English Football Blog

Technology has taken football to new levels this decade with players becoming fitter and recuperation times shorter with injuries but also this decade has seen the rise of a system called ProZone, this software gives huge amounts of statistics which means now that no player can hide on the pitch anymore. ProZone has been in use for around 8 seasons in football, last season 16 out of the 20 teams in the Premier League used this software. (more…)

Sepp Blatter has had to intervene in the club versus country row with the Olympics, the two major countries that are involved in this fiasco is Argentina and Brazil, arguably the two strongest nations in the tournament. The main people that are making the headlines are Lionel Messi of Barcelona and Robinho of Real Madrid, with both clubs adamant that they will not be releasing their stars to the tournament even though it stipulates that any player under the age of 23 has to go if their respective nation calls them up. (more…)

Formation: 4-4-2

Manager: Sir Alex Ferguson - The most successful manager during this decade in world football so I decided to use his most favoured system of play.

Goalkeeper: Peter Schmeichel (Denmark) - Denmark’s most capped player with 129 caps and he scored a goal for his country. In my eyes the greatest ever keeper, at 6’4 tall he was a obstacle players found hard to get round as well as great shot stopping technique, his throwing and kicking could lead to very fast counter-attacks. A complete player for his position.
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Lillian Thuram is the latest player to be diagnosed with a heart problem that will probably signify the end of the great French defenders career. His brother suffered from the same problem and died last year while playing basketball. Over 40 footballers have died from heart attacks or seizures since the year 2000, most have died from heart related problems. FIFA decided in August 2007 to bring in Cardiac testing to all players from all levels but that is still to be implemented with no set date for this to happen yet. Since then
2 player have died on the pitch from heart related problems.
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This week A.C Milan announced the signing of Brazilian two time world player of the year, Ronaldinho, for an estimated 16.8million pounds. Personally I believe this to be the coup of the season in world football for a player of such great caliber. It is by no means that the Brazilian has it his own way, it is well documented that last season he had his worse to date; even though he scored 8 goals in 17 league games. Some parts of the media have questioned his professionalism and that coinciding with injures last term spelt the end of his Barcelona career. But to mention that he is over the hill or lost any of his class is far to hasty, people are easy to forget that this man had world football at his feet only 18 months ago.
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This week Sepp Blatter, FIFA President, said in a interview that he did have a contingency plan after reports came out that one of South Africa’s stadium is running behind schedule for it’s completion for the 2009 Confederations Cup. It is important that every stadium is complete for the Confederations Cup to show FIFA that the countries transport and stadiums safety infrastructure works and will not fail in the 2010 World Cup. But the major question in hand is who is Mr Blatter’s country of choice if they do have to move the competition.
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With the start of the new season less than a month away now fans will be getting themselves set for another great, terrible or mediocre season  with their clubs. No matter what happens in the coming season it is a fact that at least a few managers heads will role before Christmas and who can honestly say that it is always the right choice by the club.
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Over the past decade or so the balance of power has been shifting from club to player. It would seem quite unreal that only 50 years ago players were on a maximum pay structure of £7 a week. Now the average income of a Premiership player is over £676,000, with the likes of John Terry and Steven Gerrard paid in the region of £120,000 a week. When in 1990 Jean Marc Bosman took his club FC Liege to court over being released from his contract and won finally in 1995 it sent shock waves throughout the footballing world and has had serious repercussions since. Now FIFA and the EU have deployed new laws that give players even more power to leave their respective clubs, with players no being allowed to pay their final two years of their contract to be able to leave the club and also allowed to rescind their contract if the club refuses to play them and leave them in the stands.
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There is no other country in the world that understands more about the heartache from loosing in a penalty shootout than England. Since the 1990 world cup in Italy there have been eight major international tournaments England have been involved in, they have been knocked out five times by penalty shootouts in those tournaments. It has been a long unanswered question by many, is there no other way to finish a game?
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