Global, Monday Miscellany, Premier League

Joy unconfined. Sport’s most tedious transfer affair is over, every schoolboy’s favourite slave Cristiano Ronaldo will be playing for Manchester Utd this season. Or at least, using their treatment room, jacuzzi and weights room. Don’t get too pleased, though, the will-he-won’t-he saga will be back for a sequel next summer, and there won’t be a European Championship or Olympic Games to distract us. The Confederations Cup had better be good.

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If there is to be a common theme in international football in the 21st century, it may well be the poor performance of host nations at major tournaments. As FIFA, UEFA and the IOC decide to take a more egalitarianistic approach to awarding the rights to host major tournaments, we will see more mediocre teams taking part by right in competitions which they may not have reached through the qualifying tournament.

Japan and South Korea did OK in the 2002 World Cup, both making the knock-out stages and South Korea going on to finish fourth. Established footballing nations hosted Euro 2004 and World Cup 06 but Austria were abysmal in Euro 2008 and South Africa, judging by their recent performances, will not set the 2010 World Cup alight.

South Africa are taking part in the World Cup qualifiers because they double as the qualification tournament for the 2010 African Cup of Nations, for which they have no automatic berth as the tournament will be held in Angola.

A comprehensive 2-0 defeat in Nigeria - nothing particularly shameful there - was followed by a 4-1 home win over Equatorial Guinea, who are the poorest team in their group. Under their new Brazilian coach Joel Santana - compatriot Carlos Alberto Parreira left in April for family reasons - they failed to score in two matches against Sierra Leone, taking just one point. They lie second in Group 4 with two matches to come, including a tough test against Nigeria in Port Elizabeth on 6 September. The best eight of the twelve group runners-up progress to the final African qualifying group round, but Bafana Bafana are currently twelfth out of twelve.

It is a fair analysis of these facts that South Africa would not have come anywhere near qualifying for the 2010 World Cup were they not hosting the tournament. Home advantage is always worth something come the finals, but as Austria proved in June, it cannot make a good team out of bad players.

China’s women’s team are strong - they won silver at the 1996 Games - but their men are struggling in the Olympic football tournament. After former Manchester Utd reserve striker Dong Fangzhuo’s late equalizer saved them a draw (a draw!) against a New Zealand (New Zealand!) team who played more than half the match with ten men (ten men!), they were soundly beaten in their second match, 2-0 against Belgium, for whom promising young strikers Moussa Dembélé and Kevin Mirallas both scored.

To reach the quarter finals China must now beat Brazil in Qinhuangdao on Wednesday and then pray for a New Zealand win against Belgium; New Zealand have just lost 5-0 to Brazil. That is not going to happen.

It is commonly agreed that the atmosphere at a tournament - particularly a World Cup outside of Europe, to which European fans do not tend to travel in large numbers - is greatly improved by the home team staying in the competition until the late stages; this is unlikely to happen in 2010. Still, at least Sepp Blatter has courted popularity in another continent.

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The Court of Arbitration for Sport has decided that Barcelona, Schalke 04 and Werder Bremen do have the right to recall their players, Lionel Messi, Rafinha and Diego respectively, from the Olympic Games. So who was that long-haired kid with a magical left foot who scored for Argentina against the Ivory Coast? (Sorry, Côte d’Ivoire.) And just what was the name of the Brazilian right-back whose pathetic thespian efforts got Belgium’s excellent midfielder Merouane Fellaini so unjustly sent off? The clubs’ problem is that South American players respect international football, by and large, and would have sulked their way through the first fixtures of the season had they been dragged home to play in Champions League qualifiers and pointless pre-Bundesliga friendlies. Common sense sometimes prevails in football.

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This weekend’s Observer had a short piece by Richard Scudamore, chief propagandist of the Premier League, for some reason. In it, the professional optimist argues that English football is in ‘robust health’, which must be pleasing news to those who attended England v Croatia last November, not to mention supporters of Luton Town, Rotherham Utd and Bournemouth, whose clubs begin the 2008-9 League Two season on -30, -17 and -17 points respectively due to a variety of financial improprieties or shortcomings. The punishment doled out to Luton Town is particularly ridiculous as ten of the thirty points were deducted for transfer regulation violations committed by people no longer at the club.

It would be too much like hard work for the Football Association to pursue the individual directors who so destroyed the fortunes of a club who, as recently as the 2005-06 season, were not a million miles from possible promotion to the Premier League. As it is, the club are probably relegated before the season begins and another community will lose a Football League club due, in no small part, to the incompetence and bungling of men who wear suits and whose favourite right wingers are Margaret Thatcher and Norman Lamont.

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Everton, who have been seemingly skint for as long as anybody can remember, have signed as many players as I have for the new Premier League season, selling Andrew Johnson to Fulham and offloading their underrated midfielder Lee Carsley to Birmingham City. Internet message boards have become catacombs of despair, barely 11,000 fans turned up for Saturday’s friendly with PSV Eindhoven and there are fears that David Moyes will walk out of the club in despair. Club in crisis, right?

Wrong. Vágner Love, the Brazil striker, is set to join from CSKA Moscow on a year’s loan, with an option to buy for around £13 million. Mikel Arteta is staying, with Atlético Madrid’s courting resisted for yet another year, and Tim Cahill is still there. Victor Anichebe, who has just scored for Nigeria against Japan in the Olympics, is a fine prospect, as is 20-year-old striker James Vaughan, who has lightning pace and a sharp eye for goal. Cameroon’s Stéphane Mbia, also on target this week in China, may soon join from Rennes. Alan Smith, João Moutinho and Diego Milito are also potential signings, but if David Moyes is not prepared to pay over the odds for players unproven in the Premier League, that is not necessarily a bad thing. And their unpopular move to a new stadium in Kirkby that would increase their capacity by less than 10,000 is halted, possibly permanently.

The moral of the story; no club can be termed ‘in crisis’ until their season actually begins.

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Unless they’re Manchester City, but they’re used to it. Thaksin Shinawatra, a Fit & Proper Person since July 2007, is the subject of a Thai arrest warrant, meaning Manchester City are in financial limbo. Stephen Ireland, who may be transferred to Sunderland in a fire-sale, was told not to attend Saturday’s friendly win over Milan, only to be rung up at the last minute and told to bring his boots and make a pointless appearance as a substitute in the dying minutes. Thaksin may or may not have ruled Thailand with a rod of iron, but chaos reigns supreme at Eastlands. Nice to see the new owner upholding his new club’s traditions.

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Only one question needs asking after watching the snooze-fest that was the 2008 FA Community Shield; what does Sylvain Distin have to do for the clueless Raymond Domenech to deem him fit to play for France? Maybe he should try the trick that worked for Zinedine Zidane, Lilian Thuram and Claude Makélélé after Euro 2004 and announce his retirement from international football.

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This week’s gems from the word-processing spelling checker: Eastlands > Wastelands, Blatter > Blather, Shinawatra > Chinaware, Cristiano Ronaldo > Über-preened twit with a messiah complex. OK, I’ll admit it, I made the Blatter one up.

Tags: Cristiano Ronaldo, David Moyes, Diego, Everton, João Moutinho, Lionel Messi, Manchester City, Monday Miscellany, Rafinha, Richard Scudamore, Sylvain Distin, Thaksin Shinawatra, Vagner Love, World Cup

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