Calcio Kicks Off

Attending my new school was a daunting prospect. I was met by an unruly throng of ten and eleven year olds, which did not include a single friendly face from primary school. One of my new classmates sized me up and belted out:

‘Who do you support?’

Thinking I was cool, I stuck out my thumb and with my most winning Ian Rush smile said: 
‘Liverpool.’

 

My enthusiasm was not entirely misplaced. Liverpool had just won the league by nine points, earning me bragging rights over my gramps who supported silly Spurs. Yet my declaration was met by looks of shock and disbelief before a roar of hysterical laughter erupted at the back of the classroom and rolled in waves towards the front benches. The peals of mirth collided against the walls and echoed down the hallway. Even the janitor who was walking down the corridor thrust his head through the doorway, armed with dustpan and mop, to see what the clamour was all about. Upon discovering its cause he instantly issued a neigh of laughter, shaking his head in disbelief as he returned to the hallway.
 

I quickly learned that at school you did not openly support England or any of its clubs. It was something to be concealed, like the chemicals pinched from the lab. Any mention of the Three Lions or English clubs marked you out as a quixotic dreamer and the object of ridicule. It was met with a dismissive shrug by Jesuit and student alike, inevitably followed by the word ‘hooligans’. During recreation things were not much different. Serie A stickers issued by Panini were traded like gold dust, with harsh bargaining and relentless haggling going on in every corner of our dust packed football ground which resembled the bottom of a stone quarry.

When the whistle was blown to signal the end of our break, we scurried off like East End hawkers who had just caught wind of a bobby. Those who persisted with their relentless exchange were punished by having their stickers confiscated by our portly prefect of discipline, probably to show us that there is a time and place even for trading. In a bid to integrate with my new peers, I embraced the colours of AC Milan. This earned me a modicum of respectability and access to priceless football banter which relieved the stress of homework.

 

In later years I discovered that my school was not representative of the whole of Malta, where a staunch following of England persists to this day. In an island of sharp contrasts, half the populace supports England and the other half Italy. It’s a rivalry that reaches insane levels whenever the Three Lions face the Azzurri, also leading to wild carcades that leave tourists shaking their heads in disbelief. 

I started secondary school at a time when English clubs had just been readmitted into Europe, being banned in ’85 for a stampede which caused the death of 39 football fans. This meant no English teams in European competition for 5 years, which rendered the English game something of a backwater. Until then Italian clubs faced stiff opposition from English teams on the pitch. But post ’85 Italian clubs ran riot, the Serie A cementing its place as the undisputed leader in world football.

Italy also boasted the lion’s share of the world’s best players at the time. On Sunday afternoons we’d gape in awe at Maradona taking on other teams in Napoli's Stadio San Paolo. AC Milan had a team known as the Immortals coached by Sacchi, soon to be followed by Fabio Capello's Invincibles who razed all before them both at home and abroad. The Immortals also  featured the Dutch trio of European champions Van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard. On the other side of Milan, Internazionale fielded German world cup champs Andy Brehme, Juergen Klinsmann and the phenomenal Lothar Matthaus.

This is not to mention other exponents of the 1990 World Cup winning side with Berthold and Voeller having stints at Roma, Riedle at Lazio and Haessler, Reuter, Kohler and Muller playing for Juventus. Magical Brazilians Careca and Alemao ran riot in Europe with El Diego at Napoli and the list goes on. After the Heysel ban and the start of the Premier league, the only foreigner I can remember in English football who wasn’t Scottish, Irish or Welsh was Andrei Kanchelskis at Manchester United.

 

English players only got half a mention at school because of the England side led by the late Sir Bobby Robson which made it to the semi finals of World Cup '90. At the time Italian clubs were always quick to snap up world class talent, and Des Walker went to Sampdoria to be joined by Platt who also had spells at Bari and Juve, before the reputation of the whole lot was single-handedly tarnished by the antics of Gazza at Lazio. Lineker didn’t make it to Italy but joined Barca in the Spanish La Liga which in Italy was always viewed as the next best thing.

 

If you were the best you played in Italy, it was as simple as that. In fact World Cup 2010 was the first World Cup in almost 30 years where the captain of the winning finalist had not experienced the Serie A at any stage of his career.  The Serie A was a place where football was not a sport but an exact science, where marshalling a defence was as significant as protecting a Renaissance city-state.

There were none of those long mazy runs by a striker which you saw in England, a la Mark Bright or Ian Wright. In Italy defensive gods like Ferrara, Bergomi, Vierchowod, Maldini et al - king of whom was AC Milan’s own Franco Baresi - would take you out proper before you got past the second defender. Which makes Maradona’s exploits at Napoli all the more formidable and lend considerable weight to the argument that he was the world’s best ever.

 

An indication of the strength of Serie A clubs is that in the period between 1985 and ’99 (when an English representative finally made it into the final of a European Cup after the ban), nine Italian sides made it to the final of Europe’s premier competition, the European cup (now called the Champions league). In the UEFA cup, (cruelly referred to by some as the useless cup and predecessor to today’s Europa Cup), Italian teams met each other in the final no less than a mind-boggling four times, with Italian sides making the final 12 times. And that’s not to mention the success the calcio achieved during that period in the now defunct Cup Winners’ Cup, when even Serie B sides like Atalanta had runs to the semi finals!

Since the advent of the English Premier League in 1992 (which meant a flood of tv money) and an ensuing heap of foreign investment, this gulf in success has been somewhat redressed, arguably aided by the end of the 3 foreigner rule in 1995. Some have even suggested that the roles have been reversed, what with calcio having to contend with problems of crowd violence of its own in recent years, not to mention a match-fixing scandal overshadowed by Italy's world cup victory in Germany 06. Yet despite the seemingly bottomless pit of money held by certain English and Spanish clubs, the allure of calcio still remains strong.

 

Yet even today, football and calcio could not be more different, as evidenced by the return of ‘catenaccio’ employed by Inter en route to last year’s champs league victory. People might assume that being played to the same rules, football in Italy and England is the same game. Sure enough, they both start with 11 against 11 on the park. But once the whistle’s blown, that’s where all similarities end. In England the aim of the game is to go forward and score more than the opposition, putting in a bustling high-tempo display. All of which leaves followers of calcio feeling like they’ve just watched a random game of flipper. It’s not the first time you hear a British manager talking about the importance of having ‘a good striker with a few goals in him.’ 

 

Ball skills are not rated as highly as lung busting displays and 'tracking back', also known as ‘putting in a hard shift’and traditionally preferred (just ask David Ginola). This is of more importance than the result, where you often see a relegated English team applauded off the pitch to a full house of teary fans after being condemned  to the drop despite their heroic efforts. Does this same show of affection also occur in calcio? Not on your nellie. As remarked by players like Brian Laudrup: 'in Serie A if you win you’re a god, if you lose you’re nothing'. Which probably explains the rumours of a statue of Diego Armando Maradona being borne in procession during the feast of Saint Gennaro in Naples.

 

In calcio the most crucial thing is not to lose. You must not lose at all costs and defend a slim lead with your life. Serie A sides are renowned for being built from the back. Not for Italians the sympathy afforded to a team if it’s slipping down the table despite its valiant displays on the field. As for any accusations of gamesmanship, that brings us to the second most crucial thing in calcio: to win any which way, most players going to ground at the slightest touch.

By the same token the Serie A is not known to have the brutal reputation of the Premier league which has ended the career of a number of continental players like Casiraghi and Nilis. In 2008 Brum’s Tiny almost took Eduardo’s foot home with him, a horror tackle which might have been criminally prosecuted in Italy. In calcio the game is also played to a slower tempo, which is why many pundits predicted that players with a cultured foot like David Beckham would flourish in a league where players are afforded ‘more time on the ball’. 

Calcio’s patterns also differ when compared to football.  It’s not the first time you see a winger stealthily approach the opposition’s penalty box before deciding to whip the ball back to the last man and wait for an attack to be reconstructed. This is something unimaginable in the cut and thrust world of English football, with the possible exception of Arsenal. Calcio demands patience from the players and fans alike who consider their football palate to be more refined, having greater appreciation of a player's ball skills and his reading of the game. Their ideal game consists of a number of manouvres, not unlike a game of chess, in which the player most prized is not only the scorer but the second striker or trequartista (in the mould of Roby Baggio, Alex Del Piero or Francesco Totti) - a player who can deliver that single defence-splitting pass that can unpick a tight defence and win the game.

In Italy, Premier league scores like 5-4, 4-3 or more recently 6-0 are not seen as the mark of an exciting game but that of a bad defence. The rearguard of every Italian team is usually a nightmare to have to break through. The Serie A embraces a different philosophy altogether, considered ‘more cultured’ by some and ‘boring’ by others.

 

Whatever its perception, the calcio starts again this week. This year the team to beat at home and abroad remains Inter Milan, who swept all before them last season. They remain a squad girded for war, with the twin towers of Lucio and Samuel mainstays of central defence and Chivu, Cordoba and Materazzi ready to step into any gap in central defence. Which is not to mention the veritable ‘cat’ in goal, Julio Cesar, on current form arguably the best keeper in the world.

 

 

Inter Milan are built like a titanium nutcracker designed to break open their rivals and send their fans home in tears. Their teamsheet still reads like some South American dream team with guest stars including Samuel Eto’o and Balkan beast Dejan Stankovic renowned for his unstoppable piledrivers and phenomenal work rate.

Following his exploits at the world cup Sneijder is contender for the golden boot and few teams have better raiding full backs than Javier Zanetti and Maicon. So can anything more be possibly added to Inter's game? It is not looking good for the rest of the Serie A, what with Inter captain Javier Zanetti saying that new coach Rafa Benitez wants Inter to play at an even higher tempo than that which they employed last year.

 

All of which means this year’s calcio promises to be scintillating stuff, with Milan and Juve looking to start winning cycles of their own. With new men at the helm, both teams have probably shelled out more than they could afford on new players. But Inter have quickly thrown down the gauntlet, sweeping Roma aside in the Italian Super Cup. An impressive feat, when you consider that Roma want to shake off last season’s tag of ‘second best’. It remains to be seen whether their acquisition of Adriano as a replacement for Luca Toni will lead to the Brazilian being crowned Emperor of Rome.
 

The embarrassment of riches at Inter’s disposal is set to become more embarrassing, what with  Benitez said to still be chasing Liverpool’s Mascherano. Why he would need another player to add to a midfield bursting with holding players is strange although Rafa has probably already figured out that one can never be too defensive in calcio.

With the Premier league already past its second week, a different ball game gets underway this Sunday. It promises to be as intriguing as ever.

 

Osi Rules

The Marienplatz was coloured gold. It was 17 June 2006, Munich swept up in a flood of world cup fever. I was awed by the number of Australians who had gathered for the event in Germany, hundreds of the green and gold army mingled with countless fans of the Esquadrão de Ouro. Every World Cup seems to mark another milestone in life and a new chapter had just started for the Socceroos. The next day the Aussies were to face Brazil in their second group match after having secured their first world cup win against Japan in a historic 3-1 victory.

 

Prior to 2006, my only link between the land downunder and the World Cup had been an ancient 1974 World Cup sticker album I'd found in my grandparents' house, which once belonged to an uncle. I was surprised to find a team of beaming and moustachioed Australians included among the yellowed pages which contained the sixteen 1974 World Cup finalists. It made me wonder why Australia had disappeared from subsequent World Cups without a trace.

 

But Germany 2006 was the start of a new dawn for the plucky Socceroos. They even went on to make the last sixteen before being narrowly and contentiously beaten by eventual champions Italy. As soon as his reign ended, Hiddink jetted off to claim Russian petrodollars before you could say 'Guus', leaving the Socceroos faithful heartbroken but grateful. Hiddink had shown that with enough confidence and tactical nous, Australia could afford its fans the right to dream. 

 

The next international tournament was the Asian Cup in 2007,  and the Aussies entered it with one of their own at the helm. New manager Graham Arnold and his charges vainly tried not to sound all gung-ho but were soon stunned by the difficulty of weather conditions and the quality of opposition in their new confederation (they had previously formed part of Oceania before joining Asia), nearly losing to Oman in their first game. In their second outing they were outclassed 3-1 by eventual champions Iraq before they finally did the nation’s proud  by trouncing hosts Thailand.
 

 

 

In the quarters they faced Japan, a team desperate for revenge after their defeat to the Aussies at the World Cup in Germany a year earlier. A tight game ended 1-1 before Australia lost on penalties. Arnold was torn to shreds by the press before he had even returned to home shores. Not satiated by the Sydneysider’s blood, the public clamoured for a foreign coach.

 

And along came Pim.

 

For some reason, I always thought Pim Verbeek would not look amiss in a Spaghetti Western. He seemed to stare journalists down like a gunslinger and his laugh was almost hesitant. After the perceived failure at the Asian Cup 2007, any concerns about him eased when his first competitive fixture met with a win, as Australia trouncing the might of Qatar 3-0. The Socceroos faithful were now more respectful of Asian opposition and whatever Pim said was law.

 

A League players? ‘Not good enough.’ Melbourne Victory heroes Danny Allsopp and Archie Thompson? ‘Hopeless.’ After New Zealand’s heroic showing at the last World Cup, one wonders how far Kiwi gaffer Ricki Herbert would have gone with that attitude.

 

Yet Pim got results so everyone took it. So long as he won, Australians would take it.

 

But God he won boring.

 

 

After the win against Qatar, results against other Asian sides were agonisingly ground out, until we began to wonder what all the furore around World Cup 2006 had been about in the first place. Yet Pim was defiant. He clearly felt that Australians were wrong to doubt his tried and trusted formation of two holding midfielders and crossing wingers. My fellow pundits and I were often bored to tears watching world cup qualifiers, hoping that Pim would for once replace Kewell with the benched Carney on the left wing and instead place Harry behind the striker where he could ask more questions of the defence.

 

Whilst Hiddink maximised the players at his disposition, Pim stuck to his tactics like a dog to a bone. To his credit, after overseeing two poor qualifying games at World Cup 2010, he finally abandoned his rigid formation in what was the last game of his tenure. The Socceroos's 2-1 victory over a talented Serbian team that desperately needed a win was probably the greatest sporting achievement by Australia at any level.  Regardless of what anyone says, it was David vs Goliath. Just compare Premier league stars Ivanovic and Vidic to Neill and Beauchamp. Or Stankovic to Culina or Holman to Krasic. And isn’t Kennedy really a poor man’s Zigic? The comparisons go on and on, and Australia had even taken to the field against the Serbs without their talisman Harry Kewell.

 

So Pim and the Socceroos eventually bowed out of South Africa 2010 with their reputation somewhat salvaged, having entered a group that was much harder than the one in Germany 2006. Pim also remains the last coach to have defeated the Netherlands in Holland, albeit in a friendly fixture.

 

But something had been lacking all along.

 

In my opinion, Pim failed to accept that the Socceroos are not a team like any other. They represent a country which only became a footballing nation four years ago, where the game is still battling for recognition against a handful of other more established ball sports.

 

 

And most of the World Cup qualifiers against inferior opposition were all too boring to watch. ‘So what?’ you may rightly ask if you’re a seasoned football fan, ‘qualifiers are always boring and cautious encounters.’ Which is true, I remember many European qualifiers that flattered to deceive when push came to shove.

 

But in Australia these fixtures are golden opportunities to attract new converts to the game in a country where football is not the number 1 sport. They can also serve to enhance the Socceroos's reputation and increase the fear factor when they face other squads. Winning these fixtures with a positive approach would also increase the attacking thrust of an Australian side. All too often you got the feeling that the Socceroos were being ‘reined in’ by Pim. 

This over-cautious approach was exemplified early on in the piece in his second world cup qualifier against China, when he refused to take any other A league striker except Archie Thompson on the plane. When Thompson withdrew through injury early on in the piece, Australia ended up playing the rest of the game without an out and out striker. It left many to wonder whether A league strikers like Brosque might have had an impact if given the chance. Verbeek’s stubborness and conservatism nearly cost Australia in China and were it not for Schwarzer saving a penalty the game’s outcome would have been more grisly.

 

The opposition always merits respect but at South Africa 2010, Australia draw with ten men against eventual quarter-finalists Ghana (a game they all but nicked) and defeated fancied Serbia - so did Pim really need to fear throwing seasoned A league players into the fray against other Asian sides?
 

 

Journalists like Craig ‘Foz’ Foster have said that Pim got a lot more out of coaching Australia than Australia got from him. That might be a bit of harsh verdict. Perhaps Pim’s only crime, besides refusing to adapt his tactics, was lacking a bit of the charisma which Guus brought to the role of Socceroos manager. Qualifying Australia for World Cup 2010 and Asian Cup 2011 were important feats and he pulled both off. After his departure for Moroccan pastures he will however always be remembered as 'Grim Pim’.

 

Hardly was the curtain drawn on World Cup 2010 that the million dollar question was: who’s the new Socceroos coach going to be? Would he be an Italian with slicked back hair? A nutty South American professor like Bielsa? Would Sven again hog all of the headlines, albeit in a different hemisphere? Ruud Gullit even talked himself up for the job and Ossie Ardiles followed suit.

As the weeks rolled on, the speculation intensified. Robbie Slater chipped in with a colourful suggestion: appoint Maradona! SBS Blogger Jesse Fink even recommended that the FFA choose Skippy.

 

On 11 August 2010, Football Federation Australia named Holger Osieck as the new manager of the Socceroos. As expected, the first reaction was one of ‘Holger who?’ Some showed outright dismay by his appointment: after the assistant of Guus at World Cup 2002 (Pim), we now had the assistant of Beckenbauer at World Cup 1990! Conspiracy theories abounded about the FFA giving him the job to secure Beckenbauer’s vote for Australia to host the 2022 World Cup. Which sounds a bit far fetched if you ask me, even by the highest 'corridors of power back-scratching' standards.

I think the FFA's choice was mature and cautious, which might indicate that they have heeded the lessons learned since Guus’s departure. Being Socceroos manager is not just any coaching job. Although getting wins remains the priority, the Australian public have come to have expectations of their national side and demand that  the game be taken to the opposition. If this means overachievement, we’ve learned that Australian players do want to overachieve, having repeatedly run themselves into the ground and beaten impossible odds for the green and gold. All they need is someone they can rally around, who brings the best out of them with a positive mindset whilst also being technically astute.

 

 

So four years after Germany 06, we hope that the FFA has finally unearthed this sort of manager, who has instantly been christened 'Osi' by the Australian public.

 
 

His CV certainly makes interesting reading. After West Germany’s last world cup triumph, Osi had stints coaching three clubs and a new world country in Canada, another nation where football isn’t yet the number one sport. He even led the Canucks on an incredible run in the CONCACAF Gold Cup against sides like Mexico, going on to seal victory against Colombia in the final! 

 

Canada went on to be called ‘Holger’s Heroes’ and one hopes that if he managed to overachieve with them, he might be able to pull off some upsets with a Socceroos side which desperately needs to blood some youngsters. After all, German coaches have a rep for achieving miracles with less fancied sides.

 

Osi also won silverware in Turkey and had two stints in Asian club football, winning the Asian Champions League with Asia’s biggest club, Urawa Red Diamonds in 2007.  His stint as chief of FIFA’s technical department also indicates that Osi will not only be expected to secure results with the national team but also serve as mentor for young players and local coaches. His experience with world champions Germany in 1990 should also prove timely. After assisting Beckenbauer to manage a team which contained the egos of the likes of Lothar Matthaus and Jurgen Klinsman, this week’s bit of handbags in Australian football should prove a triviality by comparison and should not snowball any further.

 
 

One lesson Osi must learn from Pim is not to slam the A league. It is a young league and everyone knows it’s a bit wet behind the ears. But you would be wrong to diss it. Despite its youth, it’s already produced an Asian Champs League finalist which is more than can be said of other longer-established Asian tiers. However Osi’s initial tone about the domestic competition has already been promising and he has said that he will show up at A league games. In doing so he might discover some lesser known players to help the national team’s cause, like Guus did with Josh Kennedy, an unknown quantity who was thrown on against Japan in Germany 06 and effectively changed the pattern of the game.

 
 

Yet fans should also heed Osi’s warning that the next few years will be a transitional period, with younger players having to be brought on before 2014. So he must be given some time before people dismiss him. And as evidenced by Australia’s latest 2-0 loss to Slovenia, it’s going to be a long haul. However unlike any of his three predecessors, Osi has a full four years in which to work on creating a competitive team.

 

He also looks a hell of a lot more cheerful than any of them, although we must hope he’s not just laughing all the way to the bank. But joking apart, he seems a coach who could suit the Socceroos, a grounded guy with a broad experience of the football world. He’s also keen to live in Australia.

 

And if his rule gets results in Brazil 2014, cries of ‘Aussie Aussie Osi!’ will be both inevitable and deserved.

 

The Price Ain't Right

The vast majority of my childhood was spent in Malta, which meant nine TV channels. Eight Italian ones and a local station. If you stuck your head out the window you could see a forest of aerials and antennas on the rooftops, a veritable obstacle course set up for Santa Claus. Which also meant there wasn't yet any cable TV with English and American accents spilling all over the living room. Italian was the language of every kid’s highest priorities: cartoons and football.

Most Italian TV was great but one show used to bore me witless. It was a spinoff of a US franchise purchased all over the world, the Italian brand called 'Ok - Il Prezzo e' Giusto' i.e. ‘Ok – The Price is Right’. Hosted in the main by Iva Zanicchi, it used to make me cry with boredom.

The show’s format was simple. Contestants were randomly picked to hoots of delight from a loud mob gathered inside the studio, before being made to guess the price of the prizes on display. These prizes included gym bicycles, crockery or bed mattresses among others, not exactly things to set a child’s pulses racing. Whoever guessed the right cost of the prize got it for free (or at least I bloody hope they did!) but more important than the freebie was being seen on TV! Contestants would deliver a gushing tribute to their families and villages when introduced by Zanicchi (talk about a ten seconds of fame syndrome).

As the football transfer window grinds to a close, I thought it might be far more interesting to apply the ‘OK’ format to a couple of transfers which took place last week. The first of which involved 21 year old German world cup hero Mesut Ozil. Despite his tender years, Ozil is blazing an enviable trail. Probably the world’s best playmaker and central attacking midfielder, he won the U21 Euros with Germany in 09, scoring an opening brace in the final in which Germany beat England 4-0. A year later, he was already a regular starter with the German seniors in South Africa that put four goals past Australia, England and Argentina. Fast as lightning, he’s deadly with both feet, scoring a peach of a left-footer against Ghana. Beating the offside trap with ease, he slips in behind defenders and delivers killer assists.

 

 

In a moment of genius, Ozil can turn a game on its head. He’s that rarest of rare breeds: a match-winner. After world cup 2010, he was named by FIFA as one of ten nominations for the golden ball. He’s already lifted the German cup with his former club Werder Bremen in 2009, after scoring the only goal in the final against Bayer Leverkusen. Ok, I’ll give this one away: this week Real Madrid acquired Ozil from Werder Bremen for a reported €15 million.

Over to another player: 24 year old James Milner. He has already twice crossed swords with Ozil at international level, twice ending up on the losing side. The first time was the aforementioned Euro U21 final which ended 4-0, the second being the 4-1 world cup loss to Germany with the England seniors. Ozil was a thorn in England’s side throughout the whole of this game, also creating an assist. Despite being three years his senior, Milner was hardly noticeable and was hauled off after an hour to make way for Joe Cole.

Does this make Milner a bad player? Far from it. He’s probably the best English player of his generation, renowned for his versatility and tenacity. He drew high praise from Capello at the start of the Italian’s reign as England manager, and Milner’s transfer from Newcastle to Aston Villa led to Kevin Keegan’s second resignation from the role of Toon gaffer. Despite this, Milner has so far won nothing and has not yet experienced Champions League football. This week Milner also made a move: from Manchester City from Aston Villa. 


Ok, so what do you think he was worth?

€10 million? €12 million? Hold on, I'll give you a hint: Milner had two years left on his contract, unlike Ozil, who could have left for free at the end of next year. So this would stump the figure up to...€20 million? Surely not more than €25million?

Wrong.

 

 

James Milner joined City for £18million. And that’s not including the transfer of Stephen Ireland from City to Villa as part of the deal: a former Irish international valued at £8million. So that’s £26million in all for an English international who former teammate Nolberto Solano had rightly predicted would one day become ‘an important team player.’ 

That's over €31million.

Welcome to the English transfer market. A place where the price of English players defies logic for no other reason except that they are English. Recent examples of this madness include the ludicrous sums paid by Chelsea for Shaun Wright-Phillips and Manchester City for Joleon Lescott.

Do I have a problem with this? Certainly not, it’s a free country. But one body that should have a problem with this is the English FA.

Much has been made about there not being enough young English players in the Premier league. But with prices like these, can you blame English clubs for not seeking to acquire English talent? Arsene Wenger has long been denounced as a culprit of the first order for not fielding any Englishmen in the Arse first team. Yet his argument has always run along the lines of: why should I break the bank and expose my club to financial debt for a half decent English stripling when I can buy a seasoned continental champion for less? (or even a young prodigy, as shown by the transfer of 21 year old Ozil?)

Sure enough, this week also saw Serbian wing wonder Miloš Krasić join Italian giants Juventus for €15 million, after helping former club CSKA Moscow win eleven major trophies.

 

 

What laws dictate that an English player should cost so much more than foreigners? Is it any wonder that big clubs (both English and non-English) baulk at the price of signing young English talent when it is available at such a prohibitive price?

This latest Milner – Ozil episode is just one of many bizarre recurrences throughout the years. Another example of this absurdity was Rio Ferdinand joining Manchester United from Leeds in summer of 2002 for 30 million pounds when Alessandro Nesta, by far the better defender, joined AC Milan for 30 million Euros!

There is a price to pay for such excessive figures. And the price is certainly be paid by the Three Lions.

Both England manager Fabio Capello and his predecessor Steve McClaren have always made it clear that less than 40% of regular starters in the Premier league are English. In Italy and Spain, managers get to choose from national leagues featuring almost 70% of local starters. 

Despite these statistics, Italy have themselves picked foreigners for their national side in the past e.g. Omar Sivori or Mauro Camoranesi (the latter a starter in the side that won the World Cup in Germany 2006). More recently, their new coach Cesare Prandelli has picked Brazilian born and bred Amauri for the national side, and also considered picking another uncapped Brazilian: Inter's Thiago Motta. Spain also picked a Brazilian in Marcos Senna, who was a crucial member of the side that clinched Euro 2008. England has however always picked local boys although it has nearly half the pool of players to choose from in its top flight. Which is set to decline further.

 

 

Perhaps out of fear of the Fleet Street media stranglehold, the FA has made much noise in the last weeks about appointing English managers to lead the national team in future. Yet ironically there has also been much talk of giving English passports to foreign Premier league stars who don’t get picked by their national teams, which will enable them to play for England. This was repeated just this week by Gordon Taylor, head of the PFA. 

  

So after all the pre-world cup talk of picking Spaniard Manuel Almunia between the sticks for the Three Lions, do not exclude Spaniard Mikel Arteta pulling the strings in a future England midfield. And that’s just a couple of uncapped Iberians, which ignores the stream of Africans, Frenchmen, Latin Americans, Australians etc. who could don England’s colours tomorrow. The endless influx of cheaper, superior foreign talent in English club sides is going to be emulated by the national team.

Which means that by being priced out of a move to English and foreign clubs, young English born players are not going to have a cat’s chance in hell of representing England at international level.

It is already happening. For whatever reason, the price of young English players is inflated. It’s already one of the main reasons why English born players are becoming extinct in the English Premiership.

That’s the cost when the price ain’t right.

The Beauty of Blackpool

I just love a manager with buckets of personality. Not to mention a manager who puts a winning team together on a shoestring budget. I’m not sure where this love of an overachieving Premiership underdog comes from. Perhaps it’s down to the fact that I’ve supported Liverpool FC in the Prem all my life, which has led me to cast an eye over smaller squads that punch above their weight.

In past years the Premier league has been lit up by teams like Reading or Hull. Squads that start the season by unexpectedly shooting to the top of the league, and maybe even qualifying for Europe like Ipswich Town did in 2000. Better still, you sometimes get a championship team reaching the final of one of England’s two cup competitions without having crazy amounts of dosh to splash about. Millwall FC and Cardiff City certainly merit a mention for reaching the FA Cup final in 2004 and 2010 respectively.

My personal favourite? Well, I’ll certainly never forget the days of Martin O’Neill at Filbert Street, when the canny Ulsterman led unfancied Leicester City to three league cup finals in four years, winning two of them and securing European qualification. Scalps claimed along the way to these finals included those of Manyoo and the Arse, sending the Foxes faithful into wonderland.

 

 

 

 

Fans of the game owe a great deal to these clubs that defy expectations; underdogs who get places which the Spurs and Man Citys of this world can only dream of despite the huge amounts of cash they pour into their squads. They inspire other ‘small’ teams to also try and create a squad that can go far. Underdogs also save neutrals from dying of boredom caused by the Manyoos and Chelskis of this world, and from giving up on the sport altogether due to an overdose of predictability.

The only ‘downside’ to loving these teams is the pain which inevitably follows. Their limited finances mean that they can rarely keep up with early expectations, generally getting relegated within a season or two. Yet this does not make their achievements in vain. Their lofty exploits live long in the memory of a club’s supporters, creating a benchmark to which all future generations at the club can aspire to, and are the stuff of tall tales which parents can recount to their children by the fire (or wherever it is that parents spend time with their kids these days.)

This year a result which caught the eye in the opening week of the Premiership was Blackpool’s trashing of Wigan. Most pundits might smirk at the mention of the Tangerines, considering them as little more than a passing joke. Yet true students of the game (probably of the more silver-haired variety) will argue that Blackpool FC was not always perceived as a small club in English football. Indeed some geezers might even recall the shockwaves caused in 1938 when Sir Stanley Matthews dared to request a transfer to Blackpool FC from Stoke City FC. This occurred in a time when footballers were expected to be loyal to their club and its fans for life.
 

 

Matthews’s autobiography 'The Way It Was' is a heart-warming account of the days when an England player had to answer to the FA if he spent his allowance on a cup-cake whilst on international duty overseas, without first seeking permission. Other gems in this book also include Matthews being told off for forgetting to clean the opposition’s dressing room when he was still a young trainee at Stoke. These would of course be the least of a professional footballer’s fears nowadays.

At that time there was no such thing as ‘big’ clubs and ‘small’ clubs and no huge financial gulf which exists between football teams today. Every team in the league fancied their chances of winning the competition. Nowadays coming fourth and qualifying for the European Champions League is considered a phenomenal achievement, which makes you wonder if the quality of domestic competitions is actually improving or regressing. All of this makes unfancied heroes like Blackpool FC so crucial in an increasingly predictable European game, riddled with agents and dominated by a clutch of big clubs.

Post-Matthews, the Blackpool faithful finally have a new messiah in top flight football who goes by the name of Ian Holloway. Lovingly known as 'Ollie', this glib & charismatic specimen took up the reins in 2009 & masterminded an incredible promotion to the Premier league in 2010 via a playoff victory. After this dramatic triumph, Ollie said he turned his phone off when taking a two day summer holiday with his wife, only to find 762 messages when he turned it back on, with just two of them being sent from people he knew!  

 

 

The number of agents trying to contact Ollie might have dwindled when Blackpool FC declared that they would be putting in place a wage ceiling of 10,000 pounds a week. What this means is that Ollie might lose players to lower league sides like Southampton that have bigger budgets than he does! All of which made the sight of Blackpool topping the Premier league on the opening day of the Premiership season all the more psychedelic. Their incredible 4-0 victory at Wigan must have the followers of the Tangerines in nirvana.  Come the end of the 2010-2011 season, Blackpool might be hanging onto their Premiership lives by the skin of their teeth, yet the current standings bring to mind a time when every single team in the top flight was ‘in it to win it’ and not just to ‘win fourth place’ or ‘beat the drop’. 

The greatest weapon Blackpool have at their disposal is that they enter every game without any pressure whatsoever. They had hardly just won the playoff earlier this year when Ollie said in a post-match interview that ‘nothing is worse than the Premier league in my opinion’ before entering into an impassioned and typically off the wall soliloquy about the gulf in finances available to clubs today which is somewhat representative of the problems faced by modern day societies in the developed world. 

All of which already makes Blackpool a gust - or rather a blast - of fresh air in the Premier league. Their Bristolian manager’s streetwise and frank demeanor makes him the heir of Jose Mourinho, at least when it comes to press conferences. However his tactical nous is not to be sniffed at either. Since Ollie began his reign Blackpool have developed a neat passing game and he has also shown an ability to dip into the transfer market to acquire valid additions like Frenchman Eliot Grandin.

 

His ability to get the best out of an underachieving side whilst implementing a winning brand of football gives Blackpool and all neutrals hope that this is a manager who can help his side play to the maximum of their strengths whilst keeping their feet firmly planted to the ground. 


Ollie for England anyone?