Andre Bikey Bowls Over His Competition

It wasn't really his competition. It was a medic attending to one of his Cameroonian teammates in the waning moments of its African Nations Cup semifinal victory over Ghana. I have no idea what was going through his mind, but one thing is for sure--he will miss the final against Egypt because of the redcard received.




[h/t Deuce of Davenport]

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The EPL May Want to Rethink Its International Game Strategy

As previously reported, the EPL (suck it, Barclay's) hopes to embark on an international three-hour-tour with League games. The referees for these matches may want to have a world with the league if any games are scheduled in southeast Asia. In Thailand, a referee was assaulted after the team took issue with his calls.

A Thai soccer referee was beaten up by an entire team after sending off three of their players during a match to decide promotion to country's second division, local media reported on Friday.

***

The angry players charged into Prakong's dressing room at the stadium in Ayutthaya, north of Bangkok, and started to kick and punch him. They dispersed after police fired gunshots into the air.

Don't let Chelsea know that these sorts of actions are tolerable on the road. Who knows what will happen? The refs should start arming themselves.

Update: More evidence of southeast Asia unruliness.

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I Realize This Sounds Like I'm Whinging

I'm sure there is all kinds of hand wringing going on at Anfield. Yep, Rafa, bummer to lose your best player ahead of maybe the biggest match of the season. Sorry those mid-season friendlies only seem to adversely effect your squad. But in the interest of equal time, let's look at the body count at Arsenal.

Rosicky is out.
Flamini left the France A game against Congo with "stiffness."
Senderos suffered an MCL injury against Engerland
Almunia first had a finger injury. Now he's got a virus. He's out (And Jens had a massive blunder in Germany's win over Austria).
Denilson has a hammy.
Abou Diaby was injured at Citeh last week.
Toure and Eboue are both in Ghana for the 3rd place Cup of Nations game.
Van Persie is well on target to miss half a season for the 2nd straight campaign.

I count nine.

That and the Gunners host Blackburn, maybe the most physical team in the EPL, a style Arsenal has difficulty with. Injuries are part of the game, and having depth is a sign of a well managed organization, but Arsenal has been patching together a backline for the better part of a month. And they have a BRUTAL 10 days ahead of them (Rovers, a healthy United squad, and Milan who are going to have Pato and Kaka back).

So, yeah, Reds, sorry to hear about your shoes—no really, I am as I desperately want you to beat the crap out of Chelsea—it's just that my rooting interest is about to take the pitch having lost 18 feet.

Not saying. Just saying.

Here are this weekends scores.

5-2
1-1
1-1
0-1
0-0
4-1
3-3
2-2
2-0
0-3

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How dare they!

The lord of all football and the prime mover of every playing field in the universe today declared that the Premier League were bang out of order for not talking to him before publically declaring an interest in playing games abroad.
How dare they! Do they know who he is? How was this possible that Sir Whingy Face the overlord of all things obicular was not consulted for his opinion. I for one call for an immediate inquiry followed by 100 lashes across the back and a smack on the bum for any underling found guilty of such arrogant actions .

Well I hope that this little tirade reported on the bbc football website slips under the skin of the real folks in charge of the Premier League. If so I should imagine that Sir Given Right's red devils will be plucked from the 'hat' to play Tottenham in Timbuktu. Or maybe Fulham in Fallujah. How about Bolton in Banghazi. Oh how great would the world be if FA Cup games were played abroad. Sir Alex could even lick his lips at the thought of Notts County in Niamey.

-Bigus.

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Chelsea: still a dilletante club

The "braintrust"

You know that uncool guy at the club/bar/underground S&M dungeon who is there solely due to the size of his wallet, but pretends to be a regular? That’s sort of like how Chelsea are currently pretending to be a properly run football club and not the toy of an egomaniac Russian billionaire.

Peter Kenyon was quoted in a Bloomberg (no link, sorry) article to the effect that Chelsea are trying to be an actual business and reign in their wage bill.

Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Chelsea has shaved 6 percentage
points from its salary costs since July and will meet a target
to reduce payrolls at the London soccer club to 55 percent of
sales, Chief Executive Officer Peter Kenyon said.

Team payments to players have shrunk to ``about 70
percent'' of revenue, from 76 percent in fiscal 2006, Kenyon
said in an interview at Claridge's Hotel in London last night.
Wages at the club rose to 114 million pounds ($222 million) from
108.9 million pounds in the year through June 2006.

``We've got strict objectives in terms of where we want to
get to and they are 55 percent of our turnover represented in
wages,'' Kenyon said at a London Chamber of Commerce and
Industry dinner. ``That's our target, which we're comfortable
we'll get to.''

Later on in the piece, Kenyon also mentions how Chelsea have more or less balanced the books in terms of transfer spending over the past year. But it’s hard to square the logical business talk above with persistent rumors floating around that Roman and Avram want to buy Ronaldinho for 60 million pounds. Ronaldinho could join some of Chelsea's other shrewd transfer bargains, like Sheva and Ballack. Don’t they realize that Brazilians age in dog years? Exhibits: Adriano, Ronaldo. Letting Ronaldinho run wild with notorious boozers like Joe Cole is not going to help with that spare tire.

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Subj: DEAR EPL CLUBS, DRIVE HER WILD WITH A LONGER, DEEPER BENCH

If you've ever played the highly addictive Football Manager, you probably quickly learned the following:

1. It kills your social life
2. It's scary good at predicting super stars (playing as Tottenham, I picked up Bojan from Barcelona's youth team before I had ever heard of him after a scout recommended him)
3. It's annoying playing English clubs since you can only select 5 subs instead of the 7 that's the norm on the continent.

Well, rejoice, because #3 is about to change - English Premier League clubs will be able to name seven substitutes in league matches next season.

This is great news for the Arsènes and the Avrams and the Alexes who will have to make fewer tough choices come selection time, but surely smaller clubs will benefit too. As the rules are currently, you have to sacrifice tactical flexibility for emergency situations, or vice versa. 1 goalkeepers + 4 field players are simply not enough to provide cover for your starters.

The rule change, however, won't do much for your social life of the Football Manager addict. For that, you'll have to go cold turkey. Believe me, I've hit rock bottom once and I'm never going back, if I can help it.

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Football Fashion Week 2008

You might not have noticed, but 2008 is an even-numbered year, and you know what that means, right? Your national team is getting new uniforms! And the past week being the first FIFA international date of the year, we got to see what national teams will be wearing from now through 2009. Let's take it manufacturer by manufacturer.

Puma: Thanks to its African strategy, you've already seen Puma's 2008 designs at the African Cup of Nations. The look is pretty plain - you've seen one, you've seen them all, just different colors filling the template. The only one of note, Italy (top), has gone with a lighter shade of blue than the previous, World Cup winning model. Not terribly exciting or off-template, but I'm glad they did away with the gold numbering - one of the shittier uniform trends of the past few years, I think.

Umbro: The recent Nike acquisition does this thing with England, where the white home jerseys are released in odd years while the alternate red jerseys are released in even years. They figure the home whites would be big sellers no matter when, but they can capitalize on the build-up to a major tournament like the Euro or World Cup to sell the less popular red jerseys. Which is fine, except of course, England's missing out on Euro 08. That doesn't stop Umbro from releasing the new red shirts, which England wore for Fab Cap's England managerial debut.

I have a feeling opinions will be split over the shoulder stripes but I for one like it. It's reminiscent of the old Admiral kits (sans exposed thunder thighs). Extra points for doing away with gold numbers.

adidas: Can't say I was a huge fan of adidas's 2006 look, since they tended to be a little too busy visually, so it's nice to see they've gone with a simpler, but still modern design.
Take Japan, for example. The 2006 unis on the left had stripes in all directions on a purple-blue base. The 2008 design stripped it down completely, going with a calmer shade of blue, and a slight touch of yellow for accent. I approve.

Germany's 2006 uniform wasn't all that bad, and I'm not sure if the new design is an improvement. I do like the emphasis on black, and how the front number fits inside the chest design - there's something Bauhaus-ish about it.

Though the most notable change for adidas in this cycle isn't the design template, but the uniform colors. It used to be that you didn't fuck with national team colors too much, even the away colors, where you'd see more varieties at the club level. But France, which usually wears all-white when not wearing blue, has come out with a red away kit.

For the same reason the Giants look silly in their red alternates, it doesn't look right for Les Bleus to wear rouge.

What does work better is Spain's new gold away kit, a departure from their usual all-white alternate. Looks downright regal, I say.


Nike: Last, and possibly least, the evil empire. Their 2006 range was actually pretty well designed, going for classic looks than the post-modern adidas range. They stayed with the plain look, so while there's not much to like, there isn't much to get excited about either.


As you can see with Brazil, there isn't a huge change, though I'll miss the Madras collars on the 2006 design. USA went through a more dramatic change, and I think it's a step down.
The vertical stripes gave the USMNT a unique look without getting too tacky. The new design is just too.... blah. Finally, Netherlands made a major change in their away kit, ditching the quasi-retro white with diagonal stripes, and going with a quasi-retro light blue with horizontal stripes.
It's not a bad look at all, and probably the most streetwear-worthy of all the new releases.

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The EPL packs its bags for a vacation!!!

Depressing, jaded, inevitable, much like the thought of another Jamie Kennedy movie. The news came out this morning that the EPL is considering adding an extra game to the English season, with that magic 39th game being played somewhere abroad. Magic. In other news: nothing is sacred.

The powers that be are hungry and aroused at the thought of football's globalization in branding, with this news serving as surely the first point in a long list of wacky, zany ideas to follow. As it stands, the 10 games will be scheduled so as to avoid any two of the biggest 5 or 6 clubs facing each other [presumably in the hopes of setting up a series of 4-0 wins], and then cities around the world get to bid [rather ambiguously] for the right to host.

Sure, it makes fiscal sense, as Mihir Bose points out:

"The growth of the Premier League has been impressive in the last 15 years thanks to the sale of television rights in this country, but now the market in the United Kingdom is becoming saturated and it is the overseas market which is now the big target area."

but still...is what it's come to? Overseas television rights are big business, but the concept of bringing the sport to peoples' doorsteps is a little cynical to me. Remember when the Giants and Dolphins "played" at Wembley Stadium? Or preseason NFL being hosted in Japan? Oh how they clamored and shouted for the chance to see superstars play for 4 drives before ceding way to the walk-ons!

Unsurprisingly, the Football Supporters Federation has jumped all over this story, and surely not just because they think it's an early April Fool:

"The FSF has no doubt whatsoever that the vast majority of supporters are against this, and believe it would drag the Premier League into the realms of farce. When this ludicrous idea was first mooted in October last year, we ran a poll here on our website and a huge majority of supporters - 80% who took the trouble to vote - were in complete opposition to this.

Are we going to see local derbies played in a foreign country thousands of miles away? Are supporters supposed to accept missing the biggest games of their season because it's being played on the other side of the planet? Let's face facts, the sole motivation for this is the Premier League to make more money - aren't they making enough already? This displays a complete disregard for the proud traditions of the English game as well as a crass lack of consideration for football supporters in general."

Couldn't have put it better myself, really.

There is a famous saying that I'll probably butcher right now, but it essentially says that the minute you start to fail is the minute that you stop being yourself, and this is what it seems the EPL is doing. It's taking our product and removing from it the very thing that matters: the people who've spent lifetimes supporting, cheering, investing in it.

Bringing a game like Bolton vs. Blackburn to Bangkok is going to demonstrate nothing, and prove even less, the only beneficiaries being the players' passports and the EPL's ridiculously swollen coffers.

Surely, it should not be countries paying for the privilege of hosting Middlesbrough/West Ham? Shouldn't the EPL be begging the world market and paying them for the chance to take part?

I feel like the EPL makes more than enough money on simply broadcasting the game abroad, and the idea of puppeteering the teams and players on a world stage is ludicrous. Of course, we knew this day was coming, but at what cost?

Thankfully, the lefty Guardian blog agrees with me to a point. Read it up, and offer your equally-depressing visions for the EPL's future in the comments section.

When will we see cheerleaders? TV time-outs? American players? [joke on the last one... sorry folks]

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Choices, choices.

When I first heard about myfootballclub.co.uk and signed up I was very skeptical to say the least. By now you all know the deal, right? Thousands of fans ponied up 35 quid and we all now own Ebsfleet of the mighty Blue Square Premier League (the old Vauxhall conference).
We will pick the team, choose the board and have a say on all of the decisions that come along when running a football team. It's been a long time since I signed up and very little seemed to happen. Until now...Hurrah!

Yesterday I voted on two crucial issues. Firstly on how many of the new 'owners' should sit on the board? The more the merrier I said. 11 its is. I Cant wait to see how many of my co-owners also plumped for the maximum number. Surely that makes the most sense?

Secondly I had to decide on the new kit. As you can see from the picture above there was a variety of choices. Especially when the fleet are on the road to Stevenage. We don't want all those boinging boro fans laughing at our boys do we? Hell no. So away shirt one was out. Its very nice if you are playing in 1946 and like polo mints. Out too went the Inter Milan rip off. I can hear the songs now as our 5th tier strikers bang one shot after another over the bar and the stand into the car park. "Inter Milan yer having a laugh" or maybe "You're not Inter in disguise". No no no. Strip 3 is definitely out of the question. That leaves strip 2. Not controversial at all. In fact I think its quite nice. I am a little worried that my fellow owners and I may not see eye to eye. So I ask you, the loyal UF readers to help ease my worries.

Did I do good? What would you have gone for? Leave a comment and let me know.

-Bigus

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USA! USA! USA!

The new US shirt drives the cougars wild

Tonight, the US Men's National Team plays host to El Tri at Houston's Reliant stadium. Is the US going to continue its recent run of domination over the Mexicans? Or will Hugo Sanchez's boys actually beat the Americans for the first time in seven tries? Pointless nationalism after the jump.

Tonight's friendly, which is rapidly becoming an annual tradition (and excellent money spinner for US Soccer), features CONCACAF's two best teams for what seems like the 1,000 time in the past couple of years. Then again, beating Mexico never gets old. The big story is the debut of a new generation of players on both sides. The Mexicans called in Dos Santos from Barcelona and Carlos Vela from Osasuna (he's Arsenal property). The US counters with Michael Bradley, who has been out of his mind at Herenveen, Freddy Adu, and Jozy Altidore, the Haitian sensation. Sadly Bob Bradley did not leave Landon back home in California to work on his tan. This should be a really exciting game, as both teams have more or less a first choice starting XI. The crowd will likely be overwhelmingly pro-Mexico, but I think the US continues its domination with a 3-1 win.

Oh, and the best news of the night by far is that the moronic tandem of Dave O'Brien and Eric Wynadla have apparently been replaced by J.P. Dellacamera and John Harkes. So hopefully there won't be any comparisons of corner kicks to Manny Ramirez home runs over the Monster tonight.

For more pregame hype, check out these links.

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