Premier League goes abroad

It is common practice for the North American professional sports leagues to hold exhibition matches and even league games in foreign countires to promote their business overseas. The NFL played their opening match in London, the MLB will play two matches in Tokyo and the NHL is considering to send some teams to Europe for promotional purposes. So it comes as no surprise when the English Premier League announced that they are thinking about having regular season matches played in foreign countries to expand their fanbase. What will be pleasant news to the millions in foreign countries seems to be a rather bad idea since it has to be kept in mind that long travels are not very good for the form and fitness of a team. One can always hear the Champions League winner complaining about their late autumn trip to Asia to represent Europe in the FIFA World Club competition. So personally I don't think that the game will actually benefit from matches played abroad. In Baseball the officials went so far as to set the date of the season opener between World Series winners Boston Red Sox and the Oakland Athletics so early that both teams will go back to the states to continue their spring training and allow the to acustom themselves to home soil once again.
Sure, the promotional value will be immense and once the League is able to reap the benefits of such trips other European leagues will follow that example and will try to set up their own overseas matches. But the fans back home won't be as pleased as the ones in Asia, I think. You want to support your team and season ticket holders pay a lot of money to be able to watch their club play. Are those people supposed to follow the team wherever the league sends them? And what about local derbies? A match like Schalke vs Dortmund, Milan vs Inter or Arsenal vs Tottenham makes no sense if it is played thousands of miles across the globe.

NFL: Super Bowl. Too much hype every year

Yeah, I know, I always keep rumbleing about how boring American Football is. And, yes, I know it's boring to always use the same reason which is why a game can be named "Football" when there are only two situations in this game where the ball is actually played with a foot. But those Americans like their game and it's getting broadcasting service in Germany as well, so there must be something about it. Which is why I tuned it to the coverage last night. The match was shown on German state television and the commentators were at least a litle better than the ones they usually use for football matches.
The match itself was something I'd consider to be a stalemate. They score was locked at New England 7 New York 3 and there wasn't really much happening on the field. Which is why I turned off the TV after the beginning of the second half and that is why I missed out on what seems to have been a thrilling last two quarters.

But still, this just ain't my game. For example there was one situation when the referee was reviewing an incident on a screen to make sure what really happened and there wasn't anything happening on the pitch. Now there are a lot of discussions on bringing in a TV check into football but, honetsly, if it turns out to be like this the whole game will be changed. It's okay in Ice Hockey and Rugby, but in football it's completely out of place. Plus it would take those wonderful discussions from us about whether the ball crossed the line or not.

NFL: AFC Championship Game - New England vs San Diego

As the football season in the States draws to a close I can't deny that I get interested in who will make it to the Super Bowl this year. But this curiousity quickly fades away when the games start and the whole game freezes in tactics. Compared to a dynamic sport like Rugby - which might be the only sport which could be compared to American Football which in Germany is labelled as "Pitch Chess" - what is shown ion the screen is just plainly boring. A move, 30-45 sec break, another move, another break, you get the picture. Sure, there are certain plays which really look good, but in the end there really isn't any individual finesse in the game. In Football a single player can inspire the whole team by making a brilliant move in one instant with which noone, not even his team mates might have expected. American Football on the other hand is completely controlled by the head coaches with the players simply carrying out the orders of the head coach. So one could really say that the coach is the chess player and the players on the pitch are just the stones he moves around during a match. What's also rather disappointing is that the teams don't make any use of the possibility to pass the ball after they have crossed the line of scrimmage. This would bring the game to a whole new level, at least from my perspective. There had been a video on some streaming page in which a high school or college team passed the ball over 20 times before carrying it into the endzone for a touchdown. THAT was a great play for an American Football match.
Now I am no expert and I might not see the beauty in the game and I acknowlegde that there are millions of fans who really love the game. Maybe I'm just annoyed by those horrible commercial breaks which really cut the whole television coverage into way too small pieces.

Anyway, this will be different for the NFC Championship Game since this will be shown on German public television and they are not allowed to show commercials there at that time of night. In New England meanwhile the Patriots and the Chargers play one of the better matches I have seen so far. Especially the New England offense makes the game look like a hot knife go through butter, as they'd say in Germany. The half time score is NE 14 SD 9. And because of the lack of alternatives I guess I will be watching the 2nd half as well...

Three examples of sports gone wrong

I stumbled across some thing over the past few days and I though I should share those with whoever wants to read this. There was this article in the New York Times for example, which deals with the strange halftime rituals during Jets games. Apparently hordes of men assemble at a certain gate during halftime and yell at women to expose their breasts. What the fuck?! Now I have always been interested in fan-dom and whatever surrounds the people who worship a team to the extent that they go competely crazy and have no other thing in their life besides their love for a club. But this is something way too strange and it sounds rather astonishing that noone is taking any action against what is happening there at this infamous Gate D. It's always disghusting to see those so called documentaries about spring break idiots on German television where they praise and hail those drunkards who only have alcohol and bare breasts on their mind. So this article - at least to me - sounds like there are some college jocks gone berzerk during halftime in New York. If this was to happen at a football match in Germany I don't think there would be any difference. But there would at least ONE person who would go against this. Especially with a lot more women attending the games nowadays. Some people over might just turn around and say that that's just those crazy uncivilzed American blokes, but I don't think that something like that should be a ritual anywhere. It's playinly disgusting.

Other news came from England, or should I say Thailand (courtesy of the Guardian Blog? Manchester City coach Sven-Göran Eriksson went to Bangkok to pay a visit to City owner Thaksin Shinawatra, former prime minister of Thailand. And when he went back to Britain he brought with him three players, Thai internationals, to have them sign to Man City. One of them seems to be good enough to make it to the first team, but the other two will be sent to farm teams somewhere else in Europe.
Now completely agree that is not the game it was some 20 years ago. It isn't even the same game it was 10 years ago. At least not from an economical point of view.The money clubs pay for players to sign them has risen constantly and so has the money the clubs pay their players as a monthly salary. There weren't any players making over ₤ 100.000 a week some ten years ago! But you can't help it. Where'S success there's big money and that's it. No need to whine about that. We as fans want to see great football, we have to acceppt that there is a certain price to pay. And I don't mean the constantly rising ticket prices. But there is a limit to what a fan should take from his club. And when they introduce players to your team who will never (no offense to the Thai football, but I just don't see it happen...) make it in a professional league it just sounds too much like there is one more loony owner who excersises his rights to play with his new tool. This is simply ridiculous. There's a difference in playing friendly matches in Asia and buying players.

Last but not least the story in Germany at the moment. The conflict between the top managers of Bayern Munich and their fan base (courtesy of allesaussersport.de, a German blog - all German). This all started a few days ago when Bayern manager Uli Hoeness, the most hated figure in German football, attacked a club member at the yearly members gathering for Bayern Munich. The fellow was complaining about the atmosphere and that was when Uli Hoeness snapped. Just to get an impression, this is a video of the speech he gave as a reply.



He's furious about the attitude the fans show. They, in his opinion, should be grateful that they have such a wonderful stadium, they are responsible for the atmosphere at the ground and that they only pay € 7,- for a terrace ticket. He's right with all of them, but does that mean a fan has to stay silent when there are certain things that are bugging him? There has always been some incidents between to bosses of Bayern and some of the groups who do a lot for the chanting and choreography in the "Kurve", where the terraces are located. The mood is getting more and more unfriendly since Mr Hoeness went on local television to accuse two groups that they where trying to achieve "Italian surroundings" in Munich. Now remember that in Italy's Serie A there are certain fan groups who call themselves "Ultras" and who effectively control large areas of the stadium. They control who enters the blocks where they stand, they control the singing, sometimes they even control what players is signed. There was this famous incident when a black player was about to sign a contract with Hellas Verona when the racist part of the fan base went on a rampage and the president pulled way from signing the player. The power of the "Ultras" could be seen a fortnight ago when they laid their grip on Italy again after a fan of Lazio Rome was shot by a police officer at a motorway parking space before a game.
The word "Ultra" has a totally different meaning in Germany and maybe that's why Mr Hoeness is a little bit confused. Ultras in Germany are something different than hooligans. Although there might be certain areas where those two groups overlap there is a difference.

I won't go into the details, if you are a German native speaker allesaussersport.de has it all wrapped up brilliantly, but this episode has all what it takes to refuel my disgust for someone like Herr Hoeness. At one time he's all about helping the fans with everything. But on the other hand he just doesn't seem to understand at what lengths some people go for their club. And right now he's on the verge of smashing everything he built up over the past 30 years. We'll see how they get out of this...