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There’s only one Samir Nasri

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Paul Scholes brought his volleyball game to a soccer match on Friday - trying to help Man United come back from a 2-1 deficit to Dick Advocaat’s Zenit St. Petersburg. His silly decision will now cost him a game suspension in the Champions League. Oooops.

As you can expect, his manager was completely livid at him blatantly violating a fundamental law of the game:

Manchester United crashed out of the Uefa Super Cup to an efficient display by Zenit St Petersburg. The Russian side had the better run of play in the first half and deserved their lead going into the break.

United worked harder in the second half, managed to claw back one goal, but a rush of blood and a hand of God saw Paul Scholes pick up a second caution as he punched the ball into the opposition net.

Sir Alex Ferguson spoke to ITV Sport as Zenit partied on the pitch: “We played our best football when we were two-nil down, it was a warm night, we had tired players, but both teams did well.”

Regarding Scholes’ dismissal, the United manager sympathised: “When someone gets sent off by punching the ball… it’s a bit unfortunate, it was an instinctive thing,” when it was brought to the Manchester United manager’s attention that the player would receive a European suspension valid for the Champions League, his face visibly dropped, but he added: “It happens.”

Singling out specific players for praise, Ferguson said: “I thought Tevez was outstanding, he was our best player.”

Did I say livid? I meant hypocritcally rationalizing. Good thing the referee wasn’t, though unless he was Howard Webb, any referee not seeing that blatant handball needs to have his eyes checked!

Here’s some wildcat video of the incident:


Hand of Scholes
and if that doesn’t work …


Hand of Scholes

Here’s a recap of the game:


Uefa Super Cup

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It’s the Cold War Final. An English team with a Russian owner and an English team with an American owner playing in Moscow a week after a Russian fan was stabbed in Manchester and 18 months after a Russian defector at odds with Vladimir Putin was poisoned (allegedly) in London … with Polonium. Throw in an Israeli coach, a distant cousin of Mariah Carey, the no-tolerance police, rat infested jails, traditionally binge-drinking English fans and Russian hooligans bent on revenge and you have all the makings of a grand spectacle!

Dan Roan reports

Sie sind die besten, indeed!

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You know - I see a lot written and said about how Arsenal with their foreign manager and lack of English talent are ruining the Premier League and the soul of English football. Similar comments were made when Fabio Capello was hired as England manager - xenophobic, to be sure. Then when the Premier League unveiled their plan to go International, the same complaints came up yet again. But why? Sue Mott wrote an interesting article in the Telegraph proclaiming that while Premier League boss Richard Scudamore was a blight on the soul of the game for the average fan, he was no idiot, and that there must be something afoot. Something on the order of stemming a breakaway league or an individual TV rights:

There is no doubt that Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool would find a lucrative market abroad. With their glossy foreign players and three out of four foreign managers, the next logical step would be to have training bases and matches abroad, perhaps one day soon? in a global Super League which invites the likes of Real Madrid, Inter Milan and, if money is the only language, LA Galaxy to join in.

Perhaps this is the vision that terrifies the Premier League stragglers, all 16 of them. They fear the day that the supreme artists of domestic football, the money-makers and rakers of the Premier League, move on to a more natural habitat on the French Riviera or a purposely-bought Caribbean Island. Anything to cling on to the coattails of that little goldmine. Anything is better than languishing in the remnants of decapitated, land-locked English football.

Look at it. Manchester United have record revenues but profits only enough to cover their enormous debt. Chelsea is seemingly never going to balance the books and keep winning titles. Liverpool is as mortgaged as the entire west coast of California. Then you have Alex Ferguson ducking out after his city came to a standstill to honor their fallen so he could promote a tour in South Africa or wherever it was … only a few weeks after taking his team to play a testimonial in Saudi Arabia in the middle of a week of a busy season. These new foreign owners are not about breaking even. They’re about making a profit, and doing it in whatever way possible. Including an integrity-compromised 39th fixture.

As an Arsenal supporter, it would be nice to have more access to my team here in the US, but I understand. However, it should be noted that of the Big 4, Arsenal are the only ones with majority English ownership and direction, a solid business and operating structure, and with an Academy producing English talent that aren’t hemorrhaging cash and chasing dollars 4 and 5 timezones away. As Obi Wan in Star Wars would say, “These are not the droids you are looking for.”

Other Items:

David Beckham has gotten a lot of flack for not giving back to the soccer community in the US: LA Times’ TJ Simers: So much for Beckham being a voice for MLS (PDF)

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Hear
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Oh Fergie - when will you learn not to
upset the supporters?

United boss Sir Alex Ferguson compared the atmosphere at Tuesday’s Premier League win over Birmingham to a funeral, urging fans to back the team more vocally.

Those comments have upset the IMUSA’s Colin Hendrie, who accused Ferguson of ‘a lack of understanding’ of the plight supporters face.

‘I think he could benefit from sitting in the ground,’ said Hendrie, who believes Old Trafford stewards come down too hard on fans who stand at moments of excitement.

‘You can’t stand up to make a noise. If you try to stand up, you’ve got stewards who are ejecting you, they’re taking your season ticket away from you.

‘It’s almost like a police state in a football ground now and if you do stand up, people will take your arm, put it behind the back of your neck and throw you out of the ground.

‘Under those circumstances, what atmosphere does he (Ferguson) want?

‘The only atmosphere we’ve got is one where we’re a little bit frightened of losing £1,000 for the season ticket we’ve paid for.’

The club is already leveraged and is barely making enough to pay off the debt by, among other things, taking midweek trips to Dubai and off-season trips to Asia. Perhaps you would have been better off with the horse swindlers as bosses. Oh - and stop giving the business to Reading fans. That’s just not classy.

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