Falling in love with football again

Sometimes these days I find football a hard game to love. The attitude of the players, the way the clubs treat their fans, the attitude of the modern fan, and of course the fetid, stinking mess that is the game's governing body - so much of it leaves a sour taste, and it seems to be getting worse.

All of this was put in stark contrast when I recently watched Next Goal Wins, the inspiring documentary about the world's worst football team, American Samoa, who were famously beaten at the hands of Australia by a world-record 31-0 scoreline in 2002.

This tale of misfits and no-hopers playing the game they love is a complete antidote to the cynical, serious, soulless phenomenon that world football sometimes appears to me to be. For those feeling jaded about the game, questioning why they ever loved it and if they ever will again, I wholeheartedly recommend you give it a watch.


The documentary is available to purchase on DVD from Amazon, here.

Have you seen it? Leave your review below, and let us know how it made you feel about the beautiful game!

Terry must keep his head down for sake of England

Matthew Syed writes today in The Times about his incredulity that John Terry has managed to maintain his status as England captain despite a downward spiralling of his public image in recent months.

As a nation, England need Terry to stay out of the limelight for the next 6 months. His influence on England's remarkable run of results under Fabio Capello cannot be underestimated. Terry is the man, after all, that Capello turned to after his extensive audition period for the role, and who are we to question the judgement of the man who has given England their smoothest passage to a major tournament in living memory?

The Chelsea man may not be the most spectacular footballer in the world - indeed he may not even be the most talented central defender England can boast - but his leadership qualities on the pitch and within a team environment are second to none, and that is what England will need if they are to get through the sternest of challenges that await them if they are to reach the latter stages in South Africa.

However, by accepting money from three "businessmen" (undercover reporters for the News of The World) for a private tour of Chelsea's training facility, and the secretive nature in which he handled the situation, Terry has done his best to throw his tenure as England captain into the spotlight of public scrutiny. There is no doubt that Terry is in footballing terms the best man to lead England at the World Cup, but he is becoming something of a PR disaster (not helped by his family), and the integrity that is expected of someone who is asked to lead their country has slipped away from him in the light of this incident. He needs to tread carefully from now on and avoid any more slip-ups, or else England might be forced to look elsewhere for the man to lead them to glory.

I'm sure Mr Capello will be in contact with Terry before the England squad next gets together in March, to remind him of his responsibility to his country and the high standards that are expected of him in his elevated position as leader of the nation's hopes. I only hope it gets through to him, and we can enjoy the run up to the tournament safe in the knowledge that we don't have to worry about the conduct of Terry, of whom so much is expected next summer.

Lennon and Defoe make Capello's job easier

Jermain Defoe and Aaron Lennon moved yesterday to end the debate over two of England's so-called "up-for-grabs" places for the final squad to take to South Africa.

Of course, this was only one performance against a Wigan side so woeful on the day that you wondered quite how they could beat anyone in this league, let alone Chelsea as they did just a few weeks ago. Of course, there is a long season ahead and plenty of opportunities for other players to impress, as well as chances for Lennon and Defoe to fall down the pecking order.

However, this display by the pair was so emphatic that I doubt it will be surpassed by any of the other England hopefuls this season. Lennon notched up a goal and three superb assists, and appeared to silence the critics who have slammed his ability to deliver accurate crosses, while Defoe went some way to burying the debate over who is England's best goal-poacher with a stunning display of his finishing talents.

Whatever Mr Capello's thoughts on the matter, it is clear that Lennon and Defoe have thrown down the gauntlet to their challengers, and the likes of Walcott, Wright-Phillips and Milner, and Owen, Bent and Agbonlahor will be hard pushed to make a more convincing case than the diminutive Spurs duo forwarded at White Hart Lane yesterday. This was the kind of football that gets people off their seats, the kind of football that is a credit to the game, and the kind of football that fans will want to see of England next summer.

Henry's Call for Replay is Hollow Gesture

The Times is reporting this afternoon that Thierry Henry has called upon Fifa to order a replay of France's World Cup play-off second leg with Ireland.

Henry appears to be attempting to rebuild his reputation that has been left in tatters following his extra-time handball on Wednesday night , but my feeling is that the statement he has made is nothing more than that. Henry doesn't believe Fifa will order a replay. In fact, he's waited until Fifa have actually ruled out the possibility of a replay before making this statememt. To me it seems like a calculated gesture designed to repair significant damage to the reputation of a player who has been obsessed with self-image for the whole of his career.

I'd really rather Henry stayed out of our faces for the foreseeable future, as the only way he is really going to recover from this is by doing his talking on the pitch by balancing his exhilirating style of play with a hefty measure of honesty and integrity. It might be harder than trying to talk his way out of it, but it's the only way back now.

Did UEFA and FIFA miss something?

Take a look at uefa.com, find the match report from last night's game between France and Ireland, take a read, anything seem strange?

Here is how UEFA reported William Gallas' goal:

And so came extra time where in the eighth minute a hopeful France free-kick found its way to Henry, who squared for Gallas to head the goal that takes his country to South Africa.

Hmmmm.......

Well that surely must have been an oversight, surely FIFA - the world governing body wouldn't have missed the same thing would they?

Les Bleus came into the contest after the break but remained vulnerable to Irish attacks, meaning the tie had to be resolved in extra time, when William Gallas equalised to send his team through to their fourth consecutive finals.

Interesting......

What are we to make of this? Regardless of intent or the characters involved what occurred last night was an injustice, and a significant one at that. The World Cup is the self-proclaimed biggest show on earth and for any player probably the pinnacle of their career. To deny a nation the opportunity to compete because of this kind of error is nothing short of a travesty.

The response of FIFA and UEFA? Apparently it never happened. Presumably they hope that everyone on the planet gets their football news through uefa.com and fifa.com and they are looking for complete ignorance of the issue?

So will FIFA or UEFA make a statement about this? Will they do ANYTHING? Well when your leader is Sepp Blatter, reality is not often something that you have to deal with, so I am going to stick my neck out here and say.....no.

Nowhere to hide for cheat Henry

Tonight witnessed one of the great footballing injustices as Thierry Henry's blatant double-handball in Paris gave France an aggregate World Cup play-off victory against Ireland.

Let me set my stall out from the off: there is no situation where cheating in order to gain advantage for your team is acceptable. Doubtless there will be those who, while not condoning Henry's actions, will accept it as part of the game. However, the notion that he did what he did because he had to, and any of us would have done the same is a total fallacy.

There is no excuse for Henry's actions. Some may say that it was an instinctive action, that his arm automatically stretched out to keep the ball in play and as such he is not responsible for those actions. Let me dispel this myth. Handling in order to keep the ball in play is not an instinctive reaction for a footballer. If it was, we'd see it week in, week out in domestic football, but we simply don't. Henry's actions may have played out in a split second, but as a footballer you need less than that time to decide to do something, and Henry clearly made a decision tonight.

Of course this incident will also raise familiar discussions surrounding officials and video replays. That however, is a debate for another day. Tonight there is nothing but a sense of pure injustice on behalf of the Irish who fought so hard and so well, and deserved so much more than to be eliminated by the actions of a cheat.

Breaking News: England B Won't Win World Cup

England's friendly defeat to Brazil on Saturday in Doha really proved nothing more than we already knew: that England's B team aren't good enough to win a World Cup, and that the expectations of the English public become distorted beyond reasonable levels in the run-up to any major tournament.

This starting XI was nothing like the side that England will line up with for their first match of the finals in South Africa - in fact only one player from that team will be guaranteed to start if fit. However, the prevailing mood of the British public in the wake of this narrow defeat is almost inevitably one of gloomy pessimism at our chances next summer.

Let's face it, England's reserve players are not really fit to lace the boots of the first-choicers, but as Patrick Barclay suggests in The Times this morning, is this really much of a surprise?

Maybe it would be better if we all harked back to the days of good ol' Sven, when no-one actually cared about the outcome of such meaningless friendlies.