Thursday, October 31, 2013
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Dempsey behind Seattle Sounders' decline
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| (c) Author's collection |
Rumours persist that Seattle
Sounders coach Sigi Schmid needs at least an appearance in the MLS Cup Final to
retain his job.
He won’t get it.
Despite boasting – on paper – the best forward line in the seventeen-year
history of MLS, the team has almost completely failed to gel and enters the
playoffs with form that can only be described as calamitous.
The downturn can be traced to
what seemed the Sounders’ zenith, the capture
of USMNT talisman Clint Dempsey from Tottenham Hotspur and his presentation
to the throng as all-conquering Caesar.
The crowd thrummed as “The Deuce” emerged onto CenturyLink field to his rather overstated rap,
all expectant that the best-credentialled outfield player in American soccer would
complete Seattle’s reformation from inertia-bound locomotive into filthy, filthy
machine. Dempsey, Obafemi Martins, Eddie
Johnson and Mauro Rosales? Heaven help Real
Salt Lake and the Galaxy.
Friday, October 25, 2013
Ian Holloway: Don't you think he looks tired?
“Six little words that
could bring down a government … don’t you think she looks tired?”
Those words and a couple of questionable decisions ousted
the fictional Harriet Jones from the Prime Ministership of Great Britain. So powerful is one’s
appearance that all it takes is speculative criticism and fading appearance
to lose a grip on authority.
In related news, everyone’s
favourite jumble-a-quote man Ian Holloway has left Crystal Palace by mutual
consent after winning only one of his team’s eight Premier League games so far
this season. Former Bristol City manager
Keith Millen will take over as interim boss as the club investigates possible
new blood; names mentioned so far have included former Stoke City manager Tony
Pulis, a re-hired Neil Warnock and Western
Sydney Wanderers manager Tony Popovic.
This may genuinely be one of those rare situations in
football where the term mutual consent
isn’t simply a kinder synonym for sacked. A man whose straightforward nature and
Worzel-type accent sometimes drew attention away
from a keen football mind, Holloway was visibly exhausted only three months
into the season and as he failed to balance a squad that boasted plenty of
players but only a few of even an average level. His flowing,
offensive tactics have plenty of merit in the Championship but have now
failed twice to transport to Premier League standard.
The travails of managing a club unprepared for life at the
top level were apparent on his usually smiling features. Recent pictures – including this one, usually a bog-standard "manager shot" – show
a defeated man, albeit one who hadn’t yet surrendered. When even the involuntary parts of body language
betray a manager so quickly, doubts build about his ability to make effective
decisions; as the stress increased, it became increasingly apparent that Ian
Holloway’s future lay away from Selhurst Park.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Friday, October 18, 2013
How much impact do individual players have on their team's performances?
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| Click to enlarge |
The chart above details something
of the relative contribution made by individual English Premiership players to
their team performances: it maps the amount of goals scored and conceded per
ninety minutes with each player on the field this season.
In effect, this chart mimics the
plus/minus stat used in hockey*, adjusted for time spent on the field.
The sample size is relatively
small – teams from five teams were included, one from each of five categories:
last year’s champions, Manchester United, a top-four contender in Tottenham
Hotspur, two suspiciously mid-table teams in Aston Villa and Southampton and
promoted Cardiff City.
A player’s contribution can be
surmised from how far he is from a large cluster of teammates – these represent
the players a manager thinks of as the core of his team. Examples are easily found in the defensive
units of Spurs, Villa, Southampton and Cardiff.
The spread also represents the
amount of squad rotation favoured by certain managers – the northwest regions
of the graphic indicate Manchester United have a core that manager David Moyes is
currently coming to grips with simply by virtue of the player spread. Southampton, however, are far more congested.
We can see that the player who
represents the greatest forward boon to his side is Wayne Rooney, who after a
slow start, has made a startling return to form at Old Trafford. While it’s no surprise given his team’s
relative miserliness, Nathaniel Clyne of Southampton seems to have proven the
difference between the Saints scoring or not.
(This ongoing project began as an
attempt to keep plus minus records for individual Premier League players; you
can find the results here: so far, the player with the worst plus/minus
ratio is Kim Bo Kyung of Cardiff City followed by Ashley Young of Manchester
United; the player from the five teams selected with the best plus/minus stat
is again Nathaniel Clyne).
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Postecoglou must be new Socceroo manager
Holger Osieck ended his
association with Australian soccer an unpopular coach whose side capitulated
6-0 twice in succession. If anything
is liable to have a manager fired, it is a pitiful loss against reasonable
opposition and the German was dismissed in the immediate aftermath of
Saturday’s match against France.
According to the normal chain of
events, speculation is gathering as to the identity of his successor with the
most high-profile names being Socceroo Swami Guus Hiddink, ex-Chile and
Athletic Bilbao boss Marcelo Bielsa and – for some unknown reason – Roberto Di
Matteo. Were Australia focusing solely
on the World and Asian Cups of 2014 and 15, an
“impact signing” excelling at tournament football – and hopefully at
pulling strings at European clubs – would seem a wise investment.
However, none of the three
“names” above would be inclined to hang around to create a platform for future
development; to an ambitious non-Aussie, the most appealing aspect of the
Australia job is almost certainly its potential
for a quick profit.
Australia
has lacked footballing identity since the 2010 World Cup. Until that time, the boys in Gold were a lineup of predictably loveable
maulers: their backline boasted Craig Moore, Lucas Neill and Scott Chipperfield
while the midfield was manned by uncompromising sorts Brett Emerton and Vince
Grella. The team’s only lightweight, Harry
Kewell, flitted about behind man-mountain Mark Viduka and his
unsettlingly-physical Boy Wonder, Tim Cahill.
With the Green and Gold army
clamouring for generational change and the
press conferences of some of the Socceroo elite seemingly endorsing such
claims, Football Federation of Australia Chairman and all-around-Daddy-Warbucks-figure
Frank Lowy has narrowed the association’s focus and suggested the biggest hire
in Australian soccer is likely
to be from the FFA’s back room, the A-League.
The Australian national team
needs to be the pinnacle for any Australian footballer. While the A-League has
strengthened, the player pathways that produced the Golden Generation that
peaked in 2006 have become overgrown. A
strong Socceroo side with structures
based around player development both at home and abroad is an absolute
necessity for football to become more deeply rooted in the antipodean sporting
consciousness. The coach best able to
implement such a program must be employed.
For the first time in a
generation, an Australian is almost certainly the best person for the position.
Lowy has effectively narrowed
the field to three candidates – Tony Popovic of nascent Western Sydney
Wanderers; former interim Socceroo manager Graham Arnold, now of the Central
Coast Mariners; and Melbourne
Victory kingpin Ange Postecoglou.
All the candidates present
convincing resumés despite high-profile failures. Of the three, Arnold probably comes with the
most baggage due to his underwhelming Asian Cup leadership of 2007; however, he
has developed a consistently good Mariners outfit despite a tight budget even
by A-League standards. His appointment
may be seen as a reward to a company man. Popovic has a jaw-dropping level of natural
talent for management and served an impressive apprenticeship before taking a
journeyman bunch of Wanderers into the league finals in their first season. Questions remain, however, as to his
experience.
Even with these negative aspects,
were Arnold or Popovic to earn the position, Australia could feel confident
about the Socceroos’ future.
However, the most compelling choice
is Ange Postecoglou. After turning the
Brisbane Roar from also-rans into dominant Premiers, he is currently re-shaping
the A-League’s biggest club into a younger, more vital side; his modus operandi is to turn young footballers
into disciplined and productive units.
This is based in part about his
coaching philosophy: his
teams hold the ball and use it rather than Osieck’s haphazard, “needs-must”
approach. In an age where Australian
youngsters have struggled to claim positions for the National side, pragmatism
has few uses even focusing solely upon next year’s Cup. If a player – especially a youngster – knows ahead
of time what is expected of a Socceroo, he is in far better position to
prepare.
Despite the short lead-in to the
World Cup, the FFA is in an enviable position.
They can finally choose a manager to mould a team with the future in
mind rather than employing someone they hope is able to bring about short-term results. The Round of Sixteen would of course be nice,
but the Socceroos can no longer afford to focus on the twilights Schwarzer, Neill
and Cahill. The outlook must now be on
the retirements of James
Holland, Tom Rogic and Matthew Spiranovic.
Friday, October 11, 2013
Osieck not long for Socceroos' top job
With Australian football trying
to regain its feet after
a 6-0 pasting against Brazil last month, speculation has intensified over
the future of Socceroo coach Holger Osieck. The German manager has appeared a
man unable to take forward steps in the past twelve months, with his players
effectively playing according to inconsistent tactics; even his greatest moment
in 2013 was tarnished by a
poorly-timed sexist joke. The only thing Osieck has definitively delivered
for Australia has been PR calamity: perfunctory football run by a
quasi-unlikable boss.
The only things in Osieck's favor
- significant though they may be - include a truncated lead-in time for any new
manager and the $1 million he's still owed by the Football Federation of
Australia Frank Lowy. Although he remains unpopular, it still remains more
likely than not that the manager incumbent will lead the likes of Brett Holman,
Tommy Oar and Archie Thompson (!) to South America and, ultimately, disappointment.
Strangely, the single greatest
reason for the appointment of a new boss might be a limited talent pool. With
Australia's best 20 players almost set in stone, the only way a new gaffer
might impact the side during the year-til-Brazil would be to engage players and
encourage tactical buy-in. This is an
aspect of management Osieck has found difficult, because his iteration of
Australia simply hasn't had the identity of past sides. For years, Australia
was a burly, physical outfit capable of controlling games through brute
strength. As players like Oar and Tom Rogic replaced the Mark Vidukas and Scott
Chipperfields of the world, the Socceroos lost some of that identity and
therefore Osieck has settled for an inconsistent style.
A new manager - Leo Beenhakker,
perhaps? Or Johan Neeskens? - might help develop a national team with an
identity and a definite idea of how to play to type. However, with Lowy burnt
twice by international bosses (neither Osieck nor his
predecessor Pim Verbeek have been a real success), the inclination is
that Osieck will retain his post for the Fiesta World Cup, but only that long.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Man United's Januzaj makes right choice: not to choose
The
international break approaches us like the semi in Duel – from a speck
in the distance, it sneakily becomes overwhelming. Today’s World Cup Qualifiers
include important matches between the Euro 2012 hosts in Kharkov and a Sweden/Austria
matchup that might determine Group C’s playoff entrant, while the contest in
Mexico City could keep the hopes alive of both Panama and Mexico.
The European
confederation enters the week’s festivities in a curious manner: five separate national
Football Associations are “keeping tabs” on a single player, Adnan Januzaj,
a winger helping to dispel Manchester United’s Moyesian malaise. It emerged on
Monday that all of the Belgian, English, Serbian, Turkish, Albanian and
embryonic Kosovar Associations feel as if the Premiership’s most babyfaced star
might be tempted to play for their country.
It’s not unknown
for a player to choose his nationality based upon his residence or passport in
many sports, but football is undoubtedly the most high-profile. To take two
higher-profile examples, Croatia forward
Eduardo spent the first sixteen years of his life in Brazil, while James
McCarthy was born and raised in Scotland but represents
Ireland, the country of his grandparents. Tug-of-loves in International
football occur about as regularly as they do on Coronation Street
However,
Januzaj’s situation is different. The player is only eighteen and hasn’t
represented any country in youth football; although on the exterior it feels
… unwholesome for him to play for the Three Lions after two years in
the country, should he feel the appropriate affinity for England, Januzaj
should be entitled to cast his lot in forever with them, after
he has served the requisite time. The same goes for Belgium , Serbia ,
Turkey
Adnan Januzaj
should be absolutely allowed – and encouraged – to choose whoever he wishes. Unlike
days past, nationality is a now
a fluid concept; perhaps even it is a decision that young men should take
more seriously than who they play their club football for. What would have the
impact been on Wilfried Zaha – and the Ivory
Coast – had he opted to play from them instead of England Serbia
The same choice
has recently been faced by the likes of Victor
Moses, Wilfried Zaha or Raheem Sterling. If only they had the foresight and
wisdom to simply make a statement to the effect of Januzaj – I’ll play for who
I like, when I’m ready – they might have saved themselves a significant amount
of confusion.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Moyes' Manchester United honesty both helps and hurts
So David Moyes thinks that the
team that won the Premiership by eleven points last season doesn’t have enough
top-class players. He also apparently
kens that things might get worse for his Manchester United mob before they get
better. And that qualifying for the
knockout round of the Champions League is far from guaranteed.
What do you really think, Dave?
Blind Freddie on the trams could
tell you that United haven’t started well – the club has three losses in six
league matches, or sixty percent of all the club’s misses last season. They’ve looked staid, boring and bored; the
weekend loss to West Bromwich Albion at Old Trafford a Picasso of listlessness.
Yet Moyes seems remarkably
verbose. In earlier times he’s
bastardised the fixture list before in the past week publicly: searching for reasons
for an apathetic derby performance, (understandably) finding
the loss to WBA “a concern”, that
Champions League progression wasn’t going to be easy, reinforcements
were required at the club and – perhaps most gallingly – that the
Red Devils face “more blows to come”.
All of the above statements are
almost certainly entirely true. In
another situation, Moyes might be congratulated for his candor. However, when the man who bosses a club with
the size and repute of Manchester United makes such a concerted effort downplay
expectation, he wields a blade that cuts both ways. While he may temper fan demands or media
speculation as to the quality of his side or the security of his position, what
he also does is slowly erode his players’ confidence. If the manager – their leader, the one with
the brains, supposedly – isn’t convinced his team is good enough or able to
calculate why they’re playing like crap, what are the grunts to believe?
Every United player will already
be slightly down as a result of consecutive haphazard displays in Manchester;
public statements that they might not be good enough to achieve what they did
last year are hardly likely to inspire faith in a gaffer who’s still trying to
win them over to playing his way.
Whether reasonable or not, the single-minded but brittle psyche of the
professional athlete responds to someone who totally backs them, or for spite of them. Moyes is shakily walking a very thin path
alongside a steep drop; few are convinced he can navigate it successfully.
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