What August means...an ode to football

The start of a new European club season always brings about a sense of renewal and excitement that is rarely rivialed in world sport. Fans forget the bickering over match fixing allegations, the wild and ridiculous transfer rumors, the long some time painful to watch overseas tours and just get down to watching their club for the next 9 months. The glitter than comes with watching the big new signing at your club shine on their debut, or finally seeing your club make the top flight is something that has always intrigued me. It's one of the few times that everyone has the small, if even slightly out to lunch hope that this is truly "Our year".

For the football junkies like myself this time of year means synchronizing watches and re-learning the different world time zones. It means no more sleeping in on the weekends, no quiet Saturday and Sundays, and no more "hey what you doing" calls during normal game time (Sorry ladies).  The weekends in August bring us the delights of French football, the pace and power from England, the beauty of the Spanish game and the tactical brilliant of Italy and Germany.At times it means that a football supporter has to make difficult decisions like which game to leave behind, which games to put your faith in and how much Arabic you know so you can watch your favorite match online if you can't get it on T.V where you are.

From a North American perspective, August is football dream land. Not only are the European Leagues getting started, but MLS is going into the playoff stretch drive. All the games in April and May no one though important, now become huge as team scrap for every last point to get themselves a shot at a league championship. At any given time one can watch football on a Saturday from 7:30 am -10 pm at night. And that does not include if you want to watch a west coast game which could be done at 1am the next morning!

To Man U, Arsenal and hell even Man City too. Lazio, Parma, Roma and Inter. From Wolfsburg to Bayern, PSG to Barca, from the 85,000 at the Santiago Bernabeu to the 2,500 in Frisco, Texas who watch FC Dallas. Enjoy, revel the best football months are back! and not a moment too soon.

Cheers,
Mike

The true Mad Men of World Football

I'm not too sure why a random episode of the excellent AMC series "Mad Men" prompted me to write about the way soccer clubs spend their money, but I figure why fight it?

As we reach closer to the beginning of another European club season, you start to see how teams are shaping up for the new campaign. What you also get to see are all the new signings clubs have made over the past few months. For the supporter it's a time of endless hope, where the long standing members of the squad team up with the new boys in order to chase that moment of glory for your club. From Chelsea to Blackpool, Inter to Bari and Barca to Sporting Gjidon, every supporter believes it's their year, but what seems to get lost in the hysteria of the new club record signing, ownership trotted out at the club ground, is the price tag.

I found it interesting that during the global economic meltdown, with some of the largest and most important institution crumbling under the weight of bad financial decisions (Lehman Bros, GM, Chrysler, RBS etc..) Football seemed to be completely impervious to this. Now of course when I say this I mean the big world clubs as many of the smaller clubs REALLY felt the brunt of the economic down turn. Clubs like Portsmouth, West Ham, Crystal Place, Valencia, Lazio, Nice, Rangers have all had to make what were in effect austerity measures to stay afloat and out of administration, and in the end this was not even enough to save Pompey and Crystal Place from bankruptcy.