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Should the cup-tied rule be abolished in the Champions League?
How AC Milan were crying out for the guile of Antonio Cassano or the tough tackling of Mark Van Bommel (who could have replaced Gennaro Gattuso before he lost his head) in Tuesday’s 1-0 home defeat by Tottenham Hotspur in the Champions League last 16 first leg.
Both were ineligible having played in the competition for Sampdoria and Bayern Munich earlier in the season.
But if Fernando Torres can spend half a league season with Liverpool and half with Chelsea, why is it so different for cup competitions?
What extra benefit would Milan have by fielding players who played in a totally separate part of the tournament months ago with someone else?
The chances for skullduggery seem impossibly small too. Torres was trying his hardest against Liverpool in the Premier League the other week, why wouldn’t Van Bommel have done the same if Milan had come up against Bayern?
It all seems a little old-fashioned really, even the name ‘cup-tied’ has rings of the 1950s about it. In the modern game where loyalty is limited and players move around so often, the ineligibility rule seems only to be harming one group of people — those that matter most — the fans.
Milan could be heading for elimination in the first knockout round yet again partly because two of their best players have been robbed from their usual ranks.
Van Gaal era starts with a whimper
Louis van Gaal came to Bayern Munich because the Bavarians were looking for a “soccer teacher“, someone who would rid the club of former coach Juergen Klinsmann’s experiments — the innovative training methods, the meditation sessions and the Buddha statues – and bring the club back to basics.
So far so good. By the time Van Gaal arrived in July, Bayern had already signed strikers Ivica Olic, Mario Gomez and defensive midfielder Anatoliy Tymoshchuk.
Whether or not he would have agreed to all these transfers is unknown. But fact is Tymoschchuk, worth 14 million euros, would not be starting any time soon if captain Mark van Bommel had not been injured.
“My captain will always play,” said Van Gaal, pointing to the bench as the temporary place for the Ukrainian.
Van Gaal’s first Bundesliga match in charge was unimpressive. Mind you they were missing Franck Ribery, Luca Toni, Miroslav Klose and Martin Demichelis.
But apart from injuries there are other issues that come into play. Ribery is fuming for not being allowed to sign with Real Madrid, Toni could still leave in the hope of getting a starting spot at another team ahead of the 2010 World Cup while Demichelis has failed to recover his stinging form of the 2007/8 season. And Tymoshchuck doesn’t like the idea of the bench.
If anyone knows how to get the best out of a player is van Gaal. He did it in the mid ’90s with Ajax Amsterdam, though mainly with a group of talented youngsters, more open to the discipline of the Dutchman.
That is one way of describing it but on the article form later date on June 15th 2011 the news came out with different info.
Time for a rethink. With clubs around Europe becoming foreign legions in comparison to days when they were only allowed three foreigners each, this rule has also become completely obsolete.