Thursday 1 Neil Warnock says no so Portsmouth want to talk to Harry Redknapp. Celestine Babayaro and Tim Cahill receive three-match bans for exchanging blows in last week’s Everton v Newcastle match.
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Stories
Michael Owen is a very good striker – but does his Spanish experience show that that is no longer enough? Phil Ball assesses what Newcastle have got for their £17m
The mildly interesting aspect of this summer’s Michael Owen yawn-fest has been the contrasting reactions of the English and Spanish media to the issue. In England, despite the prominence of a new hero in Andrew Flintoff, both the quality papers and the tabloids have demonstrated a touching insistence on not forgetting our Michael, stranded out there on the bench, surrounded by unappreciative foreigners. The Spanish in general, and Real Madrid in particular, have hardly raised a line about the matter – but neither would most writers if they had just witnessed the arrival of Robinho and Julio Baptista. However, the Madrileño press itself never once suggested that Owen was suddenly “fifth in the starting order” of strikers – the English phrase of the summer. They know that managers such as Vanderlei Luxemburgo do not think so simplistically. Owen could have had a future at the Bernabéu.
The team with most points winning the league? The teams with fewest going down? As Robert Shaw writes, that hasn’t been the way in Rio and São Paulo – until now
In the highly political world of Brazilian football, two developments received universal acclaim in 2003. First, Palmeiras and Botafogo, two traditional powers, were promoted back to the 24-team top flight a year after relegation. Earning a return on the field, rather than through negotiations in a smoke-filled room, won plaudits for both clubs, who had not been expected to tolerate the humiliation of second division football.
Former Brazil coach Vanderlei Luxemburgo has been convicted of not paying his dues, as Robert Shaw relates. You’d never have a dodgy national coach over here, of course
Is former national team coach Vanderlei Luxemburgo the Jeffrey Archer of Brazilian football? Both have received popular acclaim, been rumbled through dubious assignations with women and been economical with the truth when it came to documenting their lives – in the coach’s case, taking three years off his age.