Ballack demonstrates his class at the crucial moment:
Manchester United fans won’t appreciate it, but for the neutral football fan Chelsea’s 2-1 win at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, which draws them level at the top of the Premiership with United, is exactly what was wanted with two games to go. Had the northerners won it would have been all over bar the shouting as the six point lead plus better goal difference (+18 at the start of the day) would have made any west London comeback needing to be touched by God if they were to lift the trophy at the season’s end.
The architect of the win was German captain Michael Ballack, who scored the two goals and generally controlled the play from midfield in the absence of Frank Lampard. That he was demonstrates the progress made in his almost two seasons at Stamford Bridge since his transfer there in 2006.
Ballack arrived at the Bridge alongside Ukraine captain Andriy Shevchenko follwing the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Both had enjoyed successful tournaments, Ballack leading the host nation to a surprise third place, whilst Shevchenko had helped take Ukraine to the quarterfinals in their first ever World Cup. As such though both arrived on King’s Road desperately short of a proper pre-season and still suffering the aches and pains from their exertions in national team colours.
Worse than that though was that both were portrayed as Roman Abramovich signings, who were forced on then-manager Jose Mourinho against his will. The Portuguese made no secret of the fact that he wanted neither of them in his squad, with Ballack excluded from his 25 players for the 2006-07 Champions League.
Mourinho’s stance was given fuel because both had East European backgrounds. Ballack was born in Gorlitz in the old East Germany and admitted that one of the reason’s why he was moving to England was to improve his English, because having lived his early life behind the iron curtain Russian was his second language of choice. Thus when mischievous rumours went round that there was an Abramovich spy in the dressing room, Ballack and Shevchenko were quickly portrayed as the club owner’s pets.
Of course matters weren’t helped that neither made an explosive start to life in England thanks in no small part to their post-World Cup fatigue. By the end of the first season Ballack had all but been forgotten about, whilst the Shevchenko row appeared to feature a quick return to Milan for the Ukrainian, but he was still at the club when the team reported for pre-season training.
The turning point for Ballack came in September 2007 when the Abramovich-Mourinho spat reached its zenith and led to the ‘special one’ being shown the door in favour of Avram Grant. As well as being far closer to the owner, Grant also lacked the ties that Mourinho had enjoyed with certain players, most notably Lampard, John Terry and Didier Drogba and as such was less likely to look upon them with rose-tinted glasses, as the Portuguese did.
Little by little Ballack has worked his way back into the side and demonstrated to the British public, what should have been recognised when he first joined; that he is a fantastic player. Along with Shevchenko, Ballack suffered from the ‘Owen Hargreaves syndrome’ that is if you haven’t done it in England, then the local media don’t want to know. But having helped Germany to an unexpected second place at the 2002 World Cup and then their third place at home, not to mention being the heartbeat of the Bayer Leverkeusen team that reached the 2002 European Cup final, his quality should not have been in doubt and he would well be within his rights to feel aggrieved by the unfair press he received.
Since the turn of the year he has been in tremendous form for the Pensioners and appears to be back in health and displaying a far more relaxed demeanour. Moreover his East European background that once brought him suspicion is now bringing chants in his honour. As an ossi he was schooled in the days of the sports academy that drilled the youngsters in the need for technique and poise. As such the contrast to Lampard is there for all to see. He is happy to use his weaker left foot, is good in the air (as he showed for his first goal) and has a better level of movement across the midfield.
It has taken time, but finally Ballack’s worth is being felt in west London. Sadly it says a lot about the closed mind of most English football fans that he has had to work so hard to prove to them his undoubted ability. With two weeks to go and a Champions League semifinal second leg on Wednesday, there is now the very real possibility that Ballack will play a major role in whether those Chelsea fans will be celebrating some more come the season’s end.
Chambers presence takes undue prominence:
On a weekend of such importance for both codes of rugby in the UK, it was a pity that it was a reserve team rugby league match between Castleford Tigers and York City Knights that grabbed the headlines, when ordinarily the Super League fixture list and European Cup semifinals would be in the spotlight.
Of course the reason why most of the UK rugby league hacks and 3000 fans rolled up to north Yorkshire was the presence of one Dwain Chambers. Since announcing his decision to yet again defect from athletics, having tried his hand at American Football, there has been an air of anticipation about his taking to the field and finally this Sunday he took his first tentative steps in the 13-man code when he was brought on after 10 minutes.
Sadly there still remains an air of pantomime about the whole thing. When he was unveiled as a Castleford player the press conference was dominated by questions of how his legal bid to overturn the British Olympic Association’s lifetime ban would affect his playing future with Tigers and there still remains a big question about how seriously both parties are taking the whole thing and in this respect Chambers does himself no favours whenever he opens his mouth.
“It’s been a long time coming,” was one of his pre-match statements, though one can only wonder how ‘long time’ his desire to carry on will be if he does overturn the ban, which both he and the club announced they were confident of being successful.
The main aspect that has stuck in the craw since he returned to athletics is his amazing lack of humility. Had he taken his punishment and then got on with his job, few people would have had any complaints. Instead he has behaved like a spoiled brat and acted like athletics, a sport that he has sullied, owes him a living and his antics recently have done little to change that perception.
His career in rugby league has started well, having made one try-saving tackle, but now it might be time for him to find one sport and then stick to it and more importantly keep quiet about what he is doing, until he has something worth shouting about.
JI 28/04/08
domenica 27 aprile 2008
domenica 13 aprile 2008
Notes from a sporting week 14/04/08
Arsenal tears becoming more and more hollow:
It was sad, yet not surprising that it needed Gael Clichy, one of the younger members of the Arsenal team, to look inward and take some responsibility for Arsenal’s inability to overcome Liverpool in the European Cup quarterfinals on Tuesday night.
Manager Arsene Wenger, who is fast becoming more and more like a four year old anytime the Gunners lose, and joint captain Kolo Toure blamed the referee for giving Liverpool a penalty when they had just made the score 2-2 and thus enough to reach the last four, despite it being a thoroughly clear cut foul by Toure on Ryan Babel.
Thus it was enormously refreshing to hear Clichy tell the Evening Standard; "We did well to score the first goal and to come back and get the game to 2-2. And at that point we were through. But what happened after that was really disappointing.
“To concede a goal like this, whether it is a penalty or not a penalty, may be disappointing but it is not unlucky. It is unreal to have had a chance like this, to score the equaliser and get to 2-2 and then to concede a goal only a few seconds after kick off. I can't find the words for it. It is just ridiculous."
In fact if anyone should be taking responsibility for Arsenal’s demise it is Wenger himself and some of his bizarre selections. Now I have said for a while that English football cannot complain about their young players are not given a chance in favour of foreign players, until they have a similar technical ability.
At Anfield there were glaring examples of Wenger’s bias against English players. For 70 minutes we had to watch as Ivory Coast’s Emmanuel Eboue thrashed around on the right of midfield, demonstrating to all watching that he was nothing more than a converted fullback.
Then with 20 minutes to go Wenger brought on Theo Walcott, an attacker who has played mush of his football on the wing and he showed that he has more than enough technical ability allied with pace, when he raced the length of the field and beat five players to set up Emmanuel Adebayor for the goal that looked like it would be taking Arsenal to the last four.
Quite why Wenger had preferred the round peg of fullback Eboue in the square hole of right wing is something of a mystery, especially when central defender Toure was playing fullback and the lumbering centre-half Philip Senderos was responsible for two of Liverpool’s goals.
His treatment of Walcott has been even more baffling. Having shelled out £12 million pounds for the then 16 year-old and not having played him in any senior matches, he recommends his for the 2006 World Cup in Germany and then a year or two on complains that he hasn’t been able to develop as he hoped. For someone so young to have all manner of messages from his manager and yet still come through relatively undamaged does Walcott massive credit.
There is little doubt that Wenger has done a tremendous job of developing young talent throughout his career, at Monaco, in Japan and now at Arsenal. He has also consistently sent out teams who are technically excellent and who produce wonderful football. Sadly he fails to see when his teams let themselves down and all too often blames the referee, as well as displaying phenomenal double standards when it comes to his players’ ill discipline or foul play.
With Walcott and the latest batch of young players to come through Arsenals academy (of which we are promised a bumper crop of domestic talent) it has to be hoped that as well as absorbing the lessons on the pitch, they don’t follow Wenger’s example off it too much.
Brown sending mixed messages:
So Prime Minister Gordon Brown won’t be at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games. Was this a decision he took himself, or did he follow the lead of French President Nicolas Sarkozy in their recent Anglo-French love-in? Of course Brown will be at the closing ceremony, as should be expected from the head of state of the next host city.
It is hard to see what the fuss is all about as frankly the fewer politicians at any sports event the better. Who can forget the monstrosity of an outfit sported by Cherie Blair at the opening of the Athens Olympics or Australian PM’s sour-faced distribution of medals at the end of the 2003 Rugby World Cup.
With the current political climate being anti-Chinese, some have taken Brown’s stance as being a political one. If that was the case, then he should have the decency to say so and stay away from the closing ceremony as well, leaving political duties to London Mayor Ken Livingstone.
In truth though I would imagine that Brown’s decision not to attend the opening ceremony is far more straightforward. Athens is a four hour flight from London and in theory can be travelled to and from in a day. With Beijing an 11-hour flight and one that would induce jetlag, there isn’t the same possibility of travelling there and back twice in a two-week period.
It is also important to remember that four years ago there was an Olympic bid at stake. Tony Blair was the only head of state of any of the five bidding cities at the time and spent much of the opening weekend lobbying delegates alongside Lord Sebastian Coe and Princess Anne. Who is to say that that his presence in Athens wasn’t an important factor in London winning the 2012 Games, as it surely was in Singapore in the last few days before London were awarded the hosting rights.
Will we really miss Brown when the flame gets lit this August? Well of course we won’t. All the attention will be on the athletes, as it should be. Hats off to Sarkozy by standing by his convictions, but should sport really be the one to suffer? After all sporting boycotts have hardly had a massive impact down the years. Did the USA’s boycott of the Moscow 1980 Olympics force the Soviet Union to pull out of Afghanistan? Did the Balkan conflict come to an end when Yugoslavia were slung out of Euro 92, or did Robert Mugabe’s regime fall when cricket teams ran for cover rather than tour Zimbabwe?
We all know the answer to these questions is firmly in the negative, but still politicians go on taking the easier option of sporting boycott, which affects no one but hardworking and under appreciated athletes who will be forced to miss what could be their life’s definition.
JI 14/04/08
It was sad, yet not surprising that it needed Gael Clichy, one of the younger members of the Arsenal team, to look inward and take some responsibility for Arsenal’s inability to overcome Liverpool in the European Cup quarterfinals on Tuesday night.
Manager Arsene Wenger, who is fast becoming more and more like a four year old anytime the Gunners lose, and joint captain Kolo Toure blamed the referee for giving Liverpool a penalty when they had just made the score 2-2 and thus enough to reach the last four, despite it being a thoroughly clear cut foul by Toure on Ryan Babel.
Thus it was enormously refreshing to hear Clichy tell the Evening Standard; "We did well to score the first goal and to come back and get the game to 2-2. And at that point we were through. But what happened after that was really disappointing.
“To concede a goal like this, whether it is a penalty or not a penalty, may be disappointing but it is not unlucky. It is unreal to have had a chance like this, to score the equaliser and get to 2-2 and then to concede a goal only a few seconds after kick off. I can't find the words for it. It is just ridiculous."
In fact if anyone should be taking responsibility for Arsenal’s demise it is Wenger himself and some of his bizarre selections. Now I have said for a while that English football cannot complain about their young players are not given a chance in favour of foreign players, until they have a similar technical ability.
At Anfield there were glaring examples of Wenger’s bias against English players. For 70 minutes we had to watch as Ivory Coast’s Emmanuel Eboue thrashed around on the right of midfield, demonstrating to all watching that he was nothing more than a converted fullback.
Then with 20 minutes to go Wenger brought on Theo Walcott, an attacker who has played mush of his football on the wing and he showed that he has more than enough technical ability allied with pace, when he raced the length of the field and beat five players to set up Emmanuel Adebayor for the goal that looked like it would be taking Arsenal to the last four.
Quite why Wenger had preferred the round peg of fullback Eboue in the square hole of right wing is something of a mystery, especially when central defender Toure was playing fullback and the lumbering centre-half Philip Senderos was responsible for two of Liverpool’s goals.
His treatment of Walcott has been even more baffling. Having shelled out £12 million pounds for the then 16 year-old and not having played him in any senior matches, he recommends his for the 2006 World Cup in Germany and then a year or two on complains that he hasn’t been able to develop as he hoped. For someone so young to have all manner of messages from his manager and yet still come through relatively undamaged does Walcott massive credit.
There is little doubt that Wenger has done a tremendous job of developing young talent throughout his career, at Monaco, in Japan and now at Arsenal. He has also consistently sent out teams who are technically excellent and who produce wonderful football. Sadly he fails to see when his teams let themselves down and all too often blames the referee, as well as displaying phenomenal double standards when it comes to his players’ ill discipline or foul play.
With Walcott and the latest batch of young players to come through Arsenals academy (of which we are promised a bumper crop of domestic talent) it has to be hoped that as well as absorbing the lessons on the pitch, they don’t follow Wenger’s example off it too much.
Brown sending mixed messages:
So Prime Minister Gordon Brown won’t be at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games. Was this a decision he took himself, or did he follow the lead of French President Nicolas Sarkozy in their recent Anglo-French love-in? Of course Brown will be at the closing ceremony, as should be expected from the head of state of the next host city.
It is hard to see what the fuss is all about as frankly the fewer politicians at any sports event the better. Who can forget the monstrosity of an outfit sported by Cherie Blair at the opening of the Athens Olympics or Australian PM’s sour-faced distribution of medals at the end of the 2003 Rugby World Cup.
With the current political climate being anti-Chinese, some have taken Brown’s stance as being a political one. If that was the case, then he should have the decency to say so and stay away from the closing ceremony as well, leaving political duties to London Mayor Ken Livingstone.
In truth though I would imagine that Brown’s decision not to attend the opening ceremony is far more straightforward. Athens is a four hour flight from London and in theory can be travelled to and from in a day. With Beijing an 11-hour flight and one that would induce jetlag, there isn’t the same possibility of travelling there and back twice in a two-week period.
It is also important to remember that four years ago there was an Olympic bid at stake. Tony Blair was the only head of state of any of the five bidding cities at the time and spent much of the opening weekend lobbying delegates alongside Lord Sebastian Coe and Princess Anne. Who is to say that that his presence in Athens wasn’t an important factor in London winning the 2012 Games, as it surely was in Singapore in the last few days before London were awarded the hosting rights.
Will we really miss Brown when the flame gets lit this August? Well of course we won’t. All the attention will be on the athletes, as it should be. Hats off to Sarkozy by standing by his convictions, but should sport really be the one to suffer? After all sporting boycotts have hardly had a massive impact down the years. Did the USA’s boycott of the Moscow 1980 Olympics force the Soviet Union to pull out of Afghanistan? Did the Balkan conflict come to an end when Yugoslavia were slung out of Euro 92, or did Robert Mugabe’s regime fall when cricket teams ran for cover rather than tour Zimbabwe?
We all know the answer to these questions is firmly in the negative, but still politicians go on taking the easier option of sporting boycott, which affects no one but hardworking and under appreciated athletes who will be forced to miss what could be their life’s definition.
JI 14/04/08
lunedì 7 aprile 2008
Notes from a sporting week – 07/04/08
All over for Shoaib?
He was always one of the most charismatic, showbiz players, so it should come as little surprise that Shoaib Akhtar’s career has finished in such a Shakespearean tragedy with a five-year ban for publicly criticising the Pakistan Cricket Board and thus effectively ending the 32 year olds test career.
That he has whinged and blamed others should also come as no shock, with his decision to sue the PCB the last desperate throw of the dice for the Rawalpindi Express, after he claimed he was being made a scapegoat for their series loss to India.
However, that would have meant keeping his ego in check, clearly something he failed to grasp when debating the pros and cons of the gentlemen of the PCB, considering he was sitting on a two-year probation for attacking Mohammad Asif.
Shoaib has been on a slippery slope since the turn of the year having failed to receive a central contract and instead was angered by the offer of a special retainer contract. The Board appear happy to wash their hands of their highest profile player, yet one who caused his fair share of headaches and whom they felt his worth no longer outweighed the disruption to the team.
Twice in his career he has been dropped after allegations of throwing and was once banned for a breach of code on tour and ball tampering. He received a two-year ban after failing a test for nandrolone, but then won the appeal.
His attack on Asif came in the build up to last year’s ICC World Twenty 20 in South Africa and left him facing a ban of 13 international matches, a $52,000 fine and a two-year probation after it took his disciplinary breaches to a grand total of five.
There has been no doubt that Shoaib has been one of the recent stars of world cricket. He was certainly in the category of bowler who emptied the bars (when playing overseas) and bringing a sense of excitement to supporters. He took 178 wickets in 46 tests and 219 in 138 one-day internationals.
Nonetheless his career has gone hand in hand with his ego. He happily took on the mantle of team playboy following the retirement of Imran Khan and he was often seen leaving nightclubs at various times of the night, something that was bound to cause consternation in a team such as Pakistan, which has grown more austere in its devotion to Islam in recent years.
Then there were the stories of his sorties into county cricket, where by the time he returned to Pakistan at the end of the summer the club would be left with a mountain of unpaid parking tickets and a long list of angry locals who had been cut up by the 4x4 he had been provided by the club.
Certainly there is something quite poetic about this ending to his career and one, in theory, that you could imagine Shoaib enjoying. After all he was hardly the kind to retire to tea with the various committeemen. What it does do though is leave the crowd baying for more, and for someone like Shoaib, that will mean that the people will forever be in his camp, therefore extending his legend for years to come.
Deng golden off the court as well as on:
He’s been at a while now, but finally Luol Deng’s persistence has appeared to have paid off. The new star of British basketball has done a number on his Chicago Bulls teammate Ben Gordon and persuaded him to give up on the USA call up and indicate he is ready to throw his lot in with the British cause as they build to a competitive level for the London 2012 Olympic Games.
It is no done deal, but it appears that there is light at the end of the tunnel after Gordon agreed to meet with British basketball officials in the windy city within the next fortnight. Previously he has held onto the dream of representing the USA, which he did in 2003, but as he was born in the UK he remains eligible for GB.
The London-born guard, who was third pick in the 2004 draft, was named in coach Chris Finch’s training squad in August ahead of the teams attempt to make it through to the 2009 European Championships in Poland. Gordon, alongside Deng, is the highest profile player in the 33-man squad that includes a number of players from European clubs and US universities.
To show exactly what it is that GB stand to gain Gordon scored 24 points, including five free throws against last year’s NBA runner-up Cleveland Cavaliers and their superstar LeBron James, three days after his inclusion in the British squad was made public.
Should Gordon take Finch up on his offer, it may not guarantee GB any success in 2012, they’d be doing well to qualify for the Europeans next year let alone win an Olympic medal in London, but hopefully it will be a spring board for a better showing in future tournaments, which with all the hype around 2012 we’d do well to remember will take place once the Olympics leave London.
JI 07/04/08
He was always one of the most charismatic, showbiz players, so it should come as little surprise that Shoaib Akhtar’s career has finished in such a Shakespearean tragedy with a five-year ban for publicly criticising the Pakistan Cricket Board and thus effectively ending the 32 year olds test career.
That he has whinged and blamed others should also come as no shock, with his decision to sue the PCB the last desperate throw of the dice for the Rawalpindi Express, after he claimed he was being made a scapegoat for their series loss to India.
However, that would have meant keeping his ego in check, clearly something he failed to grasp when debating the pros and cons of the gentlemen of the PCB, considering he was sitting on a two-year probation for attacking Mohammad Asif.
Shoaib has been on a slippery slope since the turn of the year having failed to receive a central contract and instead was angered by the offer of a special retainer contract. The Board appear happy to wash their hands of their highest profile player, yet one who caused his fair share of headaches and whom they felt his worth no longer outweighed the disruption to the team.
Twice in his career he has been dropped after allegations of throwing and was once banned for a breach of code on tour and ball tampering. He received a two-year ban after failing a test for nandrolone, but then won the appeal.
His attack on Asif came in the build up to last year’s ICC World Twenty 20 in South Africa and left him facing a ban of 13 international matches, a $52,000 fine and a two-year probation after it took his disciplinary breaches to a grand total of five.
There has been no doubt that Shoaib has been one of the recent stars of world cricket. He was certainly in the category of bowler who emptied the bars (when playing overseas) and bringing a sense of excitement to supporters. He took 178 wickets in 46 tests and 219 in 138 one-day internationals.
Nonetheless his career has gone hand in hand with his ego. He happily took on the mantle of team playboy following the retirement of Imran Khan and he was often seen leaving nightclubs at various times of the night, something that was bound to cause consternation in a team such as Pakistan, which has grown more austere in its devotion to Islam in recent years.
Then there were the stories of his sorties into county cricket, where by the time he returned to Pakistan at the end of the summer the club would be left with a mountain of unpaid parking tickets and a long list of angry locals who had been cut up by the 4x4 he had been provided by the club.
Certainly there is something quite poetic about this ending to his career and one, in theory, that you could imagine Shoaib enjoying. After all he was hardly the kind to retire to tea with the various committeemen. What it does do though is leave the crowd baying for more, and for someone like Shoaib, that will mean that the people will forever be in his camp, therefore extending his legend for years to come.
Deng golden off the court as well as on:
He’s been at a while now, but finally Luol Deng’s persistence has appeared to have paid off. The new star of British basketball has done a number on his Chicago Bulls teammate Ben Gordon and persuaded him to give up on the USA call up and indicate he is ready to throw his lot in with the British cause as they build to a competitive level for the London 2012 Olympic Games.
It is no done deal, but it appears that there is light at the end of the tunnel after Gordon agreed to meet with British basketball officials in the windy city within the next fortnight. Previously he has held onto the dream of representing the USA, which he did in 2003, but as he was born in the UK he remains eligible for GB.
The London-born guard, who was third pick in the 2004 draft, was named in coach Chris Finch’s training squad in August ahead of the teams attempt to make it through to the 2009 European Championships in Poland. Gordon, alongside Deng, is the highest profile player in the 33-man squad that includes a number of players from European clubs and US universities.
To show exactly what it is that GB stand to gain Gordon scored 24 points, including five free throws against last year’s NBA runner-up Cleveland Cavaliers and their superstar LeBron James, three days after his inclusion in the British squad was made public.
Should Gordon take Finch up on his offer, it may not guarantee GB any success in 2012, they’d be doing well to qualify for the Europeans next year let alone win an Olympic medal in London, but hopefully it will be a spring board for a better showing in future tournaments, which with all the hype around 2012 we’d do well to remember will take place once the Olympics leave London.
JI 07/04/08
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