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Old fashioned monthly magazine about the beautiful game of football.
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september 2013michel
3 // Michel Platini. Story of a legend
9 // Vincenzo Montella & Fiorentina. Take off allowed
13 // Metalist Kharkiv. Seeking for the revenge
19 // Al Thani Era. Pellegrini Era
23 // Premier League wastes, Eredivisie earns
September 2013
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AUTHORS CONTACT [email protected]
SOCIAL NETWORKS
ABOUT US«michel» is an old fashioned monthly magazine about the beautiful game of football. «michel» football magazine was founded in August 2013 by Rolands Juhna and Cristian Liberum.
Rolands JuhnaCristian LiberumAlessio LoginovNastya MendezVladislav Adamishen
Rolands Juhna
DESIGNCristian Liberum
Nastya MendezAsuman Dogan Facebook - Michel Mag
Twitter - @lemichelmag
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MICHELPLATINI
Story of a legend
WRITTEN BY CRISTIAN LIBERUM
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ichel Platini was the King of European foot-ball back in the 80’s. Outstanding player, who dominated a very unique and a fancy decade. Football was different back then. Tough, some-times even very cruel. Fans were much more passionate and football stars were something like demi-gods for them. They looked much more fancy. Many of them had long, curvy haircuts, golden chains on their neck and gold-en earrings in their ears. Naples adored Mara-dona, who turned himself into an iconic, cult figure. Turin had Platini. Captain of Les Bleus, grandson of Italian immigrants and one of the best players in the history of modern football. Three-times winner of Ballon d’Or, Serie A win-ner, European Cup winner and proud Officer of the Legion of Honour.
“It’s not that I regarded myself as the best player in the world; I was the best player in the world,” Platini once said in an interview to FourFourTwo. It’s not a exaggeration. French-man was a true example of perfect playmak-er. Very intelligent, with a great vision of the game. He always saw the opportunities. To create moment for teammate, to score by him-self. Platini had it all. He turned himself into one of the best free-kick takers in the history of football. He slowly turned free-kick into some kind of art, combining efficiency and glamour.Platini was always smooth, like a good and a bit funky French lounge music.
Michel Platini had a long journey from his hometown’s Jœuf amateur squad to the first professional contract with Ligue 1 side AS Nancy. His journey started at Saint-Exupéry street in Jœuf, where young Michel could spend long hours together with his friends. They all were very passionate kids but Michel was the most charismatic one, despite his small stature.
He wasn’t very gifted physically, he lacked that strength and pace but he was very intelligent and hard worker. Saint-Exupéry street pro-duced one of the finest players in the history of modern football. While playing “street foot-ball”, Platini learned everything he needed. He spent thousands of hours learning new tricks and creating himself a new challenges all the time. Young Michel had to be creative to suc-ceed and earn the respect from his mates. It was all about creativity and Platini had it.
First chance and first disappointment for Michel Platini came at age of 16, when he got chance to undergo trial with his boyhood favourite team Metz. There were hope that Platini could join this club and start his professional career there but everything went wrong, as he failed to pass the medical test on a spirometer. Metz doctor said that Platini has too weak heart and there’s no use to sign such player. It’s a hard verdict to accept. Lucky for Michel, his father had some good acquittances at Nancy and they gave him a chance to play some ex-hibition matches. This time, Platini impressed coaching staff and soon he signed his first pro-fessional contract being just 17 years old. That was the start of his illustrious career.
Nancy was a great school for Michel Platini. He established himself as a French international while playing for the club. Nancy manager Antoine Redin slowly introduced young Michel into French football. He spent few seasons in Ligue 1 and then Nancy faced relegation to Ligue 2. It may sound strange, but relegation to second tier of French football brought only positive experience and lessons for the young playmaker. In Ligue 2, teams didn’t had a lot of quality players and football overall was more tough and cruel, if compared to Ligue1.
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That wasn’t a problem for Michel. It was a good challenge for him. He got used to really tough defense and his creativity became only stronger with every next match. Of course, he was working hard in trainings too. Free-kicks... Despite his young age, French goalkeepers got stressed, when they saw Platini taking the ball and placing it on the spot referee just showed. Accurate free-kicks became a trademark of Platini. He saw this element of football as a good opportunity some may underestimate. Your team will always bring get some chances to earn some free-kicks. So why don’t use that? Michel often converted these opportunities into beautiful and deadly goals.
After scoring 30 goals in 38 games in 1974/75 season, Michel Platini and Nancy returned to Ligue 1. They took back their place in French football elite. Platini took the opportunity and became one of the leaders of Nancy. Come-back to Ligue 1 was a chance to show the am-bitions and earn invitation to France national
team, which was looking for some fresh blood, after having some “empty decades”. Last gen-eration, which had some success was brought together back in 50’s and since then, France failed to impress at the major tournaments. Talent of Platini was already noticed and he was under radar of national team manage-ment. They had some big expectations and Michel didn’t let them down. It was a season of breakthrough for him. Nancy came back to Ligue 1 bigger, better and stronger than before. They immediately got into Ligue 1 Top 10, fin-ishing 1975/76 season at seventh place. Platini finished season with 22 goals in Ligue 1, finish-ing fourth in race for Top Scorer award. His ef-forts were noticed and he won the 1976 France Football French Player of the Year.
Later on, there were his international debut for France national team, which turned to be a successful one, as Platini scored his first interna-tional goal on one of his trademark free-kicks. Then came the chance to play in 1976 Olympic
Games, where France was eliminated in 1/4 finals. And then... Career took the right direc-tion. Season after season, Platini improved his game and after 1978 World Cup he finally took step forward and moved to the biggest name in French football - Saint-Etienne. Glori-ous team with a rich history of success. Platini already was an important part of Les Bleus and he saw Saint-Etienne as a chance to finally break onto European stage and let the grand’s see what he’s capable to do. Ironically, Platini didn’t saw a lot of success with Les Verts. They won Ligue 1 title in 1981 but there were two un-successful finals in Coupe de France (1981, 1982). On European stage, Saint-Etienne didn’t im-pressed at all.
Individually, Platini was still only getting stronger. Despite all odds Saint-Etienne saw on European stage, talent of their eccentric playmaker was quickly noticed. Many leading clubs hoped to make this move come true and bring this talented Frenchman to their squad.
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Paris Saint-Germain was also ready to make the move and come with a strong offer. Lat-er on there came offer from English Premier League side Arsenal but Platini wasn’t really interested in move to England, so he rejected this offer. Finally, there came the interest from Juventus and Giampiero Boniperti. At that time Italian league had very good reputation, it was a leading league in European football and Juventus was the biggest club in Italy (also richest one). Legendary club! No wonder they wanted to sign one of the best playmakers in Europe. And there’s also no wonder why it was easy for Platini to accept their offer. He dreamed about playing in his grandfather’s homeland and dream was about to come true. However, negotiations between all sides took some time. Platini had private meeting in Turin with Boniperti. There were no prob-lems to reach the agreement about personal contract terms, problem was the compensa-tion that Saint-Etienne wanted to get for los-ing their leading player and this question was the hardest one to solve. In some moments, negotiations came to dead end. When Platini himself came with a proposal, which was ac-cepted by Boniperti. Soon there came an of-ficial announcement that “Michel Platini has joined Italian Serie A side Juventus!”. Italians paid 1 280 000 franks for this move. That was a historical moment for both sides. Michel Plat-ini returned to land, where his ancestors were born. He returned as a real star, ready to bring some major trophies to Turin. When contract was signed, no one could predict that this move will turn into such a success...
Opening game in Bilbao’s Estadio San Mamés against England wasn’t an easy one for France. It came as a tough exam. Already from the first minute, France had to recover from goal, which was scored by Bryan Robson. Frenchman Gerard Soler gave some hopes to his team-mates on 24th minute but goals from Robson and Mariner killed the game for France. 3-1 was the final score! Platini and his teammates were looking for the two decisive matches against Kuwait and Czechoslovakia. Fortunately for the fans of France national team, their beloved players didn’t let them down. Solid 4-1 victory against Kuwait and 1-1 against Czechoslovakia was enough to secure second place in group and place in the next round.
Platini later said commented this episode: “Honestly, at that moment I thought that Bat-tiston is going to die. Fortunately, he stayed alive.” This episode was not only terrible and very memorable, it also affected the course of this match. Dutch referee Charles Corver deemed Schumacher’s tackle on Battiston not to be a foul and awarded a goal kick. It was a mistake by referee. He had to immedi-ately show a red card to Schumacher but he remained silent. That was mistake. Goalkeeper later saved the decisive penalty and game was over for the France. They showed some quality football, some real passion, but they were left out of chances to play in the World Cup final against mighty Italians.
80’s was the era of DiegoMaradona and Michel Platini. They dominated the best league in Europe at that time.
missed the ball, however, and clattered straight into the oncoming Bat-tiston – which left the French player uncon-scious and knocked two of his teeth out. Terrible. Schumacher’s action has been deservedly de-scribed as “one of histo-ry’s most shocking fouls”.
France quite easily passed by Austria and Northern Ireland in the next round of World Cup and then came the famous semi-final against West Germany. It was really a great match, one of the most memorable match-es in the history of World Cup. It also almost turned into a tragedy. In the second half a long through ball sent French defender Patrick Bat-tiston racing clear towards the German goal. With both Battiston and the lone German defender trying to be the first to reach the ball, Battiston flicked it past German keeper Harald Schumacher from the edge of the Ger-man penalty area and Schumacher reacted by jumping up to block. Schumacher completely
Kings of Europe
Move to Juventus wasn’t easy one. Platini and Saint-Etienne had offers from various clubs. French, English. Bordeaux had interest to sign the cap-tain of France national team.
1982 World Cup, Spain. Michel Platini arrives to Spain as a captain of France national team. It’s a big honour for every player to wear captain’s armband in World Cup. Platini had a chance to shine against the best players in the world. He already played for France in 1978 World Cup but back then, he was too young to rise to the heights of this tournament. Now he was 27 years old. Strong, motivated and inspired by his recent move to Juventus. It was chance to prove everyone that he’s worth to be a part of one of the leading European teams. France were underdogs and Platini was the man, who was able to turn them into a title contend-ers. France was ready for an exciting journey.
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press were awaiting quality football from Michel. He had to overshadow Paolo Rossi was named European Footballer of the Year fol-lowing his contribution to Italy’s victory in the 1982 FIFA World Cup, where he was named player of the tournament. That’s not an easy task for the Frenchman to earn love of the Italian fans, who adored Rossi. After victorious World Cup, he was simply a hero for Italians.
Juventus was also joined by leader of Poland national team - Zbigniew Boniek. Very strong midfielder, who helped to transform Juventus into strongest team in European football. Bon-iek formed great partnership on pitch togeth-er with Platini and they were a good friends outside it. In first part of 1982/83 season they both were criticised by Italian press. Football in Italy was different and it wasn’t easy to quickly adapt to such tough football. Even more, Plat-ini had to play despite being injured. In first few months his performance wasn’t good enough to impress press and tifosi. Situation improved in second half of the season, when Platini finally was healthy and Juventus started to collect vic-tories in Serie A, Coppa Italia and European Cup.
Soon he found his place in Juventus. Platini learned Italian, found common language with his teammates and at the end of season he be-came top scorer in Italian championship with 16 goals. His (7) goals also helped Juventus to win Coppa Italia. La Vecchia Signora was short in race for the Serie A title. They lost title to AS Roma.
Following seasons were sensa-tional. Platini lived through his prime. Debut for Juventus wasn’t easy. Pressure and ex-pectations were high. Fans, management and Italian
Juventus got past Aston Villa and Widzew Łódz on the way to the European Cup final, where Hamburg was already awaiting for them. That was a chance to win the most prestige trophy in European football. Duels. Ernst Happel vs. Giovanni Trapattoni. Felix Magath vs. Michel Platini. That was a dramatic and hard final for both teams. Germans showed great discipline and Hamburg won their first European title thanks to goal of Felix Magath. After the final whistle in Athens, many European newspapers described this match simply as “Magath won Platini 1-0”. It was true. Magath did what he was supposed to do. For Platini it was a rea-son to look back at his debut season and think about his future. He even had some thoughts to move to USA and follow footsteps of Franz Beckenbauer, Johan Cruyff and Pele, in case, if Juventus wouldn’t offer a new contract for him at the end of 1983/84 season. Choice was sim-ple. Brilliant season or end of career in USA... However, that was also a good motivation for Platini. He clearly understood that next season gonna be one of the most important in his ca-reer. He needed to bring success for Juventus and France.
November 1983, Paris. Michel Platini gets the most prestigious individual award in European football - Ballon d’Or. Officially, he’s crowned as the Best Player in Europe. Despite didn’t winning Serie A or European Cup trophy. De-spite having not the best start of season and being criticised by press. Individual brilliance was above all critics.
1983/84. Season of brilliance. Platini finally was on the way to trophies and another Ballon d’Or award. This time, Juventus was playing in Eu-ropean Cup Winner’s Cup. After easily beating Lechia Gdansk, Juventus had to face one of the leading French teams - Paris Saint-Germain.
Most of Juventus players weren’t really worried about this opponent. They were excited about upcoming trip to French capital. Platini knew that PSG have some quality players and when Giovanni Trapattoni asked him opinion about Les Parisiens, Michel said: “It won’t be easy.” One thing is to face a quality team, simply another is to play in your homeland, against fans, who support you, when you play for the national team. But then you have to accept the fact that they are going to be against you. No friendship anymore. Platini didn’t had the best performance and game ended with a 2-2 draw. Fortunately for Juventus, such score was good enough to make it to the next round. Second leg in Turin ended with a goal-less draw and Juventus went to the quarter-finals.
While playing in Serie A, Platini finally saw some praises from his teammates and man-agement of Juventus. That was a good sign, that club is going to offer contract extension soon. Platini had those thoughts about USA, New York Cosmos but he never really wanted to leave Juventus. Those were completely dif-ferent levels and game of Platini slowly be-came even more passionate. He was keen to bring those major titles to Turin.
Juventus got past Finnish Haka in quarter-finals and legendary Manchester United in semi-finals. Juventus were on their way to St. Jakob Stadium in Basel. Final game against Porto. Chance to feel European glory, after seeing disappointment in last year’s European Cup final. Juventus needed to win this match. Tifosi wouldn’t forget loss in another European final. Not this time. They wanted to see victory and they saw it. In a hard, dramatic and really exciting final, Juventus saw the 2-1 victory and finally Michel Platini was the holder of Euro-pean trophy!
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the man, who gonna take that trophy in award ceremony and lift it above his head. Platini deserved to be the main hero of this glorious journey. He regained back the respect and love of the French fans. It was a special moment for whole country. France’s first major title in inter-national football. It was a new Golden genera-tion of great French footballers.
Euro 1984 was probably the peak of Michel’s career. He was the best player in the world and no one even doubted that. Second consecutive Ballon d’Or award was a clear proof for that. However, his ambitions remained high. He still was keen to enjoy the victory in European Cup. Take a revenge for loss to HSV.
Following seasons were full of contrasts for Michel Platini. Most memorable and tragic moment came in the 1985 European Cup fi-nal against Liverpool at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels. This should have been the crowning moment of Platini’s Juventus career, but was instead overshadowed by the Heysel Stadium disaster in which 39 people died, and 600 more were injured. Platini scored the only goal of the match from a penalty kick awarded for a foul on Zbigniew Boniek. In the days following the final, Platini was criticised in some quarters for his lack of restraint in celebrating Juventus’ win. But such criticism wasn’t fair. Platini just did his job. He was just a footballer, who did what he
Michel Platini left some great memories for the generation of 80’s. He inspired many young footballers, he was idol for most of them. Es-pecially, in France. Platini set a high standard for the next generation. Unfortunately, after he retired, France had some period of “silence”. Everything changed just 10 years later, when France won their first World Cup trophy, beat-ing Brazil in the final game. That was a simply another generation. Generation of Zidane. He’s probably the only Frenchman, who has came close to Michel Platini. Without any doubts, those two are greatest players in the history of French football. Natural and very passionate talents. Players, who brought football to totally another level. Michel Platini. Legend.
Michel Platini retired at age of 32.That would be early for most of the players but not for Michel. He left stage at his prime. Bravo, Platoche!
“Le roi est mort, vive le roi !” This phrase perfect-ly described the situation in European football. Platini retired from pro-fessional football in 1987 but Italy soon crowned a new king - Diego Ar-mando Maradona. King of Naples, King of Serie A and Argentina! Vivat!
It was time to go. Platini was simply tired. He enjoyed some really unforgettable moments with France, he was the central figure of this Golden Generation but there was no energy and motivation left to wait for another chance. Dream about triumph in World Cup remained just a dream. Of course, theoretically, Platini could continue career till 35-36 or maybe even 40 years. But he wouldn’t be the same Platini anymore. His body wasn’t the same, as before. Decision to retire was right. Michel Platini spent five wonderful seasons with Juventus and ten wonderful years with France national team, captaining it for almost 50 matches. More than 300 goals in more than 500 games. Not bad?
Euro 1984, France. Michel Platini comes back to home to win the European title for his homeland. He had a great season with Juventus. Serie A title, European Cup Winner’s
championship. Nobody has came even close to such an impressive indi-vidual record, as Platini had in Euro 1984. It was a tournament of Michel Platini. He scored in every single game, he brought those important victories for France and he fully deserved to be
victory, second consecutive Capocannoniere title in Serie A. Now France weren’t under-dogs anymore. They were favourites of Euro 1984. This time, France combined effective and beautiful football. Platini was... He wasn’t just impressive or superb. He more like perfect. Like he would came from another galaxy. 9 goals in 5 matches. It still remains (and probably gonna remain for a long time) a records of European
was supposed to do. It had nothing with the dis-respect or something like that.
Another interesting moment was the arrival of Diego Maradona and famous duels between Juventus and Napoli. Argentine slowly took the torch from Platini and soon he was recognised, as “The Best Player in the World”. It was the 1986 World Cup, which changed everything. For Platini, for Maradona. One of them understood that it’s time to leave. Despite battling injuries and not at the peak of physical condition, Plat-ini scored two very important goals and led France to the semi-finals for second time. Once again, they met West Germany. Once again, Germans were just a bit better...
How Vincenzo Montella is turning into the best manager
in Italian football
TAKE oFF ALLowED
WRITTEN BY ALESSIO LOGINOV
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“They are getting points only because of strong individuals, like Jovetic,” most of sceptics were writing about Fiorentina. Calamai introduced the term “little Barcelona”, adding that Mon-tella isn’t just trying to copy the methods of Guardiola. He’s trying to adapt and develop those principles, keeping in mind those char-acteristics that calcio has. Even more, his team started to play under scheme, which (in the opinion of Calamai) is going to dominate the Italian football in nearest future. Luca was right. Progress of Montella was obvious and since then, Italian men’s and women’s national team managers Cesare Prandelli and Antonio Cabrini are often guests at Fiorentina training sessions. In November 2012, a lot of managers came to Florence, including legendary Brazil-ian Falcao. Vincenzo Montella held a seminar and all the guests were satisfied.
Pomigliano d’Arco is a little town in the region of Cam-pania and it’s known as a place, where two famous Ital-ian footballers were born. It’s a hometown of Antonio Di
Natale and Vincenzo Montella. In the middle of 90’s, their ways crossed in Empoli but later on, each of them had different turns in their careers. Antonio became the leader and sym-bol of Udinese and even now, local tifosi are praying to Saint Fortunatus, patron of Udine, to see another contract renewal with Di Na-tale. Vincenzo always has a warm welcome in Genoa and Rome. These cities still remem-ber the L’Aeroplanino - forward, who had his trademark goal celebration, where he spreads his arms like wings.
After retirement from competitive football Vincenzo few years worked with Roma as youth team coach for the Giovanissimi Nazi-onali (Under-15 level). When Claudio Rani-eri resigned, Montella got chance to manage first team of Giallorossi. Unfortunately, Rosella Sensi sold club to Americans and new owners released young manager and his place was taken by Luis Enrique. Then came the cosy Catania, which finished the season at 11th place in Serie A under the management of Montella. Soon he got his Pro license and turned into Il Tecnico Napoletano - that’s how Italian press is paying tribute to parochialism and calling the natives of Naples province. Finally, family of Della Valle invited to Florence another former Catania manager, which in beginning looked like a strange choice, after they didn’t had any success with Siniša Mihajlovic.
Deputy editor of La Gazzetta dello Sport and a long time tifoso of Viola Luca Calamai was the first one, who realized that Montella is going to create something completely new together with Fiorentina. Despite fact that Italy was impressed by entertaining football that Viola played, most of experts still refused to see any clear system in such style of play.
montella pays big attention to tactics. Some say that he’s obsessed with that. Fioren-tina is mostly playing under 3-5-2 formation, in trainings they also work with 4-3-1-2
and 4-3-3 formations, which Montella used with Catania. Team has no problem to switch from one formation to another - good exam-ple was game against Genoa, where Viola suc-cessfully used the “away model 4-3-1-2”. Here’s one important moment. Montella doesn’t pay attention to numbers. He often goes against classic the canons that are taught at Cover-ciano, neglecting the symmetry in his game for-mations. I can repeat the words of La Nazione, which say that Montella dismissed all dogmas at Fiorentina. That’s why Italian press often make mistakes before the games, when trying to predict the formation Fiorentina gonna use. No one knows what surprises Montella has pre-pared for them.
Features of Montella’s tactical principles:
1) Wingers are playing unusually high and in some episodes, they can be considered as for-wards. That’s the difference between Montella
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the player. Now veterans and youth are hav-ing equal conditions and rights. There’s no senators in dressing room and there’s simple hi-erarchy, where everything fully depends from manager. When there’s a need for discussion, Montella does that only with his assistants. They have very good relationships. For exam-ple, Montella worked with Daniele Russo since his Roma days and later brought him to Sicily and now they continue working together in Florence.
In less than a year, Montella transformed from a typical player, who just wanted to try mana-gerial role to one of the main hopes of Italian football. Other managers feel free to learn from him and he’s admired by Cesare Pran-delli, Luciano Spalletti, Silvio Berlusconi and Giampiero Boniperti. Juventus legend even sees Il Tecnico Napoletano as the potential manager of Squadra Azzurra. But it’s too early to lead the national team. At first, he needs to fulfil the dreams of Viola fans and bring scu-detto to Florence for the first time since 1969.
Italy is already infected by the virus of attack-ing football, where you can see more than for-ty goals per round and where you can see ap-preciation to, such unusual things for calcio, as possession, interesting style of play and absence of usual piety to defensive formations. These principles already have been victorious with Nazionale, thanks to three years under man-agement of Cesare Prandelli. Now it’s time for a club, which is led by the Vincenzo Montella - man, who is fighting for the beautiful calcio, proudly raising the emblem of Florence!
Montella is sometimes called “anti-Zeman” be-cause he’s paying a big attention to each op-poent, which is opposite to Bohemian style of management. There’s another interesting idea invented and used by Montella. Opposite to the most of Serie A teams, he calls players to-gether for meeting and tactical analysis not on game-day, but at previous evening.
and Antonio Conte, who prefers a classical es-terno at Juventus.
2) Montella is a supporter of using a regista - midfielder, who controls the tempo and di-rection of attacks. However, his line-up can simultaneously have two “centers of brain”. That brings down the man-to-man marking efficiency of regista. Last season such role was given to David Pizarro and Borja Valero. If necessary, regista can play together with in-contrista (for example, Massimo Ambrosini). Montella has very clear and strict requirements for his regista - he has to work together with his teammates, when team has to defend and that’s why the role of David Pizarro will face some decrease.
3) Presence of two registas doesn’t interfere with Montella’s intentions to use trequartista. At the moment, this role of “numer 10” has been given to Alberto Aquilani, who found himself in Florence and finally he’s living up the expectations.
4) This season we watch how the functions of centre forward are evolving into some-thing new. Already last season, absence of clear guidelines for forwards was mentioned like one of the positive moments for Fioren-tina. Allegedly, it’s impossible to predict, where Joveticand Ljajic will move next. With arrival of Mario Gomez situation has changed a bit and now you can see some guidelines. How-ever, mister demands steady movements near the perimeter from German striker. Similar role had Luca Toni but he didn’t really met the ex-pectations. Gomez definitely could succeed this season.
5) If team is switching the formation from 4-3-3 to 4-3-1-2, then wingbacks have to pay big-ger attention to their defensive responsibilities. When teams goes attacking, both terzini can’t be used simultaneously in role of forward. At least one of them remains close with central defenders and is watching the back.
Spanish veteran Joaquin, who joined Fiorentina from Malaga this summer, was impressed by the training methods of Montella in pre-season. Apparently, he didn’t
expected that trainings in Italy will be almost the same, as it was in Spain. “From the first training we started to work with a ball. It’s present in almost every drill,” said the former Malaga man. Last year, Borja Valero - an-other newcomer from Pyrenees, who became one of most impressive newcomers in Serie A in season 2012/13 - said almost the same thing.
Montella isn’t trying to make the life easier for his Spanish newcomers. Such methods are the part of his managerial ideology. You can understand that if you look at thesis of his degree work, which he was defending at the Settore Tecnico FIGC. Just three days of pre-season training camp are given to es-timate the current for of players, who just have came back from their vacation. Since day four, there comes some regular drills with the ball. You can see the difference from cal-cio standards, when some footballers can only dream about the ball in pre-season.
Besides, Montella has brought some changes to Fiorentina’s youth teams, where coaches are paying more attention to the individual charac-teristics and technique of the youngsters. “Since the arrival of Montella, situation in club is very calm and peaceful,” said the captain of Viola Manuel Pasqual. Now you can’t even imagine that in front of Montella there could be any incidents, like it happened between Delio Rossi and Adem Ljajic, when manager almost killed
Fiorentina is one of the most interesting teams in Serie A this season. You can expect some surprises...
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More than several decades ago we knew such a huge country called Soviet Union or in abbreviation – USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). In this union were included all countries, which nowadays we call as post-soviet lands. Beside Russia, which created this union and dictated all the rules to be followed in this more than 22 000 000 km² big location, there were taken in all three Baltic states, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and many other countries from Eastern side of the globus. As for every country, bigger or smaller, USSR was not an exception to have its own sports sections and tournaments. It had basketball, hockey and, of course, Soviet football championship.
The Soviet Top League, known after 1970 as the Supreme League served as the top division of Soviet Union football from 1936 until 1991. It was one of the best football leagues in Europe, ranking second among the UEFA members in 1988-1989 seasons. Three of its representatives reached the finals of the European club tournaments on four occasions: FC Dynamo Kiev, FC Dynamo Tbilisi, and FC Dynamo Moscow. After Soviet Union collapsed, most part of the countries included in it had to play in their own local leagues and mostly the average playing level in these leagues was (and in some – still is) quite low. Only two countries in their own leagues later managed to save as big popularity as they had while been playing in USSR championship. Those were two biggest countries with good football traditions by history – Russia of course and Ukraine. What causes Russia, then would be wrong to say they lost a lot when quitted from Soviet tournament and continued to play seasons in Russian Premier League. Many teams stayed great as they were before – Dynamo Moscow, Spartak Moscow, CSKA Moscow, Zenit Leningrad (now – Zenit St. Petersburg). In Ukraine situation was clearly different. That time Ukraine had one clear grand – Dynamo Kiev, which won Soviet league title 13 times (all time Soviet record) and finished as runners-up 11 times. Other teams were not standing close by it success. Only one, which managed to win league couple of times, was Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk. Then once in farthest 1972 title was taken by another Ukrainian team Zorya Voroshilovgrad (now Luhansk). And that’s all. For example, Shakhtar Donetsk, team, which nowadays the football fans all around the world recognize as the TOP team in Ukraine and one of the best in Europe, didn’t manage to win any title at all then. But such team like Metalist Kharkiv was not even close such a high level team back then as it is now.
FC Metalist Kharkiv was founded in 1925, when a local locomotive construction facility (today the Malyshev Factory) pro-vided funding and allowed use of its land to start a football club. Ten years later, the club won the city of Kharkiv cham-pionship, which allowed the club to enter the USSR Cup in the following season. Following World War II, the club resumed playing in local competitions, promoting itself to the Soviet Second League B in 1947 only to be demoted three seasons later. Probably most of football fans doesn’t even know that many, many years ago Metalist Kharkiv had completely different name than it has now. From 1936 to 1945 it was called KhPZ. Later it had following names: Dzerzhinets (1947–1956), Avan-gard (1956–1965), Metallist (1965–1991) and since 1992 – FC Metalist, as we know it now.
In 1956, Metalist as Avangard returned to the Soviet Second League B replacing its city rivals Lokomotyv Khakriv. Soon thereafter it was promoted first to Soviet First League in 1958, and later to the Soviet Top League in 1960. The club stayed in Top League for 4 seasons, but was demoted to First League in 1963, continuing its decline with demotion to Second League. In 1978, the club was promoted to the Soviet First League and two years later, the club finished third in the competition nar-rowly missing promotion to the top flight. The following season, the club improved on their previous performance and won the Soviet First League outright to earn a spot in Soviet Top League. The club sustained 10 seasons of the Soviet Top League with several successes on the domestic front. In 1983, Metalist was the runner-up in the USSR Cup (losing 1–0 to Shakhtar Donetsk) and a few years later in 1988 would win the cup, beating Torpedo Moscow 2–0. As a result, Metalist Kharkiv earned a trip to the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup. Metalist only advanced to the last sixteen of the competition, beating Yugoslavian side Borac Banja Luka and losing to the Dutch club Roda JC.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the formation of an independent Ukraine, Metalist joined the inaugural sea-son of the Ukrainian Premier League in 1992. The club finished in 5th place, an achievement it would never top until the 2006–07 season, finishing in 5th place three more times since, the most notable coming during the 2001–02 season. The club finished with 40 points, on a par with FC Metalurh Zaporizhzhya and FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk for a three-way tie. Metal-ist was expected to take 4th place (and subsequently compete in the UEFA Cup) by virtue of having the best three-way head-to-head record among the three teams (which is the official tie-breaker to be used in domestic competitions), but following a protest by FC Metalurh Zaporizhzhya and an arbitrary decision by PFL (the administrative body of the UPL), FC Metalurh Zaporizhzhya was awarded 4th place on grounds that they had better head-to-head records independently against either side. Following unsuccessful protests from Metalist, a disheartened management, team and fan base would see the club finish bottom in the following season and earning a demotion to the Ukrainian First League. However, the club would return to the UPL after one season and following a financial crisis and a takeover of the club by UkrSibbank owner Oleksandr Yaroslavsky, steady investment would see Metalist show improvement and balanced performance. Yaroslavsky sold the club to new owner Serhiy Kurchenko late December 2012.
Metalist is not a typical Ukrainian team. Main part of its success belongs to foreign players and therefore before some years some fans claimed even this team to be not real Ukrainian but rather South American team. Just because in its squad are playing 5 players from Brazil, 6 players from Argentina, 1 from Senegal and then some players are not real Ukrainians as well. For example, striker Marko Devic has Ukrainian passport but his descent is Serbian. Same situation is with midfielder Edmar, only difference that he is Brazilian-born Ukrainian. So overall, if we take a look on Metalist’s starting squad, then in best case we can see there 1-2 native Ukrainians playing. And if we look at goalscorer list, then situation is even more clear – almost always main scoring performance comes from Argentinians and Brazilians. For lower level team fans (and maybe teams as well) it hurts because they know that they cannot afford such players. Metalist can. So why reproach them? Shakhtar Donetsk has similar situation, Dynamo Kiev is going same way. And this way, maybe not as patriotic, but it gives result.
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Ukraine is one of the best place for South Americans. Foreign player standing at Metalist is incredible. Usually in such teams, especially, in the post Soviet regions foreigners don’t like to stay for long. Ukraine proves it opposite. Occasions with Devic and Edmar says already a lot. But such players like defender Cristian Villagra and forward Jonathan Cristaldo are not less loyal - they both playing for the team since 2010. Then some part of foreigners – since 2011. Maybe not long time but not also short, according to situation in modern football when more than a half of players change their teams like socks. It is good sign for Metalist and Ukraine overall.
Thanks to the success in the previous season, when Metalist finished sec-ond in Ukraine, team had a chance to play qualification games for UEFA Champions League. But team didn’t manage to go so far. In the middle of August, few days before Metalist would have to play against German Schalke 04, it came clear that there will be no chance for such. UEFA charged Metalist after Court of Arbitration (CAS) for Sport up-held a five-year ban against sporting director Yevhen Krasnikov for alleged match-fixing, but the club took up an option of appealing to CAS. The ban, by the Ukrainian Football Federation, was for alleged involvement in the fixing of a 2008 Ukrainian league match with Kar-paty Lviv. UEFA disqualified the club from European competitions for the 2013-14 season but if Metalist submitted an urgent appeal to CAS, the court could have suspended sanctions, allowing the club’s debut Champions League campaign to continue. At the end it was clear that Ukraine club Metalist Kharkiv remain barred from the Champi-ons League after the rejection of an appeal against a ban for links to match-fixing. “The UEFA decision remains in force,” said the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas), which Metalist had appealed to.
Anger and lack of understanding – such could be described the feelings of Metalist management and fans after such decision. Metalist have made clear their anger at the punishment. The vice-president Kostyan-tyn Pyvovarov, in a statement on the club’s website metalist.ua, said: “We regret that such a sanction was applied, and we do not agree with it. That’s why today we plan to appeal to the court of arbitration for sport in Lausanne. Also, we have appealed to the supreme court of Switzerland with the application for suspension of CAS decision. I want to remind you that the contract match, which allegedly took place, was held back in 2008, with the old owners of the club. At the same time, Metalist has won the right to participate in the Champions League 2013-14 in a fair fight. Our team, our fans deserve to take part in the main football competition in Europe. I want to assure fans that we will fight for the rights of the club and protect them in accordance with all legal requirements.”
According to all what has been published, this situation is more than strange to say the least. Such situations, when team or player or sports-man gets banned for some dirty things that „perhaps” have been done 5-10 or more years ago, look quite stupid. If you have evidences, then put them on table right now. Otherwise it is all history and now I sup-pose all have already forgotten what happened then, in the farthest 2008 in this match. And can’t disagree with Metalist vice-president about fairness. Team struggled to get second place in league, it was hard work that was done. So it deserves to play in Eurocups. Situation turns ridiculous, when real achievements get eclipsed with some histori-cal fouls. If so accurately look at each team’s history, then there would be posible to ban more than one team, since every match can cause some suspicion, if you look at it with a dose of doubt.
No matter that this decision is foolish and unlikely it will be changed, Metalist hasn’t given up. Team still plays great in the Ukrainian Pre-mier League and for the moment pretend’s for the place in the Cham-pions League also in the next season. Let’s hope they will make it, unless till next year there won’t be found another „suspicious” match some-where and somewhen.
In the modern foot-ball there are not many ways to achieve something:
Team is with poor budget and has no chances to bring good foreing players (no achievements)
Team is millionaire-oligarch, such as Bar-celona or Bayern Mu-nich, so that they can get their best native players and pay them solid wages (but not possible variant for most of the teams)
Team has ok finances and buys foreigners to be able set some competition to clubs-oligarchs. This way belongs to most of the post Soviet teams and it has its reasons. If already in Russia it is very hard to build up one club from na-tive players only that could fight for wins in Champions League and Europa League, then in Ukraine it is even more unrealistic because of the lack of player resources. We all know that there are several thousands professional football players and millions of amateur play-ers. And all of them want to break their way to the European elite but not all man-age – their amount is too big. So in such case such teams like Shakhtar, Metalist or Portuguese Porto or Udinese even help the players abroad to bring them some chances to appear on European level and show their perfor-mance. Last two are very unique teams by the way – because of their amazing scout-ing system and of course the tactics.
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in Dortmund, when Malaga had the lead and Borussia got their ticket to the final just in a fi-nal seconds of that extra dramatic match. Un-fortunately, that was the end of an era. Era of sensational manager Manuel Pellegrini. Man, who deserves a statue near La Rosaleda sta-dium. Man, who wrote some of the finest mo-ments in the history of Andalusian club. When I visit wikpedia, I see “Al Thani era” written there. Honestly, I would like to change that to “Manuel Pellegrini era.”. Of course, new owner brought some quality players, invested money in local football academy. That’s very good. But there is one but. Al Thani was like an owner of luxury yacht. He bought that yacht and he says to his captain where he wants to go. He’s the king, no one can argue with him. But then imagine a storm... Who will save the yacht? Fancy and scared billionaire or the captain, who is a real professional and who knows how to go through the storm? I think answer is obvi-ous. Manuel Pellegrini was a proud captain of that yacht, called “Malaga Club de Futbol”. He took that yacht to the most wonderful journey and even in critical moments, he never looked afraid. Club was affected by the financial cri-sis, players weren’t happy about the situation before 2012/13 season but Pellegrini remained calm. He was the reason, why most of the vet-erans didn’t left the club, when they had such chance. They all were his faithful crew. Saviola, Demichelis, Toulalan, Julio Baptista, Joaquin and many more... What a squad!
Manuel Pellegrini joined ambitious Andalusian side in November 2010, just a few months after sheikh Abdullah ben Nasser Al Thani became the owner of this club. At time Pellegrini joined Malaga, he already had a good reputation in Spain. He had some impressive seasons with Villarreal. In his first season in charge of the club, Villarreal qualified for the UEFA Cham-pions League after finishing third in the league and thy also reached the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup. For middle class club, like Villarreal, that was a good achievement. The following season, Villarreal reached the semi-finals of the 2005/06 UEFA Champions League, losing to English side Arsenal. The following two seasons featured Villarreal finishing in both fifth and second place in the league, the latter being historic for the club. Of course, you can’t forget that he was in charge of Real Madrid. How-ever, he lacked trust and after just one season in Spanish capital, Pellegrini was replaced by the Jose Mourinho.
Ambitions and goals of Al Thani were clear. He wanted to see Malaga as a top 3 team in Spain. To stand close to Barcelona and Real Madrid. Pellegrini looked like the best option to achieve these goals. Example of Villarreal was really inspiring. With Malaga Pellegrini had a chance to build a new team, bring some qual-ity players and step by step achieve the goals. Pellegrini decided to strengthen Malaga with players like former Bayern Munich centre back Martín Demichelis and former Real Madrid midfielder Júlio Baptista. But it was just the start for Pellegrini and Malaga. Team finished 11th in his first season and biggest changes were just to come. To get into Champions League, Malaga needed some serious additions and in
pre-season before 2011/12 season, Malaga was bought famous Dutchman Ruud van Nistel-rooy, who built his legacy with Real Madrid and Manchester United. Malaga also made the most signing in the club’s history, signing Span-ish midfielder Santi Cazorla, who arrived from Villarreal in a €21 million deal. There were also some less-prominent signings. Ex-Lyon French midfielder, Jérémy Toulalan, talented young-ster Isco, former national team midfielder Joaquín Sánchez and left back Nacho Monreal, who was bought from Osasuna.
All these players formed that historic 2011/12 Malaga team, which earner the chance to play in UEFA Champions League, by finishing fourth in La Liga. Everything looked fine, but situa-tion wasn’t so simple. Already in April-May of 2012, there were some rumours that Malaga is going to face some major financial problems and Al Thani isn’t interested to invest any mon-ey in club. Rumours said that sheikh was an-gry about the unfair distribution of television rights amongst the clubs in the Spanish league, where Real Madrid and Barcelona are getting the biggest piece of cake, while other clubs get only small sums. Also, Al Thani wasn’t satisfied about how things were going with his business in Marbella. It was clear that business came the first for Al Thani and football was just a part of it. Sheikh were interested to build a new and luxury port in Puerto Banus. That would bring more than €400 million investments to Marbella but he had to face cold attitude from the local government. And then all the prob-lems started. Business was above everything and Malaga looked like a forgotten club with debts and under risk of bankruptcy. It was also a dilemma for Pellegrini...
Sensational journey of Malaga in 2012/13 UEFA Champions League season caught atten-tion of many football fans and experts. I think many still re-member that amazing night
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Management of Malaga did all they could to sell some of their leading players and at least get back some of the money that was invested and keep the club alive before their Cham-pions League debut. Pellegrini remained in Malaga. He was something, like a guarantee for everyone that this club is still alive and it still can produce some good football. I saw and heard a lot of rumours that summer and situation looked very slick. One step and you’re down...
Santi Cazorla and Salomon Rondon were sold in Summer 2012. Pellegrini had to re-build squad without any money available for the transfers. He could only bring the players on free transfer or on loan. And he did that. Manuel Iturra, Javier Saviola, Roque Santa Cruz, Lucas Piazón, Diego Lugano and few more players were joining Malaga in summer and winter transfer window. Team lost some strength and depth of their squad but there was no time for panic, as soon Malaga faced Greek Panathinaikos in a UEFA Champions League play-off round. Málaga successfully progressed to latter stages of the Champions League, where they were drawn against A.C. Milan, Zenit Saint-Petersburg and Beldian side Anderlecht.
Historical Champions League journey saw it’s start in Malaga against Zenit Saint-Petersburg. Russian side was strengthened by such players, as Hulk and Axel Witsel. Many thought that Malaga gonna be clear outsider in this group. Milan and Zenit should take their tickets to the play-off’s. Anderlecht and Malaga gonna bat-tle for the third place and chance to play in Europa League knockout stage. Huh.
18 September 2012. Zenit arrives to Malaga to earn their first points from this crisis affected Spanish side. But everything goes the wrong way for the Russians. Malaga needed just a three minutes to open the score and take a lead. Young Spanish sensation Isco shined throughout the match, scored two goals and proved to Europe that Malaga is alive! That wasn’t just a lucky match. Malaga was show-ing some disciplined and very well-organized football. Fans definitely enjoyed this game and European press was now paying some atten-tion to relatively unknown Spanish side.
Malaga progressed to the knockout stage un-beaten, winning three and drawing three in the group stage. No one could beat this team. Zenit failed to do that, Milan failed. It was a massive surprise, but still a pure class from Mal-aga players and their manager.
Despite entering knockout stage as the under-dogs, Malaga looked very calm and confident. In matches against Porto they were simply careful, but you couldn’t see any fear in their eyes. Pellegrini did a great job to motivate his veterans. They all came to Malaga with various goals and motivation but Pellegrini took the best he could out of them. All players looked inspired, hungry for the victories. That’s very impressive, if you keep in tour mind that most these players have played for the strongest European teams and seen almost everything. Memorable matches, trophies and also disap-pointments. In Malaga, they didn’t looked at the numbers, written in their passport. They came together to enjoy this Champions League journey and prove that there’s still some qual-ity left in those “old bodies”.
After beating Porto in 1/8 final, Malaga went to meet another rising European sensation of 2012/13 season - Borussia Dortmund. Both meetings were hard, nervous and very dra-matic. Especially, the match in Dortmund. Honestly, it’s was one of the most memorable games in my life. Amazing emotions for the Borussia fans, tears and very painful end of journey for the Malaga fans and players. Semi-final against Real Madrid was so close...
No one was surprised that Pellegrini was going to leave Malaga after the end 2012/13 season. Andalusians finished sixth in La Liga, qualifying for the next season’s Europa League edition. Unfortunately, club still had (and has) the fi-nancial problems and debts. Later there came the ban from UEFA and exclusion from Euro-pean competitions. Era of Pellegrini was over...
Malaga and Pellegrini probably won’t meet again in future. That was a unique story of love, drama and passion. Story, which was a clear proof that you can’t buy everything for money. Chemistry, discipline and passion comes first. Now it’s time for changes. Management of Malaga is trying to re-build their squad and somehow found the way out of all these bans from UEFA. They need to get past crisis, find new heroes, new challenges and maybe one day Malaga will again shine on European stage. Manuel Pellegrini is now in charge of another ambitious project - Manchester City. Management of English side are expecting titles from Chilean and I have a good feeling that Pellegrini could bring some moments of glory to Manchester once again. Maybe they finally gonna shine in Europe? What can I say more? Good luck, Mister!
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Summer 2013/2014 has ended and now we can take a look back into it and rate some stuff what has happened. Summer ending in every case means also ending of summer transfer period epop-ee in the football world. There is no summer, when nothing happens at all in the transfer mar-ket events of football. This summer was not an exception and a lot of interesting has happened and done. Since transfers generally are in a huge amount, we will take a look only at the most impres-sive and loudest ones. Let’s take a look at them and talk about summer signings in succession.
England. English Premier League in this midseason has been very, very active. From all the leagues it got the highest expenditure on all players, in total wasting 760.830.000 euros for transfers. The biggest thanks to it comes by Manchester City – team didn’t feel sorry to spend a lot of money for players, who are notable in the world of football. Brazilian midfielder from Ukrainian Shakhtar Donetsk Fernandinho for 40 million euros, Sevilla attack-ing type duo Jesus Navas and Alvaro Negredo accordingly for 20 and 25 millions and striker Stevan Jovetic for 26 mil-lions. Spend more than 100 millions on 4 players sounds very impressive and despite for the moment team has not the best results in Premierleague, newcomers Navas and Negredo have already proved that they are worth the money City has paid for them. Will be interesting to see, how all these players will play during the season. But of course, team had to say good-bye to some of the players as well and one of the most known such players is Carlos Tevez. Argentinian went to Italian side Juventus for 9 million euros and in my opinion, it is the best what could happen with him, City and Juventus. In England Tevez was not happy, despite he scored a lot of goals and also City players often seemed not to feel comfort-able with him in the squad. Carlod often said he wants to play somewhere in the south and now his dream has come true. Juventus needed such type striker as well. Now they got it. Prognoses – Tevez will prove himself great in Italy.
who will have to learn and learn to somewhen understand United philosophy and Ferguson’s left heritage for him.
Very active in the transfer market has been also Chelsea. Team from London, headed by legendary Jose Mourinho, who got his second attempt at the club after spending years in Italy and Spain, made several loud signings and with each game seems to look better and better. First signing was German side’s Bayer Leverkusen striker Andre Schurrle for 22 millions but later, with a „help” of Anzhi de-struction, for 35,5 millions was bought Brazilian midfielder Willian and lately, by a free transfer was taken famous Cameronian striker Samuel Eto’o. Absolutely great signing for Chelsea team, which makes coache’s Jose Mourinho’s job bit easier. Now he has more opportunities how to vari-ate with strikers and midfielders in the team and he has got different players as well. Eto’o, Lampard, Torres are more experienced, while such like Oscar, Willian or Haz-ard are still quite young players, who can progress in fu-ture. Future for Chelsea seems bright, opposite future of Anzhi – if we already mentioned them, then must finish at the same time. Team seemed to build up as one of the strongest not only in Russia but Europe, within time. Now this dream has been blown up like a bubble – because of financial problems team was forced to sell out all their best players, such like Willian, Igor Denisov, Lassana Di-arra, Yuri Zhirkov, Christopher Samba, Samuel Eto’o and
england was the
biggest spender
this summerThe toughest rivals of City, another Manchester club United, were not as close as active in the transfer market. With their legendary coach Ser Alex Ferguson departure, team in the head of new coach David Moyes made just one loud signing – former Everton midfielder Marouane Fellaini. He costed for the team bit more than 32 mil-lions and obviously for the moment hasn’t found himself clearly in the team. It is understandable – every new-comer needs adaption time, same as head coach Moyes,
many more. In few words with these transfers team an-nounced that it is almost dead. At least no talk can go about some achievements. Revenue for Anzhi in this summer more than 133 millions euro, clear profit more than 70 millions. In normal situation no team would do such, but Anzhi had to. Sad, because teem seemed with quite solid perspectives.
Finishin Premier League transfers, big things happened at Arsenal camp. Or actually a thing. As usually, head coach Arsene Wenger was quite passive and didn’t give much hopes to the fans about any signings. Noone believed as well. But then in the last days came big shock, thunder from clear heaven – Arsenal announced about signing Real Madrid player Mesut Ozil for 50 million euros. It was completely unexpected transfer, at the same time prov-ing old saying – you can if you want. Wenger seems really
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wanted it and team management accepted his wishes, saying – if you want, then here are 50 millions and go and buy him. Arsene bought and now it will be very interest-ing and exciting to look at Ozil, how will he find himself in Premier League and especially – at Arsenal. I expect clear improvements in the attacking line for Arsenal because Ozil is one of the TOP 5 midfielders in the world. At least by my thoughts. Such player can’t be invisible and not give any benefit for the team overall.
Finally, the last one most active team in England was Tot-tenham Hostpur. Roberto Soldado and Erik Lamela for 30 millions, Paulinho from Corinthians for more than 19 millions and young talent Christian Eriksen from Ajax for more than 13 millions. Sounds a lot for such team like Tot-tenham? It would be, unless one insane transfer for them, which gave even more insane revenue. But about it bit later.
In Italy didn’t happen as much as in England but still some interesting transfers were done. Champions Juventus, with signing of Carlos Tevez, also added Federico Peluso and talented Nigerian defender Angelo Ogbonna to their squad. Some players, for example, Alessandro Matri and Felipe Melo left the team, but overall to rate Juventus for the present day, I would say they have become even stronger. Most powerful players are still in the squad and now also Tevez, who can become a really great striker if just he has all fine with morale.
One of the most active teams in Italy was Napoli, team, which spent 86 million euros in total. 37 millions went for Gonzalo Higuain, 12 millions for Raul Albiol and 9,5 for Jose Maria Callejon. All three former Real Madrid footballers were one of the most expensive for Napoli, as well as Dries Mertens from PSV Eindhoven for 9,7 millions euro. At the same time team lost their scoring machine, leader and soul Edinson Cavani, who was sold to Paris Saint Germain for 64,5 million euros. However, for the moment Napoli doesn’t look a team which lost its leader and now don’t know what to do. They play exciting attacking football and so far are in the leading group in the Serie A. I suppose Cavani can’t be more than 3 good strikers and 1 stable de-fender. So with this transfer Napoli got their right ticket to good performance. One of the best summer transfer activ-ities provided Fiorentina. Thanks to the transfer of Jovetic, team got some financial sources, and thanks to them got such players like Mario Gomez, Juan Cuadrado and Josip Ilicic. And immediately many experts put the team in the leading group and so far they are not wrong. Two victories out of two in Italy and group stage in Europa League is not little.
Quite active has been also AS Roma. After losing a lot of important players (Erik Lamela, Bojan Krkic, Maarten Stekelenburg and 19 years old Brazilian talent Marquinhos
sold to PSG for 31, 4 millions), team had to get some re-placements back. Maybe those were not as loud as those who left, but still Kevin Strootman from PSG, Mehdi Bena-tia from Udinese and Adem Ljajic from Fiorentina are good signings to strengthen team for the Italian Serie A matches.
If we look bit in France, then there situation seems differ-ent. Usual average clubs mostly buy players from other Ligue 1 teams and not for big money. But since in France appeared PSG and now seems also Monaco – teams, which have quite big financial fundament, then they take play-ers for huge sums from other clubs. I already mentioned PSG, which bought Edinson Cavani for 64,5 millions, new talent Marquinhos for more than 31 million and also Lucas Digne, former Lille defender for 15 millions. Team let go just Mamadou Sakho for 19 millions to Liverpool. Direc-tion seems same as for most TOP clubs – buy players for big sums and from foreign leagues. Only at the moment team doesn’t look that great. It had lost several points in France and struggled to win newcomer Guingamp, at the same time game which they show for the moment doesn’t make any happiness as well. Too much stars in the team, not right one coach? There are many factors which can affect the team negatively. Will PSG manage to jump out from this hole, time will show.
More harder life for PSG surely will make AS Monaco. Team was promoted from the Ligue 2 this season to Ligue 1 and immediately let to know they are not here just to survive. They will fight for the title. James Rodriguez from Porto for 45 millions, Joao Moutinho for 25 millions, Geof-frey Kondogbia from Sevilla for 20 millions and, of course, Radamel Falcao for 60 millions from Atletico Madrid. All these signings came one after the another and now it is clear that Monaco is not just a team from words. With all these stars in the squad, Monaco has showed good per-formance so far and stands in the leading group of Ligue 1. Seems for France it was needed to have 2 such „grand teams” to swing this tournament bit up and raise some more interest from abroad. Because, as I said before, all other teams mostly made meaningless transfers, spending not even close as much money as did PSG and Monaco. Maybe in future also other teams will become more richer.
In Spain all transfer things happened as usual. The big-gest sums spent two biggest teams in Spain and maybe in the world as well – Barcelona and Real Madrid. First ones shooted first, spending 57 million euros for talented Bra-zilian striker, legendary Pele successor by other thoughts Neymar. Real Madrid at the same time answered with powerful cannon shooting. First signing of former Malaga player Isco for 30 millions and Real Sociedad Asier Illar-ramendi for almost 40 but at the end boastful spit in the face for other clubs and football world overall – the most expensive transfer in the world so far by the signing of
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Tottenham Hotspur’s Gareth Bale. Much or a lot are not the right words here but insanely, insanely much seems suits – 100 millions. Maybe I sound too negative or without clear understanding but such huge money to spend for a player who still hasn’t proved himself in the longer period of time and also unknown if he will ever find himself in the Spanish La Liga... Well, there are no more comments left to say than just admit it is Real Madrid and Real’s style.
According to expanditures, Germany was the less ac-tive in this summer from all TOP 5 leagues. If not three Dortmund’s signings, about which we already discussed in previous magazine number (Sokratis, Mkhitaryan and Aubameyang) and also Bayern signings – Mario Gotze for 37 millions and Thiago Alcantara from Barcelona for 25 millions, all other teams seemed to be quite passive. Similar as in France, in Germany happened a lot of that called „local” transfers, where player from one German team moves to another. From such more international transfers in Germany needed to admit Schalke 04 signing of Kevin-Prince Boateng. Former AC Milan striker costed 15 millions for the German team, but he seems to be a
great one signing so far. Beside basical Schalke squad he looks great and doesn’t disappear. It is a good sign.
We discussed about signings, how many millions spent that and that team for that and that player. Meanwhile Dutch highest league Eredivisie has beated all European leagues by clear income. It spent just 35 millions but got in revenue 146 millions. Clear profit – slightly more than 110 millions euro. Dutch league proves it once again where the most talented scouts and managers are working. And of course, players. Even if revenue is almost 5 times smaller than in such Spain for example, according to spendings and players who play in Eredivisie, it still easily beats Spain by gaining a bigger clear profit. Naturally, in TOP 5 leagues there are different sums of wages, of transfers, different attendance of games and so on. But that makes this fact even more important – that despite Dutch Eredivisie is smaller than those and Russian Premier League, it still raises more and more talents that get sold for fine money. Probably within Portuguese league, Eredivisie is the last one which thinks more about football and business. All what you read before, more or less, is comparison of... different measurements.
