Football flutters: The wonders and the woes

I didn’t want this to become a gambling blog. I wouldn’t condone it to anyone as a hobby, either. But I emerge from a hiatus caused by relentless university deadlines to bring you an account of the last month of my turbulent relationship with Paddy Power. The last thing a student should do is become enticed by the fickle succubus that is the British bookmakers, with her collective jaws arbitrarily bleeding the wallets of the working classes dry. But it’s too late, for me at least. Despite this, I’m still keen to claim I’m not obsessed. Not obsessed – by anything other than the sport I’ve become hopelessly entwined with, that is.

I’m still in the midst of uni deadlines, but this post has been a couple of weeks in the making, so it would be rude to neglect it any further. It was forced out of me looking at my monthly history of bets with the bookmaker Paddy Power, for the first time ever. I’d always been fearful of looking at my history before, but today I decided to override that fear and total up my incomings and outgoings – for the last 30 days, at least – and the results were alarming.

The cause for alarm wasn’t from the money I’d blown gambling, I was actually in relatively healthy profit – £325.09 of wins had me feeling quite smug, for all of 30 seconds, until I looked at how much I’d spent to get there. £149.50 placed on bets was shocking, around double the amount I thought I’d put in, and way too much for someone who’s student loan had all but ran out in early February.

£175.59 seems like a credible margin for gross profit, but of all the games I’ve put money on between February 11^th and March 11^th, but in five tense minutes it could have all been so different. Those particular five minutes came between 9:25 and 9:30pm on Wednesday February 22^nd 2012. The location was Baker Street, London – for me at least…but I spent the majority of my time there peering into a stadium in Basel, Switzerland. It was the day of the Champions League 2^nd round, first leg match between FC Basel and Bayern Munich. The odds were heavily stacked in favour of Bayern, but the overwhelming favourites were on an underwhelming run of form – drawing 0-0 with bottom-placed SC Freiburg domestically underlining their disappointing position of 3^rd in the German Bundesliga. Basel, by contrast, were six points clear in their Swiss Super League, and had a history of upsetting larger teams at home. I was cautiously confident.

Running parallel to Basel vs Bayern was another Champions League game, between Marseille and Internazionale, of France and Italy respectively. Like Bayern, Inter were the better team on paper, but they too were having problems domestically, and were on a three-game losing streak in Serie A. I fancied a double of underdogs Basel and Marseille to win, and placed £5 on it. But so drawn to Basel was I that I felt obliged to make a separate bet, another £5 on the 5/1 Swiss side. Once I arrived in London, I realised that it would be likely that Marseille v Inter would be easier to find on TV, so I decided to enhance the excitement of it by placing £10 on an anytime scorer – Andre Ayew immediately caught my eye as the star from the recent African Cup of Nations campaign with his native Ghana, I placed my faith in him.

After half an hour of wandering the capital, me and a friend finally found a pub in Baker Street showing the Basel v Bayern match, unexpectedly. We sat watching a wholly eventless game while constantly checking an equally eventless Marseille v Inter game on my phone. In the 85^th minute of the regulation 90 I turned to my friend and lamented that that it was a shame because ‘it would have come in on another night’. Less than two minutes later, a brief spell of pressure from the Swiss team culminated in a through ball that eluded the Bayern back-line – Valentin Stocker applied a finish that nutmegged Manuel Neuer in the away goal – 1-0. My seat was suddenly became redundant, £30 was salvaged from a night in danger of being a washout. The Livescore app on the iPhone was being refreshed every three seconds now, Marseille 0-0 Inter, I gave up to concentrate on watching Basel see out a historic win, after four minutes of stoppage time the whistle blew, and I was content, I sunk back into my seat. I checked the Livescore app – Marseille 1-0 Inter, I was on my feet again. This was £67.50 on top of the £30 for the Basel win – £97! Fantastic for a night’s work! I checked the goalscorer, after a tense search for signal, it was revealed – ‘A. Ayew’ I was now doing shuttle runs in excitement between the seat and the bar, a £10 bet on a scorer at 23/10, the total was £130.50! From rags to riches in 5 minutes of regulation time! I felt like retiring from the betting world, for I had myself a taste of what it was like to be at the pinnacle of the fortunate side of football’s fickleness.

The God-like feeling of winning a long shot is nice, but it only serves to make your fall feel so much greater – and this is the reason that prompted this particular post. I try to use time wisely, to pick, not only matches that look call-able, but to pick matches that could be enjoyed from afar. I know little of Chilean football, other than that Universidad de Chile are Copa Sudamericana champions and play some fantastic football. The same goes for Italy’s Bologna, I know little, apart from that they are capable of inflicting misery on 2010’s Champions League winners Internazionale – what they both have in common is that they’ve aided my betting endeavours. Yesterday I turned my attentions to Argentina, with the sole aim of transforming what I hoped would be an entertaining Boca Juniors performance into a profitable one. They were 2^nd in their league going into their match with Independiente – a team that were winless in all four of their matches this season. Boca, in contrast, hadn’t so much as conceded a goal this season, and at that only conceded six throughout the whole of their campaign last season.

I decided to bet in order to turn a disappointingly dull Sunday into a slightly livelier one. It was for a similar reason that made me veto a planned double on Sunderland and Southampton to both win at home the day before due to the fact that I would probably not be awake in time to enjoy checking the scores in-play (a bet that would have come in, frustratingly). I put everything behind a Boca Juniors handicap win…I first checked the scores 10 minutes into play – Boca were 2-0 down, an unbelievable scoreline coming out of Buenos Aires. Boca got a goal back…Independiente scored a third. I was furious, not because an inexplicable loss was on the cards, but an exciting underdog uprising was being clouded by my bet. Boca went on to take a 4-3 lead, and for the first time all day my bet looked good, however they succumbed to a late equaliser. By this point I was drained, football writers worked themselves into a frenzy over such an unlikely score, whereas I was left mourning my intensively researched 23/10 shot – the game finished 5-4 to Independiente. It was a perfect example of the pure unpredictability of football…to me it felt like groundhog day.

The result acted as a sucker punch to everything I thought I knew about the game, it mirrored the Manchester United v Blackburn Rovers game that prompted me to write this achingly familiar-sounding post about the financially-draining excitement football has to offer. Perhaps I should have taken my empty idea of retiring from betting following the night of the 22^nd of February seriously? But in all honesty, that was something that was never going to happen, because it’s too late for me. I’ve drank from the poisoned chalice, and there’s a sweet, often elusive nectar between all the bitterness that tastes too good to walk away from now. Suffice to say I’ve travelled through the looking glass, and the world of gambling turns football ever curiouser. My only goal now is to learn moderation, that appears to be the key of the happy gambler. So when is my next taste of the chalice going to occur I hear you ask? Well, probably at Anfield on Tuesday. And by ‘probably’ I mean definitely. A Liverpool vs Everton draw, please – and I’ll forget I ever wrote this piece. Ta…

Peter.

For further reading feel free to talk a look at this somewhat more coherent exploration into gambling courtesy of a betting counterpart.

Dogged underdogs Zambia win African Cup of Nations for their fallen predecessors

Zambia’s story was exactly what football was crying out for following a weekend dominated by further fallout from the Premier League’s race rows. They were rank outsiders playing in a continental cup final only a few miles from the site of a plane crash which robbed the country of its brightest generation of footballers in 1993. Their opponents were the much fancied Ivory Coast. Prior to kick-off, one Zambian fan declared that his team “would be playing with 22 players on the pitch” claiming the team would be assisted by the spirits of the men who lost their lives 19 years ago – and it’s hard to deny that the subsequent ‘Chipolopolo’ effort was anything short of divine.

I didn’t check my Twitter to see what was trending in Zambia last night, but if I did, the word ‘destiny’ must have been pretty near the top of the list. The supporters believed it was this that had helped them beat a strong Senegal side and then second-favourites Ghana in somewhat fortuitous fashion in order to progress to an unlikely African Cup of Nations final. It was considered destiny because the final happened to be held at the Stade d’Angondje, in Libreville, Gabon – a port city around 500 meters in-land from the site of a plane crash which killed 18 Zambian players while they were travelling to a World Cup 1994 qualifier versus Senegal. The team were on the precipice of qualifying for their first ever World Cup at the time, and had been considered the brightest generation of footballers Zambia has ever had. It could be fair to say that Zambia has never really recovered from the tragic loss of talent since that April day.

While on the topic of bright generations of footballers, standing in the way of destiny was almost certainly the strongest side in the tournament, if not the whole continent in the Ivory Coast. For a little context on the variations in strength between two sides on paper: Zambia’s only European-based player, Emmanuel Mayuka, transferred to Young Boys Bern in Switzerland in 2010 for a fee of $1.7m; that’s almost the same fee that Cote d’Ivoire’s Yaya Toure earns in wages monthly at his club, Manchester City. The Ivory Coast could boast the likes of Didier Drogba, Gervinho, and Kolo Toure in their ranks and have flirted with success plenty of times in recent years. However, this year the Ivorian supporters were expectant, especially with the tournament’s most successful ever side, Egypt, failing to qualify due to last year’s Arab Spring. Zambia were a surprise package but relative minnows when compared player-for-player. Cote d’Ivoire were odds on favourites at 4/7, and hadn’t conceded a goal all tournament, most people understandably expected to see Drogba lift the cup at the end of the night – clearly Zambia had their own script in mind.

Zambia, nicknamed The Chipolopolo (‘The Copper Bullets’), started the brightest, forcing a smart save from Ivorian ‘keeper Boubacar Barry after a clever short corner no-doubt dreamt up by their unbelievably charismatic-looking manager Herve Renard, dressed as if he had only wandered into the Stade d’Angondje to ask for the directions to the not-so-near-by Grammy Awards, which were taking place across the Atlantic at the time.

While the Grammys had a star studded audience, and the Ivory Coast had a star studded first eleven, the star quality was undoubtedly being produced by the Zambians in the first half. Not only did they demonstrate an unbelievable pluckiness in battling to gain possession for a trademark counter, but they were audacious when in possession too; often showcasing fancy, exciting, and often unneeded flicks and tricks in attempts to progress quickly up the pitch with the ball. Early in the first half, 34-year-old Zambian defender, Joseph Musonda became injured as he awkwardly twisted his leg after a challenge. Clearly distraught at needing to be substituted in what would almost certainly be his last final, his eyes welled up as he hobbled towards the touchline – this was how much winning the cup for Zambia meant to him.

Half-time passed at 0-0 and once the second half was underway we began to see a fuller picture as to why this final didn’t appear to be the open-and-shut case the bookies priced it at. In many respects, we can draw parallels between the Ivory Coast and England’s own national team here. While the Zambians defended spiritedly and attacked expressively, the Ivorians seemed motivated by fear. Their team was much better than their opponents on paper, but they had such little ideas on the ball. Granted Zambia defended with everybody behind the ball but there was something else, Cote d’Ivoire appeared smothered by the weight of expectations. As the minutes ticked on, it became clear that we were watching a team scared-to-death of failure. The Ivorian creativity looked stifled into desperate punts to the wide-players and the gilt-edged chance they craved looked like it would never materialise – until it did.

Drogba fails to keep his cool (Picture from Eurosport)

With 20 minutes left to play, Yaya Toure attempted a desparate charge into the Zambian box and was subsequently bundled over – penalty to Ivory Coast. Captain Didier Drogba picked up the ball and placed it on the spot. He’d missed one before in this tournament, but surely knew that if he were to convert, there would be little to no chance of Zambia penetrating the squeaky-clean Ivorian defence with the little time left. He began his run-up, leant back, and placed his shot firmly a foot over the bar. His miss underlining the severe mental block Ivory Coast were suffering from. More fool me for placing a bet on Drogba and 1-0 prior to kick off, hmm?

Max Gradel came on for the Ivorians and made a slight impact, perhaps at 24 he was too young to feel the burden of pressure hampering some of his team-mates. But now the fans’ prophesies of Zambian destiny looked to have merit: they knew, we knew, the players knew.

By extra time the power of belief was firmly in Zambia’s court – in what proved to be the biggest chance from open-play of the match Christopher Katongo hit the post from close range, the African Cup of Nations had now become Zambia’s for the taking.

There’s a strange phenomenon in this tournament where, historically, penalty shootouts involving the Ivory Coast tend to progress deep into sudden-death (their last tournament success happened to be due to a 11-10 win on penalties versus Ghana), this was no exception. 18 penalties were taken in total, all to the backdrop of singing from the Zambian staff.

The majority of penalties taken last night were virtually perfect – including Drogba’s second attempt from the spot. At one point, Zambian goalkeeper Kennedy Mweene pulled off a good save from Souleymane Bamba only for a retake to be ordered due to Mweene moving off his line before the ball was kicked, extremely harsh considering most referees allow for some movement prior to the ball becoming active. As the shootout shifted into sudden-death, it became a case of whoever blinks first loses. The first to blink was Kolo Toure. By now the whole Zambian playing and coaching staff were on their knees singing, linked arms and all. Celebrations would be put on ice, however, as Rainford Kalaba couldn’t keep his cool and convert his chance at history.

When a £10.8 million rated Premier League forward steps up to take a penalty nine players down the pecking order, you know that he didn’t want the pressure of a nation on his shoulders. Gervinho was the man who reluctantly began his run up – and placed his shot wide. It was now Stoppila Sunzu’s turn to give Zambia recognition for their mammoth efforts in keeping all tournament favourites at bay over the past three weeks. And he did just that.

The Zambian singing turned into ecstatic cheering as they realised the full scale of what they had achieved. Not only had the Chipolopolo pulled off an unlikely African Cup of Nations win, but they had gained redemption for those who lost their lives only a few miles away almost 20 years ago. “It was written in the sky” beamed coach Herve Renard after compassionately carrying Joseph Musonda, the stricken defender from the first half, into the team celebrations. “It was a sign of destiny…I think God has helped us and given us strength” he explained.

As the team posed for their photo with the African Cup of Nations trophy, draped over the ‘winners’ board was a sign that read “In memory of ’93. You are playing at home”. In a weekend dominated by hand-shake refusals and spiralling racial issues in the Premier League, isn’t it lovely to have Zambia remind us what football’s really about?

Zambia honour their fallen predecessors (Picture: AP Images)

Peter.

Staring into the abyss: Darlington Football Club

Take a look at your bookshelf. Now get a bin-liner ready, because you’ll be hard-pushed to find a story more captivating, charming and potentially tragic than the continuing tale of Darlington Football Club.

The Quakers are a team who have transcended the word ‘crisis’ in recent weeks, haemorrhaging money to a 25,000 seater stadium over 10 times too big for their average gate of around 2,000 – the prime cause of their £1.8 million debt, with a skeleton squad of players, and with no full-time manager. Darlington were also deducted 10 points in the Conference National league for inevitably going into administration a month ago. The club actually died on the operating table of unbalanced books on Wednesday 18^th January, for about 20 minutes – that was until two unlikely heroes emerged…from a Peugot 308.

That particular day had an air of inevitability to it; fans had gathered at the stadium with wreaths ready to mourn the passing of their 128-year-old club. Sometime, around ‘noon, the club’s administrator revealed to caretaker manager, Craig Liddle, that the club ‘ceased to exist’, and that he would need to tell his depleted squad that they had been made redundant as a result. News began to trickle out via players’ Twitter accounts that the club had died. But as the news of Darlo’s passing began to spread, in a moment of extreme drama, The Darlington Arena could have easily been mistaken for a Hollywood set, or a Broadway stage, as the noises of the distraught fans were punctured by the sound of redemption – and in Darlington’s case, redemption sounded like a distant Peugot blasting ‘Mott The Hoople’ on its sound system.

The car sped into the grounds of the stadium, stopping by reception. There, two men scrambled out, one with a bag, shouting “we’ve got the money!” Darlington had their 13^th hour reprieve. The two men, Doug Embleton and Shaun Campbell, were the heroes. Their foundation, the ‘Darlington Football Club Rescue Group’ (DFCRG) had raised £50,000 – enough to save the club for around two weeks. Fate clearly decided to end this particular chapter in Darlington’s history on a cliffhanger.

I was so impressed by the way the fans’ love for Darlington had helped the club return from the brink that I decided to pay a visit that weekend for their match versus high-flying Fleetwood Town, a game many had thought would not take place. The match seemed an impossible task for The Quakers, with Fleetwood 2^nd in the league and unbeaten in 11 away games. However, unlike in every other football match I’d ever attended, this didn’t matter to the supporters. The home fans were simply happy to see the team they love ‘alive and kicking’. I bought a programme, the instantly recognisable disparity it had with every other programme I’d bought was the squad lists on the back page. Fleetwood boasted a healthy 28 registered players prior to kick-off, Darlington had 11, meaning that they would’ve had to play without any substitutes were it not for a few last minute loans and stand-in manager, Craig Liddle, offering to come out of retirement at age 40, if need be.

Understandably, the game drew a lot more attention given the events of the week prior. The crowds were clearly higher than anticipated, as kick-off was delayed by 15 minutes due to congestion from the 5,638 record spectators. As I walked into the stand I was greeted by a brass band pitch-side playing, fittingly, ‘The Great Escape’ – Darlington clearly hadn’t lost their sense of humour in the uncertain climate.

The match itself was a drab affair. Darlington fielded an expectedly inexperienced team and Fleetwood opted to play a slightly weaker starting 11, probably anticipating an easy victory. Both sides’ formations were identical in their use of the lone striker and their often opting to build attacks from wide positions. Fleetwood took the lead late in the first half through Danny Rose capitalising on an error from the home side’s make-shift defence. A Fleetwood lead wasn’t a surprise, however, Darlington’s battling in looking for an equaliser, was. Late attacks began to build as the game began to be spent mostly in the visitor’s half. The dream end to the difficult week wasn’t to be, though – hard working Darlington lost 1-0 that day. The young squad was rich in ‘pluck’, but unfortunately short on the technical craft needed to unlock their opponents’ defence.

I left the Darlington Arena with a taste of knowing what it was like to see a club ‘scraping the barrel’. The club shop was virtually a shell, the commonplace plasma TVs playing Sky Sports in the stadium had been replaced by box sets showing BBC News 24. Darlington’s escape was a daring one, but will it have a happy ending? There has been talk of investment and new owners, specifically a takeover bid from businessman Paul Wildes, which would be partly reliant on more fan-based funding, but still nothing has been finalised. There is a very real, imminent danger of the club once again dying – and this time there may not be two fans in a Peugot assuming the role of Batman and Robin. As a football fan, the last piece of news I want to hear is that of a 128 year old club being consigned to the history books. Will there be another heroic reprieve? We will find out at the commencement of the next chapter in the club’s fight from the abyss of liquidation coming in the final days of the month. I’m sure no one would want it to be a final chapter.

A rainbow over The Darlington Arena prior to kick-off versus Fleetwood Town. A pot of gold would definitely come in handy for Darlo right about now...

…And if you would like to add your support to the heroics being performed by the ‘Darlington Football Club Rescue Group’ feel free to donate here at www.savedarlo.co.uk. And feel free to follow @SaveDarlo on Twitter to keep up to date on the remarkable story of a club on the brink.

Peter.

Proof lightening really can strike twice in the Milan derby…

I’m a catenacciophobe. The word, translated as door-bolt, has become the dogma of the Italian game. The approach, which heavily relied on the use of a sweeper, was designed to effectively ‘lock’ the opponent’s attackers out of the match. And it’s Italy’s catenaccio-based heritage that can make watching Serie A matches a bit of a chore. That is, unless unless one of those matches is AC Milan versus Inter Milan.

The Milan derby is one like no other, probably the biggest geographic rivalry in world football. So approximated are the two teams that they share the same, council owned, stadium – the San Siro. Derbies are always fiery affairs, literally in some cases, with fans often incorporating the use of flares into the duty of supporting their team. But there’s another curiosity that prompted me to write this post. Not only is the Milan derby one of the most fiercely contested in football, but it appears to be one of the most photogenic too.

I mean, who could forget this photo (below, left) of the incredible lengths the Milanese fans go to in order to show their support while attempting to intimidate the opponents? Or this iconic shot (below, right) of when the Inter support happened to take their use of flares too far in a Champions League quarter final derby?

 

 

But it’s the picture below that’s most curious. The shot to the left was one taken from last week’s derby, showing Diego Milito capitalising on Milan defender Inzagio Abate’s error to score in Inter’s closely fought 1-0 win. As for the image to the right, which shows Diego Milito capitalising on an Inzagio Abate error to score…it was taken two years earlier. Tell the difference? No, me neither.

Oh, ok, the socks are a bit of a give away…

The case for the defence: Natural selection is putting old-fashioned strikers out of work

The seas of change have been battering our shores for a long time now. The evolution of tactics has made the future inevitable, and it looks both exciting and miserable in equal measure – I’m talking about the rise of the 4-6-0. And Luciano Spalletti is the prime culprit for introducing the most negative sounding tactic in the history of the game.

Last week, French champions Lille became the latest club to join a rather exclusive group of teams during their ‘Coupe de la Ligue’ quarter final match versus Lyon. They decided to follow in the footsteps of AS Roma, Manchester United, Barcelona – and even Scotland before them, in adopting a formation with no trace of a conventional striker. This was, presumably, their chosen method of coping without powerhouse Moussa Sow, who was departing to join Senegal for the African Cup of Nations. LOSC’s formation for the match looked to be a 4-6-0, a formation which left manager Rudi Garcia relying heavily on the ingenuity of the attack orientated midfielders; Eden Hazard, Joe Cole and Dimitri Payet. Garcia’s plan didn’t pay off, Lille went down 2-1 on the night to a hard working Lyon comeback (albeit with 10 men for 80 minutes). The tactic wasn’t a success in this instance, but it begs the question: can the 4-6-0 really work? Well, to put it simply, it already has…

In the season of 2006-07, Luciano Spalletti (as Michael Cox in his fantastic tactical deconstruction of AS Roma points out) was faced with a problem. The then manager of Roma had to overcome an injury crisis that engrossed his strike-force. The solution? Play without them. An act of desperation it may have seemed but the bold formation was a resounding success. So much so that Spalletti decided to continue without strikers for the rest of the campaign, and Roma prospered as a result. Roma finished second in Serie A, behind only an Internazionale team who made massive gains from the fallout of the Italian football scandal the year before. Spalletti’s team did, however, beat Inter 6-2 in the first leg of the Copa Italia final – going on to claim the cup thanks to a famous 7-4 aggregate win.

Spalletti’s formation was a strange creation, its success made Roman strikers redundant that season. Such an idea was considered in theory by the former UEFA Technical Director, Andy Roxburgh (and covered in Jonathan Wilson’s masterpiece, Inverting the Pyramid), “you’d have four defenders at the back, although even they’d be allowed to run forward…The six players in midfield, all of whom can rotate, attack and defend.” Roxburgh elaborated, “…But you’d need to have six Decos in midfield – he doesn’t just attack, he runs, tackles, covers all over the pitch.” Roma didn’t have six Decos, but they did have Francesco Totti, and Daniele De Rossi.

The 4-6-0 was soon seen as the accidental masterstroke it was. The perfect counter to the commonplace Italian defence-orientated formation; no strikers meant that the opponent’s defenders were left with nobody to typically man-mark throughout matches. And it was on the counter that Roma were so deadly, and with six midfielders overloading the center of the pitch, there were plenty of opportunities to gain possession for a counter-attack. It was often the combined toil of attack-minded midfielders such as Mancini, Rodrigo Taddei, and mercurial trequartista Francesco Totti who made the end product of Roma’s breaks so effective (an example of which can be seen here in a Champions League knockout match vs Lyon, ironically). But it wasn’t until a fiery Champions League quarter final encounter versus Manchester United that Spalletti’s discovery began to go viral.

On April 4^th 2007, Roma tested their fledging 4-6-0 against United, Hoping to overcome the Mancunians over two legs to advance to a Champions League semi-final berth. The game was contested in a ferocious atmosphere, where not only did Paul Scholes receive a red card on the pitch, but both sets of fans came to blows off the pitch. The bad blood, however, failed stifle Roma’s effectiveness on the break, and the home team recorded a 2-1 win for the away leg. Roma were in an enviable position of power for the second leg at Old Trafford; unbeaten in 10, statistically the best defence in the tournament that year, and of course, the goal advantage from the match before. Despite this, Spalletti’s team inexplicably collapsed. The Romans lost 7-1, a scoreline nobody could have predicted. Maybe the 4-6-0 was flawed afterall? Luciano Spalletti looked to be in control but it was Sir Alex Ferguson who had the last laugh. Though interestingly, the victorious manager saw something in Spalletti’s way of thinking.

Ferguson and Spalletti weren’t too different in some respects; perhaps not in character, but they were certainly both in possession of clubs which were brim-full of talent in the middle of the park at the time. Sir Alex saw how Spalletti deployed his rotating, creative, counter-attacking midfield and concluded that he could perform something similar. The key change being that, instead of using a Francesco Totti figure as a trequartista, he would use Wayne Rooney as a more recognised false nine style player – a slightly more advanced role which heavily involves coming deep to link, or hold up play. Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez thrived in the adaptation, with all three able to alternate positions on the pitch, attack to the left, right, or down the middle as they wished. Manchester United were not only crowned champions of England in the season of 2007-08, but also won the Champions League. Whether the inclusion of a false nine stops the formation being 4-6-0 or not could be argued; Manchester United’s success under the system, however, wasn’t up for debate.

From then on the idea began to mutate and adapt. The next successful team in line to thrive under a variation of the 4-6-0 was Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona. Barca’s reasoning for the 4-6-0 was much more understandable; they possessed the shortest team in Europe. To play the ball long to a forward would be useless, and was (even when Zlatan Ibrahimovic signed, he was considered too much of a strain to fit into the team). Guardiola has since continued in adapting the 4-6-0 to make it his own, and the reward for his perseverance was world dominance. At the time of writing, Barca stand as undisputed champions of Spain’s La Liga, UEFA’s Champions League and FIFA’s World Club Cup – and they did it all while strictly training players to drop deep to play football, reforming flagship players such as David Villa more as a winger than his natural role as a striker, clearly the 4-6-0 allows compromises for no one.

While history is being continuously written over the successes of the 4-6-0 and its lineage, it is far from infallible. Like Andy Roxburgh prophesised, it strictly requires a certain type of midfielder to work. For every team to perform well using it, there are many more achieving lesser successes. Craig Levein caused an uproar in 2010 as Scotland manager when he decided to field a 4-6-0 versus Czech Republic. The Scots crashed to a 1-0 away defeat, prompting supporters to call for his dismissal. With respect, it seems Steven Naismith, Jamie Mackie and Graham Dorrans haven’t the ingredients possessed by Francesco Totti, Cristiano Ronaldo and now Lionel Messi to make the concept of 4-6-0 work.

The same may be true of Lille last week. While Hazard, Cole and Payet are fantastic, technical players, perhaps it was their lack of graft that let the formation down versus Lyon? Or maybe we shouldn’t write off the conventional striker just yet? Teams like Stoke have taken the precise opposite step to 4-6-0, opting to play the sort of long-ball game Watford adored back in the late 70’s and 80’s. And after all, all this talk of no strikers seems very negative doesn’t it? Possibly, to Scottish fans, but when executed well the formation is enthralling – I’d rather watch a Barca team headed by a false nine than a Stoke City team headed by the forehead of Peter Crouch.

Then there’s the topic of the future. Could this ever replace the staple 4-4-2 formation in Britain? It would have a nigh on impossible job in the Football League, but with Premiership teams already opting to employ false nines across the division, maybe anything could be possible. One thing’s for certain; Graham Taylor would be having kittens if he were still in management.

A change of approach

So we’re barely a fortnight into the New Year and I’ve already decided to radically alter the theme of this blog. Is there any hope of making it to 2013? Well, definitely not, as the world will undoubtedly end on December 21^st this year – I know because a Hollywood movie told me so.

I initially wanted this blog to be about anything; à la the sort of comment and conjecture sections of newspaper websites. However, I quickly realised that, at the moment, the only thing I’m both happy and comfortable writing about is that of my first love – football. And so, in a move that’ll please virtually none of my peers, I’ve decided to, in the interest of quality, quantity, and much personal pleasure, transform Languid Prattle into prattle solely about the beautiful game (and some of its less-than-beautiful practisers).

And what better date to officially announce this change of approach than on a Friday 13th? My resolution was to publish a post at least once a week, so hopefully there will be a few less cobwebs gathering on the front page from now on. I’m very excited about this Languid revolution. I hope you’ll enjoy it too!

Peter.

Stoppage time goals: The very antithesis of a prosperous new year

The Barclays Premier League is the most exciting football league in the world. You want proof? Take a look at the erratic results around the turn of the year. Basement club Blackburn Rovers beating Manchester United in their own back yard? Chelsea beaten relatively comfortably at home to Aston Villa? Manchester City losing with four seconds left to play versus Sunderland? It’s a neutral fan’s dream…and a betting man’s nightmare. As a football fan, 2012 has opened with a bang loud enough to rattle the very ceiling of English football – thoroughly exciting. But as a student who loves a flutter, the beginning of the year has proved to be very costly – so why can’t we have a league as predictable as Scotland’s, just until I graduate?

My name is Peter Jobes, and I am an addict. But what I’m addicted to I’m not exactly sure. I would say that it’s the excitement of watching football, which would make sense in how I decided to seek refuge from the three-week holiday period from university – 21 days of progressively more absurd sleep patterns, almost completely baron of entertainment. ‘It matters more when there’s money on it’ is Sky Bet’s tagline, and it was an epigram I based my holiday survival on, using money to add excitement to the football-a-thon that is the festive fixture list. It all started well enough, a speculative four-game accumulator in the Scottish Premier League turned my spare change into £50, thanks to three draws and a St Johnstone win on the 28th of December. But then something went spectacularly wrong. All of a sudden, football became as organically exciting as it has ever been – shock results and last minute victories were cropping up all over England – and I couldn’t have been more furious about it.

I had weaved a tangled web, irony was punishing me for losing my faith in the Premier League’s natural excitement. Who on Earth would have expected Blackburn to score even once against would-be-top-of-the-league Manchester United, let alone three times in a 3-2 win? Who could have seen Aston Villa overturn a deficit to beat Chelsea 3-1 at former fortress Stamford Bridge? And who would have ever guessed that Dong-Won Ji of Sunderland could be seen defying the league table (not to mention the offside rule) in sinking Manchester City with 92 minutes and 56 seconds on the Stadium of Light clock? Certainly not me, which is why I had unsuccessfully bet against all of them happening.

The erratic nature of the matches of the last few days became painfully clear in the latter Sunderland v Man City game on New Year’s day. I decided to bank on the 0-0 early on after seeing that City manager Roberto Mancini decided to field only one striker for the game in the form of the sometimes spectacular, but often wooden Edin Dzeko, with Yaya Toure playing in an un-naturally advanced position to aid attacks. As the game progressed, City pressed, desperately looking to open the scoring. With 10 minutes left to play, Sunderland’s defence began to creek under the onslaught, I aired caution to the wind by placing a cover bet on Manchester City to find the goal they craved at odds of 6/1, it was the perfect situation, truly win-win. City went on to hit the bar, not that I cared, an away goal would now have the same effect as no away goal. Clearly counting my chickens into the 92nd minute of the 93, I noticed that Sunderland substitute Dong-Won Ji had ventured into the attacking 3rd of the pitch with the ball, with only one team mate in Stephane Sessegnon to help him. I watched on as the little Korean passed and moved effectively to regain the ball inside the City box this time, rounding the flailing Joe Hart to finish with an alien air of confidence for a man who just scored one of the most important goals of his career – and one of the most costly of my year already.

A similar occurrence robbed me of an even healthier call of a 1-1 draw in Arsenal’s match at Fulham on January 2nd. I proudly, with an air of misplaced confidence, speculated that Arsenal would score the first goal, which would then cause Fulham to look to equalise for 1-1, doing so they could succeed, or leave themselves vulnerable on the counter, and Arsenal, boasting the most prolific scorer of the last 12 months in Robin van Persie, could punish them. “It’ll be 1-1 or 2-0″, I proudly conjectured, putting my money where my mouth was. And it was 1-1, before Fulham’s Bobby Zamora robbed me of victory, yet again in stoppage time by scoring a wholly unexpected, but somewhat deserved 2nd for Fulham to make it 2-1.

I’ll have to review my addictions, all this unexpected excitement has left me very much out of pocket. The fix I’m craving right now is a restoration of logical order, before I’m forced to spend my second term of university in hermit-like fashion. Alternatively, I could just stop having flutters on football, the last few days have been thoroughly entertaining without the added need for money to be floated on the result. 2012 has the makings of one of the most exciting years in English football. This is shaping up to be the most open Premier League season in a long time, the gap between the top two places in the league table is currently separated by zero points, and five goals. The relegation zone of the table features none of the impressive newly promoted teams from the Football League Championship. Maybe I should just return to the hazy days of last month where I could appreciate the unpredictability of football for what it is? In fact, I think I will – but it’ll have to wait until my losses of the topsy-turvy last few of days are overturned. Until then, I’d rather welcome the tactical predictability of the Scottish Premier League. Now please, no more giant killings until my holiday is over.

Peter.