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« May 2014 | Main | July 2014 »

June 2014

06/26/2014

While NUFC Vacations, A Quality Player Goes Elsewhere

Romain-alessandrini-rennesLong-time readers of the blog will surely be familiar with Romain Alessandrini. Thanks to beIN Sport's coverage of Ligue 1, the 25-year-old winger quickly became my favorite French player, a guy I've desperately tried to pitch to the club at every opportunity. Alessandrini burst onto the scene during the 2012-13 season, his first in the French top flight, then excelled the second half of last season after returning from a serious knee injury. That injury is probably the only reason why he's yet to play for Les Bleus, as he was called into the squad in early 2013 (and scheduled to room with Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa) before getting hurt.

Why am I bringing him up now? Because yesterday, he moved from Rennes to Marseille for the oh-so-affordable fee of €5 million. Even if you've never seen Alessandrini play (and YouTube is definitely your friend here), to see someone like him slip away at that kind of price should infuriate even the most jaded of fans. It demonstrates the total lack of effort the club is putting into an especially crucial summer transfer window.

Buried in this Mark Douglas report about Newcastle's potential moves is a note that new managing director Lee Charnley just came back from vacation. Following the club's line of thinking, Douglas points out that many key figures at top clubs are also on vacation, as are the agents of players in the World Cup.

But here's the catch: given the draconian budget rules that Mike Ashley has put into place, practically anyone who stars in Brazil will slide right out of Newcastle's price range. Even if Ashley weren't quite so tight-fisted, the post-World Cup period is the absolute worst time to buy World Cup players. However, it's a great opportunity to make under-the-radar signings - like Alessandrini.

The sad thing is, as we have talked about in the past, he was practically the prototype Newcastle signing, even under this penny-pinching regime. Obviously, being 25 and French checks two boxes straight away. The knee injury also meant that his transfer fee was far less than what his talent would indicate, which certainly should make Ashley salivate. And in terms of how he fits into the squad, he's a left-footed left winger who's fantastic at taking set pieces and isn't afraid of tracking back to defend. So he would have stayed out of Alan Pardew's doghouse, while also filling a desperate need.

But instead of making a shrewd signing, we're left to twist in the wind while Newcastle's bids get laughed out of every boardroom from Lorient to Lyon. At least Charnley should be well-rested enough to write an encouraging statement about how he'll do everything possible to add to the squad in January.

Posted by Matt at 08:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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06/23/2014

The Pain And Purpose Of Soccer

USAshockIn the wake of the most sickening end to a match I've ever experienced I've just spent what should've been a pleasant summer evening and restful night agonizing over whether the infrequent highs of soccer are worth the incessant gut-punching lows, whether there might be better uses for the back nine of my life than supporting a professional club that can't compete because its owner is only the 215th-richest man on earth and a fledgling national team making next-to-indiscernible progress in a nation that largely doesn't care. US media such as Slate and NBC are putting their best optimistic lipstick on the pig the US men set loose on us with weekend-warrior-level mistakes at critical moments Sunday. But if you're enough of a soccer fan to read a blog as specialized as this, you know the truth: The US is sitting with three unjustified points from being pushed around by Ghana and a point from a shadow Portugal whom a half-decent World Cup squad would've put away long before Michael Bradley's fatigued final flub. We might well go on to the next stage, but we don't deserve to.

“They deserved to win, but in soccer ‘deserve’ doesn’t get you anything," commented Landon Donovan after the match, illustrating a reason Americans have been slow to warm to the sport. It's a statistical fact that soccer is more random and prone to luck than other sports played by large numbers of humans, due to the rarity of goals relative to the high number of other events in a match. This clashes with the American narrative of skill and work making all things possible, of getting what you earn. Our native sports go to great lengths to neutralize the winds of fortune and generate decisive judgments, notably our national sport of baseball, in which teams play an absurd 162 games to measure a season, playoff series of multiple games to further winnow the best at the end, and limitless extra time in each game so that draws are impossible. Soccer fans are mocked routinely in America for calling a draw a "good result." As an early-departed soccer-hating friend of mine was fond of saying, "There is only one good result! Why play if no one wins?" Many American fans would rather go home with a loss than a draw, which may be why Americans can't feel Sunday's draw as anything but a loss.

Yet the rarity of scoring and the cruelty of fortune are what make soccer more dramatic, tragic, operatic than other sports. I've supported the NFL's most historic and decorated team for as long as I can remember, half a century. I've never seen a Green Bay Packers touchdown produce the outpouring that either US goal did yesterday where I was watching. The Highbury Pub on a main thoroughfare in Milwaukee was so insanely raucous that TV cameras showed up to film it, with the Newcastle regulars as always near the epicenter, all over our nightly news. Would that soccer fandom weren't still so much a novelty where we live. But that novelty, among other things, seems to set US soccer fans on a different plane than fans of purely American sport. Which, for me at least, is the point.

The future remains bright for US soccer. Among younger people the survey numbers are reversed from the population as a whole; traditional American sports show signs of wear and soccer is seen as hip. On the field, I believe that we will win...eventually. Let's face it: We're two or three World Cups from legitimacy. We're still patching with paper citizens. I'm going to be an old man before the US is a soccer country, if I'm lucky enough to see it at all. And I'm not counting on ever seeing Newcastle United turn into a contender, soccer economics and Mike Ashley being what they are.

But if I were in it for the highs alone this blog would be called I'm Glad I'm A Plastic Red Devil. Results are fleeting. What's permanent is below. This is what I would miss if I were to swear off soccer, much as I'm tempted at the moment. May our shared sufferings and joys bind us ever closer.

NUFCKCtailgate

  

Posted by Bob at 09:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

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06/05/2014

On The Air: Keep Or Sell, Midfield/Forward Edition

PriceIsRightNow that we've dispensed with the dross on defense, it's time for our intrepid podcast team to cast a judgmental eye on the rest of the squad. That's right, it's another edition of the game that's sweeping two continents, Keep Or Sell!

Tom, Phil, and Matt first get into what little transfer news there is at the moment, with quick takes on rumored targets Rémy Cabella and Jack Colback, then hop right into the festivities. Which midfielders still have promise? Who's been irredeemably Pardewed? (Or more accurately, who hasn't played up to their ability both because of their own faults and those of the manager?) Can Phil talk about Hatem Ben Arfa without unleashing a stream of expletives? Why does the club not even attempt to develop its youngsters in the center of the park?

Turning our attention to the front line - or what's left of it, anyway - we weigh the merits of Yoan Gouffran, starting striker. Is a man who scored six goals in 2013-14 capable of bagging a dozen? Seeing as he's currently the only healthy senior striker at the club, he may have to. And what to do with Sammy Ameobi, the last of his name?

Other odds and ends: hear Tom audibly blushing as he tries to tactfully describe the Internet frenzy over the daughter of one of the new Milwaukee Bucks owners. Be utterly unsurprised that Matt got so lost in his thoughts on Gouffran that he accidentally bumped the mute button, forcing a second take. And finally, English listeners, get your tweeting fingers ready to lambaste Phil when he makes his World Cup prediction for US (and Sunderland) striker Jozy Altidore.

Listen to the pod below, or find us on iTunes or Stitcher.

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Posted by Matt at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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