A Football Report

By Darshan Joshi

One week, two alleged stamps. Both assailants bad-boys of their clubs’ cities, further apart in distance than footballing heritage and seemingly now closer yet in terms of notoriety. One incident exponentially more temerarious than the other, and thus rightly so – relatively speaking –, one man went unpunished, and the other supplied with a four-match decapitation. Only, if just one of the two crime scenes were to be punished retrospectively, it was the wrong one left exonerated.

Mario Balotelli may cast more than an envious gaze at the Spanish footballing authorities, much as the English do those shores with an understandable predilection for sunnier days on a golden beach. The decision to deplete Pepe of a suspension for an ostentatious trampling on the hand of Lionel Messi was absurd. Perhaps the powers-that-be took into account, unfairly, Messi’s status as The Second Coming of Diego Maradona – karmic law suggests an equal and opposite reaction to every action – and Pepe was thus the purveyor of retrospective punishment too, of a sort. Only, Messi isn’t Maradona, and so his Hand isn’t exactly His Hand.

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By Zara B. and A. Cortez

Alex Ferguson

This past 6th of November marked Sir Alex Ferguson’s 25th anniversary since taking charge of Manchester United. While many managers are fads at other clubs (Chelsea, Real Madrid), Manchester United have been fortunate enough to have a single manager lead the club to 12 Premier League titles, five FA Cups, four League Cups, and two Champions League trophies. For his service and all his accomplishments, the Old Trafford stand has been renamed “Sir Alex Ferguson Stand”. A high point in Ferguson’s career came in May of 2011 when he led the Red Devils to their 19th league title making the Manchester side the most successful team in the history of English football. In October, Ferguson’s men got thrashed 6-1 by “noisy neighbors” Manchester City at Old Trafford—a low point the Scotsman would sooner like to forget. He was left even more red-faced than usual after crashing out of two competitions within a week of one another—first, a defeat in extra time to Crystal Palace in the Carling Cup, and second, a defeat to FC Basel in the Champions League. The defeat to Basel sent Manchester United crashing into the Europa League—the only trophy Sir Alex has never won. While Sir Alex may never forget those painful defeats in the first half of the 2011-2012 season, he can look forward to the possibility of adding new championships to his CV in 2012: a maiden Europa League trophy, a sixth FA Cup and that record 20th league title.

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Mario Balotelli is a talented player. Maybe the most talented one Italian football has produced since Totti, or Cassano. The truth is that it seems there is no more room for him in Serie A. The young Inter striker is now facing a crucial point of his career. At the age of 19, he already won 3 Italian titles, 1 Italian Supercup, 1 Italian Cup, and, last but not least, 1 Champions League. Impressive, even more if you consider he had an important role in most of the victories (the most important one in sealing his first Scudetto during Mancini’s last campaing at Inter). Last season he had some tough problems tough with the team by showing a lack of respect for his teammates. When AC Milan came closer to Inter in the table in April, he sang Milan’s song in the dressing room. With the manager, he almost began physcially fighting on the training pitch with José Mourinho. And with the fans, he put on an AC Milan shirt in a TV interview and then threw Inter’s shirt on the ground at the final whistle in the San Siro match against Barcelona. All of this led up to the point in which we now are looking at.

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By Mirko Corli, writing from Torino

As I told you all during the past few weeks, Italy’s main problem was the coach. Now, thanks to him we are out of the World Cup, but we are relieved thinking that he left the job: no more arrogance on the bench, we can now start thinking about football. So, how to rebuild a national team after what just happened?

The key move is to get in young talented players and leave out the players that already served the nation but now are only chained-balls to the development of the team.

Here’s a possible list with the birth year of the players between parenthesis:

Keepers: Buffon (78), Sirigu (87), Marchetti (83)

Defenders: Chiellini (84), Bonucci (87), Bocchetti (86), Ranocchia (88), Cassani (83), Maggio (82), Criscito (86), Santon (90)

Midfielders: De rossi (82), Marchisio (86), Montolivo (84), Palombo (81), Poli (88) Strikers: Rossi (87), Pazzini (84), Gilardino (82), Quagliarella (83), Balotelli (90), Cassano (82)

With these players, we will have the ability to play in a few different ways.

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Posted By Eric Beard

Though Mourinho will forever love Internazionale, let’s all remember that he really wasn’t a huge fan of Italian calcio. “I am very happy at Inter but not in Italian football,” the former Chelsea coach told Sky Sports. Asked why, he said: “Because I don’t like it and it doesn’t like me, simple.”

Well, I suppose that’s why “The Special One” has reportedly agreed to a four-year contract with Real Madrid worth up to 40 million euros. To remind ourselves of the drama that can arise in your average Serie A match, here’s a classic clip of Mourinho arguing with a referee about a rash tackle on Mario Balotelli and then being dismissed. As one of Mourinho’s favourite strikers would say, this particular incident was “a disgrace.”

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Diego Milito was the difference last night as Inter Milan defeated AS Roma 1-0 to give the Nerazzurri the Coppa Italia trophy. Because Inter were playing the better calcio, Roma knew they weren’t going to come back. Unfortunately we saw one of the greatest modern Italian footballers, Francesco Totti, have one of his worst all time moments. In the closing minutes of the game, Mario Balotelli went galavanting into Roma’s final third, and without any restraint, the Roma captain kicked the young Italian striker as hard as he could. Thankfully Balotelli did not suffer a broken leg or any major injury (that we know of), but after watching the video you have to think that Totti could have easily caused that sort of damage. Anyway, I’m ashamed to see such a footballing legend act like this. What did you think of Totti’s vicious kick? (Full highlights of Inter’s 1-0 win are below)

Update: “I kicked him because of what he said on the pitch, and for what he did at San Siro,” Totti said toforzaroma.info. 

Last season, Balotelli scored a twice against the Giallorossi in a spectacular 3-3 draw, and the controversial young talent ran towards the travelling Roma fans and told them to shut it by placing his finger over his mouth after scoring.

Still, it’s not okay what Totti did. In fact I think that kick was fairly criminal. Especially because now we know it was a premeditated attack. I’m disgusted.

By Eric Beard

In what Arsene Wenger described as “the most disappointing loss of the season”, Arsenal let a 2-0 lead slip with just ten minutes left to play in regulation and ended up losing 3-2 to Wigan. With another major goalkeeper gaff from Fabianski on the second goal, it is clear that Wenger needs to strengthen his squad in a few areas. Sure, the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Robin van Persie, and Andrey Arshavin are going nowhere, but it has been reported that the Arsenal gaffer will be given a £45m transfer budget, which apparently is more money than Carlo Ancelotti will have with Chelsea to spend.

Already believed to have secured Bordeaux striker Marouane Chamakh’s services on a free transfer this summer, Arsenal will finally have enough money to splash on a major signing. Chamakh’s teammate at Bordeaux Yoann Gourcuff has been rumoured to be on Wenger’s transfer list, and the French midfielder has been in scintillating form this season. Other rumoured targets on Wenger’s list are Benfica’s Angel Di Maria and David Luiz, Birmingham keeper Joe Hart, Paris Saint Germain playmaker Stéphane Sessegnon,  Torino’s wonderkid Angelo Ogbonna, and then of course Mario Balotelli and Felipe Melo. £45m is not enough to buy all of these targets obviously, probably just three or four (maybe even five).

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