World Poetry Day: Football is dead
As we celebrate World Poetry Day today, the wonderful wordsmith who goes by the name Jamie Cutteridge has penned a piece straight from his heart for us all to enjoy and endear. Maybe football isn’t dead, just yet?
Football is dead
“Football is dead, and we have killed it”
Said the man with the brown anorak,
He grunted at players and sipped on his Bovril,
And sniped at young players from the back
His grievances came from the teams at the top,
He said they had ruined his game,
He didn’t see the irony in slagging them off,
Whilst buying their shirts all the same.
Murdoch, blatter, keys and gray,
were the folks that made fella so irate.
Even Jamie Redknapp, his beautiful hair,
Was the subject of old codger’s hate.
But football has changed
it’s just not the same,
and I’m sure on that we agree,
it’s all about money, and less about fame,
and why don’t they kick off at three?
Perhaps it is different, perhaps it is not,
but sometimes we all moan too much,
it’s still 11 men, kicking round an old ball,
be you English, Spanish or Dutch.
The game on TV is still played down the park,
with jumpers for goalposts and that,
but then you see Nani and stupid green boots,
and that tool Balotelli in his hat.
You can moan all you like, but there’s fun to be had
the game isn’t quite dead as yet.
The glamour, the grounds and the fans still excite,
and the sound of ball hitting net.
Communities together supporting their team,
bringing folks come together from afar,
perhaps there is hope for the game that we love,
even if Blatter remains football Tsar.
And that there we have it, football is saved,
through the medium of words, rhyme and verse,
I think I’ll stop now, I’m no poet you see,
lets face it, It’s just getting worse.
You can follow Jamie’s entertaining ramblings about football, music and most importantly Alan Shearer on twitter @JamieCutteridge. Go and thank him.
Relative radio silence
Apologies for the lack of posts in the past couple of weeks, I’ve been a bit busy and concentrating on a few other things. There will hopefully be a few posts in the next week or two. In the mean time I’d like to invite you to read a couple of pieces I’ve written for Football Italia.
My debut for the wonderful Italian football site is The two tides that could, where I compare Napoli and Lazio to the little engine that could in Watty Piper’s children’s story.
A second offering for your eyes to consider is a resumé of Adriano’s stuttering time at Roma and his impending demise. It looks like Rome may be without an emperor once more. You can read the piece titled The Emperor’s demise here.
I hope you enjoy those.
Law 11: When is offside, onside?
The offside law is a feature of the game that has been the cause of tears of joy and pain, a topic that has provoked hours of conversation in front rooms, bars, cafes and public houses all over the world. The law has been changed on numerous occasions and the shape of the game has had to adapt to meet the latest changes. Every facet of the law has not always been clear, and the changes have often muddied the waters further. Against Arsenal, the officials made a decision that sparked rounds of discussion regarding Louis Saha’s goal. But were they correct?
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Libertadores shock for holders, U de Chile finally lose
Teams left in the Copa Libertadores, South America’s premier club competition, concluded their quarter final ties last week. Going into the 2nd legs the ties stood as follows: -
Chivas de Guadalajara (Mexico) 3 – 0 Libertad (Paraguay)
Universidad de Chile 3 – 2 Flamengo (Brazil)
Sao Paolo (Brazil) 2 -0 Cruziero (Brazil)
Estudiantes (Argentina & Holders) 0 – 1 Internacional (Brazil)
The biggest of those games were held in Santiago and La Plata. The holders Estudiantes went into their home game with Internacional of Brazil looking to overturn a 1 goal defecit and looked on track to do so after a great first half. On 19 minutes Juan Sebastian Veron delivered a magnificent cross field ball from 10 yards inside his half to the edge of the box where Leandro Gonzalez had lost his full back and chipped simply over Abbondanzieri. Two minutes later Enzo Perez netted a second and Estudiantes led the tie up until the 88th minute Giuliano scored a crucial away goal for the visitors in a smoke filled penalty area. The end of the game was marred by a bit of a big scuffle.
Flamengo had a poor first tie at home to Universidad de Chile. The Chilean side were the only undefeated side in the tournament though so they were hardly dealing with poor opposition. U de Chile had won that game 3-2 despite being down to 10 men for the majority of the second half. Flamengo scored two cracking goals, the first was assisted by an inspired overhead kick from Adriano which Vagner love helped towards the goal at the far post. Walter Montillo equalised for U de Chile by delicately chipping the keeper from all of 25 yards out. The second Flamengo goal came from a lovely piece of interchange between Kleberson and Adriano leading to the ‘Emperor’ scoring. Sadly this wasn’t enough to put Flamengo through to the semi finals.
The other results of the 2nd leg games were
Libertad 2 – 0 Guadalajara (2-3)
Sao Paolo 2 – 0 Cruziero (4-0)
This means that the semi finals will be as follows:
Sao Paolo vs Internacional
Guadalajara vs Universidad de Chile
To be played on the 29th July and 5th August, there will be at least one Brazilian side in the final.
Brazil: Round 2
Just a quick round up of the action in the Campeonato Brasileiro round 2 this week. Corinthians continue their 100% record with a 2-1 away win at Gremio Porto Alegre. Gremio were resting a few key names in lieu of a Copa do Brasil semi final 2nd leg in midweek against Santos. Corinthians appear to be extremely hungry for success following their eliminatioon from the Libertadores last month.
Avai missed the chance to join Corinthians at the top when they relinquished a 2-0 first half lead against a 10 man Cruizero. The game ended 2-2 and with both teams with 10 men after the Avai goalkeeper, Ze Carlos, was sent off for giving away the equalising penalty. Wellington Paulista scored both goals for Cruizero who will be the happier side with this result especially after they had also rested players in preparation for the second leg of their all Brazil Libertadores quarter final with Sao Paolo.
Vasco da Gama took on Palmeiras on Sunday night and should have all but buried them. The game was almost entirely a case of attack vs defence with Palmeiras having to create the few chances they did have on the counter attack. The Sao Paolo side didn’t manage to get a shot on target until 10 minutes into the second half. For all their pressure and possession Vasco were unable to effectively penatrate a very organised back four, never stretching them or getting in behind the defenders.
Santos took on north eastern club Ceara, still no sign of Robinho in the National Championships however. Newspaper reports suggest he is being rested, perhaps for the midweek cup semi. His young prodigy, Neymar, was both hero and villain for Santos. He had the balls to score the equalising penalty in an absolutely audacious manner, though touching on the illegal, he dummies twice before chipping the ball into the side opposite the keeper. He had the chance later on in the game to put Santos ahead but this time the keeper didn’t buy it and he dragged the spot kick wide. My only hope is that he isn’t tempted to leave Santos at such a young age. Despite this level of courage/arrogance I think he needs a little more time to give himself the platform to become a true great.
In other leagues…
This goal was scored in Paraguay and deserves special mention for an amazing trajectory. It is scored by a Sol de America player nicknamed Inca. Enjoy…
Kick off in Brazil
On Sunday afternoon the Campeonato Brasileiro, Brazilian National championship, kicked off in earnest following the conclusion of the circus show that is the regional championships. While it is a national championship most of the hype circulates around the sides from Brazil’s two biggest cities. Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo, the league is still quite young only being established in 1971, before this the regional championships of the Carioca (Rio) and Paulista (Sao Paolo) were considered far more prestigious competitions. Also this year Santos are making all of the pre-season noise with the short term acquisition of Robinho together with wonder kid Neymar.
In Rio we have Botafogo, Fluminense, current champions Flamengo and Vasco da Gama, who have been newly re-instated with their top flight status following the chaos and collapse of the last few seasons. Sao Paolo offers us Corinthians, Palmeiras and, of course, Sao Paolo. Also promoted from Serie B this season are Ceará, this club based close to the north-eastern tip of Brazil will have to travel the furthest this season and I expect this will contribute to poor away form. They will need to pick up plenty of points at home if they are to have a chance of survival.
As well as Robinho, European followers may be interested in the progress of some other former stars who have returned home after reaching the peaks of European competition. Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos are plying their trade for Corinthians while Flamengo have Adriano and Vagner Love on their books.
Corinthians are in their centenary year but have already been eliminated from the Libertadores, a competition they have never won, and so will have to concentrate on the league in order to crown their birthday with a trophy. They began the campaign in a steady fashion, Ronaldo scored the winner against Atletico Paranaense from the penalty spot. Meanwhile champions Flamengo were held to a 1-1 draw with Sao Paolo and Santos fought out a 3-3 draw with the once great Botafogo.
There are still four Brazilian sides left in the Libertadores at the Quarter final stage. Past form has told us that sides that progress in the continental tournament struggle tremendously to battle on two fronts and therefore we can expect these sides league form to take a hit.
Spurs reach brink of the promised land
On Wednesday night half of North London rejoiced, finally the big four had been broken, at last Tottenham had reached the pinnacle of European competition. If they finish fourth on Sunday, which seems the likely outcome, this euphoria is rather premature. If Arsenal get at least a point at home to a Fulham side who will have their eyes firmly set on their Europa League final the following Wednesday then spurs will need to break records to finish third and avoid having to qualify for the group stages of the Champions League.
Before Michel Platini decided that the Champions League should be for Champions this stage of the competition would have been a much simpler affair. Tottenham may have been seeded against the Finnish or Slovakian champions, instead they will enter the perilous depths of an unseeded draw.
Lower placed banana skins
Looking around Europe as championships across the continent are drawing to a close there are plenty of banana skins for Harry Redknapp’s men to slip on. Some of the bigger sides who we will expect to come through from the third qualifying round include the likes of Zenit St. Petersburg, Celtic, Dynamo Kyiv, Ajax and most likely Sporting Braga.
Ajax have been rather unfortunate to only have finished runners-up in the Eredivisie, they finished just 1 point behind Steve McClaren’s FC Twente side. They have been on fire this season scoring 106 goals and conceding a paltry 20 only 4 of which have been let in at home. Going to Amsterdam to face a front line including Marco Pantelic and Luis Suarez and midfielder bruiser Demy de Zeeuw could be a difficult proposition despite Ajax’s poor showing in the Europa League in the season just gone.
The biggest positive about having to face one of these sides is that despite their good league form, the leagues themselves are of a poor general standard. For example, in Portugal the gap between 1st place and 4th going into the final game this weekend is almost 30 points. These sides do not face quality opposition on a weekly basis and so we mustn’t blow statistics such as Ajax’s goal difference out of proportion and out of context.
Play off round
Many of the sides mentioned above will still be expected to progress to the play off round. Together with Tottenham and best placed teams from Europe’s big 5 they will play off to enter the group stage. All 5 of these positions are yet to be decided with stiff competition still in place in most of these top leagues.
In France Ligue 1 has 2 more rounds to go, but as it stands the 3rd placed qualifier could be one of Lille, Auxerre, Lyon or Montpellier. We have seen Lyon do very well in the competition this season and it appears their league form has suffered due to this. Lille made life difficult for Liverpool earlier on this season so are no pushovers themselves. Montpellier were promoted last season from Ligue 2 and a Champions League place would be an astonishing achievement.
The race for 4th in La Liga is a straight two horse race over the last 2 games between Seville and RCD Mallorca. Sevilla are the incumbent at the moment but will host Barcelona tonight while Mallorca make the long trip to La Coruna before hosting Espanyol, who should be safe, in their final game. Seville have form in Europe and would provide tough opposition.
In Germany, Werder Bremen seem the most likely to take third spot with Leverkusen completely off the boil after their 24 match unbeaten run earlier this season. Italy appear to be offering the strongest opposition in the draw, one of Palermo, Sampdoria or even Milan who have fallen away toward the end of the season.
Remember Villarreal
In August 2005 Everton found themselves in exactly the same position as Tottenham do now. They were drawn against Villarreal losing 2-1 in both legs and 4-2 on aggregate. The goals that put Everton to the sword were scored by Luciano Figueroa (2), Diego Forlan and Juan Pablo Sorin. The next morning Everton still had European football to look forward to in the form of the Uefa cup but this must have been a bitter pill to swallow after pipping rivals Liverpool to 4th spot.