Preview: While the Bundesliga had begun yesterday, the Premier League will be rolling a week from now. With two of the football leagues I watch starting to swing into action, yours truly decides to take a step back and look back at the off-season that was. In the latest edition of unofficial weekend football focus series, what are the footballing headlines which caught yours truly since the off-season began?
You will be surprised at my pick of what in my view is the most biggest football news in the off-season. It is not either Real Madrid and Manchester City spending like there is no tomorrow on the transfer front. In fact, it has nothing to with the transfer front at all. Call me a sentimentalist because I am one at heart but, eight days since the news shook the footballing world...it is the death of the late Sir Bobby Robson. No matter how much the various sections of the English press has various opinions and takes on just a single issue, Robson's death has managed to unite everyone together. This rarely happens in football these days.
What I found it amusing at first in a way on 31 July, on the day Sir Bobby Robson died after a 17-year battle with cancer, the English press are of a sudden...praising about the man who is also well-liked at wherever he worked beyond England. Holland, Portugal, Spain. It was a case of daring to learn something new, even despite the language barriers. The adventurous spirit. But even during my own days of learning to play the piano that I really knew why music is a universal language, isn't football a universal language in the first place? The Times had an article the day after Robson died which the headline said it all - England: the last place that learnt to love 'El Mister'. It came at a time when the Premier League was beginning to gain popularity beyond English shores and at the same time the man from Sacriston, Durham County was building his reputation abroad. In fact if whatever I came across in either both the Catalonia-based El Mundo Deportivo or Sport is anything to go by in one of the editorials I came across on Monday, Robson was already a 'Sir' to the Barcelona fans before he was officially knighted in 2002. He might had only spent a season as Barcelona coach but, judging by what I came across on how the fans (or 'cules' as they are known) reacted to his passing, they do miss the man who is considered as one of the best Barcelona coaches in recent times. Got to give Robson the credit for what he did in the 1996/97 season at the Catalan giants (he once famously described the club as - "Catalonia is a country and FC Barcelona is their army", which actually makes sense given of what the football club stands for in the region itself) with also winning the domestic cup and the Spanish Super Cup during his tenure given his predecessor was a certain Johan Cruyff. Robson was also instrumental in bringing Ronaldo (the original one) to the club.
Another article which I came across on the website of Spanish respected daily El Pais on Monday is one which does makes me smile. El Pais reporter John Clarin wrote of a man who brought the concept of 'crazy about football' to an unknown level. They had already knew back in England all along that it would be very hard to stop Robson talking about football if the topic is raised. Like how I typed on Monday: At PSV Eindhoven, they sing that there is only one Bobby Robson, at Porto, he is 'Bobby Five-O' and for the Barcelona fans...they like him more than his successor Louis van Gaal and that he is 'El Mister' in Spain as well. But before all that, Robson did had his rough start at Ipswich with the players he got but in the end, he managed to overcome it. Football made Robson all that and more but yet, he still view the game like an innocent child, an enthusiastic follower, someone watching a football match for the first time all rolled into one. He reminded us why we are football fans in the first place even if it has make cynics of us all.
Among the headlines which came about in the wake of Sir Bobby Robson's death beyond the English shores, I especially like how the Catalonia-based El Mundo Deportivo had in its headline on its front page the day after his death on 1 August - The lord of the benches. That is quite an honour! The main headline was - Adios Sir Robson (Goodbye Sir Robson). In Italy, the Milan-based La Gazzetta dello Sport remembered him as the 'great man of England'. Italy came to know him when he was the England coach during the 1990 World Cup where he almost led England to the final in their country and later on when he met the now-current England coach Fabio Capello in Spain when he was working at Barcelona and Capello at Real Madrid.
Speaking of Real Madrid, they do create headlines in the off-season. But then again, with Florentino Perez back at the club for a second term as president, he is back with an agenda. To put the nine-time European champions back where it supposed to be in the world of football. The 2008/09 season was not one to remember from the club's perspective, but not so in the case of their arch-rivals Barcelona who had a spectacular season by achieving a historical treble not seen before in Spanish football. For those who remembered what Perez's first term was more famously known for, he is doing it again. This time, he also wants to create a Spanish spine to the team which has been lacking from the great Real Madrid sides of the past. During Perez's first tenure, he did brought in Spanish players from other clubs (Sergio Ramos for example, who came from Sevilla) but it has been viewed as what led to the downfall to the first 'Galaticos' era when he first left was that there was imbalance in the squad.
The activities in the first few weeks of the transfer window had seen Real Madrid creating records time and again with the amount of money spent on players. While defence is a main priority given of the number of goals leaked in the previous season, it is the arrival of players like Kaka and later on Cristiano Ronaldo which created the headlines. Kaka first arrived, but it was the announcement of Ronaldo will be off to the club from Manchester United (he had spent six seasons in England) which really dwarfed the news of Kaka. Before Ronaldo became the most expensive player in world football, Kaka was the second-most expensive player after Zinedine Zidane. Whatever the opinions of Ronaldo's move from England to Spain on whether is he really worth that much or the amount of money which is in total contrast with the current state of the world economy which even football is not spared, one cannot deny the fact that Florentino Perez cannot take all the credit of bringing the Portuguese over. His predecessor Ramon Calderon had a hand in it.
It used to be that as a Manchester United supporter myself, the thought was that Cristiano Ronaldo would be playing for my club forever. That is until he started to make noises of joining Real Madrid some day, which even his mother echoed about it. From then on, the term 'unsaleable' is not applicable to me anymore. It has gone out of the window for good. Which is why there are times I find it a little bit annoying that clubs are saying their players are 'unsaleable'. I can always use the Ronaldo example as one to put across. Ronaldo was undoubtedly the biggest star at the club I support, and to the Premier League as a whole. But why do you want to keep someone whose heart has been set on playing in Spain, with even all the more he had won just about everything there is to win in football? Money might had changed the course in football these days but still at the end of the day, no player is bigger than a football club. I was actually initially relieved when the news was made known that he is Real Madrid-bound given of the constant speculation, before thinking that though I will be missing the goals he scored for my club...I will not be missing his diva-like attitude as well. He became a well-known name while playing for my club, and so now it is time for him to play the club he had always wanted to play all along.
The departure of Cristiano Ronaldo to Spain actually prompted the English press to really wonder has the balance of football power shifted from England to Spain. It used to be for a long time, football speaks Italian until the infamous calciopoli in 2006 almost destroyed everything. Then football is beginning to speak in its original language of English after the dark days of Heysel and Hillsborough. Barcelona's Champions League triumph against Manchester United in Rome in May had proved that the Spanish national team's Euro 2008 win was no fluke. Dour and efficient football from the 2006 World Cup is out, free-flowing football is in. The great myth that Premier League sides are unbeatable in Europe has been broken in Rome. And it used to be that just about a year ago, footballers would had wanted to go to England. Not that common these days.
Not for Manchester City though, where money is no object. After being called the most richest football club in the world since last year, it is the current football off-season where they had been making most of the noises from the English perspective. Where the 'revolution' has been quite active, causing annoyances and discontent from various corners. The last time Manchester City managed to hold their ground and can challenge their illustrious cross-town rivals Manchester United was in the 70s. The arrival of a certain Alex Ferguson would change the dynamics since. But since the events of last year, Manchester City also want to share the same kind of spotlight their cross-town rivals has been getting all along.
They might had gotten ten strikers so far, but it is the defence which has been where Manchester City need to improve on. If people thought the Cristiano Ronaldo transfer saga was a drag which finally ended in the early days of the current transfer window, then there is also the case of John Terry and his Chelsea future which soon became a topic of speculation in the papers. Joining the City 'revolution' or remain at the club where he has been since as a teenager? The Chelsea captain is in his 30s and is also captain of England too. With me being almost horrified at the transfer activities going on at the cross-town rivals (and to think I have always give them respect even with their status), never a day goes by without me wondering is Terry remaining at Chelsea after all. And this is the same person who used to dislike Chelsea for their riches. On second thoughts, Chelsea were already establishing themselves in Europe before Roman Abramovich stepped in.
Then came the day when John Terry ended all those speculation. But soon after, a new set of questions is being asked in the English press. Why did it took the Chelsea and England captain that long to say something about his future? Speculation had been rifle that Terry wanted to see big-name signings at the club. But he said that he wanted to have the assurances that the club's key players are sticking around. And with the World Cup coming up next year, in all respect to Manchester City, would it made sense for someone of Terry's statue statue for club and country to go to a club which is not even playing in the Europa League? Still even if Terry is not coming, that does not mean Manchester City are cursing themselves over it. They do have back-up plans in regarding on who to sign in the defence department.
But then the events in the football off-season does not limit to the top-flight alone. A familiar face in English football is back, but at the lower league level! Just how in the world former England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson is doing as director of football at Notts County is anyone's guess. But then it has been said in the English press that where there's money, Eriksson is not far behind. Now with the football club in Arab hands, there were talk that Eriksson is in for the money. Not so, says the man himself. One can point out that it sort of brought back to the early days of the Swede's managerial career, the fact that he is back in English football at such a club like Notts County's status has make things interesting again. Until Notts County stole all the spotlight with Eriksson's appointment, Nottingham Forest was more well known thanks to the legacy of Brian Clough. Now the two clubs being located in the same area are going to have some interesting season ahead.
From the German perspective, the off-season has been mainly been dominated by one person - Franck Ribery. Is the Frenchman leaving Bayern Munich or not? The Bayern bosses especially general manager Uli Hoeness is saying 'Nein!' (no in German). But one just has the sneaky feeling even if Ribery is still recovering from injury, he may not last that long in the Bavarian capital. Ribery to the Bundesliga is how Cristiano Ronaldo was once like to the Premier League. The main attraction. Which is why I can understand for the uninitiated, Ribery's price tag does puzzle some. Is he worth as much as Ronaldo like how Bayern president Franz Beckbenbauer once claimed, or more?
To be honest even if I do watch the Bundesliga apart from the Premier League, I am not so sure though. Yes Franck Ribery is good but, he does have his Cristano Ronaldo moments before in the previous German football season. I can always refer back to the time when Bayern was playing the Bundesliga club I support in VfB Stuttgart in the previous season of the DFB-Pokal (German FA Cup). While that is one match I rather forget due to the final scoreline, it is Ribery's penalty attempt which almost makes me want to chuckle whenever I think about it. It is so Ronaldo.
Bayern Munich general manager Uli Hoeness might had once declared that Franck Ribery is 'unsaleable', but looking at how Real Madrid has been shaping up ahead of a new Spanish football season...there will still come a time when Ribery is no longer playing his club football in Germany. Real had already gotten the best of the Serie A in Kaka, the best of the Premier League in Cristiano Ronaldo and the best of France's Ligue 1 in Karim Benzema...there is just something lacking. The best of the Bundesliga.
Say what you like about how Real Madrid and Manchester City has been doing in the transfer market so far but for me, the football off-season will be remembered by one thing. You will be dearly missed, Sir Bobby Robson.
