Search: 'Brazil'

The arrival of a Chechen billionaire has cause some strange developments at Swiss club Neuchatel Xamas, Paul Joyce investigates the new owner’s erratic influence

When Chechen billionaire Bulat Chagaev became the new owner of Neuchâtel Xamax in May, many supporters were optimistic. Swiss champions in 1987 and 1988, Xamax had struggled to stay in the Super League since promotion in 2007. Chagaev, who is also the main sponsor of Terek Grozny, promised to raise the club’s annual budget to CHF30 million (£23m). “We will quickly take on the most incredible challenges in Europe, starting with the Champions League,” he predicted.

Read more…

The big teams in South America are facing a serious challenge and there could be more to come. Sam Kelly explains

When the trophy was presented after the final of the 2011 Copa América on Sunday July 24, it was to a burst of sky-blue-and-white confetti. That much was not unexpected. Argentina were, after all, the pre-tournament favourites as well as the hosts. But, at the end of a momentous competition full of upsets, they weren’t the victors. The colours were instead being blasted skyward to celebrate the victory of the hosts’ neighbours and rivals from across the Río de la Plata, Uruguay.

Looking back over the history of the tournament, Uruguay’s win isn’t a triumph for the little men. It is difficult to paint it as such when it took them one clear of Argentina on to a record 15 Copas. But the fact remains that 18 months ago, when they had just barely scraped qualification for the 2010 World Cup, few would have had Óscar Washington Tabárez’s men down as potential winners of that tournament (or, of course, semi-finalists in South Africa).

The story of this year’s Copa has not been one of thrilling matches, even if a good number of them were more interesting than the scorelines suggest. It has, though, been one of unexpected results. The third favourites won it, which is not that far out (although the gap in the odds on betting markets between Uruguay and second favourites and holders Brazil was huge), but they beat Paraguay in the final. And a glance at the teams who played in the third-place play-off the previous day confirms the picture of a tournament in which the continent’s old order has been emphatically overturned.

That match was a 4-1 win for Peru over a Venezuela side who, in reaching the semi-finals, had won two matches – that’s two more than Paraguay, the team who edged them (and Brazil) out via penalty shootouts. Both Peru and Venezuela have come an awfully long way in a very short time. Just before the previous Copa América, which they hosted in 2007, Venezuela were still widely referred to as the continent’s whipping boys, and it was difficult to see where improvement was coming from.

They reached the quarter-finals of their own Copa, and months later appointed César Farías as manager. Farías has also taken charge of the youth sides for some games, and his knowledge of the whole national set-up has been a big plus for them.

Peru have, unlike Venezuela, had some great moments in their past, but were coming to this Copa from an even lower point. They finished rock bottom of the South American qualifying group for the 2010 World Cup, with only three wins. Even those who had a feeling this Copa was going to be one for the underdogs never dreamed Peru would go far.

Their experienced Uruguayan manager Sergio Markarián – who managed Tabárez when the latter was a player at Bella Vista – provided perhaps the off-pitch moment of the tournament when he let rip in a press conference after a question about why his side were so defensive. “It’s easy to say ‘Oh, we’re very attack-minded’ when you’ve got the kind of players they [Chile]have,” he said, before exclaiming: “The day has to be close when we [the ‘smaller’ nations] expect more even standards of refereeing.” Peru did open up when they had the chance, and striker Paolo Guerrero actually ended up as the tournament’s top scorer courtesy of his hat-trick in the third-place play-off. Tabárez was undoubtedly the best manager of the Copa, but Markarián has surely been the most influential in the long term.

If this really is the end of the old order, what lies ahead for Brazil and Argentina? At the time of writing the latter have just parted company with manager Sergio Batista and Alejandro Sabella, the former Sheffield United and Leeds midfielder, looks the most likely replacement. As someone who has actually worked as a coach and manager before, he would be an improvement on Argentina’s last two bosses, Batista and Diego Maradona.

Brazil’s situation is trickier to read. They were always treating the Copa more as a chance to build for the future, and Mano Menezes is highly unlikely to lose his job as a result of the quarter-final exit to Paraguay. All the same, having no competitive matches (discounting the Confederations Cup) between now and the World Cup they will host in 2014 will be a problem for the development of a young team.
It could mean there are yet more chances for the previously smaller nations to improve further and close the gap to the more traditional powerhouses. And with the next World Cup final to be held in the Maracanã, scene of their greatest triumph in 1950, new South American champions Uruguay might be forgiven for hoping they will be riding the wave of that momentum.

From WSC 295 September 2011

A change in political tactics by the North Korean regime is being enacted through the export of promising footballers, writes John Duerden

It was the definition of optimism. The Reuters reporter stood with microphone in hand after North Korea’s 3-0 defeat to Ivory Coast at the 2010 World Cup hoping to catch a word with the vanquished. Every grim-faced player was asked “Do you speak English?” as he filed past. To say the silence was stony would be kind.

Only the last one out was happy to speak. Jung Tae-se made front pages around the world for crying during the national anthem prior to kick-off against Brazil and was equally forthcoming about the reasons why his team lost and what needed to be done in the future before the visibly annoyed team manager came back to drag him on to the bus.

Next time around Jung may still be the lone striker but not the sole speaker. North Korea believe that the best way to ensure that there actually is a next time is to engage with the international football community on a more consistent basis. For a country that is rarely mentioned in the western media without “secretive” somewhere in the headline it is quite a shift, but the World Cup reinforced a growing feeling that isolationism in football is more stupid than splendid if you want success.

Just weeks after the tournament ended, the government split the North Korean FA in two. The larger section deals with international affairs and was put under the control, not of the party but of the military, headed by Kim Jong-il’s heir Kim Jong-un, thought to be more of a fan of basketball than football.

When qualification for the 2014 World Cup starts in September, the majority of the North Korea starting 11 could be foreign-based, travelling home for matches from such destinations as Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Russia and Denmark (and even Mongolia, now the home of Kim Myung-won, the striker who the team tried to register as a goalkeeper last summer). There could even be movement north across the 38th parallel but only when conservative South Korean president Lee Myung-bak, blamed by Pyongyang for most of the problems on the peninsula, steps down in 2013.

By that time striker Ri Myong-jun and midfielder Jong Il-ju will be approaching the end of their contracts with second-tier Danish club FC Vestsjaellend. The players were just 20 when they arrived on trial last year and did enough to be handed lengthier deals. The club chairman had had some contact with North Korea in the past but, even so, the deal was not a simple process, despite the relative enthusiasm for the idea of exporting talent. “It is not an easy country to sign players from,” said coach Micheal Schjonberg. “It’s like in the old East Germany. They are employed by the military, which belongs to the government. Importing exotic animals would be easier with all the bureaucracy but there is talent there.”

Ove Pedersen replaced Schjonberg at the beginning of July and is happy with his Asian contingent. “I don’t know about North Korea’s plan to get more international experience but here the two players are learning to play football in a different style than what they are accustomed to,” he said. “They will develop as players and become more skilful. They pass well and although their shooting could be better they are young and will make progress. Ri is the better player of the two. He is a player for the bench at the moment but that may change soon. Jong has more to learn but that will happen as the good thing about them is that they both work hard and want to learn. It is difficult to communicate with them but they are learning English and doing well in training.”

Having two North Koreans at the same club means that they can support each other off the pitch in a very foreign environment, but they are also trying to fit in with their team-mates. “With foreign players, you can see when the players accept them or don’t accept them,” said Pedersen. “I can see that our players accept them. They are part of the group.”

It is a trend that is going to continue with more North Koreans heading overseas and it is only a matter of time before one arrives in England. When that happens, it doesn’t mean that every North Korean footballer will be desperate to talk to the press but at least journalists will be able to spot the ones that don’t – they’ll be wearing oversized headphones and talking into mobile phones.

From WSC 295 September 2011

Lyon’s huge investment has had a damaging effect on the club and on player development. But sympathy is limited, says James Eastham

For football fans that feel a sense of schadenfreude when big-spending clubs fall short of their targets, Lyon have provided plenty to smile about in the past three seasons. Shortly after the club won their seventh consecutive league title in 2007-08, president Jean-Michel Aulas decided the way to achieve their ultimate goal of adding the Champions League to their list of honours would be to embark on a spending spree bigger and bolder than anything that had taken place before in France.

Three years and tens of millions of wasted euros later, Lyon are counting the cost of what turned out to be a recklessly expensive policy. Aulas has admitted his strategy proved spectacularly unsuccessful, although it would have been difficult for him to argue otherwise considering his previously all-conquering side have failed to win a single trophy since deciding to go for broke. Reaching the Champions League semi-finals for the first time in their history briefly stemmed the criticism, but that momentary high 16 months ago cannot mask the wider failings of an ill-advised plan.

There’s usually a fall guy in these situations and at Lyon it’s Claude Puel. He was the manager Aulas hired in 2008 to maintain Lyon’s domestic dominance while guiding the side towards European glory. He failed on both fronts despite receiving a level of financial support his predecessors never enjoyed. It was anything but a surprise when the club sacked him at the end of last season. Equally predictably, the affair has now turned bitter, with Puel demanding that the final, unfulfilled year of his contract is paid up. “Having backed him against everyone’s advice, I expected him to behave with more dignity. I put everything in place for him to succeed here,” growled Aulas.

The president has a point, in that he gave Puel bags of money, but looking at how the funds were spent it’s easy to see why Lyon came unstuck. Fees such as €18 million (£16m) for Brazil international Michel Bastos, €14.5m on Jean Makoun – sold for less than half that to Aston Villa last January – and the €14m gamble on a midfielder called Ederson appear more absurd the longer you stare at them.

An overall outlay of €163.5m from 2008 to 2010 in transfer fees alone felt misguided at the time – as if by spending money Lyon would automatically graduate to a higher plane of European football – and looks like seriously bad business when set against the smarter activities of their main domestic rivals during the same period. Marseille’s net spend was around €30m less, yet they ended a trophy drought going back 17 years by winning the league and two league cups. Even more alarmingly, four of Lyon’s signings each cost more than the entire Lille squad that claimed the league and cup double in style last May.

This combination of poor results and unsustainable spending levels has persuaded Aulas to change tack – the idea from now on is to operate along more austere lines. Aulas has replaced Puel with one-time Arsenal captain Rémi Garde, who was assistant to former Lyon managers Paul Le Guen and Gérard Houllier. His experience of heading up the club’s youth scheme should prove useful.

With money running out, Lyon will turn back to the highly regarded training academy that has produced France internationals Karim Benzema, Hatem Ben Arfa and Loïc Rémy over the past decade, but was effectively mothballed by the previous regime. One of the major frustrations of Puel’s final 12 months in charge was that Lyon had five members of France’s 2010 European Under-19 Championship-winning squad on their books but the manager ignored them even though first team performances were below par. After being thwarted by what Aulas now calls “the elitist policy of recent seasons”, this exciting generation of youngsters will finally get a chance to impress.

Garde has been handed a one-year deal but frugality seems to be a long-term proposal. Aulas says the club will sell players consistently over the next few seasons to get their finances in order as they prepare for life in the new 60,000-seat stadium they hope to move into before Euro 2016. And while expectations remain high – a top-three finish is the aim – there will inevitably be less pressure on Garde than Puel because of the financial constraints within which he’s working.

One of the enduring joys of football is that money doesn’t guarantee success. There are plenty of neutrals who believe if a more prudent Lyon get their hands on a trophy, it would be a victory not only for the club but also the wider French game.

From WSC 295 September 2011

Georgina Turner went to Germany to watch the 2011 Women’s World Cup, which had underdog winners, individual skill and a welcoming atmosphere

I don’t make a habit of arm-wrestling strangers for the bar bill, but we’ve been in Wolfsburg for hours, and Robert and Tilo haven’t let anyone else buy a round yet. People are in town for the Women’s World Cup and in FIFA’s fan mile – essentially an oversized wedding marquee, with widescreen TVs and a Beatles tribute act (“All you need is luff, la la lalalah”) – the mood is wunderbar.

Read more…