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| Football Weekly video: 2010 predictions James Richardson and guests gaze into their crystal balls ahead of the new yearJames RichardsonBarry GlendenningJohn AshdownChristian BennettRaphael Honigstein guardian.co.uk |
Bayern may offload Ribéry to cut wage bill • German club feeling effects of heavy recruitment last summer• Move comes as talks on new deal for Ribéry due to startFranck Ribéry's Premier League suitors were offered more encouragement last night after the Bayern Munich director of sport, Christian Nerlinger, admitted the Bundesliga club are seeking to cut their wage bill significantly after recruiting heavily last summer.Bayern, who face Fiorentina in the knockout phase of the Champions League next month, have already offloaded four players in this transfer window and are now intent upon reducing the salaries of their remaining playing staff. That will have implications for Ribéry, whose £120,000-a-week contract expires in 2011 and who may be less inclined to remain in Bavaria on reduced terms."We are going to try to reduce the wages," said Nerlinger. "The wages have gone through the roof and, therefore, we have got to get our message through to the players that a new contract does not necessarily mean a pay rise." The sporting director did add that "every case has to be dealt with individually and according to the market" but, with talks due to open with Ribéry's representatives over a new deal in the next month, the player's future at the club does appear in some doubt.The Bayern president, Uli Hoeness, has stated publicly that the France international will be sold next summer if he does not extend his contract. Chelsea have been long-standing admirers of the midfielder but do not anticipate moving to secure his services this month. Real Madrid and Internazionale expressed an interest last summer.Similarly, the likes of Manchester United and Manchester City would be encouraged by the 26-year-old's potential availability, even with the injury problems the winger has endured this season. Ribéry has made only six Bundesliga appearances this term and missed the start of Bayern's mid-season training camp in Dubai today after his big toes swelled up after a jog on Sunday, requiring both big toenails to be drilled to relieve the pressure.Bayern were heavy spenders in the market last summer, with an outlay of about £60m, but have already offloaded the likes of Luca Toni on loan to Roma, Andreas Ottl and Breno to Nürnberg and Alexander Baumjohann to Schalke this month. Nerlinger added that the club had "reached the limit" as far as new signings were concerned.Transfer windowFranck RibéryBayern MunichPremier LeagueDominic Fifieldguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Jim White: Manchester United's debt as red as their famous shirts Manchester United's owners the Glazer family have presided over a remarkable piece of reverse alchemy. telegraph.co.uk |
Manchester United concerned with trophies not Manchester City, says Patrice Evra Patrice Evra says city rivals care more about beating United than actually winning trophy ahead of Carling Cup semi-final. telegraph.co.uk |
Eccentricities show Africa's weakness Dodgy keepers are a feature of this year's Africa Cup of NationsThree-quarters of the way through Cameroon's second match in the group stages of the Africa Cup of Nations in Angola, they seemed to be on their way out. Having lost their opener to Gabon, they trailed Zambia 1-0 and seemed devoid of ideas on how to break them down. Geremi slung in a typically uninspired cross from the right. Kennedy Mweene, the Zambia goalkeeper, started to come for it, checked, came again, got his feet in a terrible tangle, and finally sprawled on the ball, only for it to squirm under him and inside the post.In a tournament of atrocious goalkeeping, that was probably the worst moment, yet Mweene is a keeper of pedigree, having been named goalkeeper of the year in the South African Premier League in 2009.Of 53 goals scored in the group stage, 23 could be attributed to a greater or lesser extent to goalkeeper error. It is difficult to envisage much of an improvement between now and the summer, so goalkeeping ability, or lack of it, could be a massive handicap for the six African teams at the World Cup finals.There have been some real howlers here in Angola. The host nation, for instance, seemed to be cruising to victory in the opening game when Carlos Fernandes dropped a cross and allowed Seydou Keita to begin Mali's fightback from four goals down. In the same group, Algeria's Faouzi Chaouchi was responsible for two of Malawi's goals in his side's 3-0 defeat, fumbling a cross and smacking a clearance straight into a forward.It is not just that some of the goalkeeping has been bad; a lot of it has been unfathomably eccentric. Late in Mozambique's draw with Benin, for instance, Rafael came for an overhit through ball, gathered comfortably, and then attempted to flip over. Misjudging it badly, he landed on his neck, injuring himself and sending the ball squirting loose. He was lucky it did not cost a goal."You see a lot of mistakes," says the former Nigeria goalkeeper Idah Peterside. "You saw the game where the Mozambique goalkeeper tried to act funny. These things are long gone in football. We did that 20 years ago, but now the game is more technical."This means that sides with a good goalkeeper have a huge advantage – and it may yet be significant that Ivory Coast's greatest weakness is their keeper, Boubacar Barry of KSC Lokeren. "I think [Essam] El-Hadary is the best in the tournament," says Ahmed Hassan, Egypt's captain, of his side's keeper, who has been instrumental in the Pharoahs' successes in the past two Cups of Nations. "He is strong and secure and that gives us lots of confidence."El-Hadary has barely been tested so far in Angola, so survives with his Âreputation intact, as does ÂCameroon's Carlos Kameni of ÂEspanyol. He has had his wobbles, but Kameni appears to be the only African keeper going to the World Cup who looks up to the task.A new book on African football, The Feet of the ÂChameleon, sets out the theory why Cameroon has traditionally produced good goalkeepers. Claude Le Roy, who has as much experience of coaching in Africa as any European, tells of going into the Bassa region of central-Âsouthern Africa and discovering a game that involved two boys facing each other across a courtyard. One would head a ball and try to hit the roof of his opponent's house; the other would jump to try to save it. But Le Roy tells the book's author, Ian Hawkey, that even in Cameroon, goalkeeping lags behind that of the rest of the world."Look at the conditions. The pitches are covered in stones and broken bottles, or they're hard as concrete. Nobody wants to dive around and train on this."Cameroon aside, there is no great tradition on which young keepers can draw, a point made by Gabon's Didier Ovono, who has so far been the best goalkeeper in the Cup of Nations. "It's about the mentality," he says. "In Africa they don't give a lot of work to the goalkeeper. When you go abroad you must have the technique to play there. If you do not, you cannot."Overseas they start at eight years old to play goalkeeper. In Africa you must start outfield, and you go in goal later, when you are 12, 13. It's difficult because we don't have good goalkeeper coaches."The 27-year-old was a midfielder who converted to play in goal aged 12, and showed enough promise for his government to pay for him to attend Thomas Nkono's academy in Barcelona. Nkono played in two World Cups for Cameroon (1982 and 1990) and was in the squad for USA 94. "I stayed one year to get technique," Ovono says. "Nkono told me everything I know in football. After, when I was 18, I started in El Salvador." He moved on to Georgia where he won a league title with Dinamo Tbilisi, and is now a regular for Le Mans in France's top division.Peterside speaks similarly of going in goal in his teens because it was his best chance of getting into the side. Tellingly, his heroes were not African, but Gianluca Pagliuca of Italy and Sergio Goycochea of Argentina. "A lot of people want to score goals and have the glamour and the money," he says, before explaining his theory that African keepers cannot secure the moves to Europe they need to progress because so few African keepers have Âsucceeded before, so clubs are unwilling to take a chance."Everybody wants the new Michael Essien," says Tom Vernon, Manchester United's scout in Africa, who runs an academy in Ghana. "So other positions don't get a look-in."That may be so, but on the evidence of the past fortnight, their suspicion appears justified. And so the cycle of underachievement keeps on turning.The most common excuse for goalkeepers has been the ball, which is of global concern given it is the same Adidas Jabulani model that will be used at the World Cup. "It is a very fast ball and because of this, it is often very difficult to judge its flight," Nigeria's Vincent Enyeama says.Ovono agrees. "All the goalkeepers are talking about it. It doesn't have just one trajectory, it moves a lot. When they shoot it strong, you cannot follow the ball. You saw that against Tunisia. The ball came like this [mimes ball moving straight] and at the last moment, it moves. So you have to wait for the last moment."Watch out, then, for more howlers in South Africa.Africa Cup of NationsWorld Cup 2010Jonathan Wilsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |