Author Archives: The False Nine

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain: A battle with insignificance

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Making his TFN debut, Harry Wallace looks at Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s struggle for the limelight at Arsenal…

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s career has been oddly inconsequential. He was uncapped when he was called up to the England squad for a major tournament. But this was Euro 2012, when Roy Hodgson had been hurriedly planted in the manager job. Everyone around the country, press and fans alike, swiftly agreed that this tournament was a free hit. There hadn’t been enough time to amass a plan, let alone a squad to fit it.

In the Euros Oxlade-Chamberlain would start the first game against France and make two late substitute appearances in the other group games, before being an unused sub against Italy. On his debut he was lively the few times he had the ball, as many young fresh-faced players are. However he was restrained by one of Hodgson’s now stigmatized formations against France, looking to protect in only his third game in charge. It was also partially due to Rooney’s suspension, and Oxlade-Chamberlain could count himself unlucky not to feature ahead of a slumping Ashley Young in later matches. But the whole tournament lacked the pressure or scrutiny that has formed such a bemoaned companion for England. Certainly it was no comparison to Wayne Rooney’s dazzling Euro 2004, or even Raheem Sterling repeatedly scaring Italian defenders in Manaus. The Ox’s official arrival on the international scene was barely even a sideshow.

A year later, England traveled to the hallowed Maracana to face Brazil. Following a characteristically tepid England first-half performance, Oxlade-Chamberlain replaced Glen Johnson. He then scored a goal that was a god send to narrative-seeking writers covering the game, a stunning drive in the same stadium that his Father had played in 29 years prior. It was a magnificent moment, or at least as great as it possibly could have been. After all, it was merely an exhibition game that not many would quickly recall now. Continue reading →

CFU Club Championship 2015: Group Stage Review

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Nathan Carr, editor of The Home of Caribbean Football, looks back at the group stage of the CFU Club Championship…

This year’s CFU Club Championship is the 17th edition since its inception in the late 1990s. Widely regarded as the Caribbean’s premier club competition, it pits the crème of the crop against each other to determine the region’s three representatives at the CONCACAF Champions League (CCL). The Championship has a couple of entry requirements: it is open to all 31 CFU member associations’ league champions and runners-up, as long as their respective seasons finished by the end of last year. Each club must pay a fee by a set deadline, which in this year’s case was 7 January. For 2015, a total of 15 teams from nine member associations entered and were placed in four groups. Here’s how the action panned out…

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Group 1:

From the outset this group had only three participants because of the uneven number of total teams. It was expected that Guyanese champions Alpha United, a team that featured in last year’s CCL, would battle with Central FC of Trinidad & Tobago for the number one spot, but it was actually the latter that came out on top and secured progress through to the semi-finals. Founded just three years ago by former Soca Warriors defender Brent Sancho, now the country’s Minister of Sport, Central boast a strong squad and are coached by Englishman Terry Fenwick. They play good football and have several stand-outs who have experience playing with the national team, like Willis Plaza, Ataullah Guerra and veteran goalkeeper Jan-Michael Williams. Plaza was the star of the show against Surinamese champions Inter Moengotapoe, scoring two second half goals within the space of four minutes. The Sharks had to follow that win up with another when they faced Alpha, who had also beaten Inter two days previously. Continue reading →

Interview: Ed Chamberlin – Dream Goal, Southampton and Monday Night Football

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The False Nine were invited along to Budweiser’s Dream Goal event launch in Regent’s Park last week. Ed Chamberlin stopped for a chat about that, Monday Night Football and Southampton…

Tell us about Dream Goal. How did you get involved?

“My agent got a telephone call that I was delighted about to be honest. Gary was right when he said earlier, it’s amazing when you think about it that it hasn’t been done before. I was delighted, and it’s been a lot of fun. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. My goodness did we giggle during that day filming it. We still don’t know how it’s going to come out, and you sure you guys are always the same on twitter you’re a bit nervous when you send that link out, and you imagine the abuse you’ll get a lot of the time for various shows. Suddenly, all that came back was how much people had enjoyed it, which for us is very unusual. It’s been great, and the thing I’ve loved is football people including us in tweets to their mates saying “Oh we need to send in Gary’s one from last week”, from village football matches to all round the country it’s been quite satisfying. None of mine have made it.

What’s the best goal you’ve ever scored?

I live in a village called Broughton, I think I’ve scored some great goals but I asked the lads which one of mine would you enter and they all looked rather confused, which was slightly disappointing actually, for a big, gallivanting centre-half who loves to come forward.

Do you play much?

Not as much as I used to. When you pass 40 the knees start to go.

So you’d say you’re more Gary Neville than Jamie Redknapp?

[Laughs] I have no idea what you mean by that! Yeah. I’m a very bad Jamie Carragher I think. I haven’t got Redknapp’s looks, midfield ability, passing ability, anything. Continue reading →

Daniel Sturridge: Liverpool’s main attraction or supporting act?

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Hari Sethi looks into a difficult season for Daniel Sturridge, and asks whether he can be relied upon to be Liverpool’s main man next season…

Wheeling away to celebrate scoring the winner against Southampton on the opening day of the season, Daniel Sturridge could’ve been forgiven for allowing himself to daydream of the year that lay ahead.

Though Anfield still bore the emotional wounds of last season’s ultimately futile title charge and the departure of the club’s talismanic number seven, for the other half of Liverpool’s prolific ‘SAS’, this was to be a season of opportunity, a season as the main man.  Yet with just seven games of their Premier League campaign left and with a top four finish seeming increasingly improbable, Sturridge has made just 11 appearances for the Reds, scoring four goals in the process.

For a player who signed a five year, £150k a week contract in October and the only recognized striker who possesses the physical traits to excel within Rodgers’ desired style of play, things haven’t gone well. This has been a disastrous season for Sturridge and one that casts doubt over his role in the side going forward. Continue reading →

Ten Reasons why England won’t win another World Cup

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Liz Heade of Thinking Woman’s Football returns to The False Nine to give 10 reasons why England’s genetic makeup means they will never win another World Cup…

The last time England won the World Cup, they believed they were the best team in the world. They also thought they were the best in the world in 1970, but they had another think coming when they came up against a Brazil team with a justifiable claim to be called the best ever, and football was never the same again. So, apart from needing to believe you are the best in order to win at any sport, want to know nine more reasons why England won’t win another World Cup?

Food:  Well-nourished English children don’t play football, at least not seriously. They play rugby or cricket, or they might take up athletics. Young bones formed by poor quality supermarket food, takeaways or frozen stuff cooked in microwaves don’t generally build world-beating athletes. Maybe England don’t need to go back to the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, sausage and mash, bovril and beer diet that made Bobby Moore and his men the all-conquering specimens of the 60s, maybe they just need to get some well-nourished 21st century kids into academies, the kind with the bone density and stamina to survive the full four weeks of tournament football.

Weather:  Look at the list of the seven other World Cup winners and ask yourself why there are no names there boasting a cold, wet, windy climate that discourages both summer great outdoors-ing and winter sporting equally. Fit, healthy, resilient kids need to be outside every day, playing in sunshine and snow, getting knocked about by bigger kids and learning how not to be knocked about tomorrow. Instead they grow pale and wan glued to Playstations in their bedrooms or stuck in cars on the way to an hour’s training on a plastic pitch – which is also ruining their skeletal development. Continue reading →

The Race for the Champions League: A Re-imagining

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TFN debutant Will Magee re-imagines the top four and the race for the Champions League…

Do you like football? Any football at all? Then the chances are you’ve read several astoundingly reprocessed ‘top-four race’ pieces in the last few weeks. These articles are the reanimated undead of the Premier League season, the phantoms that plague the minds of hungover sport writers, the ghosts at the top-flight feast; they appear every year at exactly the same time to remind us that our lives are, essentially, hauntingly repetitive – and that Arsenal will most likely finish fourth.

The prediction for this year goes like this: Chelsea in first, Manchester City in second, two of Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool in the lesser Champions League spots. It’s really no more complicated than that. A maverick journalist will throw Tottenham into the mix every once in a while in an attempt to break the cycle, but do so with the poignant knowledge that this is totally, utterly futile – a puny act of rebellion in an uncaring existential void. Likewise, somebody will always root for a rank outsider, the last hope of escaping his or her recurring top-four nightmare. This never comes off, and said somebody is quickly institutionalised.

Still, at the risk of my own mental wellbeing, I fancy making an attempt at exorcising the eerie persistence of the ‘top-four race’ article and re-imagine the entire thing. Despite our numbing collective awareness that it will never be so, what clubs would we actually like to see finish in those coveted Premier League places? And in what precise order? Let’s settle down, hold onto our minds, disregard those creepy voices telling us to do terrible violence against the ones we love – and bloody well find out. Continue reading →

St Kitts and Nevis ready for World Cup campaign

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Caribbean Football‘s Nathan Carr looks at St Kitts and Nevis’ World Cup qualifying preparation and speaks to two players, captain Atiba Harris and winger Zeph Thomas…

It’s that time again: when those smaller nations all over the world can dream of making it to global football’s showpiece event – the World Cup. The CONCACAF qualifying cycle for 2018 commences with the first round in March and will last for 33 months. One such team harbouring hopes of making it out of the first round and going onto have a successful campaign is St Kitts and Nevis.

Affectionately nicknamed as “The Sugar Boyz”, the Caribbean twin-island were drawn against the Turks & Caicos Islands in the confederation’s preliminary draw conducted in Miami in mid-January, which determined the region’s first and second rounds, while the other three phases will be decided later in July in St Petersburg. They will host the first leg in the capital Basseterre on Monday 23rd before travelling to Providenciales for the second leg three days later, and spirits are high among the camp ahead of the match-up.

The country’s captain Atiba Harris, currently contracted to FC Dallas in Major League Soccer said, “It’s always a great feeling surrounding the World Cup draw. I’m excited and looking forward to the start of the campaign. As a nation, we’ll love to go as far as possible but at this present time, our main focus is on doing well and getting a positive result against Turks & Caicos.”   Continue reading →