A new season begins

How fast the time flies by. In the blink of an eye the WC is over and a new season of league matches have arrived.

At the end of the last season, we expected to see a spending spree. But to everyone’s surprise there is no much of a movement till now. Even the big spenders like Real Madrid, Chelsea are lying low.

Mancini has more than fulfilled everyone’s prediction when he romped through the market laying hands on everything and anything he could lay hands on. By the end of this season Mancini will be elevated to the joker of the year.

Chelsea, Abramovich’s toy, had to contend with its ageing stars. Fergie has stayed true to his word with no high profile signings (not sure if he tried to).

Michael Owen’s only contribution to football was a goal against Argentina in France ’98. Thereafter, this high profile player has been a useless piece of furniture wherever he stepped his foot on. The last day he discovered that similar to the past 6 years this is going to be a Chelsea-Man Utd. Contest.

I wonder how the poor Kops will react to their one-time-poster-boy’s reaction.

But Owen has conveniently forgotten their last season’s heroes- Howard Webb and host of other blundering referees (and also some small-fry managers who threw away the matches). I believe Owen was signed by Fergie to stay in the headlines of British newspapers. I find no use of him on the field.

Owen has also forgotten that Man Utd. was no where near to title and in the season before that it was the Kops who gave them a chase.

As for the good ol’ Arsenal things look shakier than the last season with no defenders and an ever erratic goalie.

I hope for the best.

The Cup of Life

There is no other event in the world that has the capability to capture the global attention, Truly the scale and magnanimity is astonishing. Right from the start of the tournament there were many permutations and combinations. The coach, players and strategies were analyzed fibre to fibre. But as the group stage progresses there has been many disappointments (and appointments)

1. Brazil:

Even their worst detractors will agree, Brazil has the most fool proof team in the world. They have got the world’s best players in every position. Brazil might have bid adieu to the flair game and embraced the European style. Nevertheless the European style has more capability for score line victories.

But still they have a slight problem in their out of form playmaker Kaka. He hasn’t risen to his sublime levels. In that scenario responsibility might fall on the shoulders of Robinho.

Apart from frontline, they have the best defense. It will be difficult to get past them and they rarely concede a foul. Not many teams can claim equally strong offense and defense.

Brazil has a great fan following in India. If my assumption is right, it could be because they are marketed very well. Besides, their players have great off-the-field characters.

2. Spain:

I came to be a Spanish football fan the day I watched the Euro-2008 finals. They are a talent powerhouse. They play the football in their own way and never bother to change it for the sake of cups. Their short passes and possession football is an eye candy.

But for Spanish football their biggest weakness is the over dominance of Real and Barcelona. As a result most of the teams have become ineffective and non-competent in La Liga. And for the WC most of the players have been picked out of Barcelona team.

The player selection and strategies have been baffling against the minnow Switzerland. As a result Spain has paid a heavy prize. Hopefully, they will bounce back.

Another reason for my liking is the presence of, El Capitan.

3. Argentina:

Argentina’s sole claim to legacy and fame is their famous prodigal son, Maradona. Neither before him nor after him has Argentina made an impact on the world stage. Argentina has not foregone their traditional flair play.

The reason why I support Argentina is the presence of classic no.10 player, Messi. He can carry with him two or three player like fly sticking to spider web. This frees the other frontline players like Higuain. Argentina has the world’s best frontline with many sitting in the bench too.

Unfortunately Argentina’s biggest weakness is their biggest strength- over emphasis on Messi. Their defense seems to be vulnerable too. They donot have a creative midfielder in the deep.

4. Holland:

Holland has the famed quartet. On a good day they can be more threatening than any. They have the world’s best midfielder in Sneijder and world’s best striker, Van Persie. But unfortunately, Holland hasn’t risen to their best in the tournament. Still they had faced no trouble in winning.

For the illiterates- Holland has the best talent factory club in the world, Ajax Amsterdam. They have the claim to world’s first team to play the total football under, Johan Cryuff.

5. Ivory Coast:

I haven’t watched an African team play before and this Ivory Coast surprised me. Can Ericson achieve this much in this short time! They have a well organized defense and attack and they stick to their plans. I would love to see them advance to the later stages of World Cup. It would be a morale booster for African continent.

6. England:

Indians can easily identify with the England football team. The reason why England fails to perform on international stages is the same reason as why India fails in T20. Putting it simply, the overflow of superstars.

Fabio Capello has come up with all the ingredients for a failed team:

a. Pick up a team of 11 superstars whose ego has been over boosted in Media and EPL. They never need any inspiration

b. Picking up a player who fucked his captain’s wife.

c. Picking a semi-fit, about-to-retire player and making him the captain.

Alex Ferguson too did his part in over playing Rooney. So he too gets a share in the credits

7. Portugal:

They were supposed to be a genuine contender. But I didn’t find a trace in their first game. To make matters worse Deco hit out at the coach. Cristiano is a well marketed player. But he is nowhere near the best media claim him to be. Building the team based on him failed for Portugal. As soon as he was marked with two defenders, the destiny of Portugal was doomed

8. France:

The strategy of Domenech is simple make some formation that adds to 10 and then put the worst players in it. Domenech should have retired after the last WC. He would have gone out in glory. Now French will realize their king is naked.

Hero of our times....5

I have been thinking about writing this for a long time. In fact this person was the real inspiration behind the ‘hero’ series. The reason behind my hesitation was the lack of complete knowledge in the game of soccer.

I started following the English Premier League matches this season. Thanks to my good friends Vattu and VR, I started watching closely Arsenal matches. I may be found lacking in knowledge in technical aspects. So I will dwell in the resource management skills and approach of the person I consider as one of the best football manager of our times- Arsene Wenger.

For the ones who haven’t heard of EPL, it’s the most competitive, professional and marketed sporting league in the world. The managers will be highly pressurized to achieve their objectives. The football manager in EPL holds the toughest job in the world. He has to keep the players, the management and the fans happy at the same time.

Every team cannot afford the single objective of winning the league. The top 4-5 teams will be aiming for the league, the next 5 teams will be aiming to break into the top 4 and the last 5-6 teams will be on the look out to stay clear of relegation. (I just gave an idea in general it’s much more than that). I would also request you not to compare it with Indian Premier League. Watch the EPL for once to understand the magnitude.

As the oil rich Arab sheikhs and Russian oligarchs started looking out for costly toys, they found the English teams the best choice. The managers, fans and the management were too happy to sell off the teams to these rich playboys. The new owners happily paid astronomical sum to ensure that world’s best played in their team. So the manager’s job was made easy. He got the players he wanted. Unmindful of the piling debts, players were brought for huge sum to warm the benches. In the process many youth academies became defunct and the authorities had to change the rules for the sake of English soccer.

Arsenal was never owned by a single entity. It could be the only one among the top 6 to be run by a family. So when rest of the title contenders spends close to billions for building a team, Arsenal couldn’t afford to do that. When Wenger took over charger he started buying the unproven players for cheap money and thus started the unforgettable era in English Premier League- ‘The Invincibles’. They dominated the league with the magical, beautiful football. It was unimaginable to play football in the beautiful way in EPL. But Wenger’s Arsenal was uncompromising in its way. That was the Arsenal way of winning.

There started a cup winning and record breaking spree. But the toughest challenge was yet to come for Wenger. Arsenal had to move in to a bigger stadium. Without a rich financier this would have been suicidal. Any sensible man would have abandoned the ship. But Wenger was already on his way to prepare the Arsenal to face a new future.

The team from ‘Invincibles’ were sold off one by one. He started a huge youth policy. Talents were scouted from all over the world and they were developed in the Arsenal Academy and later given a chance to play the big game. This brought in more savings and groomed up a bunch of youths who went on to write history.

Imagine the struggles of a man to undo his own legacy. But then is legacy just the number of times we win in the field?

The youth policy has taken a lot of time to flourish and bear fruits. Wenger has been drawing flak for continuous 5 dry years. But no great manager would dream of doing it. Take any manager from top 4-5 and check out their stats on how many young players have come out of their Academy to play in the league. The record would be dismal.

I was privileged to see the Arsenal team maturing into an entity independent of any stars. While the other teams found it difficult to go on when one of their stars fell ill, Arsenal fought on with more than half the team on injury list.

But never have we seen Wenger deploying the negative tactics to win. The victory always happened the Arsenal way. Even the top managers feared to fail and deployed some of the most infamous techniques to win. The game against Barcelona showed the valiance with which the young players fought should be written in history books. But then history books have only the name of victors in it.

No player in Arsenal has been thrown off the team just because he had a bad game. As long as there is fire in his belly Wenger gave the players chance to achieve his potential. Yes, it has been at the cost of winning. But isn’t that what ‘team’ is all about? ‘Team’ is not about the number of victories but ‘team‘ stands for sticking together when going gets tough.

Bottom Line: I could have written miles and miles. But I choose to shorten this as most of the Indians would be unaware of the technicalities of the game called ‘football’. But I work in a corporate environment. I have never seen a person stubbornly sticking to the principles he believes in. And there is absolutely no one who stands up for his team mates. Wenger taught the world of thinking for the good on long term. Wenger taught the world the meaning of FAITH and VICTORY.

Thanks to VR and Vattu for the valuable inputs! When I post this, I am certain I haven’t done justice to the legacy of Wenger.