This past week of international games prove why Internationals still matter

Over the past few years I've been hearing a growing contingent of football supporters who have spoken out against international week breaks, especially during the middle of the European domestic season. For those who are fairly new to the game FIFA,UEFA etc just like a league, has it's own match calendar which decides when national teams will play each other. The past week was just such an occasion, FIFA had a series of friendlies lined up, Africa had Cup of Nations qualifiers and  UEFA had qualifying for its European championship tournament taking place next summer.

England v Ghana: More than a friendly



 The major gripe from these supporters is that club football is coming to its exciting end of season stretch run, and that club football produces more entertaining games to watch. While I would agree that in about 80% of the time club football does bring about higher quality football. I would disagree with the idea that it is always more entertaining, have you watch a Blackburn v Wigan 0-0 draw?

 This week we had some absolute dynamite matches including the U.S v Argentina friendly, Spain v Czech Republic and Russia v Armenia...yes that was actually a really fun game to watch mainly due to the crowd atmosphere. However there are two games that  really made the week were the Netherlands v Hungary Euro qualifier and the England v Ghana friendly from Wembley.

 Both matches with very different levels of importance delivered all the drama, excitement and skill you would find in any club match. Netherlands v Hungary was a back and forth game with 8 goals between them and a very high level of intensity due to it being a qualifier. At one point it looked like the World Cup finalists would fall to the lower ranked Hungarians. However the Oranjie turned it on in the final 15 minutes to escape with the three points.

 While in London a match that had been panned by much of the ravenous English media before hand due to the amount of changes England manager Fabio Capello made to the roster turned out to be the friendly of the week. Both sides wanted to prove something to their supporters, Ghana who had 20,000 fans at the game wanted to beat England for the first time ever. While for the England players on the pitch they wanted to show Capello that they belonged as regular selections to the squad. He handed debuts to Manchester United on loan to Sunderland striker Danny Welback and Wolves winger Matt Jarvis, Capello also started newly signed Liverpool striker Andy Carrol his first start.
The game was played a fast pace and both teams played as if it were a Wold Cup match and not just a friendly. What really made the game was the crowd at Wembley, both sets of supporters were cheering on their sides and there tended to be a good feel vibe in the stadium. The game also had and exciting finish as Ghana through Asamoah Gyan who grabbed and equalizer at the death to finish the game at 1-1.

 There is no doubt that club football will always grab more of the headlines and attention when it comes down to it, there are simply more games to watch than internationals. However what the club game cannot replicate is that unbridled passion for one's country that national team games bring. Just remember back to last summer and the emotions and pure excitement World Cup 2010 brought us, unlike club football which only captures the fans of that league, internationals at the highest level can and does captivate the world. I agree that maybe FIFA could do a better job of lining up the schedule of matches, but in no way should international matches completely be ignored as a footballing institution.

Cheers,
Mike

A frugal summer for European clubs

Over the past year many clubs have come under greater scrutiny in regards to their player spending at overall financial stability. With several top flight clubs around Europe's biggest leagues either at the brink of, or falling into administration, UEFA has begun to take action against reckless spending by club management. Starting in the 2011-2012 season, teams who spend more than they make in revenue, or clubs in excessive amounts of debt could be barred from lucrative European club competitions like Champions League or Europa League. The new "Financial fair play" rules also target the amount owners invest into their clubs for player spending.

The legislation will allow owners to inject €15 million (£12.3m) a year into their clubs up until 2015, and then €10m (£8.2m) until 2018. This cash cannot be a loan, which is an approach already taken by the Manchester City and Chelsea hierarchy.

As the transfer window is set to shut on Wednesday, many top European clubs will be looking at their benches and seeing if they need any additions to improve the squad. However unlike years past it seems less likely that major moves will be done at the deadline. Aside from the spending sprees at at Real Madrid and Manchester City, there has been little to speak of from many of the top clubs in Europe. Instead there is a emphasis on either loaning out troubled or unproductive players, and buying lower priced unknown or "diamond in the rough" type players. Manchester United, Arsenal and Barcelona (with the exception of David Villa) have, at least for now cooled on spending tremendous amounts of money on new talent.

As UFEA President Michel Platini stated yesterday at a press conference "For years and years we were in total anarchy but the clubs asked for the rules because they knew they could not continue. He added "Transfers have not been as crazy as in the last few years, they are pulling up their socks and the clubs are making special efforts to comply with the rules."

The new UFEA legislation is a massive reason as to why many clubs have not been as active on the transfer market as in previous years. The fear of having UFEA either ban of scansion the club for financial mis-management is enough to slow down the mad spending of some clubs. Manchester United with it's near £700 million debt have done very little business in the window outside of picking up Javier Hernandez, Chris Smalling and Bebe. Based on their estimated transfer values the total for the 3 barely hits £20 million. Compare this with two summers ago when the signing of one player, Dimitar Berbatov, cost the club just over £30 million.

Other clubs have followed suit in this quiet transfer window. The defending European and Italian champions biggest off season move was losing manager Jose Mourinho, and then signing former Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez. The also normally busy AC Milan has been quite this summer, even the signing of Zlatan Ibrahimovic has not generated as much buzz as it normally would. This would be due to the fact it's only a season long loan deal. German champions and Champions league finalist Bayern Munich have practically signed no one.

This is not to say that the transfer rumors have been stopped, in fact with the lack of movement they have become more prevalent as media outlets need something to write about in the off season. Many of these rumours have been little more than that, and as clubs continue to keep the wallets closed until a gem of a deal comes forward, expect to see a lack of fireworks tomorrow and Wednesday.

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.