Wait until next year

September 3, 2009

Chelsea banned from signing players until 2011

Bizarre and shocking news from FIFA, who have banned Chelsea from signing any players until January 2011, following the judgement on Chelsea’s signing of Gael Kakuta. The statement can be found here.

This could have a profound effect on Chelsea, a club not shy of bringing in players in the past. While they do have a massive squad, they could still be in trouble if players are injured, retire or decide to leave the club. They will not be able to strengthen themselves at all.

That’s not to mention the impact this will have on their youth development work – this could set them back years if they can’t sign any new prospects.

I fully expect Chelsea to appeal (and with their cash get the best lawyers in the land), and footballing authorities do seem to make a habit of backing down, so this could turn out to be a fuss over nothing. Alternatively, this could be strike one against teams poaching players, with a genuine sanction rather than a token one for once, as this will punish Chelsea for their actions far more than any fine could.

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September 3, 2009

When will England’s cricketers learn not to play football?

You would have thought Matt Prior’s back spasms brought on by playing football prior to the fourth Ashes Test would have been warning enough, wouldn’t you? But no, here we go again, with Joe Denly today hurting his knee following a tackle from Owais Shah.

Will the team ever learn? How is playing football a sensible and safe warm-up activity for a cricketer? Even footballers don’t warm up by playing football right away, they run and they stretch first. They wouldn’t leap in with wild tackles when they did start kicking the ball around, either. And they certainly don’t pick up a bat and start playing cricket.

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September 2, 2009

Catching up on the baseball

The past two weeks I’ve been on annual leave, and so haven’t been able (or willing) to watch much sport over that time. Baseball has particularly suffered, and so last night I attempted to catch up a little, especially as we enter the business-end of the season, with October’s play-offs looming.

I watched some of Monday night’s Texas Rangers/Toronto Blue Jays game, and picked an entertaining and bizarre matchup for getting back into the swing of things (excuse the awful pun). The Blue Jays went 11-0 up and the game seemed dead and buried, only for Texas to drag themselves back into it, so the ninth and final inning began 11-10. Toronto seemed to wake up again at this point and notched up seven without reply, the exhausting game ending 18-10. There wasn’t a whole lot of quality, but there was a whole lot of hitting fun.

I then switched to last night’s early game, for some live baseball action, again with the Rangers and Blue Jays. I didn’t see a whole lot before my bed called, but the pitching seemed a whole lot less wild.

As a bit of an experiment I tried some mid-game(s) tweeting and was encouraged to actually get some replies from my random notes thrown into the ether. I might have to try that again. It will give me something to do between innings, anyway. Well, something other than forage for more snacks.

One way I do keep up is Craig Calcaterra’s daily roundup at the Hardball Times, which has to be one of the most entertaining, fun and accessible baseball recaps I’ve come across. Today he pointed out a fun story about Adrian Beltre returning from a nasty sounding testicle injury to the tune of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker”. I’m sure Beltre will never hear the end of that one.

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September 1, 2009

Premier League transfer deadline day – was there anything to get excited about?

I guess the short answer is – no.

It certainly didn’t match last year’s Premier League transfer deadline madness that saw Manchester City as the brand new Richest Club In The World Ever try and buy everyone under the sun, eventually swooping to sign Robinho, right under the noses of previous Richest Club In The World Ever, Chelsea.

Really, most of the big transfers had already took place, and it will be Real Madrid’s raid on Ronaldo, Kaka, Alonso et al that will be remembered, with perhaps Michael Owen’s surprise move to Manchester United, and Manchester City’s continued spending too, depending on how this season pans out.

So, anything of interest? I think Niko Kranjcar to Spurs could be a real steal, and is very timely after Luka Modric’s nasty injury. I think Richard Dunne to Aston Villa could be good business too. I can see him really coming on under Martin O’Neill’s management. Apart from that, we’ll have to wait and see. With the so-called ‘big guns’ avoiding any last-minute buys and a 5pm rather than midnight finish (so less time for Sky Sports News to ramp up the hype that THIS TRANSFER IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE EVER) maybe today was doomed to be an anti-climax.

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August 28, 2009

Champions League draw – initial thoughts

So, here’s yesterday’s draw:

Group A: Bayern Munich, Juventus, Bordeaux , Maccabi Haifa

Group B: Manchester United, CSKA Moscow, Besiktas, Wolfsburg

Group C: AC Milan, Real Madrid, Marseille, FC Zurich

Group D: Chelsea, Porto, Atletico Madrid, Apoel FC

Group E: Liverpool, Lyon, Fiorentina, Debreceni

Group F: Barcelona, Internazionale, Dynamo Kiev, FC Rubin Kazan

Group G: Sevilla, Rangers, VfB Stuttgart, Unirea Uriziceni

Group H: Arsenal, AZ Alkmaar, Olympiakos, Standard Liege

It was certainly good to see some new (and unusual) names make it into the Champions League draw, but beyond that, at first glance, I’m not sure there is that much to get overly excited about. A common criticism of the Champions League group stage is that it reduces the chance of an upset, as over the course of six games the bigger teams will generally prevail, unlike in a straight knockout tournament. While arguably this ensures the best teams go through, it does make things rather predictable. What’s a cup tournament without a few underdogs making progress?

This draw looks even more predictable than in previous years (although I may well be proved wrong in time!). The British teams in particular seem to have got off lightly, and over the course of six games should progress, or will need to have some very good excuses up their sleeve if they don’t.

The non-British groups probably throw up the most interesting ties, Bayern Munich/Juventus, Milan/Madrid and Inter/Barca, and so perhaps offer the best chance for a third or fourth seed to sneak through if one of the big guns lose twice to a top seed and then drop points elsewhere. However, the top two seeds in each group do look very strong favourites to go through.

However, despite this negativity, I’m still quite looking forward to the group stages. In some ways it works to have a more low-key opening to a tournament, before the heat and action of the later stages. Plus, seeing what some of the new faces can do will be fun, and European football on telly is always a good thing. Even with Sky’s ridiculous hype.

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