Filling the void
Posted on | June 17, 2009 | No Comments
Summer is meant to be a happy time isn’t it?, with holidays and barbecues and the like.
But if, like 2009, there’s no top-level international football tournament on, then it’s a season of doubt, anxiety and confusion.
In all honesty, when the domestic fixture calendar is in full swing, at least 50 per cent of my thinking space goes on football. So when a season draws to a close and doesn’t roll immediately into a major international tournament, there’s a serious problem.
An awful lot of time can be spent sitting around the house, flicking on live cricket, flicking it off again five minutes later, then perhaps spending a day trying to get
really interested in Rugby, and failing.
There is of course the transfer chatter to pay attention to, but in reality only a handful of clubs actually buy a significant number of truly interesting players, and the rest of the media coverage on the matter is empty hype, rumour very loosely based on fact, or something the writer apparently plucked out of the air while scraping out the bottom of a yoghurt pot at the end of their lunch break.
‘Useless’ transfer news
The general uselessness of the media as a whole when it comes to transfer news was nicely illustrated recently in England and Spain. First Gareth Barry, who the press had again continually linked with a switch to Liverpool, shot off from Aston Villa to Manchester City and took all the hacks by surprise.
Then a few days later a move which had been whispered about, but not covered in great detail, landed in our cornflakes when Kaka left AC Milan to go to Real Madrid. The Spanish side then rippled the back pages again by resurrecting their interest in Manchester United winger Ronaldo, and then signing him, in the space of about 17 seconds.
So instead every ‘dead’ year, ie when there is no World Cup or European Championship, I turn to desperate measures and seek out what little live matches we have to pick on until the arrival of August puts us all out of our misery.
Games aplenty if you look
Let’s start with the European Under-21 Championship, being held in Sweden and which kicked off on Monday.
http://www.uefa.com/competitions/under21/index.html
The usual suspects are there – including Spain, Germany, Italy, and England. Some notable players include Italy forward Sebastian Giovinco and England winger Theo Walcott, who has recently been a fixture in the senior side and is a thrilling player on his day. There will of course be a few unknown gems who shine throughout the competition.
Let’s also not forget that the Brazilian league season is in full swing at the moment. If you’re not familiar with the Campeonato, take a look.
You can find the likes of Ronaldo (the fat one) and Adriano, at Corinthians and Flamengo respectively, plus a host of other less-well known but equally talented players.
For fixtures see here;
http://www.footbo.com/Leagues/Campeonato_Brasileirao
And live feeds can be found here;
Finally let’s turn our attention to the Confederations Cup, which grows in stature every time it comes around. Although its broadly considered as a friendly tournament, it’s generally well contested.
The format sees the World Champions, European Champions, Copa America champions and so on for the globe’s various regional competitions thrown together for two group stages and a brief knock-out phase.
Each time it’s held in the host nation for the next World Cup – in this case South Africa – as a kind of tasty preview for what lies ahead next year.
Spain, Brazil and Italy are all there and with full-strength squads. You can also see the likes of the USA, Iraq, and Egypt, plus South Africa and New Zealand.
Games continue all this week and next until the final on June 28. It’s definitely not the World Cup, but it’s better than Watford V Nottingham Forest from 1971 on ESPN classic.
The BBC is dedicating a fair bit of space to it including live matches online and on television for UK fans.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/results/8095874.stm
There, suddenly it all doesn’t seem so bad, does it?
And to top it all the English league fixtures came out today. Now I feel much better.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/8102556.stm
Chris Breese
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