That's Conference! #5 - A Mario Gomez special

'The home of the Mario Gomez fan club' it says at the top of the page. That's more than tongue-in-cheek - it's an outright lie. Gomez, for all he keeps scoring goals, is rubbish. If you look at him for long enough, you'll be blinded by the goals into ignoring the fact that they're all either penalties, rebounds from crap penalties or two-yard tap-ins after someone else has done all the hard work. His constant goal-scoring exploits are therefore, to us anyway, a source of both bafflement and annoyance. With all that in mind, here's a special edition of That's Conference! dedicated to the big man.

First, three yards out, open goal. He can't possibly miss:




Next, great work from Franck Ribéry, neat cut back. He's eight yards out. All he has to do is pick his spot:



Edge of the area, license to shoot. Head over the ball, keep it down...


Trip over the ball, why not?


It would only be fair to end with an actual goal, by way of balance. Here, he bags a consolation for Stuttgart after being routed by FC Bayern (a one-yard tap-in, naturally). And what's the thanks he gets? A punch in the swingers:



Mario Gomez: That's Conference!
Here's to more in 2012.

Poetry corner: More lines on Ancelotti at PSG

So Carlo is in the place

to give the Parisians a new face

And to get the girls to drop their kecks

He's going to go and sign Dave Becks

 

And there's bound to be a different offer

To which a certain striker may be proffered

And to put more noses out of joint

Drogba's coming to prove a point

 

So all is well in with the riches

At the stately Parc des Princes*

With a side you could pick on football manager for the Atari

This is actually real life for the Qataris

* - Yes, we know. Artistic license yeah

Poetry corner: Lines on the PSG coaching job

So farewell then Antoine Kombouaré.
You may have been a decent player,
You may have done well at Valenciennes,
But you were never the 'name' the Qataris wanted.
Let's face it;
Your goose was cooked as soon as the sale was complete.
Sacked
With your team top of the league.
That sucks.

So hello Carlo Ancelotti
And your permanently raised eyebrow.
You now have to make PSG play sexy football
Which isn't something you've ever done elsewhere.
It may be handy to learn the Arabic
Word for 'catenaccio'.
You seem a likeable chap
But it'll still be funny
If you don't win anything.
Sorry about that.

The Euroballs review of 2011

Over our traditional festive drink-a-thon, we've started to get all emotional and retrospective. Here's how we saw events of the past 12 months.

Coach of the year


There are lots of contenders for this. Young coaches with fresh ideas and philosophies - Jurgen Klopp, Thomas Tuchel - old masters still being absurd and brilliant in equal measure - Marcelo Bielsa - but it's from the first bracket we pick our man: Heiko Vogel. The former PE teacher wasn't ruffled by the departure of his boss Thorsten Fink, quietly took the reins at FC Basel and guided them to the knockout stages of the Champions League without fuss and without worrying about the club talking to other potential gaffers.

Worst run club of the year

What a competition we had for this award. Kettering Town went close, Portsmouth have become perennial contenders, but our winners go that bit further because they go against an entire nation's stereotypical reputation for efficiency: Neuchatel Xamax. Run by a egomaniac gangster who seems to want to rival Palermo's prolific Maurizio Zamparini in terms of sacking coaches.

The 'shouldn't this have been sorted months ago' award

Strong competition for this, especially over the English FA's lengthy deliberations over a pair of racism charges and the Luis Suárez bird-flip at Fulham, but the case of FC Sion dragged on past christmas before a final resolution. That resolution was the Swiss FA docking the club 36 league points for their use of ineligible players - players signed during a transfer ban. Had the Swiss FA not acted, FC Basel's tremendous run to the knockout stages of the Champions League was under threat. Nobody has come out of this well. It could and should have been apparent before the Europa League qualifiers and dealt with then. Sion's recourse to as many courts as possible looks costly and wasteful and now they're about to be relegated, 16 points adrift at the bottom of the league on a QI-esque score of -5.

Teaboy of the year

Paul Dickov, handing out refreshment on a freezing Oldham afternoon - one chap had to be taken to hospital with hypothermia - as Latics fans queued for tickets for the big FA Cup tie at Anfield.

The 'you didn't want to do that' award

The lad that got booted by Esteban Alvarado at the Amsterdam ArenA. Sore bollocks and a six-month sentence. And while Bas Nijhuis was probably correct to send Alvarado off, the red card has been rescinded. Common sense reins at the KNVB.

Dick-swingers of the year

Strong showings here by Barcelona, Chelsea, even Liverpool. New boys PSG and Anzhi Makhachkala rose to the task, but in posting a £195m loss for the year, it's a retention of the title by transfer-market distorters extraordinaire, Manchester City.

Man Of The Year

Well it should probably be someone who has given us huge amounts of pleasure like Lionel Messi, Dimitar Berbatov, Bryan Ruiz or Esteban Alvarado. Instead, we'll take the cynics route out and say Sepp Blatter. A Machiavellian delight, he survives by smearing all potential opposition as corrupt while continuing a cosy arrangement over World Cup rights sales through his nephew's company. Which is quite an impressive trick to pull off when you think about it.


Here's hoping for more strong contenders in these categories in 2012.
Best wishes to all (both) our readers and keep it here for the best in football nonsense.

Unbelievable Jeff! #3

So, tonight's Dutch Cup match between Ajax Amsterdam and AZ Alkmaar was abandoned after this incident when an idiot fan ran onto the pitch to attack the AZ goalkeeper Esteban. The fan comes running on with a flying kick at the Costa Rican stopper who manages to avoid the idiot before landing a couple of hefty boots himself. Esteban was subsequently sent off by Jeremain Len's best friend Bas Nijhuis after the incident, so the whole AZ team did the decent thing and trooped off behind. The match was suspended and subsequently abandoned.

As we thought, the YouTube video got pulled so here it is on the BBC Sport Website

Unbelievable Jeff!

Unbelievable Jeff! #2

The wonderfully named Kevin Harbottle of Universidad Católica in Chile comes up with one of the all-time great nutmegs and then backs it up with a second, slightly more orthodox one.

With thanks to Rupert Fryer who bought this to our attention via the CONMEBalls Twitter feed

Unbelievable Jeff!

Unbelievable Jeff! #1

This is actually a bit harsh for That's Conference! But it's unbelievable and needed sharing with the wider world so we decided to create a new feature into the bargain as well.

This one comes from the the Hong Kong First Division game between Sunray Cave JC Sun Hei and Citizen AA at the weekend. Citizen were three nil up thanks to a hat-trick from Yuto Nakamura when, with ten minutes left, Nigerian import Festus Baise decided to be a bit fancy dan with a clearance and only succeeded in looping it over goalkeeper Tse Tak Him and into the back of the net. It gave Sunray Cave JC Sun Hei some hope and five minutes later they reduced the gap to one goal but couldn't complete a remarkable comeback to go down 3-2.

Unbelievable Jeff!

Barcelona dominate in Yokohama

Barcelona dominated the Club World Cup final from first to last and handed Santos a lesson into the bargain as they added yet another trophy to the frankly ridiculous collection they're building up in what will no doubt become known as the Guardiola era.

The Catalans dominated from the off and it proved something of a surprise that it took a full quarter of an hour before they took the lead. They did with a quite outstanding goal; Xavi with a sublime touch and Lionel Messi with a delightful, cheeky, impish, just plain sexy chip over the stranded Cabral. Xavi turned finisher a few moments later as the Blaugrana carved open their South American rivals, Dani Alves prominent on the right. There was so much space on the flanks, the ball came in from the right and Xavi was on the edge of the box to sweep it home.

A goalmouth scramble - Barca can even make those look amazing - saw the third goal come on the stroke of half time. A wonderful back-heel from Messi played in Alves down the right and the ball found it's way, via half a dozen other feet, to Cesc Fabregas, unmarked on the back stick, and he passed it across goal and inside the far post. Santos trudged off the field, heads on chests, already a beaten side.

The second half started as the first ended with Fabregas starting the move and the eventual shot grazing the outside of the post via Cabral's fingertips. Andres Iniesta was almost a peripheral figure in the first half, but he too went close after a stereotypical passage of intricate passing, but aside from that, Barcelona were content to keep the ball away from Santos and preserve the lead they'd built. The third goal had killed the game.

A fourth eventually arrived with eight minutes to go, Alves playing Messi in whose initial control was poor, but it served a purpose in drawing Cabral out of his goal allowing the little Argentine to take the ball round him and pass it into the net.

This was as comprehensive a win as it's possible to see. Barca, with a staggering 72% of possession, starved Santos. They were clinical in the first half, pragmatic in the second. Xavi's control and pass for the opener was pure porn and Santos were a beaten side from there on in. It's difficult to be too critical of the Brazilians: they were just beaten by a far superior side.


Earlier in the day, Asian champions Al Sadd won the third-place play-off against Kashiwa Reysol on penalties after a dismal 0-0 draw.

Brainless - slight return

Earlier this week, we brought you what we thought was the most brainless red card in football history when Jeremain Lens was booked twice within the space of a few seconds.
Well whadda you know? It's been beaten already. While the ball was in play for a fraction of a second between yellow cards for Lens, Franck Ribéry managed to pick up two yellows without the ball ever coming back into play. We've said it before and we'll say it again - massively talented player he may be, but Ribéry really does come across as a mega-tool. And this came on a day when he'd already lost a couple of million to a former agent who'd taken him to court.

That's Conference! #4

Now, we just bought you Robinho missing from about four feet. Werder Bremen youngster Lennart Thy takes this a stage further by blazing it over the bar from in front of an open goal from all of about three yards takes some beating. It’s not even just over. He’s cleared it by yards and put the Jabulani into Row Z.

That's Conference!