One of the key things the recent European football championships proved to us is that while England may be the most overrated national side on the planet, the league they’ve created is the world’s best.
Putting aside the purpose-built club team that is Spain, most of the best and/or most compelling players on every national side either play in the Premiership or were schooled there — the likes of Ronaldo, Modric, Agger, Hart, Silva and Balotelli. Mario Balotelli’s personality alone could float an entire league.
All the other great European leagues are still, in the main, local enterprises filled with local boys.
The Premiership stands alone as the world football’s great meeting place.
It is also far more than the sum of its parts. Like every other league, it’s dominated by a half-dozen or so superclubs. But the Premiership also manages to involve the lower tiers, to give them relevance.
No one outside the particular town gives a damn about the 11th place finisher in La Liga (Getafe), Serie A (Catania) or the Bundesliga (Hoffenheim). But the whole world knew about 11th place Swansea at the end of last year.
That’s what the Premiership is able to do — weave stories around its sides. The only other league in the world that does half as good a job at it is the NFL. Since no one outside North America cares about the NFL, that leaves the global stage open to the Premiership.
As usual there is a remarkable amount of new blood in the league. Added to the old rivalries, they’re going to make your Saturday mornings matter again.
How do you top last year?
You don’t. Watching the 2011/12 Premiership season felt like standing on Beringia just as Asia begins to split away from Alaska — a monumentous change in the landscape. For the first time, well, ever, the rabbit being chased by the hounds is the arriviste in Manchester City. They won the season on an injury time goal on the final day. It was bedlam. Chelsea’s ludicrously unlikely victory in the Champions League later added to the dizzy feel that the Premier League had reached its greatest height. They can’t recreate that magic this year, but this may represent some sort of great settling into a new two-team reality. One senses that the next big shift will be along shortly (‘Calling all oil sheikhs’), but will not be seen this year.
Does Robin van Persie pay for his treachery?
It’s one thing to leave. Everybody needs a change of pace at some point. But to leave home for your family’s most eminent (if not most bitter) rival smacks of message sending. Van Persie, 29, spent all his best years at Arsenal. Arsene Wenger found him, polished him, stood beside him through years of injury woes and a rape allegation. Yet given the chance to show his loyalty, he preferred to run off chasing trophies. Worse yet, he insisted on going to Manchester United and Wenger’s great nemesis, Alex Ferguson. If he’s fit, van Persie will doubtless be brilliant there. He’s always been brilliant when healthy. But it would be a little karmic if he Michael Owen’d away the rest of his career after choosing silver over class.
Who is this season’s new star?
They all come expecting greatness. Few realize it. The speed of the Premiership does not suit the more thoughtful corners of the world, where they raise footballers to be dawdlers. Last year, City striker Sergio Aguero was the standout. This year, eyes will be on big money arrivals Eden Hazard (Chelsea, $50 million), Santi Carzola (Arsenal, $26m) Oscar (Chelsea, $39m) and returnee Fabio Borini (Liverpool, $16m). The early consensus forms around Japanese playmaker Shinji Kagawa (United, $26m). Already a hit in the Premiership’s stylistic little brother, the Bundesliga, Kagawa seems poised to give United the running and thinking middle-of-the-park threat they have lacked for years.
Whither Liverpool?
After putting in a manager of the year performance at newboys Swansea, Brendan Rodgers passed on consideration for the Chelsea job, but allowed himself to be pulled in by the allure of Liverpool. The Irish. They’re all the same. Rodgers has a task ahead, trying to turn a team built for lumbering menace into a slick-passing outfit (And no, no one’s going to overpay for Andy Carroll, which means he’s stuck there). Rodgers was thwarted in his summer efforts to rebuild the side. He’s still left with the race-baiting fox among the chickens, Luis Suarez (it’s problematic when your best player is also unhinged). This has the feel of another annus horribilus. Will ’Pool’s American owners give Rodgers time, or is this club going to become a Chelsea-esque soap opera without the consolation of trophies?
Is England becoming Spain?
We’re not talking about the economy. Because that already happened. We’re talking about a league completely dominated by two rivals. Despite their blushes being saved by the Champions League, Chelsea were well off the league pace last year. They’ve spent a huge whack on unproven talent — Brazil’s Oscar, Belgium’s Hazard — in an effort to transform a formidable defensive side into the ‘SW6 Barcelona’ owner Roman Abramovich would prefer. We sense growing pains. Spurs won’t be there. Neither will Newcastle. Arsenal has lost their talisman. This feels once again like a season that takes place entirely in Manchester between the entrenched majority and what Ferguson likes to call his “noisy neighbours.” Last season, that state of affairs was new and therefore thrilling. But the Premier League need only cast its eyes to La Liga to see how grinding it can be to watch a two-horse race that goes on forever.
And who is the best player in England?
First off, he isn’t English. Not with Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard still creaking around the pitch, gumming up the national team’s midfield. And we’ll pass on the temptation to anoint anyone who’s either new (Hazard), leaving (Luka Modric) or still a blip on the horizon (Hulk). There’s a temptation to choose someone slick and underhyped — someone like Clint Dempsey or Juan Mata. We’ll also pass on a streaky striker, as good as van Persie was last year or as dominating as Wayne Rooney can be for a few games at a time. There are also those pleasingly soft (David Silva) or more pleasingly hard (Scott Parker) players. But if we want someone who can change the game in all three thirds, an automatic starter who’s already pushed his team to the top, then before a ball is kicked again we’ll start off our All-Premiership XI with Manchester City’s imperious organizer, Yaya Toure.
Putting aside the purpose-built club team that is Spain, most of the best and/or most compelling players on every national side either play in the Premiership or were schooled there — the likes of Ronaldo, Modric, Agger, Hart, Silva and Balotelli. Mario Balotelli’s personality alone could float an entire league.
All the other great European leagues are still, in the main, local enterprises filled with local boys.
The Premiership stands alone as the world football’s great meeting place.
It is also far more than the sum of its parts. Like every other league, it’s dominated by a half-dozen or so superclubs. But the Premiership also manages to involve the lower tiers, to give them relevance.
No one outside the particular town gives a damn about the 11th place finisher in La Liga (Getafe), Serie A (Catania) or the Bundesliga (Hoffenheim). But the whole world knew about 11th place Swansea at the end of last year.
That’s what the Premiership is able to do — weave stories around its sides. The only other league in the world that does half as good a job at it is the NFL. Since no one outside North America cares about the NFL, that leaves the global stage open to the Premiership.
As usual there is a remarkable amount of new blood in the league. Added to the old rivalries, they’re going to make your Saturday mornings matter again.
How do you top last year?
You don’t. Watching the 2011/12 Premiership season felt like standing on Beringia just as Asia begins to split away from Alaska — a monumentous change in the landscape. For the first time, well, ever, the rabbit being chased by the hounds is the arriviste in Manchester City. They won the season on an injury time goal on the final day. It was bedlam. Chelsea’s ludicrously unlikely victory in the Champions League later added to the dizzy feel that the Premier League had reached its greatest height. They can’t recreate that magic this year, but this may represent some sort of great settling into a new two-team reality. One senses that the next big shift will be along shortly (‘Calling all oil sheikhs’), but will not be seen this year.
Does Robin van Persie pay for his treachery?
It’s one thing to leave. Everybody needs a change of pace at some point. But to leave home for your family’s most eminent (if not most bitter) rival smacks of message sending. Van Persie, 29, spent all his best years at Arsenal. Arsene Wenger found him, polished him, stood beside him through years of injury woes and a rape allegation. Yet given the chance to show his loyalty, he preferred to run off chasing trophies. Worse yet, he insisted on going to Manchester United and Wenger’s great nemesis, Alex Ferguson. If he’s fit, van Persie will doubtless be brilliant there. He’s always been brilliant when healthy. But it would be a little karmic if he Michael Owen’d away the rest of his career after choosing silver over class.
Who is this season’s new star?
They all come expecting greatness. Few realize it. The speed of the Premiership does not suit the more thoughtful corners of the world, where they raise footballers to be dawdlers. Last year, City striker Sergio Aguero was the standout. This year, eyes will be on big money arrivals Eden Hazard (Chelsea, $50 million), Santi Carzola (Arsenal, $26m) Oscar (Chelsea, $39m) and returnee Fabio Borini (Liverpool, $16m). The early consensus forms around Japanese playmaker Shinji Kagawa (United, $26m). Already a hit in the Premiership’s stylistic little brother, the Bundesliga, Kagawa seems poised to give United the running and thinking middle-of-the-park threat they have lacked for years.
Whither Liverpool?
After putting in a manager of the year performance at newboys Swansea, Brendan Rodgers passed on consideration for the Chelsea job, but allowed himself to be pulled in by the allure of Liverpool. The Irish. They’re all the same. Rodgers has a task ahead, trying to turn a team built for lumbering menace into a slick-passing outfit (And no, no one’s going to overpay for Andy Carroll, which means he’s stuck there). Rodgers was thwarted in his summer efforts to rebuild the side. He’s still left with the race-baiting fox among the chickens, Luis Suarez (it’s problematic when your best player is also unhinged). This has the feel of another annus horribilus. Will ’Pool’s American owners give Rodgers time, or is this club going to become a Chelsea-esque soap opera without the consolation of trophies?
Is England becoming Spain?
We’re not talking about the economy. Because that already happened. We’re talking about a league completely dominated by two rivals. Despite their blushes being saved by the Champions League, Chelsea were well off the league pace last year. They’ve spent a huge whack on unproven talent — Brazil’s Oscar, Belgium’s Hazard — in an effort to transform a formidable defensive side into the ‘SW6 Barcelona’ owner Roman Abramovich would prefer. We sense growing pains. Spurs won’t be there. Neither will Newcastle. Arsenal has lost their talisman. This feels once again like a season that takes place entirely in Manchester between the entrenched majority and what Ferguson likes to call his “noisy neighbours.” Last season, that state of affairs was new and therefore thrilling. But the Premier League need only cast its eyes to La Liga to see how grinding it can be to watch a two-horse race that goes on forever.
And who is the best player in England?
First off, he isn’t English. Not with Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard still creaking around the pitch, gumming up the national team’s midfield. And we’ll pass on the temptation to anoint anyone who’s either new (Hazard), leaving (Luka Modric) or still a blip on the horizon (Hulk). There’s a temptation to choose someone slick and underhyped — someone like Clint Dempsey or Juan Mata. We’ll also pass on a streaky striker, as good as van Persie was last year or as dominating as Wayne Rooney can be for a few games at a time. There are also those pleasingly soft (David Silva) or more pleasingly hard (Scott Parker) players. But if we want someone who can change the game in all three thirds, an automatic starter who’s already pushed his team to the top, then before a ball is kicked again we’ll start off our All-Premiership XI with Manchester City’s imperious organizer, Yaya Toure.
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Canada beats Trinidad and Tobago in men’s soccer friendly
Canada beats Trinidad and Tobago in men’s soccer friendly
LAUDERDALE LAKES, FLA.—Tosaint Ricketts certainly didn’t look like an unemployed soccer player.
Ricketts, who was at home in Edmonton while a legal tussle with his former club in Romania prevented him from finding soccer work, scored the winner on Wednesday as Canada picked up a 2-0 win over Trinidad and Tobago in an international friendly.
“It was tough coming in,” said Ricketts, whose goal was the third of his career for Canada. “I’m kind of out of a club right now so the situation’s not so good for me.
“I wanted to work and get this game in and get this result, and I think we did that and we did well.”
Will Johnson added a late goal from the penalty spot as Canada easily could have put two or three more goals past Trinidad in a second half where the Canadians outplayed their Caribbean opponents.
“I was pleased with everything in the second half,” said coach Stephen Hart, who cracked a rare grin after the second goal. “We defended well, we came up with the ball, we counter-attacked and we built attacks very well.”
Canada dominated throughout the match but didn’t score until the 57th minute, when substitute Marcel De Jong crossed a ball from the left side that Ricketts controlled on the right of Trinidad’s 18-yard box.
Ricketts capitalized on some poor marking. He had plenty of time to take the ball down, turn and line up a shot that tucked in under the crossbar.
De Jong was particularly impressive considering it was his first game back with the national team in over a year after a series of injuries.
“He wanted to perform. He desperately wants to be back in the squad — it’s been over a year,” Hart said of De Jong. “I think we’re reaching a stage where we can’t have any complacency. There’s a lot of competition for places.”
In the second half, most of Canada’s offence came from the left side of the field as parts of the right side had very little grass. The field is normally used for cricket.
With the temperature around 30C at kickoff and humid, the play was lethargic for long periods.
“It was hot . . . (but) we didn’t give away too many chances — another zero,” said Johnson after Canada’s third consecutive shutout.
“It’s a great shutout streak for us,” said Johnson. “We’ll win a lot of games from good defence, so obviously we would have liked to bang a few more in but overall I don’t think we can be too disappointed with the result.”
Canada got off a great start. Ricketts had a chance in the fifth minute when his tight-angle shot gave Trinidad goalkeeper Jan Michael Williams trouble. Williams couldn’t hold on and the rebound bounced up for Toronto FC midfielder Terry Dunfield, whose header was caught.
With 10 minutes left in the half, the elusive Ricketts had another chance. Despite two Trinidad defenders virtually on his back, Ricketts created space and unleashed a powerful shot that came rattling back off the post.
Even if he’s unable to find a club team in the next few weeks, Canada is back in action in a little over three weeks.
“I’ve just got to be patient and wait. It’s a process going through FIFA and all this stuff with the club,” said Ricketts. “I’m positive, and my agent’s positive, that it’s going to happen pretty soon.”
Just two minutes after Ricketts’ goal, after a scramble in the box, Trinidad forward Kevin Molino took a low shot from 12 yards out but Houston Dynamo defender Andre Hainault was there to block the goal-bound shot.
Canada resumes its World Cup qualifying campaign next month with two games against Panama. They’ll play Panama at BMO Field on Sept. 7 and the return match four days later.
Panama leads the group with six points after two games. Canada’s second with four. The group also includes Cuba and Honduras. The top two teams advance to the final round of qualifying next year.
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