Youth - The Chelsea Ban!!

Hey guys

Sorry for the lack of coverage recently, I was on family duties over the weekend, didn't get watch much football, managed to record the Hibs v Celtic game and also watched the first half of Inter v Milan, hoping the catch the highlights of the other leagues this week.

Not sure if anyone saw the Celtic game, after a week of non stop talk of Eduardo's dive and simulation, Aiden McGeady got sent off for a second bookable offence, even though the linesman who was the closed offcial to the action, called for a Celtic free-kick ,the referee thought he saw better and booked Aiden and off he went, now would this have happened if nothing had happed to Eduardo, I very much doubt it, the best thing was, later in the 2nd half Chris Killen, jumped over a Hibs players leg, then went down with an awful attempt at a dive, what did the referee do....nothing, play on. Just shows there is no consistency at all, will be interesting to see if anyone gets sent off during the World Cup qualifiers this weekend.

The main reason I wanted to post something today was after the news that Chelsea will be banned for 3 transfer windows from bringing in any players, now I am sure that whatever appeal Chelsea lodge will work, and either it will be reduced, or completly disregarded, I really hope the powers in be have the strength to stand up to a rich club and make them suffer, I don't think in anyway Chelsea are the only team that conduct these methods of player buying, why not go around the teams with the best youth academies, snapping up all the talented youth and hopefully you'll produce the next Leo Messi.

Just look at Arsenal's captain Cesc Fabergas, the ex-Barca trainee was signed by Arsenal when he was 16 and by 17 he was an Arsenal regular, but for every Fabergas there is someone like Arturo Lupoli, Lupoli broke all kind of records playing for Parma's u17 team, his contract ended Arsenal snapped him up, and although he scored goals in the reserve team and a few in the Carling Cup, he never really made it to the full team, after a loan spell at Derby County, he signed for Fiorentina, he never made an appearance for the Viola, then after loan spells at Norwich, Sheffield United and Treviso he now plies his trade at former Serie A club Ascoli.

Now where would Lupoli be if he had stayed in Italy till he was 20/21 learning his trade in his native country, noone will ever know.

When I look through the squads in Englands top teams it's interesting:

Arsenal have Wojciech Szczęsny 19yr old Polish goalkeeper, Gilles Sunu 18yr old French defender, Chelsea have in their youth team players from Turkey, Austria, Slovakia, Sweden and Italy, then in the reserves the player the ban has come from 18 yr old Gael Kakuta, who spent 6 years at RC Lens youth academy, at the time Lens received nothing for the player, now where do teams like Lens go that plough millions into the youth academies to have real talented players removed from them for nominal fees, and who knows will Gael ever break into the Chelsea First team, or will he be loaned out to numerous clubs and then eventually sold to a lower level team for peanuts, where if he he stayed at Lens he could have become a first team player for a team 40 miles from where he was born and then move on and make the club millions of pounds and all the hard by the academy seem worthwhile and all the players looking up at the first team thinking "That could be us."

I think UEFA and FIFA will take action, It is not just English teams that do this, Barcelona signed up Messi when he was 13, and Real and Barca's B teams now have mostly Spanish players but the odd South American or African, so don't think I'm pointing the finger just at the English teams.

If I was in charge I would propose that players must play in the country of their birth until they reached 20, only then could they move to another country to play football, now this will never happen because every big team would go to court and complain that this prevents some kind of workers rights, or some 19 year old Brazilian wonder kid would sue FIFA for not letting him sign for Barcelona, and it would fall to pieces.

However just think about how good it would be for the game, Argentinian and Brazilian clubs would know any hot prospect would most likely stay with them, or only move within the same league until they were 20 and then you would see them move for probably more substantial fees than they do now, and also in Europe it would do wonders for each league, if Italian or Spanish stars could not make it into the squads of the big teams, they would have to move to other teams in the league be it on loan or permanently, so the so called smaller teams would improve, Countries like France and Holland could put more money into the academies knowing players wouldn't be spied on and tapped up by the money clubs, and could benefit themselves from the talent they have nurtured.

Of course as I've said this will never happen, as teams and players are greedy and want the best player/deal they can get, so I can only dream on, however I would like to hear other people thoughts on this or what they would like to see come in.

Saturday Round Up 15/08

Usually I plan like last weekend to do a round-up after the Sunday game, however I'm off to London in the morning to watch GB play Basketball at the o2.

So decided to write one now, and do a Sunday round-up on Monday night or Tuesday.



PREMIERSHIP

After the 3 o'clock games I watched Arsenal's game at Everton at Wow what a great start to the season, all the criticism Wenger has received, myself being one of the doubters, only 1 player in, Toure/Adebayor out, I liked Wengers lineup, playing Fabergas with Song and Denilson in the middle, what you lose out by not having a solid DM, you make up in numbers, not sure Bendtner works as a winger, Rosicky, Walcott or Nasri will surely play there more often, Arsenal played some fantastic football this evening, Denilson goal was a cracker, Vermaelen introduced himself in the best way with a fantastic header.

Arshavin had a really good game, he is going to be a revelation in the EPL this season, such a fantastic footballing brain, combining well with van Persie and Eduardo upfront he's going to be Arsenal's main man I think.

It's not often that Everton get beat 6-1, and with games like these I always wonder, are Arsenal playing that well, are Everton playing terrible, or is it a mixture of the two, today, I think it was a mixture, Everton played some good football at times, just Arsenal were clinical and the Toffee's defending was awful at times.

A player that impressed me at the end of this season was Wigan's Hugo Rodallega, and I've been looking forward to see how he gets on this season, and today he launched a statement of intent, a wonder strike at Villa Park, he let the ball bounce and from the corner of the box lashed a wonderful shot over Brad Freidel, video coming if I can find it.

Also a great start for Mark Hughes and Man City, my one thought on this, What happens when everyone is fit and wants to play, I can see alot of unrest, apparently Richard Dunne was the Captain and played great, so where would Lescott go?



COCA-COLA CHAMPIONSHIP

One story from the Championship today, Freddie Sears on loan at Crystal Palace from West Ham, though he had scored his first goal for Palace slotting the ball past Bristol City's keeper, the ball hit the corner of the net, bounced back out and the referee waved the players to play on, NO GOAL, Palace boss Neil Warnock, went absolutely crazy.

Surely this is a call for either a video ref, videos in the goal or even a referee behind the net, Bristol City went on to win 1-0, I find it disgraceful that in 2009 cameras everywhere, things like this can still happen, and you can guarantee the English FA will do nothing.



LIGUE 1

Exciting 2nd week in France, a caught a stream near the end of the Sochaux v Bordeaux match ,just in time to see Charlie Davies score his debut goal for Sochaux this brought FCSM back into the match at 2-1, and after Chamakh scored his 2nd, Davies scored near the end, Great way to announce yourself to you new fans, although they didn't win, I'm sure the Sochaux fans will be excited by Davies goals, I know I am. Chamakh's double could also be his last goals in a Bordeaux shirt, I hope he doesn't go to Arsenal, I think he would fail as they have too many forwards already, a move to West Ham would work wonders I think, replace forgotten target man Dean Ashton, Marouane is one of the best headers of a ball in football just now and would do well in the EPL.

Lyon have struggled again, a 1-0 win against Valenciennes, How long does Puel have with performances like these, Gomis goal will have cheered the Lyon fans up both new strikers have scored, this was a massive goal for Gomis as he struggled last season, if he had went a few games without a goal it could have been a similar season, I hope this kicks off his scoring this season.


Hansds up how many people had Nancy top of Ligue 1 after 2 games, a great 4-0 win against Monaco, look forward to seeing the highlights.



SPL

Big wins for Celtic and Rangers today, Aiden McGeady scoring twice again Aberdeen, showing what he can do given more freedom by Tony Mowbary, this is going to be Aiden's big season, and if he performs well, possibly could be his last in the SPL, the Premiership will be calling.

Rangers got a scare at Ibrox, after going 1 up, Falkirk equalised, however Rangers went on to win 4-1 a good start for them at home, Kenny Miller got 2 goals, he needs a big scoring season, 10 in 30 games last season, not fantastic for an Old Firm striker.

St. Johnstone kicked off their SPL season with a point at home to Motherwell, this gets them off the board, and something to improve on, the big win of the day was for Kilmarnock a 3-0 win at home to Hamilton, this is the kind of result they needed to kick start the season, but the complete opposite effect on Hamilton.


GOOD DAY

• Arsenal - The criticism stops here
• Paul Alo'o Efoulou - 2 goals on his debut for Nancy
• Obafemi Martins - debut goal for Wolfsburg
• Ronald Koeman - after last weeks defeat AZ come back to win 6-0
• RC Lens - Win first home game back in Ligue 1

BAD DAY

• People with Joelyn Lescott in your Fantasy Football Team
• Stuart Duff - Taken off after 38 minutes for Aberdeen after McGeady scores 2
• Neil Warnock - Losing 1-0 after your team scores a legitimate goal not allowed
• St-Etienne - 2 defeats in a row, not a lot of positives
• Aston Villa - after defeat to Wigan does the top 4 talk stop