Football Americana Week 17: Greenwash

There is probably only one place to start our weekly round up of the MLS and that's in LA. Not just because of the much publicised spat between the Galaxy's two alpha's, Landon Donovan and the other fella but because the Super Classico took place last weekend between the Galaxy and their house-mates Chivas USA. And it was Edson Buttle who stole the headlines for about five minutes after his glancing header beat Zack Thornton in the Chivas goal to settle the derby.

That's three wins on the bounce for the Galaxy who will, no doubt, be hoping that they can take advantage of Whatsisname's return and push on for a place in the Post Season. Assuming he can make peace with Landon that is.

From LA to San Jose and a rare goal from Darren Huckerby. The Earthquakes striker was always an explosive player and judging by last season, the MLS seems to be his level. However, this year has not been kind to him or his team. The former Norwich, Man City and Newcastle striker's goal proved to be a consolation as his team collapsed to a 3-1 defeat to Toronto. Chad Barrett scored two but there was more than an element of good fortune about his second. Running onto a through ball down the middle, the Earthquake's defender Aaron Pitchkolan looked to have the pass covered only for him to suddenly fall over clutching his groin. Barrett, was free to round the keeper and score. The replay showed no contact between Barrett and Pitchkolan, the poor guy's groin just popped at the worst possible time.

The Earthquakes are languishing at the bottom of the Western Conference and enjoy the dubious honour of being even worse than FC Dallas who got no change from a visit to Colorado. Kosuke Kimura's near post strike was enough for the Rapids to claim the points.

Elsewhere, Columbus and Chicago contrived a goalless draw. Ditto New England and Kansas. So that leaves us in the Pacific North West and Qwest Field, the home of the villainous Seattle Sounders. The thirty thousand plus support base of the 2009 expansion team dominated the popular vote in the line up for the upcoming All Star game against Everton. Despite the vote being open to the entire MLS fanbase, ten of the eleven players selected by the fans were Sounders. Only Landon Donovan survived the Greenwash.

The fan vote represents 25% of the ballot so once the coaches and media had stuffed the boxes with their block votes, a more balanced line up was selected with only two Sounders (Kasey Keller and Freddie Ljungberg) making the team.

On the pitch, the Sounders half-tracks keep rolling across the US Soccer landscape. They entertained Houston in a top of the table clash and emerged 2-1 winners despite going down 1-0 after a well worked goal by Brad Davis. The equaliser came from Freddy Montero who's exquisite half volley was saved off the line by a fantastic clearance from Davis again. The only problem was that the linesman saw it differently and gave a goal. Someone needs to have a word with that fella as it looked pretty clear cut and you wonder if MLS officials need to guard themselves from getting carried away by that Sounders crowd. Anyhoo, shortly after the start of the second half Patrick Ianni's scored with an overhead kick from a corner and Seattle closed the game out.

That's it. Results and tables here. Badly edited highlights below.

Chris Nee is on holiday.

Gioco del giorno

Some People Are On The Pitch speculates wildly about the return of live Italian football to UK TV.

The ratings are in and the Milan Derby, screened on BBC3, attracted roughly 700,000 viewers, which is not bad at all for a digital channel.

For those of you based outside the UK, Serie A has been off the air here in Blighty since Five dropped its coverage last season. So when the BBC announced their decision to screen Inter v Milan last week on their digital channel BBC3, speculation grew on the various Italian football forums as to whether this was a prelude to more regular coverage.

The reasons for broadcasting last Sunday’s game are fairly apparent. Presumably the Beckham Factor was the principle reason behind the decision to give Serie A another chance. However, there is plenty on offer for fans of good football so it’s possible that somewhere in the back of the programme controllers' minds, they may look to screen more games this season.

Continued coverage must also depend of whether 'Golden Balls' stays at Milan. When Channel 4 started to screen Serie A back in the 90’s it was on the back of one man: Paul Gascoigne. Of course back then the Premier League had just started and the Italian League was the best in the world. Nowadays, Serie A is blighted by in-stadium hooliganism, atrocious TV coverage and an outdated image here in the UK of being boring and defensive (an image propagated, in my opinion, by large sections of the pro-Premier League English media).

However, fans of the Italian game would argue that the reports on hooliganism are overplayed (and a touch hypocritical coming from the English) and that the TV coverage for the evening games is much better than the afternoon games which Five covered last year. As for the game being boring, on the evidence of last weekend, that simply isn’t true.

Many Serie A fans argue that if a broadcaster screened the Saturday or Sunday evening games, they would be screening the top games with the best coverage. While there is great merit in this argument, there are some obstacles to the return of Serie A to our screens:

Firstly, the ratings. Screening a Milan game with Beckham in it is bound to attract an audience of some description in England but even 700,000 is not sustainable for mainstream free-to-air channels like Five, Channel Four and ITV. These channels do have smaller digital stations but their respective acquisitions budgets will be tiny. The cost of carrying these games is probably too high for the likes of E4, FIVER and ITV4 given the ratings return even if Beckham played every week (which he wouldn’t).

Secondly, dedicated sports channels are covered for live weekend football in the evenings. Sky have been all about the La Liga for years now. Setanta used to cover Serie A and were in for it again, according to James Richardson, however the broadcaster couldn’t agree a price (apparently).

Thirdly, there’s a global recession going on and broadcasters are affected just like everyone else. It’s unlikely that they are going to take a punt on a League that keeps getting dropped.

What Serie A needs is for a broadcaster to believe in the league, invest in the league and give the league time to bed in with a new audience. Said broadcaster shouldn’t be governed by the rigours of the commercial TV market and should be able to afford to take the risk that the league may not pay off immediately. Ideally this broadcaster will not be commercially funded. Ideally it should be the BBC.

Hopefully, the ratings will persuade the Beeb to give Serie A another crack by screening another game. Perhaps they’ll screen another big match involving Milan followed by a non-Beckham game, ideally the Derbi D’Italia. If people are still watching, then hopefully that will be enough for the Beeb to sign a regular deal next season, assuming they can justify the licence fee expenditure.

Of course if Becks finds himself on a one way trip to LA next month, then the likelihood of seeing Serie A back on our screens would be significantly reduced. That’s why UK based Italian football fans had better hope a deal can be done lest they become condemned to watching dodgy feeds on Justin.tv for the foreseeable future.

There are more questions than answers...

Now's not the time to say 'I told you so'. What's done is done and now we must reflect on the consequences. We now know that England will not next year be playing at the European Championship Finals for the first time since 1984.

It will also be the first time England have failed for any major tournament since 1994, so what do we get from last night's 3-2 against Croatia? As far as I'm concerned, it raised more questions than answers.

First, an answer: the way Croatia played last night (i.e. in a comfortable, self-assured and competent fashion), it's fair to say that England do not deserve to be at the Finals because the quality of their play isn't up to that standard.

Question: Was Steve McClaren right to pick Scott Carson? Yes and no, in my opinion. No because last night's critical decider was not the place to give a 22-year-old with no international experience his debut. And yet given the alternatives (see previous article), perhaps some new blood with no previous reputation for untrustworthyness was worth a shot.

As much as I support Scott Carson in his development as a top goalkeeper, there's no avoiding the fact that the first goal was his fault as his technique was all wrong. That said, he made up for it with a performance that saw his early nerves dissipate and his shot-stopping abilities come to the fore once again.

Are the team playing as a team? No. There are undoubtedly some strong individual talents among England's ranks, but a unified strength seems to be lacking at the moment. Something for either McClaren or his successor to work on, perhaps.

Should David Beckham have played from the start? I doubt it would have done any harm. Though he's certainly not match-fit these days, he still retains a great sense of ball delivery in open play and in dead-ball situations. Maybe that would have been more of a factor if he'd had more of the game to play in.

Should Steve McClaren stay on in charge of the England team? For me, no. As one or two other people have mentioned on this blog, McClaren doesn't seem to be able to inspire his players. They play as if lacking any direction, and that could be something to do with a tactical naivety that brought Middlesbrough precious little in the way of glory while he was coach there.

If McClaren goes, who should replace him? Despite being from Northern Ireland, I'd personally like to see Martin O'Neill given a chance. I think the Terry Venables time has been and gone. Jose Mourinho? Sure, why not… although I doubt the job would interest him enough to take it. Alan Shearer? I think it might be worth giving him a go. Yes I know he has no international experience in coaching, but he definitely knows a thing or two and he undoubtedly has the iron will and mental strength to ram home the players' responsibilities when needed.

There are doubtless more questions and answers to come from England's failure to qualify, so feel free to post any of your own here. For the meantime, we'll try and get used to the idea of a Euro 2008 tournament that won't feature England. Strange. All very strange.

SuperLiga Final 2007

The inaugural SuperLiga reached its climax yesterday as LA Galaxy took on Pachuca in the Final at the Home Depot Center, Carson.

The Mexicans had overcome Houston Dynamo in their semi-final a fortnight ago but did so after a penalty shoot-out which ended 4-3. LA Galaxy, however, knocked out DC United in the other match, 2-0, to set up another classic US/Mexico showdown.

Pachuca took the lead 29 minutes into the Final when Peter Vagenas put the ball into his own net, but it was seen as justice done after Pachuca had dominated the early exchanges. Juan Carlos Cacho and Christian Gimenez both shared a number of chances to score up to that point without doing so. The breakthrough, however, came after a quick one-two between both players that left Gimenez free to centre a ball behind the Galaxy defence which Vagenas didn't clear as well as he'd have liked…

After that, the flood gates opened further. Pachuca found it almost too easy to split open the Galaxy defence at will with Damian Alvarez getting two golden opportunities to extend the lead, neither of which were taken.

The turning point for the Americans undoubtedly came in the 33rd minute when David Beckham suffered a knee sprain following a crude challenge from Fernando Salazar. He was forced to leave the field of play and be substituted, leaving his side ending the first half only 1-0 down but facing an uphill struggle.

The second half started better for LA Galaxy when Landon Donovan forced a save from opposing goalkeeper Miguel Calero after his near-25 yard free kick hit the target. Donovan was denied again when a firm header that looked to be going in was tipped wide by Calero in the 64th minute.

After that purple patch for Galaxy, Pachuca managed to regain control of the game again with Rafael Marquez Lugo guilty of not converting a couple of efforts. The Mexicans remained in control but couldn't find the net - something they'd be made to rue when three minutes into injury time Galaxy sent more men upfield for an equaliser. The result was a Mike Randolph shot which hit the crossbar, cleared only as far as Chris Klein who executed a fine bicycle-kick to level the scores at 1-1.

Extra time had been forced and Pachuca came straight back at Galaxy but once again the finishing was poor and some great goalkeeping by Joe Cannon ensured further goals weren't forthcoming. LA Galaxy also had their chances but after 120 minutes a winner still hadn't been found. Penalties would be needed to separate the two teams.

Vagenas shot first for LA but his miserable night was compounded when his penalty was saved by Calero. That in turn was matched by Cannon who saved from Gabriel Caballero with Pachuca's third penalty and that left the score level at 2-2. Both teams despatched their fourth penalties but missed their fifth, Donovan and Marvin Cabrera the guilty parties.

And so it went to sudden death where the tension quickly reached its peak. Midfielder Carlos Rodriguez stepped up to put Pachuca ahead, 4-3, but when Abel Xavier tried to do the same, he missed the target.

Pachuca had won the first SuperLiga in exciting fashion, setting the new competition off on a sure footing for the future. LA Galaxy, though brave in their attempt to run out champions, were left with the runners-up medals and plenty of time to wonder if things might have turned out differently had Beckham been allowed more of an influence in the game.

The state of play for England

Written by Kedge

Following the draw with Brazil in a friendly to welcome the team back to the spiritual home of football and a win in the Euro 2008 qualifier in Estonia, what have we learnt about England?

Or maybe more to the point, what has been confirmed?

1. Our defence still tends to lose concentration in the final minutes of the game.
2. David Beckham can put the ball on a sixpence.
3. Joe Cole is very one-footed.
4. The left side is still England's big problem area.
5. Cole, Lampard, Gerrard, and Beckham do not gel as a midfield unit.
6. We still pick too many players on reputation rather than form.
7. We still play too many players out of position just to fit them in the side.

But we must have learnt something, surely? Well, if we didn’t know these already, we do now:

1. Robinson’s reflexes are good, but he sometimes flaps at crosses.
2. Joe Cole has perfected the 'step-over'… unfortunately no one is fooled by it.
3. Our midfield don't push up enough when our defence has the ball.
4. We need someone who can cross the ball from the left (i.e. a left-footer).
5. Alan Smith is not an international centre forward.
6. We need to find some new, young, very good players from somewhere.

Let's hope England start getting it right soon. It might be too late for 2008, but this dilemma needs to be solved ready for the 2010 World Cup campaign.