Euro 2012: The Knockout Stages

Well what an intriguing tournament it’s been so far. The football has been, on the most part, excellent and we’ve seen a number of shocks which have really spiced up the quarter final stage.

Karagounis has been instrumental for the Greeks during these championships.

Group A was always going to be the most open of the groups but few would have been brave enough to predict that Greece and the Czechs would make it through. It seemed that Russia and Poland were destined for the knockout stages but the Czechs somehow managed to recover from their 4-1 drubbing at the hands of the Russians and record two straight wins. The Greeks (and as anyone who read my group stage preview will know, I landed the Greeks in the sweepstake) scraped through by the skin of their teeth, recording just one win from their three group games.

Germany are favourites to win the tournament after impressing in the group stage

The reward for the Czechs is a tricky tie against Portugal tonight. Portugal were the dark horse in Group B and overcame Denmark after a thriller and beat the Netherlands fairly comfortably before pushing the otherwise dominant Germans all the way. Germany will face Greece in their quarter final and the game will have political connotations after the relationship between Greece and Germany has soured during the Eurozone crisis. Germany will be heavy favourites since they are the only team in the competition with a 100% record. I predicted that they’d be ruthlessly efficient and that’s what they were, winning every game by one goal to serenly progress from the ‘Group of Death’. As for the Dutch, they will go home and analyse just why they failed to fulfill their massive potential again.

Torres will have to propel this Spain side forward

Spain came to Poland and Ukraine looking to dazzle Europe with tiki-taka before claiming a hat-trick of major international competitions. Sadly, like France in 2002, they’ve disappointed so far. Yes, they’ve played well and gave the Irish a lesson but when the pressure was on against Italy they seemed to suffer from nerves. The re-emergence of Fernando Torres has given the Spanish a focal point but I’m still not confident that they’ll come away with the trophy. Italy just about made it through to the quarter finals after Prandelli’s tactical gambles started to pay off. Much of their success is based on keeping a clean sheet and striking on the counter but against sides such as Germany, that tactic will be hard to carry out. Croatia actually impressed the most in Group C. They looked comfortable going forward and pushed Spain and Italy very close. They’re just short of one or two good players in defence otherwise they’d have all the makings of a top-notch side.

Rooney’s served his ban and will be looking to terrorise the defences of Europe

Spain vs France is perhaps the stand-out tie of the quarter finals. Both sides have a lot to prove after disappointing efforts in the group stage. I think Spain have enough about them to quell the French goal threat and should progress but they can’t be as complacent as they’ve been up until now. On their day (well, against Ukraine) the French looked very good indeed and I think they’ll prefer being the underdogs for that one. England vs Italy looks like another mouth-watering morsel. Both sides are evenly matched, both are looking to confound pre-tournament expectations and both will look to play a direct, counter-attacking style. England have the benefit of Wayne Rooney returning from suspension and immediately getting in amongst the goals while Italy will focus on Di Natale and Balotelli with an onus on De Rossi and Pirlo in midfield stopping any potential England attack. It’ll be one for that tacticians but whoever wins has to have a lot of belief going into the semis…

So, after my predictions so far have been, in typical style, miles wide of the mark I’m going to do the only logical thing and give some more:

Quarter Final 1

Czech Republic vs Portugal

Winner: Portugal

Quarter Final 2

Germany vs Greece

Winner: Germany

Quarter Final 3

Spain vs France

Winner: Spain

Quarter Final 4

England vs Italy

Winner: England

Semi Final 1

Portugal vs Spain

Winner: Spain

Semi Final 2

Germany vs England

Winner: Germany (on penalties, naturally)

Final

Spain vs Germany

Winner: Germany

If that happens it’ll be a miracle judging from how far out I was in my group stage predictions but it’s probably the most logical outcome. Football tends to disobey logic at every convenience so here’s toasting a Greece vs Italy final!

Villas-Boas let down by Chelsea

So the inevitable has happened: Andre Villas-Boas has been sacked as Chelsea manager. Things never really worked out for him did they? It’s a strange feeling for me because I’m not a Chelsea fan but I do have very passionate views about how that team should be playing and I also think Villas-Boas is the most talented manager to emerge in the Premier League for many many years.

Andre Villas-Boas in happier times. Have Chelsea made a fatal mistake?

Villas-Boas’ achievements at Porto are well documented: going an entire season unbeaten, winning four trophies in the same season and playing some lovely stuff while doing so. He had a squad that understood the nuances of the game; who understood that modern football is akin to a game of chess and that the manager has to be prepared to outmanoeuvre  his counterpart at all times. He had a way of explaining his notoriously complex scout reports to his players and that is what was missing at Chelsea. It seems that Villas-Boas lacked the ability to connect to his players (maybe he didn’t fancy going out and sleeping with a girl or three?) and you get the impression that he was as isolated as a teacher at the front of an unruly year 9 class. His differences of opinion with Frank Lampard have been well documented and when you alienate one member of the ‘old school’ Chelsea then you alienate them all.

I think that’s my main issue with Chelsea at the moment. They haven’t adapted since Mourinho left at all. There is the excuse that no manager has been able to settle into the job long enough to change things but seriously, it’s been five years since Mourinho left and that squad won’t win the league. Terry, Lampard, Cole, Drogba and Malouda are all past it and should have been sold last season; keeping them there prevents improvement and is the reason why Chelsea have stagnated in recent years while Man City and Spurs have leapfrogged them. Mata was a good buy but he cannot turn a team around. If he is still having to play balls to a slow and misfiring Drogba and an off-colour Torres then it just won’t work. Torres is another sore point for me. His lack of form all started when Spain rushed him back to play in the World Cup and while it’s completely understandable that he would want to play every game, he was not integral to the success of the team and should have sat out the group stages. Why pundits still debate the cause of Torres’ lack of form is a mystery to me as it was plainly obvious that he was bereft of confidence to anyone who watched the World Cup. I always felt that Torres was a player who relied on being re-assured that he was brilliant and that if he felt he wasn’t all that then his performance would drop off the cliff. When he returned to Liverpool, he wasn’t given enough time to find that confidence on the training pitch before the season began. The £50 million that Abramovich paid Liverpool for him was scandalous (mind you, the £35 million for Carroll wasn’t exactly well spent) but I’m sure part of the reason Villas-Boas took the job was that he felt he could turn Torres’ Chelsea career around. In that respect he failed.

Chelsea and Abramovich let Villas-Boas down too. A lack of support in the transfer market (probably due to Torres) meant that Chelsea could not strengthen all the positions that they needed to which meant an over-reliance on the ‘old school’ which limited Villas-Boas’ creativity. He couldn’t play a fast-paced and slick passing game because he couldn’t trust the fitness of his older players. The way Terry has capitulated this season sums it all up – never before has he looked as shaky at the back as he had in the last few months and the team lacks a defensive partnership. They should be employing a formation where one wing back and one centre back stay back at all times while the other two push forward while Meireles (potentially a superb signing) cuts out anything heading into Chelsea’s half. I think had he been able to do things his way, Villas-Boas would have employed a tactic similar to that. The major issue though is how to remove that ‘old school’. Do you wait for them to retire, rewarding their loyalty to the club by letting them see their careers out there? Or do you force them out and risk alienating the fans – imagine the reaction if Terry was sold! People may point to United bringing Scholes out of retirement successfully but the ginger maestro did have six months to have a rest… Even Giggs, the king of longevity, plays once every two or three games, not every game like the elderly Chelsea players have to. Honestly, sometimes they are eerily reminiscent of the Chelsea pensioners.

No doubt Abramovich already has someone lined up for the post. The bookies have Benitez as favourite, while the fans will clamour for Mourinho and the fact that Abramovich has hired Di Matteo until the end of the season suggests that he is prepared to wait until Mourinho has conquered Spain before making an offer. Whoever the new man in charge is has to do a spot of spring cleaning and has to be strong enough to introduce a new philosophy to the club and stick to it no matter how much the fans protest.

Will Mourinho make a triumphant return to the Premier League?

In other news, Terry Butcher has declared the search for the next England manager ‘a farce’ – a point I am inclined to agree with. I am in favour of teams taking their time over selecting a new manager but when it is the national team, there has to be a certain amount of information distributed through the media – of which there has been none. All the reports are obviously saying that Redknapp is the man for the job but there has still been no approach. I’m sure the FA are working out how they can afford to pay for him and his backroom staff but all this is doing is adding to the unease amongst the fans and the players. With the squad losing their concentration in injury time on Wednesday, strong leadership will be the priority for Euro 2012. But before we all announce the arrival of King ‘Arry are we forgetting that a successful manager who relishes working with talented, young and determined players has just become available? May I make the case for Andre Villas-Boas. He could get England playing some lovely stuff and could mould the mish-mash of young talent that we have inherited at the moment into a cohesive unit. What’s more, with no billionaire chairman telling him who to sign, who to play and who to drop he will be able to do his own thing and as we saw with Porto, that can be devastatingly successful. Something to think about…

John Terry,The England Captaincy and A Bigger Issue

My plan today was to write a single post previewing the RBS Six Nations but plainly today’s events mean that will not be possible… thanks John Terry! So today will turn into a bumper three post session. One about the Terry affair which you will be able to read if you scroll down, the Six Nations preview and one looking at the new F1 cars that have been unveiled so far.

Anyway, onto the Terry affair. For those of you who haven’t seen the news yet then I suggest you click this hyperlink as it forms the basis for this whole article. For those of you who read my blog on the Tom Adeyemi incident (thank you if you did) then you will know what I think of Mr Terry. Here’s the link if you didn’t: https://theeternalsunshineofthesportingmind.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/tackling-race-in-football-not-just-a-foreign-problem/

My first question regarding today’s news is why has it taken this long to take the necessary action? If this was any other industry or any job then Terry would have been suspended (from both club and country) with full pay while the investigation was carried out with the distinct possibility that when the case reached court that he would be sacked by Chelsea and ineligible for national selection. Yet this is not the case. He is still collecting his 150k a week wage packet and is still playing top level football every week. I’m not saying that Terry is guilty because he is innocent until proven otherwise but it seems as though this court case has been taken too lightly by Chelsea in particular. An accusation of racism is a highly serious matter and Terry should have been stripped of the captaincy at Stamford Bridge at least while the case continues.

John Terry will no longer but England captain but should he be in the squad at all?

I respect Terry’s past abilities but his latest performances have let him and his side down but to many Chelsea fans he is irreplaceable and I disagree with that. Chelsea have signed numerous centre-backs in the last couple of years and Gary Cahill could step up and do the job that Terry currently does. Now, England is a completely different matter. When you play for England you’re not just representing a corner of West London but the whole country, every single corner of it. England is a country that is proudly anti-racist despite the BNP’s attempts to penetrate that solid foundation. That is why it is inconceivable that Terry should be allowed to remain as captain; he is playing in a team that contains a number of black players and the cloud surrounding this accusation would be hugely damaging in the dressing room. Besides, there are a number of other players who could step in and take the reins as captain – Ferdinand, Gerrard, Scott Parker to name but three.

So, it’s right that the FA have stripped him of the captaincy but he is still allowed to be selected for Euro 2012, despite his court case beginning just a week after the tournament ends. We can’t let this happen again. Our World Cup campaign was damaged by the Terry/Bridge scandal and Capello struggled to cope with a divided squad. Look what happened in South Africa, we barely raised so much as a whimper in the group games while Germany would have walked all over us even if Lampard’s goal had counted. If Capello picks Terry (which he will despite  younger players who are in better form being available) then this issue will dominate the build-up to the Euros and it’s not like in the 50s and 60s that when you leave to go to a major tournament you can just switch all the damaging stories off. You can’t switch off the internet, you can’t stop people checking Twitter despite clubs trying to. The point is that this issue will follow the team everywhere, journalists will keep prodding it in people’s faces and the tabloids will cover it as much as they can. Granted, the FA has been dealt a tough hand by the seemingly stupid decision to delay the court case by a massive ten months but I don’t think removing the captaincy from Terry is a big enough step to improve England’s chances at Euro 2012. He shouldn’t be on that plane to eastern Europe, not just because of this incident but because he has been shown to be lacking the form and ability of old and considering our weakest area of the team is our defence, that could be highly dangerous.

Players flee as the rioting crowd head towards them

This week in football has been about a much bigger issue than that. The riot in the Al-Ahly game was shocking and shameful. There is a reputation for violence in Egyptian games and the lack of police presence allowed what took place to happen. Reports of knives being brought into the ground is completely unacceptable and the consequences of this event reach far beyond football. It has de-stabilised the entire Egyptian revolution and left the interim government in a real mess. The sad fact is that because of a shock 3-1 win for Al Masry, the reputation of the African game has been thrown into disrepute. The African Cup of Nations has been a fantastic tournament so far but this will overshadow the remainder of it. The Egyptian revolution should have brought people together and allowed football fans to rally behind a common cause instead of throwing hate towards each other. It may be the case that the revolution wasn’t as perfect as everyone thought in the spring of 2011.

Tackling Race in Football: Not just a Foreign Problem

Another week, another story of racism rearing its ugly head in English football. After the Suarez and Terry scandals we now have the re-emergence of racist chanting from the stands. Tom Adeyemi was seen to be visibly upset from something that the someone or a group of people had shouted at him from the Kop during Oldham’s FA Cup tie against Liverpool. What makes this so worrying is not just the racist element of the chanting but the fact that a small minority of fans are mistaking supporting their heroes in a time of trouble with replicating their behaviour. This happened earlier in the season of course with some Chelsea fans directing offensive chants towards Anton Ferdinand. It seems to me that English football is at a crucial crossroads in the fight against racism. Racism was thought of as being almost eradicated from English football stadia for the last decade or so now but these recent weeks prove that the problem was merely pushed beneath the surface.

Tom Adeyami is comforted by a team-mate after the incident against Liverpool

There has been an attitude of superiority from English football towards European leagues and the issues that the eastern European leagues have had with racism in recent years. People have pointed to the Suarez incident as proof that it is the foreign players who have caused the latest racist incidents but the Terry case undermines this theory and is worthy of further analysis. John Terry is more than just an English player, he is the English national team captain as well as Chelsea captain and is a role model as a result of this added responsibility – despite the FA and Chelsea believing otherwise. Terry is a good captain; a born leader but as man he has clear weaknesses in his make-up. He lacks the ability to control his temper, is not the strongest technically skilled defender in the Premier League and in his advancing years has lost the edge of his pace meaning that he can no longer attack a corner in confidence – knowing that he might not be able to defend against the break any more. The Anton Ferdinand incident could be put down to a loss of temper but I believe in karma and unfortunately for John the repercussions of this episode may be intensified because of past misdemeanours.

Ultimately, the FA and the police need to take a firm stance on any proven racist incident in English football. A lot of good work has been done to eliminate the problem of racism from the game but there needs to be a redoubling of their efforts to stop the fire being stoked again. When we lost the 2018 World Cup bid, we were quick to condemn the Russian fans for their treatment of black players but now that stance seems hypocritical with a possible prison sentence for the England captain, an eight game ban for one of the Premier League’s most exciting players and the arrest of a Liverpool fan for a racially aggravated public order offence. Let’s stamp this out, once and for all.