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Search: ' Villarreal'

Stories

Recovery position

Adam Brandon reports on the story of a footballer whose career, and life, was suddenly put in jeopardy

Just over a year ago Paraguayan striker Salvador Cabañas had been enjoying life as “King of América”, the title bestowed on him by fans of his club in Mexico City for whom he had scored 66 goals in 115 games. Then he was shot in the head in the toilet of a bar where he had gone drinking with his wife and his life turned upside down.

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Blackburn Rovers 2 Aston Villa 0

Simon Hart describes the scenes as Blackburn play their first match under the watchful eye of their new owners

There are three Robbie Savages grinning in front of me as I take my seat in the press box high in the Jack Walker Stand. The one-time Blackburn Rovers midfielder is appearing in a book-plugging interview on his former club’s in-house TV channel, playing on monitors suspended from the ceiling of the stand. The sight of Savage, very much a man of his time with blond highlights and perma-tan, is juxtaposed with the more traditional spectacle unfolding on the hill behind the Riverside Stand opposite. This Sunday lunchtime kick-off is still over half an hour away and supporters trail down the brown hillside before crossing a bridge over the River Darwen and filing into the ground. Today is very much about the old and the new.

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Statistical freak

Martín Palermo recently became Boca Juniors’ record goalscorer, though some historians disagree. Sam Kelly investigates

On March 1, in La Bombonera, Martín Palermo scored the opener in Boca Juniors’ 3‑1 win over Huracán. Luciano Figueroa would score the hosts’ other two, but the following day it was Palermo on the front pages. Not only was it his first goal – in his third appearance and first start – after six months out with a knee injury, but it was his 195th in official competition for the club. He had just become the highest goalscorer in Boca’s history. Except for one thing: there’s a player who got more than 195 goals for Boca. Roberto Cherro, whose spell with the club lasted from 1926 until 1938, scored 221 times, and Palermo is still some way off that.

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Tales of the unexpected – Spain united for final

In Spain Phil Ball saw a traditionally divided country come together at last, in football terms at least

The world turned upside down – Spain the favourites to beat Germany in the final. Despite all evidence to the contrary, the ever-superstitious and pessimistic population, represented by its ever-pessimistic and superstitious popular press, were convinced that the Germans would still win. It was nonsense, but Spain needed a get-out clause. It is written into the ­constitution.

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Turkey

What are the expectations for the team?
If it weren’t for a scrappy qualifying campaign it would have been the semi-finals. Although it is a tough group, Turks are expecting their team to go through.

Are there any players who have appeared in TV commercials?

It doesn’t take much for a Turkish player to appear in a TV commercial. Any player with a half-decent face who plays for Fenerbahce, Galatasaray or Besiktas is in a TV ad. A group of players appear in a domestic cola brand’s commercials, while Villarreal’s Nihat Kahveci is doing an ad for the energy drink Powerade.

Is the coach popular?

Fatih Terim is officially the most successful football coach in the country’s history. But he hasn’t won any silverware for some time and he’s eager to prove himself on the international stage. One of those efforts came at a press conference a few months ago, when he decided to address the foreign reporters’ questions in English. This included the possibly philosophical observation that “Everything is something happened”.

Which players are good interviewees and who are the worst?

Should he make the squad, Leyton-born Colin Kazim-Richards, now with Fenerbahce, will come up with some interesting story about his supposed gangsta roots in London. Midfielder Tümer Metin is always an honest interviewee who tries to say something other than cliches, which very few other Turkish players are able to do.

Are then any players with unusual hobbies or business interests?

Defender Servet Cetin likes to sing Turkish folk songs during team camps. Most Turkish players have brothers who open kebab houses which the player finances, effectively making them the partner. Hobbies rarely go any further than playing on the PlayStation and backgammon.

Will there be any rehearsed goal celebrations?
None at the moment. The classic celebration is running to the bench to hug the coach or kissing the substitute who had said before the game that the player would score.

Are there any players involved in politics?
None directly, but some are known to have certain affiliations. There are a number of Galatasaray players, most notably Hakan Sukur, who are followers of a neo-Islamic teacher, Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Philadelphia as he is wanted in Turkey for conspiracy to overthrow the secular state. Galatasaray’s success in the 1990s, which culminated in their UEFA Cup triumph, was based around a number of players from conservative backgrounds in rural Anatolia. Club officials never made an issue of Sukur’s beliefs and the team struggled for a while when he left. Such players are unlikely to flourish at Fenerbahce, who have close ties to the military, which is ardently opposed to religious movements.

What will the media coverage be like?

The television coverage of the championship is likely to be poor as the rights were won by ATV, a privately owned channel that is closely linked to the conservative Islamist party currently in power. ATV has little experience of broadcasting top tournaments and currently hold no rights to broadcasting a domestic competition. Selçuk Yula, a former Fenerbahce striker in the 1980s, is among their pundits. He has a good understanding of the fabric of football, but he’s a huge Fener fan and it becomes way too apparent on some occasions. He’s likely to enter a confrontation with the channel’s other critic, Kazim Kanat, a Besiktas supporter whose comments in the past have bordered on anti-Serbian racism, when he criticised Fenerbahce’s purchase of Serbians while they already had Bosnian and Croatian players in the squad.

Alp Ayhan

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