Indholdsfortegnelse for December 2016 i World Soccer

THE INSIDER Infantino’s 48-team gamble For all the UEFA-like fingerprints across the roadmap FIFA 2.0: The Vision for the Future, Gianni Infantino has taken a leaf out of the book of Brazil’s Joao Havelange, who wrested power away from Europe in 1974 when he ousted Stanley Rous as president of the world federation. Havelange had attracted votes by offering disgruntled Africans more seats at the World Cup table. Infantino followed precisely the same path when the defenestration of his UEFA boss, Michel Platini, cast him into the campaigning spotlight ahead of February’s election. For all the opprobrium which has rained down on Infantino over a rocky first six months in the hot seat, he cannot be accused of breaking manifesto pledges. He promised a major increase in development cash…

Lucien Favre may not have been the name on everyone’s lips in the corridors of Europe’s footballing elite this summer, but right now the 59-year-old Swiss national is making big waves in France. Having arrived on the south coast as coach of Nice as recently as May, it would have been reasonable to assume that the former boss of Borussia Monchengladbach would have a tricky bedding-in period as the club was in a state of flux. Claude Puel, in charge since 2012, had led the team to an impressive fourthplace finish in the 2015-16 season before leaving “by mutual consent” at the end of his contract. Meanwhile, the team’s two most important players, midfielder Nampalys Mendy and striker Hatem Ben Arfa, had also departed, for Leicester City and Paris Saint-Germain…

A tentative yet unlikely story of footballing rags being turned into relative riches is beginning to play out in a less-trodden corner of Latin America. Better known as a dominion of baseball, Nicaragua is on the up in international terms after decades as a regional also-ran in Central America. Located between Honduras and El Salvador to the north and Costa Rica to the south, perhaps the greatest period in the history of the Nicaraguan national team began with the appointment of a coach from a neighbouring country that has often been a bitter political bedfellow in the past. Costa Rica’s Henry Duarte was installed as Nicaragua coach in December 2014 and since then the national side have put together an impressive run of results, including an incredible away victory in…

Running from July 16 to August 6, this will be the first 16-team European finals A major tournament is usually followed by coaching changes and player retirements, and Rio 2016 Olympics was no exception. But while the managerial transition in Germany – from Silvia Neid, who bowed out after completing her collection of honours with Olympic gold, to Steffi Jones – was trailed long ago, the departure of France’s Philippe Bergeroo was a brutally swift affair, with the coach fired and replaced within a day. Bergeroo had three years at the helm, during which France often played attractive football only to run out of steam in matches and tournaments as honours continue to elude a team that has yet to reach a major Final. The under-19s may have won four…

1 Diego SIMEONE Age: 46. Nationality: Argentinian. Current status: Enjoying great success with Atletico Madrid. Style: Brilliant organiser and motivator. Past: Won titles with Estudiantes and River Plate in Argentina. Future: Recently altered his contract with Atletico so that it will end in 2018 rather than 2020. 2 Thomas TUCHEL Age: 43. Nationality: German. Current status: Is earning praise from all quarters for the performances or his youthful Borussia Dortmund side. Style: A keen and innovative student of the game. Past: Followed in Jurgen Klopp’s footsteps at Mainz. Future: Likely to be linked with jobs at one of Europe’s big clubs. 3 Andre VILLAS-BOAS Age: 39. Nationality: Portuguese. Current status: Unemployed after leaving Zenit in the summer. Style: Fine technician but criticised in Russia for Zenit’s pragmatic approach. Past: Hailed…

While Selecao star Rivaldo featured on the cover, it was international coaches who featured prominently inside World Soccer’s December 2000 edition, with a five-page story on the problems that England, Germany and Brazil were having in appointing new leaders in “a fight to save their World Cup campaigns”. Following a home defeat by Germany, which signalled the end of Kevin Keegan’s reign, and a 0-0 draw in Finland, England had appointed their first foreign coach in Sven Goran Eriksson, and Gavin Hamilton wrote: “Keegan’s abrupt departure had exposed the emotional brittleness of an inexperienced coach which many had feared from the outset. “Keegan left England in the lurch, and technical director Howard Wilkinson immediately demonstrated his unsuitability for the post when he stepped in as caretaker-coach.” Hamilton continued: “[Eriksson’s] appointment…

Bottom of their group with just one point from four games, and with any hope of reaching the 2018 World Cup fading fast, China have replaced coach Gao Hongbo with 2006 World Cup winner Marcello Lippi. Having quit the game in 2014 after winning a third straight Chinese Super League title, the 68-year-old Italian takes over a national side that was always going to struggle to reach Russia, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars being pumped into the domestic game. Unfortunately for Lippi, and his predecessor, that huge cash injection has mostly left the country, going to Europe and South America to bring in famous foreign players and coaches, leaving little for help in improving the health of the national side. Gao resigned just minutes after a 2-0 defeat…

International football – the lifeblood of this publication for so many years – continues to come under fire from many quarters of the game. New FIFA president Gianni Infantino is doing his best to “out-Blatter” his predecessor with plans for a 48-team World Cup – a virtual admission that quality will be sacrificed in the dash for cash and votes. Jonathan Wilson (page 42) laments the poor quality of football on display in the European World Cup qualifiers. And in a month when we remember Carlos Alberto (page 12), Brazil’s latest saviour is a teenager, Gabriel Jesus (page 19) who has already been snapped up by Manchester City; it remains to be seen whether he will be given time to develop his talents there. Yet despite all the apparent problems,…

“Sousa doesn’t excite us. his press conferences are insignificant. they make you want to fall asleep” Ex-Fiorentina striker Francesco graziani (left) takes aim at current Viola coach, Paulo sousa, for his safety-first tactics IN EUROPE Former Italy boss CESARE PRANDELLI, whose last job was with Galatasaray in Turkey, took charge of Valencia, becoming the Spanish club’s eighth coach in just over four years. LUCAS ALCARAZ was appointed coach of La Liga side Granada for the third time. LUIGI DELNERI replaced Giuseppe Iachini as Udinese boss after just seven Serie A games. Ex USA coach BOB BRADLEY left French second-tier side Le Havre and replaced Francesco Guidolin at Swansea City, becoming the Premier League’s first American manager. MIKE PHELAN was named boss of Premier League side Hull City. He replaces STEVE…

Mamelodi Sundowns might be considered the most fortuitous club to win the African Champions League, but the quality of their play in grabbing the opportunity to become continental champions clearly put them a cut above the rest of the field in this year’s competition. The South African side, arguably the richest on the continent, are only the second from the country to win the top club prize in African football, and they did so because of the most enormous dollop of good fortune. But whether the contribution of Idrissa Traore was remembered among the ferocious celebrations is doubtful. He is the Malian player who moved from Stade Malien to DR Congo outfit AS Vita Club with a suspension hanging over him from his participation with his old team in the…

If there is one thing that has been learned over the years, it is that Internazionale are capable of creating their very own problems. Take the recent row between team captain, Argentinian striker Mauro Icardi, and the club’s diehard “Ultra” fans. The row burst into public view when Inter lost 2-1 at home to Cagliari – a game in which Icardi missed a first-half penalty with the score at 0-0. In reality, though, a bitter disagreement between Icardi and a section of the ultras had begun with the publication of Icardi’s autobiography, “Keep On Trucking – My Secret Story”. In the book, Icardi chose to recall a clash between himself and Inter ultras which took place after a 3-1 away defeat to Sassuolo in February 2015. He recalls how, after…

International football is something that ought to be refreshing. In some ways, it’s a purer form of the game than club football as it’s not (directly) about money. Money can help you put in place better facilities and better programmes for youth development, but it can’t buy you the best centre-forward in the world when you’ve gone a couple of games without a goal. It’s about pride in an idea and making the most of the hand fate has dealt you. It’s something that has the capacity to unite a nation, if only for a couple of hours. Yet, in truth, every time it comes round to break the rhythm of the league season, there is a profound sense of anticlimax. Each international break serves only to emphasise the gulf…

”You also won the Golden Shoe in 2014, before your move to Barcelona from Liverpool. How have you changed, as a player and a person, since then? Well, actually, I don’t think I have changed. I continue with the same ambition of achieving important things in the world of football. I think that the titles you can get as a team really help you to achieve other personal titles, like this one. Ten years ago, you arrived in Holland from Uruguay. When you look back, what was the most important thing you learned there and is that the reason you have said that you want to return some day to Ajax? I have always said the Netherlands is where I learned the most. It is like a football school. It…

When the USA face Mexico on November 11 in the opening game of the final CONCACAF qualifying round – known as “the Hexagonal” – for the 2018 World Cup, on one side there will be a team that are regional champions and have lost only one of their last 26 games, while lining up opposite them is a Mexican side that suffered more than expected in reaching the final group of six. Since taking charge of Mexico in October 2015, Juan Carlos Osorio has lost only one of the 15 games he has been coach for. The team has been extremely solid defensively and can call on more than a dozen players plying their trade in big European leagues. Yet despite this, a good deal of the local press and…

“Dear God, please take care of our ‘Capitao’. Rest In Peace” Pele pays tribute to Carlos Alberto Carlos Alberto, the captain of Brazil’s 1970 World Cup-winning side and the scorer of the tournament’s defining goal, died in October, aged 72, from a heart attack. The defender scored one of the most memorable goals in the history of the World Cup, sealing a 4-1 win over Italy in the Final in Mexico City by completing a brilliant team move with an angled drive from the right side of the penalty area before lifting the Jules Rimet Trophy. “I realise how beautiful and how important that goal was because everybody is still talking about it,” he said years later, in an interview with the BBC. “Nobody talks about Pele’s goal, the first…

Pep and Jose: the managerial giants are exposed Emperors with no clothes. In swift succession, both those giants among managers, Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola, were seriously exposed. In Guardiola’s case, we might have known it was coming after his Manchester City team had been held to an embarrassing 3-3 draw by as modest a team as Celtic, who were subsequently beaten 2-0 at home by Borussia Monchengladbach. But in Barcelona, where he once reigned so majestically, Guardiola blundered astonishingly. In Turin, Joe Hart must have been laughing his head off. Brusquely exiled by Guardiola, who wanted a goalkeeper more accomplished with his distribution, he enlisted Claudio Bravo, whose dismal error against Barcelona, clumsily handling outside the box, led to his expulsion. By sharp contrast, Hart, however uneasy in France…

EUROPEAN SUMMER LEAGUE ROUND-UPS There are new champions in Finland and the Faroe Islands as Mariehamn and Vikingur claimed their maiden league titles. Mariehamn clinched the Finnish title with a 2-1 victory at home to Ilves to finish three points clear of 27-times champions HJK and a further point clear of last year’s winners SJK. “I still can’t believe this is true. I just cried a lot on the pitch,” Mariehamn goalkeeper Walter Viitala told Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat. “I made my mother proud today.” Vikingur were crowned Faroese champions for the first time as a 3-1 win away against AB saw them finish a point clear of KI. There were no surprises in Belarus, where BATE won their 11th successive league title with five games to spare. Dundalk…

For a brief few moments, everything – apart from the dozens of flares that littered the pitch, that is – had disappeared from view. Gone were the two white minarets that usually overlook the Gjilan City Stadium in eastern Kosovo. Gone too were the lines of riot police patrolling the front of the main stand along with the 10,000 strong crowd, all enveloped in a monstrous blue cloud of smoke. On the other side of the pitch, a similar scene was being played out, but the consuming cloud was red. The only evidence of a football match being played was the thunderous noise of drums and chants rising ethereally from the fog. It was the fifth time the referee had called a halt to the biggest match in the Kosovo…

Alex GRIMALDO Age 21 (20.09.95), Benfica (Por) & Spain In a sentence Effervescent, attacking left-back and set-piece specialist who, arguably, has been Benfica’s most impressive performer this season, proving beyond all doubt that a Camp Nou rejection slip need not be a death sentence. What they say Everton’s Gerard Deulofeu, who played with him at Barcelona: “He will be the best left-back in the world. He’s very strong and skilful. Those who know him are well aware of the force of will he has. He never gives up.” Former Benfica and Portugal midfielder Cesar Peixoto: “It seems to me that he’s a player of immense talent, someone who combines great intensity and technical quality. Benfica must do all they can to keep him as long as possible. But in…

For the eighth time since the start of last year, Bangladesh’s national team have no coach. Brought in on a three-month contract to oversee their slim chances of qualification for the 2019 Asian Cup via a play-off with Bhutan, Tom Saintfiet returned to Belgium after a goalless draw in Dhaka and a 3-1 loss in the return. “The criticism was of the federation not the coach, which is unique,” says the well-travelled Saintfiet, who has managed across Asia and Africa. “Bhutan is climbing but Bangladesh is going backwards at club and international level. “It’s a shame as the president is a good guy. Some presidents, you know they just fill their pockets, but not this guy. But too many people are involved.” The Belgian was brought in by Bangladesh Football…