Mihir Bose: Why English football will always struggle to get rid of dreadful coaching ideas
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- Mihir Bose
- Published on Saturday, 15 June 2013 14:59
This is a problem that seems to be always with us like death and taxes. And, as ever, there are any number of suggestions on what should be done. So Harry Redknapp has chipped in with his comments that the problem is players are told to hoof the ball, not keep possession. You cannot, says Harry, do that in international football. Redknapp makes a valid point except this is not a particular problem of grown up football. This is a problem that goes right down to the grass roots of the game.
When back in the 1970s I first started reporting football it was common to go to first division grounds and hear crowds bellow out when one of their defenders had the ball, 'boot it out' or 'loft the ball'. And woe betide any defender who dawdled with the ball on the edge of his penalty box. He was immediately condemned as 'a fancy Dan' who had no place on the park.
Mihir Bose: Can Mourinho make us fall in love with Chelsea?
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- Mihir Bose
- Published on Friday, 07 June 2013 11:10
Normally, in such situations, both parties to the remarriage make declarations of how much they have learnt from their previous mistakes. In this case there has been no such pronouncements. In the closed world that Chelsea have adopted - they are not alone, Arsenal regularly provide master classes on how to be the Kremlins of English football - we would not expect any great statements from them. But in the way Mourinho has expressed himself there are clear indications that in this, his second coming, the Special One will approach his job very differently.
Mihir Bose: FIFA and football could learn about democracy from the Olympics
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- Mihir Bose
- Published on Thursday, 30 May 2013 15:49
"Absolutely," he answered, "At the beginning of the game, [the behaviour] is okay in football. But, at the end, we still have problems to bring the players together. [This is] because the losing team will not come to shake hands because they have lost. This is a pity. In the other games which I have witnessed in these Olympics, at the end of the match they are all coming together."
Blatter did not offer any solution but during 2012 football drew some comfort from the fact that the matches were touched by the much talked about Olympic magic, at least in the behaviour of the fans. So the GB v Brazil not only attracted the largest crowd for a women's match in this country - 70,000 - but there was no segregation. And many in the crowd even had a drink in their hands as they watched, something that would be impossible in any non-Olympic football match. Some even cheered the opposition.
Mihir Bose: It would be wrong to say there are no German lessons for English football
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- Mihir Bose
- Published on Thursday, 23 May 2013 14:27
If a couple of matches can produce such dramatic football changes then why did the Manchester United-Chelsea final in Moscow in 2008 not leave an imprint on the game? Why did it not mean a similar fundamental shift in England's favour? The reason is that during a football match, rightly described as the theatre of dreams, the passion and intensity of the game can make us believe that what we are witnessing represents revolutionary, dramatic, changes. In reality what is often happening is that there is change of scenery before the next act. The plot and essential nature of the play does not alter.
Mihir Bose: Mancini's sacking raises questions about the faceless men of football
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- Mihir Bose
- Published on Wednesday, 15 May 2013 17:38
For a start the idea that City's owner, Sheikh Mansour, has suddenly acquired the hire-fire attitude of the rich man whose example he has copied, Roman Abramovich, does not hold water. There were many who thought he should sack Mancini the season before last. Some argued that Mancini should have been sacked before the end of last season when it appeared his title challenge had faltered. But the Abu Dhabi owner held back and was duly rewarded.
Mihir Bose: Sir Alex Ferguson, why we will never again see the like of him
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- Mihir Bose
- Published on Thursday, 09 May 2013 08:53
While some of this may reflect the demands made on the media in the age of twitter and rolling 24 hour news it is also a testament to the Scot who came to manage Manchester United with few expectations, was odds on favourite to be sacked after three years and finally retired after 26 years in charge leaving behind 38 trophies in the boardroom.
During this time he probably fashioned five teams starting with the Eric Cantona inspired one that won him his first Premiership title in the inaugural 1992-93 season. In the process he also introduced various changes in English football, not least the rotation system, something unknown until suddenly unveiled by Ferguson in the 1995-96 season. By then, having established domestic supremacy, he had worked out that he needed to reduce the workload of the first team, more so as he sought European glory.
Mihir Bose: Can we any longer allow football to regulate itself?
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- Mihir Bose
- Published on Wednesday, 01 May 2013 19:03
That football has become a business is now so taken for granted that it hardly seems worth repeating. However the problem with the football business is that the business is self regulated. That may be true of all sport but no sport is such a huge business that football has become in the last two decades.
Now that would not matter if in becoming a business the sport had acquired some of the sense of corporate responsibility that is now expected of modern businesses. But it has not. Football still clings on to an almost mafia like belief that it is a family and what is does must remain within the family.
It must be said business for a long time displayed just such an attitude.
Mihir Bose: Old Trafford's Overlords have always picked it right
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- Mihir Bose
- Published on Wednesday, 24 April 2013 17:14
Fantasy?
No, that is how the wheel of fate turned.
Mihir Bose: Why football cannot have its cake and eat it
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- Mihir Bose
- Published on Friday, 19 April 2013 14:48
Yet it is too simplistic to see the riots by Millwall fans at the Wembley semi-final as a return to the old spectre of football hooligan. There is, of course a historical twist to this. With the riots coming just days before Thatcher was laid to rest it was natural to reflect that it was Millwall and their riotous fans back in 1985 filling British television screens with violence which first prompted the Lady to think that the only solution for such behaviour was more stringent police control. This, followed by other acts of football hooliganism that caused deaths, led to the dreadful, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to impose ID cards on football spectators.
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