Rangers boss Smith handed four-match touchline ban
September 24, 2009
Rangers boss Walter Smith was handed a four-match touchline ban on Thursday for his sending-off in last weekend’s Premier League game at Kilmarnock, the Scottish Football Association confirmed.
Smith was sent-off for reacting furiously to Killie players he mistakenly thought were trying to get Pedro Mendes shown a second yellow card.
The Ibrox boss has until September 30 to appeal.
GLASGOW (AFP)
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North Korea to play World Cup warmups in France
September 24, 2009
North Korea’s footballers will play three matches in France in October as part of their build-up to the 2010 World Cup, the Asians’ first venture into Europe for 40 years.
The squad will be based near the western city of Nantes from October 5-15, the French organisers Sports Live Agency said.
North Korea, who last qualified for the World Cup in 1966 in England, will take on second division side Nantes at La Roche-sur-Yon on October 9 and the Congo national team on October 13 at Le Mans.
The date for a third game, probably against a French footballer’s union side, is being arranged.
The North Koreans secured their place in the 2010 tournament in South Africa with a 0-0 draw away at Saudi Arabia last June.
In 1966, North Korea became many people’s second team as they beat mighty Italy on the way to the quarter-finals, where they went out to Portugal 5-3.
But in recent years the team has made little impact on the international stage.
Football is the most popular sport in the North but Pyongyang’s leadership banned the national squad from travelling abroad after losing to arch-rivals Japan and South Korea in qualifiers for the 1994 World Cup.
The North returned to international football at the Bangkok Asian Games in 1999 but did not compete in qualifying for the 1998 World Cup in France or the 2002 edition.
The North’s return to the World Cup finals comes amid grave international concern after Pyongyang test-fired several rockets and tested a nuclear bomb.
NANTES, France (AFP)
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Toni remains exiled in Bayern reserves
September 24, 2009
Italian World Cup winner Luca Toni faces a second weekend of exile with Bayern Munich’s reserves instead of spearheading the German giants’ Bundesliga clash against league leaders Hamburg.
The 32-year-old striker had been told by Bayern coach Louis van Gaal that he will play for the reserves against Aue in the German third division, despite having featured for the first team for 30 minutes in the 5-0 midweek German Cup win against Oberhausen.
“He needs to find the rhythm of competition”, said Van Gaal.
Toni, the Bundesliga top-scorer in 2007/2008, played for the reserves last weekend as he returned to action following a lengthy lay-off with an Achilles tendon injury and insisted he was ready for a first-team recall.
“Tests showed that I was in better shape than certain of my teammates,” said Toni.
MUNICH, Germany (AFP)
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Blatter slams European clubs for under-20 World Cup no-shows
September 24, 2009
FIFA president Sepp Blatter on Thursday slammed Europe’s top clubs for refusing to free their young players to compete in the under-20 World Cup in Egypt.
“It’s not right that the big European clubs don’t free up their young players for the World Cup, when they don’t have any obligations and are not first team. When they aren’t playing they can’t gain experience,” said Blatter.
“It’s better for them to enjoy the second major world competition than to stay at home warming the substitutes bench.”
The under-20 World Cup event, which takes place from September 24 to October 16, will be without many up-and-coming stars as European clubs have been reluctant to let their players leave for nearly a month at the height of the season.
Favourites Germany and Italy arrived in Egypt without most of their stars.
The German clubs in August refused to release their players after a meeting with the German football Federation (DFB), while the Football Association (FA) was similarly understanding with English clubs.
Italy are without the likes of Roma’s Stefano Okaka Chuka, who scored a Serie A goal at just 16, as well as Genoa’s Silvano Raggio Garibaldi and Inter Milan’s Davide Santon.
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AFP)
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Real want early games to tap Chinese viewership
September 24, 2009
Real Madrid want early matches so that more fans in China can view them and the team can raise their profile there, club director Emilio Butragueno said on Thursday.
La Liga games involving Real and Barcelona often kick off at 2200 Spanish time (0400 in Beijing) and Butragueno said moving fixtures should be a priority for the professional soccer association.
The arrival of players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka in La Liga had created an opportunity for Real and rival teams to boost their presence in the Asian market, he added.
“We, as the Spanish league, believe the possibility of playing matches at a reasonable hour for China will help our competition a lot and also the Spanish teams, which will be better known,” Butragueno said at a discussion forum.
Millions of Chinese fans are avid followers of La Liga and the English Premier League and clubs are keen to cash in.
The poor state of Chinese soccer and the failure of its national side to qualify for the World Cup in South Africa next year partly explain why fans look elsewhere for their football fix.
Francisco Roca, LFP director general, also attended the forum and said La Liga was examining the possibility of changing match times.
“I don’t rule out there might be some kind of experiment this season to see how it works,” he added.
Abhimanyu Rajput
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How did Argentine football get in such a state?
September 24, 2009
Lionel Messi walks off the pitch in Asuncion his head bowed after Argentina’s 1-0 defeat to Paraguay. A few days later he scores for Barcelona and the dimpled grin is back on his face.
Diego Maradona says that on the compact Rosario central pitch Argentina will pin Brazil against their goal. They do up to a point, with masses of possession, but Dunga’s men demolish them in lethal counter-attacks with Maradona watching in glum silence and Argentina return to River Plate for next month’s key World Cup qualifier against Peru.
“Coco” Basile is all grins, throaty one-liners and “I know the dressing room inside out” at his official presentation as Boca Juniors coach on July 1. Last weekend it was his empty look the cameras caught as he walked off the Bombonera pitch after another defeat.
Nestor Gorosito welcomes the three musketeers Ariel Ortega, Marcelo Gallardo and Matias Almeyda at the start of a new campaign last month. Last week he went sprawling in the mud on the side of the pitch when a Lanus player slid into him in pouring rain during a 1-0 defeat that put River Plate out of the Copa Sudamericana, and the crowd cheered.
Argentina’s big teams, the national side that have won two World Cups and the multi-decorated Boca Juniors and River Plate, are not well and fans and media are struggling to understand why.
Former Argentina captain Roberto Ayala said recently in Spain he saw a “surprising lack of rebellion” in Argentina’s players against their situation as Maradona’s side hovered dangerously close to World Cup elimination.
The coaches may not have the answers but players who week in, week out make the European headlines for their clubs, the likes of Messi, Carlos Tevez, Sergio Aguero and Diego Milito, are failing to deliver for Argentina.
Does at least part of the answer lie in the fact that Argentina, who won the last two World Youth Cups, did not even qualify for this year’s tournament kicking off on Thursday in Egypt?
Yet it was the very World Youth Cup that made world junior champions of Maradona in 1979, Juan Roman Riquelme and Pablo Aimar in 1997, Andres D’Alessandro in 2001, Messi in 2005 and Aguero in 2007. There is no questioning their quality.
Argentina may be lacking a midfield general, the kind of traditional No.10 who strolled the pitch spraying telling passes, the most recent of which was Riquelme.
Captain Javier Mascherano is not that man. Apart from the fact he is off his game, he patrols the area in front of the back four as Americo Gallego did for Cesar Menotti’s 1978 world champions.
Maradona’s Argentina now rely on Juan Sebastian Veron — suspended against Peru after being sent off against Paraguay — to dictate play but he is being asked to play further upfield than he does to greater effect from deeper for Estudiantes.
Argentina bunch up in the middle of their opponents’ half, the forwards often get in each others’ way and the defence is left thin and open to the counter-punch.
Sadly, River Plate and Boca Juniors, two of the country’s traditional player production lines, have dried up in that department. All the most recent major exports are strikers.
Former River Plate midfielders Pablo Aimar, now at Benfica, and Andres D’Alessandro, who is in Brazil with Internacional, are on people’s tongues again as the sort of No.10 Argentina need.
Maradona as a player was that and much more. He appears unable, though, to inject his team with the passion he showed in an Argentina shirt or, as their coach, a strategy that brings the best out of them.
PHOTO: Argentina’s Lionel Messi pauses during their World Cup qualifying defeat against Paraguay in Asuncion, Sept 9, 2009. REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci
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Police drop probe over Bellamy clash with fan
September 24, 2009
British police have dropped an investigation into a clash between Craig Bellamy and a fan who ran onto the pitch in last weekend’s explosive Manchester derby, a spokesman said Thursday.
The Manchester City player was warned by the Football Association after he responded to the fan by pushing him in the face on Sunday, while the police said they had launched a probe.
But a Greater Manchester Police spokesman said Thursday: “We have received no complaints about this incident and are currently not investigating the matter.”
The fan involved will appear in court on September 30 charged with going on to a football playing area without lawful authority.
Gary Neville, a non-playing Manchester United substitute, was also investigated for his actions in celebrating the home side’s winner by running down the touchline towards the City fans.
But the FA have decided against charging either player with improper conduct, in Bellamy’s case because referee Martin Atkinson told FA officials that he would not have sent off the Welsh star had he seen the incident.
United won the match 4-3 with a Michael Owen goal deep in second-half injury time.
LONDON (AFP)
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Pakhtakor and Al-Ittihad draw in AFC Champions League
September 24, 2009
The first leg of the AFC Champions League quarter final tie between Pakhtakor Tashkent of Uzbekistan and Al Ittihad of Saudi Arabia ended in a 1-1 draw.
In the only quarter final to be played on Thursday, the Uzbek hosts needed just six minutes for Milan Nikolic to open the score and put his team in the lead.
The match then remained goalless until minute 72, when Saleh Al-Saqri leveled the score to give the Saudi Arabians a much better starting point for the second leg.
The quarter final return legs are scheduled to be played on September 30.
Jonathan Roorda
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Hertha coach Favre get’s club backing
September 24, 2009
Hertha Berlin coach Lucien Favre has received the club’s backing, following a dismal start to the Berlin-based club.
Hertha has plunged to last place in the Bundesliga after five straight defeats, and lost again late Wednesday in the second round of the German Cup to second-division team 1860 Munich, which won on penalties after a 2-2 draw.
“He is not only the right man at the right time, he will lead us out of the crisis,” Hertha sporting director Michael Preetz said Thursday.
Hertha came back from two goals down to level at 2-2 and earn extra time but was knocked out when Gojko Kacar and Christoph Janker failed to convert their penalty shots.
“The second half makes me optimistic for the next games,” Favre said.
“I can’t criticize my team.”
And Hertha’s next game is on Sunday at Hoffenheim.
Last term around, Favre’s team topped the Bundesliga for several weeks last season and nearly qualified for the Champions League.
But the club did not renew the contract of leading scorer Marko Pantelic because of Favre’s opposition, and could not afford to buy out the contract of striker Andriy Voronin from Liverpool. Central defender Josip Simunic left on a free transfer to join Hoffenheim.
Hertha has been unable to compensate for the departure of the three players and has been further hurt by injuries.
Abhimanyu Rajput
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Della Valle steps down as Fiorentina president
September 24, 2009
Serie A giants Fiorentina announced today that Andrea Della Valle has stepped down as president of the club with immediate effect.
Andrea, brother of Fiorentina owner Diego Della Valle, took over the role in 2002, but faced criticism from the Viola fans for the club’s lacklustre transfer activity this summer.
A statement from ACF Fiorentina read: “During today’s board meeting, Andrea Della Valle has announced his decision to leave the presidency of the club and his role will be temporarily covered by club vice-president Mario Cognigni.”
Fiorentina sold Brazilian star Felipe Melo to Juventus this summer, a move which angered their supporters, who were also displeased at them loaning Papa Waigo to Southampton.
The Florence-based outfit acquired midfielder Savio Nsereko as their main signing this summer from West Ham United.
Fiorentina are fourth in the Serie A standings, having collected ten points out of a possible 15 so far.
Abhimanyu Rajput
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