More (much more) football

Three matches I want to talk about.

The Manchester City-Blackburn game that I watched at the weekend and forgot about in the last entry.

A very entertaining Berlusconi Cup game between Juventus and AC Milan yesterday.

And finally the Champions League qualifier that finished a few hours ago between Celtic and Arsenal.

How much will be about the actual games and how much will be about the individual teams only time will tell...

Blackburn - Manchester City:

As everyone knows Manchester City have become filthy rich and have been more than happy to hand out tons of cash to secure (mainly attacking) talent.
Ignoring what came in last season this season alone in has come players such as Adebayor, Santa Cruz, Carlos Tevez, Gareth Barry and Kolo Toure.
All to certain degrees world class players and they join what on paper was already a strong squad.
The overwhelming question is of course if Mark Hughes with all that talent can create a world class team so strong it can challenge the traditional dominating top four.

Personally I think they already underachieved quite a bit last season and this year with these players dramatic improvement is simply a must and I think there can be no excuse not to finish in the top 5.
Villa, Everton and Tottenham mainly, have good squads too but when it comes to world class talent and depth thanks to their enormous spending Manchester City have pulled away and is now up there with the four strongest teams.
When it comes to players. But what about the manager?

Mark Hughes has recived quite a bit of credit over the years. First as Wales manager with his team often performing gallantly and later what was seen as generally overachieving when in charge of Blackburn.
It was rather limited how much I saw those teams play and even more limited how much I actually remember...
But my general impression was one of a team rarely well organized and sometimes with a rather misguided game plan. For what its worth, limited sample size, bad memory and all, it was just one of those teams that sometimes didn't look all that well coached when looking at them, mainly without the ball.

For Manchester City the picture has been similar. Very up and down and Hughes record of 26 wins, 8 draws and 24 defeats so far, is far from impressive.

To be honest I'm not totally sure what system Hughes was playing against Blackburn and its pointless to get caught up in the numbers too much anyway since they change around so much.
The backline was obviously four people and they played very well I thought.
Then Barry and Ireland (out of need in a more defensive role) as central midfielders, and depending on where Wright Phillips, Robinho and Bellamy were located the system was either 4-4-2 or 4-3-3ish.
I actually think Bellamy and Wright Phillips did an admirable job working extremely hard both ways but they aren't exactly great defensive players and Robinho's usual lack of workrate prevented what was probably meant to be a 4-4-2 when defending sticking together and being effective, basically giving Blackburn very favorable conditions to almost at will move the ball to the final third of the pitch, where thankfully for City, both the defense and Shay Given played very well preventing goals.
Hughes putting Wright Phillips and especially Robinho on the wings of a 4-4-2 just will not work longterm and better attacking, more ball secure teams than Blackburn will likely pick it apart.

What should give City hope is the signing of Tevez who outside of Wayne Rooney could be the best two-way forward in the world. He is the kind of player who with his work-rate can complement the likes of Robinho and Adebayor so they can concentrate on what they're actually very good at. Attacking!
Meanwhile someone like Tevez will get it done both ways.

But in a 4-4-2?
A three forward line of Tevez - Adebayor - Robinho would seem more logical and get the best of out those players. Robinho is almost wasted as a wing in a 4-4-2. All Robinho should be asked to do in a game is to attack, to create, and further behind someone like Ireland is also much better with two more defensive midfielders. Gareth Barry being one. Nigel De Jong probably the other.
As well as they actually played yesterday, Bellamy and Wright Phillips with this competition are very good depth players getting games here and there. Starting either over someone like Tevez is a disaster.

Forward of course City looked very good. They can give any team problems with their pace and excellent skill up front and Adebayor, if Santa Cruz at some point doesn't come back and seriously challenge his starting spot, should have a monster season.

But this was a flattering score line I thought. Blackburn had the more chances. Way more shots and a midfield actually consisting of more than two players!
Individually though with everyone playing relatively well the quality gap was large enough in City's favour in order for them to secure a win.
As a team they and Hughes still has some way to go though I think, but put Tevez in a 4-3-3 with Adebayor and Robinho and I think we have a serious top 4 challenger!


AC Milan vs Juventus

For the glorious Berlusconi Cup:
Glorified friendly anyone?

But this was actually a really good game I thought with both teams competing hard seemingly with something to prove.

One very positive thing was seeing Alessandro Nesta finally back and looking pretty solid too.
It's very likely he won't remain consistently healthy but all the credit in the world to him for coming back after one injury nightmare after another.
Back when he was healthy he was the best defender that I ever saw. Simply an immense player.
Even as a Juventus fan I felt my heart stop a little every time he, and he didn't seem to hold back at all, went into hard tackles. Stay healthy Alessandro!

Another player who also did this was of course Gattuso who looked much better than in the Confederations Cup and almost got into a fight with new Juventus signing Felipe Melo.
Melo himself saw the red card plenty last season and I definitely expect fireworks from these two when they cross swords later this season in Serie A.
Melo I hope will be a monster. He is a great physical talent with very smooth passing skills.
For Gattuso everything will be about his health. If not 100 percent fit he really isn't good enough at the highest level anymore. Flamini for an example is definitely better at this point. Lets see if the Milan hierachy will finally be broken under new coach Leonardo or if Flamini is still behind veterans Ambrosini and Gattuso in the pecking order.

Other than the new coach the biggest questionmark for Milan this season is of course Ronaldinho. In this game it was basically the usual from the last couple of years with perhaps a better workrate though. At least in this game. I'm not totally sure. But in spurts he did look good.

One interesting thing though is that he wasn't playing his old role or the role previously occupied by Kaka at Milan.
Pato actually did this and was much more of a forward in this game bordering on attacking midfielder involved in buildup, than being a pure striker. He still made some great speedy runs though. Really he was kind of an everywhere man.
To a lesser extent the same was the case with new signing Huntelaar. He was seen a lot of other places than in the box, working really hard.
Personally I think Pato can be great in that role. His talent has no limit almost but to put Huntelaar out of his element like this just to accommodate a Ronaldinho not at his best anymore and not good enough to play the role he used to, having other people to do that, just so he maybe can be effective around the penalty area, WHERE probably the likes of Huntelaar and Pato would be more effective anyway.
It seems when Ronaldiho plays this is what they will do. The question then of course is how much he will play? We shall see.

Finally on Milan and their players, I also thought new Brazilian defender Thiago Silva looked good and a definite upgrade over the likes of the unreliable Kaladze and the ancient Giuseppe Favalli.

Juventus I could probably go on and on about but will try to restrain myself and just concentrate on what I saw in this game.

First of all David Trezeguet sadly looks just about done to me. The last many many times I've seen him play there has been very little productivity and close to zero value for his team and yesterday was no exception.
I can't rule out him finding form again here and there but in this new Ciro Ferrara three-forward line I absolutely hate him playing a vital part. The unrealistic exception being if the other two parts were to be Giovinco and Del Piero.

When it's with Amauri or Iaquinta I just hate what he does to their game and forces them away from where they are best, just so Trezeguet with his non existant workrate can be where he frankly isn't that great anymore and definitely not as good as the alternatives.
Even, if possible, moreso than before he has become strictly a penalty area player and when he isn't even effective there I'm not sure there is room for that in what is supposed to be a flexible 4-3-1-2, or similar, system.
Another challenge for this system looks to be width where Milan for good parts of the game had the edge. When neither Del Piero or Giovinco plays where is attack from the left side gonna come from?
Molinaro is ordinary personified and De Ceglie still has some way to go in my eyes. Then there is the matter of defending the flanks where the midfield really has to find the right constellation in order to not become too stretched out. At least against good teams.
Against a lot of teams however I think most of the likely midfield formations will control games well enough for any width weakpoints not to be a deciding factor. Not least thanks to additions Melo and the excellent Diego.
A Sissoko, Melo and Marchisio/Camoranesi midfield with Diego in front of them looks very elite and I also think, despite some people's opinion, that Christian Poulsen can go in and contribute positively there over a long season.

The game itself was very back and forth with chances for both sides finishing 1-1 with Milan winning THE BERLUSCONI TROPHY on penalties.

Celtic - Arsenal

This was game two (competitively at least) of Arsenal's new 4-3-3 and while things didn't work out perfectly like at the weekend there were still some positives.

Mainly the midfield play where especially Song looked strong and fully capable of fulfilling his role there satisfactory.
Denilson was less eye catching but defensively this was one of the best games I've seen him in. His positioning was really good compared to in the past where it's been way below par.

One positive in a negative was that it was never really from any established Celtic attack that Arsenal found trouble defensively but only from poor decision making resulting in ball losses when in possession. And that's something that actually was below par from Arsenal today. Arsharvin was even more of a shadow of himself than in the weekend and just looked lost at times, while both Van Persie and Bendtner were quite a bit below the level they showed at the weekend.
In the other end Vermaelen looked extremely impressive and already looks like a great signing.
Celtic as expected fought hard but as local analyst here, Martin Laursen brought up, passing it around too much in their own half at times, especially after halftime, didn't do anyone any favours except Arsenal who could quite easily anticipate and at times even intercept.
Celtic should probably have tried skipping that ball movement, played much more direct and made the match even more into a physical battle.
Easier said than done of course and now with a 2-0 to overcome it's extremely difficult to see them having any chance of going through.

My goal is to have the next entry be some kind of Serie A preview before the weekend.

I will also be watching the Athletics World Championship on and off, as well as of course the Tennis from Cincinnati.

Arsenal and Chelsea (and everyone should watch men's tennis!)

This weekend I was never home and my sporting viewing experience suffered somewhat because of it.
Some things that could have been watched on tv had to be watched online and some things that was watched online could have been watched in better quality!
Oh well it wasn't that bad but a nice reminder of why as a devoted sports addict I should always try and stay at home even moreso than I do already!

Between lots of football, Usain Bolt's insane running and a relative unknown Korean besting Tiger Woods one on one in a major golf championship, what I enjoyed the most this weekend was probably the tennis from the Montreal Masters.
Various players are just playing great tennis at an exceptional high level right now and watching them battle throughout this whole week was great.
Murray, Tsonga, Roddick and Del Potro were all awesome and Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Wawrinka and Verdasco not far behind.
It was just one great match after another and that it set a very deserved crowd record for this particular tournament is a good sign I think.
Men's tennis is where it's at right now and if people can stay injury free, the U.S Open should be spectacular.

On to the football and once again Ancelotti and Chelsea in what was somewhat of a deja vu, even if the opponent Hull, was far from the quality of their Charity Shield one.
Again things started of slow with too much short passing going through Mikel resulting in nothing positive except for Hull that is.
I do think Mikel is a good player who when the first few times I saw him thought would become an excellent one. Of that I'm not so sure anymore. But he is very strong and can do the simple things and play an effective holding midfielder role.
What he just isn't though is any kind of effective distributor in what is clearly meant to be an attacking possession game. He won't make that very good pass to people making runs in front of him and won't make a quick first touch pass to a Bosingwa coming forward. Or be part of a nice one-two or triangle with his colleagues in the diamond.

That was his role however so he did look to do those things but the result was turnovers and/or momentum for Hull. He was never comfortable and either took too long on the ball, lost it or both.
Resulting in 1-0 for Hull and Mikel getting substituted at halftime.

Following that Chelsea then naturally improved forward. Like in the Charity Shield game play became more direct and while Drogba was beasting upfront the likes of Malouda, Lampard and Anelka were making effective runs around him.
But overall it's kinda hard to be positive about this because the chances that Hull in the first half was getting because of poor Chelsea possession they were now getting because Chelsea's team defending wasn't very effective. While the diamond now certainly was able to attack well it wasn't able to defend very good and like in the Charity Shield game it looks vulnerable to width and there is just a general imbalance to the Chelsea defending. Something that's been rare for many years now with this team build by Mourinho.

So will Ancelotti next week just scrap the "Mikel "playmaker" experiment" and settle for the powerful direct attack that the diamond at least including Ballack can produce. Even with its defensive vulnerabilities or does he skip this raw diamond altogether and try something more Chelsea proven?

Based on his comments focusing quite a lot on complimenting the 2nd half direct play, I'm guessing the first one and that will be enough to beat a lot of teams. Actually, potentially all teams. That's how good these players are but over time unless the balance improves I don't see this team reaching the level it did playing basically optimal under Hiddink and again, like I wrote last week, it could mean a great opportunity for a league title lost.

And it's still very early days of course. Lots of things can happen and I'm sure they will.

For Arsenal however everything pretty much did happen. And all of it positive. Slaughtering a normaly very solid Everton team away is a great result.
Tactically the big news has been that Arsene Wenger is dumping the 4-4-2 in favour of a more flexible 4-3-3.
In retrospect this should probably already have happened a season ago but afterall the 4-4-2 has brought him and the club a lot of success and at least in theory should be a system where the not so good defensive Arsenal players will have a better chance of handling themselves.

"No other formation is as efficient in covering space" is one of Wenger's quotes but with the right players of course any non 4-4-2 system can be turned into one when defending.
Does Arsenal have the players to do this consistently right now?
I would say no but they definitely have a lot of players a lot better in 4-3-3 like systems than in a 4-4-2.
Their young talented central midfielders, Denilson, Song, Diaby or for that matter, world class for years now, Fabregas haven't really been able to handle themselves well enough defensively in a 4-4-2 central midfield. And on the wings neither have players like Nasri, Walcott, Van Persie, Arsharvin or Rosicky. They're just not good enough physically.
Not good enough without the ball. At least not when you're considering at least 3 rivals to the title are among the very strongest teams in the world.
The biggest counter against that without the ball weakness has of course been to keep the ball an overwhelming majority of the time. With Fabregas they have one of only a handfull of uniquely taltented players who can take a possession game to a high enough level to consistently win against tough competition.

Especially with Adebayor now gone there just isn't much justification left to try and achieve that in a 4-4-2.
All the versatile wide players would be better in three-forward lines and all the central type of midfielders much more effective with two players with them instead of just one.
One main strenght genereally of all the Arsenal players right now is also great movement.
Moving a lot both attacking-wise and defensively.
Not being solid defensive strongholds battling their zone in a 4-4-2, but they should at least be able to cover ground and perhaps, and I'm guessing this is Wenger's secret hope, be able to emulate the ball pressure that Barcelona does in their similar system immediatly after possession is over.
Not always winning the ball. That's a bonus! But at least doing enough to prevent an effective counter attack from the opponent.
Something Barcelona was very vulnerable to in Rijkaard's final season yet amazingly largely eliminated under Guardiola.
So while Arsenal's team defending still likely won't be great there is at least hope for improvement. More than in a 4-4-2 arguably,
And some successfull ball pressure and one or two of the wide forwards consistently making it back to defend a wing, could do wonders.

One of those wide forwards looks like it will be everyone's favorite player (to hate!) Nicklas Bendtner!
Even if I'm possibly one of the least patriotic people in the world I could be accused of being biased as a dane when it comes to definitely not hating Bendtner.
Instead it's quite the opposite and I think he is an extremely talented player who has that size/ability combination that can be of such great value to a team.
I'm not saying that particular combination is on the Zlatan Ibrahimovic scale but for a big strong guy Bendtner does have good technique and does have good movement.
If he didn't he could never try and play this position we're seein him in now in the first place.
Certainly a great coach like Wenger would never put him there.
Still common sense would suggest it should be the other way around between Van Persie, playing center forward and Bendtner a right-forward role.
From watching the game it wasn't even my impression that they switched around all that much.
Something I had expected when first hearing about this.

One factor is that Van Persie has improved as a striker. He has started to do these striker kind of things like more actively seeking the run in between the defenders.
And while I think that Bendtner arguably is more effective in the box itself, Van Persie certainly is still better complementing a Fabregas or Asharvin coming from behind.
He is also needless to say more reliable when it comes to the actual business of putting good scoring chances away.
It's pretty banal but has a nice logic to it: It's better for Van Persie to get most of the final touches on the very good chances our great attack creates than it is Bendtner.

But make no mistake about it. This is about Bendtner's strenghts too. While he moves well enough with the ball to not exactly be an easy matchup for most fullbacks, his strenght and size advantage over I would think almost all of them, makes him a really tough matchup and it definitely created a lot of trouble for Everton dealing with it.
Playing the deeper higher ball to somewhere with a mismatch to their advantage was a very nice addition to the Arsenal arsenal and the results were great.
In the beginning he quite easily won headers resulting in dangerous situations and when Everton consequently later felt forced to foul him, the dead ball and huge defensive fail, resulted in goals.

Of the Liverpool-Tottenham and United-Birmingham games I really only watched parts and in less than desired quality but I may post some about them later.

I did watch all of Manchester City-Blackburn but forgot to write anything about it! Mainly thoughts on City.

So actually I'm pretty sure I'll do somekind of other football entry in one of the next few days so stay tuned.

Football/Soccer seaon (finally!): First entry

So the european football season has now finally begun!

About time too after weeks and weeks of crazy transfer rumors and even crazier transfers has left me starving for actual action.

So naturally this weekend I watched a lot!

Things started of very slow with the second half of the Italian Super Cup. And on what was a crappy stream I'm not sure how much I have to offer there about the game itself but it's a nice excuse for a little Inter rambling:

I'm not sure Mourinho is fully set yet on whether he will be using the for Inter very successful 4-4-2 diamond or his own beloved anti-dutch 4-3-3, but one luxury Inter has is a lot of depth at most positions and Mourinho really has a lot of options.
I think even if it can seem very unlike Mourinho that within the 4-4-2 diamond he recognizes that an elite creative player in front of Cambiasso is needed to take that system to a level that's better than just being able to best what in the recent post-calciopoli years has been a very weakened Serie A.
At least compared to what were the recent glory days of italian domination with at times as much as seven clubs being among the best in Europe.
An elite creative player needed to reach that 10 percent chance he recently claimed they have right now of winning the elusive European Cup.

Really with a solid cast of quality defensive or just very capable two-way players the diamond could quite easily afford say a Deco (Van Der Vaart and Sneijder have also been mentioned) when surrounded by guys like Cambiasso and a rotating supporting cast featuring the likes of the resurgent Thiago Motta, Stankovic, Muntari and last but not least the ageless Javier Zanetti, without comprimising the defensive side of things but actually strengthening the overall balance of the team.

Ideally Mourinho would probably still prefer his effective 4-3-3 system where an effective attack is in place without ever compromising the defense and I think he secretly hopes that players like Amautovic, Suarez and an improving Balotelli can succed where players like Mancini and Quaresma failed so hard that middle of the season he had to give the system entirely up.
If the Mourinho 4-3-3 at some point again becomes the permanent fixture I'll give my very long take on it since I find it quite fascinating how the primarely most attacking system here is turned into a very calculating defensive one.

But the Super Cup itself? What did I see? Other than very bad picture quality, not much.

Well Eto'o looked kinda good. Not very 36yearoldish which I suspect is closer to his real age than the 28 his passport so wrongly claims.

Yes he will be good when healthy and Inter have a lot of forward depth so they will be in no way as dependant on him like they were on now departed Ibrahimovic.
It will especially be interesting to see Diego Milito finally get a chance at a big club.
One he definitely deserves after years of excellent play.

Then it was time for what was a very grandiose Bundesliga opening. Live on national german tv and they even had an opening ceremony!
This was after all a tremendous success last season with enormous crowds filling very good post German World Cup facilities and almost shameless attacking play from just about everyone making just about every german understandably very excited about his league.
Last season every single top team on average let in more than one goal per game and that's just crazy!
This was very very open play and if as a starting striker you didn't net good double figures what an utter failure you were:
There was however no failure whatsoever from champions Wolfsburg's attacking duo up front of Dzeko and Grafite, or should I say trio cause Misimovic with his creativity was a huge part of it, and they just couldn't stop scoring even if they tried and the younger of the two, Dzeko attracted a lot of attention from various European top clubs.
The fact that a club like Wolfsburg resisted pressure to sell to traditional giants like AC Milan, that alone speaks volumes and they deserve a lot of credit for it.

The opening game itself actually wasn't that open and perhaps, perhaps not(!), a sign of what Wolfsburg will face this season. What I think an 80 goals scored attacking machine SHOULD face this season.
Stuttgart came out with a defensive gameplan and in large parts of the 90 minutes controlled things very well with plenty of people working behind the ball minimizing space.
For a while they were even creating the better chances. Making excellent use of the qualities of new signing Pogrebnyak up front and some very nice looking two-way play from Sami Khedira from behind.
On the defensive side of things "Aston Villa legend" and now VBF captain Thomas Hitzlsperger did mostly a great job on Misimovic while Alexander Hleb on the forward side of things looked like he still has some ways to go before returning to his old impressive form.

Sadly one slip up is all it takes against this good an attack and for the first time really there wasn't instant pressure on Misimovic and he was left with some actual space, he took matters into his own hands and just outside the penalty area fired a nice shot past the Stuttgart keeper and in many ways that was that really.

Stuttgart like they simply had to now tried to attack, but before getting anything going really, was very predictably punished for the space now left behind.
Last season's top scorer Grafite had a one on one situation with a defender that he easily won with part power, part technique and made it 2-0. Game over!

In between my main focus on Serie A, the English Premier League and La Liga I don't really know how much Bundesliga I'll be able to squeeze into my very busy sports addiction scheduele, but just like its total opposite, the lately quite defensive French League, I'll definitely watch out for interesting games on the horizon. And hopefully write about them too!

I don't know either if I'll do an organized actual preview of anything either, the leagues I mean, or more take things as they come and go from there.
Watch some games every week and analyze from that. That way I also think I'll eventually have touched upon a lot of the interesting transfers that's been taking place.

Finally, I of course also watched the Charity Shield game.
Everytime basically the top teams from England face eachother it's a must watch these days. They're all european elite and the level of play is generally very high and therefore great to watch.
This was extra interesting because it would be a first look at Ancelotti's Chelsea and how would that constellation work?

It's too early to conclude much from one match of course and that happened to be especially the case in this game where I found myself concluding completely different things from each half.

The first half was in some ways a worst case scenario for what the Chelsea/Ancelotti partnership could result in and it actually brought back otherwise long forgotten memories of Ancelotti back in the day when he came to Juventus continuing with the exact same style and tactics he had used on what was his quite different Parma team.

Now of course here we have a Chelsea team COMPLETELY different from Ancelotti's AC Milan yet what did I see?
Unbelievably in that first half, Chelsea was kind of looking like Milan. Stylewise as well as tactically.
The ball was passed around quite a bit in their own half. That doesn't have to be a bad thing if you have Andrea Pirlo but with Jon Obi Mikel it's a different story.
Ivanovic on rightback looked like he had been asked to do a Cafu impression with the guy who might have been able to do that on the bench, Bosingwa, Ivanovic struggled mightely.
Even the always superb Essien, for many years now easily one of the best players in the world, struggled and couldn't defend the wing very effectively.
That's understandable when it's C. Ronaldo but this was Nani and he quite easily exploited what was a lack of Chelsea balance in that first half.
In order for that midfield diamond with its lack of width to work against this good a 4-4-2, with lots of width, possession needs to be quality and the ball not given away. The fullbacks creating width not getting caught forwardish on their heels.
But Chelsea does not have the players to substain that high level of possession (though I won't rule out Deco and Zhirkov contributing there) so ball was lost and the result was a very uncharacteristic unbalanced Chelsea defense.
Great job Carlo!
Then came the second half and it was more like same old Chelsea.
Whether it was player or coach adjustment I of course can't now, but play became much more direct with deeper passing and if the ball was lost it was sure to be lost deep in the opponent's half where it doesn't matter much and you can obtain solid defensive positioning while not constantly being on your backheels.
Generally when Chelsea gets direct passes to their players in around the penalty area, bad things tends to happen to the opponent.
That's where players like Lampard, Ballack, Malouda, Anelka and of course especially Drogba, the prime weapon, are effective and players around them benefit resulting in scoring chances (even for someone like Cavalho).
No need to pass the ball around in their own half. Get it up there and let them do their thing!

That's what they generally did in that second half and it resulted in a couple of goals.

It will be interesting to see which of the two halves we'll see the most of or if some sort of effective middleground can be found. Maybe Anelka playing a different role than being a pure striker or maybe just another midfielder in there to counter all the 4-4-2 width Ancelotti's system will now face in England.
I did think Hiddink found that great ground of playing to his team's strenghts but if Ancelotti goes the Scolari way and ignores his team's actual strenghts then it's a golden opportunity for a title lost, against rivals, who unlike Chelsea, have all lost key players.

Manchester United of course I still expect to replace at least some of the world class they've lost with the departures of Tevez and Ronaldo. Something that just hasn't happened yet.
I think both David Silva and Kun Aguero who there have both been speculations about could put them over the top and despite, as I'm writing this rumors seemingly dying down, I'll still be suprised if there isn't a major signing sooner rather than later.

Can a team not replacing two such great players really win the title against what are the strongest top 4-5 in Europe?

I don't think the Charity Shield provided much of an answer to that question, and a lot of it I guess will be how Liverpool and Arsenal react to their own losses of key players (and Chelsea to their new manager).

All in all the EPL with it's 4 or 5 horse race, where others are just 2 or 3 horse races, looks very unpredictable, so we shall see and I'll definitely be watching.

Oh happy day. Braves trade Frenchy!

Today was a great day for the team I spend the most time watching in any sport, the Atlanta Braves.

They FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY! Got rid of Jeff Francoeur aka failcore aka the human out machine.

It's hard to put into words the agony and frustration it has been watching him day in and day out the last couple of years. He has been one of the worst major leaguers for a while now, yet there he was on your favorite team constantly-consistently stinking it up. Costing runs. Costing wins.
When he was finally sent down last season it was only for 4 days and it did no good whatsoever. Only trash our hopes of a lenghty stay.

Now he is actually gone in what is clear is an absolute robbery of a trade.
I and most sane braves fans would have been delighted with almost anything for him and that the Mets actually in return gives up an upgrade, a decent serviceable major league ballplayer in return, Ryan Church, it is something almost too good to be true.

Reading my favorite Braves blog today following the trade was awesome.
Mac Thomason who runs it has been relentless anti-Francouer to a point where he has been rivaling Cato the Elder in his stubborn efforts against Carthago, and the reaction from everyone following this news was of course nothing short of ecstatic.

The cause of so much frustration finally gone. Oh happy day indeed!

I will admit however that at times I have been feeling sorry for Frenchy...

He took everyone by storm in his rookie year even getting on the cover of SI:


(almost painful to look at now btw)

and with his fellow "Baby Braves" of that year, 2005, mainly best friend the awesome Brian McCann, helped Atlanta to their 14th straight division title.
The future sure looked bright...

I don't consider myself enough of a baseball expert to say what exactly went wrong.
I do remember up until even the start of last season being hopeful that he could improve.
Baseball Prospectus 2008 in their writeup were even quite positive.
Saying he was more disciplined, now seeing a few more pitches while holding his strikeout rate steady.
The final words were: "Just 24 years old he may well become a star in 2008". Wow!

What followed was of course a nightmare year. No patience. No plate discipline. Super slow batspeed. No understanding of the strike zone, swinging at everything and even though he had put on muscle, not much power.
Resulting in horrible numbers across the board making him one of the worst starting outfielders in the league!

And this year?

They're even worse!

But yeah there is a tragic element when a hometown hero falls from grace like this and is just not able to live up to expectations, but I think most would agree that his attitude just hasn't been all that great. In a recent interview he said that if OBP was that important why don't they show it on the scoreboard...
It's just hard continuing feeling bad for someone capable of such stupidity or utter denial if you will.

A few years ago he was even offered the same extension that McCann got but rejected it.
Had he signed that he would have almost been impossible to move today, so thank god for his poor decision making in that situation!

I don't normally blog on baseball and probably won't very much at all in the near future since I don't feel I have a whole lot to offer and is still learning in many ways but this was such a great day for me personally as a Braves fan, that it just had to be done.

Man of the day is definitely general manager Frank Wren who taking over from legendary John Schuerholz has had very big shoes to fill.
I didn't like how he handled the Smoltz situation.
Watching Smoltz pitch without really understanding much of the game coming home late at night at weekends, sometimes drunk with nothing to do, was what helped make me a Braves fan in the first place, and to like the sport itself for that matter, which then weirdly enough stayed with me, for many years, until the arrival of MLBTV where I could finally watch consistently. Eh it's a long boring self centered story but to cut it short I loved John Smoltz and he should have finished his career in Atlanta!

But to get back on track. Wren in his position doesn't have room for sentimentality and as far as I can see overall has done a great job. Putting together a much better pitching staff and first with Nate McLouth and now with this miraculous deal, upgrading the outfield.



I still somehow haven't written one single word about Le Tour yet, but I am watching so hopefully that's about to change very soon!

After the Wimbledon final

It was yet another epic Wimbledon final and Andy Roddick was closer than ever to victory.

He started of by serving great and apart from little dips in first serve percentage here and there he managed to do so throughout.
And even when his first serve percentage at times dropped he still survived and despite putting him to the test numerous times Federer just was not able to break.

Just tremendous credit to Roddick for holding his own.

But of course he did much more than that. In the first set he hardly made any errors. Something highly unusual against Federer but it was in some ways similar to what he did so well in his win over Murray.
He was just moving better and was in great position for his shots the majority of the time.

Again something he has really struggled with in the past against Federer.
This was something that made even his backhand a very effective shot in this match, despite Federer, like Murray in the last round, again and again putting it to the test.

I've seen and heard some commentators at least flirting with criticizing Federer for playing too defensive. Not taking enough chances.
Suggesting that was the deciding factor in making the match as close as it was.

I think that's too easy.

Federer over a 20 match sample size was 18-2 against Roddick.
Why would he change a gameplan that's enabled him to dominate this opponent, a world class opponent, to such an overwhelming extent?

Again and again in their meetings Federer has blocked the Roddick serve and then patiently moved him around the court "waiting" for either an opening to hit a high percentage winner of his own (he still hit many more than any non aggressive player would) or Roddick not being able to hang with him so to speak, sooner or later commiting the error.

Roddick (and Stefanki) deserves all the credit in the world for with better movement preventing those openings and making fewer errors.

With another almost absurd high first serve percentage, if I remember correctly consistently +75 percent in the first two sets, and that newly found very solid all-court game, Roddick edged out the first set and incredibly then found himself in excellent position in the second set tiebreak to go up two sets to love!

He was leading 6-2!

This wasn't just Ivanisevic with a couple of set points to go up two sets to love against Sampras in 1998, it was four mini matchpoints against the best player ever, who pretty much every single time they'd played had owned his very soul!

Safe to say I think, a real once in a lifetime opportunity, and what of course happened?

He blew it!

Too harsh? I'm not sure.
This is what happend and I've included a video so judge for yourself:

Federer started by hitting one of his trademark improbable right off the bounce impossibly angled backhand winners.

And in retrospect I think that was the first body blow, because I'm sure, even if just for one short second in that rally, Roddick could actually taste victory, only to have it instantly taken away from him with the kind of play that in the past again and again had left him totally defenseless.

Doubts MUST have crept in there.

Predictably Federer followed that up with two effective serves and suddenly it was 6-5 and suddenly the pressure was intense. As well as probably even more doubts creeping in!

Next his attempt at a first serve was almost as close to the backline as it was being being in...

Federer's second serve return was short, Roddick then makes a great decision running around and hitting an excellent approach forehand deep into Federer territory.

He is at the net plenty in time to deal with whatever Fed can come up with.
There is not much angle for an effective passing shot, so Federer just hits it really hard.
It's a bit high. Maybe mistimed?
But definitely a makeable backhand volley for Roddick. If not for a winner. Then certainly something in! But he completely fails to control it and it sails out...

6-6 and as if there were ever any doubt whatsoever Federer grabs momentum, quickly closes things out and wins it 8-6.

The video is decent/not great quality but there are such highlights as Becker's OMG at around 7.37 as well as a little later, not for the last time in this match when cameras were zooming in, money exchanging hands between Borg and Nastase up there in the royal box. Degenerates clearly!

Huge credit to Federer for never giving in, he wouldn't the whole match, and credit for Nastase for betting Federer would still go on to win the set!



But again probably most credit once again to Roddick for taking this huge blow square faced on the chin and refusing to get knocked out like most would after seeing an astronomical chance like that go down the drain.

That really set the tone for all the epicness that would follow and thank you very much Andy Roddick for that!

I also hope as I'm writing this that unlike Ivanisevic following 1998 he isn't on suicide watch.
I know I would be, but with Roddick's personality and of course wife Brooklyn Decker

I wouldn't be suprised if he sooner than most people is back to enjoying life!

I'm also calling it, right here right now, that he in fact will do "a Ivanisevic" and come back and win Wimbledon, very unexpected, probably from a low rank, maybe even as a wild card, say in... THREE YEARS!

You heard it here first.

The rest of the match basically was a huge battle.
Federer served well enough, with Roddick's returns still being below average enough, to win the majority of his service games comfortably.
As well as serving up an impressive 50 aces along the way to Roddick's only 27.

But Roddick played well enough. Served a high percentage enough. Very needed because despite popular opinion, Federer WAS more effective on the Roddick serve than Roddick was on his.
To just keep hanging on and time again time again come up with the goods when most needed.

Federer just could not break him while Roddick, the one time really where Federer's own first serve percentage dropped, took advantage, broke his serve and held on to take the fourth.

The fifth needless to say was just an epic battle.

It's hard to say this was a better final than last year where overall quality was absurd but this on the other hand was a classic old school grass court battle in many ways boiling down to serving and returning.
The kind that's more rare these days and to have it in a final and to have it reach this level... On Wimbledon it just doesn't get any better than that.

In the end of course it was Federer who came out on top.

Whether it was Roddick finally tiring. His movement was off in that final game, not getting in the usual great position for his shots.
Or to what extent it was whatever added pressure of having to serve not to lose time and time again, or if it simply was the, for a while somewhat inevitable, catching up to him, of Federer simply winning his service games very comfotably in the fifth, putting on a superb serving clinic, while Roddick moreso really had to dig deep in order to survive.

And at an unbelievable 15-14 in the fifth there would be no more surviving and the greatest animal of them all would win his 15th grand slam title

breaking Pete Sampras grandslam record.

Sampras like he had promised Federer was indeed present, for the first time actually at Wimbledon since his playing days.
Unfortunately for whatever reason it wasn't him presenting the trophy.
Maybe at Wimbledon it just HAS to be the Duke or something...

I'm sure had it been at the US Open it would indeed have been Sampras handing it directly to Federer, and that really would have been a great moment, but at least, he was there, which was in itself great and also resulted in nice photos such as this one, of probably the four greatest tennis players ever together:



That's also a pretty nice finish on this blog to this years verson of Wimbledon which I think was absolutely great.

Not sure exactly when again there will be tennis on here?
I don't really follow the ATP tour that closely anymore but I'm definitely looking forward to the US Open already, and I can't rule out watching, and maybe blogging about, some of the Master tournaments that takes places before that.

Before the Wimbledon final: Goran, Roddick, lots of rambling!

One of my all time favorite moments in sport was Goran Ivanisevic's amazing Wimbledon victory in 2001.


It was his fourth final and at least twice he had been desperately close.

In 1992 where he beat both Edberg and Sampras along the way, he succumbed in a very close 5 setter to Andre Agassi in the final.

With his huge serve and a game seemingly made for this era's game on grass I think most people thought that him winning Wimbledon was only a matter of time. Including probably himself.

In the following years at Wimbledon Ivanisevic did everything from badly underperforming to being the best player on grass not named Pete Sampras.

He was erratic but of course never boring and he was someone you always wanted to watch just to see what would happen.
From probably the most explosive serves ever, his all or nothing service returns, to his epic temper tantrums.

Most famously in a match against Hyung-Taik Lee where he smashed every racket in his bag and as a result had to default!

At that low-point he had slipped far down the rankings and the time where people seriously thought him winning Wimbledon was only a matter of time was far gone.

He was now seen as someone who had missed his chances.

In the 1994 final against Sampras he dropped the first two sets in tiebreaks, then fell completely apart and was humiliated 6-0 in the third.
At this point it was definitely becoming clear who the mentally stronger player was and it wasn't Goran.

Next year Sampras again was the nemesis edging out Goran in the semis in what was a great five set match.

In 1996, the year of the upsets, with both Becker and Agassi going out early and even Sampras losing in the quarters, he could maybe have had a great chance but was upset too, by Jason Stoltenberg of all people, also in the quarters.

Instead it was Richard Krajicek who brilliantly (especially when blowing out Sampras) grabbed the chance and with his powerful grass game beat Malivai Washington, of all people, in the final to win his only grand slam title.

A final probably best remembered for this moment:


The following year once more it was far less happy times for Ivanisivic.

He had been playing great and collecting ATP titles consistently for a while now.
Was the 2nd seed coming in, that was his highest ever, only to be knocked out already in the 2nd round, in an epic match against Magnus Norman. Losing 14-12 in the fifth!

By 1998 he was starting to slip down the rankings.
Wimbledon really seemed to be the only thing he truly cared about at this point, and from the 14th seed spot this time, he was able to reach yet another final.
His 15-13 five set win over Krajicek in the semis was extraordinary and this must have seemed like destiny to Goran.

Against Sampras (who else) in the final he started well and took the first set.
The second was very close and in the tiebreak Ivanisevic had a couple of set points to go up two sets to none.
Sampras being Sampras of course came back and took it 11-9 and eventually the whole match in five, for his, at that point, fifth Wimbledon title.

I remember feeling pretty bad for Ivanisevic after the match.
This was also the period were I was still always rooting against Sampras. Later there would be a dramatic turnaround. And I wasn't sure if I'd ever seen anyone so devastated following a tennis match.
He really looked like someone on suicide watch and I guess this old SI article, I found just now, from back then confirms it:

Ivanisevic, who possesses both a quick wit and a quick temper, was neither funny nor mad afterward.

He was devastated.

"It feels bad," the 6-foot-4 Croatian said. "I cannot describe it. It's the worst moment in my life.

"I've had some bad moments, you know, when you are sick or when somebody dies, but for me this is the worst thing ever. Nobody died yet, but it's tough."

Even the mention of Croatia's World Cup victory Saturday over Germany failed to brighten his mood.

"I cannot cheer anybody now," he said. "I can only kill myself."

OUCH.

It was probably at this point actually that I started seriously rooting for Ivanisevic but in the following years he kept slipping and was almost constantly struggling with finding form or with various nagging injuries.

What then happened at Wimbledon 2001 is of course legendary.
He needed a wild card to even play and when he ended up winning he was the first wild card entry to ever do so.

Generally my impression of him that year was that he wasn't the player he used to be.

His movement clearly was worse which of course is huge, but the touch was there and of course that incredible serve.
And I don't know if it's even correct but I remember my thinking at the time was that he was also going for his 2nd serve a lot more than he had in the past.
Out of need almost.
Recognizing that other parts of his game weren't what they used to be and now he had to maximize his one dominating strenght. The serve.
At times he was serving two first serves!
That's how I remember it anyway.

He beat both Roddick and Safin along the way. I don't really remember that much from those matches other than him serving incredible and coming up with those powerful service returns, just enough times in order to win.

The semi-final against Henman is of course now remembered as Henman's big lost opportunity and how rain interrupted when it seemed Henman had turned a very back and forth match into his favour.
Their shared nemesis now 7 time champion Sampras had of course already been knocked out by future Wimbledon ruler Roger Federer, who had then lost to Henman in the quarters.
So this was no doubt both men's golden opportunity and tremendous credit to Ivanisevic for being the one to take it, come back when the match once again was restarted, play great and turn everything around.

This time it definitely felt like destiny.

From another article from back then:

Goran Ivanisevic has crushed Tim Henman's dream of a place in the Wimbledon final by battling back from two sets to one down to win in five sets.

Henman had appeared on the brink of the final on Friday when he came from a set down to lead with some dazzling tennis.

But the rain delays which caused the semi-final to be played over the course of three days broke Henman's rhythm and worked to Ivanisevic's advantage.

After his win, Ivanisevic said: "This is destiny.

"God wanted me to win this game - he sent the rains."

And it was Ivanisevic's patience which was rewarded as he secured a fairytale fourth Wimbledon final appearance.

"I don't want to lose again - that would kill me," said Ivanisevic.

"Tomorrow's the biggest day of my life, I don't want to get that plate for a fourth time."

Asked about his opponent in the final, the Croat said: "He's a great friend and a great player - it's going to be tough."

I actually caught a replay of the final the other day and predictably ended up sitting through the whole thing and it was still very intense as well as still very moving in the end.

Both before he won, when he was struggling so immensely with his emotions and how much this meant to him clearly was there for all the world to see, as well as the pure joy in the end when he finally had done the seemingly impossible and achieved his lifelong dream.

The last game alone was incredible drama and throughout really, helped by the best atmosphere ever, cause it was monday and everyone could get tickets, the match was so close and so back and forth that you were nonstop at the edge of your seat.

After Goran, Rafter was probably the player I most wanted to see win Wimbledon and he was severely missed when he reitred, but for this one I was solely on the Ivanisevic side of things and him ending all the suffering and doing it from the most unlikely stage, rock bottom, of his career was just too great of a story not to root for.




Enter Andy Roddick:



Now I'm not saying it's the same. The stories are very different.

But even though I love Federer and I think he is the best ever, tomorrow I'll be rooting for the great upset. The "better" story.

Roddick has never been down and out like Ivanisevic was. He already has a major, even if that win seems like forever ago at this point.
But like I talked about in the Roddick-Murray post a few days ago, he is certainly someone who has been counted out. He has been much maligned and made fun of.
Been called the worst good player and stuff like that.
He will also probably, if he doesn't win another grand slam, be seen as a great underachiever.
Yet with him being surpassed by other more talented players in recent years, no one expected him to even reach finals anymore.

With his 2 wins out of 20 record against the best player ever, he will be a monumental underdog but he will also be the greater story and to win would without a doubt mean the the world to him.

Federer he just confirmed his all time greatness by winning the French.
He doesn't NEED this. If anything he needs to beat Nadal at Wimbledon not poor Roddick one more time!

He very likely will of course, and I'll be left with some degree of disappointment.

What would help that though would be, and the rumours are flying, if Sampras shows up and presents Federer the trophy.
Actually him showing up and then ending up presenting it to Roddick wouldn't be too bad of a moment either...

But he has said in the past that he would like to be there whenever Federer would break his record, and THAT would certainly be a great moment.



Even greater than that!

A list of favorite people in sports

So this is the aforementioned giant (check) list of various all time favorite people in sports.

If I eventually get around to make entries about even half of these all very deserving people I'll be satisfied, but for now here is just the list itself.

Tomorrow the goal is to have some Roddick-Federer Wimbledon final preview stuff.
Maybe some Tour de France "prologue" thoughts (it's too long to be an actual prologue) AND maybe some transfer market rambling
OR what about some Confederations Cup stuff which I spent probably way too much time posting about on my favorite sports forum.

Everyone on the list is in no particular order and especially the soccer one seems to be constantly growing while the people in a lot of other sports, sometimes obscure sports, are often various childhood heroes:




Football/Soccer:

Andrea Pirlo
Ciro Ferrara
Dejan Savicevic
Roberto Mancini
Alessando Del Piero
David Ginola
Pep Guardiola
Cech Fabregas
Andres Iniesta
Emilio Butragenio
Ariel Ortega
Patrik Vieira
Giuseppe Giannini
Jürgen Kohler
Fernando Hierro
Aleksandr Zavarov
Zinedine Zidane
Michael Laudrup
Fernando Redondo
Raul
Preben Elkjaer
Vladimir Jugovic
Jorginho
Gian Piero Gasperini
Robert Lee
Jose Mourinho
Simone Perrotta
Giorgio Chiellini
Iker Casillas
Gianluca Buffon
Sergio Arguero
Marcello Lippi
Martin Jorgensen
Gheorge Hagi
Gianluca Vialli
Javiar Zannetti
Alessandro Nesta
Gianluca Zambrotta
Alan Shearer
Mikael Essien
Wayne Rooney
Carlos Tevez
Davide Santon
Salvatore Bochetti
Lilian Thuram
Didier Drogba
Zlatan Ibrahimovich
Domenico Criscito
Frank Lampard

Ginola



and

Preben Elkjaer


Sumo:

Takanohana





Boxing:

Kosta Tszyu
Julio Cesar Chavez
Pernell Whitaker
Mike Tyson
Chris Eubank
Marco Antonio Barrera
James Toney

I feel like I've mistakenly left out a few here hmmmmm?






















Alpine Skiing:

Pirmin Zurbriggen
Alberto Tomba





















Cycling:

Gianni Bugno (of course my all time favorite everything)
Laurent Jalabert
Marco Pantani
Johan Museeuw


Gymnastics (and this is where I lose all credibility...):

Dmitri Bilozerchev
Maria Petrova
Vitaly Scherbo




















Ice Hockey:

Igor Larionov
Alexander Mogilny
Sergei Fedorov














Tennis:

Sergi Bruguera
Pete Sampras
Boris Becker (a note on Boris the commentator. I watched some of the Tennis today on BBC instead of the danish broadcast and it was my first experience with Boris Becker the announcer and sadly it wasn't a positive experience.
On court Boris had the ability to always come up with an ace when most needed.
In the booth Boris has the ability to at all times say whatever at any given point is far and away the most obvious thing ever.
At first it was funny. But it was so inane that it quickly became annoying.

I blame the BBC of course. Boris is one of the most charismatic personalities ever to step on a tennis court as well an opinionated guy. He loves fun. He loves women. He lovs pokah. He loves grass. He loves Wimbledon! BBC I urge you, get more out of Boris!

















Maret Safin
Monica Seles
Yevgenij Kafelnikov
Goran Ivanicevic






















Chess:

Garry Kasparov














(The Stars of) Track and Field:

Said Aouita
















Snooker:

Alan Mcmanus

Badminton:

Morten Frost


Basketball:

John Starks
Tim Duncan
Manu Ginobili
Greg Popovich


































Formula 1:

Alain Prost

Handball:

Dmitri Torgovanov

Wrestling:

Alexander Karelin

Swimming:

Alexander Popov





















The end