12 million pounds. For Wayne Bridge (pictured, left, in some bizarre alternative universe where he
is considered to be of international calibre)
Jesus Wept. Someone actually managed to make Chelsea look canny in the transfer market.
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Remember the good old days of 2003? When the English FA refused to tolerate impropriety in its
players, and Alan Smith (still a decent player at the time) was denied an FA call-up because of
news that the police were investigating him on criminal charges after he responded to having a
plastic bottle tossed at him by tossing it back into the crowd?
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It's a good thing the emir of Abu Dhabi was born to inherit the wealth attached to one of the
earth's richest pool of hydrocarbons. Because he is clearly intent on pissing away hundreds of
millions of dollars at Man City.
Just so there's no mistaking my meaning: this is a disaster. There is literally no chance
whatsoever that this project is going to work out.
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You'll remember, of course, the general contempt that TFC has shown for travelling fans. Well, now
it's showing it to home fans as well.
My season ticket renewal form arrives in my inbox. Apparently included in this year's price is not
just my 15 league games, but also an international friendly (I see they've learned their lesson and
are now scheduling only one of these atrocities), two Canadian championship matches, and (drumroll
please) a premliminary round CONCACAF game.
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A perennial topic of conversation among football fans is whether or not football has become
"too predictable" and "too slanted towards the top teams", and often the balme
for this is laid at the feet of greedy owners, Sky, globalization or what have you. Veteran
denizens of the kingdom will likely know that I'm sceptical of such claims - I'm not sure
football's playing field has ever been particularly flat.
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After a little more thought, I've just come up with two more books that I want to write.
1) A History
of Cheating. There are so many ways to cheat in football. Players can break the rules, players
can simulate.
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I've been reading a heck of a lot of footie lit recently (various reviews to follow). While doing
so, it has occurred to me that there are whole forms of football literature which are rapidly
approaching obsolescence. Football biographies have long ceased to be of much interest to anyone;
in the past ten years, only those of Gazza and Tony Adams have provided much in the way of
interest.
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So, I just finished Jonathan Wilson's rather good new book Inverting the Pyramid: The History of
Football Tactics. I recommend a read to all real devotees of the sport (by some miracle, it has
been released in North America at the same time as in the UK), though some of the press praise for
the book is a little over the top in my opinion.
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I'm finally getting into some summer reading, and that always means football books. So here's the
first of what I'm assuming will be many book reviews, on a new book called Comrade Jim.
The subtitle of this book is The Spy who Played for Spartak. It's a lovely short book if you can
get past two things: he was never really a spy and he barely played for Spartak.
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An intriguing story in today's Observer about Cristiano Ronaldo and his (alleged)
seven-months-in-the-making transfer to Real Madrid.
According to journalist Duncan Castles, CR has been doing all the engineering of this move on his
own, and his agent had been repeatedly counselling against a move.
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Liverpool v Arsenal three times in one week, so to avoid intra-family strife I have again fled the
continent. And so to today's question: does anyone here know anything about Saudi football? Like
what day they play matches here? Or what day they play in Qatar?
There's a hell of a lot of football on TV considering it's 2:30 in the morning.
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I am upset with myself for not having worked on this blog enough. I have all sorts of half-written
blog posts - on Buddhist football; Game 39; the new Canada Cup, the strange fact that George
Gillett, tired of Liverpool, has decided that Montreal, of all godforsaken places, is the place to
stake one's claim to football glory.
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Remember when Gretna were a good news story?
Come on, it wasn't that long ago.
Elected to the Scottish league only in 2002, the team spent three season in Scotland's division
three. From there, bankrolled by businessman Brooks Mileson, they went on a Roy of the Rovers run -
two more promotions in succession plus a Cup Final against Hearts, a spot in Europe, and playing in
Scotland's top division.
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So, another display of incompetence from a San Siro-based squad, and another Premiership side goes
through to the quarter-finals. For the first time in the history of the tournament, four sides from
one country will make it to the quarter-finals.
And let's be honest her: unless two of the English sides get drawn against each other (teams from
the same country are kept apart at the round of 16, but it's an open draw from this point on),
there's a damn good chance that all four sides could make it through to the semis.
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Could it be that Newcastle are on their way down? All the amusing signs are there. The lethal
combination of inability to score
and inability to defend seems to be taking its toll, and
the team have exactly no wins since the Geordie MessiahTM took over in January.
Never thought you'd be nostalgic for Graeme
Souness and Freddie Shepherd, did you?
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