Author Archive

Damian Hall tells the sorry tale of a a fragile winger who valued the art of passing over the business of winning and made a mistake leaving Arsenal

Alexander Hleb was a classic Arsène Wenger signing. He was relatively unknown in England, technically excellent, yet cursed with a pathological preference for a pass over a punt at goal. When the six-time Belarus player of the year and sometime captain of the national team arrived in 2005, he did not look like a footballer. Hleb was scrawny, too thin for his shirt – which always went untucked – with socks around his ankles. But he could play.

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Andrew 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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Dear WSC
Trevor Fisher (Letters, WSC 301) is nearly right. When Alex Ferguson was accused of driving on the hard shoulder in 1999, he hired Nick “Mr Loophole” Freeman as his lawyer. They argued successfully that he should not be punished as he was
suffering from an upset stomach and needed to get to the training ground quickly to use the toilet. I have always slightly suspected he got away with it because nobody in the courtroom wanted to spend a moment longer than necessary with that gruesome, messy mental image in their head. Which is now in your head. No need to thank me.
Jim Caris, Prague

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John Duerden says that despite an influx of money across the continent, clubs and governing bodies remain haphazard in their organisation

“A team that has scored just one goal in four matches has eight points. I am simply too amused to try and find an explanation to this,” said Uzbekistan’s Olympic coach Vadim Abramov of United Arab Emirates’ resurgence in the qualifying group. Amusement was not the general reaction after the worst of the wildly varying standards of professionalism in Asian football were revealed once again.

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The problem with all-seater stadiums is that you have to stand up, argues Huw Richards 

It was nice of Arsenal to provide the away fans with padded seats, if somewhat less charitable to retail them at £35 a shot. It was too bad that the only time we were able to sit in them was during half-time. Swansea’s first trip to the Emirates earlier this season epitomised what you might call the all-seater paradox. The theory behind all-seater grounds, compulsory in the top two divisions since 1994, is that they stop people standing. In practice, particularly if you are an away fan, everybody stands.

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