Archive for the ‘Bundesliga’ Category

By Jason Davis

One day into this trial/loan with Nuremburg, LA Galaxy and aspiring US international Omar Gonzalez tore an ACL and will now miss the next 6 to 9 months. Disaster. Heartbreak. Catastrophe. Is it exactly the type of unfortunate event that demands (re)action?

Naturally, Gonzalez’s injury has touched off a debate about the wisdom of winter loans and training stints for MLS players. The immediate and knee-jerk reaction is to suggest that MLS should end them now, lest another young star be lost for most of a season due to a something that happened on another team’s watch. The risk is too high, it does the MLS clubs no good to have their investments putting their health on the line, and players – whether they realize it or not – do need some down time in the off-season to allow their bodies and minds to recuperate.

The competing interests in play make the issue difficult to untangle. MLS clubs, in most cases, should want to protect their players. LA now faces a season without the 2011 Defender of the Year. If, as has been reported by people who know things, Gonzalez’s time at FCN was meant as a prerequisite to a summer sale, LA out both a player and money. Omar in Germany looks like a terrible idea in retrospect.
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Every year I have the same conversation with the missus:

“Should we get an Advent calendar?”

“Chocolate or religious?”

“Both. Shepherd molds hold a lot of chocolate.”

“Okay, but it’s already December 16th.”

“We can melt Dec. 1st to 16th into a chocolate fondue.”

“You can do that.”

And then we go looking for a calendar and find they’re impossible to find. Never in my wildest imagination did I a) think the Internet would solve this annual problem and b) do it in the form of a Thomas Mueller-themed calendar (cheers to James Tyler for the link). The Bayern Munich midfielder I’m proud to say made my list of the top thirty players in the world.

Each window brings a new surprise. Mueller holding a signed shirt, Mueller signing his shoes, Mueller holding a life-size cut out of…Mueller. Whilst none of it is Christmas theme and doesn’t taste nearly as good as that chalky, dropped-on-the-factory-floor chocolate that ends stuffed in those tiny plastic coffins, it does allow you to open windows and receive a mild surprise. Bonus if you speak German.

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We tend to overlook the goalkeeping position in football, or at least pay less attention to it than we should. For me, a good goalkeeper can be worth 10 points in the standings over the course of the season, and we’re seeing that happen in La Liga today.

I use the present tense because, as I write this, I’m watching what is truly a strange, albeit exhilarating, match between Sevilla and Real Madrid. Cristiano Ronaldo has just struck an absolute golazo from 25 yards to give the guests a 3-0 lead with halftime fast approaching, but to be honest I have no idea how the scoreline came to be what it is.

Sevilla have not been poor. As a matter of fact they’ve launched 11 attempts at the Madrid goal, and they might well have equalised just two minutes after Ronaldo’s early opener had Iker Casillas not dived across the goalmouth to make a heroic save on Manu del Moral, who had a gaping net in which to tuck the ball.

It was one of the finest saves your likely to see, and if ever there was a better one it came five minutes later when Piotr Trochowski’s low, hard shot to the far corner was turned wide of goal by the Madrid ‘keeper’s fingertips. What made the stop especially impressive was the fact that Casillas, even before he lunged to his right, had to pick out the ball from the maze of legs in front of him. Sevilla should really have been 2-1 up after 17 minutes, and that they weren’t was totally down to the Spain captain.

It’s almost halftime, and no doubt Sevilla are scratching their heads: “How are we 3-0 down?” But that’s the thing about a world class goalkeeper. While the game could well have been beyond Madrid’s reach before the half-hour mark, Casillas did what he needed to do to give his attacking teammates a chance to turn the tide. They did, and they’ll surely claim the three points as a result.

But we’ll get back to Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan in a moment. There are a number of other things on my mind I’d like to share.

The Do-or-Die Derby. Blackburn Rovers-Bolton Wanderers isn’t exactly a glamour match, and there seems even less reason to watch it given that the two Lancashire clubs are currently propping up the Premier League. Their combined 19 points from 16 matches is exactly half of Manchester City’s total, and the league leaders have played a game fewer. That said, there’s a fascinating subtext to the match, and it has everything to do with the under-fire managers involved in it. Owen Coyle’s Bolton have already lost 13 matches this season, including the last five in a row, and have managed to concede one goal or less on only four occasions. Steve Kean’s Blackburn have only been slightly less incompetent. They’ve won just one of their last 10 matches (against promoted Swansea) with a side that, on paper, should be comfortably mid-table. One of these managers will probably lose their job on Wednesday morning, but the truth is both should get the sack before the match even happens.

Sevilla-Madrid update: It’s halftime, and Real Madrid will play the second 45 minutes with 10 men after Pepe was shown a second yellow card for a brainless slap to the face of Alvaro Negredo.

I think one of the crucial differences between Madrid and Barcelona is in defense. Where Barcelona have the type of defenders who can maintain a high line comfortably, making it seem like they often have an extra man in midfield, Madrid have no such luxury. Pepe is so undisciplined, nevermind a very, very overrated defender, that he’d constantly get caught out of position, causing him to take even more fouls than he already does. And while I like Sergio Ramos as a right-back, I really don’t rate him as a central defender.

Dortmund rediscover their form. An early Champions League exit came as a major disappointment to Borussia Dortmund, who all of last season were lauded for their fluid, free-scoring football and must have entered Europe’s premiere club competition expecting to put on a show on the grandest stage. They didn’t, and they played to a disappointing 1-1 draw at Kaiserslautern a few days after their elimination. Against Freiburg on Saturday, however, they looked every bit their old selves. Shinji Kagawa earned assists on a pair of Robert Lewandowski tallies, and Kevin Grosskreutz scored an absolute cracker just shy of the hour-mark after Lewandowski set him up from 20 yards. Dortmund won the match 4-1 and enter the winter break just three points back of Bayern Munich atop the Bundesliga standings.

Sevilla-Madrid update: Angel di Maria, who has put in a man-of-the-match performance, has just made it 4-0 Madrid, firing a shot with the outside of his right foot that, according to match commentator Ray Hudson, had more curve to it than Jessica Rabbit.

Wolves 1-2 Stoke. A Peter Crouch header in the 70^th minute—from a Matthew Etherington cross—proved the match winner at Molineux, Saturday, and took Stoke to within three points of fifth-place Arsenal. At the start of the season I said I saw Stoke performing well and consistent enough to earn a fifth or sixth-place finish, and with four wins on the bounce heading into a congested Christmas schedule my prediction is looking like a good one (certainly better than it looked two months ago). A lot of my belief in the Potters stems from the chairman-manager relationship of Peter Coates-Tony Pulis. Each season since 2007-08—Stoke’s last in the Championship—Coates has made a reasonable amount of money available to Pulis, who has in turn invested that money in acquisitions appropriate to the club’s reality. In 2009 he signed Etherington to help consolidate the club as a Premier League outfit; a year later he added Kenwyne Jones and Marc Wilson. This past summer Pulis signed Jonathan Woodgate and Peter Crouch, among others, and he’ll surely go back into the transfer market seven months from now. The point is, Stoke’s consistent, intentional spending has allowed the club to progress from level to level, and consistent European qualification is what awaits them going forward. They’re a superbly-run club.

Sevilla-Madrid update: The final whistle has blown on a 6-2 win for Real Madrid. Negredo’s goal in the 92^nd minute came as little consolation to the hosts, who finally found the back of the net in the 69^th minute through Jesus Navas. Ronaldo put the finishing touches on his hat-trick with a successful penalty in the 85^th, and Hamit Altintop completed the scoring for the guests four minutes later.

Those Iker Casillas saves seem so long ago—two acts of absolute brilliance that will now be overshadowed by an impressive result. The thing is, Madrid would likely have never gone on to win had their ‘keeper not bailed them out in the first half. That story isn’t told in the scoreline. Football is funny that way.

Follow Jerrad Peters on Twitter @peterssoccer

Now there’s something you don’t see everyday. How many times did we wish the Jabulani would just explode at last summer’s World Cup? Problem was, they would’ve just replaced it with another crap ball. But on Friday in Bayern Munich’s 3-0 win over Cologne, Daniel van Buyten’s sheer power, and the obstacle of a deflection, was enough to force the insides of a Torfabrik II ball to explode. Arjen Robben seemed extremely inconvenienced at the delay.

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This afternoon, Manchester City hosts Bayern Munich in their final Group A match. Bayern have already won the group and have qualified for the round of 16. Manchester City meanwhile need to beat them (and for Villarreal to draw or defeat a rampant Napoli) in order to progress.

Not that a single games are the most reliable indicator of broad trends within the European game, but Manchester City and Bayern offer up an interesting contrast. The success of Louis van Gaal’s managerial replacement in Jupp Heynckes tells part of the story of Bayern’s impressive 2011-12 season, but within that team is a bedrock of core German talent: Philip Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Thomas Müller. All of them played for the Bayern Munich academy side, and all live within 70 KM of the Munich area, and all are full German internationals.

While the Bayern academy team has led the way in producing the current crop of German football prodigies (including Mats Hummels), they are not alone in the Bundesliga. Mario Gotze spent eight years with the Borussia Dortmund academy side, three of them alongside Gladbach’s breakout star Marco Reus. The Bender brothers Lars and Sven both got their start in the 1860 Munich’s academy team. The average age of Germany’s national team at the World Cup in 2010 was 25.
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Things are a lot tighter atop the Bundesliga heading into Sunday’s matches than they were coming into the weekend. Bayern Munich’s third defeat of the season has a lot do with that, especially since it came against second-place Borussia Dortmund, but third-place Borussia Monchengladbach—who are an early feel-good story—and fourth-place Schalke recorded decisive wins as well, and even Wolfsburg got in on the action with a 4-1 triumph against Hannover that ended a three-match unbeaten run.

Mario Gotze notched the only tally as Borussia Dortmund won their third straight match against Bayern Munich—a 1-0 decision at Allianz Arena where both sides traded quality chances before and after the 65^th-minute goal. And what a goal. With Robert Lewandowski breaking fast down the left, Gotze and Shinji Kagawa dashed into the goalmouth where the Poland forward found them with a pinpoint pass. Gotze accepted it, and after a quick exchange with Kagawa smashed it past goalkeeper Manuel Neuer as two Bayern defenders closed in. It was a typical Dortmund goal, and a goal that was always be going to be scored at least once in this match.

That Bayern didn’t find the net at all is mystifying. This, after all, is a side that before Saturday had been obliterating everything in its path. A trip-up in Hannover on October 23 was followed with four wins in which they outscored their opponents a combined 15-3 and preceded by a 13-match unbeaten streak going back to August. But the loss of midfield engine Bastian Schweinsteiger to a broken collarbone cannot be overstated, and Bayern manager Jupp Heynckes’ decision to tinker with his line-up rather than insert the closest thing to a like-for-like replacement into the team against Dortmund will no doubt be one he regrets.

Instead of deploying two of David Alaba, Anatoliy Tymoschuk and Luis Gustavo in the centre of his midfield, Heynckes opted to pull Toni Kroos into a deeper playmaking role alongside Luis Gustavo while Thomas Muller moved to Kroos’ usual position between the left-sided attacker (Franck Ribery) and the right-winger (Arjen Robben).

The change provided Dortmund midfielders Sebastian Kehl and Sven Bender with a battle they could win, and Bender, in particular, imposed himself in the centre of the park. Marcel Schmelzer deserves mention as well. The Dortmund left-back completely neutralized Robben over the 90 minutes, although the Dutchman was obviously lacking match-fitness after a three-month spell on the sidelines with a nagging groin injury.

The three points take Dortmund to 26 from 13 matches and extends their unbeaten run to seven games. Bayern remain in first place with 28 points, although the comfort level they so recently enjoyed has vanished as, aside from Dortmund, Borussia Monchengladbach, Schalke and Werder Bremen are breathing down their necks.

The second of the day’s two top-five encounters was played in Monchengladbach—a mid-sized city near the Dutch border—where hosts Borussia hammered fellow title contenders Werder Bremen 5-0 at Borussia-Park.

Marco Reus scored a hat-trick in the rout, bringing his haul so far this campaign to 10—just one shy of his total from all of last season—and putting him on track to continue a five year streak of increased output. He scored eight goals in his first season at Monchengladbach in 2009-10, four in 2008-09 and one in 2007-08 as a 17-year old at Rot Weiss Ahlen. Now, at 22, he is a full German international and one of the many midfield-forward hybrid players being produced in that country at the moment. At ‘Gladbach he plays up top with Mike Hanke—a towering forward who can knock the ball down and hold it up nicely for his talented, goal-hungry teammate.

Juan Arango has also been a big part of Borussia Monchengladbach’s success this season, and scored the fifth goal against Bremen on Saturday. The 31-year-old—who had an impressive Copa America last July with semifinalists Venezuela—is enjoying his best season in Germany since moving from La Liga side Mallorca in 2009 and is among the Bundesliga’s assist leaders. He had two helpers against Bremen, including an exquisite cross to Patrick Herrmann in the 16^th minute for the opener and eventual match-winner.

‘Gladbach, who haven’t won the title since completing a three-peat in 1977 (they won five titles in the ‘70s with a team that included the likes of Berti Vogts and current Bayern Munich manager Jupp Heynckes), are currently level with Dortmund on 26 points but trail in the goal-differential category. Bremen, who had been on a three-match unbeaten run before Saturday, are fifth in the standings with 23 points.

Saturday’s three other Bundesliga matches produced a trio of two-goal scorers, as Schalke’s Klaas-Jan Huntelaar scored twice in a 4-0 trouncing of Nurnberg, Hasan Salihamidzic recorded a brace in the first half of a 4-1 win over Hannover and Stefan Reisinger bulged the net in the 61^st and 95^th minutes of Freiburg’s come-from-behind 2-2 draw at Hertha Berlin.

There would have been a sixth contest on this day, but Cologne’s match at home to Mainz was called off after it was learned that the referee who was supposed to oversee the game—Babak Rafati—had attempted suicide in his hotel room.

When Rafati, a 41-year-old banker, failed to arrive as scheduled at RheinEnergieStadion for the 3:30pm kickoff, his assistants called the hotel where they all were staying and, getting no answer, went back to check on him. They got into his room with the help of hotel staff and found him lying in the bathtub, veins opened and barely alive. He was immediately rushed to hospital where his critical condition was later downgraded to stable.

In a press conference shortly after the match cancelation, German Football Association president Theo Zwanziger praised the referee’s assistants for taking the quick, necessary steps to save Rafati’s life. When asked about the circumstances that led to the incident, Zwanziger ruled out third party involvement and revealed several notes had been discovered in Rafati’s room.

Follow Jerrad Peters on Twitter @peterssoccer

Editor’s note: the Footy Blog is pleased as punch to welcome James Horncastle to the masthead. Horncastle is a European Football Writer, Fox Soccer and FourFourTwo Columnist, Guest Podder on Guardian Football Weekly, contributor to The Blizzard, Champions, WSC and more. This is will be the first of a bi-weekly column. Enjoy!

Few managers are genuinely in tune with their supporters. But Jürgen Klopp can claim to be quite literally in harmony with those at Borussia Dortmund. “I can now sing along with their songs from beginning to end,” he boasted to the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

One wonders then if Klopp, smiling politely in his track-suit bottoms and yellow baseball cap after an emphatic 5-1 win over Wolfsburg before the international break, decided to join in with the
fans at the Westfalenstadion to chant: “Off with Bayern’s lederhosen.”

With that in mind, thank goodness Louis van Gaal is no longer in charge at the Allianz Arena. He might well have taken them up on their offer and dropped his trousers to reveal that “he had balls”, as he once did much to the players’ shock in the Bayern dressing room. Luca Toni, incidentally, has never recovered.
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I do quite a bit of work for The Score’s mobile football platform, ScoreMobile FC, which means I tend to have a notebook on me whether I’m watching matches in my living room, my home office or the pub. (Sometimes I get the three confused.) The notes I make can be anything, really—the description of a goal, an impressive performance, a profile of a young player I’ve never seen before, an irritant.

My notes from Saturday’s matches hit on several of those categories and a few others. I’d like to share some of them with you—to compare notes, if you will. Perhaps you made some similar scribblings.

Wayne Rooney. Sometimes I wonder just how much football people actually watch. By “people” I mean match commentators and on-air pundits who describe the games we tune-in to on weekends. I say this because I was appalled by the level of surprise that accompanied Wayne Rooney’s deployment in the centre of midfield against Otelul Galati on Wednesday, and again against Sunderland on Saturday.

All the usual clichés were trotted out: “central midfield experiment,” “deeper than usual, “Rooney’s new role.” Ugh. #Facepalm.

Anyone who has actually watched Rooney and Manchester United on even a part-time basis the past 13 months will know the 26-year-old’s days as an out-and-out striker (if they ever even existed) came to an end when he backed down from his threat to quit the club in October 2010 and penned a new, long-term contract. Since then he has operated mostly as the textbook trequartista—a support attacker relied upon to play between the likes of Fletcher and Hernandez. His competency in the role was such that it was only a matter of time before Sir Alex Ferguson moved him deeper still.

You could actually make the argument that Rooney’s transition from a scoring-minded forward to deep-lying playmaker began in 2007 when Carlos Tevez joined United. Rooney and Tevez were such similar players (I remember all the “However will they play together?” nonsense) that one, usually Rooney, would have to drift deep while the other pressed forward with Cristiano Ronaldo.

In any case, Rooney’s move to the position we see him playing in today has been more an evolution than an experiment. I really believe, and I’ve said this before, that Wayne Rooney will be remembered as more of a Paul Scholes than an Andy Cole. We’re seeing it already.

Lee Mason. Sunderland felt they were denied a penalty when referee Lee Mason overturned his initial decision (he had pointed to the spot, having saw what he thought was a United handball) and awarded Manchester United a free-kick instead. Replays showed Mason was right to change his mind, although manager Steve Bruce and Sunderland supporters seemed to take issue with the “process.”

The process was this: Second-guessing his decision, Mason conferred with his linesman, who clarified that not only had a United player not handled the ball in the area, but that the hosts should also be awarded a free-kick.

I don’t see the problem. If a bit of conferencing between match officials is all it takes to make the correct call, then surely we should allow them those few whispers on the touchline. The referee has his assistants for a reason, and to avoid using them in a situation like this would be irresponsible. If anything, Mason should be applauded for prudently taking a moment to discuss the incident with his linesman instead of hastily sticking to his initial instinct. Good on him.

Now that we’ve set that straight, allow me a plug for video replay. If a referee needs 20 to 30 seconds to confer with an assistant over a tricky call, why not leave the verdict to video replay (it’s as simple as having a man in the box with a bunch of TVs), which would have a decision in 5 to 10 seconds. “Disrupting the flow of the game” has often been used as one of the biggest excuses for keeping video replay out of football, but this example would seem to show that argument for the nonsense it is.

Neven Subotic. The Borussia Dortmund centre-back will be out until after the winter break with a fractured orbital bone. This is a blow to the reigning champions as they were just hitting their stride after stumbling out of the gate.

Their 5-1 win over Wolfsburg on Saturday took them to 23 points—just two back of Bayern Munich—who they will face in a showdown with obvious title implications immediately following the international break. Felipe Santana replaced the 6-foot-4 22-year-old at the break and will likely be given an opportunity to deputise for the Serbia international until January.

Gabriel Agbonlahor. He had a hell of a game against Norwich on Saturday, scoring once and creating twice for Darren Bent. His play to the left of the big centre-forward must surely have turned Fabio Capello’s head, especially given the likely absence of Ashley Young to injury when the England team is named tomorrow.

Agbonlahor’s five goals so far this campaign matches his return of last season, and he has five assists to match. Consistency has been an issue over the course of the 25-year-old’s career, however, so no doubt Villa fans will be hoping his purple patch continues for some time.

Superb cross by Kolarov. Wow. The response of a title contender. I scribbled that line after Yaya Toure’s 74^th minute winner for Manchester City against Queens Park Rangers. Heidar Helguson had equalised for the Super Hoops five minutes earlier, and the hosts looked sure to earn at least a point from the league leaders.

Still, you got the feeling City would somehow scrape a win. They hadn’t done anything up until then that suggested they had a winner up their sleeve, but what’s becoming clear about this team is that they’ve discovered a winner’s mentality to match their wage packets.

That, and they’ve got enough quality in the team to ensure that at least one of their superstars will be able to rise to the occasion, and Kolarov did exactly that when he curled a long, dead-accurate cross to the head of Yaya.

Follow Jerrad Peters on Twitter @peterssoccer

By the time the Old Trafford attendance of 75,487 was announced in the 76^th minute, fewer than 50,000 fans were still in their seats. A 3-0 Manchester City lead had been enough to convince a good many Manchester United supporters to head home early, and the several thousand City fans at the suddenly friendly ground were never really sitting, anyway.

By the time it was all said and done, the noisy neighbours—who can quite rightly sing as loud as they want about their dominance, their title aspirations and their archrivals’ stunning display of mediocrity—had quite convincingly sealed a 6-1 win on the champions’ patch—the worst home defeat handed to United since 1930. (Thanks to Infostrada for that fascinating bit of trivia.)

No doubt the headline writers will be salivating over how to one-up one another on tomorrow’s back pages. There are countless ways to spin this result; there is no shortage of storylines, or opportunities for bad puns, bad rhymes and tiresome repetition.

The fact is you can pretty much take all spin and narrative and divide it into two categories. It doesn’t seem as sensationalist that way, but it’s sensible and will both keep City fans from hitting the roof and United supporters from slitting their wrists. And if it doesn’t do it for you there’s nothing stopping you flipping over a tabloid in the morning.

1. Sunday’s result at Old Trafford signalled a changing of the guard atop the Premier League pecking order.

This is the category where you’ll see stories about power shifts and regime changes and statement games and watershed moments. And maybe that’s exactly what we saw. If you’re a United supporter one of the most chilling moments of the match must have been when, already 3-0 ahead, City sent out Samir Nasri. That’s the sort of depth title-winning sides typically have, and another of the substitutes—Edin Dzeko—scored two of the late goals that rubbed salt in a very open wound.

City have the players, the manager and the resources to not only win the title this season, but to also go on a streak of dominance only United to this point in the Premier League era have enjoyed. That’s simply a fact. They’ve been banging at the door a few years now, and on Sunday they finally broke it down.

2. Sunday’s result was a one-off—a fantastic result for City and a nightmarish one for United, but one the Red Devils will come back from.

It’s in this category you’ll find more low key, level-headed accounts of the match and what it means. Let’s not forget that Arsenal were drubbed 8-2 by United in late August and have lost just one of their 10 matches since. And for something a little more close to home, it’s worth remembering that it was almost exactly a year ago that Wayne Rooney announced his desire to leave Manchester United, only to change his mind after half a week of back-and-forths in the press with Sir Alex Ferguson. United looked in a bad way then, but seven months later they were Premier League champions.

In any event, it will be fascinating to see what United do from here, starting with their Carling Cup match away to Aldershot on Tuesday. No doubt Ferguson will ring the changes, and you’ve got to think he’ll be considering a different look to his starting lineup when his side visits Everton next Saturday.

Yes, City are now five points clear atop the league and could quite well win it. But, like it so often is, the story coming out of their emphatic derby win is about United, albeit not the one we expected to read going in.

Udinese 3-0 Novara: Stadio Friuli

What happened: Udinese scored two goals late in the first half against a spunky Novara side en route to a 3-0 win and sole possession of first place in Serie A.

Style points: Antonio Di Natale. Totò opened the scoring shortly after the half-hour mark when his shot from in close took a deflection off Novara defender Matteo Centurioni and left goalkeeper Alberto Fontana helpless. But he gets the style points for his second goal of the night—a curling free-kick from about 25 yards placed right where the owl sleeps.

From here: Udinese—now two points up on Juventus atop the standings—face a tricky match away to Napoli on Wednesday and will host Palermo next Sunday before traveling to Atletico Madrid in the Europa League. Novara are just above the drop zone and will host Siena on Wednesday before visiting Lecce a week from now.

Hannover 2-1 Bayern Munich: AWD-Arena

What happened: Hannover handed Bayern Munich their first loss in 10 weeks (a stretch of 14 matches) in an entertaining match that ended with both sides having a man sent off.

Style points: Christian Pander. The Hannover winger—28-years old and capped only twice for Germany—gave his side a 2-0 lead just five minutes after the restart when he accepted Konstantin Rausch’s accurate pass and drilled a low, hard effort into the corner of the Bayern goal. He gets the style points for the tally, but he ran Bayern right-back Rafinha into the ground throughout the match and was a persistent thorn in the opposition side.

From here: Hannover will stay at home and welcome Mainz in the DFB Pokal, Wednesday, before traveling to Borussia Monchengladbach next weekend. Bayern will look to start another long streak of Bundesliga wins on Saturday against Nurnberg but will first host Ingolstadt in the cup midweek.

Follow Jerrad Peters on Twitter @peterssoccer

An acquaintance of mine used to work in the same London office building as English Premier League referee Peter Walton. It’s a neat little bit of trivia that comes to mind every time a referee is skewered for awarding a ghost penalty or handing out a questionable red card. I thought of it again when Phil Dowd gave Chris Herd his marching orders in the 35^th minute of Saturday’s match between Aston Villa and West Bromwich Albion.

Dowd’s decision was more than questionable. Unless he saw something that neither the fans in the stadium nor the folks watching on television picked up on, he is guilty of a blunder that had a direct effect on the outcome of the match—a 2-1 win for West Brom. And in an ideal world he would have to answer for it. If there wasn’t just cause to eject Herd, he would need to admit it; if Herd did something punishable, other managers would have a right to hear what it was and understand how to prevent their players from doing the same thing.

But this is hardly an ideal word as far as refereeing is concerned. It simply isn’t Premier League policy to put match officials in front of the press, just as it isn’t Premier League policy to treat match officials like full-time, fully-professional employees. Peter Walton isn’t one, as my friend can attest. Neither is Phil Dowd. And until they are, we should be careful not to abuse them. They get enough of that already.

At present, Premier League match officials are not full-time employees of the division or the Football Association. Yes, they can pull in a decent wage from their exploits on the pitch, but they’re still drastically underpaid when the value of the industry is taken into consideration.

The best-compensated Premier League referees earn in the neighbourhood of £70,000 per year for their weekend work when annual retainers and individual match fees are counted in the equation. It seems like serious money, but put in another context it’s about enough to pay Wayne Bridge from Sunday to Thursday lunchtime. Now, referees are certainly not entitled to the same salaries as star footballers (or Wayne Bridge), but the gap does need to shrink.

Professional football at the highest level is a lucrative business, and as match officials are integral to the execution of that business, they’re entitled to a much larger piece of the pie. They’re also entitled to full-time employment. But since the FA just isn’t interested in thinking of its referees and linesmen as a full-time workforce, people like Dowd and Walton have to go elsewhere to fill their work-weeks, and their bank accounts.

The Premier League would do well to emulate rugby, which began introducing fully professional referees in 1999. Shortly after the move, former Saracens director Mark Evans stated that “[Full professionalization] should help promote consistency—an in-house style that the clubs can get used to… Hopefully those [referees] selected will have time to visit with the clubs regularly and discuss all the issues with the players and coaches.”

Or face the press after matches. But in the current set of circumstances—where referees are preparing to return to their day jobs after the weekend—the thought of them having to answer for their decisions (which would typically involve getting pilloried by reporters) is nonsensical and should only ever happen if they start being treated like proper, full-time employees.

Let’s face it. The status quo is ideal for the Premier League. They can run their lucrative division on the backs of a contracted workforce, and when a poor decision is made—such as Dowd red-carding Chris Herd—they know the competence of the official, and not the league structure as a whole, will be called into question.

For now, match officials are underpaid, overworked and easily tossed under the bus. And I, for one, am going to avoid whinging about them until that changes.

Borussia Dortmund 5-0 Cologne: Signal Iduna Park

What happened: Dortmund finally looked every bit the reigning Bundesliga champions as they humbled Cologne to go second from top in the standings.

Style points: Dortmund were out of sight by the break through goals from Shinji Kaga (7^th minute), Marcel Schmelzer (25^th minute) and Robert Lewandowski (44^th minute), and each had enough flair about it to earn mention in this space. Mats Hummels’ long, overhead pass to set up the opener was particularly easy on the eyes, but the style points from this match go to Sven Bender, who played in Lewandowski for the 3-0 lead just before the break. With at least two of his teammates having run into offside positions as Dortmund pressed for a knockout blow, Bender waited patiently on the ball to the right of the area before spotting Lewandowski’s clever, timely run and sending a ball into space for him to tap past Cologne ‘keeper Michael Rensing.

From here: Dortmund will go into next week trailing only Bayern Munich in the league standings and will host Dynamo Dresden in a DFB Pokal match on Wednesday. Their next Bundesliga contest will come next weekend against Stuttgart. Cologne—presently 12^th in the table—will be at Hoffenheim in the cup, Thursday, and will host 16^th-place Augsburg next Sunday.

Malaga 0-4 Real Madrid: La Rosaleda, Malaga

What happened: Free-scoring Madrid tallied at least three goals for the sixth consecutive match—and Cristiano Ronaldo recorded a hat-trick—en route to a humbling of disappointing Malaga at La Rosaleda.

Style points: Angel di Maria gets the style points in this one for his passes that had the guests 2-0 to the good after just 23 minutes. His first bit of magic came in the 11^th minute when he spotted Gonzalo Higuain’s run and played him through with a lovely ball for the striker’s eighth goal in four matches. His second—a spot-on accurate cross to Ronaldo—put the Portuguese marksman into space for a tap-in and had the three points pretty much sealed in the 23^rd minute.

From here: Real Madrid—atop the table when Barcelona kicked off against Sevilla—will welcome Villarreal to the Bernabeu on Wednesday before traveling to tricky Real Sociedad next Saturday. Malaga—still in the top six despite being outscored 7-0 in their last two matches—will visit Rayo Vallecano on Wednesday before welcoming Espanyol to La Rosaleda on October 30.

Follow Jerrad Peters on Twitter @peterssoccer