Search: 'shirts'

Once upon a time Chivas were just a Mexican club. Now they are part of an international branding exercise involving football, cola and dietry supplements, reports Martin del Palacio Langer

Football fans in Mexico were suspicious of Jorge Vergara when he announced his intention to buy the country’s most popular club, Chivas of Guadalajara, in 2002. Not least because his nutrition company, Omnilife, had sponsored Chivas’ arch-rivals Atlas the season before. When Vergara became interested, Chivas, whose large following stems from their policy of fielding only Mexicans, were in crisis. They were owned, like Barcelona, by their members, but for eight years had been run by a separate entity, the Promotora Deportiva Guadalajara, which initially injected large amounts of money but ran out of funds.

Read more…

Ian Wright has quit the BBC to present Gladiators on Sky. Some are delighted, but his unique style will be lost, writes Cameron Carter

It hasn’t been the most resonant resignation. Ian Wright has severed his links with the BBC’s football coverage, complaining that the corporation had lost touch with real fans and that he had been cast in the role of “comedy jester” in his appearances as a pundit. For the sake of accuracy, Wright is not so much resigning as making himself unavailable, as his role was always a freelance one and, with the BBC losing the rights to live England games and FA Cup games from August, his future appearances would have been irregular at best. Patrick Mower declining to appear on any further editions of Give Us A Clue because Una Stubbs and Lionel Blair didn’t understand how the kids related to mime would be a workable comparison.

Read more…

What are the expectations for the team?
Enormous and unrealistic. The recent friendly results have started to calm down expectant fans. But most people in Switzerland know next to nothing about football so they still think we are a great team and can win it.

Are there any players who have appeared in TV commercials?
Most of the players are involved in ads for Carlsberg, one of the team’s main sponsors, and for Swiss Federal Railways, where such players as Ludovic Magnin and Philippe Senderos expound the virtues of travelling by train. In the case of Senderos, you can just imagine him sitting in one, mouth agape, listening to his iPod. Alexander Frei, who is the figurehead of Swiss football, has done ads for Nike and Familia, a brand of muesli. He’s also promoted JVC and Mazda and whenever a Swiss version of a football game comes out, he’ll be on the box here. Tranquillo Barnetta does adverts for a children charity run by McDonald’s and VW. Coach Köbi Kuhn is fronting a campaign for T-shirts sold at Denner, a Swiss supermarket chain.

Is the coach popular?
Not any more, especially now that Ottmar Hitzfeld is joining after Euro 2008. The main tabloid, Blick, even suggested getting rid of Kuhn before the tournament.

Which players are good interviewees and who are the worst?
Senderos and Johan Djourou are very affable and make themselves readily available for interviews with local papers. Frei has a reputation for speaking honestly though he is also said to hold some fairly right-wing opinions.

Are then any players with unusual hobbies or business interests?
Swiss players are generally very ordinary. Some quite enjoy going for a hike in the mountains or prefer to just stroll around town like every other Swiss citizen. However, Daniel Gygax is an amateur DJ and has been known to miss training sessions at Metz due to his commitments to nightlife.

What will the media coverage be like?
Coverage quality on TV depends very much on where you are in the country: populist and positive in the German part; analytic and uncomplacent in the Italian part; amateurish and shambolic in the French part. The coverage as a whole is getting quite strident. The two best known ex-players working as pundits the monosyllabic are Stéphane Chapuisat on the Swiss-French TV channel, who makes Alan Shearer sound like Stephen Fry, and Kubilay Turkyilmaz on the Swiss-Italian channel, who is grumpy but interesting and critical.

Will there be any rehearsed goal celebrations?
Probably. Some are hoping for one on a Swiss theme such as William Tell or Swiss wrestling, which involves grabbing your opponent by his pants and throwing him around.

Do Swiss fans have any favourite chants or songs?
There are quite a lot of songs but in several languages, so those that are sung by everybody are rather simple. The Schweizer Nati (Swiss Nation) chant was quite spectacular in 2006, but it did worry the hosts as Swiss Germans pronounce “Nati” as in “Nazi”.

Yuri Goffinet
Thanks to Cartonrouge.ch

After seven titles in ten seasons St Etienne failed to go onto greater things, but Michel Platini's star would keep rising by James Eastham

The long-term significance
St-Etienne, the swashbuckling side of the 1970s, won their third consecutive title and seventh in ten seasons – but this triumph marked the end of their dynasty. A single league title followed, in 1981, when Michel Platini was their talisman – and then nothing since. In their famous green shirts they became the first French club since Reims in 1959 to reach the European Cup final, losing 1-0 to Franz Beckenbauer’s Bayern Munich after hitting the woodwork twice.

Read more…

São Caetano weren’t founded until 1989 yet rose rapidly to the pinnacle of the South American game, only to fall at the last hurdle and slip back as the richer giants reasserted themselves. Robert Shaw reports

Brazil’s most consistent club at the start of this decade were not one of the major names. Instead it was Associação Desportiva São Caetano, a club that rose from the third division of the São Paulo state league to upset the establishment before returning to near obscurity six years later.

Read more…