Jose Mourinho is no stranger to run-ins with rival club managers, but this week the Portuguese raised his aim and had a swipe at Italian national team boss Marcello Lippi.

The Inter Milan coach had taken exception to Lippi tipping Juventus for this year’s Serie A title.
He accused him of lacking respect, arguing a national team coach should be seen to be impartial even if deep down he wants Juve to win (Lippi had two glorious stints at the Turin club split by a dismal, short one at Inter).

Mourinho even added mysteriously that “this makes me think a great deal”.

Lippi responded by saying it was just a prediction: “Mourinho seemed an intelligent person to me, I’m sorry he’s interpreted things differently. You can’t say half a word”.

The Inter boss’s reaction struck me as a little thin skinned too. It’s not as if Lippi said he was rooting for Juve or would be lending a hand to their new boss Ciro Ferrara, his former assistant in the Italy backroom staff.

But I was surprised to see in a survey on La Gazzetta dello Sport’s website that, while most people were on Lippi’s side, a sizeable minority of around 40 percent believed Mourinho had grounds to grumble.

What do you think? Is Mourinho overreacting, possibly in an attempt to instil a siege mentality into his players for the upcoming campaign? Or should Lippi keep his predictions to himself in future?

PHOTO: Inter Milan’s coach Jose Mourinho (L) gestures during their Italian Super Cup soccer match against Lazio at the National Olympic Stadium in Beijing August 8, 2009. REUTERS/David Gray

The English Premier League has always reminded me of eating out at McDonalds. I always hope for something new but then end up getting the same as last time.

The new season hasn’t even kicked off yet, but if the experts are right, it’s already as good as over for nearly all the teams.

In the past 14 seasons, only three clubs have won the title with Manchester United, the Big Mac of English soccer, claiming nine championships, leaving Arsenal (three) and Chelsea (two) as the Quarter Pounder and Cheeseburger.

In the last four seasons, those same three clubs plus Liverpool, have filled the top four places to qualify for the lucrative European Champions League, leaving the remaining 16 teams* just hoping to avoid relegation.

While the matches themselves are anything but dull, there’s no escaping the growing realisation that the championship is too predictable.

Manchester City loom as the team most likely to challenge the big four this season after opening their purse strings yet are still listed at odds of 15-1 to win the championship.

British bookmakers Ladbrokes are offering odds in excess of 150-1 for any other side winning with more than half the 20 teams at odds of more than 1000-1 and three clubs listed at 10,000-1, about 10 times longer than the odds on Elvis being found alive.

So, what can be done to make the English Premier League title more appetising?

Well, for starters, they could do worse than by looking at two of the world’s most successful sporting countries that turned their back on soccer long ago and embraced more brutal forms of football.

The United States and Australia have both developed their own codes that dominate their domestic markets, captivating millions of people.

The National Football League (NFL) in America and the Australian Football League (AFL, Aussie Rules) and the National Rugby League (NRL) could not be any more different as sports but they all have one common ingredient that ensures their competitions maintain interest to the very end.

All three end their regular seasons with sudden-death playoffs culminating in a winner-takes-all final and the results have provided a smorgasbord of champions.

In the last 14 years, 10 different teams have won the NFL Super Bowl, while another eight have made the final.

In the same period, 11 different clubs have won the AFL grand final while each of the last eight NRL premierships have been claimed by different sides.

Now how much better would the EPL be if they had 14 or 15 teams still in contention for a place in the playoffs with two rounds to go instead of two vying for the title?

And how much interest would there be in a month long series of sudden-death matches that finishes with the last two surviving teams locking horns at Wembley with everything at stake?

The EPL’s first-past-the-post system may have been good fare in the past, but everyone knows it’s always better to save some room for the dessert.

* Amended after slip of the keyboard from Julian (let’s be charitable here) suggested there were 22 teams in the league (see comments)

PHOTO: Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney holds the English Premier League Trophy after they were crowned champions last season, May 13, 2007. REUTERS/Phil Noble

Diego Maradona is a worried man, with no football in Argentina and less than a month to go before their critical World Cup qualifier against a strong Brazilian side.

A debt crisis has put an indefinite hold on the 2009/10 season which was scheduled to start at the end of next week.

“I’m worried that the football isn’t starting, that people are not reaching agreement, that Julio (Argentine Football Association president Grondona) isn’t achieving his objectives, because I want to see the players on the pitches,” Maradona said.

“This country without football is dramatic.”

Only a quarter of Maradona’s squad play their club football in Argentina but he is constantly on the look out for players to draft in and has lost central defender Martin Demichelis of Bayern Munich to injury.

Juan Sebastian Veron, who does play in Argentina for Estudiantes, is nursing an injury, and so is Manchester City’s Carlos Tevez.

What worries other leaders hoping for a resolution to the debt crisis is that some clubs are nevertheless on an expensive recruitment drive.

The tournament, they have said, will only start when clubs, and in particular seven of the biggest in the country — River Plate, Independiente, Racing Club, San Lorenzo, Huracan, Rosario Central and Newell’s Old Boys — have put their financial house in order.

However, San Lorenzo have offered midfielder Leandro Romagnoli, who left Sporting of Portugal on Wednesday, a two-year deal worth $2 million, according to media reports on Thursday.

Argentina’s professional clubs owe the taxman a combined 300 million Argentine pesos, first and second division sides owe the AFA around 40 million pesos and a large numbers of players are demanding pay owed to them from months back.

Yet Independiente are offering San Lorenzo $1 million for striker Andres Silvera and Racing Club $1 million to the same club for goalkeeper Agustin Orion.

“There are teams that go out to buy Ronaldo and don’t know where to find the money,” said Sergio Marchi, head of the players’ union Futbolistas Argentinos Agremiados (FAA).

“Some are dealing with the (debt) issue and others aren’t. Many are behaving almost irresponsibly,” he said.

Defender Sebastian Dominguez of league champions Velez Sarsfield, a well run club, said: “What they (AFA) have to do is prohibit the clubs that owe money from signing players.”

Grondona said recently that “the situation in Argentine football is broken”, while Marchi said “the clubs did not read the credit crunch”.

Grondona sees a way out in greater revenue from television rights, online football pools and the government taking on the costs of policing matches currently funded by the home clubs.

“The closest solution, given the time factor, is an increase in the rights for TV,” Fernando Maron, president of Lanus, with Estudiantes and Velez one of the three best run clubs in Argentina.

“There is a lot of use (they get out) of the football product and this is not being rewarded,” he said.

Marcelo Bombau, chairman of TyC, the company that owns those rights, hit back: “Television is no longer going to be the cow that is milked by the clubs. Television has offered the AFA an advance so the clubs can pay their debts and the championship can start.”

The AFA is optimistic, however, that it will get a revised, improved deal from television this week and can announce at its Tuesday executive committee meeting that the championship will start on the Friday.

“It suits television, the players, the state and the clubs, all the interested parties, for the football to start,” Estudiantes president Ruben Filipas said.

PHOTO: Argentine soccer team coach Diego Maradona reacts after Ecuador’s soccer team scored during their World Cup 2010 qualifying match in Quito June 10, 2009. REUTERS/Kevin Granja

German Muslims have inundated one of the country's top soccer teams, Schalke 04, with complaints about a verse in the club's anthem which, they say, is disparaging towards the Prophet Mohammad.

The club has its home in Gelsenkirchen in Germany's industrial heartland and immigrants make up about a third of the town's population. Most of them have a Turkish background. Germany's biggest mosque was opened in nearby Duisburg last year and many Schalke supporters are Muslims, as chat rooms like this one point out.

The lines in question are: "Mohammad was a Prophet who doesn't understand football" although the words that follow seem positive: "But from all the beautiful colours he came up with blue and white." Schalke's colours are blue and white.

The club, which plays in Germany's Bundesliga top league and has some of the country's most ardent fans, is taking the complaints seriously. A spokesman has said Schalke has asked an Islamic expert to analyse the text.

But what is most striking is that the song is not new. Some say it dates back to 1924.  So why has it suddenly started to offend Muslims?

The answer may lie in the mounting resentment in Germany's Muslim community after politicians were slow to condemn the murder of an Egyptian woman in a court in eastern Germany about a month ago, which we blogged about at the time. The crime was widely viewed as racially motivated.

Germany's Central Council of Muslims has summed up the situation. "Many Muslims in Germany no longer have a sense of security. Nerves are wearing thin," General-Secretary Aiman Mazyek was quoted as saying in Bild daily, adding he did not believe the club had malicious intentions. 

This storm is another sign of just how tense community relations are in Germany. Maybe a passion for soccer can help overcome some of the divisions.

Soccer is in a tight spot in China -- literally. Huge crowds roar for Manchester United but the national team is a laughing stock at 108th in FIFA world rankings. Poor coaching, lack of grassroots development, even corruption and violence are variously cited as reasons for the sport's demise. But the real reason may be more basic: the fact of physical space, or the lack thereof, in China.

If geography is a determinant of economic development, then it is fair to extrapolate that urban geography underpins the development of sports. And here's the rub for soccer, not to mention American football and baseball. With few parks, small concrete schoolyards and a dearth of quiet streets, urban China offers little of the space needed for the sprawling play that defines those sports. Soccer has deep roots in China, but playing space has been squeezed as cities sprawl and swallow land in big gulps.

The NBA's huge popularity in China has left other sports leagues salivating. They, too, dream of their own Yao Ming bringing forth TV audiences in the tens of millions and merchandising opportunities galore. But basketball can thank China's spatial constraints more than its own marketing wizardry for such success. Dozens of nets crammed into schoolyards make the sport accessible to a huge number of young enthusiasts. The ease with which basketball has been woven into China's urban fabric has a precedent in the explosion of Chinese table tennis in the 1950s. Both are simple enough games that can be played in tight spaces.

Curiously, the physical limitations of the crowded country augur well for one sport that uses more space than almost any other: golf. Unlike baseball, football and soccer, golf does not need a critical mass of ardent supporters to take off. Golf, in fact, can thrive in conditions of scarcity, when a small number of high-priced courses consolidate its position as an elite pastime. The lack of space in China makes it an expensive sport, out of reach for the great unwashed and just the ticket for the country's nouveau riche.

Photo Credit: Local fans of Manchester United hold signs and posters as they look into the hotel where the players stayed in on July 25, 2009 ahead of a friendly match against Hangzhou Greentown. REUTERS/Nir Elias

American soccer fans aren’t noted for their nastiness but the reaction to Giuseppe Rossi, New Jersey native, scoring twice for Italy against the U.S in their 3-1 Confederations Cup defeat on Monday has been surprisingly vitriolic.

What has upset U.S fans is that Rossi was born and bred in the U.S. but chose to play for another country and then — to add insult to injury — celebrated when he scored twice against his country of birth.

Rossi has Italian parents (his father was a soccer coach) also holds Italian citizenship, moved to Parma when he was 12 and was part of the Italian club’s youth scheme before joining Manchester United aged 17. He has represented Italy at youth level before joining the full national side. He now plays in Spain for Villarreal and is the subject of some pretty intense speculation linking him with a move back to one of Italy’s top clubs.

There is now a facebook group with nearly 400 members called ‘We Hate Giuseppe Rossi’ which features a picture of the forward with the word ‘Scum’ superimposed on it. Twitter contributors have labelled Rossi a traitor and there is worse out there.

The word “traitor” is entirely out of place in describing Rossi. In the modern, globalised world it is nothing at all out of the ordinary for players to have dual nationalities. It happens all the time. In fact, if my wife were to give birth to a son here in Miami, he would be eligible to play for four different countries (including, like Rossi, the U.S and Italy). These sort of situations are going to become more and more common in the future.

But it is particularly unfair to attack Rossi for his choice.

First of all, there is the matter of identity. With two Italian parents, Rossi clearly has a strong affinity for Italy.

Secondly, having left the U.S at the age of 12, he has not been part of the U.S youth coaching set-up and so owes nothing to U.S soccer (the bitterness would be more understandable had Rossi benefited from years of American coaching and soccer academies and then as an adult chosen to play for Italy).

Thirdly, he moved to Italy before he was even a teenager and received five years of coaching, schooling and development with Parma and the Italian Football Federation’s coaches, so he owes them much more than he owes U.S Soccer. I mean, he even played for Italy’s Under-16 team.

Often players choose to ‘adopt’ a country in order to gain an easier chance at becoming an international player. But Rossi can hardly be accused of that. As the online magazine American Soccer News puts it:

“In fact, the decision to play for Italy was a big risk if he ever wanted to have a national team career of any sort. Winners of four World Cups (including the most recent edition) and home to one of the best professional leagues on the planet, competition for Italy’s national team spots is fierce. Personnel decisions are analyzed meticulously by the country’s soccer-mad press. The pressure on players fortunate enough to don the national team kit is intense.

“Every mistake is scrutinized at great length in the papers and cafes and grottos and wherever else people gather. Many players’ lives (and those of their families) are ruined as a result. Why would any young man make the decision to expose himself to this maelstrom when he had a far easier, safer choice available to him?

“Rossi would have been all but guaranteed a starting spot for the US, probably for as long as he wanted, where he would not have been subject to anywhere near the same scrutiny.”

Indeed, to add to that, Rossi could find himself, in a year’s time, if his current excellent form deserts him, not making the Italy World Cup squad and be sat at home watching the U.S playing in South Africa and knowing that he would have walked into their team.

So why the bitterness about someone who hasn’t lived in the U.S since he was 12? I think it shows, above all, the deep disappointment among North American fans who have been waiting and waiting for a genuine world class talent to emerge.

While the U.S has produced scores of decent professionals, they really haven’t found anyone who would attract the likes of Manchester United or AC Milan to get their chequebooks out.

The all-time top scorer for the U.S national side, Landon Donovan, has had three tries at a career in the Bundesliga and failed to make the grade on every occasion. Freddy Adu was hailed as the first American global soccer star and although he is still only 20, his career so far in Europe has stuttered along.

Rather than vent fury at Rossi, American fans would do better to ask themselves whether Rossi would be the player he is now if he had chosen to stay in the United States and spend his formative years with a junior club here and then join a Major League Soccer team?

The sad truth is that if Rossi had stayed in the U.S, we probably wouldn’t be arguing about him now — he’d be just another no-name in the MLS, getting the occasional outing in the national side, playing with the anonymous lack of flair and style that is unfortunately typical of players coached in the U.S system.

PHOTO: Italy’s Giuseppe Rossi celebrates after scoring against the U.S during their Confederations Cup match at the Loftus Versfeld stadium in Pretoria, June 15, 2009. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

So, it will be an all-Blue FA Cup final this year, after Everton set up a date with Chelsea thanks to the penalty shoot-out heroics of goalkeeper Tim Howard in the semi-final against Manchester United.

Howard, a former United keeper, you may remember, saved the first two penalties from Dimitar Berbatov and Rio Ferdinand and Everton didn’t look back.

I suppose people may criticise Alex Ferguson for his gamble in picking so many youngsters but it was perfectly understandable, given the (more important) games United have coming up.

In any case, let’s concentrate on the achievement of David Moyes in taking Everton through to a major final with a squad built for a fraction of the money spent by Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and the rest.

Not bad for a ’small club’…

PHOTO: A Manchester United fan uses his scarf to shade his eyes from the sun during their FA Cup semi-final against Everton at Wembley, April 19, 2009. REUTERS/Darren Staples

Bolivia's 6-1 thrashing of Argentina in a World Cup qualifier provided a flash of inspiration for one Chinese sports columnist.

The Bolivians, ranked 56th in the world, would probably not argue that playing the match at 3,600 metres above sea level had helped them in their humiliation of the Argentines, world number six in FIFA's rankings and one of the most attractive sides around.

Yu Peng suggested that China should immediately build a new stadium in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and play all their home international matches there.

At 50 metres higher than La Paz, that could only improve the fortunes of the 100th-ranked Chinese, who are already out of the running for a place in South Africa next year.

Liverpool reopened the Premier League title race with a 5-0 win over Aston Villa that must have thrilled Anfield, while leaving fans wondering why they haven’t seen similar displays all season.

This was exactly the sort of performance the occasion cried out for. Manchester United’s 2-0 defeat at Fulham, following on from the Old Trafford debacle, had left the door ajar, and Liverpool duly barged it open with another display of absolute self-belief.

For the first time in years, Liverpool look like a team who think they’re in the business of winning titles, not just challenging for Champions League places.

They’re a point behind Alex Ferguson’s side now, albeit having played a game more, and the 13 goals racked up against Real Madrid, United and now Villa are a powerful argument that the title race is not over.

But it might have been so much better for Reds fans.

Where was this level of conviction in the New Year games, when Stoke, Everton and Wigan Athletic all claimed draws? How could they beat Chelsea, and snatch a win at Portsmouth only then to draw with Manchester City? How did they contrive to lose 2-0 at Middlesbrough?

I bet many Liverpool fans feel at least a trace of frustration, even after the events of the past few days. They are candidates again for the title, sure, but by now they might have had the whole thing wrapped up.

PHOTO: Liverpool’s Albert Riera celebrates after scoring against Aston Villa at Anfield, March 22, 2009. REUTERS/Phil Noble

It is hard to fathom what the motivation for Jean Thissen’s decision would be. He takes on the job as national team coach of Togo just over two weeks before the resumption of Africa’s World Cup qualifiers and with the very real prospect of having to do without his best player.

Thissen is the third new coach to take over at the helm of a side who are still in the World Cup race and set out at the end of this month on the final leg of the fight for one of the five berths for the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.

The 63-year-old, who is a former Belgian international and has coached in Gabon, Morocco and Tunisia, parachutes in to take charge of Togo’s team after Frenchman Henri Stambouli walked out last year.

But talk of taking on the virtually impossible. ‘Les Eperviers’ (the sparrowhawks) have the most daunting start to their Group A campaign, starting on March 28 against Cameroon on neutral territory in Accra where Togo are forced to play their home matches because of a ban on their own stadium in Lome.

Cameroon are hot favourites as an exciting new generation of talent bursts through their ranks.

To make matters worse, there is the strong possibility that Togo will go into the game without talismanic captain Emmanuel Adebayor.

The newly crowned African Footballer of the Year pulled a hamstring playing for Arsenal in the English premier league just weeks ago and is supposedly sidelined for some time to come. Arsenal with its galaxy of stars is noticeably poorer for his absence, so imagine what a blow the injury is to Togo’s hopes.

Thissen also takes on a job where his employers have unrealistic expectations, believing Togo can qualify for the 2010 finals.

It was nothing short of a minor miracle that Togo qualified for the last World Cup in Germany but their limited player pool and poorly run administration mitigates against it ever happening again.

That they have got this far in the 2010 qualifiers is solely because of the impetus of Adebayor’s return to the team after yet another of his tiffs with authorities.

So why then take on the job? Thissen could see himself as pioneer, keen to work in difficult climes; he could be an eternal optimist or he may just need a job. One thing is sure: He is going to need to be a miracle worker.

Picture: Arsenal's Emmanuel Adebayor reacts after missing a shot on goal against Liverpool in London December 21, 2008. REUTERS/Eddie Keogh