Archive for August 2005
Owen ends speculation, to join Newcastle
NEWCASTLE: England striker Michael Owen agreed to join Newcastle from Real Madrid on a four-year contract on Tuesday, with Magpies fans buying shirts with his name on the back even before he had passed medical checks.
Owen discussed a return to Liverpool, his preferred destination, before agreeing to join his former club’s Premier League rival and team up once more with former England captain Alan Shearer.
“He’s someone who can become a legend with Newcastle United fans,” Newcastle manager Graeme Souness said. “In football, the hardest thing to get in your team is someone who puts the ball in the back of the net and Michael is the best at doing that.
“I can understand people who liken it to the signing of Alan Shearer. I’d say it’s the biggest transfer I’ve been involved in as a manager of any football club.”
Newcastle said the 25-year-old Owen, who has a history of hamstring trouble, would have a medical exam on Tuesday. But that didn’t stop fans lining up to buy shirts the club printed his name on.
Owen won’t be introduced as a Newcastle player until late next week because of an international break for World Cup qualifiers.
Newcastle did not reveal the transfer fee, but said it beat the club-record $26.8 million it paid for Shearer in 1996.
British news reports said Owen was forced to join the Magpies because Liverpool was unwilling to match the fee of $24.8 million.
That left Owen with the choice of staying as Madrid’s fifth-choice striker or joining Newcastle, a club struggling in the Premier League and not qualified for European competition. The last time Newcastle won the league title was in 1927.
Owen wanted to leave Madrid because he needs match practice in the build-up to next year’s World Cup. He scored 16 goals last season after joining Madrid for $9.7 million in August 2004, but failed to get a regular first-team place.
Different combinations
Souness has struggled to find the right partner for Shearer, trying out Craig Bellamy and Patrick Kluivert before moving them on. He has recently hired Albert Luque from Deportivo de La Coruna but the Spaniard is likely to be a backup to the Shearer-Owen partnership.
If Owen passes his medical, he will wear the No. 10 shirt and play alongside Shearer. — AP
Hindu On Net
- In: AC Milan | Bayern Munich | Schalke | Werder Bremen
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BERLIN : Bayern Munich opened up a two-point lead at the top of the Bundesliga after crushing Hertha Berlin 3-0 on Saturday.
The German champions are on a roll with the victory over Hertha maintaining their 100 percent start to the campaign with three wins from as many matches.
“The result camouflages how the game panned out,” explained Bayern manager Felix Magath. “Hertha were very defensive due to their injury problems and we had very few chances.
“But we now have a maximum nine points ahead of a hectic schedule in September when the season really gets going.”
Hertha had failed to win at Bayern’s former ground, the Olympic Stadium, in 28 years but the new Allianz Arena did not bring a change in fortune.
In the 47th minute German international Michael Ballack watched his free-kick take a wicked deflection off international team-mate Arne Friedrich and loop into the net.
Hertha pushed for an equaliser but Bayern struck twice in the final five minutes to take their goal tally to a staggering 11.
Substitute Mehmet Scholl struck on 85 minutes and Dutch international Roy Makaay scored his sixth goal in three games two minutes later.
“I do not need to say anything about Scholl because everyone saw how well he took his goal,” added Magath.
It was Bayern’s 500th home win in the Bundesliga and on this evidence there are many more to come this season.
“We are in good form but we can still improve,” warned playmaker Ballack.
Schalke 04 and Werder Bremen, two of the main contenders for Bayern’s throne, both slipped up being held to 1-1 draws on Saturday as their perfect starts to the season came to an end.
For VfB Stuttgart manager Giovanni Trapattoni the season has been far from perfect and the Italian caoch is still left waiting for his first league win after his side drew 1-1 with Werder Bremen on Saturday.
“After watching Bremen in the Champions League qualifier I was a bit worried,” admitted Trapattoni. “The first half was even but in the second Werder were far better – but we had Timo Hildebrand in goal.”
Danish international forward Jon-Dahl Tomasson scored his first goal since his eight million euro move from AC Milan, slotting home in the 50th minute to cancel out Ivan Klasnic’s 40th minute opener.
But while an away point at Bremen is not to be sniffed at it does little for the 66-year-old Trapattoni who has watched his team collect two points from the first three matches.
Bremen were left rueing the dropped points as they fell two points behind Bayern in the table, although they retain second spot.
“We have to be happy with the point,” said Bremen manager Thomas Schaaf.
“We were good going forward but at the back we had a few nervy moments.”
Schalke are also regarded as championship material but last season’s runners-up also lost ground on Bayern.
Schalke are one of three teams two points adrift of Bayern following a 1-1 home draw with Borussia Monchengladbach.
For the third game in a row Schalke fell behind with Kasper Bogelund netting on 41 minutes but Ebbe Sand equalised after 54 minutes.
“I am only happy with how we played in the second half,” declared Schalke handler Ralf Rangnick. “We were too passive and did not have enough ambition to score another goal.”
SV Hamburg could have gone second with a home victory over Hannover at the AOL Arena but had to settle for a point after a 1-1 draw.
Jiri Stajner shot Hannover ahead before Iranian international Mehdi Mahadivikia, who looked to be heading out of the club, restored parity in the 22nd minute.
While Hamburg are a former giant on the up the decline of 2002 champions Borussia Dortmund continues.
Dortmund long for a first win of the season after a 1-1 draw with promoted MSV Duisburg on Sunday. – AFP /dt
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Liverpool Advances Despite Losing
Posted on: August 25, 2005
Liverpool advances despite losing
LONDON: Defending champion Liverpool made it to the group stage of Champions League on Tuesday despite losing 1-0 to visiting CSKA Sofia, and Swiss team Thun joined the powerhouses after beating Malmo 3-0.
Also, Panathinaikos beat Wisla Krakow 4-1 after extra time, and Austria’s Rapid Vienna scored a late winner in another third round qualifying game to capture a spot in the last 32 of European football’s most prestigious competition.
They were joined by another surprise qualifier, Artmedia Bratislava.
The Slovakian champion won a penalty shootout against Partizan Belgrade after 210 minutes of scoreless football over two legs and extra time.
The results: Qualifying: Third round: Second leg: Liverpool 0 lost to CSKA Sofia 1; Lokomotiv Moscow 0 lost to Rapid Vienna 1; Monaco 2 drew with Real Betis 2; Panathinaikos 4 bt Wisla Krakow 1; Partizan Belgrade 0 drew with Artmedia Bratislava 0; Rosenborg 3 bt Steaua Bucharest 2; Thun 3 bt Malmo 0; Udinese 3 bt Sporting Lisbon 2.
Hindu On Net
MUNICH, Germany : German champions Bayern Munich have issued an ultimatum to German international star Michael Ballack, giving him six weeks to decide whether or not he wants to stay at the Allianz Arena.
Ballack is out of contract at the end of the season and Bayern have offered a lucrative four-year extension but are growing impatient at the player’s reluctance to sign on the dotted line.
“We want an answer by the end of September or beginning of October,” general manager Uli Hoeness told the Abendzeitung.
“Our offer is on the table. There is no need for more negotiations. He has to just say ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”
German international captain Ballack has been strongly linked with Manchester United and Real Madrid and his agent, Michael Becker, has admitted to testing out the market value of his client.
“Bayern took a long time putting their offer on the table,” Becker told Kicker magazine.
“It is only fair that we look around and see if this offer fits the market value.”
Ballack joined Bayern from Bayer Leverkusen in the summer of 2002 and said at the time he was not ready for a move abroad, but at 28 this could be his last chance to ply his trade in another league.
If Ballack does shun Bayern’s contract offer the club are likely to immediately put the German Player of the Year up for sale rather than risk losing him for nothing at the end of the campaign. – AFP/de
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Wastage, Real And Chelsea Style
Posted on: August 20, 2005
Wastage, Real and Chelsea style
REAL MADRID have surely been busy in the close season. They’ve bought at huge expense two Brazilian attackers. Robinho is the rising star of the national side. He is leaving Santos — made famous long ago by Pele — for some ΰ20 million, the irony of it being that he will have as a team-mate none other than his illustrious companion, Ronaldo. The player who recently refused to take part in the Confederations Cup in Germany so that Robinho combined up front with the prolific Adriano. Brazil won the tournament and Ronaldo was quoted as saying that may be he will not lose his place in the Brazil attack to Robinho. Which could be more than just a joke, as we know from the past that the team’s manager, Carlos Alberto Parreira, can be very stubborn and even self defeating when a player refuses him.
As did the brilliant little centre forward Romario back in 1993, infuriated because Parreira pulled him back thousands of miles to take part in a friendly, then kept him on the bench. Romario became an unpopular person till it looked ominously as though a flagging Brazilian team was in severe danger of being knocked out of the South American qualifiers. So Parreira then ingested a large slice of humble pie, brought Romario back into the team against Uruguay in Rio, where he scored the two goals which won Brazil the game 2-0 and went on to become the star turn of the 1994 World Cup, in America.
But these are not the only strikers Real Madrid possess. Michael Owen was signed from Liverpool a year ago at bargain price, coolly even coldly greeted in Madrid by contrast with the ecstatic welcome given to the far less gifted David Beckham and put on the bench for most of the season; even viciously insulted by one of the local papers. For all that Owen managed to score no fewer than 13 goals. But the arrival of not only Robinho but the striker or attacking midfielder Julio Baptista from Sao Paolo for over ΰ13 million meant Owen would inevitably be on his way.
Last summer, Fernando Morientes already had been, a celebrated striker nurtured from his youthful years by Real, many times a Spanish international, farmed out last season but one to Monaco, where he scored a profusion of goals, then sold to Liverpool. And where does that leave another of Real’s home grown star strikers, Raul?
Whipped away as a boy from the local rivals Atletico Madrid when their notoriously volatile owner Jesus Gil Y Gil suddenly decided to abolish the youth team, Raul has been one of the leading European strikers of his era. Yet he, too, is now left fighting for a place. The word in this context and today, in far too many others, is surely, wastage. And if Real are a salient example, what of Chelsea?
You can never be quite sure whether Real have money, their debts over the years have been enormous, they have even been obliged to sell their training ground, but somehow or other, at times through going into massive debt, they seem to find the money to buy the players whom they want. Very different indeed is the case of Chelsea, bankrolled now by the so called Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich, a billionaire who can virtually buy what he likes, when he likes, whether it be houses, yachts or footballers.
There has been speculation recently in England that Chelsea’s putative reserve team would probably be stronger than most of the sides in the Premiership, might even be able to compete with the likes of the other three major clubs, Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool. Certainly the Stamford Bridge club have an acute embarrassment of riches. Not least in goal; but thereby hangs a tale.
Away back in the 1930s Chelsea, just as today, had two splendid international goalkeepers. Johnny Jackson, a Scottish international, had joined them from Patrick Thistle in the mid 1930s.
But in the latter 1930s there emerged the impressive, commanding Vic Woodley, who didn’t in fact cost anything at all, being acquired from the amateur club, Windsor and Eton. By 1938, Woodley was England’s number one goalkeeper. He played that year in the famous 6-3 victory over Germany in Berlin, when the whole England team notoriously gave the Nazi salute before the game. A year later the team — a largely forgotten embarrassing fact — gave the Fascist salute to all four corners of the ground in Milan before playing Italy.
A game in which Woodley was scandalously beaten by a goal blatantly punched in by the Italy centre-forward, wily Silvio Piola.
In the event, England forced a 2-2 draw. In World War Two Woodley continued to play for Chelsea though not for England — as a small boy, I used to watch him and wonder how anyone could beat him — while Jackson was lent to their London rivals, Brentford.
When the clubs met, though it was only in the ersatz wartime, “unofficial”, football, Chelsea wouldn’t let Jackson play against them!
Now Chelsea have as first choice the remarkable young Czech keeper, Peter Cech, who joined them a year ago, and has displaced a fine Italian keeper in Carlo Cudicini, son of a noted Milan keeper in Fabi. Carlo would surely win a place in almost any other Premiership team. Arsenal could badly do with him; but there he seems content to stay.
But now that Chelsea have signed Shaun Wright Phillips, the ebullient little Manchester City right winger, while they already have Holland’s remarkable winger Arjen Robben, could there really be no place for the outstanding Irishman Damien Duff? And, indeed, for so many other stars? Wastage!
Hindu On Net
Protecting The Family Silver
Posted on: August 20, 2005
Protecting the family silver
TED CORBETT
AP
England’s physio Kirk Russell attends to an injured Michael Vaughan before the second Test.
AUGUST 1. Reaction to the unchanged England Test team is generally favourable even though there has been a surge of opinion in favour of Paul Collingwood getting a place in the squad if not the team. This pleasant young man who learns his trade batting and bowling for Durham scores three centuries in four innings in the championship and adds accurate quick bowling and magnificent fielding to his repertoire so in other days he will always be in the national side. But this is the age of consistent selection and now that the team is stronger there is no place for him. Twenty four hours after the announcement of an unchanged team, when Duncan Fletcher, the coach and Michael Vaughan, the captain, inspect the pitch and find it damp, there comes an announcement in my favourite radio station. “We’ll tell you something about a surprise change in the England side for the second Test involving Paul Collingwood in the sports news.” Yes! At last David Graveney and his men have come round to my way of thinking so that one of the bowlers may be left out, leaving four and Collingwood to operate in what the weather forecasters say will be a rain-affected game. Just between you and me, I put another few pence on England regaining the Ashes this week and I am very pleased when I think that the whole-hearted Collingwood will be batting, bowling and especially fielding to protect my family silver this week.
August 2. When Michael Vaughan, the England captain, is hit on the elbow by the new, 6ft 7in fast bowler Chris Tremlett, all the sympathy is with Vaughan. But what about the talent of Tremlett? Vaughan is one of the finest batsmen in the world, well able to look after himself, an expert at the pull shot he is attempting when he is hit. So are we missing the point here? Is it the pace of Tremlett we ought to be considering? In 1954 the England captain Len Hutton sees Frank Tyson hit Neil Harvey, at that time the finest batsman around, on the pad and cause him agony. “Hello,” says Hutton, “that must have been quick.” So it proves even though in those days no one can ask the question of a speed gun. Tyson goes on to destroy the Australian batting in the last four Tests and play a large part in England keeping the Ashes and Hutton never losing a series. So what price Tremlett joining Steve Harmison as the tallest pair of opening bowlers in world cricket and perhaps the most painful.
August 3. As we drive into Edgbaston for practice day we hear that Paul Collingwood is on his way to rejoin Durham. England decide they don’t want him. Now where is the sense in that? I will have to see how the match pans out before I pass a final judgement but why dampen the lad’s enthusiasm by bringing him 150 miles from his home to Birmingham, allowing him 48 hours with the team and then sending him another 150 miles off to play for Durham against Essex at Southend. Still, he does earn 1500 pounds sterling for two days’ work which is a consolation. There is a theory that is a massive double bluff by the astute Fletcher but as he never acknowledges his own clever ideas we will just have to guess.
P. V. SIVAKUMAR
Bob Woolmer’s wisdom has to be appreciated.
August 4. As the day’s play comes to an end Tony Greig and Geoff Boycott are waiting for their taxi when a flashy sports car draws up alongside. “Can I interest you two gentlemen in a lift?” says a voice from the dark interior. Our two heroes leap aboard — even though it is a squash for the 6ft 7in Greig — and find that their kind driver is none other than Kevin Pietersen, England’s new hero who just makes 71 off Australia, minus the injured Glenn McGrath. “You throw away a hundred today”, he hears as he engages first gear and begins the ten minute trip to their hotel. He has no chance to make any polite small talk when one of the two — and you will have to guess the correct name, using your knowledge of cricket, your instinct and your clever reading of this column down all the last 12 years — gives young Pietersen a lecture on how to ensure you maximise your score whatever the circumstances of the match. Pietersen listens attentively and promises to bear in mind what he hears. So don’t fall in a dead faint if sometime soon the new big hitter turns into a dour opening batsman who believes in wearing out the opposition, his own team-mates and the fans before he gives his wicket away.
August 5. We are all publicity aware today, aren’t we? Like the kids who fill in for the big lads during the lunch interval. I don’t always watch — too much work to do, or perhaps too much lunch to eat — but today I see the winners of one match march to the edge of the field and throw their caps to the crowd. Like the rest of the classroom nation they watch television and ape the way their heroes from Andrew Flintoff to David Beckham to Tiger Woods behave. Even more impressive, this team consists entirely of girls.
August 6. Whenever I see a story about one of the old-timers I wonder: How good was he? Today there is a tale about Kumar Sri Ranjitsinhji Vibhaji — Ranji to 21st century guys like us — whose 1.6 million pounds emerald necklace is for sale. It is one of the most important pieces of Indian jewellery and Ranji, the Maharaja of Nawanagar, thinks it is lovely. As well he might. His pal Jacques Cartier, possibly the best known of all jewellers, adds to its value when he restrings it but when the maharajahs become redundant the necklace disappears. So two questions: how much will it fetch; and how good is Ranji? Pretty good I reckon. He makes 72 first class centuries — remember the players say that a batsman with 20 centuries turns his life in cricket into a career — scores 24,692 runs at 56.37 in 27 years with Sussex and although he makes only 989 runs in 15 Tests he averages 44.95. So, yes, he is not just a prince with good taste in exotic neckware but his figures stand up to scrutiny 100 years down the track. Quite different from Gilbert Jessop, a contemporary of Ranji’s. His hitting receives a lot of nostalgic appreciation recently since his crouching style reminds some of Kevin Pietersen, now blasting the ball to all parts of any ground he plays on. True, Jessop puts together one or two magnificent innings but more for Gloucestershire than England with whom he scores a miserable 569 runs in 18 Tests and averages a paltry 21.88.
August 7. As England win I remember the wisdom of Bob Woolmer, coach of South Africa before he joins Pakistan and, appropriately as the second Test takes place at Edgbaston, twice coach of Warwickshire. He e-mails me ahead of this series suggesting that England will only beat Australia if they can curb Adam Gilchrist, the Australian wicket-keeper and brilliant stroke-maker at No.7. How successful are England in keeping this batsman under control? His scores so far in this series are 26 off 29 balls, 10 from 14, 49 not out from 61, and 1 from four. It looks as if someone does their homework and with considerable success. So three cheers for Bob Woolmer and four cheers for Duncan Fletcher. Now that the Test comes to a satisfactory conclusion — see my first paragraph if you wonder why I am so keenly aware of the result — we can head off for Manchester for the next Test. Not enough space for me to turn round, never mind the cricketers. While we are in Rainy City we will take the opportunity to look at the Old Trafford practice pitches which are part of the experiment with glue in the recipe. The local groundsman Peter Marron goes to the do-it-yourself store, buys a commonly available glue and sprays it on top of the pitch. “Great,” says Stuart Law, Lancashire’s batting hero. “It’s just like batting at Perth.” So in a couple of years Tests may be played on this new surface and, judging from Law’s judgement, there will be plenty of runs and lots of bounce.
Hindu On Net
Crespo Nets Chelsea’s Winner
Posted on: August 16, 2005
Crespo nets Chelsea’s winner
With 30 seconds remaining, Hernan Crespo curled the ball across the face of goal into the far top corner of the net to give Chelsea a 1-0 win
London: For 92 minutes, promoted Wigan was on the verge of an unlikely result — holding Chelsea to a 0-0 draw on the opening day of its Premier League title defense.
But with 30 seconds remaining, Hernan Crespo curled the ball across the face of goal into the far top corner of the net to give Chelsea a 1-0 win on Sunday over the winner of the Football League Championship last season.
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho was not happy with his team’s display. “During the game, you couldn’t see who was the Championship champion and the Premiership champion,” Mourinho said. “It was exactly the same.”
“Because of their commitment and their spirit and their organisation, they don’t deserve to lose the game,” he added.
Millionaire investor
Wigan, based in the northwest of England, has only been in the professional league since 1978. Wigan’s rise to the top division can be traced to multimillionaire owner Dave Whelan, who has invested ΰ75 million in the club.
The man who single-handedly transformed Chelsea, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, was also watching from the stands. He’s spent around ΰ280 million on Chelsea since buying the club two years ago.
The gulf in money between the two sides was clear — Chelsea’s new left back Asier Del Horno, bought for ΰ8 million, cost more than the six new players signed for Wigan in the offseason.
“Normally you lose a game, and that loss is the wake-up call,” Mourinho said. “Today we can have this wake-up call without losing points.”
Chelsea only troubled Wigan goalkeeper Mike Pollitt just before halftime through a Damien Duff attempt. John Terry also headed close over the cross bar. Wigan’s Henri Camara forced Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech into a save and Alan Mahon chipped the ball over a clear goal.
Shaun Wright-Phillips and Joe Cole came on for Arjen Robben and Eidur Gudjohnsen at halftime and Chelsea looked more threatening. Crespo replaced Damian Duff after 59 minutes and had a shot cleared by Pollit’s legs before scoring the late winner.
Mourinho criticises
Mourinho criticised several unnamed players for thinking and playing too slowly, for not pressing Wigan players, for not chasing the ball enough and losing it too easily.
“Everything was against what we spoke and trained for during the week,” Mourinho said. “Everybody is under pressure because we have a lot of good players and if you don’t perform, probably you are out of the team.” — Agencies
Hindu On Net
MUNICH, Germany : Roy Makaay cost Bayern Munich a club record 18.75 million euros from Deportivo La Coruna in August 2003 but that investment continues to pay dividends with the Dutch international scoring a hat-trick as Bayern crushed Bayer Leverkusen 5-2 on Saturday.
The treble took Makaay’s tally to 50 goals in 67 Bundesliga outings with 14 of them coming in his last six league matches.
“It is the first time he has had a good pre-season and is fit from the start. He takes his chances so clinically – Makaay is an exceptional striker,” enthused manager Felix Magath.
Makaay scored twice in the opening 3-0 win over Borussia Monchengladbach last weekend and took his tally to five in two matches thanks to some generous Bayer defending.
He twisted Brazilian international Roque Junior inside out with a clever feint to score his first goal in the 11th minute and then scored twice in three minutes (57, 60) to take the match ball.
“It is an incredible start to the new season for me and Bayern,” admitted Makaay. “A lot of players came back late from the Confederations Cup so we did not know where we stood. But it appears we are in good shape.”
Last season Leverkusen trounced Bayern 4-1 in the corresponding fixture at the BayArena and Makaay was delighted to savour sweet revenge.
“We played great and it was the perfect revenge for last year. The manager told us not to forget what happened last season. We showed who the best team is. It is not often you score five times away from home.”
Leverkusen players could not wait for the final whistle as Bayern looked like registering a tennis score and former German international Carsten Ramelow claimed the title was bound for Bavaria once again.
“Bayern are in a different league from everyone else. If they play like this they may as well have the title now,” confessed Ramelow.
But Magath played down talk of Bayern retaining their title at a canter insisting their rivals had also started well with Schalke 04 and Werder Bremen collecting maximum points.
“We will not stroll to the title,” countered Magath. “Schalke 04 and Werder Bremen are both doing well and I think it will be tight at the end of the season. We have only played two games.”
But with Netherlands international Makaay in this sort of form it is hard to see anyone stopping the Munich juggernaut.
Bayern goalkeeper Oliver Kahn had the delight of watching Makaay banging in the goals against Leverkusen, but on Wednesday he has the task of shutting out his club team-mate when Germany take on the Netherlands in a Rotterdam friendly.
“I hope it is more difficult for him against us on Wednesday,” declared Kahn.
– AFP/ir
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Transfer Mysteries
Posted on: August 13, 2005
- In: Arsenal | Bayern Munich | Benfica | Liverpool
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Transfer mysteries
AMIDST the predictably frenetic activity in this summer’s European transfer market, there has been many a mystery. Why, for example, after two past summers of brinkmanship, did Arsenal finally sell Patrick Vieira to Juventus for ΰ13.5 million? And why were their major efforts thereafter seemingly concentrated on prising the Brazilian striker, Julio Baptista, from a reluctant Seville, even to the extent of risking condign punishment by sending manager Arsene Wenger and key executive David Dein all the way to Sao Paolo to attempt to persuade him? This, after furiously initiating a Premiership tribunal with concomitant heavy fines for Chelsea, Jose Mourinho and Ashley Cole, their London rivals being guilty of tapping up the England left-back shamelessly in a Lancaster Gate hotel?
Then there’s the matter of Liverpool and all those strikers. They paid Southampton nearly ΰ7 million for the lanky six-foot seven Peter Crouch. Now I have no intention of disparaging Crouch and his true talents. Indeed I’ve been an admirer of the towering centre-forward since, some years ago, the Queens Park Rangers manager Gerry Francis brought him back to the Shepherds Bush club from Spurs, where he had hardly kicked a ball. Crouch, born and brought up just round the corner from QPR, showed us then that despite his great height he is by no means a mere header of the ball. In fact he has two very good neat feet and a sophisticated approach to the game.
Leaving QPR, he found things hard at Aston Villa, better at Portsmouth and better still at Southampton. In fact we know that he won his first England cap as a Southampton player on tour in New Jersey, against the Colombian national team, successfully.
Yet Liverpool already had an abundance of strikers. So much was underlined when, late in July in Lichtenstein, they won 4-3 against the Greek team, Olympiakos, Crouch led the Liverpool attack in the first half and, albeit after a couple of stumbles and a lucky deflect job, set up the first Liverpool goal for the Spaniard Garcia. That other Liverpool Spaniard, Xabi Alonso, praised him after the game, emphasising, as I have adumbrated, that Crouch has plenty to offer not only in the air but on the ground.
Yet the star of Liverpool’s show in the second-half was beyond doubt the Czech striker, Milan Baros, who cleverly set up one goal, and himself scored two others. This was the Baros whom we had seen and admired, playing for his country in Portugal, in Euro 2004. Yet it was an open secret that the Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez couldn’t wait to sell him. After that successful game, Baros’ agent announced that the player would stay at Anfield for at least two weeks. It was also mooted that Aston Villa had been told that Baros would cost them ΰ7 million, and that several other clubs, not surprisingly, were interested in him. Alonso’s main point was that those clever feet of Crouch could usefully hold up the play, whereas last season Liverpool’s attacks had too often broken down because the front men couldn’t do so.
But hold on a minute. Who scored the Liverpool goal against the Greeks, which Baros made? None other than Fernando Morientes, bought last season by Liverpool from Real Madrid after he had a prolific season with Monaco, a veteran Spanish international striker with a notable goal-scoring record. And the club spent a fortune on the swift French international striker Djibril Cisse, who missed so many games last season with injury but now seems fully fit again.
When one listened to Wenger after a pre-season July friendly against humble Barnet, it was to hear him say, apropos of Patrick Vieira, that there was always the chance that a young player would break through. After all, he told us, Vieira himself was pretty well unknown when he arrived at Highbury in the summer of 1996. But this was blatantly begging the question. When Vieira left Milan for Highbury, it cost all of ΰ3.5 million and he was already a French Under-21 international. Arsenal, too, have two good young midfielders in the precocious teenaged Spaniard Cesc Fabregas and the lively Frenchman, Mathieu Flamini, but neither has the sheer power and authority of Vieira.
So why did they let him go? One asks once again. Was their patience simply exhausted after his brinkmanship of the previous two summers; it is said that last year he had even cleared out his locker at the club’s London Colney ground. I doubt that. It seems more likely that after his somewhat diminished and disappointing form last season — had his commitment waned as some thought — the club felt that even at the age of 29 they had had the best of him. Which always, as some close to the Gunners suggest, does not exclude that he could recover his old form and impetus in Turin. How would the Gunners look then?
Another summer surprise, this time at managerial level, was the decision of my old friend Giovanni Trapattoni, whom I’ve known since he played for Italy’s Under-21 team in the 1960 Olympics, to leave Benfica, whom he’d just guided to the Portuguese Championship, for VfB Stuttgart of the Bundesliga. A club not qualified for Europe and which had just sold two of its best players, Alexander Hleb of Belorussia to Arsenal, international German striker Kevin Kuranyi, as well. True Jon Dahl Tomasson has arrived from Milan, but though Trap won the German title once with Bayern Munich, his still seems a strange decision.
Yet, surely the daftest decision of the close season summer has been Southampton’s and Chairman Rupert Lowe’s to take on board as senior executive the England and Lions Rugby manager Sir Clive Woodward. If only Woodward had quit while he was ahead, having managed the England Rugger team to a famous victory applauded in the streets of London in the Rugby World Cup. Since then even in Rugby, which at least he knows something about, it has been downhill all the way.
Downhill with England and horribly, embarrassingly downhill in New Zealand with the British Lions who far from roaring were whitewashed, humiliated, in three Tests by New Zealand. Tests, especially the first, in which Woodward chose the manifestly wrong team from his bloated squad. All this compounded by his idiotic, self-aggrandising decision to enrol as a publicist none other than the tarnished Alastair Campbell, spin master for Tony Blair and the Government, a widely detested figure. With predictable consequences, when Campbell, who knew nothing of Rugby, got to work on his misbegotten spinning.
Saints’ manager Harry Redknapp says he won’t resign because of Woodward but what with that and the way his key players have been sold since relegation, don’t, as they say, hold your breath.
Hindu On Net
Soccer’s Season Of MAGIC BECKONS
Posted on: August 13, 2005
Soccer’s season of MAGIC BECKONS
ROHIT BRIJNATH
Manchester United has an Asian star in Park Ji-Sung.
ONE of the most amusing, or most tragic, or most understandable, or most dubious soccer stories, a viewpoint depending entirely on how seriously you embrace football as a religion, was the one involving a fan of an English club side who named his son after all the players in his team.
Football tends to do this, perhaps more than any other sport it gives fresh meaning to the term “faithful supporter”. It is an awkward tribalism, difficult to figure unless you have a Henry team shirt in your closet, know the car numbers of every Real Madrid “galactico”, refuse to get married on any day that Manchester United is playing and take every loss as a personal affront.
But faith is routinely mangled, trampled over, flattened by the studs of opposing players evidently of no pedigree but owners of unusual luck. But if you go the distance, if you hold onto that bruised faith, if you believe, dammit, it is only then you understand magic.
Magic is winning three matches to escape relegation, it is an open goal missed by a rival star, it is the ball hitting the woodwork, careening into the goalkeeper and ricocheting into the goal in the final minute. And it happens all the time.
Magic is Arsenal needing a 2-0 win to claim the title in 1989 in the last match of the season, against leaders Liverpool, at Anfield, and leading 1-0, and 91 minutes and 22 seconds of the game played, the result surely decided, when Michael Thomas, incredibly, absurdly, coolly, scores the second goal and Liverpool fans shouting “Champions, champions” go as quiet as death.
Magic is lying in bed late into the night, Manchester United down a goal to Bayern Munich in the 1999 Champions League final, refusing to believe a clock that insisted no minutes were left, wanting to destroy the TV in frustration, yet waiting, hoping, believing, that a miracle was about to unfold. And of course it did.
That night Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored the winner and said: “The team spirit is unbelievable. Everyone works for each other.” For that moment, like doesn’t matter, rifts within teams are irrelevant, demands for higher wages are forgotten, a rebuke from the manager is ignored. This is one of the beautiful things about sport, men do not have to like each to play well together. Leander and Mahesh didn’t speak for most of 1999, but got to four Grand Slam finals.
In football, no season is as special or as pure as now, the one that precedes the commencement of league play. Savings are collected to purchase season tickets, lovingly fondled when they arrive, as would any passport to heaven. For now at least, even for lesser clubs, hell is still a few games away, its taste unfamiliar.
Players don’t sustain clubs, a spectators’ hope does, his belief is the fuel for his team’s survival. A season can hurt, for months, but why cheer if you don’t believe in pots of gold at the end of rainbows.
Managers are alternately celebrated or vilified purely on the basis of signings. Team sheets are studied harder than algebra ever was and formations are examined like the Normandy invasion. The left flank is weak, it will be sagely observed, and the manager is a fool with the IQ of a rival striker. Scouts are just tired.
Alex Ferguson is an angel from heaven but some will insist the glue is coming off his wings. Arsene Wenger is a genius, but of course. Chelsea merely has everyone feeling blue because its chequebook has unlimited pages. Of course, those who leave your club for better wages are traitors, prostitutes, men of no honour, though when new players are lured away from other clubs by a fat cheque it is only good business and players are congratulated for seeing the light.
Thierry Henry wants to stay at Highbury because he loves it, because money isn’t the issue. “I always say that I do something that I love. Even if I wasn’t playing for Arsenal and I had to play in the back garden of my friend’s house, I’d play the same way,” he said. Fans will call for his statue; rivals will sneer.
Great players are vital, they sell tickets, shirts, shorts, but great players are not enough, the jigsaw must be assiduously put together. Real Madrid spent over $300 million over nearly five years for a succession of legends but its rewards have been less than legendary. Rivals cannot stop pointing that out with unrestrained glee.
Luis Figo is gone, to Inter, and if Madrid wins no one will miss his jinking runs that on occasion left confused defenders tackling air. No one is buying Michael Owen and this is plain strange. Man U has an Asian star, South Korean Park Ji-Sung, and Seoul will soon be wearing red. New love affairs are blossoming daily.
But there is more at stake this season than the various leagues, for the World Cup is a few free kicks away. There is almost a year to go, but of course Brazil has already been anointed champions, and the only debate is who exactly of Robinho, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Kaka will they leave on the bench. No one is talking too much about Africa as usual, victims as they are of a mostly uninterested media, and yet there is a strange surprise when they arrive and nonchalantly disfigure reputations.
Qualifying will do what it always does, play havoc with weak hearts and unstable bladders, and one thing is for sure, somewhere there will be mourning the morning after. France so stylishly brilliant once is flailing desperately but, wait, Zizou is back; Zidane’s nickname appears borrowed from a catwalk blonde but then to the faithful he remains the model footballer. After all, it was said of him that he plays with such delicacy that his feet appear encased in silk gloves. Clearly this is a French thing, for Michel Platini’s feet were once described as being able to think. I concur.
It is a valorous move by a retired genius, a comeback fraught with danger, for Zidane is daring to tamper with a grand legacy, could bruise a beautiful image. Can one man restore a team, lift a nation, construct the impossible for a side in fourth place in its World Cup group? It is a silly question. This is football, this is about magic.
Hindu On Net
My Soccer World 