The Sun-Herald

Saturday, October 27, 2007

The Wizard of Oz

Is Frank Lowy leading Sydney FC down a yellow brick road?

There's no doubt that when it comes to the big picture, the FFA chairman is undeniably the Wizard of Oz.

Ten years, pretty much to the day, Australian "soccer" was on the cusp of a historic breakthrough into the national mainstream.

Under the chairmanship of David Hill, a former hard line (it was thought at the time) boss of the ABC and State Rail, plans were in place for the National Soccer League to be streamlined and revamped.

Also on the whiteboard, we had a foreign Socceroos coach who was also an international newsmaker with a credible pedigree.

Emerging stars like Harry Kewell and Mark Viduka were the leaders of a new generation and the national team was 180 sensible minutes away from qualifying for the 1998 World Cup.

Ah, history.

Of course, Hill's Lowy-like vision collapsed as he was let down by his own troops, succumbed to Machiavellian soccer politics, and misjudged a few crucial calls.

Hill did, however, provide advance party covering fire for Lowy's government-backed coup in 2003. Fatherly Frank knew what was required to raze and then raise soccer to its rightful level in Australia.

Two words: Total and control.

Lowy had to be coach, captain, star striker, and referee. Then the game would be won. And, with a few passes supplied by John O'Neill, Guus Hiddink, John Aloisi, as well as a hungry public, it was.

On the other hand, Perth Glory aside (and that's a whole other, not entirely unconnected, story) Sydney FC is the A-League's bona-fide basket case.

Currently, the club is everything Lowy would have hoped it wouldn't be. Erratic on the pitch, unstable off it. It's an illusion as large as Emerald City and we're all Munchkins.

I'm not sure if Terry Butcher can play the Scarecrow and you can decide for yourself who else fit the roles of Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, Wicked Witch of the West, and Dorothy.

(FYI: for this exercise, I'm happy to be Toto).

Make your choice here.

Lowy, obviously, is no fool but one bright shining reason Sydney FC is in its current tornado state is that, perhaps fearful of highlighting a conflict of interest in being both FFA boss and effectively Sydney's owner, he has not run the club as he would have liked.

Three words: With and total and control.

Bad deals, bad recruitment, and bad personnel are not the Lowy way of doing business.

Last week's appointment of John Kosmina, and the non-negotiable manner in which it occurred, was a statement that Lowy is clearly back in charge.

Kossie, a Socceroo and Sydney City legend, is Lowy's pin-up boy and the footballing son he never had.

Andrew Kemeny, Lowy's trusted loyalist from the days of Sydney City and the Hakoah club, is the new confident, cocky, and publicity-shy chairman.

Kemeny was by Lowy's side when he pulled the plug on Sydney City in 1987 and was also chairman of a committee that looked at establishing the A-League.

A team that Lowy always wanted but was - in earlier days - too wary to unroll.

Yes, it's Sydney City reborn, revisited, reinvented.

But like any good captain, Lowy knows what he likes and knows who he implicitly trusts.

He allowed others time and money to try it their way. They failed. Enter his handpicked people to carry out the repairs and renovate the house.

As the Wizard of Oz told us, there's no place like home. Yet all houses, shiny and new or old and renovated, need a road otherwise they're just country shacks or mansions on a hill.

An illusion.

Lowy's next hands-on task is to pave the way for the club to fulfill its ambition to become the club and team that we all, Frank Lowy included, dream it can be.

Yellow brick road or bush track?

Right now, we're at an interesting junction.

• by Matthew Hall at 05:20 AM
• Comments (19)

Saturday, October 20, 2007

A Pint of Bitter

What is wrong with British football teams?

I'd been intending to write this week that if the Australian national team could model itself on Scotland's recent feats then, as Socceroo fans, the world would be a better place.

The potential similarities, I'd decided, were impressive.

A bunch of battlers, with few star players but playing as a team, were punching well above their weight and seemed destined to qualify for Euro 2008 ahead of France(!) and maybe even Italy(!!).

Then it all went wrong.

After beating France twice, the Scots lost 2-0 to Georgia(!!!), to rupture their Euro 2008 qualification hopes and, damn them and Tennant's Lager, ruin my literary celebrations.

Put on a kilt and cheer here.

Then, if you're Scottish, weep at the reality. Your boys blew it.

Still, it could be worse for the Scots. They could be English.

England's campaign has been doomed ever since Steve McClaren, way down the list of preferred candidates to succeed Sven-Goran Eriksson as coach, took charge of the team.

Sigh.

It's possible Guus Hiddink could have been coach instead of McClaren except for the fact the former Socceroo boss can't stand the Brit media and the England FA botched an initial approach.

Instead, (who would have thought it?!) Hiddink was behind England's downfall.

Unfortunately for McClaren the damning result in Moscow had nothing to do with an admittedly dubious penalty awarded to Russia.

Watch the retreat from Moscow here.

While you do that, wave at our old pal, penalty-mad ref Luis Medina Cantalejo, the same guy who pointed to the spot when Fabio Grosso took his last minute tumble against Australia.

As Hiddink explained after the game, it was McClaren's tactics that were just as wrong as the referee's decisions. Confident words, even after McClaren had tonked Russia 3-0 last month at Wembley.

So here's the thing: what's wrong with these continually under-performing and underwhelming British teams?

Don't even get me started with Wales, who with as many Premier League stars as Australia, have not qualified for an international since 1958.

And we thought 32 years of Australian exile was tough.

Scotland have been consistent heartbreakers for their fans for generations but they have, at least, qualified for World Cups and shown guts when they've appeared.

A lasting memory of the 1998 World Cup was Scottish and Argentina fans drunkenly (but happily) dancing under the Eiffel Tower in Paris singing songs celebrating Maradona.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, etc.

Archie Gemmill's cracker against Holland in 1978 remains one of the best ever goals scored at a World Cup.

Watch and wave your sporran here.

But, England, oh England.

After inventing the greatest game on earth and providing the platform for (let's start an argument) the world's best and richest league, St George is represented by a national team with no heart, no soul, and no clue.

The England team should be all about the spirit of Wayne Rooney, a pugnacious and tough but talented player who is completely mad in an admirable manner.

Instead, England fans get the football equivalent of David Beckham.

There's talent and occasional brilliance somewhere in there but it's mostly about transparent hype with no real substance.

There. I said it.

England need a circuit breaker before Steve McClaren and his FA bosses switch off the lights.

Time for a cup of tea and a Digestive biscuit.

Or maybe just a pint of bitter.

• by Matthew Hall at 06:58 AM
• Comments (7)

Saturday, October 13, 2007

By Any Means Necessary

Liverpool striker Fernando Torres has announced his cheating ways are over. In the global war on error, this is big news.

So, a slap on the back (but not too hard) to the former Athletic Madrid captain.

"Here, they're not going to whistle for anything if you fall over," he said, referring to his experience this season in England. "There's no point feigning anything because referees are fooled less."

Torres provided an interesting perspective.

Get this - he publicly AGREED that diving is all about FOOLING referees.

In another word - CHEATING.

Or as one of Australia's former top referees (yes, they do exist) told me during the week - THIEVING.

(I'm using big, bold, CAPITAL letters here to DRIVE the POINT home.)

Diving is cheating. Cheating is stealing.

Stealing from opponents. Stealing from the referees. Stealing from the fans. Stealing from the sport. Stealing from yourself. Really.

You may as well be on performance-enhancing drugs.

If Stan Lazaridis can be rubbed out of the game as an apparent drug cheat for trying a cure for baldness while a diver is rewarded with a World Cup winner's medal, the world is an upside down place.

Oh, hang on. It is. My apologies.

Torres added that it was Steven Gerrard, the iconic Liverpool captain, who suggested cheating was not a great idea.

"It's your own team-mates like Steven Gerrard who don't like you using those tricks," said Torres.

This is where Torres takes a twist. Gerrard has been known, in the words of 1980s fallen pop idol Boy George to "tumble for ya".

You can see Gerrard do his best Boy George impression here.

And here.

Interestingly, none of these incidents occurred in Premier League matches nor with English referees in charge.

I was in England last year when Didier Drogba gave a post-game interview which caused a bit of a fuss.

"In football, you can't stay up every time," he said, adding that sometimes he dived, sometimes he didn't, before stating "I don't dive".

It was an interview that caused a frenzy of PR spin from Chelsea.

Read about it here.

Gerrard and Drogba are not the only gravity-challenged strikers in football. Far from it.

Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo displayed quite a collection of acrobatic skills before realising only last season that falling over was one trick he didn't need to perform so often.

Here's a good one.

Fabio Grosso's World Cup dive cruelly brought home to many Australians just how the phenomenon plays out.

Let's watch it again here - just for a laugh.

Then answer this question: if Grosso had have swapped roles with Lucas Neill, would we, as Australians and football fans, have been so outraged?

In other words, had Lucas Neill skated into Italy's penalty area in the dying seconds of the match, been challenged by Grosso, and taken a tumble to be awarded a match-winning penalty, would we complain?

Or be embarrassed?

Or would we boast, sucked in Italy, we caught you out, and now we're playing in the World Cup quarter-finals against Ukraine and you're not?

Your own answer may be revealing.

At the time, on that hot afternoon in Kaiserslautern, the Grosso incident was all the fault of the referee.

The bloke was blind. How could he miss such a blatant dive? Grosso cheated!

In retrospect, that was somewhat unfair.

Referees have an instant, a flash, as long at it takes to read those words, to decide whether a player has been fouled or cheated.

It's a very, very, tough call.

While we sat in the press box and watched replay after replay, more than enough to convict Grosso of taking a tumble (or not, the debate still continues) , the referee had no such advantage.

The complication in football is that one flash of brilliance, one mistake, one wayward pass, one dive, can dictate the outcome of a match.

This is part of what makes football so compelling. Few other sports, especially those that occupy the Australian psyche, play out that way.

A poor umpiring decision in cricket can even out over the five days(!) of a test match.

Australian Rules football is a flood of goals and points (a unique sport where mediocrity is rewarded with a point for a miss!).

In rugby, territorial possession results in a try and then a further chance to extend the lead with an unimpeded kick at an undefended target.

Games can quickly become one-sided and predictable. In football, unpredictability means players often look for the slightest advantage on offer.

Unfortunately, today, that means cheating.

But here's an interesting suggestion, again from our friend, the senior referee.

If coaches had zero tolerance of diving, cheating, and stealing by players on their own team, would it still exist?

No.

But which coach would be brave enough to give up the chance to win a game? Especially a game where millions of dollars are at stake?

When you're diving for pearls, you take what ever you can.

• by Matthew Hall at 03:12 AM
• Comments (20)

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Official: The Beautiful Game Is Dead

Thanks a lot, Dida.

The last remnant of what sentimental fools call Jogo Bonito - The Beautiful Game - was carried off Celtic Park with the Milan goalkeeper last week.

Unsurprisingly, many are in denial, of course.

Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani believes that Dida's comical tumble in the dying seconds of his team's loss is detracting from the real crisis - that a fan made his way on to the pitch during a game.

"This case is not about Dida but the issue is that a fan went on to the field during a Champions League game and this should not happen," droned Galliani, with a straight face.

Thanks for your time, Adriano. Pass the parmigiano.

Sure, Celtic fan Robert McHendry did something he shouldn't have.

Big woop.

Celtic have banned the guy for life and he's faced court for "breach of the peace."

It's very easy to get onto the pitch at Celtic Park.

The last time I was there, you simply stepped over a low fence and you were on it (unless you are a player, in which case it's easier to run up the tunnel) shaking hands with Scott McDonald.

No mountaineering equipment is needed to clamber across fences so often seen at Italian grounds.

No scuba gear is required to swim across moats that lap many stadiums across Europe and South America.

McHendry's foolish act was spontaneous and required no superhuman feat.

He's received punishment from the venue and from the law.

He's paid for his stupid indiscretion. We're over it.

Galliani, though, isn't but entirely misses the point.

The case has become all about Dida, who claimed to require an ice pack for his cheek and needed a stretcher to leave the pitch after McHendry tapped him on the neck.

Watch the incident here.

Briefly laugh and then get serious for a moment.

What motivated Dida's action?

One thing - he was simulating a serious injury in the hope of having Celtic's deserved win overturned. A result that occurred in part through Dida's own incompetence.

There's no other explanation.

Dida cheated.

The days when Brazilian football was all about The Beautiful Game are gone.

Finished.

OVER.

Even Juninho, a World Cup winner with Brazil in 2002, admits that Brazilians dive all too easily, quickly going to ground in opponent's penalty areas.

The Sydney marquee would know first-hand how his compatriots cheat.

He was on the pitch during one game where an incident occurred that should be regularly highlighted as an example of how Brazil win ugly.

At the 2002 World Cup, I was in Ulsan as the once-great Rivaldo feigned a head injury after the ball was kicked - admittedly belligerently - into his thigh by Hakan Unsul.

Watching live in the stadium, Rivaldo's reaction seemed bizarre.

Craning my neck to watch a TV replay, it was shockingly embarrassing.

Have a cringe here.

"No, the ball did not hit me in the face," Rivaldo said after the game. "But the Turkish player shouldn't have done that in the first place. My experience counts. So the ball touched my leg and not my head, and I recognise that it did not hit my face, but the other player was still in the wrong. I said sorry to him, but these things happen in football."

In other words: Yeah, I cheated. We won. So what?

It's not just the men. In an otherwise excellent recent Women's World Cup, the behaviour of Brazilian midfielder Cristiane during the semi-final against the USA was disgraceful.

American Shannon Boxx's red card in that game was one of the worst refereeing decisions ever.

Worse, though was Cristiane celebrating that an opponent had been (incorrectly)tossed out of the game.

You see it all here. Watch right to the end.

So while Milan and UEFA get flustered about Robert McHendry's Glaswegian peck on the cheek, they might want to also use the occasion as an opportunity to finally do something about what is gently referred to by the men in suits as "simulation".

IT'S CHEATING.

We, the fans, are tired of it and so are many players.

Ricardo Clark, who plays for Houston Dynamo in the MLS, has been banned for nine matches for kicking FC Dallas striker Carlos Ruiz.

Watch here. As they say in America, it's awesome.

Ruiz has a reputation in the MLS for struggling to stay upright in penalty areas.

In this incident, Clark, frustrated, kicked Ruiz in the body.

So, compounding a ridiculous situation, only Ruiz knows why he clutches his head.

Clark's action was worthy of the ban, for sure.

Taking the law into your own hands is never the best advice so, kids, don't try that at home.

Or the local park.

But with role models like Dida, Rivaldo, and Cristiane, can anyone blame younger players for mimicking the professionals?

The beautiful game? It's now about winning ugly.

• by Matthew Hall at 06:39 AM
• Comments (92)