Monthly Archives: September 2012
Is Tito following Mourinho?
Deputies don’t necessary go on to make good bosses. Look no further than Gordon Brown and Mariano Rajoy. In football it’s a mixed picture. Carlos Queiroz went from Ferguson’s assistant to managing Real Madrid (not a happy time)to being Ferguson’s assistant again, before pursuing an unexceptional career as national coach with Portugal, and now Iran. By contrast Mourinho laid claim to being a ‘special one’ after serving as Bobby Robson’s assistant and translator at Barca. He went on conquer more than Robson did. FC Barcelona now have Tito Vilanova who …
So where do Barca’s best interests lie?
An interesting comment from Francesc to my earlier blog on Barca and Catalan Independence prompts a follow-up . Those who follow me on twitter will know some of the specific technical issues that concerned me about last night’s FC Barcelona match against Granada. They included worries about Villa’s limitations as a player compared to Pedro and Alexis both of whom track back and associate with the rest of the team more than him, Valdes’s sloppy clearances , and Song’s unconvincing performance as centre-defender. I was also unimpressed by Messi’s prolonged …
Why today’s Barca does not fit easily into an Independent Catalonia
Some debate in Catalonia was generated earlier this month by the fact that FC Barcelona president Sandro Rosell decided to attend the march of La Diada in a personal and not institutional capacity so as not to throw the club onto the independence bandwagon- a cause which opinion polls show just under fifty per cent of voters in Catalonia do not support. I think Rosell was right, as was his decision that the team next season should have the Catalan colours as their third preference strip, not their first. It …
Real Madrid vs Man City: almost a tale of two halves
I have to say that of all this week’s Champions League encounters, none will come as close to holding my attention as much as this Tuesday’s encounter between Real Madrid and Manchester City. The game is being played between two clubs that are approaching this season’s competition with a paradox in common. They share the strutting arrogance of ruthless trophy hunters whose model of big spending on star signings , while winning championships, has nevertheless fallen short of the globe-trotting success story their fans were promised. Rather than unassailable, the …
Spanish Football’s financial meltdown
By Jimmy Burns Forget about the Spanish junior team’s poor showing in the Olympics. Spain stills boasts the best soccer in the world. Earlier this summer its senior national squad, nicknamed La Roja, won the European Championship, setting a record as the first nation to win three consecutive major international tournaments in four years. Last season five Spanish clubs – Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Valencia, Athletic Bilbao and Atlético de Madrid – reached European club competition semi-finals. Of these, Athletic Bilbao and Atlético went on to play in the final …
Evo’s Bolivia:Far from seventh heaven
The colonial church of San Francisco in La Paz, founded in 1548, is a beautifully textured mixture of Christian imagery and Indian mythology. The facade and ceiling mixes in saints, Christs and Virgins with tropical birds, reptiles , and sweet corn. On a recent Sunday, the church was the setting of a controversial ceremony : a Jesuit priest officiated the marriage of Bolivia’s neo-Marxist vice-president to a popular TV newsreader just a day after the couple dedicate their love to each other in Tiwanaku, site of a prehistoric indigenous ceremonial …
Why Cameron is doomed
Change in British politics can as easily creep up on one as happen rather suddenly. Think on Churchill’s election defeat post WW2. The Poll tax riots in March 1990 and the massive demonstration against the war in Iraq in February 2003, marked the end of the popular legitimacy of the two other towering post-war prime-ministers, Thatcher and Blair. In recent days the heckling of the chancellor George Osborne by thousands of spectators at the Paralympics will I think eventually take its place in the history books as symbolic of David …
