Martin Demichelis, who once said being dropped from the Argentina squad just before the 2006 World Cup was a fate worse than death, caused a stir in Germany this weekend for putting his country ahead of his employer.

Demichelis was dropped from Bayern Munich’s squad by coach Ottmar Hitzfeld on Friday for insubordination. The defender refused Hitzfeld’s request to play in the defensive midfield position against Energie Cottbus on Saturday in place of Mark van Bommel, who had been suspended by the league for making an obscene gesture.

Moments after Hitzfeld had informed journalists of his decision, Demichelis unexpectedly appeared before reporters to tell his side of the story. He was close to tears as he awkwardly explained that as much as he loved Bayern Munich he was now a defender for Argentina and wanted to play for Bayern in that position — not midfield anymore, even though that was his position after moving to Bayern from River Plate in 2003.

Perhaps getting dropped by Argentina just before the World Cup as a midfielder two years ago left a scar so deep that Demichelis, who has had a very good season anchoring Bayern’s defence, felt he had to take a stand and call Hitzfeld’s bluff. 

“It’s not only that I don’t have any desire to play anymore — I don’t have any desire to live,” Demichelis told German journalists in May 2006 after he was unexpectedly dropped by then Argentina coach Jose Pekerman.

On Saturday Bayern were soundly beaten by lowly Energie Cottbus 2-0 and Bayern’s weak Demichelis-less defence rightly got the blame for the fiasco.

On Monday Hitzfeld said Demichelis was back in the squad after apologising, even though Demichelis was quoted saying Hitzfeld was the one who should apologise.

In any event, the case once again raised the question of loyalties — what is more important? Club or country? The employer or the nation? Those who sign the cheques or those who wave the flags?

Erik Kirschbaum, Berlin

PHOTO: Demichelis in action for Bayern, July.7 2007 REUTERS/Michael Dalder 

A Real Betis fan accused of throwing a bottle at Athletic Bilbao’s goalkeeper Armando during Saturday’s home match was released on Monday after paying a 3,000-euro bail, Spanish media reported.

The visiting keeper was struck by a bottle filled with liquid just below the right eye and required a number of stitches for a cut. Fans quickly identified the perpetrator, who was taken away by stadium security and handed over to the police. The match was abandoned in the 69th minute, with Bilbao winning 2-1.

It is not the first time this has happened in Spain, so what is the right punishment? Is it the fan’s fault alone or should Betis be fined, have points deducted or face a stadium ban?

Here Kevin Fylan, who covered Spanish soccer for Reuters, talks to vlogmeister Owen Wyatt about the incident and the possible punishments. We’d like your views in the comments below or you can send us your own vlog via youtube or wherever. Tag it ‘Vlog on the pitch’ and if we like it, we’ll put it up here.

For the first time in a long while this weekend I had to consult my LOAF (Laws of Association Football to those of you who were never a referee.)

AS Roma were furious that the officials disallowed a quickly-taken corner during their 2-1 Serie A win over AC Milan. 

David Pizarro went over to the corner arc where he nudged the ball with his boot before oddly wandering away. Fellow Roma midfielder Rodrigo Taddei then suddenly appeared from nowhere and started running with the ball towards the box with Milan’s players not concentrating.

The assistant referee started flagging and the referee blew his whistle before being surrounded by angry Roma players, who said the routine was perfectly legal.

Law 17 of my LOAF, which refers to corners, says: “The ball is in play when it is kicked and moves. The kicker does not play the ball a second time until it has touched another player.”

Many of the Italians (mostly Milan fans) I watched the match with wrongly thought the ball had to leave the corner arc to be in play. Others said it had to roll at least one revolution to constitute ‘moving’. TV replays showed Pizarro’s touch was slight but the ball did move and so strictly the routine should have been allowed. Law 17 actually says nothing about what ‘move’ means.

People say football is a simple game, but sometimes it is quite complicated.

For example the LOAF goes into great detail describing what would happen if a goalkeeper took a corner, booted it into his own area, chased after it and then picked it up. Bizarrely it also says you can’t score an own goal from a corner (ie. kicking it all the way to the other end of the pitch.) However, it is vague on words like ‘move’.

Furthermore, did you know you can’t be offside from a goal kick? Or that a goal is not awarded if a goalkeeper somehow manages to send a goal kick into his own net?

Mark Meadows in Milan, a former referee in the South East London Sunday League.

The draw for the quarter-finals of the Champions League looks great, but there will have been a collective groan from anyone looking ahead to the semi-finals.

With the inevitability of doom, Liverpool and Chelsea are set to meet again in the last four — if they make it through the quarter-finals. Their two previous semi-final meetings were tense, certainly, but the quality of football was pretty dispiriting.

Liverpool have by far the tougher ask to make it through, of course. They must first face Arsenal, while Chelsea were handed one of the two teams everyone wanted in Fenerbahce.

Schalke 04 are the other unfancied team and they will face Barcelona, while Manchester United will presumably be feeling pretty confident about meeting AS Roma again after what happened this time last year.

You can read our full coverage of the draw at the main soccer site here, where there’s also a poll running, but please come back to the blog to give us your thoughts on the matches we have in store.

Who do you see as the favourites after today’s draw? Will Schalke upset Barcelona? Will Manchester United repeat their brilliance of last year? And are you secretly looking forward to another Liverpool v Chelsea? Let us know in the comments.

PHOTO: Chelsea’s Petr Cech prepares for the penalty shoot-out against Liverpool in their Champions League semi-final, second leg soccer match at Anfield last May. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez

This week saw Portsmouth goalkeeper David James sign a contract extension that could see him playing Premier League football at the age of 40.

The England international is about as physically fit as players come, so much so that he once accepted an invitation to train with NFL side the Miami Dolphins, in order for them to assess his physicality.

If you were to bet on someone to surpass the Premiership’s oldest player record, set by Manchester City goalkeeper John Burridge (43 years, 4 months and 26 days), he’d be your man… well, him or Manchester United’s Ryan Giggs who was recently honoured with an OBE for services to football.

Generally these days we expect goalkeepers to have longer careers. Tim Flowers, David Seaman and Nigel Martyn all played for a long time and today the Premiership has no fewer than seven first-choice keepers aged 35 or over. It’s more novel for an outfield player to still be playing at the highest level at such an age.

Last month we saw ex-England, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United striker, Teddy Sheringham announce plans to retire at the ripe old age of 42; he defied the rigours of Premiership football right up until the end of the 2007 season and now plies his trade for Championship side Colchester United.

So what players are there out there of a similar mould to James and Sheringham?

A quick glance down the Premier League roll-call sees the likes of Tugay (37) at Blackburn Rovers, Everton’s Lee Carsley (34), Chelsea’s Claude Makelele (35) and Manchester City’s Dietmar Hamann (34).

Is there some carefully guarded magic formula which allows them to carry on at a time when most other professional players have retired to nurse tired legs? Or is it just hard work, and an unrelenting hunger for the sport? 

Who in today’s game could go on play to such ripe ages?

Chelsea’s John Terry perhaps? The blues captain certainly has the hunger. How about Terry’s team mate, Frank Lampard? He holds the Premiership record for most consecutive games played (164) so he looks to have the stamina. Who do you reckon will be playing on to their late thirties or beyond? Give us your picks in the comments…

PHOTO: David James in training with England at Wembley, ahead of the February friendly against Switzerland. REUTERS/Eddie Keogh

Spain’s likely performance at Euro 2008 remains an enigma but one thing that can be guaranteed is that Luis Aragones will step down as coach at the end of the tournament.

The grand old man of Spanish football has made it clear that he will be going at the end of June, a month before his 70th birthday, and after four turbulent years at the helm there will many who will be heaving a sigh of relief.

The atmosphere in Spanish football is tense enough without having a figure like Aragones as its most high-profile international representative. From the moment he took charge after the last European Championship, he has never been far away from controversy. From his derogatory comments about Thierry Henry, to his intermittent threats to quit, his decision to exclude Raul or his tendency to fly off the handle during news conferences, Aragones has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Brusque, outspoken and at times inadvertently comic, Aragones comes from the same mould as two recent predecessors Jose Antonio Camacho and Javier Clemente. But the word is that after his departure, the Federation will appoint former Real Madrid coach Vicente del Bosque.

While Aragones resembles a bad-tempered, somewhat eccentric grandfather, Del Bosque is like a kindly uncle, a model of diplomacy, politeness and sportsmanship.

The moustachioed 57-year-old also oversaw his former club during their most successful period since the late 1950s. In a little over three years, he steered his team to two Champions Leagues, two league titles, the World Club Cup, the European Super Cup and the Spanish Super Cup.

Florentino Perez’s decision to discard Del Bosque the day after the team won the league title in 2003 and a week after they signed David Beckham is widely seen as one of the prime reasons for the galactico meltdown that followed. Whereas Del Bosque managed to control a dressing room packed full of the biggest egos in the game with disarming ease, a string of successors were driven to distraction by the challenge. And the club did not win another trophy until Fabio Capello arrived on the scene four years later.

Del Bosque does, of course, have his critics. Perez said his methods were too old-fashioned and hinted that his dry, deadpan delivery and stoical Castilian image did not fit into his plans to develop the club’s global image. His only subsequent coaching job at Besiktas ended in failure and he has displayed little enthusiasm to renew his career at a club.

On the other hand you will never hear a bad word said against Del Bosque by any of his former players or colleagues and he is widely respected in the game. The Spanish Federation’s sporting director Fernando Hierro, who was purged from Real at the same time as Del Bosque, is reported to be the driving force behind the decision to appoint him.

Could Del Bosque’s safe pair of hands be just what Spain now needs?

PHOTO: Del Bosque parades the European Cup back in Madrid after Real’s final victory over Bayer Leverkusen in 2002. REUTERS/Sergio Perez

It’s true I had been up half the night worrying about our half-finished loft conversion during the worst gales of the winter but even so I should not have dropped off to sleep during Chelsea coach Avram Grant’s news conference this week.

Grant is under fire in the Press after Chelsea surrendered both the Cups they held with poor performances against Tottenham Hotspur last month and lower division Barnsley on Saturday.

One might have expected a few fireworks, a bit of tension, emotion — something. My tabloid colleagues tried hard but the Israeli’s expression hardly flickered. It was during another repetition of how disappointed the players were and but how determined nevertheless to win something this season that my elbow slid off the arm-rest and I was jolted awake.

The trouble is Chelsea watchers were spoilt by three seasons of Jose Mourinho. Six months after he and Chelsea parted company we are filled with nostalgia for the apt quote, the off-the-wall metaphor, the acid aside, the humour, the controversy, the fun. There was always a sense of anticipation before the presser and usually a frantic scramble afterwards to try to fit all the good bits into a 500 word story.

No longer. Chelsea are apparently happy that after the Mourinho years the club is, as one insider put it, “under the radar”. I thought, however, that football was an entertainment industry. Whatever he produced on the pitch (winning two championships and three Cups) Mourinho certainly entertained us off it. He must also have done a lot to raise the club’s profile at a time when they were looking for new worldwide markets for the brand. Grant can scarcely be doing that.

Meanwhile Jose, a lot richer after Roman Abramovich’s payoff and well rested after wintering at home in Portugal, is lining up a new job. We can only look enviously to our colleagues in Italy or Spain (assuming the idea of him coming back to Chelsea, raised by Blue Champions, is a non-starter). Wherever he pitches up they will have some good quotes.

PHOTO: Grant is pictured during a news conference in Gelsenkirchen, November 5, 2007. REUTERS/Ina Fassbender

Every year it’s the same story. Lyon destroy the opposition in Ligue 1 and fail to make an impact in Europe.

Last weekend’s 4-2 win over Bordeaux in a top-of-the-table clash means Lyon are six points clear at the top with 10 games left and poised to win a seventh consecutive title.

A few days before that, they had lost 1-0 to Manchester United at Old Trafford to disappear from the Champions League in the first knockout round for the second year running. The three years before that, they had left in the quarter-finals. In a class of their own in France for years, they have never advanced beyond the last eight of European club football’s showcase event.

So what’s the problem?

Ligue 1 clubs, with minimal TV rights compared to what teams from the other major European leagues get, are not rich enough to keep their best players, not to mention attract top names. Take Franck Ribery, blossoming at Bayern Munich after leaving Marseille and now saying he can’t imagine playing for a French club again, not even Lyon.

That’s one problem. But you could also argue that Lyon are not trying very hard to keep their best assets. Once a big club makes a lucrative offer, off they go. Michael Essien, Florent Malouda and Eric Abidal, to name just a few, are now all grazing from more glamorous pastures.

Chairman Jean-Michel Aulas, the boss of a software company who has turned Lyon from a sleepy provincial sideto France’s best team, is now promising his latest jewel, striker Karim Benzema, will not go anywhere. The Lyon fans can only hope he will keep his word .

Over the past few years, Lyon have made a fortune by selling players and reinvested little in reinforcements. Why? Probably because Aulas needs cash to finance a new stadium to be ready in 2010.

A new stadium is fine but you need a fine team to play in it. Can Lyon have that? If they keep Benzema and his mate Hatem Ben Arfa, who’s just as special, maybe.

Patrick Vignal, Paris

PHOTO: Cris walks off after Lyon lose at Manchester United, March 4 REUTERS/Darren Staples

I caused the wrath of several TV cameramen on Tuesday when I dashed out of Roberto Mancini’s post-match news conference, and right infront of their shot, to tell the world he was quitting Italian champions Inter at the end of the season.

Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez, who had just seen his side beat Inter 1-0 away to reach the Champions League quarter-finals, heard about Mancini’s shock departure only moments afterwards when he entered the press room.

Asked if he would be interested in the Inter job, he simply smiled and said: “I’m very happy.”

Quite what that meant no one was sure, but Liverpool deserved their 3-0 aggregrate victory even if it owed something to Inter being reduced to 10 men in both legs.

Benitez went on to say how much easier the Champions League is than the mighty Premier League these days. Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea make it tough to win domestically, he said, before stating that he didn’t care who Liverpool got in Friday’s draw. (Despite the fact those three are also in the hat as English football again dominates Europe. Liverpool beat Chelsea in the 2005 and 2007 semi-finals, though, remember)

There is one way Benitez can overcome the Premier League top three — move to Inter. His Italian in the news conference was surprisingly good.

Mark Meadows, Milan

May 2007, Derby County win promotion to the Premier League at the expense of West Bromwich Albion. Fast forward 10 months and Derby are relegation certainties, while Albion are pushing for promotion and returningto Wembley as FA Cup semi-finalists.

That set me wondering whether promotion is worth the subsequent suffering. Could losing out on a place among the elite be a blessing in disguise for Championship clubs?

I have to declare an interest here. I’m a lifelong Crystal Palace fan, albeit a rather lapsed one these days. Palace are the classic yo-yo team -promotion to the Premier League followed invariably by instant demotion. So another late push for promotion via the play-offs this year? Maybe not.

The Premier League brings clubs a lot more money — and parachute payments for a couple of years after relegation. There is also the thrill ofseeing your team in action at Old Trafford or Anfield.

But for clubs like Derby - with only one league win all season - the euphoria of last May must seem like a distant dream.

Could Bristol City, Stoke City or maybe Hull City survive in the Premier League if they get there this spring. And would promotion be worth it for them and their fans- whatever the next season brings?