The Best Players We Won’t See in Brazil

South Africa seems like a distant memory as we edge closer and closer to another World Cup! In 96 days, the best players will gather in Brazil, to participate in the most anticipated sporting event in the world. I hope you are as excited as I am (especially since they got rid of the vuvuzelas).

32 of the best teams in the world will battle each other for the title of world champion. Some of the most exciting players will be competing, including the three finalists for the Ballon d’Or: Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Lionel Messi (Argentina), and Franck Ribery (France).

But some of the best players in club soccer will not get the chance to compete in this tournament. Many of the stars we see on the pitch during the season, play for national teams that didn’t qualify. Here are three exciting players, we won’t see in Brazil this year.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic: Paris Saint-Germain, Sweden

Ibrahimovic has been in sizzling form this season. The 32 year old has notched 22 goals and 10 assists in 26 games for PSG this season. He is a fan favorite, and his presence will be missed in Brazil this year. Ibrahimovic can do just about anything with the ball at his feet, and his wonder goals bring the crowd to their feet. Sweden finished second place in their qualifying group behind Germany, and lost to Portugal in the playoff round. Ibrahimovic will be 36 when the 2018 World Cup takes place. We will be lucky to see him play in a World Cup again.

Gareth Bale: Real Madrid, Wales

Personally, I am sad that I may never get to see Bale play in a World Cup because he is one of my favorite players. Wales hasn’t qualified for a World Cup since 1958. Many other great Welsh players like Ryan Giggs and Craig Bellamy have never experienced a World Cup in their careers. And Bale may not either, which is unfortunate, because he is extremely talented. Bale has recorded 10 goals and 10 assists for Real Madrid this season. He is known for his pace, precision crosses, and deadly shot accuracy. At just 24 years old, there is still a lot of potential for Bale. Maybe he is the one, that will lead Wales to the tournament they have been absent from for so long.

Robert Lewandowski: Borussia Dortmund, Poland

Poland finished fourth in their qualifying group, behind England, Ukraine, and Montenegro. Nevertheless, Lewandowski has proven himself both at the club and international level. The striker has scored 15 goals in 23 appearances for Dortmund, and recently agreed to a high profile transfer to Bayern Munich in the summer. Poland competed in Euro 2012, and at 25 years old, there is a good chance we could see Lewandowski in the 2018 World Cup. He knows how to score goals at the club level. Last year he put in a four goal performance against a highly rated Real Madrid team and helped Dortmund reach the Champions League final. Despite not qualifying for the World Cup, Lewandowski, Ibrahimovic, and Bale are all still competing in the Champions League Knockout stages. Sometimes, good players never get the chance to prove themselves on the big stage, at the international level.

Luis Suarez: Villain turned Hero

Ask anyone who isn’t a Liverpool fan what they think of Luis Suarez, and you will probably get some hateful responses.

The Uruguayan striker has practically carried Liverpool on his back this season: scoring 24 goals in 23 Premier League matches. Add 10 assists, and there is no denying that Suarez is in the midst of a career best season. Liverpool fans everywhere are rejoicing.

What’s truly remarkable is that Suarez missed the first six Premier League matches to start the campaign. This was the remainder of his 10 game suspension from last season in which he bit the arm of Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovich. Liverpool fans continue to praise Suarez, when just 10 months ago he was the most hated man at Anfield.

The controversial striker has continually tarnished his reputation. Before he bit Ivanovich, he was suspended eight games for racially abusing Man U defender Patrice Evra. He also received a similar suspension for a biting incident during his time with Dutch club Ajax. And of course, we all remember the infamous incident during the 2010 World Cup, where Suarez earned himself a red card for deliberately using his hand to stop a goal during the third place game against Ghana. Over the course of the summer transfer window, he repeatedly asked to be dealt to another club, with Real Madrid and Arsenal emerging as possible suitors. But who would want such a notorious figure on their squad? Liverpool did, and they were able to retain his services. What a decision that turned out to be.

Love him or hate him, you have to respect him. Suarez is just that good. The man has a talent for finding the back of the net. From the penalty box, from free kicks, it dosen’t matter. He will find a way to score. And he plays with such style and finesse. I can think of five or six goals from Suarez this season that could be contenders for best goal in the Premier League so far. He has developed into a world class striker, and he has re-earned the respect of Liverpool fans. Just recently, Suarez stated that he would like to remain at Anfield, even if Liverpool fail to qualify for the Champions League. If Suarez continues his red hot form, I am confident that they will qualify. We can only expect greatness from a player of Suarez’s caliber.

The Neymar Transfer Saga

When the prolific player Neymar made the switch from Brazilian club Santos to FC Barcelona last year, everyone thought it was a routine big money transfer. Neymar is considered one of the greatest young players in the world, and has been compared to other great Brazilian players like Ronaldinho and Pele. Pele himself said that Neymar had the potential to become the best player in the world. So it was no surprise that the biggest and richest clubs in the world were all competing for his signature. Barcelona and Real Madrid emerged as the favorites, but it was the Catalan club that eventually signed the 22 year old. The transfer fee was agreed at 57.1 million euros. And Neymar arrived at the Camp Nou. Everything seemed perfect.

As time went on, it became apparent that there were discrepancies with the transfer. Santos complained that they had only received 17 million of the 57 million euro transfer fee, and a complaint was filed against Barcelona. The club’s hierarchy including President Sandro Rosell, refused to answer questions about where the other 40 million euros had disappeared too. Finally, it was revealed that 40 million euros had been paid to the company N&N, owned by Neymar and his father. Neymar’s father acted as his agent and negotiated a contract with Barcelona, in which the club agreed to pay 40 million dollars to the company. Another clause of the contract stated that Neymar was to sign for Barcelona after the 2014 World Cup and any breach in contract would result in another payment of 40 million euros.

Neymar joined Barcelona in 2013. As per the original contract, Barcelona paid an additional 40 million euros to Neymar and his father. Yet they failed to declare this payment to the Spanish government, so they could collect taxes. The irregularities with the contracts, and Barcelona’s unwillingness to be transparent about the money, lead the Spanish high court to officially charge the club with fraud. They claim that Barcelona owes 9.1 million in unpaid taxes. It appears that Barcelona has not only deceived FIFA with the Neymar transfer, but they have also deceived the tax authorities.

The club officials continue to deny any wrongdoing, yet Rosell has already resigned as a result of the scandal. After he resigned the Spanish court charged him with misappropriation of funds. If convicted Rosell could face significant jail time. As the formal investigation continues, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. With all the payments the deal for Neymar is worth over 100 million euros, and that’s a lot of money. It’s only right that people are asking how that money was used, and if anything is clear in this case, it’s that Barcelona have been less than willing to cooperate. In my opinion, Barcelona are hiding something. Only time will tell what that something may be.

 

Emmanuel Adebayor: Reborn

How would you describe the career of Emmanuel Adebayor? Some fans believe he is a world class striker, while critics argue that he is an unprofessional trouble maker. I believe he is a misunderstood player who has been reborn at Tottenham under new head coach Tim Sherwood.

Adebayor has had an interesting career to say the least. Born in the West African nation of Togo, Adebayor was spotted at an early age by French club FC Metz. Standing at 6’3″ he is naturally skilled at winning the ball in the air, and scoring with his head. But he is also quick and has exceptional ball control, a rare trait for a tall striker. He was quickly noticed by Arsenal, where he had no trouble making his way into the first team squad. In three years with the North London club he made 104 appearances and scored 46 goals. He was both loved and hated by fans. He had a knack for scoring crucial goals, but he also had a knack for getting in trouble. He was notorious for getting red cards, and gloating celebrations. He left Arsenal for a big money move to Man City in 2009, There he struggled to regain his form, but his bad temper continued to show itself on the pitch. In a high profile incident against his former club Arsenal, Adebayor received a three match ban for stomping on the head of Robin Van Persie.

Despite losing his goal scoring form at Man City, he continued to excell at the National level. He chose to represent his country of birth, and has scored 27 goals since 2000. After being named African Player of in 2009, he was ready to lead Togo to victory in the 2010 African Nations Cup. However he would not get the chance.

On January 8th, the team was headed to a match in Angola, when the team bus came under heavy gunfire. A militant group attacked the bus, leaving three of Adebayor’s teammates dead. Shocked by the senseless violence, Togo withdrew from the tournament, and Adebayor promptly retired from international football. He stated “we were just footballers on our way to a match, yet we were attacked by people who wanted to kill us all.” Adebayor eventually returned to the national team, after being coaxed out of retirement by his Togolese teammates.

Never able to regain his old form, he was loaned to Real Madrid, and eventually sold to Tottenham in 2011. Things looked bleak for the once great striker, but he found new life at Tottenham. He scored the winning goal in a 2-1 victory over Arsenal, and things were starting to turn around. Then Harry Redknapp was fired, and replaced by new boy Andre Villas-Boas. Villas-Boas immediately started to make changes, one of which was relegating Adebayor to the bench. Despite this setback, Adebayor continuned to work for a first team spot. However Villas-Boas never gave him the chance to shine. The manager requested that he train with the youth team. 

After a string of disappointing performances, including a 5-0 home defeat to Liverpool, Villas Boas was fired. In comes Tim Sherwood, who brings Adebayor back from the abyss. A lot of Tottenham fans thought Adebayor had been transferred, including myself. Nevertheless, he regained his confidence under the new manager. This season he has scored 8 goals in 13 league games, and shows no signs of slowing down. He has been instrumental in many key games this season, including scoring two goals in Tottenham’s come from behind victory over Dnipro in the Europa League last Thursday. The tumultuous career of Emmanuel Adebayor seems to be on the upswing once again. He is truly a player reborn. 

Champions League First Leg Action

For those of you following this blog, I said I would do a breakdown of all the Champions League games. However I have been dealing with an illness and have been unable to post for a few days. I decided there are other topics I want to discuss so I’ll quickly give an overview of the rest of the Champions League action. In my last blog post I said that Manchester City coach Manuel Pellegrini could face a ban from UEFA; he has subsequently been hit with a two match ban for his comments following the loss to Barcelona. There were some definite winners and losers from the first leg. Mega clubs Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid were both playing away from home but still managed to smash their opponents. PSG soundly defeated Bayer Leverkusen 4-0, while Real embarrassed Schalke 04 with a 6-1 rout. It’s hard to imagine PSG and Madrid not qualifying for the quarterfinals. Elsewhere, Chelsea could only manage a 1-1 draw with Galatasaray, while Atletico Madrid squeaked out a 1-0 win thanks to a late goal from star forward Diego Costa. German powerhouses Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich cruised to comfortable wins defeating Zenit St. Petersburg and Arsenal: 4-2 and 2-0 respectively. Perhaps the biggest shock of the first leg was Olympiakos handing Manchester United a shock 2-0 defeat. The pressure is mounting on David Moyes, as Man U currently sit in seventh place in the Premier League as well.

Champions League Knockout Round First Leg: Man City vs. Barcelona

The first round of the knockout stages have come to a close and there were some definite winners and losers. With the second leg set to take place in two weeks, I’ll break down the first leg games and make some predictions about the upcoming second legs.

Manchester City 0-2 Barcelona

This was arguably the most anticipated match of the round of 16, with 250 million people expected to tune  in for the game. To put that in perspective, around 230 million people tuned in for the Champions league final between Borussia Dortmund vs. Bayern Munich last year. The high scoring offense of Man City was predicted to give the Catalan club, a run for their money. Yet the game proved to be easy for Barcelona as they cruised to a comfortable away win. Man City kept pace with Barcelona in the first half, and despite Barcelona dominating possession, the score remained nil nil at halftime. However a penalty and red card from Martin Demichelis opened the floodgates for a penalty goal from Lionel Messi and a late goal from Dani Alves to seal the win. Man City showed moments of brilliance during the first half, doing well to dispossess the La Liga giants. But Barcelona remained calm and collected, finishing the game with 62% possession. Here are my winners and losers from the game.

Man of the Match: Dani Alves, Barcelona Possesion

I’m not a Dani Alves fan by any means. Personally I think he is overrated and flops too much. But he proved his worth in this game. He was constantly looking to help with the attack and tracked back when he needed to. He defended well, and scored a crucial second goal in the closing minutes to give Barcelona a strong advantage going into the second leg. The possession of Barcelona once again proved to be a dominant factor. To win 62% of possession against a team as good as Man City is an accomplishment in itself. The players of FC Barcelona know what it means to play as a team, and they are in no rush to take shots. They wait for the perfect moment to score, and execute flawlessly.

 

Flop of the Match: Martin Demichelis and Manuel Pellegrini

What was Demichelis thinking? This is a veteran defender. Someone who has played in the Champions League many times before. He knew what this game meant for Man City, and to make a rash challenge like that is inexcusable. He was deservedly red carded, and left his team a man down for most of the second half. Making it too easy for Barcelona to control possession. In my opinion, Demichelis should have let Messi take the shot. Messi is arguably the best player in the world, and probably would’ve scored, but it’s a lot easier for him to score a penalty kick. Have some faith in your goalkeeper to make a save. Pellegrini deserves some blame as well. He handed the start to Demichelis with other proven defenders such as Joleon Lescott, Michah Richards, and Javi Garcia, all getting a spot on the bench. After the game, he publicly blamed Demichelis and the referee for the loss. He questioned the decision to appoint a Swedish referee for such a high profile match, and stated that he effectively “decided the game.” Maybe you should spend more time focusing on your tactics instead of blaming the referee. Man City only had four shots on target. This is sub par for a team of Man City’s offensive quality. Pellegrini’s post match comments are currently being investigated by UEFA and he could receive a fine and/or ban.

Second Leg Predictions

With Man City having to travel to the Camp Nou to face Barcelona in the second leg, I think it’s very unlikely that they can overturn a two goal advantage. Barcelona just need to do what they do best. Maintain control of the game and keep possession. All the pressure will be on Pellegrini and Man City. I predict that Barcelona will cruise to a comfortable 3-1 aggregate win and advance to the Quarterfinals.