For all we loved the Athletic v Manchester United game last night, one thing is inescapable. For all the praise that has been heaped on them, there's a reason why Athletic are seventh in La Liga at time of writing. They cannot finish.
The game yesterday was littered with iffy efforts. Toquero was guilty a couple of times, Iraola had to do better, but the tin lid goes to Oscar de Marcos after Iker Muniain had hit the post:
See it here on 101greatgoals.
With the whole goal to aim at and the keeper nowhere, he's found the back of the stand. That's Conference.
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Showing posts with label Athletic Bilbao. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Athletic Bilbao. Show all posts
Friday, 16 March 2012
Unbelievable Jeff! #18
Last night was quite remarkable as Athletic Club went out and did to Manchester United precisely what they did a week previously. It was another terrific game punctuated by moments of absolute genius. Llorente's goal off an amazing ball from Fernando Amorebieta and Rooney's late consolation were both exceptional, as was Toquero rocking up at left-back and Amorebieta going a full game without a booking. Highlight, however, was right-back Andoni Iraola almost scoring the best goal since, well, ever.
See it here on 101greatgoals.
We haven't seen close control like that since Charles Charlie-Charles was a lad. Unbelievable Jeff!
See it here on 101greatgoals.
We haven't seen close control like that since Charles Charlie-Charles was a lad. Unbelievable Jeff!
Thursday, 8 March 2012
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
Unbelievable Jeff! #16 - Spanish special
What a weekend it was in Spain's Primera Liga. Goals rained in everywhere and a lot of them were very special indeed. All four goals in the Getafe v Málaga game were outstanding, none moreso than the absolute rocket that left the unlikely boot of Jeremy Toulalan. Speaking of unlikely scorers, Barcelona were indebted to Seydou Keita (who we're big fans of) as the ten men of the champions struggled past a gritty, if limited, Sporting Gijon side. Bottom side Real Zaragoza got a vital win over fellow strugglers Villarreal thanks in part to a cracking equaliser from Luis Garciá.
But none of that makes our entry for Unbelievable Jeff today You see, we had a delegation in Spain this weekend for the big game of the round, the Basque derby between Athletic Club and Real Sociedad.
Arriving in Bilbao on Friday afternoon, the hotel was located and it was straight up to San Mamés where a small queue was formed up from the ticket windows. Socios only, however. Come back at half ten tomorrow morning. We got there early, but the queue snaked round from the ticket windows right up to the hole in the ground that will one day be the new San Mamés. Thick end of two hours later, it was apparent that there were no more available. We tried again on Sunday morning and got talking to some of the ultras in a bar over the road from the ground. Complete sell-out. The queues were huge on Thursday and Friday morning before we arrived and every one had been taken.
We'd been out and about in the town on Friday and Saturday and already been won over by the place. It's not exactly a tourist town, so the fact we were there at all, let alone for the football, proved quite the novelty for the locals. We were made extremely welcome and we figured that watching the match in one of the bars near the ground wouldn't be a bad second choice. How right we were.
Cider and what looked to be a sickly combination of red wine and coke was flowing from 10am. The streets and bars were packed, blue and white mingling freely with red and white with nary a hint of trouble nor the sight of a single copper. Two weeks previously, I was at a game between a blue and white striped team and a red and white striped one and every copper in West Yorkshire seemed to be in town. Commuters just trying to get home were being filmed as they got off the train, so the Spanish approach was welcome and refreshing.
We watched the Zarzgoza v Villarreal game in one bar and wandered off to grab a decent spot at another for the main event. It was gloriously chaotic everywhere, but we grabbed a spot in a bar where we'd seen the previous night's games. Beer and pinxtos disappeared down our faces at alarming rates as the atmosphere continued to build.
Athletic dominated the game which was played in an absolute deluge and took the lead midway through the first half as Susaeta finished off a typically Bielsan passage of neat, passing play. The big moment in the game came in the second half when a rare spell of pressure from La Real produced a goal for Carlos Vela that, crucially, none of the officials saw. Athletic responded to it better than La Real and Susaeta, the best player on the field by some distance, made it safe ten minutes from the end with a ripper of a free-kick:
As unbelievable (Jeff) as that was, that's still not the point of writing this. What was unbelievable, Jeff, was the city, the people, the atmosphere, the camaraderie, the whole experience. A fabulous weekend had by the pair of us, a colossal amount of beer consumed and football watched, capped by that wonderful effort from Susaeta.
Back to reality now though as I have been roped in to cover the Huddersfield v Hartlepool game tonight. I don't know how it's going to measure up to what I was party to this weekend. If it's even 20% as good as the derby, I'll be a happy man.
But none of that makes our entry for Unbelievable Jeff today You see, we had a delegation in Spain this weekend for the big game of the round, the Basque derby between Athletic Club and Real Sociedad.
Arriving in Bilbao on Friday afternoon, the hotel was located and it was straight up to San Mamés where a small queue was formed up from the ticket windows. Socios only, however. Come back at half ten tomorrow morning. We got there early, but the queue snaked round from the ticket windows right up to the hole in the ground that will one day be the new San Mamés. Thick end of two hours later, it was apparent that there were no more available. We tried again on Sunday morning and got talking to some of the ultras in a bar over the road from the ground. Complete sell-out. The queues were huge on Thursday and Friday morning before we arrived and every one had been taken.
We'd been out and about in the town on Friday and Saturday and already been won over by the place. It's not exactly a tourist town, so the fact we were there at all, let alone for the football, proved quite the novelty for the locals. We were made extremely welcome and we figured that watching the match in one of the bars near the ground wouldn't be a bad second choice. How right we were.
Cider and what looked to be a sickly combination of red wine and coke was flowing from 10am. The streets and bars were packed, blue and white mingling freely with red and white with nary a hint of trouble nor the sight of a single copper. Two weeks previously, I was at a game between a blue and white striped team and a red and white striped one and every copper in West Yorkshire seemed to be in town. Commuters just trying to get home were being filmed as they got off the train, so the Spanish approach was welcome and refreshing.
We watched the Zarzgoza v Villarreal game in one bar and wandered off to grab a decent spot at another for the main event. It was gloriously chaotic everywhere, but we grabbed a spot in a bar where we'd seen the previous night's games. Beer and pinxtos disappeared down our faces at alarming rates as the atmosphere continued to build.
Athletic dominated the game which was played in an absolute deluge and took the lead midway through the first half as Susaeta finished off a typically Bielsan passage of neat, passing play. The big moment in the game came in the second half when a rare spell of pressure from La Real produced a goal for Carlos Vela that, crucially, none of the officials saw. Athletic responded to it better than La Real and Susaeta, the best player on the field by some distance, made it safe ten minutes from the end with a ripper of a free-kick:
As unbelievable (Jeff) as that was, that's still not the point of writing this. What was unbelievable, Jeff, was the city, the people, the atmosphere, the camaraderie, the whole experience. A fabulous weekend had by the pair of us, a colossal amount of beer consumed and football watched, capped by that wonderful effort from Susaeta.
Back to reality now though as I have been roped in to cover the Huddersfield v Hartlepool game tonight. I don't know how it's going to measure up to what I was party to this weekend. If it's even 20% as good as the derby, I'll be a happy man.
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
Pragmatism in the court of the oligarch
The Premier League in England needs a crisis club. Not a genuine one, obviously, not one serially mismanaged and run into the ground like a Portsmouth, but one of these crises that can only happen at well-funded clubs stuffed to the gills with millions of pounds worth of players. The sort of crisis that only losing a few games that many expected them to win. A lot of time lately, it's been Arsenal. Now it's Chelsea.
Appointing Andre Villas-Boas signalled an intent to change the way Chelsea play football. Villas-Boas's hallmarks are all over the Porto side that British viewers had a look at in last week's Europa League game against Manchester City - a high line, constant pressing, shift it wide early and get it forwards. It's exciting, it's vibrant and that's the brand of football he was charged with taking to the Bridge. However, it also needs a certain type of player and a willingness to buy into the style as a group. While he has been able to bring in some players to help him achieve his vision - Juan Mata, for instance and has a number of existing players who can play that way, the overhaul of the squad is an ongoing process as Chelsea's policy of buying players at their peak and subsequently finding themselves with ageing assets on high wages and of no resale value bites them on the bum. Consequently, it just isn't quite working out on the field for Chelsea at the moment.
Needless to say, this has been blown up into a major issue and pressure piled onto the young manager - isn't it odd that age only matters when things aren't going so well? - to the point that it's all he's ever asked about at press conferences. Responses are scoured over for hidden meaning, hints of rifts with the owner jumped upon and the merest hint of discontent from the squad shown to 'prove' he's lost the dressing room. This culminates in the situation we find today where a Champions League loss to Napoli - perfectly plausible despite Ray Wilkins saying "they're not a threat" when the draw was made - is painted as being potentially the last time Villas-Boas takes charge of a Chelsea match.
A corrollary of all that is incessant speculation about potential successors and today's Daily Mirror suggests that Marcelo Bielsa is the one to come in should Roman Abramovich put Villas-Boas out of the press's misery. Now, if Villas-Boas was having difficulty imposing his style on the Chelsea squad, how on earth is the madcap Argentinian supposed to do that?
Bielsa is, needless to say, brilliant. He's taken his philosophy to Bilbao and he's achieving something quite remarkable. It took time though as Athletic lost three of their first four matches. Were that to be subject to the same press scrutiny as Villas-Boas's Chelsea reign, he'd have been run out of town by mid-September. But, like Villas-Boas, Bielsa was hired because of his philosophy, to implant that at the club and allow it to become the new culture. He was backed by a sympathetic board who bought into his vision.
Abramovich has proved himself to be a capricious boss during his time at Chelsea and has rarely thought overlong about binning the money spent on hiring managers before. However, he did spend big on acquiring the services of Villas-Boas and one presumes that the vision that Villas-Boas has on how football should be played was a major factor in the reasons for his recruitment. If so, there is no crisis and everyone can just stop the incessant rambling about nothing. If not, then Villas-Boas is best off out of it and someone else is going to acquire an extremely talented coach.
Appointing Andre Villas-Boas signalled an intent to change the way Chelsea play football. Villas-Boas's hallmarks are all over the Porto side that British viewers had a look at in last week's Europa League game against Manchester City - a high line, constant pressing, shift it wide early and get it forwards. It's exciting, it's vibrant and that's the brand of football he was charged with taking to the Bridge. However, it also needs a certain type of player and a willingness to buy into the style as a group. While he has been able to bring in some players to help him achieve his vision - Juan Mata, for instance and has a number of existing players who can play that way, the overhaul of the squad is an ongoing process as Chelsea's policy of buying players at their peak and subsequently finding themselves with ageing assets on high wages and of no resale value bites them on the bum. Consequently, it just isn't quite working out on the field for Chelsea at the moment.
Needless to say, this has been blown up into a major issue and pressure piled onto the young manager - isn't it odd that age only matters when things aren't going so well? - to the point that it's all he's ever asked about at press conferences. Responses are scoured over for hidden meaning, hints of rifts with the owner jumped upon and the merest hint of discontent from the squad shown to 'prove' he's lost the dressing room. This culminates in the situation we find today where a Champions League loss to Napoli - perfectly plausible despite Ray Wilkins saying "they're not a threat" when the draw was made - is painted as being potentially the last time Villas-Boas takes charge of a Chelsea match.
A corrollary of all that is incessant speculation about potential successors and today's Daily Mirror suggests that Marcelo Bielsa is the one to come in should Roman Abramovich put Villas-Boas out of the press's misery. Now, if Villas-Boas was having difficulty imposing his style on the Chelsea squad, how on earth is the madcap Argentinian supposed to do that?
Bielsa is, needless to say, brilliant. He's taken his philosophy to Bilbao and he's achieving something quite remarkable. It took time though as Athletic lost three of their first four matches. Were that to be subject to the same press scrutiny as Villas-Boas's Chelsea reign, he'd have been run out of town by mid-September. But, like Villas-Boas, Bielsa was hired because of his philosophy, to implant that at the club and allow it to become the new culture. He was backed by a sympathetic board who bought into his vision.
Abramovich has proved himself to be a capricious boss during his time at Chelsea and has rarely thought overlong about binning the money spent on hiring managers before. However, he did spend big on acquiring the services of Villas-Boas and one presumes that the vision that Villas-Boas has on how football should be played was a major factor in the reasons for his recruitment. If so, there is no crisis and everyone can just stop the incessant rambling about nothing. If not, then Villas-Boas is best off out of it and someone else is going to acquire an extremely talented coach.
Friday, 13 January 2012
Unbelievable Jeff! #4
So you're a striker. Your first touch is rubbish - even takes you away from goal. What do you do? Hows about taking another touch away from goal and back-heeling it back past the lackadaisical keeper?
Unbelievable Jeff!
Unbelievable Jeff!
Sunday, 28 November 2010
Athletic Bilbao
Basque club that still adheres to a Basques-only policy, even if it has been watered down to the point where they'll bus in promising youngsters at an early age and claim they're Basque on residency grounds. Basically, the more hardcore footballing version of Yorkshire CCC. One overseas player* has played for the club, French Basque Bixente Lizarazu. They were one of the few clubs to eschew shirt sponsorship until financial pressures led to them taking €2m in 2008 for a three-year deal from an oil company. One of only three clubs never relegated from the Spanish top flight (see also Barcelona and Real Madrid).
Forced to change the name to Atlético under Franco as non-Spanish language was suppressed, but now only referred to as that by idiots.
* - Athletic changed what they meant by Basque in the early 2000s and so long as you lived in the area from a young age, that was deemed OK. Hence they bussed in decent talent to the San Mamés academy from all around and they now have Venezuelan centre-half Fernando Amorebieta on the books.
Forced to change the name to Atlético under Franco as non-Spanish language was suppressed, but now only referred to as that by idiots.
* - Athletic changed what they meant by Basque in the early 2000s and so long as you lived in the area from a young age, that was deemed OK. Hence they bussed in decent talent to the San Mamés academy from all around and they now have Venezuelan centre-half Fernando Amorebieta on the books.
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