Making Amends both here and in Switzerland
Aston Villa boss Martin O’Neill is to appease the club’s fans, who forked out big money to watch a weakened team crash out of the Uefa Cup at CSKA Moscow during the week, by inviting 300 of them for dinner. (Sun)
Seriously, I don’t think I can believe that because of where it came from but if it is true I hope he’s preparing a huge roast dinner with all the trimmings and a dessert to die for. After watching 8 reserve players dying on their arses against CSKA Moscow, O’Neill’s got a lot of explaining to do to the fans.
He prioritised Champions League qualification over UEFA Cup. Someone please tell O’Neill he’s not at Celtic anymore…
What is the point of spending a whole season hanging on in the top 6 to get into the UEFA Cup and then calling it an inconvienience whenever it suits them? The UEFA Cup places mean more to other teams who are stopped from getting into there by teams who act as if the only reason they’re in the UEFA Cup is because the points added up and nothing else. To other teams its a chance to show they can compete at European level but for the ones who get the chance, its side lined in exchange for less appealing competitions and labelled an ‘inconvience’ by others who know full well they have nothing to compete for except the UEFA Cup. Then they’ll spend the rest of the season trying to secure the qualifying place again and then sideline the competition…again.
Aston Villa may not win the league, they are out of the FA Cup, and the Carling Cup so they could have had a chance to be successful in the UEFA Cup but alas, the competition was an inconvience to what exactly? The league? They won’t be in the Champions League next season, I have money on Arsenal retaining their place in the top 4. Even if the might of Aston Villa get into the CL they’ll be on a one way route out and back into the Inconvience Cup. One day, maybe even next season, Villa will be in Europe’s elite but not this season, its far too early for them.
Spurs you can sort of forgive anyway because we all know how important the Carling Cup is to Spurs. This season more than anything. Harry Redknapp moaned about how they played on a Monday, Thursday and a cup final on Sunday. He should know that the TV controls the fixtures as it provides the biggest revenue for football teams, which is a fact that Valencia have just picked up on and signed a record breaking contract for the television rights. Will he be moaning about the fixtures if they lose on Sunday? I hope he doesn’t have the tenacity to. Spurs need the Carling Cup to qualify for the Inconvience next time around and United need the CC to set them on their way to the quintuple. 
Spurs are (or should that be ‘were’?) one of the teams who before the sackings, the sellings and whatever else, were being tipped to break into the top 4 but what a difference some odd descisions from Levy makes. Whilst they weren’t as flippant as Aston Villa, they still fielded a weak team who consequently turned up scored a goal (more than Villa anyway) but lost convincingly despite the reserves.
Generally speaking, both should have watched Manchester City who seem to be the only team who actually want to win this cup and don’t see it as an inconvience because they have nothing for it to interrupt anyway. City fielded a strong team against Copenhagen and they completely dominated. So, as a result a country’s UEFA Cup hopes lie on the sky blue shoulders of the City team.
Plat-Plat and co at UEFA have already planned a major overhaul of the competition for next season because I’m sure they see that UEFA cup teams think of themselves as living in the shadow of the glitz and glamour of Champions League. So they’re going to call it Europa League. To me that sounds like a company in charge of the Eurovision but if it helps them realise they are good then so be it. Mind you, this worked with the old Division 1 which was rebranded as the Coca-Cola Championship and now the matches on the highlights show on Sunday mornings are sometimes better than the Premier League.
They’re also going to get their own matchball!!! Its not the yellow and purple of Nike. No, it’ll be like the Adidas ones the Champions League get. Oh, with the match, matchday and date written on them!! UEFA sorry, Europa League teams will feel loved again.
And the Europa League teams will get a proper group stage! No more of that throwing out deadwood that comes 3rd in the Champions League tables and rehousing them in the UEFA Cup. No. They’ll have a proper competition and not just draw after draw, after draw and more CL failures tumbling into the competition and more draws to determine who the CL failures will play. The Europa League IS a carbon copy of the Champions League. So why has it taken them this long to think of it?
Nevertheless, for once this could actually work Mr Platini.
Anyway, that’s all for the football today. 6Nations is centre stage again.
Reasons to hate Platini: #2,038,847,846,635,732,001
Its like the Morrisons advert. Reasons to shop at Morrisons. I could give a few about why not to shop at Morrisons but I digress. None of the reasons actually follow each other consecutively hence the mad number which I don’t think even exists.
Anyway, little Platini is an annoying little stain on football. He was annoying when he played football and he’s even more annoying when he’s head of UEFA.
How on earth can he sleep at night? He’s come up with the weirdest and most anti-Premier League stuff ever. The last one I saw was that he wanted a spending cap on Manchester City. Oh ho and when R*** M***** were handing over £100 million for Ronaldo did he bat an eyelid? No. No he didn’t. In fact he was one of the ones who encouraged R*** to go ahead. The only reason that stupid rule doesn’t look like going through is because the EU won’t let him.
Him and his mate at FIFA are terrible at protecting football. I remember last summer when England didn’t get into the Euros but they still aired all the matches here and Platini waded into this and questioned why the UK was allowed to air the tournament. Cheeky little…what has it got to do with him anyway.
The latest little annoyance. He has openly admitted that he would like to give the Champions League to Juventus.
a) Why is a man who is internally involved with a football club allowed to be incharge of the organisation in which said football club is part of. Surely, you need impartiality in this.
b) Keep your gob shut.
“I was in Turin when Del Piero stunned Iker Casillas and I rose to my feet, not only because im a Juventino, but I think it was the goal of 2008,” added the Frenchman.
Yes, only because you’re a Juventino.
I have never wanted Chelsea to win anything but I’m prepared to make an exception tonight if they can scupper Ickle Plat-Plat’s dweeams.
IFAB: Let’s Look at the Agenda.
I can’t for the life of me stand Michel Platini. And I really don’t want to talk about Senile Sepp either.
But like some annoying green flies they keep sticking themselves to my attention. This time its no exception.
The IFAB or basically every football association (soccer to Oz and US) including FIFA are going to meet in Belfast at the end of this month to discuss various proposals to change football. As soon as I realised FIFA would be sticking their noses into this, I knew there would be one or two stupid proposals from their side. I realised soon enough that they would not be disappointing me. In fact they’ve lived up to my expectations.
This is their latest offering into destroying football instead of protecting it.
20 MINUTE HALF TIMES
I had the privilige of watching a bad tempered match last night (see previous Valencia post) and I can honestly say that even with this rule, there would be no way on earth that it would have calmed down the match. If there was a 20 minute half time last night, Villa would still have been sent off (the referee is Public Enemy #1 in some circles today) and Valencia would still have stocked up on yellow cards like they were going out of fashion. Still, 20 minutes for half time would allow them to rest, invest enough energy to go back out there and pick up where they left off; kicking seven shades out of each other.
I can only see one group of people being happier than the footballers about this one…ITV. ITV would welcome the proposal with open arms. 20 minutes worth of unadulterated Tic Tacs and tile cutters. Hell they may even chuck in an annoying German car advert. It would be the best thing ever to happen to ITV since Ant and Dec. However, its becoming more and more clear that the fans are not being taken into consideration when the big wigs mess with the sport. There’s already been enormous amounts of backlash from fans and critics alike asking, if like cricket, football was selling its soul to advertising. I have one thing to say about that. Have you seen a United match? Its a bloody advert. Buy an Audi even if you’re not from Alderley Edge, buy Ryan Giggs football boots, buy the sponsors £10,000 watches, bet your snack money on Ronaldo 7/1 to score the next goal, insure with AIG even if you’re not American..blah blah. There are moments in the match where I’m just watching the adverts going around on that infernal board. You need sunglasses to be able to see if you’re in the stadium and an epilipsy warning should come with the match when its on TV. The replays with the board tickering away in the background are awful. I’m being unfair on United because nearly every team in the league has these things now running around the edge of the pitch, there’s the evidence football has sold its soul. When the fans look at the adverts more than the game.
Sorry for that.
Back to the destroying of football.
Apparently the next thing on the agenda in Ireland is more important than the 20 minute half times, more important than goal line technology. Oh this one could change the face of football forever …
PLAYERS SHOULD WEAR SOCK TAPE THAT IS THE SAME COLOUR AS THEIR SOCKS.
…
*deep breath, compose self*
WTF?! Just WHAT is THAT???? I’m sorry if I don’t watch matches and think that the players should accesorize more with their choice of sock tape. I beg your pardon but I was watching the match for the playing (and occasionally the players) not the fashion. I don’t think I’ve ever wondered why Steven Gerrard wears white tape on red socks or why Ronaldo wears white tape on black socks. It has seriously never occured to me.
Okay, maybe they should look more into those headbands (Tevez’s Olivia Newton John headband prior to the much needed trip to the barbers) and bits of elastic (yes, Fernando, you) they tend to use as headbands. They’re ugly. But SOCK TAPE?! This one will come as a shock for a very superstitious Chelsea captain.
This next proposal looks to be the most sane one.
For many a year now, football has been compared to rugby. Everyone talks about how the rugby guys are well composed and well disciplined (whoever said that obviously hasn’t watched an England match) and even treat the referee with respect but that’s because he is rarely a pushover like the likes of Bennett and Wiley in the Premier League. Anyway, the Irish FA have put forward a proposal to introduce the sin bin system into football. I’m all for this. I watch rugby and I think that this could work in football. Players who get sin binned in rugby rarely offend again in the match after having the pleasure of sitting out on the touch line for 10 minutes. Surely, that would bring the number of red cards down as well as the paperwork and the disciplinary hearings. But then again rugby isn’t football and football isn’t rugby.
Another proposal which comes from the SFA is that :
THERE SHOULD BE FOUR SUBSTITUTES IF A MATCH GOES INTO EXTRA TIME.
Ah, some sanity. From the Scottish League nonetheless. The ones who plan to make their players feel guilty for playing in the World Cup qualifiers by making them play in the league the same week. Why would they bother? Anyway, they think its logical that teams should have one extra subsitute if matches go into extra time. Why not? They’re always going on about the need for ‘fresh legs’ on the pitch during extra time and it does get boring after a while when most extra time matches don’t throw up surprises at the end of the second final whistle.
And I think this is the best one. The one we’ve been waiting for ever since the Euros when Van Nistlerooy seemed to be offside but scored because Christian Panucci was off the pitch but still playing RVN onside.
*drumroll, fanfare, hallelujah chorus*
THE OFFSIDE RULE IS TO BE REWORDED BECAUSE ITS SO F*****G CONFUSING IN ITS CURRENT FORM AS IT LEADS TO STUPID REFS GIVING ABYSMAL DECISIONS AND LINESMEN BEING TARGETTED WITH ‘SHOULD HAVE GONE TO SPECSAVERS’.
The new wording seeks to erase any doubt that even if the defender leaves the field, he is still “active” as far as offside is concerned.
It would read: “Any defending player leaving the field of play for any reason without the referee’s permission shall, until he returns to the field … be considered to be on his own goalline or touchline for the purposes of offside.”
Woah.
*fanfare comes to an abrupt halt*
He’s still playing someone onside if he’s off the pitch behind the goal? Does this apply when he needs and oxygen tank? Morality is being questioned here Football people…
This post has a word count higher than my English coursework. :S
