Barca news round-up

I could write about Argentina's win over Australia, but I'm still not sure what I think about that performance. Encouraging in some ways, but utterly infuriating in others, and there's no time left to get it right. But anyway, the daily grind of club football returns, and with it the Champions League, at long last.

Everyone got back from international duty with the arrival of the players who had participated in Brazil v Mexico, and no one seems to be injured, except:

Messi got a thigh strain against Australia. The club seems to be saying that it's not going to require a long lay-off, and he might play against Lyon, but I know better than to trust their minimal information medical bulletins. We know that injuries are part and parcel of the way Messi plays, but a long spell on the sidelines yet again is the last thing he needs. The moment he went down clutching his leg and then covering his face with his hands in Australia I thought of him making that exact motion when he got injured against Chelsea in 2006, and was reassured when he was able to continue. Unfortunately it seems that my first instinct was correct.

On the plus side, Gudjohnsen is fit again. That's not sarcasm, by the way. With Eto'o out we could use his help.

Excitingly, 17-year-old wonder kid striker Bojan Krkic is in the squad to face Osasuna. The absentees are the aftementioned Messi, long term injury victims Puyol (whose recovery is coming along nicely), Eto'o and Edmilson, and the suspended Rafael Marquez.

Osasuna have proven to be difficult opponents for Barca in the past, especially away, and a victory would confirm that the team are on the right course. It won't be easy, but I hope for a change from the 'can't be bothered to win' attitude that got us a draw last season.


In other news, the Wellington Phoenix got their first win of this season with a 1-2 away victory over big-spending Sydney FC. They desperately needed a win to reassure the fans that they weren't made of the same (unfortunate) breed as the now defunct New Zealand Knights, and they went to Australian and got one. Well done.

Football in New Zealand: Wellington Phoenix 2-2 Melbourne Victory

Well, technically it's Australia, since the newly formed Wellington Phoenix (brilliant crest, by the way) play in the Australian A-League, which kicked off this weekend. The team took the place of league laughing stock New Zealand Knights, who were destroyed by the perfect storm of 1) being incompetent on the pitch, 2) low attendances, and 3) financial problems. It was always going to be difficult promoting football in a nation obsessed with a sport involving differently-shaped ball (sound familiar, American readers?), but frankly, I'm baffled at the failure of the Knights in Auckland, which for the uninitiated is New Zealand's biggest and most diverse city (and also where I happen to live), especially compared to the evident success of the Phoenix, although it is early days. Wellington has 1/3 the population of Auckland, so you'd think they'd struggle for attendance even more, but apparently not.

Because the Phoenix's first ever game, their league opener against the defending champions Melbourne Victory, attracted 14,421 lively fans to the Westpac Stadium (nicknamed the Cake Tin and no doubt familiar to those of you who follow rugby), setting a New Zealand attendance record for a football game. Keep in mind, Wellington has a population of around 400,000, and this game outsold the Wellington vs Tasman Air New Zealand Cup rugby clash which happened earlier in the same stadium by about 3000. Very, very impressive.

But all this would have been for nothing if the Phoenix turned out to be rubbish on the pitch like the Knights. 60 minutes in, they were 2-0 down, Brazilian playmaker Daniel having missed a penalty and things looked grim. But they mounted a stirring two goal comeback with Daniel making up for his error by scoring a header from a corner and New Zealand international Shane Smeltz getting the second, also a header but this time from open play. There were even a few chances to win the game late on, but it wasn't to be, and a point is a fine result from this game.

Match reports:

• The Age (Australia)
• Australian fourfourtwo
• New Zealand Herald

I was quite frustrated that things didn't work out in Auckland, but it's great to see things going well in Wellington, and the mainstream coverage they're currently enjoying. I'll definitely be following their progress this season as the Phoenix attempt to earn some respect back for New Zealand football.

All the reports said great things about the fans, who drove the team on and made quite a lot of noise with their songs and chants. Hopefully the positive experiences of the first game will keep fans coming back in as the season goes on. Early signs look pretty good. Incidentally, the Phoenix's supporters group are called Yellow Fever (so named because of the club colours) and seem to be a hard-working bunch. Good for them.

Lastly, it was heartening to see a great op-ed in the New Zealand Herald (our national daily) praising the Phoenix and being optimistic about the future of football (or as it's called here, soccer) in this country. It makes a point that I think is very important to get across in countries where football is merely trying to gain acceptance rather than being the national sport:

The great news is that sport lovers in New Zealand have a choice.

It's not that one has to come before the other. Having variety merely means that everyone is happier. I write hundreds of thousands of words about football every month, but that doesn't stop me from cheering for the All Blacks.


(Your regularly scheduled posting about European football will resume shortly with a couple of Barca-related posts.)

On the Asian Cup

I have one positive comment to make, and one rant to deliver.

the Lions of Mesopotamia

Indomitable is one of my favourite words in the English language, and it's a fitting one to describe both the Iraqi team and the ancient people they represented with such distinction. What they face on their own soil is the type of danger and deprivation no human being should have to live in, and it's nice to see them having something to cheer about.

The Saudi coach said afterwards that the whole world wanted Iraq to win - a statement not made, I hasten to add, with any bitterness - well, I certainly did. This isn't the best place to cover the sociological and political angles of Iraq's historic victory (James Lawton does a good job on the power of the game around the world in his column), but I did want to say something about the team itself.

Despite the conditions they face, the Iraqi team have achieved some great results in the last 4 years. They were excellent in the qualifiers for both the 2004 Asian Cup and the Athens Olympics back in 2003. They sent their Olympic team to that Asian Cup and still managed to make it out of a very tough group containing the Saudis, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. At the Olympics the team made headlines in defeating the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal and Australia, and eventually finished a very credible fourth. In the qualifiers for this edition of the Asian Cup, they again performed very well, before a great run to the final of the football tournament at the Asian Games last year.

Iraq have seemingly hit upon a golden generation of players, who all played their hearts out at this tournament, and all credit to them. Their Brazilian coach has also done a great job making a team out of players of different backgrounds, many of whom had lost friends or family recently to the violence back home. A job well done all around, and I hope to see them at the next World Cup.

Edit: Jon Stewart reports on Iraq's win. Stewart is of course a proper football fan who was apparently a handy winger for his university team back in the day. My favourite part? "I'm a soccer fan first, and a person second." It's funny because it's true, and sadly in this case I think it is easy to lose perspective sometimes.



Vince Grella: making friends for Australia all around the world

First, a few background details. My special interest in the Asian Cup stems from the fact that I was in fact born in China, and if one day they manage to get together a football team - instead of a bunch of players of middling talent who all think they're God's gift to the nation and have no idea what a 'team sport' is, or what the meaning of 'passion' and 'effort' are - I may think about supporting them alongside my true love. But until then, there's no team to speak of, so I haven't got anything to support. (In contrast, the All Whites may be hopeless, but at least they're a team.)

With that in mind, take my comments on the Australians how you will. As usual, I try to be as objective as possible, but I'm only human.

I may be a Kiwi, but I cheered the Socceroos on at the World Cup for their admirable spirit and sheer nerve, which are to me (great) traits very typical of Australia in competitive sport. I felt saddened on their behalf when they were knocked out in such a horrible manner. So it was with some regret that I became increasingly uncomfortable with their attitude and their conduct both leading up to the Asian Cup and in the tournament itself.

Vince Grella's rant is reproduced here for your pleasure. What he said about 'respect' especially struck a cord with me. So, let's talk about respect, shall we?

Respect is not declaring that your team, the newcomers (invited guests, if you will) to the region, were going to win all your games and the tournament, especially if (as Grella admits) you know next to nothing about the region and the teams participating.

Respect is not declaring that ignorance as if you're proud of it.

Respect is not turning up expecting for the opposition to fall at your feet.

Respect is not voicing a disturbing level of paranoia and taking personal offence at the same old wind-up tactics employed all around the world, as if you've never played a day of competitive football in your life.

The Chinese have a saying, and it roughly means do onto others as you would want others to do onto you. (See, some things are universal.) Grella would do well to think about that.

Save your indignation for when you deserve it. It was fine after the World Cup. It's plain embarrassing now.

Referees make mistakes all the time. Sometimes the results are unfair. I completely understand feeling wronged by decisions taken against you. I've certainly been in that place before. But given Australia's (probably fair) self-image as a major power in Asian football, shouldn't they act like a major power?

I support a big club team and an acknowledged world power at nation level, and I hate it when blame is laid on everything under the sun, but no one can say 'the team just didn't play well enough'. As my Chelsea-supporting friend likes to say, if you're the bigger team, then you should overcome crappy refereeing, teams that defend with 10 men and everything else and still win. Because that proves that you're the bigger, better team. I don't agree with him over a lot, but I think he's spot on about that.

(As an aside, that goes for the people who still think there's a referee's conspiracy in La Liga in the present day for - or for that matter against - Real Madrid as well. If Barca fans really believe that we are the dominant power in Spain, can we please act like it and do something about that massive chip on our shoulder?)

I'm certain that the Socceroos will bounce back and prove to be the major power that everyone predicted they would be. Maybe they'll even play well again - as they proved in Germany (in the face of many, many nay-sayers, some in their own country), the quality is there. Hopefully this episode of gracelessness will only be a distant memory soon enough.

My sincere apologies if I've caused offence - that was certainly not my intention, and as I said above, I do genuinely like the Socceroos and want them to succeed. Perhaps more action, less talk?

Barca odds and ends, and go the All Whites!

Barca 0-1 Zaragoza (Copa del Rey)

Aww, dammit. Much as I don't care about the Copa, this is Zaragoza's first win ever at the Camp Nou, and we can't go about giving out that kind of advantage. Still, at least it wasn't a league game. More on this in a proper match report, if I get around to one.

Injury updates

On a much more cheerful note, Messi gets back from Argentina on Friday, ready to resume group training by all accounts. Sammy Eto'o is also finally ready to return to group training, although he won't be able to do participate fully just yet. February 11th at the Camp Nou against Racing Santander is the initial return date for both, although with the state of the Barca medical services and their amazing powers of prediction, who knows.

Mini-All Whites qualify for the U20 World Cup

There was much cheering in my household when the news announced that the U20 New Zealand team (the unrestricted age NT are called the 'All Whites', and they aren't very good) had qualified for Canada 2007, for what I believe is the first time ever.

For those who don't know, I'm a Kiwi by nationalization. The Mini-All Whites (the Mini-Whites? That makes them sound like the Real Madrid youth team, although I wish the Kiwi players were as good as the Real kids) have got no chance in hell, but it will be a good experience, and good for football - or 'soccer' as they call it here - in New Zealand.

On the other hand, and forgive me for going off topic, but how about those All Blacks? Now there's a name to strike fear into opponents' hearts, instead of inspiring the urge to laugh at the poverty of our footballing 'talent'.