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14 October, 2009, 19:08 Those who can’t… manage?
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It’s around this time of year when I treat myself and buy a new football management game. This means I’m sure to spend the majority of my free time over the coming months hunched over my Mac on an Irn Bru-fueled mission to take Sunderland into the Champions League. As I try to avoid the disapproving gaze of my flatmate (he’s American, therefore he just doesn’t understand), I end up justifying my hours of playing with the deluded belief that success on the game will put me on par with Hiddink, Mourinho, and Wenger. Like those managers, I’m also fairly rubbish when it comes to playing football. Maybe that’s the key.
Now right from the start I would like to state that I do know that my efforts trundling up and down the wing in the Moscow expat league can’t be compared to the playing careers of any of those managers. However, what is interesting is how many top players fall flat when they try and take up management.
This is of course not to suggest that no top players have gone on to be top managers; Johan Cryuff is one of the greatest players ever to take the field, and he had success with Ajax and Barcelona. Bob Paisley is the only manager to have won three European cups; he was also the defensive midfielder at the heart of Liverpool’s 1946/47 league winning side. On the other side of the coin Claude Anelka, DJ, agent and brother of sulky striker Nicholas, was one of the biggest jokes in Scottish football (which is saying something) during his disastrous tenure at Raith Rovers
One of the problems that great players like Diego Maradona seems to have is disengaging the ego that made them untouchable on the football field. Maradona’s time as Argentina boss has been painful to watch at times. Argentina may still qualify for the World Cup, but whether “El Diego” will still be the boss in eight months time is anybody’s guess. What I find more bizarre than the predicament Argentina currently find themselves in with the players they have, is the decision by the country’s footballing authorities to appoint Maradona in the first place. An international football manager has to have many qualities. Among them: a clear head, top-quality decision making and rational thinking. Even the most ardent Maradona worshiper would find it hard to argue that the former superstar has any of those. His erratic coaching style is not helped by his ego. For decades he was told time and time again that he was a god, and his outrage that the Pope didn’t single him out for any special treatment when they met suggests he may have taken the praise to heart.
If you compare Maradona to Russia’s boss Guus Hiddink, the two couldn’t be further apart. A Dutch second division winners medal with De Graafschrap is the highlight of Hiddink’s playing career. However, as a manager he has won 13 trophies, including the European cup, taken Holland and South Korea to fourth place in World Cup finals, and coached Russia to third at the European Championships. His tactics and style of management have been able to extract unbelievable results from sometimes quite limited sides. Russia will have to book a spot in South Africa through the playoffs, but, under his leadership, this doesn’t seem to worry too many commentators on Russian football – myself included.
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09 October, 2009, 15:09 Calm before the storm
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It’s here, the big one. Russia against Germany in Moscow gets underway on Saturday with the World Cup hopes and dreams of the two nations hanging in the balance. Mathematics has never been a strong point of mine, but even I can do the sums on this one. Germany come to the Luzhniki stadium with a one-point lead, knowing that a win would secure their spot in South Africa. Russia’s fate is in their own hands: beat Germany and all that stands in the way of a World Cup berth is a match in Baku against Azerbaijan which, without wanting to tempt fate, should be a formality.
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The Russians will be out for revenge in this one. The only blemish on the qualifying record of Guus Hiddink’s side is a 2-1 defeat to the Germans a year ago in Dortmund. That defeat would have smarted. In October 2008, Russian football was still on a high after the fantastic performance at the Euros. Players and fans alike could still clearly remember spanking the Netherlands in the quarter finals, and the incredible celebrations in the streets of Moscow. There was a real feeling that Russia could beat Germany on their own turf. This was heightened by the news that, while Russia were beating Wales, the Germans could only manage a draw in Finland. It wasn’t to be though - after going two down in the first half, Russia could only pull one back in the second through the mercurial Andrey Arshavin.
Arshavin will be called upon to play a big role in Saturday’s game. The pint-sized hit man was still playing in the Russian top flight last time around, and Hiddink will be hoping that the Arsenal man’s experience playing in the more competitive English Premier League will have added something to his game.
Germany will also be fired up for this match, which looks likely to be played in damp conditions on Luzhniki’s plastic pitch. They are unbeaten in qualifying; the only team to take any points off them has been Finland. In fact, had the Germans reached this amount of points in most of the other groups they would already be through. Russia are the last hurdle for Joachim Low’s side, and he will demand a performance from his players.
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31 August, 2009, 15:31 Rubin, Bopara, and Twitter
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Back in Moscow after two weeks in England. I’m back, however, at the time of writing my luggage is still somewhere else thanks to a certain Dutch airline that will remain nameless. Anyway I did make it home in time to see Rubin Kazan cement their place at the top of the table thanks to an indomitable performance against second placed Spartak Moscow.
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3-0 is how it ended at Luzhniki stadium. A typical workman-like performance from Gurban Berdiyew’s men, as they waited for their chances and struck with a ferocity that suggests they will be lifting the league title for a second successive year. Alejandro Dominguez was in particularly penetrating form for Rubin, stepping up to convert a penalty for the Kazan club’s second.
Whereas Rubin looked every bit champions, Spartak stand-in boss Valery Karpin must be a little disappointed with his side’s impotent performance. The Krasno-Bely tried to get themselves back into the match by streaming forward, but these frantic attacks looked more like acts of desperation rather than a real threat to the Rubin goal. Speaking of that Rubin goal, Sergey Ryzhikov was in imperious form between the posts. The stopper dealing with everything that Spartak threw at him, and doing it with a considered style.
It’s that kind of style that Rubin will need to show if they are to have any hope of being a surprise package in this year’s Champions League group stage. There are no easy games at this level, but in a group with Barcelona, Inter and Dinamo Kiev, Rubin are going to have to be at the top of their game if they are even to stand a chance of making it out of group F. In reality, Rubin should be looking at finishing 3rd and having a crack at the Europa League title this year.
Of course, Rubin aren’t the only Russian representatives in this year’s Champions League. CSKA have a decent draw in this year’s competition. Manchester United, Wolfsburg, and Besiktas will be making the trip to Moscow this season. Although the German and Turkish champions will be extremely robust opposition, I think Zicho might fancy his chances of second place behind United and sneaking into the knockout phase.
Just when you were thinking that I had made it through a blog without mentioning the cricket…
Congratulations to the England cricket team on winning The Ashes. Andrew Strauss’s men regained the historic urn thanks to a convincing win at The Oval. Congratulations as well to Andrew Flintoff, who signed off on an excellent test career at The Oval. Freddie needs extensive surgery on his knee, and the strains of the 5-day game have proved too much for the Herculean all-rounder. Here’s hoping that he comes back to the international fold in one-day cricket as soon as possible.
Rain in Manchester spared England what looked like a potential hammering from Australia in the first Twenty20 match at Old Trafford. After being put into bat, Michael Clarke’s Aussie side put on 145 from their overs. 55 from Cameron White the stand out score for Australia. Things took a turn for the worse for England and replacement captain Paul Collingwood, when Joe Denly’s first international Twenty20 innings was over first ball. Ravi Bopara’s woeful summer continued, as he was back in the pavilion after scoring just 1 off 3 balls. That’s when the weather intervened, rain forcing an end to play and the abandonment of the match. For Bopara though, this looks like another nail in the coffin of his England career. I say career in the loosest sense of it: Bopara was being tipped at the beginning of the summer as a new hope for England with the bat, a T20 expert who could bring some big scores to the test arena. This simply hasn’t been the case. I’m almost left hoping that Bopara doesn’t make England squads, not because I think he’s a bad player (his first class record is excellent), but because I don’t want to see him do any more - perhaps next time irreparable - damage to his reputation with the selectors. It’s certainly an inauspicious start to Test Cricket, but there are plenty of players who have come back from early disappointments to establish themselves as top cricketers.
In this modern world it is easy to get left behind by technology. Not me though, you can now get Twitter updates on all the latest sporting goings on from me at
http://twitter.com/Peter_G_Oliver
About author
Peter Oliver is a sports presenter and correspondent. He joined RT in the summer of 2005 after starting out in journalism in the UK working with various local BBC stations up and down the country.
He studied Film and English at Georgia State University in Atlanta before doing a Post Graduate in Broadcast Journalism at Falmouth.
When not trawling through the world’s vast sporting shenanigans he spends his time watching cricket, Sunderland football club, sleeping and playing the guitar.
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19 October, 2009, 13:19
I think russian football is soo bad that noone can save it from failing each time