The Buch stops here

Today could have been a crucial day in the English Premier League title race. Arsenal won 3-1 in an early game at home against Manchester City to retake the top spot, and then Manchester United looked sure to lose for 92 minutes against Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane. To keep things interesting, though, Argentine striker Carlos Tevez fired home the equalizer in the third minute of stoppage time to earn United a point and avert a disastrous defeat.

Tottenham played a brilliant game, defending with a ferocity that has rarely featured in their side. They’ve always been strong in attack but have had trouble taking care of business in their own end until recently: things appear to be different under new manager Juande Ramos, though. They were able to shut down United’s midfield passing game and occasionally created chances of their own off dangerous counter-attacks. Their goal was somewhat questionable, as Jermaine Jenas clearly hit the ball with his hand as he fell, nudging it to Aaron Lennon. Lennon’s shot was stopped by United keeper Edwin Van der Sar, but the rebound fell straight to Russian striker Dmitry Berbatov, who made no mistake and drilled it home from six yards out. Despite doubts about the integrity of Spurs’ strike, they certainly deserved to take at least a point from this match given their effort.

United, on the other hand, were less than impressive. They struggled to get any sort of flow to their passing game, and weren’t able to create too much offensively. They also didn’t seem to play with the same intensity Tottenham brought to the match, which shows how sorely they miss former captain Roy Keane, who’s now managing Sunderland. The most likely successors to Keane seem to be hard-tackling Canadian midfielder Owen Hargreaves and English striker Wayne Rooney, but Hargreaves isn’t the vocal presence Keane was and Rooney is certainly intense, but not always effective. Rooney had a good game, though, tracking back all the way to his own 16-yard box several times to help out the defenders. As Setanta Sports match commentator Martin Fisher pointed out, however, Rooney’s own frustration showed at times—particularly towards the end when he went down easily to try and draw a free kick rather than pressing on and taking a shot.

“He got away from Dawson, and chose the easy option for once of going to ground,” Fisher said.

As Fisher said, this was certainly out of character for Rooney. It does raise questions about him as Keane’s successor, though: Keane probably wouldn’t have gone down with the ball loose if he had broken his leg. That drive and determination are what United could surely use at the moment, and someone will have to step up. One possibility is wing back and captain Gary Neville, who’s still trying to recover from an ankle injury he suffered last year. If Neville’s able to return, his leadership will certainly make a difference down the stretch.

Spurs did a great job of neutralizing United’s most potent offensive weapon, Portuguese winger Cristiano Ronaldo. Ronaldo looked dangerous at times but never really threatened the Tottenham goal, which is highly unusual for him this season. As commentators Fisher and Lou Macari pointed out, though, the rest of the team needs to step up, offensively: they can’t rely on Ronaldo to do everything.

In the end, though, United did what great sides do: they pulled something out of absolutely nothing (or as Journal photo editor Harrison Smith would say, turned lead into gold). A corner from Ronaldo on the last play of the game—which looked as innocent as the eight before it that were cleared away—fell straight to Tevez, who made no mistake and drove it into the net to salvage a point. It was really the only weakness Tottenham showed all day, and United took full advantage, as Macari said.
“They made one mistake in 90 minutes, the Spurs defence, and they paid for it,” he said.

That single glimmer of hope for United in what was otherwise an uninspiring match means today’s results are far less significant. Sure, they drop behind Arsenal for the moment, but there’s still a lot of football to be played. The ability to salvage a point from a tough fixture like this indicates there’s likely better to come down the stretch, and means the title race is still very much a dead heat. This should make for some great games as the season goes on.

Last weekend may have been a turning point in the race for the English Premier League title. In an early game Saturday, Arsenal was held to a shocking 1-1 draw by lowly Middlesbrough. Defending champions Manchester United then took the field for a later game against Newcastle United, knowing that a win would put them back into the lead based on their better goal differential. Newcastle defended well at first, and the game was scoreless at the half, partly due to a couple of strong United penalty appeals denied by referee Rob Styles. For a moment, it looked like Newcastle could hold on to a draw, and United would be unable to make up ground on Arsenal. Everything changed in the second half, though, as United poured in six straight goals for a decisive victory, throwing down the gauntlet of a determined title challenge to Arsenal.

What was most impressive was the quality of the goals, demonstrating the undeniable attacking flair this United team. As a Setanta Sports commentator remarked after Rio Ferdinand’s stunning goal, “It emphasizes what Manchester United at their flamboyant best are all about.”

United’s domination of the second half was so absolute, they easily could have had a couple more goals.

United manager Sir Alex Ferguson told Setanta Sports their success in the second half was due to the team’s cohesion.

“I thought there were too many individuals in the first half,” he said. “Once they got the passing and movement, they were a fantastic team in the second half. It was a marvellous performance.”

The game also showcased the continuing evolution of United winger Cristiano Ronaldo into one of the undisputed best players in the world. Ronaldo notched his first hat trick for United, improving his league season goal total to 16, only one shy of the 17 he scored last season that led to his selection as Professional Footballers’ Association Player of the Year. He also had a penalty appeal denied, and could have easily notched even more goals. There’s still four months to go, so he should easily pass last year’s total, barring injury.

Ferguson said he favoured Ronaldo to surpass last year’s stunning performance early on in the year.

“They said he couldn’t match that, but why not?” he said. “He’s a young lad, he’s improving, and his decision-making’s been better all the time.”

Newcastle interim manager Nigel Pearson recognized United’s overwhelming superiority in his post-match comments.

“That is a very difficult day,” he said. “They were just a lot better than us.”

The stunning performance from United against Newcastle was a clear statement of challenge to Arsenal, as the play-by-play announcer remarked at the end of the game.

“In the most resounding possible fashion, Manchester United say to Arsenal, ‘It’s our title, and we intend to keep it,’” he said.

This weekend showed a return to quality for both sides, with United pulling off a 2-0 win away against Reading and Arsenal recovering to win 3-0 at Fulham. Both sides are still tied at the top of the table at the moment, but United should continue to gain momentum due to the return of some key players. Regulars such as Owen Hargreaves and Wes Brown started Saturday, along with Korean winger Ji-Sung Park. Paul Scholes, Gary Neville and Louis Saha should be soon to follow down the stretch. This will boost their chances of clinching the title, but nothing is certain competing against a strong Arsenal team that delivered a strong display of their own Saturday. Chelsea could pose an outside threat for the championship, but their lack of consistency thus far, and their four-point deficit to the leaders, suggests it will be United and Arsenal in it at the end.

United still has an edge, however. Their squad is generally equivalent to Arsenal’s, but most neutrals would likely take their star playmaker/striker pairing of Ronaldo and Rooney over Arsenal’s Fabregas and Adebayor, both of whom are terrific players in their own right but don’t quite seem to be at the all-world level yet. As Reading manager Steve Coppell pointed out after his side’s loss today, those two can make all the difference.

“You look at their incisive individuals—and by that I mean Ronaldo and Rooney,” he said. “By and large we handled the other nine well but over the course of 90 minutes their appetite will create openings and opportunities. In the end it was one too many.”

Coppell also sees it as a two-team race, and favours United.

“It is between United and Arsenal. European commitments will be key because from now on for them it will be a game every Saturday and a game every Wednesday,” he said.
“If either team lose any key individuals that will be significant. But if both sides stay healthy then I would say United by a nose.”

As Coppell points out, both sides are almost equally talented and either could legitimately take the championship. The X-factor of injuries also makes predictions tricky, but I tend to agree that United’s depth gives them a slight advantage. Regardless of whether United can defend their title or Arsenal rise to the challenge, either case should make for a great showdown and a tremendous stretch run towards the Premier League title.

The soccer world is abuzz following the much-publicized sacking of manager Steve McClaren after England’s dismal failure to qualify for the 2008 European Championships, as several interesting candidates have emerged to replace him. Many high-profile candidates have already declined the job, such as Aston Villa’s Martin O’Neill—the only British citizen judged to be among the favourites. The best man available is still out there, though: former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho.

Mourinho has all the qualifications necessary for the job. He has proven he can lead an underrated group of players to unprecedented success, winning both the Champions League and the UEFA Cup with FC Porto and knocking off giants such as Manchester United along the way. He also won back-to-back league titles with Porto before his move to Chelsea in June 2004. At Chelsea, he proved he can succeed in the opposite situation, leading a team of underachieving superstars to back-to-back league titles before leaving due to conflicts with wealthy owner Roman Abramovich. Both experiences will be crucial to leading England, a team that often underachieves but may need to overreach its talent level to have any significant success.

Perhaps the most vital qualification Mourinho possesses is his ability to survive a media maelstrom. A tabloid feeding frenzy that makes the Toronto Maple Leafs’ press circus pale by comparison surrounds the English national team. In many ways it was the press that proved McClaren’s undoing, as he seemed unable to cope with the pressure and eventually gave into their wildest demands with his ill-fated team selection for the crucial match with Croatia, as the Globe and Mail’s soccer columnist Ben Knight wrote shortly after the Croatian game and the demise of England’s qualifying campaign.

“This is tabloid soccer at its worst,” Knight wrote. “McClaren, in the centre of one of the world’s most horrendous hype-storms, appears for all the world to have bought into the hype! Given the choice between two experienced, talented goaltenders who’ve been savaged in the English papers, and a sweet, shining kid who just shut out the Austrians, McClaren … went … with … the … kid.” The aforementioned kid, Scott Carson, made a memorable hash of an easy shot early on in the match, allowing Croatia to score a goal that proved to be the critical nail in the English coffin.

Mourinho, on the other hand, manipulates instead of letting others manipulate him, as ESPN Soccernet’s Jon Carter explained perfectly in a recent piece advocating Mourinho’s selection.

“He is well versed in the art of media seduction, has experience of how the English press works, and his unique interview style would certainly provide a welcome change from the likes of Steve McClaren and Sven Goran-Eriksson,” Carter wrote. “Charm is an important characteristic for a national manager. McClaren missed that trick, but Mourinho is master of the art and it would be refreshing for the FA [the Football Association, responsible for overseeing the national team] to appoint someone who the fans were actually in favour of.”

Mourinho’s ability to use the press to his advantage is an asset that will desperately be needed in the England job, and he refined this talent to an art form during his Chelsea days. He’s outrageous and controversial but revered in spite of it. Knight perhaps described him best with the ultimate analogy for Canadian fans: “Hockey fans, imagine a Don Cherry who can kick Don Cherry’s ass – and outcoach the heck out of him, as well.”

The outpouring of support for Mourinho has been massive so far. In addition to the aforementioned columns by Knight and Carter, many other journalists and commentators have selected Mourinho as the best candidate. Current England captain John Terry, who played for Mourinho at Chelsea, has also given him high praise.

“He’s a fantastic manager, a fantastic guy,” Terry told The Associated Press. “There’s many more being talked about at the moment but he is one that stands out for me and could make a big difference. He’s a great guy, he’s tactically very aware and he understands the game very well.”

Former national manager Sir Bobby Robson also included Mourinho in the shortlist of five candidates that he revealed in his Daily Mail column. He will present the list to the FA, who will determine McClaren’s replacement. Robson also gave Mourinho strong support in his comments.

“Jose’s advantage is he knows our football and he would be welcomed back with open arms,” he said. “Tactically, there is nobody better—I still remember his dossiers at Porto and Barcelona when he worked with me!—and that’s important for one-off international games.”

The most impressive comments supporting Mourinho’s candidacy, though, are those from one of his former rivals. Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, who competed fiercely with Mourinho during his time at Chelsea, was quoted in Carter’s column as saying, “If the FA consult me about it I’ll give them a shortlist of one, and tell them to get Mourinho.”

It’s appearing increasingly likely Mourinho will get the job. He’s supported by fans, media and those on the inside of the game. Apparently he’s even the odds-on favourite, according to British bookmaker William Hill’s spokesman Graham Sharpe. “Jose was the only man anyone wanted to back early on and 80 per cent of the bets we took were for him,” Sharpe said.

Mourinho appears interested in the job as well. In an AP interview yesterday, his media advisor Eladio Parames said Mourinho would be receptive to any offers from the FA.

“It would be an honour,” Parames said. “He likes English soccer, the English people, the country, the players. It would be something he’d consider. But he’s not waving his hand in the air trying to get (the FA’s) attention. If he’s approached, he’ll reply.”

The FA absolutely need to get this decision right. This is the darkest period in the history of the national team since their failure to qualify for the 1994 World Cup, and they desperately need someone special to lead them out of it. Fortunately, there’s a self-proclaimed “Special One” available. This decision will be crucial for the England national team: they can continue to wallow in mediocrity, or they can land the best man available for the job. Here’s hoping they do the latter.

Jose Mourinho. (Daily Mail photo)

On Oct. 30, FIFA announced that Germany won out over Canada in their bid to host the 2011 Women’s World Cup. For FIFA, it was perhaps an easy decision. The German women’s team were re-crowned as world champions in September’s tournament, while Canada bowed out at the group stage thanks to a late equalizer from the Australian team. The women’s exit was only the most recent heartbreak this year for the long-suffering Canadian soccer fans, who saw their men’s team fall in the CONCACAF Gold Cup to some suspect officiating and their U-20 team achieve the ignominious mark of being the first hosts not to score a goal.

Germany also has proven facilities and a tremendous track record from staging the 2006 World Cup, while Canada appears to have somehow found a way to lose money on this summer’s U-20 World Cup despite shattering the tournament attendance record, according to Angus Barrett, a director-at-large of the Canadian Soccer Association. More details of this sordid financial affair should come out in the near future, but it is yet another event demonstrating the complete and utter disarray of the CSA, responsible for organizing everything relating to soccer in this country.

The CSA is without a president, technical director, or chief operating officer. They only decided on an interim president—Dominic Maestracci—on Oct. 20, almost two months after the resignation of Colin Linford. They haven’t had a chief operating officer since Kevan Pipe was fired on Nov. 2, 2006.

The straw that may have broken the CSA’s back came this summer when their board shot down the appointment of Fred Nykamp, who was successfully lured from Canada Basketball, as chief operating officer. Nykamp was hired, but never allowed to start work, and eventually let go Aug. 26 after the CSA board voted not to ratify his hiring. He’s now claiming wrongful dismissal and suing the CSA for more than $1.75 million, 14 per cent of their annual budget of approximately $12.5 million.

The Nykamp saga is only the latest to mar the CSA. Their carefully crafted facade of competence began to crack last November, when chief operating officer Kevan Pipe resigned. Pipe had a long and perhaps checkered career with the CSA for over 25 years, achieving great success at times but frequently by rather dubious methods. The next thing to go wrong was in the hiring of a national coach. Linford favoured Brazilian Rene Simoes, and thought he had a deal worked out, but the board intervened in tried-and-true political style to insist on Canadian content, which led to the promotion of Dale Mitchell instead.

At the time, Mitchell appeared a solid choice: he had led the men’s U-20 team to the quarter-finals at the 2003 World Youth Championships, and had also done well with the team in the 2005 tournament. However, some doubt was cast on whether he was the right man for the job when the Canadian U-20 team he coached through the U-20 World Cup this summer not only failed to win or draw a game, but also couldn’t even score a goal. Meanwhile, interim coach Stephen Hart—who had been in the job since Frank Yallop vacated it in June 2006 to go coach Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles Galaxy—was achieving spectacular success with the senior team at the Gold Cup, advancing to the final against the U.S. and only losing after a linesman prevented an Atiba Hutchinson goal by noticing an imaginary offside. Fortunately for Canadian soccer, Hart put his ego aside and agreed to stay with the senior team as an assistant to Mitchell.

Soon after, the women’s national team was off to China for their World Cup tournament. However, a foreboding air above and beyond the Beijing smog hung over their trip from the beginning. Head coach Even Pellerud blasted the CSA—legitimately, in this writer’s view—for failing to arrange sufficient pre-tournament games for the team and also bowing out of a bid to host the Olympic qualifying tournament in 2008. According to the Globe and Mail, the CSA said they couldn’t afford the $300,000 to $400,000 it would cost to stage the tournament. Pellerud said the CSA had become so focused on the U-20 World Cup that they were ignoring the women’s team, and even offered to chip in money from the women’s team budget to host the tournament. Also, the CSA apparently failed to notify Pellerud that FIFA had suspended him for the team’s first game at due to an ejection in a Gold Cup match the previous November against the United States: he got the news less than a week before Canada’s first match from reading a paper in his home country of Norway.

The ominous atmosphere appeared justified when the women’s squad, historically the greatest strength of Canadian soccer and ranked ninth in the world as of October, narrowly crashed out of the tournament’s group stage following the late draw with Australia. It seemed as if Pellerud’s words about the lack of preparation handicapping the team had indeed come true.

Things came to a head on Sept. 12, “Black Wednesday,” when a badly promoted international friendly between the men’s national team and Costa Rica took place at BMO Field in Toronto. The early timing and weeknight scheduling of the game, combined with the CSA’s lackadaisical promotion, led to many empty seats at a venue usually packed to the rafters with enthusiastic soccer fans: only 9,325 people attended, less than half the stadium’s capacity of 20, 500. However, many of those present (including noted soccer columnist Ben Knight, who recently joined the Globe and Mail’s sports section) made a profound impression by their attire, dressing in black “Sack the CSA” T-shirts made by the Canadian Soccer Supporters United group.

The protest and the events leading up to it led to deeper scrutiny than usual of the CSA by the mainstream media, including an appropriately titled piece by famed Globe columnist Stephen Brunt called “Storm the barricades, it’s time for change.” Many, including Brunt, suggested getting rid of the CSA entirely and replacing it with a new federation, similar to steps taken in Australia a few years ago. National team striker Tomasz Radzinski even lent his support to the cause, telling the Toronto Star’s Cathal Kelly, “If I’m in the stands next time I’m going to wear a black shirt as well.”

To their credit, the CSA appeared to finally get the message that they couldn’t continue to operate in a manner more suited to a pub soccer league than a government-funded body responsible for overseeing the world’s most popular sport in a country of more than 33 million people. They finally got around to appointing Dominic Maestracci as interim president on Oct. 21. Their representatives also attended a protest meeting held by the North York Soccer Association and tried to address some of the concerns raised. However, it’s still obvious that fixing the CSA will be a painful, drawn-out process.

The timing of the CSA’s unraveling is unfortunate. Canadian soccer has made so many strides forward in recent years: the building of BMO Field in Toronto, the introduction of Toronto FC into Major League Soccer and the record-breaking attendance shown for the U-20 World Cup this past summer. World-class clubs from the United Kingdom such as the English Premier League’s Aston Villa and Sunderland and the Championship’s Cardiff City have all played friendlies in Canada in recent years, with the David Beckham-led Los Angeles Galaxy joining the trend Wednesday in a match played against the Vancouver Whitecaps before 48, 172 fans at B.C. Place. More Canadian players are joining high-class teams all the time, such as U-20 goalkeeper Asmir Begovic who plays for Portsmouth in the English Premier League. As mentioned above, both the men’s and women’s national teams have made large strides recently as well.

Hosting the Women’s World Cup, which Canada would be ideally suited for given the amount of national interest in the women’s team, the success they have enjoyed recently, and our proven ability to stage international soccer competitions would be a logical next step on the path to becoming a true player on the international soccer stage. However, the current state of the CSA leaves us in no position to host anything larger than a world championship for eight-year-olds (and even that might be a stretch).

It was disappointing to see Canada lose out to Germany, but the decision was not only logical, but probably best for our country in the long run. There will be other chances to host in the future, and hopefully by that time our national association will be in competent shape to handle an international event. As famed TSN and CBC soccer commentator Dick Howard, who is also a member of FIFA’s Technical Development Committee, remarked in an Oct. 30 cbc.ca article on the failure of Canada’s bid, “It’s quite honestly a blessing in disguise.” It says a lot about the tragic state of a country’s soccer association when losing is a victory on its own.