Read Between The Community Shield

Manc-ini-hester City Tactics: Mancini had the perfect setup to attack the Red Devils and his plan were going smooth and on track till half time, but after half time the defense just fell apart or should I say the Champs were playing like one. The tactics which could have made City the runaway winners, changed the Hash Tag on twitter to #ManchesterisBlue rather than #ManchesterisRed and put a stamp on them being the title contender with the Big-4 for the coming season took a 360 degree turn and had a head on accident when the 2-0 deficit was turned into a 2-3 victory for the devils.

Fill In The Blanks: City were attacking and scored 2 goals also to have a lead of 2-0 at half time but in the second half they were just not able to reach the Devils box and were defending most of the time. That is when I feel a man like Tevez was missed his never die attitude & his ability to take the ball from his defense to the opponent was surely missed, I feel Mancini should really rethink his plans keeping the charismatic captain in mind and yeah make him feel homely.

YOUNG was no more ‘Young’: In the last quarter of an hour Ashley YOUNG was the oldest player in the red jersey wish we could have digital jersey name and could have the Englishmen’s name to changed from YOUNG to say OLDEST but on a serious note a bright future awaits the Red Devils. Players like Smalling who was playing out of position, Welbeck who was given a nod above Berbatov, Tom Cleverley was playing like clever matured player, Phil Jones was matching every penny of his price tag, Evans who played as if his only motive was to silence his last season critics and the player I love Anderson was proving his metal in the squad. I say job well done by Sir, Scouts and youth system.

At last he proved his quotes were more than just words: You know since Ronaldo left I must have heard Nani saying it for a zillions of time that he wouldn’t let Trafford faithful miss him. I know right now many Devil’s supporter must be abusing me but really ask yourself this question, Nani might have been scoring some goals & might have been the perfect trickster and speedster but do u think he has even come close to what Ronaldo had achieved as a number 9. But last night I was honored to see the great player Nani was, playing the perfect passes, always available to receive passes, scoring the perfect goal and scoring the winner in the 90th minute he might not be Ronaldo but he was a complete player.

At the end Gunners were the happiest: Like really, what was Clichy thinking as now he has a higher price tag on him the ball would get attracted to him. Come on Mr. Frenchmen Kompany is not superman that he can stop whatever you throw on to him what could have been a return ball into Devils box was turned into a winning goal for Manchester united by none other than Nani who never gave up on the ball. Sorry but for me it wasn’t Kompany’s mistake but a brutal howler by Clichy and one good step by Arsenal in the transfer market was now in front of us all.

Listen to the words of Scholsey: Just retired Manchester maestro Scholes was quoted saying why are we looking for my replacement outside when you can find them in-house. After yesterday’s game I totally agree to that point when needed Rooney was playing deep and providing inch perfect long ball to the wings and in the second half there was a near perfect partnership between Anderson and Cleverley which were just so pleasing to the eyes. And when you have a manger of the stature of Sir Ferguson I am sure even if they don’t sign Sneijder Manchester midfield would be fine. I also feel a player like Anderson and Cleverley now deserves their chance.

Masterpiece is made by talent not money: Manchester City have been big spenders in the transfer market for a long time now and yes they achieved a 2 goals lead last night one  goal being a setpiece header by Star Wars Lescott and a long range goal by super happy Dzeko. But for me a beautiful masterpiece was created by the red devils when they scored their second goal which was started by young Cleverley and included 2 back heals by Rooney and Welbeck and a beautiful run of play finished with a finesse by man of the moment Nani. Its likes Red Devils like making masterpiece against their city rivals remember Rooney’s overhead kick.

I’LL BE A BIG BOY ONE DAY

This is what normally a kid says to his mother after feeling inspired by his father almost identical situation have been seen in this summer transfer market with number of clubs displaying a strong ambition to be among the top clubs of their league. What this would do is may be make the competition more intense by making the life difficult for the big clubs like Manchester United, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea, AC Milan & Lyon. Now again going back to the young age some kids do grow up to be like dad and some don’t which means intent is not everything you have to work towards your goal, input some extra hard work and be clear about your short term goals cause at the end it’s the short term goals which make up the long time goals. Same way all these hungry clubs have to be clear about what they want to achieve in one season at a time and accordingly the players would have to give in some extra hours of practice to at least snatch one medal off the chest of the big boys.

So I’ll be looking at four different clubs from four big leagues, their ambitions, their new signing, their coaches and everything they have to challenge the big clubs.

Malaga

League: Liga BBVA

Owner: Sheikh Abdullah Al Thani ( Qatar)

Home: La Rosaleda

League Position (2010-11): 11^th

Manager:

Manuel Pellegrini

One of my favorite managers in the world very calm very composed and both these words are always on display in his style of play. Joined Malaga on 5^th Nov 2010 when Malaga were in a sad state hovering in and around the relegation zone and with few good signings in the winter transfer window took the side to a respectable 11^th position by the end of the season. If Manuel is given the right guys in the team he is like the man who talks less but works magic with his hard work.

2011 Big Summer Signings

Martin Demichelis

Ruud van Nistelrooy

Nacho Monreal

Joris Mathijsen

Jeremy Toulalan

Joaquin Sanchez

Isco

Santi Cazorla

Player to Watch

Santi Cazorla – ESP – MF – 26yrs

A midfielder who is a passing maestro, he possesses great speed and is still 26 years old, surely a man for future. Snapped up by Villareal just before he turned 18 since then spent seven seasons as the yellow submarine and now when as he has left the club he is already considered to be a legend at El Madrigal.

AS Roma

League: Serie A

Owner: Thomas DiBenedetto (USA)

Home: Stadio Olimpico

League Position (2010-11): 6^th

Manager:

Luis Enrique

Roma is not that much of a small team they are three times Serie A winner but the only issue they have lost their way completely. Even though they finished a respective 6^th position but few of the dismal performances were not expected from a club with such great history and players hence I say they have the right man for the right job. Luis Enrique born and bred in the essence of Spanish football played for Gijon, Madrid and Barcelona. And for past 3 seasons Enrique has been the coach of Barcelona B so I feel he knows the perfect ingredients to make a club dream and also transform the dream to realty.

2011 Big Summer Signings

Erik Lamela

Jose Angel

Gabriel Heinze

Bojan Krkic

Stekelenberg

Player to Watch

Erik Lamela – MF- ARG – 19yrs

He is a home grown Argentinean, born and brought up at recently relegated River Plate. Surely a part of very sad story of Argentinean football but would want to put the relegation story behind him now especially as he is at a very big club very mistakes are not digested easily. Surely the winning buy for Roma as all the big clubs were behind him. His attributes include bag full of tricks, deadly at set pieces and ferocious left foot.

Paris Saint Germain

League: Ligue 1

Owner: Qatar Investment Authority      

Home: Parc des Princes

League Position (2010-11): 4^th

Manager:

Antoine Kombouare

He is the man that you actually need at the manager seat right now as he has seen the club from the eyes of a player who won the Ligue 1 title for PSG that being one of the two titles they have won till now. And for a man who knows how it feels to hold that cup he also know what needs to be done to achieve that single moment of glory. Now as he has been the coach of PSG since 2009 he knows exactly what the club needs. Hope he brings the glory days of 1994 also as a coach as he did as a player.

2011 Big Summer Signings

Kevin Gameiro

Milan Bisevac

Jeremy Menez

Blaise Matuidi

Mohamed Sissoko

Salvatore Sirigu

Javier Pastore ( going by Zamparini official comments )

Player to Watch

Javier Pastore – MF –ARG – 22 yrs

I call him the brain child of Zamparini because no one knew him till he was bought by Palermo. And what a great 5 million buy he turned out to be leading the club from the front with his quick 2 feet and his eye to make perfect through ball actually brought him to the world stage and also his first senior team call. Bought for almost 43 million euros by PSG he better proves his big money price tag but I feel he would.

Manchester City

League: English Premier League

Owner: Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan      

Home: Etihad Stadium (previously City of Manchester Stadium)

League Position (2010-11): 3^rd  

Manager:

Roberto Mancini

The Italian known for his no nonsense attitude and his ability to turn a season into a year of silverwares as he did at Inter Milan from 2005 to 2008 winning 3 consecutive Serie A titles. His team talks do wonders even from the days of his playing career when he would give the same during half times. His style of play is always attack inclined as it was visible from last season when he turned the defensive midfielder of Barcelona into more of an attacking midfielder of Manchester City yup I am talking about Yaya Toure. I believe this just might be the season for Manchester City with UEFA Champions league qualification and I feel Mancini is the man who can make the dreams of all the citizens possible.

2011 Big Summer Signings

Gael Clichy

Stefan Savic

Kun Aguero

Timo Hildebrand (deal close by)

Player to Watch

Kun Aguero – ST -23yrs –ARG  

He surely had become a household name in Madrid attacking the defense of any team with such ease and spear heading Atletico Madrid attack. Son in law of the great footballer Maradona has such charismatic style of play that giving him a small little space in the defense is nightmare time for the opposition. If he is able to make up a good partnership with Dzeko and Balotelli and also Tevez if he stays Manchester City is going to be a force to reckon with this season.

IGNORANT FOOTBALL FANS IN INDIA NEED TO RISE

I still remember the morning of 28^th April 2011 when all my friends who were Real Madrid and Barcelona fans were in a tussle on Twitter, Facebook and all social platforms available, all this cause of the sending off of the Madrid central defender Pepe when he had actually not touched Dani Alves. And the social football fight was also there on 7^th May 2009 when Barcelona knocked out Chelsea with Norwegian referee Tom Henning Ovrebo disallowing many of the penalty chances that Chelsea should have actually got with Ballack and Drogba leading the race to shout at the ref. But on 24^th of July 2011 everything was all cool why should there be any issue no EPL no La Liga no SerieA so just for my so called football loving friends to know on 23^rd July 2011 UAE defeated India 3-0 in the first leg of the World Cup qualifiers.

Oh please don’t stress your head thinking why is this Jughead making such a hue and cry about a loss as it keeps happening in sports. I am making this hue and cry because India ended the match with only 9 men in blues on the field, with Red card being awarded to Debabrata Roy and Subrata Pal when there wasn’t much of a physical contact in any of the two situations which led to the penalties and also the red cards. Now where are the Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United and Chelsea fans gone come on how can you be a club faithful if you are not even close to being a country faithful?  Every player in the world says and feels there is no better feeling than playing for your national team. Please a humble request don’t start with the age old topic that Indian football is not that great come on how can it be great when their own countries football supporters have no idea about what they are going through.

The referee in that match was Banjar Al Dosari who is from Qatar, just asking the FIFA committee what were they actually thinking when they knew India were suppose to play Qatar before the qualifiers why designate Dosari to take control of the match. Me being very neutral follower of football won’t comment anything more on this but would surely want to bring your attention on to the two Red card situations.

Debabrata Roy Red Card

One of the UAE midfielder sent in a cross which was met by a deflection and was falling in the path of the UAE striker with Roy only chasing him and Subrata Pal in total control to snatch the ball from the air but then the Striker came tumbling down holding his ankle with there being no physical contact from Roy only a defensive pressure. What next? Debabrata was given his marching orders.

Subrata Pal Red Card

Considered to be one the highly experienced and talented shot stoppers in Asian sub continent especially due to his Spiderman style reflexive saves. Almost same situation as the first one the ball crossed in the box and the ball being in the reach of the Indian keeper he jumped caught the ball took a step and raised his knees to his abdomen as all keeper do which is very normal. And with the striker charging towards him Subrata just brushed the UAE striker on the side ribs and the striker who had a good course in play acting and loved the lush green turf started to roll on the lush green turf which I would say surely deserved a yellow card. But Subrata’s past reputation (Junior Incident) came to haunt him and was shown the red card.

Has anyone got any reason that would speak in favor of the mockery made by the referee of the beautiful game? But surely everyone would want to congratulate our coach Armando Colaco who has done a great job with his side, even after being nine men down for most of the match we played much much better than 11 men under Houghton. We were passing well, we were trying to attack and we played as a unit, what more can you expect 9 men to do against 12 men (ref included). We displayed courage, talent and passion to win.

Now my question comes back to all the readers where were all the football followers in India when this was happening why were there no fights on the social network forums? Where had your football following spirit disappeared? If this sought of situation would have happened in cricket I’ll tell you what all would have happened:

1. A group would have been made on Facebook say "BAN DOSARI" with 1 million followers.
2. May be a Candle march may be at India gate.
3. Or if it was a very critical situation say with respect to a match with Pakistan there would have been a massive discussion in parliament with bats and wickets been thrown around.

But in this case what happened NOTHING. For everyone who says India is not a footballing nation but a cricketing nation wouldn’t it be better if we would be known as Sports Nation of the world. If I take the first red card scenario and compare it with Puyol doing the same my Catalan supporter friends would have had the FB status “Puyol was at his amazing best but the ref was biased” and as for Pal’s situation if Casillas would have got red carded my Castilian supporter friends would have had the status “Dosari has no idea what goalkeeping is all about”. Come on guys I know Indian football still needs to develop a lot but come on show some respect, trust and support in your national team Climax holds same importance to Indian football as Dhoni does to Indian cricket.

"THESE ARE MY VIEWS ALONE"

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