Last night the footballing world witnessed yet another controversial decision, in a season that has had countless examples serving as proof for the introduction of replay technology in football. The only difference with Thierry Henry’s handball is that not only has it ended the world cup dream for so many Irish players, but has ultimately cost the Irish economy-one of the few nations in a worst predicament than Britain- the vital economic boost that could have been experienced through the teams inclusion in next summers World cup.
But before we get into a French bashing campaign or a defence for Mr Henry from Uber-Loyal Gooners, it must be stated that the French have been on the receiving end of some controversial decisions themselves. And as for anyone who wishes to defend Monsieur Henry, there is evidence that this is not the first time the ex Arsenal forward has cheated the officials.
So we bring you…
Le Good, Le Bad and Le Ugly of French football
THE GOOD
EURO 2000 Final vs Italy
Euro 2004 Group game vs England
The French Resilience: As shown in the Euro 2000 final and Euro 2004 group tie with England, the French team of recent years have shown great resilience in coming back from behind to provide classic games in major tournaments.
THE BAD
Cheats: It is also unfortunate that the French national team has been linked with allegations of cheating in recent years and it may come as a surprise to some but Thierry Henry has been a serial offender over the last 3-4 years.
Exhibit A: World Cup 2006 R16 vs Spain
Exhibit B: World Cup 2006 QF vs Portugal
Exhibit C: World Cup 2010 Play off vs ROI
THE UGLY
The French national team have also been involved in some ugly encounters in yesteryears, with the Zinedine Zidane’s headbutting incident still fresh in our memory. Yet some of us are too young to have seen the German keeper Harald Schumacher’s assault on Patrick Battiston in the 1982 World Cup, which the French would argue to this day cost them World Cup glory.
‘Poor Alan Riley… enough is enough’ seems to be the universal call from all neutrals, after Sir Alex Ferguson’s rant about the referee’s fitness last week. But those of us that have been here before know that this is nothing more than an attempt by the United boss to direct the media attention away from a poor performance.
Sunderland’s unfortunate draw could have been the wake up call to the rest of the premier league needed to see that United are not anywhere near a championship winning form. Steve Bruce’s team showed that an ambitious 4-4-2 formation against the red devils is just what the doctor ordered a la Burnley, but once again the media frenzy has overshadowed the performance and I am pretty sure the next mid table club that faces United will resort to a negative 4-5-1 formation, leaving with nothing more than an increased deficit on their goal difference.
At some point over the last decade or so, every football manager to ever manage a premier league team other than United -obviously- has been on the receiving end of the wizardry tongue of Sir Alex Ferguson. But we would all be surprised and happy to know that his success rate isn’t exactly on the 100% mark, and that there has been a few successes in recent past.
In order to pinpoint the few men that stood their ground against the Scotsman, I guess its fitting to first highlight those who fell on the wayside and hopefully we can begin separate the boys from the special ones.
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INDIRECT TACTICS
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Fergie has a wide range of psychological tactics in his arsenal, but possibly the most lethal of the lot is his ability to indirectly push the opposing manager into a press conference rant about everything under the sun, other than their own football team.
Year:1996 Victim: Kevin Keegan Background: Alex Ferguson had previously suggested that premiership teams were playing ultra defensive against Man Utd, while taking it easy against Keegan’s Newcastle.
Year: 2009 Victim: Rafa Benitez Background: Alex Ferguson made suggestions that Liverpool’s lead at the top of the table would not last or as the reporter put it they will ‘choke’.
The infamous ‘I will love it if we beat them’ and Senor Rafa’s ”FACTS” rants are perfect examples of how managers have failed in an attempt to redirect the pressure towards United. Instead they end up putting more pressure on their own players, who -I am sure you have guessed- do not have any prior experience of being in a championship race.
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HOW TO NOT FALL IN THE TRAP?
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Shut Up! Its that simple, unless you have a CV that boasts in and around 20% of what Alex Ferguson has achieved in English football, just zip it. Because this tactic is not entirely targeted at the manager but the inexperienced players in the opposition. The aim is to stimulate doubt in the player minds whether they are indeed good enough to win the title off United. Hence it reads ‘off United’, because even when United are playing badly Ferguson knows how to keep them in everyone’s minds as title favourites, by overlooking performances such as the Sunderland’. Being that post-January happens to be the period where players look to their managers for the vote of confidence, any manager that shows any signs of weakness in the press is likely to be adding more fuel to the fire rather than defusing it.
This is why Sir Alex tends to only serve up this tactic to managers and teams who do not have any experience of winning an English title.
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WINNERS
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Kenny Daglish (1994-95): The then Blackburn Rovers manager already had two English league titles under his belt as player manager of Liverpool FC. So the Blackburn players knew they could look to King Kenny for the right vote of confidence. Plus Kenny was seen by many to be an honest bloke that never really got into war or words, instead had spokesmen like keeper Tim Flowers to answer Sir Alex’ attempt to question Blackburn’s bottle.
“Don’t talk to me about bottling it, cos that’s bottle out there. That’s quality players out there, giving their all … we’re gonna fight to the death, cos we’ve got bottle … all we can say is we’ll give exactly what we’ve given today, exactly what we’ve given all season, and that’s 100% bottle.” - Tim Flowers after making a string of super saves in a 1-0 win over Newcastle.
Arsene Wenger (1997-1998): Where Monsieur Wenger lacked on the CV, he made up for with a back four that boasted four players with two league titles under their belt. The likes of Steve Bould, Tony Adams, Lee Dixon and Nigel Winterburn were instrumental in the first title winning side of 1998. This later gave Wenger the platform along with players like Viera and Ray Parlour the experience required to overcome Fergies tactics. This could begin to explain why Arsenal have struggled to win the title since the exit of these experienced leaders.
Mourinho (2004-2005): Jose Mourinho came in with a CV that if compared to Ferguson’s -based on age- was far superior. At the age of 41, he had already beaten Sir Alex on the way to Champions league title. Morinho understood that the advantage Sir Alex Ferguson had over the other managers was his ability to control media through his mastering of press conferences. Therefore Jose was able to shut off Ferguson’s mind games with his first ever press conference, referring to himself as the special one, as if the Chelsea players needed any reminder that they had a winner in their camp.
NEXT WEEK ON THE FERGIE SERIES: HOW TO WIN THE BATTLE OVER THE REFEREES?
The first guy to say ‘never judge a book by its cover’ needs to get slapped with a wet fish, preferably back to back with the geezer that came up with ‘can’t have your cake and eat it.’ Because sometimes all we have to formulate a buying decision is a millisecond look at the cover be it of a book, film or music album.
Honestly does this cover from ‘Chicken Coupe de Ville’ scream out ‘Classic album’ to you? I thought so, its not quite your Beatles ‘Sgt Peppers..’, Nas ‘Illmatic’ Dizee’s ‘Boy in The Corner’ or Jay-Z ‘Blueprint’ cover, in fact along with the 1990’s No Limit and Cashmoney Record blinged out album covers, it demostrates the lack of any photoshop skills in the southern regions of America.
Looking at the albums below, I wish I could see the creative briefs for these covers, because something was definately lost in translation or a mixed up with a brief from another organisation.
SO LETS BEGIN. THIS COULD HAVE BEEN…
DARK AND LOVELY HAIR TEXTURISER COVER
ADVERT FOR THE WEST COAST GYNAECOLOGIST LTD
COVER FOR DISNEY’S LITTLE RED RIDING ‘IN’ THE HOOD
JOIN THE RAF ADVERTS
INSPIRATION TO BASHY’S ‘BISH, BASH, BOSH’ CLOTHING LINE
While the debate between FIFA and Pro evo fanatics over the more superior gaming platform continues, we could not help but look back to a time when the likes of Sensible soccer monopolised the football video game market. Back then, there were no debates about gameplay, realism, players faces or having the official team kits. Most of us were happy enough to be able to control our fleet of 2mega pixels men to world cup glory.
So join us on the journey from the imaginatively named unlicenced world beaters like Italy’s Raberta Beggio to modern day licence to thrill agents such as Cristiano Ronaldo.
1990: Italia 90 on SEGA
Many of us may have been too young to remember this game, but this title was the first of the football titles that tied itself up to a major tournament. No matter what your opinion is of this game, Italia 90 definately put the bird eyes view gaming on the map, and we applaud their attempt to make the ball look 3D by inflating its size when a long ball is played. NICE!
Ratings: 3.5/5
1992-1995: SNES Sensible Soccer
The forgotten son and probably the most popular football video game of the early 1990’s, the Sensible Soccer franchise was first released in 1992 through on AMIGA and PC gaming platform. Latter releases such as the popular title ”Sensible World Of Soccer European Championship Edition” (below) on the SNES plaform, put the franchise on the map.
Ratings: 4/5
1995-1997: International Superstar Soccer Deluxe
November 1995, saw the birth of a game which pushed the boundary so far that all major footballing game developers had to take note. This game was International Superstar Soccer Deluxe on the SNES. EA got alot of praise for the FIFA Soccer 94 game, which moved from the bird eyes view into the side view gaming, but it was Konami’s introduction on 360 degree control and all round gameplay that many of us fell in love with. And who can forget the scenario options, which allowed you to replay famous tence minutes of past football classic games like 10 men Brazil in the 1994 World Cup vs the USA, giving the player 2 minutes to take the Samba boys to glory. GENUIS!
Ratings: 5/5
1997-1998: FIFA 97-99/ ISS 98
The FIFA years cannot be disputed even by the biggest Pro Evo enthusiast. FIFA 97 was the first of footballing game platform which used the motion capture technology and even had the indoor option for the 5 a side lovers. FIFA 98: Road to the World Cup had improved AI and was the first series to feature a licenced soundtrack, Blur’s Song 2. But during that same period Konami released ISS Pro and ISS Pro 98 on the N64 and PS1 platform, which was called an instant classic by many for its realistic game play and difficulty in scoring. While on FIFA a good player could batter his mates 12-0, on ISS, you would struggle to get a 3-0 win over your 10 year old brother. The FIFA 99 game saw the indoor option get kicked off the series aswell as massive improvement in fluidicity and overall AI of the game.
FIFA Ratings: 4/5 ISS 98 ratings: 4.5/5
ISS 98
FIFA 97-99
2001-2007: Pro Evolution Soccer 1-7
2000 saw some poor titles from both Konami and EA, with FIFA 200 and ISS 64 not living up to their previous successes. Then in 2001 Konami decided to merge the Winning Eleven platform with the ISS franchise to bring to the market the Pro Evolution Soccer titles. The franchise controlled the football gaming market for an impressive 6 years and dubbed ‘the greatest football game’ for half a decade.
2008-2009: FIFA revival 08 and 09
Complacency is detrimental to sustaining success in any industry, and over the last two years Konami have shown a level of complacency that has enabled FIFA to overtake the crown, by improving its gameplay and AI once more.
After going through all these classic games, I guess the question is WHAT IS NEXT?
After a good 20 minute scout of some our favourite US sneaker sites, we are able to bring you a few images of what ‘Nikey’ is working on for the coming winter and early spring 2010. Although there seems to be a few images available, the images below are of trainers that we consider to be worth our readers consideration. But if you are into the Jordans and basketball trainers then feel free to check out Kicksonfire.
n many cases, the built-in Text Widget can be used to add new abilities to your sidebar. The Widget Plugin allows you to specify how many text widgets you need. Once you have specified the number of text widgets you need, each of those widgets is added to the "Available Widgets" column in the Presentation, Sidebar Widget Administration Panel.
n many cases, the built-in Text Widget can be used to add new abilities to your sidebar. The Widget Plugin allows you to specify how many text widgets you need. Once you have specified the number of text widgets you need, each of those widgets is added to the "Available Widgets" column in the Presentation, Sidebar Widget Administration Panel.
n many cases, the built-in Text Widget can be used to add new abilities to your sidebar. The Widget Plugin allows you to specify how
While the debate between FIFA and Pro evo fanatics over the more superior gaming platform continues, we could not help but look back to a time when the likes of Sensible soccer monopolised the football video game market. Back then, there were no debates about gameplay, realism, players faces or having the official team kits. Most of us were happy enough to be able to control our fleet of 2mega pixels men to world cup glory.
