No Excuse for Attack of Manchester United Team Bus

Shortly after Manchester United's 1-1 draw at Chelsea yesterday, their team bus was attacked by an as-of-yet unknown assailant, who cracked the bus' front windshield (as pictured here) with a thrown bottle. No one was hurt, and United continued their short trip across London to the train station and following trip back to Manchester.

Let's be clear here. I'm not exactly going out on a limb when I say that it seems obvious that a Chelsea fan, or fans, was responsible for this. There would be no real motivation for anyone else in this instance to hurl something at a moving vehicle belonging to Manchester United. Yes, there's a possibility that it was just a random act, but come on, let's be serious.

There is a rivalry between United and Chelsea, of that there is no doubt. United have won the last two Premiership titles after Chelsea had won two in row before that. United beat Chelsea in a shootout in last year's Champions League final. They battle for big-name signings all the time, including the much-debated controversy regarding John Obi Mikel, who eventually went to Chelsea, in 2005. Rio Ferdinand, hardly a model citizen, and Patrice Evra got involved in heated exchanges with Chelsea personnel the last time United visited Stamford Bridge.

These two teams don't like each other. Their respective fans really don't like each other. I get it, believe me. With that said, however, there is no excuse for what happened yesterday. None. There can be no justification for it.

What many fans in England, and more so in other places, to be fair, fail to realize, or at least don't want to embrace, is that soccer is just a game. That's all it is. It isn't life and death. No matter what happens in one particular game, the world will go on. Life doesn't stop for soccer. It's a game. It doesn't need to be taken as seriously as it is. There are more important, pressing things going on in the world, in this country, in your city that merit your attention.

If people worked as hard in their daily lives as they care about "their club", this world would be a better place and those people would be better off. They have a bad habit of living vicariously through a team that plays once a week and vastly overpays their players and overcharges their fans to watch those same players. They don't realize that for the most part, the club doesn't care about the fans half as much as the fans care about the club.

I love soccer and the Premiership very much. It's entertaining stuff, and there's so many stories and so much quality to talk about every week. But that's all it is to me, and that's all it should be. It hasn't yet and will never cross the invisible line to where it becomes life and my sole drive. I don't count the days until the next time a game is played. I don't get through the week only looking forward to the weekend when my team plays. That's not how it should work.

Whoever is responsible for yesterday's event needs to get over him/herself in a hurry. There's more to life than soccer.

Mike Ashley is a Moron

You're an owner of a Premiership team, one that's well-known all across Europe and is one of the best-supported in England. You've just gotten rid of your manager, one who you brought back just a few months ago to rescue the club from perennial mediocrity and is a hero to the fans. Those fans are threatening to boycott home games in response to the way you forced that manager out the door. Your team itself has little-to-no top young talent (the recent sale of James Milner to Aston Villa made sure of that) and has no real shot at a place in the top half of the table.

What do you do?

You go to New York City for Fashion Week and spend "$200,000 in (a) club and (order) well over 200 bottles of champagne including Cristal and Dom Perignon - buying a bottle for every patron in the club", according to an insider for the New York Post. Those patrons weren't even anyone of note; it was a bunch of D and F-list Hollywood-types, with the possible exception of Deion Sanders. This is just a week and a half or so after you were caught drinking a pint of beer in under 15 seconds in the stands by TV cameras, drawing "words of advice" from Scotland Yard.

Let me get this straight. Instead of caring more about your team and running it properly by actually bringing people who have knowledge about the game on board, Mike Ashley chooses to fly across the Atlantic and get drunk in a club with a group of nobodies. Instead of spending some money to bring some quality players to the team, Ashley sits on his reported $2.8 billion dollar fortune and do nothing with it. Why should he, really? He only spent $270 million to buy the club. No big deal or anything. I have that kind of money in my back pocket. Besides, Newcastle has scored 2 goals in 3 league games this season. They're a juggernaut that can't be stopped.

If I was a Newcastle fan, I'd simply refuse to attend another home game until this guy sold the club. A stand has to be made here to get this moron out of Newcastle. He is an absolute joke. He is incompetent and shouldn't own a hardware store, much less a Premiership team. He clearly has no interest in turning Newcastle into a contender anytime soon, which was his stated goal.

What a fool.

Joseph Yobo's Brother Kidnapped in Nigeria

Anyone who follows the Premiership or any other top domestic league in Europe, especially Ligue 1 in France, knows the talent level and importance of African players. They're coming to Europe in greater numbers than ever before and are making huge impacts with their clubs. I could name an all-African XI right now that I'd be willing to take over any other collection of players in the world for one game.

For all of the positives associated with African players, however, there are far too many downsides and the real shame of it is that these negatives have nothing to do with soccer, at least not on the field itself.

I highlighted Watford midfielder Al Bangura and his quest to remain in the UK when a permanent work permit question was raised last winter. He was, for all intents and purposes, smuggled out of Africa and into France by a man who wanted to make Bangura a male prostitute. Bangura was literally in danger of losing his life if he had been forced to return to his native Sierra Leone because of his personal background, with his father having been a member of the Poro Secret Society. Fortunately, things worked out for the best and he was allowed to stay in England, but he would've been in a grave situation had that not been the case.

Bangura's case is just one of the many that successful players from his continent deal with. Conditions in Africa are so poor in so many countries and we hear and read far too often about players' family members being held for a considerable ransom or even killed, in some instances. Players are extorted for money through gunmen or semi-militant organizations who threaten violence or some other form of intimidation on the families.

Corruption is prevalent throughout Africa and it's seemingly a never-ending cycle: money is being spent to set up modern infrastructure in cities and to provide things like better health care and even life's basic necessities like food and water, but that money is winding up in the wrong hands and nothing is ever improved. Because of this, countries and charitable organizations are hesitant to spend more money to help Africa, which further limits progress, and even when they do spend it, once again, it's not going where it should. Africa has plenty of natural resources -- oil being chief among them -- but instead of being used to better the conditions of vast impoverished regions, profits are going directly into the control of already-rich individuals who wield power and influence.

There is very little stability, either political or economical, in Africa. Civil wars are currently raging in several countries, including Chad, Sudan, and Somalia, and countless others have ended only within the past 10-15 years.

Joseph Yobo was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria and is one of Everton's two starting center backs. He is the vice-captain of his club and of the Nigerian national team, for which he's appeared 59 times, including in the 2002 World Cup and the 2008 African Cup of Nations, since making his debut in 2001. His older brother, Albert Yobo, has also represented his country. There's a youth soccer tournament named after Albert, who assists Joseph in the running of the Joseph Yobo Charity Foundation, which helps under-privleged kids in Nigeria and has handed out well over 300 scholarships for kids anywhere between elementary and university level. Joseph has also started a soccer academy in southeast Nigeria and runs camps in Lagos.

Suffice it to say that Joseph and his family have a fairly high profile in Nigeria, to say the least. It should come as no surprise, then, when you read that Joseph and Albert's younger brother, Norum Yobo, was kidnapped at gunpoint along with two others early this morning as they were returning from a party. The other two, Ifeanyi Nwa and Barry C Lakara, have already been released, but Yobo has not (surprise, surprise). So far, no one has claimed responsbility and no ransom demands have been made.

This is exactly the problem facing soccer players in Africa. It's a catch-22 situation: they desperately want to escape and make it in Europe or elsewhere, and earn a living they'd never be able to achieve if they stay in Africa. Soccer is their key to a good life, but if they have too much success, they and their families can be exploited simply as a bi-product of their talents and abilities. There's really no way for these players to win. They can't stay in Africa because conditions there are so poor and their potential goes unrealized, but it's hard for them to go abroad because they're leaving their families and potentially putting them in danger in the process.

According to the Yahoo! article in which I found this story, kidnappings in common in the West African nation, particularly in the oil-rich Niger River delta region where this incident also took place, but most of them end peacefully after the ransom payment. However, deaths and injuries have occurred when security forces confront the kidnappers.

Obviously we all hope that Norum Yobo is returned alive and well by whomever seized him out of the car, and that the person or persons responsible are dealt with appropriately.

Manchester City Wins FA Youth Cup

We talk a lot about the senior version of the world's oldest domestic tournament, but the FA Youth Cup goes largely unnoticed in the media and I don't think that's a good thing.

More and more, the big teams in England are importing their players from overseas or buying already established or up-and-coming stars from smaller clubs within Britain. There is less of a focus placed on youth academies and developing homegrown players. To them, it's a question of why waste time and money to run a successful youth system, where not of all the kids pan out to become good players, when you could spend those same resources to bring in already proven commodities?

Even when those teams do have quality young players, the majority of them were snatched away from their hometown clubs anyway, and those smaller teams have little choice but to take the transfer fee and use it to cover operating costs and pay salaries.

Example? 16-year old striker Luke Freeman joined now-League One side Gillingham when he was 11. Freeman was born in Dartford, in the northwest corner of Kent, where Gillingham is located. He became their youngest first team player ever, and the youngest player in FA Cup history, when he came on as a sub in an FA Cup game at 15. After spending a little over four years with his hometown team, Freeman was sold to Arsenal in January of this year for about $400,000, still at just 15 years of age. He had broken through to the first team at Gillingham, but now is stuck in the Arsenal academy and could very well likely never play a senior game for the Gunners. As a League One team, $400,000 for Gillingham is a big deal, and they had little choice but to sell the kid off.

The same general thing applies to Theo Walcott, who moved from Southampton to Arsenal as a 16-year old for a possible $24 million, with $10 million of that guaranteed up front. Walcott has struggled to maintain a place in the Arsenal first team, and it looks like he'll have to move to further his career as a player. What choice did Southampton have but to take that money? As a lower-league team, anything in the millions range for a player is like manna from heaven.

The same general thing also applies to a guy like Scott Sinclair, who was born in Bath, 13 miles southeast of Bristol. Sinclair joined Bristol Rovers at the age of 9 and made his first team debut at 15 in the 2004-2005 season. He only made two senior appearances with the club before Chelsea controversially gobbled him up in July 2005 for $400,000 guaranteed, with an additional $1.5 million in possible clauses based on goals and appearances still to come, and has only played in four Premiership games for the Blues since. He's been loaned out to four different lower-league clubs since moving to Stamford Bridge, and will probably never be a regular first-teamer in West London, at least not for Chelsea. Why did Bristol Rovers sell him? They had to; money talked.

In the media, all we hear about are those big teams, so no one really pays attention to clubs like Middlesbrough, who is known for producing good young players, and Aston Villa, and Manchester City, who I'll get to in a bit, and West Ham, who is starting to come on again after producing outstanding talent in the early years of this decade. The job that these smaller Premiership clubs have done to remain competitive in the league while still putting an emphasis on developing homegrown players is fantastic.

Anyway....The FA Youth Cup has been around since the 1952-1953 season, when it was known as the FA Youth Challenge Cup. Manchester United has won it nine times, the most of any English club, but only twice in the last 14 years. Crosstown rivals Manchester City won it yesterday after beating Chelsea 3-1 in the second leg and 4-2 on aggregate. City's academy graduates in recent years include outstanding young players like Nedum Onouha, Stephen Ireland, Daniel Sturridge, Michael Johnson, and best of all, Micah Richards.

It's good to see a premium placed on developing youngsters from an early age and sticking with them. I've read Steven Gerrard's autobiography and in it, he talks a lot about the appreciation he has, as a homegrown player, for his youth coaches like Dave Shannon, Steve Heighway, and Hughie McAuley, guys who do a lot of great work that flies under the radar because it isn't with the senior team. The book provides a lot of insight into the life of a young kid in the system and is a fascinating read. Gerrard, Michael Owen, and Jamie Carragher are all graduates of Melwood, and now Kirkby, and look at what those three players have accomplished in their careers.

As I said, it was great to hear that City won yesterday because it gives validation to the philosophy of youth development more so than it would have if Chelsea would've won. It’s a system seen in professional baseball here in the US and has worked wonders over the years for major league teams that just don’t have the money to buy the best available talent, so they develop it over time through their minor league affiliates. Not everyone can be the Yankees or the Red Sox; not everyone can be Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, and Liverpool. Some teams have to rely on homegrown players and when they're successful, you have to give them a round of applause and appreciate their patience and mindset.

Wigan Should Consider a Synthetic Turf Field

Watching today's game at the JJB Stadium between hosts Wigan and Arsenal, one thing was made patently obvious: That field is a disaster and shouldn't be used for Premiership games. It has gotten worse and worse as the season has gone on and it's gotten to the point where it just seems unplayable; the surface is an embarrassment to a league that is one of the top three of its kind in the world.

The field is as hard as a rock on sunny days and a mudpit on rainy days. There are vast stretches without grass. There are clearly visible remains of rugby lines from games played by rugby Super League's Wigan Warriors, who share the JJB with Wigan Athletic.

My high school soccer field was in much better shape than what I'm seeing today and have seen for large portions of the season. I've seen better elementary schoolyard fields than that as well.

What's the solution? Something many purists of the game don't want to hear and likely will criticize me for even suggesting it.

Synthetic turf.

You know what, I don't care if it isn't commonly used on soccer fields in Europe. That doesn't matter. I don't care if it isn't part of the sport's tradition; the only reason synthetic turf wasn't used back in the old days was because it hadn't been invented yet. If it had been, it would've been installed and there would be none of this debate about tradition and sentiment.

The Premier League and its member clubs have a responsibility to provide the best and most safest possible fields with the surfaces most condusive to the game. You can argue and cite studies that indicate that natural grass is safer than synthetic turf and if all things were equal, I'd agree with you. I'd rather play on grass than turf also.

But when the conditions lead to such slop like we've seen for a majority of the season at the JJB, synthetic turf simply has to be considered. It would be safer than what we're seeing now and it would allow the players to contest a game with as close to a perfect surface as possible. As I said earlier, this is one of the top, if not THE top, leagues in the world. It's inexcusable to see balls skipping around all over the place and players not being able to gain any firm footing, especially when the technology to prevent those things is out there.

UEFA announced in 2005-2006 that approved artificial surfaces were permittable in their competitions. Stadion Salzburg Wals-Siezenheim in Salzburg, Austria has an approved synthetic turf field and will have matches played on it in Euro 2008 this summer. Heracles, a Dutch Eredivisie side, has a synthetic surface in their stadium, which, like the JJB, is a multi-use ground.

The field in today's game was a joke. A joke. There are alternatives, namely in the form of synthetic turf, that just have to be considered. Soccer purists, I don't want to hear you. It's not about tradition, which I respect, it's about getting it right and providing the best possible surface for these players to compete on.

Attractive Style Shouldn't Matter So Much in Soccer

Fabio Capello, as manager of Real Madrid in the 2006-2007 season, won La Liga, which was Madrid's first domestic league title in four years. One month later, he was fired. Why? Fans and club executives didn't like his defensive-minded style.

Felix Magath, as mananger of Bayern Munich from 2004-2005 until the middle of the '06-'07 season, won two Bundesliga titles, two German Cups, one German League Cup, and reached the Champions League Round of 16 (eliminated by AC Milan) and the Quarterfinals (eliminated by Chelsea). When he was fired, Munich was 10-4-5 in the league and had won Group B in the Champions League. Why was he fired? No one liked his management style, which placed a premium on discipline and hard work.

It brings up the question that I've really never heard talked about at any length.

Why does creativity matter so much?

The last time I checked, the object in a game of soccer, and this holds true in any sport, is to win. That's the bottom line. Win.

To me, it's not about how you do it, it's about doing it. You can play the most technically sound, beautiful style you want. If you don't win, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, people remember the team that came out on top, not the team that played the most attractive game. If that team is one and the same, then that makes it even better, but playing "joga bonito" shouldn't be the be-all and end-all.

José Mourinho has been the most successful European manager this decade in my opinion, having won four league titles, a Champions League, a UEFA Cup, two Carling Cups, an FA Cup, a Portuguese Cup, and a Portuguese SuperCup. Did his teams play an aesthetically-pleasing style? Hardly. Some of Mourinho's best players have been guys who did the grunt work and received few accolades and little recognition from mainstream media for it, like Claude Makélélé.

Fabio Capello has won five Scudettos, two La Liga titles, a Champions League, a European Super Cup, four Italian Super Cups, and been to two other Champions League finals. He uses the 4-2-3-1 formation, which employs two holding midfielders and a lone striker. Definitely not what I would call creative, but it gets the job done.

One of Capello's former clubs, AC Milan, uses three defensive midfielders in Andrea Pirlo, Gennaro Gattuso, and Massimo Ambrosini. What has that done for AC Milan? Just helped them win a Champions League last season and go to a final in 2004-2005.

The point is this: There are many ways to go about winning games, but it's wrong to value how you win over actually winning. It's not about looking good while doing so, it's not about pleasing the fans or club executives, it's about doing the job you're supposed to do, and that is win games and trophies. You can't ask for more than that because there is nothing more; it's unfair to put stipulations on being victorious. Playing the most attractive style doesn't always work and in fact, I'd argue that it works less often than playing a more defensive-minded formation.

Either way, the bottom line is winning, and doing whatever it takes to do so. You can't please everyone with how you do it; some people want to be entertained when they watch a game, some don't. You caan, however, please everyone by doing it.

Jérémie Aliadière’s Ban is Ridiculous

Middlesbrough’s Jérémie Aliadière, the man with the last name that takes me 73 tries to pronounce correctly, had his red card appeal denied today on the grounds of its “frivolous” nature and his ban increased from three to four games.

This is one of the biggest farces I’ve seen all season.

I don’t subscribe to any conspiracy theories suggesting that the Premier League publicly wants the “Big Four” to finish in the top four, so I don’t believe that this is a case of Middlesbrough being harshly done by and Liverpool escaping without penalty simply because they are Middlesbrough and Liverpool.

With that said, this is simply outrageous. Aliadière should NEVER have been sent off in the first place. Sorry, the “violent conduct” section in FIFA, UEFA, and the FA’s rules dealing with this sort of thing shouldn’t apply to what Aliadière did; it should be reserved for actually striking or punching, or attempting to punch, an opponent in a malicious manner. This was nothing more than a light tap on the face, so I don’t buy the red card for a second.

Not only do I not buy the red card though, I have a problem with the way match referee Lee Mason handled the situation. First of all, Aliadière was responding to Liverpool’s Javier Mascherano putting his hand on the Frenchman’s mouth in a muzzling, shut-your-mouth-type manner. If you’re going to send Aliadière off, then surely Mascherano should’ve been dismissed as well since he instigated the whole thing to begin with.

Coaches always say that it’s not the first one that gets caught, it’s the retaliation. That certainly proved to be true in this instance.

As a referee myself, I would’ve handled the situation much differently. This is a professional game we’re talking about here, a match in one of the top leagues in the world. We’re not talking about kids, where sportsmanship and safety and all those things are more important than winning. Liverpool are battling for every point they can get to climb back into the 4th spot, and Boro need every point they can get to feel safe from relegation. Understandably, emotions were running high as Boro were frustrated that they were losing. If I would’ve been in charge, both players would’ve been called over, warned, and that’s it, end of story, let’s move on. No need to hand out cards, certainly not a red card, and especially not a red card to one player and not both. It takes two to tango, does it not?

To make matters worse, Aliadière had his already unfair suspension increased by another game. He’ll now have to sit out Boro’s next four matches, including their FA Cup Fifth Round replay and potential FA Cup quarterfinal, and that’s a big blow to that club’s attack. Aliadière doesn’t score many goals, but his pace opens up space on the field for others to run into and he’s a pretty decent passer of the ball. Meanwhile, Javier Mascherano gets off scot-free, even though the referee’s assistant had a clear view of what went on and could easily have recommended a booking for the Argentine.

Boro chief executive Keith Lamb was rightly upset at the decision, branding it “a travesty of justice.”

Lamb also said, “We are furious and totally astounded that the commission, without consultation, should consider our appeal to be frivolous. Who are they to know our minds when we made this appeal? We are appalled at the decision and the entire process. How can nameless, faceless people on a commission decide that our genuine claim for equality and justice be dealt with in such a flippant manner? It is a disgraceful comment to suggest our claim was frivolous. We agonised over it before deciding to submit a claim for wrongful dismissal.”

Good for you Mr. Lamb, you have every right to be incensed with this mockery of a ruling.

The Spurs Have Come Marching In

Jonathan Woodgate’s extra-time header completed an impressive comeback for Spurs as the North London club beat West London rivals Chelsea today 2-1 to win the Carling Cup.

I don’t want to focus as much on the game itself here as I want to talk about how this result was good for the Premier League as a whole. Don’t get me wrong, Tottenham deserves a lot of credit and this trophy will look great in their cabinet, but as I mentioned yesterday, it’s more important in the broader sense for the 16 teams outside the “Big Four”.

There are three major competitions to be won in England: the Premiership, the FA Cup, and the Carling Cup. Simple multiplication tells us that over the past 12 years, 36 big trophies have been on offer, not counting this year’s Carling Cup.

Guess how many of those trophies were won by “Big Four” clubs.

30.

How about over the past six years (18 trophies)?

16.

These figures work out to be astoundingly high, ridiculous percentages, especially if you’re a neutral fan like me. I want to see different teams win these competitions; it gets boring to see the same teams win over and over again just because they have more money to spend than everyone else.

Worldwide TV rights for the Premiership will be hotly contested by major corporations when they next become available after the 2009-2010 season. The Premier League needs to do a better job of distributing that revenue equally amongst its 20 teams. I would even go as far as to say that all prize money won for playing and/or advancing in the Champions League and UEFA Cup should be distributed equally amongst the 20 Premiership teams as well, rather than having the individual teams who play in European competitions pocketing all of that money for themselves like they do now. It’s a case of the rich only getting richer because the same teams are the ones playing in Europe year after year.

Competitive balance in the Premier League is essential to its growth as not only the most popular league in the world, but the top soccer league in the world as well, something it isn’t right now. You look at the fight for fourth place this season and things change every week. Teams 4-10 are separated by only seven points, and teams 4-8 by just three.

The more teams that are in the running to actually win something, the better. It allows these teams to go out and attract better players because they know they have a chance to win, and that appeals to the athlete and competitor in them. Rather than four teams monopolizing competitions, you could have anywhere close to 10 teams fighting it out for three trophies over the course of a 9/10-month season. This opens up more room for top-quality players; again, simple math tells us that the more teams involved, the more roster spots involved, and the more top-quality players who have somewhere to ply their trade rather than sitting on the bench at one of the “Big Four” clubs or playing elsewhere in Europe for less recognizable prizes.

I understand that if you’re a fan of a “Big Four” team, you like the way things are now. You essentially have a 25% chance to win any major competition in any given year, and that’s great. Let me ask you this though: If you were a fan of anyof the other 16 teams and knew your side basically had a 0% chance to win something, what motivation is there for you to really support that team, to really become a serious fan? It’s difficult to just show up to the stadium every week knowing that your team is just playing games for the sake of playing games, that they don’t have a real chance to win anything when all is said and done.

Great win for Spurs today. I’m excited to see someone break the stranglehold of the “Big Four” and I hope this becomes a continuing trend in England.

Satisfied With Kevin Keegan?

Kevin Keegan was hired for his second stint in charge of Newcastle on January 16. I wrote a post that day questioning that move by Magpies owner Mike Ashley, saying Keegan was nothing more than a blast from the past and that the way to move forward in the future was not by looking back to that past.

I took a lot of heat from Newcastle fans in the few days after that. The Toon Army was out in full force, telling me that Keegan was one of the best things to ever happen to their club and that he would turn their fortunes around after the Sam Allardyce debacle and be a success.

Well, the facts seem to prove otherwise, at least up to this point. I understand that it's a bit harsh to judge Keegan on a month's worth of results; he hasn't had a full transfer window to bring in his own players and was out of soccer completely for a couple of years before coming back to Tyneside. Still though, Newcastle are winless in the Premiership since Keegan has been at the helm and are just 1-2-4 in all competitions since the day he was named manager, with that win coming in a game in which Keegan wasn’t even in charge. They've dropped to 13th in the league and are only six points out of the relegation zone. They've been extremely uncompetitive and disappointing in multiple-goal losses to Arsenal, Manchester United, and Aston Villa.

I'm interested in hearing what you Newcastle fans think. Do you still believe Keegan is the guy to take you out of this rut of mediocrity? Do you want him out of there and Alan Shearer in to replace him? Do you, like me, still want to take a wait-and-see approach and see where Newcastle is at the January transfer window next season before passing judgement on Keegan?

Let me hear you.

Premier League Plans to Play Matches Overseas

Few issues in soccer recently have sparked more debate than the Premier League's announcement that they are considering playing competitive, meaningful matches overseas starting in the 2010-2011 season.

Here are the main aspects of the proposal:

1. An additional round of Premier League fixtures, extending the season to 39 games, from January 2011.

2. Four clubs to travel to one of five host cities, with two games taking place in each venue over a weekend (10 matches, 20 teams).

3. Cities would bid for the right to become a host, not for individual matches.

4. Points earned from the games would count towards the final Premier League table.

According to Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore, "There is much more detail to follow which we will work on over the next 12 months." The 12 months Scudamore is referring to goes through January 2009, when a final decision on the full proposal will be made.

Scudamore has also said, in part: "I think it's an idea whose time has come. It's an exciting prospect."

Believe me, there are very, very few issues and topics on which I agree with Richard Scudamore. This one, however, I am in favor of wholeheartedly.

Many fans opposed to this, especially those in England, still yearn for and believe in the "romanticism" of the game and they'll fight to do everything they can to preserve it. They believe that the notion of playing games abroad is a slap in their faces, the people who pay their hard-earned money to watch their beloved teams play.

I respect that, I do.

With that said, I think these fans are quite a bit misguided. The reality of the situation is this: The Premier League is the most popular sporting league in the world; the TV numbers don't lie. It has become a global entity with a vast majority of its players (most importantly, its best players) hailing from foreign countries. Half of the 20 league clubs have foreign ownership, either through a family, an individual, or a group of individuals.

This isn't my father's generation of soccer, where mostly everything associated with the Premiership was British and more specifically, English. Fans and players don't interact on a personal level anymore; you're not going to find your favorite player drinking in a pub after a game and you can have a pint with him or whatever the case may be.

There is so much money in this game these days, and the potential for even more money is out there in the global market. The interest is there in Asia, the Middle East, and North America and the last time I checked, the population is greater in those regions than in England, a relatively small country. More population = more potential profit.

That's what many fans don't seem to understand, and I think they're jaded in that regard. This game isn't about the fans anymore, and it's that simple. It's a business, and the objective of a successful business is to make money. In order to make money, you have to go where the money is and if that hurts the domestic fans in the process, so be it; the chance of worldwide profit far outweights the negative reaction at home.

You know that the fans who don't like this proposal will still come to the Premiership games in England. They need their soccer fix and I don't blame them. Even if a small portion of those fans decide that playing overseas is the last straw and they won't attend matches any more, there are many more fans who will gladly take their place in the stands.

The bottom line is money. If fans opposed to this global plan don't agree with that, that's obviously their prerogative. That will only hurt them in the long run though; it's a lose-lose situation for those people. Trust me, the game will move on without them. Why not embrace the fact that the game is so popular and more and more people want to experience that firsthand?

You can't blame owners and chairmen for wanting to make money. In our daily lives, isn't our goal to make money and live a good life? That's our goal isn't it? That's the whole point of the concept of work. It would be hypocritical to deny these businessmen that same objective simply because it offends you personally.

Think about it. No games are being taken away in England; fans there will still be able to attend 18 home matches a year and because of the relatively short geographical distances between cities, can probably go to a couple away matches as well. What's the harm of playing one additional game a year overseas? Again, I harp on the fact that there is no "romanticism" in the game anymore. It's not about sentiment and emotion, it's about making money.

The sooner people come to grips with that, the better.

David Beckham Deserves his 100th Cap

With the announcement of the 30-man provisional squad selected by new England coach Fabio Capello yesterday for the upcoming friendly against Switzerland, I thought it was time for me to weigh in on the “Does Becks deserve his 100th cap?” debate.

Let me make something clear first. I have no problem whatsoever with Beckham not being picked for this game. He’s not match fit, and it’s that simple. You can’t justify putting him on the roster when he’s been training for a month with Arsenal’s reserves over players like David Bentley, Shaun Wright-Phillips, and Ashley Young, guys who have been playing competitively in the Premier League all winter and play that same wide position (although Young plays on the left for Aston Villa). Again, I completely understand the rationale behind that decision.

Capello left the door open to recall Becks to the squad if he is on good form when the MLS season kicks off this spring and I have no doubt he will be. Capello and Beckham have a history of this same sort of thing from Real Madrid last year, where Beckham impressed the manager so much in training that he put Becks back into the starting lineup (where he played an integral role in helping Madrid win La Liga) even after chairman Ramón Calderón stated that the former would never play for the Spanish giant again after his declaration to move to the LA Galaxy that summer.

I’m not sure how you can make the argument that Beckham doesn’t deserve his 100th cap for everything he’s done for England and soccer in that nation, both with the national team and with Manchester United. You can say that Beckham isn’t part of England’s future, which is correct, but this discussion isn’t about whether he will play any part in World Cup 2010 or even the qualifying campaign. This is about whether he should lead the team out of the tunnel for one more game, whether he should receive the honor of 100 caps for England, something done only by four players previously. It would be a milestone figure for Beckham, and one that he’s truly earned through his accomplishments on and off the field.

Beckham’s reputation as a player is well-documented. Notable figures in the game like his former managers Sir Alex Ferguson and Capello have praised him for his consummate professionalism and dedication. He was a part of six Premiership winners at Manchester United, where he also won a Champions League and two FA Cups. He was the runner-up for the FIFA World Player of the Year award on two occasions (1999 and 2001). Without Becks’ free kick against Greece in October 2001, England wouldn’t have even qualified for World Cup 2002. In that match, he was the only England player to step up and it was his performance that carried the rest of the team. In World Cup 2006, Beckham played a direct part (either through a goal or an assist) in four of England’s six goals in the tournament. He became the first English player ever to score in three different World Cups. Since that World Cup, he’s played in four matches for England and totaled four assists.

Beckham served as England’s captain for 58 of the 99 games he’s appeared in, from November 15, 2000 to July 2, 2006, when England lost on penalties to Portugal in the World Cup quarterfinals. After that loss, Beckham was the definition of a great captain. We saw him consoling his teammates, picking them up off the field and embracing them, shaking hands with the Portuguese players, and applauding the fans as he went into the tunnel. Six years’ worth of wearing the armband is a remarkable accomplishment and in terms of “matches captained”, Beckham ranks fourth in England national team history. It’s common knowledge that his tenure and leadership was instrumental in the career of many English players, Wayne Rooney most noticeably. Rooney was a loose cannon for Everton, England, and for Manchester United when he first arrived at Old Trafford, but the time he spent around Beckham with England really seemed to change him as a player.

Do I think Beckham deserves that 100th cap? Of course. Do I think he’ll actually get it? Yes. Barring injury, there’s simply no way he won’t get it and I think the only question is when, not if, it will happen. I believe Capello will want him to get it at home in front of the fans, so I’m predicting Beckham will captain the squad for the last time in the game against Kazakhstan on October 11 of this year. Prior to that, there are two other World Cup qualifiers but they’re both away, so I don’t think he’ll play in either of those games. Of course, the middle of the MLS season (when Beckham should be in full stride) would come closer to the September 6 match at Andorra, and even though Beckham should be in better form than most of the Premiership players who are just getting their season underway, I’m not sure if he would get that 100th cap on the road.

David Beckham deserves his 100th cap. He’s contributed enormously to English soccer over the years and served his country as captain for 58 matches. He’s carried the team and won important games single-handedly. He’s influenced many players both on and off the field in tremendous, positive ways.

How can this man not reach that honored milestone?

Arrivederci, Rolando Bianchi

You all know my feelings towards Rolando Bianchi. After he came out in an interview with Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport back in late December and criticized all things English soccer, I wrote here about how selfish Bianchi is and how he should be on the next plane out of Manchester when the January transfer window opened. I took a lot of criticism for it but to be honest, my mind couldn't have been any more made up that Rolando Bianchi had worn out his welcome in Manchester and that interview sealed his fate at the Eastlands.

I'm glad to see the higher-ups there echo my sentiments as well, and they've shipped Bianchi to Lazio on loan with a permanent move back to Italy in the summer very likely. He had nothing positive to say about his club or soccer as a whole in England, and the fact of the matter is he wasn't producing on the field either; check the stats, you'll see what I mean.

Bianchi wanted to go back to Italy to boost his chances of playing for the national team, and he made no bones about it. I had no problem with that; every player has his individual ambitions and that's perfectly fine. As I said back in December however, it was the way he voiced his opinions that crossed the line. He made his club look bad by suggesting the team was full of alcoholics, and he had the audacity to criticize the refereeing in England when in fact, if I recall correctly, there was a major referee match-fixing scandal in his home country just a few years ago.

The bottom line is this: Bianchi didn't want to be in Manchester and City didn't want him there after that interview either, so they made a move to get rid of him and end any distractions he was bringing to the club. Both parties involved will benefit from this, particularly Manchester City, but I'm afraid Bianchi hasn't learned his lesson. City had no choice but to move him out; they could've punished him through fines or a demotion to the reserve team, but that would've just turned into an unnecessarily ugly situation. Bianchi, on the other hand, will go to Lazio and score his share of goals and maybe earn a spot on the Italian national team. Does that make him a better person and a better teammate? No chance.

Changes Must be Made at Liverpool

If you had just walked into the room and didn’t know the score of today’s game between Aston Villa and Liverpool and saw the way Peter Crouch wheeled off to the corner after scoring an 88th minute goal, you’d probably think that he just won the Premier League for the Reds. In reality, the 6′7″ striker simply levelled the game for Liverpool at 2-2.

This, in a nutshell, is what’s wrong with Liverpool right now. The players and fans are satisfied with draws when they should win and losses when they should pick up a point. I’m not seeing any killer instinct from this team; they play the exact same way in the 17th minute that they do in the 81st minute, and quite frankly, that’s an uninspired style of soccer.

Rafael Benitez is–and here’s that word again–one of the most uninspiring, boring managers on the face of the earth. Every time the camera pans to him on the sideline, he’s bringing his arms closer together and screaming the word “compact” at his players. Hmm, compact. Compact like Steven Gerrard going out to play right back or left wing like he did today? No, I think not. That’s how you know something has to change. I think Rafa has lost the team in many respects. Liverpool’s fans will tell you that it was Rafa who won the Champions League for them in Istanbul a couple seasons ago, but they’re wrong. It was Steven Gerrard who led Liverpool to their fifth European Cup (…”18 leagues, that’s what we call history”…you’re right, it is HISTORY, it certainly isn’t the present) by putting the team on his back and carrying them to that historical comeback.

Say what you want about Liverpool’s American owners, say that they’re a huge distraction and that they don’t have the club’s best interests at heart, whatever. Here’s the reality of the situation. The owners have NOTHING to do with what happens on the field. Last time I checked, and I can go back and watch the game again, but Mr. Hicks and Mr. Gillett weren’t playing for Liverpool when they drew with Wigan at home, drew with Birmingham at home, drew with Spurs at home, and lost at Reading. Notice a theme here? A championship-caliber team like Liverpool and their fans claim themselves to be don’t draw in those type of games and they certainly don’t lose. I could care less what you have to say about the owners as it relates to Liverpool FC on the field because these are professional players, they get paid very handsomely to play a GAME, to play 90 minutes. When they’re between the touchlines, they don’t have the club’s owners in their minds; the only thing they’re thinking about is the game itself.

The owners aren’t going to leave even though that’s what most of the fans want (they want DIC apparently, good for them). Fans in England and across Europe don’t seem to understand the concept that owners don’t actually have to support their club. That’s not to say that the owners don’t want what’s best for the club, but the club isn’t like a childhood team that they rooted for; the club is a business enterprise in which they can make money, nothing more. Things aren’t like they used to be in your parents’ generation when clubs truly cared about their fans and the owners and chairmen were diehard supporters.

There’s something in the Red section of Merseyside when a draw at home against Aston Villa is considered to be a good result. Don’t get me wrong, Aston Villa are an impressive young side but a team as good as Liverpool say they are would win that game. Manchester United throttled Villa 4-1 earlier in the season. Liverpool simply aren’t good enough this year, that’s just a fact. It’s no anomaly that after 22 games, more than halfway through the season, that teams are where they are in the standings. Liverpool are the 5th best team in the Premier League but when you look at the actual talent on the roster, they should be no worse than 4th and possibly even 3rd.

This is why I believe Rafa has to go and I can’t put it any simpler than that. Liverpool have enough talent and capability to be so much better than they have been this year, and I put that squarely on Rafa’s shoulders. When a manager can’t blend a roster and shape it in a style that allows for the most possible success, he isn’t doing his job. I don’t believe for a second that the players enjoy playing for him because he’s one of the least friendly, distant managers I’ve ever seen. There’s a reason you hear Aston Villa’s players come out publicly and sing the praises of Martin O’Neill and that’s because they like playing for him; O’Neill takes the time to forge a relationship with his players beyond the soccer field and they respect that, whereas I’ve never once seen a Liverpool player back Benitez in that same fashion. There’s a reason you hear players at Manchester United talk about what a joy it is to play for Sir Alex Ferguson and players at Portsmouth do the same about Harry Redknapp, but you don’t hear Jamie Carragher or Steven Gerrard talk about Rafa in such a positive light.

If you’re a Liverpool fan, take a step back from the Rafalogy cult you’ve subscribed to and look at the situation your club is in. In a season that held high hopes and one in which Benitez stated that the Premiership title was his main goal, you’re in 5th place, 14 points behind Manchester United. You’ve crashed out of the Carling Cup and have been fortunate to draw the teams you’ve drawn in the FA Cup. You’ve got a tie against the second most impressive team in Europe this season in Inter Milan in the Champions League coming up and I’m not you’ll come out of that and advance. You’ve got a captain and center midfielder in Steven Gerrard who clearly, clearly isn’t buying into the system Rafa wants to employ.

Someone has to go, changes have to be made. It’s not going to be the owners and it’s not going to be Steven Gerrard, which means Rafa’s head is on the chopping block and the switch could be pressed at any moment.

Something has to be done, what’s it going to be?

Al Bangura Will Remain in the UK

Finally, after a protracted, drawn out saga that stretched over the past couple of months, I'm glad to see that justice has been served and Watford midfielder Al Bangura will be allowed to remain in the UK permanently. Bangura won his appeal of an original ruling by the Home Office that was going to deport him back to his native Sierra Leone and now will be able to raise his young family without fear for his own life.

I wrote twice about this in mid-December and I don't want to go over his whole life story again because by now, many of you have heard what has been going on, but suffice it to say that Bangura had an extremely difficult childhood and has gone through more in his life than many people twice his age. I'm just thrilled to see that the United Kingdom got it right this time by making this decision based on common sense and rationale rather than following the letter of the law. If they would've done that, Bangura would not have been granted a work permit and his days in England would've been over.

Shut Up, Rolando Bianchi!

Take a look at this article that came out today on ESPNsoccernet about Manchester City striker Rolando Bianchi:

ROME, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Italian striker Rolando Bianchi aims to reach double figures at Manchester City this season but does not plan staying in the Premier League in the long term.

'I hope to score at least 10 goals and I want to win a place in the next Champions League with City. It would be like winning the championship,' he said in an interview published in La Gazzetta dello Sport on Friday.

'I want to become a European top scorer. After the 18 goals I scored with (Serie A side) Reggina, I want to reach double figures in the Premier League too.

'Then I'll pack my bags again and go in search of new adventures. I'd like to wear the shirt of Atletico Madrid and score 15 goals in the Primera Liga too.'

He also said he planned to return to Italy soon because playing abroad was not helping his chances of winning a place with the Italian national team.

The forward, who has scored four league goals since joining City in July, said he had trouble getting used to the British diet.

'I have raised the white flag with English food. I don't like it,' he said.

'I think I'm the only teetotal player in the Premier League. My team mates were surprised when I refused a beer. They looked at me as if I were an alien.'

He also has his doubts about English refereeing:

'In Italy the referee whistles as soon as a defender brushes against you. In the Premier League you don't get a free kick even if the defender runs you over with a tank.'

Wow. I don't even know where to begin.

I guess I'll start by saying that if you're lucky enough to play professional soccer, or any sport for a living for that matter, one would think that you'd appreciate that opportunity and not complain about it. I understand that that isn't how things work in the real world; players have their gripes about certain things and I know that, I'm a player myself.

But Bianchi crossed the line in this interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport, a newspaper in his home country, Italy. First of all, he shouldn't have gone public with his desire to basically leave Manchester City and go to Atletico Madrid or somewhere else in Spain if he can score 10 goals this season. Bianchi is 24 years old and in the soccer world, you're supposed to be a little bit more mature and a lot less selfish at that age; you're not a youngster or a kid anymore. Basically what he's saying is that he just views playing soccer for City as a challenge, as another step in the ladder. He scored 18 goals with Reggina in Italy, he wants to score 10+ goals with City in England, and then he wants to go to Spain and do the same thing.

This is selfishness to a tee. You don't come out in the media and say that you're in it for the individual glory of scoring goals; whether that's what you care about or not, you stick with the team-first mantra and say you want to help achieve great things with that club.

"I'll pack my bags again and go in search of new adventures." I'm sorry, you just can't say that publicly. This will become a distraction because he's putting himself above the rest of the team. If you're going to boast about scoring goals and speak of your ambitions, at least be able to back that up on the field. Bianchi has not done that. He's scored 4 goals in 14 Premier League games this season and is not even a regular starter for City.

Bianchi also has the gall to complain about British food and refereeing. Granted, British food isn't in the same caliber as Italian food (but then again, nothing is), and some of the refereeing has been shockingly bad this year. But come on! Bianchi had to have known these things before he came to City! It was his choice to come to England in the first place; he made the decision to leave home for greener pastures. I have no problem with that at all, but I do have a problem with whining about something he knew full well about or at the very least, should have known full well about.

As I said before, he's 24 years old now. He's not a kid anymore but this interview brought him back down to that level. I haven't heard younger, more productive foreign players like Nani and Fernando Torres come out in the media and say things like this. There was no reason for Bianchi to do what he did and there's no excuse for it. If I was manager Sven Goran-Eriksson, I would have Bianchi on a plane out of England in January as soon as I could. It's obvious he doesn't want to be in England and he has no real desire to play for City, so why keep him on the roster?

Things like this make me angry. Rolando Bianchi is a disgrace and I truly feel bad for Manchester City, who invested a lot of money in him and their faith won't be rewarded.

Al Bangura Update

On Friday, I posted about Al Bangura and his background as well as the unfortunate situation he's found himself in right now. Red tape is everywhere in government these days to the detriment of simple human compassion and understanding, and just a few days ago it looked like Bangura was going to be deported back to Sierra Leone.

Not so fast. Bangura has been given a temporary reprieve by the Home Office, and he'll be allowed to stay in the UK while he applies for a work permit after the Home Office heard his appeal to prevent his deportation. In normal circumstances, a work permit probably would not be granted because Bangura is uncapped and Sierra Leone are not in the Top 70 in FIFA's world rankings, but this case will be considered by an independent panel of Home Office members and influential figures in the soccer world.

From a BBC article:

Labour MP Claire Ward, who brokered the meeting with Home Office minister Liam Byrne and has been a staunch supporter of Bangura's case, said: "They will consider his track record and what he brings to the game.

"They will then recommend to the Home Office whether he should be allowed to stay.

"At the same time the lawyers will be submitting Al's appeal through the legal process to the tribunal's decision, so we have two ways now to sort this out.

"We have moved a step further and it's a matter now for the panel to judge the sort of things that Watford fans have been seeing over the last few seasons, which is just how good Al is."

This is a step in the right direction and surely gives Bangura more hope to stay in the UK and play for Watford, who currently sit on top of the Coca-Cola Championship. Watford hosted Plymouth Argyle on Saturday and at half-time more than 18,000 home and away fans protested in support of Bangura, holding up posters with his face under the words "He's family". He was visibly moved to tears by the fans' backing and although he hasn't played since August due to an ankle injury, it's great to see those fans supporting this cause. This is something that goes above and beyond the game of soccer, this is about a hard-working young man who has a young family and because of circumstances he had no control over, will be in life-threatening danger if he's forced to return to Sierra Leone.

The online petition I encouraged you all to sign is in full swing. The original goal of 5,000 signatures has more than been surpassed, and in actual fact, the new goal of 10,000 signatures has been as well. There have been 10,372 people who have signed this petition and if you're not one of them, take a few minutes out of your day and add to that ever-growing total. I have the site in bold below, just copy and paste it into your browser and fill out the brief form to add your name and support Al Bangura in his attempt to stay in the UK.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/save-al-bangura

Al Bangura Should Stay in England

For those of you who haven't heard, a very interesting (and possibly life-threatening) situation is brewing across the pond right now, one that has crossed the line between soccer and politics and has snowballed over the past few days.

Al Bangura, a 19-year old midfielder who currently is under contract to Championship side Watford FC, is being faced with deportation back to his native Sierra Leone. Bangura fled his country when he was 15 with his country amidst civil war. His father had died and it was the custom of the Poro Secret Society, a voodoo cult in Sierra Leone which he led, that Al, short for Alhassan, was to replace his father in the cult when the time came.

Instead of joining the PSS, who Bangura said threatened to kill him if he didn't join and take part in tribal rituals, including mutilation, he fled to Guinea. There, he met a Frenchman who wanted to sell him into the homosexual prostitution business (Africa is known for human trafficking) and took him to France. From France, he took Bangura to the UK where Bangura escaped again and approached the Home Office to seek asylum, which was granted.

Now that Bangura is over 18 and legally an adult, however, that asylum status has changed, according to Britain's Home Office. The Home Office is essentially the UK's department of internal affairs and ruled in mid-November that Bangura would be deported back to Sierra Leone, pending a hearing at which Bangura could plead his case to remain in the UK. That hearing took place on Tuesday and its outcome did not go in Bangura's favor. A UK Asylum and Immigration Tribunal decided that Bangura was exaggerating the risk to his life if he was forced to return to Sierra Leone, and thus the Home Office will now start the process of removing him from the country.

Bangura had 10 days from Tuesday to appeal this decision and his manager at Watford, Aidy Boothroyd, has already said they would be doing so. Many notable figures in England, including Elton John, have come out in support of Bangura and now the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, will get involved. FIFpro, the world representative organization for professional soccer players, is backing Bangura, as is the English Professional Footballers' Association.

Bangura has a fiancee and a son who is not even a month old, and if he was to be deported he would leave them both behind. He paid over $240,000 last year in taxes and has been a law-abiding, tax-paying resident while he's been in England. He's never played for Sierra Leone on the international level so it's not possible for him to get a work permit, so this appeal will likely be his last chance to stay in England and to survive. Watford are using their contacts for whatever possible help they can get and I'm sure they are not alone in the soccer fraternity that is the Football League and the Premier League.

The "should he stay or should he go" debate is a tough one, because there are those who take a hardline on immigration and resident visas and permits and whatever else for security reasons and at a time where the threat of terrorism is always prevalent, I understand their reasoning for doing so. They don't look at cases on an individual basis and they tend to just go by the book; that is, if a person has a legitimate reason and purpose for staying, he can stay, if not, he has to leave. There are those who look at it on a case-by-case basis and apply common sense and rationale to the situation. As Stephane Burchkalter, the general secretary for FIFpro's African division, said, "Football must play its part as an engine of integration and we back their appeal. We expect the government to favour the spirit of the law."

To me, the Home Office and this Asylum and Immigration Tribunal are guilty of the same thing many bureaucracies fall to these days: Red-tape. Bangura has a young family, he's paid his taxes and followed the laws while he's been in England, he fled civil war in a country and region that is really struggling economically. They are almost dehumanizing Bangura and just viewing him as another ritualistic decision they have to make, a simple "Yes or "No" when in actual fact, it is not that black and white; there's so much gray in between. It's ridiculous to deny him a work permit on the basis that he doesn't play for Sierra Leone's national team because he doesn't want to go back to Sierra Leone! He obviously is "working" by playing for Watford (53 league appearances since 2005), he contributes to the economy, and he's supporting a young family. It's easy for those white-collar government officials or whoever sits on these Asylum and Immigration tribunals to make a decision about whether to send a person back to their native country; they have their cushy, upper-class lifestyle and safe existence in Britain, but that person may be going back to his or her death in the country from which they came.

He has said that "I am just praying every night that the Home Secretary will review this and allow me to stay because, inside of me, I know I'm supposed to be here. I would love to be a citizen here. If I was given the chance to be British, I would take it with both hands". There are plenty of people in England who would love to leave their country, I'm sure. England is full of some of the most miserable, unpleasant people in the world and for Bangura to actually WANT to be there, to LOVE becoming a citizen there and not get the chance to would be a disgrace.

The public support and outcry is really growing and I wouldn't be surprised if Bangura wins his appeal and is allowed to remain in England. It never should have gotten this far though; there was no real reason other than a technical, nitpicky rule to even start this process in the first place. That's the sad thing about governments these days, they are more concerned about following procedure and going by the book instead of caring about the people who put them there.

Please, go to http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/save-al-bangura to "sign" the online petition to help this cause and sway the people who hear Bangura's appeal. The folks there have a goal of 5,000 signatures and as of my typing this post, 4,098 people have signed and it's looking like that goal will be reached.

I hope Al Bangura is allowed to stay in England. Anything else would be a travesty of justice.

Hands Off!!

So there I was yesterday afternoon, watching Liverpool's Champions League clash with FC Porto (Liverpool won 4-1), not exactly rooting for the Merseyside Reds. The first 78 minutes of the game were pretty even, but then Fernando Torres coolly slotted a right-footed finish in the back of the net to break open what was then a 1-1 affair. Liverpool won a free kick just five minutes later, and captain Steven Gerrard served the ball into the box.

Then it happened.

Porto's Milan Stefanov was lucky not to be sent off after reaching up and handling Gerrard's ball in, and match referee Roberto Rosetti had no choice but to point to the spot.

Steven Gerrard converted to put Liverpool up 3-1, but before he took his penalty, I had expected to see something and was disapoointed when I did not. Maybe it's because John Terry and Chelsea weren't playing, maybe it's because an English referee wasn't in charge. No one from Porto put their hands on the Mr. Rosetti!!

It's absolutely ridiculous when I see this happen almost on a weekly basis and to be honest, usually with Chelsea. Whenever a referee awards a controversial red card or a PK against one team, players on that team protest vigorously (which in itself is fine) and often physically confront that referee, either putting their hands on him or bumping him or as John Terry is famous for doing, literally trying to hold him back from showing the card.

Physical contact with a referee should be grounds for an immediate red card, and the sad thing is that at the lower levels this goes on too and the referees put up with it. I've seen countless yellow cards awarded for dissent when a player is 20 yards away from the referee and mouthing off, but I've never seen one red card or even one yellow card from making contact with the ref. That doesn't make any sense; so words (dissent) can earn a card but actually physically intimidating and touching doesn't get a player in trouble?

In baseball, ANY contact with an empire in that context is an immediate ejection, no questions asked, end of story, and that player and/or manager will be suspended for several additional games. A game misconduct or a match penalty (both of which result in ejection but the length of the suspensions handed down after the fact vary depending on which of those two infractions you're penalized under) is given in hockey for abuse of officials, both verbal and physical. Same thing goes in football (unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and/or ejection), basketball (technical foul/flagrant foul), and seemingly every other sport besides soccer. Excessive and obscene arguments seem to be tolerated in soccer, as does physical contact. This simply shouldn't be the case.

To be fair, referees are partly to blame as well. They have the authority to send someone off under FIFA's Laws of the Game for contact made and often choose not to, which just encourages players to do it again the next time they don't like a decision made against their team. If players see that a referee is a pushover, they know that they can do almost anything they want without fear of reprecussion. I can't count how many times I've seen Chelsea players standing over the referee and flapping their hands and arms around, showing him up, holding him and whatever else, and get away with it scot-free. If these players were to be sent off or at the very least, cautioned for their actions, it would help deter those players from doing whatever they were doing again. It's at the point now where I start laughing when I see these small, skinny referees get bossed around by players when the opposite should be the case.

Grow some balls, fellas. The crowd may not like it, they may even boo (Oh no!), but you have to start taking a stand against these players.

Two-Referee, Four Official System

There is no single more important position on the field in any given game than that of an official, whether it be the center referee or his two assistants. Officials have the power to influence the result of any game with the decisions they make and their authority is final.

As a certified referee myself, I undertand how difficult it is for the man in the middle to do his job, and the same goes for the linesmen. It's impossible to officiate a game in which both teams involved are happy; every decision is questioned by either players or coaches and usually both.

In watching the Manchester United-Wigan game last weekend, there was one clear penalty waved away by referee Mike Riley and another that probably should've been a penalty but wasn't called either. Mr. Riley, to his credit, was at least in a decent position to be able to make an informed decision but when you watch other games, there are plenty of situations where the center referee either gives or denies a penalty kick when he doesn't have the proper viewing angle to make the right call, yet he makes a decision anyway because he has to.

The officials are professionals in other walks of life, yes, they get paid a good amount at the high levels to do games, but that's not their only job. These are middle-aged (mid 30's-mid 40's) men who aren't always the most physically fit individuals, yet it's their job to keep up with some of the fastest, most skilled athletes in the world. It's not fair for the teams involved in any given game or their fans to possibly have a game or a season decided by someone who's simply not able to be in the best position they should be to do their job. If the National Hockey League has enough sense to use two referees (and two linesmen) for a game that's even faster than soccer and takes place on a shorter, narrower playing surface than a soccer game does, surely soccer should use two referees as well.

This debate has been discussed, though nothing serious has ever come out of it, by the powers-that-be at FIFA and other major governing bodies for years now, and it's time something was done about it. Does it really make sense to ask one 40-year old to run up and down the field with men half his age? Referees run the diagonal system to cut down on the actual area they have to cover, but how often do you see a referee out of position when he has to make a call, yards away from the action and screened behind other players? Playing high school soccer, I can't tell you how many cheap shots and the like that have no place in the game occur behind the referee's back, when he's doing his best to keep up with the play.

Each referee would be responsible for his half of the field, more or less, with as little overlap as possible in between. Less ground to cover would lead to better positioning for the two referees and allow for a better called game. The linesmen's duties would remain the same (determining on/offside, goal kicks and corner kicks, and signaling for fouls and misconduct that the referee may not have been able to see).

The two-referee system would make for a fairer game for all parties involved, including the officials themselves. I'm tired of crucial decisions hinged on where the referee was positioned because chances are it wasn't the right spot to make the proper call. Middle-aged men have no business running up and down a 110-yard field with professional athletes half their age; they need help.

No More Ties!

When I read a book or watch a movie or TV show, the one thing I absolutely can't stand is an unresolved ending (Yes, HBO and the Sopranos, I'm talking about you!). I want some sense of finality and closure, some certainty of knowing what happened in the end. Zack and Kelly getting married in Las Vegas was the appropriate ending to a series that I basically grew up watching in Saved by the Bell. In truth though, I wouldn't have even cared if they didn't get married just as long as there was some other concrete conclusion. I don't want to be left asking "what if"?

I'm an avid fan of the NHL and of ice hockey in general. After the lockout year of 2004-2005, Commissioner Gary Bettman and the Board of Govenors needed to do something drastic to bring fans back to the sport. Aside from the various rule changes to showcase the individual player's skills, they implemented something that, in my opinion, is the best thing hockey has done in modern history. Having a shootout after overtime ensures that every game has a winner, ensures that the fans who come to the arena every night will walk away knowing that one team skated off with the 2 points that comes with a win in the NHL. No more boring overtime games which usually ended in ties because both teams played like they were afraid to lose instead of playing to win, and so what ensued was 5 minutes of the sloppiest, ugliest hockey imaginable. Shootouts bring every single fan in the arena to stand up, and those who have watched the NHL over the last two seasons know what I mean when I say that the energy level and excitement in the building when the shootout takes place is unlike anything else seen in sports.

I did some research on the 2006-2007 Premiership season, and what I found was startling. 98 games out of 380 resulted in draws, or 26% of the entire total of league games played last year. Just by going from that stat, a fan who comes to an individual game has a 1 in 4 chance of seeing a tie! That's outrageous! Aston Villa had 17 draws last season out of 38 games, nearly 50%! Ticket prices are rising rapidly for these games and the new stadiums that are being built are funded largely by consumer money. Fans don't want to see these sleep-inducing 0-0 or 1-1 ties. They want to get their money's worth when they come to a game because God knows how much money they're spending to attend. It gets to the point where you listen to radio call-in shows or talk shows and the hosts actually predict ties for games instead of a winner. I don't want to see a tie! That's no way to end a game, because neither team is happy with the result and more importantly, the fans are left unsatisfied. Every effort should be made to decrease the percentage of draws because they're not what brings excitement and passion to a game that is all about those things, especially in England. Here, then, are two proposals I came up with to move away from ties and come out of games with a winner:

• 1. Play 15 minutes of 8 v 8 (7 field players and 1 goalie per team) if the game is tied after 90 minutes of regulation. Golden goal, winner gets 3 points, loser gets 1. If a consensus is reached that the losing team shouldn’t be rewarded, the loser could get 0 points, but in my opinion, the loser should get 1 for taking the game into extra time and because 8 v 8 isn’t traditional soccer. If the game is still tied, go to penalty kicks (see my proposal for PK’s below).

• 2. Go straight to penalty kicks if the game is tied after 90 minutes. 5 rounds, winner gets 2 points, loser gets 1. The loser has to get a point because penalty kicks are a crapshoot, and the winner can’t get the full 3 points for the same reason.

If a system was in place to reward the winner of a game that goes longer than 90 minutes, I guarantee you'd see more exciting soccer because both teams would be after the extra points. No more situations where teams play it safe to just get 1 point out of a game because both teams would surely go for the full points if they were guaranteed that 1 point for extending the game past 90 minutes. Hypothetically, let's say that out of Aston Villa's 17 draws last season, they would've won 8 of those games in the proposed 8 v 8 extra time. That's 16 points more and maybe a UEFA Cup spot, provided the teams above them didn't get as many points from their extra time games. Obviously, these proposals would cause a point inflation in the table and it'd be realistic for the champion to have over 100 points. But it's all relative; people would just get used to seeing higher point totals for teams.

I'm very interested in hearing your feedback about this, so leave some comments or e-mail me about what you think. I'm open to any other suggestions to decide games and to your arguments for keeping ties.