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*hangs his head in shame, regardless*

It's another Scudamore moment.

Still, look on the bright side. Your writing is still 100 times better than the tripe the Beeb put out (and yes, I'm also bristling with rage at the ineptitude of that piece on Russia - and the fact that I have been forced to pay for that claptrap.)

Matt
 
Playing Devils advocate here,

How much exactly have you paid out for this article, or even this journalist, I would wager it would be less than a ha'penny a year. So the argument about paying for such journalism is in my book a moot point.
 
Playing Devils advocate here,

How much exactly have you paid out for this article, or even this journalist, I would wager it would be less than a ha'penny a year. So the argument about paying for such journalism is in my book a moot point.

That's a very good point, but the problem runs deeper than just a simple transaction of licence fee for content. If the BBC didn't have a sports website then the millions of people who use it would be forced to go elsewhere. This diaspora of readers would flood onto the other sites, bringing with them the increased revenue of rocketing hit rates, thus allowing the quality writing to be rewarded.

The fact that the BBC's site does exist and that its presence therefore damages the competition, doesn't strike me as very fair. It would be acceptable if the content matched the commitment from the BBC to provide material that is entertaining and/or informative, but that Russian preview was neither. It was, at best, 30mins of surfing on and then some bullet points. It doesn't say how they play, who plays, what they might do. The only salient point is that, "the final game could prove crucial."

Thanks. For. That.

As a writer for a foreign paper, it doesn't really affect me at all and I'm probably just ranting because I accidently woke up too early. As a consumer, it bugs me because there is good writing out there and no-one can fund it because of this obselete and mandatory protectionist tax that we're all paying. We're not being hit in the pocket, but we're not getting what we, as enthusiasts to a ludicrously popular past-time, deserve.
 
Ah, and I appear to be a day late! That'll teach me to spend my Mondays hanging around waste recycling facilities in Leicester.

:thump:

I didn't realise that you scouted for Tilly, but if you'd asked I could have told you that the Leicester players are all off on their hols just now, Matt.
 
There are no flags on cars and no posters in windows.

There are no flags on cars and no posters in windows. No sweeping advertising campaigns and no collectable badges. Here in the UK, you wouldn't guess that we're just hours away from the start of a major football tournament. Ok, so the nearest that the England team can get to European involvement is Wayne Rooney's stag night in Ibiza, but it's still rather sad that today sees the start of the 2008 European Championships and yet we couldn't be less enthused. One friend of mine, a football addict who actually displays symptoms of physical withdrawal during the close season, is so underwhelmed with the prospect of an England-less tournament that he's been heard asking for an easy guide to the rules of cricket, so that he can get involved in that instead. Desperate times may call for desperate measures, but few would go that far, surely?

If he really does vanish off to Trent Bridge for the Test Match this weekend, he may well come to regret it in time because this tournament has all the potential to be one of the best in recent years. England's absence isn't a disaster by any means. It just means less cash-rich arrogance from underperforming 'superstars', less drunken violence from xenophobic, sunburnt Anglo-Saxon morons and, of course, it means one less penalty shoot-out. But it doesn't mean that the tournament isn't worth watching. Just look at who is involved.

Group A is a real mixed bag of talent and definitely one to avoid if you like a gamble. Switzerland may only be able to boast of Tranquillo Barnetta as a real, top quality player, but it's very rare that a home nation gets knocked out in the first round. The Czech Republic used to be everyone's favourite outside bet, but the bulk of their key players are missing and they could really suffer, especially at the hands of Portugal. Big Phil Scolari may not have a decent striker to call upon, but with Simao, Cristiano Ronaldo and Deco behind the artless Nuno Gomez, it may not matter. On top of all of that, you've got Turkey, packed with talent and fight and led by the explosive Nihat. Pick a winner from that lot.

Germany are blessed with four top quality strikers and would have to be favourites for Group B, but even though I've put my money on them, I'm not feeling that secure. Jens Lehmann had a couple of his 'dark' moments in a recent friendly and they're not exactly water-tight at the back. If Croatia had Eduardo, they could take advantage, but he's still in London trying to glue the bottom half of his leg back on. That said, they've still got the wonderful Luka Modric, and he could be the star of the tournament. Plucky Poland face the Germans in their first game, but their solid rearguard means that a draw would give them a serious chance to progress. And then there's Austria, who are absolutely rubbish, but should be good for comedy value alone.

Now, if anyone, England supporter or not, can look me in the eye and say that they have no interest in Group C, then I think it would be for everyone's benefit if they just gave up football for good. You've got the World Cup finalists France and Italy, packed with superstars, filled with experience, and yet they will still have to be at their absolute best to get through to the knock-out stage. Holland are a purist's dream, even with the more conservative tactics of Marco van Basten, but they were beaten to top spot in the qualifying stages by Romania, who make up the four. Every single game in this life-affirming group of death will be worth watching.

Group D has gone largely unnoticed except by the growing band of La Liga romantics who dream of a day when the fractured Iberian giants can one day live up to their potential. Despite having one of the most entertaining leagues in the world and some of the greatest players in their national side, Spain never fail to disappoint on the big stage. They'll have their work cut out, especially when they run up against the solid yellow wall that is Sweden, who welcome back Henrik Larsson for his umpteenth return from retirement. Russia booked their place in the Championships by beating England, but injuries and suspensions could hit them hard. That said, who bets against a Guus Hiddink side?

Finally, you have the team who forced us all to believe that, no matter how high the stakes or how accomplished the opposition, anything in this life can be achieved by anyone if they want it badly enough. Greece return to international competition for the first time since they stunned the world in 2004. Is anyone brave enough to write them off?

Of the established superstars, you have Franck Ribery, Andrea Pirlo, Michael Ballack, Fernando Torres, Thierry Henry, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ronaldo. Of the up-and-coming talent, you have Luka Modric, Mario Gomez and Karim Benzema, to name just a few. Two games a day for almost two weeks and then the real fun begins as we hit the knock-out stage. Frank Lampard might be sat by the pool flicking through the Rough Guide to Milan and Paul Robinson may be out there somewhere, dropping something breakable, but that doesn't mean that you have to miss out as well. With or without England, The European Championships will be the sporting event of the summer, better than the Olympics, better than the tennis and yes, it will be better than the cricket as well.
 
I'm finding it hard to get excited about it, but then when England are involved i'm not sure excited is the right word either!

Ho humm i'm not at work for at least another week so i'll be watching the test match and I'll probably end up watching some of the footie aswell.
 
Luiz Felipe Scolari

Every managerial appointment at every football club in the world carries a certain amount of risk, but the decision to bring in Luiz Felipe Scolari as the new manager of Chelsea is like pouring petrol over a smouldering barbeque. On the face of it, it's a great way to get the fire burning again. Besides, what could possibly go wrong?

I hope for Chelsea's sake that, in a year from now, they still have their eyebrows, because the potential for success with style at Stamford Bridge is greatly increased by the presence of Scolari. You only have to watch Portugal in these European Championships to see the way he demands the game to be played. Finally, Chelsea will use their limitless resources to fund a footballing revolution, attempting to mesmerise their opponents with neat, quick passing and allowing their skilful players to express themselves to their heart's content. No more pumping it up to Didier Drogba! Actually, no more Drogba!

Unlike Grant, there can be no concerns about Scolari's ability to control the players. The big Brazilian doesn't do democracy. He does Philocracy, where his word is final. He is similar to Jose Mourinho in that he is ruthless with trouble-makers and fiercely loyal to those that he trusts and that's an encouraging sign for the Stamford Bridge faithful. His arrival also explains why he has apparently been encouraging Cristiano Ronaldo to leave Old Trafford. "If your enemy is double your strength, divide him," wrote his favourite author, Sun Tzu in 'The Art of War'.

But if any Chelsea fans are celebrating the appointment and assuming that a first league title in three years is around the corner, a few words of caution. For all of his exploits with Portugal and Brazil, Scolari hasn't actually managed a league team since 2001 and he has never managed a club side in Europe. He doesn't speak English and he doesn't suffer fools gladly. And, in case you hadn't already realised, in a Philocratic state, anyone who disagrees with Big Phil is a fool.

The major worry is that he turned down the chance to manage England in 2006, saying that he wouldn't want to subject himself to the scrutiny of the UK press. Ah, but this is a man who managed Brazil, you might be thinking. He dealt with their ferocious football hacks, didn't he? Unfortunately, it's not the football hacks who are the problem. The front-ends of English newspapers have an unhealthy fascination with the private lives of football celebrities, especially if they're wealthy foreigners with big reputations. Sven Goran Eriksson was stunned at their ferocity and the lengths they would go to humiliate him. Fabio Capello barely lasted a month before he found paparazzi pictures of his topless wife staring back at him from the Sunday papers. Scolari was known to be particularly livid about an article that compared his wife unfavourably with Eriksson's glamorous on-off partner Nancy Del'Olio.

If he can deal with the meddling in the corridors of power, the truculent dressing room, the pressure of expectation, the language barrier, the new teams and new players and the sudden shift to day-to-day management, then he has a chance of making Chelsea the attractive, successful and above all, marketable brand that Roman Abramovich has been demanding. But if he thinks that those newspapers are no longer going to be interested in his wife, or his house, or his children, or his past, just because he's managing Chelsea and not England, then he is in for a shock. Scolari has a lot more to deal with than just a few moody players.
 
Apparently I have to spread some rep around which is a shame because that metaphor is brilliant!
 
Rafa Benitez

In an ideal world, Rafa Benitez would have flown back to England with the rest of us on Monday, tingling with excitement after watching one of the finest international tournaments in decades and clutching a notepad full of potential summer signings. In an ideal world, as manager of one of the largest and most respected teams in the world, he would have his pick of the talent on display. In an ideal world, he might be considering the services of the rampant Russian right-back, Aleksandr Anyukov from Zenit St Petersburg, who enjoyed such success this summer. He would surely be interested in David Silva, a two-footed wide man of exceptional talent. And what about David Villa, the jewel in the Spanish crown? He'd be at the top of the shopping list.

In the real world, things are rather different. Given the way that Benitez is having to desperately offer up his players as makeweights, it seems apparent that the long-awaited riches of the Americans are still under lock and key. It wouldn't be so bad if his targets were of the highest quality, but is there any Liverpool fan out there who seriously thinks that a triple whammy of Robbie Keane, Gareth Barry and Philipp Degen will finally deliver that long awaited title? Last summer's signing of Fernando Torres proved that what this team needs are genuinely world class footballers. You can have all the efficient competence in the world, but over the course of a long Premier League season, there must be those special players who can crack a game wide open with one moment of genius.

Keane, who has apparently bitten Benitez's arm off at the first glimmer of a move to Anfield, is a very good footballer. He's quick, skilful and he has a ferocious shot on him, but any Tottenham fan will tell you that he lacks composure in one-on-one situations. He scored 24 goals in all competitions last season, which is a decent haul, but with no disrespect to Spurs, he has arguably found his level at the club. When Liverpool signed Torres, everyone took a sharp intake of breath and thought, "Wow!" I don't see this signing, if it happens, having quite the same impact.

Looking around the top half of the Premier League, you can see Chelsea securing the brilliance of Deco, Arsenal chasing French talent, Samir Nasri and Manchester United plotting expensive contingency plans in the event that they lose Cristiano Ronaldo. Below Liverpool, Tottenham have made two potentially huge signings in Luka Modric and Giovanni dos Santos, Blackburn and Manchester city have new cheque-book wielding managers and, despite their silence, you'd be a fool to write off further improvement from Everton, Aston Villa and Newcastle.

This is a vital season for Liverpool and a proven manager like Benitez deserves better backing from these American owners. The EPL is the richest league in the world and a club that is so well supported around the world and that consistently qualifies for the Champions League should be able to strengthen itself better than this. Where on earth is all that TV money going?

I like Keane and I like Barry, they're both good players, but are they really that much better than Peter Crouch and Xabi Alonso, the likely candidates to make way for them? Is Degen, an unused Swiss substitute and bit-part player in a struggling Bundesliga outfit, really the best replacement for the ageing Steve Finnan? Liverpool have been so far adrift of Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal for so long that we're in danger of seeing the 'big four' replaced by the 'big three'. If George Gillett and Tom Hicks are serious about their designs for Liverpool, it's time for them to either put up their money, or hand the reins to someone who will.
 
Keane, who has apparently bitten Benitez's arm off at the first glimmer of a move to Anfield, is a very good footballer. He's quick, skilful and he has a ferocious shot on him, but any Tottenham fan will tell you that he lacks composure in one-on-one situations. He scored 24 goals in all competitions last season, which is a decent haul, but with no disrespect to Spurs, he has arguably found his level at the club. When Liverpool signed Torres, everyone took a sharp intake of breath and thought, "Wow!" I don't see this signing, if it happens, having quite the same impact.

Isn't Keane essentially also an older, more injury prone version of Torres? I've never really thought Benitez was that skilled a manager. I'd be surprised to see Liverpool challenge for anything much yet again this season due to his O-T-T rotation policy (which he did curb admittedly last season for a while and the team went on a fine run), and even more surprised to see Rafael in charge come next season.
 
Joey Barton

There is little in this world as infuriating as the sight of a young man, guilty of vicious assault, walking away from a courtroom with just a suspended sentence. There is anger at the clemency, fury at the perception that justice has failed. In the case of Joey Barton, however, there is just an overwhelming and profound sadness.

Britain, if you've been reading your foreign pages, is wrestling rather pathetically with the scourge of street-crime. Scores of teenagers have been slain on the streets in recent weeks, thousands more have been beaten senseless, more often than not by hair-triggered, Neanderthal scum like Barton. Far be it for a football hack to attempt to pontificate on social trends, but the one theme that resonates in all of these crimes is a lack of respect. A lack of respect to the victim and to society. There is no fear of authority in Britain and, when you hear that Barton should be a free man in time for pre-season training, it's no surprise at all.

Laughably, his suspended sentence was handed down at a time when he was already serving time for battering a man like a piece of raw meat in Liverpool City Centre. Barton who, in keeping with the strict fitness regimes you would expect of a millionaire athlete, had drunk ten pints and five bottles of lager at the time of the attack, continued to rain blows on his victim even while he was on the floor. It's a genre of fighting that he had experimented with seven months earlier when he continued to pulverise Ousmane Dabo, even as he lost consciousness, leaving him looking like 'the elephant man'. But then this is a man who has already courted controversy for high jinks like fighting a 16 year old in an airport and stubbing a cigar out on a youth team player's eyeball, so what should we expect?

Newcastle know that they cannot sack Barton because it would be pointless. Like him or loathe him, he is an expensive asset that would just be snapped up within hours by a rival. Even now, clubs like Bolton Wanderers are sniffing around in the hope that they can take advantage of the situation. However, the PFA have urged him to 'banish his demons' and the FA would never summon up the courage to take action on something like this, so the debate is effectively over. Barton is free to return to his SG$195,000 a week contract. Of course, there is an argument that he may learn a lesson from all of this, but there is nothing in his history to suggest it.

"Being an idol brings with it responsibilities," Judge Mushtaq Khokhar told him, without a shred of irony. Being a judge brings with it responsibilities as well and, with this decision, Khokhar has completely neglected them. In a country ravaged by pointless and violent crime, he had a chance to make an example of a high profile criminal, to drive a message home that smashing people in the face with your fists until they stop twitching is 'a bad thing'. This suspended sentence increases the false perception that, short of killing someone, you can get away with anything in Britain.

Barton isn't to blame for the knife culture or the murders, or even the violence that consumes the streets, apart from the small percentage that he himself provides. He can only answer for his own crimes. But, sad as it may be to see a man torch his own career, and horrific as it is to read the pain of his victims, as Barton walks free this month an increasingly feral nation will take note that, once again, justice has failed. That's the saddest thing of all.
 
Hair-triggered?

I'm not familiar with this term, but I'm picturing a spate (or should that be pate?) of hair-related violence.

Anyway, a good article to put in your portfolio for when the Daily Mail come calling.
 
Hair-triggered?

I'm not familiar with this term, but I'm picturing a spate (or should that be pate?) of hair-related violence.

Anyway, a good article to put in your portfolio for when the Daily Mail come calling.

http://www.yourdictionary.com/hair-trigger

Isn't it just? Righteous indigantion, the unheard voice of the silent moral majority. I think I just came one step closer to becoming Jon Gaunt.

*showers*
 
http://www.yourdictionary.com/hair-trigger

Isn't it just? Righteous indigantion, the unheard voice of the silent moral majority. I think I just came one step closer to becoming Jon Gaunt.

*showers*

:doh: Of course hair-triggered would be as in hair-trigger.

I'm going to instead claim I now haven't heard of Jon Gaunt (unless that is John of Gaunt).
 
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