Liverpool FC’s original statement following Luis Suarez ruling

I felt it was necessary to post the initial Liverpool statement, made shortly after Luiz Suarez was found guilty of racist abuse and handed an eight-match ban, if only because the club so quickly removed it from their official website. Its merits are for you to judge.

Liverpool Football Club is very surprised and disappointed with the decision of the Football Association Commission to find Luis Suarez guilty of the charges against him.

We look forward to the publication of the Commission’s Judgment.  We will study the detailed reasons of the Commission once they become available, but reserve our right to appeal or take any other course of action we feel appropriate with regards to this situation.

We find it extraordinary that Luis can be found guilty on the word of Patrice Evra alone when no-one else on the field of play – including Evra’s own Manchester United teammates and all the match officials – heard the alleged conversation between the two players in a crowded Kop goalmouth while a corner kick was about to be taken.

The Club takes extremely seriously the fight against all forms of discrimination and has a long and successful track record in work relating to anti-racist activity and social inclusion.  We remain committed to this ideal and equality for all, irrespective of a person’s background.

LFC considers racism in any form to be unacceptable – without compromise.  It is our strong held belief, having gone over the facts of the case, that Luis Suarez did not commit any racist act.  It is also our opinion that the accusation by this particular player was not credible – certainly no more credible than his prior unfounded accusations.

It is key to note that Patrice Evra himself in his written statement in this case said ‘I don’t think that Luis Suarez is racist’.  The FA in their opening remarks accepted that Luis Suarez was not racist.

Luis himself is of a mixed race family background as his grandfather was black.  He has been personally involved since the 2010 World Cup in a charitable project which uses sport to encourage solidarity amongst people of different backgrounds with the central theme that the colour of a person’s skin does not matter; they can all play together as a team.

He has played with black players and mixed with their families whilst with the Uruguay national side and was Captain at Ajax Amsterdam of a team with a proud multi-cultural profile, many of whom became good friends.

It seems incredible to us that a player of mixed heritage should be accused and found guilty in the way he has based on the evidence presented. We do not recognise the way in which Luis Suarez has been characterised.

It appears to us that the FA were determined to bring charges against Luis Suarez, even before interviewing him at the beginning of November. Nothing we have heard in the course of the hearing has changed our view that Luis Suarez is innocent of the charges brought against him and we will provide Luis with whatever support he now needs to clear his name.

We would also like to know when the FA intend to charge Patrice Evra with making abusive remarks to an opponent after he admitted himself in his evidence to insulting Luis Suarez in Spanish in the most objectionable of terms.  Luis, to his credit, actually told the FA he had not heard the insult.

Stoke City nothing to scoff at

Peter Crouch celebrates his equaliser against Manchester United last weekend.

by Jerrad Peters

This column originally appeared in the 01 October edition of the Winnipeg Free Press.

English soccer’s top four is an institution—an elite group of clubs propped atop the Premier League standings by lucrative Champions League revenue. Manchester United and Chelsea are permanent members. Given their endless supply of Middle East oil wealth, Manchester City are likely to be going forward as well. After that you have Arsenal, around whom questions swirl; Tottenham Hotspur, who are looking to get back into the Champions League; and Liverpool, who continue to rebuild.

But the conversation shouldn’t end there. This season there’s another club with a realistic shot at cracking the top four. They’ve come a long way in a short while, but are still discarded by folks who choose to see them as unfashionable. The club (drum roll, please) is Stoke City.

Go ahead and snicker. You wouldn’t be the first. After all, Stoke were playing Division Two (third-tier) soccer just 10 years ago, and were only promoted to the Premier League in 2008. They have a metropolitan area significantly smaller than Winnipeg’s on which to draw, and are best known for the most overused of soccer clichés: “a cold, February night in Stoke.” (If you don’t pick up on it, at least know it’s not intended favourably.)

And yet, there they are—seventh in the standings with only one loss in all competitions, and in the middle of a Europa League campaign, courtesy of making the FA Cup final four months ago. They’re coming off a win over Turkish giants Besiktas and have already beat Liverpool this season; they’ve also earned draws against Spurs, Chelsea and Manchester United. A win over lowly Swansea City, Sunday, would bring them to 12 points and leave them among sides already considered top four contenders.

Yes, it’s early; but it’s not at all unrealistic to expect Stoke to be there or thereabouts for the duration of the season.

Tony Pulis and Peter Coates are big reasons why. An unpopular hire when he was appointed manager in 2002, Pulis is now a cult hero at Britannia Stadium—his tracksuit and baseball cap as much of a trademark as Bill Belichick’s tattered hoodie. Coates, meanwhile, has been every bit the committed, Stoke-born-and-bred chairman in his second go-around as owner. He obviously trusts his manager with his money, and every transfer window allows Pulis to spend whatever he feels is necessary to take the club to the next level.

Making sensible signings appropriate to the club’s ambitions has become a Pulis trademark. He made the necessary deals to earn promotion out of the Championship in 2007-08, and in 2009 made perhaps his best acquisition when he signed Matthew Etherington from West Ham. The winger has been a vital cog in the Stoke machine ever since, and was named the club’s player of the season for 2009-10.

Etherington’s arrival also symbolized Stoke’s desire to not merely remain a long-term Premier League middleweight, but to sign players of quality and push on for a European berth. He was followed by Robert Huth and Asmir Begovic in 2009-10, and Kenwyne Jones, Marc Wilson and Jermaine Pennant in 2010-11. This past summer saw the arrivals Jonathan Woodgate, Matthew Upson, Wilson Palacios and Peter Crouch. Results against big clubs have come as a result—a fact that really shouldn’t be at all surprising.

The best, and most obvious, way to judge the quality of a club is to look at the players in its first 11. In any given match Pulis can deploy a lineup including Begovic, Huth, Shawcross, Woodgate, Etherington, Palacios, Jones, Pennant and Crouch, not to mention serviceable midfielders Glenn Whelan and Rory Delap. Of that group, Huth, Shawcross and Palacios could walk into the Arsenal team, and several of them could play regularly for Spurs. One or two of them could find a place at Chelsea.

The top four is within Stoke’s sights. It sounds funny, but it’s true. The squad is in place to do it; the trajectory of competency and success indicates they’re still a club on an upward arc.

How’s this for a new cliché: “A cold, February, Champions League night in Stoke.”

Wednesday Champions League group prognostications (Groups A, B, C, D)

Gabriel Hanot helped create what is now the Champions League

by Jerrad Peters

John Gramlick and Gabriel Hanot didn’t know each other. In fact, Hanot was only born when Gramlick was at the peak of his career. Gramlick—a British expatriate living in the old Austro-Hungarian empire—was heavily involved with the Vienna Cricket and Football Club in the 1890s. Hanot, meanwhile, was the editor of two French football publications and manager of the French national team in the late 1940s. Their paths never crossed. Nonetheless, they shared an identical dream: the creation of a competitions that would bring together the best teams from throughout Europe.

In truth, it wasn’t a new idea. The growth of football and cricket in the late 19^th century had produced several competitive leagues in a handful of countries. Each competition was purely domestic, however, as teams only played opponents from within their national divisions. This produced an obvious set of questions: Which team was actually the best in Europe? Was there a way to determine a continental champion?

Gramlick was the first to tinker with the notion and bring it into some semblance of its current form. Through his involvement with the Vienna Cricket and Football Club, he established the Challenge Cup in 1897. Open to teams from throughout the Habsburg Empire, the initial competition included just four sides: Vienna, Vienna Football Club 98, Rasenspielclub Training and First Vienna FC. Vienna—also known as Cricketers—thrashed FC 98 in the final, winning 7-0 in Vienna’s Prater Park. Eventually, the tournament included 12 teams from as far away as Budapest before disbanding in 1911.

The Mitropa Cup picked up where the Challenge Cup left off. Again, it was in Austria that the idea became reality. Hugh Meisl—a Jew born in Ostrava in what is now the Czech Republic—took Gramlick’s dream one step further. Instead of limiting the competition to his immediate region, Meisl’s Mitropa Cup embraced clubs from Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Italy, Romania and Switzerland. Initially, the top two sides from each national league were entered in the tournament, but some leagues were permitted to send three teams beginning in 1937, 10 years after the Cup debuted. After a nine-year hiatus during and after World War II, the competition re-emerged as the Zentropa Cup and was contested until the breakup of the Soviet Union and establishment of the modern Champions League in 1992.

The Champions League, as we now call it, is a descendant of the old European Cup, which determined continental supremacy for 37 years after its inception in 1955. This is where Hanot comes into the story. While serving as the editor of the magazine L’Equipe, he visited England in 1953 and watched Wolverhampton Wanderers defeat Honved Budapest and Spartak Moscow at Molineux. After the victories, London’s Daily Mail boldly proclaimed Wolves the finest team in the world.

Hanot scoffed at this and wondered what the likes of Real Madrid and AC Milan would think of such an assumption. He didn’t have long to wait. After discussing his idea of a continent-wide competition with L’Equipe colleague Jacques Ferran, the two got down to work. Ferran drafted the rules and format of the tournament and Hanot took the documents to Vienna and presented it to a UEFA gathering. Less than two years later, Sporting Clube de Portugal lined up opposite FK Partizan of Yugoslavia in the first match of the European Cup. It was an occasion of considerable satisfaction for Hanot, but neither he nor Ferran, Meisl or Grmlick could ever have predicted just how enormous their dream would become.

 

Sergio Aguero and Manchester City should be tipped to win Group A, despite the quality of the opposition.

Group A: Bayern Munich, Villarreal, Manchester City, Napoli

Group in a sentence: Manchester City may be making their first ever Champions League appearance, but saying their too fresh to contend in the Group of Death is to do them a great disservice, despite the quality of their opponents.

Breakdown: Bayern Munich are having fun with their football. Through five Bundesliga rounds they’ve recorded four wins, scored 16 goals and conceded just one. They’ve annihilated everything in sight so far this season, and enigmatic striker Mario Gomez is in the middle of a hot streak with eight goals already in the bag. Playmaker Franck Ribery looks to have finally started a season in the purple patch as well.

That Bayern are favourites in an especially difficult group is down not only to their early season form, but also to their continental reputation. They’ve won the European Cup four times, after all, and finished runners-up on four other occasions. They’ll also be hosting the Champions League final in May.

Manchester City have no such pedigree at this level. Not that it should matter. City are off to a spectacular start to their Premier League campaign, and if David Silva, Sergio Aguero and Edin Dzeko can replicate their domestic performance in Europe, they’ll take some beating. The school of thought that says they’ll have to bide their time before enjoying Champions League success is quite simply a lot of rubbish. City could very well win this group, and it should surprise no one if they do.

Napoli and Villarreal are the unfortunate members of this bracket. Both are excellent sides, and Napoli have a realistic shot at winning a first Scudetto since the Diego Maradona era this season. They made an astute summer acquisition in coaxing midfielder Gokhan Inler from Udinese, and the loan acquisition of Goran Pandev will only enhance an already lethal attack that includes Ezequiel Lavezzi and Edinson Cavani. Villarreal can fill the net as well and possess one of Spain’s top striking duos in Guiseppe Rossi and Nilmar.

Advancing: Manchester City and Bayern Munich to Round of 16; Napoli to Europa League

 

Inter's Wesley Sneijder is one of world football's premiere playmakers.

Group B: Inter Milan, CSKA Moscow, Lille, Trabzonspor

Group in a sentence: Inter manager Gian Piero Gasperini is already under tremendous pressure, and the fact that both CSKA and Lille will push his side for progression won’t help his cause.

Breakdown: The knives are already out for Gian Piero Gasperini. Dealt a 4-2 opening day loss to Palermo, his Inter side will now look to pick up an important three points at home to Trabzonspor. If they don’t, the manager’s tenure at the San Siro could be even briefer than that of Rafael Benitez a year ago.

That said, this Nerazzurri side still has considerable strength. Wesley Sneider (who started on the bench against Palermo) is one of the premiere playmakers in world football, and both Giampaolo Pazzini and Diego Forlan can bang in the goals. It’s in defense that they’re suspect, and the usually reliable Julio Cesar gave up some howlers against Palermo as well.

Inter’s instability bodes well for Lille. The French champions have made a good start to their title defense and were able to offset the loss of Gervinho by picking up veteran forward Benoit Pedretti and signing Joe Cole on loan from Liverpool. Still, so much of manager Rudi Garcia’s attacking approach goes through Belgian maestro Edin Hazard. The 20-year-old playmaker scored 12 goals and added 10 assists last season and is coming off a brace against St. Etienne at the weekend. Any Inter stumble will mean more chance that Lille can win this group.

CSKA Moscow are currently level with Zenit St. Petersburg atop the Russian Premier League table. They have some impressive attacking options in Mark Gonzalez, Keisuke Honda and Tomas Necid and presently have the third-best defensive record in Russia as well. Trabzonspor round out the group. Runners-up to Fenerbahce last season, they were installed in the group stage after their league rivals were banned for match-fixing. Striker Burak Yilmaz paced the side with 19 goals last term, but Umut Bulut took his 13 tallies to Toulouse over the summer.

Advancing: Inter Milan and Lille to Round of 16; CSKA Moscow to Europa League

 

Wayne Rooney and his Manchester United teammates have made a brilliant start to their Premier League season.

Group C: Manchester United, Benfica, Basel, Otelul Galati

Group in a sentence: Benfica and Basel will battle for progression as Manchester United should win this group at a stroll ant Otelul are in over their heads.

Breakdown: The lesson of Wembley was apparently learned. Quite apparently. After losing the 2010-11 Champions League final to Barcelona in England’s national football stadium, Manchester United are clearly using the defeat (they were flattered by the 3-1 scoreline) to refine the way they play the game. Wayne Rooney—who continued his evolution into a trequartista last season—is playing from a consistently deep position, and his teammates have taken his lead and are working extremely well off the ball.

Phil Jones, Chris Smalling, Ashley Young and, until they were injured, Tom Cleverly and Danny Welbeck, have injected some youthful vigour into a squad that looked at times last season to be going stagnant, and no side in top flight football in more than 60 years has put up the sort of offensive numbers the Red Devils have so far in their Premier League campaign.

United should win this bracket without much difficulty, which leaves the two-horse race of Benfica and Basel to decide who will progress alongside the three-time European Cup winners. Benfica, who finished runners-up to Porto in the Portuguese lead last season, should be given the slight edge, and are looking to advance to the knockout round of this competition for the first time since 2005-06, when they were in a group with Manchester United and progressed at their expense.

Manager Jorge Jesus has a youthful group of players at his disposal, including 2011 FIFA Club World Cup silver medalists Miku and Nelson Oliveira. Neither will play Benfica’s first match against United, however, as Jesus will name a tried and tested—and effective and attacking—lineup, including the likes of Oscar Cardozo, Maxi Pereira and Pablo Aimar.

Basel, meanwhile, have one of the true young stars of the tournament in their ranks. Xherdan Shaqiri had a brilliant UEFA U-21 Championship in Denmark this summer and has carried that form over to his club. No doubt he’ll be using the Champions League as a springboard to a big-money move in 2012. Veteran striker and Swiss icon Alexander Frei leads the line up front.

Otelul Galati round out the group. They have never before progressed this far in Europe’s most prestigious club competition and won only their first Romanian title in 2010-11. Not a single won of their players scored 10 goals last season as they won the title on the back of a water-tight defense—a defense that will surely be tested by their three opponents in this bracket.

Advancing: Manchester United and Benfica to Round of 16; Basel to Europa League

 

Cristiano Ronaldo led La Liga in scoring last term.

Group D: Real Madrid, Lyon, Ajax, Dinamo Zagreb

Group in a sentence: Real Madrid never seem to make easy work of a Champions League group, and that won’t change this year with two contending opponents and a difficult match in Croatia on Wednesday.

Breakdown: Finally, after eight years of premature exits, Real Madrid advanced beyond the Round of 16 and all the way to the semifinals in 2010-11, where they were ultimately defeated by eventual champions Barcelona. No shame in that. Although you can bet the Meringues will be looking to go a step further this term. Everything they do, it seems, is measured against the accomplishments of their archrivals.

That being said, Jose Mourinho’s Madrid side is a very good one—one capable not only of pipping Barcelona in La Liga, but going further than them in Europe as well. Cristiano Ronaldo led La Liga in scoring last season with 30 goals in 34 matches and already has four in two outings this season. In all competitions, he has scored 91 times in 93 appearances. But he can’t carry the team by himself. Indeed, he’s not even the type of player to do that. Mourinho likes to play an attacking 4-2-3-1 formation that tends to beat up on lesser sides but gets bogged down against higher-quality opponents. Xabi Alonso is absolutely crucial to Madrid’s prospects, not only in covering a gaffe-prone defense but also moving play along with pace and precision.

Lyon always seem to progress to the knockout stages, and even went as far as the final four in 2009-10, where they lost to Bayern Munich. They’re just a point off the pace in Ligue 1 after five rounds and seem to be enjoying their football much more under Remi Garde than they did under Claude Puel. Defensive midfielder Gueida Fofana—who had a superb U-20 World Cup in August—was an astute buy, as was 23-year-old Burkina Faso defender Bakary Kone.

Ajax are coming off their first Eredivisie championship since 2003-04 and were able to maintain their title challenge even after losing Luis Suarez to Liverpool in January. In Christian Eriksen they have a top, young talent and Miralem Sulejmani already had four goals in five matches this season.

Dinamo Zagreb have won the last six Croatian titles but have never progressed beyond the third qualifying round in each of the past five seasons. They beefed up their defense by signing Josip Simunic from Hoffenheim over the summer, but even so it’s hard not to see them conceding a bagful of goals in a bracket heavy with them.

Advancing: Real Madrid and Lyon to Round of 16; Ajax to Europa League

The above preamble was adapted from Jerrad Peters’ book, We Call it Soccer, 2010 Studio Publications.

Follow Jerrad Peters on Twitter @peterssoccer

Tuesday Champions League group prognostications (Groups E, F, G, H)

It's hard to see past Barcelona when predicting the 2011-12 Champions League winner.

by Jerrad Peters

Each year in the run-up to the UEFA Champions League group stage I write a little something about the Champions League hymn. I’ll allow myself the same tangent this year, and then we’ll get on to the prognostications.

I’ve always found the visual spectacle of football to be only part of what makes the sport’s experience so rich—sound being another major part of it. They really are grand occasions, those European nights, so it’s appropriate that the soundtrack be equally spectacular. Enter the maestro.

In 1727 George Frideric Handel was charged with composing the music for the coronation of King George II. The four hymns he wrote for the occasion—Zadok the Priest, The King Shall Rejoice, My Heart is Inditing and Let Thy Hand Be Strengthened—became known as the Coronation Anthems.

Zadok the Priest has been performed during the anointing ceremony at each of the nine coronations since. The traditional text is derived from the anointing of King Solomon, as recorded in I Kings 1:38-40.

Zadok the priest

And Nathan the prophet

Anointed Solomon King

And all the people rejoiced and said:

“God save the King,

Long live the King,

May the King live forever!

Amen Hallelujah!”

The brilliant surging of the choice as it sings the chorus is never lost on even the most un-tuned ears. Rather, its climax is an impressive musical moment; its drama and tension have crowned sovereigns for the better part of two centuries.

Handel’s anthem was reborn 265 years later alongside the old European Cup competition. With UEFA having created the Champions League from the remnants of the old format in 1992, Tony Britten was commissioned to write a hymn to serve as the tournament’s official anthem. He settled on an arrangement of Zadok the Priest.

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was hired for the recording, and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields sang the chorus in each of UEFA’s three official languages: German, French and English. The lyrics, specifically composed for Britten’s version of the piece read as follows:

Ce sont les meilleurs équipes

Sie sind die allerbesten Mannschaften

The main event

Die Meister, Die Besten, Les Grandes Équipes, The Champions

Une grande réunion

Eine grosse sportliche Veranstaltung

The main event

Ils sont les meilleurs

Sie sind die besten

These are the champions

Die Meister, Die Besten, Les Grandes Équipes, The Champions

 

Fernando Torres has had a shaky start to the season, and compounded his problems by critisizing his teammates in the Spanish press.

Group E: Chelsea, Valencia, Bayer Leverkusen, Genk

Group in a sentence: Chelsea are the only side that can stop themselves from winning this group, which may just happen if they’re derailed by drama while their spritely opponents pick up steam and confidence.

Breakdown: Chelsea’s mandate each and every season is a straightforward one: win the English Premier League, and win the European Cup. Although after three domestic titles under owner Roman Abramovich’s watch, the order has probably been reversed.

Quarterfinalists last season, the Blues should have no trouble getting through this bracket. That said, the Fernando Torres saga (bad form; questionable statements in the press) could very well morph into a major distraction, and Didier Drogba rarely seems to play a full season anymore. Juan Mata and Raul Meirelles were good summer signings, but it’s hard at this point to see Chelsea making much of an impact beyond the Round of 16.

Their toughest opponent will be Bayer Leverkusen, who finished runners-up to Borussia Dortmund in the Bundesliga last season. Despite losing the versatile Arturo Vidal to Juventus after the Copa America, Leverkusen still have a very competitive side that includes captain Simon Rolfes, former Germany skipper Michael Ballack and Brazilian playmaker Renato Augusto in midfield and the high-octane trio of Eren Derdiyok, Stefan Kiesling and Andre Schurrle up top. Only Dortmund and Bayern Munich scored more Bundesliga goals than Leverkusen last season.

Valencia and Genk round out the group. The Spanish side finished third in La Liga last term despite losing Davids Villa and Silva and have progressed to at least the Round of 16 in three of the past five seasons. Genk, the Belgian champions, are making their first group stage appearance since 2002-03. They managed to retain their three top scorers from last season (Jelle Vossen, Marvin Ogunjimi and Elyaniv Barda) and will pose no shortage of problems to the generally weak defenses in this bracket.

Advancing: Chelsea and Bayer Leverkusen to Round of 16; Genk to Europa League

 

Mario Goetze's Borussia Dortmund should pip Arsenal to win Group F.

Group F: Arsenal, Marseille, Olympiacos, Borussia Dortmund

Group in a sentence: The questions surrounding Arsenal, stagnation at Marseille and a weak opponent in Olympiacos should gift this group to a very talented Borussia Dortmund side.

Breakdown: It’s hard to predict exactly what we’ll get from this Arsenal team. They brought in a handful of new players (Per Mertesacker, Mikel Arteta, Yossi Benayoun) after getting thumped 8-2 at Old Trafford and looked shaky at best against Swansea on Saturday.

Still, it’s hard not to see them in the Champions League knockout stages, if for no other reason than Marseille and Olympiacos should be easy points.

Borussia Dortmund are another story. Reigning German champions and one of the continent’s most fluid, attacking and entertaining squads, they, like Arsenal, are expecting to not only get out of this group, but make some noise in the subsequent rounds as well. Japan international Shinji Kagawa’s return to health has been a boon for the west German side, and fellow attackers Robert Lewandowski Mario Gotze and Kevin Groskreutzare each 23-years-old or younger. In other words, this team is only going to get better.

Marseille, meanwhile, will be hardpressed to replicate the Round of 16 campaign they put together last season. The addition of Alou Diarra was a good one, but so much of the rest of the squad has gone stagnant, and the Andre-Pierre Gignac ordeal at the transfer deadline set the tone for what has been a dreadful start to l’OM’s Ligue 1 season. Olympiacos lifted their 38^th Greek title in May but will be in over their heads in this bracket.

Advancing: Borussia Dortmund and Arsenal to Round of 16; Marseille to Europa League

 

Brazilian forward Hulk is crucial to Porto's chances in Group G.

Group G: Porto, Shakhtar Donetsk, Zenit St. Petersburg, APOEL

Group in a sentence: No disrespect to APOEL, but this is a three-team group—and one Europa League champions Porto should edge over a pair of high-quality opponents.

Breakdown: What a year for Porto. The Portuguese giants added a league title, cup and Europa League championship to bursting trophy cabinet last season and inspired the expectation—a realistic one—that they just might be able to contend for the European Cup in 2011-12.

Of course, they’ll have to do without manager Andre Villas-Boas and leading scorer Falcao, who fled to Chelsea and Atletico Madrid, respetively. But Vitor Pereira is a capable replacement as coach, and playmaker Steven Defour and teenage striker Juan Iturbe will help pick up the offensive slack. The club also added talented Santos wing-backs Alex Sandro and Danilo for more than €22 million and will be anticipating the further development of Hulk and James Rodriguez.

Porto’s first Group G opponent will last year’s Cinderella story, Shakhtar Donetsk. The Ukrainian side went all the way to the quarterfinals in 2010-11, where they lost to eventual champions Barcelona. But their compelling football won a lot of admirers, and they have every reason to expect to be even better this season. Alan Patrick (Santos) and Dentinho (Sao Paulo) were added in the summer and bring Shakhtar’s Brazilian expatriate community to eight. In charge of them all is the brilliant Romanian tactician Mircea Lucescu.

Zenit St. Petersburg, too, have an accomplished manager at the helm in Luciano Spalletti. The former Roma boss delivered the club’s first title in three years in 2010 and added the Russian cup for good measure. He plays a 4-2-3-1 formation headed by Aleksandr Kerzhakov and conducted by Danny. Progression isn’t out of the realm of possibility for this outfit, although a repeat of their 2008 UEFA Cup triumph is more likely.

Cypriot champions APOEL Nicosia are participating in their second consecutive Champions League group stage and, with 10 nations represented, are one of the most international sides in the competitions. The striking tandem of Esteban Solari and Ivan Trickovski scored a combined 22 league goals last season.

Advancing: Porto & Shakhtar Donestk to Round of 16; Zenit St. Petersburg to Europa League.

 

Xavi and Barcelona will find a competitive opponent in AC Milan.

Group H: Barcelona, AC Milan, BATE Borisov, Viktoria Plzen

Group in a sentence: Barcelona are the trendsetters in European football these days, but in AC Milan they’ll twice play an opponent who are closing in on their standard.

Breakdown: This one, as they say, sorts itself out. Barring unforeseen disaster, European Cup-holders Barcelona and seven-time champions AC Milan will advance from this group with ease, although in which order is yet to be determined.

Instinct, and recent history, would tend to put Barcelona atop the bracket. Since Pep Guardiola took the helm as manager, his flexible, possession-oriented 4-3-3 has dominated the sport at home and abroad, compiling three Spanish titles, the Copa del Rey, a pair of European Cups and a Club World Cup championship, not to mention a half-dozen minor trophies.

In Lionel Messi they possess the best player in the world; in Xavi Hernandez the second-best. Going forward they are a sight to behold, as Manchester United can attest. The Premier League champions spent most of the time watching their opponents move the ball during last season’s Champions League final at Wembley.

Milan, however, will provide a match. For the first time since 2004 they enter a campaign as reigning Italian champions—an honour they won with a rare combination of flair and physicality. The acquisition of Mark van Bommel last January was vital to their transformation from contenders to champions, and they’ll be looking to make the same conversion in the Champions League in the coming months.

With two high-profile opponents and a club they should beat, BATE Borisov actually did well in the group stage draw. Winners of the last four Belarusian titles, they will be hampered by the exit of 23-year-old striker and leading scorer Pavel Nyakhaychyk, who joined Dynamo Moscow in the summer transfer window. Czech Champions Plzen round out the group and are compiled entirely of players from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Advancing: Barcelona & AC Milan to Round of 16; BATE Borisov to Europa League

Follow Jerrad Peters on Twitter @peterssoccer

Big-money weekend (if you follow this advice)

Per Mertesacker battles for the ball with Tim Cahill.

by Jerrad Peters

Arsenal v Swansea

10 September 2011

It took an 8-2 drubbing at Old Trafford to finally convince Arsene Wenger that his Arsenal side were in desperate need of squad enhancements, and while a handful of players were brought in at the transfer deadline it would be naïve to expect immediate impacts from any of them. I think Per Mertesacker is an excellent addition to the backline, but with Thomas Vermaelen injured the newly-arrived German’s central defensive partner will be Laurent Koscienly, who is a disaster waiting to happen. Swansea are coming off a pair of 0-0 draws, and the longer they can keep Arsenal off the scoresheet the more they’ll frustrate their hosts. The vibe at the Emirates is substantially more positive today than it was two weeks ago, but you get the feeling it’s a good mood that runs skin deep.

Take a draw +375, 15/4

 

Valencia v Atletico Madrid

10 September 2011

Valencia showed us a mixed bag in their opening league match against Racing Santander in late August. Roberto Soldado actually scored four times in the match, although his second of the night was an own-goal that temporarily served as the equalizer. Los Che dominated the majority of the proceedings yet looked extremely vulnerable in the defensive third. Atletico Madrid could conceivably feast off that carelessness and will be chomping at the bit to find the back of the net after opening their schedule with a scoreless draw against Osasuna.

Take a draw +275, 11/4

 

Hamburg v Werder Bremen

10 September 2011

It’s been a disastrous start to the season for Hamburg, who sit dead last in the Bundesliga after four rounds. In their third match they were hammered 5-0 by Bayern Munich, and a week later they lost a 4-3 heartbreaker at home to Cologne. That said, Michael Oenning’s side is not as bad as one point, six goals scored and 14 conceded would suggest. (They’ve been pretty bad, but Hamburg is just too big a club to fail… right?) There are still good players in the team and I’m looking for them to finally break out of their slump away to Werder Bremen. Joint leaders four matches in, I think Bremen have overachieved as much as Hamburg have underachieved to date, so look for things to even out a bit on Saturday. Plus, at 4/1 Hamburg are worth the gamble.

Take Hamburg +400, 4/1

 

Palmeiras v Internacional

11 September 2011

With the Brasileiro past its midway point, both Palmeiras and Internacional look to be out of the title race, although both are within touching distance of a Copa Libertadores berth. Separated by just two points and in seventh and eighth place, respectively, it’s likely that just one of them can make a last-minute dash into South America’s champions league. Palmeiras are cagey and offensively challenged and have won just twice in their past ten matches while Internacional are on an eight-match unbeaten run and are coming off a 4-2 win over America. Momentum is in their corner, as is Leandro Damiao, who was excellent for Brazil on Monday and has 10 goals so far this season. Inter would be a safe choice anyway, but given that they’re 13/5 to win as opposed to 10/11 for hosts Palmeiras makes this an easy choice.

Take Internacional +260, 13/5

Prime time beckons for Shaqiri

Xherdan Shaqiri celebrates after scoring for Basel.

by Jerrad Peters

9:17pm, St. Jakob Park, Basel: Sprinting into the Bulgaria goalmouth, Shaqiri plays a neat one-two with Derdiyok and finishes exuberantly with his right foot, pulling Switzerland to level terms just before the break.

I never expected Xherdan Shaqiri to be playing his football in Switzerland this autumn. No disrespect to Basel, but I really thought the 19-year-old’s talismanic performance at the UEFA U-21 Championship in June would have had some of the biggest clubs in Europe clamouring for his signature. Well, as far as I know, they didn’t clamour, and I have mixed feelings about it.

On the one hand, I always like to see clubs retain the players they’ve developed for as long as possible. Shaqiri has been on the books at Basel since he was nine and has helped the RotBlau to the last two Swiss Super League titles. Next week he and his teammates will host Romanian side Otelul Galati in the group stage of the Champions League, and a high-profile trip to Old Trafford will follow two weeks after that. The last time Shaqiri was in England he scored the only goal in Switzerland’s 3-1 loss to the Three Lions at Wembley.

9:46pm, St. Jakob Park, Basel: Shaqiri runs onto a loose ball just inside the 18-yard line and, after briefly bringing it under control, arrows a low, accurate shot into the far corner with his left foot. Switzerland finally have a deserved lead, and Bulgaria ‘keeper Nikolay Mihailov sits on the pitch and smiles. There was nothing he could do.

Alan Dzagoev has stagnated at CSKA Moscow.

On the other hand, I fear Shaqiri is risking stagnation if he doesn’t make a move in the next year. At some point the Swiss League will be little more than a routine for the winger and the chance of bigger, more prestigious challenges will have come and gone. It would be a shame to see his abilities level off; it would be a shame to see him become another Alan Dzagoev.

Just 21, Dzagoev still has time to stop the regression his game has undergone recently at CSKA Moscow, but not much time. Named the Best Young Player in the Russian Premier League in 2008, his development has stalled completely in the three years since, and the big-money move that once seemed inevitable now looks an opportunity missed. It’s sad to think we may have already seen the best of him, but it’s entirely likely. That superb goal against Manchester United in November 2009 seems ever so distant.

10:14pm, St. Jakob Park, Basel: A failed clearing attempt falls to Shaqiri 21 yards from goal. His left-footed blast to Mihailov’s top right corner seals a 3-1 win for Switzerland and a crucial three points in Euro 2012 qualification.

Here’s hoping, for the sake of watching uber-talented young footballers, that Shaqiri travels a different path. And here’s hoping a big, ambitious club soon reaches the obvious conclusion that, euro for euro or pound for pound, he might just be the most valuable asset available.

Shaqiri is a rare, prodigious talent. I might be surprised again, but I just don’t see him playing in Switzerland next season. For a footballer, however skilled, the window of opportunity is narrow and small.

Follow Jerrad Peters on Twitter @peterssoccer.

Some positive observations of Canada (and a Fact Rant)

Josh Simpson scored twice for Canada against St. Lucia, Friday.

by Jerrad Peters

This is where I would usually start grumbling—where I’d get up on my soapbox and go hoarse with my complaints about the Canadian men’s national team, about how the 4-1 win over St. Lucia proved nothing and how the 3-0 triumph in Puerto Rico merely papered over the cracks.

To be fair, I’d be right on both counts. But so what? What would me being right prove to anyone? What would my cynicism be worth to anyone who saw the same things I did? What purpose would my grumbling and complaining serve?

I’ll be the first to admit my tendency to be a bit of a broken record—maybe even an irritatingly, needle-screech-scratching-the-surface kind of broken record. (My opinions regarding Arsenal and Arsene Wenger are case in point.) So today I’m going to break out of my own mold, force something resembling a smile on my face and say a few nice things—nice things about Canada. And I’m even going to mean them.

Nice thing number one: Spin it any way you want but Canada has six points from two matches and has outscored their opponents a combined 7-1. Six different players have scored for the Canucks, and the player with two to his name—Josh Simpson—has been his usual, energetic and inspiring self.

Two: Josh Simpson has been his usual, energetic and inspiring self. Coming off a season in which he scored an impressive 12 goals for Turkish side Manisaspor, his club form has carried over to the national side, for which all of his three goals have come in the last calendar year. Whether on the left wing or in an advanced midfield position, the 28-year-old is among manager Stephen Hart’s first names on the teamsheet.

Three: David Edgar provided some refreshing width from his right-back position against Puerto Rico, and for a side that struggles to generate attacking moves from wide areas it was a welcome enhancement to the squad. Here’s hoping the 24-year-old keeps his place in the side and puts together a run of good performances at club level for Burnley as well.

Four: Toisant Ricketts scored after coming off the bench in Puerto Rico and has made a good start to his international career. A pacey forward, he offers a good option late in matches, although the obscurity of the Romanian league makes it difficult for Canada’s coaching staff to see a lot of him. It was also nice to see Simeon Jackson bag his third international goal in Bayamon.

Five: Julian De Guzman played the full 90 minutes on Tuesday and put in a solid, reliable performance. Problem is, the Toronto FC midfielder is 30 years old and has probably already played his best football.

Preston striker Iain Hume scored the match winner in Puerto Rico.

Six: I was delighted to see Iain Hume recalled by Hart and overjoyed at his goal—the match winner—against Puerto Rico. The 27-year-old scored 12 times for Preston North End last season and is easily Canada’s best striker. I was also impressed with the way he dropped deep to pick up the ball, although that he had to do so was probably an indictment of Dwayne De Rosario’s lethargic play as much as anything else.

There. Six nice things. Things to build from. Of course, they only paint part of the picture, and the rest of it ain’t that pretty.

The fact of the matter is this: If you think Canada will qualify for the 2014 World Cup you’re having a laugh. This a team with a scattershot selection policy and lack of tactical nous whose supposed talisman is more often than not the laziest person on the pitch. This is a team without an identity; without a sense of itself. The way forward, should they want to make a serious run at qualification, will involve some hard, landscape-changing decisions, and I can’t imagine those decisions will be made anytime soon.

But I’m supposed to be all happy and not grumbling and looking at things from a glass-half-full perspective. That’s what I promised at the outset. Then again, what does my optimism mean to anyone? What is my hopefulness worth to anyone who saw the same things I did? What purpose does my cheerfulness serve?

Follow Jerrad Peters on Twitter @peterssoccer.