FourFourTwo

By Shaun Orange

For a long time now Martin O’Neill as one of the better coaches in the game. He has certainly established a huge reputation for himself as a shrewd tactician who does a marvelous job of getting the most of his players.

And his touch-line theatrics, which have him kicking at an imaginary ball or jumping as if to head the ball himself, have gone some way to help winning over the hearts of those who see him in full battle cry at Villa Park and elsewhere.

O’Neill distinguished himself as winner with Brian Clough’s famous side of the late 1970s and early ’80s, during which time he picked up an English league championship title and two European Cups. He has no doubt benefited enormously from the traits of one of England’s best managers yet.

Those wily moves to spur his players on to greater things than they are actually expected to achieve is something that O’Neill learnt from the great man with extraordinary accomplishment. That was clearly evident in his four-and-a-half years at Leicester City of all places, where he quite brilliantly won the League Cup, not once but twice. Add to that promotion to the Premier League and you should get the picture.

His four years at Glasgow Celtic yielded three league titles, three Scottish Cups and a Scottish League Cup. That is some success for any manager, more so one who operates on limited resources.

At Aston Villa, where O’Neill has been since August 2006, he steadily groomed the squad and has taken them from 16^th in the Premiership to 11^th and then sixth last season. And now, as he plots his bid to break into the top-four (the Big Four) he has encountered a big problem with trying to keep his inspirational captain Gareth Barry at Villa Park.

The England midfielder has openly declared his desire to move to Liverpool, if only because they offer him the chance to play in the European Champions League. And while it was always going to be difficult to deal with Barry’s lot, it has really taken on an acrimonious twist in recent days, with the player fined and banned from the club.

O’Neill, who handed down the penalty while the negotiations are still continuing, tried to justify his deeds by saying that Barry was out of order in telling a UK paper that the handling of the proposed transfer was bungled by his Midlands club (who have now turned down five offers).

All the while, O’Neill has maintained that he did not want Barry to leave, but would allow it if Liverpool paid the right price (£18 million - the top offer was reportedly around £15m). However, where O’Neill really got it wrong and failed himself was to exact what can only be viewed as a measure of spitefulness by ostracising the player.

That it hurts, and hurts bad, when one’s best player is prized from your midst is as tough as it gets in this game. But that is part of the game and it should not be allowed to eat away at one’s values and end up ruining what was otherwise a rare gentlemanly figure in today’s sometimes slipshod football world.

O’Neill should have been bigger this and I hope he can somehow right the wrong, because I have for a long time considered him the genuine thing.

By Shaun Orange

The transfer market that embraces European soccer, including England, is awash with all sorts of speculation – some of it mouthwatering (if you are neutral). And not only have the signings of players and conjecture being splashed across the pages of the UK pages and postings from all over on the Internet, but it;s been coaches as well.

The most high profile of these over the past week and a bit has been that of Manchester United number two, Carlos Queiroz, who it is understood, is being courted by the Portuguese Football Association.

There have been several calls from leading administrators for the 55-year-old to take over from Brazilian Luis Felipe Scolari, who quit the national team after the European Championships and joined Chelsea.

Some reports have it that the former coach of South African and Real Madrid had discussions with the Portuguese FA, although nothing tangible materialised from these. Some believe that this is because Queiroz has plans of his own to assume the mantle of Alex Ferguson who has said he will step down from the Old Trafford boss by 2012.

Still, there remains a likelihood (and a string one at that) that the Portugal native will not get the biggest job in club football, and he might just be tempted to take up the post of national team manager.

But even this has been sighed upon by some who feel that Queiroz is not his own man and raise his disastrous one-season stint with the Real Madrid in 2003/04 as a case in point. Further still, his detractors add that without Ferguson, he really is not capable of much.

Whether or not this is indeed a reasonable argument, Queiroz remains in the shadow of his countryman Cristiano Ronaldo. Sought after by the ambitious Spanish champions Real Madrid, Ronaldo’s future at Old Trafford is still the subject of intense speculation.

This has gone to such an extent that some reports have suggested that the ace Portuguese winger faces no alternative but to have surgery on a problem ankle. Meanwhile, the European champions said in a statement that medical consultations are still underway regarding the player’s injury and that no decision had yet been taken.

But while the big-wigs at Old Trafford continue to talk of unresolved issues, the hearsay continues to gather momentum. There have been a couple of instances whereby the club attempted to play down the matter while portraying a picture of things returning to normal so far as Ronaldo is concerned.

However, none of these have been totally convincing, and with Real Madrid still an imposing figure in the background, Ronaldo’s tenure at Manchester United continues to hang in the balance.

Even then, Old Trafford is not alone in their struggles to keep hold of their key players or offload a few on the transfer market. Among the real biggies mentioned is Brazil’s former World Player of the Year, Ronaldinho who is been chased by AC Milan and both Manchester City and Chelsea. Scolari had Ronaldinho in his World Cup winning side s2002.

But will Ronaldo sign for Real, or will Ronaldinho move to England? Who really knows with so much still in the air.

By Shaun Orange

Spain’s La Liga is technically, in terms of soccer, more superior to all of Europe’s leagues. This makes them among the best leagues in the world, if not THE top of all.

And for a long time the Spaniards were mockingly looked upon in the international arena, where their sole triumph in a major tournament came at the European Championships in 1964. There was some substance to the criticism, of course, given the almost limitless resources available in a footballing nation that lives and breathes for this game, and this game alone.

But Luis Aragones, the controversial coach who has had his term in office tainted by racist issues, changed all that and gave Spain something to savour with their well-deserved victory at Euro 2008. They put paid to the aspirations of Germany’s bid for a fourth continental crown with a narrow and competent win at the Ernst Happel Stadion in Vienna on Sunday.

In many respects, this tournament was won by the best team , although Holland might suggest otherwise, and they would really have had a case had they not blundered against Russia in the quarterfinals.

Even in the absence of David Villa, the top scorer at this year’s European Championships with four goals, Spain saw off the challenge of a methodical and efficient, but not outstanding, German team. The final was marked by an excellent solitary strike from Liverpool’s 24-year-old marksman Fernando Torres. And it was a goal worthy of winning the championship and could not have come at a better time for their world-class centre-forward.

The Spanish Armada are the champions of Europe and will be so for four years. In between now and when they defend their title in 2012, many inside and outside Spain game will believe that this side can get even better than they are now. And there will a growing number of fans and pundits who will have been given more than enough fodder to moot the idea that maybe they could go on and win the World Cup in South Africa in two years’ time.

Needless to say that is a tournament played on a different scale, where the South Americans will favoured, even if only because the competition will be held in the southern Hemisphere. Still, Spain will be buoyed by Sunday’s triumph and if they can carry this momentum into the World Cup finals (for which they still have to qualify) they could well have a decent chance of not only calling themselves European champions, but world champions as well.

With more than a few young players like Cecs Fabregas (21), Sergio Ramos (22), Rubén de la Red (23), David Silva (22) and Torres in the squad, Spain have reason to be optimistic about the future. But they will be forgiven for not looking too far ahead, as they revel in the glory of their hard-earned triumph in Austria.

With Xavi Hernández named the Player of the Tourmanet, Spain clearly showed why they are so technically better than the rest. This was indeed a case of the best team at the tournament winning the cup.

By Shaun Orange

Spain have been installed by the bookmakers as favourites for Sunday’s 2008 European Championships final at the Ernst Happel Stadion in Vienna, Austria, yet it was their opponents Germany who started the tournament with the tag.

But regardless of who wins the three-week biennial event, which has been a compelling competition, this showdown is unlikely to be anything but as absorbing as all that which has entertained with some of Europe’s greatest football riches.

Euro 2008 will go down as among the best since the tournament was inaugurated back in 1960. There has been a glut of goals, many of them sublime finishes that merely added a brilliant polish to the continent’s premier championships.

On Sunday, Spain and Germany, two of the proudest football nations to be found anywhere in the world, will engage in a final that could add its own chapter to the annals of European soccer. The winners of the 13^th edition of the tournament will not be new ones, with Germany having won the title on three occasions (1972, 1980, 1996) and Spain once (1964).

On Sunday though, both teams are expected to be without a key player in their line-up and in both instances, because of injury.

The Spaniards will be missing the championships’ top-scorer David Villa (four goals), who pulled up limp in their semifinal victory over Russia with a thigh injury and has been ruled out of action for anything up to three weeks.

The German camp, meanwhile, reported that Michael Ballack could be left out of the starting line-up if he doesn’t respond to treatment in time. The skipper has a calf muscle problem that kept him from training with the team on Friday and scuppered his plans of hooking up with the squad at the stadium venue the following day.

But while Spain coach Luis Aragones has resigned himself to losing one of the key components to the side that has looked the most impressive at these championships – the only squad to have won all their games, his German counterpart, Joachim Low, remains hopeful that Ballack will be included in the starting line-up – fully fit or not.

Indeed, the Chelsea player’s mere presence will be a huge boost for Germany. He has served his national team with distinction over the years and scored many important goals. But perhaps his biggest influence on the team is his leadership qualities, and they would be sorely missed if he cannot make it.

Aragones, despite having to do without the irrepressible Villa, still has loads of talent at his disposal to see off the challenge of Germany. And among those crucial to his plans could well be Villa’s replacement – Cecs Fabregas.

The Arsenal youngster has played above himself, chipping in with significant contributions each time he has come off the bench for Aragones in this competition. Many now believe he could have an even bigger role to play in the biggest match of his career. If the situation presents itself to him, Fabregas is unlikely to let his country down; not with his current from and quite exceptional skills.

But this climax will hardly come down to it being just about just one player, or two for that matter, but rather on how the team clicks as a whole. And given the fine line drawn between the two – one starting the championships as favourites and the other playing themselves into the position, there still isn’t much to choose between them.