November 30, 2010

Pep Guardiola
“Barcelona produced a truly legendary performance to go top of the table. Pep Guardiola deviated little from his favoured XI so far this season – the closest thing to a surprise was at left-back, where Eric Abidal played ahead of Maxwell. Lionel Messi started in the centre, with David Villa on the left.” (Zonal Marking)
Barcelona as Slime
“Poor Sergio Ramos — not to excuse or justify him, of course, but he’s an elite athlete, accustomed from childhood to running circles around other people, and now, before an enormous world-wide audience, to have people running circles around him — and so evidently enjoying it — well, that’s an insult not to be borne, I suppose. Everyone gets beaten sometimes: even Messi was dispossessed a couple of times yesterday. But to be humiliated for ninety minutes almost without respite, as Real Madrid’s players were yesterday . . . that doesn’t happen very often at that level of sport.” (Run of Play)
Barca teaches Real a master class
“Greatness is not measured in medals alone but in style. ‘Great clubs,’ Arrigo Sacchi said, ‘have had one thing in common throughout history, regardless of era and tactics. They owned the pitch and they owned the ball. That means when you have the ball, you dictate play and when you are defending, you control the space.’ There can hardly have been any doubt about the greatness of Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona, but beating Real Madrid 5-0 confirmed its place in the pantheon.” (SI)
David Villa strikes twice as slick Barcelona thrash Real Madrid
“José Mourinho always said that his side would lose one day but he did not expect to lose like this – not after enjoying the greatest start of any coach in Real Madrid’s history. His team, so impermeable before, were punctured. Five times. They were sunk. A 5-0 victory for Barcelona was described by the Madrid coach as a ‘historically bad result’ for his club – it was the worst defeat he has suffered in his career.” (Guardian)
No contest in clasico
“No contest. Those are the only two words that can sum up the clasico, a disappointing occasion if you’d been expecting an evenly-fought slug-out, a euphoric one if you’d been hoping that Barcelona could re-stamp their authority on the Spanish scene, after their rivals’ previously unbeaten start to the season. Whatever, the least one expected was a manita (little hand), the phrase reserved for games that end in a 5-0 scoreline. In some ways, they’re worse than a 6-0 result, because the latter has no nickname, no bruising synonym created to humiliate.” (ESPN)
Barca simply the best after Real rout
“It was said that Monday night’s game at Camp Nou – hyped like few other domestic league ties in the history of the game – would settle two raging debates: who are the best team in the world, and who is the best player in the world? If this solitary match could be said to be decisive in that regard, then the judgement was emphatic. It left no room whatsoever for argument.” (ESPN)
FC Barcelona 5-0 Real Madrid (El Clasico) – Video Highlights, Recap, and Match Stats – La Liga
(The 90th Minute)
Leave a Comment » |
FC Barcelona, Football Manager, Real Madrid | Tagged: FC Barcelona, Football Manager, Real Madrid |
Permalink
Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
November 30, 2010
“We’re moving onto Part Two of the 1986 BBC series ‘Only A Game’ this evening, and this week’s episode focusses on the role of the manager within Scottish football. There can be little doubt that, at the very least between the 1950s and the 1980s, Scotland provided some of the greatest football managers that the world game had to offer. Unsurprisingly, this episode of the programme focusses in part on Matt Busby, Bill Shankly and Jock Stein, as well as taking a look at the swash-buckling young manager of Aberdeen at the time, one Alex Ferguson. Narrated by William McIlvanney, this video comes in five parts and our thanks go to the original uploader.” (twohundredpercent)
Leave a Comment » |
Scottish Cup, World Cup | Tagged: Scottish Cup, World Cup |
Permalink
Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
November 30, 2010
“Spurs came from behind yet again to record a last-gasp victory. Harry Redknapp continued with his 4-4-1-1 system, with Rafael van der Vaart off Peter Crouch, and Jermain Defoe on the bench. Wilson Palacios was chosen in the holding role – the rest of the side was as excpected.” (Zonal Marking)
The unseen LFC revolution
“It’s been a year of change at Liverpool Football Club. New faces in the dugout and boardroom have hogged the headlines, but away from the leer of the camera lens, along corridors where journalists rarely stray, a quieter revolution has been taking place. This summer, Dr Peter Brukner was employed to head a new sports science and medical team. His brief was simple: bring the methods which have earned him respect the world over – methods largely ignored to date within football – to Melwood.” (Liverpool FC)
Leave a Comment » |
FC Liverpool, Football Manager | Tagged: FC Liverpool, Football Manager |
Permalink
Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
November 29, 2010

“When Didier Deschamps was appointed as Marseille coach 18 months ago, the club had not won a trophy since winning the Champions League in 1993, back when Deschamps himself was captain. He soon ended the drought: Marseille, known in France as OM, the acronym of its full name Olympique de Marseille, won the French league last season and this week, in beating Spartak Moscow 3-0 away from home, reached the Champions League knockout stage for the first time since 1993.” (SI)
Leave a Comment » |
Champions League, France | Tagged: Champions League, France |
Permalink
Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
November 29, 2010
“Manchester United’s new-look forward line, Arsenal’s pressing, Blackpool’s corners and Rafael da Silva’s tackling” (Guardian)
Leave a Comment » |
Arsenal, Chelsea, FC Liverpool, Football Manager, Manchester City, Manchester United | Tagged: Arsenal, Chelsea, FC Liverpool, Football Manager, Manchester City, Manchester United |
Permalink
Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
November 28, 2010
“The biggest game of the season so far, and a clash between – possibly – the two best teams in Europe at the moment. The first thing to consider is the mentality of Jose Mourinho. One point clear of Barcelona going into the game, it’s entirely likely that he would take the draw if it were offered to him now. His previous trip to the Nou Camp saw his Inter side defend solidly for the entire game with little or no attempt to get a goal (granted, with ten men, and a two-goal advantage going into the second leg), which shows he knows how to stop Barcelona playing.” (Zonal Marking)
Leave a Comment » |
FC Barcelona, Football Manager, Real Madrid | Tagged: FC Barcelona, Football Manager, Real Madrid |
Permalink
Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
November 26, 2010
“Many questions were raised when Jay Bothroyd received a call up to England’s National team for the friendly against France. Isn’t there someone else playing in the Premier League that would be more worthy of a call-up? Is a player playing in the second tier good enough for an International team as highly ranked as England? There are many blogs that have gone into the positives and negatives of Bothroyd’s call up, that is not the question I wanted to look at. Fabio Capello has himself questioned the number of English players playing at the highest level, limiting the pool of players he can pick his squad from. Does Capello have a point? If not who are the strikers playing in the Premier League that Capello could call on and are other countries suffering the same fate?” (gib football show)
Leave a Comment » |
Arsenal, Chelsea, FC Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United | Tagged: Arsenal, Chelsea, FC Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United |
Permalink
Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
November 25, 2010
“This week we start a new series for Video Of The week with the superb five-part 1986 BBC series, ‘Only A Game – The Story Of Scottish Football’. Originally shown as part of the build-up to the 1986 World Cup, this series, narrated by William McIlvanney, takes the standpoint of five different aspects of the game for its five episodes: The Player, The Club, The Manager, The Game and The Team. In this episode, the focus is on The Club, but its strength is in its depth – not only Celtic and Rangers are talked about, but also some of the smaller Scottish clubs.” (twohundredpercent)
Leave a Comment » |
Scotland, World Cup | Tagged: Scotland, World Cup |
Permalink
Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
November 25, 2010

“Jurgen Klopp, sitting on the proverbial throne placed on the zenith of Die Südtribüne, has earned his position of Dortmund royalty this season. His tenderfoot squad has exceeded expectations, and after thirteen games lead the ‘World’s Best League’ by seven points. The path to seniority in the Bundesliga has not been through attritional, grinding football, but with an expansive and unrepressed style.” (Talking About Football)
Leave a Comment » |
Football Manager, Germany, World Cup | Tagged: Football Manager, Germany, World Cup |
Permalink
Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
November 25, 2010
“If not for the UEFA millions of the Champions League, Ajax won’t have anything to look back on once these group stage games are done with. Their game against Real Madrid saw them outclassed in every department, highlighted to the extreme by the unique fact of two Madrid players purposefully upgrading their yellow cards to reds by delaying taking a free kick and a goal kick. The video of this sequence of events might serve to illustrate the gap between Europe’s top teams and a struggling Dutch top team at the moment. Tactics hardly played a role in the game, such was the difference in sheer player quality.” (11 tegen 11)
Leave a Comment » |
Champions League, Football Manager, Holland, Real Madrid | Tagged: Champions League, Football Manager, Holland, Real Madrid |
Permalink
Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
November 24, 2010
“Claudio Ranieri tinkered at half-time, and the change meant Roma went from 2-0 down at the break, to 3-2 up by full time. From the start, Ranieri chose the 4-3-1-2 formation he’s favoured in recent weeks, with Jeremy Menez as the trequartista. Francesco Totti was on the bench with Mirko Vucinic and Marco Borriello upfront, and Matteo Brighi started in midfield alongside Leandro Greco.” (Zonal Marking)
Leave a Comment » |
Champions League, Football Manager, Germany, Serie A | Tagged: Football Manager, Germany, Serie A |
Permalink
Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
November 22, 2010

“Since 2008, Spain, first under Luis Aragonés and then Vicente Del Bosque, have thrilled the world with their wonderfully aesthetic ‘Tiki Taka’ style of football. Reaping the benefits of a remarkably gifted generation, the likes of Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta, Iker Casillas, Carles Puyol and David Villa have driven La Furia Roja to both the European and World titles.” (Equaliser Football)
Leave a Comment » |
FC Barcelona, Spain | Tagged: FC Barcelona, Spain |
Permalink
Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
November 22, 2010
“A tragic, real-life soap opera unravelling in Brazilian football over recent months has been the story of Bruno, goalkeeper of Rio giants Flamengo, who is in prison accused of ordering the brutal murder of an ex-lover. Flamengo fans have found a way to extract some black humour from such horrific developments. Last year, Bruno captained the team to the Brazilian title. This season, they have struggled. And as they have slipped dangerously close to the relegation zone, the confidence of Bruno’s replacement, Marcelo Lomba, has seemed to suffer.” (BBC – Tim Vickery)
Leave a Comment » |
Brazil, Tim Vickery | Tagged: Brazil, Tim Vickery |
Permalink
Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
November 22, 2010
“To decide the national team roster for the Argentine national side is to paint a picture. The pigments are poignant, the easel world class, and the brush made of the finest hairs from a dark Arabian stallion. Yet, despite these brilliant starting points, an unskilled hand can still botch the promising masterpiece. Surround a wizard like Riquelme with bodyguards such as Cambiasso and Mascherano, and the setting trumps the figures. Field three genius-in-a-bottle strikers like Tevez, Higuaín, and Messi, and the characters fail to connect on canvas.” (Run of Play)
Leave a Comment » |
Italy, Run of Play | Tagged: Italy, Run of Play |
Permalink
Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
November 22, 2010

“Manchester City’s decision to start the recent derby game with a midfield of Gareth Barry, Nigel de Jong and Yaya Touré was an extreme example of how much the ‘holding midfielder’ has become a part of the football scene. More than half of the teams in the World Cup used formations with two holding players, and it is just as common to see the same pattern in Leagues One and Two. Not bad for a position that Leeds United legend Johnny Giles describes as ‘a myth’.” (WSC)
Leave a Comment » |
Arsenal, Chelsea, FC Liverpool, Football Manager, Manchester City, Manchester United | Tagged: Arsenal, Chelsea, FC Liverpool, Football Manager, Manchester City, Manchester United |
Permalink
Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
November 22, 2010
“Last week, we looked at how Birmingham’s pressing of Manchester City’s centre-backs at goal-kicks forced Joe Hart to kick the ball long, losing possession on every occasion. Against Fulham, the situation was changed with the introduction of Jô. He offered more of an aerial presence in the City attack, despite being positioned on the left wing. The majority of Hart’s kicks were sent towards the left-hand side, where six of the long balls were won by the Brazilian striker. This chalkboard compares Hart’s distribution in the Birmingham game to the Fulham game, showing how the presence of Jô helps City win possession high up the pitch.” (Guardian)
Leave a Comment » |
Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United | Tagged: Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United |
Permalink
Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
November 21, 2010

“It was hardly a proper test of being able to cope without Steven Gerrard but Liverpool did more than enough to dispose of a woeful West Ham at Anfield. With the captain out for a month with a hamstring tear manager Roy Hodgson called for his players to step up to fill the void and the Barclays Premier League’s bottom side provide the perfect opposition.” (ESPN)
Woeful Hammers provide no test
“Humour, cruelty and piercing honesty can go hand in hand on the terraces. The greater a club’s plight, the more illuminating the insights from the supporters can prove, and the more absurd their flights of fancy can become. If it tends to be worth watching the side at the top of the league, it’s instructive to listen to the fans at the foot of the division.” (ESPN)
Liverpool 3-0 West Ham United – Video Highlights, Recap, and Match Stats – EPL
(The 90th Minute)
1 Comment |
FC Liverpool | Tagged: FC Liverpool |
Permalink
Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage