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

Tuesday Morning Headlines

Enjoy some footy news and highlights/lowlights with your cup of coffee.

• Finally able to get LEGAL highlights of the 2010 Community Shield game between Manchester United and Chelsea from Sunday, courtesy of F.A TV. Pay particular attention to Javier Hernández's goal and how it goes in (laughed my ass off!) View below.

• Aston Villa Boss Martin O'Neill quits 5 days before the clubs first game of the season against West Ham on Saturday. I personally think he's a great manager and should find work pretty quickly if he chooses. I've linked two different opinions I've read about him today, one good, one not so. I've also linked the full story here.
• Italian club Fiorentina announced that star Stevan Jovetic ruled out for eight months with knee ligament damage and needs surgery. (Too bad, kid looked amazing last year in Champions League)
• Bayern Munich manager Louis Van Gaal has hit out at FIFA boss Sepp Bladder regarding the lack of technology in the game- About damn time!
• BBC writer David Bond (Love his work) explains why Fabio Capello's apology to England fans is just not enough.
• New France manager Laurent Blanc is out to revive the national side after a debacle of a World Cup.
• Blackpool players finally get their bonuses from being promoted to the Premier League
•  Chivas Guadalajara make Libertadores final against the odds
• With International friendlies being played this week, there is a air of change with the player rosters for some of the World Cup teams.

Cheers,
Mike

A Small redemption for French Football

After the disaster that was France's run at this summer's World Cup, the FFF (French Football Federation) got to see some light at the end of and very long tunnel as the French under 19 squad won the European championship Friday with a 2-1 win over the Spanish. No one has ever accused the French of producing bad footballers, Clairefontaine is one of the premier training academies in the world. However the people's faith in the structure of the senior team has spread to the other squads in the setup.

However a massive amount of credit has to be given to the U-19 squad who did not allow the negative events of the senior team affect their play. Looking at the team the star of the tournament was Gael Kakuta who is a Chelsea prospect. He was fabulous during the run to the title and looks like a bright player for the future.

This is the reason I love watching youth tournaments, you get to see the future of the game and see some young players make their mark. You also get to see how certain countries are developing their players. If you only watch senior level matches you really don't get a sense of where the national football association is really going with the squad. The U-20 World Cup that was held in Canada in 2007 was an excellent chance to see how other nations built their game, although Canada did not win a game they took it as a learning experience.

If they can keep their heads on their shoulders the senior squad manager Laurent Blanc will have a very good squad to choose from in the near future.

Cheers,
Mike

A French Disgrace, Or Irish Justice?

"Everyone in the whole world is mocking us now. I'm gutted, because we're not playing football any more" - Franck Ribery, France midfielder

I'm not going to spend too much time talking about this issue but I felt I needed to address the absolutely ridiculous behaviour of the French national team at this year's world cup. If you are not up to speed on how the French are doing in the tournament let me sum it up one word... horribly. This team is laden with talent some countries in this tournament would die to have, some of the African nations especially as some of the French internationals were born in their countries. They have lacked any sort of guile on the field, the managing has been poor and the attitude of the players likewise. For a nation that essentially got into this world cup via a hand ball; you would think they would come to the tournament trying to prove the naysayers wrong by putting in confident performances.

However the opposite has happened and now the team faces the real possibility of not making it through to the round of 16 if they draw or lose to South Africa on Tuesday. Also to compound their issues the players and management are in a row with each other over the dismissal of star striker Nicolas Anelka from the team. Anelka who has never been a managers favorite mouthed off to manager Raymond Domenech during half time of France's 2-0 defeat to Mexico Thursday. For Domenech it was the last straw in a series of bust ups going back to Euro 2008. He hoped this would help the team focus and eliminate a distraction from the dressing room, however all it has actually done is gavlvinize the players aganist the manager. Plus now lead by captain Patrice Evra they are refusing to train for the up coming match on Tuesday. Evra himself had a bust up with fitness coach Robert Duverne which lead to them having to be physically separated (see video below).


Now it natural to at times have disagreements with how things are being run in football, but having fist fights and leading a player revolt by not training is simply unacceptable. It screams unprofessionalism and selfishness at the highest levels. When you are picked to wear your country's shirt and represent its people at the biggest sporting event in the world you own a certain responsibility that is greater than your individual misgivings. The fact of the matter is the reputation of the 1998 World Champions is damaged on the world stage, its supporters who to their credit have called out this terrible behaviour deserve better, the World Cup deserves better.

Although I had picked France to go through I am whole heartily hoping for a South African victory, I also hope France decide not to show up and mail in the game. This group of players and management deserve the ridicule and embarrassment a loss like this would bring. It will also bring to light the unjust way France qualified for the tournament in the first place; they may not have gotten far if they made it but there is no way the Republic of Ireland would ever embarrass the game like the French are right now. I'm sure Irish players are sitting back and feeling a bit of justice is being served, however I'm sure they would love to up in France's place and win some respect back.

After this World Cup legendary former French player Laurent Blanc will take over as national team manager, and if I were him I would never even think about selecting the majority of these players again for Euro qualifying. He will have a very difficult task of not only rebuilding the squad, but rebuilding the pride within Les Bleus.