? Hit F5 for the latest or select our auto-refresh button below
? Check out this weekend's international and FA Cup fixtures
? And email your thoughts to tom.lutz@guardian.co.uk
Jackie McNamara, definitely in the top four funniest Partick Thistle managers of all time, has penned a sitcom about ... football. Unless this is some kind of trap that's been set to show how little research journalists do in to the stories they're sent. It features footballers confessing their secrets into a Big Brother style diary room. Sounds good but it's not exactly My Family, is it?
As I type, two heavies are stood over me, cracking their knuckles, preparing to evict me from the blog. The Rt. Hon Tom L Lutz will take over. Bye!
Hello, Rob Smyth here. I'm covering for a minute while Paul Doyle acquaints himself with some lunchtime solids. Nothing much is happening, although Fabio Capello has said that Jay Tee will lead England against Sweden on Tuesday. "He is the team leader," said Capello. "He will play against Sweden but tomorrow he will be on the bench. We have six substitutions and I will decide on them during the game. For me, he is innocent until proven guilty, absolutely. I respect every decision but I cannot speak about this."
Andr� Villas-Boas has been charged with improper conduct over comments made about the referee Chris Foy after Chelsea's 1-0 defeat at QPR last month. Read more here. And recall that waht Villas-Boas said afrer that game was:
The ref was poor, very, very poor. And it reflected in the result. I spoke to him at the end and I was very aggressive to him. I don't care if he's OK or not. Everyone can have a bad day, but this was not a bad day for us. It was a good day for us and a bad day for the referee. A couple of decisions are right, yellow cards for sure, but I think he lost it before and was card happy towards the team. I'm not happy with the difference of treatment. I don't think the same treatment was applied.
Nick Harries wants you to pop off to his blog for a mo to read about the first Spanish player in England, "who was a refugee from the Spanish Civil War who played on the wing for Coventry - and later won titles with Barcelona and a cap for Spain."
Frank Lampard has been appointed England captain for tomorrow's defeat.
I've just been on to the good people of Opta to check out Shay Given's penalty-saving record in the Premier League. He has saved 4 of the last 23 he has faced, which is actually better than I'd thought, but still not a patch on the recent form of Tim Howard and Thomas Sorenson (who have both saved four of their last seven). But perhaps, seen as how England and Spain don't want him, Ireland could consider finding a way to call up manuel Almunia - at least if they ever have to play at the Emirates, where Almunia has faced six penalties over the years and saved five of them.
There's a nice piece from our From the Vault series here about the time Estonia refused to turn up for a match against Scotland ... and it includes Frak Keating reminiscing about other matches that never quite took place, including this:
It was 21 seasons ago that a Glasgow referee, a Mr Tarbet, poked his head into the changing-hut to warn Glencraig United of his hopes for a sporting encounter in their crunch match against Goldenhill Boys' Club, only to receive such collective verbal abuse that he red-carded the whole team and both subs on the spot. Goldenhill kicked off against no one and took the winning points to the pub.
There's a fine comment below the line by TheSaintedSinner. Worth reading in its entirety and his comment about Sligo Rovers goalkeeper Ciaran Kelly is interesting and one that I hadn't considered:
The only complaint I have with Trap is that Sligo Rovers' Ciaran Kelly was not called up in case it goes to penalties. He has some record in saving them at Landsdowne - 6 out of 7 in shootouts in the last two FAI cup finals.
In the second of those finals Kelly was only introduced in the last minutes of extra-time, specifically for his penalty-saving prowess. Bearing in mind that many people still regret that Bobby Robson didn't replace Peter Shilton with Dave Beasant in the 119th-minute of the 1990 World Cup semi-final, and that Shay Given is no penalty specialist, should Trap have called up Kelly?
Charles Southern wants to kickoff a campaign. "I would be happy to donate towards research into why England fans hate England," he bugles via email. "I'll pitch in with ... a fiver?" Great, you can send it to me c/o Guardian Towers.
Bad news for Paris Saint-Germain manager Antoine Kombourar� and London restaurants: the word on la rue is that Carlo Ancelotti is about to leave London to take up residence in France, where, according to reports, he has spent the last two days discussing taking charge of Paris Saint-Germain, who may be three points clear at the top of Ligue 1 but have not been performing with the panache that their billionaire backers demand. As Ancelotti knows, billionaire backers are not particularly patient.
It's all over in Tajikistan, where the hosts failed to mount a late comeback and eventually went down 4-0 to Japan. So the Asian champions are on the cusp of qualification for the next stage of their campaign to reach Brazil 2014. Othjer qualifeirs kicking off this afternnon include Djibouti-Namibia and Eritrea-Rwanda. I'll be putting (a very small amount of) my money on two away wins.
Interesting debate below the line about English arrogance or lack thereof. I think arrogance is not the right word. When English teams go to tournaments the players (and possibly some fans and journalists) tend to suffer from (in addition to other things) a very curious mixture of hubris and self-doubt. This mental confusion/weakness manifests itself not in capitulations but in a certain thoughtlessness under pressure.
Gabriel Agbonlahor's chance to show that he can be better for England than Wayne Rooeny have been bashed by the hamstring injury that he suffered in training this morning. He'll miss the game against Spain.
If something good gets posted on YouTube, James Dart's spidey sense immediately alerts him to it and he ensures as many people as possible get to enjoy. So he's just sent me this link to Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak scoring a hat-trick this week against the UAE All-Stars (helped by some highly generous defending).
For no particualr reason I find myself thinking of the time in 1995 when, while in Gambia, I went along to a match between Banjul Hawks and Armed Forces. It was not after Yaya Jammeh had seized power of the country via a military coup - and the main thing I remember about the game was that tackles by the Armed Forces became more and more ferocious as they realised that the referee seemed very reluctant to send any soldiers off ...
Ryan Dunne has emailed to explain when it is right and proper for Scots to not support Scotland. "Surely the usual reason for abstaining from supporting one's country (football-wise) is to hope that a crushing defeat will see the manager getting the boot? As such, it was perhaps justifiable to not root as hard as usual for Scotland in Burley's wasteland days, whereas Levein surely is about the best candidate available now. Although personally I still think that Barry Ferguson as a Souness-style player-manager would have been an interesting experiment."
GOAL! Crikey, Shinji Okazaki has only gone and put Japan 2-0 up in Tajikistan. Yes, really! Come on, don't tell me you're not getting a touch of international footbvall fever.
Below the line, InLikeFlynn says this:
Mentally and Physically England are more in tune with the Germans than probably any other nation. Lets accept our limitations and become a less technically gifted counter attacking team rather than a really poor possesion team who aren't very good at keeping possesion.
In my opinion this is true (at the moment) and it was the premise from which the most successful England manager in a generation, Sven-Goran Eriksson started from and also why David Beckham, the supreme delvierer of a long pass and set-piece, was so valued by England managers.
There's plenty of international football beyond Europe this weekend, of course. In fact, Japan are playing Tajikstan in 2014 World Cup qualifer at this very moment are are curently 1-0 up thanks to a 36th-minute goal by Yasuyuki Konno. Elswhere, Togo take on Guinea Bissau tonight in the first leg of a two-legged preliminary qualifer for the same tournament - Togo will be managed by the former France international (and Aston Villa flop) Didier Six, who has not managed anyone for 25 years. Maybe he'll turn out to be a tremendous succcess but rreally Togo, is that the bst you could find?
Some interesting comments below the line. Llamalpaca seems to be suggesting that it's only worth watching your country id they have a realistic chance of beating the major powers, which means that few folks outside Spain, Germany, Holland, France, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina should ever bother tuning in. Pull yourself together man! What if the Greeks had thought like that in 2004?
Meanwhile, exiledcelery seems to think that it is the qualify of a team's administrators that determines whether the team should be watched. Although (s)he suggests that should only apply to countries and not clubs.
If you haven't read Rob Smyth's spelndid Joy of Six on great first touches yet, then go do so now. Um, but come back here afterwards. Please.
Scotland are in action too this weekend (any Scots want them to get trounced by Cyprus?) and manager Craig Levein named his team this morning. QPR's Jamie Mackie will make his first start while Kenny Miller returns up front after missing the last three games. The full team is:
McGregor; Whittaker, Berra, Bardsley, G Caldwell; Mackie, Cowie, Fletcher, Morrison, Robson; Miller.
Hello and welcome to the Friday Football Blog on this the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year of the eleventh century. What? Gah, the symmetry's ruined! What will our numerologist friends say about that? Nothing, most likely, because they, like us, will be to busy previewing and pontificating about an intriguing weekend of football action. There are many questions that will be answered over the next few days, including:
1) How good are Estonia? Good enough to inflict more play-off pain on the Republic of Ireland? Is it good or bad for the Irish that Robbie Keane is fit again?
2) Isn't it quirky that Cristiano Ronaldo has averaged almost a goal a game for his club over the last 100 matches but may miss out on Euro 2012 because his country don't score enough goals (and because they made a farcical start to their qualification campaign before Carlos Queiroz was finally shunrted aside and Paolo Bento took over)? Will Eden Dezko show them how it's done?
3) Were Montenegro mad to replace sack manager Zlatko Krancjar with just two games left in their group? And was Branko Boskovic the right man to replace hi him? And will Montenegro be foiled, Scotland-style, by a Czech dive?
4) Which Turkey will turn up against Croatia?
5) By how much will Spain beat England? And how many Englishmen actually want Spain to demolish Fabio Capello's team? It is striking how unpopular the England national team is amongst their countrymen (or at least a lot of the ones I meet). If you are an English person who wants England to lose, can you explain the reason? Is it because you find most of the players contemptible? Is it because some of the media bluster that accompanies them disgusts and depresses you? Is it because you live in a post-national world and consider international football an insidious anachronism? Is it because the club game is king? Or is it something else?
6) How many folks from other countries want the team representing their homeland to be humiliated? Are there any Welsh folks hoping Gary Speed's team cop a mauling against Norway? Any American readers want team USA to to be (freedom) fried by the French? And so on.
7) Who among you is going to an FA Cup match this weekend? Me,. I'll be sticking "East Thurrock" into my satnav and seeing where the hell it takes me, possibly to a shock victory over Macclesfield, I'm told. Word is that Stourbridge could also spring a win over Plymouth and Barrow have the beating of Rotheram.
8) Were you the driver of the big green truck that nearly ran me off the M25 in the early hours of this morning? If so, I hope you got home to find your dinner in tears and your dog eaten.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/nov/11/football-live-blog-11-november
No comments:
Post a Comment