World Football Postulant

Steve Bruce may not be a top four manager, but he gets extra credit for having convinced his owner as much.

Dave Whelan’s having a big day in quotes.

The Wigan manager was asked about rumors placing Steve Bruce at Newcastle.  Given Whelan’s love for Mike Ashley, it’s no surprise that he scoffed at the idea of his manager leaving for Tyneside.  Whelan cited has relationship with his coach as well as the situation at Newcastle as reasons for Bruce’s staying at the JJB.

Whelan, however, was under no illusions that he can perpetually keep Bruce, an assertion that immediately had me asking “Why not?”  The Wigan owner was kind enough to inform us doubters.

According to Whelan, everybody the whole of England knows Steve Bruce is a top four manager.  A top four manager in the world, not just England.  One day, one of the top four clubs will come for Bruce.  At that point, Whelan will not be able to keep his coach.  But until then, he is confident that Steve Bruce will stay with Wigan Athletic.

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Juventus center back Giorgio Chiellini is targeting a return for the opening of Champions League.

Juventus looked like half a team during their season opener at Fiorentina, with injuries keeping them from taking advantage of Adrian Mutu’s absence. The sides played to a 1-1 draw, altering Juve as to how much injuries are taking their toll early in the season. With Champions League play set to start next week, the schedule only gets more compacted from here out. Thankfully, some of their injury concerns are starting to be alleviated.

Center-back Giorgio Chiellini has said that he hopes to be on the pitch for next week’s Champions League opener against Russia’s Zenit St. Petersburg. He will not, however, be available this weekend, when Juventus hosts Antonio Di Natale and Udinese.

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The European Match of the Week is in Serie A, where Juventus starts their march towards recapturing the Scudetto against an Adrian Mutu-less Fiorentina side.  We’ve seen examples in the Bundesliga (Diego, Werder Bremen) and the Premiership (Cesc Fabregas, Arsenal) of what one player can mean to a team, but Mutu’s meaning to Fiorentina might prove to be just as large.  Continue Reading »

The final set of predictions for the 2008-09 European club season takes me to Italy, where your view on who will win the league will undoubtedly be dependent on what you think of Jose Mourinho.  He has been the big name transaction of the Calcio summer,  A has dominated the Italian media and made himself the face of not just Internazionale but the league.  There may not have been one better move the league could have made to reassert itself on the continent after the bad news of recent seasons.

I am a Mourinho fan and have great respect for everything he’s accomplished.  Show me a real football follower who does not respect what Mourinho has done.  And he and Internazionale are a perfect fit.  It is a club with history and resources, is ready to win now, and will appreciate Mourinho more than he ever seemed to be over the last two years at Stamford Bridge.  Everything is in place for him to succeed, and he better.  This is a club that has won the last three Scudetto.  Their management not only expects a repeat in the league but also challenge for the Champions League.  Anything less than the final four in Europe will bring questions as to whether Mourinho had a successful season.  To his credit, he seems to realize this.

Domestically, there are four teams which critics see as challengers.  There’s Adrian Mutu’s Fiorentina, but the loss of Tomas Ujfalusi and goalie Sebastien Frey coming back to Earth a bit make it unlikely they will improve on a successful 2007-08.  Milan, who finish behind Fiorentina, will have to make up 21 points on Inter despite an aging and injury-prone team.  Roma came within three points last season, but this is another case where questions can be raised as to whether they can replicate an 82 point season, especially if Francesco Totti can never find true health.

That leaves Juventus, who I was biased towards at the start of this exercise.  They have the best set of strikers in the league and could get 50-60 goals from just those four.  They can expect a little better luck with health, and they have the best goalie in the league in Gianluigi Buffon.  People outside Italy seem to forget that last season was their return to Serie A.  This year they will have no issues of adjustment.  More than any of this, though:  this team really wants to win the title.  There is a certain pride thse players have in playing for the Old Lady that’s admirable.

However, when I sat down and looked at the rosters, man-by-who should be playing man, it was just difficult to see Juve making up 13 points on Inter.  In fact, I expect Inter to improve slightly with Mourinho.  Juve will have to make up more than 13 points to take the Scudetto.

Ultimatley, I like Internazionale to win.  Again.  And thanks to a just quick fall-off in quality through the table, I think Inter (and the other top teams) to put up a lot of points.  Last season inter only lost three matches.  I don’t expect that number to increase this season.  They tied ten times.  I do see some of those matches turning into wins.

Amongst the surprise teams of the league, I like Torino to jump into UEFA Cup contention.  Lazio, I like to make the top seven, which would hopefully find them in Europe.  I also like Catania to avoid many of the struggles they had last season and easily avoid relegation battles.

At the other end of the spectrum, I like both Chievo and Lecce to stay up after being promoted from Serie B.  Bologna, I don’t see as fortunate.  Amongst the teams that I see fighting for survival:  Reggina, Palermo, and Genoa.

Other teams I expect to falter a little:  I think Udinese will finish closer to relegation than another UEFA Cup spot.  I also think Fiorentina not only will not challenge for the league, I like them to get passed by Sampdoria, both of them finishing will behind Roma for the last Champions League spot.

One of the more exciting days of the European club football season is the day the Champions League group stage is drawn.

The 32 teams that have qualified for the group stage are drawn into eight, four-team groups.  Before that happens, all teams are broken into four pots, labeled A through D, where they are grouped according to a team’s strength (as determined by a formula called a coefficient).  Each of the eight groups can have no more than one team from each pot, no more than one team from a country.  The eight groups end up pretty even.

The draw is fun because you end up with a series of matches which, in addition to being high profile based on the quality of the teams involved, are rare.  In the days before the draw, you start considering the possibilities and potential story lines:  Chelsea and Fiorentina in a group, forcing Adrian Mutu to play the club he owes £14 million; Marseille being slotted with Arsenal months after having sold them Samir Nasri, and potentially getting Bayern Munich in the group, so they would have to face Franck Ribery; Barcelona being slotted with a Zenit St. Petersburg team whose star, Andrei Arshavin, so badly wanted to play at Camp Nou; FC Porto being grouped with Inter Milan and facing Jose Mourinho.

Here’s how the eight groups ended up being drawn, with the clubs listed in order of the group they were drawn from:  A to D.  Continue Reading »

Like Armand Traore loan to Portsmouth last week, Philipe Senderos has become a happy casualty of Arsene Wenger’s mysterious fascination with Mikael Silvestre. The 23-year-old Swiss center back has been loaned out to Milan for the year after falling to sixth on the Arsenal depth chart.   At Milan, Senderos will have a chance a meaningful playing time, as a combination of injury, age, and lack of quality will put him into the mix.  He has to be encouraged by the move.

For Arsenal, getting Senderos a year’s playing time at an elite club while retaining his rights is good development for what’s still a young player. I am not a big fan of Senderos, but he has all the physical skills, even if he does seems to rarely use them. He had a horrible game in the second match of the Champions League quarterfinals, an unforgettable match which saw Ryan Babel draw that miracle penalty (oh, how I wish I had this blog back then) which put the Gunners out. He immediately lost his spot at the back to Alexander Song and looks unlikely to regain Arsene Wenger’s confidence.

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I miss Jose Mourinho in the Premiership, think he’s a great coach, and still wonder why Chelsea would let him go without having somebody like a Luiz Felipe Scolari ready to replace him immediately. It’s all working out fine at Stamford Bridge (even if the firing may have cost them three trophies last season), but my English language league lots a lot of entertainment value when Mourinho went east. Nobody combines honesty, humor, and arrogance more brilliantly than The Special One.

Those qualities are in full view in Mourinho’s comments on Andriy Shevchenko. Continue Reading »

The liberation of Andriy Shevchenko is complete, with the player making a permanent move to AC Milan today. Whereas the move to the San Siro was thought to be a loan, it was confirmed that the Rossoneri have fully acquired the Ukrainian striker’s rights.

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Andriy Shevchenko remains in a quagmire at Chelsea, a part-time (at best player) who is more likely to fill recently departed Claudio Pizarro’s shoes (at the bottom of the depth chart) than Nicolas Anelka’s, let alone Didier Drogba’s.  With Luiz Felipe Scolari coming in an looking less likely to simultaneously use two strikers, Shevchenko looks unlikely to get the 24 appearances he got last season.  Thanks to his continued success at the international level for the Ukraine (for whom he scored four goals in eight appearances last season), there remains a legion of Shevchenko backers clammoring for his liberation from Stamford Bridge.

The largest contingent of his fans remain in Milan, where Shevchenko’s glory years are still held in esteem.  While AC Milan spent the summer wooing Emmanuel Adebayor and new the eventually acquired Ronaldinho, many wondered why the currently-cash-conscious club did not bring Shevchenko, who would likely be cheaper, back.  Sheva is only two seasons removed from scoring 19 goals in Serie A for the Rossoneri.  At 31 and with his international form hinting at remaining talent, it’s not unreasonable to assume he could contribute.

That Milan-backer dream is still alive.  Continue Reading »

Raymond Domenech’s honeymoon period after being affirmed as manager of the France national team is over with a thud. One day after a 3-2 win over Sweden in which Les Blues finally started incorporating some of their younger talent, one of the players that should be a cornerstone of their next World Cup has quit over selection issues.

Whether Sebastien Frey should as upset about Steve Mandanda starting the Sweden match is questionable, but he is not the first French star to be done with the national team over Domenech. The goalkeeper that was so important to Fiorentina’s Serie A and UEFA Cup runs was not even selected, with Domenech electing to pick Lyon younger Hugo Lloris as Mandanda’s back-up. Frey, who had a strong claim to playing time over Gregory Coupet in Euro 2008, is now done with Domenech and France, telling the team that he will be devoting himself to Fiorentina full time.

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