Things warming up nicely on the South African sporting front
June 18, 2009
The South African sporting public were a little underwhelmed by the early stages of the Confederations Cup and the British and Irish Lions tour but the last few days has seen a major turnaround and there is now something in the air.
Relatively high ticket prices combined with the Sprinboks’ decision to keep their players out of their Super 14 teams combined to ensure the early provincial games were played against a backdrop of empty seats.
Now, however, with the first test looming on Saturday, a ticket for King’s Park is like gold dust. The few thousand Lions fans who followed the team round the country over the first three weeks have been joined by a massive influx for the tests.
Estimates are that more than 30,000 will arrive for some part of the tour and they were out in force in Durban this week. Balmy seaside temperatures, good cheap food and, vitally, even cheaper beer, makes the coastal resort a dream destination for rugby tourists.
Organised groups, more often than not bedecked in matching tour shirts, are fillling the oceanside bars by night, while taking advantage of the wonderful opportunities South Africa has to offer by day.
While everyone has an opinion on whether the Boks should or should not have played a warm-up match and on the Proteas’ prospects in cricket’s World Twenty20, the efficiency of Iraq’s back four in the Confederations Cup has not been at the conversational fore.
However, South Africa’s victory over New Zealand on Wednesday has stirred things up and, with the World Cup less than a year away, previously pessimistic fans are warming again to their side, who are well-placed to reach the semi-finals of this dry-run tournament on home soil.
It’s not exactly World Cup fever just yet, but the temperature is definitely rising.
PHOTO: A fan cheers before South Africa take on New Zealand in their Confederations Cup soccer match at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg June 17, 2009. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez
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Barca chase Mascherano – report
June 18, 2009
BARCELONA, Spain (AFP) – European champions Barcelona are hot on the trail of Liverpool’s Argentine international midfielder Javier Mascherano, Catalan sports daily Sport reported Thursday.
Thew club’s head of technical affairs Txiki Begiristain and director of football Raul Sanllehy met with the player’s two agents for two hours at a Barcelona hotel, according to Sport, to thrash out a potential deal and “establish the interest of the two parties.”
Mascherano has been dubbed unsellable by the Reds’ Spanish coach Rafael Benitez, who says he would not even sell the player for 60 million euros.
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I´ve made up my mind on transfer: Villa
June 18, 2009
BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa (AFP) – Spain striker David Villa says he has made up his mind on which club he will move to, but refused to say who it was.
The Valancia star said his agent was working on the details.
“I only have one decision. My agent already knows what that is and he is working towards it. I am relaxed here,” he told reporters here at the Confederations Cup.
The 27-year-old, who scored the goal that helped Spain beat Iraq 1-0 on Wednesday, has been linked with Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United.
“There is no deadline on the subject, and I really do not have any more details as this whole thing is not totally dependent on me,” he added.
Spanish media reported this week that Barcelona had tabled a 35-million-euro bid for the player.
Real Madrid, who have already bought superstars Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo this month, had been chasing Villa but were reported to have been put off by a 42-million-euro asking price.
Manchester United have been linked to him but he has said he would go to the English Premier League only if he could hook up with national teammate Fernando Torres at Liverpool, who have shown little interest so far.
Villa has been an integral member of the Spain team that hasn’t lost since November 2006 and is also only one match away from equalling Brazil’s record 35-match unbeaten run.
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McLeish ready to move for Ferguson
June 18, 2009
GLASGOW (AFP) – Birmingham manager Alex McLeish has revealed the newly-promoted Premier League club have made an enquiry about Rangers midfielder Barry Ferguson.
Ferguson, who was McLeish’s skipper during his reign at Rangers, could be allowed to leave Ibrox after being stripped of the club captaincy for his drunken behaviour while on international duty with Scotland earlier this year.
McLeish wants to add an experienced midfielder to his squad as he seeks to keep Birmingham in the English top-flight and Ferguson could fit the bill, although he is yet to make an official approach for the former Blackburn player.
“I haven’t made a move for Barry but I have enquired about him,” McLeish told the Daily Record.
“He is one of a number of players I’m interested in. I’m on holiday right now but I’m still working away at some things.”
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Vermaelen off to Arsenal
June 18, 2009
BRUSSELS (AFP) – Belgian defender Thomas Vermaelen was Thursday set to have a medical at Arsenal as he bids to complete a move to the Gunners from Dutch side Ajax.
Vermaelen told the Gazet van Antwerpen newspaper he was on the way to sign a four-year deal with the Gunners.
“Everything is set up for the best days of my life. Arsenal are a fantastic club with a coach who backs the beautiful game. I am going to go up against the best strikers in the world but that doesn’t scare me,” he insisted.
“I will head off Thursday to London for the medical and sign my contract assuming all goes off as planned.”
Media reports say Arsenal and Ajax have agreed a fee of around 13 million euros. for the 23-year-old who has spent six years with Ajax.
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Favorites USA, Mexico post opening-day victories at CONCACAF Beach Soccer Championship
June 18, 2009
PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico – Anthony Chimienti scored three goals and helped rally the two-time champion United States to a 6-2 victory over debutante Bahamas in the opening game of the CONCACAF Beach Soccer Championship on Wednesday.
In the second game of the first-day doubleheader, Christopher Flores scored four times to lead defending champion and host Mexico to a 10-0 win over Canada, which is returning to the championship after a two-year absence.
The tournament is being played seven weeks after it originally was scheduled to take place. Concerns over swine flu, which resulted in Mexican government officials closing schools nationwide in April, caused CONCACAF to cancel the semifinals and finals of its Under-17 Championship in Tijuana, delay the second leg of the Champions League final in Cancun, and postpone the beach championship in Puerto Vallarta.
Leslie St. Fleur gave the Bahamas the lead six seconds after the opening kickoff, but Chimienti equalized 1:11 later. Brendon Taguinod put the USA, the 2006 and 2007 CONCACAF champion, ahead with 1:14 remaining in the first period and Chimienti scored his second less than a minute into the second period to put the United States in control 3-1.
Yuri Morales and St. Fleur traded goals before the end of the second to leave the USA ahead 4-2, and Morales added a second early in the third period before Chimienti closed out his day with a third with 2:02 remaining.
The Bahamas finished without starting forward Nesley Jean and assistant coach Roberto Ceciliano, the former U.S. beach national team manager. Both were ejected with less than two minutes to play in the second period.
Mexico went ahead 44 seconds after the start on the first of two goals by Ricardo Villalobos. Gustavo Rosales added the first of his three goals with 4:39 remaining in the first period to double Mexico’s lead and then tacked on another 55 seconds into the second. Then Flores added goals on either side of Rosales’ second, all in a span of less than five minutes, to put Mexico well in control 6-0 with 2:42 remaining in the second.
Isaac Rodriguez accounted for Mexico’s other goal just before the end of the second.
The results left the United States and Mexico atop their respective groups in the six-team event, with the finalists both qualifying for the Beach Soccer World Cup in the United Arab Emirates November 16-22.
The five-day CONCACAF championship continues on Thursday with El Salvador playing its first game against Canada in Group A, and Costa Rica taking on the Bahamas in Group B.
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Carly Zucker & Joe Cole to Wed Finally!
June 18, 2009
It feels like the longest build up to a WAG wedding yet. But Carly Zucker and Joe Cole finally plan to say their vows in three days time.
The couple who are obviously not too concerned about their wedding plans have just got back from a pre-wedding honeymoon.
Neither Carly or Joe have confirmed or denied any wedding details but it is thought they will be getting married at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea on Saturday.
Carly has also revealed her hopes to get pregnant pretty soon after the nuptials.
She says: ‘Joe and I will be starting a family as soon as we’re married. Ideally, I would like to get pregnant on the honeymoon. That way I’ll give birth just before the World Cup.’
‘It would be great to go there with the baby to give Joe and the England team some support. Joe will be a brilliant dad and I can’t wait for us to be a family.’
We’re looking forward to seeing and hearing all the details from this WAG wedding, especially since guests are thought to include Frank Lampard and ex-Elen Rives.
Could there be some champagne and caviar thrown across the reception room, we sure hope so!!
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Cheryl Cole Splashes Out on her Swimwear!
June 18, 2009
It has been reported that Cheryl Cole’s all-in-one swimsuit set her back £375…Wowsa!
Since my new bikinis come from Primark you won’t mind me being a little taken a back by Cheryl’s latest purchase.
The WAG has been papped sunning herself in the South of France with hubby Ashley Cole wearing the rather stunning one-piece.
The suit is from the Odabash’s swimwear collection, is lime green and has silver mirrors embellished on it. There’s no denying the costume is gorgeous, but worth £375, we’re not so sure!
Cheryl Cole is also showing off some pretty impressive abs whilst on holiday, but still pretty tiny…Damn, oh well back to the gym it is!
Meanwhile Coleen Rooney has been showing off her bloomin bikini body in Barbados this week… All I can say is she’s a braver lady than I am.
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Cristiano Ronaldo and why art, not the artist, is what matters
June 18, 2009
Cristiano Ronaldo’s obsession with scoring an unforgettable goal in the Champions League final makes perfect sense now the world knows he always intended to leave Manchester United afterwards for Real Madrid.
Reaction in England to his departure was captured in a Guardian headline: “United fans will miss outrageous talent but not a charmless man”. Ronaldo, it was said, possessed sumptuous talent coupled with obnoxious self-regard.
What, in the end, will Ronaldo be remembered for? His artistry as a footballer or his perceived failings as a man?
John Updike, who died this year aged 76, gives a clue.
A prodigiously prolific novelist, short story writer, playwright, literary critic, art critic and poet, Updike also produced one classic piece of sports writing entitled “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu“. It is a wonderful account of Ted Williams’s last game at Fenway Park in 1960, which turned out to be the great slugger’s last game anywhere.
Updike cuts to the essence of all great athletes.
“He radiated, from afar, the hard blue glow of high purpose… For me, Williams is the classic ballplayer of the game on a hot August weekday, before a small crowd, when the only thing at stake is the tissue-thin difference between a thing done well and a thing done ill.”
Baseball, says Updike, and by extension any sport, is maintained “…not by the occasional heroics that sportswriters feed upon but by players who always care; who care, that is to say, about themselves and their art.”
Williams’s craftsmanship and rigour appealed to Updike’s puritan soul. His achievements, like Williams’s, depending on unsparing daily endeavour.
There was, though, a contradiction between Williams the athlete and Williams the man. He was, the sportswriter Roger Kahn said bluntly, “not a man to match the deed but an egocentric emotionalist who seems most of all to need a spanking”.
Updike did not avoid the controversies which dogged Williams’s career. He just didn’t think they mattered. Kahn cared no more than Updike about the personal foibles of Williams or of any other ballplayer. “They are all players in a drama larger than themselves,” Kahn wrote. “There is a classic tragedy within major league
baseball that catches and manipulates the life of every athlete as surely as forces beyond the heaths manipulated Hardy’s simple Wessex folk into creatures of imposing stature.”
Art, not the artist, is what matters in the end. Lord Byron, as a recent biography by Edna O’Brien confirms, was a moral monster. Pablo Picasso, Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra were deeply flawed. Their poetry, pictures, films and music will endure, regardless.
So, too, will the memories of Ronaldo’s mesmerising feats at Old Trafford when the narcissism and petulance we read so much about last week have been long forgotten.
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In defence of Giuseppe Rossi
June 18, 2009
American soccer fans aren’t noted for their nastiness but the reaction to Giuseppe Rossi, New Jersey native, scoring twice for Italy against the U.S in their 3-1 Confederations Cup defeat on Monday has been surprisingly vitriolic.
What has upset U.S fans is that Rossi was born and bred in the U.S. but chose to play for another country and then — to add insult to injury — celebrated when he scored twice against his country of birth.
Rossi has Italian parents (his father was a soccer coach) also holds Italian citizenship, moved to Parma when he was 12 and was part of the Italian club’s youth scheme before joining Manchester United aged 17. He has represented Italy at youth level before joining the full national side. He now plays in Spain for Villarreal and is the subject of some pretty intense speculation linking him with a move back to one of Italy’s top clubs.
There is now a facebook group with nearly 400 members called ‘We Hate Giuseppe Rossi’ which features a picture of the forward with the word ‘Scum’ superimposed on it. Twitter contributors have labelled Rossi a traitor and there is worse out there.
The word “traitor” is entirely out of place in describing Rossi. In the modern, globalised world it is nothing at all out of the ordinary for players to have dual nationalities. It happens all the time. In fact, if my wife were to give birth to a son here in Miami, he would be eligible to play for four different countries (including, like Rossi, the U.S and Italy). These sort of situations are going to become more and more common in the future.
But it is particularly unfair to attack Rossi for his choice.
First of all, there is the matter of identity. With two Italian parents, Rossi clearly has a strong affinity for Italy.
Secondly, having left the U.S at the age of 12, he has not been part of the U.S youth coaching set-up and so owes nothing to U.S soccer (the bitterness would be more understandable had Rossi benefited from years of American coaching and soccer academies and then as an adult chosen to play for Italy).
Thirdly, he moved to Italy before he was even a teenager and received five years of coaching, schooling and development with Parma and the Italian Football Federation’s coaches, so he owes them much more than he owes U.S Soccer. I mean, he even played for Italy’s Under-16 team.
Often players choose to ‘adopt’ a country in order to gain an easier chance at becoming an international player. But Rossi can hardly be accused of that. As the online magazine American Soccer News puts it:
“In fact, the decision to play for Italy was a big risk if he ever wanted to have a national team career of any sort. Winners of four World Cups (including the most recent edition) and home to one of the best professional leagues on the planet, competition for Italy’s national team spots is fierce. Personnel decisions are analyzed meticulously by the country’s soccer-mad press. The pressure on players fortunate enough to don the national team kit is intense.
“Every mistake is scrutinized at great length in the papers and cafes and grottos and wherever else people gather. Many players’ lives (and those of their families) are ruined as a result. Why would any young man make the decision to expose himself to this maelstrom when he had a far easier, safer choice available to him?
“Rossi would have been all but guaranteed a starting spot for the US, probably for as long as he wanted, where he would not have been subject to anywhere near the same scrutiny.”
Indeed, to add to that, Rossi could find himself, in a year’s time, if his current excellent form deserts him, not making the Italy World Cup squad and be sat at home watching the U.S playing in South Africa and knowing that he would have walked into their team.
So why the bitterness about someone who hasn’t lived in the U.S since he was 12? I think it shows, above all, the deep disappointment among North American fans who have been waiting and waiting for a genuine world class talent to emerge.
While the U.S has produced scores of decent professionals, they really haven’t found anyone who would attract the likes of Manchester United or AC Milan to get their chequebooks out.
The all-time top scorer for the U.S national side, Landon Donovan, has had three tries at a career in the Bundesliga and failed to make the grade on every occasion. Freddy Adu was hailed as the first American global soccer star and although he is still only 20, his career so far in Europe has stuttered along.
Rather than vent fury at Rossi, American fans would do better to ask themselves whether Rossi would be the player he is now if he had chosen to stay in the United States and spend his formative years with a junior club here and then join a Major League Soccer team?
The sad truth is that if Rossi had stayed in the U.S, we probably wouldn’t be arguing about him now — he’d be just another no-name in the MLS, getting the occasional outing in the national side, playing with the anonymous lack of flair and style that is unfortunately typical of players coached in the U.S system.
PHOTO: Italy’s Giuseppe Rossi celebrates after scoring against the U.S during their Confederations Cup match at the Loftus Versfeld stadium in Pretoria, June 15, 2009. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko
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