September Report - European Football

With September drawing to a close, the European football season has started off on a rather interesting note.

Ok, French league title looks set to stay in the capital again with Paris Saint Germain off to their best start to a league campaign in recent times, and powerhouses Marseille and Lyon nowhere on the table, having lost a manager, Marco Bielsa and best player, Nabil Fekir at the start of the season respectively. At least, Angers are making waves with their flying start to their first season in the top flight in many years, while fellow newcomers, Gazalec Ajaccio could potentially be the worst team ever to play in any top European league.

Then there’s Bayern Munich who are running away with the German title as usual this time on the back of their tall Pole, Robert Lewandowski’s goals – he scored 6 in the last two games and notched his 100^th Bundesliga goal on the weekend. Mind you, Borussia Dortmund seem back to their best after an astonishing start to the season but have just went a little bit off the rails after two consecutive draws against Hoffenheim and newcomers Darmstadt.  

Of interest was the departure of respected coach, Lucien Favre, from Borussia Moenchengladbach after a horror start to the season which saw the Manchester City’s rivals in the Champions League at the bottom of the league table. The northerners won their first game following Favre’s resignation but have a long way to catch up with the likes of Wolfsburg and Bayer Leverkusen.

The most interesting scenarios are definitely in the traditional big 3 leagues of England, Spain and Italy.

In Spain, there are signs that Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid could be joined at the top by several other contenders, with Villarreal a shock leader of La Liga at the moment, and Celta Vigo in 4^th – the Gallician club were of course managed by current Barca coach, Luis Enrique before the ex-Spanish midfielder headed to the Camp Nou. Deportivo la Coruna, Spanish champions in 2000, seemed to have brought back the good times of early in the last decade, sitting in 6^th on the table in their first season back in the top flight.

Across the Mediterranean, Juventus are nowhere to be seen after a stuttering start to the defence of their umpteenth Scudetto title. AS Roma, their usual challengers of the last few seasons, have also stuttered after a decent start, ceding top spot to Internazionale, who have not seen better times since Jose Mourinho led the Nerrazzurri to Champions League glory in 2010.

Former City boss, Roberto Mancini is back at the San Siro to guide the blue half of Milan back to the title winning ways he experienced pre-City days and after this start, who wouldn’t bet against him repeating history? The challengers are being led by Fiorentina, Torino and recent surprise packages, Sassuolo, one of three little Italian clubs from Italy’s industrious centre – the others are Carpi and Frosinone – playing in the top flight.

With Serie A climbing up the UEFA rankings and pushing the Premier League for 3^rd spot, it’s safe to say that Italian football is making a great recovery after some very lean years.

As for the Premier League, chaos and excitement sum it up. Mancini’s old club sparkled at the start but after two consecutive defeats to West Ham and Tottenham, question marks have again been raised of Manuel Pellegrini’s side especially with those defeats coming after the home defeat to out of form Juventus. At least they’re in a better position than Chelsea who are in the bottom half of the table and struggling for some consistency with Mourinho’s excuses for defeat making more headlines than the team itself.

All this has left Manchester United to lead the table. Amidst the arrival of experienced internationals, Schneiderlin and Schweinsteiger, it’s a virtually unknown teenager called Martial who is creating huge waves at Old Trafford. Signed from Monaco, the French teenager wasn’t really expected to feature in van Gaal’s plans this season but with van Persie now in Turkey and Rooney a bit goal shy, it’s been Martial’s form that has really caught the eye and led the Red Devils back to familiar ground.

Behind Manchester, it’s West Ham United leading fellow Londoners Arsenal, Tottenham and surprise package, Crystal Palace, albeit no thanks to their home form which has been poor in what is their last season at Upton Park before moving to The Stadium. Slaven Bilic could take some inspiration from Namibia who recently took centre stage at their new home against the All Blacks.

Behind them, Leicester City have been providing all the thrills under the man known as the Tinkerman. Claudio Ranieri is still a long way from achieving the status Martin O’Neill had with the club in the 1990s but the Foxes certainly have never played this well since their move to the new stadium 12 years ago, and top ten is a realistic goal for a side that were bottom of the table 9 months ago and set for relegation.

There is one more round of games to go before the international break but one could say this is one of the best football seasons in a while.  

  

Will the Real RWC Please Stand Up?

The Rugby World Cup in England has now gone on for 2 weekends now and off the fhield, the tournament is set to be the most commercially successful in its brief history.

Taking the game to traditional football stadia like Wembley Stadium, Villa Park, Elland Road, etc. appears to have been a masterstroke by organisers, with close-to-capacity crowds for every game including new records set for World Cup attendances.

With rugby set to visit the homes of Newcastle United and Manchester City in the coming days, the dollar signs are set to hang around the organiser’s eyes for a while yet.

Certainly from a commercial point of view, the difference between this tournament and 1999, the last time England hosted the World Cup is like chalk and cheese.

The same can’t quite be said about the quality of the rugby though.

On a positive note, the minnows have definitely closed the gap to the giants and appear to have consigned century scores to the annals of Rugby World Cup history. Good preparation and coaching has ensured the likes of Namibia, USA, Canada and Romania can compete with the giants even if not for the whole game.

Obviously, the story of the tournament has been Japan following their unprecedented win over South Africa in Brighton, although their rise to this level isn’t really a surprise given they have had a professional league with plenty of input from the giants for a decade now, and have been preparing for their impending entry into Super Rugby – and possibly even the Rugby Championship along with the Pacific Islands.

On the other hand, the quality of rugby has been slightly anonymous and stodgy. We are yet to see a star really make a mark on this tournament like John Kirwan, David Campese, Jonah Lomu or Bryan Habana have in the past – Nehe Milner-Skudder has put up his hand a few times and Cory Allen could have made an impact had he not suffered that tournament ending injury after his hat-trick against Uruguay.

In a bid to ensure the correct calls are made in each game, more time has been added on to games as TMOs digest almost each and every play to see how forward that pass was or how much less of the hands were involved in that tackle.

I don’t dispute the TMOs being involved in checking on scoring plays that could ultimately influence the plot of the game – those complaining that they shouldn’t be there perhaps need reminding that had we had the TMO 8 years ago in Cardiff, the game against France might have turned out quite differently.

However, there seems to be a need for the TMO to be involved in rucks and mauls where the referees should have the most say. Along with the persistent scrum resets, this area threatens to dilute the entertainment value of this World Cup.

Indeed, World Rugby appears to have missed a trick by not emulating the cricket and rugby league World Cups, by being able to get the TMO on air for viewers to listen as he studied each inch of footage for a knock-on or forward pass. A missed opportunity perhaps to engage the viewers with the maligned officialdom.

Perhaps in the quest to bring parity to world rugby, the quality has had to suffer a bit with many sides now more adept and aware of the strengths of their opponents – Eddie Jones’ knowledge of the Boks surely was a key in helping the Blossoms upset their highly-rated rivals.

The football World Cup has suffered a bit – while the game has never been more open, the quality of football isn’t quite as exciting as it was.

Hopefully, there is more to come from this Rugby World Cup with the big sides keeping their cards to their chest before the knockout stages.

Could Waisake Naholo be the man to turn this World Cup around? He better be.

Can England or Austria Win Euro 2016?

Another round of qualifying for the European Championships in France in 2016 has been completed with only one more round robin to go and still many countries yet to confirm their spots.

England, Austria, Iceland and the Czech Republic confirmed their places in the expanded football extravaganza next year while the likes of Wales, Germany, Poland, Northern Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Russia edged closer towards automatic qualification.

Ok, how many of you bet that England and Austria would be amongst the first two nations to automatically qualify for EURO 2016?

I guess England were in a moderately tricky group with the highly rated Swiss and mercurial Slovenes and average Estonians and Lithuanians and almost irrelevant San Marino. The young talented Swiss led by Stoke City's Xherdan Shaqiri were tipped to cause the Lions the most problems after a pretty decent World Cup performance but proved to be a major disappointment at the start as England romped away with a 8-0 record.

The eternal question remains though - can England finally become real contenders at a major tournament? It is hard to say and it doesn't appear that much has changed. It will all come down to which group they get - this should be boosted by their performance in the qualifiers which was almost akin to the Dutch - funnily enough, the Dutch have performed like England over the last 2 years in these qualifiers and are almost certain to miss out completely.

It will be a fairly youthful England team that goes to France next year led by record goalscorer, Wayne Rooney - Luke Shaw, Nathaniel Clyne, John Stones, Adam Lallana, Jordan Henderson, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain are still young and just hitting the peak of their careers. Whether they can mimic the ethos applied by Spain and Germany remains to be seen.

One team guaranteed to mimic that ethos is Austria.

The team from Germany's little brother in the Alps have never really been considered one of the most exciting teams in world football apart from being the losing team in a 7-5 defeat to Hungary in the 1954 World Cup - indeed most of their history has been mired in controversy including that game against their neighbours West Germany in the 1982 World Cup where they settled for a 1-0 defeat so that both sides would qualify.

Since their last appearance at a major tournament in 1998, Austria have languished and been regarded as one of the minnows.

How many world class players from Austria could you count in the last 15 years?

How many Austrian Bundesliga sides made the Champions League group stages in the last 15 years?

However, a revival has started taking place in this decade - like Germany, Belgium and Switzerland, Austria has started taking advantage of its new generation immigrant population and seems to be heading back to the (slightly) glorious days of the 1990s.

David Alaba is obviously the key person for the Austrians - the Bayern Munich utility player has become the talisman for his national side and has been key in Austria's incredible performance in this qualifying tournament. However, he has had help from the rise of his compatriots who are now gracing the Premier League, i.e. Leicester's Christian Fuchs, Stoke's Marko Arnautovic and experienced goalscorer, Basel's Marc Janko.

Austria's revival isn't quite like Belgium's where they've come from nowhere to provide a Premier League Star XI that includes Alderweireld, Kompany, Vertonghen, Chadli, Hazard, Mirrallas, Fellaini, de Bruyne, Lukaku and Benteke - could win the tournament but given their good coaching and team spirit, they could very well be a surprise in France next year.

A big mention to Northern Ireland and Wales too who have really stepped up to the place and are set for automatic qualification. Now it's really the case of praying that Gareth Bale and Kyle Lafferty don't get injured before the tournament.

Who said that this expanded 24 Euro 2016 was bad for football? It might be time to get tickets to France for next summer.