Thursday 28 April 2011

Whining like Barca - scheming like Mou

Pretty nice football weekend coming up with Chelsea-Spurs on Saturday late afternoon and then a massive clash Milan-Bologna and Arsenal-Man Utd on Sunday afternoon. Milan is a must see if they can secure the scudetto, if not it could be one of those nervous games that are pretty painful to watch.  And then AIK-ÖSK on Monday, live in Stockholm hopefully. 

We need a good weekend after a pretty disappointing Champions League week.  Just like in the quarter finals, the second legs now feel like they belong to an old tired dog.  This year's Champions League has been pretty underwhelming for the most part.  Without any intention of being objective I rank Bale's three last halves against Inter as the top moment of the tournament.  Together with watching the inevitable draw for the last 16 from the Maldives, the runner-up is Arsenal-Barca.  Otherwise the the drama has been missing, in the group stage as well as in the knock-out phase.  And with the wrong sides winning.  A Neuer (I did not come up with Manu Knighted, so I should not use it) clean sheet and a Mourinho-20%-possession-1-0-win would have felt so much better, in particular as Barca have a team of pretending-to-be-good-boys that are really a bunch of cheaters and whiners.  Although they can pass the ball. And run with it (too lazy to insert hyperlinks, I assumed you watched and know what I'm talking about).

The coaches of my teams have interesting selection problems for this weekend.

Even if I have ruled out Spurs' chances of making it to the Champions League, we must go for a win against Chelsea.  We should therefore afford to try something new now when the uninspired Assou-Ekotto finally has picked up an injury.  So how do we fill the gap?

I would like to see Bale playing left back, but basically assigning the entire left corridor to him.  This will allow us not to be outnumbered by the Chelsea midfiled, playing Tom Huddle, Sandro (I'm still to watch him play well but they say he has been decent lately) and Modric centrally.

Lennon comes back in on the right, vdV gets a starting position to the left but with freedom to move into the box, and Crouchie dominates Terry in the air.  Little bit of a 4-2-3-1: Gomes - Corluka, Dawson, Gallas, Bale - Sandro, Huddlestone - Lennon, Modric, van der Vaart - Crouch.

In the case of Milan, they need to adjust to having Ibrahimovic back.  I would like to see him besides Cassano with Boateng behind.

Örebro needs to survive yet another game without the prolific Haddad.  I would really like to see Atashkadeh get a chance to run the crap out of the AIK defenders for as long as his fuel lasts.  Then Paulinho comes on and Rama moves in centrally.  I don't believe in Lushtaku as a centre-forward, I really don't.  Centrally, the phasing out of Kihlberg is overdue.  I would like to give Nilsson another chance from the start.

Thus Alvbåge - Haginge (lets wait one more game before we start with Anttonen), Almebäck, Wikström, Wowoah - Bedoya, Nilsson, Gerzic - Astvald, Atashkadeh, Rama.  On the bench Nurme, Anttonen, Wirtanen, Nordback, Kihlberg, Lushtaku, Paulinho.

Wednesday 27 April 2011

Same work, same pay?

There's been yet another listing of the best paid players in the world.  Although it is fun to see who is overpaid and underpaid (Flamini is for example the fourth best paid player in Milan, whereas Pato and Thiago Silva are not on the list, and Kuranyi is the best paid German player), I would like to take a look at club, league and nationality level.

You see all the listings below.  Here is a summary of surprising and (mostly) unsurprising findings in most random order:
  • Manchester City may make fourth spot and Champions League next year, but it is still the most underachieving team in the world in comparison to salary expenses.  Liverpool and Juventus are good runners-up
  • My dear oh dear Spurs, what did you do to find such a strong squad? I would have expected to see Bale, Modric and van der Vaart on the list, but no. And given the number of English players on the list, Lennon, Defoe and Crouch should be there too
  • Schalke may have been "embarrassing" last night, but we should keep in mind that seven of the United players were better paid than the best, and only, well paid Schalke player.  Neuer should be able to get quite a good raise.
  • On the other hand, when Spurs go to City on 10 May, it is possible that all City players will be better paid than any Spurs players.  And here I am sulking over being 4 points behind
  • Milan should really try and sell Flamini
  • The Dutch are not at all the greedy negotiators they are supposed to be
  • The Brazilians are even worse, but that may be less surprising
  • Some sort of seniority bonus seems to apply.  Or is it just that the older people look for money and the younger for opportunity to grow?
  • If one were to make a world 11 based on salary (4-2-3-1 system) it would look like this: Casillas - Alves, Terry, Ferdinand, Cole - Yaya Toure, Lampard - Messi, Kaka, Ronaldo - Torres.  Not exactly how I would have lined it up
  • Germany has one power-house, but otherwise the salary list is yet another proof of the the most democratic top league in Europe
  • The image of Russian/Ukrainian oligarcs pumping money into their local teams is only partially true.  No Shaktar players on the list. But Kuranyi is arguably the most over-paid player in the world
  • The real over-achievers in Champions League are Schalke, Spurs, Shaktar, Valencia and Copenhagen
  • Players on the list that played in the Champions League group stage and qualified for the next round: 78
  • Players on the list that played in the Champions League group stage and did not qualify for the next round: 1 (shame on you, Thorsten Frings, 93rd spot)
  • Any blatant thing I missed?

Here's how the players are spread, club by club:

1Real Madrid 12 (1, 6, 8, 26, 27, 28, 43, 44, 50, 62, 71, 88)
2City 11 (4, 9, 19, 21, 22, 39, 41, 51, 52, 74, 99)
3United 9 (5, 20, 53, 54, 56, 60, 70,  94, 100)
4 Barcelona 8 (2, 15, 16, 17, 18, 32, 48, 92)
5 Chelsea 8 (3, 12, 13, 23, 25, 30, 58, 76)
6 Inter 7 (10, 36, 64, 65, 86, 87, 98)
7 Milan 6 (7, 33, 63, 66, 84, 89)
8 Bayern München 5 (11, 38, 40, 79, 83)
9 Liverpool 5 (14, 24, 42, 55, 72)
10 Juventus 4 (31, 49, 78, 85)
11 Arsenal 3 (29, 57, 73)
12 Lyon 3 (59, 80, 81)
13 Marseille 3 (68, 75, 96)
14 Atletico 2 (47, 69)
15 Roma 2 (35, 61)
16 Sevilla 1 (34)
17 Dinamo Moscow 1 (37)
18 Leverkusen 1 (45)
19 Flamengo 1 (46)
20 Galaxy 1 (67)
21 Cardiff 1 (77)
22 Schalke 1 (82)
23 Hamburg 1 (90)
24 Fluminese 1 (91)
25 Werder Bremen 1 (93)
26 Wolfsburg 1 (95)
27 NY Red Bulls 1 (97)

And by league:
1 England 37 (5 clubs+1 Welsh club in the Championship)
2 Spain 23 (4 clubs, with two accounting for 20)
3 Italy 19 (4 clubs)
4 Germany 10 (6 clubs)
5 France 6 (2 clubs)
6 Brazil 2 (2 clubs)
7 U.S. 2 (2 clubs)
8 Russia 1

And by nationality (domestic players in bold)
1 England 16 (5, 12, 13, 14, 20, 23, 24, 39, 42, 51, 52, 55, 67, 70, 72, 99)
2 France 11 (11, 27, 36, 50, 54, 58, 59, 66, 76, 96, 97)
3 Spain 11 (3, 15, 16, 17, 26, 29, 32, 48, 71, 74, 82)
4 Argentina 10 (2, 9, 28, 47, 64, 68, 75, 81, 87, 92)
5 Italy 9 (21, 31, 33, 35, 49, 61, 63, 78, 85)
6 Germany 8 (37, 38, 43, 44, 45, 79, 83, 93)
7 Brazil 7 (6, 46, 65, 80, 84, 95, 98)
8 Holland 6 (40, 53, 73, 86, 89, 90)
9 Portugal 4 (1, 62, 88, 91)
10 Ivory Coast 3 (4, 22, 25)
11 Serbia 2 (41, 94)
12 Wales 2 (60, 77)
13 Sweden 1 (7)
14 Togo 1 (8)
15 Cameroon 1 (10)
16 Bosnia 1 (19)
17 Czech Republic 1 (30)
18 Mali 1 (34)
19 Bulgaria 1 (56)
20 Russia 1 (57)
21 Uruguay 1 (69)
22 Korea 1 (100)

Tuesday 26 April 2011

On a more positive note...

Milan are now 8 points clear with four games to play.  There is even a chance of Milan becoming champions this coming weekend.  Inter and Napoli both play on Saturday, Inter away to Cesena, Napoli at home to Genoa.  If both fail to win, Milan will be champions if they beat Bologna at home.

If that does not happen, Milan will have plenty of more match points to come.  Hopefully the scudetto can be sealed soon so that Milan can focus on the cup and the domestic double that Milan, the club that claims to have won more titles than any other, have in fact never won (Milan have won the European cup more often than the Italian one).

It's hard to die when all the birds are singing in the sky

We had joy, we had fun, we had one season in the Champions League.  Spurs are four points below City with five games to play.  This is what we need to do to keep on playing with the big boys next season:

City's schedule is as follows:

1 May: West Ham (home. West Ham has all to play for, not easy to win against teams fighting for survival. But still, anything but 3 points would be a surprise)
7 May: Everton (away against a team chasing rival Liverpool and a possible Europa League spot. This could be tough.  0-1 point)
10 May: Spurs (home)
17 May: Stoke (home, three days after Stoke's first ever FA Cup final (against City!). Stoke will likely have secured their contract by then. 3 points)
22 May: Bolton (away, Bolton most likely with nothing to play for. 3 points)

Discounting the Spurs game, we thus end up with City on 68-69 points.  With a poorer goal difference, it means Spurs will need to win all five remaining games - including of course City away - in order to reach fourth spot (70 points).  These are the five games we need to win.

30 April: Chelsea (away against the most on-form team in the League, Bale's future employer?)
7 May: Blackpool (home, Blackpool in free-fall but need everything they can get to avoid relegation)
10 May: City (away.  Nice memories from last year, but once more?)
15 May: Liverpool (away against another on-form team)
22 May: Birmingham (home, ok that looks doable, but if Birmingham is still fighting relegation at this point we could well lose)

Percentage chance on that? I'd say just under 1.  About the same as Örebro playing Spurs in the Europa League play offs this summer.

Chances of making top 4 over the coming years.  Again, about the same.  The future does not look Lillywhite right now.

Thursday 21 April 2011

Not-so-many-points week

Örebro, Spurs and Milan have all played at home this week and have managed to score a total tally of no less than seven goals.  So a nine-point week, you may think? Nope. 2.

It is with a surreal feeling that I am more important to this world than I sometimes think that I from time to time see some sort of link in what my three companions are doing. Right now, that higher power that is only focussed on me has imposed "sloppy defending" on my teams.  That's not so good.

Where did that all come from? OK, Milan deserved it. They played Soktratis in defense in front om the not so solid Amelia. But Spurs. Dawson, you better learn how to anticipate the runs of the Wilcots of this world, cuz they are faster than you!

And Örebro. Actually, that's where it all came from. That's how I annoyed that man in the sky.  Örebro was first out this week, playing bottom team Gefle at home.  Somewhere around the end of the first half, Gothenburg scored against Helsingborg.  My and my fellow Örebro fans were sitting there complaining over the lack of speed in attack, but I noted that we are now the only team in allsvenskan with a clean sheet.  It was a super-jinx. A super-jinx it was (that one is for you Sam).

Almebäck came out in the second half looking like he had been boozing hard at half time.  Örebro started to score, but what does that help when Gefle were handed three chances on a silver plate and converted them all?

And so, last night, Spurs are playing electric attacking football for a full game.  They scored three. They could have scored six or seven.  They conceded three.  They could have conceded 10.  Gomes is at times the best keeper there is.  But then he isn't. Cause the best keeper is he who makes no mistake.  That is not the Gomes of spring 2011.  I am afraid that is the main difference with Spurs in the spring of 2010.  The finishing from van der Vaart and Huddlestone was clinical, but what does that help when sub-par defending probably cost us a new champions league spot?

Örebro plays Häcken tonight.  Häcken in swedish means the bush (more or less, the kind that is planted in a garden) but for some reason that may be strange to non-natives it is also the nickname for one's behind.  As good a reason as any to shape up the defense.  We need three points or we are falling behind.  I doubt it, though.

Since this article was borderline blasphemous, I end this with my best wishes for a happy Easter.

Monday 18 April 2011

Weekend wrap-up

Back in business after holidays, quite a bit of catching up to do. Let's start with AC Milan where an unlikely hero is about to hand us the first scudetto since 2004.  When Zlatan is busy collecting red cards and Pato is busy collecting valentine cards Clarence Seedorf is busy doing exactly what I asked him to do a couple of months back.  Milan are on a winning streak and the recent wins are very much thanks to fantastic appearances from good old Clarence.  Together with another former Sampa man, Cassano, Clarence bagged easy three points for us on a weekend where all results went Milan's way.  Five more games to play, two very difficult ones (Roma and Udinese away) and three absolutely doable ones remain.  Milan should be able to get 10 points out of that.  And if they do, it will not matter if Napoli win all their five (mostly difficult) games.  The scudetto is really really close now.  Injuries on Abbiati and Pato are worries, but with Clarence on fire I doubt that will change much.

The only game I watched this weekend was El Clasico act 1.  Good to see Mourinho back to coaching the football that he knows works.  I will be fun to watch the rest.  How good was Pepe? Man of the match performance, no doubt.

Spurs did not play last weekend, and given their form of late that is probably for the best.  North London derby coming up, and hopefully Arsenal will be disillusioned from losing the title battle in the 102nd minute on Sunday.  More of that later.

Then, gamla fina Örebro.  Gefle coming to town today, and anything but a continuation of the perfect record so far would be most disappointing.  We need more speed in the offense than we showed against Syrianska though.  But I would not mind seeing more of this.  Speaking of a perfect record.  Two games is not a whole lot, but Örebro is a notrious slow starter and we can actually talk of a record start already.

This is where we have been after two games over the last years:
2011: 6 points
2010: 3 points
2009: 0 points
2008: 3 points
2007: 2 points
2006: 6 points (2nd division)
2005: 3 points (2nd division)
2004: 0 points (and a 3-10 goal difference)
2003: 0 points
2002: 1 point
2001: 2 points
2000: 2 points
1999: 1 point
1998: 0 points
1997: 4 points
1996: 0 points
1995: 4 points
1994: 4 points
1993: 3 points
1992: 4 points
1991: 4 points
1990: 4 points
1989: 4 points

Not since 1968 has Örebro started a season in the top division with two wins. We opened with five straight wins that time. Just sayin'.  This could be the year for the real thing.

Monday 11 April 2011

9 point weekends

Im not sure whether this concept is familiar to you. A 9 point weekend is the perfect weekend (since i am a married man I should specify "in football terms"). In other words, Orebro, tottenham and Milan win their weekend games. Usually there are only two or three of these in a year, but if things are to turn out the way we want them to we will need more in the next coming weeks. I am writing from an ipad so i will haeve to come back later with more details of the games. For now, lets just enjoy the first 9 point weekend of the year.

Tuesday 5 April 2011

Now I will fly 1,000 miles

Oh yes, you made us proud.

We are on our way, but let's not get carried away. Pretty hard not to, though.  Before the season there were really three things I saw that we needed to improve in order to go from a top 3 team to a top 1 team.  One was the ability to turn deficits into victory.  We have not proved we can do that yet as we have not conceded any goals.  The second was to find a natural way of winning games away against the better teams.  We have already proved we can do that.  The third was to have a goalscorer who can bag 12-14 goals.  He is not there yet, but Haddad yesterday showed that he delivers also when it counts.

First, the away wins.  Remember we only won 5 out of 15 last year, and those five wins came against 5 of the 6 bottom teams in the table.  3 of those wins were claimed on artificial pitches.  Yesterday, we beat an expected top team, on grass (albeit good grass).  That is more than we managed to do all last year.

Then Haddad.  It just looked right from the beginning.  A strong box player with good touch and deadly finishing.  Since I did not see the game, I shall not evaluate more.  Just wanna say I can't wait to see him live on Friday.

Örebroers, no excuse is recognized if the stadium is not full on Friday night.  I will travel 1500 km to be there.

Monday 4 April 2011

Play this theme whilst reading

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv6foKX5BQY

Anttonen is out for tonight's game. Otherwise everyone is available for tonight's big premiere.

I would like to see Haginge take his place, hence;
Alvbåge
Haginge, Almebäck, Wikström, Wowoah
Kihlberg
Bedoya, Gerzic
Astvald, Haddad, Rama

Bench: Nurme, Wirtanen, Nordback, Berger, Nilsson, Atashkadeh, Lushtaku.

The two latter should get a chance as subs for sure.

Gentlemen, this is the real thing. This is what you've been trained for. You are Örebro's best. Make us proud.

Saturday 2 April 2011

The Trojan horse

What Leonardo could not do for us as a coach for Milan he is now doing for as an Inter coach.   

We could have scored 10 goals tonight.  Although we should be proud of the way Pato devastated the Inter defense with his deep and diagonal runs, the way van Bommel dictated the pace on the midfield, the sublime control of Seedorf, Gattuso’s passing (!) and Abate’s crossing accuracy (!), it is clear that one man alone decided the outcome of this game before it was played.

Leonardo did just what we hoped he would do.  He was anti-Mourinho.   He left a huge gap in front of the back four.  When neither Cambiasso nor Motta were ordered to fall low, Ranocchia and Chivu had to push up higher and became vulnerable deep where they could not cope with the speed of Pato and Robinho.   School boy coaching.  Like playing one central defender against on form Rooney last year.  Or pushing forward relentlessly with ten men against Mourinho-Inter.

Thank you, Leo.  We always knew where your heart is.  Now we have figured out where best to deploy your brain.