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