The erm...‘hectic schedule’ that is my social calendar eased up somewhat this week allowing me to sit down and take in a big load of hardcore Champions League action. After spending far too long in the company of Andy Townsend for my own liking here are some of my thoughts on an absorbing few days of football
1. So, with three of its four representatives making hard going of qualifying for the knock out stages, are we seeing a slump in the quality of the vaunted Premier League and the ability of its teams to plough through their groups without breaking out as so much into a sweat? Well, let’s just wait to the final round of fixtures shall we?
It’s clear that thus far English teams have been making a bit of a meal of qualification but it’s still very likely that both Manchester United and Chelsea will make it through to the knock out stages. Manchester City, perhaps surprisingly are the ones on the verge of elimination and while they have been steam rolling all before them at home, City, despite all their millions have simply come up against some very good sides who have played better them.
Teams like Basle, Leverkusen, Valencia and Benfica have all shown themselves to be highly capable however none of them are stuffed with world beaters. What they all do is keep the ball well and it’s probably a shock for the teams for the Premier League to be playing opposition who don’t give them the ball right back and who are able to keep possession to ensure less pressure on their goal. I still think we will have at least three of the four teams from England into the last 16 when all is said and done however it does make things more interesting this way.
2. I don’t want anyone to accuse me of being a stickler for the rules or anything, I like to think I’m more of a fun guy than that, but it was nice to see them applied in the AC Milan Barcelona game when Lionel Messi was required to retake his penalty. For those that didn’t see it, Messi came to a halt in his run up, waited for the keeper to move and then rolled it the other way, a contravening of the rules. The reason I flag this up is because if you watch a penalty these days there is so much going on, both in keeper encroachment off their line and from players routinely on both sides flooding into the box before the kick has even been taken. Whether the rules make sense or not is another matter but if we want consistency and a level playing field for everyone then applying the rules that are in place is the only way of doing that.
3. When he was at Tottenham and Portsmouth I wasn’t really a big fan of Kevin Prince-Boateng. Not on a personal level you understand, I’ve never met him; which is just as well really as form what I understand he’s a bit of an abrasive fellow. No, the reason I wasn’t really a big fan was because of a prima donna attitude on the pitch where he swanned around doing very little and the things he did do (like take penalties in cup finals) doing very badly.
It came to my shock last year then when the mighty Milan decided he was worth a punt. Lo and behold and it’s started to become clear what all the fuss (not to emotion the ego) might have originally been about. Last season he was an important part of the club’s title winning campaign and on Wednesday he did this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ldvvvbCDbU&feature=related
It’s slightly easier to work out where his rather high opinion of himself comes from now.
4. It must have been Collins Beans criticism that did it! Over the summer, and for his work (or lack of it) last season, Joe Cole was the unfortunate recipient of a place in this site’s worst team of last season. Insipid displays and a general lack of, well, anything going on his game suggested that the mercurial midfielder was destined for a move to some footballing backwater like the MLS, Scotland or Aston Villa, and yet, a few months down the road here we are and Mr, sorry Monsieur Cole is now doing the business and could be an outside shout for a place in Fabio Capello’s England squad for 2012.
Too much? Well if you’ve seen any of his performances since joining the French Champions Lille on loan in August you will see a player that has seemingly found that spark that had gone missing for so long sitting on the Liverpool bench. Taking the brave plunge of a move into a different culture, Cole has revelled and in tandem with the outstanding Eden Hazard is playing his best football in years. It’s to his immense credit that he has thrown himself into his new world, trying his best to speak French in interviews and looking genuinely excited to be there. Better that than a move to Blackburn Rivers or something.
This week he was instrumental in getting Lille’s campaign back on track with their win over CSKA Moscow and when the likes of Stewart Downing seem to be squad regulars would we really want to rule him out of taking part at Euro 2012?
5. Now I can’t pretend to know about how Apoel Nicosia have struck a blow for underdogs everywhere by becoming the first team from Cyprus to qualify for the last 16 of the Champions League but you have to doth your caps to them. I’m all for looking out for the little guys and their progress through a very tough group (especially when you look at the group Manchester United were drawn in this year for example) deserves a hell of a lot of respect and changes things up from the same old names. To read more on their success follow the link to Amy Lawrence’s excellent piece on The Guardian’s website:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/nov/24/five-things-learned-champions-league
But if I could briefly become something of a party pooper, everything in football is relative. What I mean by this, is while it is great to see ’little Apoel’ doing so well against the big boys with all the money in the Champions League, the riches they will now have access to (especially if they can sustain it over a couple of years) distorts their own domestic competition, to where they become the big boys wash with cash and other teams struggle to break their dominance. This is what has happened in Belarus where BATE have used recent appearances in the Champions League to crush all before them domestically.
Rather unhelpfully, I’m afraid to say I don’t have a suggestion to how this issue might be averted but it’s just worth pointing out that where there is so much money swilling around that every completion is likely to be distorted by it.
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