2009

Great Midfields – Guardian / Observer

This is from the Guardian SportsBlog (Click here)

Nice list. All six are credits to football; although I have not seen the Everton or Liverpool midfields and have seen only grainy footage of Didi and Garrincha…

If i were to make a list, it would surely include

- The France Euro ‘00 midfield

     Djorkaeff – Vieira – Deschamps – Zidane 

    (with a backup of Pires, Petit, Karembeu and Micoud)

- The famous Arsenal midfield of the Invincible year 

   Ljungberg – Edu – Vieira - Pires 

(p.s. wonderful to see the Platini – Tigana – Giresse – Fernandez quartet, one of my first football memories…)

I am a plastic fan. This is my defense. Our defense.

I am what you call a plastic fan. Of Arsenal. And Barcelona. I am from Bangalore, India, and here’s my defense. And that of the millions that you ridicule every day.
I love the game. Having been initiated into football via the magical skills of Diego Madarona in ‘86, I cannot think of life without the game. I have played the game at a reasonable level, and still try to manage a game every weekend. Not very different from you, am I?
I have an Indian club I love, Mohun Bagan AC. I don’t stay in my city of origin, Kolkata (Mohun Bagan is from that city), anymore, so I don’t get to go to the stadium too many times anymore (Bangalore to Kolkata is 2000 miles, yes, that was 2000 miles), I used to be a regular. I wept after a defeat, especially to our eternal rivals, East Bengal FC. I was jubilant after wins. I still am, watching the matches on TV. I am what you call a normal football fan, I love my club.
Just like you love Huddersfield. Just like you love Bradford, just like you love Derby.
But I also love the game itself. And I am honest enough to accept that Mohun Bagan, or East Bengal, or Dempo, or Mahindra Utd. , don’t really provide that kind of football. That does not make me love my club any less, that just makes me want to get a chance to watch and enjoy better football too.
And therefore came the Premiership. And therefore came the Primera Liga. I love how well they play the game I love in your country. And in Spain. There is the television, and I don’t miss a match.
I am watching the league from 1998 (that is about the time when the Premier League started being aired regularly in Indian TV, thank you Star Sports / ESPN), I was 18 then. Tony Adams is my hero, and Dennis Bergkamp is only second to Diego Maradona in the God-stakes, in my book. I HATE Luis Figo, he’s the real Judas. I am jubilant when Arsenal wins, I am dejected when Arsenal loses. I follow every match, I follow the post-season, and just like you, I wanted us to have a holding midfielder too. And no, I didn’t want Alonso, I wanted Toulalan. Ah, wishes… I am a fan.
And yes, I have been to your stadia (not to the Emirates or Highbury, sadly. Never stayed in England long enough to manage that yet), and I know that the tears that you cry when your club loses will never be the same as my sadness at an Arsenal defeat. But I know the tears, I have cried them after a Bagan loss.
But does it mean that our sadness at an Arsenal defeat counts for nothing? We came to the premiership looking for great football, we found a club we would like to follow, and we followed the club. And devoted we have been, for the last ten years. And yes we don’t have perspective; they started showing the Premier League on TV only ten years ago. I thought we did the best we could as fans. Where did we go wrong?
I thought it was the universal game.
- Godof86 (don’t ever say ‘third world’ again without knowing what the word originates from), Arsenal, Barcelona and Mohun Bagan.

Theo!

And what is shock to you, is glad surprise for us… we knew it all along. And saw glimpses last season.

This season, gentlemen and ladies, will be the one of the emergence….

For Arsenal, for England.

Croatia – England 1-4

Theo Walcott scores a hat-trick.

Salaam Stanley Matthews – Review

As you know, I am in the process of reading the educated, researched and serious book on football in India that is ‘Goalless’ (It is good, but does take time.. the next in the pipeline is ‘The Ball is Round’ by David Goldblatt, another tome… but hey, I like research stuff). But in the meantime, due to the holiday on Monday (Labor Day in the US, godbless), I could take time off from Goalless, and finish off ‘Salaam Stanley Matthews’ by Subrata Dasgupta. Now this is not really a sports/ football book as such, but is a memoir of Dasgupta’s when he was in England (Nottingham, and then Derby) between ages 5 to 13. It does focus a lot of attention to life in England as an Indian immigrant, and yes, football, and the crown prince of English football at that time, Stanley Matthews, does have a significant part to play in the book.

I liked the book. There is little pretense, and Dasgupta’s writing is direct and honest. He writes it as he sees it, and does not over-dramatize. The travails of the Indian upper-class boy from snooty high-end Kolkata post-independence in egalitarian England, the whole growing-up saga, is expressed is reasonable detail, and flows smoothly as a nice, consistent read. While I am not from snooty high-end upper-class stock, and I was never affected by the peculiar situation that Dasgupta describes as …

I was, instead, quite unwittingly, the kind of person Thomas Macaulay in the 19th century had talked of when he wrote of persons “Indian in blood or color but English in taste”

… I do relate to the Bengali up-bringing well enough for Dasgupta’s memoirs to be relevant and interesting. And anyway, sport followers are all knit from the same fabric. The normal ways of hero-worshipping the sporting star, following the local club, the very personal joy of the triumph of the favorite club and the despair at a loss, they all ring true. There have been similar personal experiences as well.

 

And I would like you to savor a specific part of the book which in my opinion expresses the feeling of a ‘non-local’ fan better than most non-fan literature I have read. Dasgupta stays in Derby, and thus is, ‘by location of origin’, a Derby fan.  But he is a worshipper of Stanley Matthews and Stan Mortenson and the flair game of Blackpool as well. And this quandary is discussed in the following way.

.. I certainly came to a kind of rationalization along the following lines. Derby County was the town’s local team. It was like family- one is bound to it by blood ties. Whereas the ‘other team’, whichever it was, was like a best friend. There was no problem in loving a relative and a friend; they were two different kinds of love. As for a third team – like Graham’s Aberdeen – well, that is more a kind of fascination than love or passion, the fascination one has with a distant place or relative across the seas.

I agree. My blood ties are with Mohun Bagan, the only team that I have no choice but to support. I was born a Mohun Bagan supporter, for reasons locational and national.  I cannot support any other Indian team, least of all East Bengal. I have been following Arsenal for far too long for it to be considered anything other than a best friend. I know all the ins and outs of the club, and am fascinated by all aspects of it. And Barcelona is the club I am fascinated by… again, for more reasons than one. Ditto Napoli, but that’s for only one reason. Diego.

 

And indeed, this book gives me something to think of. Maybe the book I will write someday will be of the boy in some grey, dusty corner of Bengal in India, the proverbial sporting backwaters , playing sport with passion and fervor, and becoming a convert to the exquisite, gorgeous sporting skills and personal tribulations of Diego Maradona, of Boris Becker and of Mohammed Azharuddin. And becoming a convert to sport.

Heurelho Gomes…

Good guy, and one of my favourite goalkeepers, right from his PSV days.

Alas, for he will play for Spurs next season. As a fan, I’d not wish him fumbles, but I certainly can ask for no great saves or something, for those few matches that we meet, non?

(Click here for article on F365)

On being an Indian fan of Arsenal and Barcelona….

I am a fan of Arsenal. And I am a fan of Barcelona. and having been initiated into football via the magical skills of Diego Madarona in ‘86 (weren’t you asking who/what is the godof86?)… I share the Eduardo Galleano – certified love for Joga Bonito. Having played the game at some level, I understand and appreciate a great defensive performance by say, Alessandro Nesta, and that is beautiful football for me too…. I love expressive, free-flowing football, and during the time I started watching the European game in all seriousness, the most beautiful, attacking and free-flowing football, in my opinion was played by Arsenal and Barcelona.

So I was, and remain a fan of Arsenal. And a fan of Barcelona.

And I have been in London for about a day in total, mostly in transit. And I have never been to Barcelona, though I would love to be in both of the places. Camp Nou would be fabulous, I know. And so would be the Emirates. I will like to visit the shopping mall which is in place instead of Highbury, and feel sad for I could never have been there to the stadium.

And then someone at Football365 screams abuse at fans like us, from distant India and Singapore and Hong Kong, for showering our support to clubs with whom we do not share locational or cultural synergies. And they call our ilk fair-weather fans and glory-hunters.

My real team will always be Mohun Bagan Athletic Club, in West Bengal, India. And yes, if you ask me, I go to the stadium to watch Mohun Bagan whenever I can, whenever the travails of holding down a job allows me to. A victory in the Indian National Football League can gladden the heart like nothing else. Like all other Mohun Bagan fans, the pain of defeat, especially to those bangladeshi refugees of East Bengal Sporting Club, can be at times just way too hard to bear. 

Yet, do understand that the football I get to see, supporting Mohun Bagan, is not really top drawer. But I really like the game! And European football is available on TV all the time (not the Championship, though)… so I naturally watch all the games I can, and due my preference for skillful, free-flowing football, I support Arsenal and Barcelona. And thus I have been supporting both the clubs for the last ten or so years.

And yes, if you ask me, a loss to Spurs (thankfully, that’s extremely rare) does not affect me so much that I feel for a while that this life is not worth living. Neither a loss to Real. They do affect me to quite an extent though. I do feel gutted after a defeat…. but yes, the pain you, North London / Catalunya dweller are dealing with might be more than that I face. And do realise, I know the feeling. I feel the same when Mohun Bagan loses to East Bengal. Or even to Mohammedan Sporting, rare as it might be though. Is that reason enough to spew venom at us? Really, when we started supporting Arsenal / Barca, we had no clue that we have to justify our support some day.

Look, I would love for Mohun Bagan to play football of such a level that there are fans of us in the farthest reaches of the world, but that is not to be. And you, dear north London / Catalunya dweller, would feel the same have you been in my position. And more fans would mean more money, and more money would mean better players in our team, and thereby more trophies. wouldn’t you like your team to win? As of now, as a Mohun Bagan man, I have to live with the limited glory of coming in the top 4 of the Indian National League after long last, and as a Gooner / Cule, I would like them to win the Premiership / La Liga, and meet in the finals of the Champion’s League. Well it’s happened once, and not too long ago…. I watched the match with friends, and I wore a Barca kit in the first half, and an Arsenal kit in the second.

The Un-Brazilian Brazilian

In one sentence – Gilberto, prosaic, did his job very well indeed.

There’s a nice tribute to him on the Arsenal website, do have a look (click here).

 

The Brazilian never courted controversy and never spoke out of turn. He arrived quietly, he left quietly and, in between, he was quietly efficient. While emptier vessels made more noise, Gilberto just got the job done.

He will be missed. Thanks, and cheers!

Arsenal’s top 50

You cannot include current players..

This is the list as of now (click here)

10. Jennings.

9. Charlie George.

8. Brady.

7. Seaman.

6. Petit.

My guess for 5-1

5. Patrick Vieira.

4. Dennis Bergkamp.

3. Ian Wright.

2. Thierry Henry.

1. Tony Adams.

The names i am sure of…. not of the ranking though.

Transfers – Best bidders vs. being loyal

I am happy that I follow A Cultured Left Foot (click here for link). Less jingoism, less chest-thumping than most others, and solid analysis. Best Arsenal blog of all, IMHO.

Check here what they write about Adebayor’s transfer saga (click here for link to article)…

A final observation. Consider the fact that football is his career, his job. In principle, what is the fundamental difference between a brickie and footballer? Leave aside the salaries and there is none. Both are services that people pay for. You pay for a house, you pay for a footballer. We expect loyalty on what basis? The club that we love? Forget that; the club we love is their employer. The loyalty we crave is born from a bygone era when players had summer jobs because their salaries dropped in the close season.

Or this…

There is also the question of loyalty. Two decades ago, there was a common trait of loyalty to your employer, something that the Premier League’s evolution has diminshed. Whilst winning trophies is important, money is not far behind. No longer is a testimonial considered necessary for the top echelon of players for moneys earned from one match are incrementally smaller to their overall wealth than in previous years. It is not the English players who are responsible for this change in loyalty either. Plenty of English players have moved or are requesting moves to pastures new within relatively short spells at clubs. Some might have come through the ranks but that makes little or no difference any longer.

And I agree. while we fans can feel aggrieved, to the footballers, it is really about their careers. And it’s a job that they are doing.

And well, two questions:

1. You are having a $100,000 job. Another company offers you a $200,000 job, with the job profile and perks being more or less the same. Will you take it or not?

2. A common man’s professional career lasts for 30 years and more. A top flight footballer’s, much less so. And do take into account, one major injury can put paid to all of that in an instant.

And then in football forums, there are guys who scream and shout comparing their salaries with the top-flight athletes. They should get real. Most of us are in jobs for which there are i) replacements (easy replacements, if you consider regular jobs) ii) little career risks involved. And there are maybe 10 people in the world who can play approximately as well as Adebayor as a typical big-man center forward? Now I am doing reasonably well in my professional career, but aren’t there around fifty in the radius of ten miles around where I am right now, who can do the work I do, appproximately as well as I do? An organization has to pay big money for premium services.

And as they say, you always get the money you deserve.

And as for loyalty, here’s a statement. Will I ever be loyal to a company which I haven’t started myself? And here’s the answer. i wouldn’t. I am and will continue to be diligent, I will continue to work hard and use my abilities and smarts to perform at the best of my abilities at my workplace. Because obviously they are paying me for my daily bread and material comforts, and paying me well. But will I be loyal such that a much better offer comes along, and it makes professional sense to leave, I will still stick along? I wouldn’t. And it isn’t about loyalty, it’s about common sense.