Left field
The Reuters global sports blog
What can England achieve at Euro 2012?
Whoever takes over from Fabio Capello either as a caretaker manager or a long-term replacement faces the dauting task of living up to somewhat unrealistic hopes that England will land their first major trophy since the 1966 World Cup.
Let’s face it, the Three Lions have entered every tournament since, bar Euro 1996 on home soil, as one of the dark horses to bring the silverware back home but never as the top contenders among a plethora of more talented if not more resourceful nations taking centre stage either in European Championships or World Cups.
The Capello experiment failed for two reasons. One, as my colleague Mitch Phillips pointed out, was his inability to warm up to the English mindset and language. The other, in my humble opinion as an outsider, is that for all his impressive achievements with Real Madrid, Milan, Juventus and Roma, the 66-year old had never coached a national team during his illustrious career and lacked a certain verve.
There is precious little margin for error in international football and even more so for those who take the unforgiving job of coaching England. Many of Capello’s predecessors found the ever so thin line between success and failure too tough to navigate, amid cries from glory-hunting fans to bring the trophy “back home” to the birthplace of the game.
From the vast lands of eastern Europe, a region as alien to the English mentality as Capello’s largely incomprehensible attempts to address the players in an adopted language, an England triumph looks as unlikely as did in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, especially with Wayne Rooney out of their opening two games with suspension and John Terry’s involvement hanging in the balance all together after he was stripped of captaincy.
Then again, will one-game caretaker Stuart Pearce, whose penalty miss in the shootout against Germany in their epic 1990 World Cup semi-final denied England a chance of rekindling past glory, be given the opportunity for what would be a spectacular reprieve?
Is he the right man for the job on a long-term basis or should the FA roll out the red carpet for favourite Harry Redknapp, the Tottenham Hotspur manager, at the end of the season?
Mumbling Capello never at home in England
Fabio Capello arrived in London four years ago with a sparkling CV but for all his club success he departed still barely able to speak English and with his adopted country frought with division and long shots for success at Euro 2012.
It is ironic that his tenure was effectively ended by an interview given in his native Italian, when he said he disagreed completely with the FA’s decision to strip John Terry of the England captaincy.
Capello, rich beyond dreams, with trophies and titles galore and looking forward to retirement as he turns 66 this year, felt undermined and betrayed. The FA seemingly felt the same way and England fans, unanimously if the phone-ins and social media are any indication, were left pleading for an English manager who they, and the players, can understand.
In these days of multinational Premier League players and managers it seems a petty point, and one that would no doubt have been conveniently overlooked if he had found success at the 2010 World Cup.
But Capello’s inability to master even the most basic vocabulary required for a manager’s post-match press conference eventually came to symbolise his failure to get to grips with the English game and mentality.
Vastly experienced in the political machinations of Serie A and La Liga, he nevertheless seemed out on a limb when forced to deal with the vast baggage that comes with the job of England manager and was regularly left completely bemused by questions from journalists with a multitude of agendas.
from Photographers Blog:
The fight of their lives
By Kai Pfaffenbach
Steve Marcus, our Boxing expert in Las Vegas, is maybe the one and only photographer within the company who has shot more World Championship title bouts than I have throughout the last couple of years.
I shot “Iron” Mike Tyson in Copenhagen, South Africa’s “White Buffalo” Francois Botha on several comebacks, I got my picture taken with Lennox Lewis after a fight I photographed and I followed the untouchable Klitschko brothers on their way to dominate the heavyweight class as only “The Greatest of All Times” (Muhammad Ali) did before!
But it was an IBF cruiserweight re-match which fascinated me the most. Steve “USS” Cunningham challenged Yoan-Pablo Hernandez from Cuba to get his title-belt back. Cruiserweight is as fast as middle-weight but the punch power is almost as much as heavyweight.
From the first second those two men delivered an absolutely top-level fight with clean technique, accurate, fast hits and the ability to take those punches. It was in the fourth round when a combination and a straight right hand sent Cunningham on the deck twice within a minute.
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Should Terry go to Euro 2012 at all?
So now we know. John Terry has been stripped of the England captaincy (again) but is available for selection for Euro 2012, which ends days before the start of his trial for alleged racist abuse.
Of course, Terry is innocent until found guilty and most fans would agree he should not be dropped from the team because of a so far unproven allegation, which he denies.
Related issues must come into coach Fabio Capello’s thinking though when selecting his Euro squad.
Firstly, will worries over the court case affect Terry’s form? Let’s face it, the centre back is not the player he once was. The likes of Joleon Lescott, Phil Jagielka and Chelsea team mate Gary Cahill are champing at the bit to take his place assuming Rio Ferdinand will recover full fitness and be the other main centre back. Which leads me onto the second point.
How will Rio react to playing with Terry, a man accused of racially abusing his brother Anton?
How will other black players in the England squad react to Terry and could it upset the team’s hopes in Ukraine and Poland? Stripping him of the captaincy alleviates some of the issues but bigger ones may remain.
Capello has a massive decision to make.
Let’s take a look at what has happened: A. The hearing at the Crown Court was a fiasco. If the court had stop to think and not listened to Chelsea, The FA and JT’s Agent the case would haves gone on and this debockle would have been avoided. Why did the court listen to men with financial interests? If JT was injured for a long streach The robber Barons would have lost their investments just the same.
I say treat JT as any regular citisen have the trial and get it over with. Would the Crown Court give you or I this approch to delaying the case because we had an important engagement that we needed to prepare for, I don’t thing so.
Best Australian Open semis and final – Rusedski
By Greg Rusedski
Again, in the men’s draw it turned out to be all about the top four in the world. In the semi-finals it was Roger Federer versus Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic versus Andy Murray. Could Federer finally beat Nadal in a major again? The last time he beat Nadal at a major was 2007 in the Wimbledon final. Nadal leads Federer in their Grand Slam matches 7 wins to 2 losses.
Federer started like a house on fire to win the first set, but Nadal wasn’t worried. He knew he could not lose to Federer in a major because he knew that physically he would wear him down. When that happens Federer loses his concentration ever so fractionally and that is when Rafa pounces and turns the match in his favor. The strategy against Federer is simple for Nadal. Nadal’s left handed high heavy topspin forehand moves Federer all over the court and breaks down Federer’s backhand side. Physically, Federer cannot keep up with Nadal in a three out of five set match anymore. Federer has to beat Nadal in three sets, which is nearly impossible. Also on his serve Rafa can start the point on his terms because Federer cannot really attack his serve with the one-handed backhand.
Rafa won in 4 tight sets and this really hurt Roger because he felt that he was playing well enough to win and that Rafa had to have been a bit tired after his epic four hour win against Berdych in the previous round.
At the moment I do not think Roger will win another major because Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray are all five years younger and stronger which makes a huge difference physically in major play. I hope I am wrong because he is such a great champion.
Woods caught between Rock and not such a hard place
There was no first full-field event win for the first time since November 2009 for Tiger Woods despite starting the final round of the Abu Dhabi Championship tied for the lead, but at long last the future seems bright for the 14-times major winner.
Englishman Robert Rock could barely believe what he had achieved in seeing off Woods in the final round to claim his second European Tour victory. It was a heart-warming triumph for the lesser known players who battle each season just to keep their tour-playing rights, galaxies away from the world Woods inhabits.
The American however seemed to return to earth during his time in the desert. Gone was his aloof, hot and cold manner of the past two years since his much-publicised sex scandal, replaced in the Middle East by friendly TV interviews and a vastly improved on-course demeanour.
Next up for the 36-year-old is the Pebble Beach Pro-Am starting on Feb. 9, another favoured location for Woods where he stormed to a record 15-shot U.S. Open win in 2000 when at the peak of his powers.
With two children to make time for, Woods’ schedule won’t be a packed one but will centre around the big events in the lead-up to the season’s defining months of April, May, June, July and August.
Another hurdle for the former world number one, now up to 17th in Monday’s rankings from 25, will be the release of former coach Hank Haney’s book on his time with the American, which provoked criticism from Woods himself given it will hit the shelves just before the first major of the year (U.S. Masters) in early April.
Nevermind. During his recent woes there were glimmers that Woods could enjoy himself and was relaxed, but they were few and far between. Those days are behind him now. As the old adage goes, form is temporary, class is permanent.
Sweden boosted by Guidetti and Ibra displays
Under normal circumstances Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s dipping first-half free kick in AC Milan’s 3-0 win over Cagliari on Sunday would have been enough to give Sweden coach Erik Hamren a pleasant end to the weekend.
But if Hamren had been watching Feyenoord beat Ajax in in Holland’s Eredivisie on Saturday he would have seen another Swede, John Guidetti, net a hat-trick as Feyenoord won 4-2, giving him a mouthwatering selection problem ahead of Euro 2012.
On loan from Manchester City, Guidetti is widely considered to be one of Sweden’s most promising talents in the post-Zlatan generation, but until his move to Rotterdam he hadn’t done much at the top level of the game.
Starved of opportunities at mega-rich Manchester City, he had a successful spell on loan back in Sweden with Brommapojkarna and a short stay at Burnley. These two stints have given a glimpse of his precocious talent, but it is in Holland that he is finally starting to deliver.
Fourteen goals so far this term for Feyenoord have made him a fan favourite, with his hat-tricks against Twente and Ajax going a long way to establishing his reputation. He broke into the Swedish Under-21 side in May 2010, and with Alexander Gerndt – recently convicted on a domestic violence charge – unlikely to be picked for the foreseeable future, Guidetti may be fast-tracked into Hamren’s senior setup in time for Euro 2012.
If Hamren is considering bringing him to face France, England and Ukraine at the finals it is likely that he wil be in the next squad to face Croatia in a February friendly.
Boca put River in their place
The result of the year’s first “superclasico” was logical with first division champions Boca Juniors beating second-division River Plate 2-0.
But Wednesday night’s friendly – an unprecedented clash with one of the two giants of the Argentine game in the second tier — was also something of an anti-climax after the massive build.
Argentina’s biggest soccer rivalry, whether they are playing an off-season warm-up as in this case or a decisive Libertadores Cup clash or anything in between, puts all others in the shade.
It was played in the steamy northern city of Resistencia in the sub-tropical Chaco province with massive police control to keep the hard-core element among their fans, bitter enemies, to their word that there would be no trouble.
As it happened, one of River’s senior players, former Russia-based midfielder Alejandro Dominguez, could have sparked trouble with his insulting gestures to Boca fans as he eventually and reluctantly trudged off following a red card.
“Chori” Dominguez, who should have known better, lost his self control and reacted badly to a booking, clamouring about Boca fouls and accusing the referee of bias which earned him the dismissal.
