The new challenge of Apple tree and his Majorca
There are still the people who reproaches Gregorio Manzano for the period 03/04. That campaign the technician jiennense accepted the challenge of taking the reins of the Athletic one of Madrid, newly promoted. The weapon that gave to him to battle was vulgar, this is the reality. And despite that the mattress-makers fought to play in Europe almost until the end. Matías Lequi, Musampa, Simeone in his most gray stage, Gaspar, Of the Saints, Sergi, Friend or Nikolaidis were some of the men with those who from Vicente Calderón were trying to fight for there came to the Champions … An authentic figment that not even promising Fernando Torres and the talent of Ariel Ibagaza could achieve.
Not even much less Apple tree was the culprit of that return frustrated to the First and the time has given him the account, despite his unfortunate step along the Malaga, reaffirming his worth as technician in the place where it has achieved more important successes: Majorca. When it came in February, 2006 to substitute Cúper, few ones were betting for the salvation of the vermilions, but Gregorio turned out to be revulsive. To the following year it saved it with guarantees, in 07/08 it even threatened in spite of fighting for the UEFA and in the previous campaign, although they took most of the stars, the team achieved the salvation again, although in January many were giving it lowered.
This year Majorca, which yesterday fell down worthily in Sánchez Pizjuán, looks of bearing the type. As sometimes previous, Cléber Santana and Arango has to be reinvented, after the march this summer of Jury, three fundamental pieces in the previous exercise. With humble signings, Apple tree again has a warm potato in his hands and for prompt the thing does not do badly.
The good technical staff not necessary is those who gain qualifications. There are very good trainers who gain everything, but also there are other normalitos that for directing crack teams can take one League. Apple tree has never been lucky to direct a big one, but there where it has always been it has expired. His stamp is indelible, despite the change of cards, to worse, obviously. He bets for 4-4-1-1, but his men for bands are not the extreme outstanding figures, but less explosive players but yes more versatile, that contribute major presence in the midfield, his big target, facet in which there collaborates the attacker who is behind the front center. The idea of Apple tree is to have many players in the watershed, with the first well anticipated two lines, despite playing out, although sometimes like those of yesterday before the most powerful impossible one it becomes impossible to contain the rival so above.
The arguments vermilions are really ordinary. East type might be eleven: Auoate; Josemi, Nunes, Ramis, Ayoze; Varela, Mario (very much eye with this player), Martí, Tuni; Víctor and Adúriz. There are no stars, as it sees the léctor, but yes a worth and praiseworthy team sensation in all the meetings that has played. Majorca is going to spend it badly, because the true thing is that every year they are depriving him of his best tricks, but it transmits good sensations, thanks to the identity of set that his technician prints.
A Day at the Football
I took Jacob of course, and also Dawn, my fiance (I successfully proposed last Sunday), for her first ever soccer game (not including watching me play futsal last Tuesday).
As we approaced the stadium, by train then bus, it was clear that the Celtic support would rival the Roar support. I’m guessing over half of the 31,000 people were Celtic, which is kind of embarrasing but very cool at the same time. Approaching the stadium itself there was colour, bagpipes and chanting hoop-clad yobos. All fun.
Still in the tunnels, the PA began playing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. I thought that was kind of cool, but a bit daggy. Then I started hearing voices – many, many voices – competing with the PA. I ran through the closest entrance and witnessed the entire southern end on their feet belting out the song. Wow! Now that was very, very cool. This crew was, quite frankly, showing the locals how it was done. It was already a brilliant event, indeed a unique cultural experience, and the game hadn’t begun.
Next comes my one complaint. We went up the first set of stairs, along with many others, which stated clearly that they led to “Sections 726-732″ (we were in 731). AT THE TOP was a single security person telling us that this entrance was closed to us. I’m talking seven flights of stairs. Maybe place the guy at the bottom of the stairs? Or maybe a single sign, “Please use another flight of stairs”? As I told the poor guy (who had clearly been given a bum job), this is terrible management. I emphasise again that the stairs were actually correct ones, according to the signs. They did not lead to closed sections, they were just for reasons known only to the management not being used. Anyway, good for the thighs, and a small complaint when compared to the total experience.
This crowd was brilliant. We were at the opposite end to “The Jungle”, where the Celtic hardcore were designated, but we were surrounded on all sides ourselves by Celtic support and wild celtic accents. From our birds-eye view you could see green hoops throughout the stadium. Being above “The Den”, where the Roar loonies are, we could not actually see them, and truly it seemed like a Celtic home crowd. Not flattering for the Roar fans that’s for sure, but bloody brilliant to see and experience.
After the first Celtic goal, I almost hoped the Roar would not score because the cheer would have been embarrassing. I have never heard such a roar from a crowd. I had my Roar scarf on and of course hoped the Roar would not embarass themselves (to be sure, the first 30 minutes looked very competitive), but it was actually difficult to maintain my loyalty. With a crew like this, thousands of miles away from their home, Celtic deserved to win, they almost must win. “You’ll never walk alone” indeed.
About half way through the second half Jacob noticed a Mexican wave getting going, which looked pretty feeble and he noted, “That’s not going to get far.” The stadium was just over half full after all and the season-ticket side was very thinned. How wrong we were! It went around FIVE times and then some, and it quickly became obvious that the momentum was from the huge portion of ‘away’ supporters throughout. I remember when Australia played Paraguay in the same stadium, to a packed house (50,000+) and being so impressed when it nearly went round three times. These guys just know how to party.
And not one but THREE seperate streakers. Talk about a complete package of entertainment.
Yeah, yeah the game was good. Both sides attacked throughout and it was always exciting. Nice to see Robbie Kruse back and he was very impressive for the first half after which he seemed to sort of lose control. Overall I wasn’t embarassed for the boys in haz-chem. Celtic was just too good.
In the throngs back to the station after the game there was some brilliant (and all good-natured) yoboism from the hooped fans, climaxing in a staged group sex session between about five of them in the middle of Caxton St.
Dawn had fun, and not just for the reasons of spectacle, which bodes well for our future marriage. She said she actually found herself ‘rivetted’, and I could see why. As I said, the game wasn’t cagey, but open, attacking and attractive. That’s the way to seduce new fans.
Fantastic day at the football. Thankyou to whichever geniuses managed to organise this one. And, for what it’s worth, and I hope these things have some impact, a Red Card to Racism.
PS. Jacob and I have booked our packages to The World Cup South Africa, paid deposits and, according to the correspondence, have tickets to Australia’s three group games. How cool is that?
Mnemonic Miscellanea
First getting to the game. For the first time I drove, and somehow got a park right next to the Paddo Pub, a mere block from the stadium. We were over an hour early but there was already thousands of people milling about (both the Paddo and the Caxton were packed with Orange), and we felt damn lucky to get the park.
Jacob and I were meeting a friend, Donald, at the Wally Lewis statue at 7pm, half hour before the game. (The game had already been rescheduled from 7 to 7.30 in order to get the expectedly large crowds into their seats.) So we had some food and wandered to the stadium, which took ages because of the crowd.
Almost there and a Sydney contingent of about 20 were marching directly behind us singing, “Oh, oooohh oohh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh.. SYDNEY!” at the top of their voices. They sounded great – a bit too great for me so immediately after they got to the second, “SYDNEY!” I rejoined, “CAN’T PLAY!” at the top of my own not-soft voice. I didn’t even look around to see their response. Didn’t dare. But they shut up. The little bit of truth in what I shouted comes back in a reminiscence of a shouting Sydney crew after a QRvSFC game last season, “WE’RE SHIT BUT WE BEAT YOU!” It was great humour at the time and I remember Jacob and I laughing respectfully at their militant honesty. But last night they were shit and they didn’t beat us.
Ok, we met Donald. It was obviously going to be a huge crowd and I’m glad I bought my tickets on the net, which I’ve never done before for an A-League game.
Later Donald said he’d seen the ominous clouds in the sky, but I knew nothing. Seemed like great weather for 35,000 people to be milling about in.
The tickets were for the second level – Section 526 – but accidentally we ended up on the top level (eventually in 722). On the way up the stairwell, caged from the open air outside the stadium, we noticed it was raining (the view’s great anyway btw). When we got to the top (we didn’t dawdle or stop for drinks from the time we entered) we looked out into the stadium into an impenetrable curtain of sheeting water. Jacob and I spontaneously sprinted to the gate – one of those adrenalin-from-nowhere moments. The boys were still training, but there was already a glisten of water across the whole pitch. There were thousands running from the stands to the back areas. A long ball would land on the pitch and stop dead.
It was an extraordinarily timed (potential) disaster. First, if the game had have kicked off at 7pm as originally scheduled it would have had to be stopped, with very little warning, and there would have been a horrible stampede of 35,000 people. As it was the 35,000 people had well-and truly mobilised – they were for the most part in the stadium or directly outside it (there were many waterlogged people in the stands by kickoff), when the torrent hit. As it was there was a brilliant scene of an almost empty stadium (for the front three quarters) with a ring of packed people. Cancellation? Impossible. But if that rain had continued it would have been simply impossible to play. Extraordinary theatre.
The icing on our spectacle from above (where we were dry incidentally, apart from light spray from the lashing winds, and I’m sure we weren’t the only ones to permanently migrate to the very back) was the home and away hardcore crews at each end. Many of them stuck it out, leaving a blue and an orange front section full at respective ends, dervishly dancing and chanting in this outrageous torrent of water (it was too heavy to be called ‘rain’), knowing, so I think, that to break and run was to allow the other side’s fans to win. The players had gone off, the world had evacuated the cyclonic zone, except for these fans. In ones and twos members of each crew fled, having had enough, but as groups they held out until the end of the inclement. If anything, my report is that the Sydney fans won the contest. At the end their group was bigger, until the stands were reoccupied of course.
The next piece of Miscellanea is brought to you by the letter M: Matty McKay, Massimo Murdocca, Moore, Miniecon, McLaren, McLoughan, McMaster, Michael, Mitch and Marcinho. If we still had Milicic we could put out a fit, fairly coherent M11 to maul Melbourne and mince the Mariners. I’ve left out injured Matthew Ham.
Finally, with no bearing on last night at all because Reddy had sweet F to do, I think it is time to tribute Roar coach Fernando vas Alves. We’ve heard about how great Frank Farina is and we hear about how great many of the players are. But when we hear about how good Reddy is, and he has improved enormously since I’ve been watching him, and now how good McMaster is when he had to step up, surely it’s time to mention the Goalkeeper Coach.
For example, we heard of how last season McMaster as number two was snubbed for import Tando Velaphi, as if this, and the subsequent faith in McMaster this season, was all Frank. Surely Alves would have had a big part in these decisions, as he is the one constantly working with McMaster. But more broadly, this Alves bloke can obviously spot and develop young goalkeepers. I’ve never heard about the international market for goalkeeper coaches, but I reckon Alves could get ambitious if he wanted.
Have a good weekend. And good luck to the Mariners. I haven’t got any really strong feelings about who I want to win, and neither is this post especially mnemonic, but I’m moving with the letter M.
World Cup 2010
Since the Qatar game the other night, Australia has entered the fray of the 2010 World Cup, and I’ve had some fun checking out how the competition is going so far. This is just some random notes.
Of 201 teams who officially began (or are yet to begin) the qualifiers, 31 have already been knocked out.
In October and November last year a preliminary knock out round in Africa claimed Comoros, Guinea-Bissau and Somalia. The rest of the federation has been drawn in 12 groups of four, to begin the round on the 30 May with Cameroon vs Cape Verde Islands and other games. They play for 5 places in the finals, including South Africa which has it’s place as host guaranteed.
New Zealand has all but won Oceania but definitely out in that Federation are American Samoa (remember them), Cook Islands, Tuvalu, Samoa, Tonga and Solomon Islands. On 23 June New Zealand will most likely defeat Fiji bringing them to 12 points and claiming the Oceania 0.5 chance, knocking out Fiji, New Caledonia and Vanuatu. Then they’ll have to wait for the Asian Federation to get sorted before they can play off Asia’s number 5. Oh what delicious irony if they have to play Australia.
A lot of teams were knocked out in Asia before we got to play, seeded as we were in the third round of play-offs. They are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Chinese Taipei, Macau, India, Vietnam, Palestine, Nepal, Maldives, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, East Timor, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Yemen, Tajikistan, Indonesia and Hong Kong. The remainder are in five groups of four, playing for our 4.5 places.
Europe is divided into nine groups of six and their opening match on 6 September is between Albania and Sweden. Europe is playing off for a whopping 13 places in the finals.
Games have already been played in the North, Central America and Caribbean Federation, but teams will not start dropping out until 26 March, when Dominic and Barbados play their second home-and-away to decide who will play off against the USA (good luck to either of them) along with a few other parallel games between minnow hopefuls. They go for 3.5 places in the finals,
South America may be one of the top two Federations but it is the smallest in numbers. They are one big home-and-away group of 10. Everyone’s already played 4 games but there’s a long way to go. Paraguay is on top with 10 points and Bolivia is trailing on one. The next games are on 14 June, with Argentina (on 9 points) vs Ecuador (3), Uruguay (4) vs Venezuela (6), Peru (2) vs Columbia (8), Paraguay (10) vs Brazil (8) and Bolivia (1) vs Chile (4). They are playing off for 4.5 places in the final, the 5th having to play off against the 4th from Africa.
I intend to maintain at least a watching brief of this meta-competition, and will no doubt stream a few of the games, and more as the stakes in the big federations heat up. I do this with a globe on my desk. Really, this game is cool.
However sparsely, I intend to follow an entire World Cup for the first time.
2010 plans upset South Africa’s taxis
By Lucy Fleming BBC News
As South Africa rolls out new buses in Johannesburg ahead of the 2010 football World Cup, thousands of minibus taxi-drivers in Cape Town want to put the brakes on a similar plan to revamp the coastal city’s transport system.
They fear the government’s intentions to improve transport for football fans and leave what has been termed a “legacy project” in the cities hosting the tournament will cost them their jobs.
They only care about their pockets
Minibus taxi passenger
“This soccer World Cup seems like it is coming to just chop our necks off, because it’s taking our bread from the table. They’ll push us out of a business,” says Mandla Mata, chair of the Western Cape National Taxi Alliance (WCNTA).
But the City of Cape Town says such worries are unfounded and the World Cup is an opportunity to introduce a bus-based public transport system that is reliable, scheduled and safe, while improving services to some areas.
This would be a relief to many commuters who feel their needs and safety are not always central to the taxis.
“They only care about their pockets,” one passenger travelling between Khayletsha and Bellville said, pointing out that the window next to him could not open.
“You mustn’t trust these guys if they lose their temper,” he added – and related a story about how a female passenger lost her eye after she was attacked by a driver for not having the fare.
Improved public transport may also encourage drivers to leave their cars at home, which would help ease the city’s terrible rush-hour traffic jams.
Taxi drivers worry about their future as they eat breakfast
City planners have said Cape Town’s Integrated Rapid Transport (IRT) system will be based on the existing minibus and bus industries.
“They will be the drivers of the system. In the first phase we want them to form two companies – so we have a competitive element – and they operate the IRT system for the city – the feeder buses and the trunk routes,” explains City of Cape Town spokeswoman Kylie Hatton.
Minibus owners would be given shares in a company based on their current market share.
And if anything, Ms Hatton says, the IRT would mean drivers who work long hours without holiday and sick leave will be better off.
“They’ll be moving into a system where they will have fixed working hours and it won’t be passenger-based system, it’ll be a kilometres-travelled system.”
The financial pressure to make as many trips as possible is seen as one factor in the minibus taxis’ poor safety record.
Apartheid legacy
At Bellville taxi rank, about 20km from Cape Town city centre, one driver admitted it would be good to work an eight-hour day instead of the 12 to 16 hours most work.
Lack of regulation has allowed the space for a certain lawlessness to creep in – that needs to be dealt with
Kylie HattonCity of Cape Town spokeswoman
But the general belief amongst the drivers chatting by their buses and eating breakfast after the morning rush hour was that they could not trust any dictum from on high.
“We’re not interested in IRT – they want to take over our transportation,” said one driver, who had been up since 3.00am.
“They’re taking away what has belonged to us for so many years,” another said.
This ownership of the industry seems to be at the crux of problem for the City of Cape Town.
The minibus taxi industry was one of the few areas of the economy that black business was allowed to run under apartheid.
And taxi operators guard their hard-fought independence and self-regulation with pride.
Mr Mata says each route, which can have up to 50 owner-operators each with between six and 10 vehicles, is run by an association.
Vendors fear their business will also be affected by the IRT
They ensure that drivers, who get about 25% of their bus’s takings, only ply one route to avoid the fierce battles over territory that have given the industry such a bad reputation.
Strict rules also apply in the ranks so that drivers cannot jump the queue.
Yet 15 years since the end of apartheid, the relationship between the minibus taxis and the government are still fraught.
Taxi-owners complain that a government initiative to scrap older vehicles for newer, safer models by subsiding loans did not materialise for many.
This so-called recapitalisation scheme and what taxi-drivers see as harassment from the police checking permits and safety has left them even more distrustful of the authorities.
“I understand the sensitivities,” says Ms Hatton.
“But unfortunately it is an industry that has been largely unregulated – that lack of regulation has also allowed the space for a certain lawlessness to creep in as well – and that needs to be dealt with.”
“Approximately 40% of taxi drivers in the city operate without a permit,” she says.
Buses are not timetabled and only leave when full
Negotiations are ongoing between the WCNTA and transport officials to tackle such problems, but Mr Mata says they should not see this as a nod from his members to the IRT.
He says their main opposition to it stems from the fact that they have not been included at the planning stages.
“They say it’s going to happen whatever, like it or not,” Mr Mata says.
“If they can’t listen to us then it is not a democracy – it’s despotism; it’s like the last generation when they decided everything for you.”
Ms Hatton urges patience and says the IRT will be phased in slowly.
After the introduction of rapid bus link between the airport and city centre this year, a pilot project will be rolled out along the poorly serviced west coast.
You can see that it is not promises that they can fulfil
WCTA’s Mandla Mata
Only after this – in 2011 or 2012 – will other Cape Town routes will be affected.
“There is no big bang approach – there’s no attempt to put people in financial stress,” she says, adding that most of the transport industry is on board and it is only a minority who oppose the scheme.
It is difficult to come by numbers, but Mr Mata says his alliance represents about 152 routes – with more than 45,000 drivers – and their support is growing.
It has held several strikes this year bringing misery to commuters, especially those living in townships around Cape Town who rely on taxis to get to work.
The South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) recently called off a national strike in protest at the similar Johannesburg bus system following warnings from the government.
But Mr Mata says in the Western Cape more taxi stayaways are on the cards before the World Cup kicks off.
“They are promising a lot of promises but you can see that it is not promises that they can fulfil – they’re just blinding us.”
