The Secret Footballer.

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about 15 years ago · edited over 13 years ago
The Secret Footballer.
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about 15 years ago · edited over 13 years ago
Bloody good read. Cheers mate.
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about 15 years ago · edited over 13 years ago
I like this bit:

Switch to our world and the level of detail that goes into games still, to this day, amazes me. Every player has his own script, what to do, when to do it, information on the player he's up against, including weight, height, age, strengths, weaknesses, even what that opponent is likely to do when the ball comes to him in certain situations. We memorise every single set piece, where we have to stand, run and end up. We even memorise this for the other players so we know where everyone else will be at any given time.

You know that pass when you say to yourself: "How did he spot that?" Often he didn't need to; he knew the player would be there because, the night before in the hotel, he read about the runs he would be making.

It's exactly the same pass after which sometimes you might find yourself saying: "Who was that to?" The receiving player either forgot to be there or was taken out of the game by a tactical manoeuvre by his opposite number.

Football at this level is very chess-like, maybe not to those outside of football but certainly to those inside. I sometimes wonder whether it's more enjoyable playing lower down the leagues. After all, who wants to play chess?

With top-level football being so complex, it is very difficult to deconstruct a live game within a couple of minutes of it being over, and because of this the "analysis" is usually reduced to goals and individual performance. But the fact that many pundits don't even try to scratch beneath the surface, despite knowing what it takes to win a match at this level, annoys me. It's the trivialisation of what we do by people that we used to call our own and, more importantly, deprives the viewer of some very interesting tit-bits that would, I feel, add to the entertainment.

Anyone can navigate a giant iPad, sliding faces of famous players around with their pinkie while throwing out phrases like "Third man run" and other such rubbish. What particularly riles me is when you hear a pundit or co-commentator say something like, "I can't understand, Martin, why Drogba is not on the post here. That header would have fallen to him and if I'm Petr Cech I'm saying: 'Go on son, clear that off the line for me!'"

The fact is corners are routinely cleared by a man stationed on the six-yard line, exactly where Chelsea position Didier Drogba. If somebody scores inside that post it is for no other reason than a player having lost his man. That is the mistake. If there is a player on the post he will clear one, possibly two shots off the line a season. If that same player stands on the six-yard line he will probably clear 100 corners away over the course of the season.

The worst thing, though, is when this dross gets into popular culture and my friends start saying stupid things to me like, "We should have a man on the post, our manager doesn't know what he's doing", just because it sounds like the right thing to say. It's such an easy way of analysing that it infuriates me. It's lazy and it takes you, the viewer, for a fool. But, then again, Sky is an expert in creating a villain.
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about 15 years ago · edited over 13 years ago
The late Sir Bobby Robson used to do those dossiers for Ipswich Town and England!
Proud to have attended the first 175 Consecutive "Home" Wellington Phoenix "A League" Games !!

The Ruf, The Ruf, The Ruf is on Fire!!

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about 15 years ago · edited over 13 years ago
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/mar/05/bosman-ruling?commentpage=all#start-of-comments

Some speculation about the author- suggestion they may be kiwi or aussie based on language, and references to floods and earthquakes....

Ryan Nelsen?
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almost 15 years ago · edited over 13 years ago
In the last column, he seems to imply he's English - "England players have, on occasions, been criticised for not being as "streetwise" in tournaments as other nations. Yet what we lack in technical ability we make up for with an unwritten ethical code."
 
The column before that he tried to get too clever, using evolutionary theory as a premise....except his very poor understanding of evolution and the clumsy analogies were a huge distraction to what he was actually trying to say. Footballers should probably avoid using science analogies unless they have a grasp of fundamental concepts!
 
Still, a good column overall. FourFourTwo (the original, not the AU version) has the same thing with a column by "The Professional" every month. Makes for interesting reading.
SiNZ2011-05-07 11:38:21
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almost 15 years ago · edited over 13 years ago
Yes, and he also says he moved from one premier league club to another so it couldn't be Nelsen, Emerton, Grella etc
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almost 15 years ago · edited over 13 years ago
Latest article mentions putting Microphones on ref for the world to hear. Not a bad idea.

Oh, and found this gem or a website in the comments Who is the Secret Footballer?
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almost 15 years ago · edited over 13 years ago
The "secret" has been found out, in certain parts of the internet anyway.

If you look hard enough, you'll find it.

Three for me, and two for them.

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almost 15 years ago · edited over 13 years ago
Buffon II wrote:
The ipad cases"secret" has been found out,ipad 2 Chargers in certain partsiPad 2 cases of the internet anyway.

If you look hard enough, you'll find it.



Anyone can navigate a giant iPad, sliding faces of famous players around with their pinkie while throwing out phrases like "Third man run" and other such rubbish. What particularly riles me is when you hear a pundit or co-commentator say something like, "I can't understand, Martin, why Drogba is not on the post here. That header would have fallen to him and if I'm Petr Cech I'm saying: 'Go on son, clear that off the line for me!'" undertake2011-05-27 15:43:26
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