The Sun-Herald

Saturday, July 25, 2009

The Silly Season

Thankfully, Cristiano Ronaldo's soap opera transfer saga was painlessly short this year. But that just left more time for suffering elsewhere.

The Silly Season, officially the part of the year in-between European football seasons, is about to reach its annual crescendo.

It's the time when transfer speculation, the mindless chatter about which player is moving from what club to which team and for how much based on exactly no genuine information whatsoever, rules.

News outlets seeking space to fill and, since the widespread proliferation of the Internet, pontificating "bloggers" and discussion "communities" get hold of one line from a coach at a press conference and turn it into a $100 million deal.

Or in the case of Socceroo Mark Bresciano, a move to a club in Saudi Arabia that flipped and flopped across the Internet when it was as bizarre as it was untrue.

For me, the best transfer news is that of a deal conducted without speculation that comes totally from left field.

Call me old, but I lived and worked in London in the 1990s and recall the first time I learned of Manchester United's audacious swoop of Eric Cantona from Leeds United was when I spotted it on the front page of newspapers at the local Tube station the morning after the deal had gone through.

Cantona?

Manchester United?

A similar situation played out this month with United picking up Michael Owen, once a hero for Liverpool fans and now maybe something of Public Enemy #1 at Anfield after signing for the dreaded Red Devils.

Bang - it happened. WTF? Now let's move on.

But unfortunately for Australian fans, Mark Viduka and Lucas Neill are providing us unnecessary pain.

According to speculation (ha!), Neill should sign for Galatasaray this weekend after wrangling with the club over financial aspects of a proposed deal for many weeks.

Neill was probably also looking to see what action was happening elsewhere, if anything, but the Turkish club became so frustrated at taking over a month to sort out the deal that they lined up Julio Belletti as a possible replacement, believing that paying 5 million euros to Chelsea for the Brazilian was a better deal than talking money with Australia's captain.

Neill's long and winding move to Galatasaray sent Australian fans into a fever with keyboard generals in a fury as to why he'd turn his back on the Premier League and West Ham for Turkey.

Clubless Viduka, meanwhile, is still on holiday on Croatia's idyllic Dalmatian coast which is perhaps not the best environment to consider your professional future.

After all, would you enjoy having to contemplate the reality of a winter in Hull (whose local team has been considered, and then dismissed, as a possible destination) while fishing with dynamite off the coast of Split, (a pastime that Viduka has been known to enjoy)?

Fortunately for Viduka, who has never been fast to make any decision, and unfortunately for us, he has until the end of August to decide the location of his new home, if indeed there is to be one.

If he's true to form, he may skip the first half of the up-coming season, pick up a club in January and coast towards the FIFA World Cup next year to play a few games with Pim Verbeek's Socceroos.

Although that's just speculation.

What's been your most-talked about transfer of the off-season?

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• by Matthew Hall at 12:49 AM
• Comments (3)

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Beckham's Epic American Fail

This weekend, David Beckham will run on to the pitch with AC Milan. Unfortunately for him, he'll be wearing a Los Angeles Galaxy shirt.

In something of a little ironic twist considering recent drama, Milan (playing LA Galaxy on a pre-season tour) will have among its team an American defender by the name of Oguchi Onyewu.

The country that Beckham is now so desperate to quit in favour of playing for Milan is, after all, capable of producing top class soccer players.

Hooray for that.

Beckham has been in the news this past week after finally returning to Los Angeles Galaxy, the team he left last year to play "on loan" with Milan in Italy's Serie A.

The loan concept is somewhat alien to American sporting culture. So is, among top American sports, the concept of international competition and the higher calling of representing your national team.

That's part of the reason why Beckham's Milan affair is so confusing for some Americans.

It is not, though, the reason why Beckham said he was "committed" to Los Angeles Galaxy and American soccer 17 times during a press conference in New Jersey last Thursday.

That's more to do with the old propaganda mantra - the more you repeat something the more they will believe it ("they" being the public).

The truth is that Beckham should maybe adopt a new Italian name - Pinocchio. His economy of truth is equal to the depth of his commitment issues.

I attended Thursday's press conference and asked Beckham straight out whether in an ideal world he'd rather be in pre-season with Milan than at Galaxy.

While simultaneously talking about his "commitment" to Galaxy and American soccer he looked me straight in the eye and said he'd rather be contracted to a European club right now.

A flash of truth.

It was as if we were having a separate, private, conversation in a room off to the side away from the 50 or so international media around us.

Most reporters in the room missed that moment and Beckham's confession.

Maybe, for Beckham's machine, just as well.

Seconds later, he was off again maintaining how "committed" he was to his current situation.

But, don't worry America, in his own mind Beckham is no doubt "committed", not least because he has a contract that requires him to be and Beckham, as he reminded everyone on Thursday, always honours his contracts.

But this is where it gets complicated for Beckham and his crowded calendar.

He also wants to play at the 2010 World Cup and England coach Fabio Capello has told him he needs to play in a higher standard league than MLS to be considered.

Enter Milan, and Beckham was mostly right when he said that if the Italian club telephoned any player with an invitation to join them they'd all drop what they were doing immediately to take up the opportunity.

But this is where Beckham digs his own grave. Unfortunately for him he is not "any player".

He is not Freddie Ljungberg, the former Arsenal and West Ham player now at Seattle Sounders. Nor is he former Manchester United star Dwight Yorke when the Trinidad & Tobago international was with Sydney FC in Australia' A-League.

Nor is he Robbie Fowler, once an England contemporary, now the marquee player of North Queensland Fury, a new team in a growing league from an obscure tropical country town, contemplating an offer to return to Tranmere Rovers.

Beckham arrived in America with fireworks and a cloud of promise that he'd help build and grow MLS and soccer in America. He still talks about being an "ambassador" for American soccer.

It is all about the soccer, Beckham blubbed, rather than his celebrity.

But in reality it's absolutely more than what happens on the pitch, which makes Beckham either totally unaware or stupid.

Americans love statistics and here are some.

Two years ago, 66,237 fans attended the New York Red Bulls match against David Beckham's LA Galaxy, his first game in the league (see, there is a market for soccer in New York).

Last year, around 50,000 attended the corresponding fixture.

On Thursday night, Galaxy beat New York 3-1.

But just 23,238 turned up to see Beckham's return in Galaxy colours.

This is before we even get to pitiful television ratings that have not been nudged since Beckham's arrival.

That's the fail.

And as his Posh Spice wife surely could tell him, when the numbers don't add up, it's time to shut the circus down.

No wonder he'd rather be wearing a Milan shirt this weekend.

• by Matthew Hall at 12:24 AM
• Comments (7)

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Recession? What Recession?

80,000 Spaniards can't be wrong. Can they?

There are many things to do in Madrid in summer.

You could see some art at the Prado or Reina Sofia museums.

Stroll through a beautiful park like the Retiro.

Explore the streets and shops behind the Puerta Del Sol.

Have your wallet stolen at the Rastro flea market.

Enjoy early evening wine and tapas at one of the bars around Plaza Santa Ana or maybe a late dinner at an old-school, white table cloth, restaurant behind the Plaza Mayor.

All perfect ways to spend time in a grand city.

Some locals have other ideas, however.

In fact, on an evening last week, 80,000 of them turned up at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, itself something of a tourist attraction, to watch the official introduction of the former Manchester United player Cristiano Ronaldo to the team.

Count that out again - 80,000 people.

All there to watch and listen as Ronaldo, dressed in his Real Madrid strip, said nothing much of interest beyond the predictable platitudes to anything and everyone associated with the free-spending Spanish club that now pays his astronomical salary.

Real Madrid gave Manchester United around $300 million to acquire Ronaldo's contract, cash that no right-thinking company (key word) would turn down for any of its assets.

Ronaldo, ever immodest, told the masses that he thought Madrid's excess was appropriate.

"I'm happy to be the most expensive player in the world and I'm going to prove that they did the right thing to pay good money for me," he announced at a press conference after his introduction to fans.

Apparently, there is something of an economic crisis enveloping the planet but it obviously hasn't hit Madrid, or the higher echelons of football just yet.

By the beginning of July, Real Madrid had spent close to $500 million (that's Australian dollars) on transfer fees alone in its 2009 recruiting drive. That money, distributed between other rich clubs like Manchester United, Milan, and Lyon for their talented players, is funded mostly by bank and building society loans.

Real Madrid President Florentino Perez believes the investment to be worth it and has convinced the banks that the club will recoup the money through replica shirt sales and marketing.

There you have it: the President of one of the world's "richest" clubs has revealed his business is actually the rag trade rather than football.

But with 80,000 people turning up on a balmy summer night to see nothing much, it's possible Perez is smarter than most of us.

Footballers now have more reach globally than most other live public figures.

A conference in London last week, that attracted former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and film director David Puttnam as speakers, discussed exactly that.

"Most world leaders I have met enjoy something about sport, and some even play," Blair said at the Beyond Sport talkfest. "But I think over the years it has become of a different magnitude, and we are only just beginning to understand the utility of sports."

Blair told a story about visiting a Japanese classroom where the word "Beckham" provided the kids a clue as to who Blair was.

Puttnam, the director of films Chariots of Fire and The Killing Fields, thinks sport is the new global power.

"There is no movie star in the world who could get thousands of people to wait six hours just to see their arrival, as Cristiano Ronaldo did this week," Puttnam said. "The whole level of globalization of sports is bigger."

• by Matthew Hall at 01:29 AM
• Comments (2)

Saturday, July 4, 2009

When Worlds Don't Collide

If they could, would Australia's Indigenous kids want to be David Beckham?

Two very different stories. Two very different worlds.

The first takes place in Arlington, Virginia, outside of Washington DC, a few years ago.

David Beckham, who had only just joined American Major League Soccer team Los Angeles Galaxy, had taken his teammates out for dinner at a steakhouse.

Beckham's recent arrival in the US had won headlines around the world, not just because of his reported potential USD$48 million salary but because, well, Los Angeles Galaxy?

It wasn't Real Madrid was it?

This dinner, with 10 teammates, would demonstrate how Beckham's world was so far from his fellow Galaxy players.

When the steaks were eaten and the bill arrived, tension mounted.

Landon Donovan, the team's captain, knew this moment, insignificant in many ways but totally revealing in many others, could make or break how Beckham would fit into his new team.

Here was the thing: Beckham's salary was 100-times more than many of his new teammates.

Donovan, the next-biggest earner at Galaxy after Beckham on close to USD$1 million, had previously picked up bills for his less enumerated teammates.

But on this occasion? Egalitarian Beckham put in his share of the bill and passed it along for teammates to put in what they owed.

Regardless of how the bill was split, and regardless of whether millionaire Beckham should have picked up the check for his first team dinner, perception is everything in professional football.

It's apparent with what players wear off the field, with what vehicles they drive to training, with their choice of wives or girlfriend.

For Beckham, who should have known better, the perception among his poorer teammates was that the superstar millionaire new boy was a cheapskate.

"You can look at it two ways," said Galaxy player Chris Klein. "Here's this guy that's making a lot of money, and maybe he should pick up the tab. But the other side of it is, maybe he's trying so hard to be one of the guys, if he's paying for everything then he's not one of the guys anymore."

It's a highwire walk and Beckham, who always wants to be "one of the guys", was likely to fall off no matter which decision he took.

If indeed he actually did make a conscious decision.

At the other end of the football universe, so far away from the showbiz circus of Becksmania that you can barely see it, Indigenous kids from Australia will gather in Townsville Queensland this week for the first Indigenous Football Festival.

As a Football Federation Australia press release claims, the festival is "an integral part of the National Football Development Plan. The Indigenous Football Development Program is a 10 year national plan to increase the number of Indigenous people playing football."

Said FFA CEO, Ben Buckley: "We believe we have a responsibility to encourage more young people of Indigenous background to play football as a way to improve their life through better health, better education and improved skills."

Buckley is right, if only because football/soccer/whatever-you-want-to-call-it has a poor track record of developing Indigenous talent even when it claims a high profile roll call local soccer legends that includes the legendary Harry Williams, the late Charlie Perkins, and James Moriarty.

You can head into the bush and see thousands of Australian kids wearing Socceroos, Barcelona, Manchester United, and Liverpool shirts. The catch is most of them play their football Aussie Rules style.

That's not a bad thing but maybe this week's tournament, that includes games between Yallorin Of The North, Borroloola Cyclones and Giralang Galang, is a step toward an Indigenous player one day being at the same table as David Beckham.

And picking up the tab.

In totally dud news, former Sun Herald sports editor James Carey passed away last week after an illness, aged 41. Among other great things, it should be noted James was a driving force behind Fairfax's Sydney publications adopting the word "football" over "soccer" as editorial policy. RIP.

I have been on Twitter for a while. You can follow me here.

• by Matthew Hall at 01:01 AM
• Comments (11)