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World Cup 2010: Groups of Death - and of Life

Group of Death – a group so overwhelmingly weighty that an established thoroughbred, a form horse or even a fancied dark horse is bound to fall at the first fence. There was, inevitably, a lot of talk before the World Cup draw in Cape Town about potential Group/s of Death. In fact the term seems to have become increasingly established (nay clichéd) over the years. FIFA ran a piece on Groups of Death ahead of the draw saying that “of the ten sections which are generally accepted as the most difficult over the last 50 years, Argentina have featured on no less than five occasions”, while “Argentina, in 1978, and Brazil, in 1958 and 1970, are the only nations to have emerged from a 'Group of Death' and gone on to win the trophy”. Perhaps it is time for FIFA to go the whole hog and designate an Official Group of Death ahead of each World Cup. Teams successfully negotiating the group could then be offered some kind of reward – extra half-time oranges perhaps – to make their lives easier in the all-important knockout stages.

After 1½ hours of moderately entertaining television (which was if nothing else a welcome distraction from the Tiger Woods saga), the Cape Town draw had thrown up two obvious Group-of-Death candidates – appropriately enough, the groups lettered G (Brazil, Côte d'Ivoire, North Korea, Portugal) and D (Australia, Germany, Ghana, Serbia). At the same time the draw gave some teams ostensibly easy “Groups of Life”. This was the case notably for England, Italy and Spain but arguably also for France too, who surely can’t have hoped for much better than Mexico, South Africa and Uruguay having not been seeded for the draw. What happened to “no such thing as an easy game in international football”? For teams having it really easy an extra handicap should be introduced – yes, that’s right: no half-time oranges. But that’s quite enough from me – let’s hear what our resident pundits think about how the groups and teams are shaping up, from A to H...

Video technology has got to come

The unfortunate events in the France-Ireland World Cup Qualifier have highlighted yet again the need for football’s governing body to reconsider the use of video technology on key decisions. No one can hold it against the referee that he didn’t see Thierry Henry’s handball – his view was blocked. One can question why the linesman didn’t see it – maybe there was someone in the way, and, after all, it happened very quickly and he was a long way away. Everyone can get on their soap box and criticise Henry for doing it – but which of the professionals on the pitch would not have done the same thing in the same situation?

For me, the point is not so much that the referee has made an error. That will always happen. The point is that all TV viewers in the world were made aware of the mistake within 10 seconds – and the poor old ref is left there with his authority thoroughly undermined. Surely it is the sport of football and the fans that pay to get into the stadium that should benefit from such technology, rather than merely those sat at home? So many commercial aspects of football have hit the 21st century leading other sports that it’s a glaringly obvious contradiction that soccer lags behind on something as fundamental as this. One incidental bonus: it would be nice to shut up the likes of Alex Ferguson and others every (rare) time a decision goes against them.

One merely has to look at rugby, cricket and tennis as sports which have taken advantage of video replays – to see how quickly the change has been accepted, and how much it has diffused potential tensions on the pitch. While I do recall the “entertainment” value of a John McEnroe tantrum on the court when a ball was wrongly given “out”, this was a miniscule element relative to the entertainment he provided by playing such fantastic tennis – which was the main reason I always looked forward to watching him play.

The obvious question for video evidence in football is: which decisions should be left to the referee, and on which issues should he be allowed to consult the “5th referee”? In the knowledge that this will probably trigger a few thoughts, here are my views on what should be introduced for the World Cup:

Robert Enke – a tragedy for all

German national goalkeeper Robert Enke was buried yesterday, 5 days after he committed suicide. It was a piece of news that shocked a country – and 40 000 attended a memorial service at the Hannover 96 stadium yesterday, with some of the proceedings shown live on TV, and the service being the top story on all the news bulletins yesterday.

Last Tuesday evening, 32-year-old Enke walked in front of a train. The following day, his wife gave a press conference confirming that he was suffering from depression – and had been, on and off, for 6 years – and was desperate that it did not become public. Having lost a 3-year-old daughter with heart failure a few years ago, he was scared that the authorities might take away their 7-month-old adopted daughter, if news of his illness got out, it seems. This medical condition was something that he had managed to hide from his team-mates – and parents – not to mention the general public. In fact, that was perhaps the greatest shock of all, because Enke seemed to be a sports personality who stood out from the rest, as bright, intelligent, and with his feet very firmly on the ground.

The Player
Robert Enke was a superb goalkeeper. Not the tallest keeper in the Bundesliga, but possibly the most agile, the most consistent and, arguably, the most fearless. Germany has a habit of naming its number 1 goalkeeper and sticking with him. (Klinsmann decided 6 months before the 2006 World Cup that Jens Lehmann would be the Number 1 – ahead of Oliver Kahn.) Even with a plethora of good German keepers – Butt, Adler, Neuer, Wiese, Weidenfeller, Schäfer – there was no great controversy when Manager Joachim Löw plumped for Enke to replace Jens Lehmann – and Enke deserved the status of Number 1. Even though he’d been out of action with a virus infection, and Leverkusen’s young René Adler had played brilliantly against Russia to secure German qualification for the World Cup, most people seemed to assume that Enke would still be the Number 1 in South Africa next year. In the annual vote by Bundesliga players, organised by the Kicker magazine, he was voted best goalkeeper in the league in at least 2 of the last 5 years.

Having learned his trade with Carl-Zeiss Jena and played a handful of games in the 2nd Bundesliga, he moved to Borussia Mönchengladbach in 1996, and made his breakthrough in the 1998-99 season where he was absolutely outstanding in a particularly poor team. They finished bottom of the league, but would probably have been relegated by Christmas if it weren’t for him. He then moved to Benfica (trained by Jupp Heynckes), where he played 77 games in 3 years – picking up the language quickly, and emerging as captain. From there he moved to Barcelona in 2002/3, where things didn’t go so well. He only got a handful of games – and so went on loan to Fenerbahce at the start of the next season. In Istanbul, however, he only played 1 game – a disastrous 3-0 defeat, at the end of which his own fans pelted him with missiles and booed him off the pitch. He decided that was enough, and had a few months out of contract before finishing the season in the Spanish 2nd Division with Tenerifa. In July 2004, he returned to Germany, signing up with regional club Hannover 96. Within a couple of years he was their captain, and their most important player – only ever missing games from injuries picked up through his own bravery. After the 2008 European Championships in Austria-Switzerland, he broke into the German national team, and, when fit, was first choice in the qualifying games.

In recent years, he was linked with moves to bigger clubs – and the chance to play in the European competitions – but he turned down moves to 1FC Nürnberg after they won the Cup, and Bayern München, it seems - preferring to stay in the more provincial, modest surroundings of Hannover.

The outpouring of grief – the German national team cancelled a friendly against Chile scheduled for Saturday, because they couldn’t face playing – is unprecedented in Germany. The whole city of Hannover seemed to go into mourning, when the news broke, with candlelight vigils outside the stadium and a silent procession around the city last Wednesday. Never have so many people attended a memorial service in Germany. Parallels have been drawn with the situation after Princess Diana’s death in the UK.

The Bundesliga is back: how the 2009/10 season is shaping up

Unlike the English Premiership, and the leagues in Spain, Italy and many other countries, the new German Bundesliga season has got under way with maybe 8 or 9 teams, i.e. half the league, in with a chance of winning the title. Although Bayern Munich remains the bookmakers’ favourite (by some distance), at the start of the season the bookies reckoned teams as obscure as Hoffenheim had more chance of taking the title than Aston Villa or Manchester City in England, or Fiorentina in Italy. After all, Wolfsburg came from nowhere to win it last year. Indeed all German neutrals were delighted that Bayern started the season so poorly under their new coach Louis Van Gaal (2 points from the first 3 games).

One thing football fans often forget is that the German League is in fact the best supported league in Europe in terms of crowd numbers. Logical, I suppose, as it also has the biggest population. In the build up to the World Cup in 2006, many of the leading stadiums had a facelift – and Bayern Munich and Borussia Mönchengladbach built brand new stadiums – and many of them (Dortmund, Hamburg, Köln, Schalke) have an atmosphere as good as anything in the Premiership. However, this advantage has been lost to the better TV deals negotiated in England, Spain and Italy, which allows those clubs to buy the best players, and leaves the Bundesliga punching below its weight. (Things are slowly changing though, and it is interesting to note that for the first time this season only 5 of the 9 Bundesliga games take place at the traditional 3.30pm Saturday afternoon slot. As well as one Friday evening game (8.30), there's a game on Saturday evening (6.30), and 2 on Sunday (3.30 and 5.30). Good news for German couch potatoes, methinks). In summer 2007 – after Bayern had had a disastrous season, failing to qualify for the Champions League – they splashed out on Frank Ribery and Luca Toni, the biggest name signings seen for many a year. Is it symbolic that both Ribery and Toni were expected to leave Bayern before the transfer window closed? Even though they stayed, I wouldn’t be surprised if one or the other leaves at Christmas.

With Diego leaving for Juventus, the Bundesliga lost arguably its most creative player – and the most interesting new names arriving in Germany pre-season were probably Pavel Pogrebnyak (to Stuttgart – but only after the 2006/7 Champions failed to reach agreement with Klaas-Jan Huntelaar over his wage demands) and Anatoly Tymoschchuk (to Bayern Munich) – names unlikely to boost season-ticket sales. Of course the only exception was the late signature of Arjen Robben to Bayern Munich – who got 2 goals on his debut a couple of days later. Apart from Robben, the biggest transfers in Germany this summer were “domestic”. Lucas Podolski left Bayern Munich to return to his beloved 1 FC Köln, and Bayern forked out some €30 million on Mario Gomez from Stuttgart and took Ivica Olic on a free transfer from Hamburg. While Gomez has attracted headlines from the foreign press about his dire performances for Germany - see his remarkable miss against Austria in EURO2008 (and an identical one in an earlier friendly) - he has probably been the best striker in the Bundesliga for 3 seasons now, shooting Stuttgart to the title 2 years ago. The concept of buying the best players from rival teams in the same league - in part, to weaken them - is a tactic used by rich clubs across the world. In this case, it will also strengthen Bayern as Gomez is now ahead of Klose and Toni in the pecking order. (For the record, Toni made his debut last week in the German 3rd Division playing for Bayern Reserves!) Olic can play a bit, too.

No, the new season is not startling for the close-season transfers – but for the managerial carousel. Only 8 of last season’s 18 teams went into the first game of the season with the same Manager as in May! And one of them (Dieter Hecking at Hannover 96) was sacked after 3 games! The most amazing one for me was Mainz 05, which got promoted last season having finished second in the 2. Bundesliga. They got knocked out of the Cup in the 1st Round, and then sacked their Manager 2 days before the 1st League game of the season! Can’t help feeling that a few more may follow before May 2010. Curiously, both Hannover and Mainz have appointed untried managers from within the club, e.g. the second team coach - presumably because they have had to pay off the ex-Manager, and a cheap coach is particularly attractive.

So who are all these teams who might win the league? Below is a brief word about all of the clubs, more or less in my subjective order of expectation. Before that, I would just like to pick out a couple of players who might shine this season – and at next summer’s World Cup. The most obvious guy is Werder Bremen’s Mesut Özil, who is probably good enough to step into Diego’s shoes. I would argue that he’s probably the most creative player Germany has had since Mehmet Scholl, i.e. in the last 10-15 years. He scored the goal that won the Cup last May, and seemingly won the European Under-21 Final against England by himself (aided by woeful defending, I seem to recall). Quantum of Sport’s own worldinmotion thought he was quite useful in the recent Germany-South Africa game. We’ll see how he manages to combine with his new teammate Marco Marin, signed from Mönchengladbach – an exciting dribbler, who has broken into the national team recently. The other names I wanted to mention are 2 keepers – both baby-faced under 25-year-olds, who have come through in the past couple of years: René Adler of Bayer Leverkusen and Manuel Neuer of Schalke. Bayern has already tried to sign Neuer.

EPL preview: Chelsea - Ancelotti: Scolari or Hiddink?

The QoS Premier League preview analysis moves on to Chelsea. Long-standing Blues man 4-3-3 gives us his thoughts...

As someone who remembers Saturday afternoons at Stamford Bridge in the old Second Division, I find it difficult to be disappointed with finishing 3rd last season – the lowest that Chelsea have finished since Abramovic arrived on the scene in 2003. On the basis that Arsenal are still regrouping and will not hit top form for any sustained period this season (try telling Everton that! – ed), I think it’s just a question of which of the top three positions Chelsea will occupy at the end of the 2009/10 campaign.

With Chelsea having seen far fewer comings and goings than the other Big Four clubs – and the only one to have changed manager - the key question is whether or not the new man, Carlo Ancelotti, can maximize the potential of more or less the same squad in a way that Phil Scolari was not able to achieve consistently but that Guus Hiddink was able to do for most of the final third of last season.

I must admit my admiration for Hiddink and feel it’s a pity that he hasn’t stayed on. Last season, Hiddink was admittedly somewhat fortunate in that he took over a Chelsea side that was clearly under-performing and had key player Michael Essien just coming back from a lengthy injury. But at the same time, he instilled an impressive tactical discipline - I would argue that the two-leg performance in the Champions League semi-final against Barcelona was the best defensive display by a British club side in the last ten years.

His main challenge (as is the case for any incoming manager in any walk of life) will be forging a close relationship with his players and particularly John Terry and Frank Lampard, the mainstays on the pitch. More specific challenges will be getting better performances out of the likes of Cech and Ballack, achieving peaceful co-existence between Ashley Cole and Yuri Zhirkov, maintaining the Drogba/Anelka threat and – possibly most difficult of all over a long season – keeping peace with the fringe players like Kalou, Pizzaro and Ivanovic. It is with this in mind that I can’t help feeling that it might help to offload Deco before the end of the transfer window.

So, let’s have a look at the team…

Goalkeeper.

There is no question that Petr Cech is first choice in goal, ahead of stalwart reserve Hilario and the newly-acquired Ross Turnbull. Cech suffered a series of unfortunate events at the end of last season and his confidence seemed to be in question - he’s probably the Chelsea player that most wanted the new season to get under way. If he gets injured, however, I fear that Chelsea will face serious problems.

Central defence.

Who partners John Terry? My preference would be for Ricardo Carvalho, whose reliability and consistency over several seasons has been seriously underestimated by many commentators. Alex settled in well at the end of last season and has a fantastic shot but I have a few doubts about his defensive abilities and he is frankly a yellow / red card waiting to happen. Terry's fitness is the sine qua non of a successful season though.

Right Back.

José Bosingwa was possibly the most important improvement that Scolari brought with him last season. Moreover, with Ivanovic in reserve, the Blues should be as good as any other club in this position.

Left Back.

I am a fan of Ashley Cole, and feel that he is pretty much in a class of his own in the Premier League. Hence my surprise when I heard about the purchase of Yuri Zhirkov, who I see as a similar type of player. From the point of view of balance, I can’t help feeling that Cole is better combined with a player like Joe Cole (the commentator’s nightmare), or even the starlet summer signing Daniel Sturridge. I hope I’m wrong, because I really like the look of Zhirkov playing for Russia.

Centre Midfield.

There is no question that Essien, Ballack and Lampard remain world class players – and (?John Obi) Mickel (Obi John?) is improving in the anchoring Makelele role. I would like Ballack to score a few more goals, as he did in the Bundesliga, but as long as Lampard is scoring, one can’t complain. Deco is a further option, but I feel that his inability to tackle – or run great distances – puts him well below the others in the pecking order. Given this squad, I was astonished to read about Ancelotti’s interest in Andrea Pirlo – this must just be through their long Milan association. Realistically, Chelsea does not need any additions in central midfield.

Wide midfield.

The wide midfielders have been very important to Chelsea in recent seasons following José Mourinho’s sergeant major-like insistence on discipline and teamwork. This was best exemplified in the transformation (or some might say shackling) of Joe Cole from luxury player to all-round contributor. It will be interesting to see how Cole performs this season after his injury-blighted last term. He will certainly find it hard to displace the present incumbent on the left, Florent Malouda, who really flourished towards the back-end of last season after initially struggling with the pace of the Premier League. Malouda will also need to maintain his form in order to fob off the aforementioned new arrival Zhirkov.

The other option that Chelsea has adopted recently has been to play strikers in the wide positions, namely Salomon Kalou and Nicolas Anelka. But however well the latter performed there for Hiddink, there is something unsatisfactory about it game-in, game-out, not least given that “le sulk” was top scorer in the Premier League last season and is damned good through the middle.

Strikers.

Despite his prima donna posturings, Didier Drogba is undeniably a vital part of the Chelsea machine because he has the complete centre-forward game. Not only is he a player comfortable with his back to goal, and therefore an outlet for any team-mate anywhere on the pitch, in the air or on the ground, but he is also a threat both running with the ball and running on to through balls. A handful for any defence, Drogba has become vital for enabling Lampard (and potentially Ballack) to strike from midfield.

If Ancellotti can man-manage Anelka and get him to play the whole season in tandem with Drogba rather than as an in-and-out solo act then Chelsea look to be extremely strong.

It looks as if there will be a further option this season, namely Claudio Pizzaro, the Peruvian who spent most of last season helping out Werder Bremen. He is more Drogba than Anelka, which may be useful in the course of a long season.

As I write this, I note that Andrei Shevchenko is set to “see out his contract” at Chelsea this season. Not sure that I really believe this, but if he does, you can’t help but wonder if he’ll even make the bench. His game may be suited to the Italian or the Spanish league, where teams tend to use a 5-speed gearbox but the Premier League is 2-speed - fast and faster - and patently not for Sheva.

Prediction: 1st or 2nd

Key Man: Carlo Ancelotti