Monthly Archives: January 2014

Liverpool’s Dunkin Donuts and six other weird football sponsors

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TFN’s Piers Barber takes a look at the wacky world of football sponsorships…

Thanks to Liverpool’s multi-million pound deal with Dunkin’ Donuts, staff at Anfield can now look forward to regularly indulging in the company’s finest baked goods, as well as the brand’s rather pitiful attempts at brewing coffee and tea.

Yet Liverpool is far from the first side to involve themselves in a wonderfully weird and out of context sponsorship deal. Here are some of the typical ways that the strange world of global capitalism has involved itself in the Beautiful Game…  Continue reading →

Arsenal, Johan Djourou and the dreaded loan system

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In his first piece for The False Nine, Arsenal fan Chris Lockie fears the spectre of the returning loan player…

There’s a moment in every ropey action movie when the bad guy, thinking he has the hero over a barrel, suddenly twigs that it’s all about to go sideways. The hero produces an unlikely trigger device from nowhere, hastily added to the script by studio executives demanding sequels, and the villain’s facial expression changes from smugness to panic as realisation dawns. Worst thing is he’d just told the hero his evil masterplan. Really must stop doing tha- booooooooom.

That changing facial expression is well known to any football fan whose club makes hearty use of the loan system. One minute you can be happily Googling ex-players and chuckling at the footballing backwaters they now prowl, only to spy on Wikipedia the dreaded words ‘on loan from’. Cue the immediate switch from triumph to alarm as you realise there’s a chance your former centre back who coughed up a goal per game to the opposition with his trademark lunge may actually be coming back to terrorise your subs bench. Continue reading →

Bayer Leverkusen, Deportivo La Coruna and the 2001-02 Champions League

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TFN’s Hugo Greenhalgh remembers two teams who left a lasting impression in the 2001-02 Champions League…

The football memories of our youth are naturally the most rose-tinted. We all remember our first World Cup and for the core group of writers behind this blog, it is France ’98. We’ll be sharing some of our favourite World Cup memories in the run-up to Brazil, but what of football’s other major tournaments? These days the Champions League has been raised to the same plinth as the World Cup and is viewed as the real test for any player worth his salt. Yet early memories of Europe’s stellar competition are somewhat complicated. While we all remember Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s winner against Bayern Munich, its context seemed confusing. What was its relevance and why was this the crown jewel in Manchester United’s treble? A few seasons on and all these questions had answers.

Champions League nights were genuinely exciting evenings and crucially they were available to watch on terrestrial television. It is almost hard to imagine a time when world football was not there to watch at our fingertips. Today it is possible to become an expert in a foreign league without leaving one’s sofa. But at the turn of the century, opportunities to watch Europe’s hottest stars were few and far between so European nights were to be made the most of. Step forward Bayer Leverkusen and Deportivo La Coruna – two sides who made the 2001/2 Champions League a memorable and enjoyable tournament. Continue reading →

How David Moyes made Manchester United one-dimensional

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It’s all going wrong for David Moyes at Manchester United – and Greg Johnson can explain exactly why… 

David Moyes arrived at Old Trafford as the man who was supposed to provide continuity following the reign of Sir Alex Ferguson. A Caledonian compatriot cut from the same cloth, so the narrative went: a safe pair of hands to maintain what Ferguson had built, rather than a radical looking to change a successful club.

Yet just six months since Moyes officially arrived, Manchester United look a shadow of their former selves. Pedestrian in attack, porous in defence and often vacant in spirit, they have been described as the worst reigning champions in Premier League history.

At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be too much different in the team’s set-up. Although Ferguson may protest that he rarely played a true 4-4-2, a variant on this oft-maligned system was, and still is, the default formation. Similarly, United still tend to attack down the wings, as they did under Fergie from Ralph Milne onwards – and as at Everton, Moyes has continued to encourage his full-backs to join in on the overlap, sometimes at risk to their defensive duties. Continue reading →

Aleksandar Kolarov: will the inverted full back help us overcome a defensive Gaël Cliché?

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In the fourth installment of ‘Tacticle Your Fancy’, Simon Smith discusses the merits of Manchester City’s Aleksandar Kolarov and explores the idea of a back ‘three and a half’…

This has been a strange week for Manchester City’s full backs. I basically love Aleksandar Kolarov, but I strongly hate the constant popular analysis of him. It’s not that it’s wrong, on Match of the Day when the pundits gather round and highlight his attacking penetration but defensive shortcomings, or when the fans are rightly frustrated when a lapse in his concentration allows yet another testy ball into a dangerous area.

No, that does very well summarize the issue in Pellegrini playing him. The reason I hate that isn’t because of its inaccuracy but for the same reason I detest comparisons between Theo Walcott and defensive workhorse James Milner, why I loathe it when an old reliable like Ashley Cole is held up as an example of what Kolarov should try and emulate. These players play in the same part of the pitch, but they are far from the same position.

So to find myself enjoying not only Kolarov’s performance against the unfortunate Newcastle United on Sunday but also the quality of analysis on Match of the Day 2 was something of a surprise. Was there more detail than usual, a clever insight into his role I had missed? No, just the usual pointing out of his wide attacking overlapping with Silva cutting inside: an interesting feature but one prevalent in many top sides and a regular tactic of Mancini before Pellegrini.

What made the analysis good was what was left unsaid. Kolarov was effectively analyzed as if he was a midfielder in City’s 2-6-2 formation. Continue reading →

Why Robert Lewandowski should have won the Ballon d’Or

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Joe Hall argues the case for Robert Lewandowski as the winner of the Ballon d’Or 2013…

He doesn’t have one tenth of the talent Lionel Messi does. He will never match the phenomenal force of Cristiano Ronaldo. And even when he eventually joins Bayern Munich, he could well play second fiddle to Franck Ribery. Having said all that, Robert Lewandowski should have won the 2013 Ballon d’Or.

Before you roll your eyes, I’m not a jumped-up Bundesliga “expert” with a BT Sport subscription who could tell you how the intricacies of Lewandowski’s games are more tactically flexible, his pressing more effective than the three nominees, or anything like that.

It’s just that if you do insist on giving out an individual award in a team sport, it’s not very interesting simply to ask “who is the best?!”. Laboriously working over the stats to try and come to some sort of scientific conclusion is a fruitless task; subjectivity will always be present. Some people are Messi people and some are Ronaldo people, just as some prefer Oasis and others Blur. Some don’t care.

Instead, the Ballon d’Or should be a bit more like the Oscars. Continue reading →

Interview – David Conn on Hillsborough

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In the second of a two-part interview, Natasha Clark speaks to Guardian sports journalist and investigative reporter David Conn about the impact of Hillsborough on football in 2014…

“96 people died. 96 people came to Sheffield to see their team play, and actually died. We cannot forget that.”

Conn speaks sombrely and yet with sheer passion about what has now been publically revealed to be an extensive police cover up, supported by bogus media reporting, most notably from the Sun’s ‘THE TRUTH’ front page, four days after the event.

“What happened at Hillsborough never should have been allowed to happen,” he says quietly. What happened for the next 23 years should also never have been allowed to happen.”

He speaks about the “21 years of silence” following Hillsborough as equally appalling as the events of the 1989 match.

“I know they were under pressure. As a journalist, you can make mistakes… but not like that. There is a huge difference between the truth and smearing.” Continue reading →