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Manchester City Travel to London to meet Fulham this weekend, the main story being a chance at revenge for good ol’ Sparky. He was unceremoniously dumped by the oil billionaires for not winning quickly enough after their big cash injection, but you could see that he was trying to build a foundation and a team for the future instead of blindly piling superstar on top of superstar in willy nilly fashion.

This fixture provides Fulham’s gaffer the opportunity to strike back, and sometimes these managers will be goaded into a war of words. Not so for the distinguished once-striker, who simply remarked:

“Once the door on my career as a manager at Manchester City was closed then I moved on. I don’t hold grudges. I’m not bitter about the situation. The only thing that affects is yourself. Why drag yourself down with things that have happened in the past? You have to move on and look for other challenges.”

You are one classy gent, Mr. Hughes.

Commentary Video

Do Arsenal Continue Beating Spurs?

November 19, 2010 — by Tyler — 2

Notes from our Arsenal-supporting contingent, lead by the generally unruly but always introspective Tyler Carpenter.

The derby? Impossible to predict a scoreline. Position-wise the teams are mostly even, but Arsenal should win at home. The battle will be won at midfield, and I feel that finally-approaching-form Cesc could be the decider. But the mouth-watering matchup is Gunners’ right vs. Spurs’ left. Will Sagna be able to make deep runs and still track back to defend Bale? Arsenal’s right back has the speed, but can anyone defend Bale Kong?

And who should defend Rafael Van der Goal? The ’85 Chicago Bears? (Yes children, this link brings you to the Superbowl Shuffle)

	Arsenal wins	Draws	Spurs wins	Arsenal goals	Spurs goals
League	61	42	46	234	202
FA Cup	3	0	2	7	5
League Cup	7	3	3	19	16
Charity Shield	0	1	0	0	0
Total	71	46	51	260	223

I remember this fixture last year: van Persie intercepting the Spurs’ kickoff after an Arsenal goal. Robin gave a quick pass to Cesc, who took it singlehandly, 50+ yards, and put it in the still-warm net. Nice!

Commentary

Why I Hate Arsenal

November 18, 2010 — by John Lally — 2

It’s coming you know. I’ve been trying not to think about it, but now it’s unavoidable. The North London Derby is this Saturday (7:45am ET, ESPN2). Some Spurs fans look forward to this match in the fixture list, some of us dread it – I’m very much in the latter group.

It’s hard to decide which one I fear more: the away fixture, where, in all likelihood, we’ll lose; or the home fixture, which brings with it the pain of hope. This week, the game is at the Emirates, a stadium we have never won at. Our record is worse than that though – Spurs haven’t won away at Arsenal since May 1993, when I was 11 years old. That game came a month after we had lost the F.A. Cup Semi-Final to our arch-rivals and they rested players ahead of the Cup Final. Last year, we finally beat Arsenal in the league at home, but still finished below them. It has been years and years of being overshadowed by them. We just can’t win – even when we do win, we end up losing overall anyway.

The rivalry started in 1913, when Woolwich Arsenal moved (invaded!) North London, and got more bitter in 1919, when a vote saw Arsenal elected to the First Division, having finished 6th in the old Second Division, with Spurs relegated, after finishing 20th in the top flight. Nearly a century later, both sides still hate each other. Sure, I have friends who are Arsenal fans, but there will always be that divide when the conversation turns to football. When former Arsenal player Theirry Henry was making his debut for the New York Red Bulls, he described his first opponents, Tottenham, as “a team I will not even name, that’s how much of a rivalry it is”. I couldn’t agree more – I only just about cheered Spurs that night more than I jeered Henry.

Honestly, I just hate Arsenal. I hate playing them, cos we normally lose. And if we win, I’ll be inundated with e-mails from Arsenal fans with pictures of the “Commerative DVD” Spurs release to celebrate winning a game.

I hate the fact that as we get closer to the game, our players, managers and my fellow fans, will be saying about how we can finally “make the step up” or “overtake” Arsenal. That players such as Bale, Modric and Van der Vaart are evidence that we can really take the game to them this time. Suddenly we forget that our defence is so porous, we conceded four goals against a mediocre Bolton team in our last away game, so goodness knows how many Arsenal could put past us.

I hate that their fans celebrate St. Totteringham’s day every year, to recognise the point where Spurs can no longer mathematically catch Arsenal in the league. I hate that they’ve been celebrating that day every year in recent history. I hate their stadium and the terrible atmosphere they have in 2/3rds of their home games. I hate it when they win, I love it when they lose. My second favourite team is whoever is playing Arsenal, even when it’s Chelsea or West Ham. I hate Wenger, Fabregas, Van Persie, Arshavin, Campbell, Toure, Henry, Ian Wright, George Graham and everyone else associated with the club. I hate that they are now lauded as playing some of the best football in Europe, when for years it was “Boring, Boring Arsenal”. I hate the begrudging respect I have for pretty much everyone I listed there as being talented. I hate that Spurs constantly measure themselves against Arsenal, and come up short all the time.

What I really hate, though, is that I care about this fixture so much. It will bother me all weekend, and most of next week, if/when we get thrashed – but why? When we play against Manchester United, I know the inevitable outcome. We haven’t beaten any of the “Big 4” of Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United or Chelsea away from home in the league since 1993, we’re not going to start this weekend. Why do I get my hopes up?

The Pacific Ocean? That’s just a shitty pipe dream.

But hey, Andy Dufresne found his freedom through a shitty pipe…dammit, there’s that hope again.

Commentary News

Italians travel to Austria, Act Like Assess

November 18, 2010 — by Sean — 2

Normally we’d focus on the flailing Italian national side, a team struggling to rebuild after too many years relying on aging players and outdated systems. Instead, the Italians we’d like to focus on now are the small group of hate-filed idiots who felt it necessary to cross the border into Austria with the express purpose of making monkey chants at Mario Balotelli. His own countrymen travelled out of the country, unfurled a banner that read “No to a multi-ethnic national team”, then hooted like apes at one of their nation’s most promising attacking players. (By the way, though born in Italy he’s of Ghanaian descent).

Understandably, Balotelli is fed up. Sure he’s a prick, but this sort of treatment is simply unacceptable. In his own words:

“Honestly, I don’t know what to say. If I have to hear those chants every time, you can’t go forward like that. I leave others to do the judgment. I am happy to be in the national team. It wouldn’t be right to stop a game because a few fans that turn up to the stadium behave like that. We need to change these people but it’s not me that has to do it. Where I live, the people don’t reason like these people. A multi-ethnic Italy already exists and we can do better.”

Italy coach Cesare Prandelli had some words on the matter, too:

“I feel disappointment and anger. We always hear these chants and something has to be done about it. We feel helpless. He [Balotelli] has the support of everyone.”

“This national team is open to anyone who is an Italian citizen.”

Commentary

Club & Country: A Look at the Compositions of Eight National Squads

November 18, 2010 — by Suman — 1

While watching bits and pieces of the four international friendlies that were televised here in the US yesterday afternoon (Argentina defeating Brazil 1-0 in Doha, USA beating South Africa 1-0 in Cape Town, France over England 2-0 in Wembley, and Portugal embarrassing Spain 4-0 in Lisbon), we got to thinking about the compositions of these squads: how many of the players on each national team play for domestic clubs, versus clubs abroad?

A couple different things led us to this question: looking thru the USMNT squad for this match, which seemed to us surprisingly MLS-heavy, and studying this guide to the current Seleção, which also seemed to have a larger-than-expected domestic contingent.

So we thought it might be interesting to take a quick look at the data for these eight national teams. According to the Current Squad lists pulled from Wikipedia (and reproduced for reference below, after the bump), here are the numbers–the percentage of each squad that is currently playing club ball domestically:

Argentina: 0% (0/21)

Brazil: 40% (8/20)

England: 96% (26/27)

France: 65% (15/23)

Portugal: 28% (5/18)

Spain: 82% (18/22)

South Africa: 61% (14/23)

USA: 56% (10/18)

Some observations:

It is remarkable that Argentina brought called up no domestically based players for this match–though they did take a handful to the World Cup. Somewhat ironically, one Argentine plays for a Brazilian club; the other 20 are scattered in various European leagues (multiple players in Spain, Portugal, and Italy; a single player in each of Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, England and Russia)

40% does seem like a surprisingly high number for Brazil–though that’s skewed by the fact that all 3 goalkeepers play domestically.

That England didn’t achieve total purity/insularity is a bit of a fluke: that single outlier (Jay Bothroyd) doesn’t lie that far outside England (Wales), and wouldn’t have gotten his first (and probably last) call-up to the national team had Rooney, Bent and Dafoe not been out with injuries.

That nearly 2/3 of France’s squad play for French clubs is somewhat surprising–perhaps because one tends to focus on the players that play abroad for “big” clubs (Nasri, Clichy, and Sagna for Arsenal; Malouda for Chelsea, Kaboul for Spurs, Abidal for Barcelona, Benzema for Real Madrid).

The four outliers on the Spanish squad are all in England (Reina, Torres, Fabregas, Silva). Not only is Spain’s squad pulled mostly from La Liga–it’s pulled mostly from Barcelona (8 players) and Real Madrid (5), with only two other clubs even represented: Villareal (3) and Athletic Bilbao (2).

Of the nine members of Bafana Bafana that play outside South Africa, four are in England, three are in Belgium, one is in Holland–and two are in Israel.

Commentary News

Juan Agudelo: America’s Great Hope

November 17, 2010 — by Sean — 3

The hype machine is running on max right now for 17 yr old Juan Agudelo, the Colombian-born Red Bulls striker who came on with 30 minutes left in today’s friendly against S. Africa, and scored a beautiful goal to win the match for the USA.

CultFootball first picked him out a few weeks back, when we critiqued his play in the Red Bulls loss to the Earthquakes:

The real standout in the losing effort was 17 yr old Juan Agudelo. His movement wasn’t always the best, but he’s quick, has very good control, and plays patiently even right in front of net. He smashed a shot into the post at one point and was a general nuisance to San Jose throughout. By the way, it was his second ever game for the team. You can see he has the markings of a man set for Europe.

The US team looked a little intimidated at first (a stadium of buzzing vuvuzelas is bound to be unsettling), and though they never managed to control the midfield, the defense looked surprisingly good save for a couple of odd-man rushes in the opening stages and the occasional Bafana charge down the wing.

Then Agudelo came on, the man we’d been waiting to see. He immediately got involved in attacking play, holding the ball and distributing, unsettling defenders with his movement, and critically, starting the play that he finished with a blast into the underside of the net. It was a premier striker’s finish, relaxed power right in the goal mouth, as if he were the only person on the field.

He has plenty of room for improvement, and having Theirry Henry around to help guide him has surely helped, but it’s imperative that this boy be sent overseas for further development. Let’s just hope he has a better go of it than fellow Red Bulls alumnus Jozy Altidore.

Commentary United States

USA vs South Africa: Subplot Action

November 17, 2010 — by Sean — 1

Today’s friendly seems like a pretty straightforward affair, but what would sporting news be if we didn’t inflate pseudo controversy into “genuine” talking points? (The answer is legitimate journalists, but we’ll ignore that for now).

Hot in today’s news cycle is Davide Somma, who has been called up for the South African side, and who has vowed to “destroy” the US in today’s game. Why for, Davide? Seems the 25 yr-old Leeds player could’ve represented the USA through some quirk of birth, but was consistently overlooked by Bradley and the US coaching staff.

I wanted to play for them so badly and they ignored me. I want to destroy them and it feels good. I am so pumped up for this match.

Somma has only had two practices with Bafana Bafana, and admits he doesn’t know much about the US team he’s facing. Still, he’s ready to show US what we’re missing. Good luck out there, buddy, and keep it clean.

Commentary Italy

Ronaldinho & A Seleção

November 16, 2010 — by Sean — 1

In preparation for tomorrow’s Brazil-Argentina “friendly”, we in the CultFootball pressroom have been having some exchanges as to whether or not Ronaldinho’s form warranted his call up to the side, especially after having been so unceremoniously dumped for the summer’s big tourney in S. Africa. Mark Gannon, our man in Brazil, lays it out plainly below.

Ronaldinho — The best player in the world: ~2003-2007

I watched the season of The Simpsons after Conan O’Brien left to take over Late Night, but I didn’t like it, so I stopped watching the show. The next year, friends started telling me about episodes that actually sounded good. It seemed like the show might actually be back on track, so I thought I might try to watch it again. I’d still forget to tune in most of the time, and on the occasions when I did, it sucked. But frequently, when I didn’t watch, my friends would tell me about the episodes, and they sounded really good.

I mention this because I’ve been thinking about it since getting Sean’s e-mail, and it occurred to me that I’ve never actually watched a Milan game in which Ronaldinho played well. I’ve seen Milan games without him, Milan games in which he didn’t play well, and highlights of Milan games in which he did play at least well enough to make the highlights. But I don’t think Ronaldinho has ever had a good game for Milan when I sat down and watched the whole game.

I think Ronaldinho probably should have been on the Seleção for the 2010 World Cup, but I don’t expect him to be a starter in 2014 at age 34.

He is already a very different player from the one he was when he shone at Barça, and a good part of the difference looks to me like bad aging. That said, his peak was so high that he can still be a very useful player.

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