Farewell, David Beckham, and thanks

David Beckham has retired from professional football at the age of 38.  The former England captain and fashion icon leaves the game a ten-time league champion in twenty seasons – winning six titles with Manchester United, two with Los Angeles Galaxy and one each with Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain.

He will be remembered for a great many things – scoring from midfield to announce his arrival, romancing a Spice Girl and transcending his sport more than any other footballer.  In some ways it’s a pity that his global fame has overshadowed his formidable footballing ability, for he was a truly outstanding midfielder for Man U.  He was absolutely brilliant with his dead-ball delivery and could deliver a Hollywood assist better than anyone of his generation outside retirement companion Paul Scholes. 

A cross from David Beckham?  On time, every time.

He will go down as the defining player of his generation, a name for the ages carrying greater widespread appeal than those who accomplished more on the field like former teammates Ryan Giggs, Raul and Andrea Pirlo.  The names forever linked with football from the late 90s and early 2000s will begin with David Beckham.

(c) Balanced Sports - from author's own collection

While his mystique was awe-inspiring, he was hardly an overpowering or dominant player.  Aside from those elegant, glorious set pieces, David Beckham rarely inspired fear in the manner of Ronaldo, nor did he befuddle like a Ronaldinho or Messi.  Indeed, it might be his greatest achievement that he leaves the game as his generation’s defining (and most marketable) player without actually being amongst the very best of the era.

Beckham’s singular talent wasn’t for football or a particular skill within it, but an immense charisma that saw everyone seek his approval (aside from one or two particular managers).  So powerful was the impression left by his simple and dignified affect that he belongs in the Athletic Charisma Hall of Fame alongside the likes of Michael Jordan and founder member Muhammad Ali.  While these two boasted a more primal and combative magnetism, Beckham’s appeal is based around a graceful and understated – almost minimalist – style.

The other skill that David Beckham perfected was an ability to make money.  This is inextricably linked to his other singular asset: his bearing created a demand that expanded his pocketbook exponentially.  It’s hard to rationalize an athlete making the lucrative money he has, and even harder to justify.  However, considering the amount of rabid publicity he and his family endured, he deserved every penny.  Even in his last season, he earned £30 million – including a rich contract for a dozen appearance from PSG’s bench that only further heightened his public appeal. 

He leaves the game with as much class as he entered it.  When a young David Beckham sent a 45-yard ball floating past Wimbledon ‘keeper Neil Sullivan, the football world opened up to him and anything seemed possible.  Now, as he now walks into a much larger world, the same could be said again. 

Anything is possible.

Rooney dumps himself into dilemma

We all remember the last time Wayne Rooney wanted out.  Or at least, we should.  In October of 2010, his agent Paul Stretford claimed the nascent twenty five year-old was frustrated with a lack of progress at Old Trafford and that he wanted to compete for trophies he felt were beyond United’s reach. 

After two days of death-threats and punditry reliant upon the word “entitlement”, Sir Alex Ferguson and Rooney emerged two days later and announced the forward had signed a new deal – for five years- which would make him the highest-paid Red Devil of all time.  The venerable gaffer had spent the previous two days displaying all the hallmarks of a master of amateur cod-psychology, effectively reversing the gun barrel pointed at the club and pointing it squarely at a player never looked upon by “the faithful” in the same way since.

Two and a half years later, we find history repeats itself as the player most associated with Sir Alex Ferguson’s final handful of great Manchester United teams was left out of the manager’s farewell appearance at Old Trafford.  The manager himself confirmed – on a day that should have been about him, not anyone else – that Rooney had asked out.  Current betting markets like Unibet have Bayern Munich favoured to land the most talented English player of his generation, followed by Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea.

However, the equation might not be so simple.  As a result both of form and also that abysmally-mismanaged game of one-upmanship, Rooney finds himself with few options.  While rumour suggests he prefers a transfer to Bayern Munich, would this year’s Champions League finalists want him – especially with a new manager entering and whispers of Neymar on the way? 

At Chelsea, he would be a lumbering throwback at no. 10 and a retrograde step from the scampering dervishes now en vogue forward of centre at Stamford Bridge.  Even as a designated poacher, his appeal decreases: while cash isn’t necessarily an object for either Roman Abramovich or the Qatari Sports Group, Financial Fair Play certainly is.

Rooney’s predicament is an absolute function of on- and off-field form.  Since his cumbersome double-bluff was called in late 2010, the club’s former talisman has performed only irregularly on the pitch, which has resulted in Ferguson preferring United’s other forward options in the season’s biggest games. 

This is multiplied by the lack of esteem in which he – the person, rather than the player – is held by Manchester United’s fans.  His continual lack of foresight has seen him maneuver himself into an awkward position - unlike 2010, he appears to genuinely want to leave Manchester, yet the contract he “won” at that time and patchy form hardly endears him to Europe’s top clubs.  Rather than accept a lauded position as the definitive Red Devil of the early part of this century, his myopia has led him now to almost certainly ending his career at Old Trafford an unfulfilled great.

Wayne Rooney’s lack of vision has made a very stiff rod for his own back.

Farewell Sir Alex Ferguson

It was unexpected, quick and most suitable.

Sir Alex Ferguson didn’t need a cavalcade of fanfare as he announced his retirement today after twenty-seven years as manager of Manchester United, but a simple celebration befitting an uncomplicated man.  Rather than engendering endless speculation by pre-empting his retirement or embarking upon a final series of signature mind games, Sir Alex has chosen a dignified departure. 

Though it has emerged that Everton’s David Moyes will almost certainly take over as the Red Devils’ boss – a move marked clearly with Sir Alex’s fingerprints – today isn’t a day to fete the new, but to remember the older – a man who was quite simply the best.  Despite battles lost, the war was an overwhelming triumph choreographed by a director gifted so supremely with vision, flexibility of thought and strength of character.

These adjectives will be three of the thousands used to describe him today, such is his renown and ability.  He is the defining character in the history of the English Premier League, a league which owes its popularity in large part to the inexorable United sides that accumulated thirteen titles from twenty-one.

It’s odd to think that perhaps his greatest strength was that flexibility.  Over his tenure, Sir Alex earned a reputation for uncompromising forthrightness, a character trait that hardly suggests a man given to adaptability.  However, his pile-driving outward manner masked a communicator not only able to relate effectively to players born across six decades, but to spur – or cajole – whatever greatness lay within.  The sport bears little resemblance to the one he himself played north of the Wall; the circus surrounding it even less, but he has been ever-present – a man defying time and tempering.

His longevity pays ultimate tribute to a pragmatic tactical flexibility.  Over the course of his reign, Sir Alex has not only replenished United’s stocks but also regenerated from within.  The most recent revival saw the dour Champions of 2011 moulded into a collection of title-winning freewheelers.  Neither was “vintage”, but both were utterly effective.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s legacy will include two Champions League wins, thirteen Premiership titles (and sixteen overall), a European Cup Winners’ Cup and five FA Cups.  It is inconceivable in the disposable culture of today’s football that these accomplishments could be surpassed by one man and a team crafted, refined and re-refined. 

However, it is unfair that he will be measured by quantifiable achievements.  The past twenty-seven years have been his greatest bequest: the Fledglings, a magical evening at the Nou Camp and an inherent confidence that triumph lay only ninety minutes away. 

None are more impressive than the figures who dominate our formative years; they linger in memory having immortalized deeds never to be surpassed. Sir Alex Ferguson is the only manager that most living Manchester United – and football – fans have ever known.  For anyone aged under thirty-five, he will forever prowl the sidelines at Old Trafford as his bronzed likeness glares down from a pedestal fronting Old Trafford’s entry gates.  Flickering shadows will replace him, some of whom will succeed.  But none will match the deeds, or be remembered as fondly, as Sir Alex Ferguson.

MLS and Manchester City a good match

With MLS seeking again to swell its ranks, the discussion has seemingly moved from where the next franchise will be located – New York City – and onto whom is best positioned to own and run such an enterprise. 

It has emerged that Manchester City’s flush-with owners are interested in soldering together this prometheus, appropriately based in the borough of Flushing.  The new team would serve twin purposes of generating talent for its parent club and increasing City’s brand recognition in the ever-expanding US market.

City’s expansion into the US market seems to have been received positively by fans of MLS as well as Don Garber, as well it should.  The league was recently judged the seventh-most attended on the planet, as has begun regularly producing players of true quality and an open gateway to Europe could provide more exposure in a nation where football highlights rarely make Sportscenter.

Close ties between are commonplace within countries, or continents even - Manchester United have had a longstanding relationship with Belgian club Royal Antwerp.  More recently – and perhaps more similarly as well – the Pozzo family has expanded from their black-and-white binding fiefdoms at Udinese to annex clubs in Spain and England, using them to develop players that they can then either use or sell, usually with a significant sticker price increase.

Any concerns MLS fans have about being home to “feeder” clubs can be assuaged by investigating the benefits of and exposure that having Sheikh Mansour involved in American sport would deliver.

Setting up an expansion franchise, youth academy and building a stadium in the real-estate mire of NYC will cost a bucketful.  Such hard costs coupled with the expense of bringing in players might intimidate a new ownership group and delay fan aggregation – we all love a winner.  Not only would the New York Blues have the opportunity to raid the Sky Blues for loan players, but also the backing to deliver some of the country’s most promising young talent.  They have more money to spend at chiseling out market share than could possibly be needed, no small feat in the City that Never Sleeps.

And perhaps the greatest benefit of all might come from the increased visibility.  The popularity of the English game transcends that of all other major leagues (with the exception of two notable Spanish clubs) and the Citizens’ five-year spending spree has ensured their position at that league’s apex until their patriarch suffers from a case of terminal boredom. 

Links with a league as outgoing as the English Premiership should be actively encouraged.

It is a fundamental truth of business that if a superwealthy investor shows interest in your product, you’re doing something very right or very wrong.  Another reality is that you generally look to involve these multi-multi-multi-billionaires wherever possible, as long as it doesn’t put you out too much – having capital in the bank never hurts.  The continued growth of MLS suggests that Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan’s interest isn’t hostile; if the feelers he is putting out are genuine, rest assured that Garber et al will move heaven and earth to make him a part of the league.

An overblown Eden Hazard love-in

The start of Eden Hazard’s career with Chelsea might best be described as bimodal.

After a £32-million summer transfer from the 2011 French Champions Lille, Hazard began the season lauded as perhaps the best Belgian in a league full of ‘em.  But his form slumped around the time his club entered the mid-season depression that cost Champions League winning manager Roberto Di Matteo his position and recovered only in the early months of this year.

Yet when one takes a look at the nominees for the PFA Player of the Year award and now that same organisation’s Team of the Year sees him line up behind Robin van Persie.  He has been touted for a superlative season, but hasn’t produced at the same level we expected after his glistening start.

Both seem a bit rich.  Hazard is unquestionably an incredibly talented player, but has performed rather inconsistently in the English Premiership – he is capable of outstanding performances but has remained somewhat anonymous in other matches, perhaps a function of Chelsea’s attempt to shoehorn three pesky creative types into one outfit.  While statistics only tell half the story, Mata has indeed had the superior season.

Was his selection in the Team of the Year a product of a lack of alternative options?  Given his peers voted him one of the best six players in the country, that’s a long bow to draw – it’s clear that the Premier League rank and file deem him a player to be respected.  Nevertheless, he made the celebrated team at the expense of players of whom it could be easily argued had better seasons like Arsenal’s Santi Cazorla or Swansea City superbargain Michu. 

The love-in surrounding Hazard’s debut English season has begun and history will say that it was a fine one, replete with awards.  But that doesn’t do him justice – he could be one of the five greatest players in the world and that hasn’t been reflected in the totality of his performances this year.  This year, he has been very-good-but-not-great, perhaps only displaying eighty percent of his formidable skill.  But does a player who only engages (even) a fraction of his ability truly deserve a position in such an esteemed team?

Agüero’s curious "tackle" lays bare need for rule change

Following Sergio Agüero’s … enthusiastic … challenge upon David Luiz’s hindquarters during this weekend’s FA Cup Semi-Final, the issue of crude tackles has once again been thrust into football’s spotlight. 

Agüero, who scored a decisive goal in City’s 2-0 triumph, appeared to drop-kick the Chelsea centre-back in the posterior at about the 82-minute mark and escaped without serious censure from referee Chris Foy.  

The incident – which you can view below – appears to show the Argentine beaten for a ball by Luiz, who goes to ground.  Agüero’s response is to go to ground himself, cleats first and no matter whose butt was lay in his way.  The result: a free kick to the Blues.

Should a player commit a poor foul, it is FA policy – barring “special circumstances” – to avoid further punishing players for such infractions.  It is their position that retrospective action would undermine a referee’s control of the game.  This posture assumes of course that the referee had control (and adequate sight-lines) in the first place.

It’s time for that rule to change.  To avoid serious injuries as a result of unduly rough play, the FA needs to seriously consider retrospective punishment.  That Agüero – and Callum McManaman – escaped serious punishment for poorly executed or deliberate feet-first contact is galling and it’s fortunate that their victims weren’t more seriously injured. 

It is a paramount duty of Football Associations to ensure player safety.  In order to do so, perhaps inspiration can come from the Australian Football League.  In the late 1980s, this competition instituted a “trial-by-video” system to eliminate rampant behind the play violence and to compensate for incidents the officiating umpires might have missed.  In so doing injuries as a result of player violence by dint of negligence or vindictiveness has been reduced markedly. 

In the AFL, each case is judged according to a penal matrix which assigns a points value to the incident’s intent (which can be graded intentional, reckless, negligent or accidental), impact (deemed severe, high, medium, low, negligible) and point of contact (was it to the head, groin or body?).  Players who score highly – for example a deliberate punch to the face of an opponent – are in line to receive far harsher sanctions than someone who negligently knees a player to the ribs.  Penalties are then meted out according to a similar system, with good or bad behavior bonds and early guilty pleas serving as multipliers.

Precedents are inadmissible evidence, meaning every player receives the same judgment.  More importantly, each player are charged with protecting player safety and made aware this duty of care is expected of them.  

For football, the point of contact might be adapted to assess how high up the “target” player’s leg impact occurs.

With such a system, Agüero’s challenge might be assessed as reckless, medium and to the upper leg, thus earning a moderately severe ban.

Football Associations across the globe must do more to ensure player safety and avoid cases like Ben Collett, Aaron Ramsey and Eduardo.  This is one way to empower players in taking charge of their own on-field security.  There has been one incident too many.

10-year form chart, English Championship promotion contenders

Perhaps this year they can do it.

Maybe, just maybe, this is the year that Cardiff City can break their five-year playoff hoodoo and finally earn promotion to the Premier League.  Few would argue that they're deserving - the Bluebirds Dragons have finished thereabouts in English football's second tier for half a decade as well appearing at Wembley in FA and League Cup Finals - yet seem always to develop a flopsweat of Nixonian proportions during the season's most crucial weeks.

Cardiff and their rivals for automatic promotion - at this stage, mainly a rejuvenated Hull City and Gianfranco Zola's time-shared Watford squad - are without question the best three teams the Championship have to offer.  As an added bonus and in contrast to some other upstarts ascendent, all three should also have the resources to make a splash should they rise into the the Premiership, albeit through vastly different methods.

The peloton features PYTs of management, Gus Poyet and Dougie Freedman (whose current and ex-clubs find themselves in the chase).  It should come as no surprise that a surging Nottingham Forest - with their demonstrable playoff chops - find themselves firmly ensconced in fifth position.

Each team has its own narrative: Cardiff's collection of close misses, the Return of the King at Forest and even an Egyptian connection at Hull City made especially poignant by that country's recent football history.  The Premier League will be a richer - and more curious - league for their impending presence.

Click to embiggen

QPR's Townsend, the £40 million man

When they loaned Andros Townsend to QPR in late January, Tottenham Hotspur sat fourth in the Premiership and could be well satisfied with their past two months.  After taking nineteen points from a possible thirty, they looked forward to a February facing strictly mid-table clubs.

With Gareth Bale and Aaron Lennon offering a pincer attack in outstanding form – and Clint Dempsey, Lewis Holtby and Gylfi Sigurdsson available as well – the club presumably felt they could afford the luxury of allowing the youngster to grow by playing Premier League football regularly.

Townsend, 21, might actually cost Spurs more than anticipated.

He has become – without question – Rangers’ most important player; moreover, he has shown why Harry Redknapp (who, curiously, largely ignored him while at Spurs) took him on a rental across London.  Over the past month Townsend has been the dominant player in the Premiership, regularly beating opponents for pace and guile before swinging crosses into threatening positions. 

His seven games in hoops have borne out two scores, an assist and three Player of the Match nods in his past four matches.  The streak has left him, according to the reputable WhoScored.com, with a cumulative Player Rating for his QPR spell of a stratospheric 7.83.

Left backs both experienced and fleet-of-foot have been preyed upon: his Loftus Road locker boasts the heads of Javier Garrido, Rafael, Danny Rose, Matthew Lowton, John Arne Riise and most recently, Maynor Figueroa.

While hard to fathom after a gut-wrenching draw on the weekend, Townsend could prove the difference between the Hoops’ survival and relegation.  Should Rs stay up – and save owner Tony Fernandes  at least £25 million – it will be on Townsend’s back.

Although figures that size aren’t to be sniffed at, Townsend’s true value might be felt more by his parent club.  Since rising to third in the league in February, Spurs have struggled to cement entry into next year’s Champions League.  While a lack of strikers has been implicit to this shakiness, the team has struggled more since the loss of Lennon – and now Bale – to injury.

Neither Dempsey nor Sigurdsson are as inclined to create for others as for themselves, meaning forward thrusts at White Hart Lane – and, more crucially, away from home – have lacked the incision and penetration of the past six months.  This has only been compounded by the Bale-shaped void on the left wing.  The impetus that marked Spurs’ outstanding form of early 2013 is obvious for its absence.

Should Spurs falter further in the season’s waning weeks, they risk the riches of Europe’s premier competition – which is where missing Townsend really begins to hurt.  Although estimates vary, Champions League group-stage entrants can expect to receive windfalls of a minimum £16 million plus income from extra home games.  Clubs who progress to the Elimination stages could stand to collect up to another £25 million. 

Should Spurs’ absent forwards mean they finish out of UCL contention while Townsend leads Rangers to an unlikely continued existence in the top division, the net turnaround could be as much as £42 million.  While no-one was to know Townsend was capable of replicating his QPR form with Tottenham – the game of “What if” is appropriate only in MathNet – this swing puts him alongside a certain other West Londoner as the only Premiership players worth over £40 million.

Benitez, Chelsea and the successful season

Now he's officially departing Cobham in a few weeks, we can begin to evaluate more fully Rafael Benitez's star-cross'd reign at Chelsea.

At present, the Blues are locked in a tight battle for a Champions League position, while also active on two further fronts: the Europa League and, after Monday's victory against Old Rivals United, the FA Cup.

More correctly, we ask what would constitute a a successful season for Benitez in a personal sense.  With free agency looming, Occam's Razor suggests he will only leave the club satisfied should he add trophies to his resume.  The Premiership is gone, perhaps even before he arrived, meaning a successful season for Rafael Benitez depends upon twinned FA Cup/Europa League wins.

Rafael Benitez is firmly cognizant that he has to leave Chelsea with something (or things) to show for an eventful six months.

Even were he to available to boss the Blues next season, he would have to hang his hat on Cups competition, because he has led the Blues to rather haphazard league form: predecessor Roberto Di Matteo averaged 2.0 points per contest this term while Rafa's Blues have managed only 1.72.

However, he has propelled them relatively easily into the latter stages of both remaining Cups competitions - to the extent that there are suggestions that he is deliberately focusing not on an administratively-desired Top Four position, but on collecting as much silverware as possible.

Upcoming/potential opponents in each of these winnable competitions might present some problems - but these could hardly be described as insoluble.

Should Chelsea qualify for the Big Dance next year - no matter if it's in third position or fourth - Benitez can proudly and justifiably say to any future employers that he signed off on three deliverables for his Russian plutocrat.  However, he must be well aware that multiple Europa League titles and FA Cup wins read better to potential employers than their solitary equivalents won half a decade ago or more.

Famously, Benitez was deprived of any real power by the word "interim" that hovered nebulously and forebodingly over his job title, and is now mobilising his endgame strategy using the only real power he retains - that of directing his charges.

If - and, at this stage we can only say if - Benitez is disregarding his current employer to make himself more desirable to future payors, then this is a passive-aggressive game of chicken for the ages.  Should it pay dividends, he automatically puts himself in the frame for some of the plum jobs in Europe; if not, he sleeps with management fishes.

While the Blues hold onto the all-important UCL qualifying position and remain in contention for two further trophies, Benitez's short reign must be seen as a tacit success.  However, should they drop the ball in all three competitions - an unlikely but possible "accomplishment" - then Rafael Benitez will become more toxic than he was before arriving in West London.

Cricket Australia contract list: more questions than answers

Yesterday, Moises Henriques – he of three recent Tests against India – was ignored by Cricket Australia in their list of twenty centrally-contracted players.  He was ostensibly passed over for young Tasmania all-rounder James Faulkner, who earned his first Australia contract at age 22.

Although this isn't to detract from Faulkner's joy (he probably deserves the position), Henriques can justifiably feel rather miffed.  Although he struggled for much of the Border-Gavaskar series, he performed admirably during his debut Test, scoring 149 across two innings and taking 1/48 from seventeen mid-standard overs with the ball.  Although he only managed a further seven runs on tour, but he deserves some credence as these fifties were two of only twelve half-century-plus scores by Australians for the tour.  (Five of which were by players on tour for their ability with the ball – two each by Siddle and Henriques, and Mitch Starc’s 99).

Let’s leave aside, for the moment, the remarkable fact that CA breaks up their centrally contracted group of 20 players relatively evenly across three formats rather than focusing on the game’s highest form, Test cricket.  Let’s instead examine the message that this contract list sends.

It is yet another example of institutional flip-flopping by the Cricket Australia selection panel.  While Blind Freddy and his dog clamoured for the removal of Andrew Hilditch, the current National Selection Panel has been just as – if not more – inconsistent: players are called up only to be discarded one or two Tests later.  All that remains is to then be completely forgotten. 

With Australia’s Test cricket history stretching to 136 years, it’s damning that over 8 percent of all players ever to pull on a Baggy Green have debuted since 2007.

This is in polar contrast to the last three occasions in which Australia has had to build a team after debilitating setbacks.  On those three occasions (post-1984, in 1977-78 and in 1964), the hierarchy set about identifying players of talent enough to build a team around.  The players identified in that most recent down period – Dean Jones, Steve Waugh, Craig McDermott and Bruce Reid – ushered in those wonderful nineties.

This time, Australia has identified no-one around which they can build but Michael Clarke and a promising crop of fast bowlers.  Perhaps this is due to a lack of talent, but it’s more likely this is a consequence of an itchy trigger finger.

If the ultimate leadership of James Sutherland and the National Selection Panel are this inconsistent, the role of Michael Clarke, Mickey Arthur and Pat Howard is suddenly thrust from team-building to constant team integration – and hence, discipline like that famously which was infamously dispensed in Mohali.  Given his role in team selection – and the rather Draconian methods they favour – Clarke and Arthur are hardly blameless, but with such a shifting player base any concept of a unified team identity is just that – a concept.

That the selectors can't - or won't - narrow their player pool down to a promising, deserving touring part is damning and leaves more questions for themselves, and for Cricket Australia.