Julio Baptista – Arsenal’s Beast from Brazil

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Tim Stillman, writer for Vital Arsenal and Arseblog, remembers Julio Baptista…

Arsenal have a rather lukewarm history where Brazilian players are concerned. Edu and Silvinho were good squad players that will also be remembered for passport issues. Denilson and Andre Santos won’t be remembered as success stories, whilst a fleet of young Brazilians, such as Wellington Silva (currently out on his fourth loan spell) and Pedro Botelho haven’t made the grade. Interestingly, Botelho is currently enjoying a fine season at Atletico Paranaense, who sit 3rd in Brasileirão having been promoted from Serie B last season. Fran Merida is also on their books, but playing much more fitfully.

Going back further, Arsenal’s reserve left back Juan’s most notable achievement was to spawn the amusing chant “There’s only one Juan” in his solitary first team start against Gillingham in 2002.  Gilberto Silva has been the only unqualified success having left his home state of Minas Gerais in 2002 to win a league title and two F.A. Cups at Arsenal. But there can be little debate about one of Arsenal’s least auspicious Brazilian signings. Julio Baptista joined on loan from Real Madrid in the summer of 2006, with a homesick Jose Antonio Reyes going in the opposite direction. Baptista arrived at Arsenal with some expectation and not solely because his talents had been acquired by Real Madrid. Continue reading

Europa League’s English trio: the West Broms of Europe?

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Simon Smith looks at the changing English perceptions of the Europa League…

This week the Europa League reaches the crunch stage, the quarter finals.  All the teams that get through this will fancy their chances of winning the tournament and there are no sloppy teams let in the running.  So why the three English clubs?  Traditionally this stage of the competition has eliminated them by now, so are we looking at a newfound interest in the competition by Premier League clubs or are there other reasons for the current success?  Take a look at the current teams involved, compare them to recent seasons and the mystery becomes a little clearer…

Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea and Newcastle are all good teams, but none of them are great teams.  There have in the last few seasons been two different classes of English club in Europe’s junior cup and for different reasons neither have had the ability to make significant progress in the tournament: clubs with desire but who lack the quality, and clubs with the quality who lack interest. Continue reading