Football 2012-2013

[thetime]

Competitiveness from top to bottom? Germany shits all over us.

[thetime]

Competitiveness from top to bottom? Germany shits all over us.

[kaosmark2]

german footbal does seem the flavour of the moment on here. How is it more competitive?

Munich 20 points clear, runaway leaders like utd.

couple of clubs clear in 2nd and 3rd = city and spurs.

a few clubs trying to get 4th = chelsea, arsenal, everton and liverpool.

premier league relegation is much more interesting than germany's.

So to say it shits over the prem is a bit of an exaggeration.

[eFestivals]

the Premiership, where for 8 years we had an established top 4 that was only broken into once.

and, I'd say, that it getting broken into now is more about those previous top-teams weakening than the likes of Spurs having got stronger ... and, it's coincided with poorer Chumps performances by English teams .... which all adds up to the Prem not being what it was in strength against the rest of Europe.

[kaosmark2]

and, I'd say, that it getting broken into now is more about those previous top-teams weakening than the likes of Spurs having got stronger ... and, it's coincided with poorer Chumps performances by English teams .... which all adds up to the Prem not being what it was in strength against the rest of Europe.

[eFestivals]

City definitely got a lot stronger.

they did, but only on some levels - and it's quickly slipped again.

[kaosmark2]

Diverting topic:

Ferdinand back in the England squad.

Definitely merits a place, his form's been excellent. I can't see him making Brazil 14, but I guess England need to make sure they get there.

Quite relieved myself, I'd started to believe some of the newc fans predicting an England call-up for Steven Taylor (who's definitely been leagues better than Dawson and Smalling). He'd have inevitably got injured playing there and we'd have had to play Williamson again *shudder*.

Talking of tournaments, even Blatter's slagging off Platini's stupidity re. Euro 2020 http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21786199

[kaosmark2]

they did, but only on some levels - and it's quickly slipped again.

[eFestivals]

Diverting topic:

Ferdinand back in the England squad.

Definitely merits a place, his form's been excellent. I can't see him making Brazil 14, but I guess England need to make sure they get there.

his form might merit a place today, but I really don't see the point (apart from for Woy's own position) in using him.

If we can't get to Brazil with players who'll play in Brazil, there's really not much point in going to Brazil.

[kaosmark2]

his form might merit a place today, but I really don't see the point (apart from for Woy's own position) in using him.

If we can't get to Brazil with players who'll play in Brazil, there's really not much point in going to Brazil.

[zahidf]

his form might merit a place today, but I really don't see the point (apart from for Woy's own position) in using him.

If we can't get to Brazil with players who'll play in Brazil, there's really not much point in going to Brazil.

[thegremlin_1999]

Well he can't pick Smalling over Rio can he?

I'd be interested to see who people think are the 4 best English CBs in the country.

[pink_triangle]

I dont get this whole idea "I mainly blame sky tv" of obsessing over the best league in the world. All have pros and cons and you get great matches and terrible matches in each. It depends what your looking for, last season Montpellier won the french league, while a similar sized team in the major european leagues wouldnt get a look in, The bigger leagues get the better players but are less likely to be competitive. Im of the view that the more football I have access to the better, whatever country it is from.

[pink_triangle]

Excellent article about the away goal rule. Would love to claim it as my own but it is by the excellent guardian journalist Johnathan Wilson.

Imagine that on Tuesday night, rather than playing that late free-kick short so Milan lost possession and conceded a fourth goal, Robinho had hurled it into the box. Imagine Philippe Mexès had jumped for it, the ball had taken the merest brush off his pony-tail and that had been enough to take it past Victor Valdés. That would have made it 3-1 on the night, 3-3 on aggregate and Milan would have beaten Barcelona on the away goals rule.

Except they wouldn't really have beaten them, would they? They'd have gone through by an arbitrary regulation so familiar that we tend just to accept it. Or take the other game: at 0-0 Schalke were going through on away goals, at 2-2 Galatasaray were; two level scores, two different outcomes. In the end, of course, Umut Bulut's goal gave Galatasaray a 4-3 aggregate win – but his goal came about because Schalke had committed players upfield as they knew they were going out on away goals.

Or take Wednesday night: if Arsenal beat Bayern Munich 2-0, do they really not even deserve extra-time? If Málaga beat Porto 2-1, do they deserve to go out? Or on Thursday, in the Europa League: Newcastle defended superbly to draw 0-0 away to Anzhi in the first leg; if a defensive slip-up costs them an early goal, why should they have to score two to avoid going out? Why does it matter whether the slip-up came in the fourth-minute of injury-time in Moscow or the first minute at St James'?

This is the first problem with the away goals rule: it simply isn't fair. It makes certain goals count for more than others. When M'Baye Niang's shot hit the post at Camp Nou he was effectively denied not a goal but a goal and a half. If that generated good football, made games more exciting, then perhaps the inherent illogicity of the rule could be tolerated. But it doesn't. In fact, it achieves precisely the opposite of what it set out to do.

The away goals rule first made an appearance in European football in the Cup Winners' Cup in 1965, primarily to eliminate the need for replays, which were costly and difficult to arrange. Given the alternative was flipping a coin, it probably seemed the lesser of two evils and, besides, back then it made a certain sense. Only 16% of all European away games then resulted in an away win. Away trips were difficult: travel was gruelling and away teams would often face unfamiliar and/or hostile conditions. As a consequence, the tendency was for the away side to bed in, look to absorb pressure and try to keep the score down. In the 1964-65 European Cup, for instance, three of the 30 ties featured leads of two goals or more being overturned.

A 2-0 deficit was seen as eminently recoverable. What the away goals rule did was to try to persuade teams that a 3-1 defeat was better than a 2-0 defeat, to encourage at least an element of risk-taking.

But circumstances have changed. In each of the last five years, between 30 and 35% and matches in European competition have been won by the away side: even if you wanted to make the argument that the away goals rule has worked, the original rationale for its introduction has gone.

"In competitions where conditions, home and away, vary greatly — in, say, the African Champions League — away wins remain very hard to come by," Ian Hawkey wrote in Issue Zero of The Blizzard. "Poor, or fearful, refereeing would count as a factor in Africa. So would vastly distinct standards of playing surface, or the fact that a pair of matches in two-legged tie might easily take place in different seasons: winter in Tunis is scorching summer in Cape Town. In those circumstances, the away goals rule clearly has an important compensatory value. But in the European Champions League, it scarcely does. Where the European Cup of the 1960s and 1970s was exotic, with a greater range of destinations and opponents, the modern format is repetitive, cliquey."

Transport is better now, there is a great homogeneity of conditions while the differences between a German side and a Spanish idea, say, or a Russian side and a French side, are far less than they were.

Teams are cosmopolitan, national styles less distinct than they once were. Away trips simply aren't as frightening as they once were and so the away goal becomes a weird distorter.

To see how this can spoil football, you only have to look at last season's Champions League semi-final between Bayern Munich and Real Madrid. Bayern led 2-1 from the first leg. Real Madrid, seeking an early equaliser at the Bernabéu started furiously and struck twice in the first 14 minutes. That forced Bayern on to the attack and they made it 3-3 on aggregate with a 27th-minute penalty. It had been a thrillingly hectic opening half hour, and then the game died. Bayern looked to protect a level position on away soil, while Real were inhibited, knowing that if they conceded one they would have to score two to stay in the tie. Bayern behaved just as any away side would; Real were forced on the defensive by the away goals rule: far from encouraging the away team to play progressively, the away goals rule encouraged the home team to play more cagily.

It's a stance widely taken among coaches. "I believe the tactical weight of the away goal has become too important," Arsène Wenger said at a conference in 2008. "Teams get a 0-0 draw at home and they're happy. Instead of having a positive effect it has been pushed too far tactically in the modern game. It has the opposite effect than it was supposed to have at the start. It favours defending well when you play at home."

So the regulation is unfair, it's illogical and often achieves the opposite of what it's supposed to do. Why do we still put up with it?

[eFestivals]

I dont get this whole idea "I mainly blame sky tv" of obsessing over the best league in the world. All have pros and cons and you get great matches and terrible matches in each. It depends what your looking for, last season Montpellier won the french league, while a similar sized team in the major european leagues wouldnt get a look in, The bigger leagues get the better players but are less likely to be competitive. Im of the view that the more football I have access to the better, whatever country it is from.

nah .... while from a purely personal perspective that last sentence might be right, I'd say that that access doesn't come without hidden costs.

The access is sold, and the money ends up in the game - but it ends up primarily with the biggest clubs, and that distorts the competition in the favour of those biggest clubs.

There used to be a time when a club could come from nowhere and win the league - and yes, that was sometimes (perhaps often) done with the help of big budgets compared to other clubs. But while similar can happen now, it's as good as impossible to buy instant success in one season.

Ultimately, what it has caused to happen is for a bigger quality gap to open up between the top clubs and the bottom clubs making the league less competitive. That impacts right down thru football even to those who might take up playing it as the unlikely becomes the impossible and hopes and dreams are smashed.

It's now not a game that 'we' play but a game that 'they' play, them of a special breed of glamour boy in a very exclusive club. It's all about the big clubs and not the other clubs they need to be able to have a competition in the first place.

Football sold its soul.

[eFestivals]

Excellent article about the away goal rule. Would love to claim it as my own but it is by the excellent guardian journalist Johnathan Wilson.

<snip>

Why do we still put up with it?

Because all of the realistic alternatives are worse.

If the result is equal after time as been played, you've got to find a way to split the teams.

There's no time to schedule in replays.

Penalties are a way of deciding who is better at penalties. The match comes to mean nothing to the result. They can also regularly encourage negative football, which isn't the spectacle we want to see.

While the away goals rule isn't perfect, it ensures that it's the matches that are meaningful and not a penalty competition. It also regularly encourages the away team to attack more than they might otherwise (the opposite of the penalties effect).

There's of course times where the threat of penalties encourages attacking play and the away goals rule encourages defensive play, but i'd say that these are lesser than their more usual opposites.

The away goal rule isn't perfect, but it's the best idea there is for splitting the teams if it's an aggregate draw.

[kaosmark2]

What about shawcross? Or phil jones being picked at centre half? Surely got to be better than smalling...

No issue with rio at this point in time, but replacing him is going to be hard.

I don't follow the u21 much, who's playing centre half there?

[pink_triangle]

.

While the away goals rule isn't perfect, it ensures that it's the matches that are meaningful and not a penalty competition. It also regularly encourages the away team to attack more than they might otherwise (the opposite of the penalties effect).

[kaosmark2]

I dont get this whole idea "I mainly blame sky tv" of obsessing over the best league in the world. All have pros and cons and you get great matches and terrible matches in each. It depends what your looking for, last season Montpellier won the french league, while a similar sized team in the major european leagues wouldnt get a look in, The bigger leagues get the better players but are less likely to be competitive. Im of the view that the more football I have access to the better, whatever country it is from.

[eFestivals]

At the same time encouraging the home side to attack less!

as I said, it can have that effect, but it doesn't much have that effect very often.

Im not sure a penalty shootout shows who are the best at penalties, its who has the mental strength to put th ball in the net when the pressure is on.

perhaps, but it's still not a game of football, it's a game of penalties.

i agree theres no perfect solution but at least in a penalty shootout the team who score the most goals win and football is a game where the aim is to score more than your opposition.

yep, the aim is - but the rules also allow for a draw. And as I said at the start, it's then becomes a case of using marginal factors to split them - be that penalties or away goals or anything else.

If it goes to penalties the match means nothing - and yet football is the match, not penalties. This is an important point, I think.

So I like the idea of away goals, as it keeps the result of the game within the match as played over the whole pitch by all of the players.

[pink_triangle]

I don't disagree with the problems, but what alternative do you suggest? Automatically extra-time gives a HUGE advantage to the team that plays home 2nd. Replays are unrealistic. Penalties becoming more prominent would just lead to an increased focus on them and reduce the excitement of when they do happen.

[thegremlin_1999]

My sixpenneth regarding the away goals

Keep em, but they only count after extra time and crucially only the goals in normal play time count double

(So if its 1-1 in both games and both teams score in extra time that extra away goal isn't counted double)

There was once talk of extra-extra time which would be golden goal (say an extra 20 mins - 2 x 10 minute halves) and if its still level you play another extra extra extra time period until someone scores...

Might work?

[Jaybles]

No blinkers here.

I'm coming back at you with the opposite exteme to your view, that's all - but one that's infused with more realism (and less red blinkers) than you're managing.

[pink_triangle]

3 English sides through to the europa league, they normally struggle to get 1. Particulaly happy to see newcastle and spurs, although the latter should be worried having lost 2 games in a row. I think spurs really miss Sandro, if Arsenal (with no distractions) put spurs under pressure, I can see the choking. Cant get excited about chelsea getting though, although it would be hialrious if fixture congestion cost them a champions league place. Looking at the teams left in the competition, my worrying feeling about them winning the trophy remains.

[strummer77]

Silver goal was actually a good one really. Was just two small periods of extra time. Not 100% sure why everybody found it so complicated!