Here we go again

Day -317 WorldCup2018

Ah, August. Summer's in full swing. At the beginning of the month the end of school (if that's where you are in life) is long enough behind you to have forgotten about it and the beginning is still far enough off to not have to think about it. And the end of the last football season is now a distant memory and you are ready for a new season to begin.

Of course there is now enough football in the summer to keep any addict happy: Gold Cup, Confederations Cup, International Champions Cup (aka useless exhibition matches for American money), and Champions League pre-qualifiers. But there's no Champions in it yet, so who cares? But hold on. I see the Champions of Malta, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Bulgaria, Austria and many, many more playing now. I got that wrong. It's in the later rounds in August and in the group stages that are filled with non-Champions playing in the competition for Champions: those from England, Germany, France, Italy, Spain.

But I did not mean to so negative. August is a month of anticipation for a football fan. And for those of a lower division team in England it starts sooner. This Friday the English Championship starts. And so begins another season of "can Aston Villa get promoted"? They've gone for the experienced, short term strategy in their transfer approach: John Terry, 36, Chris Samba and Glenn Whelan, both 33. The "buying our way out of the league" tactic didn't work last year. So now it's, "let's hope we get promoted and will buy better, younger players next summer." Hmm...

It's not just about Aston Villa and the Championship, though. There's all the excitement of new players in the Premier Leagues, how they're going to fit in, who the new unexpected star will be. And the World Cup qualifiers are back: who's going to make a big move, which big country is going to lose touch?

August, oh August. Here we go again, with the good and the bad.

TFC vs Blue Jays

Day -318 WorldCup2018

I watched a little bit of Toronto FC beating one of their closest rivals in the league standings, New York City FC, 4-0 today. It's what the media like to call a "statement win" but both the coach, Greg Vanney, and the captain, Michael Bradley, called it a "good day".

It's a different psychology in North American sports to that in Europe, or elsewhere. TFC now have a five point lead at the top of the Eastern Conference and are looking very good. But whereas if this was the latter stages of the English Premier League and a team would be counting the number of points needed to win the league, in Major League Soccer teams are looking to make the playoffs and that's where the real business starts. Ten points clear at the end of the regular season means nothing, or very little, once the playoffs start. First place does give the team a bye in the first round and easier draw, but finishing first does in no way guarantee a league championship. So I completely agree with Bradley and Vanney and their modest and guarded response.

I also agree with the match report that I read that bemoaned the fact that this wonderful win will still be overshadowed in the online and print reports tomorrow by the Toronto Blue Jays' incredible comeback win from 10-4 down in the ninth inning. As the reporter pointed out it is sad that #TFC are Toronto 's best sports team yet more prominence is given to a baseball team that is probably not going to make the playoffs and is having a pretty dismal season. Yet one spectacular win is sexier than an incredibly impressive win by #TFC. I have admitted that I have become a baseball fan and today was pretty exciting but the thought of TFC going one better than last year still trumps everything.

What I also still don't get, though, is the huge amount of empty seats at TFC's game today. The attendance was posted as being over 29,000 but there was absolutely no way that there were that many people sitting in seats. And even though I always joke about all the people walking around inside the stadium, there could not have been thousands of them at one point at the bar or the bathrooms. Methinks that despite, and because of, the success of the team there are many season ticket holders who can not re-sell their tickets because the club is setting the prices too high for returned tickets. Two seasons ago I bought tickets for Kaka and Orlando, in August with the team in reach of the playoffs, for $30. I looked for tickets for last weekend and this week and the same seats were $75 each.

By the way, there still were many people walking around inside the stadium. After the third goal, midway through the second half, I could even see people leaving. I am a big fan of TFC. They are my team here. I just still need to get around some of these idiosyncrasies of being a football watcher here. I wouldn't say a fan because the real fans do stay to the end.

Neymar, gold medal winner

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I can look forward, to Russia 2018, but while I wait I can build up my own excitement by looking back.

Neymar is in the news now for being the subject of a 'when you thought it couldn't any crazier' transfer bid by PSG. But just over a year ago he was Brazil's hero as he scored the winning penalty against Germany that gave Brazil their first ever Olympic football gold medal. Is he worth $200m? Is anybody worth that much? Has the football world completely lost any sense of reality? The answer to the last question has to be yes (before Neymar and PSG see Manchester City's total money spent so far on defenders). But when there are moments like this, and similar ones at a World Cup, for that moment when that goal is scored and the local supporters go wild, it's easy to forget the money and just appreciate this is somebody doing what they love, and that they are very, very good at it. And after the 7-1 in 2014, who can begrudge the man the sheer joy of redemption for himself and his country (even if you don't agree that anybody should spend $200m on a football player)?

Night off

Day -320 WorldCup2018

One of those days when I'm just marking the day. I hope for something footbally interesting to happen tomorrow.

Hatem Ben Arfa

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I came across a story about Hatem Ben Arfa, once an unappreciated (so he thought) star at Newcastle and more recently an unwanted non-star at Paris Saint-Germain. Ben Arfa is in the market for a new club, but as of yet the market is not interested. His former club, Nice, is one of those clubs where he will not be going.

That is the story but not not what got my attention. Who remembers the days of football players and managers speaking their minds with not much eloquence. "The boys done a good job today. They got stuck in and we got the result." At least that was the case in England, where in the 80s and 90s the media started talking about the perceived higher intelligence of the "continental" players. Now every football player, manager and club owner seems ready to regale as with their philosophical musings at will. There's Pep, and before him Andre Villas-Boas, and his "project". And there's Jose Mourinho and, well, his every press conference. And so many managers and owners seem to have a view on the football world which they want to deliver in the most poetic, nonsensical way possible. Maybe it's Eric Cantona's fault for setting the bar so high with talk of seagulls and trawlers.

So enter Nice's president, Jean-Pierre Rivere, and his contribution to this world of football prose greatness. He didn't just say no, no way is Ben Arfa coming back because he wants too much money. Ok, he did kind of say that but then went a little further to add a beautiful quote to the story:
"We were very happy to have him at our place, and it was a beautiful story we shared. However, it is the past and we need to turn the page." A beautiful story. Wonderful. I can just see the movie, with Ben Arfa driving down the long, tree lined avenue away from the Nice stadium fighting the urge to look in his mirror, while Rivere stands in the window of his office, a tear in his eye while "Ben Arfa's greatest moments with Nice" plays on his 60 inch TV in the background set to the Chariots of Fire theme music.

He's a footballer, off to whoever will pay him the most money. End of. Maybe he'll fit into Pep's project, which now consists of spending a billion dollars to buy any half-decent defender. He may move onto buying up any midfielder he can get his hands, or his owners' money, on. And then I'd love to watch him blabber away when he is asked about young player development, the hallmark of a true great coach. Sorry, Hatem and Jean-Pierre, this was supposed to be about you.

USA: Gold Cup winners

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The Americans strike Gold! Golden Americans! Our Gold!

Many years ago after watching football with my Dad we would play the game of "guess the next day's newspaper headline as we walked home from the stadium.. It would often be something like "Gallant Malta come close" or "Malta given good hiding". Today my guess should be whether the American football team will even get a big headline after winning the Gold Cup tonight. Despite it's increasing popularity football is still behind the major American sports. But with only baseball going on right now they may get a good mention.

It was, as Steven Caldwell said in his commentary, an intriguing match. But the intrigue was exciting. The Americans had the majority of the possession and the Jamaicans, who looked like eleven incredibly fit and powerful athletes, were organised in defence and incredibly quick on the counter attack. Altidore scored a beauty direct from a free kick right on the stroke of halftime and Jamaica equalised four minutes into the second half. After that the excitement grew. The Americans seemed even more determined to score and the Jamaicans looked like they were enjoying the quick breaks even more. Not quite Brazil 1982, but some of their quick switches from defence to all out attack was exhilarating to watch. In the end, two minutes from the end of the 90 minutes, one lapse in the Jamaican defence allowed Jordan Morris to score the winner from just inside the penalty area.
Jamaica could have dwelled on their bad luck when their goalkeeper, Andre Blake, best goalie of the tournament by far, was injured early on. It looked like he might have broken his hand while stopping a follow up attempt after a wonderful save first time round. But his replacement was more than adequate and was quite spectacular in denying Clint Dempsey his American goal scoring record.

Now it wouldn't be a football match in the US without their being a little quirky story. Or without me thinking it was quirky. And this wasn't the start time, which I saw advertised separately as 6pm and 6.30pm, but they started at 6.50pm. It did have to do with time. Three minutes of added time was signaled after the 90. During the first minute of extra time, the US made a tactical, time wasting substitution. The Jamaican players vehemently protested at how slowly the player was leaving the pitch. The referee gave the Jamaicans the international sign for "don't worry, I have stopped my watch." Not long after he showed Tim Howard a yellow card for time wasting. So that's an extra 30 seconds for the substitution (supposedly the rule when a team makes a change during added time) and more time for Tim Howard's discretion for which he was punished. If he was deliberately wasting time then that time would be added on, right? At exactly 90 minutes, the ball went out of play. As it was slowly retrieved the ref blew for full time. No time added at all. Maybe the ref figured that there was no way Jamaica could regain possession and score. So why bother playing just to watch the American players keep possession.

CONCACAF may not have a championship of the same high quality as UEFA. But the Gold Cup sure was fun to watch. Maybe next time there can be no European clubs on tour while it's going on so all the focus is on the Gold Cup. And that's going to happen, I think? Ha! No way.

On Niue time

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Once again I think of the Pacific Island nation of Niue, where it is still day -324. All this baseball on TV is throwing me off.

Today it's the Gold Cup final, USA-Jamaica, 6pm California time. I'll be watching and hopefully there'll be something fun to write about.

Jamaica! (without the clown)

Day -325 WorldCup2018

This is the conclusion to yesterday's post. While Manchester United and Real Madrid were clowning around in Santa Clara (with Ronald MacDonald and a laughable penalty shoot out) Jamaica and Mexico were playing a match that actually counted for a spot in the Gold Cup Final.
It was an entertaining match, as many in this tournament have been. And it was competitive entertainment, not a money making, pointless exhibition like the one in San Francisco. I reiterate what I said yesterday: I feel sorry for the Gold Cup, the CONCACAF championship, for how it has to battle to get any prominence in the crowded calendar.

Because I stopped writing at halftime yesterday I didn't get to share the joy, the Jamaican joy, of the wonderful winning 88th minute goal. I'm always a fan of a goal from open play, but the tension of the build-up to a free kick at the end of a drawn match with penalties beckoning (no extra time in the Gold Cup), followed by the eruption of emotions when the ball hits the net, is a special football moment. And the celebration was pretty interesting too.

So Jamaica will play the US in the final on Wednesday in Santa Clara at the same venue as the United-Real show. It should be entertaining, with or without a man dressed as a clown leading the teams onto the pitch. The Americans will attack, the Jamaicans will be pretty quick on the counter, and Clint Dempsey will probably score the winner.

I looked up tickets on Stubhub, just out of interest to see if it's a sell out. There are tickets available for $20. A surprise, maybe. But what me think "what?" more that that was that there was 2 categories for the event" match tickets and parking passes. Yes, you can buy a parking pass in a parking lot pretty close to the stadium for $62. Buying match tickets and hoping to sell them for a profit is pretty common. But parking passes?

Here is the goal that will have many Jamaicans looking for good parking spots in Santa Clara on Wednesday evening.

Gold CUp semi-final

Day -326 WorldCup2018

The CONCACAF Gold Cup second semifinal is on right now. It's ten minutes in and Mexico are, as the commentators' cliche goes, really taking the game to Jamaica.

It's a funny thing the Gold Cup. The winners can claim the right to be called the best team in North and Central America and the Caribbean. But the tournament sort of gets lost in the packed summer football calendar. Mexico are playing with a B team. Only one player in the team plays his club football outside of Mexico, and he plays for Houston Dynamo. Mexico concentrated on the Confederations Cup. Now most of those players are back training with their clubs, or playing pre-season friendlies. The Americans only called up some of their more experienced players once they had made it to the quarterfinals. There is a feeling that them and the Mexicans are more concerned about the World Cup qualifiers at the end of the summer.

Then you have teams like Martinique and French Guiana, who aren't Fifa members, playing in the tournament. Between the two biggest countries not taking it very seriously, the participation of non-Fifa members in one of the Confederations that is part of Fifa, the number of European teams playing friendlies in the US and taking attention away from the Gold Cup, the regular play in the MLS while a major international tournament takes place in the same country I almost feel a degree of sympathy for CONCACAF that ithey can't even get their showpiece tournament its' own spotlight.

Oh,and look at that. As if to add to the surrealism of it all the cameras just showed us a shot of a smiling Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, sitting in the stands all by himself. What's he smiling about? Laughing maybe? And why does nobody want to sit with him?

The match is being played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. It was the venue for the 1994 World Cup Final. It's sadly a lot emptier than it was for that match. It feels like a Mexican home match but when you think that Barcelona or Manchester United can attract crowds of 80,000 for a friendly in the US, it must be odd for the organisers that they cannot sell out a semifinal featuring Mexico, just outside of Los Angeles.

I hope that the Gold Cup does get more recognition because this match, like many others, has been very entertaining. The players on the pitch obviously want a win. They're not thinking about the bad timing of the tournament.

Yes, I have spent the whole first half writing this but it's taken me a while because I've had to stop many times to see what the commentators have been getting exciting about. Mind you, I should say "the commentator" because the technical commentator, Steven Caldwell doesn't get excited about much. The ex-Sunderland, Burnley, Birmingham and Toronto FC Scottish defender does his job of being technical a bit too seriously. Throw in some oohs and aahs there, Stevo!

Halftime, 0-0. It's perfectly set up for a winning goal in the second half. Right? That's me drawing inspiration from a former Maltese coach who told his TV audience that to win a football match you have to score more goals than your opponent.

Clint Dempsey...still making a difference

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Clint Dempsey. Another one of those players who seem to never get old just led the US into the Gold Cup final. He came on with 20 minutes to go. Within a couple of minutes he had played a wonderfully timed pass to set up Josy Altidore for the first goal. A little later Dempsey scored direct from a free kick to make it 2-0 and game over.

Dempsey's career looked to be over last August when he had to stop playing for his club, Seattle Sounders, and the US after he was found to have an irregular heartbeat. But he was given the all clear to start playing again in February and, at the age of 34, showed again today that he can still make a difference.

Night off

Day -328 WorldCup2018

I like doing this every night. I enjoy it.

But not tonight. Day slipped away. See you tomorrow.

John Gibbons: press conferences fun

Day 329 WorldCup2018

I've written before about the uselessness of most football managers' and players' press conferences, unless they involve Jose Mourinho or Harry Redknapp. Every Friday, before the weekend league matches, or before an international, the manager and a couple of players are told to take turns sitting in front of the press to answer questions like:

So what kind of match are you expecting?

Are you going to miss so and so who's out injured?
 
What do think about the rumours of so and so joining such and such a team?
 
What do you think of Brexit and how it will affect the transfer market?

And the reporters write their reports with the same old standard replies:

We are going to play as a team.

It doesn't matter who we are playing, we take every game seriously.

We want to be better every week and challenge for trophies.

We will wait and see what happens.

About the rumoured transfer or Brexit?
About everything, it's useless speculating and I don't want to comment right now. Don't want to or can't?

Ok, lads, I think we're out of time.

But all these comically terrible press conferences pale into comical insignificance compared to the gong show (or shows) of the Floyd Mayweather/Conor MacGregor roadshow going on right now. The boxer and the fighter paid to beat people up for entertainment in the sport (?) I will not mention are putting on press conferences for suckers who don't realize that they are falling for the act that will net each of these guys $200m each. They're press conferences on steroids, steroids so far off the scale of banned substances that WADA wouldn't even have a classification for them. I haven't watched any, even for the purpose of research, couldn't bring myself to. Hearing about them on the news was painful enough.

Amidst all the faked politeness (footballers) and manufactured drama there is one sports manager who lets is be known that he has no time for yet another day of dumb questions that he is obliged to answer. He doesn't mope, he doesn't pull a Mourinho sulk. He just has fun with it. And his answers that make fun of the ridiculous questions are the entertainment. Ladies and gentlemen : John Gibbons, manager of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team. He takes saying it as it is to a new level of honesty, his level which he sets.

When an international break is not an international break

Day -330. WorldCup2018

Where's my inspiration today? I had something earlier today but it's gone. Ah, I got it!

Toronto FC played an MLS match today without 8 regular players. Two of them are injured. The other 6 are on International duty with their countries at the Gold Cup. And this is TFC's first match after a two week, wait for it, international break. When I read that in a report on TFC fan website, mentioned without any irony, I shook my head. Oh, the MLS.

The Gold Cup has reached the qaurter final stage and when TFC had no matches, two of their biggest stars, Michael Bradley and Jozy Altidore, were not with the US team at the Gold Cup. Now that TFC are back in action, the US have taken advantage of the fact that Gold Cup rules allow for more players to be called up after the group stage and Bradley and Altidore are in the team. And this is the tournament where 8 out of the 12 teams playing the group stage move on. Four teams are eliminated.

It's not as bad as Olympic hockey where nobody is eliminated but it comes close in terms of the uselessness of a first round.

Maybe that's why I had lost my inspiration. All the shaking of my head today at the comical state of football sometimes unsettled all my thinking brain cells.

And because you care, TFC scored a last minute penalty to draw 2-2 in New York against NY City. And the US beat El Salvador 2-0 to reach the semifinals. Bradley and Altidore both played.

Football in Scotland: not very good

Day -331 WorldCup2018

A couple of weeks ago when Scottish clubs had another, now very familiar, disastrous night in the first qualifying round of the Europa League one of the suggested solutions by the football commentators, and coaches, was that Scotland "has to" revert to a summer league. This will ensure the Scottish teams are in competitive mode when they play Northern European opposition in the early rounds of the Europa and Champions League.

Today, Malmo, not a giant of European football but a consistent performer that qualified for the Champions League group stage three times in the last 5 years and currently top of the league in Sweden, were knocked out of the second qualifying round of the Champions League by Vardar. Who? That's Vardar, the Macedonian champions of a league that runs from August to May. It's only one example and hardly debunks the Scottish theory, but it does put offer a bit of a contradiction to it. 

The Champions of Sweden, in the middle of their season in a country with a strong football tradition beaten by the champions of Macedonia who are in pre-season.

Scottish football may just have to come to the same realisation as Maltese football: it's just not very good.

England: doing ok

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For want of something else (better?) to write about tonight allow me to recall for future reference that this was the summer of English youth football:

Fifa World Cup U20 Champions
UEFA U19 European Champions
UEFA U17 European Championships Finalists
Toulon invitational U21 tournament winners
UEFA U21 European Championships semi finalists

The English FA's goal was for England to reach the semifinals of the World Cup in 2022. The future generation looks golden. Check back in a few years

What's wrong with a bit of booing?

Day -333 WorldCup2018

I was keenly watching the Tour de France this morning and was engrossed in the excitement of the yellow jersey holder, Chris Froome, being attacked on a mountain climb by the French favourite, Romain Bardet. As Froome tried to bridge the gap up the narrow roads it was obvious on TV that he was being heckled and booed at by the French crowd, who are very, very close to the riders on stages like this. A bit of drama and fan passion, I thought. Excellent. The commentators were not so impressed. "This is not on, the booing. It's not right."

Who are they to deny some passionate French men and women to be wishing for their man to grab a good lead over the not much loved Froome? A bit of booing, really? That gets to you? At least Froome didn't punch anybody this time.

It reminded of a opinion piece in a Tornto newspaper a number of years ago, written by a very prominent journalist at the particular newspaper. She wrote column after column about how shocking it was that the French crowd at the French Open booed Serena Williams, because, what, she's American?

So the French people don't like foreigners coming in and winning their events? No. The French people, like almost any sport supporters over the world, like to see their favourites win at home. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that and if that journalist and today's commentators can't take a bit of negative support, then I say watch some football.

That's what I thought today. If they are shocked by a bit of booing (and really it was a little) they would be having panic attacks if they were ever to go to a football match in England (any part of the country), or Rome for the derby, or Milan when Inter play Milan, or when one of them plays Juventus, or Paris when PSG play Marseille, or Argentina when Boca Juniors play River Plate. I do not in any way condone fan violence, and that's why I wouldn't suggest these two commentators go to Belgrade for Red Star against Partizan, but a bit of passionate taunting of your opponents, fans and players, is not only a huge part of the fun of being a football fan. And a bit of passion is good for you.

Maybe this is where those two guys should be sent on the next assignment: Buenos Aires, Argentina to watch Boca Juniors. And they should take poor, 'can't be booed at' Chris Froome with them. Let's see how they react to what this player had to deal with.

To Adam Day

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(Today I, together with his family and numerous friends celebrated the amazing life of my friend Adam Day who I sadly hadn't seen for a while. Below is what I read, or paraphrased)

Every day for the past 660 days I have been keeping a daily countdown to next year’s World Cup in Russia, writing a football related post or about something significant that happened in the world that day. The day I heard about Adam’s passing I shared my story about his excitement at showing me his grandfathers’ (former Fifa vice-president) world cup winners’ medal on a wonderful evening spent at his parents’ house in Port Hope. He loved that he knew somebody for whom that medal was so significant, and he was excited to ask his Mom to find it for him. He loved that he could do something which made somebody else happy. So as I thought over and over again about coming here today and remembering Adam I decided my way of doing this was to write today’s post about Adam and read it to you.

I’m not a writer. I wonder if Adam ever read my posts. We hadn’t spoken for longer than I’ve been doing this. But if I had spoken to him about it I know exactly what he would have done. Within a day or two he probably would have had a fancy website set up for me and told me what I could do to make it better, who to talk to, where to go, what I should add. Why? Because that’s what Adam did. He got joy out of helping other people develop their crazy dreams. That was his reward. He did it many years ago when he stopped in Malta to visit for a few weeks in between his trips to Turkey(?), Bosnia (chasing a good story there, I recall). I was trying to start up a tennis coaching business and he took it upon himself to get a website going for me. I never asked. He knew he could help and that made him happy.

Adam’s passion and enthusiasm for anything he undertook was evident when we worked together. Coaching was not just a job. It was a challenge for him to see what new technique he could develop to not only help his students but to make the act of coaching more interesting for himself. He developed countless games which all his fellow coaches were drawn into by his enthusiasm…….and competitiveness. To this day I have not played a more intense game of mini-tennis as I did with Adam, over and over again. Ironhands, as he was known, would not give you any point without a battle.

His incredible enthusiasm convinced my wife Kristine and me to join him, Caroline and Alexia on a crazy hike through the Apennine mountains in Italy one January about 17 years ago. There was very little information we could find about the trail but one thing we did remember coming across was advice that it was not recommended to attempt the hike in the winter. That did not stop Adam. Kristine has already shared her memory of the adventure, and Adam’s constant encouragement when he went up ahead and radioed to us that he was sitting in a beautiful chalet drinking a beer. There was no chalet and no beer but it kept us going. In the end the snow beat us, but even the post-hike became an adventure.

This week I kept thinking back to the details of a trip to Kristine’s family’s cottage with Adam and Caroline. It was early Spring and I remember waiting for them to come pick us up. Adam had been up all night writing, I believe, his essay for his application to school in Kamloops. He needed a few hours’ sleep so we set off a bit later and he asked me to drive. I don’t know why this all came back to me so clearly but I remember that we took him to a place in Toronto for a meatball sandwich that we thought he would enjoy, and, probably because I was deep in conversation with Adam about some new car, or tennis racquet, I ended up on Highway 27 instead of the 427.

Adam had been excited by the prospect of a tennis court at the cottage. He was all pumped about all the mini- tennis matches we were going to have and the endless baseline rally games. Unfortunately, the court was still covered in snow. But, of course that was but a challenge not an obstacle. We could have done many other things over those few days that we were there but, no, we were all happily roped into Adam’s snow clearing mission. It feels like it was two whole days of shovelling, always in good humour. The cool, damp weather didn’t help with drying the court once it was clear. But tennis had to be played. And play we did, until every tennis ball we had was so heavy and wet that only Ironhands could deal with it. There is a picture at the cottage of us playing tennis on the court with snow banks all around the perimeter. Even in Hunstville, Adam is a legend.

That story was very prevalent in my head these last few days. Maybe it’s because I hadn’t spoken to Adam for so long and that was the happy memory which was so perfectly Adam that I wanted to preserve. I wish I had spoken to him. I wish I could have heard his stories beyond Bosnia and Turkey. But I didn’t. Others did and I know from what I’ve read that he had a profound effect on many other people.

I really hope, Ironhands, that you are truly at peace now.

Post-script: Adam's mom remembered the medal story and told me another one which she knew I would appreciate. She had a man in to do some work on their furnace and ducts. Behind the furnace he found a football and asked where it was from. Margaret replied that it was the ball used at the World Cup Final in Mexico, 1970. It too belonged to Margaret's dad.The guy obviously knew his football and said he would take the ball as payment for his work.

When football takes a back seat

Day -335. WorldCup2018

Working on tomorrow's post. It will make sense tomorrow. Football not on my mind right now.

Maltese football: not me not negative

Day -336 WorldCup2018

Today four years ago was 337 days until Brazil 2014. I know because I came across my post from that day. And I realized how long I've been doing this for. That post was about Eric Cantona. There have been a few about him.

Today I'm annoyed. I should be proud and happy because Valletta had a fantastic result against Dutch team Utrecht in the Europa League qualifying. A 0-0 draw at home, against a team playing their first competitive match for a while and probably pacing themselves for bigger challenges is not a win. But it is significant when you think of Malta's third best team not losing to their Dutch equivalents. And there is no need for comments about how Dutch football is not quite on a high right now.

I would have been happy to celebrate Valletta's not quite a win kind of victory if I didn't have to hear about how anybody who criticizes Maltese football should now be rejoicing after this great result. It is a good result, amongst all the gloom and doom, but it is one result. And it was achieved through the efforts of one club, the players of that club (including the non-Maltese ones) and the coaching team. And if you are a loyal follower of a Maltese club you will also say "well done to the committee". Yes, the Malta FA have had a big hand in training some of those players and in providing facilities and funding. But it's a bit of stretch for the MFA to jumping on the Valletta "we did well in Europe" bandwagon.

What was that I quoted a few weeks ago about there's being positive and there's being realistic. It's easy to be positive to ignore the problems, and to use the positivity to distract from the issues. There are two types of Maltese football supporters. There are the ones who aren't actually supporters. They'll go to home matches if Italy are England are playing. They'll travel to London or Rome to watch Malta play there because it's a cool thing to do and they can afford to go. And when neither of those two things are happening they"ll be sitting at home watching Juve or Man United on TV and scoffing at anybody who brings up Maltese football. They'll occasionally hear Malta's, or a Maltese club's, result and say, "no surprise, another defeat. Maltese football is terrible. Why bother?"

And then there's fans like me who have watched a huge amount of local and international matches against teams with un-pronounceable names. We've seen countless depressing defeats but we keep going back because we know that occasionally there will be a big one, one to cheer for, one that we can say we witnessed. Rare, but it happens. And when we criticize we sort of know what we are talking about because we have seen the National Team evolve, we've read about the decisions the MFA has taken and we've witnessed the outcome of those results. So if I want to be realistic, let me be. Don't call me negative, as is hip to do in Malta these days. Or do. I really don't care.

Right now, this evening, I am happy for Valletta and their players. Well done to them and them alone. It was a great result and, part-time fans don't laugh, I actually do believe they could score a goal in Holland and frustrate Utrecht. That's the optimistic fan in me.

USA-Martinique

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It's football and it's live. So I'll watch it now that I don't have to share the TV with the baseball All-Star game. Father of a baseball fan, I am. But don't get me started on all-star games.

I'm watching USA-Martinique in the CONCACAF Gold Cup. It's the classic minnows versus overwhelming favourites kind of match at a major tournament, where the favourites are huffing and puffing to score a goal and the underdogs are looking a lot better than anybody ever imagined they would. Oh, USA just scored, ten minutes into the second half. It still won't stop me from looking up just how bad Martinque are at football. Worse than Malta? Hard to tell, since they're not a Fifa member as the island is an overseas region of France and thus not able to compete as a country in 
World Cup qualifying.

2-0. But I'll keep going.

Hold on. 2-1. The islanders make this interesting. Hmm...so that's why Brad Guzan was considered surplus to requirements at Aston Villa. Goalkeepers are there to save shots, right?

Most of the players in the Martinique team play in the local league, but a few play for lower division French teams.

(2-2! This is fun. Fate that I'm watching, maybe)

(3-2 USA. Barely finished writing that last sentence)

One player has just transferred from Poitiers FC to Voltigeurs de Chateaubriant, an amateur team in the fourth tier of French football. According to the transfermarkt website they currently have 11 players in their squad.

The other player in the French League plays for Villefranche, again in the fourth tier.

We used to make fun of American football for being this amateur but it has come so far that a lot of fans in the crowd tonight will be embarassed, despite the constant drum beating and chanting, that their team is struggling against a bunch of amateurs, literally.

90th minute. Still 3-2. Assume it ended that way unless there is a postscript.

Sliema in Europe

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So much for the Maltese Hibs and their dreams of Champions League glory. They were beaten at home 3-0 by FC Salzburg. That's another joy of following football in a minnow country. After the occasional, rare win you begin to think something big could happen. You even read an overly optimistic story online about how the Maltese team are "close" to qualifying for the Champions League (there was actually such a story about Hibs on a Maltese website), there's a little bit of excitement and then.....bang, boom, smash, it's all over. We are reminded that even though a tennis player from little Luxembourg can beat one of the greatest tennis players ever, it's not going to quite happen yet for little Malta and it's football teams. And we go back to remembering that it's early summer, and we should be on the beach or watching one sport we are quite good at, waterpolo, not sitting in a football stadium. But we do still enjoy the little victories that give us hope.

Speaking of which, the chances of Hibs achieving the impossible are but a faint hope. But it does remind me of a famous European victory by a Maltese team, which was probably unnoticed by most European football fans because it happened in July and they were on the beach, but it was listed by UEFA as one of the greatest comebacks in European competitions ever. In 1996 Sliema Wanderers lost 3-1 at home to Margveti Zestaphoni from Georgia. While the majority of Sliema fans went back to, yes (again), days at the beach and waterpolo, the Sliema players went off to Georgia with the same mentality Gilles Muller probably went into his match with Nadal with: "we play the same game, they may be better but it starts at 0-0" (well, not quite but....). Or they just thought if we are going to go off to Georgia in July, rather than, yes you guessed it sitting on the beach, we might as well make it worthwhile. And the rest is history. I know I wasn't even paying any attention to the match and thought it was a mistake when I saw they won 3-0. A couple of weeks later they were out after a 9-1 aggregate defeat against Odense. But there'll always be Margveti Zestaphoni......

And Riga. Ah ha! Another Latvian reference. There was another dramatic Sliema win in 2003. On the day that I landed in Malta for a rare summer visit, but an important one for my brother's wedding, they were playing and beating Skonto Riga 2-0. I remember trying to figure how we could get straight from the airport to the stadium for some July football but it was not meant to be. It was a very good win against a decent team and in the second leg it looked like the Latvians' were proving they were the better team, who couldn't handle the Maltese July heat, as they led 3-0 in the 92nd minute. But all it takes is one moment of brilliance, and the away goals rule. A goal direct from a free kick gave Sliema an aggregate win. A couple of weeks later Copenhagen had beaten them 10-1 on aggregate. What is it with those Danes and thrashings of Sliema?

Maybe that's why after Valletta lost narrowly to Welsh team Newtown FC in 2015 the Copenhagen fans had this banner made after realising they would have to go to Wales in July and not Malta. It wasn't just the beaches but also the thought of another easy victory. But the banner should have said, "We wished for Sliema."

Maltese clubs in Europe

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Before World Cup qualifying returns in August and before the European leagues start again the long hard slog towards the Champions League and Europa League group stages carries on. Tomorrow Malta's champions Hibernians play FC Salzburg in the second round of Champions League qualifying. It's a tall order for the Hibs but there is hope for a good close match, at least in the first leg in Malta.

Malta's other first round winners in Europe, Valletta, play Dutch team Utrecht in the Europa League on Thursday. Two Maltese teams in the second round is quite a feat. That is comparable to another small football nation, Scotland. Two Scottish teams lost in the first round, Rangers and St. Johnstone and the other two, Celtic and Aberdeen, only enter in the second round. So that means, statistically, Maltese club results were better than that of Scotland: 50% for Malta, 0% for Scotland. Here's hoping Malta can keep up that difference in this round.

Summer blues

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Tuesday, the 29th of August. That's when the next round of Russia 2018 qualifiers start. The UAE play Saudi Arabia and there's a full schedule of matches from all the confederations everyday until September 5th. It's a funny stage of the qualifiers. It's still summer, domestic leagues (the ones I follow, mostly, in Europe) are just starting and right away the players are back with their National teams. It doesn't seem like they are ready to be competitive again. But at the same time it is an extremely competitive stage of the qualifiers. The results from the two August/September matches will determine if a team is in a position to qualify come the last matches in October, or if they can start thinking about new managers and re-building for the future.

So bring on the August football. Time for something interesting to happen again.

Florent Malouda and French Guiana

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The CONCACAF Gold Cup started this weekend. It's a continental championship struggling to be taken seriously, but it's not completely CONCACAF 's fault. With the intensely busy Fifa calendar two of the big teams, USA and Mexico, are below strength. And there was an element of farce, and potential controversy, before the tournament started with the inclusion of former French international Florent Malouda in the French Giuana team.

Malouda played 80 times for France and was looking for a second international career with his country of birth. French Guiana are not a member of Fifa, but are a member of CONCACAF. Therefore they don't fall under Fifa rules which prohibit a player from playing for more than one team. He played in the recent Caribbean Cup through which Guiana qualified for the Gold Cup. However, CONCACAF have a rule which states that countries have to pick players according to Fifa's rules.

Guiana's coach seemed determined to challenge the rule by playing Malouda in their opening match against Canada. Nobody could have stopped him playing but the match would have been forfeited after the fact if he did play.

In the end he didn't play and the story became Canada finding some much needed attacking power in a 4-2 win. And the bigger story was that two of those goals were scored by their 16 year old sensation, Alphonso Davies who only became a Canadian citizen in June. He was born in a refugee camp in Ghana where his parents were fleeing the Liberian civil war, and came to Canada when he was five. It's quite the counter story to that of Malouda. Playing and scoring at the International level, at the age of 16, how far can he go?

Blank

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I had it all lined up, a lot to say, but too late now. Tomorrow.

Adam Day

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Somewhere I have a photo of me holding a real World Cup winner's medal. But I won't look for it because today is not about me.

A friend, a former work colleague, a guy very passionate about his tennis as he was about everything else he did, was happy to tell me that his grandfather was a Fifa vice-president. It was probably 18 years ago that I was at his parents house and he was determined to show me the medal that his mother had from her father. The photo was taken and I think he was as happy as me that he could share this with somebody who would really appreciate it.

Today I was shocked and saddened to hear that that memory will be our last shared World Cup moment. Rest in peace, Adam. Everything else I write seems irrelevant now.

Giles Barnes in Orlando

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It's been a while since I've watched Toronto FC play but I got to watch the second half of their match this evening in Orlando. Sebastian Giovinco was spectacular as usual. He scored TFC's second goal at the beginning of the second half to put TFC 2-0 up and a few minutes after Orlando had the cheek to pull a goal back, the little genius put them in their place with a spectacularly struck free kick. He was turning away, smiling in celebration as soon as he hit it.

But there were a couple of other things that caught my attention. One was Orlando's brand new stadium. I thought to myself it's like an old fashioned English stadium, with the stands tight to the pitch not like Toronto with their ridiculous pitch-side fancy seats. But then I thought not quite English, more Spanish. It reminded me of Villarreal or Sevilla where you feel the fans are right on top of the pitch. And with the majority of the seats full (again unlike Toronto where you always think most of the ticket holders are either walking around or just forgot to show up) it came across as a wonderful atmosphere on TV. Orlando also have the MLS' first safe standing area behind one goal. It's not quite Borussia Dortmund's Yellow Wall, but it makes a good argument for fans in English stadiums who prefer to stand for a match.

Once I got over watching the fans more than the football I had to Google the name I kept hearing to confirm he was who I thought he was. Around ten years ago Giles Barnes was one of those wonderfully talented young players who was going to make the big money move to an English Premier League club from Derby County. He is now playing in Orlando, via Vancouver and Houston. And that, sadly, is an indicator of the route his career took. A seemingly never ending number of injuries curtailed his progress and he didn't quite follow the same path to the MLS as Giovinco.

And there was one more thing. Victor Vazquez, former youth player with Barcelona and former player of the year in Belgium, is a wonderful player to watch for TFC. He has impressed me since early in the season with his calmness, his incredible passing and the way he always encourages all the players around him. Giovinco gets most of the glory, along with Jozy Altidore and Michael Bradley, but Vazquez may be the most underrated imported player in the MLS this season.

Latvia-Portugal-Houslow Heath-Hibernians-Rangers

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Kristine left for Latvia today for three weeks and I am so immensely proud of her that she has to courage to work to achieve her dream. I'm also happy to know that she won't miss any major football event. I'll make sure I include them all every night!

As I was driving home from the airport along the slow roads I thought of how to make this relevant for a post tonight so my mind wandered to Latvia and football. Latvia caused one of the biggest surprises in world football in 2004, the scope of which I feel was hugely underrated at the time. Little Latvia, who I always considered as the kind of team that Malta had a chance of beating, who were, since independence, one of those new Eastern European teams that made up the numbers in the qualifying groups for Euros and the World Cup but were never taken very seriously, qualified for Euro 2004. It was pretty incredible. This was before Michel Platini opened up the Euros to 24 teams. Latvia did a "Leicester" just by qualifying years before Leicester did a Leicester. And at the Euros they were not pushovers. Unfortunately their star player, Marians Pahars, was injured and could only make substitute apperances. Latvia lost 2-1 to the Czech Republic after the Czechs scored two very late goals. They then held Germany to a 0-0 draw, a result that contributed to the Germans first round exit. In their last match Holland won 3-0, but Latvia had already proved they deserved to be in Portugal.

Portugal. As I continued on my meander from the airport I realised I would pass a Portuguese supermarket and was in a Euro mood so decided to stop to buy something for dinner. And I thought: Portugal, that's where the Euros were held that Latvia qualified for. Portugal, where I was almost at my first Euro or World Cup. Kristine and I had tickets for France-Croatia, bought well in advance, more than 9 months ahead of the date. Two weeks after the match date, the girl who know laughs at her Dad when he whacks the floor when his football team miss a chance to score was born. Worth missing the football for? You betcha!

A little aside from my drive home today. As I drove through a Portuguese/Brazilian and other South American part of the city I was amused, as I am every time I see it, by Hounslow Heath Road. Amongst the Portuguese bars with the Portuguese men standing outside, and the Uruguayan bakery, and the Ecuadorian restaurant there it is: what feels like a little bit of England, stubbornly staking a claim in the most unlikely part of Toronto.

And, finally, allow me a cheer for the Maltese Champions, Hibernians, who today completed a two leg victory over FC Tallinn in the Champions League first qualifying round. They didn't just hang on to their 2-0 first leg win, they went out and won 1-0. Next up for the Hibs are FC Salzburg, the Red Bull team. The Austrian one, not the German one.

And post-finally I have to commiserate with one of the teams from a fellow minnow country, Glasgow Rangers, on their tough loss to a European powerhouse, Progres Niederkorn. today. You know, Progres Niederkorn from Luxembourg. Last year Hearts lost against Malta's Birkirkara. Is anybody in Scotland beginning to think that their football is really not that good? It's ok. I know how you feel.

John Terry signs for Villa

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Aston Villa have to be mentioned once in a while to remind you all of the hapless kind of football supporter I am, that of a middle of the pack second division team in England. Calling it the "Championship" is way too glamorous for this team. With them and my never ending support of Malta's national team and it's domestic league I can't be blamed for the smallest excuse for a little bit of chest beating and cheering. Chest beating? Where'd I come up with that? My daughter (probably about 8 at the time) did laugh at me once for some floor beating in front of the TV when Aston Villa were very close to scoring a second goal towards the end of a memorable win against Chelsea.

Aston Villa announced the signing of former Chelsea player, and former England captain, John Terry. A good reason to cheer? A sign that the club is serious about putting a strong team together to win promotion this year. Not really, is what I think. Not only is he 36 (but let me not be ageist, he could have one good year left in him) he is also at the end of his career. After all he won with Chelsea and England (ok, scrap that second bit) is he up for a fight in the second division on a cold Tuesday night in Millwall? And I mean that literally. Those Millwall fans are going to have a good old time with him. But really, does he have enough motivation for a promotion battle?

Does signing a player of his age on a free transfer mean this is all who Dr. Tony, Villa's owner, can now afford? He tried to buy promotion last year and it didn't work and now with reports that Villa may have fallen foul of the English Football League's financial rules, is this the Plan B? Will the fanfare of Terry's signing be intentional to hide the lack of any other transfer activity? I hope not.

And then there is the human side of John Terry. I don't like the guy and not only because of his affair with his England team mate's wife a few years ago. That happens all the time, right? Hey, I taked about love yesterday. Let's give the guy a humongous benefit of the doubt. No, I am just not a fan of his at all. This may be unfair because my judgment of him when I hear him talk may be clouded by the stories I have read about him. But he reeks of arrogance, self importance and smugness. He's football's Andy Murray as opposed to Roger Federer. But is it important? As a football fan who am I to be forming opinions on the morals of the players who I hope will give my team something to cheer about? I'm a football supporter. My 600, or so, days of daily postings are based on the World Cup. Organised by Fifa. And I still carry on and look forward to next year.

Even if I look at Terry the footballer, and nothing else, when he plays for Villa I still don't think I will be able to enjoy watch him play. Will I be happy if he made a difference? Yes, I thought earlier, but now....no. I'd actually be happier if he wasn't there. It would have been easier if he joined Birmingham, as he was rumoured to. Then I could have made fun of him all season.

Love(ly) football

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It's been a good few days to be German: Parliament approved same sex marriage, Germany's U21 football team won the European Championships and the senior team won the Confederations Cup.
So sensible Germans are happy. You know, the ones who are smart enough to be football fans and those who are happy for two people who love each other to be together.

Football (all sport, really) and love. What more need there be?

Alexis Sanchez: take a break

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Confederations Cup final tomorrow: Germany vs Chile. I hope to watch, but hope is sometimes not the deciding factor. If I do watch I hope the German kids put on a fun show against Vidal, Vargas and Sanchez.

Alexis Sanchez's Arsenal team mates meet for preseason training on Monday before they jet off to Australia and China, and then back to England for the Charity Shield on August 6th. Amongst all that somewhere, Sanchez needs to find some time for a beach holiday. Really. I feel for him. He needs a physical and mental break from football. Look at me, having sympathy for an overpaid footballer. But never have they been expected to play this much. Sanchez will roll up his sleeves, no, his shorts, and just get on with it tomorrow. That's what he does.