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CommentaryHistory

A Premier League Preview

August 5, 2010 — by John Lally

The 19th Premier League season begins on August 14th with an exciting round of opening fixtures, including last season’s 4th and 5th placed teams, Tottenham vs. Manchester City, and two of the “traditional” big 4 squaring off when Liverpool play Arsenal on Sunday 15th. I say “traditional” because it’s good to remember that things weren’t always like this.

Nowadays, the Premier League is the biggest league in the world with huge television revenues and very little turnover in terms of who competes for the title or finishes in the top 4 spots, which bring with them Champions’ League qualification and more money to boot.  But this oligarchic nature of the top flight of English football is a product of the Premier League structure rather than something that has always been in existence.  In its first season, the Premiership looked much different, and was a lot less predictable.

CommentaryNews

Red Bulls Strengthen Their Spine

August 5, 2010 — by Sean

Go ahead, take a little sniff.

With the addition of Rafael Márquez, the NY Red Bulls have put together a team bound to impress. There’s been a lot of atteniton thrown to the front line in the past few weeks, but Márquez is the piece that takes this team from contendor to champion.

You’d think with Henry and Angel up top the wins would come with ease, but a potent attack isn’t automatic, and holding a lead is not easy. Having seen some of the world’s best offenses bearing down upon him, Márquez will sit either in the back line or just in front of it and look to interrupt the attacking motion. He’ll also lend vision moving forward, starting counters with intelligently played balls and knowing when to settle the team into a patient attack.

Classy players that they are, Henry and Angel are already gelling, and Lindpere has impressed with his service from the wings. But, as with most teams in the MLS, the Red Bulls’ defense has been porous and easily pulled apart. If he does his job right, Márquez will provide the Red Bulls with a solid base to launch an attack that is going to be fun to watch.

Commentary

MLS All Star Game

July 27, 2010 — by Sean

Let’s get the hype going with a couple of quick links. Commentary to follow as the hour comes closer.

The MLS and CONCACAF Champions League schedules aren’t exactly friendly to Galaxy players right now (nor to Toronto’s squad for that matter), and Bruce Arena has a player fitness angle to consider. The game is this Wednesday—that’s tomorrow btw— and while United have about half a first team squad, they’re still a force.

Speaking of MLS and England coming together, Sir Alex has given a nod to Mr. Bradley potentially taking over the reins at Craven Cottage. Not so sure that’s a great first move for the coach, but it would definitely cement Fulham as my EPL team of choice.

Past the bump for the MLS squad.

Commentary

Sporno

July 26, 2010 — by Sean

Just let me readjust my ball.

I can’t believe we’re only coming across this site now. Part of the Spoiler network, Sporno is just the site you need when you want to prove to your soccer-hating friends that this really is an amazingly queer sport full of svelte Europeans rubbing their naked legs against one another.

Sport tries its best to be clean, porno is always dirty. Sport is noble and healthy. Porno is always bad and wrong. Yet for all their efforts to keep a distance, they just can’t help running into each from time to time and making sporno, without meaning to at all.

The Spoiler is a little like TMZ for footballers, though they haven’t taken such a deep swig of celebrity Kool-Aid. The opposite maybe, but only because they put themselves first. Still, it’s occasionally nice to be reminded that professional sport is only a distraction.

Commentary

Ciao, La Moviola

July 26, 2010 — by Sean — 1

Great recap of Italian football conspiracy theories over at the Independent, work done by one John Hall, who looks all of 18 years old.

For those of you who don’t know what the moviola is, its basically a hugely popular trial by slow motion where each and every aspect of the weekend’s games is replayed and replayed in glorious freeze-frame motion until the whole memory of the sporting weekend is tainted by controversy and conspiracy.

CommentaryNews

Henry on Good Day NY

July 22, 2010 — by Sean — 9

I’ve been watching Rosanna Scotto and Greg Kelly in the morning for…well never, but I see them a lot on the Soup, constantly upping the ante on idiocy. There are a few gems from their Thierry Henry interview, particularly when they suggest he’s just come back from winning the World Cup, and when they ask him when the MLS season starts (it’s mid-season already, people).

On his part, Henry could’ve dressed a little better. I know it’s just these two Fox drones, but a t-shirt, jeans, and high-tops? We know you want to live “downtown”, but you do know khakis are the new skinny jean, no? Anyway, here’s the clip. Welcome to America, where we like blowouts.

CommentaryNews

Werder Bremen Should Sell Mesut Ozil

July 21, 2010 — by Sean — 3

Ozil was one of the breakout stars of this summer’s World Cup, and as such the 21 yr-old is garnering interest from big clubs outside Germany. He’s in the last year of his contract with Werder Bremen, a side that finished 10th in the Bundesliga last season (though they had top 3 finishes the five season prior to last).

Bremen want to resign the playmaker, but it seems crazy considering he’d draw around €20M for a transfer fee, and if he doesn’t extend his contract with Bremen he’ll be able to take his leave next summer on a free transfer. Better to take a page from Lyon’s book, and sell the young star at a massive profit, rather than try and hold on. With the money they’d make from Ozil, they could buy 5 young promising Turks and a couple new first team players to strengthen the squad short and long term.

Somewhat tangentially: Lyon are simply the best at finding underrated (thus cheap) players, developing them, and selling them when high-paying clubs come in with their wallets open. Check out the book Soccernomics for a really nice breakdown of Lyon’s strategy in the transfer market.

CommentaryTactics

WC2010: “The tournament of 4-2-3-1”

July 17, 2010 — by Suman — 1

"Spain have adopted the Barcelona formula, which seems to be the way club football is going"

From a Guardian Football column by one Jonathan Wilson, published just before the WC2010 final between Spain and Holland, and brought to our attention at that time by one otheradamnovy; the column is titled “The Question: What have been the tactical lessons of World Cup 2010?” and open as follows:

This has been the tournament of 4-2-3-1. The move has been apparent in club football for some time; in fact, it may be that 4-2-3-1 is beginning to be supplanted by variants of 4-3-3 at club level, but international football these days lags behind the club game, and this tournament has confirmed the trend that began to emerge at Euro 2008. Even Michael Owen seems to have noticed, which is surely the tipping point.

Click thru for more–much more: commentary on the tactics of Spain, Germany, Holland, Argentina, Ghana, and Brazil, with some notes about all that fit into the context of club football tactics over the past decade , e.g.:

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