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The weekend preview

Posted on | October 16, 2009 | No Comments

Spain – La Liga: Champions Barcelona are off to La Mestalla to play Valencia. The Catalan club are sweating on the fitness of midfield playmaker Xavi, who came back injured from the international break. Star striker David Villa is out for the home team.

Real Madrid are at home to Valladolid and are expected to be without the injured Ronaldo, while Sevilla, who beat Real at home in the last round of fixtures, are away at Deportivo.

England – Premier League: Table – topping Chelsea are off to Aston Villa, currently seventh in the table and gelling together a new-look back four.

W_RooneyLiverpool go to Sunderland’s Stadium of Light without Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard who were both injured in the midweek internationals. Champions Manchester United also have to head to Bolton without Wayne Rooney (pictured), who picked up a calf problem playing for England in the recent international with Ukraine.

Arsenal, currently in fifth, are at home to Birmingham and fourth-placed Manchester City are away at Wigan. Third-placed Spurs are off to bottom side Portsmouth.

Italy – Serie A: Top of the table Inter are away at Genoa, while Juventus, who missed the chance to overtake them last time out with a 2-0 defeat at Palermo, entertain Fiorentina.

AC Milan, languishin in 12th, are at home to Roma and Lazio host Sampdoria.

Elsewhere in the Bundesliga, Bayern travel to Freiburg and Schalke are away at Stuttgart. Hamburg host Bayer Leverkusen.

In Ligue 1 in France, champions Bordeaux are off to Auxerre, and Lyon host Sochaux.

[Photo: Gordon Flood CC]

Category: England, Europe, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, The Wire
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Destiny Day for Diego

Posted on | October 14, 2009 | No Comments

Diego_MaradonaEverything, from his surprising appointment to his disastrous team selection against Brazil, has seemed to inevitably lead Diego Maradona to tonight’s match.

Argentina fans have little to cling on to but blind faith in the national side’s coach and the concept that he has perhaps screwed up so many things in the past, he’s pretty much run out of mistakes to make by now.

His tactics have been wrong, his team selections have been wrong, his defensive approach has been awful and even his goal celebration on Saturday, which involved belly-surfing across the Monumental pitch, nearly went tits-up, with ‘El Diego’ narrowly avoiding returning to his feet with his trousers round his ankles.

The 2-1 weekend win against Peru at least kept things simple for the Albiceleste tonight; win and they go straight through to the World Cup. Draw and they go straight through to the World Cup. Lose and Ecuador can leapfrog them into the play-off place and knock them out completely.

Tonight’s opponents, Uruguay, have their own incentive. A win puts them over Argentina and into automatic qualifaction, while a draw will have them also sweating on Ecuador, who are playing Chile and need to beat them to make the play-offs.

Although Argentina did beat the team with the worst away record in the group on Saturday, it was by the narrowest of margins. Peru twice hit the bar during the game and scored in the 91st minute to make it 1-1. Only a Martin Palermo tap-in prevented the unthinkable; that Argentina’s chances would be out of their hands on the last round of fixtures.

While they will undoubtedly take some heart from the last-minute drama on Saturday, Argentina are still in disarray.

There’s still no whiff of a successor to Roberto Ayala, the centreback who led Argentina’s back line for a generation before retiring from international football. Without a replacement Argentina look disjointed, leaderless and even chaotic in defence.

The midfield is their strongest asset, with Lionel Messi pulling the strings, although of late he has not been able to repeat his domestic form with Barcelona in Argentina’s colours.

Up front Maradona has chopped and changed endlessly, as he has all over the pitch, and has only just got round to selecting Gonzalo Higuain, the only obviously capable Argentine target man on the planet. Still bizarrely excluded is Lisandro Lopez, the forward making waves with his new club, Lyon, and who scored just shy of 50 goals in 106 appearances for his last club, Porto.

A total of 78 players have been used in Argentina’s qualification campaign, with many of them selected and discarded with equal urgency.

But logic has never been part of Maradona’s game plan. Common sense isn’t necessarily in the script. Rationale is rarely on the teamsheet. Passion and improvisation are Maradona’s coaching assistants and chief motivators.

He and argentina will need buckets of both, plus a little bit of luck, if they are to break 75,000 hearts in the Centenario in Montevideo tonight.

Chris Breese

Category: Argentina, South America, The Wire, Word Cup 2010
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Voluntary banishment

Posted on | October 11, 2009 | No Comments

Keirrison wpcThe issue of top European clubs snapping up South American talent before it’s fully cooked is not a new one, but seems to have reached a new nadir this season with Barcelona striker Keirrison.

Snapped up in July from Palmeiras for 14 million euros, he was promptly farmed out to Benfica on loan by the Catalan club for a softer landing on the continent, hopefully to adapt quickly to the European game.

Instead he seems to have instantly settled into stagnation, playing only 136 minutes so far, all from the bench, and failing to find the net this season. This from a striker who until he departed Brazil mid-season was one of the top predators in South America, and arguably, the top predator in South America.

So in this current arrangement, no-one wins, except for Keirrison’s agent and owners, who no doubt have already pocketed a large slice. Palmeiras got a fair fee but lost their star player halfway through the out-of-sync Brazilian domestic season, Barcelona have a player who is gaining no experience at his current club, Keirrison has a stalling career and Benfica are apparently stuck with a player they feel they can’t use.

Of all clubs, you’d expect Barcelona would know when a player is ready to switch continents and when a borrowing club is likely to make practical use of him.

At the moment Keirrison’s European adventure is a form of voluntary banishment; he’s floating in a kind of football wilderness,supposedly too good to play in Brazil, but not good enough to cut it in the largely poor Liga Sagres.

As such the whole affair smells of a kind of sweaty panic; on the part of Barcelona, who probably rushed into buying him because of the threat the likes of Real Madrid or Liverpool would step in if they didn’t, and on the part of Keirrision and his agents; too eager for the ‘big move’ to realise it might just be a tad too soon.

It already looks like another transfer destined for the South American career morgue, where ultimately the likes of Ariel Ortega, Javier Saviola, Adriano and Marcelo Gallardo ended up, but I hope not.

Chris Breese

Category: Brazil, Europe, South America, Spain, The Wire
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