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Soccer Break Friday – Clasico fever rises
Only one day to go now until Real Madrid face Barcelona in La Liga for the first of four ‘clasicos’ between Saturday and May 3. Excited? You will be now…
Barcelona destroyed their fierce domestic rivals 5-0 in November, and although the gap at the top of La Liga remains difficult for Real to peg back, they looked a very difficult team to beat against Tottenham Hotspur in the Champions League quarter-finals.
So, Real to narrow the gap, Barcelona to cut through Jose Mourinho’s men, or an edgy draw?
A former Real player David Beckham knows all about the drama of Barcelona meetings, and the England man is in the news in the MLS. Here’s a wrap of other games. Oh and here’s another Beckham story, it appears Fulham aren’t the only ones making statues of famous people.
On Thursday it was Portugal’s night in the Europa League, where three team progressed to the semi-finals. Villarreal took the fourth spot for a truly Iberian domination of Europe’s second tier competition.
This weekend in England there’s the FA Cup semi-finals and Manchester City’s time is surely now. Lose to Man Utd and manager Roberto Mancini could face a nervous wait to see whether he retains his job for next season. Triumph and they will face either Stoke City or Bolton Wanderers in the final, which you would have to fancy them to win.
One fan hoping for a Bolton victory has flown in from Australia, read more here.
Coyle’s Bolton move is another footballing mystery – or is it?
One day perhaps we’ll understand how Wes Brown has amassed 21 England caps and maybe someone will eventually explain how Robinho is worth 35 million pounds but I don’t think I’ll ever comprehend the reason for Owen Coyle planning to ditch Burnley and go to Bolton Wanderers.
Coyle turned down the Celtic job last year because he wanted to go with Burnley into the Premier League and said only last week that he was “privileged to be building something special” at the club.
Yet within a heartbeat of Bolton sacking Gary Megson, wheels began turning to get Coyle in as his replacement.
As a former striker with Bolton in the early 1990s he said the club has a “special place in my heart” but it seems a bizarre move.
Both clubs are likely to spend the rest of the season fighting against relegation and while Bolton have probably got the deeper resources on and off the pitch, they are hardly Manchester United.
Coyle has built a reputation as an intelligent manager who develops passing teams who play the game “in the right way” and it was always unlikely to be too long before one of the league’s “bigger clubs” came calling.
Okay, why is the article premise flawed? It implies that true success is measured simply with respect to overt size of club. But this is not just something that should be calibrated with respect to the relative success/achievement of the clubs in question. So yes, Bolton’s achievements may be deemed as significant as greater achievements at bigger club. However…
… the real issue is durability in this management game and surely steady, rather than meteoric, progress. Nobody has accomplished that feat quite like Martin O’Neill. Sam Allardyce took the poisoned chalice at Newcastle and Mark Hughes recently exited stage left from Manchester City (money has not so far changed much at that club in terms of overt achievement and viability of ‘under achieving’ managers).
Has David Moyes stayed too long at Everton? So maybe staying too long at a relatively small club is managerial suicide just as much as getting the time to leave right but then making the premature choice of a huge club with huge expectations.
As well as O’Neill consider Redknapp, another who has done the dance but built his stock by doing what he does best – rescuing a number of smaller club situations, time and again. He built solid foundations and has emerged as the one who IS taking football at Spurs forward, finally!
What do O’Neill and Redknapp (and might we begin to ask, Coyle) evidence in common? A shrewd knack in conjunction with discerning ambition, perhaps? A clever manager is truly clever because he sees that his path in this modern footballing jungle is a graveyard for the starstruck. Wending your way to the pinnacle, maybe in a convoluted, ‘unfathomable’ manner, is the mark of true genius?
Respectfully,
Alexander
Bolton stump everyone in another dire predictions week
Are Bolton Wanderers so bad that not one of our Reuters Soccer Blog predictions panel thought they would win at Birmingham City?
Ye of little faith. Manager Gary Megson may not be very popular with the Bolton fans but his side will always fight. A 2-1 win at a promoted club wasn’t all that shocking.
Obviously Chelsea losing at Wigan was a real eye-opener so let’s not beat ourselves up about not guessing that. Kudos to Mitch for at least predicting a draw but he’s not getting the extra points he claims we promised him.
Generally it was a pretty dreadful weekend all round, even for the many of you out there like Chipking who have been showing us up in recent weeks.
Scores were only swelled by Stoke v Manchester United being a double-pointer.
This meant leader Simon Evans, Kevin’s Dad (making a guest appearance and adding to Kev’s total), week winner Mitch Phillips, Mike Collett and Asia Sports Desk all got 10 for rightly predicting that Ryan Giggs would come off the bench and inspire a 2-0 victory.
After rechecking through the scores i noticed i had counted my score wrong i actually got 16 points instead of 15 i know its only 1 point but defintaely cant complain about 16 on my first week. But still got a long long way to go to catch up with maids and chipking.
Bolton leave Portsmouth red faced and empty handed
Much like a homeowner who decided to hold out for a higher offer and now finds himself stuck in a credit crunch, negative equity nightmare, Premier League side Portsmouth have made a highly regrettable financial faux pas.
Amidst the crazy antics of the January transfer window, Portsmouth decided to reject a 3.5 million pounds bid for midfielder Sean Davis from rivals Bolton Wanderers. On Wednesday he joined Gary Megson’s side for free.
Liverpool losing Steve McManaman to Real Madrid for free in 1999 when he would have certainly commanded a big-money transfer in the two years leading up to his exit, springs to mind as another high profile example.
Let us know if you can think of any others.
I could say this is a case of poor management, but sometimes clubs have to refuse a mid season transfer as there’s no time left to find a good replacement. I can understand you hang on to your player if this is the case.
Real to win all four and put the cat among the pigeons