Worldwide football’s governing body, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), seems to be losing its grip on the people and organizations that it purports to govern, footballers and their clubs. One event has the organization and its head, FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter, fuming and another is being cheerfully touted as leading the game into a “New Era”.

What’s got Sepp so upset now? No, its not foreigners infecting domestic leagues and national team football. What’s got everyone’s favorite Swiss teddy bear’s knickers in a bunch is the recent decision handed down by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), in the case of Scottish and Wigan defender Andy Webster.
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Andy Webster, or: a new type of Bosman in the making

The former Hearts man was unsatisfied with riding the pine for the Edinburgh side, and even though he had another year left on his contract he decided that he would break with the club and transfer to Wigan. “How dare he?!!!”, I hear you gasp. Well, the audacious move to break his contract has now been sanctioned in the biggest case to impact the game since the European Court of Justice handed down its decision in Bosman.What Webster did was invoke Article 17 of the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players. The provision allows a player under the age of 28 to break his contract if he has completed at least three years of it and move on to another club (for players over 28 only two years). But what about a transfer fee? That’s the thing, since there is no longer a contract, Bosman applies and the transfer goes through on the free.

The new club and player in question do not get away that easily. There is still the matter, under traditional contract law, of the losses suffered by the original team due to the breach. In this case, Hearts claimed that they lost Webster’s market value, which they estimated at nearly £5 million. Much to their disappointment, FIFA’s Dispute Resolution Chamber only penalized Wigan and Webster for £625,000. But the parties weren’t through yet, both appealed to the CAS for their own reasons and it was found that the penalty should only be £150,000. The FIFPro website reported that, “The Court finds that there is no economic, moral or legal justification for a club to be able to claim the market value of a player as lost profit.”

CAS reached this number because it felt that Article 17 only allowed the Court to value the player’s residual value, based upon his salary for the remainder of his contract, NOT the player’s market value. This will have a tremendous impact on the functioning of the transfer market. Players that have completed the “protected period” of their contract (2 to 3 years) will have a 15 day window after the last game of the season to declare that they will be terminating their contract. This can also be used as leverage in the renegotiations of contracts.

This means that a player like Cristiano Ronaldo or Cesc Fabregas, while each has recently signed new contracts, could upon having reached the end of the protected period move to another club for only the residual contract value during the peak of their career. This clearly will strike, a huge blow to clubs in terms of the wild transfer fee demands that are placed on the heads of the world’s biggest stars. Sevilla would no longer be able to smoke crack and demand £44 million for Luis Fabiano. If he had fulfilled the requisite period and truly wanted to move on, he could do so, by arranging with his new club the payment of contract damages to his previous employer.

Blatter, a lawyer himself, is outraged by the decision. In his opinion, this is a severe blow to contract stability that was negotiated with the European Commission in 2001. He believes that the CAS incorrectly interpreted Article 17, by overlooking the clause, “compensation for the breach shall be calculated with due consideration for the law of the country concerned, the specificity of sport, and any other objective criteria”. I assume from the reports, that Blatter believes that specificity of the sport is meant to include far more remuneration than residual salary. I really hope that he doesn’t mean to suggest that the specificity of football as an industry includes the nature of the transfer market. The clause that follows requires that damages criteria be “objective”. As we all know, the transfer market is anything but objective. I think Sepp misses the mark here and FIFA only has themselves to blame for relying on such an ambiguous clause to protect contract stability.
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Bye-bye G-14, hello ECA

More evidence of FIFA’s slipping hold on clubs and players, though less obvious, is the recent agreement between UEFA, FIFA, and Europe’s top clubs. I say less obvious because on its face it seems that all parties involved are walking away happy. UEFA’s website hails this as a “New Era” for the game. FIFA announced the deal as “Victory for football as a whole”. But will it really benefit everyone?The deal dissolved the heinous beast that was the G-14. No more threats of Europe’s top clubs breaking away and forming their own league. No more lawsuits against the governing bodies concerning club players’ international duty. But while it is claimed to be a move to bring the clubs under FIFA and UEFA’s governance, it seems more like the clubs are getting their way.

The governing bodies and the clubs have signed a letter of intent, which reaches the agreement that the G-14 will be abolished and in its place the European Club Association (ECA), which will be comprised of around 100 teams from across Europe’s 53 football federations. More importantly UEFA and FIFA offered to fork over in the area of £125 million worth of compensation to clubs for players that are taken from them for international duty for the European Championships and the World Cup. In return the G-14 clubs dropped their lawsuit against them. It was highly anticipated as being the next Bosman ruling, as the clubs brought the suit alleging the compulsion of international duty is contrary to the European Union’s competition and free movement of workers legislation.

The ECA will give the clubs a voice in the decisions that UEFA makes. President Michel Platini was pleased with the outcome, feeling self-assured saying, “After being elected and confronting the problems in football, I said that the game, that dialogue and the exchange of ideas was the solution”. The question is will this be a dialogue, or has the G-14 merely been given the official authority to throw its weight around and make demands? Who really stands to benefit from this agreement? Where do the majority of internationally capped players play? Answer: Europe’s biggest clubs, granted there are many more than just the 16 teams that comprised the G-14. So all you Derby County fans, who are still hoping in vain that there could be something that could save your club, this is not it my friends.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that the former G-14 clubs must be pretty happy with their end of the bargain. They held the upper hand. On the verge of likely winning a landmark EU lawsuit, they must have gotten what they considered a pretty sweet deal for them to have folded their cards.

Much has yet to be revealed about the deal. How the ECA will function will be highly determinative of whether or not this is an agreement for everyone. The ECA board will be highly influential and it is yet to be seen how open that election process will be, or if the same big clubs will dominate its proceedings. Another excellent question posed by another blogger was where does the compensation money come from? Clearly it has to come out of FIFA and UEFA’s competition prize offerings and its campaigns to spread the joy of soccer around the world.

Both of these events are fresh. Their full impacts will not be realized for months, potentially years to come. But it is unclear who’s governing who? Players can tell their employers that they no longer feel like abiding by their contracts. Clubs can bully their governing bodies into huge financial settlement and a stronger voice in decision making.

Are these developments a good thing? Who should be telling who what to do? Players? Clubs? Associations? You tell me.

Also See: FIFA’s Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

The tension at Anfield must have been palpable as the Reds stepped on to the pitch to face off against a resilient Aston Villa on Monday night.

The Liverpool faithful made their feelings toward the team’s current American owner duo perfectly clear. Every other cheer from the Kop end was directed at Hicks and Gillett and finished with the loud demand, “Get Out of Our Club“! Speculation has surrounded Hicks in particular this week, as it was reported that the determinedly interested Dubai International Capital (DIC) made a bid for Hicks’ shares of the club.

While the fans faith must be shaken by the team’s thus far lackluster Premier League campaign, they stood behind their boss, Rafa Benitez, who must be seen as the protagonist in their struggle against the club’s ownership. Benitez, never ceasing to mystify his club’s fans and the rest of the soccer world, opted to start Harry Kewell over the in-form Ryan Babel. Kewell, who has played reasonably well since returning from his long-term injury spell, has not contributed the same kind of firepower that Babel has. The young Dutchman has tallied seven goals and 2 assists in his 29 matches with the club, 16 as a substitute, the most sub appearances for any Red this season.

Noticeably absent from the Aston Villa side throughout the match was their skipper Gareth Barry. The top Villan has been pivotal in the team’s efforts to rise up the Premier League table. He has guided the Midlands side with his precision passing and playmaking, as well as demonstrating strength and maturity in pressure situations (e.g. several big spot kicks). He was sidelined with a bruised pelvis which he sustained during training. Craig Gardener filled the vacancy.

The visiting Aston Villa fans were bemoaning the absence of their captain as Liverpool largely controlled the first half. Villa continually coughed up the ball in the midfield, never allowing the potent strike force of Agbonlahor and Young to catch their stride. The young Englishmen have added pace to Villa’s wings, supporting John Carew’s usual power in the middle. Failing to utilize his size, Carew played like a mouse.

Liverpool outworked Aston Villa for the ball. This was most noticeably seen in the matchup between John Carew and Sami Hyypia. Both are larger footballers, but when push came to shove, Hyypia was cleverer about his positioning and balance and outmaneuvered the Norwegian forward.

The Reds controlled the pace of the game, but settled for squirrelly long-range efforts in the opening 15 minutes. Soon after, they started to look more fluid, linking strings of sharp and cute passes that led into the box. One such effort finally finished successfully as Yossi Benayoun was fed in the box and battled three Villa defenders, ushering the ball passed Stuart Taylor and a few more diving defenders.

Benayoun has been a surprisingly solid piece of transfer business for Rafa Benitez’s squad. Acquired over the summer from West Ham, the Israeli midfielder had only produced 8 goals in 63 appearances for the Hammers. He had more productive seasons earlier in his career with home country sides Hapoel Be’er Sheva and Maccabi Haifa. I watched a few of his performances for last years dismal West Ham team, but they were certainly nothing that I thought deserved the attention of a Big Four club. So needless to say, I was surprised when Liverpool forked over between ₤4-5 million pounds for him. Not so surprisingly, Rafa has proved to be wiser than I, as Benayoun has chipped in 7 goals in less than 30 appearances.

The half finished with a glimmer of offense from Villa as Carew flicked on a long ball forward to an attacking Agbonlahor, only to have it swiped away by Carragher. The two sides emerged from the half unchanged.

Liverpool put together some decent spells of offense that saw Torres and Kuyt piecing together passes that opened up some more shots on goal. Meanwhile, Villa took off Barry replacement Craig Gardener in favor of Villa’s ex-Hammer addition Marlon Harewood.

Harewood got involved immediately with a run up the left. He provided a spark to a Villa side that was losing its steam. Harewood slid a cross past Arbeloa and another Liverpool defender that found John Carew in the box. Carew was able to gather and turn, but his shot lacked the power to truly test Reina, who gathered it easily.

Only minutes later, Villa received a free kick for a foul on Stiliyan Petrov. The free kick found Martin Laursen, the league’s top scoring centre-back with 6 goals, who headed across the box to find Harewood who coolly while under pressure found the back of the net with a semi-overhead kick to draw Aston Villa level.

Benitez took the opportunity to take off a struggling Arbeloa and hand a Premier League debut to his newest signing, 23-year old Slovakian defender Martin Skrtel, recently acquired from Russian Premier League Champions Zenit St. Petersburg.

Only two and half minutes had passed since Harewood’s finish when Liverpool found themselves again defending a Villa free kick. This time Arbeloa found himself too bunched in the center of the box, leaving Mellberg alone on the right of goal. Mellberg misfired a shot that appeared to be heading left of goal. Reina had stepped out to attempt to handle it, but before it could get to him it managed to deflect off of Arbeloa’s hands into the net.

Arbeloa’s defense had been unsteady the entire game. He looked entirely unsure of himself when he was on the ball, having been stripped of it on a couple of occasion, one instance left Gardner dangerously alone in an advanced position. His own goal had left Liverpool facing an embarrassing defeat at home in front of an already disgruntled crowd.

Benitez immediately began warming up his attacking options, Babel and Crouch. As I mentioned earlier, Babel should have started in place of Kewell, which is eventually the move that Benitez made first. Babel was involved from the word “Go”. Liverpool was back on the attack but was still lacking a finishing touch.

Liverpool’s goalscorer Benayoun was replaced in the 80th by Crouch. The 6’7″ striker who, for a footballer of his ability, has been unusually accepting of his role at Liverpool provided the prowess in box that Liverpool had been lacking. It seems like every time I watch Peter play, he scores. Being 6’5″ myself, I enjoy seeing the tall and lanky guy score. He may look like a baby giraffe out there, but the guy knows how to find the net. He cleaned up a scramble in the box in the 89th minute saving the Reds from what likely would have been a hefty home crowd booing as they left the pitch.

Liverpool averted disaster on home soil, but find themselves outside of the Champions League place that as a Big Four club they have come to accept as a given. With questions about their ownership looming overhead, one has to wonder if or when it’s really going to start raining on Liverpool’s season. Captain Stevie G has admitted that the team is being affected.

Gillett and Hicks are going to have to figure out how they can contribute to salvaging this season, whether that means stepping back and letting Rafa have more hold of the reins or stepping in and getting down to business on the front lines themselves. Something needs to be done or else make room for Dubai.

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

This week, instead of following live coverage of the 3rd Round of the FA Cup, or scanning the rumor mills to see who could be moving where in this January’s transfer market, I was at a hospital with family, waiting for up-to-the-second reports on the condition of a relative. Once again, I was forced to reflect upon our human mortality. Fans may occasionally recite the motto, “Soccer is Life”, or “Fill in the Blank Team is my Life”, but deep down we all know there are more important things.

At the top of that list of things has to be the people we love and care for. They are unfortunately, sometimes, the people that we take for granted the most. We never know when we are going to turn around and they won’t be there anymore. Make sure that in between following your beloved side on TV and the internet that you make time for those people in your life that mean the most to you.

The worldwide football community is no more immune to death and tragedy as are the rest of us passing our time here revolving around the sun. We’ve spun our way around the solar system once again and some of our sporting idols that were with us this time last year have left us for the Great Beyond. We build professional footballers up to be titans, invincible forces of nature, extraordinary men that sometimes have to fight back from injuries that would keep most of us on the sideline for life. But things happen, and for whatever reason we’re reminded that our time here is short.

It struck me that while we as the fan community will always remember them for their accomplishments on the pitch that there are others who will remember them as their baby boy, Dad, kid brother, loving husband, etc.. Being a footballer was just their job, granted an extremely cool one. They took off their boots after a hard days work and went home to the wife and family.

Antonio Puerta was a mother’s son, someone’s love of their life. His death in August shocked the Spanish football world and beyond. Unknowingly, we watched with concern as he collapsed near his goal away from play, suffering from a series of cardiac arrests. He hadn’t collided with anyone, nothing struck him, but there he fell as some part of his anatomy went haywire.

As I near my 25th birthday, I’m sobered by the fact that Puerta was younger than I. At 22 years old, he barely had a chance to leave his mark on the football world. But in Andalusia, Sevilla fans will never forget the goal he scored in the 2006 UEFA Cup semi-finals that beat Schalke 04 and setting them up for their first European Cup title.

Phil O’Donnell was somebody’s husband, 4 children’s father. Similarly, his death just a few weeks ago took the British football world by surprise.

At 35, O’Donnell’s career was in its December, but O’Donnell the man was heading into the Summer of life. Scottish side Motherwell looked to him as their leader. He was their captain, their rock. But every now and then even the General falls in battle.

Read more about Phil O’Donnell.

Gabriele Sandri was somebody’s brother. We watched his brother’s rage as he explained to the media the tragedy of his brother’s shooting. At a petrol station near Arezzo, Sandri and his friends, supporters of Lazio, were on their way to Milan for an away match when they encountered some fans of Juventus.

As happens all too often, the words exchanged were hostile and transformed into violence. A police officer had to become involved and tragically the officer’s gun went off and Sandri was struck in the neck and died shortly thereafter. Cause of death: Hooliganism.

Obviously I’m not suggesting that Puerta’s or O’Donnell’s deaths are in any way the same as Sandri’s. My overall point is that football is just a game. What I love most about football is the passion. There is nothing like that moment when your team has fought all match and finally broken through. That explosion of joy as the ball bulges against the back of the net is matched by little else. Next I love the rivalry, the pride in one’s team over another. I get amped every time my Arsenal face that other team in North London, who’s name isn’t even worth mentioning. Sure, it’s even fun to talk about how much you hate your rival.

But every fan has to remember that it is just a game. Fans cannot let their emotions about a sport boil over into real life clashes. So what if some opposing fan calls you a bleepity bleep bleep? They are just words and nothing to fight, get shot or die over.

Football has come a long way, but as the stabbings in Rome last month remind us there is more work to be done if we are to rid the game of its extremist elements that stain the image of the sporting community as a whole. Let us remember the victims of such senseless violence and hope that someday soon we will learn our rivals are only our enemies in sport and not in real life. There is already plenty of that kind of hatred in the world.

We still have a choice. Antonio Puerta, Phil O’Donnell and the rest of the men on the list that follows did not. Let us be grateful for what they gave us. They were entertainers who played to please us. They were idols of tremendous spirit, determination, courage, and heart. Some cut down before they ever even had a chance to bloom.

We remember . . .

January
• January 4 — Sandro Salvadore (67), Italian footballer
• January 22 — Ramón Marsal (72), Spanish footballer
• January 30 — Sixto Rojas (26), Paraguayan footballer

February
• February 12 — Georg Buschner, German football player and manager

March
• March 1 — Fernando Veneranda, Italian footballer and coach
• March 19 — Menotti Avanzolini, Italian footballer

April
• April 7 — Marià Gonzalvo (85), Spanish footballer
• April 25 — Alan Ball (61), English footballer

May
• May 2 — Juan Valdivieso (96), Peruvian footballer
• May 4 — José Antonio Roca (78), Mexican footballer and coach
• May 13 — Kai Johansen (66), Danish footballer
• May 26 — Marek Krejčí (26), Slovak footballer

June
• June 13 — Néstor Rossi (82), Argentine footballer and coach
• June 24 — Derek Dougan (69), Northern Irish footballer
• June 26 — Jupp Derwall (80), German footballer and coach

July
• July 2 — Luigi Scarabello (91), Italian footballer and coach
• July 25 — Bernd Jakubowski (54), German footballer
• July 27 — Giuseppe Baldo (93), Italian footballer

August
• August 20 — Anton Reid (16), English footballer
• August 25 — Ray Jones (18), English footballer
• August 28 — Antonio Puerta (22), Spanish footballer
• August 29 — Chaswe Nsofwa (28), Zambian footballer

September
• September 3 — Gustavo Eberto (24), Argentine footballer
• September 9 — Helmut Senekowitsch (73), Austrian footballer and coach
• September 11 — Ian Porterfield (61), Scottish footballer
• September 14 — Ambrogio Valadè (70), Italian footballer
• September 27 — Bill Perry (77), South African footballer
• September 27 — Horst Podlasly (71), German footballer

October
• October 8 — Fulvio Zuccheri (48), Italian footballer
• October 26 — Nicolae Dobrin (60), Romanian footballer

November
• November 5 — Nils Liedholm (85), Swedish footballer and coach
• November 13 — John Doherty (footballer) (72), English footballer
• November 23 — Óscar Carmelo Sánchez (36), Bolivian footballer

December
• December 29 — Phil O’Donnell (35), Scottish footballer

Source: Wikipedia.

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

This is not a shameless plug for one of the sponsors. I started playing this game well before I started writing for Soccerlens.com. Online Football Manager (OFM) is one of the greatest interactive online football games on the web today. It’s simple, easy to learn, and best of all its free!

For anyone looking to learn more about players and tactical elements of the world’s game, continue to read up on Soccerlens and then click on over to www.onlinefootballmanager.co.uk, for a great way to interact with other wanna-be Jose Mourinho’s.

Ever dreamed of managing your home club or maybe one of Europe’s Giants? Well, on OFM, you can become the gaffer of Scunthorpe United or Manchester United, AC Milan or AC Cesena. The teams and leagues are many and hail from far and wide. Take the helm of your favorite team from England to Spain, Peru to Argentina, Russia or Japan. Unlike some manager simulation games online, the squad lists are always being updated with the team’s actual players. So, instead of managing an Arsenal squad with first-teamers with names like Tony Smith and John Wright, you can choose to play Robin Van Persie up front with Adebayor.

With OFM you are in the driver’s seat of your club. You make all the calls that determine whether the fans will be cheering you on as the next “Special One” or booing you off the pitch like Sam Allardyce at St. James Park. Once a team has offered you a contract with a weekly budget, you are responsible for signing on sponsors, training your players, selecting your formation, your first team and substitutes. Pick a captain who is a veteran and performs well even when the rest of the team is not. Select who’s taking corners, free kicks and the ever important kicks from the spot.

Ever wish that the transfer window was open all the time? On OFM it is. At any time during the season each manager in the league can put his own players up for sale on the Transfer List. The game even randomly offers players of varying ability from other nation’s leagues just to give each league a little foreign spicing up (No ridiculous Sepp Blatter quotas either)! You can even make bids to the other managers in the league for their players. Just don’t expect to buy Cristiano Ronaldo for anywhere near his estimated value. Part of the game involves a manager being a shrewd business man, trying to sell his disfavored players for far more than they are worth and buying players for as little as the other manager will take. You’ll find yourself anxiously waiting, hoping that you can raise enough money before the next guy does and beat him to the signature of an Aguero or a Yakubu.

A manager gets to pick his staff, which can include trainers, physios, doctors, lawyers and even a spy, who will let you know what your opponents are up to. Trainers are definitely important as they help your selected players gain ability points each gameday. Train the young bucks as they gain ability much faster. There’s nothing like having a Theo Walcott or a Bojan Krkic showing up the big dogs after a bit of training. Doctors help them recover from the hard knocks received during a game, cutting down the number of days they would be out of contention. Lawyers can help you battle the FA and get those red card suspension days reduced.

When it comes time to start the season, nothing matters more than picking the right formation for the players on your squad and the right tactics to suit that formation. If your squad has got a lot of talent in the midfield, choose a 4-5-1 or a 3-5-2, and opt for tactics which will favor your midfielders’ abilities. If you are heavy on talent up front, go with a 4-3-3 or 3-4-3 and Get Wide! If you are so blessed with the problem of having to decide where to play Ronaldinho, Messi, Henry and Eto’o, you can even play a 4-2-4 and play it forward with the Long Ball.

This, in conjunction with the tactical selections of your opponent, will determine the outcome of your matches (thus, the importance of hiring a spy!). Every day a game will be played and you can see the results including goalscorers, bookings and injuries and watch as your team rises to the top of the table. If success doesn’t come quickly, don’t be afraid to experiment with your formations and tactics and discover which best suit your squad.

If you want to give yourself an extra advantage, sign up for OFM Season Tickets, which give you access to special functions like developing your stadium, hiring a commercial manager who can help you get more funds for transfers, and most importantly you can hire a Scout. This is one of the most fun aspects of the game because with the right financial management you can build an amazing team, drafting your favorite stars. Send your scout to a country in Europe looking for a player of a certain age, position, ability and see who pops up!

The other great thing about purchasing Season Tickets is the access to special leagues. Take the reigns of the English National Team and show the FA why they should have picked you over ‘Cabbage Man’ Capello, or participate in a league table comprised of the Champions League teams. My personal favorite is the Fantasy League. I love starting from scratch and putting together a dream team. The team I’m currently fielding is amazing and is as follows:

1 Reina
2 Puyol
3 Milito
4 Evra
5 Cristiano Ronaldo
6 Gattuso (c)
7 Fabregas
8 Sneijder
9 Ibrahimovic
10 Tevez
11 Toni

Subs: Utaka, Quaresma, Daniel Alves, Drenthe, Kameni
Playing a 3-4-3 Wide

Get your friends signed up and battle it out to see who’s got what it takes to be champions! Whenever I come up against one of my friends it’s like a derby day and the trash talk flies. I challenge you to season of the most authentic and fun football management around. My manager name is Thierry Henry the King and I’ll see you out on the web-based pitch.

Click here to go to Online Football Manager.

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

Grand Slam Sunday has come and gone and in the end it summed up how the top four have fared this first half of the season. It also provided some hints as to what we should expect from the title sprint that is to come, answering some questions about each team’s potential for ultimate success. One of those queries was whether or not the Arsenal have a strong enough back line to keep out the more potent offenses in the league.

Heading into Emirates Stadium on Sunday, I knew Arsenal were very lucky that coming off their first defeat in some months, they were not going to have to face, arguably, the most deadly striker on the planet right now, in Didier Drogba. That being conceded, they still had to prove themselves against a resurgent Chelsea who were unbeaten in their last 16 matches. While praise for Arsenal is usually reserved for their beautiful free-flowing offense, I would like to applaud their defense which deserves all the credit for their 1-0 win against their cross-town rivals.

The atmosphere at the ground in Ashburton Grove was expectedly hostile, as anyone would anticipate at a derby of this magnitude. Add to the mix the return of a particular former Gunner (Ashley Cole) whose name inspires such venomous verbal lashings that I felt compelled to cover my wife’s ears, and you’ve got the recipe for a riotously intense 90 minutes of football. The eyes of the majority of the Gooner faithful were fixed upon their former left-back, probably hoping to pierce his soul with the intensity of their gaze and definitely to know exactly when to unleash their most ground-shaking booing. Meanwhile, I found that my eyes were fixating more and more on Arsenal’s current left-back, Gael Clichy.

Tasked with marking Shaun Wright-Phillips out of the game, Clichy’s performance was one that made a statement that he is possibly the best left side defender in the Premier League. His most admirable skill is his positioning. I would wager that nearly 75% of the time he intercepted the ball before it arrived at its intended destination, cutting off the attack before it even had time to start. He was often successful in clearing the ball in the direction of his choosing rather than having to be satisfied with diverting it away from his opponent. The one wide open chance that Wright-Phillips completely bottled was more to do with Gallas’s poor clearance than Clichy’s defending. On the less frequent occasions that he faced his on-the-ball opponent, his tackling was terrific, frequently taking the ball off of SWP’s feet and then turning to break.

His blistering speed down the side and ability to keep the ball at his feet on a break make him an ideally well-rounded player, who can contribute to an already highly potent offense. Clichy has the ability to make incisive runs slicing through defenders with the skill of an attacker. On Sunday, he made several such runs and looked like a threat. But as is the case with many an Arsenal player, when faced with a relatively respectable open look at goal, he shies away from challenging the keeper, opting for another pass in a string of one-too-many.

Clichy is just another example of Wenger’s managerial brilliance. The 22-year old was acquired on a free transfer from AS Monaco back in 2003, the same summer as the arrival of Cesc Fabregas, and has more than filled the shoes of his predecessor who had overstayed his welcome. Cole moved on and got his cash, and Arsenal got an equally unhappy William Gallas and money in return.

Gallas is all smiles now as he has thrived in his role as team captain. He stated after the game that he felt that he did not put in his best performance, and I would agree. He was not as rock solid as you would hope your senior centre-back would be. Yet, lately he has been Wenger’s “fox-in-the-box”. His minor shortcomings in protecting his keeper from undue pressure can be forgiven when you consider the game-changing goals he has provided in the last month.

I was also in attendance when Wigan came to town with a 0-0 draw in mind. They did everything they could frustrate Arsenal’s attack, packing their half with all 11 men and time-wasting from the first blast of the referee’s whistle. And they were successful for nearly the whole match, as Arsenal’s front six could not piece together anything that resembled football. The deadlock was only broken when Bacary Sagna finally put in a decent cross and found a greatly advanced Gallas in the box, who blasted it past Chris Kirkland who had been brilliant all afternoon.

The scenario was similar against Chelsea. Avram Grant’s men looked tentative from the outset, unwilling to take any risks in exposing themselves too early in the match, advancing only a few forward during infrequent counterattacks. Thus, the first half was full of squandered Arsenal chances and hard fought midfield play. Then in the dying moments of first-half extra time, Gallas put his head to the ball again and found the back of the net. You can call it luck that this occurred on one of the rare occasions that Petr Cech misjudged a corner, but you have to give Gallas the credit for being in the right place at the right time.

If Sunday’s goalkeeping matchup was a staring contest, Gallas’s goal was Cech blinking. Not many will dispute that Petr Cech is the best keeper in the world right now and 99 out of 100 times you would expect him to deal with that corner properly, but this was a game where any mistake would be made to pay. Manuel Almunia was a big question mark for this Arsenal team when he took over for a struggling Jens Lehmann. The lasting image in my head of his previous performances prior to this season was one of then Barcelona and current Chelsea defender Juliano Belletti’s acute angle shot slipping through his legs, essentially handing them the European Cup. But since taking over, Almunia has risen to the challenge, keeping over half a dozen clean sheets on Arsenal’s way to the top.

Almunia matched Cech blow for blow, denying Chelsea the few decent looks they had at goal. He faced powerful strikes from Andriy Shevchenko, Claudio Pizarro and SWP and each time wrapped them up or parried them away with confidence. Almunia did not blink, though the pressure was high. Into final injury-time, referee Alan Wiley made the last of what I would consider several questionable calls (most notably Adebayor’s ‘foul’ on Ben Haim which called back his goal), granting a free kick to Chelsea right on the edge of the box. If there was any moment that you would expect a less than top-notch keeper to crack, this was it. Shevchenko powered a mighty shot over the wall with incredible pace, but Almunia proved he’s deserving of being the No. 1 for the Premier League’s No. 1, tipping it over the bar.

Arsenal proved with their defense that they are in it to win it. Coming off a rough month of defeats and injuries to star players, they demonstrated that they have got the mental toughness of a team beyond their years. The road is only going to get rockier, as they will lose a couple of players to the African Nations Cup, including back line rock Kolo Toure. They will need that toughness if they are to survive the grueling experience that is a Premier League season and hoist the silverware that many have been expecting of this group of Wenger kids.

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

This article is a submission for the Soccerlens ‘Share Your Football Experiences’ Contest; to participate, please read the details here.

It was 11:30 at night when my hired car dropped me off at 25 Millionaya, St. Petersburg, Russia. The paint on the building in which I was to live was peeling severely, though in some spots you couldn’t notice it due to all the graffiti. Dark and drab clothed natives were stumbling about the streets with their bottles of vodka and staring at the foreigner standing at the front door of this building, trying desperately to figure out how to work this unfamiliar lock. Then, the sound of a bottle shattering. The scream of a feral cat. What have I gotten myself into?

My fears were calmed the next morning when the sun came out through the clouds and glistened on snow that had freshly fallen overnight. The faces on the street that seemed so hard and calloused suddenly appeared warm and unexpectedly cordial. I guess such is the experience of a young man who’s traveling abroad for the first time in a very distant land. As a 20 year old American, living through two months of a frigid Russian winter on my own, I found myself prone to staying indoors and flipping on the television. Such was the case for me in 2003, the year that I rediscovered football in the most unlikely of circumstances.

I knew a little bit of Russian, but not enough to even remotely understand what was happening on the average TV show. The only thing I could bear to watch was that which needed no commentary, the Beautiful Game. Of course at the time, I wouldn’t have even known what that moniker referred to. My only experience with soccer in the States was the two years of kiddie ball I played when I was aged 5 and 6. ‘Played’ is term used loosely because at that age soccer is a sport where parents release their hyperactive offspring onto the field like a swarm of bees who will stick to the ball like it was honey. Setting my inexperience aside, I figured that it was as good a time as any to try to learn what the game was really about.

When I arrived in October, the 2003-04 Champions League group stages were already under way. The group which garnered the most coverage in that part of the world was Group B, which matched up Arsenal, Dynamo Kiev, Inter Milan and Lokomotiv Moscow. Looking back at that line-up, most would automatically bet that the teams from North London and the San Siro would be the ones to advance. But what would I know? I hadn’t heard of any of them before. As the games progressed, qualification was anything but a foregone conclusion. By the time I began to follow the tournament, Arsenal had only taken one point from its first three games and Inter looked to be cruising with 6 points.

Arsenal intrigued me. Why I was attracted to the team at the bottom of the group table, I couldn’t say. Maybe it was their powerfully striking red team strip, or the fact that they were from England, the country I most associated with the game. Remember, I knew nothing else about them or the game. The fact that they were on the road to their unbeaten Premier League title had no bearing on this admiration. All I know is that what followed justified my intuition about the team I love today.

The first game I watched was an unimpressive 1-0 victory for Arsenal at home against Dynamo. Henry’s flick was headed home by Ashley Cole to save Arsenal’s hopes of qualifying out of their group, bringing their point total to 4 after 4 games. At this point I was stuck at the point that most new American watchers of the game get held up. I reached the oversimplified, but common conclusion that soccer was a game of near misses. I had spent 90 minutes watching two teams grinding it out in the midfield working for possession and trying to establish an attack, with only one goal in the dying minutes to show for it. Fortunately, the second match would change my perspective.

Wrapped up in a blanket on the couch and nursing a Baltika (variety #3 of this Russian ale is quite good), I watched Arsenal square off with Inter at the San Siro. I started noticing the intricacies of the game, the deft touches, the difficulty in the successful trapping of a long ball, the skill and grace required to keep the ball at your feet while running full speed. I began to see the flow of the game, the shifting movements as players raced forward and others covered back. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was watching Wenger-ball.

It’s no wonder that the player who most embodied these observations was the magical Thierry Henry. In the 25th minute, the King of Highbury rounded on a loose ball at the edge of Inter’s area, driving it past a helpless Francesco Toldo into the bottom corner of the net. Thus, the floodgates of Arsenal’s offensive prowess opened, as the men in Red and White threaded passes finer than hand-made lace and struck the ball towards goal with the power of the cannons embroidered on their shirts. My new idol broke away and fired home into the same corner a second time later in the game as the Arsenal attack became relentless, scoring twice more in the final ten minutes of match. When the referee sounded his final whistle the scoreboard in Milan read, 5-1 to the visitors.

Arsenal had put themselves back into contention to qualify and it was in their hands if they could beat Lokomotiv Moscow back at Highbury. On the final day of the group stages and one of my last days in Russia, Henry & Co. sent the Russians home with a convincing 2-0 win and advanced to the knockout round. Inter Milan would not advance. I went home to America with a new respect for the game the rest of the world already adored.

I continued to follow soccer and Arsenal at home through the internet. It became a passion. I read all the histories and player biographies I could find. I dreamed about how awesome it would be to attend a match at Highbury and hear the songs ring out from the rafters. I bought my first kit on ebay, TH14 of course. I watched heartbroken as Juliano Belletti’s goal sank Arsenal’s Champions League run in 2006.

Fast forward to this past summer. I came to London for 6 months of law school courses, at least that’s what I told people who wouldn’t understand the real reason I came. I had purchased my tickets well in advance. The Red Army faithful had already said goodbye to Highbury the season before, but as I strode across the bridge leading to new 60,000-seat Emirates Stadium, I knew that something special was still in store. The over-sized Arsenal badge that adorned the side of the stadium filled me with pride. Passing through the turnstiles I could feel the energy brewing.

It was the inaugural Emirates Cup and Arsenal was paired up with none other than Inter Milan. I tried to keep my expectations low because I figured a summer friendly tournament surely won’t have the same atmosphere as a Premier League match. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Maybe it was the excitement of seeing the boys out on the field again after the hiatus, or maybe it was the chance to play another top European club again, but the place was alive. The red-robed fans made their new home echo with songs for the players and the manager.

Then it happened. Just after kick off, fans began to stand and cheer, and it slowly made its way to my ears . . . “5-1 at the San Siro!!! 5-1 at the San Siro!!!” A smile crept across my face as I remembered that cold night in Russia when I first fell in love with the team that I’ll follow to my dying days.

Written by Joe Groff

This article is a submission for the Soccerlens ‘Share Your Football Experiences’ Contest; to participate, please read the details here.

From Soccerlens.com - Football News