Sep
8
Serbian goalkeeper Vladimir Stojkovic got a nasty surprise recently when he checked out a few of his country’s sports webpages, and saw his own obituary posted there. The reason for this was his decision to join Partizan Belgrade on loan, something deemed unforgivable by fans of his former club, Red Star Belgrade.
Red Star and Partizan hold one of the fiercest rivalries in Europe, and as Stojkovic was once considered a Red Star hero, few would have expected him to make such a move. He left his old club four years ago and joined Sporting Lisbon, but after facing competition for the first team jersey in recent times, he was allowed to leave on loan.
He has said that he “understands” the fierce reaction of his former fans, but that posting an obituary is “too much“. Despite that, he won’t hire bodyguards, and will try to concentrate on helping his new club. His decision was largely based on Partizan qualifying for the Champions League, where they are in a group with Shakhtar Donetsk, Sporting Braga, and Arsenal.
It goes to show how extreme some fan reactions can get, though Stojkovic should have expected such a thing. He is free to go wherever he chooses, but he better than anyone should know he puts himself in danger like this. Hopefully ,there won’t be any further incidents, but you never know in Eastern Europe. Despite his reluctance to hire bodyguards, I’m sure the cub will have security tightened, especially when the Champion League games start.
Sep
6
AC Milan’s new signing, Brazilian superstar Robinho, has come up with a list of reasons why his time at Manchester City was a failure. He had many harsh words to say about his former employees, but I think they provide an interesting insight into life at such a Premiership club.
Robinho has said that he couldn’t form almost any personal relationships with the staff at City, and his only real friends were Brazilians Elano and Jo, who were sold and sent out on loan not long after his arrival. The striker also said that City was a bit like “an office”, where you go straight from training to matches with little time to really get to know your teammates. He has stated that his desire for happiness was not fulfilled, and as a Brazilian, he couldn’t play well without it.
According to him, both managers Mark Hughes and Roberto Mancini “did not understand his mentality”; he had a very hard time adapting to life in Manchester, and pretty much nothing worked out. He was apparently promised City would be challenging for the title, and that is why he decided to leave Real Madrid and go there. You can’t really blame him for falling for it, as City probably did spend enough money to challenge for first place, or at least get into a Champions League spot, which didn’t happen.
I think the Italian climate will be warmer in more ways than one for Robinho, and we’ll see if he can recapture his top form at Milan.
Sep
6
Blanc makes every French player sing, but still can’t stop the rot
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French coach Laurent Blanc is pulling out all the tricks to get the public on his side, including printing out the text to the French national anthem “La Mersellaise” and making every player memorize and sing it at games. It’s an effort to improve the image of his squad, as well as bolster the team spirit, but so far it doesn’t seem to have much effect. In front of over 70,000 people, who had come to lift up France in their first competitive game after the World Cup, Blanc’s team suffered a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Belarus.
To put things in perspective, the French were selected as top seeds for their Euro 2012 qualifying group, while Belarus a lowly 4th. But I guess it shows to highlight that getting rid of most of the players that failed at the WC, and making the others sing the anthem isn’t going to fix everything. The French seem to be in a little bit of a knockdown right now, and they’ll need something special to help pick them back up.
What’s interesting also is that Blanc said “there was no one in the team to score a goal”, which is what happens when their two top strikers, Henry and Anelka, left the squad. The former retired from international football, while the latter was suspended for 18 games due to his involvement in the scandal. Many think it’s time for Benzema to step up, but so far he really hasn’t delivered on the international stage.
Sep
5
Liverpool are one of those clubs that will always (or at least for a very long time) be a legendary name in football, but their accomplishments are mostly rooted to the past. They are yet to win the Premiership, and despite a miraculous Champions League triumph last decade, they have yet to regain their status as a dominant force.
The reason for this? Their loyal defender Jamie Carragher puts down all the way back to Graeme Souness, who managed Liverpool from 1991 to 1994. In that time-frame, the club’s fortune took a dramatic turn for the worse, they were displaced from the top of English football by Manchester United, and they have not bounced back since. Poor tactics, poor signings, poor man-management were all sighted as contributing factors to their loss of power at that time, but now 20 years later, is it still fair to blame one man for all this?
Souness proved to be a more than adequate manager at his time at Blackburn Rovers, regaining the club’s top flight status and even winning the League Cup. He may have made mistakes during his time at Liverpool, but then he can’t be blamed forever. The situation this season seams as bad as ever, and with little finances coming the club’s way, it sounds like they’d be happy to finish in the top 10 this season. But we’ll see how things go – this promises to be one of the most unpredictable seasons in the Premiership yet.
Sep
1
Queiroz banned for harassing drug-testers
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In a very strange news story, it has been reported that Portugal’s national coach Carlos Queiroz is facing a 6-month ban from football, after it was found that he “acted aggressively” against employees who were administering drug tests on his team prior to the World Cup. The incident happened during a training session and has been the subject of a long investigation.
Details on what exactly happened are sparse, but officials take drug-testing very seriously and even the slightest misconduct holds very severe punishments. A few years ago Rio Ferdinand was suspended for almost a year after he forgot to take one of these tests. I really don’t know what Quieroz could have done to warrant his own punishment, or why, but if it was deemed that he interfered in the process, 6 months may even be getting off light.
When asked about the ban, the Portuguese coach has said he would appeal such a ruling. He is already serving a one month ban for the same incident, which rules him out of Portugal’s opening Euro 2012 qualification games, but 6 months for a football manager would really be a lot. Not that that would stop him from doing much of his regular work like attending games and scouting players, but if you have to miss a number of the already few big workdays you have a year (the matches), one wonders what’s even the point of continuing on as manager.
Aug
31
It seems like all is not well in the Barcelona dream-team, and even such a successful coach as Guardiola is faced with problems surrounding his (former) best players.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the former Barcelona striker who moved to AC Milan for 24 million Euros, has hit out at his former boss, Pep Guardiola. The Swedish star has said: “He is the philosopher who has broken my dream of being at Barcelona. The coach did not want me and I will not waste any more time.” He also revealed that Guardiola would not speak with him, and would leave the room as soon as Zlatan stepped in it. Things had broken down completely between the two, and the transfer was only a matter of time.
Now this is just one side of the story, and I’m sure the truth is maybe not as extreme as that, but it is a big mystery why one of Barca’s most expensive and talked-about signings in recent years fell out so badly with the coach. Maybe one day we’ll find out more, but for now the two parties will have to go their separate ways. Ibrahimovic becomes one of the only players to switch between AC Milan, Inter Milan and Barcelona, but he is certainly far from done in terms of scoring big and important goals. The Spanish giants may miss him in some areas, but they have a more than adequate replacement coming in with David Villa.
Aug
30
The headlines around the UK are full of articles blasting the classless way in which Javier Mascherano forced his move from Liverpool to Barcelona, and it is hard to argue with them. It has been known for a while now that he wanted to leave Anfield, but refusing to play for his club in order to make his desires known is a childish way of making your point. As a result, Liverpool had to play without him in their last game vs. Man City, and he has now made his £85,000 a week move to the Spanish champions.
It’s understandable that he would want to go to Bercelona. They play probably the best football on the planet, his compatriot Messi is their star player, and it is better for his family back in a Spanish-speaking country. But treating his former club the way he did is hard to defend. As a professional, you are paid big money to play 90 minutes every week, and have a contract which you are expected to honor. Too many players stomp their feet in the ground and force their clubs to sell them without wanting to, but most at least try to do it behind the scenes, and don’t sit out a game just for that. It is some shocking attitude by Argentina’s captain, something you would expect from a brash teenager being wowed by a big-money club, but not such a player.
Liverpool may bring in someone to replace him, at least position-wise, but they will miss him quality-wise. He has been the rock in their midfield for a number of seasons now, but they’ll just have to face life without him.
Aug
29
Tame Champions League Draw
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I think the draw for the group stages of this season’s Champions League produced some rather tame fixtures, where there are clear favorites to win each group, and you don’t see many surprises being produced. However, Group G certainly sounds like the group of death, with Milan, Real Madrid, Ajax and Auxerre all battling it out for those top two places.
AC Milan and Real Madrid will be the favorites, but in the past couple of seasons they have had big problems and have not reached as high as they should have. Arguably the two most successful teams in the continent should produce some very exciting games between each other, however, and whoever comes up on top will have the wind in their sails.
Defending champions Inter Milan, on the other hand, will have to look out for a few surprises. Their toughest games will be against Werder Bremen, but they also have newcomers Tottenham and Twente to deal with. Both of these clubs had two of their beast seasons of their decade last time around, and they will be more than excited taking on the champions. It will also put new manager Rafa Benitez to the test, and we’ll see if he can emulate the success of his predecessor.
Man United, Chelsea and Arsenal are the three other English clubs that will be hoping to make it to the final, which will be staged at the new Wembley Stadium.
Aug
25
Freak airplane accident sidelines Boetang
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You’ll forgive me for keeping on writing about Manchester City players, but when they’ve bought half the planet, it shouldn’t be such a surprising thing. This piece of news concerns their new 12.5 million signing Jerome Boetang, who got injured on the plane on his way to City, and now faces a month out of action.
The exact accident? He hit his already injured leg against an airplane drinks trolley, further aggravating the torn tendon in his left knee. This means the earliest he can start training again is at the end of September, so City fans probably won’t see him in action until early October. It’s not like they don’t have a replacement (or two, or three) available, but you do wonder if they will ever reach a point where all their superstar players will be fit and ready for action. Getting injured because of a trolley certainly doesn’t help things much.
Boetang first felt the injury while he was away on international duty for Germany. Some people get confused between him and his brother, Prince Boetang, who actually plays for Ghana. The latter brother meanwhile secured a high-profile transfer from Championship side Porstmouth to AC Milan. The two brothers find themselves in interesting positions now – Jerome will try to help an emerging world power in City reach those heights, while Prince will lend his skills to a former top club to try and regain its place.
Aug
24
Many people are surprised when they find out new Aston Villa signing Stephen Ireland is Irish, and that’s because he has retired and refuses to play for the national team. His international career lasted only 6 games, in which he scored 4 goals, but since then he has refused call after call to be part of his country’s qualification campaigns. This is not due to a specific falling out with a manager, as the Republic of Ireland have changed a number of managers since then, but the reason he gives for his decision is that “he is just not interested”.
It’s his call, of course, but it is quite strange. Many players retire rather early from international football, but Ireland is only 24, and just swinging into his prime. He was Manchester City’s Player of the Season the year before this one, and he is one of the best goalscoring midfielders in the league. He could walk into most national teams, and would certainly be Ireland’s star, but all this is still not enough to bring him back.
He met with Irish football officials who keep on trying to persuade him to come back, but he told them “no” again. It looks like he won’t be moved from his decision, and the Irish will have to accept that. He is a great talent, but better have players that actually want to represent your country and fight for the team.