Who's the DADDY?

Who is the greatest of all time? Which player stands out? Which player's range of abilities supersedes all others?

You can pick holes in the pursuit of an answer to the above questions.

First off, there are many different types of footballer. There are goalkeepers, there are defenders, there are combative midfielders and creative midfielders, there are midfielders who do both. There are wingers and goal scorers. There are wingers who are goal scorers. There are 'goal scorers' who aren't goal scorers...

"I don't know what I'm doing" Danny Graham*, 2013

I would argue watching Messi, Iniesta and Xavi is all the entertainment a football match needs.

They're three of the greatest players I'll ever see play the game. I'm in my mid 20s so I can't talk about the names I hear my elders speak of. I haven't seen anything but grainy footage of Duncan Edwards, Di Stefano, Best, Zico, Garincha and the multitude of other players everyone said were imperious in their time.

I just finished reading a book about Duncan Edwards. A player who had glory ripped away from him by disaster. Testimonials speak of his schoolboy days as if he was a behemoth. I've heard the same said about Francis Jeffers and, well... I'll leave it.

Edwards could have tripled England's number of World Cups according to some of the appraisals in this book. You can read and watch all the footage you want but ultimately you're always left wondering how good they were?

How would they cope with the modern day's ballistic pace? In equal measure, how would modern players cope with rubbish pitches and heavy footballs and boots made of lead?

These questions are regularly asked by 'experts' and journalists on football talk shows or on the waste of life punditry on Saturday Night Football. By definition, these are questions you can't answer. There's no way of knowing how Maradona would have coped with modern day football and there's no telling how today's millionaires would cope with yesteryear's impoverished conditions.

Unless you're 150 years old you can't say with certainty that a particular player is the best to ever kick a ball. A debate worth having is who is currently the best player kicking a ball.

The winner of the FIFA Ballon d’Or will be revealed as part of a televised show at the Zurich Kongresshaus on 13 January 2014, during which the FIFA FIFPro World XI, the FIFA Puskás Award – for the most beautiful goal of the year – the FIFA Presidential Award and the FIFA Fair Play Award will also be presented.

So considering the only thing anyone noticed in the preceding paragraph is that the world's best player will be revealed on the 13th Jan let's talk about that. It's widely agreed upon that there are three players in the running. Ribery, Messi and Ronaldo.

Ronaldo has performed individually better than anyone else this season. His abilities fired Portugal to the World Cup against Sweden where he made the man who will probably finish just outside the top three for this prize, Zlatan, look like a run of the mill 30 goal a season man.

Ronaldo last season scored an incredible 55 goals in all competitions. Messi, 60. Ronaldo contributed 12 assists, Messi outshone him with 16.

Cristiano's been sulking in the enormous shadow of the diminutive Lionel Messi for the last five seasons. But this campaign it has started differently.

67 goals in 57 appearances for club and country in 2013 makes Ronaldo the top scoring player in the world with a better goals to game ratio than anyone else. Messi is injured until 2014 and only managed a mere 45 goals in 46 games so if there was ever going to be a chance for Ronaldo to win the ballon d'or (Ball of the World) again surely the time is now. 

Ribery will feel aggrieved to have achieved so much and yet get such a minuscule look in but if we're honest with ourselves, was he really any better than Arjen Robben or Philipp Lahm last season? Ribery’s 23 assists for Bayern were impressive, his 11 goals less so. The team that won the treble for Jupp Henckes was exactly that. A team. Ribery's contribution was great but he didn't even score the winner in the final. 

Messi and Ronaldo are individuals who exist in a league of their own at football's zenith. There are no players anywhere near them, regardless of what the poo dispensers on the television box say about high profile players after they have a world beating six months... come back when your shiny flash in the pan has a world beating six years... you vacuous wastes. 

This might be the Portuguese's year considering his statistics trump Messi's for the first time in five years, not to mention the fact that voting reopened during a fortnight when Ronaldo packed his Portugal team mates into his Louis Vuitton man bag, popped it on his back and carried it all the way to Rio.

Who knows how the French will vote?

Will they prove a habitual bunch and revert to default by gifting Messi the prize in a season where the little pepsi juggler hasn't hit the peaks he's scaled year on year for half a decade. Messi got 14 goals in 14 league and Champions League appearances this season before a left hamstring tear on November 10th cut his year short. It's also Messi's first injury for years, which raises it's own concerns. Messi was never injured under Guardiola which prompts the question... has the stitching come loose on Superman's iconic suit?

Will they employ bias and give it to the first Frenchman since Zidane to do anything anyone - Arsenal fans aside - notices or cares about? Or will they be pragmatic and give it to Ronny despite not liking him because he's talented, lacks charisma and is stepping out with a supermodel but more importantly is aware and proud of all of the above.

I'd give it to Ronaldo but then again I do love him. If you love footballers who are really really good at football you should love him too.

*Danny Graham may or may not have ever said this.

Barcelona do what they do so well that they've fooled everyone else into thinking they should do it too.

Some think the genesis of the tiki-taka revolution coincides with Pep taking the helm at the Camp Nou. He was raised in the ways of the Catalan. The heralded and mythical La Masia has produced many great players to date but in the early 90s it had done sweet FA.
Indeed, Pep was only the third graduate in the history of La Masia to advance into the first XI.

After an illustrious 18 years in the First XI at Barcelona; 8 of those years under the tutelage of club legend Johan Cruyff, he bounced around for 4 or 5 years before heading back to Catalonia after being afforded the opportunity to coach Barca B.

Johan Cruyff... the man who gave Barça their Dream Team. The man who delivered four consecutive La Liga titles between 1991 and 1994. Adding a Cup Winners' Cup, a European Cup, the Copa del Rey, a European Super Cup as well as three Supercopa de Espana (Spain's Charity Shield) made Cruyff the most successful manager in the club's history... until Pep.

His contribution extended beyond trophies. It's a story told too often to recount but in the late 70s Cruyff made a proposition to then president Josep Núñez. He wanted an academy at Barça that would mirror the Ajax academy which espoused Total Football.

Combine Dutch heritage with the one and two touch football (tiki-taka) championed in Spain and you'll have the philosophy of La Masia. This in turn means you'll end up with the embarrassing trophy haul of Barcelona's last 6 seasons.

'end up with', meaning 'not overnight' - meaning 'don't try this, then not be good at it and then think it's redundant because it doesn't happen overnight'

It took years for Barcelona's philosophy to pay dividends, decades maybe.

Iniesta's hero, Pep Guardiola

They do it well, they've harnessed a way of playing that exhausts the opponent physically and mentally. Teams aren't physically tired against Barca. I'd be surprised if 60 minutes into a Barca game opposition players have run more than they might have against any other team. They only look knackered because they've been psychologically minced.

Their tactics have sprung pretenders to the throne. Closer to home the common thread between the pretenders is Roberto Martinez. Southampton are currently the best at it in the Premiership, but it began at Swansea under Roberto Martinez's tutelage, then Brendan Rodgers and most recently Michael Laudrup. We've also seen Martinez's Wigan employ a pressing game focused on keeping possession once it's retrieved and now he's doing the same thing at Everton. Brendan Rodgers has carried these principles into his management of the Liverpool team.

In Germany, Dortmund utilised a high pressing game on route to two consecutive Bundesliga titles as well as a Champions League final. Speaking of the Champions League, PSG recently became the only club (apart from Barcelona) to complete more than 800 passes in a game.

Chelsea's owner Roman Abramovich is obsessed with his side being successful AND entertaining. One without the other is unacceptable. Some of world football's greatest managers have suffered shorter tenures than they might have imagined because of this expectation.

The rest of football has stood back in awe for five years. This team takes apart the great and the good of Europe. They spawn imitators who just aren't as good as them; even Bayern who were categorically better than Barca over two legs last season swerved away from their normal passing carousel game plan for both legs against the Catalans.

They played counter attacking football and were faster and stronger than a Barca side that had its problems at the time.

There are people who think there's nothing entertaining about watching a Barcelona game. I know where they're coming from. It is a fairly legitimate claim to say that from the perspective of a neutral looking for an entertaining game of football, watching Barca is too one sided. They keep the ball for 70% of the game and they bide their time, they wait for their moment (when Messi gets the ball) and they pounce.

Most of those who don't like Barca are football fans but I think if you don't like watching Barcelona play football, much like a mentalist, you can't be reasoned with... you just don't get it.

Those who don't like Barca can go to the theatre or the cinema for their melodrama and unpredictability. I want to watch football and these boys do it so well they've made the rest of the world think they can but probably more impressively they've made us think we should.

I mean this team literally won the Euros then the World Cup and then went and won the Euros again and they'll probably be favourites to win the World Cup again because this generation of La Masia graduates are just that good.

So good that the hapless FA wants us all to be like them too. So they'll form bullshit commissions made up of individuals who have uselessly conflicting opinions on how we should restructure English football. You want to improve the game in this country. Send everyone to watch Barca.

I'm being flippant now but my point is that whether you're Chelsea and your tactic is to buy all the smallest, most technical players you can lay your hands on or Southampton who recognise that the high pressing, possession-centric game also works well if you're not heavy on superstars - it doesn't matter.

NO ONE IS BARCELONA because NO ONE HAS LEO, ANDRES or XAVI

Add these three to the above game plan and you have a master class the likes of which we might never see again.

Class 4 - 1 Naivety

Overrun and out witted. Out played and out classed.

Robin was injured, a thigh strain or a groin strain, doesn't really matter which one. The inconsequential fact of the matter was that he wasn't fit and he cut a forlorn figure sitting in the comfy seats at the Etihad.

So why would I begin to suggest that it was inconsequential to be without the best striker in the league? Had we have played Robin we might have had more cutting edge going forward. We might have made more of the scraps our forwards had to feed off in the first 65 mins. Maybe... A lack of quality up top was nothing to do with United's demise in the first derby of the season.

United fans sat baffled and confounded in the stands as United's most intelligent and consistent passer of the ball, Michael Carrick proceeds to play straight balls from central midfield into a harassed and uncomfortable front two. There was nowhere else to go, City defended superbly and strangled anything through the middle.

Rooney had his nose put out of joint from the get go, hassled into mistakes and overpowered by a possessed Vincent Kompany. The frustrated Merseysider conceded foul after foul before Howard Webb booked him. Having said that he was the only player whose head never dropped. Wayne's sumptuous goal made him the all time leading goal scorer in the Manchester Derby. It was ample reward for his endeavour, he was our best player today.

So we didn't miss Robin and Rooney played well, what then went wrong?

The same thing that always goes wrong when we lose to our second fiercest rivals. When we go two up top with a supplementary couple of wingers we get overrun. Fellaini and Carrick will dominate midfield battles against any number of premiership counterparts but they won't beat a midfield of Toure, Fernandinho and Nasri, because that's what they faced. All of their midfielders with the possible exception of Navas are comfortable on the ball anywhere across the middle of the park. Effectively letting City play the ball around with mesmerising fluidity. With their positions changing as often as the scoreline United's creative outlets were rendered obsolete.

A few weeks ago I listened to Gary Neville wear his tongue thin about how Paul Scholes was the best player he'd ever played with. During his spiel he went on to say that throughout his time at the club Fergie had emphasised that being in a United training session was a lesson in how to keep possession. It wasn't a sole focus but it was of fundamental importance.

Carrick has become the new Scholes, quarter backing United's attacks for the last two seasons. He's our most important player and as such hasn't missed a game for fucking ages. Regardless of what the Stretford End sing, regardless of his importance and quality, Paul Scholes he is not.

I digress.

Scholes in his pomp wouldn't have had any impact on today's game, reason being we played four in midfield. Away at the Etihad we have one tactic at our disposal. Pack the midfield, stifle their verve and creativity and then break quickly. It's paid dividends in away ties at the Emirates, the Etihad and the Bridge more often than not.

I think Fergie became aware that the team and squad he had assembled had the capacity to out class 16 or 17/19 of our premiership opponents season after season. The relentless trophy winning machine that was Ferguson's United had many strengths, but self-awareness was amongst their most invaluable. Today reminded me of the Champions League final at Wembley when Ferguson buckled under his own pride and felt our best could beat the World's best on our terms. Barcelona were a better team with better individuals and alas a midfield two of Carrick and Giggs had no answer to Barca's intelligence.

Moyes approached today with that same pride and probable naivety. Thinking he could put his best midfield up against City's best and come out on top. I personally don't think we have the players to keep the ball as well as Chelsea, Arsenal or City especially when put up against them. We have a squad packed full of players who can win League titles, who know what it takes over the length of the season but in these one off monster games we'll continue to come up short if we don't employ that self-awareness that defined Ferguson's genius.

On 70 minutes, Cleverley came on, Fellaini played in the hole joining the midfield while defending and supplementing the attack when we had the ball and United controlled the game and created more opportunities than they managed in the last 70.

Know your opponent's strengths and shield your own weaknesses and you'll have a formula for success away from home at the big boys.

And if I hadn't already made it clear, please don't play four in midfield away at the Etihad ever again Moyesy.

Remember how bad the International break was...

Every time we have an international break, SkySports (amongst others) commits a few hours to posing a series of repetitive questions to pundits who proceed to spew inanities in an attempt to tell us why we aren't producing Xavis or Iniestas. They talk about investment in grass roots football, unhelpfully pushy fathers on sidelines and cultural insufficiencies in coaching techniques.

duck faced douche

I hear them shouting from the sidelines; why aren't we producing more number 10s? Why don't our midfielders have the guile to unlock defences the way the Iberians do? Why are English wingers only equipped with pulverising pace rather than the bewitching trickery of our South American counterparts? Is there a correlation between our lacking guile and the influx of foreign players into our youth academies? Does money and fame so early in an Englishman's career stifle the work ethic needed to reach that player's potential? [People don't actually shout these things from sidelines but if they did, well... what a world]

While playing and watching grass roots football in England and on the continent distinct differences begin to appear... Grit is favoured over flair in England. At school or at your club you were told to work hard and stick to your man rather than practice your kick ups and your ball control. You were told to take a touch, get your head up and play it simple rather than hold the ball or beat a man. You were taught to finish by aiming hard and low between the keepers legs so that any miscue might still finish between the posts or be parried for a tap in because if you try a cheeky lob or to round the keeper and fuck it up... you're dropped. 

I don't know

This story isn't consistent with ALL the football I played or watched. There were rare coaches who saw things in players at a young age and encouraged them to keep working at these things in training and to develop their skills alone with a ball. Can liquid football graduate to the big stage?

Probably not - when it comes to a match day, the shit gets real and if a failed attempt at invention or flair costs us the game then we'll all be looking at you, you cheeky quim. 

I play as much five a side football as I can because our dismal weather and London's logistics make five a side the easier option. Five a side is a slicker quicker game, full of goals and opportunities to break quickly while employing trickery and guile more efficiently to unlock defences. The distance to the opposition's goal and the number of opposition defenders is minimised giving way to a far more open game. 

No relevance, just looks weird

Five a side tournaments and weekly leagues were where I saw the most mesmerisingly skilful displays of football I've seen outside of the professional game. I saw players flicking the ball over opponents heads before volleying past a keeper. I saw players deftly caressing the ball embarrassingly through a defender's legs without looking at where these defenders were. None of these kids were White British, they were of Asian or African decent. None of these kids would ever make it into the professional game because of their own trepidation toward trying this stuff on a Sunday League pitch and never being asked back or worse. Why?

Maybe they spent more time practicing their skills than they did running shuttles or in the gym? Maybe they didn't back themselves to inject this invention into an 11 a side game? In Spanish academies, players graduate from 5 a side football, to 7 a side football before they step foot on an 11 a side pitch. We need to start doing the same thing.

Until match days offer the same arena for flair as training we won't see anything change. How often do you hear pros waxing lyrical about the stuff they see their team mates do in training? Thing is there's a reason this stuff is entertaining, it's because it's unexpected. That same element of surprise is why utilising flair and invention can be the difference between success and failure. Ask yourself what is meant by having a cutting edge. If you think physical prowess and rigorous tactical discipline will cut it then you're living in the past.

The premiership is packed with physical specimens and disciplined operators. Theres no shortage of Englishmen with these traits. Players like Jones, Cahill, Smalling and Caulker roll off the production lines like nobodies business. Is it any surprise that the trend bucking Jack Wilshere's talents were nurtured in an academy full of foreigners at a club synonymous for nurturing youngsters with imagination? Even the excitement surrounding Wilshere's game is tempered by Guardiola telling us a few years back that Barca B have a dozen players just like him.

Who guffed?

So what about the money? The home grown player quota rules have made young Englishmen more valuable to their clubs. This is why our clubs pay so much money for young talent like the Hendersons (£20m transfer fee, £3.5m pa salary), Carrolls (£35m, £4.16m pa), Zahas (£15m, £1.8m pa) and Caulkers (£9m, I don't know what he's on but apparently it's loads - it's not) of this world. Does the early wealth of these players temper their development?

If all you have to do is show potential and be English to earn these relatively astronomical sums then you've got to wonder whether the money might change them, might cloud their sense of drive and hunger to hit the heights. Imagine if there was a wage by age structure - imagine if you couldn't earn more than £100,000 a year before you were 23. I mean that's still a lot of money for anyone of an age younger than 23 but it's about junior players paying their dues. It's about returning to the days of apprentices like Giggs and Scholes scrubbing Robson's boots.

Nigel's got caysh

Marry together this myriad of factors with the ones I was too lazy to research and you're left with a multi faceted set of issues facing the English game. We won't win a World Cup in the next twenty years and we won't win a Euros either. Maybe we just need to get Cruyff to come in and restructure the whole structure of English football from top to bottom. Maybe we just need to not give so much of a shit because we all hate the international break and have dips in seratonin until our beloved club football restarts.

Anyway if you didn't enjoy that, shut up and watch this...

The Runaway Galácticos Phenomenon

From Real Madrid to Kettering Town and everything in between, how the Galácticos project has changed world football.

Florentino Pérez is a man best known for his presidency at the world’s richest club. He is the mastermind and visionary behind the adoption of a 60-year-old strategy that arguably got them there.

Madrid’s most successful period of dominance followed the initial conception of the Galácticos policy. The president in the 1950s was a man called Santiago Bernabéu Yeste, a familiar name. This man brought players like Di Stefano and Puskas to Madrid, names that have endured throughout the proceeding decades. These two players spearheaded a team that won the first five instalments of the European Champion Clubs’ Cup (the Champions League), an unprecedented achievement that has remained unmatched.

 

Real Madrid celebrate winning the first ever European Champion Clubs' Cup in 1956

In the1980s a rival philosophy emerged. It was called 'Quinta del Buitre' or the Vulture Squad. Emilio Butragueño was the star. Madridistas were treated to successive league titles from 1986 through to 1990. Then came Johan Cruyff's FC Barcelona in the early 1990s to cast a dark shadow over Spain’s capital club. Madrid, inspired by their new hero Raul, won the 1998 and 2000 UEFA Champions Leagues and the second Galácticos era had its catalyst.

Pérez opened the new millennium with a campaign to win the Los Merengues presidency. He built his successful bid on bringing Luis Figo to the Bernabéu from their Catalan rivals. £37million later the first Galáctico was purchased and so changed modern football. Madrid certainly weren’t the first club to spend big on new recruits. Between 1999 and 2001, Parma, Lazio, Inter Milan and Juventus took part in two seasons of riveting £30million transfers. Parma lost Crespo then Buffon to Lazio and Juve respectively. Lazio had funded Crespo with the £31million Inter gave them for Christian Vieri. These massive outlays can be explained. European football experienced a "transfer bubble" fuelled by rapidly rising television rights sales and a large increase in sponsorship payments between 1999 and 2002, and fees then fell away significantly, before rising again towards the end of the 2000s.

Pérez and his sexy Galácticos

The Figo transfer was sandwiched in between this activity in Italy. Madrid’s president wanted one of the world’s biggest names to come to the capital each year. Figo was first then came Zinedine Zidane for another world record fee of £46million before Fat Ronaldo joined from Inter in 2002. David Beckham became the last official Galáctico when he broke my heart by leaving the Republic of Mancunia. While the project enjoyed mixed success on the pitch, a year after taking the world’s most famous player from the world’s most famous club Madrid’s revenue stream took them to the financial summit of the game thanks to shirt sales, boosted marketing potential and global exposure (specifically in Asia).

Manchester United remained the most valuable football club in the world. United’s value usurped that of any NFL or NBA team. However in 2009, Madrid embarked on a third Galácticos recruitment drive. Kaka arrived for €60million, Ronaldo arrived for €94 million, Benzema and Alonso joined for a combined €66million. Over the next three years Khedira, Ozil, di Maria, Coentrao and Modric arrived for big money. This year has seen Isco and Illarramendi command fees in excess of €30million while Bale has cost lots of money and the football world's dignity. It was however the Ronaldo signing that boosted the financial worth of the club (specifically in America where Madrid consistently fell short of Manchester United in marketability terms) to the extent that in 2013, for the first time since Forbes started caring about soccer Madrid overtook United as the world’s most valuable football club and thus the most valuable sports franchise on the planet.

No new signing will ever be greeted like this again... until he comes home

This spend to earn mentality has worked for Madrid in terms of marketability and it has spawned other Galácticos sides. Chelsea kicked things off in England in 2003 and since then have spent an average of £76million a season on players. Yeah.

Next came the Middle Eastern instalment of black gold in the shape of the Abu Dhabi's investment in Manchester Shitty in 2008. Despite the fact they only really started spending big around 5 years ago, City’s average seasonal spend for the last 10 years is a cool £70million. 

Anzhi Makhachkalashakalakakakakakaka and Zenit injected money into the Russian league in 2011 before Anzhi’s bubble burst this summer. 

PSG and Monaco provide the sexy French chapter to this story. 

It isn’t by any means a ubiquitous strategy. Clubs have remained competitive on the pitch without spending big.

While there are other factors at play it must be admitted that the result of this overspending is that to remain competitive in this inflated transfer market you’ve got to be willing to pay over the odds for good players (Fellaini cost £27million) and for the rubbish ones as well (Downing cost £19million). For some excellent examples of overspending on average to poor players see all but one of Kenny Dalglish’s piss poor signings in his mercilessly feature length film, How to Embarrass Your Club's PR Department and Destroy Your Reputation. 

The big spenders have changed the dynamics. Footballers are more expensive these days. I’m not going to talk about Bale because you’ve read and seen everything there is to hear about it. This transfer window has been the biggest ever for Premier League clubs, eclipsing the previous by £150million in gross spend. English clubs have spent £630million on new players over the last two months. All this while Kettering Town have received a winding down order. Go back and read the last sentence again. Kettering Town have not gone into administration, they have actually been told to WIND DOWN. A 141-year-old club have been asked to cease trading and are poised to go out of business because they don’t have the £20,000 to pay off their deficit. £20,000… Please notice the discrepancy between this figure and every other preceding figure.

Victims of the Galácticos phenomenon are not limited to smaller clubs. The previous decade has seen Arsenal FC go from being invincible to becoming the world’s greatest feeder club. Europe’s elite (and Manchester City) have systematically stripped the North London club of their best players since 2005, leaving the fans with an increasingly comical frustration with the club’s greatest ever manager. A look around the world of football since Madrid kicked off the financial revolution at the turn of the century only serves to further aggravate Arsenal fans who’ve seen all their best players leaving with little to no investment coming back in. I’m tempted to believe that the £42.5million spent on Monday night is a perfect illustration of Arsenal just looking to join the party. That’s not me having a go; forgetting the fact Ozil is a superlative footballer who makes Arsenal's starting 11 far more formidable, I just think the value in the signing derives from it's glamour. It's this same glamour that injects the quintessential element of optimism Arsenal have missed for years. Finally Arsenal fans no longer have to put up with their friends posting a link on their wall titled "Have Arsenal spent any money yet?" We were all getting sick of seeing NO used as a punchline every six months. 

Ozil’s arrival alleviates the pressure Arsene Wenger has spent 8 years steadily loading upon his shoulders while also tempering the anxieties of Arsenal fans. Buying their very own Galáctico could signify a huge turning point for the Gunners… the manager was hung out to dry on the first day of the season after losing to Villa, especially after his initial U-turn in transfer policy represented by the £40,000,001 bid for WWH (World’s Worst Human) fell embarrassingly flat on it’s face. However the Ozil deal is the perfect remedy; the opulence of the fee, the player and the selling club has saved Wenger. Wenger has resisted and criticised all activity that I would deem part of the Galácticos phenomenon, but his submission to the movement might provide a shift in the paradigm that has seen The Invincibles become London’s least humorous joke.

It seems there's no immunity left to the Galácticos phenomenon. 

Why do Brazilian footballers get fat... sometimes?

An admission straight off the bat, I don't know the answer to this question.

I haven't got the time, money or inclination to delve into the various socio-economic, anthropological and cultural elements of Brazilian society which could foster the tendency in Brazilian stars to gain weight at certain points in their career.

In fact I won't try to justify the fact that I'm going to say some stupid things when trying to explain why. I probably won't even try to explain why... I might just talk about some of my favourite footballers (and Ailton). They happen to be Brazilian and they also happened to get fat.

Case Study 1


Ailton 

The only player I'll mention who started as he meant to go on. As far as I'm aware Ailton has always been heavy. I remember him best for his prolific days at Werder Bremen but Ailton has actually played for 20 different clubs in his career, 14 since he left Bremen in 2004! 
He scored some juicy Champions League goals back when Bremen were decent and enjoyed a successful run on Germany's version of the shamefully popular horror series, 'I'm a celebrity, get me out of here'.



Case Study 2

Adriano

The football world paid attention to this big boy for the first time when together with Adrian Mutu he terrorised Italian defences for Parma. 
He scored 23 in 37 in 2002/3 and secured a return to Inter where he was as famous for his double fisted punching as he was for his football. 
His shooting prowess ensured that Pro Evolution Soccer gave him 99 for shot power and his appearance in Nike's Joga Bonito adverts made loads of football fans think he was better than he was. 
His dip in fitness and form made sure he won more Bidone d'Oro (worst player in Italy) awards than anyone else before departing back to Brazil to let his career peter out. 

Case Study 3

Ronaldinho

I spent so much of my adolescence practising the flip flap. The round the world flicks, the rabona, the step overs... this guy was my hero. Following a glorious World Cup in 2002 and the goal which all but ended Seaman's England career, a transfer to Manchester United was lined up and my life was complete. This was usurped by Barcelona at the death, when United moved the goalposts on the transfer fee. The reds reportedly reduced an accepted bid of £11million to a mere £9million. Noob move.
Ronaldinho went to Barcelona and became their best player (sorry Edgar Davids) that season. A year later he was recognised as the world's most talented player winning the World Player of the Year two years running and the Ballon D'or in 2005. 
A year or two later and his love of paella was no longer a laughing matter. As 2007 dawned he started picking up a stream of injuries and sooner rather than later declared he was looking for a "fresh challenge". In other words Pep Guardiola wanted to build a team around Messi and get rid of the dead wood. He went to Milan but never rediscovered his best form, himself acknowledging his best years were spent at the Catalan club. He is currently still lighting up the Brazilian league with his flare and invention despite the samba star's declining athleticism.

Case Study 4

The Phenomenon

This guy was so good they gave him his own video game. His displays for Cruzeiro earned him an early move to Europe. He went to PSV on the advice of a little known Brazilian, Romario. Although, it was his form at Barcelona under Bobby Robson that alerted the world to his talent. His touch was perfect, he was quick, powerful, clinical and he played with no fear. Inter Milan made him the world's most expensive player in 1997 and for two years he was the world's best. 
In 1999, he ruptured a tendon in his knee and did the same thing on his return almost a year later. He was never the same. He came back to help Brazil to a World Cup in 2002 where there were constant questions about his fitness, specifically his weight.
I was at Old Trafford on a warm evening in April 2003 when this great man laid to rest United's European aspirations with a stunning hat-trick (assisted by Fabien Barthez). He was given a standing ovation by the United faithful in return. These glimpses of the phenomenon's prior mastery prompted team mates like Gianluigi Buffon to explain, "Ronaldo plays best when he's pregnant" but take a moment to watch the clips of the late 90s Ronaldo on YouTube; he was mercurial then, he was merely excellent at Old Trafford. There's a difference. 
It's a testament to his talent that he was clearly unfit throughout the second half of his career and yet still ended his playing days with 350 odd goals in his 520 odd games. No one can match the phenomenon's fat to goals ratio. 

I met a Brazilian guy this summer who I spoke to about this. He said that it was because the majority of Brazilian superstars grow up playing with makeshift footballs in Brazil's poverty stricken favellas. He argued that the levels of notoriety, success and wealth achieved by these young men can also lead to a sense of satisfaction with what they've already achieved which can lead to early indulgence. I won't speak on that, it is however uncanny that there are few notable Brazilian footballers whose waist line inflates before actually achieving anything in their careers but then again I guess you wouldn't hear about them, so...

...I hope you enjoyed a little bit of me wasting your time.

England > Spain

Like most other football fans, I was enticed by the prospect of Neymar joining Barcelona. The fee appeared inflated for an individual whose reputation was built almost entirely on YouTube. Although, I must concede any player more than ten humans have heard of will be expensive these days.

I'm currently watching Barcelona play Levante, they are 6-0 up... it's half time. It's the curtain raiser for the new season of La Liga. Sky's coverage began with the claim that the Spanish first division is "the most star studded league in the world." I won't spend any time trying to discredit this fatuous claim. What I will say is that the subject of this piece is simple. There are two teams in La Liga, it is impossible for anyone to break this duopoly and there is one dominant reason for this. TV money.

To fully unpack what I mean I have to make a comparison. It might be considered a lazy one but I think it's poignant. In England each position in the Premier League is worth just under £900,000 to the club that fills it. That was the figure for the 2012/13 season. Barcelona and Madrid on the other hand share a figure closer to £120million from the current Spanish TV deal. The team relegated from La Liga at the end of last season on the other hand see less than £10million after tax.

The gulf in remuneration is as infuriating as it is ludicrous. In a country with notable financial difficulties there are clubs, like Deportivo, which I remember terrorising my beloved Manchester United in Europe's premier competition... these clubs are currently on the brink of extinction, Deportivo's list of debtors are owed a combined £135million, if not more.

Yesterday was the opening day of the Premier League season. Spurs spent £60million this summer and made some excellent acquisitions. Chelsea spent a considerable sum on Shurrle and have a squad worth more than £200million in transfer fees. Both these clubs faced newly promoted sides on the Premier League's inaugural weekend. They were both run too close for comfort by Palace and Hull City respectively. I will concede this might simply have more to do with the unknown quantities newly promoted sides possess than it has to do with the amount of prize money in English football but if these two games serve as an indicator of nothing else, they are an exhibition of what you already knew. The Premiership is by far and away the most competitive league in Europe.

So I'm left wondering why it is that the Spanish game continues to be governed with incompetence considering the superlative model provided by the Premier League. I'm not one for hyperbole so please be aware that I am not exaggerating when I tell you I am currently sitting and watching Barca carving out a clear cut chance every 4 minutes against Levante. All of this while their £48million Brazilian import sits nursing his reportedly sore tonsils on the bench (a euphemism for he's been rubbish since he arrived). It's worth noting that such absurdity is juxtaposed by the sort of financial constraints that force Barca's opponents this evening, Levante, to fully recycle their starting 11s every season, heroically might I add.

Until the issues with TV rights in the Spanish game are remedied there will continue to be casualties. Barca just scored their 7th by the way.