Way back in May 2006 we told you the sorry tale of Goleo VI, the mascot for the 2006 World Cup Finals that brought nothing but bankruptcy to his marketing company. Well now it's the turn of the 2008 European Championships to adopt a mascot, and I don't know how to tell you this, but you've just missed out on your chance to name it. I know - you must be feeling bitter, angry and frustrated.
I say 'it' - actually there's two of them, for those wonderful designers have created a pair of cartoon characters, both representing Austria and Switzerland, the co-hosts. The characters take the form of two masked boys, both sporting haircuts that bear an uncanny resemblance to an alpine mountain range (naturally enough). They wear red and white football kits featuring the numbers 20 and 08 (2008 - geddit?) and look like a cross between Sonic the Hedgehog and Dennis the Menace.
Had you visitied uefa.com recently, you'd have noticed that our two budding stars were the subject of a public vote to decide what their names should be ahead of the big competition. Three choices were available - Zagi and Zigi, Trix and Flix or Flitz and Bitz. I personally wanted to be able to enter my own option - Fitz and Startz - but sadly I was unable to.
Actually it's a tricky job trying to name mascots as is already being discovered by UEFA. One of the options mentioned above, Zigi means 'cigarette' in Switzerland which completely goes against the clean-air-breathing home of Phil Collins and Peter Ustinov. Maybe we should just call them Lambert and Butler and have done with it?
Got any suggestions that are better than the ones UEFA offered? Leave us a comment and tell us!
Sunday, 8 October 2006
Wednesday, 4 October 2006
When the Pools Panel just won't do...
I read with interest that Sepp Blatter, President of FIFA, has expressed his dissatisfaction at the way penalty shoot-outs settle drawn matches. Hmmm. That’s a worry. When Herr Blatter opens his mouth, one of the following usually happens:
(a) the laws of football are changed
(b) someone gets offended, or
(c) he inserts one of his feet.
Sepp Blatter is no stranger to controversy. In 2006 he proclaimed that 'football was a man's game and women should only play if they wore skimpy shorts.' OK, controversial he may be, but I think you’ll agree he’s not completely insane.
So what are we to do with the penalty shoot-out system and what alternatives could we embrace?
Perhaps we should turn to America, a country known to be intolerant of sporting events that end in a draw. Back in the days of the old North American Soccer League, a ‘Shootout’ would ensue whereby the kicker would run towards the goal from 35 yards out and have 5 seconds to stick the ball in the back of the net.
It meant the audience would see a variety of creative and entertaining approaches used to beat the keeper, like the one used by Hugo Sanchez whereby he'd flip the ball 20 yards up into the air before volleying it goalwards. Some players preferred to dribble around the keeper while others would shoot from a long way out, but whatever technique was used, it was regularly good fun to watch from a spectator’s point of view.
Some say that penalty shoot-outs don’t work because the onus is on one player from either team to settle the result, whereas football by its very nature is a team game. Why not, then, use the method favoured by some where, during the extra time period, one player from either team is withdrawn from the pitch every few minutes. With the growing space that would occur on the pitch, surely there'd be more chance of a goal being scored?
Maybe, but I think this would be a messy system to enforce. I think it could be made simpler by making the teams withdraw six players each at half-time in extra time. Or simpler yet, make both teams play extra time without their goalkeepers and prevent outfield players from entering the six-yard box? That would no doubt see a dearth of ambitious long-range shots, one of which would be bound to go in. A great system, especially if your name’s Xavi Alonso.
Once upon a time, replays were used to find a winner to a tied match, but this is a lengthy, drawn out method which as rightfully been dropped in the modern era. The FA Cup has, on occasions, seen a tie settled after as many as six replays, but even the use of one is seen as too many these days.
Maybe the amount of goals scored by teams in previous rounds should be taken into account? Well, maybe not. Though this at first seems like a good way to encourage teams to score more goals in all matches, it doesn’t, of course, allow for the occasional thrashing dished out by a big team over a lesser one.
So that would appear to be all the options under consideration then... except one. In World Cups and European matches from the black-and-white era, it wasn’t uncommon for the winner of a drawn game to be decided by the referee tossing a coin at the end of the game. Now how refreshingly simple that would be. Teams would try and score more goals for fear of losing the toss (should it be needed) and no time-consuming, elaborate system would need to be used either.
Perfect - in fact it’s just the sort of crazy, bizarre system that a man like Sepp Blatter would wholeheartedly approve of.
(a) the laws of football are changed
(b) someone gets offended, or
(c) he inserts one of his feet.
Sepp Blatter is no stranger to controversy. In 2006 he proclaimed that 'football was a man's game and women should only play if they wore skimpy shorts.' OK, controversial he may be, but I think you’ll agree he’s not completely insane.
So what are we to do with the penalty shoot-out system and what alternatives could we embrace?
Perhaps we should turn to America, a country known to be intolerant of sporting events that end in a draw. Back in the days of the old North American Soccer League, a ‘Shootout’ would ensue whereby the kicker would run towards the goal from 35 yards out and have 5 seconds to stick the ball in the back of the net.
It meant the audience would see a variety of creative and entertaining approaches used to beat the keeper, like the one used by Hugo Sanchez whereby he'd flip the ball 20 yards up into the air before volleying it goalwards. Some players preferred to dribble around the keeper while others would shoot from a long way out, but whatever technique was used, it was regularly good fun to watch from a spectator’s point of view.
Some say that penalty shoot-outs don’t work because the onus is on one player from either team to settle the result, whereas football by its very nature is a team game. Why not, then, use the method favoured by some where, during the extra time period, one player from either team is withdrawn from the pitch every few minutes. With the growing space that would occur on the pitch, surely there'd be more chance of a goal being scored?
Maybe, but I think this would be a messy system to enforce. I think it could be made simpler by making the teams withdraw six players each at half-time in extra time. Or simpler yet, make both teams play extra time without their goalkeepers and prevent outfield players from entering the six-yard box? That would no doubt see a dearth of ambitious long-range shots, one of which would be bound to go in. A great system, especially if your name’s Xavi Alonso.
Once upon a time, replays were used to find a winner to a tied match, but this is a lengthy, drawn out method which as rightfully been dropped in the modern era. The FA Cup has, on occasions, seen a tie settled after as many as six replays, but even the use of one is seen as too many these days.
Maybe the amount of goals scored by teams in previous rounds should be taken into account? Well, maybe not. Though this at first seems like a good way to encourage teams to score more goals in all matches, it doesn’t, of course, allow for the occasional thrashing dished out by a big team over a lesser one.
So that would appear to be all the options under consideration then... except one. In World Cups and European matches from the black-and-white era, it wasn’t uncommon for the winner of a drawn game to be decided by the referee tossing a coin at the end of the game. Now how refreshingly simple that would be. Teams would try and score more goals for fear of losing the toss (should it be needed) and no time-consuming, elaborate system would need to be used either.
Perfect - in fact it’s just the sort of crazy, bizarre system that a man like Sepp Blatter would wholeheartedly approve of.
Tuesday, 3 October 2006
Quick on the draw...
As you know, I’m a Spurs fan, and today saw the draw for the group stages of the WAFER Cup.
To be honest, I feel Spurs have been placed in a tough group but it could have been a lot worse. Away to Besiktas, home to Club Brugge, away to Bayer Leverkusen and finally home to Dinamo Bucuresti isn’t the easiest of passages to the next round, but unless you are ranked amongst the top seeds you cant really expect an easy ride.
Then again, try telling that to Newcastle. They were amongst the top seeds, but they have drawn some difficult teams. Home to Celta Vigo and Fenerbache, away to Palermo and Eintracht Frankfurt. Not pleasant. Palermo, of course, beat West Ham over 2 legs in the previous round, so it will be interesting to see how Newcastle fair against them.
Rangers have a relatively straight forward task as they take on Auxerre, Partizan Belgrade, Livorno and Maccabi Haifa, and you’d have to fancy Blackburn’s chances too, as they will take on Feyenoord, Basle, Wisla Krakow and some girl named Nancy.
GROUP A
Auxerre
RANGERS
P Belgrade
Livorno
Maccabi Haifa
GROUP B
Bayer Leverkusen
Club Brugge
Besiktas
Dinamo Bucharest
TOTTENHAM
GROUP C
Sevilla
AZ Alkmaar
Slovan Liberec
Grasshopper
Braga
GROUP D
Parma
Lens
Heerenveen
Osasuna
Odense
GROUP E
Feyenoord
Basle
Wisla Krakow
BLACKBURN
Nancy
GROUP F
Ajax
Sparta Prague
Espanyol
Austria Wien
Zulte Waregem
GROUP G
Panathinaikos
Paris St Germain
Rapid Bucharest
Hapoel Tel Aviv
Mlada Boleslav
GROUP H
NEWCASTLE
Celta Vigo
Palermo
Fenerbahce
Eintracht Frankfurt
The group stage runs from 19 October to 14 December before the competition closes down until 14 February, when the knockout phase begins.
Top 3 teams from each group qualify for the next round.
To be honest, I feel Spurs have been placed in a tough group but it could have been a lot worse. Away to Besiktas, home to Club Brugge, away to Bayer Leverkusen and finally home to Dinamo Bucuresti isn’t the easiest of passages to the next round, but unless you are ranked amongst the top seeds you cant really expect an easy ride.
Then again, try telling that to Newcastle. They were amongst the top seeds, but they have drawn some difficult teams. Home to Celta Vigo and Fenerbache, away to Palermo and Eintracht Frankfurt. Not pleasant. Palermo, of course, beat West Ham over 2 legs in the previous round, so it will be interesting to see how Newcastle fair against them.
Rangers have a relatively straight forward task as they take on Auxerre, Partizan Belgrade, Livorno and Maccabi Haifa, and you’d have to fancy Blackburn’s chances too, as they will take on Feyenoord, Basle, Wisla Krakow and some girl named Nancy.
GROUP A
Auxerre
RANGERS
P Belgrade
Livorno
Maccabi Haifa
GROUP B
Bayer Leverkusen
Club Brugge
Besiktas
Dinamo Bucharest
TOTTENHAM
GROUP C
Sevilla
AZ Alkmaar
Slovan Liberec
Grasshopper
Braga
GROUP D
Parma
Lens
Heerenveen
Osasuna
Odense
GROUP E
Feyenoord
Basle
Wisla Krakow
BLACKBURN
Nancy
GROUP F
Ajax
Sparta Prague
Espanyol
Austria Wien
Zulte Waregem
GROUP G
Panathinaikos
Paris St Germain
Rapid Bucharest
Hapoel Tel Aviv
Mlada Boleslav
GROUP H
NEWCASTLE
Celta Vigo
Palermo
Fenerbahce
Eintracht Frankfurt
The group stage runs from 19 October to 14 December before the competition closes down until 14 February, when the knockout phase begins.
Top 3 teams from each group qualify for the next round.
Monday, 2 October 2006
Apologies...
You know how it is when you're running a blog site and you want to be able to delete any comments people make that are duplications or perhaps a little unsavoury? Well maybe you don't, but anyway... those nice people at Blogger.com provide a facility for us blogmeisters to 'moderate user comments' which means you can delete people's comments as and where necessary.
Fine, but it also means that when people like you, our fine visitors, reply to one of our articles, it goes into a holding area waiting to be approved before it gets published to the blog. And who has the sole ability to approve the comments prior to publication? Me.
Damn.
That means that for the last 10 days, any comments you've posted with us have been waiting for the green light to be published offline, and they've been stuck there as a result of my stupidity. Bugger.
What can I say except 'sorry'? I humbly apologise for my mistake, but if it's any consolation it's all been sorted now and your recent comments have finally gone onto the appropriate posts on the blog. To save you time looking for them, check out the following articles:
As you were... :-)
Fine, but it also means that when people like you, our fine visitors, reply to one of our articles, it goes into a holding area waiting to be approved before it gets published to the blog. And who has the sole ability to approve the comments prior to publication? Me.
Damn.
That means that for the last 10 days, any comments you've posted with us have been waiting for the green light to be published offline, and they've been stuck there as a result of my stupidity. Bugger.
What can I say except 'sorry'? I humbly apologise for my mistake, but if it's any consolation it's all been sorted now and your recent comments have finally gone onto the appropriate posts on the blog. To save you time looking for them, check out the following articles:
As you were... :-)
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