Let the games begin!

The Olympic football is going to be brilliant! There I said it.

You would be forgiven for thinking that these tournaments were nothing special given the negativity of the mainstream media and the thousands of unsold tickets. You’d be forgiven, but you’d be wrong.

I’ll start by addressing the myriad of mistakes made by the FA, LOCOG, Team GB an Stuart Pearce before ending on a high and telling you why it will be great despite them.

Tickets, tickets, tickets

Most sane and rational people (I like to think I can count myself among them) can see the numerous inherent flaws in the London 2012 ticketing system. With Olympic football it’s even worse. I will break this section down into a list.

1. Olympic football tickets went on sale before the draw for the tournament was made. That’s right, they expected tickets to sell for fixtures that hadn’t been announced. This also ensured that there was no initial burst of sales when the draw was made.

2. Speaking of the draw, it received less attention than the Challenge Cup does in England. Nothing says underwhelming than ignoring all opportinities for pre-tournament excitement.

3. Despite a lack of sales, all olympic sports were treated the same and there were periods when tickets could not be bought. Fair enough for the 100m final but when you have half empty stadia maybe just leave ticket sales open.

4. You cannot specify which stand you want to sit in nevermind which seat. For those who are going to see some of the football at Hampden like me, this matters.

5. The pricing structure is weird, unjust and hard to fathom. Under 16s and over 60s get a concession on the two lower tiers of tickets but not the top tier. Don’t want kids and codgers rubbing shoulders with the corporate types do we? Also, bizarrely given the state of the economy, there are no concessions offered for students, the unwaged or disabled people. Twenty pounds is a reasonable price for a ticket but what were they thinking trying to offload them at forty and fifty quid.

Team “GB”

So that’s the organising side. Let’s look at Team GB who we’re meant to be getting behind. They should have been called Team UK so as not to exclude Northern Ireland and in the end for the men’s football they are Team England & Wales.

I have to say I’m glad there are no Scots in the team and I will feel sorry for Wales when Blatter uses this in the future to get rid of their national team. For many others however the lack of any Scottish or Northern Irish players is a big turn off. I find it hard to believe there were none willing who were good enough. Even a token gesture might have persuaded cynics like me. But no. Pearce doesn’t get it.

His role is not to win Olympic gold, it’s to make us care about an under 23 football tournament. Which is why another mistake he made was leaving Beckham out. I’m no fan of Beckham but I will happily admit that the guy has done his bit to support the olympics. Picking him would have been a little reward and also would maybe have shifted some tickets to tourists who don’t know much about British football but have heard of David Beckham.

Pearce could only pick 3 overage players and I think Giggs and Bellamy are fair enough but Micah Richards? He is a good enough player but he’s 24! A year over the age limit, Pearce could have picked any player from four countries as his third overage player and he picked a 24 year old defender. Maybe he just hates Beckham or football or Scottish people. Who knows?

They know FA

With what wisdom did the FA reach the decision where they excluded players who had played in England’s four games in June from competing in the Olympics? Pearce has avoided making popular team selections and the FA have prevented him from making the best team selections. No Walcott or Oxelaide-Chamberlain in this side!

It does then beg the question – what are the men’s team hoping to achieve?

Corinthian spirit

On the bright side Team GB women’s team could actually do something in this tournament. The continuing professionalisation of the Women’s game globally including the Super League in England means that the standard is higher than ever. For all of the cynics, hacks and past it pundits who deride women’s football I say bring ten friends and we can test this Billie Jean King style. Team GB’s opening match will be the first televised event of the olympics – watch it and judge for yourself.

Then of course we have some genuine class amongst the talent in the men’s game. No less than three Euro 2012 winners – Mata, Alba and Martinez – will be in the Spanish squad playing at Hampden on Thursday. They’re up against Japan so it should be an interesting game. Other sides have also gone the way of Spain rather than Team GB bringing squads to win and not appeasing their league clubs.

Another great thing is double headers. Two matches back to back on some if the dates. It’s a feast of international football. It’s an opportunity to see a mix of international stars and teams from countries you’ve never seen play in your country before.

Hampden will be hosting a Women’s quarter final but sadly none of the men’s tournament beyond the group stages.

Olympic football is going to be great.

Back home they’ll be thinking about you

Today we see the first foray of Scottish teams into European competition as St. Johnstone head to Turkey to take on Eskişehirspor in the Europa League’s second qualifying round. The odds are not stacked in favour of the Perth Saints but they should take heart from an earlier result this week. The New Saints held out for a goalless draw against Helsingborg at Park Hall on Tuesday against similar odds so all hope is not yet lost. I saw the last fifteen minutes of the game on Channel 4’s Welsh channel S4C and was pleasantly surprised to see that English commentary was available. I wonder in BBC Alba will take note when they cover Brechin City against Rangers in the Challenge Cup?

Should St. Johnstone manage to get through the round they will enter the third qualifying round, again unseeded, and so will find themselves in the same position as Dundee United. In this round there are numerous opponents that would certainly seal either team’s fate but would undoubtedly lead to a sell out home game which would be very welcome in uncertain financial times. Liverpool, Inter, Athletic Bilbao (last year’s runners up) and Dynamo Moscow are among known seeded teams in this round.

Still events could also fall in their favour because the seeding is allocated based on the seeding in the previous round. For instance, the winner of Twente’s second round tie will be seeded in round 3 regardless of whether or not they win it meaning that should they lose to an unlikely upset by Finland’s Inter Turku, the complexion of the draw changes greatly. In fact more than half of the seeded places in the third qualifying round are distributed like this creating the chance that unseeded clubs could be drawn against clubs who are even further down the rankings.

UPDATE: SPLstats has done a rather good blog about Dundee United’s European campaign. This gives a bit more insight and detail and includes information on the draw group – of the teams I mentioned above, only Liverpool could be drawn against Dundee United and the winner of St. Johnstone’s tie avoid all of them but are now more likely to face meeting Marseille or Sparta Prague who are amongst the seeded teams in their draw group. As it transpires – neither could face the winner of Twente’s tie so my hypothetical was badly chosen!

Should St Johnstone survive again and Dundee United make it through their first tie they’ll join Hearts in the play off round. There is no danger of Hearts facing Spurs again (they enter at the group stage) but depending on seedings it could be English opposition again in the form of Newcastle. If any team can get past this stage they are in the Europa League proper and guaranteed three more home ties and European football up until December. Of course in this round more big teams enter including those who have been knocked out of the Champions League third qualifying round (where Celtic and Motherwell start their campaigns).

The Champions League is of some more importance than usual this season. For one, I will agree with Craig Burley on one point, Celtic will be flying the flag for Scotland in Europe as our only “big team” remaining. Secondly, Scotland’s coefficient has dropped such that there won’t be a Champions League place for the second placed team in the SPL this year so Motherwell better make the most of it! Motherwell’s fate is the most certain due to the separation of champions and non-champions at this stage of the competition. They will face one of four opponents: Dynamo Kyiv, Panathinaikos, FC Copenhagen or Fenerbahçe. If they lose they will drop to the Europa League play off round and be one tie away from the group stage. If they win they enter the Champions League play off round and find themselves in the interesting position in European football where winning the tie puts them in the Champions League group stage and losing puts them in the Europa League group stage. So Motherwell have at least two ties ahead of them and as long as they win one, they’ll be progressing in Europe.

At this stage it’s impossible to say who Celtic will face as so much is unknown but as they are seeded in the third round draw for league champions.Given Maribor’s 4-1 first leg win they look certain to progress as an unseeded team meaning Celtic could face the team that put Rangers out of the Europa League last year. One team Celtic certainly won’t face is The New Saints. If they can go to Sweden and win they will take Helsingborg’s place as a seeded team in the third round.

Best of luck to all five teams. I wish them well and hope they can do something to improve Scotland’s standing in Europe and generate much needed revenue.

We’re all going on our summer holidays (because we play in the SPL)

As the Euro 2012 squads were finalised yesterday, I thought I’d take a look at which SPL stars would be lining up in Poland and Ukraine. After all, every two years we watch the Euros or World Cup and the sports pages of the Record are filled with players linked to Celtic and Rangers. Maybe we’ll see it a bit less this time round but it stands to reason that these sides must feature some of the top players in Scotland, doesn’t it?

Well lets take a look. I think we can claim four SPL players at Euro 2012 if we’re generous. All of them are at Celtic, sort of. Samaras is at least pretty clear cut, Brozek is on loan at Celtic, O’Dea is on loan from Celtic (at Leeds) and Lustig has played five games since signing in January. So with Greece, Poland, Ireland and Sweden, will we see any SPL player beyond the group stages?

Compared with the English Championship (taking into account this season’s promotions and relegations) the SPL’s representation pales in comparison. A rough count puts the number of Championship player at Euro 2012 at nine, more than double the SPL tally.

Now it would be oversimplifying things greatly to say that having capped players is the only factor that determines the strength of a league. However, when we look at the Scotland squad who lamentably went down 5-1 to the USA, we see that only seven of those twenty-two players are at SPL clubs – given that performance maybe we should be grateful!

The reason for all of this is clear, that any player who has real ability packs their bags and goes elsewhere either because they want to play on a bigger stage or because their club can’t turn down the money. Often they go to England as Jelavic did in January but some, like McGeady, head off to more exotic leagues where the petro-dollars make for big wages.

Countries of a similar size to Scotland who have qualified – Ireland, Croatia, Denmark – show the same pattern with a large number of their top players playing in the leagues of bigger European neighbours. So there is no obvious answer to how we could convince top Scottish players to play in the SPL. What is obvious is that the SPL needs to get better, not just to attract the money into the game that would keep the top players but to give them the level of football that they want to play.

Too many decision about the game in Scotland have been about short term financial interests. I have no problem with financial interests coming into it, the game needs money to survive, but we have to have some sort of vision for the future. We need a more competitive league that more people want to come and watch. It’s astoundingly simple but hold it up against some of the decisions that have been made in the past and you’ll see we are not always working towards that goal.

I’m steering clear of discussing Rangers too often at the moment as there are likely to be further developments but I do hope that some lessons can be learned about how our game is structured from that unfortunate saga.

UPDATE (1/6/12): O’Dea has officially left Celtic ahead of the tournament

Jim Jefferies – above or below Par?

Now that the season is over we can take a look at that most unfortunate of creatures. A yo-yo club. This year’s SPL new arrivals Dunfermline are leaving us after just one season in the top flight. This isn’t the first and probably won’t be the last time it happens.

I can sympathise with Pars fans. It happened to St. Mirren in 2000-01, in a large part due to having to upgrade Love Street to a 10,000 seater which was required by the SPL at the time in their infinite wisdom. These days 6,000 seats does the job for them. It was four years before St. Mirren played in the SPL again – there is a reason why they call the First Division “Alcatraz”.

Dunfermline had been staring down the barrel of the gun for some time and had it not been for Hibs woeful season (barring the Scottish Cup), relegation would have been confirmed some time ago. Funny things happen when teams are facing the drop and one of the oddest is that they sack the manager. I’m a little bit old-school when it comes to this side of things but I tend to think the eleven men on the pitch are the ones who determine whether your team wins, loses or draws. Either that or Roberto Di Matteo is actually the world’s greatest manager.

So you can see where I’m going with this. Why does anyone think it’s a good idea to change the manager with a handful of games to go?

Fair play to Dunfermline though, at least they had a plan and brought in an experienced ex-SPL manager in the form of Jim Jefferies. Down south, Wolves made a managerial change which confounded everyone and the results which followed surprised no one.

So how does Jefferies stack up against the man he replaced Jim McIntyre, the man who built the Dunfermline team that won promotion to the SPL in the first place. Fortunately (for the purposes of this blog, not the good of the game – I’ll discuss that in the future) due to the structure of the SPL we can compare the precise fixtures Dunfermline played under Jefferies with those played under McIntyre. All in all he was in charge for their last eight games in the SPL: St. Mirren (H), Dundee United (A), Hearts (H), St. Mirren (A), Aberdeen (H), Inverness Caledonian Thistle (A), Hibernian (A), Kilmarnock (H).

So let’s look at how McIntyre did with those fixtures earlier in the season. Well as it turns out, not so bad. Two wins (Dundee United, Hibs) and four draws (St. Mirren, Inverness, Aberdeen and Kilmarnock) to give ten points and a goal difference of negative one.

Now under Jefferies, the Pars achieved their first home win of the season against an increasingly pathetic Aberdeen on the back of an 8 goal thriller of a draw at St. Mirren Park. However in the crunch game against Hibs, they got wiped out by four goals to nil (or three to nil if we had goal line technology or competent officials). Still given they had a mountain to climb when he took over surely relegation was always the more likely outcome?

Well, let’s look at the stats for the last eight games. One win (Aberdeen) and three draws (St. Mirren – twice, Inverness) to give six points and a goal difference of negative six.

Now the conclusion to draw here is not the Jefferies is a worse manager than McIntyre. Who is better requires a greater depth of analysis than this and perhaps next season in the first division will also help us form an opinion. The conclusion I draw is that Dunfermline have certainly gained nothing from the managerial change in the short term – this much is borne out by the fact they have been relegated. But further to that, they have got rid of the man who built them up and got them promoted from the first division and replaced him with a man whose last experience of the first division was in 1994.

Jefferies is an experienced manager and he was successful in the old Division One back then getting Falkirk promoted (one point ahead of Dunfermline interestingly enough) but he is used to managing SPL teams and a league where a top six finish is good enough for most. In the first division it’s first or nothing.

A small caveat I’d like to note at the end is that some may point to teams facing relegation having poorer form towards the end of a season for a variety of reasons thus making the comparison unfair. To them I say Wigan.

If you know the history …

As the sale of Rangers appears to be coming to a close, it seems timely to discuss what this means for the history of the club.

In summary, the plan is this: Bill Miller creates a NewCo and pays the administrators for Rangers’ assets – the stadium, training facility and players. There is some dispute over whether the players have to transfer to the NewCo but lets leave that aside for now.

This leaves behind Old Rangers, still in administration and owned by Craig Whyte and now with somewhere in the region of £11million extra to wave at creditors in the hope of achieving a CVA.

Now if the CVA goes ahead then all is well and assuming Bill Miller can acquire Craig Whyte’s shareholding then he can marry the NewCo who have the assets and Old Rangers who have the history.

However.

If the creditors do not accept the CVA and Old Rangers is liquidated then their history is gone and so is any chance to play in Europe for the next three years (due to UEFA’s rule that a club must have been playing for three years before entry into European competition). On the SPL front, it looks increasingly like Rangers will be there next year no matter what happens as it seems business interests have already trumped sporting integrity. It hasn’t been formalised and I would be happy to be proven wrong but I think Rangers NewCo will be in the SPL if Old Rangers are liquidated.

Some will argue, that a team who plays in blue, called Rangers, at Ibrox is still the same club and has the same history. Not so. The precedent has already been established in Scottish football and it happened this season. In the Challenge Cup Final.

How you may ask does Falkirk (founded 1876) beating Hamilton Academical (founded 1874) 1-0 to win the Challenge Cup tell us anything about preserving history in Scottish football? Well, it doesn’t or at least not in itself. This statement featured in many places including in this BBC article does though “The Bairns become the first club to win the Challenge Cup for a fourth time.”

So no other club has won the cup four times? Except Airdrie, if we were to recognise Airdrie United (founded 2002) as an unbroken continuation of Airdrieonians (dissolved 2002). But as the statement shows – we don’t. Airdrieonians won the cup three times and Airdrie United once but when it is separate entities you don’t just add them together and so Falkirk are the first team to win it four times.

This means, if a CVA cannot be achieved, the next time Rangers win the league it will be the first time not the 55th. The next time they win the Scottish Cup it will be the first time not the 34th. The next time they win the League Cup it will be the first time not the 28th. This of course may not happen in the first season due to ongoing financial problems.

The NewCo will also not have Old Rangers single European honour and should not dare to play with five stars on their shirt. All of this is clearly why the Blue Knights have made so much of their desire to only proceed with a CVA and why Bill Miller’s silence on the subject speaks volumes.

It’s going to be Rangers next year (probably), but not as we know them.