3/07/2002 - Entry #8
Well, I've got absolutely nothing to talk about right now, so you're getting another football entry. It occurs to me that Mal is probably the only one of you who's going to be even remotely interesting in football, and he doesn't even read this. But you'll get what you're given, scum.
I'm still rather worried about the Leeds managerial job. The board of directors are playing an incredibly dangerous game here. I mean, on the one hand, they've sacked the manager without lining up a replacement. That is seriously bad news. The first law of sacking your manager is to line up a replacement BEFORE you do it. Admittedly not many teams do it, but still! I mean, Liverpool, bless 'em, have got this down to a fine art. The one and only time I can think of them being left without a manager is when Kenny Dalglish quit in 1991, and that was only for 3 weeks before Graeme Sounness stepped in. Gerard Houllier is the prime example. He was already joint-manager when Roy Evans was sacked in 1998. Love them or loathe them, they know what they're doing when it comes to managers. Ditto Arsenal, in fact. When they gave Bruce Rioch the boot, they already had Arsene Wenger on the payroll.
Everton are the polar opposite of this, naturally. Two internal caretaker managers aren't good news when they have such vastly different approaches, and the reappointment of Howard Kendall for the THIRD time after many many months spent looking for Joe Royle's replacement in 1997 is not how I want Leeds to go.
Maybe if we're lucky we can follow the Man United plan. Take two years to part ways with our manager, and then spend an entire year looking for a replacement for Alex Ferguson, before finally deciding that really, the only man for the job is...Alex Ferguson. Genius!
But possibly even more worrying than the prospect of simply a brief period without a manager, is the ridiculously high standards the Leeds board seem to have set themselves. I mean, look at the facts. We finished 5th in the Premiership, and secured a UEFA Cup place. The Leeds directors deemed that a dismal failure worthy of sacking. I'm sorry? Are we really that picky? We finish 5th out of 20, and that's SO terrible that we have to sack one of the most popular managers we've had in years. Huzzah for impossibly high standards! Now then, let's just find someone who's happy living up to those standards, eh? I mean, not like there's any kind of Damocles Sword hanging over there head if they fail, is it? Oh, there is? Oh. Still! Eh? Still! It's not like there are 5 or so teams whose financial security crucially depends on a place in the aptly named Champion's League - Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and of course Leeds. Oh, there are? And we do? Damn. So I guess the new man really has absolutely no margin for error, eh? But Still! Eh? Still! It's not like we're almost £100 million in debt, and have no money for the new guy to spend on players he wants to form the new team. Oh dear. Time to fall back on our dependable world-class players then! Not like Manchester United are sniffing round our most highly-rated player, and our prime right-winger has less than a year left on his contract before he's released on a free transfer, with damaged chances of getting sold on before then due to his long drawn-out lawsuit! Oh for fucks sake!
As if that wasn't bad enough, getting sacked from a top-level club like Leeds can seriously damage your reputation. Getting sacked from a relegation-battler for ineptitude doesn't seem to damage your reputation, as Gordon Strachan has demonstrated recently, and Dave Bassett has been proving for the best part of his career, but it's certainly enough to dissuade the likes of Martin O'Neill and Mick McCarthy from leaving their already-cushy jobs to step into a high-risk job here.
We're pretty screwed, really. Everyone applaud the Leeds board of directors. *sigh*. I'm sorry, but it's not often you can genuinely feel sorry for a Leeds United fan. But right now is one of those few times. I think no matter how this whole thing pans out, the Leeds fans will have ended up severely dicked over.
In slightly better news, though, England are the 8th best team in the world! That's right, the official FIFA World Rankings have been released following the World Cup, and we've been placed in 8th. That's four places better than we were a month ago, ladies and gentlemen, which means we've leapfrogged the likes of Italy and Holland. Hooray! Brazil are back up to number 1, and somehow Argentina are still rated 2nd in the world! How did that happen? We kicked their arses! Bah. Stupid FIFA. France have dropped to 3rd, incidentally.
Other big movers were, rather unsurprisingly, Germany (up six places to 5th), Turkey (up ten whole places to 12th) and South Korea, who moved a whopping 18 places to move into 22nd. The Republic of Ireland are now 14th, while Scotland moved down a couple of places to 55th. Northern Ireland sit pretty in 89th, and Wales leap a MASSIVE five places to reach the hallowed 91st spot. They're now officially better than Syria and the Lebanon. There'll be partying in the streets of Cardiff tonight.
But I think you'll agree that the real movers and shakers in the world of football are the mighty Bhutan, who rose like a phoenix out of the bottom two rankings after their frankly glorious 4-0 victory over arch-rivals Montserrat. They're now resting proudly in 199th place, having fought off the likes of Guam, American Samoa and Turks & Caicos Islands to become the world's official Fifth Worst Team In Existence. Look out Brazil, you've got company.
Did anyone manage to see any of that game, incidentally? The Bhutan vs. Montserrat one, I mean. It's unlikely you did, since it was on at the same time as the Brazil vs. Germany World Cup final, but still, it was a cracking match. I've only managed to catch the most sparse of highlights, but I've come to the conclusion that there should be a Worst Cup of some kind. The lowest 30 or so ranked teams all competing in a tournament to see who sucks the most. Come on, you can't deny you want to see it.
Think how enjoyable a competition would be when your heart isn't put through the ringer by England/Ireland/whoever, and you can choose who to support based on kit colour, player with the most highly amusing knob gag of a name or simply because you've been there on holiday.
Imagine Barry Davies' joy as he pored over the list of hundreds of new players he'd be able to pronounce in over-elaborate fashion!
Or Motty's scarcely contained delight when informing the watching millions that that was only the tenth goal Montserrat have ever scored!
Ponder which of the tournament's better players will be signed by Bolton Wanderers!
Chuckle at the thought of Clive Tyldesley tying himself in knots trying to crowbar a reference to the 1999 European Cup Final into coverage of Benin v Nicaragua!
"Well, the game isn't over until the final whistle, as Bayern Munich will tell you after their defeat against Manchester United in Europe some years ago, John. And that's somethign that I'm sure Djibouti are all too aware of."
Ahh, It's so real I could almost touch it!
Who can balk at the opportunity of seeing Guam play? Just look at their record for god's sake! Their best EVER result was a 16-0 defeat to Tajikistan! That doesn't even compare to Australian Samoa's humiliating 31-0 defeat to Australia last year. People! There's a whole world of quality footballing that we're missing out on here! Surely you want to see Brunei Darussalam concede 28 goals in 4 matches (owed greatly to their 12-0 defeat to the United Arab Emirates)? To see the Bahamas beaten 13-0 on aggregate by political rivals Haiti!
This would be a competition packed with mystery (who's gonna win?), romance (just where the hell are the Cook Islands anyway?), unfamiliar national anthems and defending on a par with the greatest of Sunday Leagues! What more could we possibly ask for?
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