TOUGH TO GET AMERICANS TO EMBRACE A SPORT THAT LACKS JUSTICE:

After Big Sam vented his anger at Dowd, stats show top clubs DO win more penalties (SUNNI UPAL, 17 January 2013, Daily Mail)



‘It’s got to be that simple. Phil Dowd was in the perfect position. Rafael pushes the ball away with his left arm. No penalty. Go to the other end and the ball hits Jordan’s hand. If you give one you have to give both, simple as that.

‘I’ve looked at the referee’s position for the Rafael one and it is perfect - straight in line and right in front of it. He had a worse position for Jordan’s.’

Well 'Big Sam' might be right as stats show that the top three clubs have been awarded the most penalties this season.

The top three sides in the Premier League, Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea, have been awarded the most penalties this season with Arsenal close behind.

THEY ARE RISEN:

Rodgers' revival gains impetus with Suarez the miracle worker (The Independent, 1/02/13)

There has always been something of the revivalist preacher about Brendan Rodgers and it seemed tonight that his future might just work.

Daniel Sturridge, the striker on whom the Liverpool manager has just invested £12m, was looking down from the directors’ box. Luis Suarez’s case to be the footballer of the year was looking irresistible and there was one fabulous passing move that involved Stewart Downing and Jordan Henderson, men whom Anfield imagined were beyond redemption.

As the teams trotted on for the second half, the loudspeakers played a song by a Manchester band whose lead singer is a fervent United supporter. The choice of The Stone Roses seemed less important than the lyrics to “I am the Resurrection”. 

IMAGINE WHAT HE'D DO WITH THE USMNT?:

Europe's meanest defences: Bayern, Juventus, PSG, Malaga and... Stoke (LAURA WILLIAMSON, 23 December 2012, Daily Mail)

CONSISTENT SELECTION

Ryan Shawcross and Robert Huth have started every Premier League game in central defence for Stoke this season. Compare that to Steven Caulker of Spurs, who has partnered Michael Dawson, William Gallas and Jan Vertonghen. [...]

DEFENDING DEEP

Stoke’s back four seem to squeeze the final third of the pitch, leaving no space behind for their opponents to exploit. It took Tottenham at least 20 minutes to realise Jermain Defoe was not going to be effective playing as the most advanced striker because there was no opportunity to sprint on to a through ball - or anything delivered over the top. 

Emmanuel Adebayor was sent up to do aerial battle with Shawcross and Huth, but there was no chance for Defoe to pounce on the second ball.

WHO’S GEOFF CAMERON?

Stoke’s right back on Saturday used to play for Rhode Island Stingrays. The USA international has been quietly impressive since his move from Houston Dynamo last summer. Not many players frustrate Gareth Bale so much that he moves to the right wing.

HEIGHT

Aaron Lennon had no chance on Saturday, did he? Stoke’s back four lines up like a rugby second row: Cameron (6ft 3in), Huth (6ft 3in), Shawcross (6ft 3in) and Wilkinson (5ft 11in). They seize advantage at corners and set-pieces and force opponents to play the ball to feet.

GREAT PRE-GAME STAT...:

Rodgers delighted with improving Downing (ESPN Star,  23rd December 2012)

Downing has now started seven of the last eight matches, five of which have come in the league after previously making just one start in the opening-day defeat at West Brom.

His brilliant reverse-pass was instrumental in setting up Steven Gerrard for Liverpool's important second after Martin Skrtel's superb volley.

Then came the moment he had waited for, smashing his first league goal for the club he joined in July 2011, before Luis Suarez scored his 11th league goal of the season in added time.

"He is a good guy, he comes in every day to work hard and you saw his technique and quality yesterday [Saturday] but equally important was his fight," said Rodgers of Downing's display.

"He was clever in his pressing and I spoke to him again the other day just to thank him because in the last few weeks he's played left-back, left wing and right wing and he hasn't moaned and groaned he's got on with it.

"He is playing well at the moment and he fully deserved his man-of-the-match award."

Liverpool's win moved them up to eighth, their highest position of the campaign, and within five points of the top four.


...that Downing had created 60 scoring chances since arriving but the team had converted none.

WHY NOT WONDOLOWSKI?:

Stand-in Shelvey hailed after leading Liverpool to victory at West Ham (LAURIE WHITWELL, 9 December 2012, DailyMail)


‘In this country it’s always been traditional — the target man. 

‘But 20-year-old Jonjo Shelvey was dropping into midfield, combining to make the fourth man and being a threat when he was in the box. Great credit to him because there was a lot of pressure on him, people trying to compare him to Luis Suarez.’

Asked if he had feared the loss of the 13-goal Uruguayan would prove critical, Rodgers replied: ‘You guys did. For us there was no drama. My focus was about the collective. We must share the goals, we must share the workload. I had great belief we could create goals and score goals. Even without Luis you’ve seen the quality in the team and the fight.’

The extraordinary story of Raheem Sterling ( MARTHA KELNER, 27 October 2012, Daily Mail)



His journey to one of the most fearsome cauldrons in football began almost 5,000 miles away in a notoriously dangerous district of Kingston, Jamaica, where he lived until he was six, when he emigrated to Britain and settled with his family on one of London's toughest estates. 

His remarkable story is a glorious example of how parents, schools and football clubs can combine to turn sporting talent into success in even the most difficult circumstances.

Chris Beschi, who taught Sterling at Vernon House Special School, says it is testament to his strength of character and the support system around him that he is on the path to fulfilling his sizeable potential.

'He came to Vernon House because he was having problems in mainstream primary school with his behaviour,' said Beschi. 'He was definitely the kid in the school who had a kind and innocent passion about him. He had a happy nature that would sometimes tip over into anger.'

Beschi added: 'I remember saying to him as a 10-year-old, "If you carry on the way you're going, by the time you're 17 you'll either be playing for England or you'll be in prison". It was a harsh thing to say and I don't think it was a defining moment for him, but I definitely felt it was true.

'There wasn't going to be a middle ground for him. He wasn't going to be some guy working as a mechanic or a labourer. He was always going to be remarkable.'

Sterling was the tiny boy with a huge smile in a class of troubled youngsters.

Beschi would walk a mile with them every week, across a trading estate, to take pictures of a building site where often nothing much changed at all.

It took far longer than anticipated but, before Sterling's eyes, the new Wembley Stadium was completed.

The iconic arch became a backdrop to his junior football career, visible from his home on St Raphael's estate in Neasden, north-west London, where he shunned gangs to play five-a-side with friends, and the Copland High School playing fields, in nearby Wembley, where he honed his game.

Last month, Sterling, already an England Under-21 player, sat on the bench at Wembley with Gary Cahill and Michael Carrick as an unused substitute in his first senior call-up.

YOU HAVE TO MAKE YOUR ECONOMY SUCCESSFUL ENOUGH TO PRICE THE THUGS OUT OF THE STADIA:

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME : In Argentina, rival soccer fans don’t just hate, they kill, and the violent partisans of top clubs fuel crime syndicates that influence the sport at its highest levels. Patrick Symmes braves the bottle rockets, howling mobs, urine bombs, and drunken grannies on a wild ride through the scariest fútbol underworld on earth. (Patrick Symmes, October 2012, Outside)

I’VE BEEN FASCINATED—OR should I say terrified—by Argentina’s violent brand of soccer since 1996, when I saw the Buenos Aires team Boca Juniors play in their notoriously tight little stadium, La Bombonera. Boca is famous for the quality of its play but also for its fan club—La Doce, the 12th Man—which has occupied the same north terrace for half a century, always standing, always singing, usually fighting.

That night, Boca fans began the match in style, igniting Roman candles that spewed red flames, sparks, and smoke over their heads. Enormous blue-and-gold flags unfurled from the upper levels. It was intimidating to watch from the opposite end, where I stood with a few thousand supporters of a team called Gimnasia, 50,000 people hating on me and my new friends.

The unaccountable happened: the unheralded Gimnasia handed Boca its worst defeat in half a century, a 6–0 stomper that sent waves of Boca fans crashing against the fencing that protected us. Trash and cups filled with urine rained down on us. Fleeing with Gimnasia fans, I found the streets of a great capital awash in cavalry and tear gas.

Don’t cry for Argentina. Brazil may be more famous as a soccer nation, the beautiful game embodied today by the 20-year-old juggler Neymar. And Europe remains soccer’s ­center of gravity: English clubs like Manchester United and Chelsea rule the global bandwidth, and Spanish clubs have ruled the pitch, bringing home two European champion­ships in the past five years.

Yet, often enough the Europeans get there with an Argentine: Barcelona’s striker is the shaggy-haired, fertile-footed Lionel Messi, the dominant player of this age. Sergio “Kun” Agüero and Carlos Tévez, who led Manchester City to this year’s league championship, are both Argentines. So is Paris Saint-­Germain’s Javier Pastore. In 2009, Argentina surpassed Brazil as the world’s top producer of soccer talent, farming out 1,700 players to professional leagues abroad. Soccer goes deep here—the first league was founded in 1891, the third-oldest in the world after England and the Netherlands.

But what Argentina really excels at is not so much the play of soccer as the bloodsucking financial exploitation and mob atmosphere that accompanies it. Corruption, of course, is nothing new in the sport. Italian teams are suffering their second ­major gambling scandal in six years, with reports of one player drugging his own team. Sepp Blatter, the four-time president of soccer’s global body, FIFA—the Fédération Internationale de Football Association—has set a low standard, trailed by clouds of bribery allegations and the same marketing scandal that recently brought down Brazil’s longtime soccer boss Ricardo Teixeira.