Indholdsfortegnelse for April 2017 i World Soccer

“Mr Blatter’s conduct in the matter [was] reckless. The credit awarded to Mr Platini amounted to a gift as he was not entitled to such credit” DANNY & NICKY COWLEY The brothers, who a year ago were teaching PE at an Essex comprehensive school, guided Lincoln City into the FA Cup quarter-finals at the expense of Premier League Burnley and became the first non-league club for 103 years to reach the last eight of the competition. FRANCIS KONE Slovacko’s Togolese striker saved the life of Bohemians’ Martin Berkovec who nearly swallowed his tongue in a collision with team-mate Daniel Krch during a Czech league game. Kone used his fingers to move the goalkeeper’s tongue and stop him from choking. KEVIN GAMEIRO The French striker scored La Liga’s fastest hat-trick for…

THE INSIDER In one of the more coherent moments of his benighted 18 years at its helm, Sepp Blatter once told me that the role of FIFA was both to promote the development of football around the globe and to ensure its exercise in a unified manner, whether in the World Cup or a pub league. But just how relevant is the game's governing body to the totality of world football these days? Down the years, much of that protection for the game was provided by the law-making International Football Association Board. With its power split between one vote apiece for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and four votes for FIFA, it was able to ward off all manner of junk ideas. These included several of the ideas regurgitated…

AT THE HEART OF THE GAME Managers are forever the convenient and easily jettisoned scapegoats at a football club – but even in the easy-come, easy-go culture of the modern game, we have just witnessed two of the most cruel and contemptible dismissals in its history. Olympiakos were seven points clear at the top of the Greek Super League, had reached the semi-finals of their domestic cup and were about to play in the Europa League round of 16 when coach Paulo Bento was summarily sacked after three successive league defeats induced unfathomable panic. Even more risible was Leicester City’s decision to terminate the contract of Claudio Ranieri, barely a few months after he had guided them to the most fairy-tale triumph of all. Yes, Leicester had suffered some poor…

“Mario needs calm, empathy and support – and we’ll provide it for him” The 69-year-old Czech coach Zdenek Zeman has been handed an apparent “mission impossible” after being called in to replace Massimo Oddo as coach of Pescara, who were bottom of Serie A. Under Oddo, Pescara often played good football but their results were a disaster. When Zeman took over they had gone 24 games without a win, were nine points adrift of the second-bottom side and seemed certain for an instant relegation back to Serie B. Even those nine points were misleading as three were awarded after a 2-1 loss to Sassuolo in which their opponents fielded a non-registered player. With things looking far from promising, Zeman avoided making any promises on his coaching return, saying only: “I…

“His aim is to take palermo into the Champions league. he’s going to build the new stadium and training complex which is vital for the club’s future” IN EUROPE Zdenek ZeMan replaced Massimo Oddo as coach of Pescara with the club bottom of Serie A, while Genoa appointed andrea Mandorlini after sacking Ivan Juric in the wake of a 5-0 thrashing at Pescara – in Zeman’s first game. Wolfsburg named Arsenal academy boss andries Jonker as the replacement for Valerien Ismael, while TayFUn korkUT took over at Bayer Leverkusen. Deportivo La Coruna appointed PePe Mel to replace Gaizka Garitano, while Michel replaced Marcelo Romero at Malaga. Pedro caixinha left Qatari club Al Gharafa to take charge of Scottish side Rangers. Torpedo-BelAZ Zhodino coach igor kriUshenko will combine the role with…

Ultra commercialised as it is at the upper reaches, football’s eternal appeal still lies in its sheer unpredictability. Cup giantkillers emerge, however briefly, but right at the top, there can be astonishing surprise. Which is what took place at the Nou Camp, where a Barcelona team which had collapsed away to Paris Saint-Germain, crashing 4-0 and appearing to be dead and buried, turned form and logic on their head and thrashed PSG in the return. Yes, one of Barca’s penalties was flagrantly a product of a dive, while PSG scored one fine goal but threw away two crucial chances. But when you have Neymar in glorious opportunist form, with Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez to support him, then the seemingly impossible becomes attainable. Unai Emery, the PSG coach, may have…

In London, poor Leyton Orient are in severe financial trouble and their colossal debts, the fault of a feckless and sometimes violent Italian owner, could doom them to extinction. I have so many memories of them, not least from 1957, when, one summer afternoon, I was phoned by their then chief scout Sid Hobbins. The former goalkeeper asked whether I could help their manager, Alec Stock, find a club in Italy, so I put it to that ever-volatile and exuberant Italian agent Gigi Peronace, who took John Charles to Juventus and was then visiting London. I told him Stock could get a team fit and organise a defence, and Gigi took the matter to Roma, who somewhat to my surprise immediately expressed interest. It then became a battle between two…

CLUB FOCUS It’s now just over five years since the extraordinarily wealthy Russian businessman Dmitry Rybolovlev purchased his 66.6 per cent stake in AS Monaco. However, the fortunes of the Principality club have changed so much in that time that it surely feels more like 10 or even 20. When Rybolovlev first took control in December of 2011, Monaco were in a desperate state. Languishing at the bottom of the French second division following relegation from Ligue 1 the previous season, many football followers found it hard to understand why the Russian would want to be involved with the club, given the state they were in. What’s more, despite reaching the Final of the Champions League in 2004, when they suffered a heavy 3-0 defeat to Jose Mourinho’s Porto in…

LEONARDO JARDIM (Por) Age 42 (01.08.74) The Portuguese coach took over at Monaco from Claudio Ranieri in 2014 and has since produced a young side that is one of the most exciting in Europe. With no experience himself as a professional player, he began studying to become a coach at the age of 24 and started his managerial career three years later as an assistant. Having first worked in the Portuguese lower leagues, he got his big break in 2011 when he was named coach of Braga. Stints with Olympiakos in Greece and Sporting followed, before he became Monaco boss, in June 2014. Now regarded as one of the brightest young coaches in world football.…

BEIJING GUOAN Last season: 5th Stadium: Workers’ Stadium (capacity 66,161; 2016 average 38,140) in central Beijing, northern China. Ownership: Recently changed hands, with real estate Sinobo Group buying a controlling stake from the state-owned investment company CITIC Group. history: One of the CSL “old guard”, they are one of the country’s best supported clubs with a large, loyal fan base. recent transfers: Despite their size, the club has a reputation for thrift. Spanish striker Jonathan Soriano from Austrian club Red Bull Salzburg was the only foreign acquisition last window. The coach: Jose Gonzalez. The former Cadiz player and coach. Foreign players: Renato Augusto (Bra), Ralf (Bra), Jonathan Soriano (Spa), Burak Yilmaz (Tur), Egor Krimets (Uzb). Local players: China internationals Yu Dabao, Yang Zhi and Zhang Xizhe are part of a…

“Things have not started so well...but my moment will come” You’re still only 19 but you’ve already gone through a lot in your career. How does that feel? Sometimes when I’m at home I think about it. But it’s part of the job. Kids – well, not kids – but youngsters of my age are increasingly achieving success very fast. Younger players are now getting more opportunities and are living up to expectations. of course it leads to big changes, with different routines, family life and friends, but it’s part of the game. Have you had to grow up more quickly? Yes, although I believe I have an adult attitude. You appreciate things more. If I was in Portugal I wouldn’t think so much about these aspects. But, as I’m…

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In recent years, Brazilian clubs have developed the habit of “selling” some of their home games, whereby they accept a financial offer to stage fixtures away from their own city. And momentum has been given to this movement by the construction of the 2014 World Cup stadiums – especially those in Brasilia, Cuiaba and Manaus. There is an obvious problem here, as such practice clearly infringes the integrity of a league campaign which is based on the principle of every team meeting each other home and away. Introduced a little more than a decade ago, the league format is relatively new in Brazil and it took a while for this basic point to be understood. Last year, though, came the realisation that the selling of home advantage was a distortion…

Central America isn’t exactly stacked with top footballing talent, with the sliver of nations located on the isthmus between North and South America rarely represent anything other than a minor irritation to the usual suspects on their march to a World Cup finals. While Costa Rica, Honduras and Panama are the region’s big guns, Guatemala and El Salvador are more run of the mill. Of the other two, Nicaragua have at least made strides out of the footballing doldrums of late, while Belize – with pitifully few resources and a mostly part-time playing pool to work with – remain somewhat in the mire. And the task of trying to change that now rests with journeyman coach Richard Orlowski, a little known Polish-American who took charge just before Christmas. The 60-year-old…

The new season of the Chinese Super League kicked off in early March, with the opening game, between Guizhou Zhicheng and Liaoning Whowin receiving plenty of attention from Western media – but, unfortunately, for all the wrong reasons. Many seized on the images of empty stands as proof that the league had pots of corporate cash but no support from local fans. However, the reports neglected to mention that the game was being played behind closed doors as punishment for a promotioncelebrating pitch invasion by Guizhou fans at the end of the previous season. The next day, more than 210,000 fans watched the other seven games. Average crowds in the Chinese top flight were over 24,000 last year – a figure that is comfortably above Ligue 1 and Serie A…

“Knowing that our fans are fighters and not hooligans, perhaps we should make a sport out of battles between supporters” To see video footage of these goals, and many more that we have selected, scan the QR code using any free QR reader that can be downloaded to your smartphone. You can also see the videos by logging on to http://po.st/UbJXmi 1 NEYMAR Barcelona v Celta Vigo receives a pass from lionel Messi inside the area and dinks the ball over the advancing keeper. 2 ANTOINE GRIEZMANN Atletico Madrid v Deportivo La Coruna Plays a double one-two with team-mates before curling home a first-time shot. 3 FEDERICO BERNARDESCHI Fiorentina v Borussia Monchengladbach drills a rising free-kick into the top corner during a europa league game. 4 RADAMEL FALCAO Monaco v…

Sport in general, and football in particular, possesses a happy ability to cut through the world’s troubles, whether military, political, racial or linguistic. And, surprisingly for all its critics, the Qatar World Cup has been promoted as a vehicle to prove that point in a very particular way. After all the noise and fury since December 2, 2010 – when the then FIFA executive committee awarded the Middle East its first finals – there has been an optimistic proposal from Hassan Al Thawadi, secretary-general of the organising Supreme Committee, to use the 2022 World Cup to encourage better understanding and tolerance between Jews, Christians and Muslims. He has harked back to the example of “La Convivencia” and discussed how the Qatar World Cup might recreate the concept, albeit over a…

“He’d dribble and I’d score. He was the first legend of French football” “Hospitals should hire more nurses in nine months because there will be a lot of love made tonight” For many French veterans, Raymond Kopa remains their greatest player of all time, no matter the succeeding claims of Michel Platini or Zinedine Zidane. Born Kopaszewski, he scored 18 goals in 45 games for France but his footballing genius, fame and influence ran far beyond mere statistics. Kopa was the creative centre-forward of a fine Reims side that finished runnersup to Real Madrid in the first European Champions Cup Final, in Paris in 1956. He then won the tournament three times with Madrid and would also lay on most of the record 13 goals for Just Fontaine as France…

“I’ve never met a mafia boss. What I’ve read is false” “After all that Claudio Ranieri has done for Leicester City, to sack him now is inexplicable, unforgivable and gut-wrenchingly sad” Luis Enrique delivered the news as if it was nothing much, at the end of a routine press conference, after a routine victory, late on a Wednesday night. He sat there and answered everything thrown at him, which for once didn’t include a question about his future. And then, when the interviews were finished, he spoke about his future. A few minutes before, he had informed his players in the dressing room following their victory over Sporting Gijon. He was leaving Barcelona. There was nothing about this that stood out, which is very much his way. The club president…

When in France the Russian thugs met an English “firm” they were routed A leading Russian official has praised the violence of their own thugs in France last summer and suggested that contests be held during the ensuing World Cup finals between hooligans from competing countries! TV screened a whole programme showing such thugs in training. A source who knows about such things, tells me that when in France the Russian thugs met an English “firm” they were routed. The English, however, sought no publicity for fear – unlike the Russians – that their authorities would come down on them heavily.…

eye witness Steve Menary reports eye witness “We don’t spend any time looking at the FIFA rankings,” admits Oliver Smith, who is the general secretary at the Turks & Caicos Islands Football Association (TCIFA). “The focus of the association is on grassroots and the youth.” That is just as well. The tiny chain of Caribbean islands has probably spent more time around the bottom of the FIFA rankings than any member of the world game. And while San Marino are also perennially lowly, at least they play eight to 10 World Cup or European Championship qualifiers every two years. “We are low on the FIFA rankings not because we lost games but because we do not play any games,” sighs striker Marco Fenelus, who plays professionally in Taiwan for Tatung.…

DMITRY RYBOLOVLEV The Russian oligarch bought a majority share in Monaco in December 2011. His relationship with agent Jorge Mendes is the subject of much media attention while his dealings with Donald Trump are also under scrutiny. VADIM VASILYEV An economics graduate who first hooked up with Rybolovlev in his fertiliser production business. Was his advisor at Monaco before becoming sporting director and then taking on the role of vicepresident and director general. FILIPS DHONDT The Belgian is Vasilyev’s advisor and has a good footballing pedigree, having already spent five years at Monaco after stints at Club Brugge in his homeland and Ujpest Dosza in Hungary. ANTONIO CORDON Responsible for recruitment and youth development, he arrived from Villarreal of Spain last summer. Discreet and hardworking, he has a huge network…

GOALKEEPERS Morgan DE SANCTIS (Ita) Age 39 (26.03.77) Came to the end of his contract with Roma last summer and signed a oneyear deal with Monaco as back-up to Subasic. Sy SEYDOU (Sen) Age 21 (12.12.95) A right-footed Senegal under- 20 international, born in Dakar, he joined Monaco at the start of the 2014-15 campaign. Danijel SUBASIC (Cro) Age 32 (27.10.84) Stands 6ft 3in and has made over 200 appearances for the club since joining from Hajduk Split in January 2012 . DEFENDERS Abdou DIALLO Age 20 (04.05.96) Came through the ranks at Monaco but spent last season on loan at Zulte Waregem in Belgium. Can also play in midfield. Kamil gLIK (POL) Age 29 (03.02.88) A rugged central defender with a knack for scoring goals. He spent five years…

Stronger than ever, but missing key players, the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) in the US embarks on a fifth season with confidence and concern. On the credit side, the league is breaking new ground, outlasting its two predecessors and signing a notable new TV contract. It will kick off, however, without some of its most recognisable stars, including the sport’s three highest profile names: Alex Morgan, Carli Lloyd and Hope Solo. It is also breaking new ground in a literal sense as well, with New York Western Flash having relocated 500 miles south. It seems bizarre for the 2016 champions to be killed off within weeks of their greatest triumph, but attendances for the Flash averaged below 4,000 and they had struggled to find the right combination of playing…

Michel Platini of France was on the front cover of World Soccer, a year ahead of his country’s hosting of the 1984 European Championship, and Les Bleus would go on to triumph on home soil, beating Spain in the Final after narrowly squeezing past Portugal in the semis. In the build-up to the Euros, Portugal lost 3-0 to France in February 1983 and were left fearing the worst a week later, with a squad decimated by withdrawals, due to face West Germany. “The vexed question of club versus country reached an explosive head on the eve of Portugal’s Lisbon friendly against West Germany,” wrote Jose Rio Fernandes, “with Benfica and Sporting pulling almost all their players out of the match.” As Fernandes explained: “It was the proximity of these friendlies…

Heading into March, Roma sat second to Juventus in Serie A after a run of seven wins in eight games and were through to the last 16 of the Europa League. And yet their best result of the season so far arguably came at City Hall rather than on the pitch. That came when the mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi, gave a qualified “green light” to the club’s ambitious plans to build their own stadium on the site of the former racecourse of Tor di Valle, in the south-west of the city on the banks of the Tiber. Roma’s US ownership, led by James Pallotta, has long argued that this project is absolutely crucial for the club’s future financial well being. Yet there have been moments recently it has seemed…

For 80 days, from December to March, there was no football in Argentina, and it took an £18million government bailout to end the first players’ strike since the late 1990s. During those negotiations, coaches from across the divisions set up a WhatsApp group which, according to Tigre boss Pedro Troglio, was initially “to arrange summer friendlies”. However, as details emerged of the dire situation faced by many coaches and players across the country, the group became a forum. “It brought about unity,” says Troglio. The strike action affected football across the whole country, from the lower leagues to the top flight. So while supporters at Newell’s Old Boys may be dreaming about Lionel Messi ending his playing career back home in Rosario, the current crop of players at the Estadio…

AFRICA CAF SUPER CUP Champions League holders, Mamelodi Sundowns v Confederation Cup holders, TP Mazembe Feb 18 - Pretoria, South Africa Mamelodi Sundowns (SAf) 1 (Ricardo Nascimento pen 83) TP Mazembe (DRC) 0 HT: 0-0. Att: 33,000. Ref: Grisha (Egy) Mamelodi Sundowns: Onyango - Morena, Arendse, Ricardo Nascimento, Langerman, Mabunda, Kekana, Laffor (Soumahoro 86), Billiat (Ngcongca 90+2), T Zwane (Vilakazi 90+3), Tau. TP Mazembe: Gbohouo - Mpeko, Kimwaki, Coulibaly, Kasusula, Sinkala, Nii Adjei, Asante, Kalaba (Traore 80), Meschak (Mputu 58), Malango. CAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE Preliminary round 1st legs - Feb 10-12; 2nd legs - Feb 18/19 AC Leopards (Con) v UMS de Loum (Cam) 1-0, 1-2 (agg 2-2, AC Leopards on away goals) Barrack Young Controllers (Lbr) v Stade Malien (Mli) 1-0, 0-1 (agg 1-1, BYC 7-6 on pens) CNaPS…

“Thank you for this. I appreciate my fans, my wife and my girlfriend…I mean my wife, sorry” MONACO ARE CURRENTLY THE MOST EXCITING TEAM IN EUROPE The French side are the first team in Champions League history to go through in a knockout tie after conceding five goals in the first leg. In Kylian Mbappe – aged 18 years and two months – they had the youngest player to score two goals in the knockout stage since 2004. CHEATS STILL PROSPER Jamie Vardy, with a dive, won the free-kick from which Leicester City scored their opening goal in the second-leg victory against Sevilla. Similarly, Luis Suarez fooled German referee Deniz Aytekin into awarding an injury-time penalty against Paris Saint-Germain as Barcelona pulled off a remarkable six-goal comeback at Camp Nou.…

FRANZ BECKENBAUER According to German newspaper Bild, Swiss prosecutors have uncovered a payment to Franz Beckenbauer that was transferred to a bank account in Gibraltar. The report suggested the payment of at least €1.7million was made to Beckenbauer, as well as his close associates Fedor Radmann and Andreas Abold. The payment, though not illegal, was believed to be for Beckenbauer’s work as a consultant for the South African Football Association. CARLO TAVECCHIO The 73-year-old has been re-elected as president of the Italian federation for a second term. In 2014, he caused an outcry when he made a comment about a fictitious African player he named Opti Poba “eating bananas”. He was subsequently banned from holding any position within FIFA for six months while UEFA imposed a similar sanction. ALEXEI SMERTIN…

“I did not belong to Chelsea, so I was left out” “Our club doctor was only really interested in traditional Chinese medicine such as acupuncture. In football, that’s not so helpful” Andrea BELOTTI (Torino) Nicknamed Il Gallo (“the rooster”), Italy’s latest striking sensation scored an eightminute hat-trick against his former club Palermo to become the first Torino player since Benjamin Santos in 1950 to score 22 goals in a season. After a slow start following his summer 2015 move to Turin for €7.5million, the last 12 months have been explosive for the 23-year-old and he now sits in the top echelons of the ESM Golden Shoe rankings (see page 84), rubbing shoulders with such names as Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Edinson Cavani. Already a fixture in Italy’s national setup,…

THE WORLDWIDE VIEW I bring stunning news from IFAB – you know, The International Football Association Board, the self-appointed “Guardians of the Laws of the Game”. They are getting ready to make a change to the shoot-out tie-breaker. Well, they’re thinking about it. Their interest in this matter stems, I’ve no doubt, from research done by two professors at the London School of Economics who demonstrated that, under the current system, the team taking the first kick gains a 60-40 advantage as likely winners. Which means that winning the toss is the most important part of the whole ridiculous procedure. IFAB has now jumped on those stats and announced it will look into the matter. But the damning stats were published in 2010, so it’s taken only seven years for…

THE VOICE OF FOOTBALL Is it time for Arsenal to commit themselves to what the late philosopher Hannah Arendt called “Creative Destruction”? As things stand, Arsene Wenger has clearly run his course, and might well have done so a couple of seasons ago. Those two dreadful 5-1 defeats by Bayern Munich should surely have been a prelude to a final farewell, but whatever the clamour of dissident fans – whose banners inscribed “Au Revoir” (see you again) should read “Adieu" (goodbye) – surely they have an impeccable case. Time and time again the team has gone out in the first knockout round of the European Cup. Years have gone by since the club won the league. Even the FA Cup is scarcely a consolation. That Wenger has lost his way…

“No one likes us, we don’t care,” sing the Millwall fans, and at White Hart Lane in the FA Cup, where Tottenham Hotspur thrashed them, even though the unfortunate Harry Kane dropped out so early and so worryingly, they did nothing to endear themselves. Already Leicester City have made an official protest to the FA over the fans’ behaviour and the generally offensive atmosphere they had to face in their cup tie at the New Den. At Tottenham, there was much more of the same, especially aimed at Tottenham’s excellent Son Heung-min, who responded with a hat-trick. To their credit, Millwall are keeping at bay a predatory council which wants to build all round their stadium. Bigotry and violence are, alas, rooted in the club’s stormy history, which the Lions…

Uruguay won the South American Youth Championship in February, finishing a comfortable five points ahead of the rest of the field. Just as importantly, they qualified for the Under-20 World Cup, to be held in South Korea in May and June – as they have done without fail since Oscar Tabarez took overall control of the country’s national teams 11 years ago. Uruguay will be joined in South Korea by Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina, who just pipped Brazil to the final slot. In truth, the continent’s traditional big two were both hugely disappointing and that dragged down the quality of the South American tournament, which was staged in Ecuador. Playing nine games in less than four weeks, the competition has a gruelling calendar – and the dreadful pitches in the…

while Malmo will kick off this year’s Allsvenskan as favourites once again, there is more than enough intrigue in the Swedish top flight to make this one of the most anticipated campaigns in years. Winners in three of the past four campaigns, the defending champions’ capture of Swedish international Behrang Safari from Basle was a clear indication of their intentions, as was the arrival of Danish centre-back Lasse Nielsen from Gent. For long periods last year IFK Gothenburg looked like Malmo’s stiffest opposition, but question marks remain over their recruitment policy since they fell away last term and the signs were hardly promising as they capitulated against Norrkoping in the Swedish Cup, the competition that traditionally takes place before the league season kicks off. Financial problems also continue to dog…

Strange how many coaches were fired or had their grip on power loosened by first-leg defeats in the Champions League round of 16: Claudio Ranieri biting the dust at Leicester City, Luis Enrique announcing his forthcoming departure from Barcelona, the future of Arsene Wenger at Arsenal left in real doubt. And then there was Bayer Leverkusen’s axing of Roger Schmidt. Over the best part of three seasons at the BayArena, the volatile Schmidt achieved a great deal, taking the club into the group stage of the Champions League three times, blooding several excellent young players, and at times producing some of the most exhilarating attacking football ever seen in the Bundesliga. However, all good things eventually come to an end, and this season his side have stagnated across the board.…