Liverpool and schoolboy football: Attack, attack, attack

While it’s not exactly a coming together of fate and destiny nor a natural or probabilistic miracle, the end of the calendar year coinciding with the turn of the football season is more than just an artistic rendition of administrative beauty. The New Year, almost teasingly, presents an alluring opportunity for clubs, players, managers, chairmen/chairwomen and fans to make resolutions that they hope to keep, only to break them in the first week itself. The flying full-back with defensive frailties goes missing in the first minute of new year, the underachieving striker unerringly loses the plot when presented with an open goal, and the hopeful mid-fielder cannot manage to keep his feet on the ground when confronted with a rush of blood. The lonely goalkeeper, when not flapping his hands about helplessly, can only watch the self-destruction, stranded on the line.

How Brendan Rodgers will be wishing that his wards can keep their promises.

Liverpool, for all their points and shouts of a title charge, resemble young schoolboys, charged and restless, harrying after the ball, but with little thought towards responsibility.

Fifth at the turn of the year is no mean achievement for a team with an attrition rate over the last few years high enough to rival that of a sinking Indian BPO firm. Liverpool have struggled for any semblance of stability on and off the pitch and began 2013-14 with a manager with an entire season under his belt for the first time since Rafa Benitez in 2009-10. Rodgers, slowly but surely, has been able to put his “philosophy” into place.

Rodgers identified the lack of goals as a problem early in his tenure, and one could not argue against the Northern Irishman.

After having scored 77 league goals in the agonisingly-close 2008-09 season, the club’s goal scoring prowess had been on the decline. Rafa Benitez’s last season saw the number of league goals drop by more than 20% to 61.

The fractured season of Roy Hodgson and Kenny Dalglish witnessed another decline, albeit marginal, with the opposition breached only 59 times in 38 games. Kenny Dalglish’s season of total charge witnessed another alarming drop in goals scored, which numbered just 47: a measly 1.24 per match.

Then along came B-Rod, and goals scored soared to 71 in 2012-13. And the current season sees the Reds only behind the free-scoring Manchester City, with 44. Yes, in just 19 games.

There is little to doubt that Liverpool’s game has improved since the dark times under Benitez, Hodgson and Dalglish. Goals are not the problem, especially against clubs in the bottom half of the table.

However, just as the goal-scoring and the head-rush associated with it attracts children to the striker’s position during pick-up games, defensive responsibilities seem to be forgotten by Liverpool under Rodgers, virtually becoming a game of who-scores-more-wins.

Rafa Benitez’s title-challenging Reds conceded just 27 goals in the league to end with a goal difference of 50. Twenty clean sheets out of 38 meant having Jamie Carragher in your Fantasy Football team was a top, top, top priority.

Benitez’s ill-fated last season saw the clean sheet percentage fall to 45%, with 35 goals conceded. Still less than one goal conceded per game, yes. But when coupled with the fall in goals scored, the writing was on the wall.

The Hodgson-Dalglish farce witnessed 14 clean sheets, 44 goals conceded, and a goal difference of 15.

Dalglish’s sole season in total command saw just 12 shut-outs, with the goal difference falling to a miserable seven.

Rodgers first season led to a return to the goal-scoring ways. Clean sheets rose to 16. However, the number of goals conceded was still above the worrying 40-point mark at 43.

This season has already seen 23 goals being conceded, at a rate of 1.21 per match, with just five clean sheets. No team with title aspirations can hope to fulfill them when leaking more than a goal per match.

Defensive deficiencies have not been new to Liverpool. If anything, it has been the Reds’ susceptibility at the back which has undermined their season, with only Sunderland and West Ham United-eleven each-having dropped more points than Liverpool (10), from positions of strength (either draw or winning positions). While it can be argued that six of them have come in the last two matches against Manchester City and Chelsea, the leaky back-line has been there for all to see. Straightforward set-piece duties have been ignored, with Martin Skrtel-having regained his place in the starting eleven with some sterling performances, admittedly-more concerned about exchanging jerseys before full-time. It sure is a funny season when your highest scoring defender has scored as many own-goals as goals for (Skrtel with two of each variety).

As for the goal scoring prowess, there are just two words: Luis Suarez, who sits atop the charts with 19 in 14 appearances in 2013-14, and 29 in the entire calendar year. After having missed nine league games. Take him out-purely as a hypothetical exercise-and all the excitement about a return to free-scoring ways of the past may be overstated.

For all the talk about scoring goals and free-flowing attacking football, Liverpool will never challenge for the title unless they can tighten at the back. For too long has the left-back position been without an adequate cover for Jose Enrique. Although Glen Johnson is an assured presence on either flanks, it’s not going to be long before his place in the eleven comes under scrutiny, if his performances this season have been anything to go by. Forget England, Johnson isn’t even the best right-back in Liverpool (read Seamus Coleman).

The heart of the defence, which is supposed to inspire confidence and be a bastion of ever-presence, has been nothing but a case of musical chairs. Kolo Toure, Martin Skrtel, Daniel Agger and Mamadou Sakho have all done their bit in the concession of goals. By stocking up on international defenders, Rodgers may have given himself quality options, but there will always be pressure to play them, even though he may not admit to it. Having made Daniel Agger the vice-captain, there is only so long that he can be kept on the bench. Add the acquisition of a centre-back for upwards of £15 million into the mix (Sakho), and one is not doing themselves any favours. What complicates matters even more is if the two best players for the position-Sakho and Agger-are left-footed. Skrtel, for all his last-ditch tackles and emphatic headers, is not a match for either of the two aforementioned players.

And we have not even started talking about Tiago Ilori and Sebastien Coates yet. While the latter is currently injured,the former is yet to get a look-in.

Few would have predicted at the beginning of the season that Liverpool would be so close to the top, let alone sitting pretty at Christmas. Then again, even fewer would have predicted Luis Suarez’s sensational spree on his return from suspension. What one could have foreseen, however, was the defensive generosity. Having begun the season with three consecutive clean sheets, Liverpool’s defensive season has gone off the boil.

A time will come in the coming six months when the team of 2013-14 will be compared to the electric 1987-88 side, with both comprising of exquisite players such as John Barnes, Peter Beardsely, John Aldridge, Kenny Dalglish, Luis Suarez, Phillipe Coutinho and Daniel Sturridge. The class of 1987-88 scored 87 goals in a 40-game season, and the current side are well on their to matching it.

Sir Tom Finney may have termed Liverpool’s 5-0 demolition of Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest in April 1988 as the “finest exhibition” of the game he had ever seen, but the legendary title-winning side built by Kenny Dalglish had the steel of Alan Hansen and company at the back, a defensive line-up which let slip only 24 goals in 40 league games, keeping a clean sheet 21 times.

Come January 1, and Liverpool will play Hull City at home, and no one would put it past them to go rampant and score half-a-dozen. Me? I’ll take a 1-0, thank you very much.

Leaving the Old Firm in Scotland: Celtic and Rangers

Few things in football match the intensity and thrill of a derby, when neighbours are at each other’s throats and loyalties of families are divided. The magic of the Merseyside derby from last week was captivating, as both Liverpool and Everton dished out tasty tackles even though their managers were disciples of the finer, continental style of football. The derby, it seems, cannot be suppressed: it’s a rivalry far more intimate than others. Titles can be lost, but the derby cannot.

Cardiff City’s promotion to the Premier League reignited another flaming battle, coming just over 101 years after the first South Wales derby between the club and Swansea. Surprisingly, this was the first tie between the two Welsh clubs in the top flight.

The English Premier League’s delightful marketing campaign would survive even without its pre and post-match gimmicks, as the histories between the teams on show are an advert for the game few other leagues can match in terms of intensity and number. Be it West Ham United and Millwall, Newcastle United and Sunderland, or Arsenal and Tottenham, the football is never disappointing. More importantly, the influx of foreign players has not diluted the traditions: Manchester City’s Spanish imports are aware how valuable a victory over the red half of Manchester is to the supporters.

In such a setting, wouldn’t the greatest – as argued in some quarters – derby of them all add another rip-roaring contest to the enviable repertoire of the English Premier League? Surely, the league’s administrators would not have to spend any money at all to attract crowds for a match-up between the two most successful Scottish clubs? The clubs, after all, hold the British record for the highest attendance for a league match. The Scottish Cup final of 1969 saw an even bigger crowd, with 132,870 managing to fit themselves into the stadium.

Celtic and Rangers, between them, have won 97 Scottish League championships, 68 Scottish Cups and 41 Scottish League Cups. The two have played each other close to 400 times, with less than a fourth of them ending as draws. No boring stalemates, then.

As an Old Firm tie has not been possible since Rangers’ demotion at the end of the 2011-12 season after their liquidation and subsequent reincarnation, one could be forgiven for thinking that the rivalry may have lost an edge. After all, supporters thrive on the knowledge that they would be meeting their arch-enemies in the coming future. However, there has been no mellowing of the mood. Earlier this year in April, a crowd of 6,000 fans watched the under-17s – yes, the under-17s – of the two Glasgow clubs play each other. The meeting of the kids did not lighten the mood though, as the youngsters got an early taste of what the Old Firm really meant. Playing at Patrick Thistle, flares and smoke bombs were in full show, reducing visibility to dangerous levels. Seats were torn out of their place.

And this was before the match had started.

A couple of minutes after kick-off, a local fire brigade was on the scene as a precautionary measure. But a hose cannot douse the poisonous taunting.

The inclusion of clubs from Wales into the English football season was a result of the late formation of the Welsh football league. Founded in 1904 as the Rhymney Valley League, it went on to be named as the Glamorgan League in 1909, until it finally assumed the mantle of the Welsh Football League in 1912. Cardiff City were founded in 1899, while Swansea City came into being in 1912.

The Scottish Football League, on the other hand, was formed in 1890, with the Scottish Football Association responsible for organising football in Scotland since 1873. With the formation of the Scottish Football Association in 1873, friendlies and cup ties like the Glasgow Cup would be staged. The formation of the Football League in England in 1888 attracted several players from Scotland due to the higher salaries on offer. This in turn forced Scottish clubs to form their own league, leading to the creation of the Scottish Football League in 1890, with Rangers and Celtic being part of the founding members.

All in all, the initiation of Welsh clubs into the English Football League was due to the lack of a formal structure in Wales. Scotland, on the other hand, did not face the similar paucity of footballing administration.

That said, more than a hundred years down the line, does a case exist for the Scottish powerhouses to play under the aegis of the English Football League?

The strongest argument in favour of Rangers and Celtic joining the English Football League is the financial clout they can offer. Both their stadia, The Ibrox and Celtic Park, can seat more than 50,000 people each, with the latter closer to 60,000. If two clubs, with the fanatical support that they have, were to join the English league, attendances at home and away games for the current English clubs would rise dramatically, leading to an increase in the revenue streams.

“Could you imagine the income generation Rangers and Celtic would create in the Conference? Every Conference stadium would be full. And then to work through the leagues over the next three or four years would refresh English football because this staleness that is affecting Scottish football is prevalent here,” Charles Green, former chief executive of Rangers, was quoted as having said in March this year.

But apart from strengthening of revenue streams, little seems to support the inclusion of the Scottish clubs in English football.

The Glaswegian clubs’ enmity is entrenched in deeply held religious beliefs, and a rivalry based on sectarianism would not be healthy for any league, especially the English, which finds itself in the middle of rising racist abuse after having nearly eradicated the widespread hooliganism of the 1970s and 1980s.

Founded in 1872, Rangers predominantly attracted the Scottish Protestants. Celtic, on the other hand, was founded in 1887 by an Irish Catholic monk, with the aim of funding a charity to reduce the poverty within Glasgow’s large Irish community, and being a symbolic support to the suffering immigrants. Rangers, on the other hand, were the team supported by Scotland’s Protestant majority. Until 1989, the club had a policy of not signing Catholic players.

Current Celtic manager Neil Lennon Lennon, a Catholic from Lurgan, Northern Ireland, has had to endure violence and threats since joining Celtic in 2000 as a player.

In September 2008, Lennon was knocked unconscious after being assaulted in Glasgow, with a Celtic spokesman saying that Lennon had been the target of sectarian abuse. The attack on Lennon came hours after Celtic lost their league match against rivals Rangers. The two perpetrators, sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, were Rangers supporters.

In January 2011, bullets addressed to Lennon were intercepted at a mail sorting office in Glasgow. Later that year in March, Lennon and two high-profile Celtic fans were sent parcel bombs. If it needed to be added, Lennon was forced into international retirement in 2002 after receiving death threats.

Even if the haze of hate surrounding the Old Firm tensions was to be side-stepped, the little matter of English-Scottish rivalry would still have to be considered. While Scottish managers and footballers have left an indelible print on English football, the nature of the fierce rivalry between the two nations has been immense. A Scotland team featuring the likes of Denis Law and Jim Baxter beat World Cup winners England 3-2 in 1967 at Wembley, leading to the Scottish media calling their team as the best in the world for a day. The annual fixture between the two nations was abandoned in 1989.

An added spice to the England-Scotland rivalry has been the case for Scottish independence.

Earlier this month, on the 14th, the Scottish Independence Referendum Bill was passed by the Scottish parliament. On September 18, 2014, the Scottish government will hold a referendum of Scotland’s voting public on whether Scotland should be an independent country and separate itself from the United Kingdom. With uncertainty over the future status of the nation itself, little can be done about football clubs.

Finally, the removal of Celtic and Rangers could sound the death knell for football in Scotland. With Scottish domestic football not commanding much money in terms of broadcasting rights, the clubs’ reliance on gate receipts is accentuated. Were Rangers and Celtic to become a part of English football, attendance for other clubs would plummet. Rangers, for example, have been able to attract thousands of fans to their matches in the Scottish League One, even though they lead the table by nine points over Dunfermline, having played a game less.

Should Rangers and Celtic join English football, the strengthening of revenues would only lead to the purchase of higher quality players by the two clubs, who would inevitably be non-Scottish. As a result, the national team would suffer even more.

Their presence in Scottish football might have created a two-horse race over the years, but the Old Firm remains an attraction that cannot be matched, even though they remain separated by divisions. While their inclusion in the English Premier League may sound as a proposal worth savouring, far-reaching consequences have to be accounted for before such a move is executed.

I don't know if it's strange-well, it shouldn't be-but I have a tendency to want the things others don't. At times, I dream of the exact opposite of what would be considered-for the lack of a better word-normal.
I have lived the last five and a bit years in the hustle and bustle of New Delhi, Pune, and now Bombay. And I can't say it's what I want.
There is this image, this dream, that has been created in the minds of the average citizen, that one has to pursue-crave, rather-progress. By progress, I mean an increased inclination towards not just the material delights of human lives, but the curiosity that one associated with mazes and confined spaces. This is probably not making much sense, but that's the picture I have in mind.
The progression from a supposed state of laziness to that of a higher level of intellectual satisfaction is labelled burning ambition. To do something worthwhile with one's limited time-be it in a monetary sense, or moral, or in terms of duty-is deemed necessary in most quarters.
But what if I don't care for any of them?
All I want is some air to breathe. I feel the need to go back to a slower pace of life, where not every single thing matters, where pretense is not a need. Slow things down to a pace that I not just comfortable with, but one which allows me to enjoy-take in, more like-the small pleasures, like sitting still.
Every second film I see shows a character leaving a sleep-ish town/city for the New York of that country. Me? I just want the opposite. It's not that I am not ambitious. I just don't associate ambition with a space or position.
I wish things could grind to a halt. I want more than just breathing the air in and out. I want to be able to see the breeze as it wafts past me.

Leaving the Old Firm in Scotland: Celtic and Rangers

Few things in football match the intensity and thrill of a derby, when neighbours are at each other’s throats and loyalties of families are divided. The magic of the Merseyside derby from last week was captivating, as both Liverpool and Everton dished out tasty tackles even though their managers were disciples of the finer, continental style of football. The derby, it seems, cannot be suppressed: it’s a rivalry far more intimate than others. Titles can be lost, but the derby cannot.

Cardiff City’s promotion to the premier league reignited another flaming battle, coming just over 101 years after the first South Wales derby between the club and Swansea. Surprisingly, it was the first tie between the two Welsh clubs in the top flight.

The English Premier League’s delightful marketing campaign would survive even without its pre and post-match gimmicks, as the history between the teams on show is an advert for the game few other leagues can match in terms of intensity and number. Be it West Ham United and Millwall, Newcastle United and Sunderland, or Arsenal and Tottenham, the football is never disappointing. More importantly, the influx of foreign players has not diluted the traditions: Manchester City’s Spanish imports are aware how valuable a victory over the red half of Manchester is to the supporters.

In such a setting, wouldn't the greatest-as argued in some quarters-derby of them all add another rip-roaring contest to the enviable repertoire of the English Premier League? Surely, the league’s administrators would not have to spend any money at all to attract crowds for a match-up between the two most successful Scottish clubs? The clubs, after all, hold the British record for the highest attendance for a league match. The Scottish Cup final of 1969 saw an even bigger crowd, with 132,870 managing to fit themselves into the stadium.

Celtic and Rangers, between them, have won 97 Scottish League championships, 68 Scottish Cups and 41 Scottish League Cups. The two have played each other close to 400 times, with less than a fourth of them ending as draws. No boring stalemates then.

As an Old Firm tie has not been possible since Rangers’ demotion at the end of the 2011-12 season after their liquidation and subsequent reincarnation, one could be forgiven for thinking that the rivalry may have lost an edge. After all, supporters thrive on the knowledge that they would be meeting their arch-enemies in the coming future. However, there has been no mellowing of the mood. Earlier this year in April, a crowd of 6,000 fans watched the under-17s-yes, the under-17s-of the two Glasgow clubs play each other. The meeting of the kids did not lighten the mood though, as the youngsters got an early taste of what the Old Firm really meant. Playing at Patrick Thistle, flares and smoke bombs were in full show, reducing visibility to dangerous levels. Seats were torn out of their place.

And this was before the match had started.

A couple of minutes after kick-off, a local fire brigade was on the scene as a precautionary measure. But a hose cannot douse the poisonous taunting.

The inclusion of clubs from Wales into the English football season was a result of the late formation of the Welsh football league. Founded in 1904 as the Rhymney Valley League, it went on to be named as the Glamorgan League in 1909, until it finally assumed the mantle of the Welsh Football League in 1912. Cardiff City were founded in 1899, while Swansea City came into being in 1912.

The Scottish Football League, on the other hand, was formed in 1890, with the Scottish Football Association responsible for organising football in Scotland since 1873. With the formation of the Scottish Football Association in 1873, friendlies and cup ties like the Glasgow Cup would be organised. The formation of the Football League in England in 1888 attracted several players from Scotland due to the higher salaries on offer. This in turn forced Scottish clubs to form their own league, leading to the creation of the Scottish Football League in 1890, with Rangers and Celtic being part of the founding members.

All in all, the initiation of Welsh clubs into the English Football League was due to the lack of a formal structure in Wales. Scotland, on the other hand, did not face the similar paucity of footballing administration.

However, more than a hundred years down the line, does a case exist for the Scottish powerhouses to play under the aegis of the English Football League?

The strongest argument in favour of Rangers and Celtic joining the English Football League is the financial clout they can offer. Both their stadia, The Ibrox and Celtic Park, can seat more than 50,000 people, with the latter closer to 60,000. If the two clubs, with the fanatical support that they have, were to join the English league, attendances at home and away games for the current English clubs would rise dramatically, leading to an increase in revenue streams.

“Could you imagine the income generation Rangers and Celtic would create in the Conference? Every Conference stadium would be full. And then to work through the leagues over the next three or four years would refresh English football because this staleness that is affecting Scottish football is prevalent here,” Charles Green, former chief executive of Rangers, was quoted as having said in March this year.

But apart from strengthening of revenue streams, little seems to support the inclusion of the Scottish clubs in English football.

The Glaswegian clubs’ enmity is entrenched in deeply held religious beliefs, and a rivalry based on sectarianism would not be healthy for any league, especially the English, which finds itself in the middle of rising racist abuse, after having nearly eradicated the widespread hooliganism of the 1970s and 1980s.

Founded in 1872, Rangers predominantly attracted the Scottish Protestants. Celtic, on the other hand, was founded in 1887 by an Irish Catholic monk, with the aim to fund a charity to reduce the poverty within Glasgow's large Irish community, and be a symbolic support to the suffering immigrants. Rangers, on the other hand, were the team supported by Scotland's Protestant majority. Until 1989, the club had a policy of not signing Catholic players.

Current Celtic manager Neil Lennon Lennon, a Catholic from Lurgan, Northern Ireland, has had to endure violence and threats since joining Celtic in 2000 as a player.

In September 2008, Lennon was knocked unconscious after being assaulted in Glasgow, with a Celtic spokesman saying that he had been the target of sectarian abuse. The attack on Lennon came hours after Celtic lost their league match against rivals Rangers. The two perpetrators, sentenced to two years imprisonment, were Rangers supporters.

In January 2011, bullets addressed to Lennon were intercepted at a mail sorting office in Glasgow. Later that year in March, Lennon and two high-profile Celtic fans were sent parcel bombs. And if it needed to be added, Lennon was forced into international retirement in 2002 after receiving death threats.

Even if the haze of hate surrounding the Old Firm tensions was to be side-stepped, the little matter of English-Scottish rivalry would still have to be considered. While Scottish managers and footballers have left an indelible print on English football, the magnitude of the fierce rivalry between the two nations has been immense. A Scotland team featuring the likes of Denis Law and Jim Baxter beat world cup winners England 3-2 in 1967 at Wembley, leading to the Scottish media calling their team as the best in the world for a day. The annual fixture between the two nations was abandoned in 1989.

An added spice to the England-Scotland rivalry has been the case for Scottish independence.

Earlier this month on the 14th, the Scottish Independence Referendum Bill was passed by the Scottish parliament. On September 18, 2014, the Scottish government will hold a referendum of Scotland's voting public on whether Scotland should be an independent country and separate itself from the United Kingdom. With uncertainty over the future status of the nation itself, little can be done about football clubs.

Finally, the removal of Celtic and Rangers could sound the death knell for football in Scotland. With Scottish domestic football not commanding much money in terms of broadcasting rights, the clubs’ reliance on gate receipts is accentuated. Were Rangers and Celtic to become a part of English football, attendance for other clubs would plummet. Rangers, for example, have been able to attract thousands of fans to their matches in the Scottish League One, even though they lead the tables by nine points over Dunfermline, having played a game less. Should Rangers and Celtic join English football, the strengthening of revenues would only lead to the purchase of higher quality players by the two clubs, who would inevitably be non-Scottish. As a result, the national team would suffer even more.

Their presence in Scottish football might have created a two-horse race over the years, but the Old Firm remains an attraction that cannot be matched, even though they remain separated by divisions. While their inclusion in the English Premier League may sound as a proposal worth savouring, far-reaching consequences have to be accounted for before such a move is executed.

"Sometimes, you never realise the value of a moment until it becomes a memory."

There is very little to do, very little to think of...
Should time slow down when in pursuit
I'll let you know, and we'll climb down
From the tree of our own, my dear mind.

A cynic's reasons for a nation falling in love with Sachin Tendulkar

In a few hours, Sachin Tendulkar will walk the last few yards of his cricketing career at Mumbai, putting the finishing touches to, unarguably, the most followed career in world cricket.

The last few years have witnessed the retirement of a golden generation of cricket’s greats. The likes of Warne, Dravid, Lara, Ponting and McGrath have all hung up their shoes, and it is Tendulkar’s turn to follow suit. However, the feeling of loss that will accompany India’s second little master's retirement will be much greater than that felt before. But this will not be because Sachin was a far greater cricketer than those mentioned.

Quite simply, Sachin Tendulkar’s contribution to the game was much larger than his glorious straight drive or the audacious uppercut. If anything, his single greatest gift to the spectators was that his presence on the pitch gave an emotional, rather than a logical, reason for falling in love with the game. And as always, emotion trumps logic.

A lot has been said and written about Tendulkar’s cricketing ability. For close to a decade, millions have debated over whether he is the finest batsman of all time. Test averages be damned, people have argued. Longevity backed by sustained excellence in performance is what matters.

But none of the above can quite explain the godlike status enjoyed by Tendulkar.

Sachin’s debut as a 16-year old in Pakistan was what , undoubtedly, placed him on the pedestal in the populace’s heart.

The India of the late 1980s and early 1990s was a turbulent one. The rapid opening of the economy due to balance of payments crisis coupled with the decline in the Indian hockey team presented a fertile and ripe time for planting the Tendulkar sapling. While the former brought the medium of television to the general public, the latter provided a space for another sport.

Though India had gained success in the early and mid-1980s in One Day Internationals, the national cricket team lacked a player of consistent flair and substance. Sunil Gavaskar had retired, but his abilities were more suited to the longest version of the game. Limited overs cricket was bringing a dash of the crazy-a touch of bravado-to the staid dealings associated with the game played in whites, and Indians craved for their own Viv Richards.

And so, a teenager walked onto the National Stadium green of Karachi across the border to face a battery of fast bowlers the world has not seen the likes of since. Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, and Waqar Younis formed the Pakistani pace triumvirate, and they made Tendulkar bleed for his runs. However, the chin music would not keep Tendulkar down.

The image of a 16-year old declining medical assistance while blood streamed from his nose captured the nation’s imagination. That was Tendulkar displaying substance. The display of flair came in an exhibition game played at Sialkot, where legendary leg-spinner Abdul Qadir was hammered for four sixes in an over, with Tendulkar making 53 runs off just 18 balls.

But how exactly did the youngster make people swoon?

Unlike Rahul Dravid, who had hoards of women lining up to snatch at  his hand given the opportunity, Sachin’s connection to the ordinary Indian has been more familial. To women, Sachin would be the younger brother. Wives and husbands would see him as a favourite nephew. Boys his age would imagine him as a brother or close friend. And he would be the older sibling to children younger than him.

And even though Sachin grew in age, the relations remained unchanged. Housewives would not stop their chores because they appreciated the technical brilliance of his cover-drive. Barbers did not stop the process of shaving because they felt that Sachin played the pull better than most. Ten-year-olds did not stop their gulli-cricket matches to watch him bat so that they could pick up batting tips.

The nation, as it has been often said, did not stop breathing to watch his cricketing excellence. The nation stopped because here was someone they felt they knew more than others, someone they had grown up with. It didn’t matter if Sachin was going through the worst form of his life. His fans would be there to watch him, not because there might be a chance of him making a hundred, but because he was like family. And there is nothing more important than family.

Sachin began his career as the quintessential underdog, standing up to fearsome fast bowlers while he was still not eligible to vote. Through the years, his progress led him to the other extreme of the spectrum: a titan of the game. Should any bowler get his wicket, he would treasure it like his own offspring, cuddled up with him in his bed. But despite his larger-than-the-game persona, the public’s love for him did not diminish. Everyone was now celebrating his successes, just as a family would when the youngest cleared an entrance examination and enrolled into a prestigious school.

Sachin’s greatness does not lie in his ability with the willow. While that may seem as an extremely controversial statement, the difficulty to detach oneself from one’s feelings while evaluating Sachin is the true obstacle. One does not, and cannot, say Sachin is inferior to another batsman. No, not in India.

There have been very few things in Sachin’s career which can be held against him. He has lived a rather clean and subdued life outside the game even in today’s privacy-free times. And maybe that has helped his standing in our minds. There is nothing like a brilliant performer who behaves with class and dignity. Virat Kohli may achieve more than Sachin in cricketing terms by the time his career ends, but he will never be loved in the same way. If Sachin was a champion, he was a good champion. And as Michael Sheen would have said-like he did in The Dammed United as Brian Clough-Kohli is not a ‘good’ champion.

However, there remains a rather strange anomaly. Sachin has always maintained that he would play as long as there is some love for the game still in him. He did give up playing international 20-20s so that younger players got an opportunity, and retired from ODIs after the 2011 World Cup triumph for the same reason-apart from the fact that he had achieved everything in the 50-over form of the game.

His extended stay in the Test format has been confounding, then. Is his love for the game running out just as his 200th Test nears? If that is the case, it is one incredible coincident. Unfortunately, there is no place for a coincident in statistics. For someone who owns pretty much every statistic in cricket-while maintaining that he has no place for them in his mind-a certain amount of curiosity remains over his Test retirement.

In India’s tour of Australia in 2003-04, a spectator held up a banner praising Sachin at Sydney: “Commit all your crimes while Sachin is batting. They will all go unnoticed as even God is watching.”

God may not be watching Sachin’s batting for his technique or the timing. If anything, He’ll be watching Tendulkar bat as a father would watch his son: with pride.

Despite the tantrums, Suarez offers more than Torres

For a club which has historically flourished on the foundations provided by its British players, Liverpool’s foreign imports hold a special place in each supporter’s heart. So one can imagine the anguish when Fernando Torres submitted a transfer request in January 2011, and subsequently moved to Chelsea on deadline day. Liverpool have always had world-class strikers at their disposal since the 1960s and 1970s. At their peak, John Toshack, Kevin Keegan, Kenny Dalglish, Ian Rush, Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen could have walked into any side in the world from any era.

Torres, though, was something different. He had Owen’s pace, Rush and Fowler’s finishing ability, Toshack’s areal ability, and Dalglish and Keegan’s instinct to link up with his partner in crime, Steven Gerrard. But most of all, the romance of a lad from sunny Spain adopting the port city of Liverpool as home and declaring his love for the club before he even joined was unforgettable. It takes a lot to leave your home club and move to a foreign country, and the scousers recognised Torres’ sacrifices, and loved him for it. Until, of course, he decided to switch the red of Liverpool for the blue of Chelsea. Class may be permanent, but love, is temporary.

Or that was people would have believed for five weeks after Torres’ departure.
Luis Suarez had scored on his Liverpool debut against Stoke, scuffing in a finish inside 16 minutes of coming on from the bench on February 2. There had been some indications that he would more than just manage to put the ball across the line over the coming months, but fans really got an idea of what they had on their hands in March 2011, when Dirk Kuyt scored a hat-trick against Manchester United, but Suarez stole all the plaudits having put on a  display of skill and close control rarely seen in England. It was Messi-esque, full of twists and turns, of the impossible and the unimaginable. The red half of Merseyside slept soundly that night: Torres would not be missed after all.


The summer of 2013, then, brought a sense of déjà vu. Suarez tried every trick in the book to get a move from Liverpool to a club with greater chances of silverware of the European variety. He alleged broken promises, the overbearing media presence and the lack of Champions League football for craving a move away from Liverpool. While overtures from Madrid did not materialise into anything substantial, Arsenal beckoned, slyly bidding a pound over Suarez’s supposed buy-out clause.
However, Suarez did not submit a transfer request. Maybe that was what clinched the deal for Liverpool supporters, who pleaded to the Uruguayan to stay back. The friendly played in Melbourne, Australia before the season started, was an astonishing example of the love Liverpool fans bestowed on Suarez, as a cameo appearance by the sulking striker was roared on in a manner Anfield would have been proud of. A true show of support for the Reds if there ever was one, and as former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly put it in the 1970s, even Chairman Mao would  has never seen a greater show of red strength.
For all his deficiencies, his sometime-incredulous on-field behaviour, the club refused to sell the player. Few could have denied that Suarez was the best player in the Premier League by some distance, and Liverpool were willing to put up with his charming ways if he continued to give his all for the Red’s cause.
Why does Suarez score over Torres for Liverpool fans, despite all his shenanigans?  Torres was low-maintenance and of world-class stature. Suarez, however, does not go through patches of mediocrity like the Spaniard did in the last stages of his Liverpool career. His footballing ability is more reliant on skill rather than physique. Torres made defenders like Vidic and Terry look like children with his turn of pace, frightening acceleration and general quickness of play. He made things happen faster than people would have believed it could be possible. Defending against Torres was a race against time, and there was little to be done when he was past you.
The same virtues which made Torres such an outstanding and feared poacher have been his bane. Injury, and time, have caught up with him. The legs don’t pump as hard as they did before. The knees and hamstring are not as strong as earlier, meaning that the mind and body work on different wavelengths.
Suarez’s strengths lie in his touch and imagination. Several commentators have called him a magician, but to say that would be falsity. Suarez is no magician. Magician’s make things happen which mortals like yours truly could never do themselves. Suarez, however, does things which we could not even imagine were possible. While Torres slowed time to baffle his opponents, Suarez likes to work in confined spaces, doing a Houdini every now and then, stealing himself out of tight situations with his astonishing control over the ball and glorious imagination. Had Christopher Nolan required another architect in Inception for creating Leonardo DiCaprio’s mazes, Suarez would have been perfect. He brought on the Anfield green from the past which Torres could not: the artistry of Dalglish and the tenacity of Keegan.

Probably the most important difference between Suarez and Torres is that while the latter dreams of winning trophies, Suarez wants to win each and every game. Of course, there is a desire to win titles too, but the immediate task at hand does not become hazy at any point, and this particular feature of Suarez has been more apparent than ever this season.

Having spent the first few games in the Director’s box serving his ban for biting Branislav Ivanovic, Suarez has burst on to the pitch, wreaking such havoc, such impressive ability that the contribution of Daniel Sturridge has been temporarily forgotten. Read any report of the game against West Bromwich Albion from Saturday, and Sturridge’s magnificent chip would quite definitely be relegated to the last couple of paragraphs.
After all, Suarez had scored his first home hat-trick, and the standing ovation he received on being substituted in the final moments of the game were evidence enough of his importance to the club. The tribulations of summer have been long forgotten. Apologies may or may not have been made, but Suarez has a job to do. A job which he loves performing, judging by the humongous smile he sported after placing Steven Gerrard’s inch-perfect cross into the back of the net to complete his treble.
Time under Suarez has seen the extraordinary become routine at Liverpool. Humiliating nutmegs are expected, and the rabona has been pulled out more frequently by Suarez from his burgeoning repertoire of scarcely believable skills. Little feints, thundering free-kicks, audacious passes from the outside of his boot are all on show when Suarez is on. And the Suarez show will always be on. Time and injuries may end his career, but they will not compromise his ingenuity and wit.

Unlike Torres, Suarez does not play the game on the grass, but in his mind. Torres is in the mould of Michael Schumacher, while Suarez prefers to work on the canvas like Dali. Though Liverpool would love to better understand the intricate patterns of his Freudian brain, the club can rest assured that his ability will not dull during the season.

England and the World Cup: A journey to savour

It’s that time of the quadrennial again. Having qualified, literally, by the skin of their enamel-revealing teeth, England supporters-including me-are fervently hoping for the impossible: Steven Gerrard holding aloft the World Cup, a la Bobby Moore. The draw hasn’t even been conducted, England are not even seeded, but can hopes be doused? No, not so early, not yet. If anything, they will be bolstered over the coming months, as Daniel Sturridge continues to improve his goal-scoring record at Liverpool, Wayne Rooney finally emerges out of Robin van Persie‘s shadow, Joe Hart starts looking more and more like a goalkeeper, and the injury-list shortens. Hope, as they say, is a dangerous thing.
Supporting England is rather similar to supporting the Indian cricket team,  and has nothing to with having a colonial hangover. Sky-high expectations before any tournament, the pressure from a multitude of knowledgeable followers of the game and past success, all add to the burden that comes with being a sportsperson of international stature. While recent dominance of the game fuel the average Indian’s  conjectures and anticipation, the flourishing domestic structure play a similar role for the English.

But football is, well, a different ball-game altogether. And Roy Hodgson knows the real task is yet to start. Qualification would have generally been a given for Gerrard and co, but for the unfortunate regime of Steve McClaren. The year 2008 was a dark period for English football, and would have scarred the careers of many players as they watched Torres score the only goal in the final of the European Championship.
Bygones may not be bygones, but half a decade later, things have changed for England. The Gerrard-Lampard conundrum does not seem to pose as many questions for Hodgson as they did for Capello, McClaren,Sven-Goran Eriksson, and Kevin Keegan. One does not have to fear the two giants of the modern English game getting into each others way anymore, as Hodgson seems to have gotten through to them, with Gerrard being asked to sit back and dictate the flow of the game from a deeper position in the occasions he plays with Lampard. The Liverpool skipper has been heckled all his life for not displaying the same level of commitment and performance in the Thee Lions shirt as he does when in the red of his hometown club. But if there were any doubts over his passion for the national team, they would have been suitably removed by his celebration after scoring against Poland yesterday. Gerrard’s cup final goals against AC Milan and West Ham were followed by a mixture of steely determination and belief. Tuesday’s was all about joy and…well, joy.
England have not been blessed with too many world class players for the same position, but left-back isn’t one of them. With Ashley Cole out injured, the usually fragile back-line would have been wondering what else could go wrong after having lost Glen Johnson on the right side too. But trust Leighton Baines to put Cole’s spot in the starting eleven a major question. It’s been an open secret for long that Baines was the superior player and an asset to any team with his delivery on set-pieces from his frighteningly good left foot. Does Hodgson let his new, attacking persona dictate his team selection and Baines’ inclusion ahead of Cole? One can only hope that the England manager’s answer is in the affirmative.
Ever since Michael Owen career went into decline in early 2008, the English front-line has suffered. Andy Carroll, Emile Heskey and Peter Crouch have tried to lend support to Rooney without much sustained success, while Jermain Defoe does not inspire confidence for managers to start him more regularly, be it for England or Tottenham Hotspurs. Hodgson, finally, has managed to settle on to a bunch of number 9s and 10s. Sturridge and Welbeck, with more opportunities for their clubs, have shown that the international stage holds to fears for them. Add the more-than-significant presence of Southampton’s Rickie Lambert, and your typical centre-forward is not missed either. However, to be fair to Lambert, his touch and technique are more refined than those of a lumbering front-man. In essence, Rooney is not alone in the goals department anymore. He may carry the tag of being the team’s go-to man, but that will changes as the latest inductees into the England squad start asserting themselves on the playing field.
What differentiated England’s last two World Cup qualifiers against Poland and Montenegro from the previous ones was the loss of Hodgson’s usual inhibitions. No, the England manager did not get rid of his dour face and run the length of the Wembley touchline in his pants. Instead, good ol’ Woy managed to make his team play with abandon, as debutantes like Andros Townsend showed Messi-esque tendencies, cutting in from the right on his left foot and unleashing thunderbolts. The last debut to have been met with such acclaim probably belonged to Rooney, and Townsend backed his first-match display by running at the Polish defenders like there was no tomorrow. And to think that he was sent out on loan to QPR last season.
With seven months left before Brazil wakes up to the magic of World Cup football, Hodgson has the luxury to to concentrate on the fringe players in the upcoming friendlies. While that might give Sturridge, Smalling, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Wilshere and the rest some game time, there are others who could write their names on the few tickets Hodgson still hasn’t assigned names to. On the top of the list would be Ross Barkley, Raheem Sterling, Jonjo Shelvey, Ravel Morrison and Saido Berahino. While the first three have already played for the senior team, the latter two have caught people’s attention recently with their strong showing for their clubs and for the under-21s. Add Wilfried Zaha, Tom Ince and Nathan Redmond into the mix, and there is bound to be plenty of competition even within the youngsters.
Hodgson has a few months before zeroing-in on the the 23 men who will lead the charge for the British Isles in South America. Is it too early to have your say on the constituents of the squad? Probably, but an early look at the probables can give the chance to examine which player took the chance and which didn’t when Roy finally reveals his pick next year. Assumption: all players are fit. This might be a stretch, but fingers are crosses, aren’t they?
Goalkeeper: Joe Hart, Fraser Forster, Ben Foster
Defenders: Glen Johnson, Kyle Walker, Leighton Baines, Ashley Cole, Gary Cahill, Phil Jagielka, Michael Dawson, Phil Jones
Mid-fielders: Steven Gerrard, Michael Carrick, Jack Wilshere, Ross Barkley, Theo Walcott, James Milner, Andros Townsend,
Raheem Sterling
Forwards: Wayne Rooney, Daniel Sturridge, Rickie Lambert, Danny Welbeck
Stand-by: John Ruddy, Chris Smalling, Frank Lampard, Jordan Henderson, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Tom Ince, Jermain Defoe.
The days of Ramsey, Moore, Banks, Hunt and Charlton may not be around the corner, but try telling that to the legions of English supporters and one Indian, occupying his chair, eyes fixated on the television, pupils dilated. Football, more than ever, is the new cricket.

Rafa Benitez and his Neapolitan bottle of milk

It might be too early too make such a statement, but Rafa Benitez’s managerial acumen will never get its due. For someone who managed to lead a side other than Barcelona or Real Madrid to the La Liga title in the first decade of the new millennium, the focus on Benitez’s days in England-be it while he was at Liverpool or at Chelsea-has been inordinately large. And the probability of a person’s reputation remaining pure as the driven snow in England are as bleak the British weather itself.
Like most young managers, Benitez too tasted success initially in the lower divisions and worked his way up. Real Valladolid, Osasuna, Extremedura, and Tenerife proved to be the stepping stones to the successes of Valencia, where two league titles and a UEFA Cup victory established his burgeoning credentials.
But for one year after he resigned from Valencia, Benitez’s domain-league football-was overwhelmed by the traditional glamour of European football. Having led Liverpool to the Champions League title in his first season in charge, Benitez regularly featured in the final stages of the competition for the next five years, until the English league broke him.
Leading the premier league in mid-2009, Benitez’s public disclosure of his “list” was a clear indication of the strain league football was placing on him, a format of the game his tactical awareness reveled in. Press conferences tend to expose our deepest tendencies and fears, and Benitez was no exception.
While ridicule and a total lack of support at Inter Milan and Chelsea did not prevent him from making additions to his trophy cabinet, Benitez’s microcosm of contradictions seems to have come a full circle at Napoli, with an unbeaten start to the league leading the citizens of Naples dreaming of a return to the halcyon days they spent in bed with Diego Maradona, with another Argentine spearheading their attack a generation later.
Benitez is well aware of how a side is to be recreated after having lost its premier striker, and it can be argued that the loss of Edinson Cavani to Paris St. Germain would have been far more difficult to swallow than Michael Owen’s move from Liverpool to Real Madrid in 2004. However, the singularly efficient usage of the proceeds from Cavani’s sale-Gonzalo Higuain, Jose Callejon, Raul Albiol, Dries Martens were some of the names brought in-has meant that the Uruguayan’s loss has barely been felt. If anything, miracles have abounded since Benitez took over from Walter Mazzarri: even Mario Balotelli has ended up missing a penalty while pitted against the Partenopei.
In Benitez, Napoli have a manager with a track record few can match, and who is meticulous to the point of being obsessive. More importantly, Benitez seems to have mellowed from his Liverpool and Inter days, with the combative touch replaced by a more understanding one. Gone are the days when Steven Gerrard would crave for a pat on the back from his manager. Benitez’s handling of his players, previously described as cold and detached, has undergone the proverbial sea-change. Why, the Spaniard has even agreed to participate in the shooting of a “Christmas comedy” for Napoli’s film-producer president Aurelio de Laurentiis.
Benitez has often likened Napoli to Liverpool, and the two port cities seem to have given him the space and confidence to do what he does best-create a team which functions on top of a solid tactical foundation. As Benitez said in one of the most memorable media conferences of recent times, white liquid in a bottle has to be milk. Sitting in his manager’s office in southern Italy while the rest of his family continues to live in Wirral, Liverpool, Benitez can be forgiven for thinking that he has at last found his succor in Hamsik and co. Currently second in the Serie A, the signals of a revival in Naples are as obvious as the white semi-skimmed lactose-based fluid that John the milkman delivered to Benitez in Wirral.

Falling out of love with cricket

Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar apparently played their last 20-20 match yesterday. I say apparently because I did not care to watch them slug it out.
There comes a time in everyone’s life when one has to weigh the pros and cons of exam preparation against those associated with watching a sporting contest.
While yours truly is a veteran of such mental excursions-with the latter emerging triumphant on each and every occasion-one particular instance led to the attachment of disillusionment to a sport once held in such high esteem and regard that getting into a physical confrontation with lifelong friends over who would read the newspaper first to discover the result of a match played the previous day was business as usual.
Cricket, the game for gentlemen, was all that life was about for a good 15 years. While memories of a flying Jonty Rhodes from the 1992 World Cup are rather hazy, the thrill from Kalu and Jaya redefining what opening partnerships stood for while feverishly memorising a poem for the first grade English teacher is as clear as Walter White’s blue methamphetamine.
As one rose from the lows of first grade towards the benchmark that is 10th grade, the memories of great escapes forged by hardened gentlemen accumulated. Scraps of the final few overs were secretly and breathlessly observed from the dhobi’s window. Residential schools may have their advantages, but there weren’t too many if you were a cricket nut. Perseverance with the teachers got you nowhere. Stealth, rubber slippers and being on good terms with the dhobi got you some time in front of the Indian cricket deity that is the television.
From Desert Storm to Donald and Klusener, from Tendulkar’s effortless cover drives to Dravid’s painstaking-but breathtakingly effective-marathon innings, those were the memories of the daily bread and butter for cricket fanatics. The joy of Eden Gardens, the pain of Johannesburg, the disbelief of Multan, and the dread of Wellington, all synthesised into one drug that kept its users asking for more. Even poetry had never been so pure and ruthless, never so unadulterated in its psychological high. Hundreds of paper cuts were endured in the off season as book-cricket became the vent to the build-up of impending action.
And suddenly, it was all gone. The fervent anticipation, the edge-of-the-seat humdingers even with Maninder Singh tattling away at the “behtereen mujaayra” of the batsman, had evaporated. The game had changed in a single day.
Caesar had been warned of the ides of March, but it was the middle of April that dug cricket’s grave as Brendon McCullum terrified Bangalore’s bowlers into submission. The Indian Premier League had arrived, and created a sense of excitement that can only be associated with watching schoolchildren have their own version of Fight Club: seniors fighting juniors, men against boys, the strong against the weak.
The balance that existed between the ball and bat vanished that day in April. Boundary ropes drew further in, pitches flattened, no-balls became borderline criminal and spectators wanted seats closer to the ropes to watch the cheerleaders, and not to catch a glimpse of their favourite players.
The love for a sport goes beyond spending countless hours watching it. It is cultivated, passionately, when one has to fight to experience it. It has to be craved, and when encountered, cherished.
As if the 45-plus days of the non-stop, trumpeting of the IPL were not bad enough, the arrival of the Champions League T20 has darkened the mood further. How does one reconcile with the fact that a player can choose between two teams-maybe even three-when it comes to playing in cricket’s version of the footballing extravaganza held in Europe? What loyalty can be expected from the fans when no one is loyal to the game itself?
Cricket has always been about a battle, right from the 1930s when Sir Don faced Larwood and co. It was a matter of skill and tenacity, not of technicality and theatrics which have come to rule the game today. A famous saying in economics talks about how there is no free lunch for anyone; one has to pay for it. Cricket, unfortunately, has served up free-hits rather ludicrously.
Cricket died in me six years back. A few flashes now and then attempt to reignite the flame that once shone brightly, but it’s merely an exercise in futility.
Being cynical isn’t all that bad when there is very little to believe in.

The Life & Times of Dani Pacheco

It may be misery not to sing at all,
And to go silent through the brimming day;
It may be misery never to be loved,
But deeper griefs than these beset the way.

Dani Pacheco can only find solace in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Life’s Tragedy”.

Having arrived at Liverpool as a youth star from Barcelona’s famed academy in 2007, Pacheco finally left for his homeland earlier this season, signing for second division side Alcorcon after having spent six years in blustery England. Six years everyone but him and the club would call a colossal waste.

Nicknamed “The Killer” for his serial finishing skills when he arrived as a fresh-faced boy from Barcelona, Pacheco was one of the first youngsters Liverpool had procured who were more in the “technical mould”, relying on their quick feet and needle-threading passes rather than bulldozing their way through defences. Standing five-and-a-half feet above terra firma, Pacheco was not going to win too many headers. But he wasn’t required to, as Benitez was embarking on an era of a style grounded in continental tastes.

Pacheco was thrown into the club’s reserve team, and the quality was their for everyone to see. Weaving in and out of onrushing defenders, chasing down lost causes the way Luis Suarez does and having the ability to strike the ball from distance with both feet, Pacheco was a coach’s delight: immense talent with the willingness to work hard. A natural finisher, it would not have been too far off to say in 2007 that Pacheco was on his way to pick up the mantle vacated by Michael Owen. High expectations were spurred on by Pacheco’s performances for the reserve team, and it was only a matter of time before the Spaniard played for the first team.

Pacheco made his debut for the club’s senior side in December 2009 against Fiorentina in a Champions League game, and the game was indicative of Pacheco’s future: the Reds have not played a Champions League game since.

But Pacheco continued to impress, winning the Golden Boot at the 2010 U19 European Championships, a tournament which included the likes of Iker Muniain, Thiago Alcantara, Koke, Andreas Weimann, Antoine Griezmann, Fabio Borini and Sergio Canales. His star was very much on the rise, and Pacheco was just getting started.

But the time never came. Match after match, Pacheco warmed the bench, as the revolving door of Liverpool’s managerial roulette meant that Pacheco never got his due. With Benitez leaving after the disastrous 2009-10 season, the arrival of Roy Hodgson and his crop of mediocre, but favoured, players sidelined Pacheco further. Next came Dalglish and the Comolli-fueled binge on British players. Looking back, it is scarcely believable that someone like Charlie Adam blocked Pacheco’s path into the first eleven.

It was no surprise then that Pacheco was farmed out to Norwich, Athletico Madrid (who in turn loaned him to Rayo Vallecano) and Huesca in the second tier of Spanish football. With no opportunity to settle at one place given the duration of his loan periods-from two months to one season-Pacheco struggled to adapt to changing conditions. And when he was not loaned out, he either sat on the first team’s bench, or played for the reserves. For three years, Pacheco resembled the West Bromwich Albion team of the 2000s: too good for the Championship, but lacking the quality to compete at the highest level. And just like the Baggies, Pacheco needed a continued run.

While Albion managed to cement their place in the top-flight in 2011-12 after six years of yo-yoing between the Championship and the Premier League, Pacheco’s chance never came. A total of 17 appearances for the first team was his return from the six years at Merseyside.

Pacheco’s unfulfilled talent, or the lack of opportunity, was part of a systemic failure, with Liverpool’s ownership and managerial issues compounding the problem for young players who never got the chance  they deserved. And Pacheco was not the only one. Emiliano Insua, Alex Kacaniklic, Krisztian Nemeth, Daniel Ayala, Mikel San Jose, Tom Ince, Stephen Darby and Chris Mavingva were all lost to the club after having made less than a handful of starts. And where are they all now? Plying their trade across Europe, Liverpool would pay good money for a majority of those mentioned. Insua plays for Athletico Madrid, while San Jose is at Bilbao. Mavingva made a multi-million euro transfer to Rubin Kazan from Rennes, and half the Premier League is after Ince’s signature which could cost up to 10 million pounds.

The mid-2000s was a  strange period for young players, as clubs from all over Europe searched for the next Fabregas or Messi. Unfortunately, for every Fabregas which Arsene Wenger found in the rooms of La Masia, there were a hundred others who did not immediately make the grade at their new clubs for several reasons.

The tragedy of Pacheco’s short career is not that he will now have to climb up from Spain’s second division and chart a new path to bigger clubs he deserves to play for. His tragedy lies in the minutes he spent off the pitch, fervently hoping for a few minutes with the likes of Steven Gerrard, Xabi Alonso and Fernando Torres. Nothing can be worse for the youth than spending time waiting in the wings. Development comes with challenging times on the pitch, not off it.

Champions of England: The Better Half of Liverpool

Liverpool are at the top of the table, two points clear of Bristol City. The title is going to be decided by the outcome of the final match of the season, and as fate would have it, it’s Liverpool against Bristol right at the end. At half-time, Liverpool are 1-0 up, courtesy a penalty 10 minutes before the break. The title is within Liverpool’s grasp.

No, the year is not 2030, where a dominant Liverpool side are the toast of the era.  It is very much 2013. However, its Liverpool Ladies, and not the men’s team, which is on the verge of winning the FA Women’s Super League title. After having won a grand total of two games over the last two years.

The phenomenal rise of the Liverpool lasses is not surprising for someone who is aware of the changes which took place at the end of last season when the Ladies finished at the bottom for the second year running. But the pace with which Matt Beard-who took over at the start of the season-has managed to put together an attacking and fluid team after having rung in wholesale changes is surprising.

People stood up and took notice when Kenny Dalglish, and then Brendan Rodgers, bought and sold enough players to field two teams in an attempt to make the men’s team title contenders again.

In the world of women’s football, where even the ten-time defending champions Arsenal train only twice a week, the all-mighty shuffle resulting from the in and out movement of more than a score of players at the end of last season was unprecedented. Had the touch from the men’s team rubbed off onto the women’s management after the ladies were brought under the Liverpool Football Club umbrella?

Not really. What Matt Beard and his staff were doing wasn’t a squad reshuffle, but more of a reshuffle of the women’s game. In a league where full-time training is unheard of, the offer from Liverpool ladies to conduct training throughout the week was attractive enough to pull six foreign internationals from countries like Sweden, Germany and the United States. But the proverbial icing on the cake was the recruitment of Fara Williams and Natasha Dowie from neighbors Everton. And they haven’t disappointed: Dowie tops the scoring charts in the WSL with 19 goals.

The benefits for the Liverpool women’s team have been immense once they were brought under the ambit of  Liverpool Football Club. From English lessons for the foreign signings to training sessions with their male counterparts, the integration of the two teams has been more than just a show of support. And if any proof was required, the men provided it by not holding back, as was evident from Luis Suarez’s tackle on Ladies’ captain Gemma Bonner during a training exercise.

The players are not the only ones to reap the rewards of a more professional approach to women’s football. Matt Beard’s life too has changed for the better, as he does not have to double-up as a real estate agent to pay his bills as he did while he was managing Chelsea Ladies. The functioning of the team are his only concern, as they should be.

As Liverpool prepare to face Sunderland in their premier league tie, news filters in that the ladies have clinched the women’s title after a 2-0 win over Bristol, with goals from Louise Fors and Katrin Omarsdottir, two of the foreign imports.

Rodgers and company may not win the title this year, but they don’t have to look too far for inspiration if they needed any. Beard and his girls are the latest champions in Merseyside.

Ode On The Re-birth of a Special Project

Nine summers back t'was when he came
From the wet climes of the dragon's lair.
A young-ish lad having won European fame,
He now had to contend with Roman's glare.

Three years of silverware and records followed
As the Bridge roared on their special one.
A team second to none in defense
With the Drog upfront handling the load.

But ol' Big Ears eluded his hands.
And Jose was sent packing from the stands.

Avram, Luiz-Felipe, Guus, Carlo
AVB, Roberto, and Rafa came and went.
But the Bridge yearned for their Potugese sage,
In whose absence the club had come to ascent
And own the continental stage.

For two years Jose roamed every street
In Milan, searching for succour,
Which he found when he beat
The Germans, who were left to flounder.

Next stop was Madrid, and matters worsened
As our man battled the catalans.
Calls for his head left him burdened
Though poking eyes was not part of his plans.

All the while Roman watched as Messi & co
Ripped teams to shred, blow by blow.
The Russian wanted to see style and flair,
Not a bus parked in front of Trafalgar Square.

So the oligarch turned to Jose yet again,
Whose heart carped for the London weather,
And the club which he had left in pain.
He left Madrid, bags packed helter-skelter.

Jose had mellowed down, content and happy,
And a mandate to please eyes and make hearts sway.
"The situation is pure: I don't like how Chelsea play,
This project is beautiful," claimed Jose, no more crappy.

To Cech his tactics so late in life will Schurrle be tough.
With the added strife from keeping Mata on the bench,
Could Jose lose the fans and make Roman say, 'that's 'nuff'?

Gareth's Window

Wrote on Sportskeeda after a long time last week. Unfortunately, the editor changed the header to a 2-mile long descriptive essay. Brilliant.

http://www.sportskeeda.com/2013/09/15/gareth-bale-real-madrid-the-football-transfer-window-not-just-about-money/

Football isn’t just about football any more. It might have been in a different age, when players like Billy Liddell, Nandor Hidegkuti, and Garrincha graced the green grass minus the instructions from the dugouts, piercing the air with unfailing regularity.
But this isn’t to mourn the death of a generation of footballing greatness and the splendour attached to the purity of the simple game. Nor is it to celebrate the birth of a new variety of entertainment that is modern football.
While football may have transformed a few years ago, when European domestic leagues entered into an era of commercialisation never seen before, or maybe when the Bosman ruling was passed in 1995, the game is now entering into the proverbial uncharted territory.
Even as I write, Gareth Bale has been named in Real Madrid’s starting line up to face Villarreal. While the 100-million-euro Cardiff man’s debut will be watched by an inordinately large number of people, one can rest assured that the backroom staff of every club in every competitive league would be working tirelessly, looking for the next Bale.
Bale’s sale for 100 million euros may have been the tale of the summer, but the true behemoth was the transfer window itself, as a record amount of money was spent by English clubs, while their continental counterparts too stocked up their squads.
To have a debate over the transfer fees players command would be fruitless. If a club is willing to pay the amount asked, there should not be any questions raised by uninvolved parties.
What makes the game different now is a transfer window that has achieved the status and importance few could have imagined. And I am not talking of the importance of the close season window for the clubs, but for the fans.
Never has there been such anxiousness among fans over a period where no football was played. Never have the collective foreheads of entire cities been furrowed, glued to their TV screens/desktops/laptops, shallow breaths necessitating a higher frequency of inhalation.
Never has news been so important, whether it’s regarding the manager speaking from his car, or a player looking for real estate in a new city.
The transfer window attracts more than just the average fan’s attention. It teases him, laughs at him, and very rarely satisfies him. It enters his life with the sartorial elegance associated with a Milanese model, catches him hook, line and sinker, twists him and takes him as a slave.

Managers may complain that the window serves merely as a distraction for players, with the ability to trash well laid plans with a single stroke. Agents may take clubs for a ride, demand sky-high fees and commissions. Players may act up and submit transfer requests at the last possible moment.
Simultaneously, the same managers will use the window to replenish their stock of players, looking for chinks in the team in the first few games. Players may make their dream moves, driven by money or childhood desire. Agents will break their necks while handling three phones at once.
One cannot romanticise the transfer window beyond a point. It’s only a window of opportunity for someone, while the source of misfortune for another. For supporters, it’s the greatest edge-of-the-seat entertainment. Your club might miss out on its targets while your rivals strengthen at the same time. But the drama surrounding the world’s biggest club and its pursuit of a Welsh footballer, while surreal for the uninitiated, is unrelenting.

The transfer window is not about football. It’s about desire, fame, money and survival. But then, so are numerous other things. Football was never white as snow, as it carved its path to become the Earth’s greatest sport. Its evolution did not occur in isolation, but was dictated by the meanderings of human wants and needs.
As I gaze up from my laptop screen and catch the shenanigans of the team in orange in El Madrigal, the left-footed lad from Cardiff scores with his right foot to draw the Galacticos level. Dream move or not, it’s difficult to not be enamoured. A treat from Madrid, via Cardiff.

AS Roma and SS Lazio: Baying for Blood

http://www.sportskeeda.com/2013/05/25/as-roma-and-ss-lazio-baying-for-blood/

The foundations of Rome are set in the bloodshed of the Trojan War, as Aeneas escaped from Troy and made his way to Italy. It’s only fitting then that the fight for domination within Rome is no less bloody than the path which Virgil’s Aeneid described.
How does one explain an event – a battle between two sets of gladiators really – where the member of one group asks the audience to “leave their weapons and knives at home” before taking their seats at the present-day Colosseum that is the Stadio Olimpico? And we are talking of the same person who, in the previous meeting between the two, punched an opponent in the face.
Never has Bill Shankly’s legendary quote about football being more important than life and death ever been more true than it is for the Rome derby. Fans have died – and rumoured to have been killed – in and around the stadium, matches have been suspended by “Ultras” walking onto the pitch and riots have broken out in the stands. The derby in early 2004 saw most of it occur, with multiple arrests and more than 150 policemen alone injured. A Lazio-Roma match-up without the routine tear gas shells from the police and the associated violence is quite simply, boring.
But then, Rome isn’t any other city. Housing the Vatican within its walls, the passion and fanaticism of the supporters for their clubs rivals the faith in Christianity itself. Like most cities with multiple clubs, the footballing rivalry becomes the physical manifestation of deep-lying territorial issues. However, with Rome being Italy’s capital and the centre of political battles of yore, it’s not surprising that Italy’s fascist past has influenced the city’s football since the inter-war years.

Given the fact that SS Lazio was founded in 1900 – 27 years prior to the formation of AS Roma – it’s interesting that the Roma supporters proclaim Roma as the true club of the capital. Created by the consolidation of three Rome-based clubs (Fortitudo-Proroma, Roma Football Club and Alba-Audace) in 1927 on the instructions of Benito Mussolini to counter the strength of the giants from Milan and Turin, the rivalry was created due to the resistance put up by Lazio against the merger of the Rome clubs, helped by the influence of the Fascist general Giorgio Vaccaro. Thus, the creation of a single identity was denied.
What made matters worse was that Lazio fans were up against multiple sets of supporters brought under the umbrella of AS Roma, and this strengthened their resolve to support the only club they knew. Additionally, the adoption of the colours yellow and red as the new club’s colours further infuriated Lazio. The differences continue till today, with Roma’s supporters considering themselves as urban, middle class and the left-wing, while Lazio supporters are viewed as the right-wing, urban upper class and those from the surrounding suburbs and rural areas – resulting in Lazio fans being labelled as “peasants.”
But if anything contributes and adds to the roaring inferno that is the Derby della Capitale, it’s the lack of success for the two clubs nationally. In their eighty-six years of co-existence, Lazio and Roma have won the Scudetto a measly five times between them, while their Northern rivals – Juventus, Torino, Inter and Milan – have won sixty-five in the same time interval. This lack of success in the league led to the derby acquiring an importance barely seen anywhere else in Europe. When title expectations are low – as they have been – the focus and passion turns to the local derby, with stakes rising beyond the proverbial bragging rights.
The turn of the millennium saw the rivalry take an incredible turn, when Lazio won the Scudetto in 1999-00, after a gap of 26 years. The triumph was fuelled by the arrival of Sergio Cragnotti, a wealthy businessman who oversaw the purchase of numerous big-money signings like Juan Sebastian Veron, Christian Vieri and Hernan Crespo. The lavish spending culminated in the domestic double in 1999-00 under Sven-Göran Eriksson. However, Roma were not to be outdone, and they responded in turn by winning the league the following year under Fabio Capello, who had been appointed manager the previous year. The Roma team of the early 2000s contained the likes of Cafu, Gabriel Batistuta, Vincenzo Montella, Walter Samuel, Emerson and a certain Francesco Totti – a local boy who has grown to live the supporter’s dream.

A veteran of more than 650 games for the club, Totti continues to be worshiped by the Romanista twenty years after he made his debut. Lazio fans, meanwhile, have had a unique representative in the team in the past: Paolo Di Canio. A one-time Lazio ultra, Di Canio played for the club twice in a career spanning more than twenty years. Even though his appearances for Lazio totalled just over a hundred over seven seasons, there is no doubting his legendary status among the supporters, with his explosive nature and hate for Roma exemplified by his fascist salute to the Lazio end after winning the derby 3-1 in January 2005. With one gesture, Di Canio had aligned himself with the right-wing sections of Lazio’s supporters and confirmed his place in SS Lazio’s annals.
While violence in football stadiums has reduced considerably since the hooliganism of the 1970s and 1980s, Rome seems to be immune to such changes. Come Sunday, 2000 policemen will line up in and around Stadio Olimpico, with bragging rights, the Coppa Italia and the chance to compete in the Europa League waiting for the victors. Come Sunday, football will become more important than life and death again.