Women's World Cup 2011

I enjoyed what I saw of the Women's World Cup. My favourite players:

1. Homare Sawa
2. Abby Wambach
3. Sonia Bompastor

ESPN's coverage was... OK. Julie Foudy was good, and Kate Markgraf was excellent but Ian Darke and the other men were fountains of cliches. ESPN managed to show Sawa's fantastic goal from every angle...

except the one that actually showed what happened:

I was impressed by the way Abby Wambach was the first to go to congratulate the winning team, and the only player to talk to camera after the game. She also knew how to take a penalty.

I hope that we will soon be hearing more about the management style of Norio Sasaki. In the huddle before the penalties we expect to see the coaches sternly exhorting their players to win. Whenever I see coaches lecturing players I imagine them saying "kick the ball.... into the goal". But Norio Sasaki simply bowed to his players with a big smile on his face. He knew that there was nothing left for him to do.

I hope we will see more of Megan Rapinoe in the future, perhaps as an elf in the new Hobbit movies.

How did the newspapers do? Alas the Oakland Tribune is unclear on the concept of sports:

The other papers did OK with the Washington Post being the best for showing Sawa triumphant.

The Manchester Derby

Steven Gerrard on diving

He really is good enough that he doesn't have to dive.

I won't let you bury it

Good use of music in a sports video. This is "Time Is Running Out" by Muse

Guy Richie's Nike Ad

Classy ad with a simple story

Why Manchester United beat Arsenal

I’ve got a friend from Chester that I see occasionally. Two years ago when I was back home I went for a drink with him and he told me this story. He works in construction for one of the McAlpine companies. He’s some sort of manager but he spends a lot of time on-site. A few years back he was working on the construction of the Emirates Stadium. This must have been weird as my friend is a fanatical Red. The story is that one day when they were pouring concrete for part of the foundations, he and two other northerners buried a Manchester United jersey underneath the pitch. It was an old Sharp era shirt. If this was supposed to curse Arsenal it didn’t work too well as last season they did the double over Manchester United. Perhaps these sort of curses take a while to work as this season Arsenal have fallen apart, despite playing beautiful football. I’d forgotten about this incident but on Sunday the New York Yankees dug through two and a half feet of concrete to remove a Red Sox jersey that had been buried there by a Boston fan. He had been intending to jinx the new Yankee Stadium that is being built. So clearly these sort of practices do have some power.

Cristian slays Romans

A few weeks ago Paul Jewell said:

You can't man-mark him because he starts off up front, drifts wide, comes into the hole. He's six-foot two, brave as a lion, strong as an ox, quick as lightning.

If he was good-looking, you'd say he had everything.

I feel sorry for Rafa

Now that I have started to understand Rafa, I am sorry to see him being tormented by his useless players. Still, that was a good FA cup weekend.

Ronaldo

He's strong, he can dribble. He has a superbly accurate and powerful shot. But the thing that makes him so brilliant is his supernatural self confidence. Someone once told me that Picasso thought his shit did not stink, and Ronaldo is the same. From every run, from every free kick, he expects to score.

The genius of Rafael Benitez

After last weekend I feel like a finally understand Rafa a bit more. The substitution of Saint Steven of Gerrard in the Everton game was the turning point. Why would any manager hook his only player who would walk into any other premiership team? Rafa says he took of Gerrard because he had too much passion. At first I found this hard to understand. Managers like Lord Ferg and Mourinho love to see passion. Rafa however in some way was foreseeing what would happen later, when Carragher committed a blatant foul which should have resulted in a penalty. It seems clear that some sort of Red mist had overwhelmed him and he was lucky to get away with it. I think this is what Rafa wanted to avoid. He is a cold blooded genius. It just doen’t make him very likeable.

Henry Winter on Jose Mourinho

Although Henry Winter writes for the Torygraph he is a great football journalist. He knows his stuff, has great contacts, and writes beautifully. Here is the start of his opinion on Jose Mourinho's sensational departure.

Jose Mourinho's stay in English football felt like having a truculent but wonderfully talented teenager around the house. Any irritation over occasional spoilt-brat tantrums was offset by Mourinho's immense charm in private, his humour and undoubted brilliance as a football coach. English football is a quieter, more monochrome place without this Portuguese peacock.

I certainly hope Mourinho returns to English football one day. He raised the standard in the Premiership: the top teams have had to make themselves better to compete with Chelsea. I don't think they'll be the same team without him.

Football quote of the week

"I think Peter Schmeichel will be a father-figure for Kasper." -- Jamie Redknapp

Hitlers Sheffield Utd Suffer Their Downfall

Hitler and his Sheffield United henchmen eagerly await the results from the final day of the league season. They know a draw would keep their team safe but they're in for disastrous news from the newsroom

Portugal vs North Korea 1966 World Cup

Or should that be Eusebio vs North Korea?

Best Premiership vistory

As already discussed by Andy C we must consider which of Manchester United's premiership victories was the best. An interesting article in the Grauniad gives us statistics on how much each club that won the Premiership spent in the preceding Summer. As you can see below, in 95-96 United spent nothing. In fact they sold Paul Ince, Mark Hughes and Andrei Kanchelskis and still won. This year was a triumph, but that was the most impressive.

Season	Champions	Spent	Players Bought
1995-96	Manchester United	0
1992-93	Manchester United	£1.1m	Pat McGibbon, Dion Dublin
1999-2000	Manchester United	£1.5m	Quinton Fortune
2003-04	Arsenal	£2.5m	Cesc Fábregas, Phillipe Senderos, Jens Lehmann , Gaël Clichy
1993-94	Manchester United	£3.75m	Roy Keane
1994-95	Blackburn	£5.3m	Chris Sutton, Robbie Slater
1996-97	Manchester United	£7.5m	Raimond van der Gouw, Ronny Johnsen, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Karel Poborsky, Jordi Cruyff
2000-01	Manchester United	£7.8m	Fabien Barthez
1997-98	Arsenal	£14.55m	Alex Manninger, Manu Petit, Giles Grimandi, Luis Boa Morte, Alberto Mendez, Marc Overmars, Lee Canoville, Christopher Wreh
2006-07	Manchester United	£18.6m	Michael Carrick
2001-02	Arsenal	£22.25m	Francis Jeffers, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Sol Campbell, Richard Wright
1998-99	Manchester United	£27.75m	Jaap Stam, Jesper Blomqvist, Dwight Yorke
2002-03	Manchester United	£30m	Rio Ferdinand
2005-06	Chelsea	£53.4m	Asier del Horno, Scott Sinclair, Lassana Diarra, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Michael Essien
2004-05	Chelsea	£89.05m	Petr Cech, Arjen Robben, Paulo Ferreira, Mateja Kezman, Didier Drogba, Tiago, Ricardo Carvalho

Poor Freddy Adu part 2

Poor Freddy Adu. In the same way that he thinks he is the same as Maradona, but is really a Championship level player, he thinks that attention to David Beckham may "die off pretty quickly" if Beckham doesn't play well. Ha Ha! Beckham is as much better at grabbing attention than Freddy as Maradona was better at football.

Kevin Keegan, Emlyn Hughes and Margaret Thatcher

A story in the Grauniad mentions a famous photo of Kevin Keegan and Emlyn Hughes cosying up to Thatcher on the Downing Street steps. It would seem important that such an important image be preserved for future generations.

While talking about football I must mention that I am reading the excellent book The Damned Utd by David Peace. Recommended for all those who hated the Leeds team of the 70s.

Updated: found a screenshot from ITN:

New Ronaldo song

He plays on the leeeft, he plays on the r-i-i-ight! That boy Ronaldo, makes England look SHITE!!

Alan Hansen

I like Alan Hansen. But I was amused by his two columns. For the BBC he wrote:

I don't think it's great for the competition when clubs don't select their strongest side but it is difficult to have any complaints about Wenger's policy when you see how close they came to winning the cup.

For the Torygraph he wrote:

However much you admire Arsene Wenger - his Midas touch with young players, the way his teams pass a football - you can only argue that he has disrespected the competition by fielding what was an admittedly very talented second XI.

Only a subtle difference but it amused me.

Man Utd 3 West Brom 5 (December 30th 1978)

Not good to see United lose but the bad karma caused by the Old Trafford crowd booing black players allows Laurie Cunningham to run wild. Great to have defenders that can score like Brian Greenhof and Gordon McQueen. It was 3:3 at halftime! Bryan Robson is on the wrong side, Gary Bailey is in good form. And we see Dave Sexton with Ron Atkinson who would eventually replace him as United manager.

I'm proud that Laurie Cunningham was the first black player to play in a competitive England match. He also played for United on loan. He was killed in a crash in Madrid at the age of 33.