Reuters Soccer Blog
World Soccer views and news
Former Gunner Gallas relishing life at Tottenham
By Mike Collett in London
If things had turned out differently, William Gallas could well have been facing Champions League heartache with Arsenal in Barcelona rather than glory with their arch-rivals Tottenham Hotspur this week.
The 33-year-old France midfielder is one of only a handful of players down the years to have moved across the North London divide — and is absolutely delighted he did.
After a naturally hesitant baptism at his new club at the start of the season, Gallas has played a huge part in Spurs success and played a vital role in their goalless last-16 second leg draw with AC Milan on Wednesday that put Spurs into the quarter-finals with a 1-0 m aggregate victory.
With 26 minutes played he saved a certain Milan goal with a goalline clearance and along with skipper Michael Dawson was at the heart of a defensive masterclass that echoed that of Liverpool or Arsenal themselves in their glory years.
Gallas is unique in that he is the only man ever to have played first team football for London rivals Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham and with 88 UEFA club appearances to his name, is the most experienced European campaigner at Spurs.
He believes he has now shown Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger, and anyone else who doubted him, that he is still at the top of his game.
10 good reasons to love Raymond Domenech
Overseeing qualification for the World Cup via a blatant handball is unlikely to do much for the popularity of French coach Raymond Domenech, either at home or abroad (his Wikipedia page is currently saying some very nasty things about him, but it will doubtless be put back to its less offensive version soon).
The 57-year-old former defender, whose name is booed at every match, has never made any effort to make himself popular, but here are 10 reasons (or nearly 10) why football fans may want to reconsider their view:
1. He has never won anything as a coach, a characteristic shared by most soccer fans, which makes him less intimidating than, say, Giovanni Trapattoni.
2. He was a workaholic defender with limited skills in his playing days, with makes a nice change in a country full of retired magicians.
3. He is more successful as a coach than the great Michel Platini, under the guidance of whom France failed to win a single match at Euro 92.
4. He convinced Zinedine Zidane, Lilian Thuram and Claude Makelele to come out of retirement and guide France all the way to the 2006 World Cup final.
5. He made Yoann Gourcuff his playmaker when others doubted he even had a place in the starting line-up.
Raymond Domenech is a man who seems unpopular, yet gets the job done.
http://lucapersico.wordpress.com/
Hand of Henry goal makes strong case for video evidence
France’s decisive goal against Ireland in their World Cup play-off will only add further weight to the case for using a video ref, or extra goal-line officials, at least in the biggest matches.
The controversial extra-time strike from William Gallas took France through to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, while leaving the Irish barely able to contain a sense of frustration and injustice.
It was goal which should not have stood, as TV pictures made plain. French captain Thierry Henry clearly handled the ball, not once, but twice before crossing for Gallas to score from close range.
Once again, fans are wondering how a mistake of such magnitude, in such a high-stakes game, could be allowed to happen.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter and UEFA chief Michel Platini both disagree with the use of video referees but their case would have been a hard one to make in front of Irish fans on Wednesday. Soccer’s top officials say a video referee will only slow down the game. True enough, but would it not be better to stop the game and get the right decision rather than continue and see a faulty decision stand?
Platini, for his part, has managed to push through the idea of an extra official behind both goals with an eye on spotting such infringements. Currently the idea is being piloted in UEFA’s second-tier Europa League, but it may now be time to take the brave decision to introduce this across the board.
The Irish got a non-existent penalty against Georgia in Dublin. There was no outrage then and the Irish did not offer a replay. Nobody accused FIFA or Platini of helping the Irish.I say get over it. This is not the first time a goal has been scored after a hand ball and it will not be the last. The Irish had 180 minutes to score but they did not…
Is there a more superstitious industry than football?
After a foray into the mix zone after the English League Cup final, the injured Tottenham striker Jermain Defoe replied to one journalist who asked him why he had cut all his hair off.
“I had to, I only ever seem to get injured when I have longer hair,” he said.
I am neither a hairdresser nor a medical man but I thought this was a bizarre theory, but perhaps a lengthy spell on the sidelines makes you think this way?
Defoe’s superstition was the second recent football oddity to have grabbed my attention after Arsenal’s Kolo Toure received an unnecessary yellow card in the Champions League tie against Roma.
The Ivory Coast defender failed to ask the referee for permission to enter the pitch after missing the kick-off at the start of the second half.
Toure’s delayed entrance was because he waited for team mate William Gallas to finish receiving treatment so he could maintain his routine of being the last man to leave the dressing room.
I think the Defoe hair length/injury correlation theory is my new favourite!
Vlog on the pitch – can Arsenal thrive in the Champions League?
The William Gallas saga behind them, Arsenal have reached the last 16 of the Champions League after a 1-0 win over Dynamo Kiev.
A late winner from substitute Nicklas Bendtner was enough to send the Gunners through with a game to spare but will Arsene Wenger have to change things if his young side are to progress further in the competition?
Vlogonthepitch regular Owen Wyatt discusses Arsenal’s chances with Joe Brock in the video above. Let us know your views.
Owen, great to see you in action! The link to the vlog is pretty popular, so thought I’d see what you were up to at the moment! Very interesting content too, eloquent handling of a disquieting gunners’ perfomance! Jud
Don’t blame Gallas — he was trying to do a captain’s job
“There’s a lot of cover-ups sometimes and players need to stand up and be counted. I’m not sure that happens a lot at this club.” — Roy Keane, May 7, 2002.
“When you play for Manchester United nothing should interfere with what you are doing during the week and during a match. I have felt that one or two of the younger players have slackened off in training. I have not been happy about it. I have said it to them but maybe I have had to say it in public for them to sit up and take notice.” — Roy Keane, Feb 19, 2004.
And he did it again in 2005.
So what’s new about William Gallas revealing ‘secrets’ from Arsenal’s dressing room? Nothing. And what’s so terrible about a captain hitting out at his team mates when they fail to deliver?
Gallas was doing the job of a captain at a club without a trophy since 2005.
Alright, Gallas is no Keano, but we cannot blame him for trying.
After all, it can get a lot worse in Germany. I remember in 1999 Bixente Lizarazu reportedly slapping Lothar Matthaeus in the face during a training session at Bayern Munich.
I think there is a difference between what Keane and Gallas did. Keane said nothing about what went on in the dressing room, which is something that is considered to be especially private, whereas Gallas did. Keane was also less inclined to be so specific about blaming individual players, again there is a difference between saying “one or two players have slackened off in training” and saying, as Gallas did, “people come up to me on the pitch and complain about a player…six years younger than me”. Doing a captain’s job is to either encourage or criticise the team as a whole, without revealing private details of goings on in the team dressing room, or directing criticism at an individual player. You would never find Keane sulking on the centre circle after the award of a last minute penalty against his side. On the contrary, Keane would have been the first to charge towards the goal ater the penalty was taken, determined to be the first to clear the ball should it be saved or hit a post, to recify the injustice. Whatever Gallas was doing, just as against Birmingham, it was not a captain’s job.
Should Arsenal give Gallas the boot?
For 12 years, Arsenal fans have been used to a manager so loyal it borders on the belligerent, but that quality appears to be lost on the team’s captain, William Gallas.
According to reports this morning, Gallas has been stripped of the Arsenal captaincy. For the sake of the club’s future, the manager may have to go even further and boot him out altogether. (more…)
If Gallas was half the captain Arsenal needed him to be, he would have taken himself aside after his display of disloyalty, given himself a damn good talking to, done a few trust exercises with himself and politely but firmly asked himself to apologise to his teammates. He wasn’t, so he didn’t…or did he?
