Tangerine Nightmare

 

TEAM: Trialist, Waddington, Trialist, Perkins, McMahon (C), Dunne, Zenjov, Trialist, Trialist, Grant, Trialist.
— Blackpool FC (@BlackpoolFC) July 19, 2014

Blackpool's trials continue courtesy of club owner who took £11m after relegation

The silly season is in swing over at Bloomfield Road. Unfortunately a few of the staff seem to be taking it a little too literally. The club's state lurched from perilous to farcical on Saturday when during a trip to Penrith they were forced to play five trialists.

The are currently eight professional players on Blackpool's books, with the rest of the squad having left due to loan or contract expiry earlier in the summer. A squad with talent and verve during their single Premier League season back in 2010 are now touted as relegation dead certs from the Championship. The villain of the riches-to-rags piece appears to be the man who once saved them from their uppers.

Owen Oyston made headlines for all the wrong reasons when in 2011 he became the highest paid director ever in world football. From Blackpool's Premier League season, when they were relegated at Manchester United, Oyston - the club's owner since May 1988 - pocketed £11 million.



Blackpool's 'squad' warm up for a pre-season at Penrith FC

Oyston paid significant sums to Blackpool when it appeared they might be on the way out of the Football League. When the club's dreams were realised in 2010 and they were promoted to the Premier League, it's alleged they gained the best part of £80 million from the league. That 'they' is deliberately vague, for it's never been really clear who the money belonged to - Blackpool FC or Owen Oyston.

Therein lies the rub for all Blackpool fans, who are furious at the conduct displayed by the club. Or Oyston. It's difficult to tell which is which - and there are numerous goings-on in the background that muddy the waters further. Oyston allegedly uses the money earned from Blackpool to boost his other business interests. He, like many others before him, sees no difference in managing the club like any other business, regardless of how much destruction he wreaks.

Blackpool appear to be the latest instalment in a book on football club owners gone wrong. The title could be Deja Vu: The Sequel, and with a lack of legal efficacy and code of moral conduct around ownership, it's unlikely to be the last chapter in a cruel saga. All around the country men behave badly, and the game's authorities wonder what they can do about it all.

Coventry City now play their home games in Northampton thanks to their London hedge fund owners trying to bounce the council out of the Ricoh Arena by refusing to pay the rent. Consequently they've forfeited income from ticket sales, pushing the club close to administration. 

March saw ex-Birmingham City owner Carson Yeung jailed for money laundering. It remains unclear how much money Yeung really had, and upon describing his testimony, the trial judge accused the businessman of 'making it up as he went along'. Finally, not even a prior conviction for fraud could stop Italian Massimo Cellino from passing a fit and proper test by the Football League before his takeover of Leeds United.

The club's current plight is so bad that the manager, Jose Riga, has cancelled a pre-season tour to La Manga to concentrate on getting some players through the door. He'd identified three. The snag? He and the chairman can't agree over them, and Riga won't sign any more until he gets them.

With three weeks to go until the new season, this hardly seems the best time to play who-blinks-first between manager and chairman. There isn't much left to lose for the club in both the literal and metaphorical sense - and that's mainly down to just one man.

Pictures thanks to Twitter and The Independent

World Cup 2014: Thanks for the memories

A strange and surreal moment occurred last night, early in extra time. Courtesy of the BBC's Guy Mowbray we discovered that Germany had gone unbeaten in 27 matches. Argentina, their cup final challengers, had gone 23 games unbeaten. As this alarmingly meaningless number was burbled over the mic, Argentina's maestro Javier Mascherano executed a perfect sliding tackle on Bastian Schweinsteiger. Which got you more excited?

'The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life from our souls', said Pablo Picasso. And it's hard to see how football gets more exciting following a World Cup that sought, demanded, emotional responses. A host country that belted out its national anthem that brought tears to the eyes. A classic rock track, retouched by a swarm of boisterous Argentines, just for the occasion. James Rodriguez. There were so many examples of the beautiful game here that the numbers game feels remote. Silly.

Stat after stat was fed by Lineker to Hansen, like Polo mints to a former champion thoroughbred put out to pasture. The first time since 1946 this. The only time in history that. Even FIFA are not immune. They, in their own way, are beginning to compartmentalise a game that burst at the seams here. Their award of the Golden Ball to Lionel Messi felt fraudulent; it was dubbed 'a marketing trick' by Diego Maradona shortly afterwards. When no one can see the point of the award given, it calls into question the legitimacy of that award. Messi performed well, but Maradona, as ever, had his finger on the pulse of the sport's still-beating heart.

The game does not need the bits businesses can't do without. Numbers are the boring half of a story well worth listening to. The World Cup should be like the world's best ever holiday photo collection. Every picture should tell a brilliant story - and there were so many. The aforementioned Rodriguez, a star in the remaking. The Costa Ricans. Tim Cahill's astonishing strike versus the Dutch. Neymar's bravura performance - at times he appeared to be stooped with the weight of expectation.

Perhaps the best example of Brazil's success was the USA. As a team - as a nation - their watershed moment was as authentic as they come; an almost, last-gasp sort of a match against a fancied Belgian side who were on the ropes as the US players summoned unknown reserves and tore into them. They could have won. Even better - millions of people wanted to see them win. And they weren't all American.

Brazil offered so much to so many. It's a spiritual home for the game - a genuinely great choice by FIFA. Its infrastructure, as noted by many journalists, was good, not the horror show many were led to believe. Live television showed matches in airplanes - a brilliant idea, and one that should be implemented for the next World Cup and, if necessary, European Championships. And the fans were everything a major tournament needed to grab the attention undivided.

So FIFA ought not to forget the intangibles when next flinging the merry-go-round for its biggest global moneyspinner. Accidents will happen and mistakes will be made but there can be no doubt this was a huge, huge success for all involved.

So of course - here's my tournament highlights. Where possible I've added some relevant context. Numbers be damned.

Player of the tournament: James Rodriguez

Who else? Golden Boot winner having played two games less than Thomas Muller, it feels almost asinine to point out Rodriguez's emblematic qualities for the most tear-streaked Copa in recent memory. Besides a near-assault by Brazil's hustling defence and midfield in their quarter-final punch-up, Rodriguez did the near-impossible: he took Falcao out of the picture. When you consider the fact that the centre forward was so important to the nation's tournament plans that the president of Colombia went to see him following his surgery, Rodriguez's achievements are all the more amplified. And that goal. Pffffft.

Team of the tournament (playing 4-2-3-1)
Neuer; Lahm, Hummels, Blind, Mena; Mascherano, Kroos; Cuadrado, Robben, Rodriguez; Muller.

Best match

Undoubtedly Holland 5-1 Spain. A watershed moment; the moment everyone knew this World Cup would be different. The Brazil demolition will perhaps live longer in the memory, for its extraordinary historical connotations, but it was essentially a 30 minute match. Van Gaal had dismantled the famous Dutch 4-3-3 and but for some slipshod play from David Silva, Holland very nearly went in 2-0 down at the break. Instead, Van Persie's extraordinary salmon leap (left)past a baffled Casillas, and one of the great solo performances from Arjen Robben cut the Spanish to smart little red ribbons. From that point on all bets, metaphorically speaking, were off.

Honourable mention: Belgium-USA may have unintended consequences for soccer in the States. Billed as a fairly tight match before kick-off, the game appeared to become a 90 minute physical exam for American goalkeeper Tim Howard, who now holds the record number of saves made in a match with 16. For Belgium, everybody bar coach Wilmots tried. Hazard had a go. Orige had a go. Belgium's defence had multiple gos from set pieces. But the man, like Margaret Thatcher but with more animal rights persuasions, was not for turning. To pick the ball out of his goal, you understand.
When two goals did arrive for Belgium in extra time, the Americans simply went for the jugular - and nearly brought the Belgians down. 'Not good for my heart' was all Wilmots said at full time. For millions of Americans, Brazilians and Europeans around the world, the truth was exactly the opposite.

Best dressed manager

Without a shadow of a doubt Louis van Gaal (left) and his backing group of orange-tied note-taking coaching staff. Whoever thought of this arrangement - and the uniform basis has the distinctive style/structure yin-yang of van Gaal's best arrangements - ought to be provided with some sort of fashion medal. Preferably by someone like Kraftwerk, who'd probably love this sort of thing.

Honourable mention: Jogi, Jogi, Jogi. Eternal cool, and now a World Cup winner. The only manager in football who could drink a cognac and smoking Marlboro Reds in the dugout without getting automatically sent off, the man didn't wear a single suit in the entire tournament. Bravo.

Best goal

The shrinking gap between video game goals and real life goals continues apace. Some quite astonishing aerodynamics went into Robin van Persie's airborne header-lob, but people do tend to overlook the cross from wing back Daley Blind that was so accurate van Persie didn't even break stride to befuddle Casillas.
Tim Cahill's crossbar smash-in may prove to be the moment to prompt the paradigm shift between real goals and goals scored on FIFA on X Boxes everywhere. A goal so unique that you (probably) couldn't score it on a computer, it was that good.
But the best still has to be Rodriguez's jaw-dropping effort versus Uruguay. So good, the Colombian commentators went nuts even by their usual standards. And the look on his face - 'did I just do that?!' - is one that should guarantee a place in the greatest of greatest hits.

Best national anthem

Chile. Just listen to this, and feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

Best set piece

Yes this category's mainly included because you'll probably never again see Thomas Muller act so comically in a football match. But there were some genuinely good ones. The USA's straight ball, almost deadpan in tone, from a free kick, right through the Belgian defence at 2-1 down had hearts in mouths everywhere. David Luiz's whomp versus Colombia made every British journalist momentarily re-consider their appraisal of him as 'a bit dodgy'.
But the winner  - sorry, England - is Italy's inspired corner-kick routine from which Claudio Marchisio scored the opening goal. A goal of simple brilliance, with the ingeniously illusory element provided by - of course - regista di tutti registas Andrea Pirlo. Bloody marvellous.

Pics courtesy of The Guardian, 101 Great Goals and Eurosport Australia

World Cup 2014: Second Round (Part 2)

So four from four. Yes they were pretty easy to guess, even if Costa Rica were pretty streaky against Greece - but I think the next set are tougher to call, with Belgium versus USA in particular likely to be, in American parlance, a shutout. In one line: I think France, Argentina, Germany and Belgium - just.

France v Nigeria

For coach Deschamps, another Lazarus-esque reanimation. His style has revitalised a French side who very nearly squandered their spot here with a 2-0 away loss to Ukraine in Kiev in April. The home leg, a 3-0 win for Les Bleus, was a microcosm of Deschamps' record so far, with his record of turning around the historical giants of the game neatly encapsulated in one stunning performance that helped everyone remember why France should be considered one of the tournament favourites.

And favourites they rightly are for this game, after a smoothly executed dismantling of a brutal Honduras side and the demolition of Switzerland left them top with a game to spare. Ignore Ecuador: that game simply proved that if Pogba, Benzema (right), Valbuena et al don't have a target, they revert to the sluggish, lethargic French side reminiscent of South Africa.

For Stephen Keshi's Nigeria this is arguably the biggest triumph of all after an error-strewn first match versus Iran and a torrid preceding 12 months. The side with the biggest population in the African continent have either punched above or below their weight in World Cups, depending on your perspective on African football, but with a decent, well-rounded squad capable of playing the best sides - Argentina - at their own game, and with Musa finally bursting into life alongside Emenike, this will be the toughest assignment yet for the French.

Prediction: France to win by two

Argentina v Switzerland

Bookmakers everywhere looked at Argentina's draw and wondered who, or what, would stop their surely irresistible march to the final versus Brazil. The host's most hated neighbours have a relatively straightforward path to the Maracana and Switzerland are the first of their not-so-challenging obstacles towards that target.

Odds have gone as low as 1/2 for a South American win and even without Aguero, Messi (below) appears - finally - to be shouldering a Maradona-moulded mantle that has passed on from some greats without success. In Argentina there are only two players who are revered as godlike. Good job one of them has four goals in this tournament.

 

Swiss coach Ottmar Hitzfeld probably couldn't have wished for a bigger game to end his career on, if this is to be the end, but although the odds are literally stacked against Switzerland, a much deeper, stronger reserve of players than was historically the case will ensure this is a real contest. Bayern's Shaqiri has been the headline act thus far but Inler and Behrami, alongside Dzemaili, will ensure Gago and Mascherano can't take it easy in midfield.

 

Switzerland's real danger is to be found outside the centre however, with Lichtsteiner in particular a very potent threat to Argentina's back three/four, depending on  coach Sabella's preference. But with Argentina's preference for counterattacking football - and Switzerland's recent memory of their dismantling by a similarly minded France - three on two situations could very quickly develop if Behrami charges upfield for attacks.

 

Number ten Xhaka will probably need to have the game of his career so far if they are to make a dent on the favourites, as will striker Drmic. And with the Swiss chances relying on outlandish possibilities like that, expect another South American side in the last eight.

 

Prediction: Buona notte/ bonne nuit/ gute nacht/ iyi geceler Switzerland

 

Germany v Algeria

 

It was bound to happen eventually. Whilst this is probably just another game for the Germans, Algeria may well see this as a long overdue opportunity for revenge for the so-called 'Anschluss of Gijon' between West Germany and neighbours Austria at the 1982 World Cup, when the north African side were eased out of second place in their group following what might be the least competitive game of professional football ever seen.

 

Or they might not. It'll be fascinating to see if Algeria's players are able to stand up to Germany's almost Brazilian rhythms whilst observing Ramadan - Germany's Mesut Ozil has already stated he will not be fasting during the World Cup - whilst playing in almost 90% humidity in Porto Alegre. At least it won't be sunny.

All of the intangible stuff - form, players, tournament history - indicates this'll be a step too far for Algeria, who have looked dangerously prone to submission from long balls and crosses, where their lack of height almost cost them against Russia. Even South Korea, not the most physical side, gave the Algerians a real test, dropping forty yard balls onto Meung-Hin Son and Don-Wong Jook that nearly hauled them back into the game.

Experience should also prove important for the Germans, who with 974 caps between them have nearly three times their opponents on 364. And although numbers aren't everything - as we've seen any time we watched Greece, Costa Rica or indeed Algeria - Germany's squad have scored a whopping 219 goals to Algeria's meagre 40, with the teams at either end of that particular spectrum.

Statistically then, this is a genuine maestros v minnows match-up. For Algeria, Majid Bougherra (left) has been a calming influence, particularly against the Russians in a tense, nervy finale, and they will need him to dominate play throughout. For Germany, their worst enemy is likely to be themselves, although with the close shave versus Ghana still in their collective rearview, it's unlikely Jogi Low's side will shoot themselves in the foot again.

Prediction: Deutschland über alles

Belgium v USA

At the start of this tournament I suggested Belgium would struggle to get past Portugal in the second round. They certainly would struggle now, as Portugal are justifiably out. That's mainly due to a brilliant performance in the second match versus the Americans, whose MLS, created under FIFA duress in 1994, is finally showing signs of flowering into a league capable of producing good players.

Toronto's Michael Bradley, Everton's Tim Howard and ex-Premier League striker Clint Dempsey are the big international names but encouragingly, there's quality sprouting up all over the States. Salt Lake's Kyle Beckerman has impressed with dependable, if not electric performances, whilst Kansas's Graham Zusi has supported Bradley in providing an incisive attacking platform for Dempsey to feed off. Klinsmann has got the team playing in a disciplined diamond pattern that flattens slightly when not in possession and the States have been aggressive in midfield, not afraid to push onto players to force squarer balls and nullify threats.

Belgium's challenge will be to improve on João Moutinho's ideas. Against Portugal, the US were repeatedly caught when Moutinho arrowed diagonals over the US midfield leaving Nani and Ronaldo with opportunities against technically weak fullbacks. Wastefulness and a pretty average distribution from the Monaco midfielder meant the US were able to capitalise, but there's no doubt the Belgians should be looking to force the Americans wider to defend their flanks, nullifying their diamond pattern.

It's unlikely that they will do however. Belgium have no 'quarterback' player to arrow those long balls in, and their single squad fullback, Anthony Vanden Borre, hasn't started a match. Their success will probably come in the form of an extremely solid back line and goalkeeper that the Americans will need to penetrate, but don't expect many goals. 

Nonetheless Hazard, who usually defends his wing well, will terrorise Johnson on the US right and Wilmots simply must deploy De Bruyne (above), his top scorer in qualifying, against Beasley on the Belgium right. Witsel and whoever partners him - likely Fellaini - will do fine with Dries Mertens dropping in. Orige would seem the adventurous choice to start, so expect Lukaku instead. A tight game awaits.

Prediction: Belgium in extra time

Pics thanks to Hattrick.cz, Goal.com, India Today and ESPN FC
 

The English Patient

Far from lacking direction, English football wants to go in too many, with the consequences of a lack of strategy glaringly obvious

Navel-gazing time. England are out - again - and it's time to reflect on why. I can think of three or four events that really illustrate a lack of joined-up thinking behind not just English football, but sport in general.

1. The death of American Malcolm Glazer, who, along with his family, have imposed the contemporary American tactic of leveraged buyouts onto one of English football's greatest institutions, keeping it afloat financially through increasingly bemusing forays into untapped commercial markets. Official jacket potato partner anyone?
2. Greg Dyke's suggestion of what was effectively League Three - consisting of Premier League B teams - to bridge the financial and competitive gap between the Premier and Football League. Roundly condemned by all sides, it quickly appeared to be dead in the water.
3. A report by Ofsted on the standard of sporting excellence in state and public schools. Reported by the Guardian's David Conn, it highlighted the growing chasm of achievement between the two sectors, with 41% of all Olympic winning athletes coming from privately educated backgrounds - a freakishly large number when considering the number of state to public schools. It made no apparent reference as to why that was the case.
4. An interesting point made by former U-21 coach Stuart Pearce following England's elimination by Uruguay, who noted the Under 17 team had performed outstandingly at five consecutive tournaments - but then disappeared between the ages of 18-21. Why was that, he wondered.

The bigger picture here is somewhat blurry - and with good reason. English football, to put it simply, does not know what it wants to be. If it were to be analysed as a business, it undoubtedly underperforms - but the main reason for this is due to its deliberately fractured nature. The Premier League, English football's best performing 'product', generated £1.8 billion for its clubs last year but, as it is not affiliated with the FA, will keep all of that unless contractually obliged not to.

In England, as German journalist Raf Honigstein succinctly put it, football follows the money, not the other way around, as in the Bundesliga. That's resulted in clubs being bought by the planet's billionaires, with the inevitable smattering of financial disasters. Portsmouth nearly disappeared. It's no exaggeration to say Bobby Zamora saved QPR from financial meltdown in the playoff final.

If that doesn't highlight the Premier League's bubble status, consider Pearce's remarks. Uruguay happened, he suggested, because clubs pulled their best players out of the youth set up due to a lack of depth, weakening the national youth setup as a consequence. The Premier League bubble exacerbates the problem, as clubs throw eye-watering sums at players over spending a fraction developing its own resources for fear of relegation and the end of the gravy train. When the consequence could be liquidation,  you want all your resources available, all the time.

Go back to the country's production lines and see what chance British boys and girls have of making a career in football. In Belgium, clubs like Anderlecht join up with schools to ensure talented children have access to excellent facilities whilst getting an education. In the UK Ofsted suggests that 'commitment' from state school teachers is more important than the facilities privately educated children pay for.

Going back to Belgium again, who have come from nowhere to be considered one of the strongest sides in this year's World Cup, everywhere you look there is consistency. Every Belgium youth team plays 4-3-3, in the same mold as Ajax and Barcelona. That does not exist yet in England - and Belgium began their project 16 years ago. Greg Dyke thinks England should be targeting the 2022 World Cup - is that reasonable?

At each stage in the process of creating competitive sport in the UK, a hurdle must be jumped. That's fine - the British Olympic committee challenges its athletes to prove they have used resources wisely, or they will be cut from the picture next time around. It's worked tremendously well - but it's come at a significant price, as Ofsted's article indicates. 

No one is suggesting that responsibility should be shared between remote, distant bodies of arbitration either. But what's missing is precisely what's happened in Belgium - a sustained strategy, involving clubs, players, coaches, and more broadly, schools, municipal councils. A clear, overriding sense of direction.

There's simply no substitute for money here - but 'culture' is our currency, and it's the classic British term for mend-and-make-do. It's what governments turn to in times like these. Culture does not build buildings or improve pitches. It does not fund extracurricular activities. It does not encourage parents to spend money on trips around the country, or abroad, for their kids to play in competitions.

It does provide a sense of direction, but in the highest echelons of the national game, it's no replacement for sustained investment. British attitudes - that have-a-go, ne'er say die approach - have never been questioned. But British attitudes to money are slowly being uncovered, and the picture is not pretty. In sport, it penalises those who need it the most. 

In the end, the man who is now the chairman of the Football Association probably presents the greatest embodiment of the current state of the game. Dyke played a significant part in creating the modern-day Premier League, including driving a wedge between it and the FA in a deliberately orchestrated campaign of what he no doubt saw as liberation from a cumbersome body. The irony of Dyke's return, and what it says about not only English football, but its culture, should escape nobody.

Pic thanks to the Daily Telegraph

 

Speechless!                          

Ivan Rakitic was lost for words against Valencia. It's the perfect expression of La Liga's most underrated player

 

Sevilla's captain Ivan Rakitic gave an interview on Thursday night after Stephane M'bia's last-gasp, last-minute goal sent them through to a Europa League final in Turin that they hadn't even qualified for. It was a classic. "It's ... pfff ... erm ... ahh ... what do you want me to say?"

Sort of an anti-quote, if you like. It grabs the eye because of its lack of anything definitive expressed. A verbal shrug of the shoulders, pure emotion encapsulated in a few short words. And yet this was much more tangible than almost every other interview given in football this week. Sid Lowe put it best; it is why we watch football.

It put the humanity back in the game, it expressed (or rather, didn't) everything the ordinary fan experiences. And it came from a man who, fittingly, would be called John if he were born in this country.

Some names appear to be destined for large, flashing lights, masses of people in a particular part of the world screaming their name, and overt sexual requests on Twitter. Cristiano Ronaldo. Neymar Junior. These men would never be dentists, or salespeople. And yet Rakitic is as integral to his team as Ronaldo, and statistically has performed better than Neymar all season, at a smaller club with infinitely smaller resources. Case in point: Sevilla's wage budget this season is €41 million. Barca's is €195 million.

Ivan Rakitic sounds like he could be an ordinary guy, and continuing the name-as-occupation theme, he could easily be a postman. Or some sort of eyecare consultant. As mentioned, the name 'Ivan' is the Slavic derivation of 'John', and we all know a John. If he plays a sport, it's snooker, or maybe badminton. He's probably an accountant, he's generally quite dependable, he's attractive to a reasonable percentage of the opposite sex.

Neymar, Brazil's no 10, seems to exist in some ethereal nickname hinterland, probably with a variety of other Brazilian number tens, an amalgamation of Brazilian society, sports merchandising and football history. He's emblematic of contemporary superstardom - a man defined more by ideas, ad campaigns, than flesh and blood. Perhaps that is why his performances this year have not always grabbed the eye - as if we weren't quite dialled in to the right frequency, he seems to have disappeared and then burst back into focus. It is as though the metaphysical has become physical and is now crushing the life out of Brazil's new favourite son.

 

My point, anyway, is that despite Rakitic consistently outperforming one of the world's most famous players, and star of Nike's latest fantasy football ad, it appears he does not garner the same adulation. Why?

 

His club is an important part of that. Rakitic plays for Sevilla, not Real, nor Barcelona, who dwarf their respective counterparts to such an extent it once prompted Diego Simeone, Atletico Madrid's manager, to pronounce the league 'a boring championship for the rest of the supporters who can only aspire to be third or fourth.' That Simeone is rightly being hailed as a masterful coach on the verge of a Champions League and league double with Atleti is evidence of this.

This season Sevilla are 5th, six points off Athletic for the final qualifying Champions League place, after two consecutive ninth placed finishes. They're only in Europe because UEFA kicked Malaga and Rayo Vallecano for overzealous spending and financial 'irregularities'. Although a 3-0 defeat to the Basques last weekend means that it's likely Sevilla will play Europa, not Champions League football next season, their upswing in form has been nothing short of amazing. Rakitic has been with the club since 2011 after joining from Schalke 04, and after a slightly slow start, this seems to be the season everything has clicked.

The most obvious evidence is his goals to games ratio. As a Sevilla player he has 27 goals in three years. He has scored 12 of those this season, and made 10 more, pushing Sevilla up the table. He's also part of a Sevilla team that is considerably more durable, turning losses and draws into draws and wins. Only Ronaldo, Diego Costa and team-mate Kevin Gameiro have scored more goals than him in the last 15 minutes of a match, making Sevilla, along with Madrid, a consistently difficult side to beat - and particularly dangerous in the final few moments, never better evidenced than that last, unbelievable minute against Valencia on Thursday night.

Rakitic is also part of a midfield which retains the ball expertly whether home or away - they play nearly 50% of their football in the middle third in the pitch - and work hard to retrieve it, with the highest pass interception rate of all the top 5 teams.

Whilst he has always featured in the centre of midfield, it's the number 10 role which has apparently made him a target for Napoli and Liverpool. He can score from anywhere in midfield but all of his ten assists this season have come from him playing as an attacking central midfielder. Such is his importance to Sevilla that he has a higher pass completion rate than any of his team-mates - it currently stands at 79.6%, comparable to the league's best players, including Bale and Ronaldo at Madrid.

Finally his skill with playing long balls means he's highly effective at shifting the point of play very quickly, which would probably appeal to Brendan Rodgers, currently using Steven Gerrard in a similar role, and Rafa Benitez, who of course signed Xabi Alonso for Liverpool upon joining the club.

Rakitic is due to play at this year's World Cup for Croatia alongside Madrid's Luka Modric, who has had an outstanding year playing as one of Ancelotti's volantes in his 'Christmas tree' formation. His opponents? Mexico, Cameroon - and Brazil. It will be interesting to see how a man who fronts an ad campaign for a bank - connection: the bank is Brazilian - faces up to a man who has outperformed him all season, but can't even give a quote after a football match.

 

Pic courtesy of The Star

 

Twenty fourteen (2014) will be EXCITING. If you want it to be. I want it to be. Here's what I'm excited about.

Lord of the Flies - in ballet

 

That's right. Matthew Bourne, him of the winningly solid pudgeface (not a word but it ought to be) and sixth form gelled fringe brings Golding's societal piece to the stage. I know almost nothing about ballet, besides watching a very impressive Natalie Portman performance in the very impressive Black Swan back in 2011, but I've caught snippets of Bourne's version of that (check out the trailer here) which I wish I'd seen live as it looks excellent.

Equally LotF was never one of the books I got to read at school but I've since atoned for that criminal gap in my formal education and am 'intrigued' to say the least what he will do with characters like Piggy. Extra incentive, if needed: it starts round the corner from me at the Lowry Theatre in Salford.

The Premier League

 

Being a Manchester City fan, I've enormously enjoyed the first half of this English season, watching a renascent side destroy opposition defences (my highlights, since you asked, were the 6-3 v Arsenal, the 3-2 v Bayern away, and of course that first Davey Moyes derby) at home.

But it's no real wonder the Premier League managed to blow even its own astonishing rights deals out of the water when there is finally some sporting drama on Saturdays again. Who's going down? Who will win the league? Will Levy keep Sherwood? What is going on with Mata? Will Thud go to the World Cup? And will Luis Suarez ever just bundle one in off his arse? The quality's great, but the stories are many, varied and seemingly endless. We might not see another one like it for a bit, so catch it if you can.

Dave Eggers does Bill Bryson

One of my favourite ever books a historical collection of food writing, in all of its literary forms, in The New Yorker magazine. Composed of pieces by writers, not cooks or chefs, I quickly realised that you don't need to know your subject as much as needing to know how to write - but some subject knowledge is important.

I'm guessing 'some' is precisely the right amount for Dave Eggers. The novelist formally collects his memoirs of his trips to Thailand, the Sudan and the northeastern states of America amongst many, many others into Visitations, a piece of work I will presume to contain more than its fair share of breezy metaphysical rhetoric slung around  'some' interesting perspectives on, say, mini shrines on the street corners of Bangkok.

Obviously Eggers is known for his forays into parts of the world untouched by much of the professional writing class, and his sharp eye and goofy wit will undoubtedly bring to life much of a planet still perused through the 'World' section of broadsheet newspapers.

Visitations is out in November 2014

The Men Are Back In Town

 

To misquote Thin Lizzy, but it sort of feels like they never left. The hardest woikin' band 'n sho'bidness has got to be these guys right now, who are on for their fifth album in as many years in between tours. Anybody can knock an album together in under a fortnight - several bands made it sound like a skill in the early noughties - but The Men's range has broadened in parallel with their ever-longer tours, and New Moon is a soulful echo of Neil Young's early years, without losing their belt and braces steely punk sound around the fringes. For a band that appears hellbent on challenging normal concepts of time, the record's title - Tomorrow's Hits - feels entirely appropriate.

*!* Tomorrow's Hits is released on Sacred Bones Records *!*

An Oscars Worthy of an Academy Award

 

For those complaining that the Academy Awards is getting carried away with populism, the decision to drop the aforementioned name last year and replace it with the catchier and more vacuous 'Oscars' was the proverbial red rag. OK so: I enjoyed Silver Linings and Bradley Cooper is deceptively good at this acting stuff. I admit it.

Anyone still out there?

Anyway, onto the American mantel goes Oscar next to buddies Tony and Emmy (what's up with a Golden Lion guy?) and does the debate over whether this is an awards or an entertainment product intensify? Who knows and it's probably a silly argument anyway - the irony won't be lost on anyone when the inevitable drama ensues from some no-hoper claiming the Oscars 'has lost its allure'. All except the Americans of course, who we all know have never understood irony, as long as Woody Allen and Jerry Seinfeld have lived. 

But! What is this garbage, I hear you mumble. Fair point. And now I'll come to it: this year, more than any I can ever remember, I'm sort of excited. Alright, another David O. Russell film (see above for my swooning heart). BUT. What about Steve McQueen, riding into the postmodern American West, hat not on head, cardie round shoulders, shorts above knees, with a film so deserving of superlatives that you can actually use them without fear of unintentional hilarity. Tremendous. Magnificent. Etc. 12 Years A Slave looks rich with promise - and who doesn't want to hear a Steve McQueen acceptance speech?

Elsewhere another of my favourite guys - Alfonso Cuaron - might win something for Gravity (and Sandra Bullock could win another Oscar. Yeah.) And what of films like Blue Is The Warmest Colour, Blue Jasmine, and All Is Lost? Not to mention interesting curios like Upstream Color and Only God Forgives. You can probably count the last two out, sadly. Nevertheless there is - finally - justification for that furious Monday morning scowl and four espressos from your local café after an all nighter getting passionate, alone, with Mr Oscar. About damn time.

Pix thanx to Douban, Style Weekly, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and Sky Sports.

Review: Richer Than God (David Conn)

David Conn's portrait of a club, city and sport transformed by money is required reading for any fan

When reading David Conn's odyssey as a fan of football and Manchester City on my flight out to Rome, I recalled an article I read almost by accident one freezing Saturday afternoon whilst Googling my stream of conscience. I'd suddenly realised I had no idea how my cat knew who I was. Or how any other animal knew what its family consisted of, and what it could mate with. The same day, I watched all 12 rounds of Joe Calzaghe vs Roy Jones Jr without really meaning to.

I didn't get a definitive answer, but I did stumble across an interesting New Scientist piece about kin recognition, which theoretically seeks to explain how a family of animals essentially recognise each other as their own, even if they have never met. There's some, largely inconclusive evidence that it definitely exists.

That faintly primal sensation struck a chord with me when reading the book. This is not the same as identifying with a Haruki Murakami character, in an intuitive, sensual way. It's like I was the person writing this book. Everything described about the club, its tumults, its highs and lows, its wild successes and unbelievable farces, of which there are many; I experienced everything in exactly the same way.

It's somewhat fitting that City started life at a church in Gorton under the direction of Anna Connell, both in spirit and form, as leaving aside the puerile contemporary 'cathedral' metaphors garnered by Sky Sports and the like, support does mean a community of people held fast by steadfast belief in one thing.

It also provides a neat jumping off point for analysing the slow disintegration of the more Corinthian aspects of the game. Conn's forays into the grimy world of early Premier League club policy, and their machinations to slip the grips of an amateurish, complacent Football Association to glean enormous profits for small groups of very wealthy men (and women in the case of Nina Bracewell-Smith) make for revelatory and deeply troubling reading.

Conn's forensic style is well tailored to the broader, less personal elements of the story; how a sport became a business, how whole demographics were priced out of a game they loved and grew up on. The lens pulls back for a wider picture of economic malaise in late 20th century Britain, and how its northern English cities were cut to ribbons by a Conservative government hellbent on implementing economic ideology over pragmatic, means-tested solutions to age old problems.

Walking through east Manchester on the way to the Etihad, newly named and spruced up with Arab money, Conn's nuanced points on wealth distribution jar. How does a local government win finance for a one-off sporting event, as Manchester did with the Commonwealth Games in 2002, and the funds to build an enormous stadium, but it cannot win the same funds to regenerate an area classed as the fifth poorest in the entire country?

Conn's bafflement at the impossibility of City winning the biggest every lottery resonates in every fan of the club, and its this sense of emotional contradiction that really made the book mine personally. Much derided, and infamously coined by that footballing blunderbuss Kevin Keegan, is the City fan's belief in their club's ever-present status as one of the movers and shakers; that, under the heaving weights of debt, inept administration and such essentials as a working gym (Conn's interviews show just bare the cupboard was before the coming of Mansour), a massive club was waiting to take its rightful place at the top table of the league.

In this way the story brings home a familial element; Conn's descriptions of his trips to see City destroy the genuinely great AC Milan and Manchester United 4-0 in the 1970s are stories I've heard from my dad, and thus the emotional connection is given form by bricks, cement, boots and mud.

To his great credit Conn does not tread lightly on history. Former players like Bell, Book and Summerbee are rightly held as the heroes City fans revere them as, but he decimates the myth of the latter-day Franny Lee, a darling in the Championship-winning Sixties but a ruthless corporate man come to oil City's wheels for the slippery rails of the London Stock Exchange in the Nineties. The interview with Lee feels like a watershed moment in Conn's, and the club's, life, and subsequently paints Lee's predecessor, the miserly, scrimping Peter Swales in slightly less darker hues than many fans held him in their hearts. Former owner Thaksin Shinawatra, the disgraced Thai Prime Minister, by turns appears a deeply cynical and perhaps dishonest individual, and becomes another nail in the coffin of Conn's unwavering belief.

To the modern day then, and perhaps Sheikh Mansour provided Conn with the last nudge he needed to annotate his odyssey in the shadow of his god football club. He is no less objective in assessing the merits of a man living thousands of miles, literally and figuratively, from the destitute slums of east Manchester.

And here Conn's assessment is again eerily close to that of thousands; four years in, with an FA Cup, a Premier League title, almost £1 billion spent on footballers, a wholesale renovation of a sagging administrative structure, the greatest irony is that this distant billionaire is both competent and caring of the history he has bought. It feels too good to be true and, given City's former laughable travails (given sharp form by the songs Conn relays - and fans still sing to a title-winning team - about love, death and nothing in between), the emotional schism is again laid bare; a massive club's continuous success should not be blinked at by its own fans, and yet it still is.

In the final pages Conn returns to the roots of football, and visits Andy Walsh of FC United, those disenfranchised, debased fans of City's greatest rivals, and the yardstick which the blue half beat itself half to death with in the darkest days. Walsh talks about the diminished role of fans in the modern game; the idea of shareholder power and a club owned by its fans (as is the case in Germany and Spain). Even with one of the world's oldest and best supported clubs, only 2,000 attended FC United's first meeting at the Manchester Apollo, more befitting of punk than prawn sandwiches.

In a circular fashion the game now returns to its roots; made by normal working people for those people, but with the skyline now dominated not by the factories of Victorian England but the skyscrapers and towers of a country weaned off manufacturing and onto financial services. Earlier in the book Conn makes the point that Germany, still an EU powerhouse, places manufacturing at the heart of its economy, with banks providing the oil to smooth the gears. Manchester, football and Britain now occupy the inverse position, with actual oil now helping turn the gears on a once-great football club with little left to give to its unwavering supporters.

'At a football club, there's a holy trinity - the players, the manager and the supporters. Directors don't come into it. They are only there to sign the cheques,' said Bill Shankly, born a century ago. David Conn's book captures a culture that is older than the oldest club, that gives rise to ancient urges that ripple through Shankly's unflinching assessment, and answers with an admirable lack of grandeur, what happened to a game once described as 'beautiful'.

Picture courtesy of Without A Dream In Our Hearts

Not Sarong After All

The National Football Museum's Strike A Pose exhibition proves footballers can create great entertainment in other industries. Well, some of them can.

Having a week off work has, oddly, made me more productive. That and seeing a former schoolmate living in Australia as a designer anyway. So last week I decided enough was enough. I was done (for now) with marathon lazing sessions in bed watching TED talks on my mobile and eating croissants with jam. Erm:- not the croissants with jam, then.

My first step away from my safety blanket (which really is my bed, ironically) was a baby one. I decided to visit the National Football Museum here in Manchester, which has been part of the city's cultural makeup for the last three years at the Urbis. Which itself is a beautiful piece of work and well worth staring at, particularly on the fine day I got.

As well as many good friends that are my intellectual superiors, my Twitter feed is populated by comedians and football journalists from various media. In my mind's eye the role of the football journalist is a glorious one; Michael Cox's coffee-fuelled dissections of dummy runs and wing counterattacks which probably involve copious Excel somehow, Raf Honigstein's witty rendering of the whinging that's somehow juvenile and intelligent between Uli Hoeness, Jupp Heynckes and Jurgen Klopp, and "the Sunday column" (my prefs: Daniel Taylor and Henry Winter); this last one assumes almost institutional status in my Sunday morning routine and stands as the ultimate bulwark against internet journalism, a form invariably devoid of statistics (read: evidence) and usually as interesting as a Tony Pulis formation.

Any fan will tell you there's a visceral, near-tangible sensation of group thought that's at its most powerful in football, but it's deeply evident in fashion too. I've seen at first hand how trends, new seasons and the famous four cities that make the worlds' fashion weeks inspire people to discuss, debate and commentate on something that feels theirs. It's a wonderful feeling and it doesn't surprise me to find many people in football are therefore very interested in fashion as well.

The Strike A Pose collection at the museum is testament to a lasting cultural relationship between fashion and football and it was easily the best part of what I felt was a brilliant monument to the sport. Whilst few would argue it possesses the depth and history of more established cultural forebears, football shares a powerfully nostalgic quality prevalent in the best art and music, and in fashion it has a partner passionate about re-evaluating history and revising its most interesting elements.



Hello boys. Who's that second from right?

Everything was in there, from Mourinho's chic grey cashmere coat (above) to the (in)famous 'cricket flannels' Armani suits Liverpool wore to the 1996 League Cup final (right). But the most interesting collections for me were George Best's clothes from his fashion line and an evaluation of fan fashion from the 1970s onwards. 

Best would have thrown La Nausee in the Seine; he was a man who lived, never passive in anything and for that reason destined to burn out before the finishing line. For that reason a lot of descriptive English doesn't really apply to Best and never will; he was never ethereal in presence or aloof in attitude. Typically the clothes he designed embodied that life and were an uncompromisingly contemporary and stylish statement, in comparison to the staid postwar suits of Bertie Mee's Arsenal side in the 1960s. Best's collection possessed a floridity and vibrance that lazy people would term 'quintessential';- I prefer to think he just liked mustard turtlenecks.

It was also great to look at fan fashion objectively, without the sinister inferences found in Nick Lowe films and Jeff Powell columns, and see how and why it developed. I particularly loved the more 'tailor-made' stuff that was directly responded to its environment; Massimo Osti's goggled mac (left) is an inspired bit of outerwear that's both practical and infers that a statement's being made.

And of course, the UK's relationship with the national sport meant the afternoon represented a chance to snuffle around a conscience perpetually tearing itself apart over everything before generally making the right call. Except for those Liverpool suits of course. Just look at the state of Neil Ruddock.

Liverpool team photo courtesy of Liverpool Echo