October 15th, 2008
You are currently browsing the articles from TOP FootBall Player written on October 15th, 2008.
Well, it looks like the soft launch of UF After Dark was a hit. Seems people on the internet like their sports mixed with sex. Good to know.
The FA tells Joe Kinnear he can’t have any more press conferences like the one from two weeks ago [Eurosport]
NY Times’ Goal blog looks at past foreign investment in the MLS and what that means for the San Jose-Tottenham link [NY Times]
China’s most famous fan quits to become a monk after his favorite player is suspended [China Daily]
Since he is not bagging goals, Berbatov decides to find a different line of work [The Sun]
Icky back story to this–teen arrested after he takes off his monitoring device to play soccer [Palm Beach Post]
And, finally:
The SPL lost a true leader today. Dundee United chairman Eddie Thompson has succumbed to cancer. He will be missed [The Scotsman]
Written by Darkvader on October 15th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Backpasses and ü75.
Welcome to UF’s liveblog of the USA vs. Trinidad and Tobago from Port of Spain. Your hosts tonight will be myself and Lingering Bursitis. I suggest a Dark and Stormy if you are looking for something liquid to accompany the game, which kicks at 8 pm EST. Fresh off the 6-1 demolition of Cuba at RFK on Saturday which put the USA into the next round of qualifying, Bob Bradley sent home most of his European based veterans. So tonight should be a good look at the likes of Adu and Altidore, with some MLS-based filler youth as well. Trinidad and Tobago, meanwhile, are coming off a clutch draw against Guatemala on the road on Saturday. Both teams are tied for second place, and a point tonight for T&T would be huge as they host Cuba at home in November, while Guatemala travel to the Isla de Fidel tonight, then finish up against the USA at the Dick in Denver.
Lineups and more after the jump.
Our UF spies are in the locker room and will get us the teamsheets shortly.
7:14- US Starters:
—————-Guzan—————-
Hejduk—Califf—Orozco—Pearce
———Edu——–Torres———–
Kljestan——-Adu——Beasley (c)
————–Altidore—————–
Looks like a 4-5-1 with Adu pulling the strings. Also we get to see the 5′ 5″ Torres in some sort of defensive role.
7:33- Wayne Rooney gives an unintelligible interview on Sky Sports. Perhaps LB can translate.
7:57- Still searching for team sheets. Anyone have a link?
8:00 -Allright, we are live. Time to settle in for the JP and John Harkes show. Over/under on mentions of the shot heard round the world tonight?
8:05 - Ok, found a T&T teamsheet:
GK- Ince
D-Edwards, Lawrence, Thomas
MF - Birchall, Daniel, Latapy, Edwards, Spann, Yorke
F - Scotland
So a 3-6-1? Or something…should be a crowded midfield tonight.
8:06 - Stadium announcer sounds like a dude I would like to toke with.
8:07 - Anthems. A live band busts an awesome calypso version of the Stars and Stripes. Muffed snickers from Brad Guzan.
8:08 - T&T striker Jason Scotland plays for Swansea. Lawrence plays for the Welsh side as well. Yorke and Edwards play for Roy Keane.
8:08 - Holy Cow. The T&T anthem is mind blowing. A nice waltzing march.
0 Minutes - Kickoff. Bradley looking cool in the t shirt. Will never be confused for Mourinho on the touch line.
Written by Darkvader on October 15th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Bob Bradley still stucks and Ian and Lingering Bursitis and Trinidad and Tobago and USMNT and is that painted on?.
SPAIN took a big step forward tonight after defeating BELGIUM
1-2 in its Group qualifying game for the 2012 World Cup. It was a
fabulous game to witness as both side displayed skill & determination
to go out & search for the win. It was Spain that managed to grab
the victory towards the end of the match & remain the undisputed
leader of it´s Group.
The only bad news for Spain & Liverpool FC is the injury to Fernando
Torres mid 1ºst half which may put in danger his Champions League
return appearance to Atletico de Madrid next Wednesday.
Belgium has a fine young side, with class act players that organize
themselves well & remain concentrated all game. They should be
proud tonight as they showed us all that the future is bright for
them. In fact they started off well in the 6th min going ahead with a
header/goal by SONCK (above).
The rest off the game saw them attack well & create many dangerous
chances of goal that could have tipped the balance if luck would have
smiled their way.
However, Spain is definately a class act. The European Champions
took the blows & kept to their Football philosophy of touch Football
that payed off. INIESTA did magic in a one on one goalkeeper duel
that saw Spain equalize in the 35th min.A brilliant goal!
It was then a case of Spain with the ball & Belgium on the counter
all the 2ºhalf, until when everyone thought it would be a draw, Dani
Guiza ( who just got on) put in a brilliant pass into the goal square
where DAVID VILLA headed the winner. It was a mortal blow to the
heart of the Belgium side as it showed the stuff Spain is made off:
Champion material.
Fair result & great display from Belgium. What happened is that they
faced a great Spanish side.
Written by STRIKER on October 15th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Spanish National Squad and World Cup 2010.
If you’re about, we’ll be doing a nice little liveblog of the USA/Trinidad & Tobago match, hosted by Ian and myself.
Surely the USMNT will do better than England (currently 1-1 in Minsk as the second half begins), Israel (88th minute equalizer for Latvia means they drop 3 valuable points away from home), Norway (1-0 losers at home to the Netherlands, and Finland (3-0 losers in Russia).
Surely.
In the meantime, keep following along the open thread below.
Written by Darkvader on October 15th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Ian and Lingering Bursitis and Liveblogs and USMNT and World Cup Qualifying.
Trivia Question of the Day: has an owner ever threatened to kill his own team before?
Until late last week, I believe the answer to be no (at least any such events that we outside the dressing room might have heard about). But then, just when it appeared that no-one had ever done so, we get this late entry from South America.
It happened, as most of these wild and crazy footballing stories do, in Argentina.
Rosario Central is a proud, mid-table side in the Primera Division, one that’s almost a decade removed from its last league title. Since 1889, they’ve been plying their wares, and lately, things have taken a turn for the worse, and after a rather crap start to the season, they’re sitting in 19th, second-from-last, with just 8 points from 9 games.
Owner and politician (such a wonderful, volatile mix of jobs) Horacio Usandizaga isn’t taking this downturn very well, and during a recent “off-the-record” discussion with club supporters, he tipped his hand: “Central are going to get out of this situation, we are going to move forward. We are going to kill the players, coaching staff and anyone else.”
Not much room for misinterpretation, is there?
Unsurprisingly, the soundbite has provoked a hefty response, especially in light of recent football-related violence around the country.
Rosario’s captain, Kily Gonzalez, a Spanish La Liga champ with Valencia and Serie A winner with Inter Milan, issued a hasty statement on behalf of the team, who obviously don’t wish to die for their poor football:
“We want to express our pain and our sentiments over this situation. We are as interested and as committed as anyone in trying to make sure that Rosario Central regain their historical place, which we have lost for various reasons.”
The Argentine FA is investigating the story, which was reportedly caught on tape. To anyone who may have seen it (unlikely): put the thing on YouTube already and email it to us, alright?
Written by Darkvader on October 15th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Lingering Bursitis and angry owners and argentina and fun with soundbites and life or death and playing the media game.
Yeah, not so much.
On the surface, though, it would appear that the Scottish FA Cup has been taken over by the government. What with the governmental sloganeering and the government controlling the branding and naming rights of the Scottish Cup for the next two years. In reality, it seems the cup and the government got a bailout on the matter from a certain businessman.
A former Celtic director ponied up the cash himself for the naming rights to the cup for the next two years. He then passed passed along those rights to the Scottish Government. They will use the rights to promote the 250th birthday of Robert Burns, a poet so bad, he never even learned to write English correctly (I kid).
There are two other things to take out of this article. One, Homecoming Scottish Cup is better, if only slightly, than City Refrigeration Scottish Cup. City Refrigeration is the business that Willie Haughey, the man who put up the cash, owns. Secondly, get used to those colors on the trophy for the next two years. I mean, a former director of Celtic doesn’t just cede the rights to what he paid for without some guarantees, right?
Written by Darkvader on October 15th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on SFA Cup and Scotland and ü75.
Eintracht Braunschweig, or Brunswick as we English speakers call it, currently resides in the newly professional 3rd Liga in Germany. Currently, they sit 11th in the 20 team table, equidistant on points from promotion or relegation. Once upon a time, this was a team that won the Bundesliga. But that’s not what this column is about. It’s about the time they changed their badge, and changed how we look at soccer shirts in general.
I don’t know about you, but when I buy a shirt, I usually like the sponsor logo, because I like it to be as “authentic” as possible. (Side note-today I am wearing a knockoff blackcurrant Arsenal shirt with “Fly Emirates” as the sponsor. Since O2 was the sponsor the last year at Highbury, you can draw your own conclusion as how far authenticity goes with me.) The shirt sponsor, as we know it today, goes back to the ’70s. Heck, until Mike Georger forwarded over this article, I thought Kettering Town was the first team to have advertising on their kit. Turns out Eintracht Braunschweig had them beat by a few years. But, boy did they have to jump through some hoops to get there.
Eintracht Braunschweig was still high up in the Bundesliga in 1973, but were reeling from a bizarre scandal involving unscheduled, off-the-book, payments to its players. It seems the players were not getting paid to underperform, but instead to try harder than ever to win. This was a scandal, and players were suspended by the DFB and the club was hit with fines as well.
This hurt the team a lot. They were a smaller club fighting it out amongst the big ones. The loss of form from missing players kept the fans away,and when that loss was coupled with the above fines, it meant the club was hemorrhaging money. They needed cash, and fast. In stepped local boy Gunter Mast, the man who owned Jagermeister.
German rules at the time permitted only one logo on the shirt–the badge of the club. Eintracht Braunschweig’s attempts to get the rule changed were rebuffed. The club then took the unusual step of changing their badge, from this
to this.
The above-linked article goes into pretty hilarious detail of how the DFB tried to keep the new shirts from seeing the light of day, and I would recommend reading it.
Anyway, when it came time to debut the shirts, this is how they looked:
The yellow one is the field shirt, while the blue one is the keeper’s shirt.
Seven months after Eintracht Braunschweig debuted their new shirts, the DFB backed down and allowed clubs to sign shirt sponsorship deals. They flourished, of course, and now the only clubs that seem to be without sponsor all have “West” in their name.
Aa far as the shirts themselves, I think I would wear it. I wouldn’t get near as big a kick out of it as I would have about 10 years ago when I could actually drink the stuff, but it is rather well done. It should be noted that the above shirt was the first attempt at putting the deer head logo on the shirt. Later, when the rules relaxed and the club could place an advertisement on the shirt, they did. This is the result:
Sneaky, huh? The badge itself did not change back until the ’80s, so this is not really an extra large sponsor, it’s the club logo with the sponsor’s name underneath. Pretty tricky there, Germans.
One last, late addition here. I got the old photos of the shirts from this gallery. Click through to see some awesome sponsors, ’staches and hair.
Written by Darkvader on October 15th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Eintracht Braunschweig and The Good The Bad The WTF and shirt sponsors and ü75.
Stange thinking about possible ghostwriters during a break in the action
As the hours tick down before England’s clash with Belarus in Minsk tonight, much is being made in the press about Belarus coach Bernd Stange and his wild and crazy life. Whereas most footballers fill their lives with sex, porn, alcoholism and debauchery, Stange’s career has featured the complete opposite: spying, firings, sultans, and Saddam Hussein.
It was reported a few weeks ago in my favourite footballing periodical (one that’s well worth the extra Euros for a subscription in the US), but it bears playing out the highlights, all of which can be found just about anywhere today.
I get it, he managed the Iraqi team, he was a Stasi informant for many years, and now he’s plying his trade in Belarus, a place the US State Department singled out as “Europe’s only remaining outpost of tyranny,” which, as a student of political rhetoric, has a charming oratorial ring to it.
Despite all the drama and personal background that’d be perfect for another Jason Bourne movie, Stange is all about the results:
I have worked for communist regimes, a dictator, capitalists and for a sultanate. But my work is always the same. It’s only ever about one thing – putting the ball in the net.
It sure is, Bernd, it sure is. Arsenal might need you soon.
But all joking aside, is it impossible that he could eventually land a managerial job somewhere a little more high-profile?
He’s managed several teams to league titles (FC Carl Zeiss Jena, Perth Glory, Apollon Limassol in Cyprus) as well as boosting Belarus to their highest FIFA Ranking ever, bumping them up 35 spots to 59th in just 15 months on the job.
Looking at the EPL, for example, there are several teams that could use his unique blend of fear, surveillance, dictatorial leadership and thirst for goals*. After all, if he can grind out results with Apollon Limassol, a side that just about avoided relegation the year Stange took over, only to win the League and Super Cup double the next season, how much harm could he do with the ineptitude being cultivated at White Hart Lane?
Stange has even commented on the subject, given his obvious love for a challenge: “I do like challenges but Liverpool, Manchester United and Bayern Munich didn’t call me to take their clubs.”
Considering the rumors that Juventus are targeting Rafa Benitez, I’ll be the first to make the completely dumb proposition that Stange could end up at Anfield, although let’s be honest — the only way he ends up there is if his plane to New York stops at John Lennon International Airport to refuel.
And anyway, we all know he’d be much better off back in the Bundesliga.
* My first ludicrous, Bleacher Report-esque assertion in UF history
Written by Darkvader on October 15th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Belarus and Lingering Bursitis and World Cup Qualifying and adventures in management.
Asia is in the books because it’s already tomorrow over there. So if you’re in Asia, please don’t spoil the outcomes of the European matches for us.
Anyway, UEFA gets underway in mere minutes with Russia v. Finland. Apparently there is something of a national obsession in Finland with the Tango. This isn’t really relevant to soccer but it’s interesting nonetheless.
If you’ve got access to this technology known as ‘television’, there’s a decent match up on FSC at noon between the Dutch and Norway. And we wouldn’t be good Americans if we didn’t mention England.
Fifty-ninth ranked Belarus are sitting at 4th position in Group 6 on three points, but they have only played two matches and, with an upset of England could instantly make this group far more interesting as well as destroy the confidence built up by Fabio Capello. It would also give Engerland fodder for its national pastime of second guessing.
Anyway, fun as that might be to think about, the English are shoe-ins to win at Belarus. Why do I know this? First, because as I type this sentence my iTunes just shuffled up “Rock ‘n’ Roll Party in the Streets” by Axe. Nothing could be a greater harbinger of victory for all English speaking people (yeah, I just want to let as many people know that scattered throughout my hipster indie rock library is some truly shitty metal). Second, and more importantly, the English players aren’t screwing their WAG’s.
That’s why they failed so miserably in Germany, at least according to El Capitan Rio:
People were worrying more about what people were wearing and where they were going out, rather than the England football team. That then transposed itself into the team. That’s said in hindsight. At the time, we were caught up in the bubble ourselves. Being somewhere like Baden-Baden, walking around the town, there were paparazzi everywhere, our families were there. When you step back and look back at that, it was like a circus.
Yeah, blame the chicks and the press.
Tempting to call him a stupid twit, but maybe there is something to it.
In Zimbabwe the head of the FA is fucking the players, and they failed to make it to the Third Round of CAF qualifying, having finished with just 1 win in their 4 team group (and if you only click on one hyperlink this month, make it this one).
Anyway, feel free to play along in the comments because once the party gets started we’re all here to stay.
Selected European fixtures: (kickoffs in ET)
Belarus v England, 2.30
Belgium v Spain, 2:45
Croatia v Andorra, 2:15
Germany v Wales, 2:45
Italy v Montenegro, 2:50
Latvia v Israel, 12:00
Northern Ireland v San Marino, 2:45
Norway v Holland, 1:00
Portugal v Albania, 3:45
Rep of Ireland v Cyprus, 2:45
Russia v Finland, 11:00am
Written by Darkvader on October 15th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on England and World Cup 2010 and World Cup Qualifying.
« Older articles
No newer articles
Well, it looks like the soft launch of UF After Dark was a hit. Seems people on the internet like their sports mixed with sex. Good to know.
