“For the first time since the inception of this blog, writers of TYAC have not touched on a USMNT match – the USA-Chile match last week. At this point, a comprehensive analysis serves no purpose for two reasons…” The Yanks Are Coming
“It’s Super Bowl weekend here in the United States and football is on my mind. I grew up in Los Angeles, a city without an NFL team. In fact I’ve never lived in a city with an NFL team. When I’m asked what team I support I run through a brief flow chart, and this year I’m backing the Pack. I’ve based my chart predominantly on geography, and the Packers come out on top because I lived in Wisconsin for three years. You could say this makes me a disingenuous fan or some kind of fake or a bandwagoner, but nobody ever has. People just shrug and nod their head. It’s not that controversial.” Run of Play
“A handful of surprise results saw Lyon, Rennes and champions Marseille fall off the pace in the title race, while Paris Saint-Germain tightened their grip on second place and Bordeaux ended a six-match winless run stretching back to the end of November. Lyon’s 13-game unbeaten streak came to an abrupt halt in a 2-1 loss at Valenciennes, with Aly Cissokho the chief culprit in an error-strewn performance and Yoann Gourcuff worryingly off the pace. It followed hot on the heels of a 1-0 defeat by Nice in the Coupe de France and left Claude Puel’s side seven points off the pace in third place.” Football Further
Pedro
“Who are your top 3 players in the world? Naturally it changes every couple of years as new stars emerge. At the end of 2011? Here’s Luke Colbourne on a contender.” In Bed With Madadona
“It was assumed that Fernando Torres’ arrival would mean a place on the bench for Nicolas Anelka, but Tuesday’s 4-2 victory over Sunderland showed that Carlo Ancelotti might have a different role in mind for the Frenchman. So far this season, Chelsea have generally lined up in a 4-3-3 shape, with Anelka and Florent Malouda either side of Didier Drogba. In the long term, Torres might not be competing with Anelka and Drogba, who will be 32 and 33 respectively by the end of this campaign, but for the final months of the season, Ancelotti has somewhat of a selection dilemma, with three top-class strikers.” Zonal Marking
“Michael Cox is the editor of the award-winning tactics site Zonal Marking. He also does regular chalkboard analysis for the Guardian and appears on their Football Weekly podcast. But then, you probably knew all that. So let’s just hear about Michael’s favourite goal …” Ghost Goal
“Ask Danny Last, editor of European Football Weekends, whether he thinks Fernando Torres will be a success for Chelsea and you’ll most likely be greeted with a blank stare and disinterested mumbles. But ask him about football stadiums in Romania or fan culture in Turkey and the response couldn’t be more different. Like a frog in a pond or Jose Mourinho in a press conference, Danny is at home when he speaks about football travel culture. It is his passion and for many years it has taken over his life.” Football Nomad
“AC Milan have been making waves in the transfer market of late. But as Adam Digby reports, their most important addition could be a veteran centre-back with a fascinating story.” In Bed With Maradona
“As you dear readers will know, a few weeks ago we popped down to the Keith Tuckey Stadium to take in a game at one of the most newsworthy sides in the Non Leagues, namely, Croydon Athletic. Unless you have been living in Ignorance, Texas then you will have seen the recent take over of the club by a Danish organisation called Fodboldselskabet A/S. My superb Danish skills can tell you that the literal translation is Soccer Company. And that is essentially what they are. A limited company formed to invest and run a football club. Many questioned their potential involvement in English football, so we went round the corner from TBIR’s Copenhagen office to speak to Morten Madsen, Communications Manager for the club and ask him Vad är poängen?” The Ball Is Round
“Raul Meireles and Luis Suarez scored the goals as Liverpool eased to victory. Kenny Dalglish named an interesting team, with Luis Suarez on the bench and Dirk Kuyt upfront alone. Tony Pulis played a 4-5-1 shape – John Carew made his full debut.” Zonal Marking
Liverpool 2 – 0 Stoke City
“Luis Suarez scored on his debut as Liverpool concluded a turbulent few days with a valuable victory over Stoke. The Uruguayan slotted home the Reds’ second goal of the game in front of the Kop to ensure Fernando Torres’ £50 million move to Chelsea was no longer the major talking point. And if questions were being asked about how the Reds would cope in their former striker’s absence then efforts by Suarez and Portugal midfielder Raul Meireles – with his third goal in four matches – provided a swift answer.” ESPN
Reds deals signal break with recent past
“The British record transfer has been attributed to the overseas owner. Rightly so, too. Without Roman Abramovich’s investment of £50 million, Fernando Torres would not be a Chelsea player. Yet this is a deal that owes its origins to another boardroom altogether. It is proof that the poisonous legacy of Tom Hicks and George Gillett extended after the Americans’ time at Anfield officially ended.” ESPN
“Below are video highlights for all the EPL matches on February 1, 2011, February 2, 2011.” The 90th Minute, The 90th Minute
“Juventus were made to pay for their terrible start here, and lost the game despite dominating for long periods. Delio Rossi made one change from the weekend defeat to Inter, as Sinisa Andelkovic came in for Ezequiel Muñoz. However, he was forced to replace Federico Balzaretti early on, and brought on Matteo Darmian at left-back.” Zonal Marking
“Gav Stone is the editor of Les Rosbifs – a fantastic site dedicated to English footballers playing overseas. You can follow him on Twitter @LesRosbifs .. Here is Gav’s favourite goal (it’s No.1 at the end of the video below)…” Ghost Goal
“West Ham outworked Blackpool in the central area of the pitch to record a deserved victory as Ian Holloway shuffled his team selection which ultimately appeared to disrupt the fluency that they have found at many stages this season.” Tangerine Dreaming
Ronaldo
“Does anyone know who’s leading the Liga? No, not La Liga; the Liga, the Primeira Liga—Portugal’s first tier of domestic football. Does anyone know? Does anyone care? Heck, even I’ve been known to look past the Primeira Liga, and I’m Portuguese. That’s the lure of the fast-paced, money-rich, crowd-packed Premier Leagues and Bundesligas and La Ligas of this world, whose fan-friendly cable packages are often too much to resist when the alternative is a game between Paços de Ferreira and Olhanense in an empty back-lot stadium that wouldn’t make it in League Two in England. Most teams in the Championship have bigger attendances and heftier budgets than, oh, around 12 of the 16 teams in the Primeira Liga.” Run of Play
“There may have been comical goalkeeping, half-empty stadiums and a ticketing fiasco that marred the final, but the 2011 Asian Cup in Qatar was also able to boast some fine football and a handful of breath-taking matches. Football Further looks at some of the tactical points of interest at the 15th edition of Asia’s showpiece tournament.” Football Further
“A very interesting game that Arsene Wenger managed to turn around with a second half change in formation. Arsene Wenger was without Samir Nasri, and chose Tomas Rosicky rather than Andrei Arshavin on the left. The rest of the side was as expected. David Moyes made no changes from the side that drew with Chelsea at the weekend.” Zonal Marking
Arsenal show they have the character for title run-in
“When in a title run-in, there are two ways to assess the crucialness of a fixture in comparison to your rival(s); take it game-by-game and use the league table as your reference or on a team-by-team basis. At 1-0 down against Everton, Arsenal may have done the latter and judged the harshness of the result by the quality of the team they were facing. They knew they had to get a draw at least but because Everton are regarding as a tough team to beat and still have to face Manchester United again, the points dropped could be cancelled out when the pair meet each other.” Arsenal Column
Luis Suarez
“The last time I saw new Liverpool signing Luis Suarez in the flesh, he was playing his biggest game so far in his native continent. It was November 2009, and Uruguay were taking on Costa Rica with the final place in South Africa 2010 at stake. As Uruguay coach Oscar Washington Tabarez reflected recently, the World Cup can be enjoyed but the qualification process has to be suffered. Uruguay certainly suffered to book their place, and despite having a 1-0 lead from the away leg, they were certainly suffering that night against Costa Rica. They dominated the game, but while the goals refused to go in, nerves were jangling, especially for Suarez.” BBC – Tim Vickery
Agony and Empire
“And so it came to pass that a helicopter carrying Fernando Torres touched down on the wreckage of several earlier helicopters only thought to have been carrying Fernando Torres, and Fernando Torres raised his serene gaze from the book about helicopters that he had been reading on his helicopter and looked inscrutably out the window, leaving the rest of us to stare at his helicopter and wonder what it all could mean.” Run of Play
What’s next for Torres & Co.?
“After a flurry of activity on Monday, the January transfer window is closed. Clubs won’t be able to wheel and deal again until the summer. In the meantime, many teams will now have to adjust to new players joining their squads or key players leaving town. Here are the five big questions facing a few clubs in the English Premier League.” ESPN
A difficult decision that Torres could not resist
“Fernando Torres: Chelsea striker. Actually seeing it in writing feels strange, and the sight of him in a blue, rather than red shirt, harder for fans to come to terms with than the fact the former Liverpool number nine switched clubs for a record breaking £50 million. Last week, the idea that we’d be referring to Torres as a former Red by the following Tuesday was simply un-imaginable for the majority of Liverpool fans – yet the feeling that he was at a club progressing much slower than he had hoped had been growing within the player for some time – and when Chelsea made a serious enquiry ahead of Liverpool’s game against Fulham, Fernando sensed that this was an opportunity that he could not resist.” Guillem Balague
Andy Carroll: Is He Worth It?.
“Yesterday marked the third time Kenny Dalglish has broken the English transfer record for a Geordie striker. On the previous two occasions it worked out pretty well. In 1987, Peter Beardsley arrived for £1.9m, and Liverpool turned into arguably the finest English club side seen to date (certainly few have bettered that red vintage). The Reds won the league that season, and in a three year spell were one win away from completing the league and cup double each time.” Tomkins Times
“There were several interesting reports this week about the fact that some of the best organized and most effective groups involved in the protests in Egypt came from what some saw as a surprising place: football fan groups.” Soccer Politics
A little information about Ultras fan clubs in Egypt
“Egypt’s football fan clubs are figuring prominently in stories about the current uprising. For readers wanting to learn more about the Ultras in Egypt and their role in the uprising, here are a few links: James M. Dorsey, ‘Soccer Fans Play Key Role in Egyptian Protests’ (readers of this blog will not be surprised, as this is a fairly consistent topic in writing about the sport and politics). The Football Scholars Forum posted a link to that story and to this BBC interview with David Goldblatt (of The Ball is Round): The Secret Policeman’s Football.” From A Left Wing
“The ‘Decade by Decade’ series continues in February with a look at football in the 1940s. Interrupted by the Second World War, the decade was in many ways a disjointed and transitional one for the game. After the seismic advances of the 1930s, conflict disrupted football’s progress during the first half of the 40s, but that did not prevent a series of fascinating stories coming to pass.” The Equaliser
“If the Premier League’s final day of the winter window was a giant paella of SKY TV excitement, la Liga’s was a manky grain of rice sitting at the side of the pan with just six piddling transfers being made in the final few hours in Spain. Perky Carolina from Gol TV had been sent to the offices of the LFP where she made the giddy-eyed promise of fax machines whirring away, churning out contract details of Andrés Iniesta heading to his secret love team of Espanyol and Cristiano Ronaldo enjoying the Pamplona experience so much, on Sunday, the forward had decided to opt to play for Osasuna for the rest of his days.” FourFourTwo
“Athletic Bilbao, the club which has come to popularly represent Basque identity in the sporting world, was founded in 1898 and quickly established itself as one of the strongest teams in Spain. Ten Copa del Rey titles were won in the first twenty-five years of the club’s existence, but it was during the 1930s – following the establishment of the national league in 1928 – that Athletic enjoyed its greatest run of success.” The Equaliser
Scissors Kick 