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Search: ' Michael Ballack'

Stories

A new ball game

wsc302Andrew Crawford believes that an influx of money, famous players and foreign managers could help football become China’s most popular sport

The Chinese Super League (CSL) season gets underway on March 15. Most of the country’s big clubs receive substantial funding from various wealthy business tycoons or state-owned enterprises, and several teams have recruited expensive foreign reinforcements. Shanghai Shenhua started things off last December in spectacular fashion by snapping up Chelsea’s Nicolas Anelka for £190,000 a week. Since then, Beijing Guoan have spent around £1.9 million to secure strikers Andrija Kaludjerovic and Reinaldo, while Shandong Luneng have paid a reported £830,000 for their own Brazilian forward, Gilberto Macena.

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The price of success

With every team desperate to find the quickest route to success, the debate over clubs' spending patterns rages on

It’s rare enough that Rafa Benítez and Sir Alex Ferguson have an exchange of views that could be described as entertaining but they achieved it mid-March. It started with Benítez claiming that in his five seasons at Liverpool they had spent £100 million less on players than Man Utd. One can imagine that Sir Alex was a picture of wounded dignity as he asked a couple of United’s sports scientists to lay down their stopwatches and clipboards for an afternoon to look into this claim. Wouldn’t you know, they came up with figures to refute it.

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England’s dreaming

With no home nation to cheer on, we could have been spared the usual jingoism. But to Taylor Parkes's fury, the BBC and especially ITV missed no opportunity to scrape a reference to good old Blighty

As the most promising international tournament for years got under way, the pundits tried to look on the bright side. “When your own teams are in it,” suggested Andy Townsend, “you don’t really watch the other teams.” Well, anyone who remembers the TV coverage of the last World Cup can vouch for that. So did this mean England’s absence from Euro 2008 would spare us that obsessive Anglocentricism which makes international football on British TV so uniquely aggravating, such an insult to the intelligence (not to mention the Scots, Irish and Welsh)? Hardly. It just meant our patriotic pundits had to try a little harder.

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Home discomforts – Austria

It wasn't a great tournament for Austria, writes Paul Joyce

The author Thomas Bernhard once remarked that the typical Austrian always distances himself from his country. By the start of Euro 2008, however, this distance had given way to a morbidly self-ironic fatalism. As the national side plummeted to 101st in the FIFA rankings, thousands of fans signed an online petition demanding Austria’s withdrawal from the tournament for crimes against “aesthetic beauty”. Spoof Euro 2008 T-shirts and Y-fronts bearing the motto Zu Gast bei Verlierern (A Guest of the Losers) sold like hot cakes.

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Germany Euro 2008

What are the expectations for the team?
After the astonishing 2006 World Cup, public expectation is high, especially since Germany had the luck of the draw again and all the big names are in the other half. After all, Germany have won at least one major title in every decade since the 1970s. But then again, the Nationalmannschaft haven’t won a single European finals match since 1996.

Are there any players who have appeared in TV commercials or other advertising?

The national team have been sponsored by Mercedes-Benz for several decades and, for every big event, a TV commercial is produced. This time, the players are dressed in 19th-century climbers’ outfits, crossing the Alps to get to Austria. The idea is semi-funny, but Michael Ballack’s fake moustache brings back memories of the days when a hairy upper lip was obligatory if you wanted to play for Germany.

Is the coach popular?

Joachim (“Jogi”) Löw was Jürgen Klinsmann’s sidekick and said to be the mastermind behind Germany’s new attacking style in 2006. He is good looking (except for his moptop haircut) and articulate, so the public and the media love him. Club officials, however, are unnerved by his continuous criticism of their allegedly outdated training methods.

Which players are good interviewees and who are the worst?
From an interviewer’s point of view, Jens Lehmann is the worst person to talk with. Whatever he is asked, he reacts with a disregard that verges on hatred. A sigh of relief was heard in the press corps when Arsenal’s substitute goalie imposed an interview ban before Germany’s friendly with Switzerland in March. On the other hand, Lukas Podolski’s ability to talk faster than he thinks is always entertaining. He says things like “We must roll up our heads. And our sleeves” or “That’s football. Sometimes the better team wins”.

Are there any players with unusual hobbies or business interests?
Werder Bremen’s Thorsten Frings owned a raccoon until his wife became pregnant. He gave it to a friend, saying a voracious beast and a baby don’t mix. Stuttgart striker Mario Gomez enjoys watching the fish in his aquarium, while Schalke’s Heiko Westermann admits that his hobby is sleeping.

Do any of the players have famous girlfriends or wives?
A few years ago, Lothar Matthäus and Oliver Kahn’s nightclub acquaintances were Germany’s B-versions of Posh Spice. Today, Bastian Schweinsteiger walks in their footsteps. He once invited a girl from a Munich disco to the Jacuzzi in Bayern’s training centre. When they were discovered by the security staff at 2am, he claimed that the young lady was his cousin – which made her famous for about a week.

Are there any players involved in politics?

It’s not evident from the style of football they prefer, but Germany’s central defenders are intelligent and socially committed. Real Madrid’s Christoph Metzelder has started a foundation that seeks to help Turkish kids find their way into German society. Per Mertesacker of Werder Bremen is a devout Lutheran protestant and helps promote the church’s youth festivals.

What will the media coverage be like?

Unfortunately, the pundit partnership of 1970s hero Günter Netzer and journalist Gerhard Delling will disappear from the screen at the end of Euro 2008, because Delling wants to spend more time with his family. For ten years, the two of them were a real life equivalent to the Muppet Show’s Statler and Waldorf. The match commentary will be atrocious, as usual. Worst of all is public channel ZDF’s Wolf-Dieter Poschmann, a former middle-distance runner with a special interest in speed skating who doesn’t have a clue about football.

Will there be many fans travelling to the tournament?

Supporting Germany was left to a small group of Deutschland Deutschland chanting dimwits for many years, but in recent times the national team have become sexy. So there will be masses of – hopefully – gentle folks travelling to the tournament round the corner. In the stadium, the German fans have taken up the English habit of singing the national anthem at the start of the second half. The Austria v Germany match will be accompanied by mutual insults on the terraces.

Karsten Blaas

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