Search: ' Spain'

Should there be a winter break for the Premiership? Two writers air their conflicting views

Yes ~
In the past few years, English football has acquired some continental habits. The ability to pass the ball to someone wearing the same coloured shirt is now quite highly valued. The replacement of beer by pasta in the diet continues apace. Mainland European coaching is taking hold at the highest level. And now the momentum is at last building to­wards the implementation of a winter break. The Prem­iership should follow its counterparts in Italy, Ger­many and France and give the players three weeks off.

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Thursday 1 The Football League lose their court case against ITV Digital on the basis that the TV companies were not contractually bound to pay the full amount owed, £178.5 million of which is outstanding. The League may sue the legal advisers who drew up the contract with Carlton and Granada. Bradford City come out of administration after agreeing a repayment schedule with their creditors. Chairman Geoffrey Richmond is remorseful about the club’s over-spending: “I wish I had played it a different way. It looked right at the time though.” Dave Watson is sacked by Tranmere. Debt-ridden Fiorentina go bust, but may be allowed to restart in Italy’s fourth division.

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Dear WSC
While I was not one of the 100,000 “strange folks” that travelled to Phoenix Park to welcome the Irish team home from the World Cup – the event had become less of a homecoming and more of a bad cabaret night – I do not agree with Paul Doyle that those that made the trip were basking in mediocrity (WSC 186). It’s true to say that our players, most of whom are very ordinary, might have gone further. It is also true to say almost every other country is thinking the same thing, from Italy and Spain feeling robbed, to Costa Rica missing a sitter in the last min­ute against the eventual third place side. The people who did go to the park may have done so for any number of reasons, the most obvious one being to thank the players for giving everything and entertaining us along the way. For many kids it was just the chance to see their heroes. (They may even have gone just to see Westlife.) Showing support for your team is what supporters do, and Irish fans have always appreciated it when a team has given their all. Just because Roy doesn’t like it doesn’t make it wrong.
Rónán Barrett, Dublin

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Is Terry Venables really any good as a coach? Leeds' new manager is the subject of this month's Head to Head

Yes ~
I met Terry Venables once. He’d brought out a rather bizarre board game called The Man­ager and was trying to sell it as a TV pro­gramme. I was hired to answer the quiz ques­tions on it in front of some BBC big­wigs. They didn’t take it up and I had to spend the morning with Eric Hall, so it wasn’t a suc­cessful day.

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Barcelona fans are coming to terms with the arrival of Louis van Gaal and the departure of Rivaldo. Strangely, says Phil Ball, they might see it as a fair swap

As in the Middle Ages, when physical ugliness was considered to be a sign of a dysfunctional soul, the Spanish cannot bring themselves to say anything nice about Louis van Gaal – El Enano Veneno (the poisoned dwarf) as they dubbed him during his first mandate with Barcelona from 1997 to 2000. Laurent Blanc, after his brief sojourn at the Camp Nou, called him “inhuman”, and Win­ston Bogarde said he found him “heartless. He has no compassion – like a robot.”

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