In a moving tribute to the late Antonio Puerta, Sevilla decided to play in the European Super cup final. In the aftermath to the tragic death of the much loved Andalusian, Sevilla president stated, “With the memory of Antonio Puerta, we start playing again with the desire to win the Super Cup and we will dedicate it to him”. With a short video preceding the match showing the highlights of Puerta’s short footballing career, his Sevilla team-mates sporting his name on their shirts and the fans chanting ‘Puerta!’ right until the minute of silence…the whole of the Stade Louis II appearing to be weighed down by emotion and the memory of Puerta.

The match began at a fast pace, with a well worked opening allowing Renato to shoot in the second minute, inevitably wide after scuffing the effort. Immediately at the other end Seedorf played in Inzaghi, who cut in, only for Kaka to take the ball into his stride and fire against the woodwork. 14 minutes in Renato headed in at the far post from a corner taken in from the right, after Jankulovski took no chances from a deep Duda cross. The celebration that followed was a team huddle with all arms pointing to the high heavens. In a game of fair play, Inzaghi soon had to fall with alarming ease in a meager attempt (20’) to win Milan a penalty. The experienced back-line were torn to shreds when an Alves cross was deflected into Kanoute’s path, who evaded Dida and opted to cross to Renato, whose shot was hacked clear by Nesta on the goal line. Duda’s return was high and wide.

Renato was an aerial threat and failed to connect to a free-kick on 28 minutes. Then Seedorf headed over following a Pirlo corner a few minutes later. In 32 minutes Palop gratefully clutched the ball after Inzaghi moved away from his marker and fired in a low drive from the edge of the area. Ambrosini (43’) almost broke the resistance but a dangerous through ball was cut out but the Sevilla defence. While earlier Kanoute chested down and fired wide. Inzaghi went even closer but somehow missed. Finally the Sevilla defence broke, but the linesman’s flag chalked off a predatory finish by the Italian (46’).

Alves was a constant thorn in the Milan side, with driving runs and probing lofted passing he applied himself well by spreading the play with long range passing and also Sevilla’s short passing game and burst a lung to supply support to Sevilla’s pacy counter attacks. His aggressive manner in defensive situations certainly doesn’t bode well for Rosicky or whoever plays on the Arsenal left flank for the opening Champions league match against the Andalusian club.

After a slow second start, Milan started to press more and on 51 minutes a Seedorf cross was cut out, a minute later a Pirlo counter attack ended following a poor cross from the Dutchman. Following this a clever turn and backheel by the deep-lying Italian playmaker released Gattuso, who crossed for Inzaghi to head into an empty net after the Sevilla defence fell asleep, perhaps unprepared for Pirlo’s brilliance (55’). Sevilla almost regained the lead when Kanoute crossed, but Duda was unable to connect (56’). But it was the Milanese that struck, with Jankulovski running in from left-back on a lofted through ball by Pirlo to volley past Palop in an efficient manner (62’).

Milan took control as they showed their experience, with pieces of delightful skill coming from Kaka, who knocked the ball past Alves and ran the opposite side, with the strong dribble ended with a stern Poulsen challenge. In an attempt to press for the equaliser, Juande Ramos brought on Luis Fabiano, a volatile Brazilian on for Julian Escude, who is a centre-back (82’). Sevilla’s hopes ended when the brilliant Brazilian Kaka headed in a rebound after his penalty was saved by Palop (86’). The celebration included pointing to Puerta’s name on his shirt at the Sevilla end of the ground in a touching gesture. In similar fashion Seedorf raised his shirt to the fans, holding up Puerta’s name, when being substituted. Maresca had a late chance to make for a nervy finish but hit the post from point blank range (90’).

In the end the Italians deserved their win, but this night will long be remembered for the tribute of Antonio Puerta. Meanwhile Arsenal should be aware of the quality of the Spanish team, while the occasion may have been overwhelming, the Andalusians acquitted themselves well and well dangerous on many occasions. Rest in Peace: Antonio Puerta.

Goals: Renato (14’), Inzaghi (55’), Jankulovski (62’), Kaka (86’)

Milan: Dida, Kakha Kaladze, Gennaro Gattuso (Emerson 73’ ), Filippo Inzaghi (Alberto Gilardino 88’), Clarence Seedorf (Cristian Brocchi 89’), Alessandro Nesta, Marek Jankulovski, Andrea Pirlo, Kaká, Massimo Ambrosini, Massimo Oddo

Subs Not Used: Zeljko Kalac, Cafu, Giuseppe Favalli, Daniele Bonera

Coach: Carlo Ancelotti

Sevilla: Andrés Palop, Ivica Dragutinovi?, Daniel Alves, Duda (Enzo Maresca 84’), Jesús Navas, Christian Poulsen, Renato, Frédéric Kanouté, Julien Escudé (Luis Fabiano 83’), José Luis Martí (Aleksandr Kerzhakov 65’), Seydou Keita

Subs Not Used: Morgan De Sanctis, Aquivaldo Mosquera, Diego Capel, Tom De Mul,

Coach: Juande Ramos

Referee: Konrad Plautz (AUT)
Assistant referee: Egon Bereuter (AUT), Markus Mayr (AUT)
Fourth official: Fritz Stuchlik (AUT)

Posted on August 31st, 2007 | No Comments »
Filed under: AC Milan, Puerta, Sevilla, match

August 30th…the day before the transfer window shuts. It’s also the day when rather than a flurry of transfer activity occurs, £75 million pounds worth of shares have been ‘sold’ to a Russian Alisher Usmanov (not an oligarch in this case), and the formation of ‘Red and White Holdings’ has occurred, with Iranian Farhad Moshiri also involved. With the media eagerly anticipating a swift takeover, it now appears that there is competition to American Stan Kroenke for the right to own Arsenal football club.

While Arsenal fans should be cautiously accepting the possible return of Dein and his associates, who while they may have a supporting interest in football, have little experience in investing in the sporting world, which possibly only Dein has. Kroenke, on the other hand, who many journalists had tipped to lead a takeover in liaison with Dein, has a wealth of sporting investments, including the ownership of Colorado Rapids, who conduct a marketing partnership with Arsenal.

Yet after such a bid failed, Dein has found a way back into the club in an attempt to provide the necessary financial muscle he believes is necessary to thrive in today’s game, with Premiership clubs appearing to become a common plaything of foreign billionaires. He stresses that there is “no current intention” to invest in further shares for the club, and this move is also unlikely to prompt Kroenke to act, with a lock down agreement, in action until March of next year at the earliest, formed by the board. Neither should F1 chief and Chelsea fan Bernie Ecclestone act, as it is believed he entertained the gesture of bidding for the club in jest.

It was Dein (along with Wenger, who was hired by Dein himself) who took ‘The Gunners’ to the top, the same applies to his career, when he lead the break away to form The Premiership and in 2002 was pivotal in Arsenal joining G14. The Emirates Stadium was more an achievement of other board members such as Keith Edelman, and also Arsene Wenger, with Dein wanting Arsenal to move into the proposed New Wembley (and what a sham construction turned out to be). It is believed any takeover will occur over a lengthy period of time, with majority shareholder Danny Fiszman intending to keep his shares after the proposed ‘lock-down agreement’, as is Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith.

While the other shareholders in the club have done a sterling job, Hill-Wood included, overlooking his ill-timed remarks concerning foreign investment in “We don’t want his sort over here”, tradition and history will be lost if such a change does occur in the upper hierarchy at the club, yet fans should be pleased as long as a English presence is retained at the club, and one that also allows Arsenal to compete on the same level as the other European giants.

On the other hand, the enigmatic Arseblogger claims that Usmanov was in prison during the old Soviet regime, and states that a man with no social responsibility should not be deemed fit to own shares in Arsenal football club. With the Emirates stadium bringing in over £1 million pounds every match day, it makes most sense for the current board to remain. Meanwhile, I’ll leave the pro-Dein propaganda to Myles Palmer and co.

Posted on August 30th, 2007 | No Comments »
Filed under: Arsenal, Premiership, football, money, takeover

Sevilla’s Antonio Puerta’s death was confirmed three days after collapsing in their opening game of the season against Getafe. He was a promising, versatile footballer, with the world at his feet, and was about to become a father. Sevilla had postponed Tuesday’s Champions league qualifier against AEK Athens and the Super Cup match against AC Milan but now it will be played in homage to the late Spanish footballer.

A short film showing the 22-year-old’s career will be played before the game between the Champions League and Uefa Cup winners. Flags in the stadium will be flown at half mast, there will be a minute’s silence and the players will wear black armbands.

I would like to refer you to a piece by Arseblogger, who put how the majority of the footballing world is feeling.

“Finally today I want to take a moment to talk about how sad I felt about the
death of Sevilla’s Antonio Puerta. I, like many of you, was watching the game on
Saturday night when he collapsed so we’ve been with him ever since. Seeing him
wheeled out of the ground and rushed away in an ambulance was sickening,
especially when you could tell by the paramedics that it was serious. There was
hope as many times in cases like this an athlete simply drops and that’s the
end. We saw it some years ago when Marc Vivien Foe died during the Confederations Cup.

But as the days passed the doctors grew more pessimistic and yesterday afternoon Antonio Puerta passed away. For someone like me who plays park football and enjoys a pint and the odd smoke and doesn’t always stick to a healthy diet it’s quite sobering. A young man, less than 6 weeks away from being a father for the first time, is dead.

I’ve been reading the coverage in the Spanish papers and it’s heartbreaking stuff. Julio Baptista spoke of the enormous jolt of pain he felt when he heard. Messages of support and sympathy have flooded in from every Spanish club. Ex-teammate Antoñito declared himself ‘broken’ at the news. I listened to the President of Betis, Manuel Ruiz de Lopera, who has had the worst relationship with Sevilla FC and their President Jose Maria del Nido that you can possibly imagine, speak on the radio about Puerta’s death and the genuine emotion and solidarity for Sevilla, their fans and the family of Antonio Puerta was very moving.

Antonio Puerta will be buried today at 2pm Spanish time. A promising career and a young life cut short well before time. Perhaps, as we bitch and moan about not signing a fat Brazilian or any kind of winger, we might think about this and put it all in perspective.

I have never tried to speak on behalf of any other Arsenal fans, but I think I can do so today when I say to the family and friends of Antonio Puerta, everyone at Sevilla FC and all their fans, that we send our most sincere condolences and sympathy. May he rest in peace. “

My deepest sympathies to Sevilla Fútbol Club and more importantly, the family of Puerta. RIP.

Posted on August 29th, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Filed under: La Liga, Puerta, football

Throughout the history of football, there have been many innovative ideas. Deciding to disallow the use of the conventional backpass to the goalkeeper, putting numbers on shirts, even the intense physical conditioning that a lot of the top level managers use have all contributed to make the sport the spectacle it is today. In the past few years, one of the things in football that has caused the most amount of debate is take-overs by “foreigners”. Whether it’s Thaksin Shinawatra at Manchester City, Malcolm Glazer at Manchester United or Roman Abromovich at Chelsea, most businessmen that have taken over clubs in the recent past have courted controversy at one point or another. In the past, most football clubs were owned by fans of the club itself- no it seems that more and more businessman looking to make a quick buck or for a real time version of popular computer game Football Manager. Now, it seems like ordinary fans will be able to actually have a say in the running of a club. MyFootballClub, a website set up by former football journalist Will Brooks claims that common football fans will finally be able to effect decisions of a club- be it who to sign in the transfer market, selecting which players will feature in the first team or the amount of money put into the youth fund for the coming season.

The site charges a fee of £35 for all those wanting to take part (£7.5 for administration of the MyFootballClub Trust while £27.5 goes into club expenditure) and members get to vote on which club they would like to see taken over. Currently leading the list is League One club Leeds United, with Nottingham Forest and Cambridge United in second and third place respectively. Although the website is keeping the number of people that have signed up a secret so that clubs they were negotiating with would not know the extent of their wealth, 53,051 members had signed up as of July 31st- making the total value of the company worth £1.46 million at the very least. Now that all the facts have been sorted out, this writer will give his view on whether he feels that the idea is a good one or not.

While the idea of “the people” running a football club may be a sound one in principle, a look at nearly any football forum on the Internet will tell you that most of “the people” are lacking a few brain cells. The very fact that a club like Leeds United, a team that was given a fifteen point penalty for financial issues leads the list of clubs to purchase speaks for itself- as do the listings of Arsenal and Manchester United (two clubs that would cost over £1 billion to purchase) at 9th and 11th place respectively shows that voting even in large numbers can sometimes produce futile results. Also, while the MyFootballClub scenario allows your vote to be counted, it is unlikely that a solitary vote in 50,000 people will make a large dent in the decisions you want to affect. There are official fan forums of teams that ask you to contribute ideas as to how the team can be improved and they are often free to join- what difference does MyFootballClub offer you, apart from charging you £35 to voice your opinion?

Although a fee of £35 seems a fairly cheap price to join the service, which as MyFootballClub says is “less than most Premiership tickets” as well as the price of a “football manager computer game”, what benefit does joining the service give you? Whereas football manager computer games can be played for hours on end, and going to a football match allows you to see your favourite team in the flesh, how does joining what is effectively a glorified fan forum create any more ‘fun’ that a free online message board would do? As MyFootballClub have not even selected the team they are going to purchase yet, those fans that have already paid up could be hugely disappointed if their dream to control the decisions of Leeds United turned into a reality of controlling the decisions of non-league side Cambridge United. Since football is a very passionate sport, it is nearly impossible for those that have a true interest in it to generate support for another team. Why then, should fans of the club that MyFootballClub will purchase waste money on a team they were never interested by in the first place?

Even though it must have seemed a good idea when Will Brooks concocted the MyFootballClub scenario, in reality there are just too many problems and too many drawbacks for it to work smoothly. While fans would get to ‘own’ a football club for probably the first time in their lives, there are many ways they could satisfy their passion for the sport, and spending £35 on MyFootballClub is certainly something that will bring them a great deal of satisfaction.

Posted on August 29th, 2007 | 2 Comments »
Filed under: England, Premiership, football, myfootball club, soccer

Every single year, Newcastle fans start the season off with raised expectations of how their team will do. Despite the failures of the year prior, fans dubbed one of the most passionate in England feel that the coming year may be different, before inevitably viewing a year of losing to mediocre teams, a horrible team and a distinct lack of silverware. This year however, it may be different- and here I write to tell you why.

While ex-owner of the club Freddy Shepherd regularly courted both controversy and embarrassment by his outbursts in the press, new owner Mike Ashley has quietly stayed in the background while offering new manager Sam Allardyce funds to spend. Although Newcastle have had a series of bad managers in the past, Allardyce seems a step in the right direction after his strong spell at Bolton Wanderers, leading a club in the bottom half of the England’s second tier to become a respectable mid-table team in the Premier League. The highlight of Allardyce’s time at Bolton has to be taking the club into the UEFA Cup for the first time in the club’s history. Bolton Wanderers were known as a tight defensive unit- something that Newcastle were the complete opposite of.

Immediately after arriving at Newcastle, Allardyce cleared out much of the “dead wood”- players such as Titus Bramble and Oguchi Onyewu. These players had not been up to the task they were supposed to do- defend, and it clearly shown in the goals conceded column of the Premier League table. Some of Newcastle’s transfer dealings during this window have been very astute, and here I will look at the new players that will be playing in black and white for season 2007/08.

Up front, Mark Viduka and Alan Smith have been added to the ranks. These are excellent additions to a striking lineup that already included the likes of Michael Owen and Obafemi Martins, and is surely guaranteed to score goals. Mark Viduka is a proven Premier League player, having scored goals for the likes of Middlesbrough and Leeds United before joining the Geordies. Alan Smith will provide able backup should injuries occur, and has an added bonus of being able to play in central midfield- something that will benefit Newcastle with their well known about injury problems. Although Michael Owen is injured at the moment, Viduka and Martins should form a powerful partnership that Premiership defenses will find hard to cope with.

In midfield, ex-Real Madrid player Geremi and ex-Manchester City hothead Joey Barton join the club. Geremi is a versatile player that can fill in at defense if need be, while Barton will add some passion to a side that looked lifeless at times last season. Coupled with the likes of Emre, Nicky Butt and N’Zogbia, there are quite a few players in that Newcastle midfield that could cause problems for even the best teams in the game.

Lastly, it is defense that needed the most strengthening and this has been done. With Rozenthal, Enrique and Cacapa having already joined the club, Newcastle are also rumoured to be in talks with Leighton Baines and/or Nicky Shorey. The Toon have also done well to keep hold of goalkeeper Shay Given- a player who saves them at least 5-10 points per season. With all these dealings in the transfer market, Newcastle fans will be ecstatic to know that after so many seasons of defensive woe, they finally have a manager that looks at bolstering the defence.

So, why exactly should Newcastle be optimistic about the upcoming season? With a few more additions to the talented squad they already have, there is no reason why they will not be in the reckoning for European places come May 2008. With an attacking line-up almost guaranteed to get goals and a solid midfield, if Allardyce makes the defence anywhere near as strong as Bolton’s defence was, Newcastle will be right up there with Tottenham, Everton and Manchester City battling out for that fifth place slot (and UEFA Cup football). Although I think it is too early for them to qualify for the Champions League, with a couple of successful seasons who knows what could happen. The start they have had thus far will only help increased the sense of optimism- a strong preseason, where they beat the likes of Juventus and Celtic followed up with a thrashing of Bolton and a draw against Aston Villa in the Premiership. While Newcastle will definitely not be in contention for the Premiership title, fans should expect a strong push in the domestic cups- and maybe even some silverware if the club gets a few lucky breaks in the FA and Carling Cup.

Posted on August 25th, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Filed under: Newcastle, Premiership, football, preseason