gifts is to communicate his certainty and confidence to players. They don’t – unlike Don Revie’s England stars in the 1970s – drown in dossiers because he also gives them clear, succinct messages. Against Chelsea, Mourinho told his squad: if we don’t concede a goal from set-pieces, we’ll win. Inter didn’t and he was proved right.

Who's that on the cover...?

It’s possible that ‘Mou’ – as he’s known in the text world – can, through force of personality, keep his squad focused on the trophy Inter have waited 45 years to win. But any sports psychologist would insist that a team would prefer to prepare for such a career-defining fixture without wondering about the coach’s future.

Lions, ash and false teeth

Volcanic ash permitting, I will soon be in Madrid to watch the most eagerly anticipated Champions League final since… last year’s. In truth, 2009 was never that competitive after Eto’o put Barcelona ahead.

The team who scores first has won 12 out of 17 Champions League finals. (To be fair, two of those winners – Juventus in 1996 and Manchester United in 2008 – prevailed in the shootout.) Manchester United (in 1999), Bayern (2001), Liverpool (2005) and Barcelona (2006) are the only sides to come from behind and lift the trophy in the Champions League era. Twelve Champions League finals have been won by a single goal or in a shoot-out.

So the outcome may be tight, but whoever wins, they are unlikely to react quite as Ronnie Simpson and Bobby Lennox did in 1967. These two Lisbon Lions, heroes of Celtic’s unexpected victory over Inter, had but one thought when the final whistle blew: sprint to the goal and retrieve their false teeth before their jubilant fans claimed them as souvenirs.

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Lahm’s rabbits, Schweinsteiger’s coffee and Bayern's lucky square posts

Paul Simpson — Tue, 18 May 2010 13:49:00 GMT

Whatever happens in Madrid, one thing’s for sure: after the game, Philipp Lahm will ring home to enquire about the health of his pet rabbits Milky Way and Brownie.

Lahm isn’t the only Bayern player with intriguing hobbies. On the club website Bastian Schweinsteiger lists his hobbies as “Music, meeting friends, travel, new experiences, Starbucks”.

Bayern coach Louis Van Gaal’s hopes of defeating his protégé Jose Mourinho at the Santiago Bernabeu may come down to a phenomenon German fans refer to as ‘Bayern dusel’ – that special kind of luck with which the Bavarian giants have, so often through the years, snatched a trophy or seven.

A good example of ‘Bayern dusel’ would be the square posts at Hampden Park in 1976 which repelled Jacques Santini’s header and Dominique Bathenay’s shot as the Germans beat St Etienne 1-0 to win their third European Cup in a row.

That run had started with a big dollop of ‘Bayern dusel’ in May 1974 when, with 119 minutes on the clock and Bayern trailing 1-0 to Atletico Madrid, George Schwarzenbeck stupefied his teammates by choosing not to pass to predator extraordinaire Gerd Muller but to shoot from 35 yards.

Luckily for Schwarzenbeck the shot flew past Miguel Reina, Pepe’s dad, to earn a replay that Bayern won 4-0. And coming bang up to date, Miroslav Klose’s header against Fiorentina, arguably the most offside goal of the year, helped Bayern defeat the Viola in the last 16 this season.

But ‘Bayern dusel’ can be a fickle mistress, conspicuous by her absence in the 1987 and 1999 finals when Bayern blew two 1-0 leads in astonishing fashion.

The first upset – against Porto – now feels like instant karma. The club’s then president Frits Scherer was so confident he drafted his victory speech the night before the match. But in 1999, after the late, late horror show at Camp Nou, even Germans who didn’t support Bayern felt (briefly) sorry for the club.

In 2001, Bayern won the shootout and the UEFA Champions League, a triumph that owed more to Oliver Kahn’s genius than luck though there was something miraculous about Kahn’s save from Amedeo Carboni.

So with a big hunk of ‘Bayern dusel’ Van Gaal’s team may yet defy the odds – as they did, after all, against Manchester United. If they are at their best – and Inter aren’t – that part of Germany that is forever Bayern could be celebrating on Saturday night.

I was tempted to rehash the old Jimmy Tarbuck gag – Inter look the better team on paper but the final isn’t played on paper, it’s played on grass – but I won’t.

It will be fascinating to see how Van Gaal sets up Bayern. His favourite ploy is to have Mark van Bommel and Schweinsteiger in front of the back four with one player – often Mario Gomez or Miroslav Klose – upfront.

Then as Ulrich Hesse, author of the great Tor! put it on an email: “That leaves three players whose positions are not so easily definable. Arjen Robben, Thomas Muller and Ivica Olic are neither midfielders, nor strikers, they are something in between”.

These in-betweenies are incredibly flexible. Against Fiorentina, Ribery and Robben were the wide men with Muller behind Gomez, not as a playmaker but as a striker with a bit more room.

The imaginative, industrious Olic can play behind the striker, as the striker (in one Bundesliga match Klose played behind the Croatian) and on the wing.

Muller has also starred on the wing instead of Ribery and, in a German Cup game against Schalke, behind Olic, Robben and Klose in the hole and in front of the holding midfielders.

However Van Gaal sets Bayern up, he will remind his players of the importance of possession. Keeping the ball will be essential if his team are to protect their weakest link – a defence which has shipped 13 goals on the way to the final.

That record must influence his game plan. Bayern’s best hope, as Barney Ronay has suggested in The Guardian, is probably to swashbuckle their way to victory, trusting in the cavalier genius of Arjen Robben whose volleys, free-kicks and feints could carry the day.

If Robben doesn’t deliver the crucial magic, Van Gaal will hope that Gomez, Klose or Muller are efficient with the few chances that may fall their way.

Swashbuckling is something of a departure for Van Gaal, a famously methodical coach who, at Barcelona in the late 1990s, dared to improve on Cruyff’s 3-4-3 to make it structurally sounder.

But his Bayern share one trait with their boss: pure, bloody-minded resilience. Schweinsteiger’s personal motto “Never lose belief” could be the team’s rallying cry. And that quality could make this final more competitive than many pundits would have you believe.

The key word there, of course, is could.

FEATURE: Nausea, genius and how to stop Robben rocking

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Nausea, genius and how to stop Robben rocking

Paul Simpson — Tue, 11 May 2010 14:37:00 GMT

On 24 May 1967, the night before the European Cup final, Inter defender Tarcisio Burgnich was woken by the sound of his teammates retching their guts up in fear.

At that point, the pugnacious stalwart of Helenio Herrera’s La Grande Inter must have known he would not be completing his hat-trick of winners’ medals the next day.

An iconoclastic dictatorial coach, Herrera decided he wanted his team to focus ahead of the final, confining them in an extreme, claustrophobic ritiro.

Already depleted by injuries to Luis Suare and Jair, and with nothing to focus on but the game, Inter bottled the final against Jock Stein’s Lisbon Lions. The point at which La Grande Inter’s aura of invincibility shattered irretrievably probably came when sweeper Armando Picchi advised keeper Giuliano Sarti to let Celtic score because they were going to win anyway.

Inter have never come as close to European Cup glory again. Indeed, in the 43 years since the effective end of the Herrera era, the club has become notorious for, as John Foot nicely puts it in Calcio, “turning collapse into an art form”.

Inter’s rivals have found this tendency so amusing that in 2003 a board game was launched called Perdentopoli, literally Loseopoly, to celebrate the fact that the Nerazzurri had crumbled their way out of another Scudetto.

The best way to cure the club’s long-standing inferiority complex, owner Massimo Moratti decided a couple of seasons ago, was to hire the coach with the most successful superiority complex in European football: Jose Mourinho. And the gamble has paid off.

Exactly how Mourinho works his miracles is still a mystery. He may be a master of Powerpoint presentations (and, via his backroom staff, games like Championship Manager), dossiers and mind games but he is no root and branch reformer like Arsene Wenger.

As meticulous as Mourinho’s preparation is, I can’t imagine him spending much time – as Wenger is reputed to have done – fretting about the training ground’s feng shui.

Whether the water is running the right way is not, I suspect, a question that has ever vexed the brilliant pragmatist who has guided Inter to their first European Cup final for 38 years.

What Mourinho has done, spectacularly, is to communicate his certainty, knowledge and conviction to his players.

In the new issue of Champions magazine, his new midfield genius Wesley Sneijder sums up the difference the Portuguese coach makes to his players by saying: “Mourinho knows”.

He sends his players into battle believing they know every ploy their opponents might try, how to react to most conceivable match situations, which of the other team’s weaknesses they can most profitably exploit – and what threats they need to contain.

Dusan Uhrin, the Czech coach at Euro 96, found the semi-final second leg against Barcelona enthralling because he was fascinated by how brilliantly and thoroughly every detail of Inter’s defensive play had been thought through: to let your opponent complete 555 passes and restrict them to four shots on goal was a magnificent feat.

With the wrong players, Mourinho could end up with a team that is much better informed but none the wiser. But, after reflecting on the lessons of defeat to Manchester United in the last 16 in 2009, he has made sure he no longer has the wrong players.

Mourinho has stopped Inter crumbling in Europe by finally assembling the squad he wanted. Ironically, the purchase of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the move Pep Guardiola hoped would clinch Barcelona’s second consecutive European crown, actually paved the way for Mourinho to bring in the players to complete Inter.

Combative midfielders and defenders like Thiago Motta and Lucio, striker Samuel Eto’o who could play as a target man or lead a counterattack and Wesley Sneijder who brought a creativity, technique, intelligence and range of passing to midfield which has made Inter much harder to predict or nullify.

Inter are now almost universally expected to win, which brings its own dangers. Mourinho needs his players to stick to the game plan. Against a team coached by his old, uber-methodical boss Louis Van Gaal, any hint of complacency, or lack of concentration, could prove fatal.

Mourinho will be aware of that risk. And he will be keen to ensure that the weight of history and expectation does not become a burden as it proved to be, ultimately, even for a team as seasoned as Herrera’s Grande Inter.

He will dissect Bayern for them, identifying their vulnerabilities – man-for-man the Germans probably have a weaker squad – and warning about their strengths.

One intriguing question will be what kind of pattern of play he will try to dictate. Inter have made it to the final by controlling games but not the ball – they have had 45% of possession compared to Bayern’s 58% – but that approach may not be as productive in a final.

The advice on containing Arjen Robben may simply be show him wide. The Bayern No 10’s goals have been unbelievable but he is yet to register a single assist in the competition this season. The Dutchman’s crosses are far less dangerous than his volleys.

Most of all, Mourinho will tell his defenders, try to replicate your success against Barcelona by ensuring that you don’t concede free-kicks in front of – or near – the area.

In closing. the Inter coach will remind his players that they should have no fear because they can beat anyone. After the manner of their victories over Barcelona and Chelsea, his players will believe him.

Will it be enough? Nobody knows. But one thing’s for sure: on 22 May either he or Van Gaal will become the third coach – after Ernst Happel and Ottmar Hitzfeld – to win this competition with two different clubs.

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History not on Barca's side as they seek second leg fightback

Paul Simpson — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 07:30:00 GMT

In the entire history of the European Cup, I can find only four teams who have done what Barcelona must do next week: overturn a two-goal deficit from the first leg of a semi-final.

The first club to do so, bizarrely, was Inter, who lost 3-1 at Anfield in 1965 to Bill Shankly’s Liverpool and won 3-0 at the San Siro, reaching the final – as any Red will tell you – partly because Inter had a little help from the referee.

The last team to stage this kind of comeback, spookier still, were Barcelona who, in 1986, got stuffed 3-0 by IFK Gothenburg in Sweden, won the second leg by the same score at the Camp Nou and prevailed in the penalty shootout.

After donning a metaphorical anorak and trawling through the archives, my research suggests that 22 clubs have tried to do what Barcelona need to do at this stage in the competition.

Eighteen failed – few more agonisingly than PSV who, in 2005, were within minutes of knocking out Milan before Massimo Ambrosini’s late away goal.

Heurelho Gomes and Alex were among the beaten PSV players in 2005

Guus Hiddink, with the self-confidence that only comes from being worshipped as a virtual deity in such disparate parts of the world as Korea, Eindhoven and Stamford Bridge, still insists that his side would have beaten Liverpool in Istanbul.

The other two teams to successfully come back from the brink are Hamburg (who lost 2-0 to Real Madrid in the Bernabeu in 1980 but thrashed Los Blancos 5-1 in the return) and Roma, who broke Dundee United’s hearts in 1984.

Inter, as you may have noticed, are the only team to stage such a comeback and then win the final.

What does all this mean? Not much except, perhaps, that Jose Mourinho has reached the tipping point in his career at Inter.

Calcio may all bow down to the tactical genius of ‘Mou’ this week but come next Thursday, if Barca run amok on their own turf as Hamburg did in 1980, he could be dodging tomatoes.

Inter have done half the job but should heed the wise words of the great Mario Kempes: “Two-nil is the most dangerous score in football."

(In the same interview, for Champions, he also said: “Never rub the head of a bald Indonesian” but that’s for another blog).

Lyon’s mission is more straightforward. Claude Puel won’t let them play that poorly again. Their 534-mile coach trip to Munich didn’t help.

Hugo Lloris looks back in anger as Bayern take a first leg lead

I know, I know, old timers will insist that in their day footballers could run that distance to that game and still score a hat-trick before quaffing 15 pints after the game but times, if not attitudes, have changed.

The differences between winners and losers are now so small that such travails – apart from anything the sheer boredom must be enervating – can decide a tie.

In Munich, Les Gones played as if they were suffering from a kind of footballing altitude sickness, as if awed by the realisation that they had come this far for the first time.

In front of their own fans, knowing precisely what they have to do, they should be much more focused.

If they can put serious pressure on Bayern’s young defenders Diego Contento (who is 19) and Holger Badstuber (21) and make the most of Philip Lahm’s slight dip in form, they could yet reach their first UEFA Champions League final.

Bayern have shown great resilience since they overwhelmed Juventus in Turin. They are now the only team to win four Champions League knockout ties and they have the look of a team with luck on their side.

But their margins of victory have been thinner than a size zero model. They have lost their last two away games in the competition but still progressed.

"Who you calling flat-faced?"

It’s nice to see Louis van Gaal back at the top. As Simon Kuper has noted, he is ungainly, pot-bellied and flat-faced but has “one saving grace, he is brilliant.”

Kuper’s suggestion that Van Gaal is “that rare manager who constantly improves his teams’ performances” may surprise fans of Barcelona and Holland who failed to reach the 2002 World Cup finals under his tutelage.

He left the national side insisting: “Some of the players refused to accept my methods. I am who I am. I’m not going to change that and I have no desire to.”

But his enraged schoolmaster shtick has worked brilliantly at Ajax (where he won the UEFA Cup, a trophy that saved his job, as well as the Champions League), AZ and now Bayern.

Hard to believe that before Christmas the manager with a Michael Portillo quiff was only six games from the sack.

The worry for Bayern must be that as long ago as 2000 Van Gaal talked of himself as a potential successor to Sir Alex Ferguson.

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Capello’s migraine, Barcelona at Nuneaton & the Bulgarian Maradona

Paul Simpson — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 09:30:00 GMT

I can’t remember how I came to be on Marcello Lippi’s yacht which was, presumably, moored off the coast near his hometown Viareggio. Nor can I say precisely when Fabio Capello came storming on deck complaining vehemently about his migraine.

But I can still vividly recall Don Fabio spurning suggestions that he seek medical advice insisting that the best way to cure his migraine was to shout at it.

As football dreams go, that was one of my more extravagant ones, matched recently only by snatches of a dream in which, on some familiar but different version of Channel 4’s ubiquitous Come Dine With Me, the Minogue sisters dropped into UEFA technical director Andy Roxburgh’s terraced house, cooked him a slap-up meal and insisted on cleaning the windows afterwards.

No wonder I won’t hear a word said against Kylie and Danni.

"Hold on ladies, let me just get the Windex..."

I dream about football much more than I used to. Don’t know why. These dreams have evolved from standard stuff – yours truly has chance to score on England debut but mysteriously comes over all leggy and fails to reach the ball with the goal at his mercy – into far richer, stranger visions.

Last month I dreamed that England lost on penalties to France in the last 16 in South Africa after a 1-1 draw. I was moderately depressed when I woke, cheered slightly when I checked that we couldn’t meet les Bleus in the first knockout round and then felt irrationally troubled when I realised we could meet them in the last eight.

If this prediction comes true, remember you read it here first. If it doesn’t, file and forget.

If you have ever had any football dreams as daft as mine do share them. Don’t be shy - you have nothing to lose but your self-respect, the esteem of your peers, and your standing in society.

Typical Ferguson.

Enough already with the "typical" stuff. Various writers have already ensured that Sir Alex Ferguson’s “typical Germans” remark has been spun, toyed with and over-used more often than his eloquent verdict on the 1999 UEFA Champions League final: “Football, bloody hell”.

We’ve already had typical Germans (ad nauseam), typical Ferguson, typical Argentinians, typical podsters and indeed typical Mexican.

Up the Boro part 72

Nuneaton Town (nee Borough) v Farnborough Town at the weekend saw three generations of the Simpsons and assorted in-laws at Nuneaton’s Liberty Way on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon to watch an odd game that ended fairly all square at 1-1.

My son looked on with commendable restraint, restricting himself to one can of Coke for the duration.

My father, with an authority I had not seen since I met the great Rinus Michels at a conference, dissected the inadequacies in Nuneaton’s play. “He,” he said pointing at a Town/Boro midfielder with the conviction of someone who had been a midfield general in the school playground in the 1940s, “should be up here”, indicating a spot ten yards in front.

Michels: Sure he was great, but could he have cut it at Nuneaton?

He had a point. The Boro (as they were called till the FA made them change their name to Town as a punishment for the usual financial irregularities) were not moving up as a unit and the left and right halves of the team were unbalanced so they rarely attacked, as it were, in stereo and too often lost possession.

Farnborough are leaders of the league which changes its name and sponsor every season but is just one rung below the Conference North and South. They won the tactical battle, forcing Nuneaton to switch from a lacklustre 3-5-2 to 4-4-2 and shrewdly deciding that if they packed the middle, their opponents wouldn’t trouble them on the flanks.

They were also, it must be said, masters of the concealed elbow, the persistent push and, when required, a spot of Graeco-Roman wrestling. But they are efficient, have two nifty forwards – Bradley Bubb who scored the goal was especially impressive – and cause havoc with long balls on the counterattack.

Apart from dad’s tactical laments, the highlight for me was the assistant referee who flagged a player offside after he ran onto his own pass.

In the second half, standing behind a Boro fan in a Barcelona shirt, I wondered idly if there is any football ground in the world that has not been, to use a word much used by commentators addicted to martial and sexual metaphor, ‘penetrated’ by a Barcelona shirt. I fear not.

Maradonas, fat ladies and Guardiola effects

The new Maradona isn’t Messi but Iliyan Micanski. The 24-year-old Bulgarian striker has scored seven goals in seven games for Zaglebie Lubin in Poland.

The most spectacular – a 65-yard dash and finish against KSP Polonia Warszawa on 20 March – earned him the tag “the Maradona of Lubin”.

As Lubin only has 77,000 inhabitants, this isn’t as good as being the “Maradona of the Carpathians”, like Gheorghe Hagi, but it’s better than nothing. The goal is on YouTube but all the clips froze my shoddy computer (sadly, below is the best we could find - ed).

In Luxembourg, meanwhile, a Turkish-Belgian playmaker called Yasin Karaca has thrown open the title race since signing for F91 Dudelange and proved that some football clichés really are universal, telling uefa.com: “It ain’t over till the fat lady sings”.

The fat lady has sung in Greece where Panathinaikos have done rather better out of the ‘Guardiola effect’ than Juventus or, so far, Milan.

When Pana fell to second in November, coach Henk Ten Cate was replaced by Nikos Noplias, a club legend whose managerial experience began and ended with Greece’s Under-19s and Under-21s.

Noplias is now the second man – after Juan Ramon Rocha – to win the Greek championship as player and coach with Panathinaikos. Maybe Greek football is finally discovering that it doesn’t have to import coaches to win stuff.

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Why Maradona is Elvis to Messi’s Beatles and United’s defeat is Peter Drury’s fault

Paul Simpson — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 08:30:00 GMT

There are three obvious conclusions to be drawn from the remarkable denouement to the UEFA Champions League quarter finals.

1. Lionel Messi is now as great as Maradona.
2. The thrilling, globally renowned, debt-ridden, Premier League has passed its sell by date.
3. Manchester United’s ageing side needs completely rebuilding.

These are the obvious conclusions. But they are all, to varying degrees, wrong.

Lionel Messi is not as great as Diego because he has not yet won the World Cup almost single-handed, although he has an opportunity to make up for that this summer.

Nor has he powered a side as mediocre as Napoli in the 1980s to the league title.

You can argue about whether Messi has Maradona’s talent or not but their track records, so far, suggest Diego is the greater player. His feats should be a challenge and an inspiration to Messi, much as Elvis’s were for the Beatles.

The Beatles, Elvis and Shane MacGowan pose for a nice snap together

The Premier League is not spent as a European force. If Arsene Wenger, instead of his old disciple Claude Puel, had been drawn against Bordeaux, the Gunners may well have reached the semi-final.

Chelsea had the misfortune to be eaten up by Jose Mourinho’s charisma machine but would probably have beaten CSKA. And United, down to ten men and with their greatest player marginalised, came within 16 minutes of the last four.

There are a lot of ifs, buts and probablys in that last paragraph, but that is the nature of football – especially in the UEFA Champions League. The margin between victory and defeat – unless you’re playing Barcelona – are thinner than a slice of Ryvita.

And it’s quite conceivable that one, two or three Premiership teams might reach the last four in 2010/11. This season should be regarded as a useful corrective, a salutary lesson, rather than, as FIFA president Sepp Blatter might like to think, a crucial tipping point in the evolution of football.

And so to United. They did field an ageing team against Chelsea but as Mark Ogden concedes in the Daily Telegraph, Ferguson has successors to Neville, Giggs and Scholes in place.

As a thoughtful constructor of teams, Sir Alex Ferguson started taking bets on young players years ago. Some – Nani, Darren Gibson, Rafael (despite his dismissal), Antonio Valencia and Park Ji-Sung – look like paying off. Others – Anderson – look more dubious.

Valencia, Rooney and Nani - the next holy trinity?

Ferguson obviously found defeat an embittering experience judging from his post-match remarks about “typical Germans” but the morning after the game he was probably at Carrington training ground before the first sparrows had passed wind plotting his next moves.

If he compares his side to Pep Guardiola’s, he may feel that he is short of another assured passer in midfield to vary the attack (reducing the reliance on the flanks), a top class holding midfielder (in the prolonged absence of Owen Hargreaves) and an Ibrahimovic-type striker to partner Rooney.

Dimitar Berbatov has the talent to be the latter, but his rapport with Rooney seems poor and he doesn’t, as Alan Hansen pointed out on Match of the Day after the Chelsea game, always make the runs you would expect from a player with his innate gifts.

Yet it is hard now to flourish at the very top if you rely so heavily on one genius. Even if that genius is as gifted, committed and competitive as Rooney.

It’s easy to blame Berbatov, Rooney’s ankle, or Rafael’s youthful rashness for United’s exit. But anyone who watched the game live in England will know that Peter Drury is the real culprit.

The clue - if you’re reading this Peter – is in the name of your job. You are a commentator, not forecaster, or Biblical prophet. So declaring that United are through to the semi-finals, as you did in the first half, was sheer folly, inviting the curse of the commentator to fall.

"I've said I'm sorry, please stop ringing me, Sir Alex..."

As indeed it did. Courtesy of Arjen Robben. The Dutchman had been as menacing as a tea cosy for 74 minutes until that sublime strike.

One final question Peter, did you really, as my scrawled notes indicate, introduce the game saying, “sepia-tinged, history’s bunk, Rooney plays”? If so, does this indicate that the Joycean stream of consciousness has replaced ersatz Churchill as your literary style?

Probably not as later, after Bayern scored, you remarked that “a new sense of unease has enveloped the expectation” at Old Trafford which is just bad press release prose.

Robben’s goal was wondrous and cruel because United’s ten men had created more clear-cut chances than Bayern’s eleven. And the Germans spent a lot of the second half passing in front of United, passes that spoke not of thoughtful probing but of quiet desperation.

Louis van Gaal’s triumph means that three of the four coaches in the semi-finals have honed their craft at Barcelona.

Van Gaal was hurried out of Camp Nou to the usual salute of white handkerchiefs, Mourinho was Bobby Robson’s interpreter at Barca and Pep Guardiola is the living embodiment of the club’s footballing creed.

We wonder if Sir Bob get Jose confused with Carl Cort

That creed was, of course, forged in Amsterdam at the Ajax of Rinus Michels and Johan Cruyff. Their arrival at Camp Nou in the 1970s transformed Barcelona and the club bears their imprint still.

The semi-final line-up, as Simon Kuper will surely point out if he hasn’t already, is a quiet vindication of the Ajax school of football.

Guardiola’s Barcelona owe a philosophical debt to Ajax, an influence symbolically represented on the pitch by Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Ibra’s old club Inter have been transformed since Mourinho signed up another Ajax graduate Wesley Sneijder. And Bayern coach Van Gaal won this competition with Ajax in 1995.

Mind you, if you’re Italian, none of this matters. In Italy, history isn’t, as Drury suggests, bunk, it’s argued over, scrutinised and constantly invoked as journalists, politicians, footballers and club presidents look for encouraging omens.

In an odd piece, Gazzetta Dello Sport has noted that Inter have now won five Champions League games in a row which they have only done twice before: under Roberto Mancini in 2007/08 (when they lost to Liverpool in the last 16) and Helenio Herrera in 1963/64.

Guess which season Gazzetta is invoking as an omen for the semi-finals?

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Quarter-final frolics: Ducks, ankles and egos

Paul Simpson — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 14:00:00 GMT

Until Tuesday night, I’d been thoroughly fed up with Marouane Chamakh.

In part, this was the irrational resentment many journalists feel for a celebrity whose name doesn’t seem to spell naturally. In part, this feeling was inspired by the furore of his on-off move from Bordeaux to somewhere else, which created an online caricature of the Moroccan striker as a sulky egotist.

One of the perils of the internet age is that, on the basis of an Wikipedia page and some quotes, we feel justified in judging people we have never met and, when it comes down to it, know very little about.

My initial impression when Chamakh took to the field in Stade Gerland was that my prejudices were right. He is one of those unfortunate souls whose natural expression suggests he is perpetually on the verge of tears. But, as the great Andy Gray might say with a note of gravelly wonder in his voice, what a player!

Although his team lost 3-1 – and Lisandro scored twice for Lyon – Chamakh was the most intriguing player on the pitch.

His runs were intelligent, his skills silky and his instincts around the penalty area normally spot on. What impressed me more than his headed goal was the snatch shot he struck on the edge of the area, an opportunity taken so quickly he seemed, momentarily, to be moving at a different speed to anyone else on the pitch.

Speed – or rather tempo – was crucial in the Stade Gerland.

Often, football games are decided by one simple fact: what speed the match was played at. In the first half, Lyon forced Bordeaux to play at their pace, Lisandro and Michel Bastos created havoc in the Girondin defence and the home side led 2-1 at the interval.

In the second half, Bordeaux slowed the game to their favoured tempo, were the better team for most of the half – Chamakh forced one of the saves of the season from Hugo Lloris – but still conceded another goal after a dubious penalty award.

For technique, drama, controversy and free-flowing football, Lyon v Bordeaux was my match of the week, indeed one of the best I’ve seen all season. Certainly more intriguing than watching Manchester United’s familiar frailty – a mysterious inability to keep the ball – undo them against Bayern.

Even though Inter took an hour to find any rhythm, their 1-0 over CSKA was far more comprehensive than the scoreline suggests. Igor Akinfeev was in such mesmerising form his asking price will surely have soared by a few million euros.

Arsenal v Barcelona had everything: sentimental sub-plots, crucial cards, farce (how did Arsenal scrape a draw when they should have been 7-0 down after 18 minutes?) and Zlatan Ibrahimovic breaking his duck against English teams in the competition.

This will have given the great Zlatan particular satisfaction because, as he told Champions earlier this season, he’s thoroughly aware that the English, as a footballing entity, don’t rate him.

Still, unimpressed Monsieur Rosbifs might note gleefully that uefa.com’s player rater has Messi, not Zlatan, as man of the match.

Can’t see it myself though Messi may have won it on the U2 effect. In their heyday, U2 were so massive that the mere fact they turned up in a studio was enough to earn their album three stars in Q magazine.

As for Manuel Almunia, in that kind of form he could have protected the pass at Thermopylae single-handed (although the movie might not have worked as well: 300 just sounds better than 1).

With Akinfeev, Lloris, Van de Sar and Almunia all making superlative saves, this was a good week for keepers. And a bad one for ankles: Wayne Rooney’s and Wesley Sneijder’s are both causing consternation ahead of the second leg.

After the first round of ties, nothing is decided. But it was a great week of football, a week which will surely go down in the annals of this competition as the week when Barcelona completely and utterly battered Arsenal 2-2.

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Moronic Inferno engulfs English managers

Paul Simpson — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:15:00 GMT

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

Though ostensibly concerned with Ireland’s struggle for independence, W.B. Yeats’ most famous poem The Second Coming also prophesies the degeneration of the football media and the passionate intensity of Chris Kamara, Alan Green and the callers on a zillion radio phone-ins.

To crowbar in another literary reference, Britain’s football media could be summed up by the title of Martin Ami’s most entertaining essay collection The Moronic Inferno.

In age where clichés are passed off as gospel truths, one of the many dubious truisms is that smaller Premier League clubs cannot afford to play attractive, enterprising football if they want to survive.

Alan Green: Passion, intensity, a face for radio...

There is only one flaw with this theory. It is utter, absolute b*ll*cks.

Any enterprising manager might want to consider the influential, if chequered career of Zdenek Zeman, Serie A’s great, iconoclastic coach.

True, the Czech maverick has never won the Scudetto, but he has shown a remarkable gift for squaring the circle that destroys many English coaches: creating successful entertaining teams without spending a fortune.

His sides have come second, third and fourth in Serie A and won three promotions.

The next issue of Champions carries a revealing interview with Zeman by Gabriele Marcotti in which, among other things, he declares: “I don’t think you need great players to play great football. What you do need is guys who are passionate, work hard and know how to execute.”

From Palermo’s youth teams to Roma, Zeman’s sides have played a brand of football defined by “movement, speed and execution”, a 4-3-3 formation and attack: “It’s not rocket science, it’s simple math: the more guys you have trying to score, the more you will score.”

Zeman loved it when a plan came together (yeah, we know it's not a cigar...)

So why, if he’s that good, isn’t Zeman in management today? The answer in part is that his ideas are too radical even for calcio, arguably the major league that is most receptive to new tactics.

His style demands a lot physically from players during a match and in training. And players, especially those arrogant enough to think they’ve already made it, aren’t always prepared to make that commitment. (Although they might think it worth the effort in the long run because, the Czech coach insists, they will get injured less.)

Zeman can’t understand why footballers are stressed by training. Indeed, his analysis of the physical demands on players raises one of Marcotti’s favourite themes: how good would footballers be if they trained as hard as other sportsmen? That question might be another aspect of Zdenek’s enigmatic legacy.

Yet as Marcotti points out, the results can be spectacular. Zeman took Foggia up two divisions as coach. In 1991/92, Foggia played some truly scintillating football as they finished ninth in Serie A in 1991/92.

That summer, Zeman did something that seemed like an act of professional suicide: he let most of his stars go and hired a bunch of players from the third division. His reward? Foggia finished a respectable 11th.

Zeman’s transformational genius as coach has unearthed or polished such gems as Alessandro Nesta, Dan Petrescu, Salvatore Schillaci, Giuseppe Signori and Francesco Totti.

"Oh sh*t, I forgot to sign substitutes!"

Could someone do a Zeman in England? It would be nice to think so. But new training methods can prove a tad controversial in the Premier League.

There are too many “one-dimensional footballers” (as Zeman calls them, referring to players who focus only on their strengths and ignore their weaknesses) in England for his football of movement, speed and execution to succeed easily.

Yet, for a chairman with courage, patience and vision – if indeed such paragons are to be found in the modern game – his brand of football could be worth the risk.

Unlike the best in Yeats’ classic poem, Zeman does not lack conviction. He is convinced his ideas are simply ahead of his time.

Now 63, he is living, if unemployed, proof that managing an unfashionable team successfully doesn’t have to be a matter of just keeping it tight at the back, getting stuck in and taking your chances.

That mantra may play well in the more conservative sectors of English football but the lingering popularity of the Monsieur Rosbif school probably explains why none of the 32 teams in this season’s UEFA Champions League had an English coach and why the only English manager to impress in Europe this season – Roy Hodgson – had to go abroad to make his name.

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Why Chelsea win wouldn't be best result for English clubs

Paul Simpson — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:00:00 GMT

Can anyone slay Barcelona?

The best result for English clubs in the UEFA Champions League this week wouldn’t be a 2-0 win for Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, it would be a miraculous victory for Stuttgart in Camp Nou.

Barcelona are the only non-English team left in the competition with the class, form and quality to intimidate a Premier League club.

If you are a Stuttgart fan you might want, as they say on BBC News on Saturday night, to look away now. Barcelona have drawn the first leg away from home in 21 European ties – and won 15 of them.

The last Bundesliga side to win at Camp Nou were Bayern in November 1998 when, oddly enough, Louis van Gaal coached the Catalans.

Stuttgart have never made it past the last 16 in this competition and… oh you get the picture. This could be the most one-sided fixture since Richard Dunn was daft enough to get into a ring with Muhammad Ali or an unknown non-league side called Hereford took on the mighty Newcastle in the FA Cup.

Carlo and calcio at the crossroads

The Chelsea fan who lives around the corner is worried. Has been for months. If you offered him Guus Hiddink as coach now, his gratitude would be almost pitiful.

A lifelong season ticket holder, he believes Chelsea aren’t playing like champions – of England or Europe. And, despite the flattering 4-1 over West Ham, he has a point.

They lack the aura of invincibility Mourinho wrapped them in and have not always shown the gung ho spirit that roused fans under Hiddink. With the Premier League no longer in the bag, this is a difficult time for Carlo Ancelotti who will need all his sangfroid – that’s French for stiff upper lip – as the season progresses.

Chelsea have reached the semi-finals in five out of their last six campaigns. Their only failure – in 2005/06 – was, ironically enough, on Jose Mourinho’s watch.

That most Italian of scorelines (1-0) will suffice for the Blues but with Petr Cech injured, the odds tilt slightly in Inter’s favour.

Yet Inter, like Real, have been serially slayed at this stage in the tournament, going out in the last 16 three times in a row.

The stats may encourage the visitors. Inter have won 37 out of 41 ties where they led after the first leg. But the Nerazzurri faithful know that the last time they won a Champions League home leg 2-1 – in the 2005/06 quarter-finals – they were beaten 1-0 by Villarreal in Spain.

The coach’s press conferences yielded one entertaining snippet. Mourinho, attempting to suggest that a lot of water had flown under Stamford Bridge since his departure, said: “They moved on, I have moved on. I keep winning important things. They keep winning something. They won an FA Cup.” Touché.

If Chelsea do the business, Serie A would miss out on the last eight for the second year running. Cue much wailing, lamentation, gnashing of teeth and, quite possibly, the loss of a Champions League spot to Germany.

Bring on the dark horses 

Whether Laurent Blanc leads the French champions to victory or defeat against Olympiakos, there is one certainty: headline writers will deliver a vintage crop of wine-related puns.

You can probably make up your own already. Call it serendipity or synchronicity, but a wine connoisseur – oh alright then the bloke at Oddbins – tells me the 2009 Bordeaux was the best in ages. Just like the team then.

If Barcelona are the goliaths no one wants to draw in the last eight, Bordeaux are the troublesome Davids. Like Blanc in his prime as a defender, they are quietly stylish, economical, easy to underestimate and tough to beat.

Sevilla vs CSKA Moscow is the tie where anything can happen.

CSKA boss Leonid Slutsky is talking about playing both his creative playmakers – Alan Dzagoev and Keisuke Honda – on the grounds that “we’re going out to try and play attacking football as a goalless draw is of no use to us.”

The game will showcase two stars looking to move on in the summer. Luis Fabiano has revealed he has already very nearly come to England twice – with Chelsea under Scolari and Manchester City when they bought Robinho – and will be keen, at 29, to impress.

Time’s winged chariot doesn’t scurry quite as fast for 25-year-old CSKA midfield star Milan Krasic, but the Serbian footballer of the year could cap an outstanding season with a summer move West.

Because CSKA need to score – and Sevilla, despite the excellence of Andres Palop in goal, don’t have the strength in depth to sit back and defend – I am half-convinced this could be one of those truly mad games, like Monaco 8 Deportivo 3. With my current strike rate, that’s probably guaranteed a 0-0 bore draw.

Haven’t done the chanceometer in a while, but if anybody’s interested in this predictive method (used by one London gambler to make himself very rich), it suggests that Barcelona (137 chances) will prevail over Stuttgart (131), Chelsea (130) will beat Inter (94), Bordeaux (124) will knock out Olympiakos (111) and CSKA (105) will lose to Sevilla (112).

In the wrong hands – i.e. mine – such stats can be dangerous.

But I did wonder why a student of the game like Mourinho hasn’t clocked the fact that one reason for Inter’s struggles in Europe is that they don’t earn enough corners: just 3.14 per game in this tournament this season compared to 7.5 for Bayern and 5.12 for Bordeaux.

I don’t want to encourage any Rory Delap-style playing for set-pieces but with 20-25% of goals coming from dead ball situations, this could be a handicap.

Mind you, Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona were woeful at corners last season and look what happened to them.

Big Sam, Rafa and St George

At the National Sports Book Awards last week, I was astonished to hear sportswriters rallying around ‘Big’ Sam Allardyce in his latest fusillade against Rafa Benitez.

At last, or so the consensus around the bar after too many Asahi beers had it, this valiant, stalwart Englishman was giving it to that Johnny Foreigner come lately! Allardyce couldn’t have generated more patriotic fervour if he’d dressed as St George and slayed the dragon.

In these exchanges – to call them mind games inaccurately implies some thought is involved – the charges often say as much about the accuser as the accused.

Here we have Benitez sarcastically likening Blackburn’s style to Barcelona in a season when his team have played some stupefying football. Meanwhile, Allardyce accuses the Liverpool boss of using the row as a “cover up” to mask “how bad his side were.”

Am I being unduly cynical but could Sam be using the row to generate enough good PR to obscure the fact that Blackburn are a bit rubbish?

You would expect a club with Rovers in their name to win more than one game away from home in an entire season.

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Ronaldinho, Kaka and Arshavin set to go on trial

Paul Simpson — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:00:00 GMT

“There are players who’ve made their whole career on one match. There are players who do everything to make a splash on television and then it’s over. Afterwards they play but they live on their attainment.”

Michel Platini’s frank remark, made in an interview with the French novelist Marguerite Duras in 1987, is a reminder of how things have changed for footballers.

And one of the catalysts for that change has been the tournament that Platini indirectly presides over, the UEFA Champions League.

We can all think of players who have made their career on one match, or only look the part when the TV cameras are on them.

But the Champions League, by ruthlessly pitting the best against the best season after season, has made it harder for the chancers, the flatterers-to-deceivers, the lazy, and the merely inconsistent to prosper at the very top.

Razzle dazzle ‘em

Every Champions League game is a courtroom in which a player is judged – though at least they’re being scrutinised for what they do on the pitch.

Sometimes, especially when the media clamber onto a bandwagon, the process of judgement can be horrendously skewed. Last week’s teenage sensation is this week’s overrated flash in the pan.

The process of building them up to knock ‘em down is almost as pitiless in football as in the music industry. And it can be just as distracting and destructive.

Luckily, the most influential judges are the coaches who are professionally obliged not to get carried away and know that one game, one bit of that old razzle dazzle on television, does not define a player’s quality.

Michel loves to kick back and chill out with some Enya

Their judgements may be more measured but they can be just as unforgiving in the long run. And the tournament many regard as the ultimate test of a player is the Champions League.

Arsene Wenger says that one of the first questions he asks when appraising a prospect is: “How will he perform in the Champions League?”

Statistical breakdowns

So into this courtroom this week step the players of Arsenal, Bayern, Fiorentina, Lyon, Milan, Real Madrid, Manchester United and Porto.

Each tie is accompanied by statistics which can inspire optimism or despair (eg Porto have won their last 24 two-legged ties in UEFA competitions when defending an advantage away from home yet the Portuguese champions have lost on their last six visits to London).

But the best players won’t worry about the stats. They will be imagining, sometimes in lavish detail, scenarios where their team wins.

None of these ties are over. Milan’s mission hovers between impossible and implausible.

Only one side has lost at home in the first leg of a Champions League knock-out round and gone on to win the tie: Ajax against Panathinaikos in the 1995/96 semi-final. And United have never lost by two clear goals at Old Trafford in the history of this competition.

But in a buoyant interview, Ronaldinho insists “nothing is impossible.” When he talks about his renewed form (“To tell you the truth I’ve been planning to have a year like this”) you can almost hear him grinning.

The Brazilian predicts a beautiful game at Old Trafford. And it may be one in which the script is written not by coaches but by a player. That must be the worry for United fans.

On current form, they have one game-changing genius, Wayne Rooney, whereas Milan probably have two and a half (Ronnie, Andrea Pirlo and – the half – Marco Barriello).

Real’s Pjanic button

Real v Lyon is as finely poised. Again, fans can find comfort in conflicting statistics.

Lyon have not conceded in 620 minutes, while Real have only failed to score at home in this competition in three of their last 20 games (though worryingly for the Madrilenos two of those scoreless games were in the first knockout round).

Lyon’s best hope, apart from a clean sheet, must be Lisandro Lopez, whose impressive strike rate – 14 in 30 games in this competition – looks a tad less daunting when you realise he has only scored once in the competition this season.

But he – and playmaker Miralem Pjanic – are the potential game changers. Against them, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka and Gonzalo Higuain could all prove decisive.

Kaka is regaining form but is still in danger, to hark back to Platini’s analysis, of being typecast as a player who lived off one golden season (2006/07).

Kaka - a one season wonder...?

The second leg could prove coach Manuel Pellegrini’s point: that Real, in recent seasons, have degenerated into a gifted counter-attacking side who can’t keep possession long enough to dominate the opposition.

He has tried to change that – to no avail in the first leg. But the Real players’ post-match in-flight inquest on the way home from Stade Gerland proves they know what is at stake.

On paper, Bayern have more players who can make a difference than Fiorentina. It is hard to know how fired up/distracted the Viola will be after their bad luck in the first leg.

Mind you, as Jeffery Marcus points out in the New York Times, it is hard to know which Fiorentina will turn up anyway.

The likelihood is, as Bayern coach Louis van Gaal says, that the Bavarians will score, so it will take some performance from Cesare Prandelli’s team to make the last eight.

For all that, the mood in Italy seems to be one of defiant optimism.

1-0 to the Arsenal

Cesc Fabregas’s hamstring blows the Arsenal v Porto tie wide open.

The Gunners have a surprisingly dismal record of overturning first leg leads in UEFA competitions – they have done so once in their last nine attempts – but could go through with that most George Grahamish of scorelines, 1-0.

In Cesc’s absence, their talismanic genius is Andrei Arshavin, a sublime player who still hasn’t quite silenced the kind of concerns that Platini raised in that interview.

The Russian maestro has scored 10 goals this season for club and country but only one in the Champions League (against Olympiacos) and only two against top class Premier League opposition (Liverpool and Manchester United).

This would be a good week for Arshavin to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Euro 2008 was not some glorious departure from the norm. A player with his natural gifts should be a serious contender for the Ballon d’Or by now.

Cometh the hour, cometh the Andrei? Arsenal fans certainly hope so.

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Vilification of 'rat' king Cole has gone too far

Paul Simpson — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:30:00 GMT

You’d think we’d be sated by all the revelations about Ashley Cole by now, but I still have one unanswered question: at what point in this whole affair did the Chelsea and England defender change his name by deed poll to Rat Cole?

Everytime I picked up a tabloid last week ‘Rat’ Cole was committing another grievous offence against his soon to be ex-wife Cheryl, the most iconic female martyr Britain has produced since Princess Diana went all panda-eyed on Panorama.

One tabloid front page – apologies for not remembering which but after a while they all become one blur of bold typography, exclamation marks and words like sink, revenge, low or suffer – screamed: “Rat Cole sinks to new low!” This certainly grabbed my attention.

What depths of depravity had the greatest left-back in the game today sunk to now? Had he seduced the Pope? Destroyed a small Spanish holiday resort on a drunken rampage? Or, worst of all, signed up for the new series of Celebrity Love Island?

Ashley consoles himself with a trip to market...

In case you didn’t see the story, I won’t keep you in expense. The lowdown dirty ‘Rat’ Cole had had the unmitigated gall to say that the marriage began to go wrong when his mother-in-law moved in.

I felt a bit cheated at this point. If you’ve had as many extra-marital affairs as ‘Rat’ Cole allegedly has, to truly sink to a historic new low requires more effort than merely complaining about his mother-in-law in a manner that Les Dawson, were he alive today, would thoroughly approve of.

With each revelation, each additional layer of lurid detail, each ‘friend’ interpreting the participants’ true emotions – the real, complex story of a famous marriage gone horribly wrong is reduced to an entertaining, long-running yet utterly predictable cartoon in which the leading characters are a saint and a rat.

Watching this cartoon, the great British public – many of whom struggle to understand the complexities of their own marriages – have passed swift, satisfying and, in many cases, hypocritical judgement.

The public vilification of ‘Rat’ Cole has become so extreme that even his complaint about his mother-in-law’s presence in Hurtmore House, the aptly named Surrey mansion where the Coles lived, merely succeeded in giving mothers-in-law, one of the great pantomime villains of British society, a good name.

Although his lament did seem a tad ingenuous as she only moved in after allegations of the Rat’s first extra-marital affair.

Dawson - not a fan of mother in laws

Stupid, serially unfaithful, selfish, pathetic and deceitful; the Chelsea and England left-back has been all of these. His famous remark that he swerved off the road in anger after ‘only’ being offered £55,000 a week by Arsenal had stereotyped him as an ungrateful mercenary even before he betrayed the most popular woman in Britain.

That business of getting a Chelsea official to cover for him was shabby too although, as Tony Cascarino pointed out, similar shenanigans have been going on in football since time immemorial – especially on pre-season tours where even clean cut, happily married footballers have often behaved as if the old TV industry acronym OLDC (On Location Doesn’t Count) applied to them.

And yet, if we’re honest, who among us thinks that having a live-in mother-in-law is a recipe for a happy marriage? And did the most powerful man in Britain today – Simon Cowell of course, not Gordon Brown – really have to be consulted before the split was announced?

This kind of public scandal is like nuclear war, there are no winners, just survivors.

Right now, Rat Cole’s stock is so low he’d lose a by-election if he was running against a civilian kidnapping Somali pirate, while Cheryl is flying off to America to build a new career (It’s a measure of Britain’s colonial arrogance, or tabloid stupidity, that we assume that all she has to do to ‘conquer’ America is land at JFK airport).

"I promise I'll never leave your side, darling..."

The scandal may have given Cheryl the intriguing aura of a troubled, martyred icon but she’d probably still rather have her marriage.

If this has been the worst week in the Coles’ lives, it’s hardly been a vintage one for Fabio Capello. The England manager must be appallingly impressed by English football’s ability to self-destruct.

His first choice left-back, who should be focusing on recovering for the World Cup, has been condemned in absentia by the British media. His first choice centre-backs, Rio Ferdinand and John Terry, struggle with fitness and form, and if Rio’s back doesn’t recover, Capello may have to appoint a third captain in less than five months.

His first choice right-back Glen Johnson is still out with a knee injury. It looks increasingly unlikely that Owen Hargreaves will anchor England’s midfield in South Africa.

Just when Capello thought things couldn’t get any worse, Gordon Brown has likened his predicament to the England manager’s.

Does that mean England have about as much chance of winning the World Cup as Labour has of winning the next election?

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The least predictable game... and Inter-Chelsea

Paul Simpson — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:00:00 GMT

In case you hadn’t noticed, Chelsea meet an old friend tonight. England’s football media is so delighted to have an excuse to glory in Jose Mourinho that even the normally acerbic Martin Samuel has felt obliged to remind his readers why the Portuguese coach is the special one.

The subtext to the fawning is that the media desperately wants Mourinho back. That's why the British press, with the obsessive insistence of a spurned lover refusing to recognise that it’s over, maintains that Jose is really missing the Premiership which is, as everyone knows, the best league in the world.

True, it’s not the best supported (that’s the Bundesliga). It’s not the best for goals per game either (the Bundesliga does better on that measure too). Nor, despite the zillions that pour in through TV and sponsorship, is it the most financially secure.

But the Premier League is, in some way that is never quite specified, the best. Ergo Mourinho must miss it, even though he was rhapsodising the other week about the intriguing tactical challenges Serie A poses for a coach.

Operation Fightback

Inter vs Chelsea

As hyped as a Hollywood blockbuster or Gordon Brown’s Operation Fightback, this clash is almost a Mourinho derby in which the team he built takes on the team he’s still building. And, wallflower that he is, Jose has lost no time pointing this out.

Still, Petr Cech insists that his old boss’s mind games won’t faze the Chelsea players – although, judging from the performance against Wolves, confusing the Blues at the moment might not seem that difficult.

The Italian press, egged on by Gazzetta dello Sport, have been beating the drum for Mourinho’s new Inter. Here, they proudly declaim, begins calcio’s very own Operation Fightback. Revenge for United 7-1 Roma, Arsenal 5-1 Inter, Liverpool 2-0 Inter and United 2-0 Inter is imminent.

The appropriate response to such hype is to smile, nod and quote Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop: “Up to a point, Lord Copper”. The Nerazzurri are much more fluent than last season, when their tactics, for all of Mourinho’s experiments, often boiled down to Give It To Ibra.

The goalscoring of Diego Milito and Samuel Eto’o is now backed up in midfield by the guile and vision of Wesley Sneijder, a rejuvenated Dutch master and recent escapee from the Bernabeu. Without the Dutchman, Inter have looked more vulnerable and Chelsea’s first priority, surely, will be to deny him time and space.

The margin between the teams seems thin and Mourinho was already hinting yesterday that this tie may go into extra time.

Chelsea’s recent record in the knockout stages has been impressive, unlike Inter’s. But this tie finds the club in a bit of a pickle. The Blues’ form on the road has been unimpressive. John Terry has been making uncharacteristic errors, presumably distracted by his marital woes.

Ashley Cole’s shenanigans have prompted a lecture to the squad while Cole himself, a footballer who has always had his own unique take on reality, is said to feel he’s being victimised.

With all this going on, Carlo Ancelotti would probably take a draw and an away goal at San Siro. And the man to get that away goal is probably Didier Drogba, who has now scored 31 goals in 60 games in this competition.

The Ivorian striker’s theatrical tendencies have slightly obscured the fact that he is a truly great player. Simon Barnes at The Times once said that good players make goals, great players make a team. By that standard, Drogba is a great player.

So ultimately, this tie may come down to two men in a fantastic vein of form: Didier Drogba and Jose Mourinho.

The unpredictables

CSKA Moscow vs Sevilla

Political writer David Runciman once suggested that only 5% of the action in any game was “exclusively subject to the differential skills and the tactics of the team, the rest being shaped by chance or inconsequential factors”. He would probably enjoy the uncertainties that surround this clash.

For starters, which Sevilla will turn up – the sparkling talented outfit that has humiliated Real Madrid and Barcelona, or the hapless oafs who lost at home to Racing Santander? And how rusty will CSKA Moscow, who haven’t played a competitive game since December, be when they kick off?

How will the Luzhniki’s artificial playing surface suit Sevilla? And how many pairs of gloves will the la Liga side’s Brazilian stars want to wear given that the forecast temperature in Moscow tonight is -5˚C?

Even the chanceometer, the principle that the side that creates the most opportunities normally merges triumphant, is too close to be of much use: Sevilla created 88 chances in their group, CSKA 82.

Both sides can rely on superb goalkeepers. Andres Palop would be almost as well known as Igor Akinfeev if he didn’t have the misfortune to be competing with Iker Casillas and Pepe Reina for the Spanish goalkeeper’s jersey. But neither Sevilla nor CSKA have that consistent quality in every part of the pitch.

Guillem Balague and Graham Hunter persuasively argued on Revista de la Liga that Sevilla’s inconsistency is partly down to a lack of leadership on the pitch. A few characters stand out – Palop, Jesus Navas and Luis Fabiano, desperate to mark his last season at the Ramon Sanchez with a trophy.

But they lack leaders in central defence and midfield. By la Liga’s standards, the midfield lacks flair – and this has forced coach Manolo Jimenez, under fire from fans for his conservatism, to play a faster-paced, direct, English style of football.

Sevilla will want to open up the tie to exploit CSKA’s greatest weakness: defensive midfield. Although Fabiano misses the first leg, Sevilla can call on Frederic Kanoute, Navas and new boy Alvarado Negredo for goals.

Fabiano’s track record in this tournament is impressive – nine goals in 12 games – and if he isn’t scoring, he’s creating (four assists in Group G). His movement in the penalty area is exceptional, he has a remarkable instinct for goal and the technique to punish defenders. His one flaw? Probably that he can struggle to stay focused for 90 minutes.

But Jimenez’s team are sometimes so keen on attack they leave space for opponents to counter into. And CSKA scored 10 in their group, only one fewer than Sevilla.

Even without Vagner Love, Leonid Slutsky’s team have found goals relatively easy to come by. Eight of their 10 goals came from midfield (Milos Krasic has four, Alan Dzagoev three) while Czech striker Tomas Necid – the lone striker in CSKA’s 4-2-3-1– has created four and scored one.

Necid was especially influential in the 3-3 draw against United. Though CSKA were gutted not to have held on for the win, that fine display of Russian resolution was the springboard for the club to reach the last 16 for the first time.

CSKA fans of a certain age will vividly recall their first trip to Spain in this competition. In 1992/93, they dethroned reigning European champions Barcelona, coming down from 2-0 down in Camp Nou to win 3-2 and clinch the second round tie 4-3 on aggregate.

It would be nowhere near as great a shock if CSKA knocked out Sevilla. (Los Rojiblancos did, after all, lose on penalties to Fenerbahce at this stage in 2007/08.) This is one tie where anything could happen. Except two 0-0 draws.

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It's a knockout Pt.3: Unleash the underdogs

Paul Simpson — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:30:00 GMT

The UEFA Champions League returned in style last week with some cracking goals, another swirl of controversy surrounding bald Scandinavian referees and a performance by Wayne Rooney that suggested he’s determined to nick the Ballon d’Or off Lionel Messi.

If Handel hadn’t got there first with Zadok The Priest, Phil Collins could have supplied the epic theme for the first two ties this week as Stuttgart and Olympiacos struggle against all odds. So, as the soft rock classic almost says, let’s take a look at them now...

When attack is the worst form of defence

Stuttgart vs Barcelona

Stuttgart got the draw nobody wanted. The club’s Swiss coach Christian Gross knows his "mission impossible" starts with one simple task: getting the ball. Barcelona averaged 68% possession in their group stages. In their last match, at Dynamo Kyiv, they had the ball 77% of the time.

The stats make dismal reading for Stuttgart. The Germans have won just once in 11 meetings with Spanish sides, a terrible consistency they share with Gross whose record as manager against la Liga teams is played eight, won one, drawn two, lost five.

In contrast, Barcelona are unbeaten in nine on their travels in this (their last away defeat was at Old Trafford in the 2008/09 semi-final), have won four and drawn two on their last six trips to Germany and did the double over Stuttgart – 2-0 and 3-1 – in their only previous encounter in the 2007/08 group stage.

"OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGodOhGodOhGodOhGodOhGod"

And the "chanceometer" – the idea that the team that creates the most chances more often than not wins the game – shades it for Barca, though not by much, as they created 119 goalscoring opportunities in their group to Stuttgart’s 110.

PROFESSOR CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: How one professional gambler makes money by taking his chances

But Barcelona are stoppable, as Atletico Madrid proved, and will miss Dani Alves, Eric Abidal, Yaya Toure, Seydou Keita and Xavi. That kind of injury crisis would cripple most clubs but Pep Guardiola can still call on such journeymen as Messi, Henry, Ibra, Iniesta, Puyol, Pique, Pedro and Marquez.

The great Zlatan – who ended his goal drought in that defeat by Atletico – must surely see this as a great chance to break his duck and score his first goal in the knockout stages of this competition.

So what is Gross to do? The romantic option – especially after Saturday’s 5-1 demolition of Cologne, and with Barça’s defence ravaged by injuries – would be to attack Barcelona and hope that Cacau, who scored four in Cologne, is brilliant and ruthless.

But most European coaches say Barcelona are at their most dangerous when you attack them. The reward for such audacity might be the kind of heavy, stinging defeat that seriously undermines morale and inspires punning headlines of the Gross Misconduct or Christian Thrown To The Lions variety.

The safer option would be for Gross to rerun the Super Cup and watch how Mircea Lucescu’s superbly drilled Shakhtar Donetsk frustrated Barcelona.

"I didn't see that coming, did you?"

At their best, Barcelona are European football’s scintillators in chief. But when the tempo slows and space is scarce, they can get stuck in a passing rut, hit too many passes, too slowly and get a tad bogged down. With Barça becalmed and frustrated, Cacau and Pavel Pogrebnyak could even nick a goal.

The wisdom of Socratis

Olympiacos vs Bordeaux

Atletico Madrid’s notorious chairman Jesus Gil once said that firing a coach felt as natural to him as drinking beer. Olympiacos chairman Socratis Kokkalis hasn’t been that trigger-happy but just over halfway through the season, Bozidar Bandovic is now in his second spell as caretaker manager after the oustings of Temuri Ketsbaia and Zico.

This is the third time Olympiacos have reached the knockout stages of the Champions League. On both previous occasions, the coach was on his way within 10 months.

Like his many predecessors, Bandovic, who made his name as a defender with Red Star Belgrade in the early 1990s, has two simple tasks: over-perform in the Champions League and win the Greek title (as they have in nine out of the last 10 seasons).

The biggest obstacle to Olympiacos over-performing against Bordeaux is goals. The lack of. Their top scorers in Group H – Brazilian defender Leonardo, defender-or-midfielder Vassilis Torosidis, midfielder Ieroklis Stoltidis and striker Kostas Mitroglou – all grabbed a goal apiece.

Mitroglou’s strike rate, if that’s not too generous, was a goal every 387 minutes in Group H. (Though the 21-year-old did, to be fair, shoot down Sheriff, the Moldovan champs, with two goals in the play-off round.)

When you’ve been firing blanks, the last thing you need is to face a defence coached by World Cup winning centre-back Laurent Blanc. Bordeaux have the competition’s meanest defence, conceding just two goals as they surprised Juventus and Bayern to emerge as the alpha males in Group A.

"...and this is how you tackle..."

Bordeaux reached the European Cup semi-final in 1984/85 and are fancied by many to do at least as well this season – superb news for headline writers who haven’t quite exhausted their list of wine-related puns.

Euro for Euro, Blanc must be one of the most effective coaches in Europe today. As Gabriele Marcotti has noted, his efficient back four cost just £3.8m. As a coach, he has a particular gift for rehab, rebuilding the confidence of Bordeaux’s best player Yoan Gourcuff and Michael Ciani, the central defender who scored two tasty headers in Group A.

Bordeaux’s recent wobble – they have won just two out of five Ligue 1 games since Christmas – may give Olympiacos hope. But the Greeks will have to work hard to deny Gourcuff, Marouane Chamakh, Wendel and Yoan Gouffran – and to stop the French side scoring from set-pieces.

Bordeaux will want to stifle Torosidis. Now 24, the Greek international, who started as a full-back, has played as a winger and now often features in central midfield. Combative, strong, tall and technically accomplished, Torosidis just needs to score a few more goals to become the complete player.

His long-expected move to a bigger league – he has, inevitably, been linked with Manchester City – might be influenced by his form for Greece in South Africa this summer.

It took Olympiacos 32 games to record their first away win in this tournament and their defence has been porous on their travels, shipping 2.12 goals a game. So if Olympiacos are to avoid a Greek tragedy, they need a clear margin of victory and a clean sheet in Piraeus.

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It’s a knockout Pt. 2: Arsenal, Porto, Fiorentina & Bayern

Paul Simpson — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:00:00 GMT

The longer I study mathematics, number crunching, statistics and their application to the game of football, the more deeply convinced I become that their use simply introduces a higher level of nonsense into punditry.

Yesterday, applying the formula developed by one rich gambler – the team that creates the most chances usually wins – I suggested Manchester United and Real Madrid would conquer all.

At first glance, I was half right.

The Professor on It's a knockout Pt.1: Milan, Man U, Real & Lyon

United, with a much greater track record at creating goalscoring opportunities in this tournament, just edged it – even though, on the night, they created one fewer chance than Milan!

Real lost 1-0 to Lyon. Los blancos have, game-by-game, created significantly more chances than Claude Puel’s team.

But on the night, in one of the best 1-0s of the season, Lyon created 18 chances, twice as many as Real.

If we evaluate tonight’s games purely in terms of goalscoring opportunities, what do we conclude?

Bayern vs Fiorentina is too close to call: the Germans made 86 opportunities in their group games, compared to 91 for Fiorentina, while Porto (who created 124 chances) might surprise Arsenal (101).

Zealotry and pragmatism

Porto vs Arsenal

When Arsene Wenger called this tie “difficult, but feasible”, the British press assumed he was playing mind games.

After all, United and Chelsea have beaten the Dragons on their own turf in the last year.

Yet William Hill agrees with Wenger rating a Porto victory this week as slightly more likely (7/5) than a win for Arsenal (8/5).

The absence of Andrei Arshavin and Eduardo, with Robin van Persie sidelined, is significant.

But 11 Gunners have already scored in the UEFA Champions League this season and Cesc Fabregas, their top scorer in this competition (and this season as a whole) will play.

The bigger concern may be the absence of Alexandre Song. Many Arsenal fans rave about him, as does David Walsh in The Sunday Times.

I haven’t seen him enough in person this season to make any sweeping judgement.

But from what I’ve seen on TV, I wonder whether people are seeing Song as he is today or projecting an idealised version of the player he might become in a few years.

Certainly a minority of Gooners post such furious questions on message boards as: “Why in God’s name is Song never in front of the centre-backs when he is supposed to be?”

"So you're not coming to Portugal? Oh, bum."

Porto are not, as Gabriel Marcotti notes, the side that pushed United so hard in the quarter-finals last season.

Their annual summer sale has begun finally to take its toll and, despite some good recent form, they are nine points behind Benfica in Portugal.

It hasn’t helped, as The Sunday Times’ Ian Hawkey notes, that “The Incredible Hulk has become the Ineligible Hulk” after a fracas in the tunnel against Benfica just before Christmas.

Though his ban does not apply to UEFA competitions, Porto’s marauding Brazilian genius will lack match fitness.

Hawkey and Marcotti identify the major threat to Arsenal as Radamel ‘Falcao’ Garcia, a 24-year-old Colombian who has quickly filled Lisandro’s goalscoring boots.

He can finish with both feet, has a devastating change of pace, is pretty nifty in the air for a player who isn’t quite 5ft 10in, and he has scored seven in his last 10 games.

Porto paid £4.8 million for him and could double that if they sold him this summer.

Remember the name: Superbock!

Porto are adept on the counter and Arsenal have become exceptionally adept at conceding on the counter so it will be intriguing to see if Wenger has his team playing a little deeper in Portugal, reducing the space for Porto to attack into.

Above all, this fixture offers a fascinating contrast in managerial styles.

Porto are schooled by Jesualdo Ferreira, a wily pragmatist who may never match the glory that was Jose Mourinho but won’t rock the boat either.

Ferreira’s perpetual challenge is to build a team flexible and resilient enough to lose star players upfront, in central defence and midfield and still compete in the Champions League.

And Ferreira knows that, no many how of his stars are sold, he will pay if the Dragons don’t deliver.

Facing Ferreira is Wenger, a coach with the conviction, zeal and mystic aura of a biblical prophet who, for all his cosmopolitan, analytical intelligence, really does seem to believe that his way of playing football is morally superior.

Wenger may be dismayed, if not surprised, to hear that Ferreira says his main goal tonight is “shutting out” Arsenal – although the Porto coach could be playing mind games too.

With Arsenal’s injury problems, he might wonder if a more aggressive approach could clinch the tie in the first leg.

Violins and washing machines

Bayern vs Fiorentina

If football matches were decided purely by which teams had the most stars, Bayern would be a shoo-in for the last eight.

They can call on the slippery Arjen Robben, the superb Ivica Olic, the reliable Miroslav Klose, and the rejuvenated Franck Ribery.

The only Fiorentina star of equivalent proven class is Alberto Gilardino, who will be hoping to perform his famous celebration – playing the air violin – in Munich.

Italian hitman prepares to open violin case

If matches were decided by form, Bayern are still overwhelming favourites.

They have won 12 games in a row while Fiorentina (beaten 2-0 by Sampdoria at the weekend) have shown the kind of inconsistency normally reserved for candidates for public office.

Coach Cesare Prandelli admits the Viola are in crisis.

The Guardian’s Paolo Bandini explores the club’s malaise entertainingly, pointing out that Fiorentina have one eye on the last eight of the Champions League and another on a relegation battle in Serie A.

No wonder the bookies offer 6/1 on a Fiorentina triumph in Munich.

Still, as Bayern club captain Mark van Bommel said earlier this week: “You never know what will happen – warranties and guarantees are for washing machines.”

Prandelli’s best hope may be to keep the tie competitive – ideally level with an away goal – and regroup for the return at the Artemi Franchi.

Despite their impressive form, Louis van Gaal has scolded Bayern for “being arrogant and lacking in concentration” and Fiorentina will hope to punish any such lapses.

"You've all been very naughty boys"

In the last 16 for the first time, Fiorentina have shown that this tournament inspires them.

They have won five in a row, including both their last two away games.

They have the wit and technique – in such players as Stevan Jovetic and Juan Manuel Vargas – to trouble Bayern and keeper Sebastian Frey has been in the form of his life in Europe.

The key to the tie, in Mutu’s absence, will be whether Gilardino is confident and on form after a lacklustre month.

Sometimes, when you are struggling, playing away from home – especially in an inspiring stadium like Bayern’s – can be easier than performing in front of your own fans who, when the chips are down, can lurch from passionate loyalty to loud, vitriolic, enervating disgust after one bad mistake.

The longer Fiorentina can keep this at 0-0, the more frustrated Bayern – and their highly critical fans – might become.

Even if Bayern ease past Fiorentina, one man believes they probably won’t win the Champions League.

That man is, of course, Franck Ribery, who may just be perfecting his alibi for a summer move to somewhere more glamorous.

His insistence that Bayern need to buy more big names – as if a football team could ever really adopt the model of the Harlem Globetrotters – is a tad depressing.

Multi-millionaires are notoriously prone to delusions of professional immortality but even big names like Ribery age and, if every club adopted his Harlem Globetrotters strategy, there’d be no big names emerging to replace them.

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It's a knockout Pt. 1: Milan, Man U, Real & Lyon

Paul Simpson — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 12:30:00 GMT

There are many imperfect ways to predict a football match.

As professional soothsayers, journalists will often search for the strangest omens.

Chelsea are, according to the hacks gathered around the table for Brian Woolnough’s Sunday Supplement on Sky Sports, destined to win the UEFA Champions League because they are fuelled by a sense of injustice at the manner of their defeat in last season’s semi-final.

Call me a sceptic, but as the saying very nearly goes: revenge is a dish best served after the event.

Compulsive Tweeter Henry Winter has obviously been inspired by Sir Alex Ferguson’s “upbeat, in control” performance at the press conference at the San Siro.

Actually, Henry calls it a presser, which led me to wonder if Dazza and Wazza were at the presser with Fergie and Wints.

At ease: Fergie holds court

But somewhere in London, a multi-millionaire gambler – as the next issue of Champions will reveal – has made a fortune by using a different criterion to predict games.

He relies, to a large degree, on which team creates the most chances.

Doesn’t matter if a team converts more of them, creating them is enough for this rich recluse.

And on this basis, Manchester United, who created 109 chances in their group games (counting shots and corners), should prevail over 180 minutes over Milan, who created just 80.

In tonight’s other tie, the same stats suggest that Real Madrid (126 chances) should defeat Olympique Lyonnais (98).

Legs, shots and soap

Milan v Manchester United

The soap opera sub-plot of Beckham’s return to Old Trafford may, to the British media’s chagrin, not prove decisive in this finely poised tie.

As Tom English points out in a slightly snide piece in The Scotsman, Beckham – and Milan – have often misfired since the Rossoneri’s abject performance in the Milan derby.

Yet unlike Juve’s former coach Ciro Ferrara, Leonardo still has a shot at proving he is the new Guardiola.

His target tonight is “not conceding a goal and doing some damage to the English side.”

The stat that might trouble him, returning briefly to the gambler’s predictive formula, is that Milan only managed 19 shots on goal in Group C, making them the most shot-shy team in the last 16.

They beat Udinese 3-2 at the weekend but Gazzetta dello Sport noted: “Something more will be needed against United. In three words: speed, aggression, pressure.”

United’s four previous trips to the San Siro have yielded no goals and no points.

United fans seem divided on whether Sir Alex Ferguson should play a cagey 4-5-1 or try to settle the tie with an attacking 4-3-3.

As Jonathan Wilson has pointed out in The Guardian, United have usually preferred to counter-attack since Fernando Redondo nutmegged Henning Berg with a backheel nearly 10 years ago.

Redondo's subsequent assist for Raul helped Real beat United 3-2 at Old Trafford in the last eight.

"I'll do you, too": Redondo takes on Keano

Saying the game will be decided in midfield is to state the bleedin’ obvious.

And despite the presence of Matthieu Flamini in the squad, the Milan midfield lacks legs under 30, a deficiency not even the wizards at the Milan Lab can mask indefinitely.

I’d never say so to Gennaro Gattuso in person but against top-class opposition his snarl has, of late, sometimes seemed worse than his bite in the tackle.

United may prosper if they have their passing boots on.

The return of Pato’s pace and power is a morale booster for Milan.

If fit for either leg, striker Marco Borriello – arguably the Rossoneri’s best target man since Oliver Bierhoff left in 2001 – will surely test a United defence beset by injuries and changing selections.

Ronaldinho has made himself integral to Milan and looked motivated against Udinese after a shape up or ship out chat with Silvio Berlusconi.

The difference between this Ronaldinho and the player who won this tournament with Barcelona is that if he does get one-on-one with a United defender, he will have to beat his opponent with technique, not acceleration.

Ronaldinho and Pato: guile and pace

In no way can this tie be defined as crudely as a head to head between Rooney and Pato.

But for Rooney, this is his chance to prove he really is, as his boss maintains, the best in the world right now.

And on UEFA.com he certainly sounds up for the challenge of outwitting Alessandro Nesta.

Pato isn’t short of motivation either.

He broke Pele’s record by scoring within seconds on his debut for Brazil against Sweden in March 2008.

Sadly for Pato, the one man his talents don’t seem to excite that much happens to be his national coach Dunga.

THE SPOTTER: How United can topple Milan

La decima, the holy grail and Bart Simpson

Lyon v Real Madrid

Once a realistic ambition, then a long-cherished dream, la decima – the 10th European Cup – is in danger of becoming a holy grail for Real Madrid.

The last time they made it past the last 16 of the competition Tony Blair was still prime minister, Jose Mourinho was managing Porto and Facebook was just six weeks old.

LA LIGA LOCA: Madrid prepare for their annual knockout round

Real’s glorious dash to the last four in 2003/04 brought the curtain down on the first galacticos era.

And now it is up to the neo-galacticos – in which the megastars have been surrounded with a few players like Xabi Alonso who know how a football team actually ticks – to succeed where Zidane, the original Ronaldo and Figo failed.

It sounds melodramatic to say that this tie will define Real’s season.

Hell, it is melodramatic. But it is also probably true.

Iker Casillas will be hoping to mark his 501st appearance for Real Madrid with a clean sheet.

But Real’s record at Stade Gerland in this tournament is consistent: ie consistently awful.

They've played twice, lost both, scored none and conceded five.

And, if Miralem Pjanic is on the pitch, Real need to watch out for free-kicks: they have conceded 104 fouls in six games and collected 17 yellow cards, having the worst disciplinary record of any team in the last 16.

Pjanic: "I'll put it just there"

Mind you, Lyon’s home form in Europe is hardly spectacular: they have won just five out of their last 14 (including their 5-1 demolition of Anderlecht in the play-off round) at Stade Gerland.

And they’ve been leaky in Ligue 1: conceding 1.17 goals a game (compared to Real’s 0.68 in la Liga.)

With Cris and Jean-Alain Boumsong in defence, Lyon’s chances of progressing diminish the more open the games become.

So can Lyon’s 4-2-3-1 keep Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Higuain – and possibly old boy Karim Benzema (if he can shake off that injury to his left leg) – at bay?

Coach Claude Puel will certainly hope so.

Lyon’s recent record in the knockout stages is one of Bart Simpsonesque underachievement.

They’ve had some tough draws – facing Manchester United, Barcelona and now Real – but les Gones have been goners at this stage three seasons in a row.

If Puel had the personnel he might be tempted to emulate Jean Tigana, who steered Monaco past Manchester United into the semis in 1998 by drawing 0-0 in the billionaires’ playground and scoring the crucial away goal in a draw at Old Trafford.

Monaco's Barthez celebrates, United's Berg doesn't

But he hasn’t, so much will depend on Hugo Lloris’s excellence in goal and whether Lisandro, who hasn’t been as prolific since the winter break, can make the most of his opportunities.

Still, as Karim Benzema (who knows a bit about Lyon) points out, Puel’s team have a strong point:

"They can be playing badly and all of a sudden they surpass themselves, raising their game to their opponents’ level or beyond.”

Previewing games like this can often descend into what the cult British novelist and football reporter BS Johnson called “speculative crap.”

So it would be remiss not to say that I’ll watch this match in the hope that, as Johnson put it in his novel The Unfortunates, “this might be the ONE match where the extraordinary happens, the match one remembers and talks about afterwards for the rest of one’s life.”

If any two teams can deliver such a match at this stage of the competition, it is probably Real Madrid and Olympique Lyonnais.

Tomorrow I’ll ponder if Arsene Wenger has been playing mind games again and which Fiorentina will turn up in Munich as I preview the other two ties this week.

THE SPOTTER: How United can topple Milan
LA LIGA LOCA: Madrid prepare for their annual knockout round

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Magic numbers, bubbly & Brandreth

Paul Simpson — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:00:00 GMT

Every World Cup is preceded by coincidences and mathematical formulas which ‘prove’ one country is destined to win.

My favourite of 2010, brought to my attention by Ulrich Hesse when researching a piece for the next issue of Champions, is that Germany will win the World Cup this summer because of a magic number: 3964.

In 2002, the Brazilians discovered that if you added two of a nation’s World Cup triumphs together you always came up with 3964.

This worked for Brazil (1962 + 2002 = 3964), Argentina (1978 + 1986 = 3964) and Germany (1974 + 1990 = 3964).

But it didn’t work for the selecao in 2006 (even though 1958 + 2006 = 3964), nor for Italy, Uruguay or England (who, according to this theory, blew their chance to win it in 1998 when 1966 + 1998 = 3964).

Germany will hope that the charm does work this summer because 1954 + 2010 = 3964.

Bring me the head of Jerome Champagne

Jerome Champagne sounds like a spoof name for one of Lenny Henry’s parodic 1970s soul singers.

But there’s nothing especially groovy about Champagne who, in photographs, looks like his expression has been curdled by too many meetings.

Until recently, Champagne was the international relations director of FIFA. His abrupt departure from that post has puzzled football’s chattering classes.

FIFA watchers are the new Kremlinologists.

Just as academics once scrutinised speeches for coded messages and studied the line-up of grey leaders waving stiffly at May Day parades for clues as to who was on the way up, FIFA watchers have become expert readers of the runes, interpreters of obscure signs.

And, like Kremlinologists, they never agree.

So Champagne’s exit will, the pundits conclude, make FIFA president Sepp Blatter more powerful.

Or less powerful – if you believe those who suggest Champagne was sacrificed to placate irate confederation bosses or to placate power brokers disturbed by Champagne’s views on rooting out corruption.

Hitherto regarded as a shoo-in to be re-elected as president in 2012, Blatter knows that much depends now on whether his gamble, giving the World Cup to South Africa, pays off.

If the tournament flops – and early ticket sales in such normally fervent countries as Germany are hardly encouraging – it will fuel demand for change at the top.

Champagne’s abrupt exit comes soon after Hans Klaus’s resignation as communications director.

Klaus had been in the job just 19 months and his departure, seven months before the biggest event in FIFA’s calendar, was hardly ideal.

The post has not been filled and it’s a sign of how odd things are in the footballocracy right now that the three biggest communications director roles in football – at FIFA, UEFA and the FA – are all vacant.

Thank god it’s all over

January 2010 was the dullest of transfer windows.

The countdown on Sky Sports News served not to heighten the tension about which mouthwatering deals might still be struck, but to promise relief that we should not have to endure this tedious, unconvincing speculation much longer.

Freddy Adu’s long and winding road to becoming the new Pele has now taken him, on loan, to Aris in Greece, his sixth club in six years.

Steve McClaren has taken a risk at FC Twente by snapping up striker Vagif Javadov, Azerbaijan’s footballer of the year.

Meanwhile, Jerome Rothen, Lucas Neill and Geremi all headed into European football’s last chance saloon, the Turkish league.

Scandal and satire

Watched Sunderland vs Stoke.

I loved Stoke in the early 1970s when, under Tony Waddington, and inspired by Gordon Banks and Jimmy Greenhoff, they beat Chelsea in the 1972 League Cup final.

Rose-tinted nostalgia can lead you astray – and it’s hard to argue with the economic imperative to play in a style that keeps the club in the Premier League – but Stoke are in danger of becoming the Gyles Brandreth of English football, smugly spreading insufferable boredom throughout the land.

Terrygate has baffled the French who find the moral outrage typical of hypocritical Monsieur Rosbif and the News of the World’s old foe Max Mosley has chipped in on behalf of the Chelsea and England skipper.

For me the highlight of le scandale was seeing Lizzie Cundy, the luminous wife of Jason and star of such zeitgeist-defining TV programmes as So Would You Dump Me Now? and Sporting Icon WAGS, gamely defending Terry on the GMTV sofa on the grounds that nobody understood how difficult it was for these young multi-millionaires being hounded 24/7 by scores of beautiful women begging them for sex.

I haven’t been so entertained since English football’s greatest living satirist, Karren Brady, said how “brilliant” it would be if her new club were renamed West Ham Olympic.

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The men who made Brian Clough

Paul Simpson — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:30:00 GMT

Every genius seems unique.

Yet as Duncan Hamilton’s brilliant book Provided You Don’t Kiss Me makes clear, Brian Clough owed something to Peter Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Muhammad Ali, Harold Wilson and Eric Morecambe.

Sadly, the football giants on whose shoulders Old Big ‘Ead stood are largely forgotten today: Alan Brown and Harry Storer.

Brown’s greatest achievements were creating a fine Sunderland side that pushed Don Revie’s Leeds all the way for the old Second Division title in 1963/64 and steering Sheffield Wednesday to the 1966 FA Cup final.

But his greatest legacy was inspiring Cloughie.

The first time Brown met Clough, he told his young striker: “You may have heard people say that I’m a b*st*rd. Well, they’re right.”

Brown inspired fear – even in Clough – set strict club rules (fining players for minor indiscretions), ordered the senior players to be ball boys for the youth team and yanked Clough off the touchline for talking to a friend during training and (Hamilton says) “dressed him down for it, like a schoolboy caught with matches in his pockets.”

When Clough graduated to the dugout, he often said: “I wish I had Alan Brown beside me.”

God, bonuses and kindness

Like Clough, Brown hailed from the north-east. A tactically aware centre-half, Brown once declared that football was “one of the biggest things that happened in creation.”

His belief that football was God’s gift resonated with Clough, who was convinced he was God’s gift to football.

Brown made his mark as a player quite late: he was 32 when he starred at the heart of Burnley’s famous Iron Curtain Defence in the late 1940s.

As Burnley manager in the 1950s, Brown invested in youth, pioneered the short corner and perfected a vast array of set-pieces.

Brown’s moral integrity proved useful when he joined Sunderland in 1957.

The Rokermen were at the foot of the First Division and disgraced by illegal payments to players.

Brown took them back to the top flight but quit in 1963/64 when directors reneged on a promised bonus.

The bitter lesson was not lost on Clough, who would rage about the “shithouses” in the boardroom of every club he managed.

Brown in 1969, back at Roker Park

Brown came agonisingly close to winning the 1966 FA Cup with Sheffield Wednesday but by 1970, when he was just 56, his career in English football management was effectively finished by Sunderland's relegation.

When Roker legend Len Ashurst visited Brown (who had retired to Devon) he found his old boss “had fallen on tough times, but Alan said: ‘Come here, see those flowers? Brian Clough sent them. And see this cheque? He sent me this as well.’”

Such secret kindness was typical of Clough – and Harry Storer, though the Derby manager could be as tough as bricks.

In Clough’s memoirs, he recalls how Storer dragged a player back to the pitch after a game and demanded: “Show me the hole.”

The baffled player muttered: “What hole, boss?” To which Storer crushingly replied: “The hole you disappeared into for 90 minutes. It has to be here somewhere.”

Such brutal candour became second nature to Clough.

A skilful midfielder in the 1920s, the square-jawed Storer took over at Derby in 1955.

As Derby player Ian Hall recalls: “He knew a lot about sport and about people. He knew a lot about many things and loved an argument about everything from literature to religion.”

Storer the player in 1920

Clough discovered the range of Storer’s conversation – and his thirst for argument – at first hand.

Storer tried to sign Clough for Derby and whenever the Rams played in the north-east, Clough and Taylor would listen as Storer held forth.

Brown was a shrewd tactician, Storer wasn’t.

If a coach got too technical when describing a player’s qualities, Storer would brusquely interject: “Yes, but can he play?”

Electricians and Eric Morecambe

Clough’s greatest signing at Derby, Dave Mackay, was inspired by Storer’s advice: “As you’re setting out for the match, look around the bus and count hearts. If you can’t count five, turn the bus around.”

Impressed, Clough would buy such bravehearts as Mackay, Larry Lloyd, Kenny Burns and Stuart Pearce.

Storer died in September 1967, just a few weeks after Clough and Taylor took over at the Baseball Ground. (Brown died in Barnstaple in 1996).

Twenty-six years later, when Clough finally retired, he remembered another of Storer’s maxims: “Directors never say thank you.”

After 18 seasons at Nottingham Forest, Clough was given a silver rose bowl. Not one director wrote to him.

“One or two of their wives did, but not the directors themselves,” he told Michael Parkinson. “Strange, isn’t it?”

Hamilton’s book has some delightful period detail – even in the 1980s, Stuart Pearce advertised his services as an electrician in the Forest programme – and sheds intriguing, unexpected light on Clough’s career.

Hamilton suggests, rightly in my view, that the pivotal life-changing event for Clough was not the knee injury that prematurely ended his playing career but the public humiliation of his 44-day spell at Leeds United.

Clough takes training at Leeds; Bremner wears prescient number

Out of disaster, a new Clough emerged, not quite so ready – whatever appearances might suggest – to believe his own hype (at least until the booze affected his judgement) and easier with players, press and, occasionally, directors.

He could even dwell amusingly on the foibles of footballers, saying they reminded him of Eric Morecambe failing to impress Andre Previn by playing all the right notes of Grieg’s concerto “but not necessarily in the right order.”

Hamilton’s painstaking account makes the mechanics of Clough’s comeback – the signing of players, the psychological tactics, the plotting within the club – vividly clear.

One overlooked reason for Clough’s remarkable success at Forest, Hamilton suggests, is that the club’s arcane constitution prevented any single tycoon taking over, leaving Cloughie free to divide and rule.

But neither Hamilton nor Clough in his memoirs has explained how Old Big 'Ead acquired his messianic self-certainty – and why that didn’t shatter forever when the most famous football club of his day discarded him.

Clough’s secret war

I never met Clough but I shared a room with him – and 80 other journalists – when he was promoting his autobiography in 1995.

It wasn’t vintage Clough, but he still had a rare mesmeric power – and a gift for saying outrageous things in such an endearing way it felt churlish to take offence.

Reading Hamilton’s book – and Parkinson’s blog describing him as a “loudmouthed prat and a significant working class hero” – I wonder how much of his rise was fuelled by old-fashioned class resentment, a burning desire to put one over on the toffs who had patronised him as a player and a coach.

The psychologist Anthony Storr notes, in his superb essay on Winston Churchill, that Hitler was a very useful enemy for Churchill – as an outlet for all the anger that this manic depressive might have directed inward.

Clough was fortunate in his enemies too: in English football in his day, there was always another upper-class twit who needed taking down a peg or three.

Maybe Clough’s real war wasn’t against Revie or Derby chairman Sam Longson, but the establishment and its many stooges.

Like Brando’s anti-hero in The Wild One, he had no shortage of causes to rebel against.

Back in 1995, none of that occurred to me. I only knew that Clough was undoubtedly the most charming retired dictatorial genius I’d ever shared a room with.

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Herrera's creative engine room: God, Freud and Yoga

Paul Simpson — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:30:00 GMT

“He who plays for himself plays for the opposition. He who plays for the team plays for himself.”

The notebooks of Helenio Herrera, published by his widow Fiora Gandolfi, are full of aphorisms like that, which shed insight on the intriguing paradox of Inter’s famous, infamous coach.

The brilliant Argentinian football writer Marcela Mora y Araujo has just analysed Herrera's notebooks in the new issue of Champions (out now folks, at all good newsagents and here).

Brilliant analysis - and the journals are good, too

As Marcela points out, Herrera is usually remembered as a dictatorial, authoritarian leader whose greatest triumphs – winning the European Cup in 1963 and 1964 with Inter – were clouded by rumours of skulduggery, gamesmanship and bribery, and whose reputation is forever stained Darth Vader black by his association with the sterile defensive football of catenaccio.

Yet, as Marcela’s researches make clear, Herrera wasn’t just a brutal cynic. His life reads like a magic realist tale by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

The son of an exiled Spanish anarchist trade unionist, Helenio was born, at an unknown date (some say 1910, others 1916), in the islands of the Tigre Delta near Buenos Aires but moved as a young boy to Casablanca, where he lived in poverty.

By the 1930s, when he made his name as a player in France, he could speak Spanish, Arabic, French, English and Italian and often spoke them all in the same sentence.

His personal Esperanto gave him an aura that led many to call him Il Mago (The Magician).

After impressing in Spain, he made Inter successful and notorious before drifting into self-parody (he was even repudiated by the Inter old guard, the very players he had made famous) and retirement.

When he died, in 1997, his ashes lay behind an unmarked stone on San Michele, Venice’s island cemetery, until the British royal family, which owns some plots on the island, intervened.

For tactical aficionados, Herrera’s beautifully annotated diagram of a W-M formation dated 1925 – the same year Herbert Chapman was pioneering this system in England – will be of particular interest.

For me, the intriguing aspect of Herrera’s notebooks is the breadth of his sources.

He draws on yoga, psychoanalysis and – interestingly for a man who insisted on a non-religious funeral – the lives of saints, as he jots down thoughts and sketches which might help him as a defender and coach.

He pioneered self-help psychology.

Decades before Paul McKenna promised to make us thin, rich and tobacco-free, he would stick up signs around the dressing room which challenged players: “Why not be the best?” (Ironically, Jimmy Carter, one of America’s most mediocre presidents, later adopted the slogan.)

Crystal Palace, 1965: HH shows his methods to the FA

I was struck by two of Herrera’s dictums: “Style is in limitation” and “The worst thing is to make a mistake with someone else’s ideas.”

Nobody ever accused him of doing the latter.

Though he hated being called Il Mago and could analyse football with scientific dispassion, Herrera believed in ritual.

The ball was to be worshipped, its talismanic qualities so powerful that touching it briefly was, he told players, good for the mind.

Herrera was a paradoxical man.

The Italian writer Gianni Brera, who loved him and hated him, caught his aspect brilliantly when he called Herrera a “clown and a genius, vulgar and ascetic, sultan and believer, boorish and competent, megalomaniac and health freak... he is all this and more.”

Even his adherence to catenaccio is not as unswerving as legend suggests.

The stats on his managerial career show that his Atletico Madrid team scored 2.76 goals per game between 1949 and 1952, while at Sevilla (from 1953 to 1956) and Barcelona (1958 and 1960) his side averaged 2.29 and 3.03 goals a game respectively.

At Inter, he managed a free-scoring side but won nothing and turned to a variation of catenaccio that relied on attacking full-backs or wing-backs.

Once he’d discovered that system, he never significantly deviated from it.

Herrera probably didn’t invent catenaccio, but he was responsible for the ritiro, the traditional pre-match ritual where Italian teams retreat to focus on the task in hand.

The ritiro was soon institutionalised throughout calcio.

Jonathan Wilson says that Inter’s extended retreat before the 1967 European Cup final ironically contributed to their defeat by Celtic.

Inter’s ritiro in Portugal was so claustrophobic that many players couldn’t sleep. Herrera’s invention had been so successful that he had forgotten another of his maxims: “Avoid monotony in speeches, training and meals.”

Bested by Stein in '67

The diagrams of yoga and exercise give some insight into the obsessive inner world of this great coach and, by extension, all great coaches.

As he lovingly depicts various exercises, Herrera seems engaged on a quest to understand every muscle and its relevance to a footballer’s performance.

The breadth of his curiosity is a striking contrast to the depth of his self-belief, his certainty that “Things are only as difficult as you make them.”

These notes don’t square with the stereotype of Herrera. But they are, his widow suggests, the rules he tried to live by.

Maybe, too, they helped obscure some of the unpalatable aspects of his success.

It’s easier to ignore skulduggery if you can tell yourself you are inspired by Saint Ignatius of Loyola (the founder of the Jesuits, and one of Herrera’s greatest influences).

Herrera’s wisdom still resonates.

“Doubt must not enter into me” is, surely, a motto to find favour with Jose Mourinho, the paradoxical genius who now reigns at the San Siro.

Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate Helenio Herrera.

On the evidence of these notebooks, Herrera looks more, as Marcela suggests, like a Renaissance Man than one of South America’s more enduring – and benign – tinpot dictators.

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The revolutionary legacy of Philippe Albert

Paul Simpson — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 11:30:00 GMT

Philippe Albert’s first touch wasn’t great.

The ball rolled too far to his left but there was plenty of space and he had time to notice the keeper was out of his goal before he accelerated towards the penalty area and, from 25 yards out, chipped the ball over two defenders and Peter Schmeichel to score the goal of his life.

Albert’s chip for Newcastle against Manchester United in October 1996 wasn’t just sublime, it was 15 years ahead of its time.

The centre-back is being surreptitiously, radically reinvented.

One day, maybe, all centre-backs will be expected to score goals like Albert’s – even if they will also be expected to defend like Franco Baresi.

Going spare at the back

The tactical rationale behind this reinvention has been explained, with characteristic eloquence, by Jonathan Wilson.

Simply put, the rarity of 4-4-2 and the changing role of the striker mean that one centre-back in the traditional back four is effectively spare.

As Wilson says when predicting the return of the sweeper, “The history of tactics is the history of the manipulation of space” and this underworked centre-back may now have the most space on the pitch.

If that centre-back could – as Philippe Albert, Klaus Augenthaler, Franz Beckenbauer, Ronald Koeman and Ruud Krol have all done – play with the confidence of a libero and take the ball into midfield, starting and finishing attacks, they could transform their team’s prospects.

Albert looks to the future

With one centre-back redundant, you might expect more teams to play 3-5-2.

But redeploying that spare centre-back into the congested midfield actually throws away the space and leaves your remaining centre-back with less cover.

It's far more likely that, under a 4-5-1, 4-4-1-1 or 4-3-3, the spare centre-back becomes an attacking central defender who can swap roles with the defensive anchormen.

Ideally, both central defenders and both anchormen would become interchangeable.

Centre-backs can then make the most of the space in front of them and, by running from unexpected areas, confuse and vex opposing midfielders.

These libero-style centre-backs will need the intelligence to read the opportunity when it arises.

Beckenbauer was a master of this. In September 1965, the Kaiser seized the initiative in a vital World Cup qualifier against Sweden.

With the Swedes unsettled by an equaliser, and West Germany needing to win, his sudden run into midfield created the winner for Uwe Seeler.

And in England the following summer, Beckenbauer scored more goals than Bobby Charlton.

Becks bags in 66. Name that ground...

Andy Roxburgh, UEFA’s technical director, sees the redefinition of the centre-back as the latest stage in an evolution which has transformed the roles of goalkeepers, full-backs, wingers and strikers – who have all, to differing degrees, become more multi-tasking.

The buzz word is “universality,” which Wilson explains by drawing an analogy with table football: “Get beyond a certain level and the key attacking players become the back two because they have time and the space behind them to line up a shot; the three forwards take on a function as blockers.”

Defence is the best form of attack

The complicating factor in all this is, as ever, the player.

Many attackers can defend but only a handful of central defenders – Gerard Pique and Lucio are the most obvious – have what it takes, at the very highest level, to attack.

The dearth of attacking centre-backs may be the most underrated skill shortage in football today.

The visionary coaches who encouraged the kind of fluidity that typified Total Football – Valeriy Lobanovskiy and Viktor Maslov at Dynamo Kyiv, Rinus Michels at Ajax and Arrigo Sacchi at Milan – were all great dictators who developed young teams.

In the case of Michels and Sacchi, they were also empowered by being hired in a crisis.

The most recent of these autocracies – Sacchi’s – only lasted four years and even Sacchi’s pupil, Fabio Capello, felt obliged to redesign the master’s system, making the Rossoneri more functional.

Sacchi: "Do as I say. Or else."

Today, in an age when footballers are celebrities and sportsmen, it will be much harder for coaches to systematically develop such universality.

Under Michels at Ajax, Krol could occupy any position in defence and midfield – and was happy to do so.

But in today’s game, where a multi-millionaire central defender is advised by agents, flunkies and sycophants, players might be less willing to take the risk.

After a few off-days in an unfamiliar role, it's easy to imagine an international-class defender lobbying against this approach in the dressing room, on the training ground and even through plausibly deniable whispers to the media.

A Belgian conundrum

Managers may find it easier to buy central defenders who can play a bit or train as much flexibility as they can into talented youngsters with the hunger to succeed.

Or they could just hang around Ajax youth games to see if they can spot the next Thomas Vermaelen, a versatile attacking centre-back who, like Albert, happens to be Belgian.

Given that Belgium has one of Europe’s most defensive football cultures (as one Anderlecht fan put it: “Every team plays like it is terrified of losing”), I’m not sure if the likes of Albert and Vermaelen have risen because of or in spite of the kind of football they grew up with.

Besides, Vermaelen never played professionally in Belgium but emerged at Ajax, which has nurtured such goalscoring centre-backs as Krol, Koeman and Frank de Boer.

Certainly his second goal against Wigan, an attack he started and finished, was worthy of Krol.

And in Arsene Wenger he has a coach whose approach resembles the autocratic visionaries of yore.

Football often evolves by harking back to its dim, distant past.

Under the old 2-3-5 system, centre-halves were deep-lying central midfielders. (Indeed, in Argentina, the No5 shirt is usually given to central midfielders.)

But in October 1925, Herbert Chapman’s Arsenal, partly in response to recent changes in the offside law, switched to W-M with Jack Butler told to play as a stopper.

The Butler did it – before the Belgian

Butler was too creative – and defensively vulnerable – to prosper in that role for long and he was replaced by Herbie Roberts, a gifted youngster from Oswestry Town whose genius, Chapman’s No.2 Tom Whittaker said, “came from the fact that he was intelligent and, even more important, did what he was told."

Roberts’ heirs will still be stoppers, but if they are to flourish they will need the central intelligence of Butler, Beckenbauer and Albert.

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A Dickens of a year

Paul Simpson — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:00:00 GMT

Roll up, roll up, it’s that time of the year when columnists everywhere stare at a blank Word document until their forehead bleeds as they try vainly to remember the bon mots, players and trends that, only a few days ago, seemed to perfectly sum up the madness that was 2009 in football.

It’s traditional, at this point, to invoke Charles Dickens (“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”) so I won’t.

As 2009 ends I am no further forward with my quest to decide whether a disproportionate number of left-backs really do have ginger hair.

My memories of Jimmy Bloomfield’s great Leicester City side – and Keith Weller’s tights – are slightly dimmer.

And I can’t quite believe that Fabio Capello, England’s favourite stick in the mud, has ruled out a World Cup single. Surely we need a theme this time, more than any other time, etc etc?

What a great theme that was: “We’re on our way, we’re the wrong 22” – er, sorry, that should read “Ron’s 22.”

Putting all that to one side, here are my thoughts on the year that is almost over.

Least surprising statistic of the year

The news that Pippo Inzaghi was given offside 14 times in five UEFA Champions League games only sounds slightly more remarkable when you realise he was flagged every 18 minutes he was on the pitch.

Press statement of the year

This announcement, from the League Managers Association on behalf of Martin Allen, is a masterful example of the press statement that raises far, far more questions than it answers.

“Mr Allen was interviewed by the police about an incident that occurred on 19th September 2009 in Cheltenham. He has now been informed by the police that they are not taking the matter any further and Mr Allen will not make any additional comments on this matter.”

The most overlooked trend

The rise of the former Yugoslavia. Two countries from within the old borders – Serbia and Slovenia – will play in South Africa.

Bosnia-Herzegovina reached the play-offs after scoring more goals than any other other UEFA entrants bar Spain and England.

And forget Barcelona’s academy, the former Yugoslavia is the greatest source of football talent in Europe, having given us Edin Dzeko, Eduardo, Vedad Ibisevic, Niko Kranjcar, Milos Krasic, Luka Modric, Zvjezdan Misimovic (who had the most assists in the Bundesliga in 2008/09), Ivica Olic, Miralem Pjanic, Darijo Srna (Shakhtar’s UEFA Cup-winning captain) and Nemanja Vidic.

Then there are those with roots in Tito’s old stamping ground, like Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Bojan Krkic.

If Sir Alex Ferguson snaps up CSKA Moscow’s Serbian central defender Uros Cosic in January, United will have three Serbs in their squad.

And the conveyor belt shows no sign of stopping.

Coach of the year

In his record-breaking first season it seems churlish not to select Pep Guardiola but hey, let’s be churlish. Besides, if he gets any more pats on the back his skin will be raw.

Meanwhile, Roy Hodgson’s miraculous transformation of Fulham may be the greatest living proof that coaches are not overpaid irrelevancies.

But being horribly unoriginal, and swayed by Gabriele Marcotti’s piece in The Times, I’m going to pick Jupp Heynckes, a German legend who ended Real Madrid’s 32-year wait for the European Cup in 1998 and was rewarded with the sack.

Spurning the cosy comfort of the pundits’ sofa, Heynckes has defied those who saw him as strictly old-school and led Bayer Leverkusen to the top of the Bundesliga.

Not bad for a coach of whom Christoph Daum one said: “The weather map is more interesting than a talk with Heynckes.”

Interview of the year

Uli Hesse – author of Tor!, a seminal, wry history of German football, and contributor to both FourFourTwo and Champions – on Bundesliga Talk.

I especially love his response to a question about Dortmund coach Jurgen Klopp:

“I’m aware he could be a complete charlatan who uses his brains, charisma and looks to con people into thinking he’s a good coach when he might be totally useless.

"But I’ve come to suspect that this is the perfect job description for a football coach, anyway.”

Team of the year

Barcelona won everything they entered in 2009 but the relative ease with which Denmark topped a World Cup qualifying group that contained Portugal and Sweden was remarkable – especially when you consider that most pundits said this was the worst national team in 30 years.

The squad’s team spirit was so strong even Nicklas Bendtner couldn’t dent it.

A great libero in the underrated Danish Dynamite team of the 1980s, Denmark manager Morten Olsen hasn’t had tons of luck as a coach. He has been fired by every club who hired him.

The de Boer brothers effectively engineered his removal from Ajax in 1998. But FC Solidarity, as Denmark have become known, could win Olsen a job at one of Europe’s big clubs – if he wants it.

Best celebration

Landon Donovan pointing at his chest and shouting “Me! Me! Me!” after scoring against Brazil in the Confederations Cup final.

Crude, bombastic, arrogant – yes, it was all of those, but it was honest. And not choreographed.

Given that most Premier League footballers only train a few mornings a week, do they really have the time to waste perfecting elaborate homages to Aga Do Do Do Push Pineapples Up A Tree?

Best 0-0 draw

FC Twente v Steaua Bucharest in the UEFA Europa League – scoreless despite the 34 shots on goal.

Least original pub conversation of the year

As overheard in a pub in Teddington: “I mean, you’ve gotta take Crouch haven’t you? And if you take Crouch you got to take Beckham because he’s the only one who can put the ball on his head.

"And I’d take Michael Owen too, just for his finishing. Look at that hat-trick the other week!”

The sooner Capello names his squad the better.

Goal of the year

It has to be Dejan Stankovic’s wonder strike against Genoa.

It was like the Peter Kay “have it” advert remade by a genius.

Player of the year

Not wanting Lionel Messi to order an even bigger trophy cabinet, I've plumped for a man who describes his occupation simply and without hesitation as “goalscorer.”

For many South American coaches, the star of the continent’s World Cup qualifiers wasn’t Messi or Kaka but Chile and Monterrey striker Humberto Suazo.

The 28-year-old scored 10 goals in qualifying, one more than Luis Fabiano, bagged a brace against Brazil and played a vital role as Monterrey won the Mexican title.

If he does well in South Africa, some big European clubs may be prepared to overlook his reputation for getting into rows with fans, players, coaches, neighbours and postmen.

Most irritating phenomenon

The re-emergence of Jack Warner, friend and scourge of England’s 2018 World Cup bid.

Watching him perform at the Leaders In Football conference reminded me of Barbara Stanwyck’s definition of an egotist: “Usually a case of mistaken nonentity.” 

The aspect of football I enjoyed most

The bit in Ajax, Barcelona, Cruyff, the fantastic anthology of interviews with Johan Cruyff, where he says that when you’re 4-0 up and have a chance to score, sometimes it’s nicer – and more pleasing – to hit the post.

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David, Goliath and revolution

Paul Simpson — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:30:00 GMT

Champions magazine editor Paul Simpson looks forward to the Champions League knockout games: Inter Milan v Chelsea, Lyon v Real Madrid, Milan v Manchester United, Olympiakos v Bordeaux, FC Porto v Arsenal, CSKA Moscow v Sevilla, Stuttgart v Barcelona, Bayern Munich v Fiorentina

Let’s start with the bleedin’ obvious: if Barcelona don’t make the last eight of the UEFA Champions League, it will be the biggest shock since North Korea beat Italy 1-0 in 1966.

Whatever Stuttgart say, their new coach Christian Gross – yep the very man who, as Spurs boss, waved the train ticket of his dreams in front of the British media – will surely focus on survival in the Bundesliga.

Bordeaux aren’t quite as certain to progress, but their ruthlessly efficient progress to the last 16 – they won the most points (16), conceded the fewest goals (2) and scored seven goals from set-pieces – suggests that the man still fondly recalled in Manchester as Larry White should start casting his slide rule over the other likely quarter-finalists.

Olympiakos did reach the last eight in 1998/99 but when they last made it this far – in 2007/08 against Chelsea – they played in a style football insiders refer to as “happy to be here.”

The other six ties are not that simple to call.

Being professionally obliged to do so, Alan ‘Smudger’ Smith backs Arsenal, Bayern, Chelsea, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Sevilla to win.

It’s hard to fault his reasoning but this round usually springs at least one surprise.

Few expected Fenerbahce or Roma to make the last eight at the expense of Sevilla and Real Madrid in 2007/08.

Pundits invariably bet on pedigree because that way they're right seven times out of 10.

Every so often, you look a bit daft when Fiorentina do the business and Liverpool don’t, but a platitude about unpredictability being part of the beautiful game is usually enough to spare your blushes.

So who are the Fiorentinas in this 16? Well, Fiorentina for a start.

Bayern coach Louis van Gaal said he was “not dissatisfied” with the draw.

After that 4-1 hammering of Juventus, he probably thinks anything is possible.

Bayern do look stronger and Van Gaal insists that, with Franck Ribery still to return, the best may yet be to come.

But Marcello Lippi says “Some players in purple hoped to meet Bayern to get revenge for last year.”

(In Group F in 2008/09, Bayern qualified after beating Fiorentina 3-0 at home and drawing in Florence).

I’m never sure whether revenge missions are extra motivation or a fatal distraction.

Although the Viola have won five games in a row in this competition, shipping five goals against Debreceni does suggest that, even with the outstanding Sebastian Frey in goal, Fiorentina must tighten up at the back.

Don’t bet against Porto either.

Arsene Wenger’s remark that this draw gave his team a “50-50” chance was widely interpreted as mind games, but Porto keep the ball well, are fluent in attack and will look to exploit the gaps Arsenal leave if Wenger’s team defend in their usual way – i.e. about 10 yards higher up the pitch than most other teams in the competition.

Shorn of the metronomic goalscoring of Lisandro Lopez, Porto have sometimes lacked the cutting edge to make their clever approach play pay off.

But dynamic Colombian No.9 Falcao has found new confidence since his brilliant back-heeled goal against Atletico.

CSKA Moscow may yet surprise Sevilla.

They are the first Russian team to make it this far since Lokomotiv in 2003/04, have looked rejuvenated under new coach Leonid Slutsky and will kick off their tie on an artificial pitch in Moscow in February.

Sevilla attack beautifully but, like Arsenal, are vulnerable on the counter.

And CSKA have four players: keeper Igor Akinfeev, midfielders Alan Dzagoev and Milos Krasic, and striker Tomas Necid who could turn a game.

And then, of course, there’s Inter.

Their clash with Chelsea is, to quote The Guardian’s Richard Williams, “box office dynamite.”

On paper, Chelsea have a better squad and you only have to picture Didier Drogba against Walter Samuel or Lucio to convince yourself the Nerazzurri have no chance.

For me the key isn’t the coaches, it’s the players – and for Inter, in particular, Wesley Sneijder.

If Inter’s rejuvenated Dutch magician – who amusingly called Real’s president Florentino Perez and sporting director Jorge Valdano “two mafiosos” recently – could outpass the likes of Lampard, Deco and Ballack in midfield, he might lay the basis for a truly unexpected victory.

The Blues' midfield looks good enough against most teams but often lacked creativity and control in their group games and Drogba can hardly wreak the expected havoc if his supply is cut off.

The ties don’t kick off till mid-February and, with the new elongated format, won’t be done and dusted till March.

Before then – especially with the Africa Cup of Nations – this entire blog could have been rendered thoroughly redundant.

But this is roughly how the knockout round looks to me, now, after a few hours of immature reflection.

Barcelona are still the team to beat.

The one factor which could complicate Barça’s progress is being drawn against Real or Sevilla in the last four or eight.

Domestic ties in Europe have a strange dynamic that can throw out the form book: Chelsea may have won the Premier League in 2004/05 and finished 37 points ahead of Liverpool but they still lost to the Reds in the 2005 semis.

Football has away of demolishing certainties.

On Friday, I couldn’t see how Manchester United could lose to Milan; now I’m wondering if they can beat Wigan in their next home game – but I expect Pep Guardiola’s Dream Team II to make the final.

But as Milan discovered in 1995, Ajax in 1996 and Juventus in 1997, playing that game as the reigning champions is a mixed blessing.

They may be multi-millionaires, but most footballers have a revolutionary streak: they find it more inspiring to usurp than maintain the status quo.

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Cruising for a bruising?

Paul Simpson — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 07:00:00 GMT

History isn’t just written by winners, it’s usually written to flatter winners.

That thought struck me when I read the Daily Telegraph headline: “Premier League heavyweights cruise into Champions League knockout stages.”

Some group stage, some cruise.

True, Arsenal progressed regally but two of their opponents changed coaches mid-campaign and, with a less cautious opposing coach, they would have never have come back from 2-0 down to snatch three points at Standard Liege.

And yep, the Gunners did field an England U17 defender called Tom Cruise in Athens.

I can understand Arsene Wenger’s pride in fielding the youngest ever Champions League team – with an average age of 21 years and 215 days – but only up to a point.

They looked comfortable against Olympiakos. But they did – though it seems churlish to mention this – lose 1-0.

In a game crippled by short-termism, Wenger’s focus on youth is admirable.

But is it blinkering the manager to the kind of deficiencies which made that 3-0 defeat by Chelsea so painful for Gunners fans?

Chelsea did seem to cruise – they had qualified by matchday four – but their performances against APOEL (home and away), Porto (home), and Atletico (away) suggested they have, under Carlo Ancelotti, adopted the Italian philosophy that it doesn’t matter how you reach the knockout stages as long as you do.

The standout performance was the 4-0 demolition of Atletico Madrid at Stamford Bridge.

Manchester United’s campaign was hardly a cruise of the kind advertised by the people who do cruises for people who don’t normally like cruises.

United did top their group with 13 points and clobbered Wolfsburg away with 15 first-teamers missing.

But they came within minutes of losing two group games at Old Trafford, kept only two clean sheets and the end of that 23-game unbeaten home record will have stung Sir Alex Ferguson.

The truth is that the margin between success and failure in most groups was so narrow that no team can be complacent.

As Amy Lawrence, a one time assistant editor of FourFourTwo, points out, the British press’s glee at Barcelona’s struggles is a tad overdone.

Barca took 11 points from a hard Group F, compared to 13 from a much easier group last season.

Barcelona top the list of teams to avoid in the draw this Friday.

But so, I would suggest, do Bordeaux and Inter who, as Amy suggests, are in their current mood wounded, unpredictable and capable of heroic feats or abject surrender.

Rafa’s Nixon doctrine

As an admirer of Rafa Benitez I was disappointed to see him using the threadbare “What have you won?” defence to rebut criticism by Graeme Souness and Jurgen Klinsmann this week.

Attacking the critic, rather than the criticism, was a desperate ruse deployed by Ron Ziegler, Richard Nixon’s venal press chief, as the Watergate scandal exploded.

The tactic was characterised by Ben Bradlee, the Washington Post editor, as a “non-denial denial: they question our ancestry but don’t challenge our facts."

It didn’t work for Nixon then, it didn’t help Gerard Houllier when he was under the cosh at Anfield and it won’t help Benitez now.

The supreme irony is that Benitez’s entire career as a manager is a damning refutation of the “what have you won?” philosophy.

If the boards of Real Valladolid, Osasuna, and Extremadura always appointed their coaches on the basis of “what have you won?” Rafa, whose career as a midfielder peaked with a penalty in a 10-0 win over Cuba in the World Student Games, would never have got the job.

Obviously Klinsmann’s remarks sounded particularly pointed because he is a potential successor.

But the criticisms he made – Liverpool lack creativity, consistency and a world class striker apart from Torres – have been aired by many Liverpool supporters, even those who back Benitez ardently.

And the coach, a brilliant and methodical deconstructor of football games and teams, may privately have come to some similar conclusions.

Festive blunders

As those popular philosophers The Goodies once observed, Christmas comes but one a year and when it does it’s absolutely shocking.

One reason for this is many companies's idea to put a little cheer in our Christmas stockings is to bombard us with DVDs of football’s greatest gaffes, goofs and blunders, usually narrated by a past-his-best footballer whose monotonous delivery and frowning concentration bespeak of a mighty struggle with the autocue or any available football luvvie with the right street cred (which, nine times out of ten, is Ray Winstone).

I presume this annual festive avalanche of air shots, banana skin slips and Keystone Cops keepers exists primarily so we can all have fun at the expense of a detested brother-in-law.

For Christmas 2010, I would encourage the makers to push the envelope.

I’d certainly be intrigued by a compilation of “hilarious c*ck-ups and moments of madness” presented by maverick German moviemaker Werner Herzog (he recently described Wayne Rooney as “half bison, half viper.”)

And the term ‘football blunders’ gives the makers a fairly wide remit.

The term would, for example, include most of Graham Taylor’s team-sheets as England manager, the career of Robert Rosario and Giovanni Trapattoni’s notorious “The coach is not an idiot” speech.

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Matchday 6 knockouts and the Ballon d'Or curse

Paul Simpson — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 11:30:00 GMT

MATCHDAY 6 FIXTURES Tue Dec 8: Atlético Madrid v Porto ; Besiktas v CSKA Moskva ; Chelsea v APOEL ; Juventus v Bayern Munich ; Maccabi Haifa v Bordeaux ; Olympique Marseille v Real Madrid ; VfL Wolfsburg v Manchester United ; Zürich v Milan Wed Dec 9: Dynamo Kyiv v Barcelona ; Internazionale v Rubin Kazan ; Liverpool v Fiorentina ; Olympiakos Piraeus v Arsenal ; Olympique Lyon v Debreceni VSC ; Sevilla v Rangers ; Standard Liège v AZ ; VfB Stuttgart v Unirea Urziceni

Matchday 6: It’s (almost) a knockout

Eight places in the UEFA Champions League knockout round remain undecided, with seven former winners – Barcelona, Bayern, Inter, Juventus, Marseille, Milan and Real Madrid – still not sure of progressing.

The game of matchday six must surely be Rubin Kazan’s visit to the San Siro in Group F.

Normally, you'd bet your mortgage on an Italian side winning 1-0 on home soil against a team of promising newcomers like Rubin.

But Inter have shipped six goals in five games in Group F and, as they showed again when losing 2-1 at Juventus, lack the ruthless defensive organisation you would expect of a club shaped by Helenio Herrera and managed by the coach who is his closest contemporary heir.

Under some permutations, Inter could draw and still progress, but Jose Mourinho needs a win.

Much may depend on Inter’s Argentine striker Diego Milito who, as uefa.com has pointed out, has been scoring at a rate of 0.767 goals a game in Serie A, a rate only surpassed in the last 80 years by Pedro Patrone (0.841 in the 1930s) and Gunnar Nordahl (0.773 in the 1950s).  

Milito in typical pose

Rubin love to fill the midfield and break, primarily through Milito’s compatriot Alejandro Dominguez – so the Nerazzurri faithful, players, coach and increasingly vexed owner Massimo Moratti may be in for a nerve-shredding 90 minutes.

Mourinho is not the only coach under pressure. Ronald Koeman and Markus Babbel have already been given the order of the boot by AZ and Stuttgart.

Louis van Gaal knows that Bayern’s trip to Turin – where the Bavarians have never won and Juventus haven’t lost at home in this competition in 16 matches – is virtually a referendum on his reign, while his opposite number Ciro Ferrara knows that a place in the last 16 will silence his critics for a while.

The only coach whose team isn’t already in the last 16 who can look forward to the action without any apprehension is Leonid Slutsky.

He’s only been in charge at CSKA Moscow since the end of October and will keep his job unless his side are thrashed 8-0 by Besiktas.

Three points in Istanbul for CSKA means Wolfsburg will need to match that against Manchester United to reach the last 16 on head-to-head results against the Russians.

The law of karma surely favours Slutsky: the former goalkeeper is the only coach in the competition whose playing career was curtailed by an injury suffered while trying to rescue a neighbour’s cat from a tree. 

Underrated and unpronounceable

UEFA Champions League coverage tends to rhapsodise about a few predictable stars (sample quote at random: “Rooney, what a player!”) and ignore others who have impressed possibly at unfashionable clubs or in a game few were watching.  

Brazilian winger Wendel has created half of Bordeaux’s goals in Group A, but you won’t hear much about him because the 27-year-old has said he will end his career with the Girondins. Hinting that you are open to offers – even if you aren’t – is a prerequisite for any footballer wanting to make a name these days.

Wendel: More sticker than twister

Unirea Urziceni – or The Unpronounceables, as they’re known in Stuttgart – could sell most of their squad next summer.

The Romanian champions’ stand-out performers include Argentine wing-back Pablo Brandan, winger/striker Marius Bilasco (long overdue a call-up for Romania), Valeri Bordeanu (once a left-sided midfielder at Steaua who shone as a right-sided defender against Sevilla) and Dacian Varga, 25, an escapee from Dinamo Bucharest’s youth system, who has been as impressive harrying opponents as he has leading Unirea’s fast, skilful counter-attacks.

With a rumoured price tag of £50 million, Ajax’s Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez sounds vastly overrated.

But with a third of the season gone and 17 goals in the bag, Suarez may, as Ernst Bouwes notes, outdo Cruyff, Van Basten et al and surpass cigar shop owner and PSV striker Coen Dillen, whose 43-goal tally in 1956/57 is still an Eredivisie record.

The most astonishing aspect of Dillen’s record is that he went 12 games without a goal that season.

Golden balls and knockout blows

Do you know how many reigning Ballon d’Or winners have won the World Cup? None.

Here, for completists, is the dismal World Cup record for the 13 Ballon d’Or winners before Leo Messi.

1957 Alfredo di Stefano (Spain). Failed to qualify for Sweden 58.
 1961 Omar Sivori (Italy). Came third in Group 2 at Chile 62. 
1965 Eusebio (Portugal). Semi-finalist at England 66. 
1969 Gianni Rivera (Italy). Losing finalist at Mexico 70, who only came on with six minutes to go as coach Ferruccio Valcareggi belatedly threw caution to winds with the Azzurri trailing 4-1.
1973 Johan Cruyff (Holland). Losing finalist to the hosts at West Germany 74.
1977 Allan Simonsen (Denmark). Didn’t qualify for Argentina 78.
1981 Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (West Germany). Substituted in 70th minute of Spain 82 final, which his side lost 3-1 to Italy.
1985 Michel Platini (France). Beaten by West Germany in Mexico 86 semi-finals. 
1989 Marco van Basten (Holland). Beaten by Germany in second round of Italia 90. 
1993 Roberto Baggio (Italy). Skied penalty in shoot-out as Italy lose USA 94 final to Brazil. 
1997 Ronaldo (Brazil). Controversially barely present at the France 98 final as the hosts destroyed the favourites 3-0.
 2001 Michael Owen (England). Gave England lead in Japan/Korea 2002 quarter-final against Brazil but the Selecao, even down to 10 men, still saw off Sven-Göran Eriksson's men.
2005 Ronaldinho (Brazil). Languished out of position as Carlos Alberto Parreira’s zombified team bowed out in the Germany 2006 quarter-final to France after having just one shot on goal in the entire match.

Leo's only golden trophy?

This is exactly the kind of history that great players like Messi rewrite.

But history does suggest it is better to win the World Cup first and round off the year with the Ballon d’Or – like Bobby Charlton (1966), Paolo Rossi (1982), Lothar Matthaus (1990), Zinedine Zidane (1998), Ronaldo (2002) and Fabio Cannavaro (2006).

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The Colonials who upstage Liverpool

Paul Simpson — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:15:00 GMT

Chicago Cubs fans like to say that every club can have a bad century now and then.

But can underachievement, especially if it follows a golden era when the carpenters were continuously being called in to expand the trophy cabinet, gnaw away at a club and its fans?

The thought prompted a very specific question: has any club who have won the most league titles in their country gone as long as Liverpool have without winning it?

In case you need to refresh your memory, the Reds have not won it since 1989/90 under Kenny Dalglish.

This query has already been posted on FourFourTwo’s Twitter feed, which inspired an entry in Some People Are On The Pitch's Friday List Of Little Or No Consequence.

Among what we might snobbishly refer to as the major football nations, St Etienne have, as tweeter @dy158 correctly noted, surpassed Liverpool in the feast and famine stakes.

Les Verts have won 10 Ligue 1 titles (one more than the next most successful team Marseille) but celebrated their last triumph in 1981.

And since then fans haven’t had much to amuse themselves, apart from a fake passport scandal and a Brazilian striker who used to celebrate scoring by pretending to be a panther, the club’s official emblem.

1981: St Etienne, star player et al, take on Ipswich

The panther, in case you don’t know, was adopted in 1968 in honour of Salif Keita, the Malian striker (and uncle of Seydou).

His 135 goals in 167 games for St Etienne more than repaid the taxi fare racked up when, as a naive 19-year-old just off the plane from Mali, he got into a cab in Paris and told the driver to take him to St Etienne.

It's 310 miles away.

Les Verts’ 28-year-barren spell has no serious rival in Europe.

In most cases, a certain metronomic regularity – exemplified by Juventus, who have never gone more than eight years without winning a scudetto – is the norm.

Even Gornik Zabrze, who won the last of their 14 Polish titles in 1988, can’t match St Etienne.

And the Miners’ title drought might have been shorter still. In 1993/94, they only had to beat Legia Warsaw in the final match to win their 15th title.

Alas, they could only draw 1-1, not helped by the fact that the referee sent off three of their players.

In a strange coincidence, just a season after Gornik’s 14th and last title, another Silesian mining club Ruch Chorzow won their 14th and last Polish championship.

But St Etienne have been outdone by Santos FC – not Pele’s old outfit but the team who, in the glorious 1970s, were the pride of Kingston, Jamaica.

This Santos, who do play in Brazilian yellow and blue, won the first of their five Jamaican titles in 1972/73 and the last in 1979/1980.

Santos’s record is slightly marred by the fact that even the stattos at RSSSF don’t know who they beat to clinch their last title.

These normally exact folk sum up the climax of the 1979/80 season with the fragmentary note: “Final. Santos bt [?]” The square brackets bestow a pleasing hint of scholarship on this terminally vague summary.

Santos’s impressive spell of underachievement is almost matched by Horseed, who won eight out of nine Somali titles between 1972 and 1980 but have won no more since.

Their dismal record isn’t quite as dire as Santos’s because the Somali league – and Horseed – were put out of action for a while by civil war. Which, as excuses go, is better than an injury-prone winger or dodgy refereeing.

There must be something in the Caribbean waters because Martinique’s record title winners, the grandly named Club Colonial de Fort-de-France, became champions for the eighteenth and last time in 1972.

Forte-de-France, the capital of the French department of Martinique, was once chiefly famous for yellow fever.

But it may want to rebrand itself as the home of the sleeping giants: five of the capital’s clubs have won the title but none have been crowned champions since Golden Star’s 16th and last triumph in 1986.

Imagine the plight of a forty-something Club Colonial fan, haunted by past glory so distant it probably seems like a dream, stoically trying not to be embittered by 37 years of underachievement and facing a daily barrage of trophy-cabinet/Japanese-prisoner-of-war jokes in the office.

I’m sure Manchester City fans of a certain age can empathise.

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Life’s a pitch and then you dye

Paul Simpson — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:30:00 GMT

As TS Eliot very nearly said, I will show you fear in Graeme Souness’s moustache.

In the great man’s heyday, that distinctive hair on his upper lip was fiendishly useful for intimidating opponents but in the Sky Sports studio this week, the great Scot’s silvery moustache was merely a pleasing novelty.

In width, scale and texture Souness’s moustache would, in a previous age, have been worn by a caddish, retired wing commander known to his chums at the RAF Club as Biffer or, in the movies, by the kind of grinning, evil Mexican bandit whose persecution of some hapless, innocent villagers inevitably brings forth the wrath of the Magnificent Seven, the Three Amigos or the Magnificent Seven Who Rode Again.

(Mind you, George Hamilton was wearing something similar in the jungle on ITV, so maybe these two legends are starting a trend).

It wasn’t Eli Wallach who seemed to inspire Souness after Liverpool’s exit but Dad's Army’s Private Fraser as he shook his head and said: “I fear for Liverpool.”

And he was right: he feared at length and very cogently.

If it hadn’t been for the fact that it was easier to focus on the moustache rather than the message I suspect Liverpool fans would have felt thoroughly deflated.

Souey, as was

Matters didn’t improve when the camera panned to David Platt who, in a desire to look more down with the kids, has taken to using industrial quantities of black hair dye.

And we’re talking jet-black dye, of the kind that looked good on Elvis when he was wearing leather in his 1968 comeback TV special, and was tolerable on Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu (but only because anyone who sniggered got sent to a labour camp), but looks utterly out of the place on the head of a slightly portly middle-aged former England midfielder with a receding hairline.

Platty aspires to be august and if he took a few style tips from Richard Gere and had the nerve to go charismatically grey he might well achieve that ambition.

This might sound pernickety but when assessing a football pundit I always start with the hair, possibly because my own head is rapidly becoming as bald as the Australian outback.

Besides, if a man can’t own up to his natural hair colour, how can I trust him, as a pundit, to tell the truth about the beautiful game?

Say what you like about Andy Gray – and people do – but he has the sense to trust that his silver-white locks and Greco-Roman bust of hairdo a lend him the kind of gravitas that no dye could improve upon.

I do find Sky Sports' UEFA Champions League punditry fascinating, possibly because of the absence of Robbie Earle, whose solution to Liverpool’s current troubles was for the players to walk up to the plate, stand up and be counted and, with their backs to the wall, run something up the flagpole to see if anyone saluted.

I exaggerate, of course, but only by 75 percent.

And I shall watch Souness with interest.

In two weeks' time, on matchday six, I fully expect him to have developed a full grown, twirlable Terry Thomas moustache.

Face-fuzz fans! Have you tried our guess-the-moustache gallery quiz? If not, why not?

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Reinventing Juventus

Paul Simpson — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:00:00 GMT

Juventus’s satisfaction at playing their 200th European Cup game against Bordeaux this week will be tempered by the suspicion that Italy’s best supported club* really ought to have won this competition more often than Inter, Nottingham Forest and Porto.

One reason the Turin club is called Juventus (“youth” in Latin) is because the founders wanted to shun any suggestion of municipal parochialism and appeal to young people across Italy and the world.

But the surest way to achieve that ambition is to create a golden team that conquers Europe or revolutionises the game, in the manner of Real in the 1950s or Ajax in the 1970s.

Even though the club’s history has been illuminated by such legends as John Charles, Omar Sivori, Pietro Anastasi, Dino Zoff, Michel Platini, Roberto Baggio, Zinedine Zidane and Alessandro Del Piero, Juve have been neither all-conquering nor great innovators and have much work to do if they are to challenge Real Madrid or Manchester United as one of football’s dominant global brands.

The controversies surrounding Juventus’s domestic supremacy – they have won the scudetto and the Coppa Italia more than any other club – are so numerous and entertaining that Tobias Jones fills much of a chapter with them in his brilliant book The Dark Heart Of Italy.

In Florence, fans refer to Juve as “gobi” (hunchbacks, which are considered lucky in Italy).

It is not uncommon, calcio historian John Foot says, to see stickers proclaiming Fiorentine houses a “hunchback free zone.”

To rival fans, Juve’s pre-eminence in calcio is the fruit of a conspiracy almost as all-embracing as the P2/CIA/Masonic/Vatican consortium with complicates the life of enigmatic Venetian detective Aurelio Zen in Michael Dibdin’s thrillers.

And at the centre of all these plots, a veritable grassy knoll of football conspiracy theories, stood Juve’s former general manager Luciano Moggi, the Darth Vader of calcio.

The most convincing evidence Juve could offer in its defence was to show that its quality counted in Europe. But two European Cups, three UEFA Cups and a Cup-Winners’ Cup have not dispelled the doubts.

Juve’s match record in their first 199 European Cup games is good – W100, D49, L50 F323 A194 – but in this competition, winning really counts.

And even the two trophy wins have their associated question marks. Juve’s first triumph, in 1985, was (through no fault of their own) mired in tragedy.

The second, on penalties in 1996, should have ushered in a golden age for Marcello Lippi’s flexible, easy on the eye Juventus but led, instead, to successive defeats in the 1997 and 1998 finals.

Sometimes catastrophes, if they are big, sudden and comprehensive enough, can sow the seeds of victory. And the devastation wrought by calciopoli created space for a new club.

New president Jean-Claude Blanc (who gives a pretty frank interview about his challenge in the latest issue of Champions) calls this entity “Newventus.”

His Newventus is, he admits, very much a work in progress.

But a new coach (Ciro Ferrara, chosen on the Guardiola precedent), a new stadium (the Juventus Arena, due to open in 2011) and a new playmaking genius (Brazilian master Diego) are part of that vision.

Will this quiet revolution work? Some bad habits are easier to shed than others.

So far in Group A, Juventus have lived up to the Italian adage of doing the minimum required to win.

They have shipped only one goal, but scored just three and their football has been efficient rather than spectacular – especially in their 1-0 win away to Maccabi Haifa – and singularly bereft of the style that could romance the world.

The idea that Diego could single-handedly reinvent Juve’s image, making a team synonymous with physical power as famous for its flair and technique, always seemed a stretch.

But if midfielders Claudio Marchisio, Felipe Melo and Sebastian Giovinco fulfil their potential, the Juventus Arena becomes an atmospheric stadium worthy of champions, and Blanc invests in such stars as Rubin ace Alejandro Dominguez next summer, anything is possible.

The political challenge for Blanc and Ferrara is how they negotiate the Del Piero question.

One of Paolo Maldini’s many services to Milan was that he was largely happy, in the twilight of his career, to play the ambassador, personify the club to the world, and not fret too obviously about how many games he played.

Del Piero’s old teammate Ferrara must ensure he doesn’t alienate the club’s greatest global icon, who still looks in good nick for 35, while ensuring that Juventus’s new talent can form the core of a team that might deliver a third European crown.

When Juventus visit Bordeaux, that bright future might seem more like a mirage than a vision.

But a place in the last 16 might be the single step that kicks off Newventus’s thousand-mile journey back to the summit of European football.

* A 2009 Sport + Markt survey found that Juventus have 17.5 million fans across Europe, compared to 21.0 million for Milan and 44.2 million for Barcelona. But the club claims 14.0 million supporters in Italy which, most estimates suggest, is more than Milan. Yet more evidence of domestic domination not turned into continental competition...

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Sex, drugs & mountain goats

Paul Simpson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:00:00 GMT

Watch out Brazil, Slovenia are coming!

That, in a nutshell, was the headline in Slovenia’s sports daily Ekipa after their triumph over Russia.

Nobody will fancy meeting this small Balkan nation in South Africa but the World Cup isn’t quite in the bag for the Slovenes yet.

The first target for Matjaz Kek will be to improve on Slovenia’s 2002 showing: P3 W0 D0 L3 F2 A7 and to avoid the sorry fate of other World Cup minnows through the ages.

Olympian feats in Chile Colombia 1962

The Chilean port Arica used to be famous as one of the driest cities on earth.

But in 1962, Colombian midfielder Marcos Coll gave the city another claim to fame when he scored the only goal straight from a corner in World Cup history.

The Colombians had qualified from a bijoux group consisting of them and Peru. After losing 2-1 to Uruguay, they sensationally drew 4-4 with the USSR.

The Soviets were 3-0 up after 11 minutes and leading 4-1 early in the second half when Coll scored from a corner – against the legendary keeper Lev Yashin – inspiring a remarkable revival as winger Marino Klinger tortured the USSR.

Los Cafeteros were then thrashed 5-0 by Yugoslavia, but Coll had made his mark in a game that L’Equipe said, a tad prematurely, marked “the end of the greatest modern goalkeeper, Lev Yashin.”

Dope, beatings and a trip to the zoo Haiti 1974

The Caribbean nation, under the thumb of dictator Jean-Claude Duvallier (aka Baby Doc), swept through the CONCACAF qualifiers like a hurricane.

Mind you, the entire campaign was played on their turf and El Salvador did have four goals disallowed in a vital game against Trinidad by a referee who was soon suspended.

Not so much the hand of God then, as the whistle of Satan.

In Germany, Haiti had a cracking start, going 1-0 up against Italy through, ironically, a classic counter attack.

Haiti’s powerful striker Emmanuel Sanon was the first player to beat Dino Zoff in 1,142 minutes of international football. But the Azzurri rallied and won 3-1.

Still on a high, the Haitians strolled around Munich zoo the next morning. But their centre-half Ernst Jean Joseph failed a dope test – he claimed the pills were for asthma.

Team morale literally took a beating after the players watched Joseph get dragged out into the car park and beaten by Haitian officials and they sunk to bottom of Group 4, losing 7-0 to Poland and 4-1 to Argentina.

Sanon, who died last year of pancreatic cancer at the age of 56, is still the only Haitian to score in a World Cup finals.

It wasn’t All-White on the night New Zealand 1982

The All Whites, one World Cup preview claimed, would show the endurance of mountain goats.

Maybe the Kiwis qualifying campaign – in which they had travelled 55,000 miles, played 15 games and scored 44 goals – wore them out because in Spain they were about as indomitable as I’m A Celebrity escapee Camilla Dallerup, losing 5-2 to Scotland, 3-0 to the USSR and 4-0 to Brazil.

The highlight of the All-Whites’ maladroit campaign was briefly coming back from 3-0 down to 3-2 against the Tartan Army.

Various members of the squad are now gainfully employed as printers, swimming pool designers and physios.

If the 2010 All Whites get a point or concede less than 12 goals, they will have made progress.

No sex please we’re in the World Cup Nigeria 1994

“It isn’t the sex that tires young players, it’s the staying up all night looking for it.”

That was how Dutch coach Clemens Westerhof described one of his challenges as he steered Nigeria to their first World Cup finals.

Westerhof was tough, happy to drop Finidi George and Emmanuel Amuneke to teach them a lesson and saw off an attempted coup by striker Rashid Yekini (who, ironically, scored his country’s first ever goal in a World Cup finals, in a 3-0 win over Bulgaria).

Nigeria played some lovely attacking football, reaching the last 16 with a 2-0 win over Greece.

As the game wore on, Westerhof got a message to Daniel Amokachi urging him to get the ball and run through the entire Greek defence.

Amo did just that to make it 2-0.

Facing Italy in the knockout round, Samson Emeke Omeruah, president of Nigeria’s football federation, decided to ramp up the hysteria, telling the Azzurri: “We’re the champions of Africa, who are you?”

Despite such crude kidology, the Nigerians came to within two minutes of the last eight.

The great Paolo Maldini defended like a donkey – he accidentally set up Amuneke’s first goal and, as the last man, should gave been sent off for hauling back Yekini.

But Roberto Baggio broke the Super Eagles’ hearts with an equaliser and a penalty that snuck in off the post.

Nigeria have never come as close to the last eight since.

Bora can’t break Peking’s duck China 2002

Bora Milutinovic, the Alan Whicker of football coaches, once cryptically observed that: “In my country, fish die in the mouth.”

His tactical instructions to his Chinese players must have been as mysterious because his willing, but limited, team lost all three games without scoring.

After two near misses in qualifying (fans had rioted in 1986 after the team blew a place in Mexico by losing 2-1 to Hong Kong), expectations were ludicrously high.

Sadly, the 10,000 fervent fans probably performed better than the team.

“Milu mania” rapidly subsided as the Chinese lost 2-0 to Costa Rica, 4-0 to Brazil and 3-0 to Turkey.

Striker Yang Chen (who played 20 games for cult German club St Pauli) came the closest to breaking China’s duck with a thunderous right foot shot that had the Turkish post wobbling.

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The ultimate YouTube footballer?

Paul Simpson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:00:00 GMT

One of the minor tragedies in the life of Italian midfielder and water polo legend Luigi Burlando is that YouTube hadn’t been invented when he was in his heyday.

If this online archive of the great, good and compellingly weird had existed in the 1920s, Burlando would be a household name because he is probably the only player to score with a header for Italy – from 45 yards.

Burlando played 17 games for the Azzurri and scored just once – that remarkable headed strike in Italy’s 4-2 win over Belgium in May 1922.

Reproduced today, that feat would surely make him the ultimate YouTube footballer.

Many footballers are now described as “a YouTube player” but what does it mean?

Gary Parkinson, who edits the FourFourTwo.com network, defined this phenomenon perfectly in an email the other day:

“Players who have enough eye-catching moments to fill a YouTube clip show but are, in fact, pants. In Bolton, such a player is known as a ‘Daniel Braaten’.”

The quest to identify the ultimate YouTube footballer reached FourFourTwo on Twitter where Oftd pointed out that this phenomenon has pedigree:

“This is the contemporary equivalent of the Championship Manager player – Cheron Samba’s going to be the best striker in the world.”

When he was 13, Samba had a fair shot at becoming the world’s best striker. The Gambian prodigy had just scored 132 goals in 32 games.

But his career nosedived after Millwall spurned a £1.5 million bid from Liverpool and his subsequent meandering progress around Europe – ending up on trial at Portsmouth after spells at Cadiz, Malaga, Plymouth Argyle, Wrexham, FC Haka (in Finland) and Millwall reserves – has, as far as the stats can be confirmed, yielded just one first team goal.

The Guardian analysed his spectacular fall from grace in 2005 and, though he’s changed clubs since, their piece still conveys the essence of his story.

Ali Dia, the man who wasn’t a cousin of George Weah, may be, as twitterer bicyclekicks suggested in his tweet, the patron saint of YouTube footballers.

His “Bambi on ice” cameo for Southampton against Leeds is faithfully preserved here where, after 45 seconds, the clip cuts to the footage that proves he was “Dia by name, dire by nature.”

But Dia’s pantomime antics give the game away too easily.

There’s no glorious promise to beguile us, as there is with Kerlon (thanks to jakepjohnson for the suggestion) whose seal dribbling antics have earned the 20-year-old Brazilian a loan to Ajax.

I did consider Oleg Salenko, still the only player to score five goals in one World Cup game, as a candidate for this dubious honour.

But after watching his goals against Cameroon at USA 94, I was more struck by the naivety of the defending than by the Russian’s ruthless finishing.

Salenko never scored in a full international either before or after the 1994 World Cup.

Osvaldo, the Argentine-born striker who has broken into the Italian U21 team and now plays up front for Bologna, but apart from a prolific 2006/07 for Lecce (banging in 18 goals in 31 games) isn’t pants.

But he is best known for this remarkable over-head kick in Fiorentina’s 1-0 win over Torino in May 2008.

Glorious isn’t it? This goal wasn’t just beautiful it was important, securing the Viola’s UEFA Champions League place in 2008/09.

But Osvaldo only scored four more for Fiorentina and joined Bologna this summer.

Birmingham City supporter sameboat suggests Carlos Costly, a name which, in my ignorance, I took to be a satirical play on Alan Sugar’s foreign mercenary Carlos Kickaball.

Having googled this fabulously named Honduran striker, I found a YouTube compilation which only lasts three minutes and 15 seconds.

It includes a minute of him running around the pitch looking chuffed, shows one goal – and the skilful build up by a team-mate – three times and features tantalising snippets of such stupendous feats as Costly chipping the ball in a team-mate’s general direction.

The Honduran may have been pants at St Andrews but he bagged six as his country qualified for their first World Cup since 1982 so next summer the world can judge for themselves.

Do suggest your own YouTube stars but, for me, the ultimate YouTube footballer whose most eye-catching moments are preserved online is Obafemi Martins.

If a football match was the duration of the typical YouTube clip, the Nigerian striker would be as great as Pele.

His strikes against Reggina and Ireland are mesmerising glimpses of a talent that waxes and wanes as if he was a poet in intermittent touch with his muse.

Still, even coaches, who do this for a living, have failed to solve the mystery of talent.

Until they do, we can all watch every game, hovering between expectation and disappointment, sustained by the hope that this is going to be the one when we see something – maybe even a headed goal from 50 yards? – we will remember for the rest of our lives.

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The greatest half-times ever

Paul Simpson — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:00:00 GMT

The half-time whistle blows, your team is 2-0 down. As the coach, it’s your job to inspire them. What do you do?

Easy, says Andy Roxburgh, former Scotland manager turned UEFA’s technical director. “Look for something, anything, positive.”

And he does mean anything.

As Liverpool left the pitch 3-0 down at half-time in Istanbul in the 2005 UEFA Champions League final, coach Rafa Benitez noticed the fans were still singing.

That was the positive he needed.

Apart from a legendary tactical talk in which, at one point, had 12 Liverpool players on the pitch, Benitez’s core message was: “The fans haven’t given up. Give them a goal and let’s see what happens.”

Benitez was canny enough not to focus on victory. At that point, against that opposition, such talk would have sounded absurd to his dazed players.

Instead, he gave his players a realistic goal that, if achieved, could be a step towards victory.

As inspirational as Rafa was, some players, notably Steven Gerrard, have since admitted they were too miserable to really focus on what he was saying.

Roxburgh faced a similar predicament in September 1991, when Scotland needed a point against Switzerland in Berne to qualify for Euro 92.

At half-time, the Scots were 2-0 down and all seemed lost. But, as Mario Kempes once noted, “Two-nil is the most dangerous score in football.”

As the Swiss players left the pitch, Roxburgh realised they were celebrating. That became his positive.

In the dressing room he told his players: “They’ve gone, mentally.” One goal, he insisted, was all Scotland needed.

One goal – by Gordon Durie two minutes into the second half – was all it took for the Swiss to succumb to Shrinking Lead Syndrome.

After 90 minutes, Scotland had their point and place at Euro 92.

Sometimes, the losing coach has to change the team’s perspective on the game.

In 1999, with Bayern 1-0 up in Camp Nou, Sir Alex Ferguson invited his players to imagine how it would feel to stand right next to the European Cup and not be able to touch it.

“Don’t you dare come back in here without having given your all,” he admonished them. The rebuke worked. Just.

Every manager uses half-time in their own way.

Some throw crockery to grab attention. Some wait till the crockery is in use before addressing the team. Others talk to players individually.

Brian Clough had a vast anthology of half-time tactics.

Roxburgh recalls one incident when, after a dire first half, Cloughie came into the dressing room and sat down. The players waited for the usual bollocking. And were kept waiting.

Clough sat there, silently, for the whole of the interval. His team found this even more unsettling than his rants and played much better in the second half.

You couldn’t use that tactic too many times, but it was effective – and is the exact opposite of how Hollywood imagines such a scenario, like Al Pacino’s half-time speech as the coach in Oliver Stone’s gridiron epic Any Given Sunday.

Pacino's speech, on what it means to be a team, is so inspiring that Diego Simeone liked to use it when he was coaching.

The speech must have yielded diminishing returns: he quit River Plate a year ago after 11 games without a win.

The greatest half-time speech must, judged purely on results, be Alan Mullery’s as QPR boss on 22 September 1984.

Rangers were 4-0 down at home to Newcastle United. Mullery wasn’t especially eloquent, just livid. But that was enough: QPR pulled it back to 5-5.

This was probably the effect Phil Brown was hoping for when he kept his players on the pitch at Manchester City last season.

Instead, his public rollicking suggested to many that he had lost the plot.

Real life often throws a curve ball that no Hollywood scriptwriter would dare imagine.

In September 2004, with Peterborough losing 1-0 at Bristol City, the volatile monobrow that is Bobby Gould quit as coach.

After remaining silent during some heated exchanges in the dressing room, Gould nudged manager Barry Fry as the players left for the second half and said: “That’s me, I’m packing up, I can’t be associated with that side.”

The Posh still lost 1-0.

At least Gould got to make the decision.

In 1999, goalkeeper turned coach Toni Schumacher was giving his half-time team talk to the Fortuna Cologne players when club president Jean Loering popped his head around the door and fired the astonished coach, ordering him to leave the stadium immediately.

Asked to explain the bizarre timing of this decision, Loering said: “He is arrogant and selfish. He always thinks he's the only one who knows anything about football.

"But with regard to his tactics, he did not know whether he was a man or a woman.

"One minute we were all defence, the next we were all attack. It was not just the fans who were confused, but the players.

"I idolised Schumacher as a player but I am not going to sit on my hands while he takes my club to the grave.”

Sometimes, a coach will turn to comedy rather than melodrama.

Take Scottish wing-half Tom McAnearney, who managed Aldershot for most of the 1970s.

When they came in after conceding a goal just before half-time, the players braced themselves for a lecture.

Instead, McAnearney read his paper while the players got their cups of tea.

Eventually, he broke the silence asking: “What time was the goal scored?”

“The 44th minute,” came the reply.

“Brilliant,” McAnearney said, “that means I’ve won the golden goal.”

You could say McAnearney was following Roxburgh’s advice. He’d found something positive.

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Reds, Real, Rubin & rubbish

Paul Simpson — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:02:00 GMT

MATCHDAY FOUR FIXTURES Tuesday Nov 3: APOEL v Porto , Atlético Madrid v Chelsea , Bayern München v Bordeaux , Besiktas v VfL Wolfsburg , Maccabi Haifa v Juventus , Manchester United v CSKA Moskva , AC Milan v Real Madrid , Olympique Marseille v Zürich Wednesday Nov 4: Arsenal v AZ , Dynamo Kyiv v Inter Milan ,Fiorentina v Debreceni VSC , Olympique Lyon v Liverpool , Rubin Kazan v Barcelona , Sevilla v VfB Stuttgart , Standard Liège v Olympiakos Piraeus , Unirea Urziceni v Rangers

This week’s UEFA Champions League action – as seen by the papers, some remote parts of the interweb, and Duran Duran...

Reds not dead

As Liverpool fans fly to Lyon for what the media is dubbing a “must win” game – technically, as we’ll see later, it’s a “must draw” – the only crumbs of comfort offered them by the media are the news that Pepe Reina is to sign a new contract and a thoughtful piece by Matt Dickinson in The Times pointing out the idiocy of replacing Rafa Benitez at this point.

I have heard no clamour, not even a whisper, for the return of King Kenny among Liverpool fans as Dickinson suggests.

But he makes a persuasive case against such a sentimental move.

Even Matt cannot resist damning Rafa with faint praise, acknowledging his “maddening bloody-mindedness” and “duff deals”.

Yes, Rafa has made some “duff deals” but he has also signed Reina, Xabi Alonso, Fernando Torres, Glen Johnson and Javier Mascherano.

As for his

The question that should haunt Capello

Paul Simpson — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:00:00 GMT

...and it isn't whether to pick Michael Owen.

Football is a simple game, Terry Venables likes to joke, it’s the players who make it complicated.

And one way they seriously complicate football is by forcing each coach to decide how much freedom to give them.

Rinus Michels and Otto Rehhagel represent the polar extremes of this dilemma.

Such a strict disciplinarian off the pitch he was dubbed The General, Michels gave the stars of Ajax and Holland in the 1970s the freedom to make decisions during a game as long as they remembered their first duty was to the team, not themselves.

In contrast, Rehhagel drilled his Greek players like a regimental sergeant major knocking rookies into shape.

His players were told how to play, when to run and which space to occupy in many different scenarios.

By character, experience and tradition, Fabio Capello is more Rehhagel than Michels.

The Italian’s “Let’s hear them eyeballs rolling in their sockets!” approach instilled a useful discipline, earned cheap tabloid applause and had ITV commentator Peter Drury drooling into what must, by now, be a very soggy microphone.

Capello’s subsequent sessions with the squad highlighting every error – even one as minor as a central defender jogging back at three-quarter speed – have undoubtedly been instructive and contributed to England’s efficient qualification from a relatively easy group.

But Capello’s feat should not blind us to the fact that players, not coaches, usually write the World Cup script.

The trophy is not often won by robotic efficiency. And the true greats who become synonymous in our memory with a particular World Cup aren’t just talented.

They have the audacity and ingenuity to depart from their brief if things aren’t going well.

England’s only World Cup victory, in 1966, is in part a contrasting tale of two geniuses and the way their coaches handled them.

Recognising that Bobby Charlton was, as Alan Ball put it, “our Pele”, Sir Alf Ramsey gave him a roving brief.

He was such a threat – scoring three goals, including a brace in the semi-final – that West Germany manager Helmut Schoen ordered his best player, Franz Beckenbauer, to mark the comb-over king in the final.

If the Kaiser, who was only 20, had ignored Schoen, football history might have been very different.

In 1974, Schoen gave Beckenbauer the freedom, as libero, to decide when to hit a pinpoint pass or rampage down the middle.

British industry – and football is no exception to this rule – has been slow to accept the growing body of evidence, largely generated in an America that likes to call itself a meritocracy, that the best way for a business to solve a problem is make it the employees’ problem.

If you think about your own experience, the American approach makes sense: imagine how satisfying it would be if the next time you rang customer service, the person who answered had the authority and the wit to solve your query on the first call.

On the pitch in a World Cup, the speed with which problems are resolved can be the difference between triumph and despair.

The question that will haunt Capello as national hysteria mounts ahead of 2010 is: will he give his players the freedom to use their ingenuity on the pitch?

As David Pleat noted in The Guardian, the troubling aspect of England’s final World Cup qualifier was the way the team – laid out in a two-wingered 4-4-2 in the absence of Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard – were “unable to command the ball” against Belarus’s tight, fluent, one-touch passing in a five-man midfield.

It was hard not to watch England doggedly persevering with Plan A with ever-diminishing conviction – and returns – because they didn’t know what else to do and wonder what such hapless obedience might cost England against a side like Spain.

Luckily David Beckham came on. Steve Bruce’s man of the match award irritated Don Fabio.

But I could understand Brucey’s reasoning: Beckham was the only England player who imposed his vision on the game.

Whether so ordered by Capello, or believing that with 115 caps, he should just have a go, he struck long, audacious passes that disrupted Belarus, changing the pattern of play and the momentum of the game.

Granted, Beckham has the touch to make most of these passes productive but why couldn’t Frank Lampard have passed more creatively?

Lampard is a vital source of energy, goals and craft but for his country he is typically a bellwether player, impressing if England are on song and looking frankly average if England aren’t.

And Beckham’s 35 minutes had more impact than Lampard’s 90.

Beckham is one of a handful of players in the England camp with the ingenuity to be given their heads.

The re-emergence of Joe Cole, one of the few England players with Charlton’s versatility, gives Capello another.

Patrick Barclay nominates Rooney as the “creative and dynamic force capable of turning a team into world champions.”

But two things must happen if Rooney is to become Charlton’s World Cup-winning heir: he will have to start making his own decisions on the pitch, and Capello will have to let him do that.

In the last two quarter-finals – against Brazil in 2002 and Portugal in 2006 – England were dumb and dutiful as they chased a lost cause.

With expectations rising almost on a daily basis, the nation will not easily forgive Capello – or the FA – if, next summer, England are knocked out in the last eight after a slightly more efficient version of dumb and dutiful.

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Rangers causing headaches - for the fans

Paul Simpson — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:30:00 GMT

Fifteen years ago, when I was editing FourFourTwo magazine, one of my colleagues’ husbands would ‘quite literally’ (as David Pleat would say) beat his head against the wall every time Rangers embarrassed themselves in Europe.

Since then with every AEK Athens or Kaunas, I have winced as I envisaged the successive collisions between stone and bone.

But I shudder to think how many dents this particular Rangers fan has in his head after Tuesday’s debacle.

It was nice of the club to give the away tickets Unrea Urziceni didn’t use to British troops. But these soldiers must have shuddered too, surveying what, in military terms, looked like unconditional surrender by Rangers.

The Sun, as so often, got it the wrong way around with the headline Rangers 1 Minnows 4.

As many of the appalled, grief-stricken Rangers fans who couldn’t bear to watch all 90 minutes have been testifying online, there was only team that looked like minnows at Ibrox on matchday three. And it wasn’t Unirea.

Rangers' boss Walter Smith doesn’t look like a Joan Armatrading fan. Maybe Ally McCoist is.

But someone at the club, possibly inspired by her famous boast that she is so lucky she can walk under ladders, has stored up enough bad luck not to fret about breaking mirrors.

This UEFA Champions League campaign could have turned on two penalties: one not given against Sevilla, the other not taken against Unirea.

And three of Unirea’s goals were scored – or deflected into the net – by Rangers players. With a Unirea own goal giving Rangers the lead after less than two minutes, this fixture earned the dubious distinction of becoming the first Champions League game to feature four own goals.

But there’s more to Rangers’ plight than pure bad luck. They were outclassed in the second half by a compact, organised team whose play alternated between moments of rare technical proficiency and an amateurish propensity to pass the ball into touch or to an opponent.

I had rashly tipped Jerome Rothen to be instrumental in this campaign. The French winger was – just not in the way I imagined.

He was at fault for two of the goals – not tracking back to let Pablo Brandan (the best player on the pitch) cross for Unirea’s equaliser, and conceding the free-kick from which Brandan applied the coup de grace to make it 4-1.

Rothen’s errors were more conspicuous than his team-mates’ but on the evidence of the last 45 minutes, Rangers have every attribute you would expect from a big club – except a talented squad.

To his credit, Smith didn’t dissemble in his post-match interview. This was, he admitted, one of Rangers’ worst nights in Europe. The question is: where does he and the club go from here?

Their destroyers may offer a glimpse of the solution – and the problem.

Unirea, whose average league gate last season was 4,335 (compared to Rangers’ 49,143), have assembled a squad that can compete on the European stage without ever spending more than £350,000 on a player.

Although the Romanian national team is in the doldrums, the country continues to generate a phenomenal amount of raw talent. While Cluj won the Romanian title in 2008 with a host of foreigners, all but six of Unirea’s squad are home-grown.

Which brings me to my point. (You knew I’d get there eventually). Would Smith, drawing primarily on talent within the Scottish game, be able to assemble as gifted a squad as Petrescu has?

The opprobrium, as always after such a disaster, is heaped upon the players, coaches and club.

But this humbling of the Scottish champions raises questions about the future – and quality – of Scottish football which are much too big to be answered with a mere change of coach, tactics, player or owner.

In the meantime, I’ll email my old friend and tactfully suggest that, before Rangers’ next game, she buy her husband a crash helmet.

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Matchday three: Missions implausible

Paul Simpson — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Pure, old-fashioned loneliness.

That was the reason Maccabi Haifa’s Georgian striker Vladimir Dvalishvili gave for his recent goal drought.

As he eloquently explained to coach Elisha Levy: “It’s not easy for me personally. I have nothing – I come to practice and then I go home.”

While it’s tempting to just sigh, “ah diddums,” Dvalishvili is only 23. He has one good friend in Israel – Zurab Menteshashvili at Hapoel Tel Aviv – who he doesn’t see very often.

And the only other person in Israel he knows who talks his language is Georgi Derasilia, Haifa’s assistant coach.

The striker tried to lift his depression by vowing to score in Bordeaux on matchday two.

That didn’t work. But the bad news for Juventus is that he grabbed a brace at the weekend, so he may have put his personal problems behind him.

Maccabi Haifa are one of four teams who enter matchday three of the 2009/10 UEFA Champions League looking to end their pointless existence.

The others are Besiktas, Debreceni and Marseille.

This mission looks most plausible for Didier Deschamps’ team away to Zurich.

Marseille’s veteran striker Fernando Morientes sums up the club’s position succinctly: “The problem is that we have no points; two matches and no points so we have to play to win.”

Although Zurich’s shock win over Milan kept Group C alive, Marseille still have it all to do.

In Group B, the odds seem similarly stacked against Besiktas, away to Wolfsburg, who have never beaten a Bundesliga side in this competition and have lost their last four away fixtures in the group stage.

In Group E, Debreceni are hoping, as their coach Andras Herczeg put it, for a flawless display – especially at the back – to have a chance to earn at least a point against Fiorentina at Budapest.

On paper, Maccabi Haifa face the ultimate mission implausible against Juventus in Turin in the Group A.

But the bianconeri, on a run of five games without a win, have lost their way.

Defensive talisman Giorgio Chiellini has tried to rally his team-mates saying this double-header must be the moment Juventus turn their season around.

It might be tougher than Chiellini expects. Juve have won not won in their last six Champions League games and have only scored three goals in those matches.

The Israeli champions pushed Bordeaux all the way before losing 1-0 and played better than the scoreline in their 3-0 defeat by Bayern suggests.

And if Dvalishvili has put his blues behind him, who knows?

Haifa fans hope Levy starts with Shlomi Arbeitman. The pacy 24-year-old striker is one of those players – like David Ginola – who is more popular with fans than coaches.

In a stop-start career, he scored a hat-trick on his debut for the Israeli national team in February 2004 but these days is more often used as an over-age player in the U21s.

Arbeitman played alongside Dvalishvili in attack at the weekend as Haifa maintained their 100 percent record in the league.

The Israelis will miss their skipper Yaniv Katan sidelined by a fever.

Rangers' grip on a place in the last 16 is almost as slender as Haifa’s.

With one point from two games in Group G, they face Dan Petrescu’s Unirea at Ibrox in the Scottish club’s 150th game in this competition.

This might look like a banker for Walter Smith’s team, but Rangers have failed to score in six of their last eight home games in Europe and only won one of those eight.

Rangers played their best 45 minutes of football this season against Stuttgart but Petrescu had a point when, in a wondrous back-handed compliment, he said the danger man for Unirea wasn’t a Rangers player but Walter Smith.

The history books tell us that the last Scottish team to defeat a Romanian side in European competition were indeed Rangers, who beat Steaua 2-1 in the European Cup quarter-finals in 1988.

This isn’t quite the great omen it might seem as the Gers lost the tie 3-2 on aggregate.

APOEL Nicosia, who travel to Porto, will certainly be hoping to avoid what Shirley Bassey might call a little bit of history repeating itself.

On their only previous trip to Portugal, in the 1963/64 Cup Winners’ Cup, they lost 16-1 to Sporting, a record defeat in a European game.

For Rubin Kazan supporters, just travelling to Camp Nou to face European champions Barcelona in Group F is quasi-official confirmation of how far their team has come.

But if they need cheering up after the game, they might want to go here and marvel at this gallery of photos which captures a little known phase in Pep Guardiola’s career when he was auditioning for the Spanish Take That.

Pop’s loss of Pep was European football’s gain.

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The fuss that Jack built

Paul Simpson — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:00:00 GMT

Austin ‘Jack’ Warner is the Muhammad Ali of football administrators.

In other words, he’s not like Ali at all but he occasionally delivers a pungent phrase or gag almost worthy of The Lip.

He speaks with the confidence of a man used to being listened to. And he knows how to incite the media.

Like Ali in his prime, the only headlines he doesn’t like are those that don’t have his name in them.

The CONCACAF president’s speech at the Leaders in Football conference at Chelsea’s Millennium Hotel was a virtuous performance, as entertaining, in its way, as one of those one-man shows where Simon Callow pretended to be Charles Dickens.

Warner’s brief was to give the 1000 or so delegates a global perspective on football.

What he gave them was a very personal perspective on football history, England’s World Cup bid, cricket (“a dying sport, it’s dying in the West Indies and it’s infectious”), Michael Jackson’s doctor, how hard it is to get refunds on business class tickets for players who are mysteriously unavailable for international duty and the future of women’s football.

Warner said it would be a good idea if Europe started a women’s Champions League – obviously unaware that this was such a good idea that UEFA has already started one.

As if that wasn’t enough, Warner chucked in some novel ideas to improve the laws of the game.

Ten-a-side, new technology at the service of the referee, time restrictions on the taking of free-kicks, throw-ins and corners.

It would be intriguing to know how many of these ‘improvements’ were testing the water for, as Warner called him, the “visionary” Sepp Blatter.

Warner’s speech aspired to be inspirational.

He even tried his variation on JFK’s inauguration speech, effectively telling delegates: ask what you can do for football, not what football can do for you.

But at times, the note of resentment was so strong I was reminded of that old gag about the Australians being the most well balanced people in the world – because they have a chip on each shoulder.

Warner argued persuasively that Europe – and England in particular – could not afford to ignore the rest of the football world and, by being more socially responsible, would set an example others would be bound to follow.

One of his suggestions was that clubs pay a sum worth 10 percent of a player’s salary to the country he came from so it could be invested in grassroots football.

In the same vein, he suggested 2018 World Cup bids could be judged on whether they promised to invest in developing football outside their own confederation.

Warner was right to highlight the interdependency of this new, globalised football industry.

But the one word that never appeared in his bracing address was transparency.

There was not even a tacit recognition that the financial shenanigans at some FAs might lead some to question where all this cash might really be invested.

This is the same Jack Warner who, according to former Scottish FA boss George McBeth, asked for the cheque to cover the match fee for a 2007 friendly to be made out to him personally.

The year before that, Warner’s Trinidad and Tobago FA rowed so bitterly with players over bonuses after the World Cup the issue went to the Sports Dispute Resolution Panel.

Understandably Warner was keener to talk about 2018 than 2006. His well-publicised objections to England’s bid boiled down to four points.

1. England have been too slow off the mark and seem to think they have a ‘divine right’ to stage the finals.

2. There were no freebies in the Leaders in Football conference reception from England, whereas Australia thoughtfully gave delegates a free case and Qatar, already looking to 2022, had strewn bags of goodies around.

3. England weren’t making enough of David Beckham and the Queen.

4. England’s U20 team had refused to play a friendly against Trinidad and Tobago in Cyprus.

NEWS: Warner - England 2018 bid needs Beckham stardust

None of these raise fundamental questions about England’s ability to host the finals.

Points 1 and 3, as Football League boss Brian Mawhinney tactfully pointed out later, are a matter of tactics.

This sparked several minutes of futile linguistic debate between Mawhinney, the press and (in absentia) Warner, about whether bidding for a World Cup is a sprint or a marathon. Or the 10,000 metres. (Okay, I made that last bit up).

London and Rio’s success in winning the 2012 and 2016 Olympics suggests, to switch sporting metaphors, that the best approach is to come up on the rails in the final furlong.

Still, Warner’s barbs had the desired effect. There is nothing your average British football correspondent likes better than writing a story accusing the FA of doing sweet FA.

The story practically wrote itself but I caught two seasoned hacks rehearsing across the press room: “Football’s coming home... arrogance... divine right, yeah, that’ll do it.”

They nodded, trying to look their usual phlegmatic selves but I could see glee in the corner of their eyes.

Andy Roxburgh, UEFA’s likeable technical director, took the refreshing, if old fashioned, view that his speech ought to be useful – and delivered an insightful address on the coach’s many roles.

His most charming story concerned a coach in Argentina who had drilled his defenders in where to stand and how to jump to stop a Maradona free-kick.

After 40 minutes, when Maradona won a free-kick just outside the area, the coach peered over to make sure the wall was right.

His players lined up correctly, they even jumped in unison, but the coach’s admiration turned to fury when he saw his players, as one, turn sideways.

As they came off at half-time, the coach demanded to know why they had all turned sideways.

One player was honest enough to admit: “We just wanted to see the goal boss.”

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Will the Icelandic Messi please stand up?

Paul Simpson — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:00:00 GMT

There’ll be no more "Gnomes of Zurich" gags after matchday two of the UEFA Champions League, a round of games which also saw Rubin’s Argentine striker Alejandro Dominguez score his 11th goal in 10 games, making you wonder what Dick Advocaat didn’t see in him.

While Stevan Jovetic gave the best performance by a Montenegrin in this tournament since Dejan Savicevic hung up his boots.

STATS: Champions League results, fixtures & tables

The perils of Silvio

That faint whirring noise you hear is the sound of Silvio Berlusconi back-pedalling as his campaign to make Leonardo the new Guardiola runs into trouble.

It's ludicrously early to judge the Brazilian’s coaching prowess but a meltdown at Milan could do more to undermine Berlusconi’s premiership of Italy than the scandals that have titillated the foreign press.

Berlusconi’s bedrock support in Italy doesn’t pay a great deal of attention to the outside world and would probably reject any aspersions cast on Berlusconi by foreign journalists just out of indignant patriotic pride.

But in a country that takes football more seriously than politics, if the vaunted Rossoneri do crumble the damage to Berlusconi’s image as a "can do" kind of guy could be immense.

Hence the feverish speculation that Marco van Basten may take over. But even the Dutchman would struggle to get the best out of Ronaldinho.

That task, as Gabriele Marcotti noted on ITV, can only be performed by someone with a time machine at the bottom of their garden.

Morris, Baldini and Anderson

Franco Baldini, probably the best football scout in Europe, says the only way you can truly judge a footballer is to watch him in person – to watch their team-mates’ body language and understand what they really think of him.

You didn’t have to be Desmond Morris to decipher the signals Anderson was being sent by team-mates when Manchester United played Wolfsburg, especially when he passed to an offside Rooney in the box with Giggs, onside, out wide.

The Brazilian’s inconsistent decision-making left United misfiring in midfield.

On Wednesday, United were sparked into life by Berbatov, whose speed of thought and passing put his Brazilian team-mate to shame.

Kings of contrariness

Dutch coaches can be funny buggers. Dominguez has now scored in his last 10 games for Rubin.

The grace, skill and speed with which he took his goal against Inter deepens the mystery about his marginalisation at Zenit St Petersburg by Dick Advocaat, the coach who had campaigned for his signing.

Such a quixotic approach is reminiscent of the Dutch coach’s treatment of Gennaro Gattuso. The Italian left Rangers in 1998 because, he says, “Advocaat told me I was just a kiddie and had to play at right-back.”

How Rangers could do with Gattuso’s classy tenacity in midfield.

The misuse of Gattuso recalls Johan Cruyff’s stubborn determination to play Gary Lineker, the Inzaghi of the '80s, on the wing at Barcelona.

Because Lineker couldn’t do everything well but could do one thing – score goals – very well, Cruyff exiled him to the flanks in sheer disgust.

But the king of Dutch coaching contrariness is Co Adriaanse.

The manager known affectionately as Psycho Co because of his idiosyncratic approach to training – he once notoriously ordered AZ players to hunt for Easter eggs before revealing that he hadn’t actually hidden any – ignored playmaker Diego at Porto.

The Brazilian left for Werder Bremen, was voted player of the Bundesliga in his first season and moved to Juve for four times the fee Porto received.

Diego wasn't the only Brazilian to leave Porto under Adriaanse's watch.

It probably made sense to get £1.9m for a striker who, distracted by the kidnapping of his mother, had only scored three goals in 22 games in 2004/05. But Sevilla must be glad they took a risk on Luis Fabiano.

Adriaanse didn’t coach Ajax for very long, but his reign in 2000/01 is best remembered for hardly playing the young Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Mind you, any coach who can call a club chairman a “talking lampshade” can’t be all bad.

Stuttgart’s stuttering helps Rangers

On matchday one, Stuttgart had a hatful of chances against Rangers, went 1-0 up and snatched a draw from the jaws of victory.

They did the same in Bucharest against Unirea. Their 1-1 draw was the only good news on a dismal night for Rangers who didn’t have the luck or, in the second half, the quality to deny Sevilla.

Four points from back-to-back games against Unirea is the minimum if Walter Smith’s team are to make the last 16.

Still, with Sevilla in such imperious form the runners-up in Group G could progress with as few as seven points.

Messi business

Liverpool were undone by the Montenegrin Messi (Stevan Jovetic) while Dynamo Kyiv could console themselves with the thought that they were beaten by the original.

Sadly, the Greek Messi – Vasilios Koutsianikoulis – hasn’t featured in this tournament yet because he plays for PAOK, not Olympiacos.

And the Italian Messi, Sebastian Giovinco, is having the “pressure taken off him” with a spell on the Juve bench.

The English Messi hasn’t lit up the Champions League because there isn’t one. (Though you might, like Sir Alex Ferguson, believe Wayne Rooney can grow into that role.)

This seems a tad unfair as Barcelona have two: Leo, the European Footballer of the Year in waiting and Gai Assulin, the 18-year-old Israeli attacking midfielder who has scoring freely for Barcelona B.

In a few years, Spain could house three Messis, with Leo, Gai and Marko Marin, Werder Bremen’s 20-year-old attacking midfielder – aka the German Messi – who has already indicated, as footballers do these days, that he’d like to play for Real Madrid one day.

A Google search suggests that there may be some national typecasting here.

New Messis usually hail from Latin countries. I have yet to unearth a Messi from Scandinavia (feel free to tell me otherwise).

Even the German Messi, Marin, is of Bosnian Serb descent. So it seems unlikely a player will ever be dubbed the Icelandic Messi.

Just as, sadly, I have never yet heard of a player being dubbed the Brazilian Norman Hunter.

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When transfers go bad

Paul Simpson — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:30:00 GMT

The least significant thing about the Sofia derby was the score.

CSKA beat Levski 2-0, their task eased by the fact that Levski’s four core players – Darko Tasevski, Jose Ze Soares, Youssef Rabeh and Zhivko Milanov – were in Moscow, expecting to complete surprise last-minute transfers to the Russian champions Rubin Kazan.

True, the transfer window had already shut but Levski were advised that Rubin had been allowed to reopen the window because many of its players had swine flu.

Levski fans, gutted about the loss of players and a probable derby defeat, tried to cheer themselves by thinking of the money – around £4 million – the sales would generate for club president Todor Batkov to invest.

Things began to go wrong when the financial director Konstantin Bazhdekov arrived in Moscow with the players for their medical tests.

When new terms were demanded to complete the deals, Bazhdekov called Batkov, who then rang the president of Rubin Kazan.

To Batkov’s horror, the Rubin president Alexandr Gusev knew nothing about the deals, UEFA’s special permission or the epidemic of swine flu that had decimated his squad.

Levski had been conned. The people who had encouraged them to sell these players had business cards and documents bearing the Rubin club logo but they were not connected with the club at all.

What was the sting supposed to achieve?

Some have accused CSKA supporters who, so the conspiracy theory goes, wanted revenge after a letter from Bulgaria persuaded UEFA not to let CSKA compete in the 2008/09 Champions League because of the state of their finances.

Others blamed, more credibly, Asian gambling syndicates wanting to make millions by betting on a CSKA win in the Sofia derby.

There is some – though hardly conclusive – evidence of large bets on a CSKA win being placed with certain Asian bookies.

It’s worth noting that eastern European clubs are at the heart of UEFA’s probe into 40 games that may have been fixed.

The only definite outcome was to make Bazhdekov and Batkov look like muppets and Levski, in the eloquently indignant words of one fan, “like the idiots of Europe.”

In truth, Bazhdekov and Batkov were gullible, but unlucky.

The Byzantine way players are bought and sold now makes this kind of scenario terrifyingly plausible.

Each transfer is, in its way, a clandestine conspiracy, conducted in a race against time.

The global trade in footballers – and the disturbingly common practice of businessmen buying a stake in a player – have just made the conspiracies more labyrinthine and complicated.

And the transfer business is peopled with a Damon Runyonesque cast of chancers who love to deal beyond their means, fixers who imply with a nod and wink they can mysteriously get such and such a player, and cocky go-betweens who boast of their remarkable access to other coaches and presidents.

Such skulduggery is far more elaborate and sophisticated than an agent ringing up Graeme Souness pretending to be George Weah and recommending the signing of his ‘cousin’ Ali Dia, who had played 14 games for PSG.

Mind you, on a much smaller scale, even the great and good have indulged in gamesmanship to clinch the right deal.

When Arsenal signed inside-forward David Jack from Bolton in 1927, Herbert Chapman’s assistant Bob Wall recalled: “We arrived at the hotel half-an-hour early. Chapman immediately went into the lounge bar.

"He called the waiter, placed two pound notes in his hand and said: 'George, this is Mr Wall, my assistant. He will drink whisky and dry ginger. I will drink gin and tonic.

We shall be joined by guests. They will drink whatever they like. See that our guests are given double of everything, but Mr Wall's whisky and dry ginger will contain no whisky, and my gin and tonic will contain no gin.'

"When the Bolton pair arrived, Chapman ordered the drinks. We quickly downed ours and he called for the same again. The drinks continued to flow and our friends were soon in a gay mood.

"Finally, when Chapman decided the time was opportune for talking business, they readily agreed to letting him sign Jack - and for £10,890, which we considered a bargain."

The Sofia derby, by the way, was a riot. Literally. Levski fans attacked cars, buses, trams and bins.

Although there were 150 arrests, there seem, from reports, to have been few serious injuries – except to Levski skipper and goalkeeper Georgi Petkov, whose busted shoulder forced him to leave the field halfway through the second half and will sideline him for at least two matches.

This strange tale has one bizarre footnote: even with four Levski stars rested, the Eternal Derby was absolutely bloody thrilling.

Frenetic, end-to-end, competitive, football of a kind seldom seen in the Bulgarian league these days.

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Jazz, dinosaurs, bulls and binmen

Paul Simpson — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:25:00 GMT

What did the first UEFA Champions League matchday teach us?

1. That ‘Big’ Sam Allardyce is a “great man” (according to Blackburn’s new galactico Michel Salgado).

2. That Pep Guardiola’s remodelling of Barcelona is a work in progress. Though Barça had more chances at the San Siro, 0-0 was, given the influx of new players, a tactical victory for Inter. Indeed, at an entertaining press conference, Mourinho joked that keeper Julio Cesar was exhausted after touching the ball three times against Barcelona. That was probably twice more than Victor Valdes touched the ball.

3. That if most football club owners tried to join a jazz band they’d fail the audition because they have no sense of timing. The biggest upsets happened off the pitch last week. Peter Kenyon’s replacement as Chelsea chief executive by Ron Gourlay was strangely timed but not as bizarre as Temuri Ketsbaia’s exit as Olympiacos coach on the eve of their first group match.

Since 1999, Olympiacos have hired 15 coaches and one caretaker in their search for who knows what. Ketsbaia, hired in May, left after taking seven points out of nine in the Greek league. Fans were upset by a 5-0 friendly defeat in the summer and the players reportedly didn’t take to him.

Olympiacos fans’ joy surely turned to abject terror when it looked like Bryan Robson might take over. The rumour that Robbo is your new coach is the second most chilling news any fan can hear (the scariest rumour being a credible whisper that that your manager, in a bid to end the team’s goal drought, has signed Francis Jeffers). Luckily, Zico, fearing imminent eviction at CSKA Moscow, stepped in for Olympiacos. Even with players left in the dark about their new coach, they beat AZ 1-0.

4. That some dinosaurs refuse to become extinct. Somebody should tell Pippo Inzaghi the days of the fox in the box are over. Now 36, Inzaghi still seems boyishly, absurdly delighted to score.

His ability to lose a marker and his ruthlessness from close range remain undimmed by age. Pippo is the new Gerd Muller: he scores ugly goals, poachers’ goals, opportunist goals… offside goals. Glorious 30-yard screamers just don’t interest Inzaghi.

Gordon Strachan trained his strikers by showing them videos of Pippo. The Italian, Strachan noted, is a master of the diagonal run away from the ball. He is probably a better lurker than Lineker and tries to ensure he is the last player to touch the ball. More often than not, when he does touch it, he scores. As he did twice against Marseille.

5. That Bayern have a new Muller. He may be called Thomas, not Gerd, but this attacking midfielder scored twice against Maccabi Haifa. Anybody who saw his goal against Borussia Dortmund will know these strikes were no fluke.

IM Scouting’s verdict, written in the style of a professionally unimpressed headmaster finishing an end-of-term report, praises his off-the-ball movement and finishing but notes he “needs to improve his passing ability”.

Thomas looks more like a footballer than Gerd, whose squat, stout body prompted one Bayern president to declare: “I will never allow that bull amongst my thoroughbreds.” Fortunately, the president was overruled and Der Bomber’s goals laid the foundation for Bayern’s greatness.

Thomas probably won’t change history in that way. But after 10 years at Bayern, this may be his season of opportunity. With Louis van Gaal able to pick Klose, Gomez, Olic or Luca Toni (now launching a comeback with Bayern reserves), Muller can’t let his form dip.

6. That Alan Dzagoev is as good as the hype suggests. The CSKA star’s goal was a sublime moment in a dismal performance against Wolfsburg. Already hailed as the “future of Russian football” (no pressure there then), Dzagoev has the ability and intelligence to play as an attacking midfielder or second striker.

Only 19, he may be the next Russian starlet to defect to the West. Dzagoev’s favourite club, Chelsea, can’t buy players until 2011 but playing alongside boyhood idol Frank Lampard would be a dream come true.

7. That Rangers can probably make the last 16. The draw was kind and a draw against Stuttgart was kinder still.

Though Rangers shone in the second half, they would have been down and out if Stuttgart’s strikers had been less selfish. Brazilian forward Cacau (who, to be fair, did make the goal) summed up the rampant egotism by trying to shoot past keeper Allan McGregor from the byline.

Jerome Rothen’s quality means Walter Smith can dispense with the “anti-football” that won so few friends on the road to the 2008 UEFA Cup Final. The Frenchman showed enough to suggest that, at 31, he – with Pedro Mendes – could steer Rangers to the knockout round.

8. That the team who dares wins. Standard Liege coach Laszlo Boloni was right: Alex Song did handle the ball when Arsenal equalised. But Liege fans must have wondered what baloney Boloni told his players at half-time. Only 2-1 up, against one of Europe’s most fluent attacks, the Reds tried to sit on their lead. And lost.

Still, as Kevin McCarra noted on The Guardian’s football podcast, Arsenal are probably the only team in Europe who would go a goal down because their centre-forward tried an overhead chip near his own penalty area.

9. That behind some successful footballers is a career in waste. When he was 22, Grafite scored 22 goals in 27 games for Ferroviaria in the Sao Paolo league. But the Brazilian striker was sometimes so broke he sold bin-liners.

Since he joined Wolfsburg in 2007, his progress has been exponential. Grafite was top scorer last season with 28 goals in 25 Bundesliga games and he has now capped that with a hat-trick against CSKA on his Champions League debut.

Grafite’s part-time job prompted me to recall other footballers with rubbish careers. I could only think of Uruguayan striker Walter Pandiani, who always insisted his stint as a dustbin man kept him fit. Feel free to suggest others.

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The greatest pub cliché of all

Paul Simpson — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 08:34:00 GMT

Apparently, great players don’t make great managers. Diego Maradona’s anguish as Argentina disintegrate seems compelling proof of the pub cliché. The Guardian’s Paul Hayward has called the Argentine the “best advert serious football coaching will ever have. Managers who couldn’t summon 5% of his brilliance understand the game better than he ever will because he only comprehends his own small part of it, where the splendour is to be found.”

But watching Maradona on the touchline, you have to wonder if his unsuitability as a coach is entirely due to his greatness as a player. You could equally argue that his travails merely prove that notoriously addictive personalities don’t make good managers. Or that men who use industrial quantities of black hair dye and wear tracksuits that are three sizes to big for them don’t make good managers. Maradona is too sui generis to be clinching evidence of any cliché.

Suffering for greatness
Of course, proponents of the great players don’t make great managers theory can cite many other examples. Tony Adams, John Barnes, Bobby Charlton, Ruud Gullit, Glen Hoddle, Paul Ince, Kevin Keegan, Billy NcNeil, Lothar Matthaus, Bobby Moore, David Platt, Bryan Robson, Bernd Schuster, Graeme Souness, Hristo Stoichkov, Marco van Basten and Billy Wright have all been used as evidence even if, in some cases, they stretch most people’s definition of the word ‘great’.

Hayward believes great players don’t understand football as deeply as a coach like Jose Mourinho, who made up for his lack of playing time by studying the game academically. Chris Waddle believes great players suffer because fans, directors and the media expect more of them, believing their teams will magically start to play football in the style they associate with the player.

Waddle’s other explanation is that “Lesser players who can go into management can relate to less talented players better. Top players can get frustrated because what they did naturally, not many players can do.” Yet you hear some players say that being coached by someone who has been there, won that is truly inspiring.

As football changes, maybe these greats will find it easier to communicate with multinational dressing rooms than a rival brandishing a coaching badge.

Bob Paisley, a decent half-back at Liverpool, always reckoned his experience of being dropped for the 1950 FA Cup final, helped when he had to break the bad news to his players. When he said he knew how they felt, they knew he meant it.

The magnificent seven
The idea that great players don’t make great managers sounds clear enough. But how great is great?

Of the top ten in the International Federation of Football Historians and Statisticians player of the century poll, seven became managers: Maradona, Johan Cruyff, Franz Beckenbauer, Alfredo di Stefano, Ferenc Puskas, Michel Platini and Bobby Charlton.

Of these seven, two were outstanding successes (Cruyff and Beckenbauer), two were pretty successful (Puskas led Panathinaikos to the 1971 European Cup final while di Stefano won the Argentine title with Boca and River and la Liga and the Cup-Winners’ Cup with Valencia).

One was an outright failure (Charlton, who led Preston to relegation and quit after directors sold players behind his back) and one will probably become an outright failure (Maradona). Platini’s mixed reign as French coach – a record 19-match unbeaten run followed by a dismal first round exit at Euro 92 – was enough to convince him that managing teams wasn’t for him.

So the flat statement that great players don’t make great coaches looks much less solid. And there are other great players who made it as managers.

Like Frank Rijkaard, unfashionable, but still the coach who delivered Barcelona’s second European Cup.

Like two-time World Cup winner Didi, who steered Peru to the quarter-finals in 1970, that country’s best ever performance, and won back to back titles with Fenerbahce in the mid-1970s. Or like his countryman Mario Zagallo, an exquisite winger who coached Brazil to victory at Mexico 70 (knocking out Didi’s Peru on the way) and pioneered the use of attacking full-backs.

Like Carlo Ancelotti, who won the European Cup as a player in 1989 and 1990 and as a coach in 2003 and 2007. Ancelotti was not in the same class as Milan’s Dutch masters but won 26 caps for the Azzurri and dribbled around two Real Madrid defenders to seal the Rossoneri’s 5-0 demolition in the European Cup semi-final in 1989.

Like Ernst Happel, one of the finest defenders Austria has ever produced, who won 51 caps and scored a hat-trick against the great Real Madrid in 1956 before coaching Feyenoord and Hamburg to European Cup glory.

Like Kenny Dalglish, who inherited a great team at Liverpool (but had the sense not to tinker and the aura to inspire his former teammates) and then built Blackburn into title-winners with Jack Walker’s money.

And Fabio Capello could play a bit: 32 caps for Italy and four scudetti with Juventus and Milan. As could Giovanni Trapattoni, who marked Cruyff out of the 1969 European Cup final, and one of only two coaches (the other being Udo Lattek) to win all three major European club competitions.

Accept no substitutes
When great players move into the dugout, the scope for them to show their greatness narrows. As a player, a genius like Hoddle could prove his greatness through sheer artistry even if he didn’t win that much silverware.

As a coach, the accolade of greatness is only bestowed on those who win a title or cup or transcend their team’s previous performance in an extraordinary way. The disparity between these two definitions of greatness can prove fatal.

Great players are often appointed for the wrong reasons – to placate irate fans, quieten the media, because the directors are star struck or are daft enough to believe that a returning messiah can turn back time – and they learn, at brutal speed, that greatness is no shield against volatile opinion, player unrest or boardroom shenanigans (like Bobby Charlton at Preston).

Maybe the grain of truth in the cliché is that great players don’t always stick at being coaches, as the Mourinhos and Wengers do. If the theory that many coaches are driven by resentment over their failed playing careers holds true, does the reverse apply? Do legends like Bobby Charlton realise that coaching is absolutely no substitute for playing and, having made their name once anyway, find it easier to walk away?

So some great players do make great managers. It’s just that when these geniuses royally screw it up, as Maradona is doing, they show us how far they can fall and make us all secretly feel a little better about ourselves.

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Fabio Capello, Johan Cruyff & Robert Redford

Paul Simpson — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:30:00 GMT

England’s refreshingly decisive qualification for 2010 has prompted an inordinate, one might almost say prurient, interest in the national team’s luggage.

“There is no chance Capello will allow England to fly to South Africa with complacency in their luggage,” Jonathan Norcroft claimed in the Sunday Times.

Presumably Don Fabio has his very own X-ray machine which can isolate hidden pockets of “I’m taking this for granted”-ness when waved at a left-back’s Louis Vuitton.

On Thursday, dear old Henry Winter suggested the squad should “slip some humility into their luggage along with the iPods, cards and Aston Martin catalogues.”

The Capello cult in the British media is almost as intriguing as the granite-jawed one’s rejuvenation of England.

He only has to look slightly vexed on the touchline for ITV’s Peter Drury to rhapsodise over his no-nonsense management style, a “Let’s hear them eyeballs rolling in their sockets!” approach that commentators and journalists love to applaud when it is applied to someone else – especially England footballers.

Of course, the vicissitudes of the England manager’s job are such that admirable determination can quickly be recast as deplorable pigheadedness.

Before the Croatia game, a few hacks had the temerity to question Capello’s perverse insistence on picking the England team himself and not yielding to popular demand – that is, a back-page epidemic of synthetic outrage – and starting with Jermain Defoe up front.

Times reader Eduardo Pierce isn’t convinced by England.

He noted, in fractured prose, that Gerrard “cannot make two triangulations in a row and you can never find him when you need him because he is running around like a chicken without a head.”

That’s Stevie G nailed then.

“Chicken without a head” sounds so much less clichéd than “headless chicken,” don’t you think?

By the way, the longest surviving headless chicken, Mike – he wasn’t completely headless but had one ear and a brain stem left after a botched chop by a Colorado farmer – lived for 18 months after losing 83.9 percent of his bonce, finally dying in 1947.

Celestial spectacles

The World Cup just won’t be the same without the two-time winners from South America.

Yup, no mundial is complete without Uruguay, a nation that has football where other countries have history.

So I tuned in on Sky Sports to watch 60 minutes of Uruguay vs Colombia in Montevideo, the other 30 minutes being occupied (thanks to a technical fault) by Ossie Ardiles’ yellow tie.

Ossie’s tie was louder than his mumbling analysis of Argentina’s entertainingly dismal World Cup qualifying campaign.

It got so bad that one Argentine football writer I know has decided to support Chile.

The Uruguay game was utterly enthralling. Four goals (three to Uruguay), two red cards, periods of play when the home side looked simply incapable of passing to someone in a light blue shirt, and a Colombian forward line that was fast, enterprising and comically inaccurate.

The diagonal cut-back from Diego Forlan for Sebastian Eguren to score Uruguay’s third was sublime.

Eduardo Pierce would not have been impressed as most of the players ran around like chickens without heads.

Both the Uruguayan and Colombian coach fulminated on the touchline to no avail: their players had gone collectively mad on adrenaline.

But the qualifier was utterly gripping. For sheer manic urgency, I have seen nothing quite like it since extra time in the 1970 semi-final between Italy and West Germany.

Inglorious Ajax, glorious Bastia

Johan Cruyff may not have kicked a ball in 25 years but the John Lennon of European football can never stay completely out of the limelight.

After revealing last year that he missed the 1978 World Cup because of kidnap threats, he has now told Esquire in Spain that he turned down Real Madrid when he left Ajax.

The Dutch club had, Cruyff says, sold him to Real but he was so fed up with his treatment in Amsterdam that he joined Barcelona.

This historical revisionism raises a whole series of intriguing What Ifs, but Wim Jansen’s take on the Cruyff legend is even funnier.

Jansen says he invented Cruyff’s wandering style: “Every time we played Ajax, I’d tell him: ‘You can pass me, or the ball can pass me, but you will never get past me with the ball’.

"And he wouldn’t come near me. I was responsible for him wandering over the pitch.”

For fans of that Ajax side – and who isn’t? – the next Champions contains a frank interview with Johnny Rep.

From the tone of the conversation, Rep probably enjoyed St Etienne – alongside Michel Platini – more than Ajax, where he had to force his way into the first team over the determined opposition of Sjaak Swart and a clique of older players.

Ernst Bouwes’ piece is accompanied by a photo of Rep looking a bit like Robert Redford in the 1970s, while playing for Bastia.

The Corsican club’s 1978 UEFA Cup final first leg was captured by the great French movie director Jacques Tati, the creator of Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday, and released posthumously as Forza Bastia! in 2002.

There’s an obvious Quentin Tarantino remake gag in there somewhere but as it eludes me, feel free to supply your own.

Rep’s big problem at Ajax was that he was too good-looking for the established players to take him seriously.

I had the same trouble when I tried to oust the left-back in the Higham Lane junior school team in Nuneaton. (Yes, I am joking).

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How Barca are looking to improve on perfection

Paul Simpson — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 08:00:00 GMT

How does Pep improve on perfection?

Claudio Ranieri was crucified for his tinkering tendencies by the British press. But the truth is that every good coach, deep down, is a tinkerman.

Pep Guardiola is a case in point.

While European journalists ran out of superlatives to describe Barcelona last season, their obsessive, workaholic perfectionist coach was less interested in the compliments than the semi-final against Chelsea when his team failed to function like a well-oiled machine.

It would be truly, deeply stupid to draw any conclusions from the soporific Super Cup game with Shakhtar Donetsk.

But the manner in which Shakhtar Donetsk stifled the European champions suggests Guardiola might be right to rebuild.

The best way to unsettle the reigning champions, Shakhtar’s performance suggested, is to bore them to death.

The genius that is Lionel Messi became so frustrated he invented his own variation on the Glasgow kiss, a gesture that may henceforth be known as the air butt.

"Nab him, jab him, tag him, grab him..."

Shakhtar’s clever counter-attacking style could, with a smarter referee, have put them 1-0 ahead in extra time.

Coach Mircea Lucescu, who looked more animated when he ran onto the pitch in protest than most players had been all night, was shrewd enough to realise that the more open the game the more likely Barcelona were to win.

So he organised his troops accordingly, with players blocking the zones where Barca might create, squeezing play on the flanks, packing the middle of the park, and trusting that in any match, even against the European champions, you will get opportunities and, if you can take them, you might just win.

In the first half, Shakhtar had an easy time because Barcelona were too predictable, always trying to play through the middle.

Gerard Pique’s passing was especially one-dimensional – always moving the ball into the congested centre, where finding the right pass was like trying to thread the eye of a needle, rather than releasing Daniel Alves on the right.

At half-time, I wondered if Guardiola would start his team talk by saying to Pique: “Let me introduce you to Dani Alves. He’s a team-mate. Why don’t you try passing the ball to him occasionally?”

Certainly in the second half, Pique released Alves more often, initially with promising results. Messi then drifted out wide to exploit the space as Shakhtar tired.

So Chelsea and Shakhtar have both shown that if you don’t care about the spectacle, you can seriously disrupt Barcelona.

And that’s one reason, according to a very entertaining discussion on Sky Sports' ever-entertaining Revista de la Liga, that Guardiola has set out to improve on perfection.

The goal is to make Barcelona even more awesomely effective by varying the threat up front, making more devastating use of the flanks and improving their dismal record from set-pieces.

Central striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic will sometimes pull back to draw defenders out, creating space for Xavi and Iniesta to run into.

As tactically sophisticated as football can sometimes seem, defences and coaches have still not devised a way to cope with midfielders running into the area, even though this ploy is at least half a century old.

Both full-backs – Alves on the right and Abidal or Maxwell on the left – can bomb forward simultaneously, because one of the central midfielders will come deep so Barcelona have three at the back when attacking.

Ibra: key to a new tactical philospophy

In the interchange of players and formations, this is much more Total Footballish, echoing the 3-4-3 Johan Cruyff deployed as a coach at Ajax and Barcelona.

With players as good as Guardiola, he could risk exposing his defence because he was so confident he would control midfield.

Rinus Michels said this “spectacular but risky” formation depends on the quality of the players in the middle of the park and their intelligence.

But get it right, as Guardiola believes his players will, and your team becomes much harder to predict and nullify.

Against Shakhtar, even with Ibrahimovic, they were so ineffectual from corners they could have taken them all night against an undefended goal and not scored.

But against Sporting Gijon, in their first la Liga game, all the goals in their routine 3-0 victory came from headers.

Shakhtar showed enough speed and technique on the counter to create chances but didn’t always make the right decisions.

In one passage of play in the first half, Lucescu’s men passed the ball around in front of the Barcelona penalty area and the Catalans looked distinctly uncomfortable.

Carles Puyol was caught out a few times – so the £22 million arrival of Shakhtar’s steely, shrewd centre-back Dmytry Chyngrysnkiy, who looked far more composed and accomplished in Monaco than any Barcelona defender, looks superbly timed.

The good news for Barcelona’s opponents is that the Super Cup might have already done for the European champions.

The last team to win the Super Cup and go on to win the European Cup the next May was Milan in 1990.

Since then, only Sevilla, who outclassed Barca in the 2006 Super Cup, have gone on to win a major European competition (the UEFA Cup).

As curses go, it must be on a par with the Community Shield’s.

But maybe Guardiola’s thoughtful tinkering can defeat that curse too.

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JT, Zlatan, Maldini & Ms Vinegar

Paul Simpson — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:00:00 GMT

John Terry looked bloody uncomfortable. “Are you alright?” asked his other half.

The Chelsea skipper, pulling the sleeves of his jacket straight as if he wasn’t happy with the fit, insisted, rather unconvincingly, that he was alright.

He had every reason to be at odds. He was in full jacket-and-tie clobber in 82 degrees heat in a hotel lift that could barely contain its eight passengers.

And the lift had no air conditioning.

Terry had that coiffed look that most men only attain once in their lives: when their mother has dressed and groomed them for their first day at school.

And he was in Monaco, at the chintzy Meridien Beach Plaza hotel, to collect his third award as the best defender in European club football.

Luckily, Terry and his entourage were chauffeured to the Grimaldi Forum in air-conditioned comfort.

Otherwise one of the world’s finest central defenders might have melted away on the humid streets of Monaco.

During the ceremony, Terry insisted that motivating himself was easy.

Casting a longing look at the cup with the big ears, he said the thought of lifting the trophy fired him up in the gym, on the training field and on the pitch.

JT and fellow award-winners, glowing gently

If the English press are right, he may get his chance next May.

Many of the broadsheet hacks seemed to agree with the Telegraph’s Henry Winter, who believes that 2010 is destined to witness Barcelona vs Chelsea in the Bernabeu.

The European football writers polled for the season preview in the next issue of Champions came to the same conclusion.

None of them tipped Manchester United, who are plotting to reach their third final in a row. Not that this will worry Fergie too much.

The transfer deal that provoked most debate in Monaco among the Europress was Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s move from Inter to Barcelona.

Patrick Barclay, the erudite chief football correspondent for The Times, wondered if it was possible for a team to have too much technique, suggesting that Barça might miss the directness of Eto’o.

Those who favoured the deal suggested that Ibra would pose another dimension of problems for opposing defences – that teams won’t know whether to double-mark Ibra or Messi. They can hardly do both.

Yet in Italy, his sale isn’t regarded as a bad piece of business.

Double European Cup winner Sandro Mazzola, previewing the tournament for Champions, suggested that this could be a career-defining season for the Swede.

He would, Mazzola suggests, have to put up or shut up.

And just to ensure the transfer stayed in the spotlight, the UEFA balls kindly drew Barça and Inter in the same group.

"Oooooh, it's Inter!"

Happiness indexes are now much in vogue and on the way back from the draw, to distract myself from the stifling heat, I tried to figure out the scale of happiness of all 32 coaches.

The smiliest face must belong to Walter Smith, who couldn’t have hoped for a better draw as he tries to earn some much-needed dosh and raise the spirits of Scottish football by steering Rangers to the last 16.

Arsene Wenger’s grin must have been almost as wide when the line-up for Group H was confirmed: Arsenal, AZ, Olympiacos and Stuttgart.

In contrast, Marseille boss Didier Deschamps just have been as miserable as a man who has been locked in a room and forced to listen to Leonard Cohen’s Dress Rehearsal Rag for a month.

Deschamps’ mission – to ensure that Marseille don’t just play a part but make an impact on the tournament – looks more implausible than ever after being drawn with Milan, Real Madrid and Zurich.

His best hope is probably that Milan implode as their Guardiolaesque gamble of replacing Ancelotti with Leonardo backfires.

One underlying question that this season’s competition might answer is how much doo-doo is Italian football in?

There is a general feeling that calcio, like Italy, has lost its mojo.

Juventus and Milan are rebuilding under new young coaches while Inter, even under the special one, do not yet suggest they have found the formula to conquer Europe.

Serie A is no longer the sexiest league in Europe – la Liga is – and the retirement of Paolo Maldini suggests that calcio has reached some kind of watershed.

Maldini looked a lot more comfortable than JT in the heat of Monaco.

Heading to the beach for the afternoon, he looked ridiculously glamorous as he signed autographs and posed for photographs with fans.

One middle-aged Italian was so taken with Maldini that, after getting his autograph, he vamoosed off to fetch his son and, as the two of them peered over the beach, pointed out Maldini as if he was a monument.

Which I suppose, in a way, he is.

"It's you, isn't it?! It is!! It's you!!!"

It was quite sweet to see the evident pleasure with which Michel Platini gave Maldini his special award at the Grimaldi Forum, even going so far as to order the attending grandees to give the legend a standing ovation.

That was probably the highpoint of a ceremony in which the gorgeous, wonderfully-monikered Melanie Vinegar did her level best to convince the world that the UEFA Champions League is really called the “Wafer Champions League."

Despite her surname, Vinegar was warmer and more human than CNN’s eerily multilingual sports anchor Pedro Pinto, who hosts these occasions with a solemnity and gravitas worthy of a state funeral.

So remember, if it’s Barcelona vs Chelsea in the Bernabeu, you read it here first.

If it’s not, blame those know-nothings in the British football press.

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Wildebeest, the Alamo & Dudu's voodoo

Paul Simpson — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:00:00 GMT

The cliché coaches like to use when their teams win the first leg of a cup tie is that their team has a foot in the next round.

After their 5-1 demolition of Anderlecht, Lyon have both feet inside the door and are just about to close it behind them.

Even on television, the atmosphere in the Gerland felt like a carnival – unless, of course, you were an Anderlecht fan for whom it felt more like a burial.

Les Mauves coach Ariel Jacobs pointed to one minute – when Anderlecht didn’t get a penalty at one end, while Lyon were awarded one at the other – as the turning point, but he had the grace to admit his team had been undone by a “collective stampede."

A horde of rampaging wildebeest couldn’t have done more damage.

Also with both feet inside and their hand wrapped firmly around the door handle are FC Zurich, whose victory in Latvia was even more comprehensive than the 3-0 scoreline suggests.

The minute-by-minute account on uefa.com captures the game brilliantly in Hemingwayesgue staccato:

“86: Djuric (Zurich) has a shot blocked; 87: Okonkwo (Zurich) misses the target; 88: Okonkwo (Zurich) misses the target; 90: Alphonse (Zurich) has a shot blocked; 90: Djuric (Zurich) has a shot blocked; 90+3: Nikci (Zurich) hits the crossbar.”

If they had done a minute-by-minute report of the last hours at the Alamo, it might have read a bit like that.

Three sides won 2-0 away from home (Arsenal, Olympiacos and Stuttgart) and must be regarded as almost through.

Celtic were wholehearted and desperately unlucky but lacked the quality to trouble the Gunners.

Until Brazilian playmaker Dudu did the voodoo that he does so well, the Moldovan champions Sheriff were holding their own against Olympiacos.

The Brazilian playmaker’s fierce swerving shot broke the deadlock for the Greeks and probably safeguarded coach Temuri Ketsbaia’s job.

Huub Stevens may be worried about his after Salzburg’s 2-1 defeat at home to Maccabi Haifa.

Under the former PSV coach, the Austrians have failed to win in three home qualifiers, drawing against Bohemians and Dinamo Zagreb and losing to the Israelis.

Debreceni won by the same score away to Levksi Sofia and their only regret may be that they didn’t score more.

Still, in the absence of any Czech or Polish teams, it would be good if Debreceni became the first Hungarian club to make the group stage since Ferencvaros in 1995/96.

Atletico Madrid, Fiorentina and Copenhagen all have the edge in their ties but none of the three have a decisive advantage.

The Danish champions may rue only taking a 1-0 lead to Nicosia. In their last 10 home games in Europe, Cypriot champions APOEL have won five, drawn three and lost two.

Only Schalke, 4-1 winners in the UEFA Cup last season, have really mullered APOEL in Nicosia in recent years.

The record doesn’t offer much comfort for teams who are up against it.

In last year’s third qualifying round, 15 of the 16 sides who had a foot, or even a toe, in the door after the first leg went on to complete the job.

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Egil Olsen’s ugly little secret

Paul Simpson — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 08:00:00 GMT

Watching Norway thrash Scotland was, one waggish Guardian reader noted, like watching a one trick pony beat a zero trick pony.

Norway’s trick – the precise, early long ball struck to a target man like John Carew – is regarded as an aberration by pundits and journos besotted with the fluent possession of Barcelona.

But is it?

In the pantheon of tactical gurus, Egil Olsen sits rather oddly alongside such masters as Rinus Michels and Arrigo Sacchi.

While Michels had the air of a military strategist and Sacchi the fervour of a zealous academic, Olsen is too much of a character to be revered.

A Marxist, poker-playing, wellington-boot-wearing fanatic who endlessly quotes statistics and percentages (often culled from the works of Charles Reep, an accountant whose prophetic analysis of football was used by Stan Cullis at Wolves in the 1950s) to justify his mutant strain of football.

But not every team can play like Barcelona. And Olsen may offer teams that can’t a Plan A or Plan B.

His Norway were never easy on the eye but Olsen led them to No.2 in the FIFA rankings, two successive World Cups and a double defeat of Brazil in 1998. Not bad for a nation of 4.8 million people.

Olsen’s Norway weren’t all about the long ball. He developed zonal defending to such a level that the Norwegians conceded just one goal from open play between 1993 and 1996.

Olsen’s counter-attacking style let opponents carry the play in the belief that they would make mistakes that could be exploited with a rapid attack.

And in playing hefty striker Jostein Flo on the wing, Olsen presented full-backs with an aerial threat they didn’t know how to handle.

Flo often switched wings with Mini Jakobsen just to befuddle opposing defences a bit more.

Was it great to watch? Not often, but the right long pass in a counter-attack can, as the Scots discovered in Oslo, be devastatingly effective.

Officially, there are two schools of football. The beautiful stuff, played by Real Madrid, Ajax in the 1970s, the Oranje, Wenger’s Arsenal and Guardiola’s Barcelona.

And then there’s the ugly stuff, played by Norway under Olsen, Graham Taylor’s Watford and England and a few other misfits.

In truth, this division is artificial, misleading and plain wrong.

You only have to read a few pages of Rinus Michels’ seminal book Teambuilding to unearth one ugly little secret: even the perfector of Total Football believes the long ball has its uses.

Michels is the tactical godfather of Guardiola’s Barcelona, yet he suggests that the build-up to an attack “needs to create situations to be able to play the ball deep as quickly as possible.”

He warns against indiscriminate use of the long pass but admits he had the Dutch practicing long balls before Euro '88 and reminds coaches and teams that “midfield play is a means to be able to play the ball deep and not an end in itself.”

As Cologne coach between 1980 and 1983, if his side were cashing the game, Michels would switch to an English “kick and run” game, where his players got the ball into or near the penalty area as quickly as possible and pressure the opposing defence.

His sweeper would convert into an extra striker so seven of his outfield players could contribute to the build-up or attack.

This isn’t the romantic revolutionary football with which Michels’ Ajax enthralled Europe. But to Michels, such play is a perfectly valid response to certain situations.

And the situation that presents itself to most teams at the top of the European game is a congested midfield.

You can try to pass through it (difficult), dribble through it (almost impossible), circumvent it down the flanks (not as easy as it used to be) or, as Olsen’s Norway do, play over it.

I’m not suggesting that every team should ape Olsen. But such ideas could successfully surprise, just as Otto Rehhagel’s Greece did at Euro 2004.

I didn’t especially enjoy watching Greece, but I was fascinated to watch teams regarded as vastly superior – such as France and Portugal – being utterly confounded by Rehhagel’s use of man-marking, sweeper and shape.

The discipline with which the Greeks controlled the match without having the ball by policing space was awe-inspiring.

If a team could ping a long, accurate pass to a John Carew-type, it would, at a minimum, give their opponents something else to worry about.

So I would dearly love it if, this season in Europe, some enterprising iconoclast resisted the temptation to emulate Barcelona and had the self-belief and wit to devise a challenge to the beautiful game in the manner of Olsen or Rehhagel.

Because, you know what, even beauty can become monotonous when it monopolises.

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Billionaires, Bulls & Blofelds

Paul Simpson — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 07:00:00 GMT

James Bond villains die in many ways. But in essence they are all killed by the same thing, as 007 says: “Ah, that old dream – world domination.”

The fantasies of global hegemony spun by Blofeld, Dr No & co have infected many businessmen who have applied them, usually disastrously, to football.

Austrian billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz has the looks to play a Bond villain – think Charles Gray suavely stroking a cat as Blofeld.

Not content with owning an island off Fiji, two F1 racing teams and 49 percent of Red Bull drinks, Mateschitz runs or owns four football clubs on three continents.

His most notorious purchase was SV Austria Salzburg, so thoroughly rebranded as Red Bull Salzburg that, even though the new regime has delivered trophies galore, many outraged fans support a club they formed under the old name.

Since then Mateschitz has acquired the Metro Stars (renamed New York Red Bulls) and founded Red Bull Brasil, mired in the second division of the Sao Paolo league.

He’s just rebranded SSV Markranstadt in east Germany as RB Leipzig.

Mateschitz has had to compromise to comply with German football regulations, softening its stance on the club name – note the subtle RB? – and not owning the club outright.

Even though Mr Red Bull has, effectively, taken over the German equivalent of a Conference North club, his strategy has a Blofeldian sweep.

A £60 million plan to climb four rungs to the Bundesliga within eight years would make RB Leipzig the biggest club in the populous region of Saxony, and the club is moving to the capacious 44,000-capacity Zentralstadion in Leipzig, recently vacated by FC Sachsen Leipzig who are broke.

We have been here before, most famously with ENIC, the investment group run by Bahamanian billionaire Joe Lewis, whose pan-European football business has been quietly, expensively, abandoned.

At one point, ENIC had stakes in AEK Athens, Basel (now owned by a Swiss billionaire, Gisela Oeri, whose husband is an heir of the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Hoffman La Roche), Rangers, Slavia Prague, Spurs and Vicenza.

The theory sounds good – run one club efficiently and apply the nous you’ve acquired in marketing, scouting, coaching, administration and purchasing to less developed markets where you should have a competitive edge.

But theory seldom became reality.

Often these clubs were still run by existing management and, when results on the pitch weren’t as forecast, ENIC sold up, sometimes messily – the sale of AEK Athens led to a legal wrangle over whether ENIC had waived its debt.

ENIC’s Mini-Me, to continue the spy movie analogy, might well be Kevin McCabe, the property tycoon who owns Sheffield United.

McCabe has bought Chengdu Five Bull (now Chengdu Blades in the Chinese Super League) and the grand old Hungarian club Ferencvaros (back in the top flight) and invested in Belgian club Royal White Star Woluwe.

The Blades have looser links with Australia’s Central Coast Mariners.

Football is a multi-billion pound industry that seems ripe for consolidation and, let’s be frank, the injection of some vaguely competent management.

But it’s hard to see how these clubs make serious money without flourishing in the UEFA Champions League or UEFA Europa League.

And UEFA won’t jeopardise the integrity of its competitions by allowing two clubs with the same owner to meet.

This is all a long way from football as the people’s game.

But then, as Mike Ashley has shown, you can burn £200 million in just two years chasing success in football, so we’ll probably see more billionaires like Mateschitz – Red Bull Newcastle anyone? – not less.

Indeed, Swiss billionaire Markus Liebherr, the son of the founder of the Liebherr crane group, has emerged as the unlikely saviour of Southampton.

While Notts County have been acquired by a finance group linked to a Qatari investor in Sudanese oil and fronted by a man described by Sky Sports as “the 16th most powerful Arab.”

There will also be much more talk of alleged cross-border synergies and global brand building.

Even Barcelona, hailed as a shining exemplar of the democratic, member-funded approach, have mooted investing in a Major League Soccer franchise in Miami or Philadelphia.

(And many blaugrana fans are disturbed by the club’s strange links with the Uzbeki club Bundyodkor).

The downside of football’s global popularity is that it will attract billionaires of all kinds, intrigued by the chance to build a profile, make a fortune or polish their ego.

And – back to Bond villains – these billionaires may come from regions where the source of their wealth will be a matter for conjecture, rumour and investigation.

Are football’s regulators ready for this?

As David Conn pointed out in The Guardian, under the Premier League’s current “fit and proper test,” a convicted criminal could own 29.9 percent of a Premier League club. And anyone can own 9 percent without having to reveal their identity.

Is that fit and proper regulation? Or a standing invitation to looney tunes, malfeasants, and dodgy geezers to use English football for their own ends?

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The Donna, Phil, Roman & Lenny show

Paul Simpson — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:00:00 GMT

Donna Summer might not agree but Fredy Bickel, FC Zurich’s general manager, believes the Swiss champions’ game for a place in the 2009/10 UEFA Champions League group stage against Latvian titleholders Ventspils will be “hot stuff.”

While Arsenal drew Celtic, the team their supporters most wanted to avoid, Ventspils feel the UEFA balls have been awfully nice to them.

Former coach Roman Grygorchuk (who this week has been replaced by ex-Udinese assistant Nunzio Zavetteri - see below) was honest enough to admit he didn’t care who the team faced: “All five seeded teams probably wanted to play against Ventspils as we are not known at this level.”

Grygorchuk: A then-happy chappy

They are no mugs, accomplishing one relatively simple task – disposing of Luxembourg’s F91 Dudelange – and capping that with something much harder, a plucky progress on away goals against Belarus’s BATE Borisov who drew with Juventus and Zenit St Petersburg last season.

The Latvians had the better of the first leg on home soil, winning 1-0 and missing more chances than BATE. In Belarus, they snatched a 14th-minute away goal through versatile, technically accomplished Moldovan midfielder Igor Tigirlas.

Despite a rearguard action worthy of John Wayne at the Alamo, Ventspils could still have lost 3-1 if Maksim Skavysh hadn’t shot wide from a good position with 14 minutes to go.

Though the Zurich general manager and coach were careful not to say anything daft or complacent after the draw, nobody gives the Latvians much of a chance. Which may suit them.

Still only 44, Grigorchuk led Ventspils to three Latvian titles in a row, the kind of domestic monopoly enjoyed by the club he admires most (Manchester United).

But he remained disarmingly modest, noting: “When you start learning, you know nothing. Then, as time goes by, you start to think you know a lot. Then you learn a bit more and you realise you know nothing.”

Ventspils drew away to Newcastle United in a UEFA Cup qualifier in 2006, even though only one supporter travelled to St James’s Park – and was promptly mocked by the Toon Army with various choruses of “You’ve only got one fan!”

It is a mark of how rapidly fortunes yo-yo in football – and the tragicomic ineptitude of Newcastle United’s senior management – that, only three years later, it is the team with only one fan – rather than the side with 30,497 – that are only 180 minutes away from the UEFA Champions League group stage.

The odds on Tigirlas’ old club, Sheriff, reaching the last 32 would seem longer still.

Still, Leonid Kuchuk, the wily Belarussian who coaches the Moldovan champions, does have one thing in his favour.

Temuri Ketsbaia, the passionate Georgian who steered Anorthosis to the group stage last season, has only been coaching Olympiacos since May and, given the volatility of Greek football, this tie could easily become a referendum on his job.

Ketsbaia: No pressure...

But for new boss Zavetteri and Kuchuck, the appropriate soundtrack might not be found in Donna Summer’s oeuvre but in the surprisingly controversial (well, in Southport anyway) body of work by Phil Collins: Against All Odds.

...

God famously works in mysterious ways. But even his works don’t cause quite as much perplexity as European football.

Since I wrote this blog, with Ventspils just 180 minutes away from becoming the first ever Latvian club to reach the UEFA Champions League group stage, the club has changed coaches.

Udinese’s old assistant Nunzio Zavetteri has replaced Grigorchuk who, internet scuttlebutt suggests, has walked out, though he says the decision was taken by both sides a long time ago.

Success can exacerbate tensions within clubs, it would be a pity if it scuppers Ventspil’s heroic attempt to reach the last 32.

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In praise of Sir Bobby Robson

Paul Simpson — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Sir Bobby Robson’s death hurts.

In a game that often seems to have the morality of a snake pit, he was a thoroughly decent man who was revered for his passion, success and commitment throughout European football but mysteriously, never got the respect he deserved in England.

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NEWS: Football world mourns Sir Bobby Robson

A fine inside-forward and half-back for Fulham, West Brom and England, he starred in the great 1960/61 England side that beat Scotland 9-3 but missed the 1962 World Cup with an ankle injury.

If he and striker Bobby Smith had been fit, England might have done better than the last eight. Such ill luck would pepper his career as manager.

Heading home against Hull - 1953

For many years after the semi-final of Italia 90, he would recall, with incredulity, the width of the post that had denied Chris Waddle and England a place in the final.

In his first proper managerial job at Fulham in the 1960s, he learned he had been fired from an Evening Standard hoarding.

At Sporting Lisbon, his reward for steering a shambolic club to the top of the Portuguese league for the first time in 15 years was the sack in December 1994.

At Barcelona two years later, given the impossible task of replacing local football deity Johan Cruyff, he won the Cup-Winners’ Cup but was still moved upstairs to make room for Louis van Gaal.

At Newcastle, he was their most successful manager since Kevin Keegan but was summarily dismissed after an iffy start to 2004/05.

Yet Robson was no nearly man.

He won the FA Cup and UEFA Cup with Ipswich, the Eredivisie twice with PSV, the Portuguese league twice with Porto (where fans dubbed him “Bobby Five O” because the team won 5-0 so often), the Cup-Winners’ Cup and the Copa del Rey with Barcelona.

Leading Ipswich to the runners-up spot twice was, even in the more open context of English football in the 1970s, some feat, especially as he only signed about 14 players in 13 years at the club.

Honoured in Ipswich

His England reign has never been properly evaluated.

His World Cup record – the last eight in 1986 and the semis in 1990 – puts him behind only Sir Alf Ramsey in the pantheon of England managers (although Robson’s record in the European Championships was much less impressive).

He had the misfortune as England manager to be confronted with a peculiarly vicious press pack who made fun of his habit of misnaming players, his expression (he had the demeanour, said one writer, “of a man who suspects he has left the gas on at home”) and tactical acumen.

At one point, Robson ruminated: “The papers think the World Cup is just for them.”

He had a point and, as his successors struggled to match his achievements, it became clear that he had actually managed England far more effectively than many hacks cared to admit.

Even so, some writers have tried to take the shine off his glory at Italia 90 by insisting that the tactical shift to a sweeper and away from 4-4-2 was the players’ idea, not his.

Robson denied this vehemently but even if you take the least flattering view of this episode, you have to credit Robson for having the imagination and the flexibility to try the tactical switch.

His greatest legacy to European football, apart from his dignity, passion and the cultured football his teams invariably played, is probably the talent he has nurtured and discovered.

Gazza, Romario, Ronaldo, Arnold Muhren, Peter Beardsley, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Terry Butcher and Kevin Beattie all owe a debt to him, while Frank Arnesen and Jose Mourinho learned a lot from working with him as they rose through the coaching system.

"Here's a tenner, go and do something about that hair..."

Robson’s integrity, courage and determination reminds me of Albert Camus’s remark that “a man does not show his greatness by remaining at one extreme but rather by touching both at once.”

Robson’s life has spanned the extremes of European football.

He will be particularly mourned in Barcelona, Birmingham, Eindhoven, Ipswich, London, Newcastle and Porto, but his memory will endure throughout the European game.

He once said of Neil Webb: “Everybody’s special, but Webbie’s special special” – and then left him on the bench for most of Italia 90.

Many coaches and players are special, but Sir Bobby was “special special.”

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Icarus allsorts

Paul Simpson — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 09:00:00 GMT

If you want to explain the mysterious decline of Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal, you might have to gen up on Greek mythology.

The Icarus paradox sounds like a bad thriller, written by a ghost of the late Robert Ludlum, but it is actually an elegant theory, coined by a business writer called Danny Miller, to explain why apparently successful companies collapse.

In a nutshell, Miller says the reason is that their strengths, like Icarus’s waxwings, can turn into fatal weaknesses.

Between 2001/02 and 2004/05, Arsenal won the Premiership twice and were runners-up twice. They never amassed less than 78 points and their average tally was 84.5.

In the last four seasons, they have racked up three fourth place finishes and one third and averaged 72.5 points a season.

You can put this into a context that includes such factors as the advent of Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea, but the decline is still stark.

And, for me, Miller’s business theory helps explain it.

One of the ways that strengths turn into weaknesses, he suggests, is that the bits of an organisation that are strongest – it might be product development or marketing or sales – become stars that begin to attract the resources previously devoted to less glamorous, but vital, bits of the company.

And that, in essence, is what has happened at Arsenal.

The qualities that were most attractive about Wenger’s team in their all-conquering era – youth, fluidity, intelligence, pace and confidence in possession – have effectively taken over the team.

And the other qualities that side shared with many great teams – physical power, the ability to close down opponents in midfield, competitive spirit, experience of big games, a certain ruthless selfishness in front of goal, and competent defensive organization – have all been crowded out.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s jibe that Arsenal are a junior team was unfair but not entirely stupid.

Instead of trophies, the fans are being consoled with visions of how good this team – if it stays together – will be at some unspecified point in the future.

This is the rhetoric you use to justify unexpected defeat in the FA Youth Cup, not the language that inspires the self-belief that led Barcelona to triumph last season.

You can see a similar process at work at many other great teams.

The Total Football that made Ajax legendary degenerated, within five years, into a regime where some players put their preferences ahead of the team.

Even the great Cruyff retreated into midfield either through exhaustion or, some have suggested, a desire to protect himself from enraged cloggers, and often abandoned his original role as the most creative attacking spearhead since Alfredo di Stefano.

Di Stefano was always the fulcrum of the greatest Real Madrid side, even though such geniuses as Puskas, Gento and Kopa surrounded him.

But as Real declined, they lost their shape and began to rely ever more heavily on Di Stefano and Puskas.

By 1964, Di Stefano, who was nearly 38, could not control the game against opposition as strong as Helenio Herrera’s Inter.

In the European Cup final that year, Di Stefano flitted in and out of the game. Real lost 3-1 and the Nerazzurri became the first team to win the trophy without losing a match.

The most blatant footballing example of Miller’s paradox is probably Real Madrid in the galacticos era, where the transfer budget was spent entirely on artistes, the craft and graft of Makelele was surplus to requirements, and the player who could have replaced him, Patrick Vieira, wasn’t offered the right deal because he wouldn’t sell enough shirts.

Real Madrid fans must hope that Florentino Perez has learned that shirt sales and artistry are not the only criteria on which teams can be judged although after watching his interview with Mihir Bose I’m not so sure.

In his blog, Bose draws entirely the wrong lesson from Hollywood history when analysing Perez’s summer spending spree.

He likens it to the Hollywood studio tactic of hiring as many stars as possible.

It’s true that MGM, for example, used to boast it had more stars than in heaven. But those stars were often signed cheap, tied to punishing contracts, suspended if they didn’t want to make a particular film or were deemed to have broken the infamous morals clause and released as soon as they were deemed to be past their best.

Behind the glamour and the hype, Hollywood studios were run by ruthless autocrats who could – and did – break the careers of the world’s greatest stars.

And the stars all knew that. When fear and autocracy no longer ruled Tinseltown, the studio system collapsed. I’m not sure if there is a parallel with Real there at all.

Bose – and Perez – are right to point out that Real, since the days of Santiago Bernabeu, has always been a president’s club.

This model worked brilliantly in the 1950s, when European football was a very different business, but has only worked sporadically since – either at Real or at other clubs like Inter.

One of the fascinating sub-plots this season will be to see whether the Bernabeu strategy can still work, 31 years after its originator died.

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The annual football famine

Paul Simpson — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:00:00 GMT

Do you remember when football shut down for the summer?

It’s hard to believe there was a time when managers didn’t daily accuse each other of hypocrisy in the back pages.

When we only knew of transfers after they had happened, like a bolt from the blue, and when you didn’t show your allegiance by wearing a replica shirt but by spraying, carving or daubing your club’s initials on any convenient surface.

And if you didn’t add the “FC” at the end you just weren’t doing it right.

July was always the cruellest month when I was a kid.

The FA Cup final was a distant memory, the annual, eternally unsuccessful quest for the Shoot league ladders had not yet begun and my aunt was grappling with the exotic mundanity of the Australian football pools.

So to fill my football-starved summers, my cousin and I would play fantasy football.

My cousin Mick’s fantasy football involved Subbuteo, lovingly staged international tournaments, and the results recorded with a black fountain pen in a Silvine exercise book.

He was such a perfectionist that underneath his team-sheets he even wrote in the half-time scores and the referee’s name with the nationality thoughtfully added in brackets: “Lo Bello (Italy).”

My fantasy football was more rudimentary. You started with the ball at one end of the lawn and had five touches to get it into the goal at the other end. After the fifth touch, possession passed to the other side.

Looking back, it seems as if, by osmosis, I had absorbed this rule from that weird northern cult known as rugby league.

My fantasy was more elaborate than Mick’s. I was, of course, the free-scoring centre-forward in a fictional team called Stanton Rangers.

Fictional football team names are crap aren’t they? My team was a rip off of Stafford Rangers who, to my limited, boyish understanding, were bossing non-league back in the 1970s.

To be fair, Stanton Rangers is no better or worse than Melchester Rovers.

My results were written down too, but scrappily in an exercise book mysteriously covered in the kind of ink blots my sarcastic Maths teacher used to circle in red and write “Eek!” – or if they were really big “Triple eek!” – next to.

I never showed these results to anyone because, mysteriously, such football make-believe wasn’t as cool as the slavish recreation of World Cups many of my mates were engaged in, as they relentlessly upgraded their plastic stadia with corner flags, TV tower and fencing.

At weekends, I would be drilled by an exacting tutor, my father, in the intricacies of curving the ball from a free-kick.

I had watched Rivelino do it and, with the confidence of youth, I assumed that I could to. All it took was hours of practice.

I might have too, but after a summer of practice, with the ball stubbornly refusing to curve around any object, I rebelled and announced I wanted to go back to kicking a ball around the lawn.

Father rebuked me for wanting to play “kick and rush like all the other bloody Europeans.” I forgave Dad the lecture but have nurtured an irrational grudge against Brazilian football ever since.

The inevitable result of such sporting deprivation was that hope built throughout the summer.

By the time you had collected the league ladders and tried – and failed – to find someone who could swap you for the Scottish Division Two clubs, you were utterly, irrationally convinced that this would be the season.

And on the opening day, some Saturday at the end of August, hope collided with reality.

And reality, more often than not, won.

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Purple Monkey business

Paul Simpson — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:00:00 GMT

Willie McStay’s new employer, Ujpest, were very nearly immortalised in the Half Man Half Biscuit song All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit.

But football’s funniest troubadours once told Champions they weren’t sure how to spell or pronounce Ujpest Dosza (the club’s old name) so they settled on Dukla Prague.

That said, Dukla Prague does scan better.

McStay called the decision to move to Budapest to coach one of Hungary’s most famous teams a “no brainer.”

The ‘golden age’ that McStay, like every other Ujpest coach, will somehow have to come to terms with started in 1967, when Lajos Baroti arrived as coach, and petered out in the early 1980s, as the Hungarian game degenerated.

The Purple Monkeys could have won the 1969 Fairs Cup. Trounced 3-0 by Newcastle United in the first leg, they were 2-0 up in front of their own fans at half-time in the second leg in Budapest.

But Newcastle manager Joe Harvey made his legendary speech in the dressing room (“Get one goal and they’ll fold like a pack of cards”), Bobby Moncur scored within a minute of the restart and the Magpies never looked back.

In England, that is the extent of Ujpest’s fame. But from 1971/72 to 1973/74, Ferencvaros’s fiercest rivals always made the last eight of the European Cup.

In 1973, they only missed out on the last four on away goals (lucky Juventus) but in 1974, they reached the semis, losing to eventual winners Bayern..

In Hungary, Ujpest were utterly dominant. In 1968, they contrived to finish as runners-up despite racking up 102 goals in 30 matches.

In 1969, they won the first of seven consecutive Hungarian titles. After plummeting to third, they bounced back to win the league again in 1978 (banging in a mere 95 goals this time) and 1979.

In the cavalier/roundhead entertainers/winning ugly dichotomy that divides football, Ujpest were definitely cavalier entertainers.

Their success was built upon an astonishing front line.

Laszlo Fazekas scored 252 goals in 407 games and Antal Dunai was one of the most prolific strikers in Europe in the late 1960s.

While the greatest of them all, the dashing, skilful Ferenc Bene averaged a goal every other game for Hungary (despite being forced to play on the wing because Florian Albert was usually deployed as the central striker).

And his stats for his club were, as Motty might say, “quite remarkable”: 303 goals in 417 games. He won gold with the Hungarians at the 1964 Olympics but didn’t hang up his boots until 1979.

Bene was one of the unsung heroes of the 1966 World Cup, scoring in every game for Hungary (who were then managed by Baroti), twisting and dribbling past most of the Brazilian defence before beating Gylmar – just two minutes and 20 seconds into this clip – in a 3-1 victory that many pundits still describe as the game of the tournament.

If Bene hadn’t played for the country that gave us Puskas, Hidegkuti, Kocsis, and Kubala he’d have been even more famous.

Ujpests’s genetic predisposition to attack reflects, in part, the feats of such pre-World War II strikers as Ferenc Szusza (whose astonishing stats – 392 goals in 463 games – stand comparison with any goalscorer from any era and explain why the club chose to name its stadium after him) and Gyula Zsengeller who, in 1938/39, scored six goals in a match on three separate occasions.

Ujpest stars have been less prolific of late – and haven’t won the league since 1998 (they were runners-up last season, nine points behind Debreceni.).

Ending that famine would help McStay escape from Baroti’s shadow. His timing might just be immaculate.

Hungarian football looks livelier than it has for decades. The national team, guided by Erwin Koeman, are a surprising second in their 2010 qualifying group.

The league seems resilient, despite the credit crunch. Foreign investment (Sheffield United have linked up with Ferencvaros, Ujpest have links to Celtic and West Ham while Honved is owned by George Hemingway, an American businessman of Hungarian origin) and foreign coaching expertise have helped Hungarian football crawl back from the abyss.

Budapest even has a Scottish themed pub The Caledonian where the chefs occasionally deep-fry Mars bars.

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Ivan Hasek’s double trouble

Paul Simpson — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:00:00 GMT

Ivan Hasek, the midfielder who skippered Czechoslovakia at Italia 90, has done something very brave. Or very stupid.

The newly elected Czech FA president has decided, after failing to persuade Slavia Prague manager Karel Jarolim to become the country’s fourth national coach in 13 months, to do the job himself.

Adviser Karel Bruckner will help Hasek, who has successfully managed Sparta Prague.

Hasek: "Oh 'eck, what I have done"

Thirteen and a bit years ago, on a sunny afternoon at Wembley, I quietly cheered on the Czechs in the Euro 96 final. I’d had a soft spot for the Czechs ever since Lladislav Petras scored that stunner against Brazil in the 1970 World Cup.

What Petras started, Alexander Dubcek and Milan Kundera consummated. Dubcek was the hero of 1968’s doomed Prague Spring, a heroic effort to humanise the eastern bloc that was 21 years ahead of its time.

Kundera wrote the great novel The Book Of Laughter And Forgetting. As an impressionable youth in the 1970s and 1980s, I found the Czechs tragic, heroic, funny and sexy, even though I’d never met any.

I hadn’t even realised that Petras and Dubcek were actually Slovakian.

The boys of 1996 – especially Pavel Nedved, Patrik Berger, Karel Poborsky, and Vladimir Smicer – made a decent living from European football. Smicer, now back at Slavia Prague, won the UEFA Champions League with Liverpool while Nedved won the Ballon d’or.

Poborsky gave his name to the Poborsky lob (recreated for Phoenix From The Flames) an inspired impromptu bit of vision and trickery against Portugal that earned him a dream move to Old Trafford that turned nightmarish.

As a member of the Czech FA’s new ruling committee, Poborsky’s new mission is to help lead Czech football out of the doldrums.

The last national coach, Frantisek Straka - dismissed after one victory against Malta - believes Czech football is paying for nostalgia: “None of us wanted to admit that one generation of players was on the way out. We forgot to give chances to certain players who went unnoticed.”

The Germans, he said, had faced a similar problem but dealt with it: “We just closed our eyes.”

The national side’s decline has been marred by the kind of scandals that once disfigured England campaigns.

Six Czech players were photographed at a restaurant till 6.30am with three ladies of the night after losing 2-1 to Slovakia, a result that jeopardized their 2010 World Cup place.

All six players – including Milan Baros and Martin Fenin – were banned from the national team for life.

Bad boy: Milan Baros

No wonder Straka, in his brief reign, made a rousing appeal for players to feel proud to wear the Czech shirt.

Sadly his speech reminded me of Michael Parkinson’s recasting of Dr Johnson’s most famous aphorism: patriotism isn’t just the last refuge of the scoundrel, it’s also the last resort of a lost cause.

It is tempting to draw parallels with the Czech Republic’s political troubles. Lacklustre as the Czech team have been, they look stellar when compared to the shambling incompetence that typified the Czech’s six-month presidency of the European Union.

Among the highlights was the Czech prime minister appearing naked and (a Czech tabloid gleefully suggested) “slightly aroused” at Silvio Berlusconi’s villa and an official artwork called Entropa that depicted fellow EU member Bulgaria as a toilet.

The recent history of Czech football has seen the wrong kind of laughter and prompted much forgetting. But Hasek has some talent to call on.

Like 22-year-old midfielder Ludas Kalouda (aka the new Nedved) and 19-year-old striker Tomas Necid. Marek Suchy, Czech young player of the year in 2006, has shown promise as a centre-back with the versatility to play in midfield.

The two Czech stars who are genuinely world class are Petr Cech and, when he finally returns, Tomas Rosicky.

But Czech football is suffering from an affliction known, in Budapest, as “the Hungarian syndrome,” a mysterious condition that prevents promising young, technically accomplished, footballers from ever fulfilling their potential.

In Hungary, the problem used to be that many young stars could earn more warming benches in Austria’s lower divisions.

Young Czech internationals play their club football for Besiktas, CSKA Moscow, Dnipro Dnipropetrosvk, Viking (in Norway) and Wolfsburg. Tomas Pekhart, the prolific U21 striker signed by Spurs in 2006, may get some regular football now he’s back at Slavia Prague on loan.

In three years at Spurs, Pekhart didn’t start a single first-team game.

Pekhart struggles to shine

The good news is that, with Barcelona and Spain triumphing, the traditional Czech emphasis on possession football is back in fashion.

Midfielder Lubo Lapsansky describes Czech football as “always about playing short balls, a lot of movement off the ball, trying to create the space for the players for the ball to be played into. It's a fairly tactical game. Players are required in any position, and need to be technically smart in advance.

"You drag the players out, and open up the space behind and you start attacking. You learn your patterns, you don't panic, you keep the ball till things open up. That's pretty much what Czech football is all about.”

With predictable perversity, the fixture list has decreed that the first shot at redemption for the Czechs – and Hasek – comes against Slovakia in Bratislava this September.

Czech hopes of a place in South Africa are not completely dead – they trail runners-up Northern Ireland by five points with a game in hand.

The Bratislava game may tell us whether Hasek has, with his unprecedented dual role, shown a lot of guts or no sense at all.

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Super trooper

Paul Simpson — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:00:00 GMT

You can tell there’s no football being played because Matthew Syed, The Times columnist by-lined as ‘sports journalist of the year’, has chosen to fill the pages of The Thunderer with that old standby of a desperate hack with nothing to say and column inches to fill.

That’s right: another piece proclaiming the inevitability of a European super league.

To be fair, Syed has an excuse: Real Madrid president Florentino Perez has put the idea into circulation again.

But pieces proclaiming the inevitability of a super league have been appearing since I edited FourFourTwo back in 1066, er 1994, and the formula is as predictable as the template for a football autobiography.

"Boys, I've got an idea..."

First, someone like Perez is invoked to justify raising this dreary old spectre.

Second, Stefan Szymanski, a London-based academic who wrote the very good book Winners And Losers: The Business Strategy Of Football is roped into saying that the economic case for a super league has never been stronger.

(Szymanski is a very bright bloke, a favourite source of opinion for Champions. but he does lose all sense of perspective when the European super league is mentioned.)

Third, a few inflated figures, taken completely out of context, are thrown in to suggest just how many billions such a venture would create.

Fourth, the franchise system, which characterises America’s major sports, is cited as a model and approving noises are made about salary caps and the draft, where the best young players can be assigned to some of the smaller teams.

And finally, the journalist concerned, mindful of the political difficulties involved in wholeheartedly recommending such an enterprise, cries a few crocodile tears and effectively says that, much as we are all appalled by the idea, the logic is inescapable.

Syed’s piece touches most of these bases. He even throws in the prospect of the enriched owners of these super league clubs, out of a sense of noblesse oblige, subsidising ticket prices for fans out of their new wealth.

Hmmm, now how likely is that exactly?

“So long as the regulatory issues are surmounted.” These are my favourite eight words in the column.

Syed mentions “regulatory issues” as a mere aside, conveniently glossing over the fact that surmounting the regulatory issues that prevent the arrangements that make American sports profitable – a salary cap and the draft – working in Europe will be about as simple and straightforward as reuniting north and south Korea.

Despite prodding by UEFA, the European Commission has not yet recognised what Eurocrats call the “specificity” of sport.

In other words, it hasn’t yet formally said that sport is a special field of human endeavour and, as such, is immune to the rules and regulations which govern other industries.

And until it does so, salary caps and drafts will remain in breach of the pact that lies at the heart of the European Union: the Treaty of Rome which guarantees freedom of labour.

Will Europe’s heads of state agree to amend that for the convenience of Florentino Perez? Bear in mind, this process would require the unanimous consent of EU members and, in some countries, a referendum.

Even with Milan’s impresario Silvio Berlusconi running Italy, Europe’s leaders might conclude that they have more important things to be doing right now.

"Errrrr, I'll get back to you"

Even if the European Commission recognises sport’s specificity, it is far from clear whether that would give clubs the right to cap salaries.

The European Commission, despite the flak it is regularly exposed to by the intellectual pygmies on the Daily Mail’s leader desk, has been pretty sensible in its approach to sport.

When UEFA asked it to support Platini’s attempt to ban international transfers for players under 18, the Commission effectively said: “OK, prove to us this will actually stop football hiring ‘child labour’ and we’ll consider it.”

Somehow, I can’t see it agreeing to waive the rules on salaries for the convenience of a few billionaires.

Szymanski always seems to suggest that money will solve the problem as if the European Commission is uniquely susceptible to corporate clout.

Go tell that to Microsoft who, in 2004, were fined £331 million by the Commission for abusing its market dominance.

Syed, like every super league prophet, seems to take it as read that the prospect of Europe’s big clubs meeting each other twice a week would thrill supporters, the media, sponsors and broadcasters.

I would refer him to the law of diminishing returns, a concept he seems never to have heard of but is memorably cited by the great Europhilosopher Martin Fry in the ABC song Many Happy Returns.

Surely one of the reasons that Barcelona vs Manchester United is such a compelling spectacle is that it doesn’t happen every week?

In Hollywood, the usual guideline is that sequels only make 66-75 percent of the revenue racked up by the original movie. A few break that rule. Most don’t, a fact for which we should all be thankful, as it has stopped the studios trying to foist Police Academy 75 on us.

The timing is just plain wrong. The world’s broadcasters, reeling from vanishing advertising revenues and shrinking audiences, won’t all be willing to stump up the extra billions needed to screen such a tournament.

The market for sports sponsorship is pretty lean. And can you imagine the writs that would fly if, for example, the Premier League’s 'Big Four' pulled out of it?

Sheffield United vs West Ham would, in comparison, be a tempest in a teacup.

"Good game. See you next week..."

Syed concludes that, horrible as all this sounds, the super league clubs will probably come to some kind of compromise with UEFA and FIFA to avoid players being banned from international competitions.

I’m not quite sure what kind of compromise he has in mind, or even if he is using the word compromise in the way that you and I might understand it.

Don’t compromises usually involve two parties giving up something they want to protect something they hold dearer?

If the super league wrecked the Champions League, what would there be left for UEFA to compromise over?

So to recap then, despite what our sports journalist of the year says, a super league is not inevitable. Nor, indeed, would it necessarily be that super.

But it is a super way to fill a few column inches on a slow day. And will be for years to come.

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Why Real Madrid haven't got Kaka’s number

Paul Simpson — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:00:00 GMT

With a feint as elegant as any he showed in the 2007 UEFA Champions League final, Kaka has given Real Madrid’s attempts to make him the new Zidane the swerve.

In an interview with Champions – out on July 8 – the Brazilian made it clear that: “I wouldn’t like to wear Zidane’s No.5. That would be a huge responsibility after all he has done for the club over the years.”

His own preference was probably No.18 – the number he wore playing for the Rest Of The World against Real Madrid on February 18 2002 in a match to celebrate the club’s centenary, and his age when he fought back from the injury that could have left him paralysed.

But 18 isn’t an especially sexy number. It doesn’t have the quirky resonance of Michael Jordan’s 23 and was only worn as 1+8 at Inter by Ivan Zamorano because Ronaldo wouldn’t relinquish his No.9.

Inter Milan vs Sesame Street

And the number has some odd associations: 18 could be a coded homage to Adolf Hitler as it uses the first (A) and eighth (H) letter of the alphabet.

Certainly this choice could have hit Madrid's merchandising machine in Belgium, where footballers have been banned from wearing 18 and 88 (usually taken to stand for HH – Heil Hitler) because of their suspected Nazi sub-texts.

This is not to suggest that Mikael Silvestre, Dirk Kuyt or Marek Jankulovski (who all wear No.18 for their clubs) have any idea of the number’s sinister undertones or are even aware of the British neo-Nazi movement Combat 18.

Madrid’s marketing men felt that, purely in the interests of shirt sales, it was the Brazilian’s duty to wear a more iconic number.

Within the club hierarchy, the idea of Kaka as Real’s No.5, as the new Zizou, seemed the perfect solution, almost as much of a no-brainer in this sequel-ridden world as Harry Potter VI and Police Academy 67.

But Kaka obviously dug in and, after some wrangling and wrestling, player and club compromised on No.8.

In football parlance, it’s not an especially legendary number, lacking the mythology that surrounds 7, 9 and 10.

"We'll start the bidding at 65 million Euros"

Hristo Stoitchkov wore 8 for Bulgaria in the 1994 World Cup, while three clubs have retired the number: Cobreola (for midfielder Fernando Cornejo), Dynamo Ceske Budejovice (Karel Poborksy) and Fredrikstad (for winger Dagfinn Enerly).

In a battle of global football icons, none of these are seriously going to challenge Kaka but maybe that is the point: this is the Brazilian’s chance to become the definitive number eight.

Eight is regarded as a lucky number by the Chinese (it sounds like the word for prosper), Buddhists (there are eight spokes in the wheel that symbolises Buddha’s teaching) and many Christians because, as Kaka would certainly know judging from his evangelical line of T-shirts, Jesus Christ dwells on eight beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount.

So Kaka is now No.8, moving incumbent Fernando Gago to No.5 – a number which, in Argentinian football is almost as resonant as 10, signifies a defensive midfielder who has the artistry to play a bit too.

Eight is a small victory for Kaka, evidence of the determination that – since his remarkable recovery as a teenager – hasn’t always been apparent beneath the beautifully spun blandness of his public persona.

And if his move to Madrid succeeds, kids across the world could be wearing 8 in his honour for years to come.

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Betamax, Best & Buzz

Paul Simpson — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:00:00 GMT

I have seen the future of football on TV and it is terrifying.

Yes, even scarier than Newcastle's new away kit inspired by Custard Creams, deckchairs and the laudable desire to ensure that Geordies don’t suffer from seasonal affective disorder.

I don’t know if your TV is ready for HD. Mine is unready, probably unwilling and almost certainly unable to offer any definition higher than slightly blurred.

Turns out I needn’t worry because HD will soon be as cutting edge as Betamax. The tellies of tomorrow will show football in 3D!

Jonathan Sim, Sky Sports’ amiable press officer mentioned this last autumn when I visited Fortress Isleworth to interview Graeme Souness.

Not wishing to show my ignorance – did he mean we’d all wear those funny paper glasses in our own homes? – I tried to grunt knowledgeably. A couple of months later, Sky tested the idea on a Liverpool vs Marseille game.

There are technical obstacles and the usual rows over standards but many sane people in sport and broadcasting seem convinced that in a few years, for the price of a plasma TV, we’ll be able to watch the action in 3D.

This isn’t quite as scary a prospect as it might have been a decade ago.

Watching the menacing amplitude of Neil Ruddock in 3D would have prompted millions to cower behind the sofa as if the Daleks were coming.

As vivid as 3D TV will make football, I have one question: what happens when players spit? Surely broadcasters aren’t prepared for the avalanche of personal injury claims from viewers who irreparably damage neck muscles jerking to avoid flying phlegm.

"LOOK OUT! It's coming right for us..."

Stripping yarns...

Not sure if the Newcastle away strip is the worst ever. See what you think.

I especially like Birmingham City’s splashed blue strip from 1992. It is tempting to see such monstrosities as evidence that the modern game has gone bonkers.

But kit designers have always shown been a bit barmy as this gallery of Victorian football strips richly demonstrates.

The agonising glory of Lubanski...

Jonathan Woodgate’s mum has, according to his tweet, been rediscovering her childhood through YouTube.

I thought I’d have a go at finding the most obscure footballers from my formative years.

Sadly, there was no Paul Cutler – Nuneaton Borough’s answer to George Best (he had the hairstyle and was the hero of our 1966/67 FA Cup run)

But I did find Wlodzimieriz Lubanski, the greatest Polish footballer who scored against England in 1973 and was then crippled – three and a half minutes into this clip – by Roy McFarland.

Despite McFarland’s attempt to use international sign language to suggest that Lubanski was just being an eastern European jesse, the wrecked cruciate ligament sidelined the star for the 1974 World Cup and he had retired when the Poles made the 1982 finals so he never became a household name like Grzegorz Lato and Kazimierz Deyna.

But about 18 years ago, when I was in New Orleans, a young black cab driver started talking to me about soccer.

Once he realised I was English, talk swiftly turned to Bobby Moore and then to Lubanski.

“Lubanski was baaaad,” he declared emphatically, the first time I, in my sheltered existence, had heard the word “bad” inverted to mean good.

I was so taken aback, I never really discovered how a young black taxi driver in New Orleans – he must have been 20 at most – had come to conceive such an intense admiration for a reasonably obscure, if brilliant, Polish footballer.

Football fame works in exceedingly mysterious ways.

Lubanski: "That goal was baaaad"

The Buzz Aldrin question...

Late last week, as the latest issue of Champions was being wrestled into submission, the question was asked: “Should we do a Buzz Aldrin feature in Champions?”

The feature would not, alas, focus on Buzz’s secret life as a long distance supporter of Bristol Rovers, but on the dilemma he faced as he hurtled back to earth in a craft that was almost, as David Bowie said, a tin can: after you’ve been to the moon, what can you possibly do next?

Footballers are luckier than astronauts. There is always another competition to win to help deflect the big question.

But sometimes, it forces itself upon a player. As Michael Parkinson noted, the night of the 1968 European Cup final was the point when, George Best felt, Bacchus replaced Busby as his mentor.

Best could remember the game but not the celebration or the meal that night with his girlfriend. He was only 22, had just won the European Cup and that campaign would win him the European footballer of the year award.

But he never won another significant trophy.

Romario’s fall, after winning USA 94, was less tragic – he just got bored with playing for Barcelona, only rekindling his fire as a club player when he had that 1000 goal target in his sights.

It’s hard to see any of the Barcelona players losing it as spectacularly, or as tragically, as Best but the Buzz Aldrin question will haunt many of them in its own way.

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The outlaw known as CR7

Paul Simpson — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Lithe as a cat, a snappy dresser, a lethal marksman who rose from abject poverty to achieve fame and notoriety and be exploited by image-makers.

This could easily describe Cristiano Ronaldo but it actually refers to the notorious outlaw Billy the Kid.

Billy – or Henry McCarty to use his real name – doesn’t look much like CR7.

Truth be told, his picture on Wikipedia makes him look a bit gormless – not that I’d ever have said as much to his face or his pistol.

CR7 looks like a lot of people – Cliff Richard circa 1958 (though with more genuine menace) and Ian Beale’s gay brother-in-law (who just happens to be called Christian: coincidence? I think not) to name but two – but takes to the pitch with the cocky strut of a gunfighter confident he can out-draw any opponent.

Cliff: "£80 million? I don't stir for anything less than 100!"

Even in the misery that was his night in Rome, there was something heroic, if self-defeating, about CR7’s evident belief that he could, in the manner of John Wayne, win the thing single-handed.

Statistics were as pivotal to Billy’s fame as to Cristiano Ronaldo’s.

CR7’s 42 goals in a season will loom over him almost as much as The Kid’s inflated tally of 21 victims – one for each year of his life – doomed him to a shabby end, shot in the dark (and possibly in the back) by sheriff Pat McGarrett in 1881.

Ronaldo’s stats are genuine – evidence now suggests that the Kid may have only killed four men.

CR7 and Billy are natural soloists.

Though the Kid belonged to a gang called the Regulators, who have been posthumously hailed as revolutionaries fighting corporate conservatism in the American West, he was never a team player.

Nor, at his best, is CR7. This is often used in evidence against him but you could level the same charge at so many other geniuses from George Best to Hristo Stoitchkov.

Almost every successful striker has been a selfish genius.

And like many selfish geniuses, CR7 and Billy were obsessive self-improvers – Ronaldo’s obsessive willingness to keep practicing free-kicks is matched by Billy’s enthusiasm for practicing shooting at anything from every conceivable angle.

Just as the American West needed gunfighters like Billy to fuel its mythology, so football needs bad boy anti-heroes like Ronaldo.

We grudgingly admire his genius but love to tut our disapproval when he doesn’t pass to a well-placed teammate.

Every Ronaldo tantrum gives the grubbiest of us the cheap thrill of moral superiority, just as Billy’s misdemeanours – real or inflated – gave upstanding, law-abiding citizens an easy pride.

Ronaldo’s salary provokes a media pandemic of synthetic outrage as columnists, though eager to switch newspapers and websites for a few thousand quid, hypocritically lambast him for his greed.

And we are entertained by his bizarre costumes – it enables us to mock this working class hero (sorry folks, but that’s what CR7 is, even if, like many other working class heroes, he does stuff we don’t approve of) for his dubious taste.

Cristiano sports the cream suit & crutches look

In contrast, Lionel Messi is sold as a clean cut hero, Diego Maradona’s skills in the persona of Gary Cooper.

But if Westerns tell us anything, it’s that the distinction between hero and villain is usually not as clear-cut as it appears.

And, for good or ill, there is something intriguingly authentic about Ronaldo’s moodiness, snarls of frustration, and arrogant genius.

You almost get the sense that, like Billy, he could cut loose at any moment and decide the rules don’t apply to him.

It’s not admirable, and it doesn’t make him a great role model, but it does make him thrilling to watch.

So I, for one, will be disappointed if it all goes horribly wrong for CR7 in Madrid.

Football has enough players who are '25 going on 40'. The game, like the American West and the movie genre it inspired, needs its outlaws.

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Matt, Macca & Johnny Foreigner

Paul Simpson — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 11:00:00 GMT

His dream of playing for his hometown club in ruins, Matt Derbyshire has done a very brave thing, effectively engineering a move to Olympiakos.

Ignored in Blackburn, adored in Athens, the promising 22-year-old is setting an example many other English footballers should follow – for their own good and the good of the game.

The narrative of Britain’s football industry in the 20th century bears certain similarities to the story of British shipbuilding and steel.

Where once we led the world, exporting to all four corners of the globe, we now rely on imports.

And our frustration at this state of affairs leaves us, too often, xenophobic and insular, an attitude brilliantly caught by Simon Barnes in The Times, commenting on Big Phil’s demise:

“You may be good enough for Brazil, but if you think you’re good enough for Chelsea, you got another think coming.

"You come here with your fancy talk about winning the World Cup, but what about the Carling Cup, eh? How many times have you won that?”

Greek god: Matt Derbyshire

Buccaneers and pioneers...

It wasn’t always like this. British sailors introduced football to countries as diverse as Brazil, Iran and Spain.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, a buccaneering, hardy breed of British coaches like William Garbutt, Jimmy Hogan, Fred Pentland and James Richardson Spensley popularised British methods on the continent.

Garbutt, a right-winger for Arsenal, managed abroad (mostly in Italy) for 35 years. His Genoa players called him “Mister” and the title stuck – for Garbutt and every coach in Italy.

Rejected by the English game, Hogan collaborated with Hugo Meisl to create the glory that was Austria’s Wunderteam in the 1930s and influenced the football played by the Hungary side that beat England 6-3 and 7-1 in 1953 and 1954 respectively.

The next two generations of coaches – men like Vic Buckingham, Dave Mackay, Gordon Milne and, later, Terry Venables and Bobby Robson – were happy to make their mark abroad, winning honours in Egypt, Holland, Portugal, Spain and Turkey.

Yet when Steve McClaren took on the Twente job, he was derided in the parochial British media, as if he had voluntarily gone into exile purely to escape the “wally with the brolly” jibes.

His move showed guts. Too many of McClaren’s contemporaries are content, after a setback, to scale down their ambitions to the pundit’s couch.

Hungary run riot in '53

British players have not traditionally been terrifically adventurous.

But with, according to Fabio Capello, only 35 percent of Premier League players born in England, that attitude must change.

If this percentage remains constant, there will be over 300 squad places unavailable to English players who will face a stark choice: resign themselves to the fact that the Championship is the best they can hope for or move abroad.

Model behaviour...

It’s not just about the players. Developing football nations and clubs usually adapt and adopt a strategy that has succeeded elsewhere.

Over the last 30 years, the most influential models have been:

Brazil (popular in Turkey, the Middle East, Japan, Russia, South Africa, Uzbekistan – and, briefly, Chelsea),

Germany (Greece, the Middle East, Kazakhstan and certain parts of Africa),

Holland (Austria, Barcelona, Germany, Russia, South Korea – and, briefly, Chelsea)

...and Italy (England, Ireland, Spain, Switzerland – and, now, Chelsea).

After les Bleus’ 1998 World Cup win, the French model was briefly in vogue, especially in England, but – apart from Arsene Wenger – the Gallic school remains only really influential in Africa.

Nobody follows the English model because there isn’t one anymore.

France batter the Samba Boys in '98

The rest of Europe respects the Premier League’s wealth, profile and passion – but doesn’t look to England for ideas that will shape the future of the game.

Does this matter? For British players and coaches, it certainly does because it will affect their livelihood.

Besides, the British game is not so perfect that it couldn’t be improved with a few clever ideas from abroad.

And the best English players and coaches may learn from that trade in ideas. The Premier League may even benefit because, as Florentino Perez is showing, it cannot count on wealth as its competitive edge forever.

Even if England do win the 2010 World Cup, it will, sadly, be regarded as a victory for the Italian school of football.

When Capello’s home country appoints an Englishman to coach a top-flight club, the country that invented the modern game will, once again, be able to claim that it is influential as well as rich.

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Cornish patsies, Tinmen & c**k a boodle do

Paul Simpson — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:00:00 GMT

There are eight Cornish footballers famous enough to be listed on Wikipedia.

Three of them have the word “c**k” in their surname. Make of that what you will.

(Ed - note our efficient swear filter has unfortunately edited the surnames of brothers Jack and Donald)

Scouring cyberspace last week, I came across the words “Cornish footballer” and wondered – this being the close season – if I could construct a team from the county of King Arthur, surf boards and ice cream.

So far, the answer is no.

I have Nigel Martyn in goal, another goalkeeper Dave Philp (seven games for Plymouth in 1984/85) out of position at centre-half, Matthew Etherington bombing down the wing – or not, as is his wont – and five strikers: the c**k brothers...

Jack, a gifted tenor singer who became the first Cornishman to play for England and his younger brother Donald who wasn’t as good a singer or footballer.

Mike Trebilcock (the first black player to score in an FA Cup final), Tony Kellow (fondly remembered by Exeter fans – if not by me – after scoring a hat-trick against Leicester City in the 1981 FA Cup and now campaigning to have Cornwall enter the next Commonwealth Games).

And Richie Reynolds (Pompey supporters player of the year in 1992).

Jack: England's first Cornishman

From Cornwall to Millwall...

The c*cks (another brother Herbert played a bit too) were born in Hayles, on the southwest coast of Cornwall, but were never really local heroes.

Perhaps scarred by what must have been unremitting playground taunts, they went east and made their names at Brentford.

Jack, a tall, mobile striker scored two goals in two games for England in 1919/20 and, bizarrely, was never selected again.

He really made his mark at Chelsea but did score 73 of his 234 league goals for Plymouth Argyle between 1927 and 1929.

Once again, he spurned the southwest for the southeast, joining Millwall when he was 34 and making like an unstoppable goalscoring machine.

After managing the Lions (during World War II) he ran a pub in New Cross. When he died in 1966, he was 73, some innings for a man who, in World War I, had been declared “missing in action, presumed dead” on the Western Front.

He died a few weeks before the World Cup but, mercifully for him, before The Sun reinvented the sports headline.

Otherwise his name might have inspired such screamers as “Ay up c**k!” after he single-handedly demolished Barnsley in the third round of the FA Cup; “c**k-a’Hoop!” as rumours of a summer move to QPR reached the back pages and “c**k a boodle do” after Chelsea doubled his wages.

From three c*cks to Trebilcock...

I remember Mike Trebilcock, not as a player but as a card I swapped at school and as a name that, in memory, is always spoken with that peculiar urgency and invisible exclamation mark David Coleman brought to football commentary.

The dramatic cry of “Trebilcock!” must have lodged in my memory after the 1966 FA Cup final in which he scored twice in five minutes for Everton to shatter Sheffield Wednesday.

I seldom heard the name again because, although he was only 22 then, that was as good as it got for Trebilcock.

He was soon shuffled off to Portsmouth (where he was reasonably prolific), Torquay and Weymouth before emigrating to Sydney where, at the tender age of 30, he starred upfront for the Western Suburbs.

"TREBILCOCK!"

As a boy in the fishing village of Gunnislake, Trebilcock read – and dreamt of being – Roy of the Rovers. But scouts rarely made it as far as his council estate.

It took a new neighbour – a woman who knew the Blackpool manager and offered to write a recommendation for the youngster – to persuade the boy Trebilcock his dreams might become reality.

His family couldn’t pay the fare to Blackpool but in a circuitous way, his neighbour’s enthusiasm paid off.

Ellis Stuttard, who managed Plymouth then and had a rare genius for scouting the right 14 and 15 year olds, told him: “You don’t want to go to Blackpool – come to Plymouth it’s nearer home”.

Even so, it was a while before the Trebilcock family were convinced football was a better prospect than working in the quarry.

Trebilcock’s travails may explain why, historically, Cornwall has been one of England’s least significant football counties. (Just above the now defunct Rutland.)

In the old days, scouts returned to hotbeds and feeder clubs – like Wallsend Boys Club, the source of Alan Shearer, Peter Beardsley and Michael Carrick – they knew, and Cornwall wasn’t really on the map.

Today, the trade in footballers is so global, a nearby league club is almost as likely to sign a player from Liberia as Liskeard.

Last season the Pilgrims had no Cornishmen in their first-team squad but did have a Hungarian defender, midfielders hailing from Togo and the Congo and an English-born Austrian striker called Ashley.

Cornwall’s football may prosper if troubled property magnate Kevin Heaney achieves his dream of making Truro City the first Cornish club in the Football League.

The Tinmen, winners of the 2007 FA Vase, have four rungs to climb on the non-league ladder.

As Truro has a population of 20,000 – nearly a third smaller than Accrington’s – such a goal seems on a par with Kevin Costner’s dream of building a baseball stadium on his farm.

The difference being, alas, that dreams come true more often in Hollywood movies than in football.

Truro: Making waves in non-league

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Cristiano, Alf & the world’s most expensive racehorse

Paul Simpson — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:30:00 GMT

When Alf Common broke the world transfer record with a £1,000 move to Middlesbrough in 1905, one sportswriter snootily complained: “We are tempted to wonder whether association football players will eventually rival thoroughbred yearling racehorses in the market.”

That moment has long passed.

The world’s most expensive racehorse Green Monkey cost John Magnier, Sir Alex Ferguson’s fellow enthusiast for the sport of kings, a mere £9m in 2006.

This expensive young colt was put out to pasture last year after failing to win a single race.

"You can't win anything with green monkeys... no, seriously"

Green Monkey’s anti-climactic fate has been shared by many footballers traded like livestock for record-breaking sums.

Common, an aggressive, sturdy forward with an eye for goal and a Lord Kitchener moustache did his duty for Boro, scoring 65 goals in 178 games and keeping them in the top flight.

But the FA heartily disapproved of this lucrative transfer and he never played for England again after joining Boro. When the time came to leave Teesside, he didn’t even get his promised £250 benefit and joined Woolwich Arsenal on a free transfer.

Syd Puddefoot did well financially out of his world record move from West Ham United to… Falkirk in 1922.

He was given a £390 signing fee (not bad when a player’s average wage was £8 a week) when the Scottish club paid £5,000 for him.

But the Cockney striker only scored 45 goals for the Bairns because, he claimed, his Scottish teammates wouldn’t pass to him and joined Blackburn – for £4,000 – in 1925 having missed the Hammers’ FA Cup glory in 1923.

Fifty years later, Giuseppe Savoldi became the world’s most expensive player, joining Napoli for £1.2m.

He was 28, had been pretty prolific at Bologna (he was top scorer in Serie A in 1973/74), and scored only slightly less frequently for Napoli. But he won only three more caps while in Naples and, four years later, rejoined the Rossoblu.

He did make an indelible impression on the fans though.

By 1992, the price for the world’s most expensive footballer had risen to £13m. The Serie A star burdened with this fee was winger/left-midfielder Gianluigi Lentini.

The Vatican condemned his purchase by Milan as an “offence against the dignity of work” and religious souls may have seen evidence of divine disfavour when a car crash left him, at the age of 24, in a coma, with a fractured skull and a damaged eye socket.

He made a full recovery, his career didn’t. Only 40, he still plays for ASD Saviglianese in the Italian regional leagues. On YouTube you can get a sense of the talent, looks and style that prompted some to liken him to Maradona.

So the dismal pattern continues, with some variations.

Alan Shearer’s record-busting £15m move to Newcastle delivered lots of goals, no trophies and a crown of thorns status as the new Geordie Messiah.

Other record-breakers gone wrong include Denilson (£21.5m, paid by Real Betis, in 1998), Roberto Baggio (£8m to Juve in 1990), Ronaldo (£19.5m to Inter, 1997) and Christian Vieri (£32m to Inter, 1999).

You can count the number of record-breaking deals that definitively succeeded on the fingers of one hand: Luis Suarez to Inter (1961), Johan Cruyff to Barcelona (1973), Maradona to Napoli (1984), and Luis Figo to Real (2000).

Zidane’s £46m arrival at the Bernabeu in 2001 is a hard one to call.

He was truly inspirational, sold shedloads of merchandise but won the UEFA Champions League only once (while his less galactical predecessors conquered Europe in 1998 and 2000) and never won a major trophy with France while at Real.

You might say the transfer paid off – if only for the artistry with which he entertained the Bernabeu faithful.

But his transfer, like many others, suggests that no matter how fulsomely the world’s most expensive player is praised as they sign their lucrative new contract, in the long run these transfers often work out better for the club – and the Guinness Book of Records – than the player.

Zizou seals his one - and only - Champions League triumph

Real Madrid may pay nine times as much for CR7 as Magnier splashed out for Green Monkey but the deals do have certain similarities.

Footballer and racehorse were bought in the belief that past results guarantees future performance. And failure will not be tolerated.

CR7 will, at least, have longer to justify his cost. Green Monkey retired after failing to win three races.

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Galacticos, urchins and why CR7 let United down

Paul Simpson — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:00:00 GMT

It was the best of seasons, it was the worst of seasons.

Yes, 2008/09 was a season where one club could spend £136 million on two players in a week while a rival in the same league, Valencia, were so impoverished – in a Dickensian-Victorian street urchin kind of way – that they considered hiring out players to grace bar mitzvahs and weddings.

You have to admire Florentine Perez’s audacity. Since he quit Real Madrid in 2006, it has been impossible for anyone in football to use the word ‘galactico’ without smirking.

The mere mention of the g-word conjured up all the empty emperor’s-new-clothes pomp of a discredited regime.

But now back in office, Perez seems to have decided that, yes, he made mistakes – but they weren’t the blunders everyone thought he made. His true faux pas, his transfer dealings suggest, was not to think galactically enough.

It’s as if Napoleon, mulling over that tricky away fixture at Waterloo, had decided his fatal error had been not to take on the Austrian army as well as the British, the Prussians and the Dutch.

One way out of a fixture pile-up

Perez's return is swanky, expensive, headline-hogging proof that the “fan in the boardroom” syndrome is alive and well.

Not that anybody who has followed the extraordinary odyssey of Gigi Becali, the Steaua Bucharest owner, will ever have doubted that.

Becali threatened to go back to tending sheep if he didn’t win a seat in the European Parliament. Sadly for Steaua fans – but luckily for those placid, woolly creatures – Becali did get elected.

His love for a much greater European institution, the UEFA Champions League, is so fierce that he is now talking of fusing Steaua with Romania’s surprise champions Unirea Urziceni so his club can compete in the tournament next season.

While football can be too insular, it’s hard to see fusion – a concept that works well when reconciling different national cuisines – catching on.

Unirea have given Becali’s suggestion short shrift. Becali might get a slightly longer shrift from Mike Ashley, but that’s another story.

The fact that Ashley’s club, Newcastle, is apparently now worth only slightly more than Cristiano Ronaldo is an appropriately bizarre footnote to a surreal, rambunctious season of European football which has ultimately degenerated into freakonomics and deserved to have as its headline sponsor Charles Dickens, Irwin Shaw (author of Rich Man Poor Man) or Andre Breton who, as leader of the Surrealist movement, had the most difficult managerial job imaginable.

Apart, of course, from managing a squad of Dutch footballers.

Besides, the player of the season for me isn’t CR7, who, according to this Statbunker list only scored twice away from home in the Premier League (Ed: True – two within eight minutes, when United were already 3-0 up at wooden-spooners West Brom) but Milivoje Novakovic, the Cologne skipper who, despite sounding like he ought to represent Slovenia at tennis rather than football, scored 12 – out of 16 – of his Bundesliga goals away from home.

Novakovic: "In your face, pretty boy!!"

While the resurgence of the galacticos is good for a headline or thousand, the real story of 2008/09 may be the number of club chairmen and presidents across Europe who, after watching Barca triumph in Rome, are ordering their directors of football, in a manner reminiscent of the tyrant in the Sam Peckinpah Western, to “bring me the new Josep Guardiola.”

Football, like the mafia, isn’t always that imaginative. And many of Joan Laporta’s peers across Europe will be staring at their youth and reserve team coaches this summer and thinking: “Could he? Is he?”

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Rebels or robots: Which would you prefer?

Paul Simpson — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:30:00 GMT

On dull days like these I find myself missing the gorgeous, selfish genius of Hristo Stoitchkov.

The only Bulgarian to win the Ballon d’Or, he completed Johan Cruyff’s Dream Team.

True, he never quite clocked the fact that football was a team game but, for Cruyff, that was the point. His Barcelona needed the Bulgarian’s unpredictable, egotistical greatness to conquer Europe.

The Dream Team could pass their way to glory but if that wasn’t working, Stoitchkov could, in his heyday, be relied on to try something spectacular, outrageous and successful.

"In your face, world!"

Such genius is fragile; it doesn’t take long before the player begins to believe in their own infallibility.

But Stoitchkov gave me arguably the finest 90 minutes in my football life against Germany at USA 94. I have a tape of that game in a box in the cupboard under the stairs and still watch it twice a year.

Sadly, Stoitchkovs are rarer than they used to be.

You could even argue that as far back as the 1990s, Stoitchkov was actually a throwback. The debate over how much freedom players should have on the pitch is almost as old as football.

But as Jonathan Wilson points out in his fine book Inverting The Pyramid, it became particularly acute in the 1960s and 1970s.

The application of an English-style based on shape, pressing, a high offside trap and long-ball counter-attacks in Sweden by Bobby Houghton in the 1970s laid the foundations for Malmo’s run to the European Cup final and IFK Gothenburg’s two UEFA Cup triumphs.

But it also ran the risk, as coaching instructor Lars Arnesson complained, of “stifling initiative and turning players into robots”.

Arnesson’s fears were fulfilled just across the border by Egil Olsen’s hugely successful, but almost unwatchable, Norway.

The fact remains that we, as supporters, like to be entertained by players, and not coaches.

And although football can, in one way, be seen as a tactical evolution – the inversion of the pyramid, as Wilson puts it in the title of his book – it can also be seen as a YouTube clip of glorious moments, a history that is even more powerful because it is personal and unique.

My own clip includes Stoitchkov’s screaming free-kick against Germany, a crossbar sent a-quivering by Frank Worthington one 1970s weekday night when the Foxes beat Ipswich 5-0, and a Maradonaesque goal (the dribble, not the Hand of God) by the wonderfully named Hampton & Richmond striker Ashley Sestanovich against Aylesbury in 2005.

The day I conclude that my personal YouTube compilation is complete is the day I give up on football.

Worthington: Certainly not an automaton

In Champions earlier this season, the Brazilian great Falcao called on midfielders to show “tactical insubordination” and defy their coaches if they felt the game required them to do so.

Guus Hiddink had the courage to let Philip Cocu do just that at PSV, switching formations whenever he thought it necessary.

Wayne Rooney might have done better in Rome if he’d had more of Stoitchkov’s selfish certainty.

You couldn’t fault his loyalty, energy or diligence against Barcelona, but a player of his gifts should be encouraged to use them as he sees fit; to improvise a Plan B if Plan A is so obviously not working.

It’s odd that in a game where players are increasingly judged on the quality of their decision-making, many coaches do their best to ensure they have so few decisions to make.

A team of Stoitchkovs would be delightful and disastrous, but surely more coaches could really mean it when they tell their players to express themselves?

And more great players should rebel and have the guts to risk failure and reproach by trying to take the game’s outcome into their own hands.

If I wanted to watch football played by robots, I’d go and watch the heavy metal sport in Korea.

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The perfect man to coach Chelsea

Paul Simpson — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:00:00 GMT

Is Carlo Ancelotti the perfect man to coach Chelsea? Obviously not.

The perfect man would need the cunning of Machiavelli, the intelligence of Socrates, the vision of Napoleon and the humility of the Dalai Lama.

Such paragons are hard to find, even in football.

But is he the best man available to do the job? Probably.

Guus Hiddink would have offered more continuity. The flaw in his CV is that he doesn’t want the job.

The Moyesiah has done a great job at Everton on reasonably limited resources – I say reasonably because he has spent £27 million on the Yak and Marouane Fellaini – but he has won no significant silverware and made little headway in Europe.

And do David Moyes’s Everton play football in the entertaining fashion of Real Madrid, a style that captivated Roman Abramovich when he saw the triumphant white angels at Old Trafford in 2003?

Even diehard Everton fans would have to admit they do not. Moyes is a very good manager but, compared to Ancelotti, his only edge is that he speaks better English.

"GetbackandefendasaunitNOW!"

The case against Ancelotti is that he is Italian, could be another Scolari and, in recent years, has presided over the decline of an ageing team in Milan.

The likes of Tony Cascarino are already predicting he won’t last the season.

Since none of us – not even Cascarino – can predict the future, let’s focus on the facts.

Under Abramovich, Chelsea has been famous for byzantine intrigues and rumours about the owner’s preference for certain players and a particular style of play.

In other words, the same situation Ancelotti who has managed at Milan since he replaced Fatih Terim in 2001 and found himself getting advice about team selection and tactics, through the media, and from Silvio Berlusconi.

No matter how baroque the boardroom politics at Chelsea are, they surely won’t surpass anything Ancelotti experienced with Juventus and Milan.

In the competition that matters most to Abramovich, Ancelotti has a better record than any coach in Europe.

In eight years, he has won the UEFA Champions League twice, lost a final on penalties and, in 2006, was deprived of a place in the final against Arsenal on the whim of a referee who disallowed a perfectly good Andriy Shevchenko goal.

"Eh?"

Milan have been a team in transition of late and Ancelotti’s exit from the San Siro marks the end of a cycle for the Rossoneri.

But the decline is not entirely of Ancelotti’s making.

As Berlusconi tightened the purse strings, the Rossoneri have simply not competed with Inter in the transfer market.

Relatively inexpensive gambles on short-term solutions like Rivaldo, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Beckham were not, in such circumstances, so daft.

Refreshing the team by signing younger players, as the media demanded, would have cost Berlusconi millions he didn’t want to spend.

Ancelotti has bequeathed one exciting young talent to Leonardo. If Kaka does go, Alexandre Pato could be the player to build a new Rossoneri around.

Watching Ancelotti’s Milan in the flesh – in Athens in 2007 and in that summer’s Super Cup – I realised that they were a proper football team in the old-fashioned sense.

Players knew what their jobs were, did them and played for each other with a selflessness that is rare in the modern game.

The relentless focus on teamwork started with Arrigo Sacchi but Ancelotti has gloriously maintained that tradition.

Chelsea, by contrast, have only showed that kind of spirit in the first season under Mourinho and, more recently, under Guus Hiddink.

"Press, Marco. Like this"

Ancelotti’s alleged preference for old masters has been used in evidence against him because the consensus is that he has to rebuild an ageing squad.

But there are fewer Chelsea pensioners on the books than the media would have us believe: Alex, Jose Bosingwa, Joe Cole, Michael Essien, Salomon Kalou, Michael Mancienne, John Obi Mikel and John Terry are all the right side of 30.

Besides, the brutal truth is that the Premier League is now so uncompetitive – Chelsea could have dropped another 19 points last season and still made the Champions League play-offs – that Ancelotti could, with Abramovich’s backing, afford to focus on Europe.

I’m not saying that Ancelotti will succeed. Appointing foreign coaches to run Premier League clubs is a hit (Mourinho) and miss (Josef Venglos) affair.

But Ancelotti has, unlike Scolari, vast experience coaching one of the best clubs in Europe. He understands Champions League football as well as anyone and has managed a side that, for the most part, has entertained and succeeded.

And, at 49, he’s the right age to take on the challenge.

Add all that up and you can see why, in the absence of Mr Perfect, Ancelotti seems a reasonable risk to Abramovich – if not to Tony Cascarino.

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The King, Rosbif and Cruyff

Paul Simpson — Fri, 29 May 2009 13:00:00 GMT

Elvis, Great Gatsby, Mourinho’s coat. Those are, alas, my only notes from Rome.

They refer to a United fan who must have been as hot as the surface of Mercury walking around the sticky Eternal City in an Elvis jumpsuit and wig, a Barcelona supporter wearing a T-shirt with the original cover of The Great Gatsby on it and two fans at Rome airport wearing a limited edition T-shirt bearing the legend “Mourinho’s coat 2005” and a silhouette of the special one.

Can anyone tell me where I can get one of these?

I planned to take notes during the game – I even bought a compact, bijou Silvine notebook – but it was so hot in the Stadio Olimpico the ink would have melted on the page.

And the game was too absorbing, a better spectacle in the atmospheric stadium than on television where 300 million viewers across the world saw probably the most one-sided UEFA Champions League final since Porto’s efficient demolition of Monaco in 2004.

"It ain't half hot mum..."

I watched the match from nine rows behind the United bench. Just behind me was Rudi Voller and, two rows behind to my right, sat Roman Abramovich who watched the game with a diplomat’s pleasant inscrutability.

As someone who has been writing about football for 15 years, I ought to have acquired a protective layer of professional cynicism, but my heart skipped when I brushed shoulders with Johan Cruyff just before the match.

Most of the great players come to these games brimming with bonhomie. In contrast, Cruyff looked grumpy and disappeared to the remotest corner of the lounge as if in retreat from his own myth. Oddly, this only increased my respect for him.

At half-time, I was wondering what Cruyff would make of the game. Barcelona were murdering United 1-0 but was the No.14 reminded of a similar master class – given by the Dutch to West Germany in 1974 – which backfired badly?

Football writers always write with hindsight as if they had foreseen every outcome. So, as soon as the whistle blew, Barcelona’s victory was declared inevitable.

That isn’t quite how I saw it at half-time.

Like most United fans, I expected Sir Alex to say the right things and make the right changes to make the second half truly competitive. And I wondered if Pep Guardiola’s team might regret not converting their superiority into a more decisive lead.

You can’t fault Ferguson’s bravery – by the end of the game he had withdrawn almost every tackling midfielder as he chased the goal that might change the dynamic of the match – but nothing worked.

The random comments from United fans around me (“Is it me or is Anderson completely out of his depth?” and persistent growls of “Carrick!”) registered their incredulity as United failed, after the first nine minutes, to play with any great conviction, belief or accuracy.

They registered only two shots on target and, fatally, gave the ball away too often to a side that took ages to give it back.

Barcelona’s pressing in attack and midfield was superb, leaving the two opponents Guardiola genuinely feared – Cristiano Ronaldo and Rooney – increasingly isolated.

For me, the United player who impressed in the second half was Dimitar Berbatov who, as commentators like to say, “should have done better” with his header but kept the ball, played some good passes and showed, at times, why Ferguson values him.

Perhaps one of the paradoxical lessons from this strange kind of defeat is that if United are to rank alongside Real Madrid, they need more players like Berbatov, not less.

Berbatov and Rooney wonder what might have been

Rooney was, the Italian daily La Repubblica declared, “disastroso.” That was harsh. Misused might have been a better term.

Rooney has the energy and discipline to play on the flank tracking back but, against the very best sides, this does diminish his threat. If he can’t play behind a striker in a more advanced Gerrard-style role, he could be encouraged, like Messi, to cut inside when the moment was right.

On his day, Rooney can lose any defender in the world but he is much more dangerous creating that space and opportunity in front of the penalty area than on the flanks.

After the game, an alumni of French football characterised the game as a blow for the “Monsieur Rosbif” school of football.

United don’t play “Rosbif” football, but were so far below their potential in Rome that neutrals probably saw this as the traditional contest between continental finesse and British brute force. (The New York Times said as much in a headline.)

Defeat will spur Ferguson on. On the plane home, he was probably reflecting on how his team could be improved.

United won the Premier League with ease but, being an obsessive, perfectionist team builder, Ferguson will know that United have shown an odd fragility against the very best opposition.

United won the Premier League with 90 points, but only five of those were earned against Arsenal, Chelsea or Liverpool.

The Premier League is not, as Richard Keys and his ilk insist, the best league in Europe. It is almost as monotonously uncompetitive as the SPL.

What it does best is breed sides that can win away at Hull with metronomic regularity.

A very different kind of team, tactics and performance were required for United to complete the Italian job and, against a Barcelona team inspired by the opportunity to prove their greatness, they were found wanting.

I found the alacrity, respect and affection with which Guardiola embraced Ferguson after the game strangely moving. Or maybe it was just the heat.

"I really need to get out of this suit, don't you?"

Guardiola has been fulsome in his praise for Ferguson, extolling the Scot’s trophy-winning longevity. So, even after being congratulated by King Juan Carlos in the dressing room, Guardiola will know he is not the best coach in the world.

But he has created a great team that has entranced the game with a style that suggests the European Cup could be on the verge of a golden era.

Tactically, a senior Italian football bod suggested, Rome was no classic. But Barcelona’s style is an intriguing hybrid of two schools.

The possession, movement and versatility belonged to the Dream Team/Cruyff/Rinus Michels tradition but this was allied to the organized, pressing style first expounded by Arrigo Sacchi.

The morning after, Frank Rijkaard strode through the hotel foyer.

Guardiola’s class of 2009 is better than Rijkaard’s class of 2006, but the speed with which Rijkaard’s team fragmented is a useful reminder for Guardiola – the first non-Dutch coach to win the European Cup for Barcelona – that sometimes the truly difficult bit isn’t winning, it’s what happens next.

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What Tony Pulis could teach Pep Guardiola...

Paul Simpson — Wed, 27 May 2009 07:00:00 GMT

This is the time of known unknowns.

As Wednesday’s UEFA Champions League final nears, the players retreat, coaches mull their selections and the media leaves no cranny unexplored in its search for a new angle.

Many pundits have portrayed Barcelona vs Manchester United as the football equivalent of an Ali vs Frazier boxing title fight.

But Arsene Wenger, who has always had his own take on football, has a different legendary sportsman in mind as he contemplates the final. Not Ali, or Frazier, but Tony Pulis.

Let them beat Stoke
Marie Antoinette was alleged, probably wrongly, to have said of poor Frenchmen: “Let them eat cake”.

Now Wenger, England’s favourite Frenchman, has effectively said that if Barcelona are to prove their greatness, let them beat Stoke City.

Arsenal’s donnish boss laid it on the line in the Daily Mail: “I’m not convinced Barcelona would win the title if they played in the Premier League, It’s very physical and committed – and going to Stoke would be a surprise.”

Funny Wenger should mention that, because I was thinking of Stoke during the semi-final against Chelsea.

Pep Guardiola’s team have played some transcendent football, but Stoke boss Pulis could sharpen up their corners which are often woeful. Barca have taken 82 in the UEFA Champions League this season and scored from just two of them.

"Well this will probably come to nothing..."

From Pulis to Puskas and Seedorf
The hope is that players do not succumb to the pressure and hype surrounding such big games and feel, as Ferenc Puskas put it once, so physically and mentally drained they just want to win the game and be done with it, leaving us with a match as monotonous as Tony Pulis’s cap.

Clarence Seedorf, the only player to have won this competition with three clubs, gives the finalists some free advice in the latest issue of Champions: “Free your mind, and your legs and enjoy it.”

Pointless but interesting
In The Times, Bill Edgar notes that Barcelona have won two of their last eight games, while United have won seven. Not sure if it means anything but it’s interesting.

Barcelona’s average possession in Europe this season is 62 percent. Juan Castro, Marca’s chief sports writer, expects that edge to prove decisive in Rome.

Castro reckons that Barcelona only fear Rooney and Ronaldo but “it will be difficult for those United players to get the ball because Barcelona will dominate possession.”

He believes half of Spain will support the Red Devils for the final. Less flatteringly, he adds that “Liverpool and Arsenal have more followers here than Ferguson’s team.”

The Archibald precedent
Graham Hunter, who often writes for Champions, suggests that the one question every Barca fan is asking is not “How can I get a ticket?” but “Will Iniesta and Henry make it?”

The fans, Hunter suggests, feel their absence will prove too much of a blow. But both will need to prove their match readiness to Guardiola.

As Hunter points out, Guardiola watched, as a 15-year-old ball boy, when a barely fit Steve Archibald toiled as Barca lost the 1986 European Cup final on penalties to Steaua.

(By the way, The Archibald Precedent was my lame attempt to write a cross-head in the style of Robert ‘The Bourne Identity’ Ludlum).

Key to a Catalan triumph

Formation dancing
The biggest known unknown is whether the media’s predicted template for this game – Barcelona attack and United counter – actually happens.

Guardiola’s team will almost certainly play 4-3-3 while United – the journalists at this intriguing New York Times blog predict – will play one, Cristiano Ronaldo, up-front with Park and Rooney on the wing, so 4-5-1 switching to 4-3-3 in attack.

The whole debate makes for fascinating reading but these points struck me:

1. Can Barcelona break up what L’Equipe writer Erik Bielderman calls the “magic triangle” of Toure, Iniesta and Xavi in midfield without suffering the lack of fluency which so nearly saw them lose to Chelsea? Marca deputy editor Santiago Segurola is convinced they can. I’m not so sure.

2. How dangerous is it if United counter attack and let Barca press them? As Peter Berlin, sports editor of the Herald Tribune suggests, it might make more sense to attack Barca’s rejigged defence early on. Scare a back four with three regulars missing, push Barca back and you disrupt their game plan. Bielderman says the key for United is ensuring that their two lines of defence stay connected and keep Barca as far away from the penalty area as possible.

3. This is the best Barca team ever – according to Segurola. But they start the final as slight underdogs. What nobody can tell, as Berlin suggests, is how the occasion affects both teams. This Barca team may just be inspired by the sense that they are on “the verge of greatness” and by United’s decision to wear the white of their old enemy, Real Madrid. And finals, as 2005 and 2008 proved, often defy the script. They can have a mysterious, alchemic effect on teams and players – one that only becomes apparent when the match starts.

A frog’s life
United’s Korean midfielder, the artist formally known as Three Lungs, will probably become the first Asian player to start in a Champions League final – and he owes it all to dad and some frogs.

Park Senior, the New York Times notes, “took a job in a butcher’s shop to provide him with choice cuts of meat and boiled frogs into an unappetising soup, trying to coax a growth spurt.”

And finally…
Off to Rome now, having ransacked the Bionicle container in the kitchen for Euros, with the fervent hope that, as Sir Alex Ferguson put it, this game “paints the real story of football.”

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By far the strangest team…

Paul Simpson — Sun, 24 May 2009 11:00:00 GMT

My Perfect XI, as seen on the back page of FourFourTwo (or online here), is the 21st century equivalent of the 1970s Shoot questionnaire (“Most dangerous opponent: The wife”).

Most of these XIs are compiled by old pros who namecheck old colleagues like Micky Droy alongside Pele and Maradona.

On the web, you can find debates over proper all-time XIs: is Raul better up-front than Di Stefano? Such questions promote furious, pseudo-academic debate.

"You're having a laugh ain't ya?"

In an attempt to silence my inner anorak I have chosen an utterly random European Cup XI where players are selected on such spurious criteria as: have they been seduced by a ballet dancer, insulted Scottish football or had their haircut partially in honour of Barcelona?

Feel free to make your own nominations.

1 Eddy Treijtel, seagull killer
Treijtel will never forget 1970: the Feyenoord reserve keeper shone in the European Cup semi-final, was benched by Ernst Happel for the final and killed a seagull by kicking a ball in the Rotterdam derby that November.

2 Cesare Maldini, overconfident dad
European Cup-winning defender with Milan in 1963, he was so technically accomplished that he became overconfident and made, John Foot notes in Calcio, so many hideous errors he launched a genre of blunders known as “Maldinate.”

3 Paul Breitner, Maoist millionaire maverick
A multi-millionaire Bavarian Maoist European Cup-winning full-back/midfielder with an erratic Afro, Breitner defended Berti Vogts’ reign as Scotland manager by dismissing Scottish players of that generation as “footballing dwarves.”

4 Franz Beckenbauer, legend with a private dancer
Der Kaiser was a fine skipper, imperious libero and the only skipper to lift the European Cup three times. He was also the object of an alleged seduction attempt by Rudolf Nureyev. The ballet star put his hand on Der Kaiser’s knee in a New York limo prompting the original Becks to talk about his wife and kids. Luckily, the German legend says, “Nureyev understood and we remained good friends.”

"Oi, I'm a happily married man, I'll have you know..."

5 Andreas Moller
Moller is out of position in this all-time XI but the 1997 European Cup winner deserves inclusion as the first and – to date – only German footballer to be fined and suspended for diving. He was docked 10,000 marks and banned for two games after winning a penalty in 1997 against Karlsruhe even though the defender who ‘fouled’ him was a yard away when he started to fall.

6 Emlyn Hughes, V-neck jumper pioneer
The Kop used to sing “Come on without, come on within, you’ve not seen nothing like the mighty Emlyn” in this honour of this enthusiastic, princess-cuddling, Liverpool legend who did for V-neck jumpers what Mary Quant did for the mini-skirt. His crosses were more accurate than his guesses in the picture round of A Question Of Sport. He famously identified one photo as the jockey John Reid only to discover it was Princess Anne. Still, his place in history is secure: he was the first Liverpool captain to lift the European Cup.

7 Cristiano Ronaldo, living La Vida Loca
A completist when it comes to Ricky Martin albums, United’s No.7 has a hairstyle which is partly inspired by Barcelona. As his stylist Pedro Remo told Champions: “His haircut has a British side like Coldplay but a side which is more like Barcelona, unfinished.” CR7 can play a bit too. Is liking Ricky Martin in worst taste than Basile Boli who motivated himself for European finals by listening to Bon Jovi? As Walter Cronkite used to say, “You are the jury.”

"Short back and sides with a few Catalan curls please..."

8 Alfred Pfaff, Di Stefano’s doppelganger
Legendary German playmaker, star of the Eintracht team that faced Real Madrid in 1960, Pfaff was such a leader on the pitch that he was nicknamed Don Alfredo. In his only European Cup final he came up against the original Don Alfredo, the great, grouchy Di Stefano. Sadly for Pfaff, Real’s No.9 won the battle of the Don Alfredos at Hampden. In his two most famous games, Pfaff lost 7-3 to Real in 1960 and 8-3 to Hungary in the 1954 World Cup.

9 Ferenc Puskas, international diplomat
The Galloping Major could juggle soap in the shower with his left foot. But as gifted as he was, he had to eat crow before the 1960 final. The German FA had banned clubs from playing against teams featuring Puskas because the Hungarian had claimed that West Germany only won the World Cup in 1954 because they were doped. Puskas had to send a formal letter of apology before the German FA would let Eintracht play.

10 Hristo Stoichkov, foot and mouth legend
El Pistolero, Cristo, The Dagger, Raging Bull, The Modern Left, they couldn’t coin enough nicknames to sum up the flamboyant, referee-stamping, European Golden Boot winner whose selfish genius completed Johan Cruyff’s Dream Team and prompted Maradona to salute him as a fellow “Crazy head.” Never joined the Premiership – for fear of being nicknamed Stoitchy – he is growing modest with age, telling FIFA recently: “No Bulgarian can ever match my achievements.”

11 Piet Keizer, the enigma’s enigma
Ajax left-winger who made Cruyff look uncomplicated. Keizer danced on the tables when he heard Rinus Michels was taking over at Barcelona, was voted in by the squad to replace Cruyff as Ajax skipper (prompting the furious No.14 to join Michels in Catalonia) but walked out on football in 1974 after a row over tactics. A year later, watching his son’s youth game, he famously stepped away from the ball. David Winner reckons Keizer didn’t kick a ball at all for 30 years.

Coach

Sir Matt Busby, honours kissed
Busby was the first manager to win the European Cup with an English club and the first – only? – recipient of football’s Sword Of Honour. This glittering weapon was given to him in 1964 for “distinguished service to British and international football.” The award was not named in honour of the eponymous trilogy of wartime novels by Evelyn Waugh and occupies roughly the same place in Busby’s trophy cabinet as the Greek of the Year award given to Otto Rehhagel in 2004.

"This will take pride of place in my... erm..."

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Seven ways to lose a European Cup final

Paul Simpson — Thu, 21 May 2009 09:00:00 GMT

1. Turn the match into a holy war
Johan Cruyff had a messianic streak as a manager. And in 1994, as his Barcelona dream team reached their second European Cup final in three years, he was rash enough to bill the contest, against Fabio Capello’s AC Milan, as a battle for the soul of European football.

Attack vs defence, romance vs pragmatism, flair vs efficiency, good guys vs bad guys. If Milan won, Cruyff suggested, it would be the death of football.

Cruyff may have hoped such rhetoric would unbalance the opposition by enraging them. All it really did was ensue that such gifted professionals as Maldini, Boban, Donadoni, Massaro, Savicevic and Desailly were truly motivated.

Cruyff was so busy casting the final as a jihad he was undone by Capello’s surprisingly attacking game plan. By the 47th minute, when Savicevic lobbed Zubizarreta to make it 3-0, the contest was over.

Two trophyless years later, Cruyff was ousted from Camp Nou. His exit was a disgrace but his messianic conviction (“Before I make that mistake I do not make that mistake”) hadn’t always done his players any favours.

Desailly helps Milan destroy Barca

2. Misunderestimate the opposition
The build up to a game as historic as a European Cup final is so tricky that even the masters can get it wrong.

Researching the 1970 Feyenoord vs Celtic final for the latest issue of Champions, I was astonished to discover that even the great Jock Stein could be caught out by the occasion.

Stein’s Celtic had thrilled Europe in 1967 with their demolition of Inter in Lisbon. But at Inter’s ground, the San Siro, his team came unstuck against Ernst Happel’s Feyenoord.

This defeat is such a sore point its causes are still being debated. Stein maintained that too many of his players had a bad night. Most of his players thought Stein had kept the build-up too low key and underestimated the Dutch champions.

Just as Inter coach Helenio Herrera had done in 1967, Stein set out his team in their usual way. As his players took to the pitch, his suggestion that the Feyenoord team would be “sh*tting themselves” rang in their ears.

But Feyenoord’s Austrian coach Ernst Happel did for Stein. Celtic, Happel said, did one thing better than anybody else: attack. Stop them attacking and you could beat them. Feyenoord did just that.

They triple marked Jimmy Johnstone, slowed the game’s tempo so much that Celtic could find no rhythm and then played some fine attacking football, deservedly winning 2-1 in extra-time. No Scottish side has made the European Cup final since.

3. Write your victory speech in advance
Bayern president Fritz Scherer did this in 1987, believing that this European Cup final would mark “the dawning of a great new era” for the club.

With 77 minutes gone, and Bayern 1-0 up, such confidence seemed well placed. But in three minutes, Bayern conceded twice – the equaliser that superb nonchalant back-heel by Rabah Madjer – and lost the final. Scherer ripped up his speech.

Madjer back-heels home

4. Be outfoxed at half-time
Rafa Benitez isn’t the only manager to turn a final with a half-time switcheroo. In 1962, Benfica returned to the dressing room 3-2 down to Real Madrid.

But their coach Beta Guttman just told Cavem to mark Alfredo Di Stefano in the second half, cutting off the supply to Ferenc Puskas, who had already scored a hat-trick. The ploy worked. Benfica won the second half 3-1 and the game 5-3.

5. Concede the initiative
Liverpool’s return from the living dead in Istanbul wasn’t just remarkable because it was the only time a team has comeback from 3-0 down to win a European Cup final.

Even more amazingly, this resurrection happened against Milan, a club with a glorious tradition of winning the European Cup so swiftly and mercilessly their shell-shocked opponents are left wondering ‘what just happened?’

In 1969, under Nereo Rocco, the Rossoneri abandoned the catenaccio that had stifled Manchester United in the semi-final, to shock Rinus Michels’ talented young Ajax side, going 2-0 up after 39 minutes and restoring their two goal margin in the 67th minute.

They did the same against Steaua (in 1990) and Barcelona (in 1994). Bizarrely, Inter and Juventus, who faced Ajax in the 1972 and 1973 finals, ignored Rocco’s successful attacking game-plan, stuck to counter and catenaccio and were comprehensively outplayed.

6. Be caught out tactically
There’s a lot to be said for approaching a final – as Barcelona will almost certainly do – with the attitude that: this is who we are, this is how we play and let the other team worry about us.

The risk is that the opposing coach will worry so much they find a way of beating you.

Happel did just that against Giovanni Trapattoni’s Juve in 1983 to win the European Cup for a second time with Hamburg. He simply switched his Danish striker Lars Bastrup to the left, so he would face Juve’s attacking full-back Antonio Cabrini.

Trap tried to neutralise this ploy by asking Claudio Gentile to follow Bastrup and man-mark him. That left a hole on the right which Marco Tardelli failed to cover and from which Felix Magath popped up to score the only goal.

When you watch the goal you can see, just before Magath’s great strike, a veritable prairie’s worth of space on that side of the pitch.

Stein’s demolition of Inter in 1967 was built on his use of attacking full-backs, the very weapon Herrera had perfected by schooling Giacinto Facchetti to bomb forward for the Nerazzurri.

And Milan’s victories in 1969 and 1994 were inspired by their coaches refusing to stick to the script as they set out their teams.

Magath lets rip from long-range

7. Go two goals down
In 53 European Cup finals, only three teams have recovered from a two goal deficit to win: Real Madrid (in 1956), Benfica (in 1962) and Liverpool (in 2005).

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The European Cup final that sparked a revolution

Paul Simpson — Tue, 19 May 2009 10:00:00 GMT

In 1960, a 19-year-old trainee striker on Queens Park’s books watched in wonder from the schoolboys’ enclosure at Hampden Park as Real Madrid walloped Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3 to win the fifth European Cup.

That trainee striker was called Alex Ferguson. And the final he was watching wasn’t just magical, it was revolutionary.

Real celebrate in 1960

Before that game, the British attitude to European football was summed up, at its worst, by Rangers manager Scot Symon, who on landing in Germany before the semi-final away leg asked: “Eintracht? Who are they?”

He didn’t bother to inspect the pitch because Rangers would do that “during the game.” His reward for such insouciance? A 12-4 thrashing over two legs by Eintracht.

After the 1960 final – with the likes of Andy Roxburgh, ‘Jinking’ Jimmy Johnstone and Billy Bremner also in the crowd – the blinkers came off.

The Hungarian genius Ferenc Puskas, still the only man to score four goals in a European Cup final, and the Argentine total footballer Alfredo di Stefano (who only scored three at Hampden) were idolised by the likes of George Best, Jimmy Greaves and Bobby Charlton.

The 7-3 inspired a young manager called Don Revie to make Leeds United wear white.

Manchester United’s Scottish coach, Matt Busby, had challenged British football’s isolationism by ignoring the apparatchiks to enter the European Cup. His countrymen – managers like Jock Stein and Willie Waddell – began to seriously study Europe’s methods.

When Stein was moonlighting as Scotland coach in 1965 he quizzed Giacinto Facchetti about the catenaccio with which Helenio Herrera’s Inter dominated European football.

Stein used that knowledge to devastating effect in 1967 when Celtic beat Inter, recording the most comprehensive 2-1 victory ever in a European Cup final.

Cosmopolitan, tactically sophisticated, glamorous, Inter looked, one Celtic player said, “like Ambre Solaire men.” But they were vanquished – some estimates suggest Celtic had 42 shots on goal – by what Stein called “pure, inventive football.”

To ensure Celtic were in the right attacking mood, the manager showed a tape of the 1960 final before the game.

Celtic tonk Inter in '67

The magical, flickering black and white footage of Puskas and Di Stefano had also entranced two 14-year-old Dutch kids, Barrie Hulshoff and Gerrie Muhren.

As striker and midfielder, they won three European Cups with Ajax. But for Muhren, the greatest moment of his career came in April 1973 when, in a European Cup semi-final against Real Madrid at the Bernabeu, he juggled the ball on the half-way line and was applauded by the home crowd.

As Muhren told David Winner in Brilliant Orange: “It was always my dream to play good soccer against Real Madrid.”

Ajax’s greatest player, Johan Cruyff, was the most complete footballer since Di Stefano. With his old boss Rinus Michels and another Ajax escapee, Johan Neeskens (who would later assist Frank Rijkaard as Barca coach), he founded a school of football in Barcelona.

A Dutch school based on movement, possession and technique but influenced, strongly, by the skill, passing, interaction and movement, of the great Real side.

That Dutch school acquired an unorthodox Italian influence when Frank Rijkaard, a Dutch master in Arrigo Sacchi’s Milan, took over at Camp Nou.

A former shoe salesman, Sacchi was a zealot, determined to change the defensive culture of Italian football. As he told Jonathan Wilson, “Holland in the 1970s really took my breath away. The television was too small: I felt like I needed to see the whole pitch to fully understand it.”

Inspired by Honved (where Puskas made his name), Real, Brazil and Holland, Sacchi created an attacking Milan team based on movement, pressing and the conviction that to be truly great you didn’t just have to win, you had to entertain.

Rijkaard’s team initially did both, before the team spirit evaporated, but the same belief underpins Pep Guardiola’s Barca.

So this UEFA Champions League final should be a fascinating contest.

Guardiola, who very nearly joined United when he left Camp Nou in 2001, learned his craft in midfield under Cruyff and is steeped in a school of football that stretches back to Real Madrid in 1960.

Guardiola’s opponent, Sir Alex Ferguson, treasures his memories of the 1960 final and has often, as a manager, shown a weakness for players of technique and vision in midfield and strikers who are more than just predators.

It is crass to say he was searching for a new Puskas or Di Stefano but Cantona, Veron, Rooney, Berbatov and the near signing of Gazza are all testimony to the United manager’s determination to find attackers and midfielders with technique, imagination and vision.

Ferguson’s first European trophy – a Cup Winners’ Cup with Aberdeen in 1983 – was won against a Real Madrid side coached by Di Stefano. Ferguson’s mentor Jock Stein famously suggested that the Dons boss should present The White Arrow with a bottle of whisky, as if Aberdeen were just happy to be there.

Ferguson was delighted when Di Stefano accepted the gift with a puzzled smile.

Aberdeen and Alex Ferguson (r) lift Cup Winners' Cup in '83

In 1960 in Glasgow, an Argentine genius orchestrated a European Cup final that changed football forever. In 2009 in Rome, another Argentine genius will hope to be half as influential as Di Stefano.

The biggest threat to Messi’s supremacy is a Portuguese No.7 who seems to nurture the hope that, one day, he will join Di Stefano, Puskas, Gento and Zidane in Real’s pantheon of legends.

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Calcio’s Venetian tragedy

Paul Simpson — Tue, 12 May 2009 07:00:00 GMT

You will be relieved to hear that Didier Drogba is not castigated or lauded in this blog which contains no jokes about the synthetic Brezhnevian quality of Gordon Brown’s smile and has nothing to say about Ledley King’s nightlife.

Seeking some solace from the hysteria surrounding events at Stamford Bridge last week, my thoughts turned to poor SSC Venezia, a club sinking almost as fast as the city it calls home.

I should probably explain why.

In my eyes, you either support a big club (Manchester United, Liverpool, Real Madrid) or you don’t.

And if you don’t – I write as someone whose football allegiances have been hopelessly split between Leicester City and Nuneaton Town (nee Borough) since the 1960s – you tend to instinctively sympathise with the game’s other fringe outfits. Teams like SSC Venezia, aka the Leoni Alati (Winged Lions).

You can tell a lot about a club by scanning the ‘notable players’ on their Wikipedia page. On Venezia’s, five names stand out for different reasons: Can Bartu, Maurizio Ganz, Nil Lamptey, Andrea Silenzi, Christian Vieri.

Seasoned goal-getter: Maurizio Ganz

Bartu, a Turkish striker, is best known for scoring for Fenerbahce’s football and basketball teams on the same day in January 1957.

Lamptey was one of many ‘new Peles’ who spurned greatness. Silenzi, signed by Nottingham Forest in 1996/97 had done enough, after 10 games, to be officially named the worst foreign player ever bought for the Premiership.

Vieri played 29 games for Venezia in the mid-1980s on his road to infamy. Maurizio Ganz was a ‘have boots will travel’ striker whose impressive haul of 204 goals in 469 games at 14 clubs included eight for Venezia while on loan.

I remember Ganz well because, on my first trip to Venice in 2000, we bought my five-year-old son a Venezia brown, green and orange shirt – yep, very much like a humbug – with Ganz’s name on it.

As my son played one afternoon in Campo San Stefano, young Venetian men waved their arms in ironic homage. Ganz had scored twice that afternoon for Venezia, then still in Serie A but already destined for relegation.

It’s odd the ties that bind us to clubs we have no business supporting.

From then on I have followed Venezia, albeit largely over the internet and, alas, this Easter, just missed them taking on the not so mighty Pergocrema in Serie C1. (The Winged Lions won 1-0).

Their ground is the only stadium in Italy that away supporters must take a boat to and run the (increasingly slight) risk of pirate attacks from home supporters. Just take the No.41 vaporetto to Saint Elena or, if you’re really flush, a motoscafi.

Unlike Leicester, who have choked in four finals, the Winged Lions have won the cup.

They enjoyed a brief heyday (winning the Coppa Italia and coming third in Serie A) in World War II and were recently run by Maurizio Zamparini who, incensed by council shilly-shallying over a new stadium, bought a new club (Palermo) and took the best players with him.

The Venezia side that shone briefly in the 1940s contained such greats as Valentino Mazzola and Enzo Loik who joined Il Grande Torino and died in the Superga crash in May 1949.

To lose one strong side is unlucky, but to lose another – in the Zamparini affair – is careless. Venezia lost its bearings in the 1940s and has never steered itself back on course.

In 1940/41, Mazzola and Loik both scored as the Winged Lions beat Roma, after a replay, to lift the Coppa Italia. In 1942/43, Venezia reached their second cup final in three years but lost 4-0 to a Torino side that included Loik and Mazzola (who scored against his old team.)

Walk around Venice today and you very rarely see the black shirt, trimmed with orange and green that is Venezia’s new home kit.

Even the kids I spotted kicking a football against a church wall in Campo Santa Margherita one sunny evening weren’t wearing Venezia shirts. There is a backstreets supporters club in Castello where 111 mostly old men gather to drink cheap red wine and bemoan the old days.

Venezia's Stadio Pierluigi Penzo

Ominously, on the island of Guidecca, I spotted a reasonably spruce café/club for Milan supporters.

With so much else going on – canals, 20 million tourists a year, magnificent buildings – it is easy to see why Venice might not care about football. But that wasn’t always so.

In the 18th century, as the painter Jan van Groevenbroeck famously recorded, calcio was the sport of local noblemen. A forced merger with the mainlanders of Mestre in 1987 didn’t help the club’s standing in Venice.

And, in recent years, this most romantic, yet ruthless city may just not want to be associated with a team that is near the bottom of Serie C1A.

Yet if Venice is to be more than a living heritage museum, a proper football team, bankrolled by a Venetian Silvio Berlusconi, could give its communal life some vitality. The post-match pub crawl along the Via Garibaldi was one of the finest in European football.

As the 60th anniversary of Superga nears, the homage paid to those fallen heroes will be bitter sweet for Venezia fans who will also mourn the break-up of a team that could have changed their history.

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Are Ronaldo & Rooney the new Di Stefano & Puskas?

Paul Simpson — Wed, 06 May 2009 11:00:00 GMT

The short answer is: well, no.

The long answer is that though they don’t have the range of talents of the brightest stars ever to shine in Real Madrid’s firmament, they showed the kind of joy, technique and verve in their humbling of Arsenal that made the European Cup so special in the first place.

Ferenc Puskas and George Best would have approved of Cristiano Ronaldo’s performance at the Emirates, while even such professionally unimpressed living legends as Alfredo di Stefano and Johan Cruyff might privately concede that United's No.7 didn’t have a bad game.

Tactics, luck, and talent all helped decide this all-England semi-final.

But the hinge factor the tie swung on was that Manchester United had four players who could make and take chances, while Arsenal had just two: Robin Van Persie, injured for the first leg and not as effective as he would have wanted in the second, and Andrei Arshavin, who was cup-tied.

Ronnie and Rooney help outgun Arsenal

The Italians, who analyse football with a scientific rigour worthy of Galileo, like to classify their creative midfielders and strikers. A director (or general) like Gianni Rivera is a regista, a visionary playmaker (or No.10) is a fantasista and a striker is a goleador.

The European Cup has – from Puskas to Rivera, Cruyff to Platini and Stoitchkov to Zidane – been enriched by players who are all three. They’re probably better at two of the roles but do the other if need be.

In the last five years, with lesser teams realising that tediously defensive tactics can bridge the quality gap and coaches knowing almost as much about their opponents’ formations as their own, these three-players-in-one have often defined the difference between success and failure.

The last four UEFA Champions League winners have all featured a creative goalscorer at the very top of their game: Cristiano Ronaldo (2008), Kaka (2007), Ronaldinho (2006) and Steven Gerrard (2005).

Four out of the last five winners of the Golden Shoe, the award for Europe’s most prolific goalscorer, have fitted this template: CR7 (2008), Francesco Totti (2007) and Thierry Henry (2004 and 2005).

And the player most likely to succeed Ronaldo as European Footballer of the Year is a fantasista/goleador called Lionel Messi.

The rise of such talents is an inexorable consequence of the game’s lucrative pact with television.

Once you’ve accepted a billion or seven from TV networks to broadcast your wares, it would be stupid and churlish to insist that football is a sport not an entertainment.

Even Jose Mourinho, the Helenio Herrera for the new millennium, has had to accept that. So Manchester City’s bid for Kaka may have been ridiculous. But it was not stupid.

Di Stefano and Puskas celebrate in 1960

At their best, these artistes have the vision to find space, a particular trademark skill (Cruyff had his turn, Cristiano Ronaldo has two: the stepover king has now developed a cannonball shot from distance that is almost worthy of Puskas) and the ability to devastatingly change tempo as if they can accelerate or decelerate time.

Di Stefano did just that in the 1960 final, which Real Madrid won 7-3. With Real 6-2 up, he called for the ball in his own half and set off on a bewildering run which, after a few rapid-fire passes, ended with a powerful shot that flew into the bottom left-hand corner.

Above all, these greats are improvisers.

Remember Ronaldinho’s goal under the wall against Werder Bremen in 2006? Or that toe-poke goal against Chelsea in the first Battle of Stamford Bridge in 2005?

Petr Cech, like Eintracht’s unfortunate keeper Egon Loy, was left shell-shocked, asking, as a Hollywood executive might put it, “What just happened?”

They also, and it’s a trait they are rarely appreciated for, have guts.

It takes nerve to try a trick in front of 90,000 people in the stadium – and untold millions worldwide – fail and have another go.

And to bear the kicks from outraged defenders or the slings and arrows of critics like Italian football writer Gianni Brera, who derided this kind of player as “abattino” (a young priest) because of their perceived reluctance to do the dirty stuff.

The Brera view, which influenced Italy’s 1970 World Cup campaign, was that such players were luxuries. A team could only afford one of them.

So Rivera and Sandro Mazzola alternated in Mexico to no great effect. 39 years later, Ferguson has four of them in a squad and, when necessary, has played all four.

Ronaldinho bamboozles the Blues

England’s first dominance of the European Cup, with five 1-0s in six finals between 1977 and 1982, is not fondly remembered on the continent.

True, Nottingham Forest’s plucky triumphs were cherished by the kind of romantics who will always have a soft spot for St Etienne. And the majestic talent of Kenny Dalglish, another supreme maker and taker, is still spoken of in hushed tones in bars across Europe.

But this was not regarded in mainland Europe as one of football’s golden ages. This time, English clubs, albeit often with the best foreign talent money can buy, may finally win in a style that would cheer Puskas. That would, in a way, be perfectly fitting.

The Galloping Major’s artistry at Hampden Park in 1960 was, after all, one of the main reasons that the young Alex Ferguson fell completely and utterly in love with the European Cup.

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Welcome to the Tom, Jerry and Guus show

Paul Simpson — Fri, 01 May 2009 11:00:00 GMT

I am not the first person in football to be duped by the genius of Guus Hiddink. Nor will I be the last. But I am undoubtedly the poorest.

Hiddink told Pedro Pinto, CNN’s roving football correspondent, Chelsea are a team that wants to attack and “cannot sit back”.

The trick in the UEFA Champions League, Hiddink confided, was to make sure you did some damage in the away leg. And then, in the pre-match press conference, he told the media this semi-final was a game between two teams who loved to attack.

What he really meant was: “This is a game between two teams who love to attack, one of whom has been ordered not to.”

The 4-2-3-1 – which at times felt more like 8-1-1 – did its job. Kind of.

The “uber-catenaccio” left Barcelona unsettled, depleted by injury and feeling cheated, with Xavi complaining that one team wanted to play football and one didn’t.

"Ye shall not pass..."

Certainly, a few Italian journalists I spoke to were ironically amused by the British press’ praise for Chelsea’s heroism. Such acclaim, they said, would never be lavished on any Serie A side that came to England and shut up shop.

Jean Tigana might say the odds slightly favour Barca. His Monaco side knocked Manchester United out after just such a result at home, drawing 1-1 at Old Trafford in the quarter-finals back in 1997/98.

Without an away goal, Hiddink cannot be as defensive in the second leg. And he will remember the wise words of Juande Ramos: “Barcelona are at their most dangerous when you’re attacking them.”

If Chelsea complete the job at Stamford Bridge, the closing stages of the 2009/10 Champions League will resemble one long advert for the versatility of Guus Hiddink.

Till now, under Roman Abramovich, the dilemma has been: you can win with Mourinhoesque efficiency or you can entertain, like Scolari at the start of the season, but you can’t have both.

But Hiddink has synthesized these contrasting strategies, giving us a new genetic blend of football you might call 'Moulari'.

One week it’s an eight goal thriller, the other it’s an exhibition of the lost black art of catenaccio. If you have the nous and the players to pull this off, this could be the best of all possible worlds.

And, after his misdirection ahead of the first leg. I can’t wait to see if Hiddink turns up for the next pre-match press conference carrying a giant red herring.

Arsene Wenger played a 4-2-3-1 to completely contrasting effect at Old Trafford. The final possession stats – 55 percent to United and 45 percent for Arsenal – don’t really reflect how badly the Gunners were overrun and how lucky they were not to leave Manchester 4-0 down and out.

Almunia keeps Gunners hopes in tact

This was the only semi-final I have ever seen played with the pace, rhythm and demented energy of a classic Tom And Jerry cartoon (one of those with Fred Quimby as producer).

Gazzetta Dello Sport felt, I think rightly, that Wenger’s tactical wheeze ceded control of midfield to United’s 4-3-3. As the Spanish daily Marca put it, Arsenal looked “tormented and flabbergasted by the fury of the Red Devils,” as tormented, in fact, as Tom whenever Jerry turned the tables on him.

In attack, the Gunners passed without penetration, never managing the kind of combination play that would open up United. Emmanuel Adebayor, Gazzetta noted, “resembled a Ferrari racing at Cinquecento speed”.

L’Equipe drolly described Arsenal’s marking as “rather lax, almost symbolic.”

That’s certainly how it looked for the ricochet that let in John O’Shea. Every set-piece can become a melodrama for Arsenal this season and, struggling to regroup after the corner, they gave United the freedom of the back post.

Still, both coaches will wonder if United will regret not killing the tie in the first leg.

The good, but irrelevant, news for United is that the whole of Belgium will be cheering them on, because an Arsenal triumph in Rome would deprive the Belgian champions (either Standard Liege or Anderlecht) of an automatic spot in the 2009/10 group stage.

The known unknown, as Andy Roxburgh, UEFA technical director, put it is that “Both away sides look capable of scoring.” And if United score first, will Arsenal manage to score three?

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Will Hiddink play one at the back?

Paul Simpson — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT

If you want to know who’ll win the UEFA Champions League semi-finals, don’t ask me.

Head to Alkmaar’s cheese market and find the fortune teller who told Louis Van Gaal AZ would win the Dutch title on 19 April 2009. Van Gaal was sceptical – his team didn’t have a game on that day – but PSV’s 6-2 thrashing of Ajax on the 19 April gifted AZ the Eredivisie.

Instead of predictions – mine usually stink – I bring you stats...

Eight out of the last 10 semis have been decided by a goal or less on aggregate, and five of the last 10 sides to play the first leg at home have progressed.

The last reigning champions to reach the final the next season were Juventus in 1997. That was the last time a side (Borussia Dortmund) won the Champions League for the first time.

Dortmund triumph in 1997

This season’s semi-finalists all broadly favour attack, play four at the back and look a bit dodgy in defence.

Pep Guardiola could have emulated his mentor Johan Cruyff’s 3-4-3 but wisely uses a better organised version of Rijkaard’s 4-3-3. Barcelona’s defence looks in the best nick, although Deco thinks they are too short as a unit.

For the record, Carles Puyol is 5ft10in, four inches shorter than Chelsea’s Serbian not-so-secret weapon Branislav Ivanovic.

Battle of the 4-3-3 squadrons...

Pep Guardiola once said that Johan Cruyff created the chapel and it was every Barcelona coach’s job to improve or restore it.

The one question vexing this smart, obsessive, skinny coach, who has done such a cracking job of sprucing up the Barca chapel this season, will be 'what trick does Guus Hiddink have up his sleeve?'

Surprise can be as effective a weapon in football as it was in comedy for Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition.

Hiddink’s Australia played one at the back against Japan in the 2006 World Cup (as the Socceroos recovered from 0-1 to 3-1). He has used 3-5-2 (at PSV in 1988), 4-4-1-1 (Holland, France 98), 3-4-3 (South Korea, 2002), and 4-3-3 (PSV 2005, when he terrified Milan in the semi-final second leg, and now at Chelsea).

He will probably prefer 4-3-3 against Barca. Coaches often like to mirror the opposing formation (daft as it sounds, it can confound the other team), but the Blues’ 4-3-3 is designed to counter, while Barca’s 4-3-3 is all about keeping the ball and suffocating opponents, pressing so that Messi, Henry, Eto’o can strike.

While the papers focus on Messi. Hiddink may scheme to stop Xavi, who initiates most attacks (although Iniesta scored one and had a hand in three against Sevilla).

As a coach, it’s hard to legislate for Messi’s genius. But if Chelsea can deny Barca’s skilful, industrious midfielder space – will Essien do to Xavi what he did to Gerrard at Anfield in the quarters? – they could isolate the forwards.

"It's my ball, and you're not having it"

Hiddink won’t ask Chelsea to sit back as United did against Barca. In a CNN interview, he says “In Europe, it’s important to get some harm done in the away game.”

Especially as keeping clean sheets can’t be taken for granted at the Bridge where set-pieces have become a concern. And, if we come to the last 10 minutes at home with Chelsea chasing the game, Hiddink will play one at the back – or something equally radical – if he sees fit.

In certain crannies of the internet, fans laughingly call Hiddink “The semi-finalist.” (He has only won one, with PSV back in 1988, losing with Holland in 1998, Korea in 2002, PSV in 2005 and Russia in 2008).

This is his chance to bury that tag. All that stands in his way is a gifted, young coach strongly influenced by Johan Cruyff who, like Hiddink, learned much of his craft as a coach from Rinus Michels.

Who will tinker?

The other semi-final should be a clash of 4-4-2s, if Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger don’t tinker.

Arsenal’s one up front against Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-final looked limp. The 4-5-1 Arsenal played away in their 2006 Champions League run worked because, man for man, Wenger had a better team and because the Gunners didn’t face an English team in the knockout stages.

Alan ‘Smudger’ Smith has noted one vital difference between the 2008/09 Arsenal and the invincibles of 2003/04.

Gone are technically gifted, physically powerful athletes like Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira. Wenger has assembled a nimble, pacy, technically gifted team that lacks physical presence.

This has cost them in the Premier League and may hurt them against United. Some Arsenal fans have, only half-humourously, urged Wenger to buy some players with bones.

A 4-4-2 would make sense. The tie could give Nicklas Bendtner the chance to become more than a legend in his own mind. (Bendtner has actually scored 12 goals this season without significantly endearing himself to Arsenal fans.)

And, as porous as the Gunners’ defence can be, Aalborg and Porto scored twice at Old Trafford.

Arsenal vs United, Wenger vs Ferguson is a perplexing double rivalry that has inspired the Gunners to astonishing heights or led them to the kind of shambling incompetence hitherto reserved for certain Elvis Presley movies of the mid-1960s.

Nobody knows which Arsenal will turn up at Old Trafford. Or which United – the one that played the first half against Spurs? Or the second?

With five Premier League games left, United’s unsettled defence have already conceded one goal more in the league than 2007/08. And there was nothing especially subtle about the attacking play that put Spurs 2-0 up at half-time.

United stuttered with one up-front in the first half at home against Porto so Ferguson may prefer a 4-4-2 or a 4-4-1-1, perhaps encouraging Cristiano Ronaldo, who led the line superbly in Porto, to play ahead of Berbatov or Rooney.

With a richly talented foursome of Berbatov, Ronaldo, Rooney and Tevez (who will surely feature as an impact sub) Ferguson may see the chance to settle the tie this week.

Let’s hope that one semi is decided by a goal as sublime as Thierry Henry’s against Sevilla.

"Someone order a goal?"

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Review: Romance, redemption & Didier Drogba

Paul Simpson — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT

For a tournament often pilloried as a giant money-making machine, the UEFA Champions League delivered enough old-time romance this week to satisfy purists raised on the early glorious days of the European Cup.

The 4-4 at Stamford Bridge was worthy of the Benfica vs Real Madrid 5-3 final in 1962, and Cesc Fabregas’s brilliant back heel to create Arsenal’s opener against Villarreal would have inspired the goal of the week if it hadn’t been for Cristiano Ronaldo’s rocket against Porto.

Ronaldo lets rip

With 28 goals in eight quarter-final matches, the 2008/09 goals per game average now stands at 2.66, higher than in the last five World Cups.

Didier Drogba, destroyer of Juventus, ripped through Liverpool’s defence like a tank in the second half.

On form and motivated, he is the greatest centre-forward in the world today. In an era when the old-style striker is an endangered species - for reasons Jonathan Wilson explores in the latest issue of Champions – Drogba proved that a great No.9 can still turn a game.

In this vein, the Ivorian may yet redeem himself for the red card in Moscow.

I enjoyed his post-match press conference too, although it was a shame no one asked him if the second syllable of his surname really is pronounced - as ITV’s irrepressible commentator Clyde Tyldesley would have it - like the “Bah!” in Scrooge’s cry of “Bah! Humbug!”

The Blues must now overcome Barcelona, who represent the Rest of Europe.

When Hiddink watches Barca’s 1-1 draw in Munich, he will be encouraged by how much trouble Franck Ribery gave Daniel Alves and Carlos Puyol.

Barca’s triumph was not the cakewalk the 5-1 aggregate scoreline suggests. With Luca Toni sharper, and the penalty they deserved in the second leg, Bayern might have made Pep Guardiola’s team sweat.

Certainly Bayern coach Jurgen Klinsmann deserved better than to be crucified on a German newspaper front page.

As for Toni, quoted as tipping Roberto Mancini to replace Klinsi, he should consider the old adage about players doing their talking on the pitch. If he doesn’t buck up, he could become the first striker in the history of football to have effectively ended his career by wearing a silly moustache.

The tactical dilemma facing Barcelona’s opponents is simple: how can you score if you can’t get the ball? Barca have enjoyed 62 percent of the possession on average in the tournament this season – more than any other side. But this may suit Chelsea who have been lethal on the counter in Hiddink’s 4-3-3.

It will be intriguing to see how Hiddink marks Messi. Does he, as Martin Lipton suggests in the Mirror sacrifice Michael Essien to stop 'The Flea' biting?

Can Chelsea swat The Flea?

That runs the risk of repeating the famous mistake Helmut Schoen made in the 1966 World Cup final when he sacrificed Franz Beckenbauer’s threat by telling the Kaiser to mark Bobby Charlton.

Guardiola’s Barcelona have often looked awesome but have not seriously been tested in this tournament. Their group draw (pitting them against Basle, Shakhtar and Sporting) was easy and they have faced two transitional sides in the knock-out stages.

Their dominance of this season’s la Liga is no great indicator of quality. With Barca the only Spanish side to reach the last four of either European club competition, the Spanish top flight isn’t the force it was.

Watching Villarreal, missing their Senna-Cazorla midfield axis, lose 3-0 to Arsenal only reinforced that view.

Apart from Robert Pires, hailed with heartfelt choruses of “Superbob” from Gooners, Villarreal (fifth in la Liga) looked overawed. Watching Pires’s valiant effort, I was reminded of Raymond Kopa’s lament about the pain of playing with team-mates who aren’t as good as you.

At one point, Pires shaped to hit the ball right and forward down the flank for a team-mate to run onto. But the run was never made and the ball pootled harmlessly into touch. That mis-read pass summed up Villarreal’s performance.

Arsenal look bright, creative and confident. But they would have lost the first leg if Villarreal had been ruthless upfront. Which makes Arsenal vs United as impossible to call as Liverpool vs Chelsea.

The key for United isn’t the artistry of Cristiano Ronaldo but the fitness and focus of Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand.

Porto’s heroism against United was embarrassing for Jose Mourinho’s Inter. The Nerazzurri and Celtic are the only sides United have beaten at Old Trafford in the tournament this season.

Jesualdo Ferreira’s Dragons paid for not making their supremacy count on the scoresheet. But Porto’s trickery, guts, pace and technique suggested their gung-ho approach might be a better strategy for away sides at Old Trafford than stifling the game by packing midfield.

Of the four coaches left, Ferguson and Hiddink have won this trophy before, Guardiola has won it as a player and Wenger has never won it – or any other European trophy.

Guardiola is the most inexperienced coach and faces, in Hiddink, one of the great touchline improvisers.

But, as Bobby Robson notes in his memoirs, Guardiola was effectively the manager in the dressing room when Barcelona ended their European Cup hoodoo in 1992.

Pep (third right) triumphs in '92

The odds slightly favour Ferguson being able, on May 28 in Rome, to say “Veni, vidi, vici.”

But Chelsea, on the principle that - like every winner since Milan in 2002/03 - they have knocked out the team that knocked out Real Madrid, must fancy their chances.

This is anyone’s tournament now...

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If we don’t win, the lizard gets it…

Paul Simpson — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Sorry folks, but my considered analysis of the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals will have to wait as I am in Venice, wondering if the suggestion that I sneak out to watch SSC Venezia take on the mighty Pergocrema in Serie C1A might lead to divorce.

Then again, Pergocrema does sound like an Italian cure for piles.

Suffice to say: how good were Porto! And how crap was my pre-match analysis!

In the meantime, I have cobbled together a series of random thoughts on training, ritual slaughter and the madness of coaches.

Porto upset the Prof's predictions...

Training daze...

I read a flattering profile of Frank Lampard the other day which said he was invariably the last player on the training ground.

This set me wondering. Frank may be a tireless trainer but if every footballer who claimed they were the last one to stop training really was last the last to hang up their boots, there would be no lasts. Training would simply never end.

There’s also the implicit, Protestant work ethic assumption that such diligence is always laudable. There’s one tiny flaw in that theory. It’s utter b*llocks. Gary Lineker’s idea of a tough training regime was getting out off the bath, but it didn’t stop him scoring 48 goals for England.

As Ed Smith points out in Intelligent Life, training hard doesn’t account for the difference in greatness between, say, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. Nor, Smith adds, would David Gower necessarily have been a better batsman if he’d trained as hard as Graham Gooch.

So can we stop this sports jock snobbishness and just accept that different players have different training needs? And treat every claim that a player is the last in training with due scepticism.

Lampard: Last in the showers again

If we don’t win, the lizard dies…

The lizards of Marseille must be getting nervous. In 1993, before OM met Milan in the UEFA Champions League final, Basile Boli’s wife sacrificed a lizard for luck.

It worked for the final – but couldn’t stave off Tapiegate. Now OM are back in the UEFA Cup quarter-finals, against Shakhtar, further acts of ritual slaughter cannot be ruled out.

Just after reading about Boli’s animal sacrifice, I flew to Geneva to see UEFA. On a concourse plastered with posters for watches, I noticed one promoting a timepiece made out of original parts of the Titanic.

As brand extensions go, this struck me as hideous, tacky and, surely, unlucky. What next? Cuff links containing lumps of the iceberg that struck the ship?

Can’t see either of these fashion accessories catching on with footballers who are, on the whole, a deeply superstitious bunch, obsessed by rituals, lucky underpants and fortuitous rabbits’ foots although, there again, you have to wonder? How lucky can a rabbit that's lost its foot be?

"Quick... leg it"

You don’t have to be mad to coach but…

Continuing my occasional series on football professions where a streak of insanity is a useful asset, coaching surely requires a degree of obsession that could unbalance many ordinary mortals.

I am thinking – and I’m afraid this has to be a no names kind of story because of the laws of libel – of the gaffer who, on arriving at a club, had all the portraits of past glories torn down from his office walls to be replaced with pictures of himself.

I am also struck by my memory of an interview with a top-flight coach where talk turned, as it often does, to tactics. The interviewee leant over and said: “I don’t want to talk too much about this because I think I’ve spotted something in midfield that no one else has seen.”

I watched his team for the rest of the season, trying to discern or deduce what secret wisdom this coach had uncovered and how his team were putting it to use.

Whatever it was, it didn’t work. The team got relegated and the manager’s fluctuating subsequent career did little to suggest that this secret stood him in good stead.

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Wingers: Wide, glorious and daft

Paul Simpson — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 08:00:00 GMT

If goalkeepers are crazy, wingers must be a bit daft.

The thought occurred to me last weekend, watching No.11 Anthony Gale, son of West Ham old boy Tony Gale, create two goals as Walton Casuals beat Merstham 3-1 in the Ryman League Division 1 South.

Gale Jr had been barracked by Casuals fans because, apparently oblivious to the effect on the team’s shape, he constantly drifted in from the left flank to central midfield.

That left a prairie or two of space from which Merstham raided at will (the visitors should have been 4-1 up at half-time, not trailing 2-1) and confusing his team-mates who kept passing into the space where Gale would have been if he’d stayed out wide.

But all was forgiven as Gale struck two superb free-kicks for Nick Burton to head home. Merstham never recovered from the shock.

I can sympathise with Gale Junior. The sheer social isolation of life on the wing, hugging the touchline in the hope your colleagues will remember to pass to you, is too much for many wide men.

Rinus Michels, in his seminal book Teambuilding, complements David Beckham for his ability to cross the ball with feeling and his discipline in staying out wide.

But as Beckham’s star rose, the idea that he was a gifted, but marginal, influence on a match gnawed at him and he became a frustrated midfield general, often rushing into the centre and discombobulating the team.

Doing what he does best...

Like Gale Jr, Beckham is an unusual winger in that he doesn’t have a trick with which to beat a full-back.

Such majestic egoists as Tom Finney and Stanley Matthews had the swerve, the dribble, and the change of pace to torture any defender. The England selectors’ distrust of Matthews seems bizarre now but Andy Roxburgh, UEFA’s technical director, can probably understand it.

Wingers are soloists with their own muses, wide boys who can play as if they have their eyes wide shut, and some degree of inconsistency is the price of their trade.

As Roxburgh says: “In the old days, you had what I call the ‘lazy winger’ who might have one good game in three or five. The crowd loved them but they were the kind of players who could get a manager the sack.”

Neither Matthews nor Finney were lazy but even the latter, as great as he was, could over-elaborate.

Matthews and Finney so terrorised Portugal in a 1947 friendly that the Portuguese, in John Moynihan’s fine phrase, “melted away with tears in their eyes” and lost 10-0. But even Finney and Matthews couldn’t guarantee to be that gloriously destructive every game.

So Sir Alf Ramsey – either because of the rationale outlined by Roxburgh or because truly great wingers were scarcer in England in the 1960s – preferred to give the No.7 and No.11 shirts to roving midfielders.

1965: Fleet-footed Matthews outfoxes Fulham

Even Brazil have not always cherished their wingers. The great Garrincha notoriously almost missed the 1958 World Cup because the team psychologist, after contemplating a few of the winger’s stick drawings, decided he was mentally sub-normal.

Luckily, Brazil coach Vicente Feola ignored the psychologist and picked the Little Bird for the third vital group game against the USSR. The selecao won 2-0 with Garrincha simply glorious.

If anything, he was even greater in 1962 when, with Pele struggling for fitness, he almost won the World Cup on his own. Yet his team-mate Mario Zagallo later admitted: “Garrincha was too unpredictable, even for us his team-mates.”

Bill Shankly once told a player: “The trouble with you son is all your brains are in your head.”

Most wingers, even the best ones, seem to think with their feet, their ability to enthral and appal perfectly captured by one Partick Thistle fan’s comment on Denis McQuade: “An eccentric winger from the 1970s. He would beat five players in a mazy dribble and miss an open goal.”

There are many wing commanders in the game today but they no longer have a kingdom of their own – a domain that once stretched from the halfway line down the flank to the opposing penalty area – and don’t have the same licence to dribble.

One glorious exception is Arjen Robben, who symbolised the perversity of the breed by being both sublime and ineffective against Liverpool.

There are few things in football quite as thrilling as watching a player like Aidan McGeady or Theo Walcott run at defenders with the ball at their feet and Robert Pires has brilliantly analysed the tricks of the trade.

But in a utilitarian game, coaches may prefer to rely on wide players like Beckham who has made an immense virtue of his own deficiency by perfecting the art of the pass, the cross and the set piece.

Much like Anthony Gale at Walton Casuals.

Walcott bamboozles Bolton...

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Previews: Karma, Porto & the Gunners

Paul Simpson — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 09:00:00 GMT

And so 32 have become eight.

Four of the 16 possible permutations for the final in Rome would reprise old finals (1987: Porto vs Bayern; 1999: United vs Bayern; 2006: Barcelona vs Arsenal; 2008: United vs Chelsea). Four of the eight teams left standing are English and the draw ensures that at least one will reach the semi-final. But as we look ahead to the quarter-finals what else can we sure of?

Riise: Revenge for Garcia's ghost goal

Not very much. Arsenal and Porto should be wary of the John Arne Riise principle of karmic recompense. The Norwegian’s own goal in last year’s semi-final against Chelsea was explicable only as a karmic equaliser for the ghost goal of 2005. Villarreal and United both enter their ties convinced that fate owes them a favour.

Barcelona vs Bayern

The most romantic tie of the quarter-finals, dripping in European pedigree, a veritable clash of the titans, etc etc. These sides have scored 48 goals between them in the 2008/09 UEFA Champions League, so don’t be surprised if this is 0-0 after 210 minutes and goes to penalties.

Actually that would be a turn up. The Italians, as Ray Wilkins never tires of noting, do know how to defend. Barcelona and Bayern don’t. Not all the time. Pep Guardiola’s men have not kept a clean sheet at Camp Nou in Europe this season, while Bayern have twice shipped five in the Bundesliga (against Werder Bremen in September and last weekend against Wolfsburg).

Bayern won this competition in 2001 but have lost at this stage in 2002, 2005 and 2007. Jurgen Klinsmann’s hopes of defying that dismal record sank when Miroslav Klose ruptured a tendon. Though Klose doesn’t grab the headlines as often as Luca Toni, he works harder and is more pivotal to Bayern’s play.

Klose: Crucial to Bayern's cause

In the latest Champions, Bastian Schweinsteiger says Bayern dream of a final against United and vengeance for 1999.

Klinsmann should check out his old deputy Joachim Low’s gameplan for the Euro 2008 final. If Bayern are to progress, they must seize the initiative, disrupt Barcelona’s possession play and expose the Catalans’ rearguard to the physical and mental quickness of Schweinsteiger, Franck Ribery and, possibly, Lucas Podolski. Germany almost disturbed Spain’s midfield supremacy at Euro 2008 and six of the players in that final should face each other in this tie.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s remarks about Barcelona being the main non-English threat are intriguing. As he has just suggested too much media flattery has upset his team’s rhythm, is this praise designed to flatter Barca? Or wind up Bayern by suggesting they have already been discounted?

With no karmic debts to be repaid here, there is everything to play for.

Chelsea vs Liverpool

In a world of sequels, the fifth clash between these clubs in as many Champions League seasons could be as compelling as The Bourne Ultimatum or as unsatisfactory as Pirates Of The Caribbean 3.

The media will package this recurring melodrama using familiar plotlines – key battles (Torres vs Terry, Gerrard vs Lampard, Drogba vs Carragher) and all that, but nobody – not pundits, journalists, players nor coaches – has any idea how this quarter-final will pan out.

Rafa Benitez and Guus Hiddink almost faced off in Istanbul in 2005. Hiddink’s PSV showed up the Rossoneri’s defensive deficiencies in the semi-final that year.

In the second leg in Eindhoven, Hiddink brought on Brazilian striker Robert who very nearly put PSV 3-0 up and won the tie. But the gamble – Robert replaced defender Wilfred Bouma – backfired, giving Milan the space to gain a foothold and score that crucial away goal. PSV lost 3-3 on away goals. Benitez won the final after another 3-3 – and, Brian Glanville suggests – erring tactically by fielding the patently unfit Harry Kewell.

Hiddink's PSV denied in '05

Benitez’s six-year record in Europe with Valencia and Liverpool is phenomenal – 2004: UEFA Cup winners; 2005: Champions League winners; 2006: last 16 of knockout round; 2007: losing finalists; 2008: semi-finalists. Hiddink won the trophy in 1988 and, if he beats Liverpool, would have a good shot at being the third coach (after Ottmar Hitzfeld and Ernst Happel) to conquer Europe with two different clubs.

This will be portrayed as a battle of tactical wits. But Chelsea under the not so inspirational Avram Grant won the 2008 semi, the most one-sided instalment in the franchise. Sometimes, as Drogba showed in that tie, coaches are helpless because players write the script.

Manchester United vs Porto

81-1. Those are the odds on this UEFA Champions League season ending with a reprise of the 1987 final. Porto beat Bayern in that thriller, partly due to the most famous backheel in a European Cup final – courtesy of Rabah Madjer – and conquered Europe again in 2004 after a 1-1 draw at Old Trafford in 2004, a result Ferguson still regards as robbery.

It would take a Madjer or Mourinho-style upset for Porto to reach the semis – they are 10-1 to win at Old Trafford, astonishing odds for this stage in a major competition – and their hopes rest on Lisandro Lopez sneaking an away goal, Lucho’s midfield leadership, the Hulk unsettling United’s central defence and the Red Devils having two bad days at the office in the competition Ferguson prizes above all others.

This may be one of the United manager’s last chances to become only the second coach, after the great Bob Paisley, to win this competition three times.

Karma – with Paul Scholes’ goal dubiously disallowed at Old Trafford in 2004 – favours United. As do the stats. Porto’s away record in England is W0, D1, L10. United’s home record against Portuguese opposition is W8 D1, L0.

Scholes goal chalked off in 2004

Villarreal vs Arsenal

Almost as finely poised as Liverpool vs Chelsea. William Hill are offering 2.6/1 on a victory by either side in El Madrigal and 2.8/1 on a draw.

The form book, injury news and the fact that Arsenal play the second leg at home should help the Gunners. Adebayor, Fabregas and Walcott are back, while a dislocated fibula rules out Villarreal midfielder Santi Cazorla, their only ever present in the 2008/09 Champions League.

Arsenal’s 17-game unbeaten run is the longest in the 2008/09 Premier League, while Villarreal have, coach Manuel Pellegrini admits, developed a worrying habit of just not turning up for games.

You may hear talk of Villarreal’s mean defence. This is based on a memory of their miserliness in 2006 and against Manchester United in the group stages. After their 3-0 defeat by Almeria, they have kept just four clean sheets in their last 30 games.

Robert Pires, sent off against Almeria, must keep his emotions in check to torment the Gunners. The Frenchman played 18 minutes of the 2006 final for Arsenal, before being sacrificed after Jens Lehmann’s dismissal. He admits that when he saw his number being held up on the touchline in Paris he thought it was a practical joke.

His team-mates aren’t short of motivation either. The feeling in Villarreal’s dressing room after the 2006 semi-final was that they so vastly superior to Arsenal in the second leg that they deserved to win. So, on the Riise karmic recompense principle, Pellegrini’s team might surprise everyone with an undeserved victory.

Cazorla: Stuffed, along with Villarreal's chances

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Messiahs, flying Dutchmen and whippets

Paul Simpson — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT

So the messiah is back. He has swapped the pundit’s comfy sofa for the heart-melting melodrama that is life in the dug-out.

I’m referring, of course, to Hans Krankl, Austria’s greatest living footballer, who has nine games to save his managerial career as the new boss at LASK Linz.

Krankl is the third man to coach Linz this season, a dismal time for a club that, in its 1965 heyday, became the first side from outside Vienna to win the Austrian league. Linz haven’t won a game since December, and Krankl has admitted that the team’s recent form has been “scandalous.” But so high are expectations that he has already had to advise the press: “I am not a messiah.”

The confusion may have arisen because in his last job, as Austria’s national coach, he was crucified by the media after failing to reach the 2006 World Cup finals.

Not the Messiah, etc

Krankl has three things going for him. Two of them are SCR Altach and SV Mattersburg, the teams immediately below LASK Linz in the Austrian Bundesliga. With nine games left, Altach (who have also hired three managers this season) have 18 points (nine fewer than LASK) while Matterburg have amassed just 16 points but have the same goal difference (-30) as LASK.

Luckily for Krankl, only one team can go down.

The third thing working in Krankl’s favour is that the 56-year-old’s aura of greatness has not been entirely dissipated by his disappointing reign as national coach. Kranklmania has erupted in Linz, much to the delight of local sports photographer Martin Parzer.

But Krankl inherits an ageing, mediocre squad short on confidence. His most famous player, midfielder Ivica Vastic, is now 39 and his most prolific striker, Christian Mayrleb, is 36. Krankl and his assistant Heinrich Strasser have nine games to turn LASK Linz around and then the summer to ponder their future.

Austria doesn’t just have its own returning messiah, it has its own David Beckham.

Unfortunately for Andreas Ivanschitz, aka the Austrian Becks, his career has taken a quantum leap into the doldrums – as Becks’ did at Real under Capello. Benched by Henk Ten Cate at Panathinaikos, the 25-year-old Austrian midfielder was sensationally omitted from the squad for the World Cup qualifier against Romania.

Coach Dietmar Constantini, hired after Karel Bruckner and the Austrian FA parted “by mutual consent,” gambled by dropping two other experienced stars: defender Martin Stranzl and midfielder Rene Aufhauser.

Stranzl (left) and Ivanschitz: dropped

His audacity was rewarded with Austria’s first win in six games, a morale boosting 2-1 triumph over a Romania side that looks increasingly likely to miss the 2010 World Cup.

Confirming the idea that Austrian football is a funhouse mirror reflection of the English game, the Austrian Bundesliga is also puzzling over the future of a globetrotting Dutch coach who, as the season nears its end, has a should I stay or should I go Guus Hiddink-style dilemma.

Co Adriaanse has done a terrific job at Red Bull Salzburg, a club that has been knocking on the door of the Champions League for some years but, so far, always be left out on the step. But he is tempted by the likely vacancy at PSV, Hiddink’s old club.

If the Austrian national side had an up and coming young winger who sprints like a greyhound – and usually crosses like one – you’d begin to suspect that Austrian and English football had been separated at birth.

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Jari's game: How did Litmanen fade away?

Paul Simpson — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:00:00 GMT

Coaches and fans see players differently.

Watching Jari Litmanen, now 38, give the definitive performance as a midfield general against Wales at the weekend, it was hard not to wonder what - eight years ago - Gerard Houllier failed to see in a player the Finns call Kuningas (The King).

Against Wales, Litmanen was perpetually able to find space, circumvented the opposing defence with imaginative, precise passes (one of which led to Jonatan Johansson’s goal, scored slightly against the run of play) and only made three mistakes in the whole 90 minutes.

The riposte may come that this was against a Wales team that has lost its mojo, but you can only beat what’s in front of you. Litmanen may find he has less time and space against, say, Germany but he will still have the same impeccable technique, coolness and vision.

Watching the way he timed and placed his passes was exhilarating but saddening. Here is a player whose goals won the Eredivisie and the UEFA Champions League for Ajax by the time he was 24. (It helped that Edgar Davids would dole out retribution to any opponent who tried to clatter the Finn.)

Litmanen nets in the 1996 Champions League final

But in the last 10 years, since Litmanen left Ajax, a horrendous run of injuries and a lack of faith from coaches like Houllier have condemned him to a nomadic career on the fringes of the European game.

At Ajax, where the fans sang “Litmanen ooh ooh” to the tune of Volare, he is rated alongside Cruyff and Van Basten.

In Finland, he is a god. 10,000 fans turned up in hope of seeing him play for FC Lahti in 2004, and he is the most capped Finnish international and all-time record goalscorer (30 in 121 games – not bad for a country that peaked at 33 in the FIFA rankings and for a player who has often played in the hole behind strikers like Johansson).

But to most of Europe, he remains an enigma, an enormous What Might Have Been. His big move from Ajax to Barcelona didn't work out. Liverpool fans still talk about his solo goal that almost put them through to the Champions League semi-final in 2002 and wonder why he was twice benched after scoring in two games in a row for them.

Litmanen had idolised Liverpool as a kid, irritating Ajax players with his constant references to the Merseyside club. But the dream move became a nightmare and he slipped away back to Ajax.

Signing for Liverpool from Barcelona in January 2001

When Roy Hodgson took a gamble on Litmanen at Fulham last season, the coach was ridiculed. It didn’t help that the Finn was sidelined by injuries, heart palpitations and a bizarre training ground accident in which the reserve goalkeeper accidentally blasted the ball into the back of Litmanen’s head from just four yards.

Hodgson ruefully noted: “Litmanen must be the unluckiest fellow in football. When I first went to the Finnish FA, he was standing next to the sporting director of Malmo who opened a can of Coke and the ring popped into Jari’s eye.”

Through all these vicissitudes, Litmanen has remained imperturbable, apparently harbouring fewer regrets than Edith Piaf. But his career has not been worthy of his talent.

Frank Rijkaard said once: “Dennis Berkgamp was brilliant for Ajax but the best No.10 we ever had was Jari.”

The best we can hope for now is that, for Finland at least, he has many more glorious games left in him.

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Confessions of a league table addict

Paul Simpson — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Some obsessions are truly magnificent. Sir Alex Ferguson’s love affair with the European Cup is worthy of Captain Ahab and Moby Dick.

But I don’t need to spend gazillions on players or risk a ship and its crew to indulge my obsession. I just need a newspaper with some league tables in them.

I’d recommend studying league tables as an obsession: it’s cheap, unlikely to cost you your job and doesn’t do disastrous things to your body – apart from a slight curvature of the spine as you lean forward to check whether only eight points really did separate the 1965/66 Moroccan champions from the team that finished bottom and got relegated.

It’s true – see for yourself.

I pore over tables as if my intense scrutiny could decode their innermost secrets. Cursory inspections of the points totals are for dilettantes.

First, I scour the table for bizarre variations – teams that have scored 100 goals, sides where the contrast between their home and away form is perversely great – before getting down to start the serious, time-killing business of comparing different team records, feeling strangely joyful when I discover that, say, the team in 14th has conceded less goals than the one in sixth.

I blame my childhood. It came too early. With three TV channels, no internet and phones only for use in emergencies, there were so many hours to fill. I was hungry for data.

American presidential elections were great – I’d nick the pages from dad’s Telegraph to scrutinise the tally of votes in all 50 states – but they only happened every four years.

So I got my fix from league tables. Even today, when I am old enough – but not, alas, smart enough – to know better, I study this data as if it were a higher form of truth.

Some tables spotlight the comedy inherent in competitive football. Truly impressive in the 'won none' stakes are Kalev Tartu who lost all 18 games in the 1950 Estonian Soviet league.

The strikers who played for Kalev that season must have hung their heads in shame as they contemplated this table. Their defence wasn’t bad, but their forwards showed such ineptitude – their collective strike rate was 0.22 goals a game – they must be celebrated in the next edition of Stephen Pile’s Book Of Heroic Failures.

Other tables are historic. Take this one from Serie A in 1969/70.

No side has ever won a title and conceded as few goals in a major league as Cagliari in 1969/70. The Sardinians kept 20 clean sheets that season in Serie A. Bologna’s feat – drawing 53 percent of their games – is almost as remarkable.

Look at this extraordinary Hungarian league table from 1988/89.

Eagle-eyed readers will have spotted the extra column. That’s because the Hungarian FA decided there should be no drawn games, penalty shoot-outs settled any match that finished level.

Teams got three points for a win, two points if they won the shootout, one point if they lost it and none if they were defeated in the old-fashioned way. How mad is that?

Honved were champions because they won 16 games within the usual 90 minutes and six in a shootout. Under any normal system, Honved would have had 55 points and come third behind Ferencvaros on goal difference and Videoton, with 56 points, would have been champions.

This wheeze was such a glorious success that Hungarian football rebelled, imprisoning the Mad Hatter who had devised this scheme and scrapping the shootouts for 1989/90.

And you thought it was only Americans who had a phobia about drawn games.

I’ll shut up now.

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The dullest European Cup winners of all time

Paul Simpson — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 09:30:00 GMT

Showboating. That’s how some would regard the 7-1, 4-0 and 5-2 we saw in the UEFA Champions League last week.

While it was joyous to watch Barcelona, Bayern and Liverpool playing with boyish enthusiasm and scoring, as that dreadful old cliché has it, for fun, I’m sure some of the more curmudgeonly members of the coaching trade would have regarded such performances as a bit suspect. Even slightly unprofessional.

Do the minimum necessary to win, they’d say. Sounds brutal, even cynical, but it works in many spheres of life.

I’d take a “nope” from Gary Cooper over a passage of fancy rhetoric by Al “If I’m not overacting how can I be sure they’ll notice me?” Pacino anytime. And in football, it’s hard not to grudgingly admire such masterful economisers of effort as the Milan side that conquered Europe in 2003.

OK, this particular Rossoneri vintage did briefly lose their heads and beat Deportivo 4-0 away in Group G. But after qualifying with four wins in four games, Milan lost to Lens and Depor.

This worked so well they did the same in the second group stage although, in a remarkable feat of sporting minimalism, they managed to win their first four by the same wonderfully functional scoreline: 1-0.

In the quarters, an efficient 0-0 at Ajax was followed by an unusually nervy 3-2 victory at the San Siro, with Jon Dahl Tomasson’s injury-time winner denying the Dutch the chance to go through on away goals.

Tomasson breaks Ajax hearts

After that it was steady as she goes. They made the final courtesy of an ‘away’ goal against Inter at the San Siro and beat Juventus on penalties after another 0-0. Gary Cooper would have been proud.

It wasn’t entertainment, as Johan Cruyff famously complained. But then, as Carlo Ancelotti replied: “When Cruyff wants to enjoy himself, he can go to the cinema.”

Milan’s economical mastery left me thinking the diktat that a player should cover every blade of grass, which seems inspired more by the English football’s all-pervasive Protestant work ethic than any realistic assessment of what a team needs to do to win.

I’ve often watched a Premier League game and wondered whether some players are running for the team or the cameras.

Considering successful teams who had done the absolute minimum, my thoughts turned, naturally enough, to Guus Hiddink’s PSV side that won the European Cup in 1988.

It wasn’t a bad team. Four players – Hans van Breukelen in goal, Ronald Koeman, Soren Lerby in midfield, Gerald Vanenburg on the wing, and Wim Kieft up front – would have been coveted by most managers in Europe. But they won the European Cup in remarkably functional style.

Shootout hero Van Breukelen settles sterile final

In the old-school knockout format, it took PSV just nine games to lift the trophy. They won just three of them, drew five and lost one.

What makes Hiddink’s European champions even more astonishing is that they drew their last five games in the competition. A 1-1 away and a 0-0 at home to Bordeaux in the quarters was enough to reach the semis, where the same combination of results disposed of Real Madrid.

The final against Benfica was one of the most sterile games ever to decide the destiny of a major trophy. A DVD of the first half, which featured one shot on goal, has just entered phase-three clinical trials as a cure for insomnia.

Benfica played for penalties from the start, putting 11 men behind the ball because their playmaker, Diamantino, was injured. But PSV were wary and the shoot-out, which the Dutch won 6-5, came as a blessed relief.

Maybe Hiddink wasn’t attracted to Chelsea by Abramovich, the opportunity to tear a strip off Ashley Cole, or the chance to win the Champions League. Perhaps he just felt an instinctive sympathy with a club that, in 1954/55, lost 10 games (out of 42) but still managed to win the league.

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1970: The definitive World Cup...

Paul Simpson — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 12:00:00 GMT

Which is your World Cup?

One of my pet theories is that we all have a mundial that, as it unfolds, feels less like a football tournament than a rite of passage, introducing us to idols, emotions and intrigue we will remember for the rest of our lives. Mine was 1970. I was nine then.

Back Home was at No.1 (with Elton John on backing vocals), there were Esso World Cup medals to collect, altitudes to worry about and I had special dispensation to stay up late to watch England, a privilege hitherto reserved for Michael Bentine’s Golden Silents.

That was the last World Cup I greeted with a naïve certainty that England would win. Or, at worst, reach the final.

My idol Bobby Charlton was destined, I was secretly convinced, to score the winning goal. My cousin Mick preferred – and styled himself on – George Best but he was cooler than me. And contemplating the foreheads on my dad’s side of the family, I may have already suspected, without admitting it to myself, that I was foredoomed to adopt Bobby’s hairstyle.

Bobby and combover tackle Brazil

Last week, in a collectors’ fair in Shepperton Village Hall, I snapped up the official programme for the 1970 World Cup for £4.

This seemed a thrilling addition to my pitiful archive of 1970-related stuff: one Esso World Cup medal (Terry Cooper), the International Football Book annual, and a video of the greatest semi-final in World Cup history: Italy 4 West Germany 3. (Actually, the game is so-so but the extra-time is wondrous.)

There is virtually no editorial in the programme, but a lot of adverts, bad pencil drawings of the Czech team and an incomprehensible grid for each group that you need an A in technical drawing to fill in. On the inside front cover, British Leyland explain why they had supplied the England team bus: “Let’s just say champions tend to attract each other.”

In my memory, David Coleman narrates the whole tournament. Every player’s name, every move (Gordon Banks’ save, Jeff Astle’s miss, Bobby Moore’s tackle) all delivered with that peculiar conviction that Coleman brought to every match, no matter how insignificant or dull.

England didn’t win, of course. Their exit has generated almost as many conspiracy theories as the assassination of JFK and several stories, too libellous to relate, about the bizarre build up to a quarter-final from which, despite England being 2-0 up after 50 minutes, West Germany emerged as the kings of Leon.

I wept when Uwe Seeler equalised. 32-years later, when England choked in the 2002 quarter-final against Brazil, I looked across at my seven-year-old son and saw the exact same expression of stricken disbelief I had worn in 1970 when Gerd Muller scored the winner. He’s worn it twice since. I call it 'The England Look.'

Muller sends England home early

With England gone, I supported Italy, mainly because of Luigi Riva, the rumble of thunder.

I had tried to shoot as hard as him in the back garden. I wasn’t that successful but it was better than failing, to my dad’s chagrin, to curve the ball like Rivelino. Riva scored his only goal of the tournament in a semi-final that, in extra time, became so extraordinary it is quasi-officially known as The Game Of The Century.

I can still picture the disgust and despair with which Franz Beckenbauer, his injured shoulder strapped up, kicked the ball out of the German goal after Gianni Rivera scored Italy’s fourth. Only a minute before, Muller had equalised.

I watched the final wanting Italy to win. But when they equalised and invited Pele, Jairzinho, Gerson (who smoked 30-a-day even when he was playing) and Rivelino to come at them it was clear that was never going to happen.

Against West Germany, Italy had swashed and buckled. Against Brazil, they just buckled.

That Brazil team were the beautiful team – and they played so well I could enjoy each goal – but I was on the wrong side of history.

Years later, when I talked to Don Howe about that World Cup, he went a bit misty-eyed as he talked about that Brazil side. He was part of a delegation of British coaches in Mexico and the highlight of his trip wasn’t any of the matches but the joy of watching Brazil training. It was, he said, like watching a different species playing a more elevated, joyful, accomplished kind of sport.

For me, 1970 will always be the definitive World Cup.

Carlos Alberto thunders home

Not because it was the best but because I have never known such a heady mixture of joy, despair, memorabilia and intrigue since. What neither I nor British Leyland could foresee was that it would be 12 bleak years before I would watch England in a World Cup again.

I even discovered my all-time favourite kit: Peru’s. It was later adopted by Crystal Palace when they were billed as the team of the eighties.

To be fair, they didn’t say which eighties, so it’s always possible that, 71 years from now, the Palace will dominate European football.

Do tell me what your definitive World Cup is and why...

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England expects – but is it wise to do so?

Paul Simpson — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:00:00 GMT

Anybody who wants to predict the future of European football should remember the cautionary tale of the Sydney Opera House.

The makers of this gorgeous building thought it would cost $7m. They ended up spending a munificent $104m – on a cut down version of the original design.

In his thought-provoking, self-congratulatory bestseller The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleeb points out that our models of the future are always undermined by three flaws: we are never in possession of all the information, very small variations can have a huge impact (the butterfly effect) and we cannot account for events which have never taken place before.

So, bearing Taleeb’s cautions in mind, if all four English teams reach the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League this week, does this mean the Premier League will reign forever?

After all, no English team has lost to a non-English team since the 2007 final and six of the last eight semi-finalists have come from the Premier League.

Liverpool: Last side to lose to foreign opposition in 2007

Such domination is impressive. But not unprecedented. One of the fascinating themes recurring throughout European Cup history is the fluctuating balance of power between north and south.

Real Madrid won the first five. No team from northern Europe won the trophy until 1967. But from 1970 until 1984, Gabriel Hanot’s brainchild was monopolised by teams from England, Germany and the Netherlands.

From 1985 until 1994, only one bunch of northerners got a look in: PSV (1988). Since Ajax’s surprise victory in 1995, the pendulum has swung pretty regularly between north and south.

So if you take the long view, English domination doesn’t seem as complete. Nor does it necessarily seem destined to be permanent.

One known unknown which could affect England’s future performance is the new qualifying system.

The top three will automatically make the group stage from 2009/10, while whoever finishes fourth will join a new play-off round where they could face either the runners-up from the likes of Belgium, Romania, Russia, Scotland and Turkey, fourth-placed teams in Italy and Spain or third-placed sides in France and Germany.

This is a slightly tougher route to the group stages for whoever comes fourth in the England. And look how nervy Liverpool’s 2008/09 qualification over Standard Liege was.

The big known unknown is the system that emerges to level the playing field across European football and stabilise club finances.

None of the formulas so far suggested – such as the idea that clubs could only spend a percentage of turnover on players’ wages – have garnered unanimous support. And it’s unclear how the European Commission will view such schemes. The wages/turnover formula seems, for example, in breach of competition law.

Liege push Liverpool to their limit in 2008/09 qualifying

So everything is still up for grabs. This season we have seen Manchester City bid over £100m for Kaka while the club that owns him has just announced a 30% wage cut and may sell him to Real Madrid this summer.

Meanwhile Chelsea, once the world’s richest club, will reduce their £148m wage bill at season’s end by selling players.

That’s enough about money. I’m sure that, like me, you have read enough “football in the credit crunch” articles to last you a recession or six.

These pieces can usually be boiled down to this:

1. Things will get worse.   

2. We don’t know how much worse.  

3. We don’t know long things will be worse for.  

4. Err that’s it.  

If all four English teams do make the last eight, The Sun’s Neil Custis will feel his eloquent suggestion on Sunday Supplement that “Serie A has been rubbish for four years” has been vindicated.

I’ve never been able to watch this show since they evicted poor old Jimmy Hill from his own breakfast room. But Custis’s claim prompted a furious, well-reasoned response from Andrea Tallarita on Football Italiano.

If the Premier League is such a great league, Tallarita asks, how come so many teams can’t even get a shot on the Manchester United goal?

Tallarita also points out that if FIFA’s 6+5 homegrown player rule came into force, 16 Serie A teams wouldn’t have to change their squads. Only a handful of Premier League clubs could say the same.

And if all four English teams do progress, who will stop then? Of the likely challengers, only Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona look a real threat – if they pull themselves out of their slump.

The only team who can stop United this season?

Who has the best league is a great pub argument. But Arsene Wenger has already resolved this debate when he said: “Everybody thinks they have the most beautiful wife at home.”

And finally...

The press is already talking of Manchester United’s unprecedented quintet. Statistically, winning five trophies isn’t unprecedented at all.

Celtic did it in 1967 although, to be fair, that haul included the less than stellar Glasgow Cup.

And Linfield won a septuple in 1922 while Valletta clinched a sextuple in 2001.

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Bigmouth strikes again: Cloughie, Ali and Carry On

Paul Simpson — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT

“Football hooligans? Well there’s 92 club chairman for a start” - Brian Clough

Brian Clough was the Muhammad Ali of British football. The tragedy for him – and Peter Taylor – was that he couldn’t fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee himself. He had to cajole, charm and bully 11 players into doing that for him on the pitch.

He managed with the conviction of a messiah even if many (especially in the football business) regarded him not as a messiah but as a very naughty boy.

For much of his career – at Hartlepools (as he called it), Derby and Nottingham Forest – Clough’s teams were almost as eloquent as he was.

The dark exception, his 44 days at Leeds United, forms the gloomy heart of Tony Hooper’s remarkable movie The Damned United, based on the even more remarkable novel by David Peace.

"Don't come any closer Brian..."

I loved the book and feared for the film, even when the mercurial Michael Sheen was cast as Cloughie.

After watching the movie this week, I wouldn’t say Sheen is the best British actor at work today, but he’s certainly in the top one.

His Clough is brilliant. There are echoes of his previous roles – Kenneth Williams and Tony Blair – at times but, oddly, this somehow added to the resonance because, watching Sheen, I realised there had always been something of Kenneth Williams’ archness about the real Clough.

Sheen is not the only reason to watch Hooper’s movie.

If you are, like me, old enough to remember the 1970s, this is a moving, funny nostalgia trip into a more innocent age when Clough, invited to dine free at the tandoori as reward for steering Derby into the top flight, tells his wife: “Throw the chips away, we’re going posh, chicken bhoona!”

At which point, the entire Clough family jig with such delight they could have won the pools.

The clothes, the decor, the cars, the transistor radios are all spot on. The film’s rainy, grainy, grimy, shiny texture brilliantly evokes the knackered, grey England of the 1970s, a country whose imminent irrelevance is prefigured by the decline in the national football team.

And the training scenes, for once in a football movie, don’t stink.

The performances vary. Many actors playing real people take their cues from Mike Yarwood. Luckily, Sheen, Timothy Spall (who looks nothing like Peter Taylor but is still utterly credible as the character) and Colm Meaney don’t.

Casting an actor called Meaney as Clough’s nemesis Don Revie was a masterstroke. And Meaney has the solidity, smugness and presence of The Don in his prime, although his face is such an odd shape he reminded me of Al Pacino’s synthetically enhanced gangster in Dick Tracy.

Revie’s team aren’t so well cast – Billy Bremner looks like Tom Jones’ stumpy little brother wearing an orange syrup of figs – but an opening montage of their acts of brutal carnage on the pitch sets up the movie beautifully and goes some way to explaining one of the roots of Clough’s antipathy.

I don’t know if Clough was really obsessed with beating Revie. He may, as tyros do, have used The Don as a target. If you were going to be the best, which Clough believed he was, then you had to beat the best.

And in the long run, he did beat him. He won two European Cups, Revie never got past the semi-final.

And Clough had a point, too, when he told Revie’s players they had to change their ways if they were to be loved. They never really did and are remembered more for their cynicism and brutality than for the occasional splendour of their team play.

They adopted Real Madrid’s strip but never consistently played in that glorious tradition.

The miracle, really, is that Clough was given the chance to come back in Nottingham. Football was a close-kit industry and Clough didn’t play by the rules.

He had been reckless and/or outspoken enough at Derby, Brighton and Leeds to have made him a pariah. It wasn’t just Revie who distrusted him. Matt Busby makes it clear, in his memoirs, that he was no great admirer nor, much later, was Sir Alex Ferguson.

"I think it's time I was going..."

But Clough vindicated himself just as Revie’s career was dissolving. There’s a curious trajectory to their rival careers at this point, as if the eclipse of Revie mysteriously helped Clough focus.

Allan Clarke, Eddie Gray and Bremner all had a shot at recreating the glory that was Revie. They lasted longer in the Elland Road hotseat than Cloughie but failed.

As indeed did Jock Stein who, like Clough, spent much of his 44 days in charge in a Leeds hotel, effectively waiting for the chance to manage Scotland. Not much material for a sequel there.

The movie left me wondering how and if Leeds had changed Clough.

Like all the best superheroes, he realised he was never the same without, his sidekick, Taylor and patched up their rift. And he found Forest, a club that fitted him, felt part of him, just as Derby had.

But I left the cinema wondering if his 44 days at Elland Road was the defining trauma of his managerial career. It nearly broke him. But on the Hemingway principle that people are strong in the broken places, perhaps, in the end, it made him.

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So what did we learn from this week’s action?

Paul Simpson — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:00:00 GMT

Anarchy in the Champions League...

First, only seven quarter-final places are still up for grabs.

It is simply inconceivable that Bayern’s 5-0 win in Lisbon, a record away victory in the UEFA Champions League, will be overturned in Munich. It would be a far greater turnaround than Ajax’s remarkable recovery in the 1968/69 last eight.

Rinus Michels’ team hadn’t quite perfected Total Football – does that mean they were playing Partial Football? – and lost their home leg 3-1 to Benfica. But they then thrashed the Eagles by the same score in Lisbon and, in those innocent, pre-penalty shoot out days, won the play-off in Paris 3-0.

Ribery cooly converts No.3 of five for Bayern

Sporting coach Paulo Bento took his thrashing by Bayern well. “We had the chance to equalise but conceded two goals in six minutes. There was anarchy in the team. Even the best teams have their bad moments. Life doesn’t end here.”

Anarchy is not too strong a word for Sporting’s second half performance. When the great Polish forward Zbigniew Boniek was at Juventus in the 1980s, he was dubbed a “tactical anarchist” by the Italian press. This week we saw compelling evidence that Lisandro Lopez is the new Boniek.

The Argentine striker has been, as Gianni Agnelli said of Boniek, like the moon – he only comes out at night. (To be clear, Agnelli meant that Boniek only shone in Europe.)

Lopez’s record this season is simply bizarre: five goals in 19 Liga Bwin games and, after his point saving brace against Atletico, six goals in seven in the UEFA Champions League.

Champions League hot-shot, Lisandro Lopez

How times have changed. The cliché about teams not travelling well now applies to Italian sides. Juventus and Roma have lost their last six Champions League games in England and the bianconeri have lost their last seven on the road in the knockout stages.

At Stamford Bridge, I was shocked at how poor Juve were in the first half. Only Alessandro Del Piero showed much.

They grew stronger as the game wore on, but their recovery was aided by Chelsea’s strange passivity. After the well-worked early goal, the Blues should have delivered the knockout blow.

But, lively as Salomon Kalou was, they lacked the spirit expected from a Guus Hiddink team.

The vapidity of their second half performance was symbolised by Michael Ballack who, in one five minute period, hit three passes back to the player who had just passed to him.

Ballack: 'To me, to you'

The near thing of the week was Xabi Alonso’s shot at the Bernabeu.

The Rafa Benitez saga is turning into the best Merseyside soap since Brookside. But for me, the biggest puzzle about the Liverpool coach has nothing to do with Robbie Keane, and everything to do with Alonso.

Did Liverpool seriously want to sell the sublime midfielder this summer? Or was it an inspired, motivational double bluff by Rafa?

The free-kick of the week had to be Juninho’s against Barcelona.

Nobody can really blame Victor Valdez for the goal. But watching him watching the ball sail into the top of the net, I was struck by how few of the last 16 teams can field world class goalkeepers on top of their game.

Gianluigi Buffon, Iker Casillas, Pepe Reina and Edwin Van Der Sar stand out.

Lyon’s Hugo Lloris may be the best young keeper in the last 16 – the way he twisted to keep out a deflected shot on Tuesday was remarkable – and Julio Cesar almost single-handedly kept Manchester United at bay in the first half at the San Siro.

Cesar keeps Mourinho's men alive

Petr Cech is one of the world’s best but, to my mind, has not fully recovered from that grievous incident with Stephen Hunt. The other keepers vary – some are making their mark, a few are good but not great, others have chocolate wrists.

So, Bayern are effectively through, and Arsenal, Barcelona, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United, Panathinaikos and Porto, are ahead on points.

But Massimo Moratti, for one, thinks Inter will beat Manchester United, while Luciano Spalletti estimated the balance in the Roma tie as “maybe 49% for us and 51% for them.”

As Jimmy Greaves liked to continually remind us, football is a funny old game.

At the start of the season, three Chelsea managers – Ranieri, Scolari and Ten Cate – had teams in the Champions League. And now, five months later, the one closest to the quarter-finals is Henk Ten Cate.

As Martina Navratilova said on I’m A Former Celebrity Can I Stay A Bit Longer Please? “Who’ have thunk it!”

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The spotters guide to the first knockout round

Paul Simpson — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Oh frabjous day! Callou, callay, the UEFA Champions League is back. As you’ll read match previews aplenty, here is my Q&A guide to the action. And don’t worry – there are no more spurious Lewis Carroll references.

Should Inter play for 0-0?

If you kick off a knockout tie at home, 0-0 isn’t bad. That’s how Jean Tigana’s Monaco stunned Manchester United in the quarter-finals in 1997/98. After a scoreless draw in Monaco, Tigana told his depressed players the odds had shifted in their favour. And so it proved: they drew 1-1 at Old Trafford to go through.

Mourinho may be tempted to ape Tigana. A cautious formation, which plays for 0-0 in the hope that Ibrahimovic or Adriano can magic up a goal, would suit Inter. But you can never tell with Jose, he may want to be more forceful to exploit United’s inexperience in central defence.

Monaco send United packing in '98

Can two of Europe’s most prolific goalscorers get off the mark?

Top scorer in the 2007/08 Champions League, Cristiano Ronaldo’s haul so far in the 2008/09 competition is zero, zip, nada etc.

Some say CR7 is discombobulated by his non-move to Real and Berbatov’s arrival. But he usually scores most goals after Christmas and, the stats suggest, remains on course for 32 in all competitions.

Fernando Torres hasn’t scored in five Champions League games. In the Premier League, Torres averages 0.68 goals a game compared to 0.37 in the Champions League.

CR7’s averages are 0.42 (Premier League) and 0.25 (Europe). Those stats don’t do Ronaldo justice: in the last three seasons, his league average is 0.66 and in Europe 0.46. Remarkable stats for an attacking midfielder/winger.

Who defends for Barcelona?

Barca kept just one clean sheet in their group. Against Basle.

Barca fans haven’t warmed to Pep Guardiola’s preferred central pairing, Rafael Marquez and Gerard Pique. Marquez’s form has fluctuated – strong in 2005/06, dodgy in 2006/07, good in the first half of 2007/08, injured (or out of form) for the second – but he is a capable reader of the game, good in the air and a useful cross-field passer.

With Abidal injured, Puyol may stand in as full-back, although fans would prefer Sylvinho at left-back and Puyol reunited with Marquez in the middle.

Can Maxi Rodriguez top this?

Atleti are in indifferent form – even under new coach Abel Resino – so if the mattress makers are to beat Porto it would help if their skipper did something like this. Atleti’s home record in this tournament is P26, W19, D4, L3 so the game at the Vicente Calderon may prove key.

Will Lyon get an early goal?

2-0 is the ideal, attainable score for Claude Puel’s men. So Barca should expect an opening onslaught at the Stade Gerland.

Last time Guardiola and Puel met they were opposing midfielders. Guardiola had the better of it, pulling the strings in the 1993/94 Champions League as Barca beat Puel’s Monaco 2-0 at home and 1-0 away.

Puel’s best hope of avoiding a similar whitewash is to trust the attacking genius of Karim Benzema – who has averaged 0.7 goals a game in the Champions League – and Juninho’s free-kicks. Benzema and Frank Lampard were the only players to score against Manchester United in the knockout stages last season.

Juninho & Benzema: Lyon's best (and only?) hope

Will Joao Moutinho score?

The Sporting midfielder has been “the new Rui Costa” for so long it’s easy to forget he’s only 22.

He can look like a match-winner or a passenger but, at his best, he is brave, technically accomplished, creative and disciplined. If Moutinho is to become Rui Costa 2.0, he needs to score more goals: 1 in 33 Champions League matches isn’t enough for a player of his quality.

Sporting have played 14 games against German teams. And won none. But Bayern have lost three out of their last four, their keeper Michael Rensing says his defenders “get on my nerves” and Luca Toni is injured. Sporting have only one world class attacker, Liedson, but they could frustrate Bayern.

How many free-kicks will Chelsea concede near their box?

Not many if they heed Guus Hiddink’s instructions. Alessandro Del Piero has already scored six from free-kicks this season, including a glorious 40-yard strike against Zenit.

If the Juventus skipper does take one – and Sebastiano Giovinco is playing – watch out for Giovinco’s position. He usually stands directly behind Del Piero so he can pick up a few tips.

Del Piero: Deadly with a dead ball this season

Will Arjen Robben smirk as he flies past a Liverpool full-back?

Billed as a clash of icons: Raul vs Gerrard. Yet anyone who watched Robben’s wonder goal against Villarreal will know that the 25-year-old Dutch master, who has that rare ability to cut a swathe through hapless defences while looking annoyingly supercilious, could be the key to unlocking Liverpool.

The Reds only kept one clean sheet in Group D – against Marseille at Anfield. The media usually blames Rafa Benitez’s insistence on zonal marking but only one of the five goals shipped in Group D was from a set-piece: PSV scored from a corner in a 3-1 defeat by Liverpool.

How badly will Pana miss Loukas Vyntra?

Nearly 28, Vyntra has matured into a pacy, versatile defender who has been an indispensable, ever present for Panathinaikos in Europe in 2008/09.

A bruised left leg has sidelined him for the trip to Spain. After beating Inter and Werder Bremen, Pana seem confident of sinking Villarreal’s Yellow Submarine, but will Joseba Llorente and Giuseppe Rossi exploit Vyntra’s absence?

Villarreal’s creative anchor man, Marcos Senna, needs to show the authority, consistency and discipline he displayed at Euro 2008. His team have kept just two clean sheets in 23 games.

Will Philippe Mexes get the recognition he deserves?

Against Siena at the weekend, a shocked hush fell over the Stadio Olimpico as Philippe Mexes fell badly. Luckily for Roma, he recovered to initiate several great moves as Luciano Spalletti’s men won 2-1.

At 26, Mexes is coming into his prime. Once renowned for charging up midfield and leaving gaps for opponents to attack, he has learned to time such forays and is, in many ways, the epitome of the modern central defender: good at winning the ball and making use of it.

Touted as the new Alessandro Nesta, he says that, like his skipper Francesco Totti, he wants to end his career in Rome. If he can quieten Robin van Persie, Roma could progress.

Mexes: Roma's rock that Gunners must destroy

What do Arsenal need to turn their season around?

If Arsenal are to win the silverware that will keep the likes of Van Persie, Adebayor and Fabregas at the Emirates, they need to win the Champions League or come at least fourth in the Premier League.

The average points tally of fourth-placed teams in the last five seasons is 66.4. Arsenal have 45 from 26, so to be reasonably sure they need 22-25 points from 12 games.

If we assume Aston Villa struggle, Arsenal could requalify with 67 points. But they’d need to pick up two more points in their last dozen games than they did last season.

The easiest way for Arsenal to qualify for the Champions League may be to surprise everybody and win it.

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Curses, wallies & the return of the Russian linesman

Paul Simpson — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 14:30:00 GMT

The Russian linesman is back...

Sixteen years after his death, the Azerbaijani linesman Tofik Bakhramov is the inspirational centrepiece for an exhibition by artist Mark Wallinger at London’s Hayward Gallery.

The exhibition is called The Russian Linesman because, for years, few people in England knew or cared that a) a place called Azerbaijan existed and b) that Bakhramov, the linesman who gave England’s third goal in the 1966 final, came from there.

The blurb for Wallinger’s exhibition is absurdly pretentious and self-important but the show isn’t.

Bakhramov is such a hero in Azerbaijan that the national stadium is named after him. Five years ago, before England’s game in Baku, a statue was unveiled in his honour but many Azerbaijanis feel their linesman still hasn’t had due recognition.

England's heroes: Bakhramov (R) and fellow 1966 final officials

One fan, Aydyn Zarbaliev, even went so far as to suggest: “Many people in London won’t agree with me but I think Bakhramov deserves a monument from the English no smaller than Nelson’s column.”

Geoff Hurst once presented the linesman’s son with a shirt that read: “Thank you very much” in Azeri. Computer analysis has suggested, but not conclusively proved, that the ball didn’t cross the line leading many to wonder about the linesman’s motivation.

There is an apocryphal story that, when Bakhramov was lying on his deathbed, he was asked why he’d given the goal. Legend has it that the former official mumbled one word: “Stalingrad.”

Masterminds and wallies...

“Sack the coach” was how Danish football journalist Morten Crone Sejersbal greeted the appointment of Magnus Persson as Aalborg coach.

The fact that Persson, a Swede, was replacing Danish caretaker Allan Kuhn was a blow to Denmark’s pride. But Persson masterminded the result of the week in the UEFA Cup, a 3-0 victory over Deportivo La Coruna in his first European game as coach.

Funnily enough Sejersbal now admits: “I’ve changed my mind. It’s good that Aab don’t listen to the media.”

Elsewhere, the UEFA Cup brought some solace for two coaches under fire: Marco van Basten (Ajax won 1-0 in Fiorentina) and Mircea Lucescu (Shakhtar beat Spurs 2-0 despite some ludicrous finishing).

I still wouldn’t be surprised if Lucescu moved on at the end of the season, especially now that Valeriy Gazzaev is in the market for a new post.

Meanwhile, the rehabilitation of the wally with the brolly gathers momentum as Steve McClaren’s Twente comfortably beat Marseille 1-0 in the Velodrome.

Schteve celebrates conquering the French

The curse of the Brazilian World Cup winning coach...

Mario Zagallo, Carlos Alberto Parreira and Phil Scolari have two things in common: they have all coached Brazil to World Cup glory – and have never lasted more than a season at a European club.

Zagallo didn’t even try, Carlos Alberto Parreira endured one forgettable season (1994/95) at Valencia and Scolari spent five months at Chelsea.

But perhaps the curse isn’t restricted to World Cup winning coaches. Vanderlei Luxemburgo had a torrid time at Real in 2004/05, best remembered by the cognoscenti for a pioneering (for which read: suicidal) 4-2-2-2 formation known as the Magic Rectangle.

Zico lasted two years at Fenerbahce and at least left of his own volition, suggesting he’d be up for the Newcastle job.

But Dennis Wise, a man steeped in football history and the power of the Brazilian curse, wisely gave Zico the swerve and the legend is now tasked with reviving CSKA Moscow.

Maybe the curse isn’t restricted to Brazilian coaches. As we point out in the new issue of Champions – look if I don’t plug it, who else will? – Argentine coaches have, since the 1960s heyday of Helenio Herrera, had a marginal influence on European football.

Does this mean there’s something wrong with Brazilian and Argentine coaches? Or with the European game?

Big Phil confronts the dreaded curse head on

And finally, the day James Joyce joined the Hungarian midfield...

The most influential novelist of the 20th century was no master of the “greasy leather orb,” as he referred to the ball but, according to this intriguing post on The Global Game he was happy to rub shoulders with the Hungarian football team at a lecture in Paris in 1937.

Vladimir Nabokov, the goalkeeper and novelist, was giving the lecture and the sight of Joyce “arms folded and glasses glinting in the middle of the Hungarian soccer team” unnerved him.

Fortunately, Joyce just sat there and paid attention. As did the Hungarian players.

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How do you solve a problem like Spain?

Paul Simpson — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 11:00:00 GMT

From Queen’s Park to Seville...

“The Englishman had all the advantage in respect of weight and pace. The strong point with the home side was that they played excellently well together.”

This is from the Glasgow Herald’s match report on the first ever international – England vs Scotland in 1872 (Scotland were entirely represented by Queen’s Park players and the game finished 0-0) – but could as easily have been the verdict on England vs Spain last week.

Phil Jagielka’s unfortunate assist for Spain’s opener symbolised a carelessness with the ball that has, since the 1870s, been part of English football’s DNA and which must, even for a coach as iron-willed as Capello, be a constant source of irritation.

Villa strokes home Spain's opener in Seville

In fairness, England did not disgrace themselves in Spain but they never really looked in serious contention either.

In Spain, the papers are touting Del Bosque’s side as “the Brazil of Europe” and, in the last year, four very different coaches have failed to devise a plan to defeat them.

In the Euros, Hiddink failed twice with Russia, as his players struggled to keep the ball, Donadoni stifled the Spanish in the quarter-final but the Azzurri were so drained they posed no attacking threat, and Low made the best fist of it with Germany, trying to seize the initiative with some fast, direct play in the final (as Andy Roxburgh, UEFA technical director points out in the latest issue of Champions) but still lost.

Capello’s plan was harder to discern. It may be he wanted England to emulate Germany (with the pace of Agbonlahor), but after about 15 minutes, the battle for midfield supremacy had been lost – and with it the game.

The only reason I’m not convinced Spain will win the World Cup in 2010 is that, in modern times, it is rare for a form team’s reign of supremacy to last that long. France managed it in 1998 and 2000 but the norm has been for the world or European champions to hit their stride either just before or during the tournament or even – in Italy’s case in 2006 – in the semi-final.

Reasons for Brazil to be cheerful...

Brazil’s victory over Italy dispelled some of the gloom surrounding Dunga’s team. At lunch the other day with Jonathan Wilson, the football writer and author of the seminal tactical tome Inverting The Pyramid, he suggested another reason for the selecao to be optimistic.

Pausing over his croque monsieur, he pointed out that the team that won the World Cup usually had the best full-backs in the world.

Fab full-backs: The secret to World Cup success?

The record shows he has a point:

2006 Italy: Grosso, Zambrotta
2002 Brazil: Cafu, Roberto Carlos
1998 France: Thuram, Lizarazu
1994 Brazil: Jorginho, Branco
1990 Germany: Berthold, Brehme

The weakest pair of World Cup wining full-backs is 1994. But Ray Wilson and George Cohen were no slouches in 1966, Paul Breitner and Berti Vogts shone in 1974 and, in 1958, Brazil ushered in their golden age with Djalma Santos and Nilton Santos.

Djalma was the more defensive of the two but he was an effective attacker down the right, while Nilton was one of the best full-backs ever. If he had played in a more televisual age, he would be as famous as Roberto Carlos. Still, in 2010, any nation with Maicon and Daniel Alves at the back is going to have a chance.

With Sergio Ramos and Joan Capdevilla, Spain are hardly under strength in this position. The sooner Capello perfects his pairing – on pure talent it would have to be Micah Richards and Ashley Cole – the better.

And finally…

The owner of my favourite football tache, Artur Jorge, has a fantastic Wikipedia page which ends: “God knows where he is now.”

You would have thought that with a moustache as luxuriant as a small forest, it would be hard for Jorge to vanish. But the veteran coach, who won the European Cup in 1987 with Porto, was last heard of in 2006/07 coaching Creteil, who now languish in France’s Division Three.

Any sightings will be rewarded with a free copy of the latest Champions.

Artur Jorge sports his famous face fungus

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What Chelsea need most... (and it isn’t a quick fix)

Paul Simpson — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 14:00:00 GMT

If you consider many of the great European clubs, they have one thing in common... one, possibly two, transformational managers who, in partnership with a board or a strong chairman/owner, laid the foundations on which a successful club must be based.

The glorious exception to this rule is Real Madrid. But Santiago Bernabeu, the club’s greatest president, was almost a surrogate transformational coach in the 1950s, seizing the opportunity provided by the European Cup, signing a galaxy of players and inspiring a style of play that became a club trademark.

The transformational manager pattern works if you consider Ajax (Rinus Michel; Louis Van Gaal), Arsenal (Herbert Chapman in the 1930s and Arsene Wenger in the 90s), Inter (Helenio Herrera in the 60s), Dinamo Kyiv (Valeriy Lobanovsky), Liverpool (Bill Shankly in the 60s), Manchester United (Sir Matt Busby in the 50s and Sir Alex Ferguson in the 90s) and Milan (Arrigo Sacchi in the late 80s).

These managers are usually of a certain age when they take on their transformational challenge. Herrera was 50, Shankly and Wenger were 46, Ferguson 45, Sacchi 41, Michels 37, Busby 36 and Lobanovsky 35. They create a successful model which, all being well, could last 20-30 years.

But at some point, typically around 25 years, this model will become rusty and uncompetitive and need to be partially or wholly reinvented.

Have Chelsea waved goodbye to their best chance of sustained success?

United’s failure to modernise the Busby model in the early 1980s coincided with a Bart Simpsonesque period of underachievement that persuaded the club to gamble on a tenacious, relatively unknown Scottish manager called Alex Ferguson.

Dinamo Kyiv, Inter and Real Madrid still have their reinventing to do – and their volatility may, ultimately, have more to do with this challenge than the calibre of coaches or players they hire.

Chelsea have not had such a manager. Even if Hiddink was so inclined – and Russia let him go – he may, at 62, be too old to inspire the kind of root and branch transformation the club needs to become an enduring, great power in European football.

Chelsea have the players, the backing, and much of the infrastructure – notably a £20m training ground in Cobham – but they don’t seem, from the outside, to have developed the division of responsibility and boring structural stuff that underpins a club with the longevity of an Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United or Milan.

Nor, under Abramovich, have they developed a ‘Chelsea way’ of playing football in the way that Wenger’s Arsenal and Ferguson’s United have.

What Chelsea need, above all, is a gifted, inspirational manager in his 40s who pledges his long-term future to the club.

That could have been Mourinho. It could still be Ancelotti, who only turns 50 this summer. But it almost certainly won’t be Hiddink even if he does become the first Chelsea coach to win the UEFA Champions League.

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King Arthur Mourinho, Archangel Guus & Perry Groves

Paul Simpson — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Hiddink, schmiddink. Most of the Chelsea fans I spoke to wanted one man to replace Scolari. The one man Roman Abramovich will never appoint. The outlaw Jose Mourinho.

When Mourinho and Abramovich parted 17 months ago, the Special One stormed out challenging the billionaire to find someone who could do a better job. Accepting that challenge has already cost the Chelsea owner £32.5m in pay-offs alone.

Guus Hiddink may be Abramovich’s best shot – he has at least won the European Cup, in its old guise. And if he wins the trophy with Chelsea, he may yet banish the ghost of Mourinho.

The key word there is ‘may’. Mourinho is Chelsea’s king in exile, a legendary Arthurian kind of ruler whose glorious, yet too brief, reign ended in betrayal, conspiracy and deceit. Arthur, so myth has it, is resting in the mysterious Isle of Avalon, awaiting his country’s summons in hour of dire need.

Mourinho is more visible, making headlines in Serie A with Inter Milan but still, so some fans secretly dream, liable to make a messianic return to Stamford Bridge to lead the Blues to glory. In truth, it could only happen if Abramovich sold the club.

The Arthurian complex is not unique to Chelsea. In hours of need, Bayern have invariably sent for Franz Beckenbauer. Barcelona’s Arthurian hero hasn’t vanished into a mystical, parallel universe; Johan Cruyff is available on the end of a phone if either Pep Guardiola or Joan Laporta need his sage counsel.

"Scuse me mate - which way's Stamford Bridge?"

In a remarkably short time, Mourinho became part of Chelsea’s soul. And he may, unlike Arthur, have bowed out at the right time. The knights of the round table/three musketeers solidarity he had inspired had begun to crack, replaced by what Cruyff’s mentor Rinus Michels identified as a syndrome where players, under pressure, begin to play, as he put it, “as if they are a kingdom of their own”.

Michels noticed this tendency in underperforming Barcelona sides – he even used it, as Köln coach, to beat the Blaugranas 4-0 at Camp Nou in the 1980 UEFA Cup.

Koln had lost the first leg 1-0 in Germany but Michels told his players that if they got just one goal, the Barcelona players would get nervous, forget what they had to do for the team and start playing for themselves. And so it proved.

Golden Guus
Guus is, of course, pronounced Goose, an immense boon to headline writers who have exhausted their stock of Phil-tastic puns. If Hiddink’s Chelsea triumph in Rome this May, he’ll be Golden Guus.

If he loses his rag at half-time when they are 1-0 down against Wigan, at least one back page will cry out: “Wild Guus”. A succession of drab 0-0 draws will be greeted with “Grey Guus”. If Chelsea lose 4-0 to Juve at Stamford Bridge, it will surely be a case of “Guus cooked”.

Hiddink is a great coach but he might want to reflect on Simon Barnes’ fine words in The Times. “Chelsea have reached the limit of human possibility in their quest for the right man. The logical next step is to hire an archangel… So Chelsea fired Luiz Felipe Scolari.

"You may be good enough for Brazil, but if you think you're good enough for Chelsea, you've got another think coming. You come here with your fancy talk about winning the World Cup, but what about the Carling Cup, eh? How many times have you won that?”

As the Sports Illustrated archive points out, firing Scolari is in the club’s great, masochistic tradition. In the 1930s, the idea of the Blues winning silverware was considered so unlikely a vaudeville performer called Norman Long performed a comic novelty song entitled The Day That Chelsea Went And Won The Cup.

On such an unlikely day, Long side-splittingly suggested, a pigeon would hatch a guinea pig and the sun would come out in Manchester.

"I'd hatch a what in the where now?"

Hiddink’s job is to ensure that someone doesn’t remake this satirical masterpiece and entitle it The Day That Chelsea Went And Won The Champions League.

And finally…
A useful corrective to the cult of the boss is offered by football academic Stefan Szymanski here. He suggests that fans can judge players as well as coaches. Not sure about that.

When Thierry Henry arrived at Highbury, for example, many Gooners (including Nick Hornby) thought Wenger had splashed out millions on a pacier Perry Groves.

Still, Szymanski’s piece is worth reading even if, ultimately, I felt, as Roy Walker says again on that insurance ad: “It’s good, but it’s not right.”

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NEWS: Chelsea fire World Cup winner Scolari

NEWS: Big Phil suffers rare coaching setback

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BLOG: Why Scolari couldn't save The Damned Chelsea

TALENTSPOTTER BLOG: Is Scolari's sacking too late to save Chelsea's season?

Blizzards, bursting bubbles & barmy Benitez

Paul Simpson — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:00:00 GMT

The snowman scarf count in Shepperton this week is Chelsea 3 Arsenal 1.

Meanwhile, away from Blizzard Britain, football continues to suggest that it is full of, to paraphrase the classic Elvis’ gospel song Run On, long tongued liars, ramblers, gamblers and back biters.

Red divide

Explaining why he sold Robbie Keane, Rafa Benitez said: “We still have [Ryan] Babel, [David] Ngog and Dirk Kuyt as well as Torres. It is a risk but the situation was not good and we needed to do something.” 

Here are the stats on the strikers supporting Torres: 

Ryan Babel: 76 games, 13 goals, 0.17 goals a game. 

David Ngog: 9 games, 1 goal, 0.11 goals a game.

 Dirk Kuyt: 128 games, 32 goals, 0.25 goals a game. 

Luckily, Torres’s stats are: 68 games, 41 goals, 0.60 goals a game.

Who needs Robbie Keane when you've got David Ngog

Compare this to Manchester United’s firepower.:

Dimitar Berbatov: 25 games, 11 goals, 0.44 goals a game.

 Cristiano Ronaldo: 271 games, 106 goals, 0.39 goals a game.

Wayne Rooney: 218 games, 89 goals, 0.41 goals a game.

Carlos Tevez: 80 games, 29 goals, 0.36 goals a game.

Most tedious metaphor of the week

Don’t know if you caught Mihir Bose’s report on BBC’s 10 o’clock news about the Premier League's bubble bursting.

To save you searching for it online, here is the item in a nutshell.  

1. The Premier League’s bubble may be about to burst. 

2. Quite a few Premier League clubs are effectively up for sale. 

3. See point 1.  

That was it.

And what graphic device did they use to illustrate the point that the Premier League’s financial bubble may be about to burst?

That’s right. A bubble.

Presumably the BBC think us incapable of understanding the point about financial bubbles bursting unless we are constantly looking at bubbles. Big ones, cuddly ones, like the bubbles we blew as kids.  

Look out! It's going to blow...

The device might have been vaguely witty if they’d shown West Ham in a bubble. Instead, Fulham were cocooned in one as gentlemanly Roy Hodgson tactfully did his best to make the story seem half valid.

It was an odd item to run on the day the Premier League announced it looked set for another record TV deal, a daft whim.

Presumably the bubbles came from the same graphic whiz who decided, at the height of Olympics fever, that we couldn’t understand a story on Britain’s economy without our performance being rated gold, medal or bronze.

(Obviously, we now know, thanks to the IMF, that if economic performance were an Olympic event, Great Britain wouldn’t get out of the heats).

I can’t wait for Mihir’s next report. His searching expose of the difficulties facing Fabio Capello’s England will be presented, in its entirety, from a cage at Whipsnade Zoo occupied by three lions. Hey, we can all dream can’t we?

Backhanded compliment of the week

Arsenal nut Christian Skindballe’s defence of Nikolas Bendtner, quoted in Arsenal’s official newsletter would be a bit more rousing if it didn’t include this sentence:

“People need to remember you don´t have to like the person to appreciate the talent and contribution.”

Gamble of the week

Andrei Arshavin’s arrival at Arsenal had me wondering: has any Russian footballer ever really done the business when playing for a foreign club?

Arshavin: Will he break the mould of Russians flopping abroad?

When Rangers bought Oleg Salenko, joint Golden Boot winner at USA '94, the Russian striker did more shooting mucking around in Paul Gascoigne’s garden than he did on the pitch.

Midfield schemer Aleskandr Mostovoi was so popular at Celta Vigo the fans dubbed him “The Tsar of Balaidos.”

Can’t think of too many other Russian stars in exile but feel free to suggest a few.

I hope Arshavin is the catalyst Arsenal needs because the Premier League is poorer without the Gunners on song. This season has – thanks to Manchester City’s massive good fortune – been more exciting on the back pages than on the pitch.

Why Sheikh Mansour has bought the wrong club

Paul Simpson — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:00:00 GMT

If football in the North East was a Marlon Brando character it would be Terry (“I could have been a contender”) Malloy in On The Waterfront.

In the last 30 years, only Kevin Keegan - the Geordie Bonnie Prince Charlie - has looked capable of delivering some long overdue glory.

It wasn’t always like this, as the 1908/09 league table shows. That season Newcastle were convincing champions, Sunderland finished third and Middlesbrough ninth.

Maybe the rot started with Alf Common.

Middlesbrough paid a world record fee of £1,000 to lure the striker from Sunderland in February 1905. Terrorising defences with skill and a walrus-like moustache, he scored for fun. But in 1910, he headed south to Woolwich Arsenal, a move that marked the end of a golden decade for North East football.

Common: Catalyst for North Eastern decline?

After World War I, the North East was never as great a football power.

Newcastle won their fourth and final title in 1926/27, dominated the FA Cup in the early 1950s, won the Fairs Cup in 1969 and lit up in the Premiership in the 1990s.

Sunderland enjoyed a glorious mid-1930s (winning the league in 1936 and FA Cup in 1937) but have not had masses to cheer since apart from the Bob Stokoe/Ian Porterfield/Jim Montgomery FA Cup final triumph over Leeds.

Middlesbrough, third in the league in 1913/14, have won the League Cup and have never broken a transfer record since Commons’ departure – though under Bryan Robson they set a record for the highest fee ever paid for an immobile, overweight Brazilian left-back when they acquired Branco.

The North East’s loss has, largely, been the North West’s gain, as this table shows:

Eight of the North East’s 10 league titles were won before 1915 – five by Sunderland and three by Newcastle. Sunderland’s galactical “team of all the talents” won the league three times between 1891and 1895. In 1892/93, they were 11 points ahead of Preston – an 18 point margin in today’s money.

After buying some gifted players (mainly from Scotland) Newcastle won three titles in the 1900s and reached five FA Cup finals in seven years with a rousing style of possession play that defined the expectations of generations of Toon fans.

Until the late 1950s, the Tyne and Wear teams had a decent run winning a proper trophy every so often and nurturing stars like Jackie Milburn and Len Shackleton. Then Sunderland, wounded by a scandal over payments to players, slipped out of the top flight in 1958; Newcastle followed suit in 1961.

The gap between North West and North East was cruelly exposed in the 1974 Liverpool vs Newcastle FA Cup final, a bleak counterpoint to Sunderland’s heroism in 1973, and one of the most boring, uncompetitive finals I have ever seen – with the possible exception of the 1998/99 Newcastle vs Manchester United showpiece.

1999 FA Cup final: One for the purist

Economics is partly to blame.

The North East’s dominance on the pitch in the late 1890s and 1900s was, in part, fuelled by a boom in coal, iron, steel, ships and engineering. Rich captains of industry happily funded Sunderland’s “team of all the talents.” But even in 1895/96, with results worsening, such funding was harder to find. Such crises have periodically rocked club boardrooms on the Tyne, Tees and Wear ever since.

Once, one in every three ships in the world was made on the Tyne, Tees and Wear. By the 1920s and 1930s, demand for coal, ships and steel had slumped.

The North East’s economy – like its football industry – has never really recovered. Even in the 1950s, when Toon legend Milburn was asked by cousin Cissy Charlton which club her son Bobby should join, he recommended Matt Busby’s Manchester United because they had a far better youth system.

Bobby wasn’t the last star the Toon missed: Jack Charlton, Peter Beardsley, Michael Carrick and Alan Shearer all had to make their mark elsewhere.

Economic troubles encourage prudence but Newcastle’s history is shot through with pure meanness. In 1951, directors were so delighted to win the FA Cup they bought a job lot of handbags for £17, stuffed them with newspaper clippings and gave them to the players’ wives.

In 1956, Stan Seymour rewarded defender Frank Brennan for his loyal service by slashing his wage from £15 to £8. And in 1977, when Newcastle were reasonably successful, six players nearly quit the club after contract talks stalled.

The decline is partly about quality of management over a long period. In the dugout, there has been no Shankly or Busby to lay the foundations for a great club.

In the boardroom, the directors have scored more own goals than Dennis Wise’s old teammate Frank Sinclair and have, since the 1950s, largely failed to nurture and retain a nucleus of quality players that could make a great team.

From Supermac to Gazza, they have sold stars and, too often, invested the money in the likes of Stephane G’uivarch. Newcastle’s remarkable genius for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory has, rather unfairly, made the Toon Army’s passion seem comically grotesque.

The tragic-comic result of Newcastle’s unerring instinct for self-destruction is that Abu Dhabi United Investment And Development Limited bought the wrong club. If any Premier League club stood to be transformed by halfway decent management and the infusion of a few hundred million quid it was Newcastle United.

The average gate at St James’s Park last season was 51,231, higher than for Serie A winners Inter, and nearly 9,000 more than the average at the City of Manchester Stadium.

The Toon Army deserve something to shout about

And Newcastle, unlike Manchester City, own their stadium. That’s partly why, last year, American business magazine Forbes estimated that Newcastle United was worth £220m, almost £80m more than Manchester City.

If Newcastle fans ever feel inspired to repeat the paper plane throwing feats that illuminated a dull 0-0 with Crystal Place in May 2005, they may want to make them out of dirhams, the Abu Dhabi currency, just to remind Mike Ashley what he has lost.

Sunderland and Middlesbrough do, at least, have stable ownership now. In a story littered with missed opportunities, Newcastle’s failure to find the right owner from the Middle East may just be the biggest missed opportunity of all.

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