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.