The 38-year-old leaves the game as a winner in France with Paris Saint-Germain. But he also leaves behind a playing career in which he beat every challenge that he faced – on and off the field. Anthony Lopopolo writes.

For once, David Beckham had nowhere to go. There was nothing left to conquer. Winning in four different countries, this 38-year-old, though still capable, got the chance to depart the game as a winner, on his own terms.

Paris is the last stop of his playing career, after all the success along a trail no Englishman has ever traipsed before. He played for the biggest clubs – Manchester United, Real Madrid, AC Milan – and won the biggest of trophies. Not many players from England like to leave the island behind, and when they do they invariably come back. Not Beckham. He was different. He’ll always be English, and fiercely so. But the moment he left United in 2003, he left as a man of the world, a global citizen, an icon of countries and continents and a brand of companies.

When he arrived in Madrid that same year, he was one of several stars signed by the city’s top club. He joined Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo, even the Brazilian Ronaldo on a Real Madrid team that should’ve won more than it did. But something else came with Beckham: his marketability. If he could sell enough jerseys, he’d be a success – regardless of how much effort he gave to the cause of actually winning.

Read the rest on A Football Report …

Anthony Lopopolo is an Italian-Canadian freelance sportswriter and an unabashed apologist for all things Serie A. He has written for the National Post and the National, and has also made appearances on national radio in Canada and the UK to talk footy. You can follow him on Twitter or send him an email.

The post David Beckham retires as England’s conquerer of nations appeared first on The Footy Pie.

Rather easily, Barcelona will win the Spanish title once again. But there are troubling signs on the road ahead for the club that once ruled the world. Anthony Lopopolo writes.

There on the bench, shaking his head, was Lionel Messi. He was biting his nails, too, and telling something to a team trainer beside him. On the field was something he had not seen before, from a vantage point he’s not used to. Barcelona had conceded another three goals to Bayern Munich, in addition to the four others they had scored a week ago in Germany. The tie was over, the Champions League semi-final lost. But each of the seven goals hit the team with the impact of a bullet, piercing the armour of Barcelona’s identity, ripping apart holes in what always looked like seamless fabric.

“We are not the best anymore,” Gerard Pique, Barcelona’s defender, told reporters after the game. “Others are. Perhaps we need to work harder.” This was a time for deep reflection, and Barcelona’s players had already begun to think. This squad has striven for excellence, much like a soaring academic, for years, and even though they may finish the season with a La Liga title, there are far more questions to answer this season.

Against Bayern Munich, Barcelona were smaller and slower. The Germans outran them, outmuscled them, outwitted them. They played quickly and defended sharply; they had no time to wait and debate their next move. This German game is all about speed.

Barcelona, all the while, registered just six shots on target – of 19 in total – over the two legs, and although they did maintain the better half of possession in both games against the Bavarians, Barcelona couldn’t do much with the ball. They had to take shots outside the penalty area – a sign of desperation for a team usually so committed to the art of execution – and when they actually hit the net, Manuel Neuer, Bayern Munich’s goalkeeper, barely had to move to make the save. It was a test of efficiency, the latest buzzword in football, and Barcelona failed miserably.

But it wasn’t the first time they did. Paris Saint-Germain left the quarter-finals feeling a little unsatisfied. Barcelona had not beaten them, but still progressed. But this French team, assembled quickly under new ownership, played fearlessly against the team that ruled the world, that never blinked, that never worried. These newcomers didn’t play the game to defend. They came to win. “We put in a huge amount of effort,” PSG defender Christophe Jallet said after his team’s elimination from the Champions League on April 10. “We didn’t fear them and played our own game.”

Barcelona had no answer for AC Milan, either. In the opening leg of their series in the round of 16, two months ago, Barcelona made many of their passes high up the field, far from danger. They passed and passed. They pondered and schemed and looked this way and that. But there wasn’t an opening, and eventually they lost 2-0. Then, even earlier against Celtic in the group stage, the Catalans owned 83% of the ball, and still lost.

Maybe time is catching up with the peerless players on this roster. So many of them have represented Spain, and so many of them have won everything imaginable

The signs were always there. Defeat was coming. They failed to win eight of 13 games in the Champions League this season, and all of these results happened with or without Messi. Barcelona always defined themselves with their play in Europe, not in Spain, and, while it’s nice of them to reclaim the La Liga title from Real Madrid, it’s not a proper measurement of the team we’ve come to know in seasons past. Barcelona struggled against foreign teams this year. Clubs now appear to have the antidote for tiki-taka, the game of possession and patience they made so popular. Its venom is no longer lethal. And without a Plan B, which they never seemed to have, the games proved much harder for them.

There are many good things to say about a champion, and Barcelona this year will be. But was this team built to settle for one trophy? Is it enough to reach the semi-final of the Copa del Rey, of the Champions League?

Of course, Barcelona remain a victim of their own success. Anything less than world domination seems like failure. And it’s not. But there’s definitely reason to believe the team’s influence is waning. There may be reasons why Barcelona disappointed many – “I am sure that if we had been at 100% we would have competed better,” said coach Tito Vilanova – but the drop in form is symptomatic of a greater problem. The team’s assistant, Jordi Roura, made a note of a particular seasonal allergy that seems to hit them every year: fatigue in February and March.

Barcelona lost three of four games – including the one to Milan and two against Madrid – between February 20 and March 2, during which Vilanova left the team to treat cancer. And even then there were real concerns about the club’s condition. They were leaking goals. Injuries burdened Barcelona, too, taking out captain Carles Puyol for some time. They have only 16 clean sheets in all competitions this season, and at this point of the season last year, Barcelona had 32 of them.

Maybe time is catching up with the peerless players on this roster. So many of them have represented Spain, and so many of them have won everything imaginable. Xavi alone, in the past five years, has been a winner of the 2008 Euros, the 2009 Champions League, the 2010 World Cup, the 2011 Champions League, and the 2012 Euros. He’s never really had time off, and it’s starting to show.

He’s still made an impact this year – he did, after all, complete all 96 of his passes against PSG in April – and he’s done his job at all times without much flair, but the consistency this season has not been there. And maybe he’s just too damn tired. Xavi once said he wants to touch the ball at least 100 times per match. He demands a lot from himself, and so does anyone, really, who works for Barcelona.

Pep Guardiola couldn’t last, and he was just coaching. “Four years is an eternity as Barca’s coach,” he said at a press conference last year after deciding to leave the club. “The demands have been great and I have not been able to rest much.” He only signed contracts one year at a time for a reason. There’s a toll you have to pay to be a part of Barcelona, and they’ve all paid it. They’re overdrawn, really. And especially in a year that’s not gone according to plan – Messi has had to miss games, Vilanova had to leave his team midway through the season – the risk of fatigue and all of its effects certainly ran high.

Vilanova’s absence left the players depressed, and while the 44-year-old underwent treatment for cancer in New York, there was a void. If not physical, it was emotional. And illness took away Eric Abidal, the defender who spent months out of the lineup after undergoing a liver transplant. If Barcelona are more than a club, then this season has been about more than football for them. Health has gotten in the way of results.

But every team deals with adversity, and Barcelona are not the first to do so. The roots of the team’s problems are much longer, much more difficult to trace. Without Messi, Barcelona look worse. Now, it’s fact. Without Messi, Barcelona almost drift aimlessly, like a dead shuttle in space.

There is no one to back up the 25-year-old when he’s not there. Messi scored eight goals in the Champions League; the team’s second-highest scorer in the competition, Jordi Alba, had two. (In La Liga, Messi has 44 goals, and the next-best individual total, thanks to Cesc Fabregas, is 10.) The gulf is huge. Messi, even half-injured, had to take the initiative to salvage a point for his team against Athletic Bilbao this past weekend. Relying on a such prolific player is not shameful, but it is risky.

So Barcelona can enjoy their La Liga title. They can, if they want, sit back, rest and stay true to the formula that’s yielded trophy after trophy. Xavi doesn’t think there’s any need to be “drastic.” And Vilanova doesn’t think they need new players. “We need to recover the ones we have got,” he said. But teams across Europe know the combination. There’s a remedy for Barcelona’s toxin. They are small, and sometimes slow, and easier to score against.

Neymar could come in, and he may very well be the kid they need to usher in a new generation. Players will leave, too. But the wind is changing direction. The tide is turning. Barcelona are starting to feel the symptoms of change. And they can’t really ignore them.

Anthony Lopopolo is an Italian-Canadian freelance sportswriter and an unabashed apologist for all things Serie A. He has written for the National Post and the National, and has also made appearances on national radio in Canada and the UK to talk footy. You can follow him on Twitter or send him an email.

The post Barcelona feeling the winds of change after disappointing season appeared first on The Footy Pie.

There has not been an easy route to success for Borussia Dortmund. They have fought so many fights, against debt and relegation, to get to the Champions League final. But here they are. Anthony Lopopolo writes.

The fans clapped for the opponents, the winners of the tie from Dortmund, and then left the stadium. Their club, Real Madrid, did all it could to mount some kind of comeback, and they had the chances to claim it, but things were done a little too late. There was nothing else to see on the field, just a bunch of ushers and straggling reporters. But the proud supporters of Borussia Dortmund, in a far corner, did not move.

They sang pub songs. Thousands chanted to an empty stadium, almost as if they were crying for an encore. The banners were there, all yellow and black, horizontal, vertical and sideways. This was their territory, and they weren’t going to give it up so easily. (Maybe, for safety reasons, they couldn’t.) This was their night. The section looked like a stadium in itself, removed from the rows and rows of empty seats below them.

And you better believe their beloved heroes came back to applaud the people that followed them, from Ruhr and Dortmund to Madrid, from the edge of bankruptcy in 2005 to the summit of the Champions League final in 2013. They, after all, kept the club’s spirit alive. The club overspent, and could’ve lost everything – had Dortmund gone bankrupt, they would’ve fallen into the abyss that is amateur football in Germany – but the fans, proudly, own the team once again. It’s all theirs.

So there was something fitting about the scene that unfolded on Tuesday evening. The supporters deserved, on this night, a standing ovation from the players they waited years for. And they got one. The dream began last week, when Dortmund beat Madrid thanks to Robert Lewandowski’s four goals, but it wasn’t realized so easily. This game was very much about survival. They fought for the right to play with Europe’s big boys for years, but they had to survive a different kind of fight against Madrid in the second leg.

If there was a plan for Dortmund – to escape the first half without conceding a goal – they only did so fortunately, not competently. Striker Gonzalo Higuain kicked a free ball in the penalty area right at Dortmund goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller. Then Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo missed, and Mesut Ozil, without a man around him, shot wide.

Nevertheless, the fans behind the goal stood up and roared every time the team got a corner kick. There was a sense of belief for the home side after 15 minutes of play – for them, faith was never an issue – and Dortmund were lucky to leave the sequence unharmed. Madrid were eager, offside five times in the first half. They were ready.

But, eventually, they relented, and Dortmund found their balance. The Germans must’ve known the hard work had already been done a week ago. All they had to do was endure a few more blows. And who are we kidding? They’ve beaten the odds again and again. What was another?

We knew that a team like us required a certain amount of luck to reach the final. God wanted us to go through

It could’ve all come undone. The ending of the game was just as frantic as the beginning, except Madrid actually scored twice. Dortmund did the usual things teams do to preserve themselves – wasting time, holding the ball in the corner, keeping it a few seconds longer after a stoppage in play – but they were wise beyond their years, even if a little conniving, a squad of 23 year olds and 24 year olds playing the tricks of an experienced squad. Dortmund lost 2-0, as good a loss as you can get, the team’s first defeat in the Champions League in 16 months. But such a loss is a small price to play for a spot in the final. They won 4-3 on aggregate.

Mats Hummels, the defender, was a big reason why the team survived. Yes, Dortmund have scored 112 times this season, but he showed that they can also defend. Hummels was always on the scene, flicking balls to safety, booting most away, jumping in front of shots. He also could’ve given away a penalty, but Dortmund didn’t suffer one.

“We knew that a team like us required a certain amount of luck to reach the final,” manager Jurgen Klopp told reporters after the match. And they got quite a bit of it. So did Chelsea the year before. Many thought Madrid were the team of destiny, bound for a 10th title, a legendary decima. But maybe this team from Dortmund is the one fated for something glorious after all. We must remember what they did to Malaga just weeks ago, when they turned a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 win in the final minutes. “God wanted us to go through,” Klopp added. “We were up against so much.”

And that’s their story. Once, they were up against bankruptcy, they were up against debt, and they were up against relegation. They made it out alive and kicking. But they also take things as they come. Officially a finalist, the whole team had permission from their manager to spend a night on the town, to have a few drinks, to celebrate. They didn’t want to think about the final, only about what they had just done.

Dortmund play Bayern Munich this weekend, but Klopp doesn’t really care if they lose against their rival in that particular game, in a league already decided and in a game that doesn’t really matter. Klopp let his boys be boys. Wembley will come, and the rest will fall in place. It always has.

Anthony Lopopolo is an Italian-Canadian freelance sportswriter and an unabashed apologist for all things Serie A. He has written for the National Post and the National, and has also made appearances on national radio in Canada and the UK to talk footy. You can follow him on Twitter or send him an email.

The post Dortmund survive another fight along an unlikely journey to Wembley appeared first on The Footy Pie.

BY ANTHONY LOPOPOLO

The man knows a million ways to score goals, but speaking about them and his success has proven much more difficult. Lionel Messi plucked from the usual diction of past and present award recipients, thanking his teammates — including one, Andres Iniesta, who sat along Cristiano Ronaldo as the two runners-up in the contest for the Ballon d’Or — his coaches, his family and friends. There was nothing inventive about his speech. But it was telling. When Messi finished talking, he paused, licked his lips, looked down, and quickly up again, taking in applause that, somehow, he didn’t seem to expect. Then the clapping stayed strong. It kept going. They wouldn’t stop. His eyes tried to catch someone, something to prompt him. What am I to do? he must have thought.

So he looked over to Fabio Cannavaro, a Ballon d’Or winner himself, for a cue. Messi wouldn’t move without a nudge of approval. Cannavaro pointed toward centre stage, as if telling Messi to seize yet another moment in the spotlight. So he went. And then the people of the gala rose, one by one, until the whole damn place made him fidget on the spot. He had to smile, so he did, but the grin was more sheepish than contented, more bewildered than understanding, more grateful than forced.

Here was Messi at his rarest: nervous. Here he was standing before Ronaldo — both of them — beside Michel Platini, who won the top individual honour three years in a row, in front of the best footballers the world has seen. And he acted as if he shouldn’t have been there, the lights illuminating him. To win his fourth consecutive Ballon d’Or — unprecedented in the game — was “quite unbelievable,” and “too great for words.”

The moment Ruud Gullit, the emcee of the evening, stepped into conclude the proceedings, Messi must have felt relieved. The lights shut down, the people sat down, the football, for the rest of the year, could go on. You get the feeling that scoring 91 goals in 2012 was easier to do than what he just did. And maybe the feat is indeed more incredible than we thought. Maybe, for an award ceremony that was from the beginning a foregone conclusion, there should be a little more surprise.

Forget that fact that, at 25 years old, there is enough time for Messi to fill his cabinet with four or five more golden balls. Forget whether he is the greatest of all time. The journey to claim four such individual prizes could have ended before it began. Wesley Sneijder, in 2010, after a campaign in which he won every trophy possible with Inter Milan — the Italian Cup, Champions League and Serie A championship, leading the first Italian club to win a treble — and propelled the Netherlands to the World Cup final, Messi took the Ballon d’Or from him.

If individual greatness depends on team success, that year it did not. Sneijder had won far more than Messi, dedicating so much energy to his endeavours that he eventually became anemic. Working so tirelessly, the Dutchman virtually bled out. From the beginning of the 2009-10 season to the end of the World Cup, Messi played 13 more matches than Sneijder and suffered no illness. Yet on the biggest of stages Sneijder shone brighter, scoring a tournament-leading five goals in the World Cup and assisting Diego Milito’s game-winning goal in the Champions League final against Bayern Munich.

But there was Messi.

In an era of Barcelona’s greatness, where Iniesta and Xavi have not as much enthralled as changed the status of Spanish football, where Ronaldo has tried and tried to meet his Argentinean rival stride for stride, goal for goal — the Portuguese broke his own La Liga scoring record in 2012, only to see Barcelona’s crown jewel surpass it with 50 goals — Messi has by no means dominated the field of great players. He has bettered, but has not battered.

That is not to diminish what he has done. The man is so skilled with both feet, one can barely remember that he is naturally left-footed. He so gracefully runs with the ball, as if it is his eternal companion, like a remora, a leech. There is an orbit of gravity between Messi and the ball that none have ever enjoyed. But what he is doing is not majestic. He is not of royalty, or stately or one to be grandiose. He is a normal person with extraordinary talent.

There is one image in which men in military clothing, armed with rifles, rush Messi, who had just arrived in Saudi Arabia with Argentina for a friendly against the host country, through the throngs of people clamouring around him. He looks frightened. His Rolex shines brightly, but his gaze of anxiety, looking like a man who just had his shoulder tapped by an unknown passerby, prevails.

And so you wonder, how does this man truly feel? He certainly does not care what other people ultimately think; his choice of wardrobe, wearing a polka dot suit to the Ballon d’Or gala on Monday evening, indicting as such. But we know one thing: he does get nervous. Put him on a stage, with a ball to his foot, and the tension dissipates. Give him an award, and, well, he’ll need someone to give him an extra shove to take that spotlight.

Anthony Lopopolo is an Italian-Canadian freelance sportswriter and an unabashed apologist for all things Serie A. He has written for such publications as The National newspaper and the National Post, and has also appeared on Canadian national radio to talk footy. You can follow him on Twitter or send him an email.

The post Lionel Messi shows his human side, claiming yet another Ballon d’Or appeared first on The Footy Pie.

BY ANTHONY LOPOPOLO

Wesley Sneijder said no. His response was only natural. What Inter Milan are asking of their player is nothing short of dishonourable. But no one before Sneijder made it seem as though it was. Players, coaches, even the president of the players’ union in Italy did not want to touch or criticize the issue at hand, an ultimatum more than a proposition. No, Sneijder will not renegotiate his contract. No, he will not take a pay cut. So he will sit out of the squad, frozen out of the team that he helped propel to Champions League glory a little more than two years ago, until he accepts the demands of his club — or move elsewhere. They say it is not blackmail, because Sneijder’s absence from the team is purely of a “tactical” and “technical” nature, Inter’s coach, Andrea Stramaccioni, and president, Massimo Moratti, insist.

“As far as the club is concerned,” Moratti told Inter’s official website, “we are completely open to the player.” They believe asking someone to “improve” one’s contract is a “valid” practice. But nothing about Sneijder’s life will improve by signing a new agreement with Inter. “At this moment in time, I have no reason to sign,” he said in a statement. “How can I accept a new contract under these conditions when I am not even playing?”

The conditions in question for Serie A’s highest earner are simple, and do not seem too drastic at face value: instead of paying US$7.8 million a year, Inter want to reduce Sneijder’s wages to around roughly US$5.4 million annually and his extend his contract by a year. But if the way in which the club have handled Sneijder has not been strictly illegal — leaving him out of the first team, even when healthy — it has certainly been unfair. Sneijder has not played for Inter since September, and while he suffered a thigh injury for the majority of this season’s opening months, it has been used more as a convenient excuse, a pretense to extend his time on the sideline, than cause for genuine concern. Stamaccioni wanted to be patient. “Players will only return if they’re 100%,” he told reporters in October. “I don’t like to rush anyone back.”

But playing is not the only thing that has been taken away from Sneijder. He was barred from Twitter, too. His wife solemnly tweeted herself that her husband could no longer use the social media website. “My husband can no longer write on Twitter. It’s the club’s choice. [It's] strange.” He apparently breached Inter’s policy by revealing on Twitter that he had to undergo scans in the United States before his club had officially said so.

Some affairs are strange, though. Sneijder told reporters he has “always been happy at Inter,” and Stramaccioni says he has spoken with the 28-year-old every day. It does not sound like a case of wilful exclusion. It sounds more like Inter have been nursing Sneijder, holding him gently, treading lightly and making sure as to not disturb the peace. The team’s request to restructure the Dutchman’s contract, after all, should be a delicate issue, even if no one has worn disposable gloves when dealing with such combustible proposals. Sidelining players is “no new phenomenon,” says FIFPro, the worldwide union for pro footballers; players have and will be cast aside like old toys when they resist new terms or a modified contract. But they should not be.

This very issue was almost singlehandedly responsible for delaying the Serie A season last year. In August 2011, the captains of all 20 Serie A teams threatened to strike if a new collective agreement with the league was not reached in time. One of the main issues on the table was a clause that would allow clubs to force unwanted players out of the first team. The clubs retained that clause, and here we are: at a standoff between a team that believes they are doing no wrong and a player speaking up in the name of righteousness and honesty.

Yet contracts so frequently decline in value and meaning by the year. Thiago Silva’s deal with AC Milan was extended this summer and signed only weeks before he was shipped to Paris Saint-Germain. Roman Abramovich, Chelsea’s owner, has paid millions in severance payments just to relieve managers from their contracts. Rarely anything is done in good faith any more. When Inter extended Sneijder’s contract after their Champions League triumph over Bayern Munich in 2010 — thought to be a kind of reward — the Nerazzurri were the ones to make their player the richest in Italy. Now they want to recall that gift, as if it was misappropriated or contaminated. In an attempt to back out of their agreement with Sneijder, they are trying to rid themselves of their responsibility, too, to pay their employee what he is entitled to make.

Whether he is worth US$7.8 million is beside the point. The team heaped this burden on themselves, and now they are looking for the easiest way to relieve themselves of it. That Inter offered the contract extension in the first place — increasing Sneijder’ salary to said US$7.8 million from US$4.5 million — is enough reason for them to re-evaluate the way in which they sign players in the future.

Sneijder’s career, and stock, rose dramatically in one season. Madrid underused and underappreciated him between 2007 and 2009, and then he suddenly realized all of his potential at once under Jose Mourinho at Inter. Just as he reached his zenith, he signed that blasted extension. It would carry a curse. He has dealt with injury after injury. He was snubbed on the world stage — Sneijder was irrationally left off the shortlist for the 2011 Ballon D’Or after a season in which he won virtually everything possible for a European footballer sans the World Cup. And now, just as had been done to goalkeeper Julio Cesar, whom Moratti tried to strong-arm into a reduction in salary in the summer before the Brazilian — shocked and dismayed — left on emotional grounds, Sneijder is the next in the queue of tormented employees.

Even as early as 2011, he arrived at the team’s training facility without any assurance that he would even be playing for Inter. And then Samuel Eto’o was sold. “I understood on the day of Eto’o's goodbye that I would be staying,” Sneijder told La Gazzetta dello Sport, “and was very happy to do so.”

It is not so certain whether he would be just as happy to remain with Inter today. He could be sold. He could continue to be excluded for “tactical” reasons. But on Monday, with a simple response to the pushing and the bullying, he showed he will not be held captive. Sneijder pushed back. And all those players who threatened to strike last year should be standing right behind him.

Quotes via ESPNFC.

Anthony Lopopolo is an Italian-Canadian freelance sportswriter and an unabashed apologist for all things Serie A. He has written for such publications as The National newspaper and the National Post, and has also appeared on Canadian national radio to talk footy. You can follow him on Twitter or send him an email.

The post Wesley Sneijder takes no for an answer appeared first on The Footy Pie.

November 22, 2012

Maybe Roman Abramovich, the famous trigger-happy owner of Chelsea, was never happy with Roberto di Matteo. Perhaps the Russian’s belief in di Matteo was never solidified after his squad won the FA Cup and Champions League in 2012, turning a broken side in the midst of a ruinous season into a wholesome one in just months. After all, Abramovich did something unlike him when he gave di Matteo the job permanently: Though he took his time, Abramovich went with the current, a surging wave of pundits and fans calling for the permanent appointment of the Italian as manager.

So this time, he could not pull the trigger. Even if he did not want to play with this certain toy, he felt the need to hold on to it a bit longer. But if Abramovich, transfixed by the twinkling glamour and magnificence of old Big Ears in his club’s trophy cabinet for the rest of time, looked like he veered — just for a moment — from his usual ruthlessness, he fooled you.

There has never been any grace with which Abramovich has handled his business. He has acted with the merciless of a drug lord behind closed doors. He hides behind his board of executives, who are essentially mouthpieces for the oligarch, the ones who end up barking the orders, mostly without the decency of even the most common firings in the world of business. Ron Gourlay, one of those chief executives, pulled Carlo Ancelotti aside immediately after Chelsea’s last game of the season in 2010 to give the marching orders. Gourlay and chairman Bruce Buck were at it again after the Blues’ flight back to London from Torino, where the lost 3-0 to Juventus on Wednesday. At the ungodly hour of 4 a.m., reports The Guardian, the two in suits told di Matteo his time with the club was over.

The most maddening thing about Abramovich is that he has been successful despite, not necessarily because of, his predisposition to dismiss the men below him with ease — a total of eight managers have come and gone during his nine-year reign. The money has never mattered. He is worth more than US$12 billion. He has shelled out US$94.7 million alone to relieve his employers, and he seems happy to do so. Chelsea have won every possible trophy — they can target the Club World Cup later in December — with Abramovich as owner.

The problem is that we will never know whether it is all planned or just a product of a series of risks and multimillion-dollar wagers. His gambles from the outset do not make sense, and yet the club rewards him handsomely like some broken slot machine. But there is one consistency: He has fired managers almost within the exact same frame of time, 39 days separating his quickest dismissal — that of Luiz Felipe Scolari, in February 2009 — and longest — that of di Matteo, who presided over the club for an eternal 262 days!

So why question Abramovich now? Because what he is doing is binging, and that only lasts for so long.

Good managers have come and gone without Abramovich caring — or properly noticing. When one does, he sacks him for what strikes him as a better option. When he and Jose Mourinho struggled for power in 2007, the Russian went through three managers over the course of almost two years before Chelsea won another trophy. And that manager, Guus Hiddink, knew enough to set his own terms and timetable for managing the club, assuming a caretaker role that, let’s be honest, many Chelsea fans wish hadn’t been so temporary. Hiddink was adulated. He only lost one game in charge. He thrust the club back to the podium, winning the FA Cup in 2009. But he knew nothing about his time at Chelsea would endure, even if the love for him still does. He kept his position with Russia all the while.

Then Carlo Ancelotti came aboard and led Chelsea to the club’s first-ever double — a coup of the FA Cup and Premier League title — in his first season. But he was dumped for Andre Villas-Boas in 2011, a precocious manager in the eyes of Abramovich. Fans now call for Mourinho to return, like a lost lover. They still mourn Ancelotti’s early exit.
And now di Matteo was deemed unsatisfactory. “The team’s recent performances and results have not been good enough,” read the club’s website. Despite Abramovich’s hastiness time and again, the sacking of the Italian baffled many. Here was a manager loved by the fans, respected and adored in the dressing room, at peace with everyone — possessing those attributes that are coveted, let alone difficult to replace — going through a rough patch that, really, neither compromised any advancement in the Champions League or chances for the Premier League title. Chelsea sit in third in the Premiership, just four points behind an entirely unconvincing Manchester City, against which they happen to be playing this weekend, and need to win at home against lowly Nordsjaelland to have a chance at qualifying for the Round of 16 in Europe.

And if it had not been for di Matteo’s capacity to reinvigorate, to inject hope and pride and confidence into a team of players that had grown frustrated with Villas-Boas and his blind authority, if he had not inspired his players to overturn a 3-1 deficit in the second leg of their Round of 16 tie against Napoli, Chelsea would not be competing in this year’s premier European competition to begin with. (Chelsea only secured a place in this year’s Champions League by winning the whole damn thing last year. If they hadn’t, by way of finishing fifth in the Premier League, they would be playing the likes of Dnipro Dnipro in the Europa League.)

But he was not good enough.

And Rafa Benitez is? Apparently. He was summoned from a coaching clinic in the United Arab Emirates to manage the club until the end of the season. That he even accepted such a short-term gig reflects a change in his own attitude, already an early concession and a willingness to bend in whichever direction Abramovich wishes. Benitez “isn’t exactly the type to sit down, shut up, and smile nicely like a good boy while doing his boss’ bidding,” writes Scott Murray in the Fiver. He likes to assume control. When he does not have all of it, he balks. While at Inter Milan, he implored Massimo Moratti, the owner, for the funds to sign players in the January window of 2012. Benitez has not been one to compromise. And he did not then. “I want the support of the club and the players … I’m a professional who has worked for 25 years, so I want respect and support,” he said at a press conference after winning the Club World Cup with Inter in 2010. He was soon sacked thereafter.

Maybe Benitez is now smart enough to know what he is getting into. Out of the game, discarded by the sport for two years, the Spaniard, forgotten, could have been desperate. And that is what Chelsea’s managerial position has become: a launching pad, a seat back in the house of relevance. They can guarantee time in the spotlight and an opportunity to win trophies, not autonomy or anything a big-game manager may seek.

It attracts the young, those with something to prove, and the ones looking for a quick fix, a pick-me-up. It has not drawn leaders of the establishment, like Pep Guardiola, who, seemingly, Abramovich is waiting for. Guardiola is a man dedicated to his plans. He loves touring the United States, and so do his kids. On a sabbatical, he will not think about football until January or February, his agent says. And when he returns, he will want to handle the reins. “When Guardiola arrives,” writes Sid Lowe in The Guardian, “he wants to be able to construct a team his way and from the beginning, not pick up a project halfway through. His ideas, his philosophy, are clear, and he will stand by them. He will want the club to do likewise.”

Abramovich could be so willing to hire Guardiola that he may just resist the patterns of his being. He could cede authority. He could negotiate a contract in good faith. But there is so much hanging in the balance in such hopes. Waiting for Guardiola — an action so contrarian to Abramovich’s way of life as an owner — is one gamble that could change the entire future of Chelsea for better or worse.

Things could go very wrong for Chelsea. If Benitez fails, and Guardiola dismisses one last offer from Abramovich, where do Chelsea go? The fans seem to be laissez-faire on the subject of their oligarch. “You know what Mr. Abramovich is like,” one fan said outside Stamford Bridge to The Guardian. His success has incubated him. But what happens when there isn’t any on hand?

The next few months hinge on risks. Then again, that is all Abramovich has believed in.

In an earlier edition of this post, The Footy Pie had believed Roman Abramovich had spent US$123 million to relieve his managers. According to the Times, that number is actually US$94.7 million.

Anthony Lopopolo is an Italian-Canadian freelance sportswriter and an unabashed apologist for all things Serie A. He has written for such publications as The National newspaper and the National Post, and has also appeared on Canadian national radio to talk footy. You can follow him on Twitter or send him an email.

The post Abramovich still Chelsea’s risk taker appeared first on The Footy Pie.

November 13, 2012

Only days later, Neil Lennon told his players to forget about it. But the win against Barcelona is not so easily forgettable, not when Celtic, a team whose players make almost US$6 million less in average salary than those of the Catalans, beats “probably the best team in the world,” not when a team from Glasgow, struggling in the often forgotten backwoods of the Scottish Premier League (SPL), beats a team heretofore undefeated in all competitions, certainly not when Lennon, bringing on an 18-year-old who cost him under US$80,000, outwits the manager of a club with a wealth of options and David Villa and Cesc Fabregas warming up on the sideline.

Days later, though, Celtic’s manager says it is time to move on. On to the Scottish Premier League, away — for the moment — from the grandeur and pageantry of the European stage. “The [Scottish league] is our priority,” Lennon told reporters, “because it is the avenue that gets us into the Champions League in the first place.”

Right he is. And life goes on for Barcelona, too — perhaps even easier so. Barca won their next match, 4-2 against Mallorca. Lionel Messi surpassed Pele’s haul of goals in a calendar year (75) with 76 of the Argentine’s own. They remain atop La Liga, have gone 11 games without a loss in the league — their best start in club history — and will most likely finish atop Group G in Europe. The loss on that magical Wednesday night will barely register a dent in the greater scope of the club’s season, let alone its history; yet, for Celtic, it will be remembered forever. How could a result have such a disparate effect on two parties? Is it an insult to Celtic’s history, containing a European Cup among droves of domestic titles, to consider their win over Barcelona so historic, so groundbreaking, so shocking?

The Hoops’ existence has always been defined by prolonged spells of success and periods of futility, zeniths and nadirs, and now Celtic are climbing back up the mountainside of relevance. They had to suffer through two early rounds of qualification against teams vastly inferior to them to even reach the group stage of the Champions League as Scottish champion. And then they came up against a club which took 25 years longer to win a European Cup than them. You could argue about the finer points of history between Celtic and Barcelona, whether one’s is greater than the other, but the point was made: no matter how distinguished Celtic are, they will always be the underdog, low on the chain of finances. But they are no longer easy prey. They are on a crusade to reclaim the respect many once had for them, even if current and former footballers have tried to deride the ways in which Celtic are attempting to do so.

Bernd Schuster, a former Barcelona midfielder, called Celtic’s tactics against Barcelona unfair, as if they were doping or duping the referee in some way. “You see Celtic defending with 10 men and almost snatching a point — that is not fair,” he told Spanish radio station ABC Radio Punto. “There should not be teams like Celtic in the Champions League.” Messi called Celtic “lucky” in the aftermath of Barcelona’s 2-1 defeat. Even Rangers fans, those of a club on the other side of the sectarian divide in Glasgow, did not want to see Celtic succeed, not even as a flag bearer for Scotland.

But these games, ones against Barcelona, do not come often. Already, the famous result began to fade away from public consciousness. And on Sunday, Celtic returned to the campaign Lennon stresses the most: the league, where they tied, 1-1, a team in St. Johnstone they had beaten 5-0 weeks earlier, in front of a much quieter Celtic Park, the same venue brimming with fans young and old, roaring and chanting like one big entity days ago.

Celtic are fickle. They have not won a game in the SPL in almost a month. In the same breath, they lost to Kilmarnock at Celtic Park for the first time in 57 years and beat Barcelona at home. Three days before that European contest, Celtic failed to preserve a 2-0 lead against Dundee United. And they have fallen behind Hibernian, the league leaders, by two points. They have been sloppy before, countless times, yet Lennon, like a snake charmer of the spirit, seems to command the best out of his players when the occasion grows in magnitude. And they respond.

Tony Watt, the incredible 18-year-old who scored the winning goal against Barca, expects the same thing from his manager: motivation and stimulation. “He’s picked his team perfectly,” Watt told the Glasgow Herald after the match, “and obviously he’s brought me on and I’ve scored. Just perfect. His team talk was inspirational, but then it always is.”

He is far from stoic. The way Lennon — his hands holding his head, incredulous over what his team just accomplished against Barcelona — ran to each of his players after the match, open-armed and wide-eyed with the love of a parent, the way he hugged each one, the way he shouted and pumped his arms in the air when Celtic scored shows how much he cares for his players. And one cannot come to any other conclusion, really. Players of smaller reputations — defenders Adam Matthews and Efe Ambrose, midfielder Victor Waynama, winger Kris Commons and, of course, Watt — all banded together, all bought into a system that, when executed properly, can hold Barcelona, no matter the size of talent or amount of experience. “It’s not simply parking a bus,” writes ESPN’s James Tyler, “but rather artfully pulling off a series of parallel parking manoeuvres and three-point turns on a busy street. The Scots’ 4-4-2 was flexible and full of energy, allowing Barca plenty of the ball but no space in which to use it.”

“We never set out to be defensive,” Lennon told reporters, “we try to have a realistic game plan. Barcelona force you to play that way; you don’t go out and play that way. We have no reason to expect the bulk of possession and we will concede ground and the ball because they’re the best and they’ve proved it consistently for the last seven or eight years.”

Watt, too, “wrote himself into the history books of the club,” Lennon said, “but he is 11 games into his career.” Matthews played with so much pace, often matching — sometimes outracing — Messi stride for stride, poking the ball away from his feet in areas where penalties could be easily gifted. Barcelona often only spent seconds at a time actually inside Celtic’s penalty area, too, passing the ball around the 18-yard box, waiting for a moment of exposure that simply did not come, or forcing a play too raw to produce a goal. As a unit, like some phalanx, Celtic perform at their best.

Lennon, without five of his starters on such a big evening, had asked his players before the game who indeed had been on the winning side of an encounter with Barcelona before. The room’s stagnancy and silence was broken only by an arm, just one, thrust in the air. It was that of Miku, who beat Barca with Getafe in 2011. “I was the only one to raise my hand,” Miku told the Daily Record. “Not anymore.” The team’s togetherness cannot be understated. It is that attribute of fellowship — and great defending — that won Celtic the game, not anti-football, not luck. Celtic defended with so much structure, assembled by Lennon, who had few pieces to build something capable of producing so much awe in one night.

And maybe it is that lack of structure, that lack of union in the face of huge adversity, that lack of the occasion that is keeping Celtic from performing consistently and well in the SPL, not “lethargy,” as Lennon believes. Because in Scotland, they are the favourite — especially with Rangers, buried in the country’s lowest professional division, out of the picture. They are the target, not the seeker. There is something about favouritism that invites complacency, which has become an unmentionable word in Celtic’s camp. It is taboo. It is not happening, they say. “Of course there’s a challenge from other teams,” defender Kevin Wilson told BBC. “We didn’t think we were going to walk away with the league.”

Celtic have other forces to contend with, too. Wanyama, though only 21, will probably move on soon. Scorer of the first strike against Barca at Celtic Park, he leads the team in goals, and bigger clubs are already circling around him like vultures. Their magnetism will inevitably suck him in. But most importantly, Celtic are beginning to once again attract players because of their history. They are not necessarily a second option. The club has become relevant again, renewed along with its membership to the Champions League.

Wanyama did not want any other club. After signing with Celtic in 2011, he was “delighted.” His words were not spoken like a politician. He researched the club, their roots, their legends. He meant what he said, and strove to prove it. He chose No. 67 out of appreciation for the famous 1967 squad that beat Inter Milan for the European Cup. “My ambition at Celtic is to win many trophies like the Lisbon Lions,” he said. And when Wanyama gave Celtic another lead over Barca, he looked at the crowd behind the net and pointed to the badge, for which he has great respect. He plays for the shirt, even if he will not be wearing it for long.

Celtic gained much from one game, a game, just days later, that is starting to change states, like a liquid into a solid, from news into legend. They still must qualify for the knockout round of the Champions League, or all else will be for naught. That one game against Barcelona could ignite a year in which they could impose themselves on the European stage again. But there is work back home that cannot be neglected.

For the time being, maybe, just maybe, Celtic restored some distinction to the Scottish name. The players seem to believe it. Maybe we should, too. “Too many people in Spain thought my transfer to Scotland was a step backwards,” Miku said, “but I don’t think so. It’s a step in the right direction.”

Anthony Lopopolo is an Italian-Canadian freelance sportswriter and an unabashed apologist for all things Serie A. He has written for such publications as The National newspaper and the National Post, and has also appeared on Canadian national radio to talk footy. You can follow him on Twitter or send him an email.

The post Resurgent Celtic living up hoop dream appeared first on The Footy Pie.

November 6, 2012

When he arrived at Milanello, the famous training ground, an expensive US$25 million acquisition of AC Milan in 2011, Gennaro Gattuso looked at Stephan El Shaarawy’s eye brows. They were primed, shaved. His hair stood up, too; spiked, a Mohawk. Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Antonio Cassano hated it. El Shaarawy walked in, to them, with a sense of entitlement. “You only must think to play, you understand?” the 20-year-old recalls Gattuso demanding, not asking, of him in French magazine Max. It was hard to keep his feet on the ground, he says, but in his first few games he could not resist the attention. Instead, he indulged in it.

After he scored his first goal for Milan, El Shaarawy, hugged by his teammates, pushed himself out of the way, stretched out his arms to the fans and pointed to the name on the back of his jersey. Yes, he officially announced himself to Serie A. Yes, he kept his team from losing, salvaging a point. But that moment of celebration was marked by incredible pride, too much even, for someone who had just opened his scoring account in Italy’s top flight. “I thought it was easy not to fall for the things surrounding fame,” El Shaarawy went on. “It is hard. When you see football players, everybody thinks: How can they be so arrogant? I thought about it a thousand times. Fans find us and ask for photos and autographs. You feel pumped up, even if you don’t want to.”

Less than a year later, El Shaarawy’s fame has only grown. But so has his maturity. The conceit that had been festering has subsided. Without Ibrahimovic or Cassano, in the wake of the departures of six veterans — Gattuso, Alessandro Nesta and Clarence Seedorf all moved on — and Thiago Silva, il Faraone has taken ownership of Milan, a team that has dropped as low as the threshold of relegation in a season of questions, fears and skepticism. He has offered levity, a little sanity, in a time of disorder. El Shaarawy leads Serie A in goals scored with eight of them — nine in all competitions — in 11 league games.

Teetering on the edge of self-indulgence, El Shaarawy has righted himself down the path of self-control. He is as focused as a 20-year-old chased by women and increasingly wooed by the allure of the media can be. He has been compared to Sameul Eto’o for his selfless play, for his resolve to track down every opponent breaching his team’s third of the field, for his running and defensive awareness. Against Chievo on Saturday, Milan leading 4-1 with the game winding down, El Shaarawy still ran unabated into his own half, chasing a player who really had nothing to offer in the way of a threat. He would later score, too.

If his scoring prowess impresses, though, the manner in which he does it should inspire. The man wears little on his sleeves. He rarely reacts to a missed opportunity, a wide shot, a wild challenge with effervescence. There is hardly an inkling of angst in El Shaarawy, his teen years well behind him. A model of composure, he will not let out a an exacerbated roar if he misses the net. He tilts his head up, closes his eyes for a second, and runs away from the scene of his misfortune. He has chosen to adopt the values of resolute determination in the face of many temptations — an extra run, a superfluous deke — that all seem justified with fans and managers and pundits all touting his name like a Las Vegas act, a show in lights.

Even on his birthday, the day was not about him. Milan were on the verge of losing their fourth straight game. El Shaarawy scored with a quarter of the game remaining against Genoa, the team of his youth, and did not celebrate. But he did not simply walk away, neglecting to rejoice out of respect. Teammate Kevin Constant lifted him up, tried to rouse something out of the kid. But El Shaarawy just took a breath and pushed his hands toward the ground. The 20-year-old asked for serenity, and only after Milan won did he pump his fists with fury and crack a raging smile, only when the job was done. Never before had he looked so content, so aroused, so excited. He let his guard down, only for a few moments, indulging this time when the moment was right. “I’m a bit moved,” he told reporters after the match. “It’s been the best birthday of my life. I’m emotional and happy, both with the victory and the goal.”

This is his Milan, and though this particular edition stands in 10th place , he is happy to lead it. El Shaarawy has managed, as a teenager, to become Milan’s youngest goalscorer in the Champions League, to make fans forget about Ibrahimovic, to become a beacon of hope in one of the club’s dimmest seasons since the team wobbled precariously close to bankruptcy in the middle of the 1980s. That he has done all that without letting his confidence evolve into grotesque egotism is the greatest feat of all. But he has not lost any sense of his personality. He keeps his Mohawk intact, as much a definition of his character as his goals. For the ladies, he says. And he will not cower. He says what he wants, about Ibrahimovic, who made El Shaarawy feel “worse” than the rest of his teammates in training, about his life, without the brashness of Mario Balotelli.

More money will be coming his way, in the form of a contract extension through 2018, CEO and vice-president Adriano Galliani says, a salary boosted to US$1.5 million from US$1.02 million a year. “That is enough,” the VP implored. “El Shaarawy is not going to Manchester City.” But more teams will come begging, banging, armed with offers harder to resist. For this kid, at the moment underpaid, all the talk is peripheral. He has achieved balance in a life of distractions. If he stays long enough, this Milan could truly be his. And maybe he will be the one doling out the rules when the next youngster walks brazenly through the doors of Milanello.

Anthony Lopopolo is an Italian-Canadian freelance sportswriter and an unabashed apologist for all things Serie A. He has written for such publications as The National newspaper and the National Post, and has also appeared on Canadian national radio to talk footy. You can follow him on Twitter or send him an email.

The post El Shaarawy is Milan’s beacon of hope appeared first on The Footy Pie.

October 25, 2012

Before the game, they expected nothing. But still, in the end, their heads sagged. Some collapsed on the field, falling on their back as if they had lost in a final. They were exhausted. Assured of at least second place in Group G no matter the result at the end of Tuesday night, Celtic went to Barcelona with nothing to lose. They left, though, feeling robbed — and yet there was nothing criminal or dishonest about the proceedings, just downright cruel.

Jordi Alba’s goal in the 94th minute, tipped off Adriano’s speculative cross into the penalty area, gave Barcelona a lead for 30 seconds, which was all they needed to secure a come-from-behind 2-1 win against a Scottish team that had defended against what Celtic manager Neil Lennon called “the best team in the world” with all those attributes you would attach to a fallen hero: bravery, courage, valour. But they were so much more at Nou Camp, which did not intimidate them at all.

Almost a year to the day of Celtic’s heartbreaking loss in Spain, a 1-1 draw against Rennes in the Europa League appeared to be a great achievement for a team that, at the time, had only won once out of 32 games on the road in European competition. Lennon’s job was under question, and Celtic sat third in the league behind Motherwell and Rangers — yes, the recently bankrupt club that is now languishing in Scotland’s lowest professional league. They failed to make it out of their group in Europa League play, but their fortunes turned on a dime: 20 wins, one draw and only four losses in their last 25 games of the 2011-12 campaign. Lennon delivered a Scottish league trophy — something desired, not expected — and ended rival Rangers’ period of three-year dominance.

The summer break didn’t slow them down. Qualifying for the Champions League proper, slogging through its early rounds, they managed an unbeaten record in Europe and a 100% winning streak away from home in the competition. Until the match in Barcelona.

Unless you are a fan, you can’t watch “the best team in the world” without hoping that, maybe, the minnow will resist the endless current that is Barcelona — not with malicious intent, but curiosity; that, maybe, there still is some room for diminutives to rumble in a game increasingly more and more one of giants at the Champions League level. All Celtic accomplished up until Tuesday was academic: numbers that sounded good. The result at Nou Camp cannot be so easily numerated. They left in second, the same position. They left with as many points earned as any other team that lost that day. But in such a defeat, they gained more than they lost: worldwide respect, admiration and, on the year of their 125th anniversary, a platform to show Europe that Celtic are not minnows, but a proud giant of Scottish football of their own.

“Everyone had written us off, but I know the quality and the character of the team,” Lennon told reporters after the game. “While I’m bitterly disappointed for the players, I’m also immensely proud of them. They stuck to what we asked them to do. They didn’t lose their composure. We knew we’d be under pressure and we knew we’d give the ball away at certain times, but we told them to accept that — and they did.”

But do not get Lennon wrong: the players did not act as some procession of pipers playing Scotland the Brave. So often, that is the role they inhabit: of bravery in the face of a task invariably too big for them, of an underdog, which some Scots, admittedly so, do not want to be any longer. Since William Wallace, the inspiration for Braveheart, defeated the English rival in the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1296 — and years later, the army of Robert the Bruce, King of Scots, outnumbered three to one, defeated Edward II’s England at the Battle of Bannockburn — the Scots have always been a people plucky enough to take on something superior, never the opposite; being dignified and righteous in the face of a protracted struggle. So there was some regret, from Celtic’s players and Scottish football pundits, that, yes, courage is great, that, yes, gallantry is commendable, but it is not what they ultimately want.

“It’s nice to make saves, but we didn’t hold on for the point, so they’re meaningless at the end of the day,” goalkeeper Fraser Forster, who frustrated Lionel Messi, dove to his left and right with assuredness and took command of his box, told reporters. “It doesn’t really make any difference now, so I’d have swapped it all for a point.”

But there were great images to preserve in the memory. Barcelona passed and passed and passed the ball — Xavi attempted to make 198 passes, the most ever record by statistics behemoth Opta, and completed 97% of them — but for two-thirds of the game, they could not penetrate the 18-yard box. As if tracing it, they passed along the perimeter, back and forth, swinging side to side and then, mostly, losing it on the edge of the impenetrable white line. Celtic kept their shape, moving as a unit, defending with numbers, giving little of the pitch away for free. Efe Ambrose, the young 24-year-old defender who started only five games this term, stood in front of shots, tracked down Andres Iniesta and booted the ball away with power, if not accuracy.

Lennon, so often last season holding his head in his hands, overcome with frustration and exacerbation and irritation, stood firmly upright most of the match, arms crossed, barking orders and — “gratefully, proudly,” he must have thought — seeing them manifested in action.

And Forster, inspiring a sense of composure and conviction in his defenders with his own consistent play this year, made Barcelona sweat — mentally and physically. He dumbfounded them. On one play, Messi, breaking away from the last defender, rushed toward goal and brushed a ball whipped in from the edge of the box ever so slightly to the left of Forster, who reached and dove and pushed it away. Tumbling to the ground, Messi got up, stood still for a second and had the look of a man who just discovered his wallet had been stolen.

Celtic defended as Chelsea did in the semi-final of last year’s edition of the Champions League. Luck was a factor here as it was almost six months ago. Barcelona hit the post, shot wide, dazzled and astonished, weaved passes in and out, in between players, like knitting through wool, but went unrewarded for so long. “I thought we’d done enough to see the game out,” Lennon told reporters. Alas, they did not, and though many thought Barcelona deserved all three points anyway, that Celtic must have known they would concede if they sat back, all of its players believed they deserved a point. The difference of opinion rests on one of two things: “those who want their chosen football aesthetic to prevail and lovers of underdogs,” wrote Josh Brewin, senior editor at ESPNFC.

Had Georgios Samaras — who scored and won every ball he contested in the air against Barcelona before leaving the game prematurely with a rolled ankle — stayed healthy, maybe Celtic could have nicked another goal. Had there been one fewer minute to play, maybe Barcelona would not have had the time to set up one final, devastating cross. But thinking about what could have been only detracts from what happened, and it is not at all as bad as a loss on the score sheet will tell you.

That Barcelona scored was not so much a consequence of Celtic’s exhaustion or lack of concentration; rather, it was a by-product of Barcelona’s unyielding pressure. Celtic did not give in. They just made one mistake against a team that preys on them: they let them have the ball a minute too long. But it did not matter. The 93 minutes that preceded the killer goal made Celtic’s body of work look infinitely better than the result. Moral victories still mean something. Thermopylae, in the minds of tacticians and managers, still means something. And so, yes, maybe Celtic were brave and bold and defiant. So what? “I think we have given the club and the country a huge shot in the arm,” Lennon went on.

“The most important thing is the reputation of the club, and we will leave here with that firmly intact.”

Anthony Lopopolo is an Italian-Canadian freelance sportswriter and an unabashed apologist for all things Serie A. He has written for such publications as The National newspaper and the National Post, and has also appeared on Canadian national radio to talk footy. You can follow him on Twitter or send him an email.

The post Celtic can take morals out of defeat appeared first on The Footy Pie.

October 19, 2012

After playing for Brazil in Poland on Tuesday, Neymar suited up for Santos a day later, scoring in a 2-2 draw with Atletico Mineiro. There was no room for fatigue: the game was his 200th for his Brazilian club, and like some many of the outings that preceded this one on Wednesday, the 20-year-old put his virtuosity on display.

In midfield, he flicked the ball to his right, swivelled to his left and around a frozen defender, slipped it past an onrushing one, ran headstrong toward the goal and glided and strafed until he decided it was time to score, which he duly did. You would think, after scoring 119 times for Santos, like so many prodigious starlets in the game, he’d point to the name on the back of the jersey — which gaudily bore No. 200 to mark the occasion. But instead, he bowed to the roaring crowd around him. Neymar is stellar, but he is not self-centered.

Neymar enters the field of play recognizing his environment. In Brazil, no friend or legend goes unnoticed. After the game, he bowed again — this time in front of Ronaldinho, before embracing and shaking hands. The 32-year-old legend smiled back at the youngster. But it was a bashful smile, as if Ronaldinho thought the gesture was cute. And it was. That’s the thing with Neymar: even on duty with the national team, finally meeting Kaka for the first time in camp, Neymar gawked about his “idol” like a fan clamouring around a clubhouse for an autograph.

The man is true, too, a believer in family principles. He practically begged the media to believe his vow to remain in Brazil. “From the moment you hear from my mouth, or from my dad’s mouth that I will leave,” he told local reporters, “then you can start to believe it.”

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