2012 Euro's, who's your money on?

So yet another exciting international tournament is upon us with the prospect of another English disappointment as the competition is at tremendously fierce height. Although we have a lot of fresh and encouraging young talent in contention for a place in the starting XI, I fear their inexperience at international level may serve as a hindrance when faced with the more adept European teams such as Germany or Spain, regardless of our most recent and hard earned one nil victory over the world cup champions, these I fear are not the least of our worries.

Regarding the two most obvious, previously stated, Spain having won the 2010 world cup have also  come through the qualifiers conceding merely 6 goals and without losing a match, they are in no doubt definite contenders for the European title. They have a fantastically strong and versatile team, the pass masters of Europe Xavi and his Barcelona partner Iniesta are an unstoppable duo in central midfield, creating chances that other players might have deemed impossible, unfortunately for the rest of the world they’re not the only two creative maestros at Spain’s disposal with David Silva and Cesc Fabregas the at the front of an extremely long cue of replacements. Their inform free kick and strike expert David Villa could quite possibly be out of the spot light after suffering a broken leg during Barcelona’s European club world cup domination, hopefully Fernando Torres can find his free scoring feet again in time! Altogether a very hard team to beat but Germany I feel are the strongest contenders to do so.

Also having come through the qualifiers without losing a match, Germany has been a team with significant improvement visible in all aspects over the past few years. With many of their players hailing from the same club side it’s no surprise that they seem to understand one and other very well with an extreme ambition to win. A very exciting young player to watch from their side is one Mesut Ozil, now plying his trade at Spain’s Real Madrid he’s obviously come a long way in his game since his very impressive explosion onto the international scene during the world cup, It’s my hope we shall get to see an even more exciting and even younger talent in the form of Mario Götze, put these two in midfield together and they will be causing problems non-stop, all over the shop.

Having reached the final at the last world cup the Netherlands unsurprisingly it seems have been in flying form during the qualifiers, having lost just one game by one goal, racked up some incredible results including a sixteen nil win on aggregate, over the significantly less skilled side of San Marino. They’re top scorer being Klaas-Jan Huntelaar with an impressive twelve goals out of their total 34, in just ten games! Thinking about the players in their starting XI that will stand with him on the pitch is quite daunting, with names such as red hot Robin Van Persie, Arjen Robben, Dirk Kuyt, Wesley Sneijder, Rafael Van Der Vart, Mark Van Bommel, the list is almost endless but inevitably does end with the shining star stopper of Swansea Michel Vorm. You’d be a fool if you didn’t view this team of world class players as a threat.

Seeing as I have a hint of Spanish blood in my veins my money would be on Spain to win (after a hopeful but patriotic bid for England) history predicts an upset, no country has ever won three major tournaments in a row and with history having a habit of repeating its self my money is to go on Germany, I’ll let you mull over the facts and make your own minds up of course.

International competition

Now you could be a football fanatic that spends his Saturdays at the local following your child hood favourite, or you could be adamantly opposed to watching a bunch of over paid big kids kick a ball around a field. Neither of course is relevant when discussing patriotism as we are all adamant supporters of our home nation, so it is to no surprise that fan and foe alike unite under one flag to back our boys as they attempt restore our once renowned reputation as the dominant footballing nation of the world.

In recent competitions we have failed to reach even the final stages, many men were left with tears in their eyes as we were (without doubt) robbed of what could have been a game changing goal in the opening half against Germany, during the last world cup. After going two goals down to the exceedingly strong German side, Matthew Upson pulled one back for us only five minutes after their  second , merely a minute later Frank Lampards lob bounced off the bar and obvious to everyone in the stadium other than the match officials, across the line. Arguably this could have turned the tides of the game, as our boys in red had seemed to find their fighting spirit but were clearly disheartened by the injustice that had just occurred. We went on to lose the match four to one and subsequently were out of the cup.

Regardless of the terrible outcome, for the few brief weeks we were involved, despite a few disappointing performances, I’d never felt quite so at home in such a small pub full of large, balding, red faced men, uncharacteristically smiling at strangers and chuckling away with each other. An ocean of red and white tops bearing the three blue lions, which we know and love as the symbol of our proud country, neither the pub nor landlord is likely to have ever seen so many punters at once in all its years of trade. The feeling of togetherness as we all cheered and moaned in unison was quite surreal to say the least. For just moment I was the brother of a middle aged builder, he jumped up, shouted and bear hugged me before laughing and turning back to the screen to simply scream “come on boys”.

It’s obvious to me the lack of confidence people now have in our once admired national squad, just as obvious as the new and exciting young talent we have coming through the ranks in the form of marauding full backs Micah Richards, Kyle Walker and Phil Jones, the young but highly rated jack Wilshere in midfield and the surging strikers Daniel Sturridge and a promising but not yet proven Alex Oxlade-Chamberlin. These boys alone have given me a lot of hope for our future in international footballing competitions; I don’t use the term boys in any derogatory way as most of them are younger than myself. This comes as slight relief with the 2012 euros just around the corner.

We’ve laughed and cheered at our success; we’ve screamed and cried over our failures. This great game ultimately provides us with whirlwinds of emotion, some welcomed and some that makes us want to burry our heads in sand. So without a shadow of a doubt in my mind, I state that there is nothing that could bring two complete strangers together with such passion as a chance for our great nation to prove themselves against the rest of the world, together, under one banner. 

Supporters who know better than the manager.

So after much deliberation I’ve arrived at the decision that my opinions on football related matters need to be vented regularly and to the appreciation of my twitter followers, should be done via blog, so here we are!  Of course like any football fan I have a club close to my heart that will get the brunt of my attention; this being the world widely known Arsenal FC, unlike most football fans the matters of rival clubs are deep in my interests as well. Today I’d like to address the rumour mill that engulfs the internet at the start and middle of every season. Of course transfers and rumours come hand in hand, what gets at me is the rather short sighted views the fans voice as the mill starts turning, that leave me wondering whether they’ve ever been quoted a rather infamous Specsavers advert.   Does every club and they’re manager come under such scrutinisation as Arsenal and Arsene Wenger from they’re “fans” this season?  It seems to be a widely known fact that every fan has a better method and managerial prowess than the respective clubs manager, with comments appearing that state “he should leave our club now” and “Arsene doesn’t know what he’s doing”, I shouldn’t need to bring to light what that man has done for our club, especially when talking to a compatriot. Admittedly we haven’t had the greatest start to the season and there are numerous problems that have come to light in recent weeks, believe me the manager is just as aware of them as the media is, surely no one knows the team better than the man who built it? Arsenes procrastination when it comes to these windows is not fool hardy; I’d say it’s more of a tactic than definitively procrastination. Why would you want to rush when the decision you come to is so integral to success? There’s an obvious answer to that. Without doubt you could miss out on some big name bargains but I ask when have we ever needed a big name? Bargain or not. Arsenal has and will always be a club that creates the big names in football, from the retired but renowned Freddie Ljungberg and David Seaman to players who still play first team football in the premier league such as Ashley Cole or the newly (and briefly) returning Thierry Henry, no need to mention the likes of Robin Van Persie, Samir Nasri or Cesc Fabregas, or is there? None of these were big names when they came to our club but so many people seem to forget this! The point I’m trying to make is just that rather than scrutinise a man so well respected for what a great job he has done with our club, we should believe in his knowledge, respect the decisions he makes and go back to one of our favourite sayings as a club….. IN ARSENE WE TRUST.