Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Wembley Stadium
The whole situation with the rebuilding of Wembley Stadium is a national embarrassment. Multiplex, the Sydney-based company building the icon of English football have failed to guarantee that it would be ready in time for this years cup final in mid-May so the game has been switched to Cardiff's Millenium Stadium. The same applies to the play-off finals and the 2 scheduled friendlies against Hungary and Jamaica. The England games will be moved to Old Trafford.There is little doubt that once the stadium is finally completed, it will be one of the finest, if not the finest stadium in the world. So what has gone wrong? The cost is beyond belief - £757m....and the company are making a loss !!! This figure dwarfs the amount that the Portuguese paid for ALL the stadia for Euro 2004.
I just don't understand how it's taking so long and costing so much money. Whether it's red tape, bureaucracy, lazy workers or any other reason, it needs to be addressed and steps taken to ensure it doesn't happen again.
Think about this. The last game at the old Wembley was when Germany won 1-0 in Kevin Keegans last game in charge. That was in September 2000......over 5 years ago. London have been awarded the 2012 Olympics which is in just over 6 years time. Before then the Olympic Park at Stratford has to be built, the transport infrastructure of London upgraded and countless other construction projects. I don't fancy the chances of everything being ready in time and to think, the press slaughtered the Greeks over the 2004 Olympics saying their facilities wouldn't be ready in time. I don't think the Greek papers will make pleasant reading come early 2012.
Moving ahead (or back) to the Euro 2008 qualifiers, the FA are meeting in Zagreb tomorrow to try to sort out our fixtures which will start in September. There is huge amount of excitement and anticipation amongst England fans with some great away trips coming up - Russia, Estonia, Croatia, Israel, Macedonia and Andorra (Barcelona) will all be interesting places to visit. Once the fixtures are announced, they will be put on the ever expanding Euro 2008 website http://www.euro2008info.com/qualifying_groups.htm
Finally, I'd just like to wish Manchester United's Alan Smith who broke his leg recently, a full recovery. Whatever you think of Smith's abilities as a player, this type of injury is awful and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
England Fans Expect
As the calender passes into February, we England fans are waiting for several pieces of news. The first is tickets for the World Cup. I'm talking about the allocation for the English FA, not FIFA tickets. It is well documentated that the criminally low 8% of stadium capacity will be nowhere near enough to satisfy demand from England fans but thankfully, the FA have managed to secure extra tickets. We will now have 5,500 tickets for the opening game against Paraguay in Frankfurt which takes us to near 13% of capacity in the Wald Stadium. Our allocation for the other two games has risen to about 4,500, around 10%. Now England fans are very resourceful when it comes to tickets so it probably doesn't mean there will be extra fans in the stadium. It just means they will have paid face value instead of the €500+ per ticket that is going rate on the black market.
Our hysterical media have been having a field day with speculation as to who the new England manager will be after the World Cup. Early favourite, Steve McLaren, has signed a new contract at Middlesboro and looks to be out of the running (thank god). The leading English candidate is Big Sam Alardyce. He would be an interesting choice as he has done wonders with Bolton Wanderers although he does get criticism for his style of play. However, you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear (or as a friend says, "You can't polish a turd"). I think he's quite inventive with ideas he has for the game and could be an interesting appointment.
The leading foreign candidate appears to be Gus Hiddink. He took South Korea to the World Cup semi-finals in 2002 and has just lead Australia to their first finals since Captain Cook upset some of the locals. On the surface, these seem impressive acheivements but I need to play devils advocat here. In 2002, South Korea had home advantage but more significantly, the squad were together for 6 months before the tournament. This is a luxury that few if any other international coachs will get. You do wonder how they would have got on with just 2 or 3 weeks preparation together. We also won't mention a couple of dodgy decisions that helped them along the way. Australia again can be put down to law of averages. Australia winning their qualifying group is one of the safest bets in the world and every 4 years they end up in a 2 leg play-off. Usually, they lose but this year they won, beating Uruguay on penalties. Again without wanting to belittle their achievements, you can't keep losing play-offs.
This week, a leading FA figure said they would ideally be looking for a British candidate. The use of the word British, instead of English immediately kicked off a frenzy in the press that Martin O'Neill was high on a shortlist. Football wise, O'Neill would seem to be a good choice but there is a problem. It's not his wife's tragic illness but his roots. Rightly or wrongly, his time at Celtic and comments he made mean that he will almost certainly never win over a number of England fans. The Euro 2008 draw is fairly easy so if O'Neill took over and won every day, it would be no more than expected. If he dropped any points, he will get a lot of stick. I do think he would be in a no-win position until the 2008 finals in Austria and Switzerland.
One thing is certain, there will be plenty of speculation and mis-information until the FA finally make an annoucement.
The FA is having a meeting with all other teams in Group E to sort out the fixtures for the Euro 2008 qualifiers. The meeting will be held on 23rd February in Zagreb. Details will be found on www.euro2008info.com/groupe.htm when they are confirmed.
The away game in Russia will personally be a good trip for me. I spend a lot of time in Moscow and have been speaking with a travel agent there to help arrange trips for supporters. More information when the packages are finalised. There is plenty of travel information for Moscow on www.travel-2-russia.com
Our hysterical media have been having a field day with speculation as to who the new England manager will be after the World Cup. Early favourite, Steve McLaren, has signed a new contract at Middlesboro and looks to be out of the running (thank god). The leading English candidate is Big Sam Alardyce. He would be an interesting choice as he has done wonders with Bolton Wanderers although he does get criticism for his style of play. However, you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear (or as a friend says, "You can't polish a turd"). I think he's quite inventive with ideas he has for the game and could be an interesting appointment.
The leading foreign candidate appears to be Gus Hiddink. He took South Korea to the World Cup semi-finals in 2002 and has just lead Australia to their first finals since Captain Cook upset some of the locals. On the surface, these seem impressive acheivements but I need to play devils advocat here. In 2002, South Korea had home advantage but more significantly, the squad were together for 6 months before the tournament. This is a luxury that few if any other international coachs will get. You do wonder how they would have got on with just 2 or 3 weeks preparation together. We also won't mention a couple of dodgy decisions that helped them along the way. Australia again can be put down to law of averages. Australia winning their qualifying group is one of the safest bets in the world and every 4 years they end up in a 2 leg play-off. Usually, they lose but this year they won, beating Uruguay on penalties. Again without wanting to belittle their achievements, you can't keep losing play-offs.
This week, a leading FA figure said they would ideally be looking for a British candidate. The use of the word British, instead of English immediately kicked off a frenzy in the press that Martin O'Neill was high on a shortlist. Football wise, O'Neill would seem to be a good choice but there is a problem. It's not his wife's tragic illness but his roots. Rightly or wrongly, his time at Celtic and comments he made mean that he will almost certainly never win over a number of England fans. The Euro 2008 draw is fairly easy so if O'Neill took over and won every day, it would be no more than expected. If he dropped any points, he will get a lot of stick. I do think he would be in a no-win position until the 2008 finals in Austria and Switzerland.
One thing is certain, there will be plenty of speculation and mis-information until the FA finally make an annoucement.
The FA is having a meeting with all other teams in Group E to sort out the fixtures for the Euro 2008 qualifiers. The meeting will be held on 23rd February in Zagreb. Details will be found on www.euro2008info.com/groupe.htm when they are confirmed.
The away game in Russia will personally be a good trip for me. I spend a lot of time in Moscow and have been speaking with a travel agent there to help arrange trips for supporters. More information when the packages are finalised. There is plenty of travel information for Moscow on www.travel-2-russia.com
