At first, Jeremiah White looked like the one who got away. Many thought the speedy, 27-year-old winger with Philly ties would sign with Philadelphia Union after he left AGF Aarhus in the Danish league in December. It didn’t happen. Instead, he now plays for Al-Ettifaq in Dammam, Saudi Arabia.
But White hasn’t closed the door on the Union after all. In an interview with the Philly Soccer Page, White said he would like to eventually come home to play for Philadelphia Union.
PSP: Why did you sign with Al-Ettifaq?
JW: I signed with Al-Ettifaq because I have always wanted to play and live in the Middle East, plus the offer was one that I doubt many teams could offer given this financial climate.
PSP: You’re one of three Europe-based players that signed with Al-Ettifaq this winter. Is your club making a push to bring in more Europe-based players, and if so, why?
JW: The club has 4 foreign players now as the team just signed a striker from the national team of Oman. There are foreign player limitations in the Saudi and Qatari leagues. I also had a fantastic offer in Qatar, but the restrictions prevented me from taking it. I think I am in the right place regardless since the Saudi league is the strongest in all of the Middle East and Asia. I always assumed the J league was the best, but after seeing the teams and players that have come through this league I saw what people meant. I also had an offer from the J league that was for 4 years.
PSP: How long is your contract for?
JW: 6 months to start to see how I settle in and then another year extension if things are smooth. Continue Reading »
Diego Maradona’s famous run against England in 1986 is probably the most famous play in soccer history (closely followed by the Hand of God). It’s a memorable play for many reasons, not the least of which is how it showcases one player’s ability to single-handedly change a game. Maradona’s goal reminds us how rare it is to see a player take over a match by himself, particularly against high-quality competition. A good team is so organized that an opposing player would require skill, speed, luck, guile, and a sublime finish (and cocaine in Maradona’s case) to even attempt a one-man run at goal. No, it is the ability to make a defense cover runs both on and off the ball that makes a great footy offense.
In this age of 80 million pound transfers, it appears some teams are forgetting this basic soccer maxim. There is no “Iso” play like the one that allows Kobe Bryant to drop 55 points in a game; you can’t send three midfielders to one side in order to get man-coverage on Messi the way the Colts do to free up Reggie Wayne. The best players have to be playmakers as much as they are finishers, and the most effective plays happen when passes are fast and flowing, not long and direct. After his 10 man Liverpool side defeated Everton this weekend, Rafa Benitez noted how the Blues made it easier for his defense by playing long and over the top. During a televised match, announcers will consistently return to the idea of movement. In-form strikers exhibit great off-the-ball movement while slumps often coincide with a distinct lack of it. This all ties into the role of superstars on the field.
Every player excels in a system that suits their style, it is the rarest of footballer who excels in any system. After his move to Barcelona, Thierry Henry struggled to come to terms with his role on the left flank. After trading Milan’s narrow midfield for a more advanced role at Bordeaux, Yoann Gourcouff went from cast-off to Ligue 1 Player of the Year and the centerpiece of France’s World Cup squad. The point is that these players are great when they fit the system, and not when a system is fitted to them.
Case in point: For most of the 2000s, Argentina built their team around sad-faced playmaker Riquelme. The lineups were filled with snipers who could put the ball in the net when Riquelme fed them that perfect pass. Argentina’s best World Cup finish of the decade was a quarterfinal bow in 2006. They didn’t even make it out of group stage in 2002.
Managers need to remember that, as much as they want the ball at the feet of their most capable players, the place that those stars receive the ball matters. On Sunday, Arsenal’s Cesc Fabregas and Andrei Arshavin were unable to make a significant impact. Too often Fabregas was forced to carry the ball upfield from his own half, spraying passes to his wide players only to get a return ball in the same spot. Arshavin lived in Bermuda triangles of Chelsea defenders and spent the afternoon forcing his way into holes that weren’t there or playing the role of brick wall for Abou Diaby. Chelsea’s superstar Didier Drogba had a more enjoyable afternoon. After flicking in a John Terry header at the far post, his wide run opened space for Lampard on the counterattack. When the England midfielder played the ball, Drogba was already on the edge of the penalty box and moving with speed. A few seconds later, the inevitable second goal whistled into the back of the net.
The gap between the top teams in a league and everybody else is often called a talent gap. And certainly the talent on Real Madrid and Barcelona; on Manchester United and Chelsea; on Inter Milan and AC Milan appears to dwarf that of their competitors. But at the end of the year, the team on top will be the one with talented players who play their manager’s system effectively. Liverpool’s run to second in the league last year coincided with great defensive displays that featured nine players behind the ball moving like a grid to squeeze the creativity out of their opponents’ play. Barcelona’s dominance of the footballing world last year came from a willingness by their creative players to show patience in attacking positions. Where Messi and Henry might have taken players on, they chose instead to draw a defense in and lay the ball off to Xavi who invariably played them into space behind the defense.
The qualifying groups for the 2012 European Championship were drawn Sunday. The full list is here. Notable placements: England and Wales in Group G; Germany, Turkey and Belgium in Group A; and the reminder that Kazakhstan plays in Europe at all.
Jozy Altidore scored his first English Premier League goal today to help Hull to a 2-1 upset win over Manchester City.
Altidore won multiple free kicks and looked dangerous throughout the match before pulling up lame with what looked to be a quad injury and leaving for a substitution in the 66th minute. The goal was the U.S. international’s first in league play. After Altidore’s injury, the pace of the game changed noticeably in Man City’s favor, but Hull held on. Good showing for the American.
I haven’t found the goal on YouTube, but you can view it here.
Historically (and admittedly, it’s a short history), Wonderland has brought you spectacular footy highlights, moments meant to jolt your love of the game back into top gear before the weekend matches. Today’s Wonderland takes place pre-match.
Before every game, the supporters of Liverpool Football Club sing a rendition of the club’s theme song, an old Gerry and the Pacemakers number called, “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. And never do they sing louder than before the local derby against Everton.
As the two teams face off at 7:30am tomorrow (on ESPN2, set your DVR), this seems an appropriate time to bring you one of the great sounds of sports.
After a week of rampant speculation in the British press, Fabio Capello announced today that John Terry is out as captain of England.
It all started over the past weekend when, after a super-injunction brought about by his lawyers was overturned by a British high Court, the news broke that England The Brave captain John Terry, who has a wife and two children, had had an affair with the estranged partner of England teammate Wayne Bridge. The British press went into what at first seemed to be an all too predictable case of the vapors with an explosion of stories wondering if Terry was fit for the captaincy of either the England team or Chelsea. Scoring the winning goal against Burnley last Saturday, Terry stoically did not celebrate, barely acknowledging the congratulations of his teammates, some of whom must have been thinking, “If he’s on the pitch with me then he can’t be shagging my girlfriend.”
Which is of course the point: while some decried Terry’s promiscuity in the usual entirely ridiculous moral terms – “He’s supposed to be a role model, gasp! Blah, blah, blah . . . ” – the real concern was one of team unity. A team captain hopping into bed with his teammates ladies does not bode well for the kind of team spirit that wins World Cups, particularly when you remember that both Terry and Bridge are defenders. If you had just learned Terry had shagged the mother of your child, might you not be just a little bit slower to back him up when, say, Lionel Messi is on a run up the middle? Continue Reading »
Philadelphia Union play their their first friendly Saturday against UNC-Wilmington, weather permitting. Are you going? If so, let us know how it goes! We’ll be shoveling snow.
Union defender Michael Orozco made the U.S. roster for the Feb. 24 friendly against El Salvador. The team is comprised mostly of MLS players.
Some PPL customers aren’t too thrilled about PPL’s planned $20 million stadium sponsorship deal with the Union because they just got smacked with electricity rate hikes. Up in the Lehigh Valley, PPL is pretty much the only game in town, when it comes to buying electricity.
News from the rivals:
Estonian midfielder Joel Lindpere signs with the New York Red Bulls. No, I’ve never heard of him either, but he apparently played for his national team. Lindpere last played for Tromso IL in Norway and is another Scandinavian import courtesy of the vikings now running the Red Bulls.
Troy Perkins was apparently this close to joining the Union – or Peter Nowak totally bluffed D.C. United into making a fat trade that helped get the Union three players. That “In Nowak We Trust” thing may be annoying, but it may also be right.
Two home games in three months. Not one weekend home game in prime time.
Gah.
Philadelphia Union will start the season in a way that probably should earn the team the nickname of Wanderers or Rovers, instead of the Snakes that I’d been thinking of them as. They’ll go to Seattle, Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Houston, Chicago, and Kansas City before they play their third home game on June 27.
Of course, those long road trips make sense. That third home game will be the first at the Union’s new stadium (affectionately known here as the Stadium of Power and Light). Front-loading the Union’s schedule with road games allows the league minimize the number of games it plays at Lincoln Financial Field, which in turn lets the club maximize profits through playing in its own house, where it keeps all the revenue. But it also means local fans only get to see the team live twice in those first three months before making up for it in the season’s second half.
But more importantly –
What’s up with all the late afternoon games?
Every weekend home game starts between 3:30 p.m. and 6 p.m., all but one on Saturdays. That can cause havoc for those ticket-holders who play in Saturday leagues. (Yep, you guessed it: I’m in a Saturday league.)
No other MLS club has a schedule this geared toward the daylight. The other east coast teams – D.C. United, New York Red Bull and New England Revolution – each play more than two-thirds their home games at night.
This concludes the two-part “Great Philly Soccer Teams: Philadelphia Atoms.” You can read Part I here.
Before Atoms coach Al Miller took the young team to England to train and to scout for some British players to fill out the roster, back in Philadelphia, Atoms general manager Bob Ehlinger’s marketing skills were put into play. In addition to players,the team needed a name. So a name-the-team contest was held with the winner being awarded an all-expenses paid to the FA Cup Final. Press coverage was cultivated. Given the woeful state of Philadelphia professional sports at the time, the local press enthusiastically covered the new team. Favorable coverage was aided by the fact that throughout the season Miller proved to be a natural with the press.
The Atoms first game was away to the St. Louis Stars. Like the the Atoms, the Stars also fielded a squad filled with Americans, as they had done for years. It proved to be an inauspicious start as the Atoms lost 1-0 in front of a paltry 6,782 spectators. Concerns about whether the Atoms would be any good aside, some wondered if teams filled with Americans would be able to draw fans: with the exception of the Stars and Atoms, only 19 Americans were on the rosters of the other seven teams then in the NASL.
Steve Holroyd writes, “Skeptics around the league expected that the ‘Philadelphia Experiment’ would also fall flat. Philadelphia soccer fans thought otherwise: a league-record 21,700 fans went to the home opener at Veterans Stadium on May 11, “after a parade of 3,000 youngsters in full soccer dress welcomed the team.” The debut home game was against Lamar Hunt’s Dallas Tornado, a team that had won the NASL championship in 1971 and had made it to the semifinals in 1972. Though the match ended as a scoreless draw, the Atoms had shown they could hold their own against the league’s best. Throughout the season the fans kept coming. By the end of the season, attendance at Atoms games would be nearly twice the league average with 11,382 per game. Continue Reading »
