ISSUE ONE

Editors Note
Jonathan Wilson, Editor
So at last, then, here it is: the rst issue of The Blizzard, hopefully a new beginning in what is possible for football journalism, a chance for writers to escape the strictures of search engine optimisation and write at greater length and in more detail than the mainstream media allows about what matters to them. In all honesty, it doesnt feel much like a beginning. This is a project that began in February 2010 and has very slowly come to fruition after a lot of hard work from a lot of people, most of them working not for cash but because of their faith in what were trying to do. When we launched the pilot at the beginning of March Issue Zero we had no idea what the response would be. We knew there was a possibility it would sink without trace, that either wed failed to reach out to our audience or that there simply wasnt an audience for this sort of football writing. After the website went live (at 1953 GMT on March 4), I went out for a meal. Wed set it up so I got sent an email every time somebody downloaded the pdf and for two hours I sat in the restaurant trying to focus on the food while acutely conscious that my Blackberry was sitting dormant in my pocket. Id cautioned myself not to expect a rush, but Id thought wed get at least a handful of downloads that evening. There was nothing. And then I stepped out onto the pavement, into an area with a mobile signal. My Blackberry suddenly came alive, buzzing like a swarm of bees trapped in a vuvuzela. As the email count span upwards, it felt a little like that scene in The Social Network in which they watch the counter ticking towards 1,000,000 (although with much smaller numbers). I only wished Id been at the office up in Sunderland to share the celebrations. In the cold light of morning, when we actually looked at what the gures meant, sobriety set in. It had been a great start, and downloads and subscriptions have continued to grow steadily in the weeks since. Theres still a wider audience out there though and we need to attract them if were to be sustainable in the long term. Were ahead of the curve, but theres still a lot of work to be done. So, thanks for your support, thanks for downloading this or for ordering the hard copy but, please, keep recommending us to people and, if youve got this in digital form and think you might like the hard copy, give it a go. Think how nice paper smells; think how good The Blizzard will look on your shelf; think what having it on your coffee table will do to your status as a football geek. The Blizzard was set up as a communal venture, based on the efforts of a collective of writers, but you the readers also have a role as we move forward. The rst phase is over. Weve reached the end of the beginning. The rst green shoot is poking through. Now we have to work together on nurturing that into something substantial and rmly rooted.

Contents

Contents
The Blizzard, Issue One

Introduction
03.

43.

Editors Note

Lawrence Donegan, 44 Days, Later

Why Jock Stein lasted no longer than Brian Clough at Elland Road

Fortunes of War
07.

James Montague, Stars of David

The astonishing story of Israels rst national team 48.

Theory
Jonathan Wilson, The First Bilardista
How Victorio Spinetto pioneered pragmatism in Argentinian football 55.

16.

Philippe Auclair, The Collaborator

The treacherous life and traitors death of Alexandre Villaplane, Frances rst World Cup captain

Sid Lowe, The Brain in Spain

Juanma Lillo, mentor to Pep Guardiola, explains his thinking on clubs, coaching and why society is sick

Interview
22.

Dennis Bergkamp
David Winner talks to Dennis Bergkamp about his greatest goals, the nature of genius and the importance of predicting the future 66.

Grass Roots
Paul Myers, Duels on the Nile
A report from Sudan on the second championship for Africans playing their football at home 70.

Leeds
32.

Dominic Sandbrook, Revie-Nixon

How ignominious exits overshadow the successes of a US president and a Leeds United manager

Scott Anthony, An Exile at Home

Vassilis Hatzipanagis, Greeces greatest player, explains why he never played a competitive game for his country

36.

Anthony Clavane, Mind of Peace

David Peace discusses the inspiration behind The Damned Utd and why he wont apologise to John Giles

76.

Ben Lyttleton, Port in a Storm

The extraordinary success of the academy at Le Havre

Contents

80.

Simon Hooper, Marsh Attacks

How a Sunday League team gives Londons Romanians a sense of identity

134. Kieron

OConnor, Worlds Apart

Fifa and the nancial legacy of the South African World Cup

Denmark 92
87.

Football Manager
145. Iain

Dave Farrar, Once Upon a Time...

The fairy story of Denmarks 1992 European Championship campaign

Macintosh, The Ballad of Bobby Manager: My Autobiography

When somebody takes their game of Football Manager just a little too seriously...

Origins
102. Gunnar

Persson, The Sum of their Parts

157.

Greatest Games
Rob Smyth, Manchester United 2 Real Madrid 3
European Cup quarter-nal second-leg, Old Trafford, Manchester, 19 April 2000

The rise and fall of Motala and its football team 109. Dileep

Premachandran, When the Kites werent Black

The lost legacy of Indian football

Eight Bells
175. Scott

117.

David Ashton, Man and Boy

Fathers, sons and the grumbling terraces of industrial Scotland

Murray, Pre-War Scottish Legends

Polemics
124. Simon

A selection of eight of the early stars of the game in Scotland

Kuper, The Pillars of the Earth

Could it be that the Premier League boom has only just begun?

Information
184. Contributors

Subcriptions About The Blizzard 188. T-shirts

186. 187.

132. Tim

Vickery, Whats the Point of Football Writing?

Theres more to it than getting up late, isnt there? Isnt there?

06
Fortunes of War
He was a bastard of the rst order, one of these mediocrities who dened a very modern kind of evil, in which the only transcendence to be found is in the suffering of the victims.

Stars of David

Stars of David
The astonishing story of Israels rst national team
By James Montague

Hear, O my brothers in the land of exile The voice of one of our visionaries Who declares that only with the very last Jew Only there is the end of hope Tikvateinu (Our Hope), Naftali Herz Imber Avraham Bendori skips up the stairs of his apartment, past the thousands of pennants and badges and medals that tell the story of his remarkable life, as if he were three decades younger than his 83 years. Memories, he says, pausing halfway up, in front of a bank of triangular, fading pieces of cloth embossed with the names and dates of bygone matches whose scores have long been forgotten: USSR, Ipswich, Internazionale, Watford. Dressed in a cap, bright shirt and slacks, he spins around and opens his arms wide, like a cross between Lionel Blair and Uncle June from The Sopranos. Just memories! When I look, there are so many memories. I have to re-read every word, every single day, so I dont forget. Life and memories. Theyre words that Bendori will use again and again over the next two hours. The former Israel international hadnt played in all the matches, of course. But for 20

years, long after his playing career as a goalkeeper for Maccabi Tel Aviv had ended, he had been the national team manager. There is a portrait of Bendori with the rst team before his nal match in 1999, looking little different from the man standing in front of the frame today. Over those 20 years Bendori wandered with the Israel national side from continental association to continental association looking for a home, after an Arab boycott in the 1970s meant that Israel were banished from the Asian Football Confederation. By 1994 they had joined Uefa, and settled into a reassuringly mundane reality of failure as European Championships and World Cup nals passed them by. Fittingly, the picture also celebrated Israels high watermark: a play-off against Denmark for a place at Euro 2000. They lost 8-0 on aggregate. When I was the team manager it was between the times when we knew who was a friend and who wasnt a friend, he explained. We ourselves didnt know when we went to a country how the situation was with us. We were a new country and not every country wants a new country. But theres one memory not on his wall, a memory Avraham has kept to himself. Theres no pennant, no letter of

Stars of David

thanks, no badge, not even a picture to commemorate his role in arguably the most important match he ever played, probably the most important match in his countrys history. Fifa doesnt even recognise it as an official international. But when Israel played the USA in New York in September 1948, just four months after the state was born, it was the rst time an Israeli team, any sports team, had own the Star of David abroad. When Israel proclaimed statehood in May 1948, conict was inevitable. The Arab countries that encircled it declared war, while the cities and towns that had seen Arab and Jew living in relative peace during the years of the British Mandate tore themselves to partition. But as war raged, the Israelis decided that their plight needed to be heard through unconventional means. From Israels armed forces, a team of footballers was convened, under the watchful eye of the countrys rst Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion. Many of the players had been injured in the War of Independence. Some had only recently recovered from appalling injuries. Others had fought with the British Armys Jewish Brigade against the Nazis. And others had fought in underground groups against the British when they still represented an occupying force. The 18 soldiers chosen from the best Jewish football clubs in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Petah Tikva had new orders from the very top. They would go and play in the USA, and would y the new ag of Israel to show the world and the Jews it hoped to attract to move to the edgling state its strength and independence. Bendori has lived in Tel Aviv all his life, the son of Polish and Russian immigrants

who came to British Palestine in 1926, a few months after his birth. My father was friends with Ben Gurion before he was Prime Minister, so bought the land here to be close by. Because, for him, Ben Gurion was king, recalled Bendori, now standing on the roof terrace of the apartment his father built near the Mediterranean coast, the white city shimmering behind him. Used tank shells, holding water for his collection of tropical plants, stood by the door. He points down to Ben Gurion Street, to where the former Prime Minister used to live. His early memories of Tel Aviv are of peace and relative coexistence, of Jews and Arabs, both Muslim and Christian, living in the same apartment blocks. But as the prospect of independence started to become a reality, attacks and counter attacks took place against both communities. Bendori was too young to join the army, so he joined a local militia. I was 17, maybe 18, and I started also to work around the area to keep the Jewish people here safe. And we had a small war. As soon as he was old enough he joined the Israeli Army, while continuing to keep goal for Maccabi Tel Aviv. He nearly died during the War of Independence when he was ambushed near an Arab village. They threw a grenade into the back of my Jeep, he said. The blast killed two of his friends, sheering the Jeep in half. But the engine kept running, and he managed to escape with the front half of the Jeep scraping against the ground. If the engine had been in the back, he said, Id be dead. He was the lucky one. Ten players from Maccabi Tel Aviv alone perished in

James Montague

the conict. It was while recuperating in hospital that Bendori got the call. An Israel national team was to be put together in response to an invitation from the United Jewish Appeal and Zionist Organisation of America. An army training camp was set up to nd the best players Israel had to offer, but Bendori was drafted into the squad straight from hospital. The team was summoned to Ben Gurions house. He told us, You are going to America, and you are going to show the Americans who the Israelis are. But Bendori had a problem. Bendori hadnt always been Bendori. He was born Avraham Bendersky, a product of his fathers Polish roots. It was too European for Ben Gurion, who ordered Bendersky, and the rest of squad, to change their names. He said, You are not going to the United States with a Polish name! You are going with a Hebrew name. So he changed it himself! The name meant the son of a generation, but Ben Gurions actions were too much for Bendoris family, even if his father revered him. It was terrible for me. My parents didnt want to talk to me!

The eighteen players, chosen from Israel soccer clubs, are all Israeli Army soldiers. They underwent intensive training in a special camp last month. Heading the party is coach J Pollak [sic], the former star player on the famous European team Hakoah of Vienna. It was the rst time that Avraham Bendori had left his homeland. But the other players in the squad were battlehardened, each with their own unique story of survival. There was Beitar Tel Avivs Hungarian-born centre-back Israel Weiss, who survived the Second World War after volunteering to ght the Nazis in the British Armys so-called Jewish Division, set up by Winston Churchill in 1944; Yosef Mirmovich, the Maccabi Tel Aviv winger who was born in Cyprus but volunteered for the Australian army. And then there was the teams captain, a beast of a man called Shmulik Ben-Dror. He too joined the British Army, rising to officer. He was a very, very hard man, recalled Asher Goldberg, a former journalist who now works at the Israeli Football Association archives. He was seriously injured [during the Second World War] and spent a long time in hospital in Italy. His body was full of shrapnel. They were taking pieces of shrapnel out of him for the rest of his life. The biggest star of the tour to the US wasnt on the pitch, though. The coach Egon Pollak was the only member of the delegation who had visited the United States before, when he was a star player of the famous Austrian team Hakoah Vienna. Hakoah was a club formed by Austrian Zionists at the turn of the 20th century and had a resolutely Jewish identity, attracting Jewish fans

The Associated Press, 19 September 1948 Israel Team Flying Here to Start on Soccer Tournament Haifa: A selected group of Israeli soccer stars left by plane this morning bound for the United States. The Israel team will play in the United States with the rst scheduled match on Sunday, Sept. 26, in New York. The visitors will oppose the United States Olympic team in the Polo Grounds that day.

Stars of David

from across the world. Like a Jewish Harlem Globetrotters, they embarked on tours to play for the Diaspora, in England where they beat West Ham 5-0, France and nally, after winning the Austrian league in 1925, to the USA. They attracted huge crowds and, with players like Bla Guttman (who would later win the European Cup twice as a coach with Benca) they would often win, too. Wherever they played, huge crowds followed, the biggest being at New Yorks Polo Grounds where 45,000 people crammed in to see Hakoah play. As a publicity exercise, the tour was a resounding success, reaching out to Jewish communities across the world with the teams Muscular Judaism a phrase coined by Max Nordau, the co-founder of the World Zionist Organisation with Theodore Herzel to encourage Jewish teams to ght racial stereotypes by showing strength and discipline in sport. It also effectively destroyed the team. Do you know what they called this tour? El Dorado. The City of Gold! said Goldberg. Such was the outpouring of affection in the US, and such was the absence of anti-Semitism, that most of the players decided to stay. Seven players signed for Brooklyn alone. Only three players ever returned to Vienna. By the 1930s Hakoah were a shadow of their former selves, languishing in the third division. Then the Nazis came for them. They were a little Hakoah then, but the Nazis took the club, and killed four of the players, said Goldberg. Pollak had stayed in the US too, for just one season at the New York Giants. But as coach of Israels very rst national

team, there was no chance of anyone being left behind. When we left the country [for the US], Ben Gurion asked the players, Do me a favour. Play the game. But dont forget you are Israeli. Every one of you. When you are on the pitch, everyone should know you are Israeli, recalled Bendori. And I want to see every one of you when you get back! We didnt dare go against him. Much has been written in Israel about the use of sport by politicians and political groups both before and after 1948. Sport, and especially football, had become increasingly important in the Yishuv the name given to the Jewish settlement in pre-1948 Palestine in building a national consciousness while also appealing to the Diaspora either to provide nancial support or commit to making aliyah, the Jews return to the land of Israel. By the second half of the 1920s, sport became a means of national representation for the Jewish society, wrote Yair Galili and Haggai Harif in Sports and Politics in Palestine 19181948 in the journal Soccer and Society. The aspiration of breaking out of the framework of the Palestinian Mandate, while at the same time continually striving to advertise the achievement of the Jewish nation and home... and to stress its ties to Diaspora Jewry, aroused the enthusiasm of local sportsmen to compete with their colleagues in the Middle East and Europe. There is, of course, the other side of the story. As the Palestinian writer Issam Khalidi pointed out in an article for the Electronic Intifada, the history of Jewish sport and its use in promoting

10

James Montague

Zionism during the British Mandate has all but wiped Palestines Arab identity from sports history. Efforts to dominate athletics, marginalise the Arabs and cultivate cooperation with the British at any price were the main traits that characterised Zionist involvement in sports, he wrote. The principle exammple was the status of the Palestine national team, recognised by Fifa until 1948, but which had a resolutely Jewish and British identity. In the handful of official games it played, qualiers for the 1934 and 1938 World Cups, not one Arab player was represented, even though it was meant to be a team that represented all of Palestine British, Arab and Jew. Although the Zionist movement attempted to claim that sports were separate from politics, it proved to be yet another arena for Zionist colonisation, said Khalidi. Then and now, sports in Palestine cannot be isolated from politics. It would take more than 60 years for an Arab Palestinian team to play an officially recognised international football match: a 1-1 draw with Thailand in an Olympic qualier in April 2011. Both sides would agree on the political power that sport wields in moulding the identity of new states. Tours by Jewish teams in Europe and beyond like Hakoahs trip to the US energised the local Jewish populations, a fact that intrigued politicians looking to secure Israels place on the world stage in early 1948. In his recent book Zionism of Muscles, a look at how sport was used in Israeli foreign policy, Haggai Harif wrote of how Israels tour of the USA in 1948 the rst by any Israeli sports team was seen as hugely important propaganda tool.

The visit of the Israel football team, he wrote, realised the use of sports as a tool inuencing the huge populations in other states... It was emphasised that politically and diplomatically this game will symbolise the unity, ability and existence of the young state in every eld. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Moshe Sharett, blessed the team before they left. This mission is to strengthen... the feeling of the Jews in America and their identication with the main goal of defending the state of Israel. You, the people of this team, must emphasise the Jewish strength, the Jewish unity and the brave bond between us in Israel and the Jews in the Diaspora. Sharett, who would later become Israels second Prime Minister, was unswerving in his belief that the tour would be a success beyond sport, providing his nascent country with a valuable publicity coup. Our best men, who we have sent abroad, will tell [the USA] unequivocally the story of the War of Independence, he said.

New York Times, 23 September 1948 Mayor Welcomes Team from Israel Forty cars with streamers bearing the legend, Welcome Heroes of Israel, and carrying the squad of visiting soccer players from the new State of Israel... bore down upon City Hall yesterday after a tour of Manhattan. Representatives of leading Jewish organizations accompanied them. Then, in the presence of a huge noon-day gathering, they dispersed. Ten of the cars returned at 2 oclock for a brief

11

Stars of David

reception by Mayor ODwyer on City Hall steps. Photographers and newsreel men promptly took over and kept the mayor busy shaking hands with Capt. Samuel Ben-Dror of the Israel Army, who was severely wounded in the battle for Latrun. It is always a pleasure for me to meet great men of your calibre who have done their full duty on behalf of their country and I am sure that the people of New York City will extend to you all the warm welcome which you deserve, said the Mayor. You will be made to feel at home and our best wishes are with you. Just a few blocks away from Bendoris apartment, Eliezer Spiegel sits in his lounge with his wife and grandson. Despite being considered a legend in Israeli football there are few clues of Spiegels long career in the game, either as a star striker for Beitar Tel Aviv and Maccabi Petah Tikva or later as a coach. Instead pictures of his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren adorn his shelves. Spiegel was 24 when he travelled to the USA with Israels rst national football team, and had fought a very different war to the war Avraham Bendori was involved in. My wifes brothers were all members. They recruited me, Spiegel says. I was an expert with pistols. Small pistols. While many of his future teammates chose to join the British Army to ght a common enemy in Nazism, Spiegel joined the Irgun, a militant Zionist underground armed movement that assassinated British officials and bombed British targets. In 1946 they

were responsible for bombing the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the nerve centre of British rule, killing 91 people. Irgun members, who saw the British as occupiers, were deemed so dangerous that in 1945 the British began rounding up members. Spiegel was arrested, but rather than being sent to a local prison, he was sent to a camp in Eritrea. It was hoped that they were so far away they wouldnt be able to escape and return. We used to play football in the camp, against a team of the British, Spiegel recalls. I used to play very well. One of the soldiers, a captain, said he could arrange for me to go to England and play there. It was a way out of exile, but for Spiegel it was replacing one exile with another. I told him I wouldnt go, he said. They wanted us to be far away. I had to return [to Israel] rst. Instead Spiegel was imprisoned in Eritrea for three years, only being allowed home after Israeli independence had been declared. His rst act of service was to go to the USA.

It had rained non-stop all weekend, but 26 September 1948 was still a beautiful day. The teams lined up in front of either 25,000 (according to the New York Times) or 35,000 (according to the Israeli FA) overwhelmingly Jewish fans at the Polo Grounds. My English wasnt too good then, remembers Bendori. But I remember everyone was with Israel, shouting Is-ra-el, Is-ra-el! Everyone wanted us to stay because of the war.

12

James Montague

The Israel team wore blue bomber jackets, a gift from their American hosts when they landed. The team lined up to watch their new ag hoisted for the rst time and hear their national anthem, the Hatikvah an adapted version of Tikvateinu by Naftali Herz Imber, a Jewish poet from what is now Ukraine. It invoked pride, as well as painful memories. I asked all the players what they felt, says Bendori. I saw their eyes, and they were crying. They didnt know how this Israel music would make them feel. It was difficult. Spiegel, too, still remembers the powerful emotions that Israels rst sporting national anthem on foreign soil provoked. This is the only thing we were satised with the match, he said. When we were hearing it, we took it very hard. It felt like we had a country, and to be in America to sing it.... There were many people crying. I am a strong man but I was crying too.

the Olympic eleven made its shots count. The US booters broke through twice in the rst half and once in the second to carry away a 3-1 decision before 25,000. Perhaps it was the fact that the Israelis had only one opportunity to engage in a real workout since reaching this country. They were not outplayed too greatly. And certainly their passing was a shade better than that of the Americans. Impressive ceremonies preceded the start of the game. Headed by the New York Police Department Band, the Police Department Glee Club and a Jewish War Veterans color guard, the members of the Israel team and then the United States Olympic eleven paraded around the ags of both nations and the singing of the national anthems. Egon Pollaks dark mood soon destroyed the dressing room bonhomie fostered by seeing the Israeli ag for the rst time. We didnt play too good, Spiegel explained. It was cold, raining, we dont have this climate. It was hot for us [in Israel]. It was very cold in America and for us it was very difficult. He [Pollak] told us that we played like girls. We are afraid all the time. Why didnt we ght? He was very angry. Very angry because we lost. Because for him coming to America was something special because he was from Vienna and had played here before. The one bright spot was Israels captain scoring his countrys rst goal. Spiegel provided the assist. The tour didnt get much better. Israel lost all its games in New York and Philadelphia, and matches against an All-Star American league team. But the results, for once, didnt matter.

New York Times, 27 September 1948 US Olympic Squad Turns Back Israeli Soccer Team on Opening of Tour Here American Eleven Gains 3-1 Triumph It was a more nimble-footed United States Olympic team that spoiled the debut in this country of the soccer team of Israel, rst international athletic group to represent the new state. While the Israelis pressed the Americans to the utmost in the second half and missed more than a few opportunities,

13

Stars of David

As far as sport is concerned it was a failure, said Haggai Harif. But as a means of propaganda it was successful. In the Israeli newspapers they wrote it was such a great experience for the Jews of New York and Philadelphia to see Israel, this young and unknown state. The gathering of the Jews... in the streets waving for the players of the Israeli team was such an extraordinary propaganda tool for the Zionist groups in America. It strengthened the Zionist passion for the state of Israel and led them to contribute and even make aliyah. As Ben Gurion had hoped, every player returned to Israel. There was a new country to build. The players returned to Haifa to a heros welcome, but their rest was short-lived. All of them returned to their Army units. There were still three months of war to ght, but they didnt know that then. Slowly the years would pass. Children would be born, parents would die, wives passed and second wives would take their place. One by one, the team of 1948 would get smaller and smaller. Now only three remain: the winger Yosef Mirmovich, Bendori and Spiegel, who had to nd a new Army unit to join after years of exile in Eritrea. They didnt give me anything dangerous to do, he admitted. They just wanted me to play [football]. After the war, Spiegel would realise the dream that been offered to him by a British army captain in Eritrea. In 1954 Maccabi Tel Aviv travelled to England for a friendly against Wolverhampton Wanderers. They lost 10-0. I touched the ball 10 times, Spiegel said. The 10 times we kicked off. It was while in England he had a chance encounter with a ghost from the past.

The newspaper had printed which hotel we were staying in, he said. I was waiting outside and I saw this man in full military uniform coming towards me. I thought, Thats it, the British have found me. Im to be arrested! It was the colonel from Eritrea. Retired now. He had read in the paper I was here! What did he say? He was sorry for Africa, and happy I got to England eventually. He was bored now. He said he drank cups of coffee all day. Spiegel would go on to have a long and happy relationship with England, visiting Lilleshall when he decided to become a coach and was hired as the assistant manager to the national team. He counted Walter Winterbottom as a friend, and met the Charlton brothers. A letter stands on his bookshelf, from the then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to mark Israels 60th anniversary in 2008, extolling his extraordinary life and recognising his role in creation of Israel, both on and off the pitch. He also thanked him for not leaving the camp to play in England when he had the chance. His son, Giora Spiegel, would go on to enjoy the playing career his father never did, being part of the great Israel team that, along with Mordechai Spiegler, qualied for Israels one and only World Cup appearance at Mexico 70. Progress to that World Cup began on 26 September 1948, with a squad of soldiers fresh from war and exile. The match was signicant. It was the rst because everything was new in the country, says Bendori, now in his kitchen. His son, who was briey a Maccabi Tel Aviv youth player 20 years ago, has arrived to ensure he takes his

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James Montague

medication, as he has done every day since Avrahams wife died suddenly two years ago. He hands him a glass of thick green gunk to drink. Life in the end catches up with everybody, even sportsmen, even those sportsmen whose actions reverberate far beyond sport. The football team would bring Jewish people to Israel, says Bendori senior. It was propaganda, yes there was no other kind of business.

15

The Collaborator

The Collaborator
The treacherous life and traitors death of Alexandre Villaplane, Frances rst World Cup captain
By Philippe Auclair

In French, ball and bullet are the same word: balle. The last balle Alexandre Villaplane had to deal with hit him in the nape of the neck: the coup de grce, a 7.5mm piece of lead shot at point blank range in the courtyard of the Montrouge fortress on Boxing Day, 1944. He was 39 years old; a murderer, a gangster whod espoused collaboration with the Nazi occupation forces, under whose direct orders women had been raped, prisoners burnt alive, Jews ransomed and then sent to death camps. He had also been the captain of the France football team at the 1930 World Cup, his countrys nest centre-half of the pre-war era. There is a photograph of him, which I was told was taken in the days leading to his execution for high treason and acts of barbarism, in which he is just about recognisable from earlier pictures, dressed to the nines like a Pigalle pimp, hair slicked back, ambling casually in front of a brick wall which I imagine must have been very much like the one in front of which, blindfolded, he heard the orders of the officer in charge of the ring squad. Villaplanes life, and death, had been the antithesis of Sir Henry Newbolts Vita Lampada. He was a bastard of the rst order, one of these mediocrities who dened a very modern kind of evil, in which the only

transcendence to be found is in the suffering of the victims. War, to him, was just a means to steal more money. He couldnt care less about Aryan supremacy and the thousand-year Reich, but he cared a great deal about himself. According to the prosecutor, who didnt have to break sweat to secure a death sentence, His psychology [was] entirely different from that of the other members of his group. He describes himself as a ddler (combinard). Id say [...] that hes more than that: a born crook. And, to do their job, crooks need a have a natural feel for staging. Villaplane has it to the highest degree. He would attempt and succeed in staging the most abject of blackmails the blackmail of hope. Dressed in a German uniform, hed get out of a car seized from the maquis and embark on the following monologue: What times we are living through! To what extremities am I reduced, I, a Frenchman, forced to wear the German uniform, these awful rags! [...] Theyre going to kill you but Ill save you, risking my life. Ive saved fty-four [people]. Youll be the fty-fth. Thatll be 400,000 francs. The Jew, the resistant, the Gaullist would pay if he or she could. Then the Algiers-born Villaplane, aka. SS Mohammed, would leave him or

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Philippe Auclair

her to the mercy of his thugs, North African mercenaries whose savagery is remembered to this day in the south of France. According to survivors, Villaplane didnt join in the beatings, the torture, the killings. He watched, impassive or smiling, counting his cash, except on one occasion, when he took part in the summary execution of 11 maquisards in the village of Mussidan. The oldest of these men was 26 years old, the youngest 17. Money could have saved them, perhaps, but none of them had any. By then, in 1944, as in 2011, no-one cared to remember that Villaplane had once been the skipper of a national team that had nearly reached the semi-nals of the very rst World Cup in Uruguay. All that had happened long before the Germans routed the French Army in 1940, before the hero of Verdun, the octogenarian eld-marshal Philippe Ptain, had launched his pathetic version of home-cooked fascism, a casserole of ideological leftovers re-heated for a terried populace, before Villaplane himself had swapped a football jersey for the tunic of an SS Obersturmfrher. To him, football, like collaboration, had been a means to an end, certainly not a vocation. The saddest thing in this saddest of stories might be that he never realised the true value of his by all accounts exceptional talent. He wasted it, as he wasted so much else besides.

Europe at the time. Very little is known of Gibson, whod turned up in Ste (then spelled Cette) in 1912 at the age of 30. Hed played for Morton (now Greenock Morton) and Falkirk before appearing, very briey, for Espanyol of Barcelona and subsequently crossing the border to the port on the French Mediterranean. In Ste his passport alone would have made him a choice candidate for the position of head coach, which he occupied with distinction for 12 seasons. His inuence can be felt to this day. Ste, the rst French club to win the League and Cup double (in 1934), still play in green and white hoops: Gibson was a Celtic fan. Villaplane had the quick intellect of a born conman, and soon realised that the football of his time, rife with shamateurism as it was, opened splendid opportunities to lead the kind of lifestyle that his background (he was the son of working-class immigrants) and his education (he had barely any) would otherwise have denied him. Aged 18, little more than a season and a half after Gibson had elded him for the rst time, he joined Vergze, a second division club nanced by the mineral water company Perrier just long enough to make the board of Ste realise theyd made a mistake by letting him go. He was back as soon as better terms were offered to him. International recognition quickly followed. In 1925, selected for a North African XI to face Frances B team after hed helped Ste reach the semi-nals of the French Cup, he caught the eye of the national scouts and, a year later, on 11 April 1926, he was awarded the rst cap of his brief but brilliant career with Les Bleus1. It was in a friendly against Belgium, which France won 4-3 at the now-demolished Stade Pershing, on the

This murderous crook had been a superb player, who was rst noticed by a Scot called Victor Gibson, one of a number of British football men who eked out a living in the leagues of continental

17

The Collaborator

outskirts of Paris. The dashing centrehalf immediately established himself as an automatic choice in Frances rst XI, and it cannot be coincidence that when injuries prevented him from playing, as was the case for most of 1927, the performances of a team that had improved steadily in the 1920s suffered a dramatic turn for the worse. That year, minus Villaplane, the French collected drubbings at the hands of Portugal (0-4), Spain (1-4), England (0-6 Dixie Dean scored twice at Colombes) and, in extraordinary fashion, Hungary, who atomised Jules Dewaquezs team 13-1 in Budapest, Jzsef Takcs putting six goals past the goalkeeper Maurice Cottenet, who decided to quit football there and then. I want to leave on a high, as he put it. As soon as Villaplane was t again, he rejoined the squad, and played 20 internationals on the trot, until his career with France came to an abrupt and unexplained halt in 1930, at the age of 24. His talent couldnt have been the cause. His energy on the eld was widely admired, as was his gift for providing what we now call assists to the likes of Paul Nicolas, the Red Star centreforward who captained France before Villaplane was appointed, and took on this responsibility again when the younger man was deemed persona non grata. In the absence of any footage of Villaplane in action, we must make do with contemporary reports, which insist on his exquisite ball control as much as on his physical strength and aerial prowess. Unfortunately, he wasnt just a footballer of repute, but soon became a footballer with a reputation. In these pre-professional days (France had to wait until the 1932-33 season to accept that players could be employees of their

clubs), it was widely accepted at least within the game, if not by the Corinthian hardcore of the Fdration that top clubs could only attract top players if they offered them ctitious jobs, just as many impecunious gentlemen were given secretarial sinecures in English county cricket. Villaplanes undoing was that he aunted his money and didnt give a damn about what was said about his highly unusual at the time habit of changing clubs every three years or so: Ste (1921-23), Vergze (1923-24), Ste again (1924-27), SC Nmes (192729) and Racing Club (1929-1932), solely motivated by the promise of a better pay-packet. His move to Racing attracted particular attention in that regard. The clubs then president, Jean-Bernard Lvy, wished to knock neighbours Red Star off their Parisian perch, and spent fortunes to attract the best talent in the country; Villaplane, now recognised as one of the best, if not the best player in the land, naturally became one of his rst targets. Then again, hed probably have been forgiven if he hadnt fallen in with the wrong crowd almost as soon as he came to the capital. He burnt his wages in cabarets, casinos, ne restaurants and on racecourses, the favourite habitat of mauvais garons in the 1920s and 1930s. This was a world, a demi-monde, which Villaplane entered with relish. Easily corruptible, he quickly set out to corrupt others; his descent into criminality had begun. His notorious behaviour soon made him unsuitable to national duty in the eyes of the high-minded administrators of the French Football Federation (FFF), who chose not to call on him after the 1930 World Cup, despite

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Philippe Auclair

three ne performances in games against Mexico, Argentina and Chile. Two years later, their decision would be vindicated. The ves-time captain of France had moved back to the south to Antibes as soon as professionalism was sanctioned by the authorities, in 1932. To everybodys surprise, the Antibois, led by Villaplane, topped one of the two tenteam groups which then composed the French rst division, thereby qualifying for the grand nal. But the word soon spread that a crucial game against SC Fives Lille had been bought2. The coach of Antibes, one Valre, his forename lost to history, got a life ban. Villaplane whod played a key part in the plot got away with a slap on the wrist and the advice to look for a livelihood elsewhere, which he did at OGC Nice, where his life unravelled for good. Showing up late for training sessions, showing little interest in the team of which he was captain, Villaplane drifted ever further away from football, with disastrous results. Nice were relegated. Villaplane sank. In 1935, shortly after hed rejoined Gibson at a small Bordeaux club, Hispano-Bastidienne3, he earned his rst conviction (for xing horse races at the hippodromes of Paris and the Cte dAzur). That jail term was followed by a number of others until the greatest opportunity of his life struck: the war or, more to the point, the defeat.

Jews. He was immediately arrested for handling hot goods, however, and it was in jail that he was approached by Henry Lafont, one of the most reviled gures of the collaboration; to many, a psychopath, a sadist, but rst and foremost an opportunist who convinced the occupier that he was someone they could do business with by leading them to the destruction of a whole Belgian resistance network. The Nazis appreciated the favour, and made him the head of the French Gestapo where, in tandem with a disgraced former head of the French police, Pierre Bonny, he tortured and murdered his way to a fortune, holding parties for the happy few in the choicest bordellos of Paris. Villaplane, rst recruited as a chauffeur, stuck to this duo as surely as a y keeps coming back to a rotting carcass, until in 1944 he nally got his big break. The Germans encouraged the creation of a Brigade Nord-Africaine, which was placed under the orders of the Algerianborn Villaplane. The BNA was given the task of cleaning up southern maquis, which they did, mercilessly, until the Reich nally crumbled and Villaplane, who seemed incapable of planning beyond the next party, was caught in the debacle, captured and taken into custody. The companions of his last days and hours were a terried Bonny and a deant Lafont, who as hed lived ten lives in four years, couldnt care about losing one now as his former lover Marie-Ccile de Taillac put it in her memoir Marga, Comtesse de Palmyre. All three were shot on 26 December 1944, a day after Villaplane had turned 39. Yes, that broken body belonged to a Christmas child. It was buried in an unmarked grave, the location of which is

The messy aftermath of Frances capitulation was a godsend for criminals. As soon as the armistice was signed in June 1940, Villaplane tried his hand at racketeering and blackmail, his preferred targets being black marketeers and

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The Collaborator

unknown. The footballer had died a long time before that, and his memory has all but vanished from the games history. It would be tempting to think that the man who led out France against Mexico in July 1930 was a different one to the appalling brute who caused so much suffering, that his life had turned round because of a traumatic event, a loss or an act of betrayal. The tragedy is that Villaplane never truly changed. He just got worse.

explanation for this discrepancy must be that no official cap was awarded for the friendly France played against Brazil in Rio de Janeiro on 1 August 1930, shortly after their exit from the World Cup, though no-one seems to know why. This match, which the French lost 3-2 having led 2-0, was also the last one in which Villaplane slipped on the blue jersey.
2

Having been bribed, Lillois didnt do things by halves: they lost this encounter 5-0.

The FFF who have omitted the date of Villaplanes death in the very short prole which is devoted to him on their official website credits him with 25 caps, whereas he actually played 26 times for his country. The only

There is, of course, a fascinating sub-plot here. Did Gibson remember the superb player of Ste, who was still only 29 when he was released by OGC Nice? Or had he other motives to bring in a man whose reputation was irremediably tarnished by then?

20

21
Interview
The seconds of the greats last longer than those of normal people.

Dennis Bergkamp Interview

Dennis Bergkamp
Dennis Bergkamp talks about his greatest goals, the nature of genius and the importance of predicting the future
By David Winner

In the early 1990s a Dutch lm producer devised an intriguing potential solution to a football mystery. Ajaxs latest sensation was a slim, quiet lad with a blond rockabilly quiff, a deadly turn of speed and just about the most perfect touch anyone had ever seen. Game after game Dennis Bergkamp for it was he was scoring strangely calm and beautiful goals and picking out precise and unexpected passes. He could hit the ball hard when required but seemed to prefer lobs, chips and curved passes into space. Sometimes he would perform entire sequences of feathertouch passes to himself, juggling in mid-air as easily as normal players moved the ball along the ground. The question was: what was Bergkamp seeing and thinking that allowed him to conceive and perform such acts of magic? To get an answer the producer persuaded Dennis to play a practice match with a video camera strapped to his forehead. Wherever Dennis looked, the cam would look too, allowing the viewer to see the entire match from Denniss point of view. The hottest new technology of the day would provide an insight into Denniss brain, perhaps even his very footballing soul. The aws in the concept were soon apparent. As soon as Dennis arrived at the training pitch wearing a cycling

helmet to which a camera had been attached with gaffer tape his team mates collapsed with laughter. They continued to guffaw, point and crack up throughout the game. The pictures were hopeless as well: jarring sequences of muddy whip-pans, bumps and jerks, unwatchable and revealing nothing whatever of the great mans thoughtprocess. Even so, the attempt seems honourable. Behind every action there must be a thought, Dennis had once said. And what thoughts they must have been. His Arsenal colleague Thierry Henry, who also played many times with Zindine Zidane, considered Bergkamp the greater player. Zizou had more tricks, he explained, but Dennis saw the game more quickly and more deeply. In other elds, creative people get asked about their art all the time. Musicians give master-classes. Novelists and architects are routinely expected to explain their sources and inspirations. Books about painters or lm-makers dwell on questions of technique (Caravaggio may have used a camera obscura! Kubrick loved improvisation!). Given that football is now the most important cultural form on the planet, its odd that creative footballers are not treated the same way. One problem is that very few players produce work that is genuinely interesting, and even fewer

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are articulate enough to explain what they do. Fortunately, Dennis is as thoughtful and articulate as they come. Thanks to the miracle of (conventionally-mounted) video, his remarkable body of work is still available. And it even turns out there was a simpler way to nd out what he thought when he created his greatest goals and passes. You just had to ask him.

Purity
Jorge Valdano once dened footballing genius by referring to Diego Maradonas second goal against England in 1986. As Maradona ran through the England defence, Valdano kept pace alongside him in the centre-forward position, expecting a pass. After the game Maradona came to him in the shower and apologised for not giving it, even though that had been his original intention. Maradona explained that, as he neared the England goal, he remembered being in a similar situation against Peter Shilton seven years earlier at Wembley. In 1979 he had missed but, thinking about it now, he realised where hed made his mistake. Maradona concluded that he didnt need Valdano after all and could score by himself. Footballing genius, Valdano concluded, lay in the ability to analyse and solve problems creatively under pressure at unimaginable speed. When I share the story with Dennis, our mutual friend David Endt, the Ajax team manager who is sitting in with us, chips in, the seconds of the greats last longer than those of normal people. Dennis nods. His goal against Newcastle in 2002 was voted by Arsenal fans as the greatest in the clubs history. From my point of

view, I wouldnt say (as they say) it was the best goal ever, but its denitely in my top one. Yet its not even Denniss favourite. Hell tell you why himself in a minute, but lets recall the essentials. Receiving a low, driven pass with his back to goal, Dennis conjures a neverpreviously-imagined turn to beat the defender Nikos Dabizas, icking the ball to the right, spinning himself left and meeting the ball again goal-side before calmly opening his body to side-foot past the advancing goalkeeper. But what was the creative process? How had you even imagined such a thing? Was the turn practised? Was it something youd imagined before and executed when you had the chance? No, nothing like that. Its really difficult to explain, but it probably goes to the idea of the striker who just wants to go for goal. If the rst thought is I want to control the ball and pass, then I would never make that turn. But my rst thought was I want to go to the goal and Im going to do whatever it takes to go to the goal, no matter how the ball comes to me. Ten yards before the ball arrived I made my decision: Im going to turn him. Did you think about where Dabizas was? I knew where he was. I knew. Did you calculate his reaction? No, not that. But you know where the defender will be and that his knees will be bent a little, and that he will be standing a little wide, so he cant turn. And he wont expect it. The thought was, just ick the ball and see what

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Dennis Bergkamp Interview

happens. Maybe the defender blocks it, or the ick is not wide enough, or he anticipates and gets two yards ahead. But maybe hell be surprised and Ill be one or two yards in front of him. As it happened I still wasnt in front of him, so I had to push him off. So you need some luck as well... Actually I pushed him a little bit as well. So its a foul. No, never! The nish was also very particular. You end up with the ball somewhere in the middle and you have to decide. Maybe you choose safety. Take it with your right and you open up the goal for yourself. Maybe the left is your weaker foot. It would have to be more of a good hit. You cant really place it. But with your right foot ... at the last moment I can go low, or high [he is pointing to the four corners of the goal]. And then you just open it and take the far corner. So you did the Maradona thing? You thought it all through at incredible speed? Its more instinctive because you know from training sessions and from other games. You know how the ball will bounce, and how the defender will turn. You know when you push him where the ball will end up, and where the goalkeeper is. Its not like youve done that for the rst time, that shot and that push. You know from previous times. Is it your favourite goal? No.

Why not? Theres a lot of luck. If the defender takes one step back then its nished. So its not pure. The Leicester and Argentina goals were pure: when the pass came I knew what I want to do: control, ball inside, nish. With this one there was luck.

Seeing the Future

Do you see the balloon man? Wait. Wait! What are we waiting for? Wait. Wait. Wait ....WAIT! Its the chase scene in Spielbergs Minority Report. Tom Cruise and the clairvoyant girl (a precog as those who can see the future are termed in the lm) have ed to a shopping mall. As the cops close in, the clairvoyant understands as Dennis Bergkamp would understand the spatial possibilities amid a complex ow of movement. She knows that in a few seconds the balloon mans brightlycoloured balloons will shield them and render them invisible to the cops. The couple hold their position. The balloon man arrives, blocking the cops view. The couple escapes and as the baffled cops disperse, we see an advertisement which reads See What Others Dont. At Arsenal, you seemed to see passes no-one else could see, and deliver the ball through gaps that didnt seem to exist. You created a lot of goals that way. How? I think you can compare it to a quarterback. He is there to do that job and I felt the same way. Youve got all those amazing players around you, moving. Theyve got the pace, they can

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David Winner

score goals. You just focus on your own style of playing: you have to pass them the ball and do it in a way that they dont have to do a lot to score. You can play it in to their feet, but you can also try to play it in front of them so they are one-on-one with the goalkeeper. I was looking for that pass all the time, and the pleasure I got! It gave me so much pleasure, like solving a puzzle. Scoring goals is, of course, up there. It is known. Its like nothing else. But for me, in the end, giving the assist got closer and closer to that feeling. You know in this day and age, where there is not a lot of space, and defenders are getting quicker and stronger, you know those throughballs will make the difference in a game. And that is always what I wanted to do: to make the difference. First in my career was scoring goals. But in the later part of my career it was giving the assist, but the perfect assist. Not the assist where [the receiver] still has to do a lot of work. In my head it was like, ok that player is moving this way, and he is going with the attacking player... but if I pass it just in between at the right pace he can control the ball... You know? No-one expects it. Im playing here, but my left eye is there. I give the ball and everyone is thinking whats he doing? And then suddenly he is there, which I have seen. Theres a tremendous amount of pleasure you get from that. To do something that someone else couldnt see. Johan Cruyff said he was always looking for the solution and that the simplest solution was always the best, the most elegant, the cleverest. Its not about beating three men with a dribble. If you can do it with one little pass, thats much better.

Thats what I always hoped for. With one pass, with the right pace on the ball, because thats really important. Sometimes put a curve on it, just bend it away from the goalkeeper, or from the defender or bend it in front of your player so it gives him the extra pace which forces him to speed up... phew! Is there any way to train that, develop it? Im not sure. I got a lot of pleasure out of that, so concentrated on it, and it only works with players around you who can read the passes. Its a question of respect. I respect them to score goals. Im happy to give the assist and you get the limelight, all the attention. What a goal! and everything. Im not there to get a tap on the shoulder, Oh fantastic! What a pass! You know? Its more like the pleasure of he can score a goal now. Its my sort of pleasure that Ive created that. To take out ve or six defenders with one ball? Its just a feeling I get. It works for me. But how do you see the possibilities? In Minority Report theres a chase scene where a girl who sees the future works out that the sightlines will be blocked so she can get away. When I saw that, I thought: hey, thats what Dennis does! Thats exactly right. I always had a picture in my head of how it would be in three seconds or two seconds. I could calculate it, or sense it. Id think, Hes moving this way, and hes moving that way, so if I give the pass with that pace neither of them can

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Dennis Bergkamp Interview

touch it because they are moving away from my line. With the right pace, and with the right player coming in... yeah! One of the perfect assists was for Patrick Vieira, against Leicester City, I think, at Highbury. I think it was our last unbeaten game [in the 2003-04 Invincibles season]. The 1-1 goal, or the 2-1, I dont remember [it was the 2-1 goal]. But it was for Patrick. It was very crowded in the box but he just made his run and I could slip it just in between... I was so proud! I can enjoy it really! And the pleasure is even greater because it was a goal that meant something as well. I always got a lot of pleasure out of assists.

of the corner of my eye, a long way away. And hes just beginning to move. If he stops, its a silly pass for me. Like what did he see? But Ashley would keep running because he knew what I was going to do and I wasnt even looking. Id be 40 yards away but I knew where he was going. I think he scored three or four times like that. I always put the ball just outside the far post, inside the box, and he would just come across with high pace, which he always does. And I think you cant defend that. You cant defend it! There hasnt been a right-winger born who will track back that far. Never. If you only watch the close-up of the goal against Juve, it looks as if Freddie is coming from deep and you have to wait for him to arrive. But then you realise hes close to you, and all that time youre just waiting for him to make his move... Well, thats the thing. You create a certain relationship with players. On the pitch they know what I want to do with the ball, and I know exactly what they are going to do. Thats the thing which in my opinion is the beauty of the game: that there can be just one look to each other, or just me controlling the ball and the body language means come on Freddie, go! GO! And then he goes, because he understands. Theres no shouting, its just my body language. And to point would be crass... Exactly. Im keeping the ball, meaning, come on, come on! What are you doing? And then hes going and I ick it. I had a lot of moments with Freddie like that, and with Marc Overmars. Because you just know from each other. They know: OK, Dennis is always looking for

Body Language
Arsenal v Juventus on a cold night in December 2001 and the Dutch commentator is screaming Harry Potter! Harry Potter! Dennis has just performed a piece of authentic sorcery. Later, on video, we watch him twisting, turning and doing drag-backs on the edge of the Juventus box for ve full seconds. Eventually he icks a gorgeous little reverse pass with the outside of his right foot which enables Freddie Ljungberg to run on and score. What do you remember of that? Its my favourite assist, but it was not like me, I felt, to have the ball at my feet all that time. I was waiting for Freddie. It was in that period when he was always coming from somewhere and I could nd him at the right time. I made a lot of assists with him, and a lot with Ashley Cole as well. It was interesting. Id be in the centre or on the right and Id see Ashley on the left, out

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David Winner

the pass so I have to go there, I have to do that. And when that works it makes defenders look silly. Because it cant be defended? It cannot be defended because hes gone with high pace and the defenders are standing still, all facing forward and when the pass is given it is not offside, not by a mile, and he is controlling the ball ve or six yards behind the defenders, so he has plenty of time to do something. And that nish was nice, too. Freddie, eh? Amazing player! Very strong. Very quick. And the things he did! Certain players have a certain style, a certain movement. With him it looked a little sloppy with respect I say that but he did it on purpose. He knew exactly what hes doing! He scored a lot of goals like that. People underestimated him. But he never underestimated himself!

With the third, the ball comes to you very high. Did you think of heading it? No, not at all. It starts a little bit before, with the eye contact with David Platt, I want it there You know? David Platt can see the spaces, he can give the ball. Then drop off and go: get yourself a few yards on the defender. Then the ball comes and it starts. For me, the rst thing on my mind is controlling the ball. You want to control it in such a way that your second contact you can do something useful with it. So, basically, the ball has to be dead after the contact. Dead. Not a yard further. It has to be, boom! Drop dead! And the second thing is more like, OK, Ive got the ball here and I want to go there. So the second contact must be inside, knowing that the defender will never adapt to that. We are both going one way but of the two of us Im the only one who knows I want to go somewhere else. I think the second contact is when it is still airborne? Because, yeah, I drop it in the air... ...And then come inside him when its in the air? Yes, I think even with my right I take it inside. Youd think I would be using my left but Im using my right because it comes out quicker. Otherwise, I would have to take another step. So Im thinking about doing it quickly so I use my right foot and drop it in. It drops to the ground and you turn your body, open up... Yes. Because then youre one-on-one with the goalkeeper, and there are other players coming in as well, so your third

Drop Dead
Everyone remembers Denniss third goal in the hat-trick at Leicester that won rst, second and third places in the Goal of the Month competition. The rst was good, too... The one from the corner? Yeah, on the corner before that I saw I had space, so I said to Marc Overmars, next corner, look for me. So then you just try it. But I always feel anyone can score a goal like that. Well, maybe not anyone, but you can hit it at goal and it goes in. But the third goal is more a technical thing. You have to do a lot of movements to get yourself free, to control the ball, to score that goal.

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Dennis Bergkamp Interview

contact must be a strike on goal. So it has to be right.

Mathematics
At Ajax Dennis was renowned, above all, for the unearthly precision and beauty of his lobs. In England, his World Cup qualifying goal at Wembley in 1993 is the best-remembered from his early period (Dennis diverting an airy pass into the far side of the goal with an almost nonchalant reverse touch). His greatest lob, though, was probably the one in a league game for Ajax against RKC Waalwijk, when he chipped the ball over the goalkeepers head from an impossible-seeming position amid a crowd on the edge of the area. What do you remember of that? People always said of me but he only scores nice goals, he doesnt score ugly ones. But I gave myself a rule. When I played in Holland, with Ajax, I always tried to lob the goalkeeper. People said, Oh, youre trying to make a nice goal, a beautiful goal. But I said, Listen, if the goalie is a little bit off his line, how much space do you have on his left or right? Its not a lot. And how much space do you have above him? There is more. Its a question of mathematics. Its fantastic. You have much more space above. So if you get it right, you cant miss. If youve got that certain condence and ability, then its the best solution. So thats why I often did that. You can say its not really effective. But I say it is. I scored many goals like that. Because the other options werent on for me, and because I knew I could do it. Like against Waalwijk. At that moment I am on the 18-yard line. We are attacking, so everyone is back.

The penalty area is crowded. And where is the goalkeeper? There is no chance for me to shoot directly, so he comes off his line. At this moment, he is looking to be the last man, and he doesnt expect a lob. So a lob is the best, most simple solution. Just try it. Im not thinking, Im going to try to score a beautiful goal. Not at all. I have options. And I am going to try the lob because it seems to me that this is the best option at that moment. The ball is under my feet so I cant really have a good, full swing at it. The only way is to chip. You dont need a lot of space to put your foot through and chip the ball... Of course you need a percentage of luck too. But in the end, if you do that a lot of times and you practise, and you keep working on it, the luck percentage goes down. It becomes more ability than luck.

The Moment a Life Leads up to

Holland v Argentina, World Cup quarter-nal, Marseille, 5 July 1998. The 90th minute... Thats my top goal, I think. Also because of everything around it. Its a goal that gets you to the semi-nal of the World Cup, a massive stadium, lots of people watching and cheering... My reaction afterwards was very emotional. You covered your face as if to say, I cant believe Ive just done that! I didnt know what else to do! Its funny. Every boy has a dream, I want to score in the World Cup. Score the winning goal in the nal, of course. But in this way... to score a goal like that, in the style of me, you know? The way I score goals, on

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David Winner

that stage, in a game that really means something, because thats important to me too. I love good football, nice football but it has to mean something. It has to bring me somewhere. And thats what happened with this goal. At that moment I thought about when I was seven or eight years old, playing football in the house, you know? This is the moment! Its a good feeling. Youre a long way off the ground when the ball comes. For a wide receiver to catch that with his hands would be difficult. You do it with your foot! What were you thinking? How much was planned? How much improvised? Again, its a question of creating that little space, eh? So you get to that ball rst. Youve had the eye contact... Frank [de Boer] knows exactly what hes going to do. You asked for the pass? Yeah, yeah. Theres contact. Youre watching him. Hes looking at you. You know his body language. Hes going to give the ball. So then: full sprint away. Ive got my ve, six yards away from the defender. The ball is coming over my shoulder. I know where its going. But you know as well that you are running in a straight line, and thats the line you want to take to go to the goal, the line where you have a chance of scoring. If you go a little bit wider its gone. The ball is coming here, and you have two options. One: let it bounce and control it on the oor. That will be easier, but by then you are at the corner ag. So you have to jump up to meet the ball and at the same time control the ball. Control it dead. And again, like the Leicester

one, you have to take it inside because the defender is storming that way. Hes running with you and as soon as the ball changes direction, and you change direction as well, then hes gone, which gives you an open chance. Well, its a little bit on the side but it gives you a chance to shoot. Its an astonishing piece of control. How did you manage it? We talked about balance on the ground. This was balance as well, but you have to be in the air. Youve got to be as still as possible, as if you are standing still... but in the air, and controlling the ball. If youve got a lot of movement, and try to control with the inside of the foot, then the ball could go towards the defender. So you want to keep it on the top of your foot. That gives you the best chance, and the best chance of controlling it. Im not worrying about the angle of my foot because thats something you do all the time. I know I can control almost any ball that comes to me. But I want to be very stable. I didnt realise how high in the air I was. But you know you want that ball in that position. Not there but here. So you have to jump up to meet the ball. How much looking back were you doing while the ball was on its way to you? You rst look back when the ball comes, of course. But there wasnt much wind, so Im looking forward, to keep sprinting, to meet the ball. You know the line, and at the last moment you think, OK now I have to jump. And when Im in the air its going to meet my foot. Theres a little bit of calculation at that moment. But its experience.

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Dennis Bergkamp Interview

And after you had landed it? You just think: thats step one. You want to get the whole moment, the whole sequence. Its three touches. Everything can still go wrong at that moment, so you are concentrating on doing it step by step. But you dont know the steps. You can only do the second step if the first step is right. If the ball shoots on a little bit further, then you have to adjust again. So youve killed the dropping ball, you touch it inside to get rid of Roberto Ayala [the defender] and make a better angle, and you dont take the shot with your left foot but with the outside of right. Yes, because I feel more condent with that at that time. Its in the middle of my feet and I have the condence, and its not the right angle to take it as well with the left, because thats a different kick. So I choose to take it with my right

ideally, the outside of the right and aim it for the far post, then let it turn in... It even curves. Thats what I wanted. Take it away from the goalkeeper and let it come in. Did it cross your mind that he might save it? No. Because when youre in that moment ... You know, sometimes you have these moments where you think, This cannot go wrong! No way! Its a spiritual moment? Yeah. What can you compare it to? Different sports? Like running the hundred metres and you know this is going to be a good time? But youre in that moment. Thats the feeling. After the rst two touches... that moment! You give absolutely everything in that movement. Its like your life has led up to this moment.

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31
Leeds
If you win the Cup, or you get promoted, youve triumphed over the repetition. In the end, its a metaphor for the way we live our lives.

Revie-Nixon

Revie-Nixon
How ignominious exits overshadow the successes of a US president and a Leeds United manager
By Dominic Sandbrook

On 10 August 1974, the day after Richard Nixon had announced his unprecedented resignation, the Carry On lm actor Kenneth Williams mused in his diary about the disgraced American presidents successor. President Ford, he wrote in his diary, is nothing to do with motor cars but apparently has a good record in baseball. Actually, it was American football, not baseball, that was Gerald Fords speciality; but that was beside the point. Seems rather like asking Don Revie to become Prime Minister, Williams went on. Might not be such a bad idea at that! Hed certainly make a better impression than Wilson or Heath. It is 50 years now since Revie took over as manager of Leeds; 50 years since he embarked on a journey that took in two league titles, one FA Cup, one League Cup and two Fairs Cups. If anything, though, it was more notable for its extraordinary near-misses: ve secondplace nishes, three lost FA Cup nals, a Fairs Cup nal defeat and a Cup-Winners Cup nal defeat. When, a year after Revie had left to manage England, Leedss players lost the 1975 European Cup nal in controversial circumstances, it seemed an oddly appropriate send-off. What has become increasingly evident over the last 50 years is Revies unlikely

resemblance, not to Gerald Ford, but to Richard Nixon. The parallels are uncanny. They were both born into poverty in the rst half of the century: Revie in the claustrophobic terraces of working-class Teesside, Nixon in the hot, dry scrubland of southern California. Both of them knew loss and isolation. Revies mother died of cancer when he was 12, and four years later he moved to Leicester, where he lived in digs and effectively missed out on family life. Nixon lost two brothers to tuberculosis, while his mother spent much of his childhood away at a sanatorium. Both, not surprisingly, were reserved, serious characters, dedicated to hard work and self-improvement. And they also looked alike: dark-haired, thick-set, slightly jowly, their features set in a permanent frown, as though they were always contemplating their own misfortune. They both came to prominence in the early 1950s: Revie as a clever centreforward for Manchester City, Nixon as a Republican congressman, senator and vice-president. A decade later, they both launched comebacks of a kind, Revie becoming manager of Leeds, Nixon rebuilding his career after losing the presidential election to John F Kennedy in 1960. Both were scarred by defeat and disappointment; both were obsessed by the fear of failure; both distrusted the

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press and surrounded themselves with a small group of loyalists. They remained difficult men to love. In 1972, both reached a pinnacle of a kind. Re-elected in a record-breaking landslide, Nixon celebrated, if that is quite the right word, by sitting alone in a White House hideaway, listening to classical music at full blast and making a list of the ways he had failed. Revie, meanwhile, won the Centenary FA Cup Final, the only domestic trophy he had not yet brought to Leeds. A year later he threatened to move to Everton, who were offering more money. Neither of them, it seemed, would ever be happy. Of course the most obvious parallel is what happened next. By many standards, Nixon had an exceptional record. He wound up American involvement in the Vietnam War, made a ground-breaking trip to China, signed an arms deal with the Soviet Union, spent an all-time record amount of money on welfare and won the biggest victory ever enjoyed by a Republican president. Outside academia, though, nobody remembers all that. What people remember are the corruption scandals, the break-ins, the grubby shambles of Watergate and the humiliation of his ight from office. And Revie, too, is remembered not for what went right, but for what went wrong: the nail-biting defeats, the last-minute chokes, his disastrous stewardship of England. For many people, what dened him was his ight to the United Arab Emirates after selling the story to the Daily Mail for 20,000. Well, that and the corruption stories. Don Revie planned and schemed and offered bribes, leaving as little as

possible to chance, claimed the Mirror in September 1977. He relied on the loyalty of those he took into his condence not to talk, and it nearly worked. Change the words Don Revie for Richard Nixon, and you have a neat summary of the Watergate affair. At the root of all this, of course, was insecurity. Exceptionally successful football managers, like exceptionally successful politicians, are usually deeply insecure men, unable to take lasting pleasure in their achievements, endlessly nagged by the fear of failure, obsessed by the importance of nishing top of the heap. Contented people make good losers. On the night of his record landslide over the Democrat George McGovern in 1972, Richard Nixon wrote miserably, The opposition line will be McGs mistakes lost it and not his ideas and not RNs strength. Not so different, perhaps, from Alex Ferguson 11 years later, just after his Aberdeen side had beaten Rangers in the Scottish Cup nal. There was no way we can take any glory from the occasion, Ferguson told the cameras, for it had been a disgraceful performance. Youve won the European Cup-Winners Cup and youve won the Scottish Cup, sighed his captain Willie Miller, and thats still not good enough. In Revies case, his fear of failure was almost certainly rooted in the difficult circumstances of his boyhood. To the young footballers of the mid-1970s, with their expensive cars parked outside their neat suburban homes, the Hungry Thirties seemed like ancient history. For Revie, however, they had left a mark that would never fade. Born in 1927 and brought up in a terraced house in working-class Middlesbrough, he

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Revie-Nixon

vividly remembered the privations of the Depression, when his father, a joiner, had spent years out of work. Middlesbrough in the thirties was not a particularly happy place to grow up: JB Priestley memorably called it a dismal town, even with beer and football. On top of that, Revie keenly felt the absence of his mother. At Elland Road, he was obsessed with turning Leeds into a surrogate family, where his players could feel loved. The players were his children and their children his grandchildren, one friend said later. Junior players are taught carefully about bank accounts, table manners and sex, reported the Observers football writer Arthur Hopcraft. There are regular homilies about keeping their hair short and their clothes smart and not getting caught up with loose girls. Many other managers did the same thing; none, however, did it more passionately than Revie. He even called himself the head of the family, inadvertently earning the nickname The Godfather. In his cultural conservatism, his fear of poverty, his respect for family values and his obsession with providing for his children, Revie reected the values of a generation who could never quite bring themselves to trust in the abundance of the affluent society. Determined to recreate the family life he had never had, he invited his wifes mother, uncles and aunts to live in their large house, Three Chimneys, in middle-class north Leeds. His son Duncan, meanwhile, was sent to boarding school at Repton, something that would have seemed impossible when Revie was growing up. At the time, his obsession with money earned him the nickname Don Readies, while

wags pointed out that his name was an anagram of the phrase envie dor, the love of gold. Even when Revie was a player, friends had remarked on his nancial ambition. The sign of success, he allegedly told one teammate, was how much you have got in the bank. In the late 1970s, old enemies condemned him as greedy. But the key factor was surely not avarice but anxiety. Like many people who had known genuine poverty, Revie never felt satised, even once he had become a relatively rich man. The obvious parallel was with Brian Clough, another working-class Middlesbrough boy who enjoyed stunning managerial success but was later accused of crossing the line between nancial shrewdness and outright corruption. Clough was obsessed with money, wrote the Nottingham journalist Duncan Hamilton, as if he feared he might wake up one morning and nd himself a pauper again He would read out to me the salaries of other people players, managers, pop and lm stars, politicians if he came across them in a newspaper. This was not purely greed, Hamilton thought, but a form of self-protection. For as Clough once told him, the only people who arent obsessed with money are those who have got more than enough of it. Fifty years on from Revies Elland Road accession, his reputation remains highly controversial. Many older fans have never forgiven him for walking out on England, although this seems grossly unfair. Only three years earlier, after all, the Football Association had sacked the World Cupwinning Sir Alf Ramsey with the ruthless insouciance of aristocrats dismissing

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a disgraced parlour maid. They could hardly complain if his successor drew the appropriate lesson. And conrmation that Revie was right to be afraid came from, of all places, 10 Downing Street. In May 1977, the Prime Ministers chief policy advisor, Bernard Donoughue, had dinner with the FA secretary. They are clearly thinking of sacking Don Revie, he wrote afterwards in his diary. Two months later, Revie was gone. The other stain on his reputation is, of course, the corruption allegations. These rst originated in 1972, when the Sunday People claimed that Revie had offered three Wolves players 1,000 each to take it easy in the last game of the season which, in the event, Leeds lost, costing them the title. At the time, neither the FA nor the police found any evidence. But ve years later, after Revie had left for the United Arab Emirates, the allegations resurfaced. The most damaging came from his old goalkeeper, Gary Sprake, who claimed that he had been a go-between in match-xing operations against Wolves and Nottingham Forest. After being ostracised by his old teammates, Sprake eventually retracted his story. Then, confusingly, he retracted his retraction, adding a fresh allegation that Revie had asked him to x a match against Birmingham, too, as early as 1965. The truth is that in the absence of hard evidence, we will never know if Revie was genuinely corrupt. It is, of course, perfectly possible that the stories were simply concocted by journalists and old enemies amid the storm surrounding his

defection to the UAE. On the other hand, there is no doubt that plenty of people at the time did think he was corrupt. Again, the world of politics offers an unlikely clue. In September 1977, Bernard Donoughue recorded having dinner with Ted Croker of the FA, who told me some alarming corruption stories about Don Revie, England team manager. A month later, at a Downing Street lunch for the Prime Minister of Spain, Donoughue found himself sitting beside the former Manchester United manager Sir Matt Busby. More terrible stories about Don Revie, he noted afterwards. None of this proves that the allegations were true. But it is surely revealing that both Croker and Busby believed them. Still, even if Revie did bend the rules, it seems highly unlikely that he was the only one doing it. His hated rival Brian Clough, after all, had a well-chronicled fondness for a bung. These were men who had known intense poverty: in an age before close scrutiny of clubs nances and managers earnings, it would have been surprising if they had not been tempted to blur the lines. The most likely scenario is surely that Revie, the most competitive, anxious and insecure manager of his generation, as well as probably the best, simply went further than anyone else. In this, as in so much else, there was a striking parallel with events in the Oval Office. I gave em a sword, Richard Nixon mused later. And they stuck it in. And if I guess if Id have been in their position, Id have done the same thing. It might have been Don Revie talking.

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Mind of Peace

Mind of Peace
David Peace discusses the inspiration behind The Damned Utd and why he wont apologise to John Giles
By Anthony Clavane

In the ve years since The Damned Utd was published, it has been the subject of a lawsuit from John Giles, incurred the wrath of the Clough and Revie families and been condemned by several of the journalists who were friendly with both managers. Even the makers of the hugely successful lm adaptation felt duty-bound to distance themselves from it. The purpose of this piece is not to enter the debate about David Peaces supposed infringement of the rights of Giles, Brian Clough and Don Revie amongst others by naming them as characters in his ctional account of Cloughs 44 days at Leeds. It is, rather, to acknowledge Peaces astonishing achievement in producing one of the best novels ever written about sport. The paucity of such novels, in this country at least, is mystifying. The genre is well established in the USA. Philip Roths The Great American Novel links baseball with communism; Don DeLillos Underworld opens with the New York Giants winning the National League pennant in 1951; and Norman Mailer, John Irving and Tom Wolfe have all used sports. In the US, there is no dichotomy between the two great traditions of sports writing and novel writing. With odd exceptions Brian Glanville and BS Johnson, for instance such multitasking tends to be frowned

upon in Britain. Even Nick Hornby, whose Fever Pitch was part of that early-1990s shift that led to football nally being deemed worthy of cultural comment, restricted his musings on obsessive male behaviour, modern romance and Liam Brady to the uncontroversial connes of non-ction. Like Fever Pitch, The Damned Utd has spawned several imitations. Colin Shindler has written a ctionalised account of the Mercer-Allison era at Manchester City. Robert Endeacotts novel, Dirty Leeds, is at times an homage to Peace. And there have been several books on Revie and Clough that have tried to put the record straight. Some of these are unashamedly nostalgic, pining for the good old-bad old days when clubs spotted footballers in local schools rather than importing them from Estonia, Serbia and Mexico. When British, not foreign, talent dominated the top ight. And when teams outside the Big Four (Big Six?) had a chance of glory. Peace, to his credit, deconstructs what the Marxist historian Raphael Samuel memorably called the theatre of the memory. Nostalgia is airbrushing of the mind. It sucks away at the deep and jagged lines of an eras divided and fraught history. The Clough-Revie rivalry came during a time of transition, an

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Anthony Clavane

age of both anxiety and affluence. The post-war settlement had collapsed and the Thatcherite service economy had yet to take shape. The old is dying and the new cannot be born, as the Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci remarked of an earlier period of turmoil. In this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appears. This is the socioeconomic context to the novel. Fear and insecurity drove these two great managers to amazing success but also, ultimately, to tragic downfalls worthy of a Shakespearean drama. Football, like lm and popular music, is part of the collective fantasy. And football managers, as the novelist and art critic Gordon Burn wrote, are puppet-masters condemned to the sidelines caught up in a play of control, destiny and impotence. Peace acknowledges in this interview that the writer occupies a similarly peripheral role. You cannot compete against the actual narrative of football, he said. Its just too powerful. And yet, given the amount of passion, hubris and tragicomedy involved in the game, there have only been a handful of great football novels. This, in my view, is down to class snobbery. Even if they deigned to recognised such a term, which is doubtful, the literary classes would dismiss football literature as an oxymoron. Those amusing Oxbridge Pythonites once satirised the breaching of the boundaries in a (admittedly very funny) sketch featuring goalkeepers reciting poems about the river Yangtze. (Peter Shilton, Leicester: O Yangtze. O Yangtze. Beautiful river. River, full of sh.) On the other side of the Atlantic, however, the national game is taken very

seriously as a literary subject; both Roth and DeLillo, for example, chose baseball as a metaphor for the American Century. I suppose I feel strongly about this because, as a young boy obsessed with football, my life changed after reading Glanvilles Goalkeepers Are Different. It was a gritty, beautifully-paced account of the bitterness, frustrations and unglamorous lifestyle of an ordinary footballer. After that I gobbled up the great kitchen-sink classics David Storey and Alan Sillitoes best novels were about sport before being advised at university that literature and sport were mutually exclusive. This is why The Damned Utd blew me away. As a Leeds United fan, I am not offended by its reinforcement of the Dirty Leeds myth. And, as an admirer of Clough I am one of a small number of Leeds fans who thought/still thinks he should have been retained I have no problem extricating the real Clough from the ctional one. What excites me most about the novel apart from the two time-frames running in parallel and the repetitive, Beckett-esque rhythms is Peaces imaginative use of the troubled inner voice. As a device, it is viscerally exhilarating. I can remember watching the live Yorkshire TV debate between Clough and Revie. Clough had just been sacked by Leeds and yet he appeared to be cheerfully mocking his bte noire. I really wanted to know what was going on inside his head. Revie was the incarnation of all he had chosen to hate. In place of a life, writes Peace, revenge. The Damned Utd is the ultimate revenge drama; a great novelists ctionalisation of a dening moment in English football. When Shakespeare dramatises the lives of English kings, or

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Mind of Peace

Norman Mailer speculates about the inner lives of American idols, no-one takes them to task for distorting, or even reinventing, history. A genre besieged by platitudinous autobiographies surely has space for the occasional, stylishlyinventive reimagining of one puppetmasters self-destructive megalomania.

testimonial at Hudderseld. I was seven and I was trying to get Trevor Cherrys autograph and I remember Clough getting off the bus and my dad saying, Thats Brian Clough. And then Cloughs last game for Leeds was when he took them back to Leeds Road for an evening League Cup game against Hudderseld. So Town book-ended the 44 days. My dad always liked to talk about the same three things in football. Hed seen the Busby Babes. So he talked about them. He was at teacher-training college in London when Tottenham won the Double. So he talked about that. And then Cloughs 44 days. Why did they offer Clough the job? Why did he take it? What happened in those 44 days? Before the research, my impressions of Clough were based on the two European Cup wins with Forest, hitting fans on the pitch and then becoming, sadly, a caricature of himself. And there were rumours of drinking and bungs. So his reputation was not that great. And in retirement he was a rent-a-quote; often drunk, its all there on YouTube now. This was my impression of him before the book. But when I researched his life, which meant tracking down every single book that had ever been written about him and also going through all the local newspapers at Derby I became aware of what a great player he had been, how his career had been cut short and how he hadnt fullled his potential. And about his time at Hartlepools and Derby. And the strike. And so Clough overtook the book, and the you voice became Clough talking to himself, in the present tense, about his memories. One of those memories, about running up and down the steps of a stadium as a player, trying to get back

Why did you write The Damned Utd? Leeds United were always there in the background of the Red Riding books and so for a while Id had half an idea to write a novel that told the occult history of Leeds United. My original idea, bizarre as it now sounds, was to have David Harvey, the former Leeds goalkeeper, in his caravan on the Orkneys in Scotland, talking into a tape recorder whilst drinking malt whiskeys, which apparently he is fond of trying to understand the history of Leeds United. It was going to be a sance of Leeds ghosts coming back to haunt Harvey. So I spent the rst six months researching the entire history of Leeds United. But, while I was doing the research, two things happened: the Bowyer-Woodgate incident and the nancial unravelling. And so the story seemed unending and it was difficult to know the point to stop at. And also I didnt know how far they were going to fall. So The Damned Utd was, originally, going to be Harvey, or The Goalkeeper, telling the occult history of Leeds United, and Brian Clough telling the story of the 44 days. I think the 44 days was always part of it simply because the rst ever football game I saw was Cloughs rst game as Leeds manager, in July 1974, when he brought Leeds to play a

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Anthony Clavane

to tness after the horric injury, could have been a scene from The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner or This Sporting Life. How much were you inuenced by the great northern realist novels of the fties and sixties? The thing that sealed it for me deciding the book would be about Clough and not the history of Leeds United was that in the research I found out that Clough really revered Alan Sillitoe and David Storey. And these were the writers Id been wanting to pay tribute to. My dad, who came from a very working-class background, was inspired by writers like Sillitoe, Storey, John Braine and Stan Barstow. They captured a moment when a workingclass person could better themselves. I was initially drawn to things like the Sherlock Holmes novels, Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Georges Simenon which is where my crime interest came from. But my dad also had these other northern realist novels in the house. Sillitoe, Storey and Braine also read Hemingway and those crime writers and then they used that unadorned, clipped, American style. And so it all came together. Clough narrates his short time at Leeds in the rst person, but, as you say, there is a second narration in italics which deals with his playing career and his time at Derby. For this, you use the second person, the unconventional pronoun, which is very unusual. It all comes full circle. It ends on the 44th day but the memories take you back to the rst day. So the last you thing is him taking the Leeds job. I had to think

of a way to differentiate between the present tense and the past. One way to do it would have been to write in the past tense, but I wanted the you in the italics, in the second person, to be Brian Clough in 1974 remembering, not Brian Clough in 1990. How do we remember ourselves? When you were telling me what youve done since we last met, it was not Anthony now, it was Anthony in the past. Its not a different person, but its also not the same person, its a second person. Ill tell you where it comes from, the you voice. When I was growing up, we would come into Leeds every two weeks or so with my mum and dad and they would go shopping and then to the Queens Hotel for a cup of tea, pretending to be posh, and I would go to Austicks bookshop. The NME in those days used to talk about Dostoyevsky and Beckett and I didnt know who these people were. I couldnt check them up on the internet, obviously, so one day I bought Company, by Samuel Beckett, which is written in the second person, because its dealing with memory. And then later, in the late 1980s, I was struck by Jay McInerneys Bright Lights, Big City, which again is written in the second person. And when I was at Manchester Poly and I wrote a novel which was rejected by everybody, I wrote one narrative in the rst person, one in the second and one in the third. I didnt get it right. But in 1983 there is a second person narrative. And again in Occupied City. So Ive always liked it, its an underused voice The Beckett inuence is very strong, especially your use of repetition to illustrate both Cloughs obsessive nature and the routine aspects of football.

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Mind of Peace

Youve got Cloughs inner voice saying: You believe in football; in the repetition of football. The Damned Utd, and your style in general, is famous for its use of repetition. Its become one of your trademarks. To the point where and this is the ultimate accolade I suppose it has been widely parodied. You always remember the uncharitable reviews. I remember somebody once describing The Damned Utd as Samuel Beckett-lite. But I took it as a compliment. Theres one particularly brilliant parody in James Browns sabotagetimes.com featuring a ctional Phil Brown which I thought was just fantastic. In all my books, I use repetition a lot. Our day-to-day lives are incredibly repetitious. It can be bad in that it grinds you down, but it can also be, in times of tragedy, sustaining. On a personal level, I really feel sustained, for example, by the repetition of the football league xtures. Yes, just before we started the interview you were poring over todays football results. You seem immersed in that world. It gives a structure to my existence. The way the season is constructed. The repetition of the seasons. But if you win the Cup, or you get promoted, youve triumphed over the repetition. In the end, its a metaphor for the way we live our lives. Why didnt you just ctionalise Brian Clough give him a different name? It just doesnt work. You cannot compete against the actual narrative of football. Its just too powerful. People

condescendingly call it a soap opera. But its not its drama. You returned to Yorkshire two years ago, after 17 years in Japan. You wrote The Damned Utd in Tokyo. You must have been a bit cut off from the games incredible transformation. I wasnt that cut off. In Japan, I subscribed to Sky TV. Before the internet, my dad would send me the weekend sports sections. And with the arrival of the internet I was able to follow all Hudderseld Town games. So I was quite aware of everything that was going on. What do you think of todays game, given that some people have praised The Damned Utd for evoking the golden age of football, in the mid-seventies, when it seemed more authentic, more real, grittier, more working-class, more in touch with ordinary people especially the fans? Throughout the 20th century, and into the 21st century, football has acted as a metaphor for what has happened in society. I watched football with my dad in the seventies. Wed go to Hudderseld when we were at home and Leeds when they were at home. So we were going to a game a week. Hed rail against the modern game as it was in the seventies, saying it had all gone to the dogs. My grandfather, whod seen the Hudderseld title-winning side of the twenties, had said the same thing to my dad when my dad was a boy. Bill Shankly, in about 1973, said, There are players now who have swimming pools, tennis courts and sports cars and theyve never won a medal. Today, there are players earning in a week what others dont even earn

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in a lifetime. And theyve never won anything. The games excesses and its remoteness reect the excesses and remoteness prevalent in todays society. The Damned Utd has been criticised for using real characters in ction. Why do you think that kind of writing is more acceptable in continental Europe and in the USA? Storytelling began in the recounting of events of actual people. We believe that Beowulf actually existed. Greek drama and Shakespeare used real people, real events. We spend a lot of our waking life thinking about football. Speculating, imagining, fantasising about it. Football wouldnt exist without the imagination. [The Spanish lmmaker Luis] Buuel said, There is no reality without imagination, there is no imagination without reality. The two go hand in hand. And to me, when I was growing up, Brian Clough was a very public gure. Not only was he a football manager, he was always in the media; not a private man like, say, David Moyes. He was on TV, writing newspaper columns, being impersonated by Mike Yarwood and interviewed by Michael Parkinson, really provoking people. People talked about him and tried to understand the way his mind worked. He created a persona. In the age I grew up in the football manager also became a pundit. Clough, Malcolm Allison, Jack Charlton they were all creating these larger-than-life ctional personas. The middle classes have come into football in a big way, and The Damned Utd has beneted from that. Nick Hornby was the groundbreaker there. Even then, there is this attitude from the intelligentsia that The Damned Utd is only a novel about a football manager.

And then some folk are suspicious because it is a novel. I think its a very British thing. It doesnt happen on the Continent or in America. Were very wary of pretension and affectation in this country. We prefer the voice of the person whos done it. Ive done book tours in Europe and, when you talk to journalists in France and Italy, they expect you to be knowledgeable about books and music and politics as well as sport. Football is part and parcel of a wider culture. They dont pigeonhole you. Were you rattled by John Giless expensive lawsuit, which claimed you wrongly portrayed him as a key gure in Cloughs sacking? It never went to court. It was settled out of court by the publisher. I never apologised to John Giles and I would never apologise to John Giles. Because I never thought Id done anything wrong. But the threat of being personally libelled for tens of thousands of pounds for the psychological damages Id inicted on him did rather taint the book, yes. Did you like the lm? The minute the book came out, a number of very good directors were interested in lming it. One of them was Stephen Frears, who wanted to make it as an homage to This Sporting Life. He wanted to make it gritty and black and white. I thought this was fantastic. But, for whatever reason, he pulled out. And I was not involved in the making of the lm. There was an attempt to distance it from the book because the book was

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Mind of Peace

getting such a negative press from the Clough family and former players. The rst time I saw the lm, I thought there were some tremendous performances and scenes but I also felt that it was almost a misreading of the book. It bore very little relation to the book. Having said all that, Ive since seen the lm twice once with my son, who hasnt read the book but is a very big fan of the lm and I know a lot of people came to the book because of the lm. So I dont want to appear churlish. It helped the book reach a whole new audience. But I still think you could remake it. In black and white. Does George, your 14-year-old son, intend to read The Damned Utd? He started to read the rst page but he closed the book and said, I dont like the style. He admits that his favourite book is the Argos Catalogue. Some readers from a non-literary background nd the style a bit disorientating. No-one has ever said to me theyve found that second-person narration difficult apart from my son.

Brian Cloughs widow, Barbara, said, Whoever heard of a novel about real people? But you wrote, This novel is another ction based on another fact. There is a lazy post-modernism that says everything is a ction. In life, though, we know there are truths. But an individuals relationship with football is very subjective and very personal. In that way it is like a religion. So how then are you going to write an absolutely objective factual book about Cloughs 44 days at Elland Road? Youre simply not going to be able to do it. The ghost-written autobiographies of modern-day footballers, and the way we report football matches, leaves this whole space for the imagination. You watch, say, Ally McCoist and Neil Lennon on the touchline and you want to know what they said and you start to imagine... football would be nothing without imagination. Do you think equally great novels could be written about Harry Redknapp, Alex Ferguson, Jos Mourinho who, like Clough, are all larger-than-life? Its not just that they are larger than life. Its the narrative and drama of football. For managers to survive in that drama they have to be a character or they will be destroyed.

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44 Days, Later

44 Days, Later
Why Jock Stein lasted no longer than Brian Clough at Elland Road
By Lawrence Donegan

The symmetry begins and ends with the 44 days they spent in the managers office. Brian Clough and Jock Stein at Leeds United; a major novel and a minor chapter. Plenty has been said and written about Cloughs tenure at Elland Road, of course, and there should be no surprise or complaint about that. He was a brilliant, energetic, divisive character and his time at Leeds was tumultuous; a perfect blend for a perfectly compelling narrative. Steins time there in 1978 was altogether different. He was less confrontational and, it must be said, less ambitious for the club. He arrived in Yorkshire with a sigh of resignation, in effect driven out of Celtic, and left with a sigh of relief. Not even Archie Macpherson, author of the excellent Jock Stein: The Denitive Biography could make much of such scant raw material, brushing through his subjects Elland Road episode in just four (out of 335) pages: On Monday, 21 August he decided to accept the offer and on 4 October 1978, just 44 days after joining Leeds, Stein was appointed to the Scotland post. Manny Cussins, Leedss then chairman, was shocked to see him leave Nothing in my life has worried me more than Jock Stein leaving Elland Road, not even the Brian Clough affair, he said

but the players knew better. You got more of a sense as the days went on that Jocks heart wasnt really in it. He was trying hard and I felt the team was improving, but there was quietness about him that made me wonder, recalled Eddie Gray. Its just a pity he never stayed a bit longer. Given time I think hed have turned things around.

Loyalty has never counted for very much in football but it might never have counted for less than in the spring 1978 when Celtics board of directors summoned Jock Stein to a crisis meeting to discuss the clubs lack of success on the eld. The chairman mentioned that personnel and staff at Celtic Park was largely the same as it had been 12 years earlier. It was appreciated that long and loyal service had been given by some persons but the welfare of the club should take priority over personal factors, the clubs official minutes recorded. Mr Stein suggested that David McParland (his assistant) should take control of the rst team and that he, Stein, should go with the second team with a view to improving the standard of the young players coming through. This bizarre suggestion like Sir Alex Ferguson taking charge of Uniteds

43

44 Days, Later

under-19s, leaving Rooney and co in the care of Mike Phelan was dismissed out of hand, presumably because the Celtic board realised that Stein, in making such an offer, was surely mocking them for their lack of faith in his abilities despite everything he had done for the club. Whatever the truth, the relationship between directors and manager was nearing a point of no return. A month after that crisis meeting, according to Macpherson, Stein suggested Aberdeens manager Billy McNeill, who had captained Celtics 1967 European Cupwinning team, as his successor. Stein even did the tapping up, sounding out McNeill at an awards dinner in Glasgow. The hand-over was announced within weeks. It was framed, publicly at least, as an orderly succession, with Stein moving upstairs into what was described as an executive directorship a reward, apparently, for all the service he had given to the club. Behind the scenes, however, there was consternation on all sides. McNeill was worried about how much inuence his mentor might have over team affairs. The board, some members of which had never had a good relationship with Stein, were not enamoured at the idea of the hired help taking a seat at the high table. And Stein himself wasnt exactly sure of what was involved in the proposed executive directorship. When the exact nature of his new role became clear he was to be in charge of the Celtic pools, a club-run lottery scheme he was horried. Youll never believe what they want me to do, he told his family, according to Macpherson. A few months later Stein accepted the

Leeds job. I did not want to stay at Celtic as a director. I felt I had too much to offer football and I wanted a closer involvement, he explained. Why Leeds? Well, apart from a rumoured offer from Kuwait, they were the only club that came in for him. Even then, Stein wasnt the rst choice to replace Jimmy Armeld at Elland Road. He wasnt even second choice. Cussins initially offered the job to Lawrie McMenemy and his suggestion of John Giles was over-ruled by the Leeds board. Famously, Clough used his rst meeting with the Leeds players to decry their cheating, advising them to throw their medals in the fucking dustbin because they had never won any of them fairly. Steins introductory speech was conciliatory, complimentary even, according to Peter Lorimer, who was there on both occasions. When Brian arrived he gathered the players together on the training pitch and basically told us we were rascals, he said. Jock got us together and said we were the best club in England and we would be again; that we had been successful using our own methods and we should do the same again. I came out thinking that was all I wanted to hear. Gray, a Leeds hero but a Celtic fan since boyhood, was less convinced not by Steins speech but by his appetite for the job. Obviously Jock was a huge name in British football, but at the back of my mind, I always thought to myself that it wouldnt last, he said. I dont know why but I just had a feeling that the Leeds job was a kind of stopgap for Jock to force the SFAs [Scottish Football Associations] hand and that he would return to take

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Lawrence Donegan

over as the manager of Scotland sooner rather than later. Steins rst game in charge was against Manchester United, a traditionally torrid contest but this time with a little extra edge because it marked the return Gordon McQueen and Joe Jordan, both of whom had left Leeds for Old Trafford the previous season. Manchester United won 3-2, with McQueen among the scorers. Leeds won their next two matches, against Wolves and Chelsea. Things were looking up. Stein, unlike Clough, appeared to have respect for his players and it was reciprocated. Jimmy Johnstone and Tommy Gemmell used to tell me they were terried of the Big Man but that he was fair, and they were right, said Lorimer. Clough insisted on players doing what they were told. With Stein there were always two sides to a story so you could actually have a conversation with him. Cloughie decided from the start that we were all crap. Stein reminded a few of the older guys of Revie. He did things quietly, without shouting and stamping his feet. You respected him for that, just like we respected Revie. Away from the ground, however, Stein found life harder. In a footballing sense, he was an outward-looking man, devouring ideas from all around the world, but in his personal outlook he was much more bound by his roots. He had a small, tight circle of friends, all of whom lived in Scotland. In a 2005 interview Don Warters, who was the Yorkshire Posts chief football writer at the time, painted a portrait of a lonely man.One of the biggest problems for Jock was that his wife couldnt settle here, he said. She didnt like it down here

and he was on his own from that point of view. I think that weighed heavily on his mind. I remember sitting beside him at a supporters club dinner shortly after he came down and nobody seemed to know him. They all knew who he was but he hadnt made any friends. The optimism that greeted the Stein era at Elland Road didnt disappear his reputation as a manager and a man saw to that but it was tempered by a couple of losses in the league, against Manchester City and Tottenham, and two indifferent draws against West Brom in the League Cup. There was very little transfer activity, evidence perhaps that the appeal of playing for Leeds, and for one of the greatest managers of the post-war era, was not what it once was. In public Stein went about his business as before but behind the scenes there was a growing feeling that he had become disillusioned. Certainly, Eddie Gray sensed there was a problem. He was putting in the effort but I sensed his heart wasnt really in it, he said. There was a quietness about him that made you wonder. Some of the lads never noticed a change in him but I did. Hindsight makes geniuses of us all but it turned out that Grays instincts had not betrayed him. Steins heart wasnt in Yorkshire and it wasnt in his new job. The problem he faced was how to escape back home to Scotland with both his reputation and self-respect intact. Fortunately, there was one job in Scottish football that afforded a gure like Stein the dignity he deserved. Even more fortunately that job opened up within weeks of his move to Leeds. Given the

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44 Days, Later

current malaise of the national team it is hard to believe that managing Scotland was once a sought-after position but it was back then, not least because the pool of available talent included the likes of Kenny Dalglish, Jordan and McQueen. Famously, Ally MacLeod had convinced a nation his side could win that summers World Cup in Argentina and, equally famously, he and his players were humbled, beaten by Peru and held to a draw by Iran, before securing a brilliant, albeit meaningless, group-stage victory over Holland. MacLeod returned a pariah and it went downhill from there, with a 3-2 defeat against Austria in the rst game after Argentina. Besieged by the press, he resigned on September 26. The following day Macpherson, then a commentator with the BBC, was one of a handful of journalists who spoke with Stein about the Scotland job a deliciously illicit conversation he recounts in his biography. This was a very unhappy man I was speaking to, morose, slowly spoken, husky, he wrote of the small talk with which it began. It was then he came up with what was on his mind. Tell London that you can say something about the Scotland job and me you could say something to the effect that you believe I would be interested in going back to Scotland you cant say you have been talking to me. Just play it like you are condent I would take the job. Make it sound like the SFA are being a bit slow on this. Stein had been mentioned as a future Scotland manager for most of his career. He had lled the post temporarily during the qualifying stages of the 1966 World Cup, and he had turned down the job before it was offered to MacLeod. He

was in a position to decline back then. Now he was desperate. Macpherson and a couple of other journalists did what Stein asked of them. Hilariously, the Leeds manager then turned up on BBC radio where, in response to a question about all the reports linking him with Scotland, he replied, Thats just Archie Macpherson ying a kite. It was deceitful stuff from Stein but hardly out of the ordinary. More to the point, it worked. In effect the SFA, cornered by the public clamour for the former Celtic manager, was forced to choose from a shortlist of one. All that remained was to extract Stein from his position at Leeds. Initially, Cussins refused the SFA permission to talk to his manager but in reality there was nothing he could do. Stein had a three-year deal with the club but he had never signed the contract. As the speculation mounted, Leeds played what was to be their nal match under Stein, a 3-0 victory over Birmingham. His record at Elland Road was won four, lost three and drawn three not sensational and not awful, but certainly enough to convince Cussins he had a manager capable of leading the club back to the heights of the Don Revie years. The chairman made his nal pitch at Steins hotel in Leeds a 35,000 lump sum and a luxury house but, of course, he never stood a chance. This is the hardest decision I have ever had to make in my football life, Stein told the local paper. The truth was it was one of the easiest decisions he had ever had to make. The following day he was gone, back to Scotland.

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47
Theory
What enriches you is the game, not the result. The result is a piece of data. The birth rate goes up. Is that enriching? No. But the process that led to that? Now thats enriching.

The First Bilardista

The First Bilardista

How Victorio Spinetto pioneered pragmatism in Argentinian football
By Jonathan Wilson

For Argentinian football, the Fall came in 1958. Before that was the age of innocence, the days of la nuestra when skill held sway, goalless draws were a rarity and vast crowds celebrated the achievements of great individuals. Then came Helsingborg, and a 6-1 defeat to Czechoslovakia at the World Cup. Until then, Argentinian football had been blithely convinced of its own excellence, sheltered by Pernist isolationism: we went in thinking it would be easy for us, said the goalkeeper Amadeo Carrizo, but we ended up making it easy for everybody else. Three of the Angels with Dirty Faces side that had swaggered to the Copa Amrica title a year earlier Humberto Maschio, Antonio Angelillo, Omar Svori had defected to Italy, severely weakening Argentinas forward line, but that did little to lessen the tactical shock. We were used to playing really slowly, and they were fast, said Jos Ramos Delgado, who was in the squad for the tournament but didnt play. We hadnt played international football for a long time, so when we went out there we thought we were really talented, but we found we hadnt followed the pace of the rest of the world. We had been left behind. The European teams played simply. They were precise. Argentina were good on the ball, but we didnt go forwards.

The players were pelted with coins and vegetables on their return to Buenos Aires and the coach, Guillermo Stbile, who had been in charge since 1941, was dismissed. The national team had to be modied, Delgado said. A different kind of player was looked for, players who were more about sacrice than play. Football became less of an art after that. It became obvious that the tactical system used in Argentina at the time had to change. Most of the rest of the world had already moved to the W-M the centre-half as a defender, the inside-forwards operating as midelders and beyond; Brazils use of a back four in winning that World Cup had revolutionised tactical thinking. Argentina had switched uncertainly to three at the back, although by withdrawing one of the wing-halves rather than the centre-half, which meant there was no gure as overtly defensive as the English style centre-half. Given the supposedly defensive midelders were rarely content to sit deep, that meant Argentinian sides tended to be extremely open. The backlash, though, was at least as much about style as it was about formation. Crowds for league matches fell sharply, partly because of a sense of disillusionment, and partly because the growing middle-class began watching

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Jonathan Wilson

games on television rather than at the stadiums. Clubs, which had enjoyed state support under Pern, lost their subsidies. Many turned to foreign talent in an attempt to woo back spectators with exoticism, further diluting the culture of la nuestra, but, most crucially of all, the ethos changed. With the nancial stakes raised, football became less about the spectacle than about winning, or at least, not losing.

In the wake of the humiliation of Helsingborg, Argentina turned to a triumvirate of coaches to see them through the 1959 Copa Jos Della Torre, Jos Barreiro and, crucially, Victorio Spinetto. In the world of la nuestra, Spinetto had always stood out. Perhaps it would be unfair to say he was not a romantic, for in his own way he was, but his romanticism took a very different form from that of most of his contemporaries. His passion was not to create a spectacle, or to prove his sides more capable of artistry than others; what he cared about was his Vlez Sarseld, and about winning. Spinetto was born on 3 June 1910 in the barrio of Flores. He lived there for the rst years of his life, and studied at El Nacional de Buenos Aires, a fabled school, until the third year. I was a boy from a good family, posh, he recalled in an interview with Osvaldo Ardizzone in El Grco in 1971. My grandparents had money, but my father liked living as well, and he spent the money that would have been my inheritance. I remember that when I was 13 or 14 years old we all went to live in a house of my grandmother in the Barrancas de Belgrano a big house, like they used to build.

He was far from a diligent student, preferring sport to books, which didnt just mean football. I was well developed for my age, and I liked displays in which strength and boldness mattered, he said. A boys thing, you see? Every afternoon I got locked in ghts typical of boys of that age. It was about struggling, not about punches... a vanity to see who was the strongest. But I liked football, do you understand? And that was not the preferred sport of the barra, so I went every afternoon to the car-park that is still in front of Belgrano station. And at about four or ve in the afternoon, all the boys who were awaiting the arrival of the newspapers met up... the newsboys... I was the posh-boy that they let join in the kick-abouts maybe because I was capable of giving a kick and because I never refused an invitation to a ght. Spinettos family moved to Quilmes, where he joined a formal club for the rst time, Honor y Patria de Bernal, who played in the intermediate division. There his toughness found a more practical purpose. What a struggle! he said. Today you see the protection that stadiums offer. But then those little elds offered no defence. You got out on foot, without buses, without anything... and the rows of opposing fans... He left there when his family returned to the west of Buenos Aires. This time we went to live in La Paternal, he said. And so I went to play for a team that was also called La Paternal and was also in the intermediate division. Professionalism arrived in 1931 and, a year later, as a highly promising centre-half, Spinetto joined Platense. They already had two ne central midelders, though, in Roberto Devoto and the Paraguayan

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The First Bilardista

Manuel Fleitas Solich (who would himself go on to be a highly successful pioneering coach in Brazil). Finding rstteam opportunities limited, Spinettos six months there were frustrating. Devoto had been a Vlez player but, for all his talent, he was deemed to lack the necessary charisma by fans still mourning the retirement of Jos Luis Boffi, who in 1921 had become the rst Vlez player to win an international cap. The two main Vlez directors, Jos Amaltani and Francisco Pizza, wondered if the aggressive but unproven Spinetto might be the man at last to step into his role as a commanding No 5 (after the No 10, the most revered and romantic position in the Argentinian game). At Platense Spinetto was earning 250 pesos a month, with a 200-peso win bonus. Vlez could match his basic salary, but offered a win bonus of only 30 pesos. Spinetto, desperate for regular football, eagerly accepted. Vlez Sarseld was the club that became my life, he said. There is always one club in the career of a player even if he changes his jersey only by chance, as happened to me. In Liniers, Spinetto soon became known for his spirit and his ability to score goals. He was the centre-half as caudillo, a term that could translate as leader or governor but is often used of warlords and encapsulates the Argentinian ideal of the No 5, a tough, ruthless gure and yet rather more than a brute somebody with both ability and an uncompromising outlook. I was a centre-half who ran at everybody I didnt go easy on anyone, he said in an interview with Sper Ftbol in 1988. I never liked losing and I never gave up a game as lost before the 90

minutes were up. I always gave my all, for the people, for the club and for my teammates. And I played hard, yes, but I was not alone. I was always open and loyal and I respected all my opponents. But do not think these things are easy. Before things were not as they are today, when all the kicks given and received during the game are lost to the memory. In my era, if you played dirty, the matter did not end with the whistle of the referee; they came to search for you at your house... You had to be honest with your use of force, because if not... In six seasons, Spinetto played 172 games for Vlez , scoring 31 goals. In 1938, he joined Independiente, twice amateur champions, and runners-up four times in the rst seven years of the professional league, for 12,000 pesos plus the midelder Juan Alonso. He never settled in Avallaneda, though, despite playing 16 times as Independiente won their rst professional championship. What could I do there? he asked Ardizzone. Do you know who they had then? They were geniuses. A year later he returned to Vlez for 6000 pesos. That next season he scored 11 goals in 24 games, three of them penalties and one while playing as a centre-forward against Atlanta. That experiment lasted just two matches; Vlez needed his drive from the back of mideld. Theirs, though, was a team on the decline, and they were relegated in 1940 for the only time in their history consigned to the second ight after Atlanta beat Independiente 64 on the nal day of the season. Spinetto was devastated, and effectively retired, aged 30, although he did play a handful of times for Acassuso in the second division in 1942. I remember Victorio

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on the day that Vlez were relegated in 1940, said Pablo Policastro, a socio vitalicio of Vlez , at a conference on Vlezs history in 2006. I was eight years old and it still makes me emotional. I saw him walking on la calle Escalada and I realised that he was crying. It was a blow Spinetto had to rectify, and in 1942 he was given his opportunity, as Amaltani and Pizza offered him the position of coach. They told me that I was stuck with what I had, that I had to cope with the players and the money that was there, Spinetto said in 1980. It was a conversation similar to that of 1932, when they came to sign me as a player. This time they sold me the future and this time they sold it more easily, because I was already a socio protector of the club, and I could not let them down. Spinetto immediately began promoting young players. The likes of Miguel Rugilo, Armando Ovide, Juan Jos Ferraro and Alfredo Bermdez all came through in Spinettos rst full season as coach as Vlez won promotion back to the Primera. Many years later, Policastro went to watch Spinetto laying a plaque at Floresta station to mark the site where Vlez were founded. I saw you relegated with Vlez in 1940, Policastro said nervously to him. A half-angry, Spinetto replied, and they were promoted with me in 1943. Ten years after that, Vlez nished as runners-up behind River Plate, and so became the rst side from outside the traditional Big Five (Boca Juniors, River Plate, San Lorenzo, Independiente and Racing) to break into the top two (Huracn had nished level with River in second in 1939, but the second-leg of

their play-off for silver never took place). Spinettos reign, though, was less about league position than about style. He gave Vlez a sense of self-esteem that would ultimately make them a club of similar stature to Racing and San Lorenzo, and imbued them with garra literally claw that semi-mythical combination of spirit, toughness and streetwiseness so prized in platense football. Spinetto became famous for the way he lived the game on the touchline, in a way no coach had previously in Argentina. In his rst years as a manager he wore a tracksuit, a towel draped over his shoulder; later he graduated to a blue jacket, with a T for tcnico marked on the pocket in adhesive tape. Always he would stand with his right foot raised, his right elbow resting on his knee and chin supported on his right palm. He would rage in his booming, hoarse voice, attacking his players, the opposition and the referee, and frequently being sent from the touchline because of it. The players loved him very much, but they were killed by him, said Adolfo Mogilevsky, who worked with Spinetto at Atlanta and then with the national team. He had a reputation for being hard, but he was always warm and would stress human values. There are countless anecdotes about Spinettos toughness. He would motivate his players at half-time by asking what their mothers would think of them if they lost. A player who doesnt go on to the eld to defend his position fearing disgrace shouldnt be on the eld, he would say. Football is a game for men. At the 2006 conference, Antonio Settino, another socio vitalico, recalled a game

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The First Bilardista

at Lans in which Vlez trailed 2-0 at half-time. Don Jos Amaltani went to the dressing-room and said to the players, Boys, look after your legs, a player is worth a lot, he said. He wanted them to take it easy. Barely had Don Jos gone when Spinetto shouted, Queers! We have to win this game! And Vlez won, and the players had to wait until about 10pm to leave the ground because the fans wanted to beat them. Don Victorio won this game, and that demonstrated the toughness and the passion for Vlez he had. When Argentina beat Northern Ireland at the 1958 World Cup, Jimmy McIlroy described them as a lot of fat little men with stomachs who spent most of the game waving at girls in the crowd and taking the mickey. That attitude was just what Spinetto abhorred. Of course it matters whether a player is technically gifted or not, he told el Grco in 1971, but if he doesnt have bra [toughness, stamina, determination], he cannot become a great. Take the case of Carlos Bianchi. He was a man since he was a kid... and thats why he gives his all on the eld. You know which are the most generous players on the pitch? Those who are men in the full sense of sacrice. Together with their talent they give everything that they have inside... Because they have shame and they dont like to leave the eld defeated. With this type of players who feel themselves men you can win in any place and against any rival. Bianchi, who went on to be Vlez s most successful manager, returned the affection. Don Victorio was an eternal perfectionist, he said, and that was something that stayed with me forever and which I employed in the future. Spinettos players remember him as a great motivator. He was a man

who worked a lot with the players on psychology, because a player has to be a little bit aggressive, said the attacking midelder Norberto Conde. If hes cold, if hes slow, or if he doesnt give everything, he doesnt have the purpose that others have. He delighted in being unpredictable. More than once when Id played badly, remembered the forward Ernesto Sansone, hed applaud me as if Id done very well, but when I had played well, and I knew Id played well, hed hammer me as if Id played badly. Spinetto hated losing, but the right-back Oscar Huss described how defeats rarely brought any explosion of rage. He always shook us by the hand and told us, We lost though bad luck... The next game we must win, he said. And in the following xture we went out and we had to win. He had this mastery of knowing how to talk. He would talk to us calmly. When wed got to the ground, he would tell us, You have to give what you have as men, and you have to win this game because we have to win it! Perhaps his greatest gift was his ability to lift his side if they trailed at half-time. There was a game against River in which Vlez trailed 3-0 at half-time, with the goalkeeper Miguel Rugilo having been responsible for two of the goals. At half-time, he lay exhausted in the bath, so Spinetto took Huss, ngel Allegri and Armando Ovide to one side. Look at how Miguel is, he said. If you are his friends you have to play for him. Vlez were level within 20 minutes, and the centre-forward Osvaldo Bottini even missed a ne chance to win the game at the end.

Spinettos principal legacy, though, was not what he did for Vlez , great though

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that was; it was the foundations he laid for anti-ftbol, the sense he left that football was about more than just skill. To call him a tactical revolutionary is perhaps too strong, for his ideas look basic by comparison with what was going on in Europe or in Brazil at the same time, and yet the very fact he thought about tactics made him a radical in the Argentina of the late forties. The rst coach to challenge the prevailing system essentially a 2-3-5, although with the inside-forwards a little withdrawn had been Renato Cesarini, one of the original oriundi who had left Argentina for Italy in the early thirties. He had been used as a man-marker at Juventus, and on being appointed at River in 1939 similarly began to use the right-half as a defensive player. Over time, the right-half became a right-back. Spinetto never played for Cesarini, but he was open in his praise for him, admiring the way he challenged prevailing assumptions. Spinetto was equally prepared to amend the traditional roles, eschewing the tradition of neat technical moves threaded down the centre of the pitch, using the inside-forwards as creative fulcrums. I demand teams with bra, he said. Defenders who defend, forwards who attack... but you know for me what is a team? Its the sum of players who hand out work and those who get down and look for it. And you have to attack by the wings... always by the wings... Parading through the middle may be very pretty, but how often do they try and how often do they deliver? Set yourself the task of recording the statistics of the game. Do you know what is attacking for me? To get behind the defenders. A forward must look to get behind

his marker and at the same time his teammate must try to give him the pass to hit the space behind the defender. And that must be done through the wings. Where Argentinian forwards traditionally conned themselves to attacking, Spinetto encouraged them to play a more all-round role. His most conspicuous success was with Osvaldo Zubelda, a player with a notably enquiring mind. He was nominally a No 10, an attacking inside-left, but in that 1953 season, when Vlez nished as runners-up, Spinetto had him tracking back, working the length of the pitch like a modern midelder. Whether that was Spinettos idea or Zubeldas its impossible at this remove to know: better perhaps to see it as a symbiosis between the intelligence of the player and the willingness of the coach to try something different. It was Zubelda, of course, who brought anti-ftbol into the mainstream with his great but violent Estudiantes side of the late sixties, which won three successive Copas Libertadores. And it is that, as the Argentinian football historian Esteban Bekerman notes, that is probably Spinettos greatest achievement. Spinetto coached and inspired not only Zubelda, but also Carlos Griguol, who won Nacional championships with Rosario Central and Ferril Carro Oeste (twice) and a Copa Interamericana with River Plate, and Bianchi, who with Vlez won three championships, the Libertadores, the Copa Interamericana and the Intercontinental Cup, and then went to Boca and had even greater success, claiming four championships, three Libertadores and two Intercontinental titles. Griguol and Bianchis teams were never as overtly cynical as those

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The First Bilardista

of Zubelda, but both preferred an aggressive, disciplined game, one that favoured pragmatism over beauty. Then, of course, there are the disciples of Spinettos disciples. Griguol begat Hctor Cper and Mario Gmez; Bianchi begat Diego Cagna and Omar Asad; and Zubelda begat Eduardo Manera and, most famously, Carlos Bilardo. Bilardo himself now has followers the likes of Miguel Angel Russo, who won the Clausura with Vlez in 2005 and the Libertadores with Boca in 2007, and Alejandro Sabella, who led Estudiantes to the Libertadores in 2009 and the Apertura title in 2010 and whose name has become synonymous with the whole philosophy of anti-ftbol.

It is often said that from the late seventies onwards Argentina football has been divided between menottistas those who follow Csar Luis Menotti, who inspired the backlash against anti-ftbol and bilardistas, but once the divide was Spinetto and the rest. It would be wrong to portray him as the inventor of anti-ftbol, but he was the man who opened the eyes of his players to the ideas that would become anti-ftbol; less the father of the movement, perhaps, than its grandfather. And through his toughness, his determination and his vision he not only got Argentina over the shock of Helsingborg, but prepared the groundwork for a whole new conception of the game.

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The Brain in Spain

The Brain in Spain

Juanma Lillo, mentor to Pep Guardiola, explains his thinking on clubs, coaching and why society is sick
By Sid Lowe

The youngest man to ever coach in the Spanish First Division and the inventor of 4-2-3-1, blessed of an inquisitive and inventive mind, Juanma Lillo has always been considered something of a fooballing philosopher even by those critics who think that theory is one thing, reality another. This is the man that regularly turns the relationship upside down a footballer manager berating journalists for using meaningless clichs. A man who loves a dialectic battle, boasts a library of 10,000 volumes and a complete collection of the worlds foremost football magazines and newspapers, and talks at length on theories of complexity, he is a determined defender of an expansive footballing style, placing positioning over all else, especially brute force. It is a style given expression, many years later, by Barcelona and the Spanish national team. To his lasting regret, Lillo never made it as a professional player I would, he says, give it all back for 15 minutes on the pitch but he became a familiar face on the bench all over Spain. For a while at least. When he took over at Almera last season, it was a return to the First Division for the rst time in a decade. Meanwhile, he had been in Mexico, where he coached Pep Guardiola.

Actually, coached is a rather inadequate word. Guardiola has never hidden his admiration for Lillo, describing him as the coach that, along with Johan Cruyff, had the greatest inuence upon him. And when Lillo talks about Barcelona, he cant help talking about we. He has guided Guardiola and, during his rst months as Barcelona B coach, and then rst-team manager, he unofficially helped prepare Guardiolas sessions. It could have been official once: when Lluis Bassat ran for the presidential elections in 2003, his sporting director was going to be Guardiola. The coach? Juanma Lillo. Bassat, though, lost. Six years would pass before Guardiola took over. Officially, Lillo had no role at all even though his ngerprints were all over the project. But fate can be cruel and earlier this season, Lillo was sacked as Almeria coach after an 8-0 defeat. To Pep Guardiolas Barcelona.

You once said that you understood why presidents sacked coaches, what you couldnt understand is why they hired them in the rst place. Have you worked it out yet? Whats a coach for? What is your role? First, there is the question of your formal role. On a very basic level you choose

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who plays and who doesnt. Otherwise, who would do it? But beyond that, I wouldnt try to establish a role, given our limited importance. This is a game, played by players. Those [coaches] who have expressed their signicance seem to want to claim some personal protagonism or status through others. Our role is less than many coaches realise or want to believe. That said, within those limitations there are things you can outline. First, though, you have to talk about the difference between a professional sphere and a formative sphere. You have to ask what is a coach? Some are more didactic, some have a desire for protagonism, some are orthodox, some arent. Some are stimulated by competition, others by the game itself. And in your case? Bear in mind that I started very young. At 16 I was already a coach. I wasnt a player and that has obliged me to be closer to my players, to seek complicity. That alters your outlook. I wanted to be a player, thats the thing. My vocacin [vocation] with a V was being a player; my bocacin [from boca, mouth] with a B is being a coach: Im a coach to feed myself. All coaches are amalgams of things but I consider myself didactic. I want to facilitate players gaining a consciousness about what they are and what they are doing. Its not just about the game; its about people. It is about everything. Nothing can be de-contextualised. How you live, what you are, what importance you give to relationships, to behaviour, to interaction all of that effects how a team plays. In our society, there are loads of teachers but few educators, few

facilitators. As [the Spanish philosopher and writer] Francisco Umbral said, every day people are better qualied, but less educated. People have MBAs, or an MBB, an MBC but they cant cross the road, still less have the empathy to see things from the point of view of others. Academia is trying to turn us into machines. As far as my work is concerned, empathy is vital. A person performs better in any working environment in a good atmosphere than in a bad one. You have to make players conscious of things that maybe he cant see. Not least because these days playing in a team is harder and harder Why? Because society is not set up like that; society drives you towards individualism. Football is a collective sport; you have to treat it as such. Everyone has their own way of being, you encourage relationships, association. To do that, you have to make sure theres the smallest possible difference between what you do and what you say. You have to be porous: can you listen? Can you direct? There are three types of authority: formal authority, technical authority and personal authority. I dont want formal authority, via someone elses power, the position of coach or boss. Authority is not something you impose; it is something that is conceded to you by those with whom you interact. I want to try to encourage self-discovery among players, dialogue and understanding. It is complex and shifting. You orientate people rather than order them. You balance, you adapt, you listen. Human beings are open; there is no answer that denitively closes any debate. Its not just that what works with one player doesnt

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work with another; it is that what worked with one player doesnt work with the same player at a different time and under different circumstances. In practical terms, what does your work entail? The rst day you turn up at a club, what do you do? The rst thing I do is have a personal meeting with every player. I turn up with loads of information and data about them. I want to conrm that information, verify it and challenge them with it. What does he think when he hears that? You cant be more open or honest than to tell a player what you have been told about him. I could keep that information to myself and establish a prejudice, but I dont. Theres no greater act of sincerity than to tell a player what prejudices, what pre-established thoughts, I have about them. We all have prejudices both good ones and bad ones. I show them mine, looking them in the eye. The next day, I tell the whole group. I show them what they think of themselves and the team, I hold up a mirror. Often you learn the most from their selfperception I speak to people who know players, who have shared a dressingroom with them, who have coached them. If I can talk to their parents, so much the better. Then you have to know how to use that information. In footballing terms, how do you set up your teams? The obvious, if simplistic, thing is that a coach gets to a club and thinks: who is my right-back, who is my left-back, who is my central midelder and so on ? In my case, its not like that. When you get a to a team 80 percent or more is

already constructed; you have to see if youre going to clash a lot with what is already there you have to go and learn from the players, not the other way round. Everything has to work together, amongst them. My mentality is interaction and relation. If you say, lets evaluate the right-back, I say, but whos alongside him? Who is in front of him? Who is nearest to him? Youve said before that there is no such thing as attack and defence? Of course. How can attack and defence exist if we dont have the ball? How can one exist without the other? But people need to communicate, so there is a reduction of concepts, a simplication. I understand that. The thing is, you have to be able to reduce without impoverishing. And that goes for everything. You cant take things out of their context because they are no longer the same thing, even if you then plan to piece things back together again. You cant take an arm off Rafa Nadal and train it separately. If you did, when you put it back in it may create an imbalance, a rejection from the organism. How can you gain strength for football outside of football? If you run over there, what you are training for is running over there, not playing football. If you run youre going to get healthier because, fuck, its healthy to run. But that doesnt mean youre going to be a better footballer if you approach it out of its context But doesnt the running help? By making you healthier, yes. And if that helps you psychologically, then great. Maybe if you feel better, stronger, faster,

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you relate better to others on the pitch. Football is associative, combinative. But just running does not necessarily make you better. Surely a fast player is still useful for football in a way that he wouldnt be if he wasnt so fast? If he knows how to use it. And what is speed in football? We could be here for hours answering that. The concept of speed that people have in football is actually a concept from individual sports. It is a concept of transition of something, in this case a footballer, going from here to there. He runs fast so Usain Bolt would be a footballing phenomenon. But isnt that a deliberately obstructionist argument? He doesnt have football talent, sure. But within the realms of football a fast player can be useful. You put your former Almera player Albert Crusat alongside Carles Puyol and make them sprint for a ball, for example, and Crusat will get there rst Of course, but does Crusat know whether to make the run at the right time for that ball? There have been movements prior to the pass; you cant simply isolate the race between the two. He has qualities that give him an advantage over Puyol but to employ that advantage he has to know that he has it and know how to use it and have teammates who know how to facilitate that for him. Alone, he is nothing. We all need everyone. The Bolt analogy isnt stupid. Because speed alone expressed as the rapidity with which a person moves from one place to another is worthless, it does not exist. There are so many tactical

parameters, concepts of the game, and all of it is conditioned by an awareness of the qualities you have, the interaction of the players, the opponent. Is the example of that Cristiano Ronaldo? He is very fast but there are times when teams deny him the chance to use that speed, preventing him going one-on-one against certain players, or closing the space into which to run Ah, but youre establishing a causeeffect relationship. They dont exist, so Why dont they exist? They have to, dont they? At least at a conceptual level, in terms of methodology? Surely all football teams are at least trying to do something in order to provoke something else. If you are doing this the cause you are trying to create a goal the effect? Isnt denying the existence of any cause-effect relationship ultimately a way of saying, Sod it, its all fortune? Surely your job seeks to cause certain situations? Yes, yes. I try to create a team that selfcongures Isnt that cause-effect? No. If I go from here to there, I am thinking of going from here to there. But thats all. I dont know what I am going to nd en route. Cause and effect do not, in themselves, exist. It cannot be isolated like that; people shirk theories of complexity but that is true. How do you know that the cause was not an effect of something from before, and that the effect is not going to cause something else in the context of countless other variables? I think the

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problem is that people always want to separate things. Its as if, if we do not separate them out we are not able to see them. Things that sometimes are not even conscious. I do this because of that? No. Ok, so in purely footballing terms Nothing is purely anything nothing. Ok, talking about the playing side of the game, what happens with the ball on the pitch? What do you look for? You defend a very specic type of football I defend the type of game that brings me closest to victory Sure, but you try to win with a style that is constructed around the ball Of course. Without the ball there would be no game. Its football. But there are many coaches who do not lay so much importance by the ball Yes, they do build their teams around the ball we all have to do everything according to the ball; its the central actor. Without the ball there is nothing; the ball is the mother, the source of life in football. Whats the goal there for? For the ball to go in it. Without the ball, nothing has any meaning. But, yes, there are some coaches who do not build their team around having the ball. Pragmatic, they call it. But you would argue that your approach is pragmatic too. You also want to win Also? No. Above all else. What a coach does is attempt to increase the index of

probability when it comes to winning a match. As a coach all you can to is deny fortune as much of its role as you possibly can. Football has shown loads of times that without even crossing into the other teams territory once, you can still win 1-0. Arsenal were 1-1 against Barcelona and they had not had a single shot at goal. We work in an activity where there are many variables and chance is one of them. You can defend to the death and shoot every time you get the ball, but all there are are shots. Theres no play. You mention winning 1-0 without shooting: unjust? The word justice is one I struggle to use in almost any area of life. Undeserved, yes. Improbable, very improbable but it can happen. Justice is too strong. But should football have something beyond the result? Is there a moral component? Any human activity has a moral component. When we say that what matters is the result, its a lie. It is precisely those [coaches] that talk only about the signicance of the result that offer up excuses when they dont win. You catch the best excusers easily. Someone who sells results, sells smoke [vender humo in Spanish means to hide the reality by selling an imaginary product, by talking without substance, being a charlatan]. So does it annoy you that there are coaches like that? No. What does bother me is when they sell falsehood. It bothers me that their

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allies are in the media, that journalism analyses everything via success and as a result, journalism always wins. The analysis, the reports, are carried out via success so theyre always right. No one is looking at the process except through the prism of a result. Thats hugely opportunist. And wrong. Isnt that normal, though? You take a result and then try to explain it That strikes me as normal in a society that is ill. Take what youre doing now, which is much more healthy: you value what youre doing now more than the number of copies youre going to sell. Its the activity that moves you, not the end result. You have to listen to me, transcribe it, care for it, type it, edit it youre going to do so many things en route that the route, the journey, is the goal. Thats one of the things I like to project to the players: the journey is the goal, the objective. But you said your aim is to win But the objective is the journey, the process; the work matters. In a race you can be rst, miles and miles ahead of anyone else, and then, metres from the line, fall over. And? Are you going to write that race off? You ran brilliantly. And its far more complex than saying: win, good; dont win, bad. In the 18th century, scientists came across the complexity of things and found that so many of the things that they had simplied and understood were not like that. Things were impossible to prove, so they started to commit suicide. The smallest variation could change everything, its chaos theory. You cant know every detail

or have a denitive answer. Nothing is fully perceptible. The reality is that nothing is real. But if the aim is to win Yes. But what enriches you is the game, not the result. The result is a piece of data. The birth rate goes up. Is that enriching? No. But the process that led to that? Now thats enriching. Fullment comes from the process. You debate the game not the results. Results are not debatable, they are. Do you buy a paper on a Monday morning for a euro and the only thing in it is list after list of results? Do you go into a football stadium, in the last minute of a game, have a look at the scoreboard and leave? You watch 90 minutes, which is the process. So are we wrong to judge the process based on the results, even though the process intends to achieve the result? You cant validate the process through the results. Human beings tend to venerate what nished well, not what was done well. We attack what ended up badly, not what was done badly. The media does that. And beyond the possibility that maybe you dont have the capacity to judge whether the methodological process is the correct one, its awed to judge on those grounds. The same process can have very different effects; and sometimes the same effects come from totally different causes. Bayern Munich are a great team in the 90th minute [in 1999] when they are winning the Champions League and in the 92nd minute theyre rubbish. How can that be? That moment, given the huge dimension

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of everything that went with it, serves to illustrate this point and so much more besides. I remember the fourth official leaning to his right to hold back the Bayern players who were ready to run on the pitch and celebrate and a moment later, leaning to his left to hold back the United players who were ready to run onto the pitch and celebrate. All that in a minute. The thing is, despus del visto todo el mundo es listo: everyones a genius after the event. I call them prophets of the past. And yet they are wrong to even evaluate the process in the light solely of how it came out in the end and, on top of that, to keep imposing demands. Has the environment around the game changed? Yes, the garnish has eaten the steak. Theres more pressure, more of what was peripheral has become central. Societies are being transformed and that is felt in everything. With every passing day, people spend less time on their life and more time on other peoples, because their own life is frightening. New technology allows self-delusion to be easier than it has ever been before. Lets get onto the specics of your football preparation. You invented 42-3-1 at Cultural Leonesa in the early nineties. Why? We look at the past through our present so I cant be sure I am accurately reecting now what I was seeking to achieve then. I cant remember what I felt at the time but I wanted the players ahead of the ball to have more mobility and to be closer to the opposition

goal. I wanted four attackers but with a rational occupation of space. We pushed very, very high, winning the ball near their goal. I basically wanted three media puntas. I was trying to create a spatial distribution, inuenced by the type of players I had, that would work. And for years, everyone used it. I think it is a good system. But I am sure, if you look at the behaviour of players rather than the names applied to systems, that someone had tried it successfully a thousand years before maybe a 4-4-2 with a striker a little deeper and wingers pushing up looks the same. The thing is, theres an obsession with creating names for things, tags. So I gave it the name 4-2-3-1. You mention spatial distribution. For you, the key is positioning, isnt it? What kind of things does that entail? Yes. I believe in a game of position because it strengthens the relationship between the players in the team. That means, for example, xing opposition players positions, trying to develop numerical superiority in key spaces on the pitch, eliminating certain areas, facilitating certain actions, equipping yourself to have solutions and alternatives. I like players to receive on the foot furthest away, to open the pitch, to seek lines of passes. Is that work individualised? Do you think: right, Ill get my left-winger oneon-one versus their full-back? No. People who sell that image are lying. Because you dont play individually, you play within a context of a team. If a player gets the ball in his own area, the opposition players all sit

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down on the turf and he runs the whole length of the pitch, dribbling round them and scores a goal thats still not an individual act because if they dont sit down, he cant do that. What the other guy does is what imposes upon you this decision or that one. People talk about individual actions, but there are not individual actions. But doesnt a team work in order to strengthen certain individual traits in certain areas of the pitch and certain players? Dont Barcelona work in order to create a space in which Messi, for example, can run at a full-back that Guardiola has identied as being weak on a certain side Up to a point, yes, but you cant predict human behaviour. You can see that if Messi receives the ball in certain spaces hes dangerous. But thats conditioned by who he receives it from and when, whether his last move came off or not, what his emotional context is, how the opponents react. Positional play, which I work on, allows you to try to provoke certain situations, for sure. But its more important that you have the intelligence, the culture, to know how to interpret what is happening, to adapt, to understand, and that you are able to seek the solution that gives your team the greatest advantage. So, the best players are the most intelligent. In any area of life, without intelligence nothing else has any value. Often it is more important where you apply strength than the strength itself, for example. If you try to lift a rock with a crowbar, whether or not you can lift

it depends on where you apply the pressure, how you leverage it, not how strong you are. If you dont know where to stick the crowbar, it doesnt matter how strong you are. Do you build certain moves, though? Always. But more than moves, you establish a series of relationships through repetition. You try to create a situation in which the players are conscious of their options. The move is not always the same, the opponent changes. Thats why I talk about culture; you need to understand. You know that for liquid, a deep, round bowl is useful, and a spoon too. For a steak, you need a at plate and a sharp knife and a fork. But you need to know whether what they are putting in front of you is a soup or a steak in the rst place. You need to recognise what you are faced with before you can judge which tools to use. Another example: people mistake a map with the territory. I know where I have to go to get home; Ive even got a SatNav to help me to do it. But thats the map not the territory. That doesnt tell me if there are road works, or if a dog runs out in front of me. Thats what I mean by culture: you have to know how to react, when to brake, when to swerve. The map shows you where you are going, the route you can take, but not how to get there. If you hit that dog and career off the road, then what? What really matters is the relationship of space and time. So, how do you equip players for that? Between us we construct a common language through which we understand what we are doing. Often that

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language is not even conscious; it is an understanding. But even without a coach that happens; when you are a kid, you learn that when certain situations arise you are better doing certain things. Its interactive, always. And its often slow, unknowing: real change is the change thats imperceptible. Look at a photo of yourself 10 years ago youre different, but you never knew that change was happening. Youre different now to the person you were when we started this interview, but you dont know it and you couldnt identify the change. I actually try to make sure that a player doesnt have a pre-established plan, because it might be that it is of no value. If you isolate variables and maximise one thing, you minimise the other. If you focus on a player being fast, you subconsciously weaken his ability to do other, equally necessary things. Thats not a good idea: humans are constructed as a complimentary network of qualities, not a hierarchical pyramid of them. So, do you never do work that is aimed, for example, at strengthening a player? If he had the need to, yes. But so long as he understands that he is doing it to help him play better, not to be stronger. He has to have strength for football, not strength full stop. What do I care how much he can bench press? I care if he can play. I train people so that they can play better not so that they can run more. Its a footballing preparation. Lets try to put a name on your style, then. Who are the players you most like now? Those that play best are those that best interpret the game and can offer

solutions that benet the team. For me, theres no one like [Andrs] Iniesta. He receives, he passes, he interprets, he evaluates the necessities of the team, he is constantly adapting. He could be a goalkeeper, he is so aware. Messi produces the best jugadas [moves, runs] in the world, but Iniesta is the best jugador [player]. And thats the word: play, it is a game, in which many people are involved; your ability depends on relating to them too. Understanding stands at the heart of it. Its not a list of qualities: fast, strong, whatever. There must be cases of players who can understand but cant play? Players who see a pass but dont have the technical ability to play it. Then what? That doesnt really happen. Qualities go together. Naturally, you see the passes you can make; if you cant make them, you stop seeing them. Youre calling it technical ability but what you really mean is execute well. If a guy executes a pass badly, his ability to see it shuts down; his organism alters. Ronald Koeman could see a teammate, [Hristo] Stoichkov, 70 metres away. Why do you think he could see it? Just because he could see it or because he knew that with his foot he could reach it? A guy who knows that he can place a ball 75 metres, opens up his perspective to do that. Its not even conscious. It is, though, a product of what you are, what you have been, your evolution and your context. You think even when you dont know youre thinking. People said Hugo Snchez, who used to nish his chances off with one touch, nished without thinking. But he had spent his whole life thinking about that play! It was natural, a part of his whole. As I say, its not a list of qualities.

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If youre a great dribbler but you dont know when to dribble, you not actually a great dribbler. People look at football like Jack the Ripper: lets do this in parts. No. We have lost the capacity for syncretism. And yet the reality is syncretic. Modern coaches take things apart and put them

back together again but thats antinatural. Without our context we are not what we are. We are not a list of attributes. My aim is not to fracture and break apart what should be together, not to de-contextualise. And thats the oldest approach on earth.

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Grass Roots
It was crazy. Wed seen movies like Rambo... and for a while it was commando time.

Duels on the Nile

Duels on the Nile

A report from Sudan on the second championship for Africans playing their football at home
By Paul Myers

As it ows through Khartoum, the Nile is liquid tranquillity. Towering above the river near the mystical point where the blue and white streams converge is the Burj Al-Fateh complex. Here the Confederation of African Football (CAF) fashioned its temporary administrative base in a warren of glass fronted booths. An adjacent 20-storey ve-star hotel provided sleeping accommodation for the couple of dozen CAF executives and minions own down from headquarters in Cairo. The plush if soulless interior of the Libyan-nanced buildings provides a jarring contrast to the tawdry venue for the nal of the second African Nations Championship (not to be confused with the African Cup of Nations). The CHAN, as its known, is restricted to those who play their league football in their country of origin. The Al Merreikh stadium over the river in Omdurman is home to one of Africas most venerable clubs. Al Merreikh have won the Sudanese league title 17 times since the club was founded in 1927, but that success hasnt been redirected into the facilities. An anaemic row of lights throws a depressing glare on the pallid green walls leading from the main reception and trophy store to the press-conference room. At the end of the corridor, a grubby door guards the toilets. Inside water seeps out

from cubicles in need of a thorough bleaching. There are no hand basins; taps set a couple of feet above a brick trough suffice. This is the dreary, reeking reality of the latter stages of what CAF promotes as one of its most important international football tournaments. Just a few hours before Tunisia outclassed Angola in the nal, the glitterati pumped out panegyrics about the event. Weve had lots of positive feedback on the tournament, said Mutasim Gafaar, the president of the Sudan Football Association. Its been a good showcase for Sudan to host other continental competitions. I hope everyone has seen how developed Sudan is from an economic point of view. The Fifa president Sepp Blatter was equally pleased. Africa has shown that it can organise a World Cup in 2010, a Confederations Cup in 2009, he said. The African Nations Championship shows that the infrastructure can be developed for bigger things. Their hubris was exposed at the subsequent double-header. Despite free entry, the 42,000 capacity stadium was barely half full for Sudans 1-0 win over Algeria in the third-place play-off. It wouldnt have been too much of a

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problem to stretch out during the nal either. The very evident gaps on the terraces ought to serve as a warning to the top brass to avoid premature tub-thumping, but bigwigs at football tournaments in Africa appear to see it as their duty to brandish zeitgeist concepts such as nation building and repositioning. Angola spent a couple of billion dollars constructing roads, arenas and airports for the 2010 African Cup of Nations. It was aesthetically impressive but some cash should have been directed into improving access to the stadiums and making the planes land on time (or, indeed, at all). Visitors, like local supporters, want tangibles. With no glory up for grabs, the Sudanese snubbed the chance to watch an array of unheralded foreigners play in a nal. Shorn of box office attractions like Didier Drogba, Michael Essien or Samuel Etoo, there was no allure in a match involving Cte dIvoire, Ghana or Cameroon. Tunisia were a slick outt and deserving winners, but even if youre a big name at Esprance, youre a nohoper in Omdurman. And its here where the competitions existential conundrum lies. CAFs president Issa Hayatou was visited by the muse six years ago. She told him to use his heft to sire an international tournament open only to African players operating in their home countries. With no stars and the attendant frenzy, she whispered, unsung heroes would get their moment in the limelight. The rst championship two years ago in Cte dIvoire was contested between eight teams. The Democratic Republic of Congo took the trophy and the entire

affair was deemed such a triumph that it was broadened to 16 teams in four groups for the 2011 event. We extended the competition to allow all the regions that comprise CAF to be represented in the tournament, said Hayatou in an interview with the Radio France Internationale journalist Eric Mamruth. Teams from some regions often dont make it into the last 16 of the African Cup of Nations so we wanted to make it a crucial component of the African Nations Championship to have all the continental regions included. That structural municence was repaid handsomely during the Sudan adventure. A few minutes after seeing South Africa snarled by a ribbon of Algerian passing patterns in the quarter-nal, their coach Simon Ngomane was sanguine. For the young boys to come to a tournament and reach the knockout stages, I can say its an achievement, he said. Were really proud that we came this far. The tournament will grow in leaps and bounds. This is the way Africa has to go. I say hats off to CAF for organising a tournament of this nature. It can only help football on the continent. The Cameroon forward Clevis Tambe Ashu was positive even after enduring a quarter-nal penalty shoot-out defeat to Angola. The experience Ive had here will motivate me to work harder for upcoming tournaments, said the 26 year old, who plays for the Coton Sport club in Garoua. Im disappointed to lose because I thought we could have gone on to lift the trophy. But Im going home to work harder. Such plaudits, on one level, vindicate Hayatous concept. In charge of CAF

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for 23 years, his mandate ends in 2013 and he revealed to Mamruth that hes thinking of stepping down. Its stressful and difficult, the 64-year-old Cameroonian admitted. In two years Ill have been head of CAF for 25 years and, with what I did in Cameroon before, Id have given 37 years of my life to football. Mamruths scoop became one of the main talking points at the conclusion of the championship. It could be a smokescreen to confound Hayatous potential successors but if the genesis of the tournament does emerge as one of Hayatous last commandments, then it would be a visionary legacy. There is, though, room for renement. Its thought that in the past ten years around ve hundred African players have left the continent to make their living abroad. Hayatou claims many of those who departed but who didnt make the grade have been drawn back to Africa because of the CHAN. Its been created for those who stayed to get a chance to shine, he said. Many have come back so they can get the chance to play in the competition. But if, for example, Clevis Tambe Ashu stays true to his post-match words, is diligent at his club Coton Sport FC de Garou but decamps to Europe or elsewhere for a decent payday, he wont be at the next tournament. The aws multiply. Is the competition about ring wanderlust or relaunching ambitions of those who didnt succeed in their rst sortie from home? The best thing for football in Africa is if the good players stay in their countries, Hayatou insisted. But I accept theres a dilemma for football on the continent. The reality is that if a player is good, he will improve

his levels abroad as well as his income. We cant stop him from leaving. The solution is to improve the domestic championships in Africa. Thats CAFs biggest mission, Mamruth believes. Championships in Africa are usually of a poor standard, he said. There are exceptions in South Africa and Tunisia. Algeria is starting to get a professional league but Egypt didnt even bother with the tournament. The Egyptian absence was as salient as it was logical. The Pharaohs have won the last three African Cups of Nations with teams consisting mostly of homebased players. Over the past six years, Egypt, their squad drawn largely from Al-Ahly and Zamalek, have destroyed teams boasting some of Africas most prestigious exports. For all the talk of quality encounters in Sudan, the Egyptians knew there was no kudos for them at the 2011 CHAN and there probably wont be any more glory when the show resurfaces in Libya in 2014. The snub is ironic as Egypt seems to embody everything CAF seemingly craves, even if the national team, their preparations disrupted by the uprising that ousted the president Hosni Mubarak, might fail to qualify for the 2012 Cup of Nations. But the lodestar would not descend, diminishing the lustre of the 2011 CHAN. That ultimately is unlikely to impede the CHAN becoming a xture in the African football calendar but it needs an unambiguous soul. Within two years it has become all things to all men. Mali regarded the competition as a way of preparing the Olympic team, said Mamruth. Other

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teams saw it as a way to condition the squad for African Cup of Nations qualiers. Hayatous idea of a shop window for players is evident. But the tournament is also something of a laboratory for some countries who want to experiment with youngsters who might, with the experience, push on to the rst XI. There was no need to addle the chemistry of the Tunisia team. Eight of the players were together at the African Cup of Nations in Angola in January 2010. Their problem in the prelude to Sudan was scant preparation, having had their league closed down for a few weeks while social turmoil ravaged the country. Their success came less than six weeks after President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali had been forced to stand down.

The squad only played one warmup match, against Morocco, before heading to their base in Port Sudan for the group stages. Tunisia had to prepare match by match, their coach Sami Trabelsi recalled in the glow of a 3-0 victory over Angola in the final. We came here with tears of sadness in our eyes because of what had happened at home but we leave here with tears of joy. Whether such emotion in itself validates the tournament is debatable, but in the city where the White and Blue Niles meet, the conuence of politics and football felt appropriate. Whatever happens to the CHAN in the future, in the creation myth of the new Tunisian state, the CHAN nal in Omdurman will forever have been its baptism.

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An Exile at Home

An Exile at Home
Vassilis Hatzipanagis, Greeces greatest player, explains why he never played a competitive game for his country
By Scott Anthony

On 22 June 1984, the New York Cosmos played a fund-raiser against a World All-Stars XI in a match that would dene their future. Warner Brothers had withdrawn nancial backing from the team and to survive the forthcoming season they needed big names to play in lucrative stadiumlling friendlies. They got Franz Beckenbauer and Mario Kempes. They got Dominique Rocheteau, Kevin Keegan and Johan Neeskens. They got Vassilis Hatzipanagis. Who was Hatzipanagis? What had he done to make the World XI? In terms of global fame, Hatzipanigis is not in the same sphere as many of his teammates in that friendly. He continues to hover on the edge of footballs consciousness, but last summer the Guardian posted footage of the Greek Pel as part of its weekly round-up of sporting videos. The response was phenomenal. A YouTube trickle of Hatzipanagis tributes became a deluge as clips from Greece, Australia and the States rapidly stitched together an audio-visual testament to a vibrant talent. In 1997 Paul McGuigan and Paolo Hewitt rehabilitated the career of Readings Robin Friday, labelling him the best player you never saw. But its far more likely (if less rock and roll) that the best player you never saw grew up outside of

the citadel of western European football in the middle of the 20th century. If videos posted on the internet tell even half the tale, then Hatzipanagis is a more than worthy challenger for that title. At a central square in Athens the tourist crowd bustles, the hustlers hustle and hordes of locals cluster around tables trying to make themselves heard above the general din. There is much bragging and bravado, but it takes just a few moments with Hatzipanagis to twig that you are in the presence of a certiably humble sporting legend. Hatzipanagis does not talk like a typical Greek. He does not talk like a typical ex-footballer. I believe in talent, he said. Talent is nothing without hard work but you need talent. My right leg was just for standing but in my left leg I had plenty of talent. And I worked hard. The story he goes on to tell is a stark reminder of the fact that while the 21st century media world may be global, uid and omniscient, the real world has been and still is a much less forgiving place. Vassilis Hatzipanagis was born in Tashkent on 26 October 1955. His father came from Cyprus, his mother from Istanbul. Pushed out of Asia Minor by war, his parents grew up as refugees in a Greece that lapsed into dictatorship during the 1930s, suffered

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Nazi occupation during the Second World War and then collapsed into civil war. Exiled to Uzbekistan in the Soviet Union, the experience of Hatzipanagiss parents mirrored that of an entire generation. By the time of Hatzipanagiss birth, the Greek community in Tashkent had grown to around 40,000. The sense of drift that dominates the story of his parents life, the sense of being a plaything of forces beyond their control, would ultimately seep in to Hatzipanagiss career. This is the story of a Greek footballer, perhaps the Greek footballer, who was unable ever to take the eld for Greece. Instead Hatzipanagis came of age on the fringes of the USSR squad that nished runners-up at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. After that his career fell into the hands of an unscrupulous Armenian mover and shaker. He was repatriated to Greece and became a near contractual slave at Iraklis, who have spent most of their history bobbing around in mid-table. Irakliss intransigence prevented him taking up offers from Arsenal, Lazio, Porto and Stuttgart. Yet over a 20year career Hatzipanagiss ability gave him a magnetic appeal drawing in fans of all stripes. People came from all across Greece to watch him play, wearing scarves that bore his name. Banned from playing for the national side and prevented from moving abroad or to one of Greeces big three, his reputation was secured by exhibitions such as the Cosmos game and sealed by the Greek public who voted him the nations greatest ever player for the Uefa jubilee in 2004, despite the fact that he had never played a competitive game for the national side.

Its an epic and bitter inter-generational story of a kind that The Angelpoulos would turn into a cinematic epic a story of exile and thwarted ambition that encompasses something of the broader history of post-war Greece. Weve become accustomed to seeing footballers as ciphers of their nation or national characteristics. As surely as Beckham is Blairs Britain, Hatzipanagis is pre-European Community Greece.

Tashkent in the 1960s proved to be an interesting incubator of Hatzipanagiss talent. The re-siting of factories eastwards during the war had brought large numbers of ethnic Russian and Ukrainians into Uzbekistan. This miniindustrial revolution had blown away much of the citys Silk Road past; an enormous earthquake in 1966 levelled much of the rest. The subsequent rebuilding project saw Uzbeks, Russians, Ukrainians and Cold War refugees attempt to rebuild it as a model hightech communist city. At the same time, the promising performance of the USSR at the 1966 World Cup prompted considerable investment in grassroots sporting facilities across the Soviet Union. By the late 1970s teams such as Zorya Voroshilovgrad, Ararat Yerevan, Dynamo Kyiv and Dinamo Tbilisi, as well as Pakhtakor Tashkent, were beneting from this. Hatzipanagiss talent was to be harnessed by the planned development of Soviet football at the periphery. Dinamo Tashkent, then a kind of feeder club of Dinamo Moscow, spotted me playing in the neighbourhood and tried to sign me, Hatzipanagis said, but the team of Pakhtakor had at the time the

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best youth football school so I signed for them. VD Saladiov, my footballing mentor, had guided Pakhtakor back into the Soviet Supreme League and he gave me my debut as a 17 year old against Shakhtar Donetsk. Over the next three seasons Saladiov eased Hatzipanagis into the rst team as Pakhtakor began to re-establish themselves in the Supreme League. Named the leagues second most valuable player (after Oleh Blokhin) in 1974 and 1975, Hatzipanagis was brought into the USSR national set up. His star was on the rise. Valentin Nikolayev called me into the Under-21 side when I was 18, he said, and I played in qualifying for the U-23 European championships before helping the Olympic team qualify for Montreal. From there I played for the national side. In 1975 I played in a tournament in Poland staged to celebrate liberation from the Germans. USSR won. And I got to play alongside Blokhin. What was the high point of being involved in the Soviet side? George Best! I was a young man playing for the U-21s and we were taken to Moscow to see this match between the USSR and Northern Ireland. And I saw him there. Here Hatzipanagis smiled. Look, talking about football it was a mistake to return to Greece. I prefer Greece for living but the level of club football was much lower than the Soviet Union. I played one exhibition game for the Greek national team against Poland and then I was banned from playing for Greece. The population of Russia was 300 million and only 16 clubs were in the Supreme League. Uzbekistan has a population of 18 million and had only one club in the Supreme League. It was a strong championship.

Hatzipanagis decided to return to Greece in 1975. It was a sentimental decision. The fall of the military junta had opened the door for his ageing parents to return home and Hatzipanagiss footballing ability made it possible if not exactly straightforward. In the Soviet Union of the 1970s professional footballers did not exist (Hatzipanagis was a worker-footballer supposedly employed elsewhere). Instead players applied for a move to the Sporting Technical Committee of the Football Federation whose job was to transfer talent through the lower leagues into the Supreme League for the benet of the national team. The catch for a homesick Hatzipanagis was that as he had no contract to speak of, and Pahktakor Tashkent had no rights over him, no foreign team could buy him. When Olympiakos made an approach to sign Hatzipanagis, for example, the deal was rejected on the grounds that Soviet players were not property and could not be traded. Instead, Hatzipanagis was told to resign his Soviet citizenship and apply for repatriation. But even this was problematic. The tumultuous events of the early 20th century had shunted his family around the Near East in such a way as to leave a grandparent in Salonika as familial connection to modern Greece. If he was to return his ancestral homeland, he needed to strike a deal with a team from Salonika. At the age of 20, what seemed like an escape route to his second and nal club, Iraklis, was about to open up. My move was organised by an Armenian in Moscow, Makatetsian, who turned out to be as devious as he sounds, Hatzipanagis sighed. He organised

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everything beautifully. First he told me to let go of the Soviet nationality [in the Soviet league you couldnt play without taking the nationality]. Then I signed for two years. In Greek legislation then there was a small window in the law that meant they could, unilaterally and without even asking me about it, renew my contract every year for the next 10 years. Hatzipanagis was trapped. With Uefa I couldnt do anything. If Id still had Soviet nationality, the Soviet embassy could have interfered. But the Armenian had me abandon it so all I could do was take Iraklis to court. And thats how I spent 1977 in the courts. I was like [JeanMarc] Bosman, except unlike Bosman I continued to play for the rst team even as their lawyers were ghting against me. Like Bosman, Hatzipanagis won; like Bosman, his victory did him little good personally. The district court ruled that you couldnt keep any labourer or athlete for over ve years, he said. But as you can imagine, Iraklis pulled strings and won at the Court of Appeal. I could do nothing else. The only positive was that the Greek Association of Professional Footballers, which was founded in 1979, saw the injustice of my ruling and pursued it. By the mid-1980s the law had changed. So at least I fought for my colleagues. In 1977, a troublesome knee saw Hatzipanagis sent to London for treatment. My godfather had emigrated to London in 1961, Hatzipanagis explained. He was a Cypriot and an Arsenal fan as all Cypriots are. He introduced me to Fred Street, the physio at Arsenal. As part of my rehabilitation I got to train alongside [Pat] Jennings, [Graeme] Rix, [Liam] Brady, [Malcolm]

MacDonald and [Alan] Hudson. They gave me the nickname Aristotle. Then they found out I had played in the USSR and they got interested. But Iraklis wouldnt even listen to their approach. Whats frustrating is my dad tried to move to London in 1963 but my mum didnt want to go. Imagine what things would have been like if I had got there as a nine year old? Who can imagine what my career would have been like if I had grown up in England? Iraklis had good reasons for resisting Arsenals approach. They were as much a one-man band as Diego Maradonas Napoli. Like Maradona, Hatzipanagis was a small but stout midelder; the style of both players had developed out of their physical build. They shared a low centre of gravity that encouraged and exacerbated the impact of their feints, twists and shimmies. Like all great athletes, their performances appeared unnervingly effortless. Of course, Maradona was a more complete player. Hatzipanagis, as he freely admits, was even more one-footed than the Argentinian, albeit one who could craft discrete passages of play in a way that is all but impossible today. An artisan as much as an athlete, his performances for Iraklis channelled the same sort of spirit as Matt Le Tissier, Kevin Sheedy and Zindine Zidane. Hatzipanagis scored twice and helped set up the other two as Iraklis beat Olympiakos in the 1976 Greek Cup nal, a remarkable game that nished 4-4 before being settled on penalties. He inspired them to a best ever thirdplace league nish in 1983 and helped them secure the Balkan Cup in 1985. Among his countless assists he also

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set the record for goals scored directly from corners six. The club understood perfectly well that their golden age would last only as long as Hatzipanagis played. The lopsided contractual situation in Greece enabled them to hold on to their star player until the end of his career and the lengths to which they were prepared to stretch to keep hold of Hatzipanagis were extraordinary. In 1981, Iraklis were relegated following accusations that they had bribed opponents. Hatzipanagis refused to play in the second tier of Greek football and spent the next 18 months on unpaid leave, training with VfB Stuttgart in Germany. Stuttgart tried to sign him but, like Olympiakos, AEK, Arsenal, Lazio, Porto and Dinamo Moscow, they were knocked back. Iraklis refused to transfer his registration and so in order to resume playing he had to return to Greece. In this instance the phrase, theres no point in keeping a player who doesnt want to be here, takes on an almost cosmic level of glibness. When Iraklis rejected a 90 million drachma [1.85million, an unthinkable sum in the Greece of the 1980s] offer for Hatzipanagis from Yiorgos Vardinogiannis, the shipping magnate and then owner of Panathinaikos, Hatzipanagis resigned himself to nishing his career in Salonika. Hatzipanagis had grown up ignorant of Western contracts and he paid a heavy price for it. In his best-selling book, The Misfortune of Being Greek, Nikos Dimou argued that while Greek society had modernised technologically since gaining independence in the 19th Century, a corresponding civic transformation had never taken place. As a result modern

Greece developed into a chaotic mixture of modern capitalism and neo-feudalism. This is an insight that helps explain some of the particularities of Greek football. While some of the drawbacks (and advantages) of Englands deep-rooted economic liberalism are dramatically illustrated by the foreign ownership of the nations leading sides, the contours of Greeces economic efdoms reveal themselves in the governance of the nations football teams. Even to this day, its not unusual to see the post-match interview conducted by the owner of a club, or the chairman, rather than the manager. Last season Panathinaikos won the double and reached the last 16 of the Europa League but they changed their manager three times. In the 1980s, before the partial Europeanisation of the Greek league, the refusal of Iraklis to sell Hatzipanagis was as much a statement about the standing of Nikolaos Atmatzidis, the clubs powerful owner, as it was about what happened on the football eld. When I stopped playing in 1991, all the laws started, Hatzipanagis said. I wish Id been born 15 years later. With the freedom of contract that players have now, I wouldnt even be in Greece. He would have left Greece despite the steady progress made by the league? Look, the contracts have changed, the facilities are better but the level is still the same, he said. And now we have too many second-rate foreign players coming here. I believe every team should have ve or six Greek players otherwise we wont have a national team in the future.[Ioannis] Fetfatzidis, [Sotiris] Ninis, [Kostas] Mitroglou, [Kostas] Manolas and that guy from AEK whos

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at Milan [Sokratis Papastathopoulos] have quality but its a thin basis for a successful national side. This goes for other countries too by the way. Today in Arsenal they have many foreigners, and thats partly why the national team of England is not that good. What continually comes over is that, for all his peripatetic upbringing, Hatzipanagis denes himself by his ethnicity. Hatzipanagis had a difficult career. He was unable fully to develop his talent. He was not as materially successful as he might have been. He has every reason to be bitter. He is right to be bitter. But its his lack of Greek caps that demonstrably moves him most. The greatest injustice was that I didnt play for the national team, he said. That was the biggest injustice and everybody and every Greek says that. Even the Greeks abroad. The biggest injustice of all. Fifa banned me because I had played for the USSR and there was a law back then that if you played for one national team you could not play for another. I personally think that I could have played but the Hellenic Football Federation didnt handle it well. When I spoke to Valentin Granatkin, the Russian vice-president of Fifa, he told me that it was not their fault and that they would support an appeal, but the appeal never happened. What could I do?

Now, for the rst time, there comes across, more modestly expressed than can be translated into English, a tangible outpouring of sadness. British journalists have long bemoaned the absence of the likes of George Best and Ryan Giggs from the World Cup. Hatzipanagis simply wishes he could have been as unfortunate as them. My big complaint is that I am entirely Greek ( ) and its the biggest injustice and bitterness that I havent played for the national team. Its like they cut off my career. I wanted very much to play for the national team of Greece, but Greece didnt do anything about it. And thats why every Greek says that Hatzipanagis is the most wronged player. Thats how Id like you to end the interview. We should clarify that as a Greek I wanted very much to play for Greece. Im grateful to the USSR and to the people of Tashkent, but I am a patriot. I have Greek blood in my veins. I am Greek and I wanted to play for the national team and I didnt. This article could not have been written without the assistance of Andreas Skafidas of Athens 98.4FM. Many thanks also to Nadi Kapou and Evy Noula. Rob Smyth, Luke Heeley and Dr Mark Smith read and helped improve an earlier draft.

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Port in a Storm

Port in a Storm
The extraordinary success of the academy at Le Havre
By Ben Lyttleton

No-one can do outraged in French football quite like Jean-Pierre Louvel. The Le Havre president is used to seeing the best players from his clubs youth academy leave for bigger sides, but that does not stop him hitting out at the predators, as he has called them, who circle his talented crop. But Louvel plays a clever game. He needs those predators as much as they need him, or at least, his players. Le Havre Athletic Club, known as HAC, is Frances oldest football club and it can also claim to be one of its most successful in bringing through young talent. An XI of those who have passed through its academy could read like this: Steve Mandanda, Charles NZogbia, Souleymane Diawara, Jean-Alain Boumsong, Pascal Chimbonda, Lassana Diarra, Didier Digard, Vikash Dhorasoo, Anthony Le Tallec, Mamadou Niang, and Florent Sinama-Pongolle. Louvel has been HAC president for 11 years and before that he was head of its youth academy. One of his rst acts as president was to oversee the building of a new academy trainingcentre, La Cave Verte (Philosophy: to produce responsible citizens and talented footballers), which is among the best in France. He quickly identied that the academy would be the key to HACs future survival, and its success

is as much a business one as a football one. Our training system is the most important thing because its based on the education of an individual by a team of coaches who all share the same values, Louvel said. There are certain socio-economic and geographical factors that help him: Le Havre is a traditional working-class port town with a large immigrant population, where kids are out every day, kicking a ball around until nightfall. In 1999, it had an unemployment rate of nearly 29 per cent, although following a regeneration project, that gure is now closer to 20 per cent. The district of Caucriauville, packed with high-rise estates, is a particularly rich area for talent: in recent years, it has produced eight international players. Julien Faubert, once of Bordeaux and briey, Real Madrid, grew up there alongside Niang and Diawara, while his current West Ham teammate Demba Ba joined them as a teenager (though did not make it to the academy). There were no job opportunities in the area when we were kids, and there was nothing else to do but play football, Faubert said. Le Havre is full of ghettos and all the kids want to do there is survive. Everyone is just trying to save their lives, and if they can save their parents, their families, on the way, then they go for it. All we did was play football in the hope that we

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would make it. Education was not taken seriously, so the other option was to take the wrong path in life. I did not do that, but I know others that did. Louvel decided to make Le Havres location its strength rather than a weakness, but his real masterstroke was to appoint Jean-Marc Nobilo to head the academy. When he returned to Normandy in 2003, Nobilo was a journeyman coach with sporting directorships with the Mauritius and Lebanon national teams on his CV. Louvel had worked with him when he was HACs reserve coach in 1996. In his rst spell at the club, Nobilo coached Diawara, Chimbonda and Boumsong. I pushed them through with my vision and with my hard work, he said, and Ive made the club a bit of money on the way. The rst thing Nobilo did in his more recent period at the club was to foster a close relationship with Caucriauvilles three local teams, Frileuse, HCS and Municipaux. The best players from all three teams are offered training sessions with HAC between official matches for their club. When the time comes for them to move on, HAC are in prime position to sign them. One academy employee remembers losing a Frileuse player to another French team, but before he could complain, Louvel reminded him that the long-term partnership with all three clubs was much more important than losing one player. Some of the players Nobilo brought through are now emerging as key talents in Ligue 1. I can talk about Jean-Armel Kana-Biyik, now at Rennes, or I can talk about Kvin Anin who is at Sochaux, he said. I plucked Amadou Alassane from

Quartier des Neiges, The Snow District, in Le Havre, a really tough area, but unfortunately he had to retire two years ago with a heart problem [which only emerged before he was about to sign a contract with Celtic]. I have found four or ve very good players in the tough areas, including Gueda Fofana: he was training with me when he was very young. Fofana, who is 19, is still at Le Havre. He captained France Under-19s when they won the European Championship last summer, and is seen as the next jewel in the clubs crown. The Aston Villa coach Grard Houllier wanted to buy him in January but the move broke down. Nobilo also instigated a scouting policy that took in two other regions: one, anywhere within 200 kilometres of the club, which extended as far as Paris; and the other, due to his links from his previous job with Mauritius, on the nearby island of Runion, where he personally discovered Sinama-Pongolle and Hoarau. The Arsenal coach Arsne Wenger has described scouting as the biggest teacher of humility there is in football. He told the Leaders in Football conference last year that he still makes wrong calls on certain players, but he does know what he wants from his young players. I want to detect motivation and intelligence, those are the key attributes, but its difficult to predict how a player who is 13 or 14 will later react in a dressing-room, among top-level competition, where there are personalities, real men, all competing for a place, Wenger said. I look at his natural development up to the age of 21, and after that, I need 20 minutes with him

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to make up my mind. Wenger employs Jacques Crevoisier to run psychological tests on his young players twice a year to evaluate their progression. Nobilo set up a similar evaluation system, which he calls The Player Scanner. Its a complete programme which allows you to monitor each player technically, tactically, athletically, attitude-wise, psychologically, he explained. It helps that he and his team have the talent to spot decent a player at 13 or 14 and, crucially, build up strong relationships with that players family. There is the odd exception, though. When Manchester United signed Paul Pogba, then 16, in summer 2009, the club published a story on its website headlined: United steal Pogba from HAC. Louvel went into overdrive, hitting out at those robbers from England. What is the point of investing in an academy if the players leave at 16? And we are not the only club who have had players stolen, his managing director, Alain Belsoeur, complained in the Times. Except Louvel had slipped up. Pogba had signed a non-solicitation contract with HAC, a contract that only protects HAC from other French clubs, not foreign ones. And because of HACs own budgetary restraints, Pogba had not been offered another contract by the club. Le Havre didnt take care of my son, Pogbas mother Yeo told France Football. When Paul went to play a tournament with the team, we asked the club afterwards to arrange school lessons for him. But they didnt care. We felt that they didnt believe in him. They offered other players of the same age contracts, but nothing to Paul. The trust was broken.

Louvel complained to Fifa, who found in favour of United. It was not the rst time Louvel had made such a complaint, although in the past, he has been more successful. Fifa awarded HAC 300,000 in compensation when ruling that NZogbia had broken his contract by joining Newcastle in 2004, but three years and an appeal later, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled they were due another 900,000. We still only received less than a quarter of what Newcastle got from Wigan when they sold him, said Belsoeur. Matthias Lepiller is another who slipped through the net: a former France Under17 international, he made his HAC debut aged 16 but, at 18, he moved to Fiorentina. After another Fifa case, the Italians were made to pay 600,000 in compensation. For all the noise HAC have made in these cases, the bottom line is purely business. They are not mourning the loss of the players, but the loss of revenue. It is a far cry from the situation at, say, Nantes, who produced an incredible generation of players that included Didier Deschamps, Christian Karembeu, Claude Makll, Nicolas Oudec, Patrice Loko and Marcel Desailly: but every time each player left, it was seen as a tragedy. So it is ironic that the new head of Nantess academy, Guy Hillion, has in the past accused Louvel of trying to cash in on his young stars. French clubs try to picture themselves as the innocent victims of the system, but this is false, Hillion told France Football after the Pogba scandal broke. Its all a question of money. A few weeks ago, I got a phone call from an agent working for Louvel, to ask me if I was interested in

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their best young player. They wanted a lot of money for him. At that price, he had no moral problem at all with letting a youngster go to England. That player was Fofana and the fee 4m (which is more than Villa offered for him). HACs natural level is somewhere between the bottom of Ligue 1 and the top of Ligue 2, but the only chance they had of keeping Fofana beyond the summer was to have won promotion to Ligue 1. If HAC can establish themselves in the rst division, they can develop players and keep them for their club, said Nobilo. But theres the problem. If HAC stay in the second division, they will always develop players for other clubs. Thats why this summer, having failed to win promotion, promises to be a twitchy period for Louvel. He has persuaded the local council to help fund a 25,000seater stadium, which is scheduled to open in time for next season (although it has its critics, who claim that the current home, Deschaseaux, only ever reaches its 16,000-capacity when big clubs are

visiting). Our biggest challenge was to convince our local authorities that they needed to build a new stadium, and now it is to make sure the club are in Ligue 1, said the president. Selling is not the objective here. Unfortunately, selling to survive is what we need to do before we move into the new stadium, which will bring more income to the club. Even if HAC establish themselves in the top ight, it is inevitable that Fofana will leave soon. But after him there will be another star of the future, and then another. Nobilo is now technical director of Cte dIvoires national teams: his legacy to HAC is not just the players he has spotted, but the system he has put in place. The Player Scanner is still there, and I have left a concept and a methodology with competent guys to manage it, he said. As long as the foundations are still in place, it cant crumble like a house of cards. Especially when Louvel is there, overseeing things and negotiating hard for the best deals he can possibly get.

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Marsh Attacks

Marsh Attacks
How a Sunday League team gives Londons Romanians a sense of identity
By Simon Hooper

The next time there is a debate over the merits of technology in football, spare a thought for the referees of Hackney Marshes. Every Sunday morning, these unsung anti-heroes of the grass roots game turn out in the traditional black of their trade to run the gauntlet of ridicule and abuse in every language that multicultural London has to offer, from Albanian to Yoruba. Forget about linesmen; down here youre on your own. No matter that youre 30 yards behind the action, struggling to run off a Saturday night hangover and that youd need better eyesight than Superman to make a marginal offside call from this distance. Get it right and no one will thank you. Get it wrong and youre surrounded by Colombians casting aspersions on your mothers virtue in staccato Spanish. Not that Johnnie Walker would have it any other way. Personally Im totally against technology, says the chairman of the Hackney and Leyton Sunday Football League. You wont stop em arguing. Ive always said, if you cant use it over the marshes why should it be any different in the Premier League? In a corner of the car park on the East Marsh, Walker is arbiter and pacier when disagreements boil over, patiently defusing the ashpoints of the morning with seen-it-all-before wit and humour.

Walker has been living and breathing football on the marshes since a 1940s childhood spent roaming the adventure playground of the bombed-out East End. The only time I was ever scared was when I saw all of London lit up after an incendiary attack, he says. It looked like the whole place was on re. He points to the pitches, goalposts stretching into the distance until they are the size of matchsticks. They buried the rubble from the Blitz under there. It created wonderful drainage. Still, even Walker, with all his experience, must be awed as a brooding Antoniu Mieroi storms towards him and unleashes a thundering, gesticulating tantrum that warms the air on a nger-numbing January morning. Back in Romania, Mieroi played professionally for nine years with Politehnica Timioara and Juventus Bucharest. As a junior international, his career promised even more until a double leg break at the age of 16. He surely never imagined his playing days would end on the lumpen pitches of East London, but Antoniu, now 37, doesnt like losing any more than when he was kicking a ball for a living. I cant take it with these referees anymore! he rants. Every week, always with us! Im not coming back! A top-of-the-table clash between Mierois premier division-leading Real Romania

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and Lapton has just ended in acrimonious chaos with Real on the wrong end of a 3-1 scoreline. Lapton younger, faster and playing up to their billing as champions have been dominant but the balance has only decisively turned late in the game. First, the referee waves play on as Laptons centre-forward breaks through on goal from what seems an offside position. A defender grabs his shirt somewhere near but not conclusively inside the penalty area. The referee points to the spot. Crowded by incensed Real players, he brandishes his red card defensively, before pocketing it unused. The penalty puts Lapton 2-1 in front and, with their opponents sulking, they race straight through and score again. But theres more controversy to come. In the dying seconds, Real think theyve scored; this time, though, the referee has spotted an offside. Nobody, least of all the official, can know for sure if hes got it right, but its a moot point. Antoniu marches off in the direction of Johnnie Walker. Clusters of players are arguing all over the pitch. Its not clear whether the nal whistle has been blown but the game is over by consensus. Those Romanians, they do moan, chuckles Walker when everyone has calmed down. I thought they were well beaten. Still, they had an excuse with the penalty because we were in line and he was about seven yards offside. Of course, I ribbed the referee about it. Dont you give offsides? I said. Real Romania are not your typical Sunday league football team. Antoniu, when hes not ranting about the failings of referees and threatening to quit, tells stories of playing alongside the likes of Marius Lctu, the bowl-haircutted striker once

coveted by playground collectors of Italia 90 Panini stickers, Ilie Dumitrescu and Iosif Rotariu. He marked Maradona at the World Cup, Antoniu reminds me. Very good player, like Makll. You dont see them many times in the match but they control the game. Is there another player in Sunday football, I wonder, who can boast of two degrees of separation from the Hand of God? At 38, Luci Dominc admits his legs have gone, but in his day, the midelder proudly tells me, he played for Vrancart Adjud, a lower-league side who took Steaua Bucharest to penalties in the last 16 of the Romanian Cup in 1993. Vrancart were two goals up in the shootout before collapsing to a 3-2 defeat. Something happened and I dont want to talk about it, mutters Luci, shaking his head darkly. It was Steaua... We were not supposed to win, if you know what I mean. Twenty years Lucis junior, Sebi Drlea still has professional ambitions. Growing up in Portugal, he played for Sportings junior sides until he was 16. Since coming to London, hes trained with Chelseas academy and is coached by the former Soviet international Sergei Baltacha. With his sure control and instinct for two-touch pass and move, Sebi displays the possession-minded virtues of the aspiring modern player, seeking an approving nod from a watching scout. For now though, hes down on the marshes learning to play with the big boys, as Reals player-manager and founder Liviu Lazr puts it between trials with teams in Belgium, Holland and the MLS. Given the calibre of some of their players, its hardly surprising that Real

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have established themselves as one of the teams to beat on the marshes. After joining the rst division in 2008, they secured promotion straightaway to the premier division as well as reaching two cup nals. Last year they nished second, behind Lapton, and won their rst silverware, the Arthur Daniels Senior Cup. Liviu, who played semi-professionally at the same time as paratrooping for a living in the Romanian army, now has the premier division title in his sights. Were just trying to achieve something good for the Romanian community, he says. This is one of the oldest leagues in England and we want to be a part of that history. Until recently most of Reals players would have been wary of admitting let alone drawing attention to their nationality for fear of an immigration officer rather than a referee taking their name on a Sunday morning. Those who came to the UK before Romanias entry into the European Union in 2007 mostly did so illegally using fake passports. Sometimes we were Italians, we were from Greece, we were from Portugal, from France, from Spain, recalls Liviu, who arrived in London in 2002. Many ended up as cheap labour on building sites. Working long hours for low wages, risking deportation and often sending every spare pound home to families, kickarounds in Londons parks provided a distraction as well as a social network for a community still putting down roots. Any time a new bloke came looking for work or somewhere to live, the other guys would help him because it was the same for them when they arrived, Liviu explains. Youd hear guys on the building sites talking in Romanian. We play in this park, we play in that park... so Real Romania started from there.

There are plenty of hard men in Sunday football, but Liviu is not obviously one of them. Thoughtful and articulate, he speaks in softly accented English. Even on the pitch, although a centreback, he plays with the composure of a continental libero, his brain now working harder than his 38-year-old legs. Matters of tactics and motivation are left to Antoniu, his more forceful and temperamental lieutenant. In a team with more than its share of players who could pick a ght with a corner ag, Liviu brings some much-needed sang-froid, a temperament perhaps born of necessity during stints as a peacekeeper in Bosnia and Angola, as well as on the streets of revolutionary Romania. Liviu was two months into military school in December 1989 when Nicolae Ceauescu was toppled from power in the bloodiest of that years eastern European uprisings against communist rule. Sibiu, the city where he was based, was the scene of erce ghting when gunmen loyal to the regime red on protesters as they gathered outside the headquarters of Ceauescus hated secret police, the Securitate. Livius barracks across the street also came under attack and the soldiers returned re. I was 18 years old and I was scared, Liviu says. It was crazy. Wed seen movies like Rambo and stuff like that and for a while it was commando time. We were shooting at everything. But I was a kid and any second you can be dead. I had colleagues who were killed. More than two decades on, Romania has fallen a long way short of becoming the country that Liviu and his comrades must have dreamed they were ghting for. Under Ceauescu, Liviu says,

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everybody had an apartment and a job, the schools were good and you could take holidays on the Black Sea or in the mountains. Nowadays, Romania ranks among the poorest and most corrupt nations in the European Union with rising unemployment and an ailing economy kept aoat by IMF aid. For many young Romanians, the greatest freedom bestowed on them by the end of communism has been the freedom to leave. Since 1989 Romanias population has shrunk by almost two million and the country continues to lose hundreds of thousands of people each year. Romania is a sad country now, says Liviu. I went home in 2009 for the rst time since I left and there was a pothole in the exact place I remembered it 10 years ago. Nobody had xed it and nothing had changed. Everything is worse there now. For Livius two young sons, London is the only home theyve ever known. The oldest one is six and he speaks Romanian quite badly. Im always saying to him, Dont spell it like that, and correcting his grammar. But its alright; there are better opportunities for him here. Maybe hell go to an English university and then you can do anything with your life. While the current generation of migrants can now live legally in the UK with their wives and families and few display any desire to return home; Were English now, only with funny accents, Luci jokes working conditions for many remain as tough as ever. Liviu installs kitchens and bathrooms, regularly works 12-hour days, six days a week, yet by the standards of some of his teammates he has a comfortable life. Most of his players work on building sites part of an estimated 11,000 Romanians earning a living in the British construction

industry and are self-employed to circumvent restrictions on the number of workers from Romania and Bulgaria which companies can employ. While that allows them to work here, it means they do so without the rights, protections and benets enjoyed by permanent employees. Because of this, as an industry watchdog pointed out last year, migrant workers are far less likely to complain about unsafe conditions and far more likely to be the victims of accidents. While I was following Real, one of their young players, Alex Vaduva, was sidelined after stepping on a nail that penetrated three inches into his foot. Alex was back at work the next morning, but he missed football for a month. Life at the sharp end of the UKs immigration debate can be unpleasant too; spend too much time reading rightwing newspapers and you could easily form an impression of Romanians as a benet-scrounging criminal underclass. Sometimes you get abuse on the building sites. Sometimes at football, Liviu says. Fuck off back to your country, fucking immigrants!, fucking gypsies, all of that stuff. Once we had some problems with an Irish team and I told them, Youre exactly like me! You came here working for money! As a migrant, you quickly learn to develop a thick skin. Everyone is blaming us but its not our fault, said Luci. Its your system. We just came here for a better life. I dont nick, I dont steal, I dont break bones or nothing. Im just working for my family. Its as simple as that. Having grown up in Clerkenwells Little Italy as the grandson of Italian migrants, Johnnie Walker has seen it all before. Football on the marshes has

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always reected Londons changing demographics, as well as the capitals social problems, he says. My team MG Sports well, the MG stood for Mazzini-Garibaldi but you cant have a mouthful like that can you? Youre gonna get some tackles. We got called all the names under the sun so I know what these boys like the Romanians have to put up with. Its nothing new; I tell them that when they think theyre being persecuted. They called us Italian bastards and we survived. Sooner or later they all get into the swing of it.

It is another bleak morning, one week after the Lapton match, and a chill wind swirls over the marshes. Reals opponents today are Independiente, an all-Colombian side. The South Americans turn up late and shuffle lethargically onto the pitch padded in woolly hats, leggings and gloves, looking like theyd rather be in Cartagena. Real have soon built a comfortable lead with Antoniu choreographing the teams attacks with an array of angled passes, the archetypal mideld general. By the second half, with Independiente looking increasingly ragged and Real starting to lose their concentration, the game has deteriorated into a succession of niggly tackles and Latin handbags. When Reals sixth goal goes in from an offside position the Colombians implode, swarming angrily around the referee. There is some half-hearted shoving before the official picks up the ball and walks off, abandoning the match with 20 minutes to go. It was easy today, says a more contented Antoniu afterwards. When

they had the ball they just tried to do some skills to show you how good they were, but they didnt play as a team. I tell him that the game reminded me of Romanias 3-1 win over Colombia in 1994 one of my favourite World Cup matches and of Gheorghe Hagis stunning strike from 40 yards that ranks among the tournaments all-time great goals. Some people said Hagi did that by mistake. But I saw Hagi play in Romania when he was young 17 or 18 and he scored that goal three or four times, Antoniu says, drawing on a roll-up cigarette as he peels off his shinpads. We say in Romania, when Hagi kicked the ball you could put a glass of water on it and he wouldnt spill a drop. He was a genius. Romania could do with a genius today. If the countrys economic future looks grim, then the prospects for Romanian football, once so vibrant, appear equally bleak. For all its social and political ills and despite the endemic matchxing and allegations of drug-taking which tainted the era communism raised the status of Romanian football; Steaua Bucharest were briey one of Europes great clubs, beating Barcelona to win the European Cup in 1986, as well as reaching another nal and a semi-nal. The 1994 World Cup, when Hagi led the last generation to emerge from the communist system to within Dan Petrescus missed penalty of the semi-nal, was the national teams nest hour, but Romania regularly reached the knockout stages of tournaments until Euro 2000, as England fans will painfully recall. Yet the present generation nished fth in their group in their last World Cup qualifying campaign. With the team struggling to qualify for the Euro 2012

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nals, its safe to assume that border guards along Romanias frontier with Ukraine are in for a quiet summer. Liviu blames the same talent drain that drives young, educated and ambitious Romanians west for the countrys declining football fortunes. You need to keep the young players in Romania, getting the games and the experience just playing and playing. But now the agent is taking them to Italy and Spain at 18 or 19 and theyre not getting a game. Once theyre sitting on a subs bench youve lost them. Theyre selling the young people its modern slavery. Real Romania, at least, are ying the ag for their countrys footballing pedigree with more success than their professional counterparts. A 2-1 revenge win over Lapton at the beginning of April, followed by a 6-4 victory over their nearest challengers FC Metwin, sets them up to clinch the title, inevitably yet anticlimactically, by that classic Sunday league scoreline: a walkover in their nal xture of the season against phantom opponents

Woodgrange Rovers, a team who havent turned up for a game since 9 January. Already twice the age of some of the teenagers running around them on a weekly basis, Romanias senior players were probably grateful for the morning off. Every summer, I say Im not going to do that again, says Liviu with the resignation of someone who knows, despite the aches and strains, hell be back in training come August, especially with a title defence to be plotted. Because I miss my family on a Sunday. You spend a lot of time on the phone to the players, sorting out injuries or nding them work. As for Luci, retiring gracefully, he concedes, is not an option: Ill turn up one day and just embarrass myself in front of these kids. But Im still mad to play; I play Tuesdays ve-a-side, Fridays we have training, Saturdays seven-a-side and Sundays here. I work half-seven to ve oclock, even Saturday. My family sees me at night when I am in bed, but they understand me, thank God for that. Ive got football in my blood, you know. I cant give it up.

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Denmark 92
The higher up a monkey climbs, the more you can see of its arse.

Once Upon a Time...

Once Upon a Time...

The fairy story of Denmarks 1992 European Championship campaign
By Dave Farrar

Du Skal Ikke Tro At Du Er Noget The first commandment of Janteloven, a pattern of group behaviour identified by the DanishNorwegian writer Aksel Sandemose in his 1933 novel A Fugitive Crosses his Tracks as typical of Scandinavia. It is characterised by a negative attitude towards individuality and success: Dont think that you are anyone.

Once upon a time, not too long ago, the clocks stopped in Copenhagen. For a fraction of a second, every pair of eyes from Skagen to Svendborg xed on the right boot of a short, bushyhaired midelder. Normal never got more normal than John Jensen, and yet at 8.34 pm on 26 June 1992 at the Ullevi Stadium in Gothenburg, he stared at the spot on which every Dane was concentrating. Look down on your boots, nowhere else, just down on your boots, his coach had told him over and over. As Arsenal fans would later discover, Jensen had a habit of blazing the ball over the crossbar from wherever on the pitch he happened to be shooting, but this time he looked down at his laces and threw his boot at the ball. It ew, how it ew, and every jaw in every bar, every front room, dropped as it rose towards the top corner

of the net. The German goalkeeper Bodo Illgner was rooted, the great, the seemingly impassable defenders Thomas Helmer, Jrgen Kohler and Guido Buchwald watched it y. The open Danish mouths a few hundred miles away across the Kattegat and the Skaggerak roared together in a hysterical crescendo, and the six-week journey that stretched from a phone call to a nal suddenly looked like it could have a happy ending. A group of Danish fans persuaded the captain of a ight from Oslo to Copenhagen to reroute and y over the Ullevi to join in the celebrations. The country regularly described as the happiest in Europe had tapped into a higher state of ecstasy. Once upon another time, ve months before that Ullevi moment, in the spring of 1992, Richard Mller Nielsen and his wife decided that they needed a new kitchen. The patterned blue-and-yellow wallpaper had been ruined by the sun, those spring mornings werent so bright anymore and a summer change of colour seemed to be the only answer. The reason that the Mller Nielsens were hesitant was that Richards Danish football team still had a chance of qualifying for the summers European Championship. If they won their nal game against Northern Ireland and the group leaders Yugoslavia lost or drew in

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Austria, then, provided that the goaldifference stars were aligned, Denmark would make the short trip to Sweden that summer and there would be no time for wallpapering. And yet the sprit in the Danish side was not good and Mller Nielsen didnt feel deep down that things would go in their favour. He and his wife began discussing kitchen designs. Mller Nielsens time in charge of the national side had been both turbulent and occasionally bizarre. If Denmark didnt make it, then his spiky nature, odd decision-making and lack of friends in the media meant that he was almost certain to get the sack. He had been assistant coach under the popular and successful Sepp Piontek and had suffered by comparison. The biggest controversy of his three-year reign concerned the player who, with a polite nod to Peter Schmeichel and Allen Simonsen, is regarded as the greatest that Denmark has ever produced. Michael Laudrup played for both Real Madrid and Barcelona and, even when his legs started to betray him, he could pass the ball through the mideld and read the game like nobody else of his generation. He infuriated with his tendency to drift in and out of games and sometimes to look like everything came too easily, but then he would do something no one else could and you would forgive him in a heartbeat. Laudrup was the stimulus of the stupendous and perhaps naive Danish Dynamite team of the World Cup in 1986, the one that brushed aside Uruguay 6-1 with a display of the new football pass, move and walk the ball in and then lost 5-1 to Spain after being a goal up. Belief had been allowed to build, perhaps a mite too hysterically,

and it was extinguished without even a glimmer of deance. Having opped in 1988, Denmark seemed dispirited, a spent footballing force, as if 1984 and 1986 had been their best chances of winning anything, and their attempt to make an impact at the 1990 World Cup was hamstrung by the memories of the golden generation. After sitting on the bench and watching that performance in Mexico, and the subsequent dissolution of ambition, Mller Nielsen was determined that his team would never fold like the 86 side. He had been a great admirer of Piontek, and yet he felt that once too often he had seen the team play fancy football and end up on the losing side. His team would show more steel. He introduced a more pragmatic way of playing, one that wasnt designed to endear himself to fans and neutrals, but one that he was convinced was a route to success in the European Championship nals in 1992. The golden boy Michael Laudrup hated it, railed against it, begged Mller Nielsen to change his mind and then used his inuence to try and put pressure on the coach. He was the star, he had a voice, and he was sure that he would be listened to ahead of this simple man, this stultifying thinker. That calculated judgement call turned out to be a political disaster. If Mller Nielsen had dropped Laudrup from the squad because of his attitude, then a national wailing and gnashing of teeth would have ensued. In the end, though, Michael Laudrup walked away from his international football career because he could not, would not play a certain way. The coach didnt have a decision to make, and the Danes shrugged

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their shoulders and mumbled about Laudrups arrogance. The higher up a monkey climbs, the Danish saying goes, the more you can see of its arse. No matter how good you are, Denmark is not a country in which to aunt it. Not everybody in Scandinavia follows the Janteloven, but it is useful shorthand when looking at the prevailing attitude to success. Repeat 100 times: Dont think that you are anyone. Both Laudrup and Mller Nielsen are difficult men to like and can be wilful and stubborn. The clash between them has often been described as being purely egotistical, but you feel a stubborn sense of sadness and regret on both sides of this story and it may be that their falling out was born of a fundamental difference of footballing ideology: a clash between a player in love with his idea of the game and a coach who was sick and tired of looking good and losing. The sharpest irony of 1992 may be that Denmark would not have won the European Championship had their best player taken part. The triumph of the team over the individual had claimed its highest prole victim. Mller Nielsen took Denmark to the brink of qualifying, and yet, as he had hinted over the kitchen table, they would fall short. In the nal round of qualifying matches, on 13 November 1991, Denmark beat Northern Ireland in Odense, but the Austrians decided to put out an experimental side in Vienna, and they were well beaten by Yugoslavia. The only controversy on that day surrounded the weakness of the Austrian XI chosen by Dietmar Constantini. There was no real hint of what was coming for Yugoslavia. The desperate destruction of

their country was already well underway but no one could have predicted quite what was about to happen.

With 10 days to go before the start of the European Championship in Sweden, the Mller Nielsens got down to business. From their vantage point in the Danish coastal town of Ebeltoft, it was all a little confusing. There were strong rumours that Denmark might get a late reprieve at the expense of Yugoslavia, but there was also a feeling that Uefa might come down on the side of stasis. Mller Nielsen was weeks away from the sack, and hoped out loud that his team would have a chance to go to Sweden, and yet deep down, really deep down, he felt that they had little chance. The kitchen table was covered in swatches and that, he pretty much knew, would be the focus of his summer. As the prospective shades washed around the minds of the Mller Nielsens, though, the phone rang, and the fairy tale was set in motion. Uefa had taken the decision to eject Yugoslavia from the European Championship, and the group runner-up Denmark had been asked to take their place. Could Mller Nielsen please get his players together as soon as possible and prepare to travel to Sweden. When Mller Nielsen put the phone down, he said that the kitchen would have to wait. He still had a job and he intended to make the most of it. First things rst, where the hell were the players? What happened between that phone call and the rst kick of a ball in the 1992 European Championship has become the stuff of footballing myth. If you believe everything that has been written about

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that period then the players were all sunbathing on a beach in the Caribbean when they were somehow reached. Another story goes that some of them expressed an unwillingness to play and Mller Nielsen had trouble getting a side together. None of this is really true. No one can deny that Denmarks story in 1992 had all of the hallmarks of Hans Christian Andersen, and yet people are never happy with the truth, no matter how astonishing it might be. The soundbite has it that Denmarks players came off the beach to win the European Championship. Its a story that amuses some players and annoys others. Peter Schmeichel, a passionate man mountain whom you wouldnt want to distress unduly, gets a real glint in his eye when you suggest that Denmark were anything but professional in the build up. We did not come off the beach, he said. Its true that we werent as prepared as a team normally is for a big tournament of course we werent because we werent in it but we did not come off the beach. We had played a couple of friendlies against teams involved in the Championship, and most of us were preparing to play the CIS in a friendly when we heard the news. And also we werent stupid we read the newspapers and we kept ourselves t and awake because we knew that there was a chance that we could be called up. We didnt really believe that it could happen, but people had told us that Yugoslavia might be thrown out. And when people talk like that, well, you listen. But this stuff about the beach, well, its bullshit. So there you go never again say that they were all on the beach. And if you ever meet a journalist you dont like, suggest with a smile that

they interview Peter Schmeichel about his pre-tournament holiday in 1992. In fact, for all of Schmeichels protestations, one or two of the fringe players were sunning themselves when they got the call up. They were a minority though, and the reality is that most of the Danish squad were involved in friendly matches and had stayed in training. Mller Nielsen had managed to get a squad together to help out, but it was a long way from the rst team. The Brndby players like Jensen and Schmeichel were involved as a geographical convenience, and yet there were several unaccounted for. Michaels younger brother Brian Laudrup was in Munich when he heard the news. He came back from a Bayern friendly match and his wife told him that the Danish FA (DBU) had called and said that he was going to the European Championship. He thought it was a joke, and his initial reaction leavens Schmeichels vehemence: I told my wife that we were going to get slaughtered as most of the players had been on holiday. He was just on his way back from a serious injury and so burnout wasnt an issue. He was itching to play football and couldnt believe his luck. There is still disbelief in his voice as he tells the story now, and its noticeable that he speaks, like all the players bar the supermotivated Schmeichel, about going there to play three games. It was all about the joy of being able to take part in the summers football festival, rather than having any notion that Denmark might make an impact. As one of the younger players in the squad, Laudrup can perhaps be forgiven for only thinking about their good fortune. Two of the more thoughtful

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Danes, John Jensen and Kim Vilfort, immediately turned their thoughts to the Yugoslav players, some of whom they knew well. Jensen says that he still feels that he took something away from football players who had played well and deserved to be there, while Vilfort sums his mood up succinctly: there was a sense of both fun and dismay as the reason was not fun. Vilfort had another reason for regarding football with a sense of perspective. His seven-year-old daughter was seriously ill with leukaemia, and his European Championship would be punctuated by visits home to sit by her bedside. He was one Dane for whom the summer of 1992 was anything but a fairy tale. While those early phone calls were informing the Danish players of their good fortune, a very different call had been made to the Yugoslav captain Dragan Stojkovi. He was a brilliant footballer, and had earned a move from Crvena Zvezda to Marseille after a superb performance against Spain at the 1990 World Cup. Stojkovi had thought that the football team he led could at least provide a positive image of his country and offer some hope to those caught up in the conict. When he was told the news of Yugoslavias ejection from the competition he broke down. And then, when he had to tell his players in their Swedish hotel, he broke down again. It was the worst day of my life, and the worst thing is that I couldnt explain to the players why, he said. This is sport, not politics, and the two should never go together. There were terrible things going on in my country and I am deeply ashamed of them. But when I looked at these players, I looked at the way that

their faces cracked when I told them this news, I wanted to know why Uefa had let things go this far. If they were going to throw us out of the competition, why didnt they tell us before? We had been training, we were already at the hotel in Sweden, and now we had to go home. We had to go back to reality. And still, nobody would tell me why. Stojkovi and his players were perhaps naive to expect Uefa to ignore the UN sanctions, human rights abuses and terrible violence. And yet the point that he makes about timing is a valid one. Uefa wilted under the pressure of international sanctions, and the players and staff who listened intently to Stojkovi could count themselves unlucky as they paid the price for the terrible actions of others. Mller Nielsen is convinced that, holidays or not, his teams late call up was a major factor in its eventual success. The other seven squads taking part in Sweden had been involved in the swirl of pretournament publicity. Media coverage and advertising opportunities have increased massively in the years since 1992, but it was still a busy time: daily news conferences, cameras at training, products to endorse and, although this was pre-mobile phones, still a constant stream of people trying to contact the players. Denmark had none of that to worry about, and Mller Nielsen was delighted. I dont like the way that football has gone with relation to this, he said. I hate the idea that you have to be media-friendly, I hate taking part in interviews constantly, I hate the way that players lives are fair game now for people who call themselves journalists. The late call up in 1992, well, it gave

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me a reason to say no to all of this, to tell the players to say no as well. Hey, I would say, give us a break, we only have 10 days, we cant talk to you, we have to play football, we must train, talk to someone else. Maybe its something that international coaches should remember, even now. The best preparation might be to have no preparation. How often have you heard lazy commentators use the word carefree about the way that Brazilians approach the game? In the build up to the 1992 Euro, the Danes were literally carefree. Nothing to lose, no pressure, and the results would be astonishing.

be ruined by injury, and Brolin would succumb horribly to his demons, which left him hugely overweight and selling vacuum cleaners for a living. Watching their quicksilver feet throughout this tournament, though, was a joy. They were the class act of 1992. If France were shocked by what Sweden could do, then England had a big surprise coming their way as well. That half of the draw, Group One, looked easier because of Denmarks presence, but England found in their opening game that Mller Nielsens side was rather tougher than many had expected it would be. England were in a state of confusion, with Graham Taylors tactical plans disrupted by injuries to ve important players. Taylor talked enthusiastically about the benets of playing with a sweeper, but the loss of the one man who could play in that position, Mark Wright, meant that England switched back immediately to a at back four, with Keith Curle of Manchester City drafted in to play at right-back. Given those problems, England actually performed reasonably well, with David Platt going close on a couple of occasions. John Jensen hit the post for Denmark, and, even though Tony Daley came on late and nearly won it for England, their opening game was a triumph for the Danes. They already had a point more than anyone had anticipated, and the tabloid hum questioning Graham Taylors suitability for the England job went up a notch. 1992 was a curious time in the footballing development of both England and France in England, Graham Taylors reign was already an unpopular one, with the media playing an increasingly important role in

When the ninth European Championship nally got underway with its revised line up, it was the 1984 champions France who started as favourites. France had gone through qualifying with a 100 percent record and were strongly fancied to win their second major tournament after years of underachievement, especially with Jean-Pierre Papin of Marseille to spearhead their strike force. Papin was in his prime, Marseille were in the middle of their run of four titles in a row, and OM provided the backbone of Michel Platinis team. And yet France came out of their opening game against the Swedes relieved with a draw. Jan Eriksson gave Sweden the lead before Papin equalised from a sharp Christian Perez cross. Sweden werent fancied to do much at all in their home tournament, but they had discovered an unlikely pair of heroes in Tomas Brolin and Martin Dahlin. Both reached the peak of their careers during the four weeks of this tournament: Dahlins career would

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destabilising him. Taylors father was a journalist, and, unlike many managers before and since, his initial instinct had always been to trust the press. Already fraying, that policy unravelled during the tournament. Taylor seemed so willing to listen to and appease the English media that you sometimes wondered whether they picked his team. Taylor always seemed afraid to lose games, rather than brave enough to win them. Platini had been backed into a similar corner with his French team and his unwillingness to attack led to a stultifying game between the two in Malm. Despite the presence on the eld of Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, Papin and Cantona, only Stuart Pearce came close to scoring, as he recovered from being headbutted by Basile Boli to thump a powerful free-kick against the crossbar. Later that day the Danes suffered a reality check. Their game against Sweden was much more entertaining than anything that England and France had managed, and they ended up the losers. The delicate Dahlin and the swaggering Brolin combined to beat Schmeichel for the only goal of the game. There was salvation for the Danes though. The closeness of the group meant that they still had a chance of qualication, but they would have to beat France to achieve it. Mller Nielsen was in danger of getting back to his home improvements much sooner than he wished to, and it was then that he began to discover the man-management genius that he knew nothing about but which had always been lurking within. The Danish players were returning on the coach from training before the nal group game when one of them saw a

sign for mini-golf. One of the coaches was sent to the front of the team bus to ask Mller Nielsen if they could go and play. Mller Nielsen still cant remember exactly why he said yes; it was more an instinct than anything else. We went into the competition with nothing to lose, we were nice and relaxed with no media pressure and we played well against England in the opening game because of that, he said. We were scared against Sweden, though, and I felt that was getting in the way of what we could possibly achieve. So, for the rst time as a coach, I said, what the hell, lets try something different, lets go and play mini-golf. So, while the French and English players were put through yet another rigorous set of interviews, the Danish players were messing about with windmills. Football history conrms that a happy Danish side took advantage of French paralysis the next day and won 2-1 with goals from Henrik Larsen and Lars Elstrup, the latter on as substitute for Laudrup, an inspired tactical move by Mller Nielsen. Platini resigned soon after, and the unorthodox Mller Nielsen had somehow got his team into the semi-nals. A simple game of mini-golf might seem irrelevant, but its fascinating just how many of the Danish squad bring up that mad two hours or so when they discuss the match against France. The minigolf was a great thing from the coach, said Brian Laudrup. Its true that we were sitting on the team bus and we were bored as usual going through the traffic. One of the guys, I think it was Henrik Larsen, saw this big sign for the mini-golf and we fancied it. We couldnt believe it when the coach said yes, and we just had a laugh, threw stuff at each

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other, and got back on the coach. But we were so relaxed because of this. Wed totally forgotten about the match against France anyway. The rigid, frightened body language of the French team made their discomfort evident, and the relaxed and condent Danes deserved to win. Platini, the hero of 1984, had very quickly turned into the villain of 1992. The same day, England succumbed to Sweden in Stockholm in a game which many felt should have signalled the end of the Graham Taylor. If the greatest player in French football history could resign, then why did the former Lincoln City full-back have the temerity to stay? David Platt gave England the lead with a mishit volley after three minutes, but then Taylors side went further and further into its shell, and, in the second half, the substitute Johnny Ekstrom came on and turned the game in Swedens favour. Eriksson headed an equaliser from a poorly defended corner, and with Sweden needing only a point to qualify, they were content to play England on the counterattack. Taylor notoriously replaced Lineker with Alan Smith, and Sweden got a win that they didnt really need, Brolin scoring the second after a rapid exchange with Dahlin. England were a mess and they were out. Graham Taylor gave the waiting media one of many ill-advised sound-bites, insisting that England could have done without halftime. That was the beginning of his eventual end.

the champions Holland and the World Cup-holders Germany, their story emphasises just how lucky or inspired Mller Nielsen and Denmark really were on the other side of the draw. The Scots came desperately close to beating Holland in their opening game, and with a bit more luck, they might have made the semi-nals. Rangers Richard Gough relished the chance to show just what a commanding centre-back he could be, and the Dutch superstar Marco van Basten was barely allowed a kick of the ball. Both Gough and the Celtic forward Paul McStay came close to giving Scotland a shock lead but in the end it was Dennis Bergkamp who won the game for Holland. Over in Norrkping, Germany looked nothing like world champions, apparently labouring under the burden of playing as a united country for the rst time at a major nals. In Euro 96, Berti Vogts said that a key factor in their success was the ability of Jrgen Klinsmann from the West and Matthias Sammer from the East to unite the team, but Germany hadnt quite reached that point in 1992. Still, a squad which contained Stefan Effenberg and Thomas Hssler, Andreas Mller and Klinsmann should have played a whole lot better than it did. The CIS had been described by the Dutch coach Rinus Michels as the best team at the 1988 tournament (when they were still the USSR), and yet here they abandoned the structured air that had got them to four previous European Championship nals and decided to shackle the Germans. It worked, and Rudi Vllers broken arm hampered Germany further. With the wide midelders, Oleksiy Mykhailychenko and Andriy Kanchelskis, in withdrawn roles,

Before Denmark turned up, the tournament outsiders had been Andy Roxburghs Scotland. Grouped with

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Igor Kolyvanov and Igor Dobrovolsky were the CISs only real nod to attacking play and it was Dobrovolsky who opened the scoring with half an hour to go, winning then converting a penalty. Klinsmann was thrown on by Vogts and, after making little or no impact, he threw himself to the ground to win a last-minute free-kick that Hssler bent around the wall for an equaliser. Germany were lucky again three days later. Illgner made a string of excellent saves before Scotland were nally beaten 2-0, the second German goal looping in off the boot of Maurice Malpas. The CIS continued with their new tactics against the Dutch, and, once more, the stiing paid off Van Basten may have had a late goal ruled out for offside, but a 0-0 draw meant that neither Holland nor Germany could be sure of making the semi-nals when they met in the nal group game. In Gothenburg, the German national anthem was whistled loudly by the Dutch supporters, the victory of 1988 doing little to dilute the bitterness of their rivalry. As they had four years earlier in Hamburg, Michels and Holland triumphed. Buchwald and Stefan Reuter were both missing through injury and Germany were two down by the 14th minute, goals from Frank Rijkaard and Rob Witschge practically conrming a semi-nal place for Holland. Not for the rst time though, through a combination of resilience and good fortune, Germany fought their way back into the tournament. News came through from Norrkping that Scotland were nally getting the breaks that they deserved and were 2-0 ahead against the CIS. Klinsmann pulled a goal back, and,

although Bergkamp nished things off for the Dutch, Scotland stretched their lead against the CIS, nishing up 3-0 winners. The CIS had looked tired, and, when they were asked to force the game, rather than counter attack, had found no answer. Roxburgh and Scotland had a win to celebrate, but were also left with the feeling that, with the bounce of the ball, they could have been on their way to the last four. The players who had had so much success in youth tournaments in the 1980s had come agonisingly close to causing a shock. If the Scots had had the luck of the Danes, who knows what might have happened? After the success of the mini-golf expedition, Mller Nielsen tried to think of other ways of keeping the pressure off his players. As they returned from a training session two days before their semi-nal against Holland, an opportunity fell from the clouds. The setup to the story is pretty similar: outskirts of Stockholm, bored players on coach, messenger sent to the front, faintly unusual request. Lars Elstrup had seen a Burger King out of the corner of his eye, and the players wondered whether they might be allowed to have a Whopper. The footballers of 1992 were not diet freaks, and Mller Nielsen was no Arsne Wenger in his approach to matches. He felt that the positives outweighed the negatives and, yet again, he said yes to the request. So the coach stopped again and the players trooped out for their burgers. The coach may have stunk of fries and burgers, but the players were happy, if a little full. With the general and reasonable assumption that Holland would be too good for Denmark, the more attractive of

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the semi-nals seemed to be Germanys against Sweden. Germany had nally found some cohesion and, for all that the Swedish crowd hoped for a repeat of the result of World Cup semi-nal of 1958, Vogtss side won straightforwardly against hosts deprived by suspension of Stefan Schwarz and Patrik Andersson. Hssler gave Germany a lead which they never looked like relinquishing, and when Karl-Heinz Riedle added a second goal halfway through the second half, the host country were in danger of going down with barely a whimper. A late Brolin penalty threatened to provide a big nish, but Riedles second made the scoreline look as comfortable as the victory had been. The Germans went away, fully expecting to play their archrivals Holland in the nal, and relishing the extra day they would get to prepare. That might have given them the edge over Holland and Michels, but they were preparing to ght the wrong battle. It seems absurd in the era of positive thinking that the atmosphere among the Danish players should have been so openly downbeat. From the moment that Brian Laudrup said that the team would be slaughtered there was a devil-maycare feeling in the camp, and the lack of self imposed-pressure worked perfectly for Mller Nielsen. The US motivational speaker Anthony Robbins says that the path to success is to take massive, determined action. Yet the modern football coachs obsession with the powers of positive thinking may be a little misguided. Throughout the tournament, the hotel which housed the Danish players was a monument to the kind of atmosphere that would be dismissed by a sports psychologist.

Laudrup remembers that the hotel was unbelievable. We met on the rst day and just spoke about how strange it was that we were there. And before we knew it we had to play a game, then another, and then we were in the semi-nals. The whole thing was like a weird dream and we never really woke up. It was always a question of, can you believe it? Can you believe it were here, can you believe it we qualied, can you believe it that were in the semi nal? A lot of the squad felt really bad for the Yugoslav players and that feeling never really went away all through the tournament. We denitely felt that, what the hell, were here now, and we might as well play. And play they did. It was Laudrup who had the game of his life in the seminal against the Dutch in Gothenburg. His run and cross created a goal after ve minutes for Henrik Larsen and then Schmeichel demonstrated just why he was becoming recognised the best goalkeeper in the world. His aggressive style, wiping his penalty area clear of players when he came to claim the ball, clearly unsettled the Dutch and, although Bergkamp equalised midway through the rst half, the Danes knew that they were the better side. No pressure, no problem. Ronald Koeman was clearly feeling it, and when he slipped and allowed Larsen to score a second goal, self belief started to surge through the Danish players. A much more gifted Denmark side had fallen in the semi-nals in 1984, but this time Mller Nielsens pragmatic team simply would not allow that to happen. Henrik Andersen picked up a second yellow card and knew that he would not play in the nal, and so, like plenty before and since, he put every effort into making sure that his teammates would get there.

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But with 20 minutes to go Andersen dislocated his knee, a sickening injury that just about ended his career. With Mller Nielsens tactics in shreds, the full-back John Sivebk, who himself was limping with injury but could not be replaced because both substitutes had been used, was forced to hobble around up front, offering such nuisance value as he could. Only four minutes remained when, with Denmark seemingly on their way and with the Dutch apparently out of ideas, Rijkaard shovelled the ball home from a corner. With Denmark effectively down to 10 men, it seemed impossible that the Danes could survive extra-time. Those moments between the end of normal time and the start of extra time are the period when coaches really cant hide. Mller Nielsen couldnt produce a Whopper with cheese or a battered putter, but he did stick to his psychological plan, which he claims wasnt really a plan at all. There was nothing Churchillian, just a reminder that the Dutch players were tired too, that Denmark had been the better team in the match and that there was nothing at all to worry about. If we lose now, Mller Nielsen told his players, then hey we still made it into the semi-nals of a tournament that we didnt even qualify for! So, dont worry, just go back out and play. And while Mller Nielsen wasnt worrying, the man who might have made the difference was sitting at the bar of a New York hotel, constantly on the phone to his father back in Denmark. Michael Laudrup had wanted to go away and have nothing to do with the tournament, but now he couldnt resist. Of course his kid brother was involved, but there was more than familial loyalty tugging

away at him. Yes, of course, I wanted Brian to do well, but it wasnt just that, he said. Im Danish, for Gods sake, Im a Danish football fan, and even though Mller Nielsen and I didnt always get on, I wanted my country to win. I kidded myself throughout the group stage, I tried to keep away from it, but even in St Lucia with my wife, I was asking people, Do you have a newspaper? Can you tell me the football score? Of course, no one in St Lucia cared about football, but I kept nding out from little cuttings here and there. And then I was in New York, and I spent the whole evening on the phone to my father. Every ve minutes: Whats the score? Whats the score? No one else in the bar cared, even knew what I was talking about, and when it came to the penalties I rang my Dad and said, listen, I think Id better stay on the phone for the next few minutes. And so the greatest footballer in the history of Denmark sat at a bar in New York with the phone to his ear, crouching so that he could hear better, and listening to what should have been one of the crowning glories of his career with his father as his eyes and ears. One by one they stood up strong. John Jensen described how the players put towels over their heads and held hands in the centre circle like lover boys while others strode forward. Henrik Larsen, Fleming Povlsen, Lars Elstrup and Kim Vilfort. And one by one they scored. It was the Dutch who cracked, and Van Basten who missed his penalty. When he failed, Michael Laudrup dropped his drink and held his head in his hands. He knew what the 37,000 in Gothenburg knew, knew what the whole of Denmark knew. If Kim Christofte scored his penalty, then

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Denmark were into the nal of the European Championship. One, two, three, four steps the bandy-legged defender took, a brief catching of his breath, and then he turned, ran, and sent Hans van Breukelen the wrong way to put the Danes through. When his team had lost so unluckily on penalties to Spain in Lyon eight years earlier, the Danish captain Morten Olsen had said that luck would even itself out, and here it was.

couldnt just invent something to relax his players before the nal. He thought and thought and worried a little and then some help came his way from one of the most natural relaxants of them all. One of the players came to me three days before the nal and he was very worried, he recalled. It seemed that our progress in this tournament was so unexpected that none of the players wives had planned to be in Stockholm for the nal, and that Danish fans who were maybe a little more optimistic had snapped up all of the hotels around Stockholm. And so this player, he said to me, Boss, the wives have nowhere to sleep, can they come and stay with us here? You can guess what Mller Nielsen said. He made the usual noises about being careful and not using up your energy and he let the wives stay, hoping, no doubt, that the players would do the opposite. Going against received knowledge had got them this far, and so why change a winning habit? And it worked, how it worked. On the morning of the nal, there was one team who laughed and joked with supporters (not to mention winked at their coach), who smiled all the way to the stadium, and who didnt really think about what this night meant. The Germans, in contrast, were tense. They were world champions but maybe knew that they were beginning to fade. The squad had not been regenerated, and despite a better showing in the semi-nal they were not playing with any condence, any convincing arrogance. They had everything to lose and, whats more, their opposition knew it. Denmark would have to do without Andersen, but they were more inspired by his absence than

Youve probably heard of an American football coach called Vince Lombardi. This is the man who was there at the start of the NFL, and who coached the Green Bay Packers to win two Superbowls. He is also regarded as the father of modern-day sports coaching, of preparation, as the font of all knowledge on getting the best out of a team. Now, Im sure that Lombardi was an incredible man, and you only need look at his results to see what an inspirational coach he must have been. And yet acolytes of Lombardi (Steve McClaren being one, for example) tend to be a whole lot less interesting than those who are prepared, for whatever reason, to go their own way. Try telling Johan Cruyff that winning isnt everything, its the only thing. Try telling the same thing to a Brazilian footballer or a West Indian cricketer or a Danish football player, circa 1992. Think of Richard Mller Nielsen as the anti-Lombardi, the psychologist by mistake, and youll appreciate him a little more. The minigolf had worked, the trip to Burger King had worked, but Richard knew more than anyone that these inspirational catalysts were a gift from somewhere else, that he

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anything. They had to try and win it for him, to show the trophy to Henrik. Denmarks fans had poured over the Oresund to cheer on their heroes, and this was the match which proved beyond doubt that Schmeichel was a goalkeeper of the highest class. The Danes got their lead through Povlsens cross and Jensens nation-halting nish, but that was a moment to remember, rather than one that dened the game. The key man was Schmeichel. He was forced into save after jaw-dropping save, and every Danish player involved in that nal, barring the goalkeeper, says now that they thought they were done for. If Germany had scored, said Olsen, the captain, there is no way that we could have won that game. Every bit of defending we did, we were on our last legs, and all of our lack of preparation really starting to show. The minds of the players had been freed up by Denmarks unorthodox call up to the tournament, but their bodies were starting to suffer terribly. There is no way that we could have survived extra time, said Brian Laudrup, and, my God, every time the Germans went forward they looked as if they were going to score. And then we managed to breakaway, and Kim, well, he nished them off. Kim was Kim Vilfort, the journeyman with more than football on his mind. In this fairy story, it really had to be him who made the dream come true. Schmeichels immense performance had broken the Germans, and they stood and watched as Vilfort nished off a nal which was perhaps a disappointing spectacle, but which had an extraordinary result. The Danes could

paint Stockholm any colour they wanted, and the Mller Nielsens could turn their minds to their kitchen. They had pulled off one of the sporting shocks of the 20th century and had won a tournament for which they hadnt even qualied. And the happiest nation in Europe had something else to smile about. The taxi driver who picked up Kim Christofte from Copenhagen airport told him how he had staked 1000 kroner on the Danes at 50-1 and was going to take the beach holiday of his life. The irony of the destination wasnt lost on Christofte, who made sure that he paid the man and refused his offer of a free ride. That wasnt the only post-tournament bonus that was dangled in front of the Danish heroes. Two weeks after the nal, the tale goes that Mller Nielsen received a letter from a Danish labourer who had heard the story about his kitchen, and offered to put it in for free. Any design he wanted, cost no object. Mller Nielsen was deeply moved by the working mans offer, thanked him, and then turned him down. Not for him even the tiniest trapping of success. Richard got his new kitchen, but Richard paid for it. Remember Janteloven: Du Skal Ikke Tro At Du Er Noget Dont think that you are anyone. For all his occasional bombast and stubbornness, Mller Nielsen is essentially a quiet man. He found himself touched by the smallest things. His favourite memory of 1992 is not the beer and champagne in the hotel afterwards, or of the bedlam back home, but of the quiet walk he was able to take around the hotel grounds the morning after the game, when he reected on mini-golf and madness, Whoppers and wives. And when he talks now about what happened in the summer

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of 1992, he is a man who knows just how fortunate he was and how perfectly aligned the stars must have been. I tell you now, he said, and it comes out in a stagey whisper, there were three things the mini-golf, the Whoppers, the wives. Everything goes right, and they say, what a genius. How did he do it? God, this man must know something. But listen very careful, and remember this. If it goes wrong, they will say: what an amateur! How can he let them play golf instead of train? How can he let them eat hamburgers? I know what I am, and I was lucky, and that is football. Take it from me, whenever they tell you its about science, its not. Its about luck, my friend, its all about luck.

Mller Nielsens luck would run out eventually, and he left his job after Denmark had failed to make it out of the groups at Euro 96. By then, hed already been made a Danish knight of the realm, and his attitude towards success and failure means that he would always have the summer of 1992. And, of course, a new kitchen in which he could enjoy the memories. And in the European Union poll to nd the happiest country in Europe, that combination of peace and love, sunny outlook against a cold backdrop, means that Denmark still wins pretty much every year. They were never happier, though, than in the summer of 1992.

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101
Origins
And this Messiah emerged in the unlikely shape of a brat, the well-to-do youngest son of a local factory owner.

The Sum of their Parts

The Sum of their Parts

The rise and fall of Motala and its football team
By Gunnar Persson

My home town, Motala in Sweden, had its heyday in the 1950s. Jobs were plentiful and football was booming. This is the story of how it all came about. I was no more than a kid, seven or eight years old, when my grandfather took me for walks. He was an old man, past his seventy-fth birthday, and made careful by angina. So we had ample time to take a long and good look at things. We walked along the canal, usually past the old factory where he had spent more than 50 years working as a carpenter. Apart from performing his military service on a destroyer at sea, he had spent his whole life in the surroundings. He knew the area like his own pocket and showed me the uniqueness of the dry dock (which emptied itself in one hour), the old cholera hospital (used in 1853), the lumber yard and the thrupenny bridge, a rather new item, made in the 1930s. Grandpa pointed out the old foundry, located at the centre of the gothic building complex where his own father had spent most of his working life. I knew the man from old photographs. Great-grandpa was a skinny old geezer with a long beard, who once received a gold medal from the King. And he deserved it. I recently looked for him in the archives of the factory: he had

started out in the foundry as a boy of 13, and retired an incredible 65 years later. Some stamina. He showed even more of that at home as he got married as late as 46, but still managed to raise seven kids. Four of the boys followed him to the factory. The fth would have, but died too early. He drowned in the canal aged nine. Grandpa and his two remaining brothers were old men by the time I got to know them. While spending time with them I learnt (or so I thought) that by growing old you got both wise and clever (they could do tricks, you see). For some reason you also seemed to go more or less deaf. Everything in their lives had circled around the factory and the canal. When the factory needed workers they lived reasonably well. But when times were hard and the plant was shut down as it had been in 1922 things got difficult. This used to be a place of some importance, Grandpa said with a smile. Indeed. Motala Mekaniska Verkstad (Motala Mechanical Factory) was the rst of its kind in Sweden, founded in 1822 to cater for the digging of a canal across the southern parts of the country. They produced anything related to iron or steel, like spades or steam engines, and later ships, locomotives, bridges, kitchen sinks you name it.

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The rst chief engineer was a Scotsman, Daniel Fraser, and the original work force had a core of skilled men from Great Britain. This was, of course, too early for the Brits to bring along footballs. But the factory workers would still play a major part as the sport grew. And the management would stand behind the local football club Motala AIF (MAIF) as it rose to fame during the 1950s.

This takes us to the immediate postwar years, when this sleepy inland town suddenly found its feet and got some attention. The town had grown and developed steadily and beside the old factory now had three other major employers, makers of radios, refrigerators and torpedoes. Football needed more time to develop. The sport was brought into town in about 1904 or 1905 by young men who returned home from their military service in the larger neighbouring towns of Norrkping and Linkping. The centre-forward Sten Berg (literally Rock Mountain) was the rst really great player. He led the attack for nearly 20 years and afterwards continued to keep a close eye on the local footballers as he became manager of the local liquor store, then as now run by the state. Football needed a local catalyst, someone larger than life itself, to get things going. And this Messiah emerged in the unlikely shape of a brat, the well-to-do youngest son of a local factory owner. Gsta Lfgren was a spoilt kid who did nothing to impress his teachers at school, although his cronies could rely

on him to foot the bill, even if only for coffee and sweet bread at lunch time. He developed a passion for football, playing in the MAIF third team at 15. During the summer breaks immediately before World War II he watched as the big boys faced international opposition. Motala, then a second division side, played host to the Austrian marvels Rapid Vienna (with the legendary goalscorer Franz Binder), the Hungarian side Bocskai of Debrecen (with their World Cup star Imre Markos) and Hungria, with Pl Titkos and the Austrian Heinrich Mller. These were high calibre international stars. MAIF managed to score twice in those three games, but let in 13 goals. Gsta wasnt too impressed by the senior players standing in his way and in 1940, aged 17, he left the club to answer an SOS call from the local team BK Zeros. These nobodies were on the brink of dissolving due to lack of players, but were saved by an inux of youngsters. Gsta was one of them and he took a regular place at inside-right, with the cheeky Kurt-Ivar Samuelsson as his wing partner. They became close friends. Gsta and Kurt-Ivar ran a rabbit farm in the latters back yard, as the ongoing war caused food shortages and brought on rationing even in neutral Sweden. Zeros started at the fth league level and climbed upwards while MAIF at the same time slipped. After only two years they faced each other in the third division. The young Gsta was a marvel. In 1940-41 he scored 33 goals in 14 games. MAIF wanted him badly. But as Gsta matured he also had to do his duty for his country. He was posted at Eskilstuna and signed for their second-division outt. Zeros collapsed when he left them and his stay

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in Eskilstuna was marred by injuries. But when his military service was done he headed back to Motala, and by that stage MAIF was the only option. As he returned he also faced unexpected responsibilities. His father had worked himself into an early grave but the factory had to remain within the family. Logically Gsta, who was the youngest of four brothers, would have been considered too young to have anything to do with it. But one of the boys was already dead he had drowned while showing off his new wellingtons on the ice of the canal and one wasnt interested. Now Gsta and his oldest brother had to take over the business. The year was 1946 and he was still only 23. Gsta became the top scorer of the team and the club started to function properly after the war years. They employed a coach (one who wasnt just a former rst-team player) and did their best to assemble a good team. It took a few more years before they got it right. In 1949-50 they nally managed to win their section of the fourth division. The next season they won the third as well. By now Gsta and Kurt-Ivar, who had gone straight from Zeros to MAIF, were delivering the goods on the right wing. I just dribbled. Then I gave it to Gsta so he could do whatever he liked with the ball, Kurt-Ivar said when I talked to him a couple of years ago (he was 89 in May). Others described their game as a perfect understanding. The promotion into the second division, in the spring of 1951, came at a time of upheaval in Swedish football. Some

of the established top teams had fallen apart in the wake of Swedish successes at London in 1948 (Olympic gold) and in Brazil in 1950 (World Cup bronze). AIK was one example. In 1949 they lost Henry Carlsson to Atltico Madrid. The following year Bror Mellberg (Genoa), Sune Andersson (Roma) and Lennart Skoglund (Internazionale) all left for Italy. Without four national team regulars they simply couldnt cope, and were relegated. In all 25 players left Sweden in as many months. As they became professionals they were no longer eligible to play for Sweden. But AIK was still a famous name and expected to draw a big crowd when they visited Motala. They certainly did. This town, with about 25,000 inhabitants, mustered a 10,000-strong crowd. Even the Prime Minister had been invited, and shook hands with the players before kick-off. It was a great show. Never mind the result (the visitors triumphed, 61), this game provided an ignition, a sparkle that would last for the rest of that decade, and produce success never imagined. Gsta Lfgren made an impression on the international selection committee. As the rst half of the season drew to a close he was picked for Sweden: a debutant at 28. Sweden faced Italy in Florence and Gsta took care of things in the same way as he did at home. Maybe he missed Kurt-Ivar. But it didnt stop him from scoring the equaliser as Sweden drew 11. The board members of MAIF now felt they had something to offer players from other clubs the honour of

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becoming a teammate with Gsta Lfgren. Remember, it was still strictly amateur. When you approached players from other teams you could only offer a job and decent living quarters. If the player accepted he still had to sit out 90 days of which the winter break only counted for 15 before he could go into action. But the MAIF board soon realised there were ways to circumvent the rules. It was easy. You just formed a supporters club with no formal connection to the club itself which would take care of everything that might infringe the rules. As the team kept on ghting to established itself in the second division an unbeatable organisation took shape. At this time MAIF was a multi sports club, with a general board and separate sections for each sport. The vice president of the general board doubled as director of personnel at the Motala Verkstad. Almost every recruited player was swallowed by the factory, which now had a 2000-strong workforce. The chairman of the football section doubled as sports editor of the local newspaper. The club could do no wrong and criticism was totally ignored. The coach, Torsten Lindberg, an Olympic gold medallist as a goalkeeper in 1948, doubled as the real estate manager of Motala Verkstad. Apartments for new players were his responsibility. The star player, Gsta Lfgren, doubled as the factory owner and the deputy manager behind his brother. He matured, became a humble family man who rode his bicycle to work every day and did extra training outside of the two or three sessions offered each week by the club.

This way he got the edge needed to dominate on the pitch. At his level of play he excelled like his contemporary Alfredo Di Stfano at Real Madrid, powered by huge lungs that enabled him to go on forever. The coach Lindberg was fair, because he was mean to everybody except Gsta, who was untouchable. They all knew it, but never made an issue of it, as he led in the best of ways, by providing an example for the others to follow. Gsta Lfgren also caught the eye of IFK Norrkping, in those days the best team in Sweden. Their manager called Gsta, who listened politely and then asked what kind of work he had in mind for him. Well, we need a groundsman here, he said. Gsta of course declined, which he also did when Venezia, new to Serie A, made an offer. In the eyes of the locals he grew immensely in stature with a simple, No, thanks. He retained his place in the national team and had a great year in 1955. As usual the national Player of the Year was to be announced in October. A newspaper (Stockholms-Tidningen) held the reins but their committee also took some advice from a popular vote. One man took that very seriously. His name was Egon Rooth. He was 29 years old, and a fan. He was also desperate to secure a prominent place for himself in the supporters club. What to do? He organised the voting fr Gsta, and the result was overwhelming. Gsta, still a second division player, got 34,322 votes. Second on the list was Kurt Hamrin of AIK, with 8,513. Gsta Lfgren got the Golden Ball and it was presented to him before the last game that autumn, against IFK Trelleborg. He was cheered by his teammates, who carried him

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around the pitch. He celebrated by scoring one goal and modestly laying on a couple for the centre-forward. who got six as MAIF won 8-0. The supporters club was run by John Finnby, a brash southerner who had a shoe shop in the town centre. He went on long car trips every weekend around the country to look for new players. Egon Rooth was now qualied as codriver. With the aid of Finnby the teams composition had changed considerably since 1951. Kurt-Ivar was now semiretired, occasionally playing with the third team. New players were brought in for trials almost every month. Lindberg, the coach, gave the nod to about one player in three or four. The club also developed some youngsters and slowly a good team took shape. In the spring of 1957 they nally won their second-division group, thus qualifying for a promotional play-off against rgryte (IS) of Gothenburg. IS had a tremendous attack, with the youngsters Agne Simonsson and Rune Brjesson supported by the veteran player-coach Gunnar Gren. Gren was 36 years old and had just returned from a great career in Italy, where he had played for AC Milan, Fiorentina and Genoa. Torsten Lindberg, who was a clever tactician, thought long and hard about how best to take care of Il Professore, as Gren had been named by the Italians. The rst game was played in Gothenburg. The crowd of more than 30,000 was easily the largest ever to watch MAIF. During the build-up it was feared they would have to play without their tall stopper and skipper Lennart Hemming, who during the previous few

weeks had been nursing a hamstring injury. He got over it, though, and lined up to shake hands with Gren. As the game got under way the crowd soon noticed something peculiar. Gunnar Gren was left alone but everybody else was marked closely. His team mates were all tied up. The Professor was all dressed up, but had nowhere to go. This was the master stroke of coach Lindberg, who had given his left-half Rolf Ullvn orders to abandon Gren and push forward at every opportunity. Ullvn, a rst-teamer since 1944 and a player who usually took hits to smother the opposing star, enjoyed his new-found role immensely. He led the attack and did his best to try and test the IS goalkeeper with shots from all angles. IS couldnt contain him. After 30 minutes he went forward once again, showing a tremendous force and drive as he advanced. He unleashed a shot from about 25 yards. The keeper misjudged the trajectory and thought it was all clear. But the ball went in close to the crossbar: 1-0. The tactics obviously worked brilliantly. Nothing could stop them now. Sren Nilsson, a left-winger who had been part of the original 1940s team, made it two with a header. IS were still watching. MAIF led 20 at half-time and all was well. Then, early in the second half, Hemming, the stopper, succumbed to cramp. He hadnt been able to work out properly for weeks and couldnt take the strain. He continued at outside-left, the reshuffle causing ve other players to assume new positions. Not even this could trigger IS. Sren Nilsson scored his second goal with yet

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another header. Then the young outsideright Sten-Arne Lorin, a student who had succeeded Kurt-Ivar, made it 4-0. Finally IS entered the game. Simonsson and Brjesson (twice) made it 43. The pressure was on but MAIF were resilient and withstood a heavy bombardment during the last 15 minutes. The tickets for the return game were released the day after. One man drove home from Gothenburg and promptly parked his car in front of the ticket booth. He slept there and was rst in line on the Friday morning. On the Sunday a crowd of 12,863 a record that still stands watched as IS once more were torn apart. Nilsson (with another header), Lorin (with a misdirected cross), dear old Gsta (with a thunderbolt from 20 yards) and Lorin again completed a 40 rout: a day for the whole town to cherish for the rest of their lives. Motala AIF had reached Allsvenskan, the summit, and the future looked rosy. A national newspaper carried a story with a photo showing no fewer than 14 club members lined up in front of the factory where they worked, the caption saying that another four were unable to make it in time for the photo. Maybe I should stop here. The local frenzy was not enough to carry the team. Especially not as Gsta Lfgren was injured. He suffered from a sore Achilles tendon and wasnt able to play in the Allsvenskan opener against IFK Gothenburg. The team still somehow pulled themselves together and got a draw. That was enough to make Egon Rooth happy. Nine months later his wife gave birth to twins, boys who later would reach the rst team as teenagers.

Also worth noting is that my mother and father met at about that time. The Swedish FA had decided to change the course of the season, from autumnspring to calendar year. This meant that 1957-58 was played over three terms, beginning in the autumn of 1957 and continuing through all of 1958. Instead of 22 games MAIF faced the turmoil of 33 rounds. After starting without their only star (Gsta was able to play in 25 games) they never recovered and ended up as the twelfth and last team. MAIF took about two decades to recover from this blow, or maybe it was just an awakening to the reality. At about the same time Motala Verkstad slipped into serious trouble. They made parts for ship engines and a suspicious Japanese shipbuilder X-rayed a delivery. They found cracks. Soon the factory was struggling to support itself, never mind a football team.. Torsten Lindberg left the club. Gsta Lfgren thought he was in line as successor. He expected to be paid for the job. But the board explained that it had never intended to pay a club member to coach the rst team. So, at 37 he nally left the club. He nished off his career with IFK Norrkping, winning three league titles in four seasons. Then he got back to MAIF, by then a third division outt, to serve two more years as player-coach, nally retiring at the age of 42. As I approached my teens in the mid1970s he once again took the reins as coach. With 40 caps to his name he was more or less a god in Motala, but he was also someone who was too busy

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running his own company to spend time pondering about past times. Some of his team mates were not so lucky. They became eager clients of Mr Rock Mountain. The goalkeeper, Egon Bengtsson, was sacked from the factory as the work force shrank drastically from 2000 to a paltry 200, and was later found dead in his apartment. Rolf Ullvn was a teacher at my school. He was loved by his pupils but he had the habit of turning up in sunglasses at eight oclock in the morning. He smiled in disbelief as I asked politely for his autograph. I had the chance to talk to some of the surviving players when the club had its centenary celebrations in 2007. Gsta, who had died the year before, was still revered by everyone. Sten-Arne Lorin, the successful young winger from the qualiers, told me in great detail how both of them stayed behind after training. Gsta explained the ner points of the game to his young winger, so he knew when to make a dash along the line or simply cut inside to create space for Gsta, who would take the

ball down the line and then hit a short pass backwards. Berth Johansson, the right-footed left-back, told me how it really was. When I broke up an attack outside our penalty area I immediately looked for Gsta, he said. He was usually hovering somewhere in the centre circle. Our eyes met as he started running towards me, shadowed by his marking wing half. Then he pointed the way for me, with his thumb over his shoulder. I was expecting it and hit a long ball as Gsta turned sharply, leaving his marker behind. Thats how we like to remember him, in full stride heading for goal. Pity I only saw him play in a veterans game when he was about 55. As I write this I am preparing to go down from Stockholm to Motala to watch the home opener of the season, remarkably against our old foes rgryte. Its a third division game at the old stadium. It will be watched by at most 600 people. Egon Rooth will probably be there. Still a fanatic, selling lottery tickets. None the wiser after all these years, but denitely slightly deaf.

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When the Kites werent Black

The lost legacy of Indian football
By Dileep Premachandran

Bob Houghton, who once led Malm to a European Cup nal, left his job as India national coach in April, adding his name to the ever-growing list of those who have been unable to coax new life from once fertile soil desecrated by three generations of inept administrators. The decline has been precipitous. When Houghton was a teenager, India were an Asian football power. By the time he arrived, aged 59, to take the coaching job in 2006 after nearly three decades of wandering, they were among the minnows, periodically losing to the likes of the Maldives. Picture this scenario. A hot and humid February afternoon three years ago. An I-League game at the Corporation Stadium in Kozhikode, a northern Kerala town famous for its devotion to football. There was a transport strike that day and only a couple of hundred turned up to watch Viva Kerala, a rootless team of stragglers representing a proud tradition, play East Bengal, Kolkata giants fallen on hard times. With the sun beating down and the sea breeze playing truant, the vast concrete stands echoed with the players shouts. The fare they dished out was abject. Vivas motley crew of young locals and Africans who hadnt made it to the big leagues strung some pretty passing moves together and even

scored a wonderful goal through their right-back, but they were no match for an East Bengal side for whom Alvito DCunha, a former India international, pulled the strings. His clever free-kicks created two of the goals and he scored the other with an insouciant lob on the run, but the rest of the time he strolled around like a slow-mo version of Juan Romn Riquelme. In fact, the entire game seemed a throwback to another era, with deliberate build-ups and tackles that were apologetic rather than snappy. By the second half, most of those watching had shifted their attention away from the eld to a gure in the stand. He sat on a plastic chair surrounded by a few friends. Having retired just a couple of years earlier, he liked to come back and see the odd game, traipse a little down memory lane. Inivalappil Mani Vijayan was probably the greatest talent that Indian football has produced in the modern era, a lithe striker with a penchant for the spectacular goal. He scored 39 times in 79 games for India, and was the mainstay of his club sides, rst with Kerala Police and later Mohun Bagan, JCT Mills and FC Kochin. Long before Emir Kusturicas celluloid paean to Diego Maradona or the cinematic ode

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to Zindine Zidane, there was Cherian Josephs Kalo Harin [Black Deer], a small-budget award-winning movie that explored Vijayans rise from the lowest stratum of society. The footballer himself was a natural in front of the camera, and not in a Vinny Jones kind of way. In Shantham [Peace], a lm that picked up the national award in 2001, he played a killer overcome by remorse. That February afternoon in Kozhikode, Vijayans eyes were on some point in the far distance. Like many of the old-timers in the stands, he might have been thinking back to a better time, when Indian football at least held the promise of something better, when a game against a mid-ranking Asian side like the United Arab Emirates didnt necessarily mean humiliation. He might also have pondered why the advent of professionalism and a national league hadnt given India a club side worthy of comparison even with the Kerala Police teams that he was once part of.

The 1911 nal was signicant in more ways than one. Just over four months later, King George V would shift Indias capital from Calcutta (as it was called then) to New Delhi. The state of Bengal had been partitioned in 1905 and its freedom ghters and revolutionaries were at the forefront of the struggle against British rule. No team comprising Indians had won the shield and although football and sport werent a vehicle for the new nationalism, there was huge interest in a game that was to be played over two halves of 25 minutes. Contemporary accounts suggest that almost 80,000 crowded in to watch the game. Those who missed out didnt need to worry. According to Reuters, They were informed of its progress by ying kites clearly the 1911 equivalent of todays minute-by-minute internet reports. Ferries operated overtime to get people to the city from across the Ganges, and hopes were high as Bagan lined up for the kick-off. The city already had a long tradition of football. The Gentlemen of Barrackpore and the Calcutta Club of Civilians had played at the Esplanade in 1854, even before the 1857 Mutiny that would give rise to the freedom movement that lasted nearly a century. Bagan were formed in 1889, and backed mainly by the Bengali elite. The club emphasised Victorian values as much as it did success on the eld and it wasnt until 1904 that it won its rst major trophy, the Cooch Behar Cup. A year later, they beat Dalhousie, the Shield winners, 6-1 in the Gladstone Cup nal. Such antics from the natives werent always well received. In 1909, Bagans

As the crow ies, its about 1100 miles from the Corporation Stadium to the Calcutta Football Club grounds at Ballygunge in south Kolkata. To understand Vijayans story and also what Houghton went through, you have to go there, to the heartland of Indian football. This was where the nal of the Indian Football Association [IFA] Shield was played in July 1911, between Mohun Bagan and the East Yorkshire Regiment. After the English and Scottish FA Cups and Indias own Durand Cup [started in 1888], the Shield is the oldest Cup competition in the world, having rst been contested back in 1893.

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defeat of the Gordon Highlanders so incensed some British soldiers that they beat up members of the Bengali support. By the time the 1911 Shield came around, the atmosphere was sufficiently charged that matches between Bagan and British regiments carried considerable signicance. Bagan in those days played a 2-3-5 formation and they comfortably saw off St Xaviers 3-0 in the opening round, despite playing a man short. Sudhir Chatterjee, the left-back, hadnt been granted half-day leave from the college where he taught. Playing barefoot, Bagan excelled when the conditions were dry. It was a different story when heavy rain and it doesnt half pour in Kolkata during the monsoons reduced the ground to a swampy mess. On a slick muddy surface, they struggled to see off Rangers in the second round, winning 2-0 despite a decidedly dubious penalty in the regimental sides favour. In the last eight, they saw off another Army side, the Rie Brigade, and there was another huge crowd to watch them take on the Middlesex Regiment. It ended 1-1, with Bagan complaining bitterly about the Middlesex goal, bundled in after a goalmouth melee that saw Hiralal Mukherjee, the goalkeeper, badly injured. The ugliness continued in the replay, with Abhilash Ghosh exacting revenge with a challenge in which Piggott, the Middlesex keeper, nearly lost an eye. Although he returned, bandaged like a mummy, Bagan prevailed 3-0. When the East Yorkshire Regiment led early in the second half of the nal, black kites were own to announce Bagans predicament. Only ve of the 25 second-

half minutes remained when Shibdas Bhaduri slotted home the equaliser. This time, the kite was maroon-andgreen, Bagans colours. With the clock ticking down, it was Shibdas who was the match-winner, slaloming his way through the defence before leaving Ghosh, the enforcer against Middlesex, with the simplest of tap-ins. The celebrations that followed were akin to those that greet victorious Indian cricketers today. When it was known that the East Yorkshire Regiment had been beaten, the Bengalees were tearing off their shirts and waving them, Reuters reported. Even the Daily Mail joined in, their report saying, It was a notable victory, gained over the best British regimental teams, and not even the sweltering heat of Calcutta to which the Bengalees are better insured than the white man, can discount it. Epochal as that triumph was, it didnt mark the start of a golden age for Indian football. Most of the players were from patrician backgrounds and usually ended up in the civil services or tea plantations. In Chatterjees case, he went on to teach at Trinity College, Cambridge. Indian football would have to wait another quarter-century for its rst great side, and again it was historys march that was partially responsible for its emergence. In the decades following the partition of Bengal, the movement for a separate Muslim state and identity grew steadily. When Nawabzada Aminul Islam started the Jubilee Club in the late 1800s, that was all in the future, but the side from the Kolkata suburb of Sealdah eventually became Mohammedan Sporting Club. There wasnt much

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success in the early years, but when CA Aziz took over as club secretary in the late 1920s, things started to change. Having been relegated to the third division in 1929, Mohammedans were lucky to remain in the second tier when another team disbanded. By then, they had started recruiting players from across the subcontinent. They came from the North West Frontier, from Quetta and from Uttar Pradesh, and were captained by Habibullah Bahar, a political activist who would go on to become Pakistans rst Health Minister. Between 1934 and 1941, Mohammedans won the league seven times. In 1939, they, East Bengal and others withdrew from the league in protest against what they saw as favouritism towards Bagan. That blip aside, they were relentless, sweeping aside all opposition for nearly a decade. It wasnt just the Kolkata league in which they were dominant either. They crossed the subcontinent to Mumbai and won the Rovers Cup there, and in 1940, they became the rst Indian team to win the Durand Cup in Delhi. Part of the reason for such excellence was Azizs foresight. He was one of the rst to recognise the advantage that boots offered in muddy conditions. Initially, there was opposition from players who feared it would affect their dribbling skill but Aziz persisted, and even had special boots made that were lighter and more supple than normal ones. Mohammedan Sportings fame extended as far as Glasgow thanks to Mohammed Salim, the winger who was briey a Bhoy. As Boria Majumdar, then the deputy editor of the International

Journal of the History of Sport, wrote, It shows how in the days of the Empire, Celtic broke barriers, living up to the ideal of the civilising mission and how this Indian in bare feet enchanted one half of Glasgow. Salim was in his 30s and accustomed to playing barefoot by the time Mohammedans established themselves as Indias premier football force. After clinching a hat-trick of Kolkata League titles in 1936, Salim played in a friendly against a China Olympic side that was en route to Berlin and a rst-round exit at the hands of Great Britain. Hashim, a cousin of Salim who lived in England, watched his display and was convinced that he had what it took to succeed in Europe. They sailed on the City of Cairo soon after and arrived at Celtic Park in time for pre-season. Willie Maley, the manager, scoffed at the idea of a man playing in bare feet, but Hashim managed to convince him to give Salim a trial. The winger showed off his skill in front of the club members and coaches and was picked for a friendly against Hamilton Academicals. Celtic won 5-1. Against Galston, they triumphed 7-1, and Salims virtuoso display prompted the Scottish Daily Express to headline an article, Indian Juggler New Style. Ten twinkling toes of Salim, Celtic FCs player from India, hypnotised the crowd at Parkhead last night, said the report. He balances the ball on his big toe, lets it run down the scale to his little toe, twirls it, hops on one foot around the defender. The story didnt have a happy ending, though. The bleak Scottish autumn and winter didnt suit Salim and he decided to head back home. Years later, long

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after his fathers death in 1980, Rashid, Salims son, told Majumdar that Celtic tried to persuade my father to stay by offering to organise a charity match in his honour, giving him ve percent of the gate proceeds. My father did not realise what ve percent would amount to and said he would give his share to orphans who were to be special invitees for the match. Five percent came to 1800 but although my father was astonished, he kept to his word. In the 1970s, as Salims health failed, Rashid wrote to Celtic asking if they could help. I had no intention of asking for money, he said later. It was just a ploy to nd out if Mohammed Salim was still alive in their memory. To my amazement, I received a letter from the club. Inside was a bank draft for 100. I was delighted, not because I received the money but because my father still holds a pride of place in Celtic. I have not even cashed the draft and will preserve it till I die. The cheque and Celtics hooped jersey remain in the Salim house as a reminder of the man who was so nearly became Indian footballs rst overseas star.

Its now become urban legend that it was a desire to play barefoot that saw India miss the 1950 World Cup despite having qualied [Burma and the Philippines withdrew from the group]. Their absence, though, had little to do with lack of boots and more to do with the absence of money in the football federations coffers. It wasnt until 1951, when the country hosted the rst Asian Games, that the team even had a professional coach. In many ways, Syed Abdul Rahim was the Stan Cullis of India. Just as Wolves enjoyed their halcyon years under Cullis, so Indian footballs brief moments in the sun came under the Hyderabadbased Rahim. Having established himself with Hyderabad City Police, whom he transformed into the countrys leading side, the Asian Games provided the perfect opportunity for him to show what he could do with the best talent available. The contests were still amateurish in nature, though. Matches in India were played over 50 minutes. For the Asian Games, that was upped to 60. India saw off Indonesia 3-0 and then beat Afghanistan by the same score to reach the nal. There they faced Iran, who wore boots and employed a long-passing game to upset the hosts rhythm. Some of the Indian players were visibly intimidated, so much so that Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister, visited the dressing-room at half-time to try and lift spirits. Four minutes into the second half, Mewalal scored. The next half hour ticked by slowly, but at the end of it, the barefoot Indians were champions of the continent. It was the rst of many false dawns, a chimera that would be rudely

Even with independence from British rule in 1947, the barefoot problem remained. In Jaydeep Basus Stories from Indian Football, Sabu Mewalal, who played in the 1948 Olympics, recalled that an officer from Buckingham Palace visited our camp and invited the team for a tea party. Even [the future] Queen Elizabeth II expressed her surprise at how we play so well without boots. The team lost 2-1 to France, missing two penalties and spurning numerous other chances.

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exposed at the Helsinki Olympics a year later. Yugoslavia, who would lose to Ferenc Pusks and the Magic Magyars in the nal, routed India 10-1, a defeat that was to pave the way for 90-minute matches on international-size grounds and the compulsory use of boots. Tactically too, it prompted a rethink, with Rahim abandoning half a century of tradition and opting for a three-at-theback system. Herbert Chapman arrived at Arsenal in 1925 and pioneered the W-M [or 3-22-3] formation. It was another three decades before Rahim decided to imitate that with his Indian team. By then, world football had moved on, with Gusztav Sebess Hungary highlighting the extent of English footballs tactical limitations. The move to three backs met with huge resistance in India and even Rahim was initially sceptical when Albert Flatley, who did a four-month coaching stint with the Indian federation in the mid-1950s, suggested the switch. By the Melbourne Olympics of 1956, the change had been made, largely because Rahim had a squad of his choosing. After Hungarys withdrawal in the aftermath of the Uprising, which saw large numbers of players defect to the west, India went straight into the quarter-nals, and a game against the hosts. Neville DSouzas hat-trick ensured a 4-2 win and the honour of being the rst Asian nation in an Olympic semi-nal. Yugoslavia made sure they went no further, with a 4-1 win, but DSouza scored rst and most reports of the game suggest a match that was far closer than the scoreline suggests. The 1958 Asian Games saw the team lose to South Korea in the semi-nal, a

setback that was to prove the spur for Indian footballs nest hour four years later. When the Asian Games were held in Jakarta in 1962, regional politics ensured that the Indians would be the most unpopular contingent. The team bus was stoned, and athletes constantly heckled. It didnt help morale that the footballers started badly, losing 2-0 to South Korea. In a fortnight in which the Indian High Commission was attacked as well, Rahims team ignored the multiple off-eld distractions to beat Thailand 4-1 and Japan 2-0 to seal a semi-nal place. Against South Vietnam, they squandered a 2-0 lead before Chuni Goswami, the suave captain who also played cricket for Bengal, struck the winner. The nal meant another game against South Korea in front of a hostile crowd of 100,000. Goals from PK Banerjee and Jarnail Singh, the commanding centreback, clinched a 2-1 victory that is still spoken about half a century later. Rahim wept afterwards. Within 10 months, it was Indian football that would mourn as he succumbed to lung cancer. An era had passed. That team was Indias nest ever. Goswami, Banerjee, Jarnail and Peter Thangaraj, the goalkeeper, were all candidates for Asian All-Star sides. But once Rahim passed on, there were no capable hands at the rudder. Bereft of direction, Indian football stalled. By the 1970s, they were struggling to beat Asias leading sides. By the 1980s, they themselves had become easy to beat. Before the Asian Cup appearance in Qatar in January 2011, a back-door entry courtesy of winning the AFC Challenge Cup in 2008, India hadnt taken part in

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the continental showpiece since 1984. They hadnt come close to qualifying for more than three decades, and the plight of the top clubs in the Champions League has been just as pitiful. The structure of Indian football didnt help. Until the National Football League was formed in 1996, teams focused primarily on their state leagues and on cup competitions held in various parts of the country. Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, the countrys most successful clubs, tended to be obsessed with superiority in the Kolkata league, and employed a ludicrous transfer policy that saw players change teams every season. With no concept of team-building and a big-sh-in-a-small-pond mindset, there was no progress, either in terms of tactics or attracting people to the game. While cricket became professional and made huge strides, football began to wither away even in places where it traditionally had a huge following. Bengal, Kerala, Goa and parts of Mumbai and Delhi have been the games strongholds, but despite the national league, standards have slipped steadily. Clubs from Goa, the one Indian state yet to produce a well-known cricketer, now dominate the league, while Kerala and Bengal tend to get by on memories of former glories. An inux of foreign players hasnt necessarily helped. It would be different if youngsters were playing alongside a Gianfranco Zola or a Lus Figo. Instead, you have a number of African professionals, many of whom started off as college students in India. Some of them are exceptionally gifted and will eventually nd their way to the Middle East or

Malaysia/Singapore, but a great number hold down a place because their physique allows them to play a brand of bustling football that intimidates the locals. The lack of role models is another factor. Vijayan, who grew up desperately poor after his father died in an accident when he was a child, started off selling soda bottles at his local stadium. When he rst made the grade, he was so emaciated that most doubted his ability to last 90 minutes. Although he played for most of Indias top clubs, the shyness and diffidence that were a result of his upbringing prevented him from making a serious attempt at football overseas. His successor as Indias best player, Baichung Bhutia, did make the leap, but his time at Bury at the turn of the new millennium was distinctly unrewarding. A small skilful player couldnt have chosen a worse stage than English footballs lower reaches, with the emphasis on brawn and speed. Houghtons stint, carrying on the good work done by Stephen Constantine, another itinerant Englishman, helped some of the younger players gain condence. Sunil Chhetri went off to Major League Soccer and the Kansas City Wizards, and although the move didnt work out for him, hes still young enough to make it elsewhere. Theres also hope that a new generation will be able to go where even the team of 1962 couldnt. Barcelona are among the big European clubs to have set up a coaching school in India, and various Premier League clubs, not just the Indian-owned Blackburn Rovers, are looking at tapping the young talent. Premier League replica shirts are now part of Indias urban landscape and more

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and more well-to-do kids prefer cooler football to cricket. Whether theyll have anywhere to play is another matter. Most government-run schools have nothing resembling playgrounds. Even the traditional ones are disappearing, usurped by unscrupulous land maas in various part of the country. Ultimately, though, the future depends on the one thing that no one likes to talk about: money. Mahindra United, who had been part of the Indian football scene for decades, left the sport last year having decided it was no longer feasible to eld a side. Others will go the same way unless sponsors step in. Viva Kerala have found one such benefactor in Volkswagen. A sponsorship deal worth $4 million over two seasons will be signed, provided the team can escape relegation from the I-League this season. With that kind of money, Indian football can look at bringing in fresh coaching

ideas to invigorate a moribund system. And while others laugh at the idea of paying big money into the retirement funds of Fabio Cannavaro and Figo, theres no overstating the value that one such signing would have for Indian football. Lalit Modi, for all his faults and omissions, created a multi-billion dollar creature in Twenty20 crickets Indian Premier League. What football needs is an entrepreneur of similar determination and vision, someone who can tap into the passion of a people who will pack a 100,000 stadium in Kolkata this September when Argentina play a friendly. Nearly 50 years have passed since Rahim masterminded that memorable night in Jakarta. Houghtons departure inspires no great optimism, but if a Modi can be found for football, it may be that after decades treading water for so long, Indian football could make its great leap forward.

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Man and Boy

Man and Boy

Fathers, sons and the grumbling terraces of industrial Scotland
By David Ashton

My father was a diffident man with a sly sense of humour and marked intelligence, which was wasted in the factory where he worked. Hasties. They made ships engines. He was a marine engineer. Greenock, the West of Scotland, 1951. I was 10 at the time. A boy saw very little of his father in those days the men worked overtime, night-shift and swerved like a winger into the pub on a Friday night; in fact often when they emerged en masse from the works a few determined wives were waiting to make sure they got the paypacket before it disappeared inside the publicans pocket. It was a hard-drinking, hard-smoking world and, being 10, I didnt take much part in it. On Saturday mornings I sometimes took his betting line to the bookies, which was 10 yards to the left as you look at it from the Willow Bar where my dad drank and was the domino champion. I disgraced myself once when my mothers horse for the Derby came in at the odds of 33-1 and my father, having thought the beast had no chance, had laid the money on another cuddy that lost comprehensively but comforted himself that he could hoodwink my mother as regards the odds.

When he returned wreathed in Woodbine smoke from the bookies, he found that I, the mathematical genius, had calculated the due sum to the exact penny. So he had to shell out and gave me what can only be described as a look of remonstrance. But thats not what I wanted to write about. Every other Saturday afternoon, my father would shine his shoes till they gleamed like a brass candle-stick, put on a clean shirt, his fawn windcheater if the weather allowed, comb his wiry hair to an undeviating-side parting then turn and nod to me where I stood in the doorway with my pilot helmet on. Are ye ready? he would ask. I nodded back. My mother, hunched over the two-bar electric re one bar of which worked and already deep in her latest Max Brand cowboy story, called a farewell warning against drygulchers, and the journey began. Cappielow not Camelot. Greenock Morton the team, football the game. Heroes on green grass. This was our time together. Father and son. Even remembering it now, as we

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came down the tenement stairs together, the grey light spilling into the mouth of the close, a moment when he might mutter and adjust my collar which was never out or in, ever, between my jerkin and pullover, even now, in my solar plexus I feel that thrill of anticipation. We lived at the West Station and already there would be knots of men and boys milling around where the ve roads met, many of them sporting the blue and white colours of the team. I never saw my father wear one of those scarves or ever thought to ask him why he didnt. I suppose probably he, being vehemently anti-Masonic, was particular what he draped round his neck and I always lost my mufflers, so we cut sober gures as we met with his best pal, Jimmy Turner, a foxy Englishman who had married a Greenock girl. He was a good companion but slapdash. When I brought my fathers piece to the factory, men shouting above the hellish screeching of machines, Jimmys workbench was like a midden. My dads like a surgeons table, tools all in a row, clean lines, razor-sharp. Precision was his watchword, especially when he laid down a domino. All right, Andra? Jimmy called, adopting the Scots brogue best he could. My father, Andrew Scott, nodded and cast an appraising look at the sky as my own pal, Euan Cameron, a very tall, rather shy boy, joined us, hair hanging in front of his face so he resembled, as my mother often remarked, a coo looking over a dike. Blowy, observed my dad. Thatll help Dumbarton.

It was a local derby. Dumbarton, from across the water, were a bunch of cloggers who inevitably elded a team of six-foot-and-over raw-boned assassins. This was the ritual. This was the day. My father and I. Together. He often had a slightly self-conscious smile on his face in my company and I thought it because I was an awkward skinny creature, too sensitive by half, prone to bouts of high excitement of a non-Presbyterian nature, but there was perhaps a tinge of envy. He had been forced to leave education early to support his family; I was at Greenock High School and fated to be the rst in the family to wear a white collar. Deskbound. But to hell with all that. There was a game on and we both loved our football. With Jimmy and my dad sauntering behind, we joined the queue of fans heading into the bowels of the West Station and then waited on the platform for the train to Cartsdyke. There was a tense buzz, very little raucous display, minds were concentrated. Dumbarton played in gold and black. Like bumblebees. And they were hard. The carriages were mobbed. Men sat. Boys stood. The smaller kids were on their dads knee but I was too big for that. My pilot helmet attracted a few curious glances and my father shook his head wryly as I adjusted the leather strap under my chin. You look daft, said Euan from behind his curtain of hair. I liked that helmet. I wish I had it now.

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The crowd spilled out at Cartsdyke and walked the last lap to Cappielow. A bus of Dumbarton supporters drove past and the Sons of the Rock, as they were known, waved their beer bottles cheerily enough. The Morton men had stocked up earlier and many a surreptitious pee was enacted up many a suffering closemouth but my father never drank before a game. He was a purist. As we neared the stadium the polis made their appearance. One of them was Euans big Highland father, a sergeant no less. He smiled and we lowered our eyes in acknowledgement always useful to have the law on your side, but dont fraternise in public. I remember once when Celtic came for a cup tie and beat us 3-1. After the nal whistle, even though our side was teeming with Catholics, more as an exercise than anything else, a fusillade of beer bottles like arrows at Agincourt sailed elegantly through the air to land on the charging police, who batted them aside like so many ies. I didnt see Sergeant Cameron on hand. Perhaps he was organising from the back. Anyway. Through the turnstiles, no more being lifted over too big for that also. Up the concrete steps, heading for the far reaches of the terracing opposite, level with the half-way line, somewhat at the mercy of the elements. In Greenock they consisted of smirr, drizzle, rain, heavy rain, and heavy rain with a following wind. But today there was a pale watery sun furtively peeking through the scudding grey clouds.

My father pursed his lips. Blowy, he remarked once more, zipping up his windcheater another notch. Jimmy always sported a heavy overcoat, his thin English blood unable to thole the damp cold. Euan wore a Harris Tweed checked jacket, cavalry twills and heavy black shoes that might have once belonged to his father. I had an imitation leather jerkin to go with my helmet. We forever got there early to snaffle the best standing position then scuffed and shifted our feet, leaning against the metal barrier as more and more fans poured in. A big fat man stood on the steps right in front of me and my father tapped him politely on the shoulder to request that he move a little aside because, The boy cannae see. The man glared at me and thought to demur but my dad had a way with him and Jimmy, smiling menacingly to show that the three teeth in his upper gums had no competition on either side, looked like a gangster on the run. So Fatty moved, enough for me to spot, as a roar built up, motion on the opposite side, then the sound became louder till the ears rang as we acclaimed our team, trotting onto the pitch; for this moment heroes to a man. That was the thrill. The heart leapt. In that second anything was possible. Impulsively I grabbed onto my fathers hand and he smiled at the excitement on my face. Where theres life theres hope, he announced. In truth Morton were going through a dull patch, stagnating in mid-table but

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before the ball rolled they could defeat Pusks and the mighty Hungary, burst Celtics balloon and wreck the Rangers. All this in hope. It springs eternal in a football man. And I am one of those afflicted souls. Dumbarton emerged to cheers from their supporters behind the far goal and boos from everywhere else. The referee emerged to all-round condemnation; the coin was tossed, ends chosen, kick-off, once more that roar of desire over experience as the game began.

deep draught of Capstan Extra Strength, blew it out and caught my eye. Theres nae justice, he said. Half-time, goalless, a coin pressed into my hand, Euan and I sent for Bovril while Jimmy nipped at his quarter bottle and my father lit another cigarette. As we waited in the queue for the magical brew, Euan put together his rst long sentence of the day. This is a terrible game, he muttered. Euan played centre-back for the school team and was as economical with the ball as his word usage. I wasnt even reserve goalie. The Bovril was scalding hot in the paper cups as we inched our way back through the sullen, mutinous crowd caught between anger at the feeble performance of their own team and righteous disdain at the King Kong tactics of the opposition. My father took his paper cup, lifted it carefully to his lips. Jimmy stuck to his nips, while Euan and I burnt our tongues on the scalding meat extract. The fat man turned round. It can only get better, he sighed. My father dropped the butt-end of his Capstan into the remnants of the Bovril where it hissed and died. Once more our eyes met. It could get worse, he remarked quietly. Thats aye possible. Things can always get worse.

After half an hour I had a dull ache in my bones as if injected by the school nurse; Dumbarton, as feared, were ungainly, bony and big as buggery as they kicked lumps out of Morton. The ref seemed to nd aesthetic pleasure in seeing the blue and white hoops y into the air to lie in a crumpled heap. The crowd were howling abuse at more or less anyone uncrumpled, and the language was livid. Cway the Stiffs! Jimmy shouted in a somewhat compromised encouragement as Jackie Ferguson, our one class player on the right wing, caught the boot of the opposing back in both hands about a foot away from his chin. The ref blew and gave the foul to Dumbarton. The fat man in front of me tore at his thinning hair with both hands as my father, with dead-pan face, cupped his hands round a lit match, sucked in a

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The half began, Morton had the wind at their back and were kicking towards the home end; surely the second coming was at hand? As the game wore on my thoughts drifted as they drift now, remembering the roll call of those who graced and disgraced the sacred turf. Geordie Fleming, who could put the ball over the railway track from the penalty spot and laugh as if the joke was on him. Gorgeous Gordon Wylie, his indoor tan and noble Greek physique reduced to weekly impotence by a succession of bow-legged, at-nosed inside-forwards. Tiger Cowan, the goalie, even on one leg and 10 years past his prime, clutching a ball at the near post in huge magnetised paws. Doctor Adam Little, balding and cultured, measuring out passes like a quantity surveyor. Tommy Orr, bony and horse-like, who never recovered from missing a penalty for Scotland; to watch him hit a 20-yard free kick low and deadly into the net was to feel history brush past in savage motion. Jackie Ferguson hemmed in at the corner ag, watching sphinx-like as Ronnie Shaw the left-winger, whose father was the trainer, ran headlong into the goalpost. And many more drifting like ghosts in memory. I came back from dreams and there was Jackie Ferguson waiting on the 18-yard

line as the giant Dumbarton centre-half thudded his head against the ball to clear a corner. The wind held it up to drop gently at the wingers feet and he hit straight as a die, the ball scorching into the top left-hand corner of the goal. Bedlam. Euan and I hugged each other; Jimmy raised his quarter bottle in salute, the crowd, balm poured upon their discontent, acclaimed the conquering heroes. An all-seeing, all merciful referee blew for the goal and then full time. The mighty Dumbarton had been thrashed 1-0. My father pursed his lips and nodded sagely. As if he had seen it coming. From a long way. A long, long way.

We never took the train back, always walked it, but this time my father and Jimmy took the lead while Euan and I trailed behind and earnestly awarded each Morton player stars up to ve while the fans milled around us, scarves hanging round their necks like discarded snake-skins, all of us limp and breathless, throats raw, minds buzzing after the roaring Saturday afternoon. I remember the rst time I saw oodlights at Cappielow. It was like another world, the players skins glistening in the white rays and the fans faces like so many small moons in the dark. A roar went up at the sheer magnitude of it all. We were oodlit. Sophisticated. No turning back.

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Great game, Andra! Jimmy had nished his quarter bottle and was weaving a little. My dad winked at me. Its aye a good game when ye win. It was a long trail home but victory put wings on our feet. Plus there was the bonus of Euan and I being given money to buy two Sharps Specials a rectangular piece of toffee that occupied the entire orice when tted sideways into the mouth. It curtailed conversation and my jaw aches now just thinking about it, but when a boy youll chew on anything. And swallow. Anything. I kept seeing that ball go into the net. And something else as well. The rain held off as we nally meandered back to the West Station and Euan, muttering that hed see me at school, sloped off towards Barrs Cottage where his parents had a policemans house. Our place was directly above the Willow Bar where Jimmy and my father were heading. If wed knocked a hole in the oor, I could have watched him play dominoes. My dad reached out and adjusted the pilot helmet. Its aye squinty that thing, he observed. For a moment our eyes met then he gave me a brusque shove towards the close.

Away and see your mother before Geronimo scalps her. Jimmy let out a whisky laugh, my father waved his nicotined ngers to indicate maternal bound motion and then the two of them disappeared into the pub where the rattle of the till and loud noise of post-match analysis told of an adult male world where boys did not belong. I went into the close but, before nding out the fate of Texas Slim on the Chisholm Trail, I stopped to take a deep breath and soak up the day. Our team had won. God was good, even though my father was a Clydeside Communist. A protestant Communist to be precise. And I was remembering the something else as well. Just after the goal went in, before I jumped to celebrate with Euan, I saw my fathers face he was like a man possessed by happiness, alive and vibrant. He caught my look and grinned. And I grinned back. Father and son. Football men.

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Polemics
Banks might disappear, but football clubs are sturdier constructions.

The Pillars of the Earth

The Pillars of the Earth

Could it be that the Premier League boom has only just begun?
By Simon Kuper

When Roman Abramovich decided to buy a football club, the rst places he looked were Spain and Italy. But ownership there seemed rather complicated. In Italy, many of the families who owned clubs had been doing business with each other for generations. In Spain, horror of horrors, the fans themselves owned the biggest clubs. As for the Bundesliga, Abramovich never seems to have considered it. And so in April 2002 he ew to Manchester to watch United. Afterwards, Dominic Midgley and Chris Hutchins reported in their book Abramovich, Rio Ferdinand drove him back to Manchester airport, and the Russian charmed the player by joining in a singalong with a fellow passenger, Ferdinands four-yearold half-brother. Not long after, the story goes, Abramovich was ying over London in a helicopter when he spotted a football stadium handily located near Knightsbridge. Whats that? he reportedly asked. It was Chelsea. Abramovich bought the club, sealing the deal over a bottle of Evian water with the departing owner Ken Bates in the Dorchester Hotel. This was 2003, and that Evian toast opened a new era in the Premier League: rich foreigners buying

traditional English clubs and making them the best in the world. Many believe that this era of English supremacy now is or should be coming to an end. English clubs currently account for somewhere over half the 6 billion that Europes football clubs cumulatively owe. Portsmouth won the FA Cup in 2008, then tumbled into administration and almost went bust. Manchester United are 590 million in debt. It all reminds one of Michel Platinis warning to indebted European football clubs two years ago. If this situation goes on, Uefas president said, it will not be long before even some major clubs face going out of business. That seems to be the premise of the angry Select Committee of British MPs now running an inquiry into football governance. Equally bad, in the eyes of the critics, most big English clubs are owned by foreigners like Abramovich who have no traditional ties to their playthings. Platini speaks for many when he grumbles, Football was created because Manchester Citys players were against Manchester Uniteds players. Today I dont see why Manchester Citys Qatari president is against the American president of United, and he chuckles at the absurdity of it all. (As it happens, Manchester Citys owner is

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Sheikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi, but the point stands.) Meanwhile Germany lest we forget, the biggest country and economy in Europe has begun looking curiously like the future. Bayern Munichs president Uli Hoeness crows that his club and the Bundesliga have rosy prospects, because unlike certain people they arent mired in debt. Christian Seifert, the Bundesligas chief executive, has warned the Premier League, In the long run, the product is in danger. Its time to ask whether the Premier League really is in trouble. The answer: absolutely not. In fact its growth may have only just begun.

state channels. Thats why only in English football have annual TV revenues risen more than 1300 per cent since 1992. For decades various countries had taken turns to provide the worlds dominant league. In the 1950s it was Colombia of all places, in the 1970s Holland and then Germany. Serie A was the fashionable league of the 1980s. But by May 2008, when Chelsea and Manchester United squared off in the Champions League nal in Moscow, there was only one league that mattered. The newly glamorous English clubs attracted some pretty bizarre owners. When Vincent Kompany signed for Manchester City from Hamburg, and was expecting to say hi to Citys Thai owner Thaksin Shinawatra, he was told the meeting had been cancelled because Thaksin had had a spot of bother and needed to go into hiding. Still, not to worry. Keith Harris, the pink-faced banker who specialises in brokering takeovers of English football clubs, always had a queue of foreigners ringing his mobile asking if there were any Premier League clubs going spare. Finally, in late-stage capitalism, came overleveraging. While the UK covered itself in debt, so did its football teams. In 2005, the Glazer family of Florida nanced its takeover of Manchester United by loading the club with hundreds of millions of pounds of debt. United paid 40m interest in the 09-10 season. Thats enough to buy three Mesut zils. When United and Chelsea met in that match in Moscow in 2008, the two teams had a combined 1.5bn in debt. Other clubs found their own ways to burn money. In the summer of 2008, just

The story of the Premier League is the story of modern Britain. Since the 1980s English football has passed through the same stages as the British economy itself. Stage one was the embrace of capitalism. About the time that Margaret Thatcher began encouraging prot-seeking in the 1980s, turning the formerly sleepy City over to foreign banks, the rst English clubs entered the stock market. Stage two was striking it big. In 1992 a deep British recession creaked to an end. Just then, the Premier League was founded and its TV rights were sold to BSkyB. Suddenly only British people who bought satellite dishes could watch the top division. But the government allowed it, because post-Thatcher Britain trusted the free market the other essential condition for the leagues rise. A more social democratic Germany saw football as a public good, to be shown free on

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before the global economy crashed, I visited the Swiss architecture rm Herzog & de Meuron in Basel. These were the people who built the Tate Modern art museum, Munichs Allianz Arena and Beijings Birds Nest. In their offices, I was introduced to three bright young architects who were designing a stunning waterfront stadium for Portsmouth FC. Peter Storrie, the clubs then chief executive, had said, We have only one word to describe this stadium. Perfection. Portsmouth had recently acquired a new gung-ho personality under their then owner Alexandre Gaydamak. Gaydamaks father is a Russian-Israeli arms dealer, who in the course of an upwardly mobile career had been sentenced to six years in jail in France. Portsmouths new stadium hasnt been built. Last year, when the club appeared in the Companies Court on a winding up order, it became the new symbol not just of English football but of Britain itself. The spendthrift club was the average spendthrift Briton writ slightly larger. Portsmouth had debts of about 138m, nearly double its annual turnover. The McKinsey Global Institute calculated last year that total British public, corporate and private debt was about 4.7 times bigger than Britains annual economic output. In fact, the Premier Leagues debt bubble bears an uncanny resemblance to the debt bubble that brought down the global economy. Instead of Americans buying houses they couldnt afford, here were English clubs buying footballers they couldnt afford. In both cases there was the same overcondence, the same embrace of foreign capital, the same

conquest of tradition by money, the same cheerleading by English-speaking nations while continental Europeans watched and scoffed, and the same unpayable debts. In September 2008, two days after the collapse of the American investment bank Lehman Brothers had signalled the collapse of the global economy, Platini grumbled to me at Uefas headquarters in Nyon, In football, many buy Ferraris and cant pay for them. And not just in football. The irresistible conclusion would seem to be that where Lehman Brothers went, English clubs will follow. That might even be what some want: a moral reckoning. However, it wont happen. English clubs arent going to collapse under their debt, nor shrink to the size of foreign clubs, nor be eaten by rapacious sugar-daddies. Banks might disappear, but football clubs are sturdier constructions. As Stefan Szymanski and I show in our recent book Why England Lose, football clubs almost never go bust (even if you really want them to). Their brands are too old, too strong, and too global. We must be sustainable, clubs say, parroting the new global clich. In fact they are fantastically sustainable. Dozens of English professional clubs have entered insolvency proceedings since 1992 yet only tiny Aldershot folded, and even their supporters simply started a new club almost identical to the old one. Football clubs survive even when they go bust. You cant get more sustainable than that. Portsmouth and the rest will always be with us, in some form or other. Banks fold, but almost every tin-pot British football club has survived the Depression,

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the Second World War, recessions, appalling managers and corrupt chairmen. If football clubs really did collapse under their debts, there would now be almost no football clubs left. The reason: they are too beloved to go bust. Creditors dare not push them under. No bank manager or tax collector wants to say, Portsmouth is closing. Im turning off the lights. Luckily, society can keep football going fairly cheaply. Contrary to popular opinion, football is not big business. This is a titchy little industry. The total revenues of the whole European professional market in the 2008-09 season were 15.7bn (about 13bn). Tescos revenues for 2010 were 57bn. Because clubs never go bust, they can safely take on fortunes in debt. If things go wrong, they simply dont repay their debt, the old directors walk away, and new ones come in promising to sweep up the mess (while also buying shiny new Brazil international centre-forwards). A club like Bayern, which shuns debt, is really missing a trick. Bayern could easily borrow a few hundred million euros to turn itself into the best team in Europe. Even if it ushed the money down the toilet and then said Nanananana to the lenders, the club would survive. Right now Bayern is a shiny self-sustaining debt-free business whereas English clubs arent. But the point of a football club isnt to have nice accounts. Its to win trophies. In any case, its simply not true that the biggest English clubs have taken on hundreds of millions in debts in order to buy good footballers. Chelsea and

Manchester City have no signicant debts: their billionaire owners have written off the money that they poured into the clubs. Manchester United is, historically, as prudent a business as Bayern Munich. Before the Glazers showed up, the club ran itself like a typical conservative midsized northern English company. It managed the performance risk inherent in football one referees mistake and your prots vanish by shunning debt. Even today it pays its players only with the money it actually makes. The Glazers loaded debt onto the club for one purpose only: to nance their takeover. Uniteds football business doesnt need debt. Arsenal, also very cautiously run, took on debt to build their new 60,000-seat Emirates stadium, which is now sold out for every game at perhaps the highest ticket prices in European football. Arsenal are rapidly repaying their debt and at this pace will soon, for the rst time ever, have the nancial clout to match the likes of United and Barcelona. The consultants Deloitte now rank the club in the top ve of the Football Money League, ahead of Chelsea, with revenues in the 2009-10 season of 274m. Its only the second-rank English outts that have sunk into debt in order to perform on the pitch: lower-division clubs, Portsmouth, and Liverpool, hampered by their base in Englands poorest city and without a league title in 20 years. A small club that gets into debt generally has to drop a division or two, because it nds it hard to keep borrowing: thats what is now happening to Portsmouth. But a big

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club like Liverpool simply nds itself a new rich owner. Owning Liverpool is a status symbol, like owning a Rembrandt. Manchester United, too, last year attracted a consortium of rich fans called the Red Knights who were reportedly willing to buy the debt-ridden club for 1bn. The Qataris were apparently happy to pay even more. According to Wikileaks, even the Burmese military junta considered making a bid. But the Glazers werent interested in any offers. These clubs are hardly collapsing under their debt.

generate the most money in the world. Here are Deloittes estimates for the 2008-09 season:

League
Premier League Bundesliga La Liga Serie A Ligue 1 (France)

Revenues
(billions of EUR) 2.3 1.6 1.5 1.5 1.0

If debt wont sink the English, then some say the imminent demise of footballs sugar-daddies will. From next year, Uefa begins phasing in its rules for nancial fair play. Essentially the aim is to force clubs to spend only as much money as they generate themselves. That is, clubs will no longer be allowed to spend money that comes from sugar-daddies, bank loans or any other outside sources. These regulations only come into full effect in 2018; until then, clubs will be permitted limited losses. But long before then, subsidies on the scale that lifted Chelsea to the European elite (and made Manchester City a decent team) will become impossible. Liverpool will no longer be able to borrow like it used to. Then, surely, the quality of the Premier League will decline? Once again, with apologies to the Germans and Platini, the English will be just ne. The idea that the strength of the Premier League rests on oligarchs and sheikhs is a misunderstanding. In fact, these people are just a bonus. Even without them, English clubs

As Seifert notes, English clubs dont even need to go into debt in order to outdo their foreign rivals. Even if you were to pay 500m less in salaries, he says, you would still have the best players, because who should pay them more? The end of external funding should hit Spanish and Italian clubs harder than English ones, because the Spaniards and Italians generate much lower revenues of their own and are therefore more reliant on external funding. Internazionale would never have won the Champions League without the hundreds of millions of pounds that their owner, Massimo Moratti, has poured in over the years. He might be a local, and a lifetime Inter fan, but hes just as much a sugar-daddy as Sheikh Mansour or Abramovich. Soon Morattis funding too will become illegal. The same goes for Silvio Berlusconi at Milan, and indeed most other Italian club owners. Real Madrid will do ne without the easy bank loans they can get just for asking, because their own TV revenues are huge. Other Spanish clubs are less lucky. The

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likes of Valencia and Atltico Madrid have long been propped up by banks, often ones attached to local governments. These clubs have already ceased buying superstars, and certainly wont be returning to top table at the casino once nancial fair play takes effect. If clubs own revenues really become decisive, then the Premier League and the two big Spanish clubs should run away from the rest, with only the rising Bundesliga in pursuit. The end of sugar-daddies might doom historically mid-sized clubs like Manchester City or Chelsea; but it wont hurt big clubs like Arsenal and Manchester United. In fact it will make their lives easier, because they will no longer have to compete with sugar-daddy-funded upstarts for the best players. The painful truth that people like Platini and Hoeness have to confront is this: the Premier League is the richest league because its the best-loved league. It makes the most money because fans in England and outside adore this overpriced, foreign-owned, foreignstaffed operation. Sure, the league is an expensive globalised bazaar. In todays world, that inevitably evokes fears that come from far outside of football. Platini told me that Manchester City should have a local owner. Otherwise why should the club call itself Manchester? They should call themselves, I dont know, Coca-Cola. And if you dont have English players, why play in England? Its as if 100 per cent of people in the French government were foreigners. Yet the awkward fact is that fans dont seem to mind. The distrust of foreign money so widespread in France,

Germany or the US remains very weak in England. We long ago ogged off loads of our companies to foreigners. Rolls-Royce now belongs to BMW, for instance. Cadbury, the traditional British chocolate company, was recently bought by the American corporation Kraft. Its true that when the Glazers bought United, some disgusted United fans founded an anti-money breakaway club called FC United; but there have probably been more articles written about FC in upmarket football magazines than there are spectators at its matches. Glazer or no Glazer, Manchester Uniteds stadium still packs in 76,000 every week. Those 76,000 are paying a foreign owner for the right to watch foreign footballers. Most players in the Premier League now come from outside England. Some of the biggest clubs have wisely almost dispensed with Englishmen altogether. Platini hates this. He wonders whether Liverpudlians or Mancunians can identify with a team full of foreigners. Well, they seem to manage. Judging by the Premier Leagues record crowds despite its record ticket prices, fans still identify enough even if English football arguably no longer exists. England can have an excellent league, or it can have an English league, but it cant have both. Fans seem to prefer excellence. Why should they complain about some of the worlds best footballers ocking to provincial towns like Bolton, or Newcastle, or until recently Portsmouth? William Bush, director of public policy at the Premier League, asks, What happens when we turn the fans off? Well, we havent turned the fans off yet. Somethings working. The league remains excellent. Even in the

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two seasons before this one, in which rst Barcelona and then several teams outdid the English in the Champions League, English teams earned more Uefa coefficient points in European competitions than any of their rivals. Cumulatively, they remain the best. Admittedly the Bundesliga has slightly higher average attendances: 42,500 last season, compared with 34,151 for the Premier League. But thats only about 25 per cent more spectators than England, whereas Germany has 60 per cent more inhabitants. Crucially, too, Bundesliga tickets are cheaper, so no wonder people buy more of them. Person for person, the English show a much greater willingness to pay to watch football than the Germans do. And its quite likely that the Premier Leagues dominance will only grow in the coming years. Until very recently English clubs made almost all their money inside England. In 2003 I asked Manchester Uniteds then nance director, Peter Draper, what percentage of their revenues came from abroad. The square root of nothing, he replied. That is changing fast. The model of local leagues is fading in football. Even in Argentina, with its historic league, people increasingly watch Arsenal on TV. Thats even more true in the US, China, Japan, and, now, India. Their soccer fans mostly came of age in this era of globalisation. They care little for their local teams. They want a world league. That must be the Premier League, because it clearly isnt the Champions League (featuring Hapoel Tel Aviv, MK ilina and CFR Cluj). The market for English clubs is the world, and the clubs have only just started to tap it.

The Americans who have bought several big English clubs are betting on this growth. They know that American sports clubs will struggle ever to nd a market abroad; Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United or Aston Villa have a lot more potential on foreign TV than do the New York Yankees or the Dallas Cowboys. Lets take Nigeria a country with a proud local football tradition of its own as our case-study. During the African Cup of Nations in 2008, the Nigerian Muhammed Musa, who teaches mass communications at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, returned to his native land and found something surprising: Nigerians are turning off Nigerian football. In recent years football show houses have opened all around the country, Musa discovered. Often the show houses are simple sheds, where people pay entrance fees to watch English games as humble as Fulham v Bolton on TV. These places are jam-packed every weekend, said Musa. He visited show houses during the Nations Cup to observe the crowds, he said, but to my surprise there were not many people there. Even when Nigeria played, few Nigerians turned up to watch. The proprietors of the show houses told Musa the Nations Cup was ruining their nances. People are not interested in this thing, the owners complained. We cant wait for this to end so the Premier League can resume. What particularly struck Musa was what had happened to national TV news. The programme had begun at 9pm since time immemorial, and had helped build

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the nation by gathering all of Nigeria together in front of TV sets. These days, though, it sometimes moves from its traditional starting time if it clashes with a game between two of Englands Big Four clubs. Now this national we-ness is built around Liverpool v Chelsea, Musa marvelled. People love these clubs sometimes too much. Nine deaths were recorded in one town alone when Chelsea and Manchester United met in Moscow in 2008. After Barcelona beat Manchester United in 2009, an angry United fan in the town of Ogbo killed four people when he drove his minibus into a crowd. We have not seen people supporting their national team with their blood, Musa concluded, but we are seeing people support corporate teams with their lives. The importance of the nation is diminishing, and what is replacing it is allegiance to a corporate club. The corporate clubs are making ever more money out of that allegiance. From 2010 through to 2013, the Premier League will earn a total of 1.44bn from selling its foreign rights abroad. Per year, that works out at four times what the Spanish league makes from its foreign rights, six times what Serie A gets and fourteen times the Bundesliga. And the English sum is unlikely to fall. The largest foreign TV market of all, the US, is fast turning onto soccer: American viewing

gures for the last world cup were almost 50 per cent higher than for the 2006 tournament. The USA-Ghana quarternal drew 15 million live viewers in the US, comparable to the average game in baseballs World Series or basketballs NBA nals. Increasingly, Americans are buying subscriptions to see the Premier League on TV. In many American college dorm rooms nowadays, hungover students gather round the atscreen on Saturday mornings to catch Arsenal v Blackpool or Everton v Villa. An English friend of mine who lives in Miami experienced something similar himself the other month. Flying back into the US, he had his passport thumbed through by a suspicious customs official. The man even studied his place of birth. Burnley, the chap murmured. And then he said: You had a good result last night. The funny thing is, mused my friend afterwards, it was only a League Cup game. As the world turns onto English football, sugar-daddies and debt spending could become irrelevant. As more and more Nigerians, Floridians and even Burmese (watching en masse outdoors in deathly silence at 3am) switch on, the league will only become more dominant. The many who resent the Premier League will have to content themselves with dreaming about Armageddon.

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Whats the Point of Football Writing?

Whats the Point of Football Writing?

Theres more to it than getting up late, isnt there? Isnt there?
By Tim Vickery

In a vain attempt to raise my cultural level, a few months back a friend loaned me one of his favourite novels, The Sportswriter by Richard Ford. I struggle with ction. Theres a heap of novels that Ive discarded after labouring through 100 pages or so. This was one more. But I did nd something so interesting that I made a point of writing it down in my notebook. It was a piece of advice given to the sport writing narrator by his boss. What he needs, he is told, is an appreciation of the fact that youre always writing about people who wanted to be doing what theyre doing or they wouldnt be doing it, which was the only urgency sports writing could summon, but also the key to overcoming the irrelevancy of sports itself. It is a passage that leads us straight to the f word, the one that taunts those of us who make a living from writing about football. What on earth are we doing? How can we justify spending so much of our time on this activity? Can it be true that our professional lives are an extended exercise in futility? Perhaps needless to say, my answer to the last question is no. But it causes

enough discomfort to force me on a fairly regular basis to work out my case for the defence while Im taking my morning shower (usually around 11 oclock one of the perks of the job is the opportunities for extended lie-ins, which to my mind is justication in itself for my career choice). For what its worth, my opinion could hardly differ more from that of the boss of The Sportswriter. It must be a cultural thing. Ive never been to the USA, but I cant feel an affinity for their concept of sport. With their franchises and draft systems, it always seems to me that on that eternal tightrope between business and culture that professional sport has to walk, their model has always fallen on the side of the business. Of course, football has been overrun with commercialisation in recent decades. In fact, one of its consequences has been to render untrue one of the lines from The Sportswriter: Youre always writing about people who wanted to be doing what theyre doing. This does not seem to be the case for some contemporary players, big names among them. The demands of money bring pressures and an excess of games that take some of the joy out of playing, while

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for some the purpose of the exercise seems to be to nance entry into the life a non-stop glamour parade of women and tattoos. Nevertheless, the culture of football is so entrenched that money can take a piggyback on the game, but cannot crush its very essence at which point my case for the defence calls Argentinas great philosophising coach, Csar Luis Menotti. To be a footballer, he says, means being a privileged interpreter of the feelings and dreams of many, many people. The games apparent simplicity disguises an extraordinary complexity of movements and options. A player can pass the ball forwards, backwards or sideways, long or short, on the ground or in the air, with his right foot or his left. He need not pass the ball at all. He can run with it if he likes. Such a range of choices ensures the existence of many different schools of football. Different cultures can express themselves through their approach to the game. As you live, so you play. This gives football an enormous power. More than any other sport, football can make a people feel that they are being represented. For decades, of course, this was true not only because of the style of play, but also because of those who played it. With such low nancial barriers to entry, many footballers sprung from the same communities as those who watched from the terraces. At elite level in the rst world, the global market has weakened this bond, with the squads of top clubs now drawn from the four corners of the planet.

But on the other hand, the forward march of technology has increased the need for people to feel represented in a group context. New gadgets are forever atomising, enabling users to spend time in their own private space. Football works the other way, allowing people to feel a part of something much bigger than themselves. In its mass form English football is the product of the worlds rst industrial revolution. It is surely impossible to understand the extraordinary success of English football over the last 20 years without seeing it in the context of a need to recreate, in a sanitised form, the collective values of industrial society. And so the footballer, as Menotti so eloquently identied, is not important in terms of his bank balance, his gorgeous girlfriend or his lifestyle choices not that these triumphs should be begrudged. Those who put on the show deserve to be rewarded. But the world tries to turn the players into pop stars when really they are popular stars important precisely because of those they represent, the thousands in the stadium and the millions who follow them from afar, straining imaginary muscles to help their team to victory. Something that matters so much to so many people can hardly be futile. There must surely be value in an activity which offers the world a universal language which can be spoken with such passion in so many different accents. And that is the defence that this sportswriter can offer for the way I make my living the best I can muster after sitting through three back-to-back games in the Copa Libertadores.

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Worlds Apart
Fifa and the nancial legacy of the South African World Cup
By Kieron OConnor

When Iker Casillas raised the World Cup trophy in Johannesburgs Soccer City last July, everyone congratulated Spain on their victory, but arguably the man who gained most from the tournament was the one standing next to him, beaming with pride. That man was Sepp Blatter, the longstanding president of Fifa, whose bold decision to award the most prestigious competition in world football to South Africa had paid off in every sense. Blatter could be forgiven for heaving a huge sigh of relief, as his organisation had to a certain extent gambled when deciding to take the World Cup (excuse me, the 2010 Fifa World Cup) to Africa for the rst time. Many experts had predicted that Fifa would make a loss on the event in contrast to the large prots generated in Germany in 2006, but the results were fantastically good off the pitch, even if some of the football on display was disappointing. Last years accounts revealed that total revenue for the four-year cycle from 2007 to 2011 had increased a very impressive 65 percent to $4.2 billion, leading to a healthy surplus of $631 million that allowed Fifa to increase its reserves to a record level of $1.28bn. Little wonder that Blatter reacted with his customary satisfaction: I am

the happiest man. Its a huge, huge nancial success. Although Blatter spoke movingly in Soccer City of a dream coming true and the spirit of Mandela, he had revealed his priorities a few weeks earlier when he boasted that Fifas excellent nancial report justied awarding the World Cup to South Africa as a good nancial and commercial decision. You can say that again. The World Cup is clearly the jewel in Fifas gilded crown, providing the vast majority of its revenue and prots. In fact, 87 percent ($3.7bn) of their turnover is derived from one of sports greatest shows on earth, which resulted in a considerable prot of $2.4bn for the event. Great stuff, but, as all football fans know, for every winner there has to be a loser, and in this case it was the host country at least from the nancial perspective. The World Cup was a great deal for Fifa, as they pocketed the lions share of the massive sums raised by the sale of TV rights and sponsorship deals, while South Africa had to foot the colossal bill for infrastructure improvements, which was estimated at $3.5bn by the South African Public Service Commission.

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Fifa Reserves
1,400 1,200 1,000 800 600 400 200 0 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Year Reserve (USD millions)

2003 76

2004 2005 2006 208 350 617

2007 643

2008 902

2009 1061

2010 1280

In fairness, Fifa did provide $526m to the Local Organising Committee, including $226m in direct support and $300m from ticket sales, but this is small change compared to the money needed to fund new stadiums, improved transport networks and better security. The cost would have been lower if Fifa had accepted the South Africans plans to revamp existing stadiums, but instead they forced the locals to build expensive state-of-theart facilities in order to project the right image for their tournament (and their corporate sponsors). This nancial imbalance has given the expression a game of two halves a whole new meaning in Johannesburg, though it should maybe be tweaked to a game of haves and have-nots.

Looking at the gures makes one of Blatters outbursts before the World Cup seem even more bizarre. Colonialists over the past 100 years have only gone to Africa to exploit it, to take out all the best things, he said. Theres no respect. Fifa is giving back to Africa. While admiring Fifa for taking the risk of breaking new ground in staging the World Cup in Africa, it is evident that it managed to reduce the dangers to its bottom line as much as possible. The media and marketing revenue that it keeps is contracted well in advance, while the ticketing income that is allocated to the host country is the only uncertain revenue stream. On top of that, the billions of dollars worth of playing talent is provided by football clubs free of charge. OK, its not quite

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free, but the compensation from Fifa, described as a share of the benets was a derisory $38m. To be fair to our friends in Zurich, Fifas nancial success is almost totally dependent on the successful staging of the World Cup and the prots from this event have to cover all their expenses over for the four years in between tournaments, as explained by the general secretary, Jrme Valcke. We are not rich, he said. We are making quite good money thanks to the World Cup, but thats the only money we have. A key executive obviously has a vested interest in under-playing their large prots, but the independent analysts Sportcal have supported this view. Fifa is quick to point out that its prots from the World Cup go towards funding its many other activities over the four-year cycle between World Cups, including less lucrative competitions such as junior and womens World Cups and the quadrennial Confederations Cup between continental national teams champions, it explained. These tournaments tend to make losses, which are only covered by the prots from Fifas agship competition. For example, in the last two years, Fifa incurred signicant expenses of $223m for other events, including the Confederations Cup in South Africa ($44m), the U-17 World Cup in Nigeria ($43m), the U-20 World Cup in Egypt ($21m) and the U-20 Womens World Cup in Germany ($21m) plus many others. Back to the money-making machine, Fifas largest revenue element is the sale of television rights, which has increased

Importance of World Cup to Fifas results

4500 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 200 0 Revenue Expenses Result

World Cup

Total

USD (millions) World Cup 2010 Other Activities Total Fifa

Rev 3655 534 4189

Exp 1298 2260 3558

Res 2357 -1726 631

by an astonishing 85 percent for this World Cup to $2.4bn. There were, for instance, improved contracts in the USA with the Walt Disney company (which owns ABC and ESPN) and Univision paying a combined $425m for exclusive broadcasting rights for 2010 and 2014, about three times the combined bids last time. These are considerable sums of money, but the television companies do get a lot of bang for their buck. According to Fifa, more than 26 billion viewers watched

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the World Cup. As Kevin Alavy of the international analysts Initiative Futures Sport + Entertainment said, No other media property delivers the same spikes in audience delivery, day after day, sustained over a month as the World Cup. Fifa expected more than 700 million viewers to watch the nal, which would make it the most watched live televised event in history surpassing the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony in 2008. Fifas second largest source of income is the marketing of the World Cup rights, which has almost doubled to $1.1bn. The new commercial strategy of classifying marketing partners into three categories (Partner, World Cup Sponsor and National Supporter) has been a great success. Partners enjoy the highest level of association with Fifa, which means that they own international rights to a broad range of Fifa activities as well as exclusive marketing assets. The six partners are Adidas (responsible for the Jabulani ball), Coca-Cola, Emirates, Hyundai, Sony and Visa, paying an annual fee of $24-45m for the privilege. The eight Sponsors, including the likes of McDonalds and Budweiser, pay $10-25m a year over the same period, but their rights are limited to the World Cup. The lowest tier, National Supporters, pay $4.5-7m a year, but their rights are only available in the host country. As Blatter said, Although we are in challenging nancial times, multinational companies still seek to identify with football in general and with the Fifa World Cup in particular. Indeed, Coca-Cola, McDonalds and Budweiser all claimed that their costly sponsorship had proved a resounding success, boosting sales.

Before we get too carried away with the idea that Fifa is full of commercial geniuses, it is worth noting that after Visa signed their $200m sponsorship deal in 2006, the former partners MasterCard sued them for breaching their agreement, before reaching a settlement out of court. As usual, Blatter glossed over this minor inconvenience. We managed to end the contractual dispute with MasterCard, thus opening the doors to partnership with Visa and completing our pool of partners, he said, conveniently failing to mention that the resolution cost Fifa more than $90m. Similarly, the collapse of Fifas former marketing partner ISL (International Sport & Leisure) in 2001, leading to losses of at least $42-46m, was recently presented by Blatter as benecial to the organisation. It was for us, I would say, a very positive moment, he claimed. We are masters of our own rights and we do not need any agency to work for Fifa. Our partners like the direct contact with us. Right. You get the impression that he only just stopped himself from saying masters of the universe la Bonre of the Vanities, but hes probably correct to cut out the middle man, even though the circumstances were not the cleanest. Fifa goes to extraordinary lengths to defend their rights, which culminated in 36 female fans being ejected from the match between Netherlands and Denmark for wearing gure-hugging short orange dresses that were part of an ambush marketing campaign by a Dutch brewery. This heavy-handed approach was condemned as ridiculous by a company representative: Fifa does not have the monopoly on orange.

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In fairness, Fifa does need to generate a lot of money to pay for its vast cost growth. Total expenses for the latest four-year cycle amounted to $3.6bn, which represents an 87 percent increase on the $1.9bn in the previous period even higher than the 65% revenue growth. Almost half of the expenses are eventrelated at $1.7bn, most of which were for the World Cup, including prize money of $348m. The winners pocketed a cheque for $30m with $24m going to the runners-up. Every team at the World Cup received at least $9m: $1m as a contribution to preparation costs plus $8m even if they were eliminated at the group stage. Fifa is keen to emphasise that the majority of its expenditure is on football, although it would be fairly surprising if that wasnt the case. Valcke stressed this. Just to be clear, he said, we are not sitting on prot. All the money is going back to football. In fact, the accounts note that 70 percent of overall expenditure was invested directly in football dened as the World Cup, other events and development. This is entirely consistent with Fifas stated objective of organising international competitions as well as constantly improving and promoting football. Of course, thats not enough for President Blatter, who went much further in a recent magazine article, when he pompously wrote that Fifa is no longer merely an institution that runs our sport. It has now taken on a social, cultural, political and sporting dimension in the struggle to educate children and defeat poverty.

So how well has Fifa done in its attempt to emulate Mother Theresa? To be fair, they dedicated $794m to the development of football in the latest four-year period. Indeed, they take great pains to highlight the fact that spending on development programmes in 200710 was 57 times greater than the $14m in 1995-98. Impressive stuff, but I cant help noting that total expenses have risen by $1.6bn since the 2003-06 period with only $0.4bn of this increase attributed to development. Its difficult to know how to react to this. On the one hand, there is no doubt that Fifa has spent a lot on development, but on the other hand, there is a feeling that it could have done a lot more with the funds available. Although there is no shortage of worthy-sounding projects, it does feel a little like this merely camouages the relatively low investment and certainly not enough to support Blatters outlandish claims. We resolved to instigate a range of projects designed to aid the entire African continent, he said. Football is a force for change. For Africa, for the game, for the world. The snappily titled Win in Africa with Africa initiative is designed to leave the continent with a proper football legacy, including laying many articial pitches, and has a hefty $71m budget, but other projects seem to attract more scepticism. Any observer of last years World Cup could not have avoided the 20 Centres for 2010, a laudable project to build Football for Hope Centres in African communities, but the sad truth is that only four had been completed by 2010.

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Then theres the Goal programme ($120m over four years), which was set up a year after Blatter rst became president to nance development projects around the world. Again, no reasonable man could condemn its objectives, but this initiative is widely regarded as the means by which votes are secured in the presidential election. Similarly, the Financial Assistance Programme (FAP) provided $209m to the member associations so that they may nance development activities and football activities. This is serious money for many of the poorer nations, but just in case they were feeling the pinch last year Fifa found another $144m to make an extraordinary FAP payment ($5m to each confederation and $550,000 to each member association). Blatter smilingly explained, It is a gift, if we can say this. While others might nd different words to describe these payments, Blatter was unperturbed: The whole family of football is happy. Blatter has frequently declared that Fifa can make a difference, but I would suggest that it could have an even stronger impact if it cut back its own costs. After all, the organisation spends more on itself ($0.9bn) than football development ($0.8bn), if you include $0.7bn operating expenses and $0.2bn for governance (mainly congresses and committees). This will come as no surprise to those who have seen Fifas palatial new offices in Zurich, which cost around $200m. Of course, we cannot say whether Fifas 387 employees are overpaid, as they do not publish details of their salaries, but what is clear is that they are handsomely rewarded for their efforts, as the annual

wage bill of $65m implies an average salary of $169,000 an ination-busting increase over 2009 of 23 percent. Thats pretty good, but it pales into insignicance next to the 56 percent increase achieved by the 24 members of the Executive Committee, who shared $33m between them (an average of $1.3m). How on earth can they incur so many costs? The Guardian gave a clue last year when they revealed that the Executive Committee member Vitali Mutko had managed to claim expenses for ve breakfasts a day during a 20-day trip to watch the Winter Olympics. Fifa is classied as a non-prot organisation in Switzerland. As we have seen, though, it has a highly commercial outlook: it has its own official range of Fifa-branded merchandise, for instance. Its status allows it to enjoy a tax-free lifestyle, though this does oblige it to spend its prots on fullling its football objectives. This is probably why it does not describe the surplus from the World Cup as prot, but as a result to be added to reserves to insulate the organisation from any unexpected events that may arise. Fair enough, but do they have to sit on quite so many reserves? From $76m in 2003, they have risen every year since and now stand at $1.3bn, a level Fifa describes as solid, while others might call it obscene. Franco Carraro, chairman of the internal audit committee, defended this amount. While equity of over a billion dollars seems high, he said, it is necessary as the nancial risks exceed it many times over. The biggest risk to the nancial position would clearly be the cancellation of the

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World Cup, as almost all contracts with commercial partners are related to this event, so Fifa has an insurance policy in place. However, since 9/11, it has been practically impossible fully to cover the risk, so their $650m policy now only covers the cost of postponement and/or relocation of the event in the case of natural disasters, war and acts of terrorism. As the events cancellation is not fully covered by the insurance, it would have to be compensated by Fifas own reserves, so the caution is understandable to a certain extent, but it could still spare more money on developing the game. Or Fifa could give the poor host country some more cash, which in fairness they have done via an additional $100m contribution to a Legacy Trust, so that South Africans would continue to benet from the 2010 tournament long after the nal whistle had been blown. However, as we have seen, this is a drop in the ocean compared to the massive cost of hosting the event. The South Africans do not share in the colossal television or marketing deals the World Cups main money-spinners and their only direct funding comes from the predetermined contribution from Fifa and net revenue from ticket sales. Around three million tickets were made available for the 64 matches of the World Cup and while Valcke optimistically claimed that the tickets were 97.5 percent sold out, anybody with a pair of functioning eyes would have witnessed many empty seats in the sparkling new stadiums. This has been attributed to poor transport systems, but there is a suspicion that many tickets were sold to international agencies who were simply unable to shift them.

Even Valcke had to admit that Fifa had made mistakes in its ticketing procedures, most notably granting the Match agency the exclusive rights to sell tickets for the 2010 and 2014 tournaments. The high commission charged by Match to travel agents and hotels has been a spectacular failure, which should cause Sepp Blatter some discomfort, as the company is partowned by his nephew, Philippe. As a popular supermarkets advertising campaign would say, every little helps, but the South African government spent considerably more preparing its country for this footballing extravaganza. They incurred major costs on building ve new stadiums and refurbishing the same number, while every aspect of their transport network has been upgraded, including a new international airport in Durban and a high-speed train link between Johannesburg airport and the city centre. Even though Fifa has thrown a few meaty scraps their way, there is understandable resentment in South Africa that Fifa made so much money while their own country ends up with a huge debt. Clearly, some of this expenditure will deliver a legacy of sorts to the rainbow nation, but the most visible examples of this investment are the stadiums, which have been described as white elephants, due to the unhappy combination of high running costs and small crowds, leading to their long-term nancial viability being questioned. Of course, it is difficult to place a monetary value on the boost to the countrys self-image arising from hosting such a global festival, although the

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Stadiums, 1120 Organising Committee, 428

3.5
USD

Billion

Broadcasting, 387 Ports of Entry, 200 Transport, 1200 Security, 89 Legacy, 45 Telecoms, 40 Arts, 20 Training, 3
Cost of World Cup to South Africa

former South African president Thabo Mbeki suggested that the 2010 World Cup would be the moment when the African continent turned the tide on centuries of poverty and conict. Archbishop Desmond Tutu was even more lyrical in his enthusiasm. We are the caterpillar that has become the beautiful buttery, he said. Theres no doubt that many were galvanised by this feel-good factor, but some of the countrys residents managed to resist the World Cups charms. One outraged Sowetan journalist complained, The World Cup is a colonial playground for the rich and for a few wannabes in the South African elite. In addition, local street vendors did not appreciate Fifas strong-arm tactics in

protecting their precious brand, while the limited availability of tickets for Africans was another source of anger, as the lack of internet access and credit card ownership presented difficulties for online purchases. The current South African president Jacob Zuma was rather more pragmatic than his predecessor. We have an opportunity to promote foreign investment, tourism and trade, he said, as he focused on the boost to South Africas image worldwide. In the past, host countries have relied on growth in tourism to help compensate the additional costs, but this tournament failed to attract as many foreign visitors as expected. Marthinus van Schalkwyk, South Africas tourism minister, said just 309,000

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USD millions
TV Broadcasting Rights Marketing Rights Hospitality & Licensing Event-related Revenue Other Operating Income Financial Income Revenue Event-related Development Other Operating Expenses Football Governance Exploitation of Rights Financial Expenses Expenses Income Taxes Net Result

2003-2006 2007-2010 Growth

1,321 560 462 2,343 97 102 2,543 882 437 371 91 25 92 1,898 3 642 2,448 1,097 345 3,890 172 127 4,189 1,713 794 705 201 91 49 3,555 3 631 1,127 537 -117 1,547 75 25 1,647 831 358 335 110 66 -43 1,657 0 -10

% Growth
85% 96% -25% 66% 78% 24% 65% 94% 82% 90% 122% 263% -46% 87% 10% -2%

Fifa Income Statement

foreign fans attended the tournament, compared to predictions of 450,000. In fact, many now believe that the economic benets of hosting major sports events are limited. Stefan Szymanski, co-author of Why England Lose, pointed out the opportunity costs to an economy. The gain in sport is a loss on spending in cinemas, he said. While criticising Fifas excessive expenditure, he insisted, Theres so much evidence that theres not even

an argument any more mega events dont deliver the nancial extravaganza that is promised. Highly paid consultants always produce ludicrous over-estimates of the nancial gains arising from such events, safe in the knowledge that its almost impossible to calculate the real impact. In 2004 when Fifa awarded the World Cup to South Africa, the business advisors Grant Thornton predicted an uplift in Gross Domestic Product of

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$2.9bn, but growth actually slowed during the two quarters covering the tournament. John Saker, chief operating officer of KPMG Africa, conrmed that the big boost didnt happen. So why do so many countries desperately want to host the World Cup? Apart from the unsound economics, you have to ask why anyone would want to go through such a humiliating, squalid process, where corruption and collusion appear to be the order of the day. During the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, Fifa suspended two members of its executive committee, Nigerias Amos Adamu and Tahitis Reynald Temarii, after both were lmed by the Sunday Times allegedly trying to sell their votes. Apart from the two members caught on camera, Fifas Executive Committee features other disagreeable characters, so a bidding countrys great and good also have to suck up to the likes of Jack Warner, the infamous president of Concacaf, whose previous record brings to mind the old saying that if you dine with the devil, you should bring a long spoon. And if a country somehow manages to win the bid, then it has to suspend a number of its laws for Fifa, including comprehensive tax exemption, unrestricted entry visas, no limit on

import and export of cash and free public transport on match days. All in all, it could be argued that the taxpayers in the countries that missed out have had a narrow escape. Those expecting change anytime soon should not hold their breath. Yes, Fifa has an ethics commission, but in January a leading German lawyer resigned from this group in protest at the apparent failure of the governing body to tackle alleged corruption in its ranks. Of course, there might be a change at the top this year, as Blatter is facing a challenge in the presidential election from Mohammed Bin Hammam, the president of the Asian Football Confederation, who promises to make Fifa more transparent and less bureaucratic. However, he is a long-term Fifa insider and also wants to double future payments from the Financial Assistance Programme, which is something of a double-edged sword. In the meantime, Blatter continues to hold the reins and he has no doubts over the success of the World Cup in South Africa, 2010 was a love story. A love story between the African continent and me. That may be true, but it was a very one-sided relationship, and South Africans might just beg to differ with the most powerful man in football.

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Football Manager
I couldnt even get Herita Ilunga to make me a cup of tea.

The Ballad of Bobby Manager: My Autobiography

The Ballad of Bobby Manager: My Autobiography

When somebody takes their game of Football Manager just a little too seriously...
By Iain Macintosh

What follows is a ctionalised account of one mans game of Football Manager 2011. None of what follows is true, or even nearly true. It happened on a laptop and in the addled brain of a slightly odd man. It has no basis or relevance in real life. Success in life, Ive always believed, is like success in football. Its all about timing. If the striker moves too quickly, hes offside. If he jumps too soon, hell miss the cross. You need to be in the right place at the right time. Fortunately for me, when the news about Avram Grant broke back in 2010, I was in the perfect place. I was with David Sullivan. Of course, I hadnt exactly made the best of rst impressions. Hello, little boy, I said when I met him in reception. Is your Daddy in? Im here to talk to him about undersoil heating. Are you avin a bubble? he growled from somewhere underneath that big furry hat. Im David Sullivan. Im the bleedin Daddy. I apologised as best I could, but he wasnt having any of it. Oh, how he howled and swore at me! I thought Id ruined everything. Fortunately, I had a

Chupa Chups lollypop in my pocket and that seemed to placate him. He tore off the wrapper, suckled greedily and then stopped to look me up and down. Well, mostly up. Good lolly, he acknowledged. Now lets talk turf. Im sure it will surprise you to know that I used to be an undersoil heating sales representative, but for a midelder of my modest talents, it wasnt easy to break into football management. When my playing days ended, the only offer that came my way was from a small team in the German third division and for some reason I always felt uneasy about that job. Undersoil heating gave me a stable living, nancial security and a bright red Ford Mondeo. And you cant say fairer than that. But Ill never forget the moment when Sullivans phone rang and my life changed forever. Hes been caught where? Dressed as what? Are you yankin my chain? You wot? Do I wanna comment? I dunno. Do you wanna be able to chew solid food? Poor Avram. Just two weeks after taking the West Ham job, he was forced to

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resign and walk away from football forever. Still, Im told he was allowed to keep the outt. Stone the crows, sighed Sullivan. How did we not see this comin? Hes been one of our best customers for years! Now what we gonna do? Where we gonna get a manager from at this short notice? Ill do it, I said quickly.

gaping maw of relegation and carry them upon my back to the promised land of mid-table mediocrity, with the occasional run in the Cup. At the very least, Mr Sullivan, unlike your last man, I pledge never, ever to be caught you know there. Wearing, well you know that. Make the right choice, Mr Sullivan. Make it now. Pick me. Sullivan stroked his little chin and smiled. You got any more of those lollypops?

Sullivan stared at me. The job was mine. You got badges? Yep. You want much money? Only what you think is fair. It aint gonna be easy, Sullivan warned me. Robs shot to pieces after South Africa, his nerves are all over the place. Carltons been acting weird and I aint even seen Benni since the end of last season. I can cope, I told him. I dunno, I dunno, said Sullivan pacing up and down, his little feet echoing off the polished oors. I need to check it with Karren, I gotta run it past her, but erm I dont wanna. Mr Sullivan, I said, standing up. Ill talk to her. Youve lost a manager today, but you dont have to lose faith. If you give me the job right now, I promise you that Ill have this West Ham side playing gorgeous football again. I promise you that Ill lead this team away from the Of course, I had to sign it all off with Karren rst. Theres been a lot written about Ms Brady over the years and most of it is rubbish. Shes an intelligent, independent woman working hard and getting results. But she can be a little intimidating. She had this long thin office right at the top of Upton Park, more like an indoor cricket strip than a normal room. It meant that when you knocked on the door and she told you to come in, you had to travel 20 yards with her watching you all the way. It was a bit off-putting, it made you over-think your walk. Some days Id stride in normally and by the time I got to her desk, I was tripping over my own heels. I think that was the plan. To unsettle me. Thats probably why she had the mug as well. I dont even know where youd get a mug like that. Who sells drinking skulls? Bit parky up here, isnt it? I said as I took the rst of many long journeys into her office. You want me to have a ddle with the thermostat? I like it this way, she purred from behind her desk. Stuffy rooms lead to drowsy

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employees. Drowsy employees make mistakes. I do not tolerate mistakes. Right, I said, nally reaching her end of the room. Ill remember that. Mind if I sit down? Yes. Yes, you mind or yes, I can sit down? Yes, I mind. Youre the one that David chose, are you? Yes, I am.

on top of it every single day. Watching it, studying it, pushing it, eradicating it. Dusting it. Tell me, new manager. Are you a stratum of scum? I dont think so. Good. Erm. Ive got my contract here from Mr Sullivan, he told me to bring it up for your signature. Funny, I always thought that he was in charge and that you worked for him. Karren stared at me.

I see, she stood up and walked around the desk, moving silently to a long window that looked out over the pitch. She ran her nger along the sill and examined it carefully. Not a trace of dust. Very good, I said. Cleanliness is next to godliness, my mother always said that. She smiled and I shivered slightly. I dust it myself, every morning when I arrive. Before my rst cup of coffee, before I check my voicemail, before I so much as glance at my column in the Sun, before any of that, I dust my window sills. Do you know why I do that? Cant get good staff? I dust my window sill to remind me that every day, every surface, every wall, every table, every thing in this football club acquires a new layer of dust. And do you know what dust is? Its dead skin. Dirt. The corpses of tiny insects. A perpetual stratum of scum that, left untended, will grow and consume everything we hold dear. It can only be managed if we stay

Yes, she said tonelessly. Funny. David has these whims, these ights of fancy. I indulge him, of course. You never know. If a room full of monkeys can, given enough time, accidentally write a readable version of a Dan Brown novel, perhaps David can accidentally nd a manager who isnt incompetent. I didnt know what to say to that, so I stepped forward and put the contract in front of her. What would you like to discuss today? she said without looking at it. Erm I dont know. Ive pretty much just walked in the door. I should call my old boss really and let him know Im working here now. Hell probably want the Mondeo back. Karren continued to stare. Networking! I said, panicking a little. I would like to improve the youth facilities at the club to enable me to focus on developing our own players.

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Karren sighed deeply and picked up the contract. She skimmed over the rst page with a pencil, her face remaining impassive. Then she looked up again. We would rather you rely on signing players ready to play for the rst team rather than hoping someone comes through the youth team. I really cant stress how important I believe this to be! I exclaimed foolishly. There was a long silence and the room seemed to darken, as if a monstrous cloud had passed in front of the sun. I know it sounds stupid, but for a moment I could have sworn I saw a tongue of ame ickering at the tip of Karrens pencil. You can ask as much you like, she said quietly. Its not going to do any good. She cocked her head to one side, grimaced for a moment and then jerked it back up with a crack that reverberated around the room. Is there anything else you wish to discuss? If we cant improve the facilities, we can at least improve the recruitment to improve the quality of youngsters entering our team. Karrens eyes ashed for a moment with white heat and I instinctively took a step backwards. Suddenly the door felt an awfully long way away. Well, actually, it was an awfully long way away, but you know what I mean. We believe the clubs youth recruitment is already adequate for a club of this size, she growled, and therefore your request is rejected. Im sure I said something after that, Im

sure I made some kind of point about investment in people being the best investment of all, but I dont recall what happened next. Its just a blur. Maybe it was the excitement of the day, the thrill of being back in the game, but the next thing I remember is being in my office, feeling dazed with euphoria and wondering why my bum hurt. Probably nerves, though that doesnt explain why my pants were on back to front. That wasnt the only thing that was confusing. You should have seen the rst team! I couldnt gure out how they expected to survive! Sullivan was right. Rob Green was having an awful time after the World Cup. He was really traumatised by what had happened to him out in South Africa. The poor sod had had to share a room with John Terry. I had to get rid of Benni McCarthy before the season even started. It transpired that he hadnt bothered nding a at in London, hed just taken up residence in the burger bar at the back of the Bobby Moore Stand. The catering staff found him there before a pre-season friendly, covered in ketchup and gobbling up sausages. Kieron Dyer sprained his wrist opening his wallet, Jonathan Spector had to be sold because, well, he just had to be sold, and Carlton Cole managed to turn the entire dressing room against him by insisting that the pumping pre-match music was replaced by a Jim Davidson Live CD. We had to put a stop to that right away. I did my best to lift spirits, but it wasnt always easy. We started the season away at Aston Villa and I had high hopes, but some of the lads were having problems putting the summer behind them.

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Just go out there and enjoy yourselves, I told them, but before I could get any further I was interrupted by a gentle sobbing. Rob? Whats the matter, son? I keep seeing his face, boss, whimpered my goalkeeper. He said I looked like a young Suzi Quatro. He looked up, eyes wide with despair. I dont even know who Suzi Quatro is, boss. Shes a singer, Rob. Shes a singer from the 70s. His ngers were... boss... and those cheeks... I know, son. I know. Come on. Shake it out. Poor lad, he was all over the place. And he wasnt the only one. Matty Upson couldnt keep hold of the man he was marking, Junior Stanislas only touched the ball twice all afternoon and, as Carlton so unfortunately put it on Twitter later that night, we had all the backbone and courage under re of the Italian armed forces. I had to ne him a weeks wages for that one, the silly sod. I brought in Leonardo Ponzio, a vicious little Argentine midelder from Zaragoza and that seemed to sort things out. Had to warn Carlton about Falklands War jokes rst, though! We were consistently inconsistent that year, picking up wins over Liverpool and Chelsea, but getting rogered senseless by both Wolves and Stoke within the space of seven days. It was in the run-up to Christmas that I nally put my nger on it.

Were crap, Mr Sullivan, I told my chairman on the bus back from Goodison Park one night. David didnt look up, he just carried on staring at his Nintendo DS. I know that, you egg, he growled. I gotta watch your team every week. We work hard, I continued apace, we defend well and that rejig of set-pieces has really paid off, but we just dont have anyone who can play those special balls. What about Scott Parker? I see him as more of a dynamo, a boxto-box midelder. What about Mark Noble? Hes decent, but I like him as deeplying playmaker. What do you want then? I want Charlie Adam, Mr Sullivan. You remember the damage he did against us last month? Hes the kind of player who can unlock doors. Lets get him. Hmmm, said David, pressing pause on Mario Kart. Maybe. No maybe, Mr Sullivan. We can get him. His contract is running down, Blackpool have either got to sell him to us now or lose him on a free. Hes hardly going to cost us more a week than Kieron, is he? We both looked back down the bus. Kieron was showing off to the lads, doing his party trick of throwing large gemstones in the air and swallowing them whole.

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There aint many people out there who could cost us more a week than Kieron, grumbled my chairman. Before you come along, he was even worse. Got in a right barney with the local council when he tried to build a cottage in the grounds outside his mansion. Whats wrong with that? He was tryin to build it outta pound coins. Ah. I see. Well, this kids not going to be like that. Hes at Blackpool, hes probably not making much more than minimum wage. I dunno, said David, shaking his head. Wots Karren gonna say, eh? You know what shes like on spending. But I knew I had his attention. I knew because he folded up his DS and stared thoughtfully out of the window. After a while, his little ngers started marking out columns of numbers in the condensation. Alright. he said eventually. Alright?

Of course, we all know how that worked out. Adam became one of the most important players in the recent history of the club. He took us up a level, lifted us to a point where we could pass the ball in the knowledge that it might actually reach its destination. Mind you, if that destination was the feet of Lus Boa Morte it still wasnt going to help us secure a result, but at least it was a start. From that moment on, it felt like we were on our way. We were winning games. We were out of the Carling Cup by then, turfed out by Chelsea in the third round, but ve wins in December and January set us up rather nicely in mid-table. A run to the sixth round of the FA Cup was nice until Tottenham ended it, but overall, it wasnt bad for a side who were supposed to be relegated. I think thats why what happened next caught me unawares. I was sat in my office one evening, playing Ker-Plunk with David when the lights suddenly started to icker. Shes on the move! he whispered fearfully. Shes coming! Who is? Whos coming?

Yeah. Ill saddle up the Labrador tomorrow, ride over to the bank and get the nances sorted. Blackpool wont be able to resist a 3m bid. Youll have your player alright. And then well stop being crap. Exactly, Mr Sullivan, I beamed. Hang on saddle up the what? Ive aint done that, Id never do that. I dont know what youre talking about. Prick. And with that, he went back to Mario Kart.

Her eyes! They are terrible! And with that, he ew off his chair and vanished into a gap between the bookshelves. I sat in silence, watching the door carefully. The air grew noticeably colder, the hairs on the back of the neck stood up as if I was listening to the last verse of Dont Fear The Reaper. But still, the door remained closed. What are you staring at? said a feline voice behind me.

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Well, I wont lie to you, I did a bit of wee. Jesus Christ! I exclaimed, leaping out of my seat, sending marbles everywhere. Where did you come from? Perched comfortably on the side of my drinks cabinet, Karren smiled like a shark in the learner pool. Youve been spending a lot of money, not-so-new-manager. First Charlie Adam from Blackpool. Then Ritchie De Laet from Manchester United. Now Khouma Babacar from Fiorentina. All these arrivals. They were unauthorised. In fairness, Khouma is only on loan. At the cost of 425,000. Well, yes, I said. Its a lengthy loan. For a young man who isnt very good at football. Hes been at the club for three days! How on earth could you know whether hes any good or not? Khoumar Babacar. Born 17 March 1993. 191cm tall. Runs like a Thomson Gazelle, shoots like a fairground popgun. Hes raw, raw like steak tartare. He likes Jennifer Lopez movies, seafood and the music of Fairground Attraction. Yeah, bu- He was a C+ average at school in This, Senegal, rarely focusing on his studies, preferring instead to play football and run track and he has a birthmark on the back of his right thigh shaped like Bagpuss. I see.

Youve disappointed me. Well, I wasnt having that. This was my football club and I wasnt about to be told what to do by some suit. She might scare David, but she didnt scare me. Ms Brady. You may know numbers, but you dont know footballers. I can assure you that all three of my new signings are more than worthy of a place in this team. Theyll help us grow, help us strengthen and theyll help us secure a place in the top half of the Premier League. Karren raised her eyebrow pointedly. Will they indeed? Yes. I said deantly. I expect us to secure a top-half nish. Well, then, she said, soundlessly slipping off my drinks cabinet and striding for the door. I shall update my expectations accordingly. It will no longer be enough for you to battle bravely against relegation. You will nish in the top ten. And with that, she was gone. I have to hand it to her. She was clever. After that, well, you know what happened, dont you? We fell off a cliff. We lost to Birmingham. We lost to Wolves. Again. We drew with Arsenal, we lost to Liverpool, we lost to Tottenham. From the start of February to the end of April, we won just six points. We were, as Carlton put it before we shut down that bloody Twitter account, sinking faster than a raft full of Cubans. David wouldnt even talk to me after the Spurs game. In fact, he very rarely came out of his Wendy House. It was a tough time

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for all of us. The fans were on my back, the papers had turned against me. I tried to keep out of Karrens way, but every now and then our paths would cross and shed remind me. Fifteenth now, not-new-at-all manager, shed call down the corridor. Thats not top half, is it? I did my best to ignore her. The worst thing was, she was right about Khouma Babacar. He really was gash. At the end of April, the spectre of relegation wasnt just rearing its head, it was sitting in my armchair, reading my paper and smoking my cigars. And where did we have to go? Old Trafford. It was the most daunting challenge of my career so far. To stand shoulder to shoulder with Sir Alex Ferguson, to pit my wits against the nest manager in British history. I was lucky enough to share a moment with the great man before the game. Hes such a perfectionist. An hour before kick-off, I found him and Mike Phelan in the tunnel, chatting with young midelder Anderson. Fergie was always years ahead of his time with his motivational techniques. I turned the corner and he had the little Brazilian by the shirt, pushing him up against the wall, as if to say, I can carry you. I can lift you. I can make you a better footballer. It was really quite inspiring. Mike, who would succeed him three years later, was watching intently, holding a hammer and some nails. I think that it must have been some kind of metaphor for building a team, but Im not sure. They obviously didnt want me copying their methods because as soon they noticed me, they quickly dropped Anderson to the oor.

Och, its you, said Fergie. Dinnae mind this. Yeve no seen nothing. Ha! I laughed. Dont worry, I wont give away any of your secrets. I winked at Anderson, but he didnt respond. He was so far into the zone that hed gone a bit catatonic. Brilliant. What a manager. I brought some wine, Sir Alex. A good drop of Rioja, I think youll like it. Aye, he nodded, always the professional, still staring hard at Anderson. Leave it with my receptionist. Will do, will do. Looking forward to sharing a glass with you. Havnae got the time, son, he said, taking the hammer from Mike and gently, rhythmically slapping it into the palm of his hand. Gottae put something up on the wall. Anderson must have wanted to help, because he squealed loudly at this and was so excited he couldnt get his words out. What it must be to inspire such loyalty from your players that theyd help with the decorating. I couldnt even get Herita Ilunga to make me a cup of tea. Getting him to defend properly was even harder. Nani had him on toast in that rst half. Cross after cross was ung into our box, but Matty Upson and James Tomkins were equal to everything. Strangely, Anderson wasnt in either the starting line-up or on the bench. Was this another case of those famous mind games? With a genius like Fergie, you never knew. Either way, I was just happy to get the boys in at halftime without conceding.

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Lads, I said to them at the break. I expect much better from you in the second half. Youre kidding, aint you boss? shouted Carlton. Theres ve-year-old Vietnamese girls stitching footballs that aint worked as hard as us today. Work? Work, Carlton?! I shouted. Youve barely broken a sweat, you useless great lummox. Youre sat there scratching your gigantic bottom, never chasing, never running. Its no bloody wonder were getting sucked into a relegation battle! Carlton jumped to his feet and came for me, so I threw a bottle of water at his head. It bounced off the top of his bonce with a crack and spiralled through the air, landing at the feet of substitute Khouma Babacar. Well, Ive never seen anything like it. Khouma caught it on his instep, span around and lashed it across the dressing room into a toilet cubicle where it landed in the bowl with a splash. Me and Carlton just stopped and stared. Charlie, I barked at my mideld schemer. Flick a bottle of water at Carlton. Charlie just stared at me. Do it! I bellowed. Even Holloway wasnt this mental, he said shaking his head. He dropped the bottle, icked it up and smashed it at Carltons face. Crack! It deected away, fell to Khoumar and thwack! Splash! He punted it straight in the same loo. And again! And again!

Wed cracked it. I hauled Mark Noble off and put Khoumar on, pushing him up with Carlton. For the rst time all season, we were going with two up front, we were knocking it long and we were going to use Carltons unique physicality to help us for once. We took old Fergie completely by surprise. Granted, Khoumar still wasnt very good, but he was a wonderful decoy. He dragged markers all over the place, leaving room for Carlton and Scottie to push up and plunder. I still pinch myself when I think about it now, but we won 3-0, stunning Old Trafford into silence. What a day! And Fergie? He was dignity personied. Rather than getting angry, and hed have had every right to be annoyed, he told me to make the most of the day, to savour every moment. At least, I think thats what he meant when he told me to, sleep with my eyes open tonight. Condence restored, we went on a season-saving run. Victories over Wigan, Blackpool and Birmingham followed and we shot up to 7th in the table before defeats away to Everton and Tottenham dropped us back down to ninth on the last day of the season. Ninth. Ten places higher than we were expected to nish. I thanked the lads for their service, told them to bugger off to a beach somewhere and then left them to it. They had a party lined up that night at Kierons and the word was that hed hired the surviving cast members of Star Wars to perform the movie on a stage in his back garden. Well, that wasnt for me. For starters, I didnt have a clue how theyd pull off the space battles, but mostly because I just wanted some peace. I shut the

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door of the dressing room, listened for a moment to the excited chitter-chatter Id left behind, and then walked happily to my office. David was waiting for me, sat on the side of my desk with a bottle of Tizer and a Sherbet Dip Dab. Well done, he grinned. I took a massive risk, a massive, massive risk givin you the job, but youve proved me right. Good football, good signings, and good God almighty, weve come ninth. Congratulations. Thanks David, I smiled. I couldnt have done it without you. Were a team, aint we? With your coaching and my head for busine- The lights ickered and David went white. A dark patch appeared at the front of his suit. She has risen! he wailed. Evil stalks us! And he bounded off the desk and away, leaving nothing but a streak of cloudy liquid in his wake. Baffled, I shook my head and slumped down in my chair, letting my eyes close for a moment. Sleeping on the job? said a familiar voice behind me. Ms Brady, I said without turning around. Before I leave this club, Im going to gure out how you do that. I think I would prefer it if you just concentrated on managing my football team. Why arent you going to Kieron Dyers party? Not really my scene.

Indeed. Im not entirely sure whose scene it would be. How do you think hes going to recreate the assault on the Death Star? I really dont know! Its been bugging me all afternoon. Did you know that hes still trying to get Sir Alec Guinness to perform? Isnt Sir Alec Guinness dead? Thats precisely what I said, but Kieron insists that hes been funding a cure. A cure for death? Thats what he says. Christ, I said. Maybe I should get down there. He knows that were letting him go this summer, doesnt he? He does. He seems entirely unconcerned. What a condent young man he is. I could do with some funds to replace him, I said hopefully. We feel you have adequate resources with which to achieve your aims, she said, staring at me harshly. I see. Do you, old-manager? Because I wonder sometimes what you do see. This football club is perched precariously on an enormous pile of IOU notes. The supporters expectations rise disproportionately to any glimmer of success we enjoy, the players are paid small fortunes to offer

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up mediocrity, the owners lack the resources to enable us to compete with our rivals and my manager, a man I did not choose to employ, sits in his office with his eyes closed telling me that he can see. Is there anything else you can tell me, perchance? I told you wed get a top half nish. Yes. Well done, she said atly. You came in 30 points behind the champions. If youd won 10 more games, you might have won the title. This season you won 17 matches from 38, so at that rate, youd need another 23.25 games to put up a challenge or, to put it another way, its May now. If you continued to play until November, you might, might get to a level where you could, with clear conscience, walk into this room, slouch in that chair and close your eyes. I expect better next season,

old-manager. And better the season after that. And how am I supposed to do that? Use your initiative. Stay on top of your players, teach them new skills, search for the stars of the future, look for bargains who are out of contract, pull your head out of your bottom and do your job better or I will go out and nd better. Do you see that, old-manager? There was a long silence. Is this how you motivate your staff, Ms Brady? No, she said, striding to the door purposefully. This is how I dust.

To be Continued...

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156
Greatest Games
Something died in the United team that night. And something certainly died in Ferguson: his faith in the power of swash and buckle.

Manchester United 2 Real Madrid 3

Manchester United 2 Real Madrid 3

Champions League quarter-nal second leg Old Trafford, Manchester, 19 April 2000
By Rob Smyth

Irwin

Giggs

Salgado

McManaman Scholes

Campo

Stam

Cole

Morientes Redondo Helguera

V d Gouw Keane Yorke Ral

Casillas

Berg

Karanka Svio G Neville Beckham Roberto Carlos

Second leg

A football match lasts much longer than 90 minutes. It begins before the rst whistle and continues beyond the nal whistle. Every game has a back-story and a front-story, and matches exist in what the academic lm critic Stephen Heath called an englobingly extensive prolongation. Few have had such an extensive prolongation as the immense Champions League quarter-nal

between Real Madrid and Manchester United in 2000 when Real, having drawn the rst leg 0-0, won 3-2 at Old Trafford in a game notable for a staggering quality of attacking play and a legendary tactical switch from Vicente del Bosque. In a sense the tie began 40 years earlier, when a teenage Alex Ferguson sneaked into Hampden Park and was spellbound

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by Madrids 7-3 evisceration of Eintracht Frankfurt in the European Cup nal. And it continues to impact 11 years on; every time Manchester United line up for a big game at home or in Europe, their tactics are a direct consequence of that chastening experience against Madrid. Del Bosque spoke of Uniteds tactical anarchy that night, and Ferguson ensured such suggestions could never be made again. Put simply, up until that game his teams tried to score one more than the opposition; ever since they have tried to concede one fewer. Reals win ended Uniteds reign as European champions, at a time when many felt Fergusons young side were set to establish a dynasty, and also instantly restored their own faded glamour. It also changed Del Bosques life. Until then he had been Reals odd-job man, almost a Spanish Tony Parkes, but that match set him on the road to becoming one of the most successful coaches of the early 21st century. All of that, and Fergusons tactical epiphany, mean that this was arguably the most epochal European match since Heysel although for very different reasons. Del Bosques tactical brainwave caused shockwaves that would indelibly change the landscape of modern football. The contest was so multi-faceted and multi-layered that, almost uniquely, it deed received wisdom. For every two people who say that Real taught United a lesson, there is another pointing to the stream of chances that United created. The match was deliciously inscrutable. It was certainly superior to the sequel in 2003, a wildly entertaining but largely meaningless contest that United won 4-3. The fact that United had lost the rst leg 3-1 meant that, once they conceded

an early goal at Old Trafford, they were never seriously in contention to go through and so it became a gloried exhibition match. The same could not be said of the meeting three yours and four days earlier, which crackled with intensity even when United needed four goals in half an hour to qualify for the semi-nals. They had abnormal levels of self-belief, having accomplished so many missions impossible over the previous 18 months, but as the result marinated, so that self-belief began to reduce. Something died in the United team that night. And something certainly died in Ferguson: his faith in the power of swash and buckle.

It is easy to forget the extent to which Madrid were underdogs ahead of the tie. United, the reigning European champions, were romping away with the Premier League: they led by 10 points with seven games to play, would eventually win by 18, and their nal total of 97 league goals was the highest in the English top ight since 1964. On the Saturday before their trip to Spain they came from behind to maul West Ham 7-1. Madrid, by contrast, needed seven exceptional saves from their teenage goalkeeper Iker Casillas to earn a 1-1 draw at Real Sociedad. Not that even Casillass heroism was cause for celebration: the draw all but ended Madrids feeble title challenge. They were having a diabolical season, and would eventually nish fth in the league. John Toshack had been sacked in November, with Madrid 16th in the table. His replacement, Del Bosque,

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who had already had two spells as caretaker coach in 1994 and 1996, was only put in charge until the end of the season. In his second home league game, Madrid were thrashed 5-1 by Zaragoza. Later they were slapped 5-2 by Deportivo La Corua, and in the second Champions League group stage they lost 4-2 and 4-1 to Bayern Munich. They only qualied for the quarter-nals because of a superior head-to-head record against Dynamo Kyiv. Had goal difference been the decider, Madrid would have gone out. On the day of the United match, Marca devoted its entire cover to one phrase, repeated 14 times: No nos asusta el Manchester (We are not afraid of Manchester). You did not need an NVQ in psychology to know what was going on. In the Independent, the Spanish football expert John Carlin dismissed their chances. If team spirit, if individual skill, if organisational solidity, if current form are the elements that determine the outcomes of football matches, there is no way Real Madrid can knock Manchester United out of the European Cup, he wrote. So overwhelming is Uniteds superiority in almost every department that, should Real win, those who make a living out of imposing conventional reason on the beautiful game (football writers, say, or television pundits) will be obliged to concede that they are trading in gibberish, that analysis counts for nothing, that victory and defeat in football are determined by forces that surpass human understanding. His conclusion was pretty straightforward. If United fail to win, forget all logic in football.

Carlin was far from alone in drawing such a conclusion. In the aftermath of that astonishing victory over Bayern Munich, it was widely assumed United would dominate Europe for the next ve years and establish the same kind of legacy as the great Bayern, Ajax and Liverpool sides of the 70s and 80s. We now know that such a dynasty is nigh-on impossible nobody has retained the trophy since Milan in 1990, and nobody has won three in a row since Bayern in 1976 but at the time it felt like a natural conclusion. The main reason for that was Uniteds almost unprecedented sense of omnipotence. It wasnt necessarily arrogance; they conceded the rst goal far too often to think they were bulletproof, but they came back so often that there was an understandable if misplaced feeling that they could get out of any hole. In the 21 months since the start of the 1998-99 season, when the signing of Jaap Stam and Dwight Yorke completed the formation of this particular side, they had come from behind to win or draw an astonishing 31 games, eight of them in Europe, two of them, against Juventus and Bayern the previous season, in circumstances that beggared belief. I dont think this team ever loses, said the assistant coach Steve McClaren. It just runs out of time. Their rare defeats could be rationalised in other ways, too. Their failure at the Club World Championship in Brazil could be attributed to an alien environment and a once-in-a-lifetime shocker from Gary Neville, who got the yips and gifted Romrio the rst two goals in a 3-1 defeat to Vasco da Gama. Of Uniteds three league defeats in the previous 16 months, two came when they were

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down to 10 men for large parts of the game, at Chelsea and Newcastle, and the other, a 3-1 loss at Spurs, involved three freakish goals. There was an unspoken sense that, with a level playing eld, United could not be beaten. They certainly had few fears about Real. We werent going to underestimate them, wrote Jaap Stam in his autobiography, but there was a feeling around the squad that the draw could have been a lot trickier. Life has never been as good as it was for United on the afternoon on 4 April 2000 as they approached the kick off in the rst leg. This is not a conclusion entirely drawn in hindsight. If the club lives for another thousand years, men will look back and say, This, then, was the drunkest hour, wrote the United fan Richard Kurt in the Irish Examiner that day. At this moment, as the red clans clamorously gather, the universe seems ours for the taking. A year earlier, United had lived on the edge throughout their triumphant European Cup campaign. Even their staggeringly accomplished victory over Juventus came after theyd been 2-0 down. Now, it seemed, they had the chance to take the next step by hammering Real on their own pitch. Instead, a peculiarly passive United were fortunate to earn a 0-0 draw. Although Real had much the better of the game, United had the best chance, with Andy Cole heading over from three yards after Stam had icked on David Beckhams corner. Glenn Hoddle famously said that Cole needed ve chances to score and, while most were happy to treat the word of Hod as gospel

in this instance, the reality is that Coles problem was not the quantity of his misses but the quality of them. There were some beauties throughout his career, which meant that Cole, arguably the most rounded England striker of his generation, was often treated as a bit of a joke. Take this Madrid tie: Cole is remembered for missing that chance, yet he contributed appreciably more than the largely anonymous Dwight Yorke. Yorke did have a tap-in disallowed for offside on the stroke of half-time after an unsighted Casillas failed to hold Paul Scholess stinging shot. Replays were not conclusive, although it appeared Yorke was just being played onside by Roberto Carloss trailing leg That potential injustice did not alter the fact that Madrid should have won the game. Only three United players really turned up. Roy Keane, putting out res all across the eld with his usual diligence and focus; Mark Bosnich, who made a number of good saves and two exceptional ones from Fernando Morientes and Steve McManaman; and Ryan Giggs, whose sporadic penetrative runs from an inside-left position hinted at the chasing he would give Real in the rst half at Old Trafford. In the rst game, said the substitute goalkeeper Raimond van der Gouw, we had too much respect for the name Real Madrid. The widespread perception is that Ferguson, in awe of Real Madrid ever since that trip to Hampden Park in 1960, sent his side out to play cautiously. That seems the likeliest scenario, yet he was critical of his players inability to seize the moment. He was sincerely dismayed by the drop in standards we

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had witnessed: the mental and physical sluggishness that allowed Real long periods of comfortable possession, the basic aws in ball control and passing, the failure to match the uency of the oppositions movement, wrote Hugh McIlvanney, ghostwriter of Fergusons autobiography and his main press-box condante, the following Sunday. But his hard words are better understood in the context of his pre-match feelings. I was looking forward to the meeting with Real Madrid and wanted to use it as a platform to let everybody know Manchester United are the best in the game, he told me later in the week. Real are the team with the greatest record in the European Cup and we were facing them on their own midden. I was disappointed, and so were the players, that we didnt take the opportunity to show our true worth. What is not in doubt is that either Ferguson or many of his players bottled it badly that night. Its hard to be certain, but the adventure of the full-backs is perhaps the most important window into the soul of a sides tactics. Denis Irwin and Gary Neville, usually so adventurous, barely crossed an imaginary line two thirds of the way up the pitch. The contrast with Real, whose 4-4-1-1 formation was ostensibly the same as Uniteds side, but for whom Roberto Carlos and Mchel Salgado were a constant attacking inuence, was enormous. Uniteds tactics were like greeting a dangerous but woefully out-of-form batsman with one slip and a sweeper on both sides. It was in total contrast to their approach to away games in 1998-99

although it should be noted that, in three of their four main matches, against Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Juventus, they conceded in the rst 11 minutes and were thus compelled to attack. As a rule, however, Ferguson was happy to take risks at the back. When he paid a record fee for Stam in 1998, one of the principal reasons he cited was Stams ability to defend in one-on-one situations. The 0-0 scoreline stirred uncomfortable memories for United, who had gone out of Europe on away goals in 1995-96 and 1997-98 after a similar rst-leg score away from home, yet the bookies made them 2-5 favourites to progress. After all, all United had to do was win a football match at home, something they had managed in 29 out of 35 games since their last home defeat, to Middlesbrough in December 1998. The problem was not with the scoreline but the manner of the draw. In playing so meekly, United had allowed Madrid to rediscover their condence in a manner that would manifest itself so damagingly in the second leg. A lot of people on our side of the fence thought 0-0 was a good result but I was disappointed and worried, Ferguson wrote in his autobiography. Maybe I was a bit like the farmer who can divine the weather in his bones, getting pains and funny feelings when the rain is coming. I could sense the rain coming. In the two weeks before the second leg, United beat Middlesbrough 4-3 and Sunderland 4-0, while Madrid won 1-0 against Celta Vigo and Real Zaragoza. But it no longer mattered how many

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Roberto Carlos

Svio

Beckham

G Neville

Karanka

Redondo Ral Yorke

Keane

Berg

Casillas

V d Gouw Helguera Morientes Campo Cole Scholes Stam

Salgado

McManaman

Giggs

Irwin

First leg

goals United scored domestically; far more relevant, for Madrid, was the evidence of the rst leg. There was no need for a special Marca cover on the day of the second leg. Madrid were no longer afraid of Manchester.

surprise including the newspapers, the majority of whom had them in a 4-4-2 formation the following morning. Under Del Bosque, Madrid had never played with three centre-backs before; to do so in this of all games was a staggering and brilliant conceit. Ivn Helguera dropped back from mideld to be the spare man at the back, allowing Roberto Carlos and Salgado to do what they did best: attack. McManaman roamed from the right of centre, as did Svio from a more advanced inside-left position. That meant Madrid had just one orthodox central midelder: the imperious Fernando Redondo, who was about to have the game of his life. Many United veterans still talk of his as the greatest individual performance by an opposing

The introduction of the second group stage meant that the quarter-nals were played over a month later than they were the previous season, and much of the rst half of the second leg was played in daylight. The only change to either side from the rst leg was the replacement of the injured Bosnich by Van der Gouw. But Reals side took on a completely different shape, an unprecedented and unbalanced 3-32-2 formation that caught everyone by

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player at Old Trafford, a fraction ahead of Dejan Savievis languid masterclass for Crvena Zvezda in 1991. Without Redondo, Madrids formation surely could not have worked. They were playing a system that did not deserve to be successful, said Ferguson. One central midelder. Give us a break, I thought to myself. That cant work. Del Bosque was not the only one surprised by his opposite numbers tactical anarchy. One thing that did not surprise Ferguson was Madrids aggressive start to the game, which he had predicted in his pre-match press conference. In the second minute, Roberto Carlos worked a smart overlap with Svio before running at Beckham and smashing a low, angled cross into the corridor of uncertainty between defenders and goalkeeper that just evaded Ral. The nervousness around the ground was palpable, an inevitable consequence of United conceding early goals at home to Borussia Dortmund and Monaco in their previous two exits from the Champions League. The fear of the away goal and the form of Roberto Carlos were the dening features of the rst 20 minutes. This was him at his very best, a carpe diem philosophy of a footballer imposing his skill and stunning athleticism on his direct opponents. After the rst leg, he had announced that Beckham was one-footed, lacking pace and unable to go past people. If you go at the Prince, youd better not miss. While the last bit looked a little daft when Beckham scored a thrilling solo goal later in the match, the assessment was essentially a fair one. And Roberto Carlos backed it up by wiping the oor with both Beckham and Neville for most of the second leg.

When Neville mistimed his jump at a long, angled pass from the back by Helguera, Roberto Carlos surged into the area before playing the ball square for Morientes, whose 15-yard shot was just too close to Van der Gouw. It was a desperate and unusual mistake by Neville, who was in the midst of the only extended slump of his career, yet to regain his condence after that Romrio nightmare three months earlier. Although there had been a couple of scintillating runs from Giggs, Real were unexpectedly dominant and had 55 per cent of possession in the rst 15 minutes. Long before the phrase was introduced into the football lexicon, a Real side with Teka on their shirts were excelling at tiki-taka. Neville made another mistake in the 17th minute, underhitting a square pass to his goalkeeper that was seized on by inevitably Roberto Carlos. Van der Gouw ew from his line and managed to block his shot, but Uniteds nervousness was palpable. We were too slow to adjust [to Madrids formation], said Ferguson. I thought about changing my own system. To our cost, I delayed too long. If I had altered the team early to a 4-3-3, playing two men wide and one central striker, I am sure we could have won handily. I know that, and could kick myself for delaying the change. With three midelders, we would have been able to get against Redondo as a priority and would have handled Ral better when he dropped into mideld from his normal front position. Ferguson has always been slow to react in terms of tactical changes, a surprising aw given his ability to make difficult

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Giggs

Cole

Yorke

Scholes Keane

Beckham

Irwin Stam Berg V d Gouw

How United could have changed shape

G Neville

decisions in almost every other aspect of his job. In this instance, however, his passivity was reinforced by the fact that the scenario was so familiar. United almost always started slowly, only invariably to triumph at the end. They had that incredible record of coming from behind to win or draw 31 games since the start of the 1998-99 season; and in their previous home European game, they had gone behind to a howitzer from Gabriel Batistuta before recovering to pummel Fiorentina much more emphatically than a 3-1 scoreline suggested. Fergusons stock phrases were that we always do it the hard way and its the nature of our club. It was as if United needed to go behind to get themselves going. With hindsight it seems reductive to indulge such weakness, but at

the time it seemed like a charming eccentricity of a brilliant side. Going behind doesnt faze the players, he said. Theyve got the patience, resolve and endurance to get back from situations like that. The 3-2 win in Juventus was a awless example of the controlled aggression needed to overcome an apparently lost cause. On the day before the game, Ferguson seemed almost amused by his sides main foible. Its just the make-up of our club, he said. I keep saying to the players, Lets get over the rst 20 minutes. When did Batistuta score? 19 minutes [it was actually 16]. So were getting there! They so nearly got there against Madrid. And then, after 19 minutes 31 seconds, Real Madrid took the lead through the most improbable source: Roy Keane.

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The goal stemmed from a United attack, and again demonstrated the importance of buttery effects in football. Scholes had made a typical late run and almost got on the end of Irwins erce low cross; when Real broke he was out of the game, which meant Giggs had to come across into the centre to cover, and Giggss absence out wide allowed Real to work an overlap that ultimately led to the goal. Helgueras clearance came to Svio, who gained 50 yards via a simple exchange of passes with Redondo and then moved the ball ineld to McManaman. He was clattered from behind by Scholes in the act of moving it right to Morientes, who had Salgado overlapping. Morientes played the ball down the line for Salgado to pass a rst-time cross towards the near post. It was going straight into the arms of Van der Gouw, but Keane, unsure what was behind him, stretched out his left foot and diverted the ball into the net. It was the most perverse plot twist. Keane seemed invincible at the time, and won both Player of the Year awards that season. His value to United had never been greater. He was 28 years old, right in his prime; it seemed like he could do anything. For that one season he even revisited the goalscoring of his youth: Keane scored 12 in 1999-2000, the one time he reached double gures in his entire career and as many as he would get in the rest of his United career. Earlier in the season, with his contract due to expire in the summer and United loath to break their wage structure, there was a serious chance that he would join Juventus or Bayern Munich. At Old Trafford, the prospect engendered a

sense of terror, such was the essential inability of even this exceptionally talented team to function without Keane. The issue was not resolved until, just 24 days before he would have been entitled to negotiate a Bosman transfer abroad, he signed a new contract on the afternoon of the match against Valencia. Inevitably, Keane slammed in the opening goal that night. Four months on, he again scored the opening goal against Spanish opposition. It was not his rst high-prole mistake of the competition a blind backpass had allowed Batistuta to open the scoring in Florence during the second group stage which, in the context of his almost ceaseless excellence, was impossible to comprehend. Keane lay on his back for a couple of seconds, motionless and expressionless, before bouncing to his feet, intent on righting the wrong. Uniteds response was emphatic and thrilling. In the next 20 minutes they created six clear chances with attacking football of irresistible verve and class. Keane was the dynamic force behind Uniteds purple patch in the rst half, wrote Patrick Barclay in the Sunday Telegraph, when their football was as swift and deft as anything I have seen from them. The rst chance came in the 22nd minute. Giggs collected possession by the touchline 15 yards inside his own half, took four players out of the game with a dazzling run, and then played the ball to Cole on the left. He ran at Ivan Campo before curving a precise, deep cross to Yorke, who had pulled away from Aitor Karanka at the far post. There were shades of the equaliser in

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Juventus a year earlier, when Coles majestic cross was headed emphatically into the corner by Yorke. This time Yorkes header was too close to Casillas, who was able to palm it away. The chance stemmed from Giggs, and the ease with which he was dribbling past Madrid players was a reection of the fact that he was right on top of the game. There is another way of telling when Giggs is on song: when his beloved fancy icks come off. In this match and particularly in the rst hour there were loads of them. One such ick created a great chance for Beckham in the 26th minute. For most of the game Beckham was stuck to the right ank, buried deep in Roberto Carloss pocket, but in this attack he wandered over to the left in open play and almost equalised as a result. When Beckhams ball forward deected up in the air off Ral, it was headed ineld by Irwin towards Giggs, 25 yards out and with his back to goal. He icked it around the corner on the half-volley to Scholes, who played a delightful rst-time through pass, also on the half-volley, towards the onrushing Beckham. He was at a tight angle, seven yards from goal, and his leftfoot shot hit the immaculately positioned Casillas on the shoulder. By that stage, an equaliser seemed not so much in the post as sent by recorded delivery. Giggs turned majestically past Campo in the box with another of his icks, but then fractionally overhit his chipped cross. Seconds later, Yorke headed a halfchance miles wide. Then in the 29th minute, came a chance for Keane. In the rst leg his role had

been almost exclusively defensive, but in the rst half hour at Old Trafford he got forward more than Scholes. Irwins perceptive low pass from the left was glanced expertly behind his standing leg by Cole on the edge of the box; Keane burst imperiously onto it, past Helguera and through on Casillas. He tried to go across goal with his left foot, but the shot deected off the lunging Karanka and changed direction sharply. Casillas, already moving to his left, thrust up his right hand to make an awesome reaction save, the best of the many he would make in this match. The keeper was marvellous but its not normal for an 18 year old to be like that, said Ferguson. Not at all normal. Then again, it was already apparent that Casillas was not normal. He had usurped Bodo Illgner and Albano Bizzarri, and before the rst leg there had been that staggering display against Sociedad. You had to see it to believe it, said John Toshack, who gave Casillas his debut. Toshack also called Casillas the most important player in the team. Although United were creating chances at will in that period, they still looked jittery when Real attacked. After a ne run from the impish Svio, Roberto Carlos thrashed a free-kick wide from the edge of the D. In truth, United had been ropey at the back all season. Gary Neville was out of form, Mikal Silvestre was out of his depth at that stage of his development, and the immaculate Ronny Johnsen had not played all season because of injury. United conceded 45 goals in the league that season, which remains their worst total since the miserable 1989-90 campaign, when they nished 13th. A decade on, nobody

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really minded that the defence was so vulnerable, because the attack usually got them out of trouble. That attack continued to create chances against Madrid. Irwin went on an improbable surge down the centre of the eld and found Yorke. He slipped Helguera cleverly but then badly overhit a routine return pass to Irwin, who was through on goal. For a player of Yorkes class, it was a diabolical error, and an unusually demonstrative Irwin threw his hands up in the air in disgust. There were plenty of hands in the air a few minutes later: rst those of Karanka, who icked Coles goalbound header over his own bar with his left hand, and then Cole and Henning Berg, appealing desperately for a penalty. Casillas, whose one weakness in this match was in dealing with crosses, something that United did not exploit to anywhere near its fullest extent, came for a deep Beckham corner and missed it. Yorke headed it back across goal, and Cole had an almost identical chance to the one he missed at the Bernabu. His header was going on until it icked the ngertips of Karanka and looped onto the top of the net. It was a very hard decision for Pierluigi Collina there were a mass of bodies, and the ball hit Coles head and Karankas hand almost instantaneously but it should have been a penalty and a red card. It was a huge if understandable injustice, yet very little was said about it after the match either by United or in the press. Not even United could maintain such asphyxiating pressure and, in a game of compelling uctuations, Real almost extended their lead twice just before half-time. First Stam, off balance,

diverted Salgados low cross straight to Ral, who stabbed over with his right foot from 12 yards. Then, in injury time, McManamans right-wing cross deected off Stam and onto the roof of the net with Van der Gouw back-pedalling desperately. Had it dipped under the bar, he would not have got there. McManaman, who had endured a modest rst season at Madrid, excelled in both legs. He was booed furiously throughout at Old Trafford. This was not token hate for an ex-Liverpool player; Jamie Redknapp, for example, would not have invited anywhere near this level of opprobrium. United fans detested McManaman and Robbie Fowler because, as well as being Liverpool players, they were Scousers both by birth and by nature. McManaman wasnt a huge fan of United either, and the glee he took from Madrids triumph was enormous. His considerable inuence challenges the lazy perception of continental sophisticates outsmarting British and Irish dunderheads. Real were slick and clinical on the counter-attack, and McManaman was a huge part of that. They might not quite have taught United a lesson in this match, as some felt, but that does not mean United didnt learn anything. This was the standard we had to aim for, world class, Keane said. A number of features of Reals play struck me. The incredible rst touch. The economy of movement, no daft running, every move purposeful. Rals cunning, waiting like a panther to pounce on any half-chance. And burying it when it came. That was exactly what he did with a glorious goal in the 50th minute. It was the start of a crazy and seismic 138-

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second period in which Ral scored twice and Keane missed an open goal. The general perception is that United, panicking because of the need for at least two goals, came out like headless chickens after half-time and were picked off. The reality was a little different. For the rst few minutes after half-time, United were largely on the defensive, feeling their way into the second half. But then they won a free-kick on the right, 40 yards from goal, and lost their collective heads completely. Only the taker, Beckham, and Silvestre on as a half-time substitute for Irwin, who had a hamstring injury were behind the ball when the free-kick was taken. When the ball was eventually cleared, Salgados header fell nicely for McManaman, and from nowhere Madrid had a three-on-two break. McManaman ran beyond the halfway line and then played a beautiful left-footed pass over Silvestre for the lurking Ral, 45 yards from goal in an inside-right position. His rst touch was superb, a cushioned ick with the outside of the left foot into the space ahead of him. He moved to the edge of the box and then, having been negligently shown ineld onto his left foot by Silvestre, curled a majestic shot into the far corner. The conception and execution of the goal were gorgeous McManaman and Ral touched the ball 11 times between them, covering the length of the eld in the process but Uniteds defending was inexplicable. Alan Hansen was wrong when he said that you cant win anything with kids in 1995-96, but you certainly cant win anything with this kind of childlike naivety. It was a stupid way to lose, said Silvestre after the game. I am very disappointed.

When I came on, we completely collapsed. I dont understand how it happened. The clue, some would say, is in the question. Silvestre became a very useful player for United, particularly during the title victory of 2002-03, but his rst season was a traumatic one, in which he struggled with his concentration and decision-making. There is no way Irwin would have made such a mistake. That left United needing three goals to qualify, and they should have got one straight away. Another of Giggss icks round the corner found Keane, who muscled past Salgado and played a pass down the side for Cole, on the left of the six-yard box. He had Helguera at his back and also Casillas, who had come from his line, but managed to work a return pass to Keane, level with the penalty spot and with only Roberto Carlos on the line to beat. He sidefooted it over the bar. One of those nights, said Clive Tyldesley on ITV. One of those nights for Roy Keane. The odd thing is that, for 99 per cent of the game, Keane had again been exceptional. His schooling with Brian Clough had made him obsessed with minutiae and detail. This, as much as anything, was the key to his greatness. Once he went onto the eld, he entered a furious, almost demented concentration. Every football match consists of a thousand little things which, added together, amount to the nal score, Keane wrote in his autobiography. The manager who cant spot the details in the forensic manner Clough could is simply bluffing. Keane had got the little things, the things that barely anybody notices, right

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throughout the tie. Yet his two most important and visible contributions had gone spectacularly wrong. It was even crueller because of the personal context. Keane had missed the previous years nal due to suspension and, even though United would not have been in that nal without his legendary performance in the semi-nal against Juventus, he says he does not regard himself as a Champions League winner. In 1999-2000, he seemed on a one-man mission to win the trophy. Six of his 12 goals that season came in the Champions League, yet his failure to add a seventh all but ended Uniteds hopes. Whatever chance remained had gone seconds later, when Redondo created the third for Ral with an astonishing piece of skill. He ran 40 yards down the left and then, while facing the touchline, backheeled the ball between the nonplussed Bergs legs before running on to collect the ball by the touchline and squaring for Ral to tap gleefully into an open net. The goal is rightly remembered as Redondos, but Rals part should not be underestimated. He made Redondos pass an easy one with an angled sprint away from the United defence, who had all been drawn towards the near post by Redondo. All the while Ral was waving his hands with the desperation of a man who had seen something nobody else had seen. In a match in which both sides had enjoyed spells of extreme excellence, that goal, and particularly Redondos part in it, had the devastating nality of a perfect conversational putdown. It is the moment for which Redondos performance is inevitably remembered, even if to return to Keanes detail his more important contribution was

a defensive one. Redondo must have a magnet in his pants, said Ferguson. He was fantastic, unbelievable. He had one of those games. Every time we attacked and the ball came out of their box, it fell at his feet. Every time! Redondos primary job was to carry water, albeit more gracefully than most, but here he walked on it. Redondo has a case for being the most underrated player of all time, a balletic mover who was described as tactically perfect by the exacting Fabio Capello and had the rare ability to change the pulse of a contest almost as he pleased. Yet he was excluded both from Pels list of the 100 greatest living footballers, and also World Soccers list of the 100 greatest players of the 20th century. He also only ever received three votes for the Ballon dOr, all in 2000, and won just 29 caps for Argentina for a variety of reasons, including injury, a clash of philosophies and even his refusal to cut his hair. After Redondos masterpiece, United staggered around dazed for a few minutes. The only bad tackle came after an hour, when Scholes was booked for bulldozing through Svio. That moment aside, the entire tie was played in an outstanding, ingenuous spirit. Indeed, Real did not commit a single foul in the rst half at Old Trafford. Both sides simply wanted to get down to business and try to win the game. It sounds an obvious thing to say (although it is anything but in the modern age), but there was a nobility, and an admirable, may-the-best-team-win attitude. This was a proper football match. It came during a brief golden age of European football, culminating in the exceptional Euro 2000. In the

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Sunday Telegraph four days later, Gary Lineker hailed the top-level European games emergence from a period of defensiveness. The most successful sides are those who show adventure, who use the talents of special players to unlock the opposition. That can only be good for the game. In qualitative terms, the health of a tournament is often best judged by the number of goals at the sharp end. In 1999-2000 there were 44 goals in the 13 matches from the quarter-nals, still the highest since 1963-64. The 20 goals in seven knockout matches at Euro 2000 is also a joint-record for the European Championship (although there have only been quarter-nals since 1996, when the tournament was increased to 16 teams), and the total of 85 goals is also a record for the Euros. Goals were so commonplace that, even with four needed, Uniteds body language suggested they thought it was doable. I always felt we were still in it, said Teddy Sheringham. It was one of those strange matches when every time they had a shot, we had a shot. Its just that they scored and we didnt. It was like a ve-a-side game which is why, even at 3-0 down, I honestly thought we still had a chance. Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjr came on for Cole and Berg just after the hour, with United switching to a 3-43 formation, and a goal came almost immediately. Not that it had anything to do with the substitutes: Giggs, Keane and Scholes combined to nd the previously anonymous Beckham, who zig-zagged past Roberto Carlos and Svio before shifting the ball to the side of Karanka

and smacking a beautiful shot across Casillas and into the top of the net. It was an exceptional goal and one that, according to Barclay, made nonsense of the myopic idea that he be restricted to the ank. Beckham had made a goal for Cole at Middlesbrough nine days earlier with a similar run, and around this time there was a bit of a clamour for him to be played in the centre of the eld for England. It always seemed pointlessly counter-intuitive if you have the best crosser of a ball in the world, perhaps in history, why take him away from the ank? but Beckham had played in the centre of mideld in his youth and was desperate to do so again. Kevin Keegan experimented thus in a friendly in France in September 2000, but he resigned a month later and the thrilling emergence of Steven Gerrard alongside Scholes meant that Sven-Gran Eriksson did not consider Beckham as a regular centralmideld option until the quarterback experiment of 2005. After Beckhams goal, Madrid camped extremely deep and rationed their attacks. Although United had much more possession, they did not create anywhere near as many chances as in the rst half. Solskjr slipped in the box, Scholes dragged a 20-yard shot across goal and just wide, and then Casillas made another ne save to deny Solskjr at the near post. A second goal nally came in the 89th minute, when Scholes thrashed in an unsaveable penalty following McManamans needless foul on Keane by the right edge of the area. United needed two goals in injury time, something they had managed against Bayern Munich in the nal a year earlier. They almost got one in the fth second

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of added time, but Yorke headed straight at Casillas from six yards and that was that. For United, there was only the numbing realisation that their hopes of a dynasty had gone. For a time, the players seemed to be in denial. My mind refused to concentrate on the fact that we would not be in the nal again, Stam wrote in his autobiography, before describing a similar reaction from Gary Neville. Have we really lost to them? Neville said. I cant believe weve been knocked out. The shock, Stam said, was sickening.

After the match, Del Bosque spoke of his surprise at Uniteds tactical anarchy. With Chelsea losing 5-1 in Barcelona a night earlier, many of the British press who had been hailing an era of English dominance a month earlier denounced the English teams as football illiterates. The smug assumption of English club superiority which had wafted through the more Anglocentric sections of the media this past month has proved sadly hollow, wrote Jim White in the Daily Telegraph. In the same paper two days after the match, Stam rejected the idea that Real had humiliated United. Some have suggested that Madrid outclassed us at Old Trafford, he said, but Im not having that. He told Solskjr that he wanted to play the match again. Ferguson also said he thought United would win the match seven times out of ten. Though the glib consensus was that United had been easily outsmarted by a better side, the reality is more nuanced, said Daniel Harris, the author of On the Road: A Journey through a Season. But for their Bernabu timidity, things might have been very different. Instead, the aura was gone forever.

And Reals was on the way back. Although they won the Champions League in 1998, they had been a relatively dowdy club for much of the previous decade. They had won just two of the previous nine titles, their worst run since the 1950s, but they drew inspiration from the win at Old Trafford and comfortably beat Bayern Munich and Valencia to lift the Champions League. That gave them the clout to steal Lus Figo from Barcelona in 2000 and began an era of brazen galcticism which, though ultimately unsuccessful, restored their reputation as the most glamorous club in the world. Had Real not ludicrously got rid of both Del Bosque and Claude Makll a man who, like Jeffrey Lebowskis rug, really tied the room together in 2003, the galctico experiment would surely have been a success. Those galcticos had won another Champions League under Del Bosque a year earlier, making it three in ve years. No other club had dominated the tournament to such an extent since its inception in 1992, although this wasnt a dynasty as such. Each side had different identities. Only four of the team that started the 1998 nal also began the 2000 nal, and only ve of that XI started two years later. The biggest impact of this match, however, came at Old Trafford. It punctured Uniteds self-belief and made Ferguson investigate alternative tactical options. One of the forceful reminders delivered by that defeat was that consistent success in Europe would be more readily achieved if we improved our capacity to defend against the counterattack, he said. From then on, Ferguson decided that, with destruction intrinsically

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more controllable than creation, it made sense to prioritise the former. His attitude was shared by Arrigo Sacchi. Manchester are a very good side, he said after the game. But their win last season was exceptional. Madrid, I believe, are more likely to win the Champions League on a regular basis. Their style of play, alone, means they are better equipped to dominate Europe. You cant keep giving yourselves mountains to climb, especially against the top teams, said Keane after the game. But it is the way we play and I think it will be hard for us to change. So it proved. This great United side would not win multiple European Cup knockout games, never mind multiple European Cups; their win over Deportivo in 200102 was their only victory in a knockout tie between 1999 and 2007. In 2000-01 Ferguson kept the same personnel and system, but United were much cagier in Europe. Then, in the summer of 2001, he bought Juan Sebastian Vern to play in a 4-2-3-1 system, with Scholes behind Ruud Van Nistelrooy and able to drop into mideld when United did not have the ball. In the short term, the move was a disaster: by breaking up the mideld of BeckhamKeane-Scholes-Giggs, Ferguson killed a golden goose that was delivering a Premier League every season. Nor did it lead to an improvement in Europe. In the early years, Uniteds attempts to go continental were a bit like asking Kelly Brook to play Amlie. Ferguson went through some extremely dark times. United had a terrible record in Europe, and also lost their way domestically. Ferguson, who originally

planned to retire in 2002, could not have imagined that even such a fundamental change could be this problematic. When United were eliminated in the group stages of the Champions League in 2005-06, most assumed Ferguson was nished. Even McIlvanney, in his Sunday Times column, said that eventually there comes a moment when the best and bravest of ghters shouldnt answer the bell. Yet Fergusons obscene resilience drove United to three consecutive titles between 2006 and 2008 and, best of all, another European Cup in 2008. He also nally managed to ght off the away goal. Having failed to keep a clean sheet in nine consecutive knockout matches from 1998 to 2007, United then did so in six of the next seven. They were tactical pioneers, with a 4-3-3-0 system that was the envy of Europe, and the rst United side to reach four European seminals in ve seasons. Many still feel United would have won more European Cups by sticking to a fearless 4-4-2. Its impossible to know, but what is fascinating is that Ferguson ripped up his system based on such an unusual game. This was not the type of straightforward match from which easy conclusions can be drawn, unlike, say, Uniteds quarter-nal a year later, when they were quietly but emphatically thrashed 3-1 on aggregate by Bayern Munich. The Real Madrid match has a million different interpretations, and umpteen unusual elements. There was, for example, Fergusons description of Casillass performance as not normal at all. He also wrote that just about everything that could possibly go wrong for us did so in spades, and we were left looking back on the match with the

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sense that Real were simply destined to progress into the semi-nals. There was also Redondos superhuman display, the fact that Uniteds defence was unusually hapless that season, the improbability of Keane scoring an own goal, the fact that Yorke, so vital the previous season, had lost his way. There was also the postTreble loss of hunger discussed by Keane, who in those days was generally seen to be his masters voice. Then there is the fact that, quite simply, you are allowed to lose a game of football to Real Madrid. That Ferguson made his decision to impose such fundamental change despite all this is a fascinating snapshot of a man blessed with the immense courage necessary to take extremely risky and brave decisions, from dropping Jim Leighton for the 1990 FA Cup nal replay to selling Paul Ince, Mark Hughes and Andrei Kanchelskis in 1995. His ruthlessness and clear-sightedness (at least in seeing what was wrong, if not necessarily what the solution was), is precisely what makes him a genius, wrote Jonathan Wilson. It is one thing to build a great side; quite another to be brave enough to dismantle it and start again, shaping footballs evolution even as you adapt to its changing shape. The other decision Ferguson took was to compromise the traditions of Manchester United. The pursuit of glory and the commitment to attacking football were woven into the fabric of the club by Sir Matt Busby. This will seem a piddling

point to many, but it is anything but. Fergusons caution in Europe soon extended to big games domestically, and the number of crucial vital matches in the last few years in which United have attacked from the start can be counted on the ngers of one hand. The most extreme manifestation came at the Nou Camp in 2008, when, despite having Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Tvez, Wayne Rooney, Michael Carrick, Owen Hargraves, Park Ji-Sung and Scholes on the pitch, United packed men behind the ball. They drew that game 0-0, as they had in Madrid, but this time went through with a 1-0 win in the second leg and went on to win the tournament. Would Ferguson have won more European Cups without such a dramatic change? Nobody knows. But the longterm impact of the events of 19 April 2000 imbue a comment made by Steve McClaren a month earlier with a certain poignancy. While you are top of the pile it is very, very important to continue winning and then you will become one of the legendary sides, he said. That means winning the European Cup two, three, four out of ve years. The players want to do that. They are a great team, but I believe they can be so much better and become one of the all-time legendary teams. The United side at the turn of the century, mainly because of an underrated contest that in its excellence, complexity and magnitude deserves to go down as one of the greatest of all matches, never quite did.

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Eight Bells
Prepared to go out on the town in drag, in Presbyterian Scotland, in the 1920s, he must have really wanted that dram.

Pre-War Scottish Legends

Pre-War Scottish Legends

A selection of eight of the early stars of the game in Scotland
By Scott Murray

Andy Watson
(Queens Park and Scotland)

Arthur Wharton is often erroneously credited as being the rst black footballer, signing for Preston North End in preleague 1886, then later turning out for Sheffield United and Stockport County once the Football League was up and running. But Wharton can only lay claim to being the rst black professional: the Queens Park and Scotland left-back Andy Watson beat him to the punch by the best part of a decade. Watson usually referred to these days as Andrew, but in most contemporary sources known as Andy was born in British Guyana, the son of a Scottish sugar planter and a local woman. He was sent to school in London at the age of 14, then enrolled at the University of Glasgow in 1875. Education doesnt appear to have been Watsons main concern with his record in Natural Philosophy going some way to explaining his priorities: during his time on the course, he didnt borrow a single book from the library, and achieved an overall mark of 8. To put this in context, the highest in his class was a slightly more impressive 1,548. It wasnt a big problem, though: in the meantime, he was making a name for

himself at Maxwell, his local football club, moving in 1876 to Parkgrove FC, where he also became secretary, organising the clubs xtures. According to Scottish FA reports of the time, he was a powerful and very fair back who tackled well. By April 1880, Watson had been chosen to represent Glasgow in a representative xture, games which in those days held almost the same status as full internationals. His performance in that match Glasgow beat Sheffield by a single goal led to a transfer to Queens Park, the biggest club in the country, and he soon received notices as one of the very best backs we have he has great speed and tackles splendidly with a powerful and sure kick. Full international honours were inevitable, and in 1881 he captained Scotland on his debut, a match which remains Englands biggest home defeat, a 6-1 shellacking at the Kennington Oval. Watson won two more caps a 5-1 win against Wales and a second victory over England, this time only 5-1 before moving to London on business in 1882. His departure was much to Scotlands chagrin. While down south, Watson would turn out for the Corinthians, at one stage helping them to pelt the FA Cup holders Blackburn Rovers 8-1. Watson had been so popular with the selectors that, when he was unt for an

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international in early 1882, one SFA goon quipped that, should Watson somehow become available again, he would happily drug his successor to ensure he played. But Watson never would pull on a Scotland shirt again: despite constant pleading from the SFA, he chose instead to emigrate to Australia, a restless soul always on the move.

more than enough to cover the ne Villas directors imposed on him for going AWOL. Upon his return, Cowan knuckled down and helped Villa to the title. His excellence wasnt just measured in medals, but also by his performances on the international stage. Admittedly there werent many of these, as the Scottish FA, self-defeating clowns then as now, didnt pick players representing clubs outside the country until the international against England in 1896, by which time Cowan was 26. Never mind: his impact would be almost instantaneous. Cowans masterful display in defence at Celtic Park helped the Scots jigger Englands record run of 20 matches without defeat, which had stood since April 1889. A good referee would have penalised Brandon, Drummond and Cowan for their dirty tricks, reported the Pall Mall Gazette of Scotlands 2-1 win. In the case of the last named, this style of play is even more inexcusable than with the others, for he was undoubtedly the best half-back on the eld. The SFA selectors didnt bother picking Cowan for the games against Ireland and Wales, considered pushovers at the time. But he would be a shoo-in for selection against England in 1897, Scotland winning 2-1 again, this time at Crystal Palace. Of the half-back division, ran a contemporary report, Cowan was undoubtedly the best on the eld. England captain Gilbert Smith found that Cowan was a bit too much for him, while their star man Steve Bloomer, a genuine great of the game, scored but was quieter than usual, Cowan negating his threat. Cowan would win only one more cap, again in the big match against England,

Jimmy Cowan
(Aston Villa and Scotland)

Scotland have had some world-class players down the years, but never a Best Ever In Their Position. Outstanding as they were, your Denis Laws and Kenny Dalglishes, Jimmy Johnstones and Graeme Sounesses, never quite made it into the canon alongside the Pels, Maradonas and Beckenbauers. But of all the Scots who nearly touched those heights, the one who got closest was perhaps the long-forgotten gure of Jimmy Cowan. Cowan was probably the best centrehalf of his era, the outstanding midelder in the nal decade of the 19th century. He joined Aston Villa from Vale of Levan via a short spell in Midlands county football in 1889, and quickly became the linchpin of the most successful team of the 1890s. During the decade, he helped Villa to ve league titles and two FA Cups, the second of which secured English footballs second Double. He was big and strong, a tough tackler and a progressive passer. And fast. So fast that in 1895, he missed ve league games to prepare for, compete in, and win the prestigious Powderhall New Year Sprint, a major annual open athletics event back home in Scotland. He won 80 in prize money,

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the following year. He was honoured with the captaincy, but had a nightmare, his team losing 3-1 at Celtic Park. Cowan was a failure, reported the Times, and damaged his reputation as a half-back. There were extenuating circumstances, though: it was rumoured that Cowan was completely paggered on booze. Spectators were heard repeatedly shouting, What on earth are you playing at, Jamie, man? while the Glasgow Herald reported that near the end, Cowan sent the ball into touch after dithering with it, a most extraordinary bit of play for such a player. Cowan never played for Scotland again, but he did secure one last title for Villa a year later.

who was watching the team in Scotland for the rst time. McColl scored the opener within 40 seconds of kickoff, a low snapshot which ew past the ummoxed England keeper Jack Robinson. After hitting the post, and assisting in the move which saw Scotland go two up, McColl thundered in the Scots third and his second on the half hour, before scoring his hat-trick goal on the stroke of half-time. Scotland were 4-1 up at the turn, a score that would remain the same during the second half, despite the fact that that McColl had spent the period bombarding custodian Robinson in the England goal, as the Manchester Guardian described it. All in all, McColl played 13 games for Scotland, and scored 13 goals. Only eight players Denis Law, Kenny Dalglish, Hughie Gallacher, Lawrie Reilly, Ally McCoist, Robert Hamilton, James McFadden and Mo Johnston have scored more times for their country, and only Gallacher and Hamilton have a better goals-per-game ratio. McColls fame took him into the world of professionalism, and to Newcastle United in 1901, where he would score 20 goals in three seasons, before returning north to Rangers, and eventually back to Queens Park as an amateur. But by now he had other concerns: a sweetie shop, co-owned with his brother Tom and bearing his name: RS McColl. It would grow into one of the biggest chains of newsagents in Scotland, the shops confectionary roots earning him the nickname Toffee Bob. Toffee Bob was still supporting Scottish football years later, always taking out advertisements in match programmes. Always use your sweets coupons at RS

(Queens Park, Newcastle United, Rangers and Scotland) No player has scored a hat-trick for Scotland since Colin Stein managed to hit the net four times against Cyprus in 1969. A pathetic record, and no mistake. What the team would give for a player like Robert Smyth McColl, a super-sharp shooter from the amateur side Queens Park. He scored hat-tricks in consecutive matches for Scotland in March 1899 in a 6-0 win in Wales, then another at Celtic Park against Ireland a week later. A remarkable achievement, but McColls masterpiece came the following year: a third hat-trick for his country, this time in the rst Scotland-England game of the 20th century. For only the third time in their history, the Scots played the match in primrose and rose hoops, the racing colours of honorary SFA president Lord Rosebery,

Robert Smyth McColl

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McColl, pleaded an advert in the match programme of the 1946 Victory Shield between Scotland and England. WH Smith never had as much success in England. William Henry Smith (known as Billy, and admittedly nothing to do with the south-of-the-border newsagents chain) was a winger in Hudderseld Towns three-in-a-row league winning team of the 1920s, and scored the only goal of the 1922 FA Cup nal, putting the ball past Prestons James Mitchell, the only player to ever play in an FA Cup nal wearing spectacles. He played three times for England between 1922 and 1928, and was by all accounts, unlike his Scottish counterpart, useless in them all.

for Staveley was pelting towards the goal when Doyle, a notorious hardman, attempted to rob him of the ball. The ball broke loose and ew into the air at a good height. Both men attempted to trap it with their chests, but Doyles knee crumped into Croppers body as he leapt up. Cropper fell to the oor immediately, thinking he was winded, but was helped up and led back to the dressing room. They have killed me, he said as he gingerly walked off the pitch. In the dressing room, Cropper lay down, never to get up again. Doctors decided he was in no t state to be moved, and attended to him with hot water applications made to his body. He remained in the dressing room until 11.30am the morning after, when death ensued. The cause was a rupture of the bowels, which had led to acute peritoneal inammation. An inquest returned a verdict of death by misadventure: Cropper had given Doyle no provocation, and that was the rst time Doyle had ever played with him, so far as he could say. It was a pure accident. It was legitimate play to breast the ball when in the air. It is, of course, not the most infamous tragedy to befall a player in the history of Scottish football. The Celtic goalkeeper John Thomson was killed in 1931 in an accidental collision with Rangers striker Sam English, who found himself subsequently hounded out of football by fans who jeered his every touch. But no such fate befell Doyle. In fact his great successes lay ahead of him. He moved to Everton, and was captain of their rstever championship side in 1891. (The goalkeeper in that team, Jack Angus, fell ill and died midway through the season,

(Grimsby Town, Everton, Celtic and Scotland) Dan Doyle played bowls. A genteel pastime beloved by pensioners worldwide, he played it well enough once to represent Scotland in a match against England. A quiet and rened sporting star of the Victorian age, you might conclude. Alas, not quite. For Dan also played football, well enough to win league titles in England and Scotland, and to captain his country. A rampaging womaniser and gambler, the sort who grabbed life with both hands and wrung every last drop out of it, he earned his place in history by becoming the rst man to kill another on the football eld. The fateful incident occurred when he was playing for Grimsby Town against Staveley in 1889. William Cropper who was a professional cricketer for Derbyshire as well as an attacker

Dan Doyle

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becoming as yet the only player to receive a posthumous league winners medal. Truly these were tougher times.) Doyle then moved back north, and established himself as the centrepiece of the rst great Celtic side, winning their rst league titles and Scottish Cup, Scotlands team of the 1890s. What the old folks back at the bowling green thought of all this was never recorded.

report of a length that makes a Sun Spot look like a special report in the Economist, does at least mention Gallachers brilliant football. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but as Jimmy Stewart was once told, when the legend becomes fact, print the legend. In any case, it still doesnt stand as the cheekiest moment in an amazing career. Two other incidents stand out. Chosen to represent Ireland against England at Windsor Park, Gallacher refused to get changed until he negotiated a sizeable appearance fee with the Irish FAs treasurer. Gallacher, known as The Mighty Atom, may have been small in stature he was only ve foot three inches tall and seven stone in weight when he debuted for Celtic in 1911, eventually hitting the ve-foot-ve mark but he knew his standing in the game, and his worth. (Alan Morton, the famous Rangers winger of the time, considered him the greatest player to ever have pulled on boots: There never was a player like him, and I often wonder if we shall see his like again.) The treasurer knew all too well how the crowd would react had Gallacher not turned out, and so his request was granted. The highestever fee for an international was stuffed into the wee mans wallet. His most audacious stunt, however, came when the Celtic manager Willie Maley took his side to a luxury hotel in Dunbar for a thoroughly modern spa-style period of training, rest and relaxation. The team were, for health purposes, put under curfew. Gallacher, however, decided he would quite fancy a nippy sweetie or two, and so persuaded a hotel chambermaid to lend him her uniform. Small and svelte enough to exude femininity, a glammed-

Patsy Gallacher
(Celtic, Airdrieonians and Ireland)

No lm footage exists of Patsy Gallachers most famous act as a footballer, his goal in the 1925 Scottish Cup nal for Celtic against Dundee. We must instead make do with a famous cartoon. To Patsy, it begins, just outside Dundees 18-yard line. He beats one man and another and another! The captions accompany grim-faced blue-shirted gentlemen lunging at a scrawny wee naf in hoops. The fourth man ve men hes beaten! Theres Keystone Kops carnage in the penalty area. Hes inside the six-yard line. The keeper is coming out. Patsy has stumbled. No, its incredible, hes somersaulted into the goal with the ball between his feet! Its the equaliser what a goal! Celtic 1 Dundee 1. Patsy has turned the game around for Celtic! Jimmy McGrory would score a late winner for the Bhoys, but few remember that bit. Whether Gallachers goal was quite as spectacular as that, we shall never know. Some contemporary reports talk only of a melee in the box from which Gallacher leaps out with the ball wedged between his boots. Others speak of a scramble, the ball being merely scraped over the line. The Manchester Guardian, in a match

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up Gallacher sashayed past Maley, on sentry duty in the hotel foyer, bade his boss a very good night in a comedic high-pitched squeal, and disappeared through the door Maley was holding open for her. Prepared to go out on the town in drag, in Presbyterian Scotland, in the 1920s, he must have really wanted that dram.

Hughie Gallacher
(Newcastle United and Scotland)

no business being on the pitch. Whats your name? The reply came: Mr Fogg. To which Gallacher responded, Aye, and youve been in one all afternoon. He spent the best part of what remained of the match berating the referee at every occasion. After the game, he went to Foggs dressing room to apologise for his actions, only to see the referee leaning over the bath. Unable to look a slapstick gift horse in the mouth, he hoofed the referee into the water. The FA suspended him without pay for eight weeks. There were other incidents. Part of the rst Scotland team to play overseas, against France in 1930, he led most of the squad through a hotel window to break curfew and sample the delights of Paris. He was arrested for scrapping with his brother-in-law in Newcastle city centre. Having moved to Chelsea, he was arrested for brawling with a group of Fulham fans in a west London caf. He was frequently found unconscious outside jazz clubs, gaddered on booze. One time he was peeled off the pavement the night before a game with Derby County by a player from Derby County. And yet he always performed on the pitch. His rst club, Queen of the South, were rewarded with 19 goals in 9 games. He scored nearly a goal a game for Airdrie in 100 appearances, then helped Newcastle to what remains their last league title in 1927. He continued to rattle them in for Chelsea, Derby, Notts County, Grimsby and Gateshead, before retiring in 1939 having scored just over 400 goals in just over 550 matches. He scored 23 times for Scotland in 20 games, also going down in history as one of the 1928 Wembley Wizards who skelped England 5-1 in 1928.

In 1929, Scotland visited Belfast to take on Northern Ireland in the British Championship. Within 14 minutes of kick-off, they were 3-0 up, all three goals being scored by the diminutive Newcastle United forward Hugh Kilpatrick Gallacher. At half-time, with the Scots leading 4-2, a message was relayed to the Scottish dressing room: if Gallacher didnt play like a numpty in the second half, he would be shot. Gallacher scored his fourth on 51 minutes, as Scotland ran out 7-3 winners. Walking through the city the day after on his way to meet friends, Gallacher was forced to take cover under a bridge as a bullet wheeched past his ears. Trouble seemed to follow the impetuous Gallacher around. The referee for that match in Belfast was a man called Albert Edward Fogg. He had previous with the Scottish striker. During a match between Newcastle and Hudderseld Town on New Years Eve 1927, Fogg awarded Town a penalty, a decision met with garrulous Gallacher opprobrium. The referee went to book Gallacher, asking the player his name. If you dont know who I am, replied Wee Hughie, youve

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But the booze would catch up with him. In 1957, he had a drunken argument with his son Matty, and threw an ashtray at his head. The incident which appears to have been a one-off was treated with arguably undue severity by the authorities. Matty was taken into care, while Hughie was summoned to the magistrates court on charges of child abuse. The day before his case was heard, Wee Hughie laid his head on the main London-Edinburgh railway line at 12.08, sure that the northbound train about to come round the corner would have no time to stop. His body was found 100 yards along the line at a place known as Dead Mans Crossing.

impossible to win the race, he instead hung around up the course near a more advantageous mark as though a spectator, before jumping into action at the gun and eventually winning the race. He got his money and ed the town before anybody could nd out about his shenanigans at the starting gun. Struth was primarily obsessed with three things: tness, discipline, and clothes. His rst edict on taking control was to insist his players wore a suit, topped with a bowler hat, at all times on their way to and from work. Struth lived near Ibrox, and most mornings would spy on the players from his window as they perambulated to the ground. Should he spot one not sporting their hat, or wearing it at a resolutely non-Protestant jaunty angle, Struth would phone the club and order the player back down the street, making them take their route again, only this time dressed just so. One morning, having made it to his office, Struth spotted a senior player chatting to a friend outside the main entrance at Ibrox, with his hands in his pockets. Struth went outside and, with the silent grace of a ballet dancer, glided stealthily down the steps before punching the player in the ribs. (Struth pre-empting Brian Clough here by some 50 years; the Nottingham Forest manager once bollocked Trevor Francis for putting his hands in his pockets when collecting a West Midlands Young Player of the Year Award, and famously clattered both Nigel Jemson and Roy Keane with haymakers.) When at work, the players had to wait before changing into their immaculately pressed kit. First, they were required to go for a walk in the park in their suits, of course to allow Struth to study

Bill Struth
(Rangers)

The only manager in our selection. And what a nutter. Ibrox must have been some place to work at during the 1920s. The decade had begun with a mixture of triumph and tragedy, the club winning the 191920 league title only for their manager, Willie Wilton, to drown in a boating accident the day after it was sealed. He was replaced by his assistant and former trainer Bill Struth who had been with Wilton on that fateful sailing trip and the new man would quickly establish himself as one of the most idiosyncratic managers to ever work in football. Struth was a former professional athlete who had struggled to make ends meet. His only major cash success was at a handicap race in Porthcawl where, having been given a starting position from which he considered it nigh on

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their gait, with a view to spotting injuries. Once the squad returned to Ibrox in order to train, Struth would disappear into his office for the rest of the day, emerging only occasionally to wander down to the directors lounge and play the piano in the manner of Chic Murrays headmaster in Gregorys Girl. Sometimes he would pour himself a small whisky. He would change his suit three times per day, selecting his threads from a large wardrobe in his office. Struth had little interest in football, and freely admitted as much to his players, charging the senior members of the squad with working out how the team would play. He simply handed the captains armband and his trust to the legendary defender Davie Meiklejohn, and told him to get on with it.

and the cross, dribbling and team sense, he was Matthewss equal, said Tommy Cairns. But in directness and goalscoring, Morton was better. Bob McPhail agreed with this very Presbyterian no-messing analysis: He was always going in a straight line for the goal. He could take the ball into the opponents penalty area quicker than anybody I ever saw. He never pulled his tricks until a game was won, and then he gave the crowd the entertainment they wanted. Morton helped his team to seven league titles in the twenties, though perhaps his most important club medal was that of the 1928 Scottish Cup, ending Rangers quarter-of-a-century jinx in the competition. But his most famous performances came in the darker blue shirts of Scotland. He played against England every year between 1920 and 1932, a period of Scottish dominance, with the exception of 1926, a match which became known for years in both countries as the year Morton did not play. His pinnacle came in the 1928 Wembley Wizards game, when he set up all three of the hat-trick hero Alex Jacksons goals with pinpoint crosses. A genius, not least because he was the only star savvy enough ever to receive invitations to fancy SFA dinners during an era where those in charge thought the players were nothing but working-class scum. All of this leaves no room for Celtics Jimmy McGrory, who scored 395 times in 378 games, yet could barely get a kick for the Scottish national side, despite scoring six times in seven internationals. But what can you do?

Alan Morton
(Rangers and Scotland)

Struth could spot a player, though. His rst signing for Rangers was his most important. Alan Morton was a nononsense left-winger turned down by Airdrie in 1913. He joined the amateurs of Queens Park and took up a career as a mining engineer instead, but the cream always rises, and he was already in the Scotland team before Struth came calling in 1920. He would immediately become the star man in the most successful Scottish side of the decade. According to his teammates, he was a better player than Stanley Matthews. In the other arts, accuracy of the pass

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OME TAPING IS H LING MUSIC KIL

AND ITS ILLEGAL

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Contributors

Contributors
The Blizzard, Issue One
Scott Anthony is a journalist and historian. He writes on football, mainly in the Near East, for the Guardian, itv.com and When Saturday Comes. David Ashton is a playwright, TV and lm screenwriter; creator of the BBC Radio 4 series, McLevy. He has written three novels, the latest being A Trick of the Light. Also an actor, he played Dr McDuff in Brass. His website is www.david-ashton.co.uk. Philippe Auclair is the author of Le Royaume Enchante de Tony Blair and Cantona: the Rebel Who Would Be King, a winner of the National Sporting Clubs Football Book of the Year. He writes for France Football, Offside and Champions and provides analysis and commentary for RMC Sport. He also pursues a parallel career in music under the name Louis Philippe. Anthony Clavane is the author of Promised Land: A Northern Love Story, which won the National Sporting Clubs Football Book of the Year Award. He writes about sport for the Sunday Mirror. Twitter: @lufcpromised Lawrence Donegan is the Guardians golf correspondent and the author of Four Iron for the Soul. He was a bassist for the Bluebells and Lloyd Cole and the Commotions. Twitter:@ lawrencedonegan Dave Farrar was the chief football commentator on Eurosport for 10 years, and now commentates on the English Premier League overseas and on European football for ESPN. He is working on his rst book, The Perfect Punter. Twitter: @perfectpunter Simon Hooper is an occasional football writer more regularly found covering global affairs, elections and trumpet festivals for Al Jazeera, CNN and the New Statesman. Twitter: @simonbhooper Simon Kuper is co-author of Why England Lose, and author of Football Against the Enemy, a winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, and Ajax, The Dutch, The War. His latest book, The Football Men, was published by Simon & Schuster in May. He is a columnist with the Financial Times. Sid Lowe writes for the Guardian, Sports Illustrated, World Soccer and FourFourTwo. He has lived in Spain for a decade. Twitter: @sidlowe Ben Lyttleton is a European football writer whose work has appeared in the Sunday Telegraph, Mail on Sunday, Irish Examiner, Champions, When Saturday Comes and on the Guardian and Sports Illustrated websites. He has edited an oral history of the European Cup, Match of My Life: European Cup Finals. Twitter: @benlyt Iain Macintosh is the author of Football Fables and the Everything You Ever Wanted To Know series of sports guidebooks. He writes for the New Paper in Singapore and the Irish Examiner. Twitter: @iainmacintosh

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Contributors

James Montague writes about football and politics in the Middle East for CNN, World Soccer, the National and FourFourTwo and is associate editor of Delayed Gratication (www.dgquarterly. com). His rst book, When Friday Comes: Football in the Warzone won the National Sporting Clubs Best New Writer Award in 2009. Scott Murray writes for the Guardian and FanHouse UK. He is author of on-thisday football miscellany Day of the Match, and the preposterous but amusing Phantom of the Open: Maurice Flitcroft, The Worlds Worst Golfer. Paul Myers is sports editor at Radio France Internationales English language service in Paris. He travels regularly to London to work at the Guardian and blogs at www.parislondonreturn. blogspot.com. Kieron OConnor is the editor of swissrambler.blogspot.com, which is essential reading about the business of football (according to the Guardian). Twitter: @SwissRamble Gunnar Persson is a Swedish author of biographies (Nacka och drmmen om det goda livet, about Lennart Skoglund) and club histories (Hakoah stjrnor p ykt, about Hakoah Vienna). His latest work (Hammarby IF en fotbollskrnika) was published in May. Dileep Premachandran has written on Asian sport for the Guardian, Sunday

Times and Inside Sport. He is primarily a cricket correspondent whose rst love is football. Twitter: @spiceboxofearth Dominic Sandbrook is the author of three books on British history since the 1950s, Never Had It So Good, White Heat and State of Emergency. He is a writer for the New Statesman, a columnist for the Daily Mail and BBC History Magazine and a reviewer for the Sunday Times. Twitter: @dcsandbrook Rob Smyth is a freelance writer for the Guardian. His book, Jumpers for Goalposts: How Football Sold its Soul, will be published by Elliott & Thompson in September. Tim Vickery writes and broadcasts on South American football for the BBC, World Soccer, Sports Illustrated, SBS, Sambafoot and TalkSport. Jonathan Wilson is the author of Inverting the Pyramid, a winner of the National Sporting Clubs Football Book of the Year, Behind the Curtain and The Anatomy of England. He writes for the Guardian, World Soccer and Sports Illustrated. Twitter: @jonawils David Winner is the author of Brilliant Orange: the Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football, Those Feet: A Sensual History of English Football, and Around the World in 90 Minutes. His latest book, Eat Dont Eat, published next year by Simon & Schuster, is about Romes troubled relationship with food.

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About The Blizzard

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