“In many quarters, the European Championship is the soccer tournament, ahead of the World Cup, because there is no fluff, no Saudi Arabia, no United States, no Paraguay, no North Korea, no Honduras, no New Zealand … but also no Brazil and Argentina.” NY Times
“Now, though, Manchester City’s players take the field in pale blue jerseys that suggest possibility as expansive as the sky itself. Or the fossil fuels beneath it. In 2008, the club was bought for $330 million by Sheik Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan, a member of the royal family of the emirate of Abu Dhabi who has fueled his team with an oil and talent pipeline.” NYT
“This season has seen FC Barcelona reach what must surely be the pinnacle of the quite remarkable cycle of success that this team has enjoyed since the appointment of Pep Guardiola in 2008. Playing a style of football that is as effective as it is beautiful, Barcelona have mastered both patient passing when with the ball and relentlessly energetic pressing without, their beguiling proficiency seeing them repeatedly outclass the rest of Europe.” The Equaliser – Video
Style and Stylelessness
“Some last-minute thoughts . . . Last year I wrote something about styles and stylelessness in soccer, and I’m thinking about that again as the Champions League final approaches. Everyone knows, because fifty articles a day say so, that Barcelona has a very distinctive style of play. You can name it and describe it, and you can see clearly when other sides try to imitate it. Xavi may be the perfect embodiment of the style, but it’s bigger than he is, and everyone knows it. Whenever Victor Valdés starts a Barça possession not with an aimless punt but with a sharp clean pass to Piqué or Busquets, the crowd at Camp Nou cheers. ‘Even our keeper plays the Barça way!'” Run of Play
Barcelona 3-1 Manchester United: Barcelona are European Champions
“Goals from each of Barcelona’s front three gave Pep Guardiola’s side victory at Wembley. Sir Alex Ferguson named his recent ‘big game’ XI – which meant Javier Hernandez upfront with Wayne Rooney behind, and Ryan Giggs and Michael Carrick in the centre of midfield. The biggest surprise was Dimitar Berbatov not even being on the bench. Guardiola was able to call on Eric Abidal at left-back, but not Carles Puyol at centre-back, so Javier Mascherano started in defence after all. The overall pattern was not completely different from the 2009 final. United enjoyed a good opening few minutes, but were then the poorer side for the rest of the contest.” Zonal Marking
Barcelona outclasses Man United with a performance for the ages
“Surely now the doubters have been won over: this Barcelona is one of the greatest teams there has ever been. In Pep Guardiola’s three seasons in charge Barca has twice won the Champions League, and it was denied a hat trick that would have placed it statistically alongside the Ajax and Bayern Munich sides of the seventies only by the combined might of Jose Mourinho and an Icelandic volcano.” SI – Jonathan Wilson
Lionel Messi the little master offers timely reminder of the beautiful game as Barcelona thrill
“This was the sort of spellbinding performance from Barcelona, and particularly their wonderful Argentine magician, that makes even cynics fall back in love with football. Pass and move, move and score. Bewitching. For a sport dogged by negative headlines, the club season climaxed with a celebration of the sport’s oft-hidden virtues. The spotlight turns to Fifa today, and the judgment of the Ethics Committee on recent shenanigans, but here was a reminder of what the game should be about. Not greed. Just glory. Just a love of the ball’s company, a passion for guiding it past opponents.” Telegraph – Henry Winter
Brilliant Barcelona are a high point in football’s evolution
“In the buildup to this final, the BBC debated who was the greatest of all club football sides and settled on the Real Madrid team who won the first five European Cups from 1956 to 1960. There was unanimity in favour of Puskas, Di Stéfano and Gento: white-jerseyed enemies to the people of Catalonia. Study the tapes of those Real Madrid XIs and you see skill, exuberance, thrust and machismo; a regal confidence across the team. You also register a wholly different version of football in which possession is easily surrendered and defending often laissez-faire. The greatest of all Real’s early triumphs – the 7-3 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt in 1960 – was a goal avalanche impossible to imagine in a Champions League final today.” Guardian – Paul Hayward
Prized Possession for Barcelona: Champions League Title
“LONDON — With the fans at one end of Wembley Stadium singing and dancing, and those at the other sulking and leaving, the public-address announcer made the most obvious of proclamations: Barcelona was the winner of the Champions League.” NYT
Barca vs. Man United player grades
“Reviewing the individual performances in the 2011 Champions League final (players graded on a scale of 1-10)…” SI
Barcelona 3 – 1 Manchester United
“For the second time in three years, brilliant Barcelona denied Manchester United Champions League glory with a sensational performance at Wembley. Although United could take some small consolation from the knowledge they were more effective than that 2009 letdown in Rome and even managed to level Pedro’s first-half strike through Wayne Rooney, once again the better team won. On the ground where the Catalans lifted their first European Cup, Lionel Messi also laid his personal ghost to rest, scoring his first goal for Barcelona on English soil, belting home what proved to be the winner nine minutes into the second half.” ESPN
FC Barcelona 3-1 Manchester United – Extended Fox Sports Video Highlights
Extended Fox Sports video
FC Barcelona Trophy Celebrations After Winning 2011 UEFA Champions League
Video highlights of the trophy celebration by FC Barcelona on May 28, 2011
“Given a rare night on the Barcelona bench last Sunday, Lionel Messi yanked on the seat in front of him, hunched his shoulders over the chair back and kicked it with his cleats. He seemed not so much the world’s best soccer player as a restless kid in a movie theater. He is 23, with a grown-up’s income reported to exceed $43 million this year. Yet Messi still has a boy’s floppy bangs, a boy’s slight build and a boy’s nickname, the Flea. Even the ball stays on his feet like a shy child clinging to his father’s legs.” NYT
“As a theme for a downtown party, a salute to late-’70s American professional soccer sounds a little on the you’ve-got-to-be-kidding side. But anyone who walked into Openhouse Gallery in NoLIta one rainy night in mid-February would have seen a young crowd in a huge room celebrating the New York Cosmos, the long-defunct team that briefly turned the world’s most popular sport into a glamorous New York fad.” NYT
“They called him Judas. They threw bottles, cigarettes, rubbish, and heck even a rotten pig’s head to show their disgust. The Boixos Nois, once the neo-nazi ultras of Barca, were banned from the stadium after this incident. Such was the level of hatred. This was treachery, one of ridiculous proportions. Transfer of players between these two clubs was not new, in fact 27 people had moved directions before Luis Figo did, but not one of them was in this fashion. Never before had a player who belonged to the club, one who was loved and admired by the fans for more than just his footballing skills, left so bitterly. ‘The derbi of shame’ they call it, brought out all the emotion that could ever be thrown out, by this magnificent rivalry.” The Offside
Madrid vs. Barcelona: Four Times a Soccer Classic
” A ‘clásico’ encounter between Real Madrid and F.C. Barcelona, the two biggest and most successful teams in Spanish soccer, inevitably generates high expectations. But the prospect of four such clásicos in 17 days has triggered a frenzy here that is rekindling memories of last July, when Spaniards followed with bated breath their national team’s triumphant march to its first World Cup trophy in South Africa.” NYT
Camp Nou Stadium for FC Barcelona
“FC Barcelona’s Camp Nou Stadium, one of the world’s greatest football venues, is to be extensively remodelled. The stadium, already the largest in Europe, will be enlarged to accommodate over 106,000 fans, together with extensive new facilities including hospitality and public areas.” Foster + Partners
“As the gregarious Ronaldinho, one of the world’s best soccer players, emerged this month from the locker room in his black-and-red Flamengo club jersey and pulling at his trademark ponytail, fans erupted in applause. But a group of shirtless men in the seats below had their sights on someone else, turning toward a private box above and chanting.” NYT
Clint Dempsey
“Alexi had the hair. Claudio brought the technique. And Brian McBride displayed such a wholesome, hardworking, can-do aesthetic they named a pub after him. Of all the American soccer players who have toiled in Europe, however, is there anybody better — or more revered — than Fulham’s Clint Dempsey?” NYT
“A few days ago, the leading European clubs made their case against national teams’ interrupting their seasons with what the clubs call meaningless friendly matches in February.” NYT
“Nat Lofthouse, the Lion of Vienna, will be laid to rest in Bolton, England, his hometown, on Wednesday. Thousands will line the streets, just as 23,000 inside the Bolton Wanderers’ stadium Monday night observed a silence in which you could almost hear a heartbeat. People too young to have seen Lofthouse play sobbed during the silence. It was as if he had been a grandfather to all of them — and folks who dismiss history as bunk, or who shy away from sentiment in sports or in life, had no place there.” NYT
“A growing and probably quite unhealthy obsession with the concept of Unai Emery caused La Liga Loca to spend Monday musing whether the Valencia manager actually enjoyed his job. It certainly didn’t look like it during the 2-0 loss to Sevilla, Emery watching Mehmet Topal’s rather harsh sending-off scupper any chance of success in the Sánchez Pizjuán.” (FourFourTwo)
Musings on Madrid
“Just in case you wanted to know, Atletico Madrid’s veterans stuffed Real Madrid’s 7-0 on Friday afternoon, and Ricky Carvalho beat Diego Forlan 1-0 in the FIFA 11 (virtual) game in a Madrid hotel the same day. The scorer was Ronaldo, of course. Interestingly, in the real thing on Sunday night, Carvalho opened the scoring and Forlan failed to find the net, but the Uruguayan was at least remaining faithful to tradition. Atletico have now failed to beat their neighbours in the Madrid ‘derbi’ since the 1999-00 season, and often stand accused of not really going for it, particularly in the Bernabeu.” (ESPN)
Accounting Battle Distracts From Barcelona’s Success
“Johan Cruyff, the Dutchman who both played for and coached F.C. Barcelona, once noted that, in soccer, ‘it doesn’t matter how many goals they score, as long as you score one more.’ Winning, however, has not been the only thing that has mattered recently at Cruyff’s former club. Instead, one of Barcelona’s most successful presidents, Joan Laporta, found himself last month on the receiving end of a lawsuit initiated by his successor, Sandro Rosell, alleging unlawful accounting.” (NYT)
“Beginning with this installment, the Goal blog is inaugurating a new feature that offers a statistical (courtesy of OPTA) and graphic representations of select matches from the European Champions League. At the end of each week when matches are played, the editor of zonalmarking.net, will provide analysis powered by the Total Football iPhone/iPad app, which is available at totalfootballapps.com and the iTunes App Store. Similar Chalkboards can be dissected at the Web site of the Guardian of Britain and at the zonalmarking Web site.” (NYT)
“Incidents like yesterday’s fan violence at the Italy Serbia Euro qualifier in Genoa follow a similar pattern. Journalists and bloggers await the match while discussing the usual tidbits about injured players and group tables and previous encounters and betting odds, when suddenly something happens that goes beyond the meeting of two footballing nations, like fans throwing flares on the pitch while systematically destroying crowd barriers.” (A More Splendid Life)
Violent Fans Force Italy-Serbia Match to Be Suspended
“UEFA, soccer’s governing body in Europe, announced ‘it has immediately opened a full and thorough disciplinary investigation into the incidents of serious disorder witnessed at the match and the circumstances surrounding it.’ The statement, posted on the UEFA Web site, said that a report will be issued to the Control and Disciplinary Body and a meeting is set for Oct. 28. The punishments, under UEFA regulations, “range from a reprimand or fine, up to a stadium closure or ‘disqualification from competitions in progress and/or exclusion from future competitions.'” (NYT)
Serbian thugs are the toys of nationalist and neo-fascist leaders
“For the second time in three days Serbian thugs have laid waste to a European city in riots that have combined wanton and random violence with organisational talent and political backing. Yesterday in Genoa, the Scottish referee Craig Thomson had first to delay the kick-off for the Euro 2012 qualifier between Italy and Serbia by 45 minutes because of fans’ rioting, and then call the game off after seven minutes. Earlier the angry young men from Belgrade went on the rampage in the Mediterranean port and Uefa have opened a ‘full and thorough’ investigation into the incidents.” (Guardian)
“Bob Bradley has a new contract and a new mission, but Bradley, the United States national team coach, is caught in a strange sort of limbo. ‘It’s a balance between the long term view, which is always focused toward the final round of qualification and then the World Cup in 2014, but also the things that happen along the way, the short-term vision,’ Bradley said ahead of the Americans’ friendly against Poland on Saturday in Chicago.” (NYT)
“As the Champions League grows and grows, must it follow that domestic leagues sacrifice their native characteristics? Leave aside Spain, where Barcelona breeds its own, inimitable style, and the answer might be that we are rushing toward uniformity. The top matches in England, Germany and Italy over the weekend were all of a type. Manchester City, bankrolled by Abu Dhabi sheiks, beat Chelsea, owned by a Russian oligarch, by a solitary goal.” (NYT)
“When reports began circulating last week that a Chinese investor was bidding to take over the Liverpool soccer club in the English Premier League, British tabloids quickly called him King Kenny. That little-known investor is Kenny Huang, 46, a globe-trotting sports enthusiast who has made marketing deals in China with the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Yankees, and has entered into a business partnership with Leslie Alexander, the owner of the Houston Rockets.” (NYT)
” Sports must sometimes send out the most confusing messages to its young. Over the past weeks, Spanish teams and athletes have been the best in the world in soccer, basketball, tennis and cycling. Yet the country’s two major sporting institutions, F.C. Barcelona and Real Madrid, pursue disparate philosophies in reaching for the major club trophies in soccer.” (NYT)
“The title of the film about the world’s most famous defunct soccer team was ‘Once in a Lifetime.’ Anyone for ‘Twice in a Lifetime’? The team in question is the New York Cosmos, a club that was the flagship team in the North American Soccer League, which ceased operations in the mid-1980s.” (NYT)
Diego Maradona
“Late on Tuesday afternoon, the Asociación de Fútbol Argentino (AFA) finally announced, as we all knew they were going to, that Diego Maradona’s contract as national team head coach wasn’t going to be renewed. When a small child falls over quite softly in the street, you can count under your breath to three or four before they start bawling. To anyone in Argentina, this was as predictable as that.” (WSC)
Maradona Loses Showdown With Grondona Over Argentina’s Future
“Diego Maradona is out as coach of Argentina, according to the Associated Press. The Argentina Football Association announced it would not renew his contract after almost two erratic years in charge. Ernesto Cherquis Bialo, spokesman for the team, said that differences between Maradona and Julio Grondona, the A.F.A. president, ‘were impossible to resolve’.” (NYT)
Raul Gonzalez
“Raul Gonzalez, the captain and leader of Real Madrid for more than a decade, will only see Jose Mourinho, the Spanish club’s new manager, in passing. Raul, 33, will leave the club where he has spent his entire career as Mourinho comes in to remake Real Madrid in the new ‘Galácticos’ era.” (NYT)
“The World Cup has gone, but the embarrassment lingers for England and its Italian coach, Fabio Capello. The coach and his legal advisers are seeking to distance him from an online rating of players’ performances that bears his name. The Web site, the Capello Index, published last week, does not list one English player among the top 70 at the World Cup after the country was beaten 4-1 by Germany in the first knockout stage.” (NYT)
“Somalia’s most feared insurgent group, the Shabab, claimed responsibility on Monday for the coordinated bombings that killed more than 70 people in Uganda as crowds gathered to watch the final match of the World Cup.” (NYT)
“Jessica Hilltout, a nomadic, Belgian-born photographer, loaded sacks of deflated soccer balls onto the roof of a battered yellow Volkswagen Beetle last year and began a seven-month road trip across Africa to document the continent’s love of the game. She found it in villages where children played with joyous abandon on dusty patches of ground, sandy beaches and lush fields, far from the stadiums where Africa’s first World Cup would be held.” (NYT), (Jessica Hilltout)
“Welcome to the World Cup, where every team is the Galácticos. The nickname refers to Real Madrid, the most famous and successful soccer club in the world, which has made a practice, in the past generation, of spending enough money to recruit Zidane and Beckham and Cannavaro. Oops, almost forgot Cristiano Ronaldo.” (NYT)
The Lower Buttons – Intogeymy 1967
“Arriba, Puyol! That’s how I will think of him from now on, this muscular defender, with his ringlets flopping all over the place, leaping above the tall timber of the German defense and heading the Spanish where they have never been before. Carles Puyol looks so much bigger in the photos, but in reality he’s short for a central defender, reminding me of Yogi Berra, who could hit a ball off his shoe tops and send it over a building in the biggest of games. Puyol can leap beyond his 5 feet 10 inches and did it in the 73rd minute Wednesday night to give Spain a 1-0 victory over Germany.” (NYT)
Giovanni Battista Di Jacopo, Pieta
“‘What does it take to win the World Cup?’ asked Henry D Fetter of The Atlantic a couple of days ago, in a post called ‘What It Takes To Win The World Cup’.” (Pitch Invasion)
Özil the German
“No player has fascinated me more at the World Cup than Mesut Özil. He has the languid self-assurance on the ball that comes only to the greatest footballers. Where others are hurried, he has time. He conjures space with a shrug. His left foot can, with equal ease, caress a pass or unleash a shot.” (NYT)
Tap-in and Taboo
“If this happens, what will people say about Bryan Thomas (on Twitter, in newspapers, on comment threads)? Will anyone say that he has violated the ethics of the game, that he deserves further punishment? Will anyone argue that the rules of the game need to be changed so that teams cannot benefit from committing a penalty? I suspect, rather, that Thomas will be generally credited with a very smart play. How is what Luis Suárez did at the end of yesterday’s match against Ghana any different?” (Run of Play)
when i get older
“Brian at the Run of Play did a very good job crushing the idea floated in The Atlantic that countries with an authoritarian history play more winning football. The idea memed, nonetheless. (Shocked that highbrow soccer dorks — my favourite phrase this World Cup, used by TNR Goalpost to describe their ideal reader base) appear not to check RoP before coffee.) Laughable, snobbish solipsism — it’s not just for FIFA anymore, kids.” (Treasons, Statagems & Spoils)
Time Can Do So Much
“What I want to know is whether we’ll remember any of this in ten years, or if we’ll look back on it as the mass blackout during which we all wrote mystic texts. I can’t remember two more deranged or thrilling days of soccer, or four more shocking games, in any recent tournament, and Euro 2008 made me compare Aphrodite to a Toyota Prius. It was all the more stunning because it came out of nowhere—that’s not to say this World Cup had been boring, but it had rolled along at a pretty regular tempo and, apart from a few moments of madness and bliss, within a fairly livable emotional band.” (Run of Play)
Luis Suarez
“Why, among all the South American teams, have you heard so little talk about Uruguay this summer? I’ll tell you why: Because they’re civilized. Uruguay is the first democracy of Latin America, the first country where women voted. Whenever they have a national conflict, they solve it by referendum. Even the flyers announcing illegal prostitution clubs have a polite note below: ‘Please do not throw this paper in the street. Use a trash can.’” (Vanity Fair)
Uruguay rides luck against Ghana
“Against Ghana, though, in the final minutes of extra time, there was no control; there was merely nerve-rending hanging-on, and if Asamoah Gyan had taken the penalty he went on to take in the shootout five minutes earlier, Uruguay would have been out and Ghana would have been Africa’s first ever semifinalist. Instead after the game ended at 1-1 in extra time, Uruguay triumphed 4-2 on penalties.” (SI)
The New Hand of God
“Finally, there’s the larger point — PKs may feel like a gimmick, but, yeah, there’s no denying: It’s one heck of a gimmick. Like the fortune in the fortune cookie, it works. The penalty kicks ending of the Uruguay-Ghana match on Friday was so emotional, so heartbreaking, so inspiring, so powerful — it was the peak of this World Cup. It was one of those universal moments of sport, the sort of thing you can just enter without credentials, without prior knowledge, without any sense of the game. This was boxing without violence, tennis without lines, an Olympic 100-meter dash without a finish line. This was raw sport.” (SI)
World Cup Live: Uruguay vs. Ghana
“An unbelievable finish at Soccer City in Johannesburg put Uruguay through to the semifinals and Ghana out of the tournament in absolutely heartbreaking fashion. Ghana was awarded a penalty kick at the end of extra time when Uruguay’s Luis Suarez punched a Ghana shot off the goal line with his hand — a denial of a certain goal and a red card offense, but punishable only by giving the Black Stars a penalty kick as the last act of the match. But Asamoah Gyan blew his chance to give Ghana a 2-1 victory by shooting the ball off the bar and out of play.” (NYT)
“Italy and France, the last two teams standing at the previous World Cup, did not make it out of the first round in this one. Africa is down to its last hope, Ghana. The Americas are flourishing. And something new is stirring in Asia, where fans of South Korea and Japan took to the streets at 3 a.m., each celebrating their country’s breaking through to the second stage of the tournament for the first time on foreign soil. Watching the first round of matches, and the elimination of Europeans in particular, one gets the feeling there has been a cultural swing in the global game.” (NYT)
Bob Bradley
“When Landon Donovan scored in stoppage time to rescue the national soccer team from elimination and sent the Americans to the Round of 16, it was just before noon on the East Coast, just before 9 a.m. on the West Coast, and just plain early in general across the United States. But Americans celebrated the same way, wherever they were.” (NYT)
Desperate Hope, Dramatic Ending for U.S.
“Chance after frantic chance the United States had Wednesday in its 1-0 victory over Algeria at the World Cup, each one more tempting and frustrating than the other. Finally, desperation seemed to tighten like a noose, strangling the Americans’ patience and accuracy.” (NYT)
Goal! The thrill of World Cup victory
“For weeks a multi-front soccer culture war has been raging in the blogosphere. But one goal by the man who just staked a pretty good claim to the title of ” greatest player in the history of U.S. soccer,” Landon Donovan, should permanently change the terms of debate. But first a little context: In the group round of the World Cup, scoring a goal in “stoppage time” — a few minutes of overtime after the end of regulation to make up for time lost to injuries — to break a scoreless tie and move on to the next round is one of the most dramatic things that can possibly happen in soccer.” (Salon)
A Foreign Game Looks Very American
“Tim Howard was playing hurry-up, booting the ball in desperation, watching the backs of his teammates, American athletes, as they raced downfield trying to save four years of effort. ‘It wasn’t a soccer match,” Howard said. “It was an athletics match, track and field.’ Sprinting has been, in its way, an American sport, whereas soccer has always been a foreign sport that frightens people — well, except for the millions of Americans lined up in pubs and dens and offices all over their country on a weekday morning, going crazy after the best, or the most dramatic, or the most important soccer match in American history.” (NYT)
Bliss, and a Belgian Spared
“It has been a beautiful day. It was a perfect match, offering up everything that draws us to football. The devastation of the goal-that-was-not, the relief as the team, rather than fumbling into frustration, kept carefully building up excellent plays, defending beautifully, and pushing, pushing, pushing. Raïs M’Bohli, the Paris-born Congolese/Algerian goalkeeper — who, I imagine and hope, will be moving on rapidly from his professional team in Bulgaria after this showing — stopping the goals relentlessly, seemingly on his way to becoming Algeria’s new national hero. In perfect if sadistic form, the team kept us all in suspense until the very end, when in a beautiful, invincible run, scrappy, a little enraged, bringing together Donovan, Altidore and Demsey in a gorgeous one-two-three, and here in Durham and throughout the country and the world there was that explosion of joy that can only come when it has been long-deferred, seemingly unattainable, and perfectly plucked from out of nowhere.” (Soccer Politics)
The American Ascendancy
“And then it happened. Sunil cried, too. And he woke up this morning to escort Bill Clinton and shake the trees for votes from FIFA’s 24-member Politburo for that 2002 World Cup bid. (Clinton is the bid’s honorary chairman; he got a big cheer when his face appeared on the video board last night.) ESPN was assured another weekend of USA-fired ratings. And given that we’ve landed for the first two knockout rounds in the best group since the Beatles, the possibility for advancing further than any modern US men’s national team are real. Project 2010, anyone?” (TNR)
“I’ve seen both of these nations in major competitions. As you may have noticed from the Slovenia-Algeria report, I saw the Slovenians at Euro 2000. The USA however, were one of the teams playing at my first live World Cup match in 2006 – their opponents were Italy, in what was one of the games of the tournament. And that was the point at which my view on American’s playing football changed. It was all down to the fans who travelled to Germany. On the upside, they were very enthusiastic about the game, and (unlike the perception from the more ignorant sections of our media – i.e. most of it) were very knowledgeable about the game, as you would expect people who’ve flown thousands of miles for as little as one game to be.” (twohundredpercent)
For U.S., Only Frustration Is Clear
“In the 85th minute Friday, the referee Koman Coulibaly gazed into what was supposed to be a penalty area but was actually a mosh pit. Sure, the Slovene players were committing acts usually experienced during the arrest scenes on “Cops.” But the Americans were also doing their share of slam-dancing and assorted frisking maneuvers usually reserved for the security line at the airport.” (NYT)
On Feeling Cheated: Notes on USA – Slovenia
“Sport culture seems to be the one discursive space in which we can declare that we were robbed, that our team was cheated, that the game wasn’t fair – and we don’t come off as bitter or resentful. This sort of anger – at being kept out of the World Cup finals by someone’s handball, or at being cheated of the three points awarded to a win by a rogue referee – is perfectly allowed – a certain sense of injustice is in fact nursed into an art.” (From A Left Wing)
Margaret Gradwell, Indaba Series
“We were looking for Spain to really get the tournament going – they did exactly that, but by being on the end of the biggest shock so far, rather than providing an amazing attacking display. Switzerland’s win was remarkable – to keep a clean sheet against this Spanish side is very impressive. Ottmar Hitzfeld’s side did not actually play particularly defensively – they rarely had the ball, certainly, but they broke in numbers and frequently got four men in the box when they had the ball in an attacking zone.” (Zonal Minute)
World Cup 2010: Spain’s nightmare – an early dream final with Brazil
“Two wildly contrasting states jolted this World Cup to life, with North Korea (totalitarian) roughing up Brazil and Switzerland (laissez-faire meets conservatism) shocking Spain, the European champions, in Durban. With the first upset of the tournament the iconoclastic Swiss may have spoiled the dream final. If the favourites finish second in Group H they are likely to collide with Brazil in the second round.” (Guardian)
Unflinching Swiss Give Spain a Jolt
“Beautiful to watch and all but impossible to beat for the last two years, Spain has not yet figured out how to combine artistry and victory in South Africa. Since winning the European championships in 2008, the only blemish on its record was a surprising 2-0 loss here to the United States in last year’s Confederations Cup. But the even bigger surprise came Wednesday on a lovely late afternoon in Durban, where Spain was beaten, 1-0, by Switzerland in the World Cup opener for each team.” (NYT)
“Sporting history surely teaches us not to be too hasty in drawing conclusions. Yet it is already tempting to observe as this World Cup unfolds that Germany might be rising again, and Italy, the defending world champion, falling. There seems to be a new, vibrant, powerful Germany — a side whose players are too young to fear defeat and whose diverse ethnic backgrounds are a testimony to the society now forming in that country.” (NYT)
“Robert Green’s ‘hand of clod’ goal against the United States, painful as it was to watch (here it is again!) … … was not the first howler committed by the England keeper.” (NYT)
“Best places to watch – A World Cup pub crawl might start here, and it might last all month.” (NYT)
“An American soccer star joins the TRIAD Trust using the game to educate children and young adults about how to protect themselves from contracting H.I.V.” (NYT)
Condoms for the World Cup and other ways to keep HIV at bay
“In three months hundreds of thousands of soccer fans are expected to descend on nine South African cities for the 2010 World Cup. But for so many visitors going to a country where more than 10 percent of the population is estimated to have HIV/AIDS, many public health experts are worried that the event will kick off a spike in transmission. South Africa, in turn, has responded by requesting one billion condoms for the year (many of which will be supplied by the U.K.)—more than twice as many as usual, the BBC noted.” (Scientific American)
“And the winner is. … As the World Cup opens Friday amid a celebration of exceptional vibrancy with host South Africa playing Mexico, two countries float above the field of 32 teams: Spain and Brazil. Yes, Africa is the host. Yes, Asia is developing. And, yes, there are dark horses — the gifted but erratic Argentines, the talented Dutch and the ever self-confident English among them.” (NYT)
“First, sorry for what are becoming all-too routine pauses on A More Splendid Life; my own less than splendid life has this sorry habit of getting in the way. So, some fun announcements. Second, one of the reasons it has been a bit quiet around here is because Brooks at Dirty Tackle has lost his mind and let me post up various bits and bobs on his esteemed site over the next five weeks for the World Cup. So you can see the nice, clean, North American-wide version of what I do.” (A More Splendid Life)
“Some of the world’s most accomplished and explosive players are limping into the World Cup, if they have made it here at all, and few are as bruised and battered as the stars of the English Premier League, where the physical nature of play is particularly unforgiving.” (NYT)
“The book features the original balls of every Football World Cup between 1930 and 2010; it describes the stories and legends surrounding these balls and makes observations on footballs in general. In his extensive interview, German goalkeeper legend Sepp Maier talks about his love for these spherical objects.” (The World Cup Balls), (NYT – The World Cup Balls)
“The World Cup opens Friday, and this host city is draped in the flags of the 32 participating nations. With the world’s biggest sporting event coming to Africa for the first time, hope wafts across the continent that one of the six African teams might win. ‘The talent is there, certainly,’ Bob Bradley, the United States coach, said. Yet history says that disarray in preparations, desperate coaching changes, poverty, official corruption and vagaries of the draw will conspire against Africa’s chances.” (NYT)
“Pelé was barely 17 ½ when he marched onto the field in 1958 for his first World Cup match. He learned one thing that day in Goteborg, Sweden: the World Cup is vastly different from the club soccer he played back home in Brazil.” (NYT)
“Roam the mountains and vineyards of Slovenia, and its citizens and soccer players will regularly remind a foreign visitor of two verities. This is not Slovakia (a very touchy subject). This is a very small country: about the size of New Jersey and home to about 300 million fewer inhabitants than its future World Cup opponent, the United States.” (NYT)
“United States forward Jozy Altidore’s right ankle will be evaluated later Friday while his teammates continue their preparations for the World Cup. With only a week before the start of the tournament, players and coaches are especially wary of new injuries, or the danger of aggravating old ones.” (NYT)
“Imelda Marcos is unlikely to attend any matches of the 2010 World Cup, but she (and her prodigious collection of quality footwear) will find some kindred spirits gallivanting across the green soccer fields of South Africa in the latest high-fashion (and high-priced) kicks (or boots, or cleats). Few could rival the collection of the former first lady of the Philippines, but when it comes to soccer cleats players can never have too many shoes. In fact, they probably need more feet!” (NYT)
“The official mascot of Africa’s first World Cup — a stuffed leopard with spiked green hair — was made in China. The official World Cup anthem, “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa),” was written by the Colombian pop star Shakira. The official restaurant? McDonald’s. And with less than three weeks before the world’s most watched sporting event, only 36,000 of the almost three million tickets have been sold in Africa outside of South Africa itself, the host. On a continent whose people mostly live on the wrong side of the digital divide, tickets were mainly marketed online.” (NYT)
“Abas Suan’s life straddles two worlds that seem inexorably locked in eternal conflict. Suan is an Arab citizen of the state of Israel, one of 1.4 million Muslim citizens of the Jewish state. Suan is a hero to the people who support his hometown club team, Bnei Sakhnin. Suan is also a beguiling figure among Israelis — an Arab who played on the country’s national soccer team and scored a crucial goal in a World Cup qualifying match against Ireland in the country’s abortive attempt to advance to the 2006 World Cup in Germany.” (NYT)
“Every four years, there are certain unassailable commercial indications that the World Cup is near: sporting goods companies unveil new national team jerseys, companies offer promotions to try to cash in on World Cup fever, and desks begin to groan under an avalanche of (mostly) new soccer books.” (NYT)
“Ronaldinho’s gap-toothed grin will be missing from the Brazilian team photos from South Africa. The most dazzling player of a generation was omitted from Dunga’s preliminary roster Tuesday, signaling perhaps that supreme talent alone is not enough to be part of the Seleção, and that training habits and commitment may also be important.” (NYT)
“Lucas Radebe grew up in South Africa playing soccer with a tennis ball, or a sphere made from old cloth and shopping bags. Lacking jerseys in the Diepkloof township, a part of Soweto, he and his friends gathered sacks of mealie meal, a grain staple. They cut out holes for their arms and heads and scrawled numbers on the bags or colored them with dye.” (NYT)
“When England drew the United States, Slovenia and Algeria at the coming World Cup, The Sun tabloid ran a headline that said ‘EASY,’ and added, ‘best English group since the Beatles.’ The British actor Hugh Grant then appeared in New York on ‘The Daily Show’ and told the host, Jon Stewart: ‘I’m always surprised you have a male football team. It’s a female game here.’ As inventors of the sport, the British can be condescending and uninformed about the game in the United States, viewing American soccer with the same smugness that the United States might view English baseball. Not everyone is so dismissive.” (NYT)
“Several members of Bayern Munich have parlayed the German club’s success this season into a potential summer sojourn to South Africa with the national team. Germany Manager Joachim Loew announced his 27-man preliminary World Cup roster Thursday, which included seven Bayern players who won the Bundesliga and are vying for the German Cup and European Champions League crowns.” (NYT)
Antonio Gramsci
“The countdown to the 2010 World Cup South Africa can now be measured in days. And when it comes to the world’s most popular sport, there are often philosophical questions to ponder, but in the eyes of the world’s great thinkers — from Greek stoics to Jamaican Rastafarians — the game of soccer has always occupied a hallowed spot on a higher plain, up there somewhere between a bicycle kick and a diving header, depression and existentialism.” (NYT)
“With only 43 days to go before the start of the World Cup, the head of the South African organizing committee said Wednesday that the host country’s infrastructure is superior to any previous tournament host; the stadiums are pristine; and the country is ready to welcome more than 370,000 visitors for the biggest party in the world.” (NYT)
Hieronymous Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights
“It has been reported that England’s national soccer team will sleep in special tents to prepare for the altitude in South Africa, site of the coming World Cup. This undoubtedly came as a relief to many, given where a couple of high-profile players were said to be slumbering lately in scandals that cost defender John Terry his captaincy and his fellow defender Ashley Cole his marriage.” (NYT)
“With a 3-1 lead going into the second leg of the UEFA Champions League semifinal on Wednesday, it is fair to say that Inter Milan’s chances are better than 50/50. Perhaps Jose Mourinho was trying to be generous to his hosts. More likely, Mourinho, the Inter Milan manager, was trying to ease the pressure on his players and tweak Barcelona.” (NYT)
“After the Wall, Berlin’s Olympiastadion was one of the landmarks of German division. And after the now-united city’s team, Hertha, succumbed to a late goal on Saturday, losing 1-0 to Schalke, its relegation from the Bundesliga now looks to be inevitable. That means the former East German soccer league will have no representative in the country’s most affluent division. It also means the German capital city will have no team in the Bundesliga.” (NYT)
Jose Mourinho
“Esteban Cambiasso praised the ‘extraordinary work of our three forwards’ after FC Internazionale Milano’s 3-1 win against FC Barcelona in the first leg of their semi-final tie at the San Siro, a sixth consecutive UEFA Champions League victory for José Mourinho’s side.” (UEFA)
Inter 3-1 Barcelona: Why did Pep Guardiola play Zlatan Ibrahimovic?
“It’s not often during his two seasons as Barcelona manager that you can conclusively say that Pep Guardiola got his tactics wrong – but tonight that was the case, as Inter take an important two-goal lead to the Nou Camp. Both sides essentially played their standard formations. Inter were 4-2-3-1 with Samuel Eto’o and Goran Pandev wide, and Javier Zanetti continuing at left-back. Barcelona played a similar team to the first leg at against Arsenal – Zlatan Ibrahimovic leading the line, Lionel Messi behind him, Pedro in a wide-right role and Seydou Keita playing from in to out on the left.” (Zonal Marking)
James Lawton: Mourinho calls the shots to make Italy think again about his style
“Even Jose Mourinho has rarely known a night like this, one in which not only a second Champions League title but perhaps even the keys of European football may have been at least halfway into his grasp. If Mourinho had some substantial gifts from his Portuguese compatriot referee, including a third goal that was plainly offside, there was no questioning that he had produced from his Internazionale a magnificent response to the challenge of facing the reigning champions of Europe, a team with the potential, some of us may still believe, to touch new levels of excellence.” (Independent)
Italian Football Faces Tough Times
“The most important league table in Italian football right now isn’t the Serie A standings, where AS Roma and Inter Milan are locked in a titanic tussle for the title, or even the Serie B championship, where Torino—one of the country’s most historic clubs—is hoping to secure a top-flight return. It’s actually an obscure ranking of European’s football nations known as the UEFA coefficient table, a mind-boggling complex formula that has produced one very simple conclusion: Italy’s days as a football superpower could soon be at an end.” (WSJ)
Champions League: Inter Milan 3, FC Barcelona 1
“Inter Milan meets Barcelona tonight in the first leg of a mouthwatering Champions League semifinal that many fans think should have been the final itself. With Lyon and Bayern Munich meeting in the other semifinal tomorrow, the glamor — and global attention — will all be at the San Siro in Milan this evening. The visitors are Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona: Spanish league leader, defending European champion and for many, currently the best team in world soccer. The side also, of course, fields the planet’s best player, by popular acclaim, in Argentinian forward Lionel Messi.” (WSJ)
‘It Will Not Be Inter-Barcelona, It Will Be Inter or Barcelona’
“Inter Milan counter attacked with great effect Tuesday against Barcelona, coming back from a goal down to win the first leg of the UEFA Champions League semifinal, 3-1. Barca went up early, scoring a crucial away goal by way of Pedro Rodriguez. He tucked away an angled pass from Maxwell, whose run down the left flank past Cambiasso to the goal line was unchecked by Maicon and Lucio, who both stopped dead in their tracks. But Inter responded with determined counter-attacking play, as per Manager Jose Mourinho’s instructions.” (NYT)
Inter Milan vs. Barcelona
(footytube)
Inter Milan (Internazionale) 3-1 FC Barcelona – Recap and Video Highlights – Champions League – Tuesday, April 20, 2010
“The UEFA Champions League kicked off its semifinal round with a 1st leg match between Inter Milan (Internazionale) v FC Barcelona at the San Siro. Either team would be favored to win the competition if they were to make the final. Barcelona has been in very good form in the Champions League while Inter Milan has knocked out favorites like Chelsea.” (The 90th Minute)
“There’s a pretty good chance that you know Olympique Lyonnais are playing today in the UEFA Champion’s League semi-final against Bayern Munich. You may not also know that Lyon’s women’s team are also playing in their UEFA Champion’s League semi-final this Saturday, against Swedish giants Umeå IK.” (Pitch Invasion)
Late-Game Heroes Have Lifted Bayern Munich and Lyon
“Arjen Robben’s contributions to Bayern Munich in the Champions League this season have been eerily consistent, and supremely valuable. In the 65th minute of the second leg of the Champions League round of 16 match on March 9, the Bayern Munich wing capped a stunning 11-minute spell with a sharply angled shot into the top corner of the Fiorentina goal. How fortunate. Though the German side lost the match, 3-2, it was Robben’s stunner that saw Bayern through to the quarterfinals by virtue of away goals, 4-4 on aggregate.” (NYT)
“In his regular discussion with New York Times readers, Clarence Seedorf discusses the UEFA Champions League semifinals, some of the brightest stars of the international game, and whether or not he thinks doping is a major problem in international soccer. Read the AC Milan midfielder’s responses post your comments below.” (NYT)
“Many have commented that, in an ideal world, this may have been the final of the competition. Barcelona and Inter are generally considered to be the strongest two sides left in the Champions League – and of course, they are also the only two actual champions left. For the tactical enthusiast, however, a two-legged tie between the two most interesting sides in the competition is a more exciting prospect than a one-off game.” (Zonal Marking)
Inter’s date with destiny
“Outside influences have had a habit, recently, of trying to penetrate Inter’s hardened outer shell ahead of their Champions League semi-final against Barcelona. Most notably, there have been allegations about the Nerazzurri’s perceived role in the 2006 Calciopoli scandal which have been brought to light by the defence attorneys for disgraced former Juventus director Luciano Moggi.” (ESPN)
It Was a Weekend for Clearing the Air, Though Not in England
“In sports, the shortest journeys often turn out to be the most perilous — as derby matches affecting the leading clubs across Europe demonstrated throughout the weekend. This, however, is a uniquely challenging time for long-distance travelers across the Continent, and for once the great and the good of soccer are in the same boat, or grounded plane, as the rest of us.” (NYT)
Espanyol make their new home a fortress to derail Barcelona
“As the bus turned in, all you could see was the palms of their hands hammering against the window. Then as the light filtered through, Nico Pareja in the aisle, arms aloft and chanting. His Espanyol team-mates were bouncing and shouting and thumping on the glass. Outside, they were too. Along the narrow streets of Cornellà, balconies were draped in blue and white, music blaring. Bars were packed with Periquitos sinking minis – litres of beer in plastic glasses – and hollering war cries.” (Guardian)
Scissors Kick 