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Looking at the Premier League Title Race

December 3, 2010 — by Larry — 1

Who Will Win the Race in England?

The Premier League has nearly reached its halfway point, and the title race has narrowed to five, as there is no reason to supsect any team from Bolton on down to make a serious run to the summit.

The current leaders Manchester United stand two points clear and have yet to lose, but have not impressed, relying on late comebacks from both ahead and behind to draw too many matches.  They have good depth and teamwork under the rule of Sir Alex, but individually there is little magic to be had.  Then again, maybe Berbatov has found some, but the laconic Bulgarian is not known for his consistency.  They benefit from little World Cup fatigue as only Park and Chicharito had substantial roles in South Africa.  They have survived, despite the only occasional presence of Rooney, mostly due to the stability along their back line, especially in the middle.  Van Der Sar has been solid in goal, yet he has no depth behind him.  If Rooney, Chicharito, and Rafael can find a consistent high level, they can even improve, though they must consider investing in Carlton Cole to hedge. 

Players I would pay to see: Rooney, Nani, Berbatov.

Players who must play well for them to win: Ferdinand and Vidic, Nani, Berbatov, Evra, Rooney. 

Players who if they play too much kill their chances: Any GK not named Van Der Sar, O’Shea, Evans.

Chelsea were seemingly running away from the pack until their recent stretch which even saw them struggle in the Champions League with MSK Zilina at Stamford Bridge.  32 shots at Birmingham produced only nine on target and zero goals.  Obviously, missing both Lampard and Essien at times has hurt them significantly, as they no longer can just plug in other near-world-class players like Ballack or Deco.  They have shown themselves too susceptible through the middle, as Terry and Alex also have struggled with injuries.  Cech has returned to a decent form, but they are another top club with nobody behind their number one.

Players I would pay to see: Drogba, Malouda, Essien.

Players who must play well for them to win: Drogba, Malouda, Essien, Terry and Alex, Lampard.

Players who if they play too much kill their chances: Any GK not named Cech, any player with a squad number higher than 40, Ramires, Ferreira, Kalou.

Arsenal have only one player remaining from “The Invincibles”, and the six years have shown a consistent problem converting chances into goals.  When combined with their penchant to become unsteady late in matches, their challenge consistently suffers from dropped points in winnable matches.  Of course, the additions of regular time for Song and now Chamakh has somewhat increased their ability to deal with the physicality of the daily grind.  Naturally, they possess a great depth of some interchangeable parts, and the players all believe in what they are doing under Wenger.  Oh, but their woeful goalkeeping must improve.

Players I would pay to see: Song, Fabregas, Van Persie, Arshavin, Nasri, Rosicky, Sagna.

Players who must play well for them to win: Fabregas, Song, Van Persie, Chamakh, Sagna.

Players who if they play too much kill their chances: Bendtner, Wilshere, Denilson.

Ah the riches of the Middle East have been showered upon Manchester City, yet instant success has not arrived upon a horse-drawn sleigh.  World class players all over the pitch and in the stands watching have done little to implement a plan to harness this advantage.  At times, they appear forlorn to have to play, especially at some of the lower-ranked outposts around the country.  They must solve their owners versus manager versus players versus fan expectations dilemma.  Mancini should start by breaking up his DeJong, Yaya Toure, and Barry central midfield, and move decisively toward pairing somebody with Tevez up front.  They can, at least, be assured of the best goalkeeping in this group, with an established backup to Hart.

Players I would pay to see: Tevez, Silva, A Johnson, Balotelli, Yaya.

Players who must play well for them to win: Tevez, Kompany, Silva, A Johnson, Tevez.

Players who if they play too much kill their chances: Yaya&Barry&DeJong, Vieira.

Tottenham live on the edge each match and sit fifth in this race, yet from owner to substitute, they possess the most belief in themselves.  Only their supporters continue to doubt, as they have been conditioned to do.  Clearly, they remain unafraid of the big matches, but they must increase their readiness against the “lesser” teams.  Having earlier dismissed Bolton, Tottenham actually possess a lower goals differential, as leaving every victory to late will bite them before long.  Solving their center and right of their backline would contribute mightily, as would finding a regular defensive midfielder.  Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to move to a 4-5-1 to provide their width without having to force Hutton and Assou-Ekotto.  Gomes has come around to being perfectly adequate, and might become good if he sheds his habit of making the worst possible mistake at the worst possible time.  At least they have good depth behind him.  Ouch, not only is Van der Vaart out for a month, its for the most possible matches in a month as well.

Players I would pay to see: Van der Vaart, Bale, Modric, Assou-Ekotto.

Players who must play well for them to win: Van der Vaart, Bale, Modric, Defoe, Assou-Ekotto, Huddlestone or Palacios.

Players who if they play too much kill their chances: Crouch, Jenas, Bentley, the crappy version of Lennon.

Now some of these players deemed useless may prove needed if the spate of freezing weather continues.  The snowy, uncertain pitches will bring out the necessity of direct targeting from open play, which will highlight the necessity of an aerial presence.  Lots to play for, and, if the pressures don’t overwhelm them, many great matches to see.

Commentary

FIFA World Cup Decision Day – As Covered By Twitter

December 2, 2010 — by Suman

Yes, we couldn’t resist tuning in this morning to fifa.com for their live stream of the honorable Sepp Blatter hosting Double Decision Day.  But we also tuned into our twitter stream.  Here’s a curation of what we read in those 30 minutes:

10:28amET:
“Whisper in the auditorium is England “punished” for nasty media. But it was never ours to lose (contrary to bookies’ odds)”
“Guess what, folks. More unconfirmed reports. Russia are believed to have won the vote for 2018. Putin’s plane on standby…”
“Rumores rusos. Rumores Rusos. En definitiva sólo rumores….. Confiemos, somos IBÉRICOS!!!!!”
“#usa2022 #goUSAbid Here we go!”

10:32am:
“Ugh Sepp Bladder loves the sound of his own voice.”

10:33am:
“12 years as #FIFA Prez and I think his English has gotten worse…”
“Hey Scotland got a mention!”
“is he getting paid by the word?”
“Sepp, I can’t handle the taste of bile anymore. Just announce it already.”

Commentary

Qatar 2022

December 2, 2010 — by John Lally — 1

Let me get something cleared up straight away, this is not sour grapes about England not winning the bid.  While I think it would’ve been great for the country, the downside of England hosting the 2018 World Cup would have been huge – potential hooliganism and terrorism, and inevitable jingoism of how the home side would win it again “just like in ’66”.  Good luck to Russia and their 2018 World Cup, I hope they do a fantastic job and the development of the infrastructure and stadiums helps provide jobs and an economic boom to their people.

Now, Qatar 2022, that’s a completely different story.  Remember how their national team performed in the last World Cup? What about the one before that? Oh right, they’ve never been in it before. The last hosts to have not been in the tournament before? That would be 1934 Italy, who hadn’t travelled to the first World Cup in Uruguay in 1930 as it took a month to get their by boat at the time.  Unless their team has a radical turn around in the next 8 years, the first time Qatar qualify for the World Cup it will be as hosts.

Maybe it was picked for the environment it would provide.  Okay, it may only be the size of Connecticut, but at least Qatar’s average high in June is well over 100 degrees. Throw in laws against the public consumption of alcohol and this sounds like a must-go-to destination for the Budweiser sponsored FIFA World Cup.  They have promised to air-condition their stadiums, so at least for those 2  hours fans are at a game, they won’t feel quite so uncomfortable.  FIFA clearly also doing their best to help combat global warming, by sending everyone to a country that needs outdoor air conditioning.

FIFA always want to go to new frontiers and have the World Cup in new places – but they had the option of the Australia bid for them to do justthat.  The Olympics in 2000 in Sydney were an overriding success and the mild winter they would be having during the World Cup would have been perfect weather wise too.  I’m also dubious on how this fits the rotation of contintents the World Cup visits too, Russia is technically Europe but geographically (and Time-Zonally) Asia, just like Qatar.  Returning to the USA could have seen a continued growth of the sport there also, a country with many more potential fans than Qatar –  Doha, the capital of Qatar and its biggest city, has less than half the population of Brooklyn.  Even if “soccerball” has never been the biggest sport in the US, they at least still have history to it, having competed in the first one in 1930, provided one of the biggest upsets by beating England in 1950, were unlucky to be knocked out in the quarter-final stage in 2002 by Germany, and provided one of the most exciting moments in the 2010 World Cup with their last minute win over Algeria.

My biggest concern, however,  is the history of human rights abuses of migrant workers there. (www.hrw.org/middle-eastn-africa/qatar)  This is the bed FIFA have chosen to lie in, I hope they do their part to affect social change in Qatar and protect those who will be helping prepare for the spectacle of the 2022 World Cup – somehow, I doubt it.

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Berbatov’s Manita for Man U (Video & Chalkboard)

December 1, 2010 — by Suman

Berbatov to Blackburn: "Talk to the Hand"

Amid all the pre– and post-El Clasico hype, we’d be remiss not to mention that the Quiet Bulgarian, Dimitar Berbatov, scored una manita himself over the weekend, in a 7-1 thrashing of Blackburn.

The NYT’s Rob Hughes devoted his “On Soccer” column on Monday–titled “Through Feast of Goals, Stealthy Genius Is Revealed“–to Berbatov and his performance:

Teamwork wins matches, but one man’s performance transcended all others Saturday.

Dimitar Berbatov, the Bulgarian in the Manchester United lineup, scored five goals in the 7-1 demolition of Blackburn Rovers.

Five goals, and I swear he spent half the match trying his best to set up a goal for his partner, Wayne Rooney. “It is good to have Wayne back,” Berbatov said after the game. “He knows how I play and I know how he plays, and we understand each other’s game well. We showed it on the field.”

Didn’t they just.

Rooney is returning after he preposterously claimed United did not have the talents to match his ambitions. Berbatov chose Saturday to show Rooney and all the rest who doubt his quality that he is an extraordinarily gifted individual.

He had not scored a goal since mid-September, but on Saturday he scored five, and it could easily have been more. He was a ruthless destroyer with a velvet touch. His goals came in such a variety of ways that poor Blackburn did not know how to stop him, or even where to find him.

See below for two sets of video highlights–a short official version (via Fox Soccer Video) and longer Setanta Sports selection (via footytube)–to watch all five Berbatov goals (plus goals by Korean Park Ji-Sung and Nani).

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Barça over Madrid: Tiki-Taka To La Manita!

November 30, 2010 — by Suman — 3

"What did la manita say to Mourinho?"

If you didn’t get to watch, nor haven’t heard the news, the world did not end Monday night in Barcelona–although no doubt there are a good number of people in Madrid who would disagree, as the result was almost as surprising and devastating as the apocalypse itself.  5-0 for Barcelona.  Yes, 5-0.

We’ll be back up in here with additional commentary.  For now, we give you some video highlights (down below at the bottom), and direct you once again to read Sid Lowe (who provides the best commentary in English on La Liga, at least that we’ve come across).  His column this morning in the Guardian is headlined “Barcelona, the ‘Orgasm Team’, win another epoch-defining clásico” (you’ll have to read all the way to the bottom of the column for the orgasm allusion), with subhead: “It was not that they thrashed Madrid 5-0, defeated Mourinho and his unbeaten €292m team. It was that they did it their way.”  And his first five paragraphs are devoted to explaining la manita:

Eric Abidal raised his hand. Gerard Piqué raised his. And the crowd that engulfed Jeffren Suárez raised theirs. Víctor Valdés raised his hand, latex glistening in the light. Soon the Camp Nou raised its hands. So did the fans that gathered down the Ramblas – palms open, fingers outstretched as if willing the nails to grow. Not far away, a hand was raised on the front cover of Sport. On the back, their cartoonist was taking the easy way out. “Today, instead of drawing,” he wrote, “I have decided to scan my hand.” So he did.

El Mundo Deportivo: "Super Manita!"

Meanwhile, right about the time Andrés Iniesta was posting pictures in his pants, in a warehouse somewhere they were already rushing off a batch of T-shirts to go with the Barça tupperware, Barça knives and Barça tool set. Blue and yellow and yours for just €9.95. On the back it reads: “great theatre”. On the front it doesn’t read anything much. Just the dateline and the score from last night’s clásico between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid: Camp Nou, 29/11/2010. 5-0. And, above that, a giant yellow hand.

Jeffren’s late goal made little difference, but it made all the difference. Madrid were already being humiliated. José Mourinho, already suffering his worst ever defeat as a coach, felt “impotent”, barely moving as fans chanted for him to “come out the dugout! José, come out the dugout!” It was already 4-0 and into additional time and Almería’s Henok Goitom,thrashed 8-0 by Barcelona last weekend, had long-since noted: “I know how you feel: you just want the game to finish.” But the game had not finished, not yet. The fifth goal had to arrive and when it did, it mattered. It turned a baño – a bath, a drubbing – into a manita, a little hand. A goal for every finger. The most perfect of beatings.

Especially for Barcelona. Because if manitas are symbolic in Spain – and even fans of Racing Santander have their T-shirt – in Barcelona there’s something even more emblematic about them. If Abidal didn’t know exactly what the gesture meant, Piqué, son of a Barça director and asoci from birth, certainly does. Last week, after that win in Almería, Cristiano Ronaldo had shrugged: “I’d like to see them get eight on Monday.” They could have done and eight would have been great, but somehow five, while fewer, feels more fitting today.

When El Mundo Deportivo called it a Super Manita, everyone in Catalunya knew what they were measuring it against. This was the fifth time Barcelona had defeated Real Madrid 5-0. Beyond 1934-35 and 1944-45, two linger in the memory: the 1973 team led by Johan Cruyff the player and the 1994-95 Dream Team led by Cruyff the coach. No one could watch last night and not recall Cruyff. Or Romário. Just in case, television programmes drew on the archive. Last night two epoch-defining victories became three.

See below for the best video clip we’ve found so far on footytube.  At least you get to see all five goals, although not much more, and with commentary in German.  Hopefully we’ll find some more extensive game film, and break down how exactly Barça was able to tiki-taka it’s way to la manita.

UPDATE: Via footytube, a 26min highlight reel from the French Canal+, hosted by the somewhat sketchy-seeming rutube.ru:

Commentary

El Clásico Starting XI’s & Squad Lists

November 29, 2010 — by Suman

We find it useful to have full squad lists in front of us while watching a match. Find below Real Madrid’s and Barcelona’s, pulled from Wikipedia (with links conveniently preserved, so that you can click thru to each player’s entry), as well as each team’s starting XIs for today’s El Clasico.

Spain's Starting XI - World Cup 2010 (Casillas, Iniesta, Villa, Xavi, Puyol; Pedro, Busquets, Ramos, Xabi Alonso, Capdevila, Pique

Spain obviously dominates the squads–but Barcelona’s much more than Madrid’s. In fact, Barcelona’s starting lineup consists of the core of Spain’s World Cup winning lineup (Pique, Puyol, Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta, Pedro Villa), with a couple wingbacks slotted in (Dani Alves certainly; and either Abidal, Maxwell or Adriano on the other side)–plus Messi front and center.

The other Spanish starters start for Madrid: Iker Casillas, Xabi Alonso, Sergio Ramos.  (Well, 7+3=10; the one missing Spanish starter from this match is Joan Capdevila, who plays for Villareal.)  The rest of Madrid’s starting lineup is pulled from Portugal (Cristiano Ronaldo, Ricardo Carvalho, Pepe), Germany (Mesut Ozil, Sami Khedira), Argentina (Gonzalo Higuain, Angel di Maria) and Brazil (Marcelo).  Although today we get Benzema (France) starting in place of Higuain due to injury.

Full squad lists:

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El Clásico TODAY!

November 29, 2010 — by Suman — 2

The game we’ve all been waiting for kicks off in just over an hour (3pm ET, 9pm local time–at the Camp Nou).  El derbi español, “más conocido como El Clásico“–Barcelona vs Real Madrid, which also means: Catalans vs Castilians, L’Equip Blaugrana vs Los Blancos, La Masia vs Los Galacticos, Los Cules vs Los Madridistas, regionalism vs centralism, Cryuff vs Franco, Guardiola vs Mourinho, Messi vs Ronaldo.

It’s no wonder that Sid Lowe saw the need to talk us down from all the El Clásico hype–before talking it up:

Contrary to what you might have heard, the world will not end on Monday night. The sun will rise on Tuesday morning. And there is life beyond the clásico. It’s just that right now, it doesn’t feel like it — it feels like nothing else matters, like no other games exist, like no other teams do. Every year Barcelona versus Madrid, already the biggest club game in world soccer, seems to get bigger. Even the old title seems worthless now. Derby? No thanks, this is the clásico. It’s even moved on from that. Now it’s the Super Clásico. Carry on like this and soon we’ll run out of superlatives.

And it’s certainly superlative. It’s almost ridiculous….Whichever way you look at it, this is probably the most extraordinary club match there has ever been. Until the next time, at least.

In terms of talent per square meter, you could argue that there has never been a game like it. It is possible that no two teams have ever dominated the planet’s talent like Barcelona and Madrid do now.

To get a better idea of how all that talent will matchup on the field today, take a look at this, which lists five key matchups to watch (1. Carles Puyol/Daniel Alves vs Cristiano Ronaldo/Ángel Di Maria; 2. Javier Mascherano or Sergio Busquets vs Mesut Ozil; 3. Ricardo Carvalho/Pepe versus David Villa; 4. Sami Khedira vs Xavi Hernández; 5. José Mourinho vs Pep Guardiola); or this, which gives a longer and largely different list of matchups–but closes with the same managerial matchup:

"Por que tu es un canalla"

José Mourinho vs. Pep Guardiola from the sidelines, in the locker rooms, in front of the press, and on the training pitch. The Special One is the best in the world outside of Pep or Sir Alex at this point in time. But, it’s hard to pick a clear favorite here being that Mourinho won a Treble last year, while Guardiola won six trophies the season before. Last year, Mourinho won-out eliminating Barcelona from the Champions League. Has Guardiola learned from that lesson? I think he has. However, I see this coaching-bout being a draw between Emperor Mourinho Palpatine and Pep Skywalker Guardiola.

That latter preview also mentions each side’s most-used formations (4-2-3-1 for Real Madrid, 4-3-3 for Barcelona’sand For more on tactics, see Zonal Marking’s detailed tactical preview, which includes the probable starting lineups shown below. For squad statistics, play around with Marca.com’s nice interactive graphic.

FC Barcelona (blue) vs Real Madrid (white)

And for an idea of the historical context surrounding El Clásico, take a look at this column from 2002 by Phil Ball (who wrote Morbo: The Story of Spanish Football):

Not only is the dislike between the two clubs an interesting phenomenon in sporting terms, it also has implications that stray deeply into the sociology and politics of the country. It might not be going too far to say that the strife and struggles between the two clubs from 1905 onwards accurately mirror the very essence of twentieth-century Spanish history. The two cities have always been moving in different directions, partly through bloody-mindedness, partly through political allegiance, but mainly through clear cultural differences.

A supporter of Real Madrid seems a very distinct creature from a supporter of Barcelona, a fact that cannot be attributed wholly to the fact that they probably talk about football in a different language. Madrid is a bourgeois, grand, rather suffocating sort of city on first acquaintance. The surrounding countryside is bleak and bare, – suggestive of some harshness in the citizens. To an outsider it is not a welcoming city – its taxi drivers grumpy and sullen, its waiters coldly efficient, its shops too self-consciously trendy. Madrid was built on and is sustained by the notion of centralisation – in this century exemplified by Franco’s obsessive opposition to regional nationalism, which he regarded as one of the principal reasons for the turmoil of Spain’s ill-fated second republic.

Madrid was symbolically in the geographical centre of the country, put there by Felipe II in the mid-sixteenth century. It is part and parcel of the Madrid-Barcelona morbo that the latter seems to inhabit a different planet. Despite the fact that Madrid has the Prado, the seat of government and the royal family, according to John Hopper’s book The New Spaniards almost all the ideas that have shaped Spain’s modern history – republicanism, federalism, anarchism, syndicalism and communism – have found their way into Spain by way of Catalonia.

Commentary

A Brazilian I Don’t Like

November 29, 2010 — by Mark — 1

With a little and very loose tie-in to El Clásico

The author likes this organization and the soccer it represents...

if you’ve read anything I’ve written about soccer, you know I like Brazilian soccer, the Brazilian national soccer teams, and lots of Brazilian players. But there are Brazilians I don’t like, or who I think are overrated, or both. Today I’d like to tell you about a major figure in Brazilian soccer, a coach who is both dishonest and not all that great at coaching, but who continues to be treated and paid as if he were one of the top Brazilian coaches. His name even comes up when the speculation about the seleção’s next coach starts every time one quits, gets fired, or just has a bad game.  I’m talking about Vanderlei Luxemburgo.

Anyone who follows Brazilian soccer knows who Vanderlei Luxemburgo is, and some of the most die-hard Barcelona and especially Real Madrid fans preparing themselves for Monday’s big game might remember him. For the rest of you, here’s a chance to get to know a bit about somebody who, like him or not, has been one one of the most memorable figures, at least among coaches, in Brazilian soccer in recent decades.

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