A Football Report

Mr Potato Head was furious

By Amit Katwala, London

I’m not sure what mainstream football coverage is like for you international readers, but here in England the back pages have been dominated by the growing scandal that I’m going to call ‘F*ck-gate’.

The key point from a pivotal weekend in the title race, in which Man Utd probably cemented their title claim by coming back from two goals down to snatch all three points seems to be the shocking news that Wayne Rooney said a bad word into a television camera while celebrating a goal.

Now, if left to its own devices, I don’t think even the FA would be stupid enough to enforce such a ban, but I can see it happening because the growing media circus demands action.

This is a pretty recent phenomenon, and its not confined to football. 24 hour rolling news and live blogs are great for killing time at work, but they create a tendency to exaggerate the smallest things and blow them out of all proportion. 

In the past, Rooney’s over-exuberance would have perhaps got a line in the match report in the Sunday papers, but Sky Sports News has got 24 hours of airtime to fill, and the papers have websites that constantly need fresh content.

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by Amit Katwala, writing from London

Bayer Leverkusen’s 6-0 destruction of Ukrainian side Metalist Kharkiv in the Europa League last night may not have garnered much media attention from those who follow the ‘bigger leagues’ in Europe, those of England, Spain, Italy.

But it should have.

The resulting boost to Germany’s UEFA co-effiicient means that the country has definitely cemented its third place in the standings. You can see the latest table here. The numbers take into account performances in European competitions over the last few years and apply various weightings and mathematical manipulations to them. The important thing to take away from the data is this:  From next season Germany will get a 4th Champion’s League place at the expense of Serie A, which will only get 3 teams.

So how did this happen?

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by Amit Katwala, writing from London

1. Newcastle fans are outraged as owner Mike Ashley spends the proceeds from Andy Carroll’s sale to Liverpool on a 40 foot solid gold statue of himself outside St. James’ Park, flabby arms outstretched like the Angel of the North (as pictured).

2. Liverpool announce plans to re-sign Craig Bellamy, forming a formidable attacking trio in combination with Gerrard and Carroll. Unfortunately they end up doing more attacking off the pitch then on it. Nightclub patrons of the North-West, beware!

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By Amit Katwala, writing from England

Sepp Blatter wants to make football more exciting. As part of his ongoing mission to ruin our favourite sport, he is working with a task force consisting of football administrators, current and ex-players and medical experts with the aim of introducing changes for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. 

Here are some of the things I think Sepp and his team will come up with…

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by Amit Katwala, writing from London

I’ve been watching a lot of rugby lately. I’m not the biggest fan of the sport, and a lot of the time I have no idea what is going on, but one thing has impressed me.

Rugby referees, from what I’ve seen, are excellent. They seem to play a much more involved role in the game than football refs, helping play flow by being vocal, assertive and authoritative.

Of course, they are no doubt helped by the players, who are generally respectful, polite and rarely crowd around when contentious decisions are made. Also working in their favour is the video referee, who can be called upon for such incidents. 

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by Amit Katwala, writing from England

England’s dull display on Tuesday against Montenegro dragged up the same old questions about the teams ability to break down sides that put up a defensive barrier. One of the sides key weapons in unlocking stubborn teams used to be Wayne Rooney, but he looks a shadow of his former self at the moment. It was thought that this was due to the recurrence of the ankle injury he picked up against Bayern Munich last April, but he revealed today that this was not the case.
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By Amit Katwala, writing from England

Luck has an important role to play in football, be it in the form of penalty successes and misses, refereeing mistakes or an unfortunate slip at an unfortunate moment. Frank Lampard’s not given goal against Germany, Uruguay’s escape against Ghana, Tim Cahill’s harsh sending off. The general wisdom is that these events even themselves out over the course of a season, but in the intense flurry of games that is the World Cup, some teams may get more than their fair share. 

The Netherlands progressed to their third World Cup final tonight with a 3-2 win over Uruguay, and although have won all 6 of their matches so far they are yet to really start firing on all cylinders. Luck has played its part in their route to the final - a freak own goal by Denmark, a slightly less freakish one against Brazil, goalkeeping error against Japan, and tonight a goal that could easily have been called offside.

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