Dropping the Soap

Picture the scene: you’re a young aspiring footballer with a League One outfit and have just enjoyed a great little training session. You bagged a couple of goals against the first-team, and the gaffer’s saying you might get your first start at the weekend. And what better way to celebrate, not to mention bond with the lads, than sexually assaulting a team-mate in the showers? Sorry for the hood-wink opening but I think that sometimes we all treat rape with a bit too much levity and mirth.

In all seriousness then, an unnamed League One club is currently reeling from allegations that four youth team players inflicted a “sex attack” on a team-mate, after “horseplay got out of hand.” Since when did ‘horseplay’ go from putting tabasco in someone’s pint to anal intrusion?! The 17-year-old victim went to hospital last week, and medical staff apparently tipped off police: “The lad was in a lot of distress and was hobbling as he came into casualty. He told nurses he had been attacked by a group of team-mates in the showers. It sounded absolutely horrific. It wasn’t long before police came down and he was asked to go through what had happened again. He was in a right state. He was constantly in tears and was in a great deal of distress and embarrassment. I really felt for him.”

The four players were subsequently arrested, one was freed without charges, and the other three were released on police bail until next month. The club said in a statement: “We are aware there has been an alleged incident. We will assist and communicate with the relevant authorities.”

The rumour currently doing the rounds within the press is that, in preparation for an elaborate Christmas pantomime take on Midnight Express, several players got a bit too ‘method’ in their rehearsal, and well, one thing lead to another. If you think this incident is bad, you should’ve seen what happened when the unnamed club tried to re-enact that scene where Billy’s girlfriend turns up, presses her cans up against the glass screen, and he has a cry-wank.

Revealed : Fat Lampard’s New Contract

So obviously everyone’s thrilled that ‘Super’ Frank is going to be staying at Chelsea for the rest of his career, getting paid £130,000 a week or whatever to stroll around looking generally non-plussed, rather than showing some actual ambition and desire to test his abilities by going abroad.

Anyway, those resourceful chaps over at The Spoiler have somehow managed to ‘acquire’ a copy of Mr Lampard’s new contract and it makes for some interesting reading…

Fat’s ridiculous demands call to mind not just other football prima donnas but also musical divas from years past, who’s requested riders for concert appearances have become the stuff of legend. Head over to The Smoking Gun to discover which delusional celebrities refuse to appear in concert without: small bottles of Flintstones chewable vitamin tablets; specifically green sofas backstage; Cool Original and Tangy Cheese flavoured Doritos mixed together in one bag; or illegally obtained Montecristo Cuban cigars…

France vs England – Behind the Scenes

With the Bosman ruling more than a decade old now, we’ve come to take freedom of movement within football for granted, but it got me thinking the other day when I saw Athletico Madrid were keen to sign David Bentley. With such an unbelievably high ratio of foreign players to English in the Premier League these days, you would expect a similar proportion of our national stars applying their trade on the continent, right? I cannot think of a single one. Even throwing the net wider, in recent memory the only ones that can be described as achieving anything approaching success abroad are David Beckham and Owen Hargreaves. Sure Michael Owen and Steve McManaman adequately kept the Madrid bench warm for brief spells, but do you think the likes of Figo and ZZ were pestering the ex-Scousers for tips and tricks in training? Similarly, Inter Milan splashed out ridiculous money on a young Robbie Keane, only for the Irishman to return with his tail between his legs a couple of years later for a cut-price fee, and two years of his career essentially just wasted.

The BBC yesterday ran a very interesting piece along these same lines, trying to work how precisely France built such an imposing football empire towards the end of the 1990s, winning back-to-back major International tournaments with relative ease, while England languished in mediocrity at best. Speaking to the Beeb, ex-Arsenal and France star Gilles Grimandi interestingly spoke about the French mentality to the Bosman ruling: It opened up borders for our players and enabled them to play abroad. More importantly it opened players' minds and gave them greater experience. When you go abroad it can be very challenging and that makes you stronger as a player and a person.” Describing this mature and ambitious way France’s up-and-comers embraced the newfound freedom, former FA technical director and successful Premier League manager Howard Wilkinson wisely agreed with Grimandi’s assessment:“France was the prep school. The rest of Europe became a finishing school for their top players.” Sure the likes of ZZ, Petit, Djorkaeff and Deschamps could naturally all play a bit, but undoubtedly experience with top-class European sides helped them make the jump from ‘good’ to ‘truly great.’ Now it is rare for France’s elite to remain in their national Ligue 1, with English, Spanish, Italian and German clubs clambering over themselves to snap up the prodigious new breed including Ribery, Diarra, Malouda, Benzema and Ben Arfa.

Howard Wilkinson further attributes much of England’s embarrassing international record to the contrast here: “culturally we've always suffered in that English players and coaches have not had any experience playing abroad that some of our competitors have had during their careers.” So why exactly is it that almost exclusively in England players want to stringently stay in their home country? Often it is here that people point to the Premier League top-4’s success in the Champions League, and question why any of the top players would ever want to take a pay-cut and enjoy less success abroad, all for the sake of an ‘education.’ As we’ve said time and time again though, the top-4’s European success is almost in spite of English involvement these days rather than propelled by it, with only 10 out of 44 regular starters for Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool in total hailing from these fine shores.

Given the money in our league these days, club success is virtually guaranteed, but it’s hard to look at parallel timelines of both national and international performances without seeing an inverse correlation over the last 15 years. In no way do foreign players ruin our league, far from it, but they clearly do affect the production of homegrown talent, and more specifically, their advancement to the very top levels of the game. It’s interesting that in addition to David Bentley finally another English player, Frank Lampard, is also apparently in consideration for a summer move to Europe, and to Barcelona in particular. Obviously STT have their own opinion of Mr Lampard, but even his biggest fan must realize that there’s no way he will ever keep Iniesta and Xavi out of the Barce side if they’re both fit. Are we left then with the depressing realization that no English players are abroad because they are simply not good enough? Perhaps; but it’s as much due to certain players’ desire to stay close to family and keep making the big bucks. If available, you can guarantee that many European heavyweights would want a fair few of our goalkeepers, JT, Rio, Hargreaves, Joe Cole, Stevie G and Wayne Rooney, but it’s very unlikely that these would ever risk the move to La Liga or Serie A.

Grimandi also spoke at length however about the approach to everyday training at the major club sides his compatriots played with during the 1990s: “I remember talking to Lilian Thuram, who I played with at Monaco, telling me about his time at Parma and the amount of time in Italy that was spent on tactical work. In France the emphasis was on technique and physical development, so when Lilian came to the national team he brought that experience back with him.” This melting pot of composite styles and innovative approaches is what gave France the edge to win their World Cup and subsequent European Championships. You get the impression though that the weekly Premier League grind dulls the tactical variety and application of even the sharpest coaches, Rafa Benitez and Jose Mourinho being obviously prime examples.

But at grass-roots level too the French seem to value different approaches to us, in fact favouring that suggested here last week, with the French Football Federation (FFF) concentrating on club-neutral technical academies. When a player who has been to a regional academy then signs for a professional club, that team pays compensation to the FFF for the two years spent at the academy, to keep the youngsters fresh and competitive, and also to keep plenty of money in the system. Grimandi continued, talking about the FFF’s flagship Clairefountaine academy: “It's a fantastic school for a young player and is an environment that prepares them for a life as a professional footballer - 75%-80% of players who attend these academies would join a professional club.”

So will the FA direct their planned £200mill towards this kind of set-up? Trevor Brooking, the current FA direct of development, cites his primary aim over the next 5 years to make sure our youngsters are simply more comfortable on ball by the age of 11, but what do the FFF have in the pipeline for next year’s academy influx at that age? Biomechanical training and computerized player simulation, as part of an individual-specific program of developing flexibility, balance and movement. Sounds like science-fiction in comparison to us right? So how do we consistently manage to be about ten steps behind everyone else? Surely that should be the FA’s primary concern now, because as is, this state of affairs is just baffling.

Cracking Keepie-Uppie

Cristiano Ronaldo seems to be playing the best football in the league by a country mile at the moment but madd skillz like his don’t just flare up (herpes-style) overnight. Both Cristiano’s broken English and Sir Alex Ferguson have told us recently that all this class is coming from the hours of practice that the Portuguese lothario puts in on the training pitch and the futsol court. Let that be a lesson to you kids; want to score crazy freekicks and round keepers for fun? Then practice, practice, practice. Oh, and try steroids if you’re not naturally very good. Anyway, libelous conjecture aside, it turns out that surprisingly Ronaldo isn't bad at juggling either. Peep this video below for football’s equivalent of a dick-measuring contest, as he shows off what he’s got in his locker to world-famous football free-styler Billy Wingrove.



The highlight of that video has to be the little flick Ronaldo does with the back of his knee. Still, he's got diddly squat on what these lads have going on:

An appropriate title for this video would be Capoeira meets Parkour meets Superman meets football. Maybe some parts have been digitally manipulated a little bit, but it's definitely worth it. Big props to the guy who agreed to have the ball kicked off his head William Tell stylee. The STT staff's array of stunts and tricks is comparable, but we still think that this chap might be a couple of teeth short of a full set if we'd taken part.

Gameweek 16 – ‘Chess not Checkers’

Happy Tuesday peoples and many apologies for the delay in update this week. Due to the excesses of the weekend, our pre-pubescent emo-loving runner was too busy listening to Dashbaoard Confessional to make his vital delivery of the weekend’s action in time, so only last night did the tapes finally arrive at STT HQ for our dissection and digestion.

Anyway, this weekend saw perhaps the biggest upset of the season so far, as the undefeated Arsenal went down 2 - 1 to struggling Middlesbrough following an unusually tepid performance from Wenger’s men. Elsewhere, Liverpool’s undefeated record also went the way of the dodo as they crashed to a 3 - 1 loss away to Reading, in another poor display from Benitez’s men that cannot help preparations for tonight’s crucial Champions League tie with Marseilles. Manchester United and Chelsea kept the pressure on meanwhile, which both of their victories (4 – 1 over Derby, and 2 – 0 over Sunderland respectively) tightening the thumb screws for next weekend’s GRAND SLAM SUNDAY, as Sky so hyperbolically put it.

Outside of the top four then we saw excellent victories for the rising Everton, along with the resurgent West Ham and Spurs sides who are considerably better than their league positions would have you believe. To relieve a bit of crowd discontent, there were wins also for Newcastle and Bolton which put a long-forgotten smile on many faces t’up north, while finally at the country’s other pole, a great 3 – 1 drumming of Aston Villa put Portsmouth dangerously close to a Champions League qualification spot.

Premier League Team of the Week (based on OPTA stats, Fantasypremierleague.com ratings and my own expert eye):

Keeper – Rob Green (couple of phenomenal saves and yet another clean sheet for the in-form Englishman)

Defence – Glen Johnson (superb again), Phil Wheater (rock solid and in consummate control throughout), Habib Beye (defensively strong, and a vital last minute winner), Lucas Neil (excellent once again, in the face of much abuse from his former club’s faithful)

Midfield – Sulley Muntari (performance of the weekend no doubt, capped off by two, count ‘em, wonder-goals), James Milner (aggressive and tricky display from the ever improving winger), Ryan Giggs (masterful showing from the old pro), Steven Gerrard (fired up again)

Up Top – Carlos Tevez (two poaches and some lovely interplay), Yakubu (right place, right time ... three times!)

Weekly Awards:

Goal of the Week – Mr Muntari’s sublime second at Villa Park, eclipsing even his cracking opening strike…crunching tackle to win the ball, cheeky little meg on walking Atlas Zat Knight, and then slashed into the bottom corner. James Harper’s finish for Reading’s third against Liverpool was not far behind though.

Meg of the Week – See above.

Save of the Week – Rob Green somehow kept Tugay’s venomous volley through the crowded penalty box out at Ewood Park.

Skill of the Week – The aforementioned majestic Turk busts a sweet lift over the West Ham backline to pick out Santa Cruz, who then blasted into Row Z.

Miss of the Week – A couple of Martin Laursen headers in the first half against Pompey that most of the male (sighted) population would’ve struggled to miss; either would’ve made it 1 – 1, and game on. Papa Bouba Diop was close with his 2 yard scuff late on in the same game though.

Speculative Effort of the Week – James Milner rattled the bar at St James Park with a lovely 20 yard chip.

Nearest Lampard came to Contributing…er, of the Week – Trotted on to take Chelsea’s penalty and then presumably was re-substituted off again. Another masterclass.

Gaffe of the Week – Unlucky Paul Scharner nestled a perfect near post header past his own keeper within 3 minutes of kick off.

ASBO(s) of the Week – Shared jointly this week between Liam Miller and Emmanuel Eboue, both of whom slapped opponents in the face. Pizarro probably deserved it, and maybe Miller won’t mind the red card, but how Eboue stayed on the pitch is a surely-the-referees-aren’t-still-biased-towards-the-top-four shaped mystery.

“Remember Me?” of the Week – Jérémie Aliadière gave perhaps the best performance of his career against his former employers at the Riverside on Sunday.

Wrestling Move of the Week – Garry Barry executed a great blast-from-the-past People’s Elbow on Papa Bouba Diop to retrieve the ball after slamming Villa’s consolation penalty on Saturday.

Sniper-in-the-crowd of the Week – Half footballer, half actor Christiano Ronaldo gets his knee shot out to buy Manchester United’s fourth from the penalty spot at home to Derby.

Conversion of the Week – Nicolas Anelka expertly slotted his penalty over the bar, shame it was during a football match. France probably could’ve done with kicking like that in Rugby World Cup eh?

Egomaniac of the Week – The Portuguese winger takes this too for not letting Tevez take the penalty that would’ve given him his first hat-trick in English football.

Celebration of the Week – Stuart Downing busts out the old Emile Heskey classic DJ celebration after putting his team one up against Arsenal.

Someone’s-getting-Sat-Nav-for Christmas moment of the Week – Arsenal’s bus driver apparently got so lost that the team didn’t arrive at the Riverside until less than an hour before kick off. Not that that’s an excuse.

Someone’s-getting-Glasses-for Christmas moment of the Week – Seriously, how is Rob Styles still a professional referee? Blunders aplenty as usual up in Newcastle, but how he missed Cameron Jerome trying to actually catch Emre’s freekick is mind boggling.

Head Scratcher of the Week – Rafa “Tinkerbell” Benitez yanking Carragher, Gerrard and Torres off (not in that way) early at the Madjeski and just accepting defeat.

Banter of the Week – Derby fans singing “can we play you every week?” at Old Trafford after scoring for the first time in 7 games.

Hero of the Week – Ryan Giggs for becoming only the 11^th Manchester United player in history to reach 100 league goals for the club.

Zero of the Week – Arsene Wenger. Presumably there will be crisis talks at the Emarites this week? If anyone else is keen, I shall be holding a “Wenger Out!” protest before the game next Sunday, this kind of result is simply not acceptable.

Personal Highlight of the Week – I’m sorry but it just has to be Arsenal losing. Look at poor Tomas Rosicky’s face, he looks like he might cry. He also looks like a teenage girl.

Football Fake

This week saw the premiere of possibly the greatest hour-long TV special ever made about the beautiful game. For those of you lucky enough to stumble across Sky Three at 9 the other night, the title of the show will be all too clear. For those of you as yet unenlightened, the program in question was ‘Football Fake.’ To quote Sky’s own on-screen TV guide, the program examined:

“How have a number of men have passed themselves off as professional footballers? Various managers have been fooled into signing fake footballers but how did they manage it?”

Of course this was the expose that we at STT have been waiting on for a couple of years now. Playing as a biography of Frank Lampard, the show charted his rise to the top of both the club and also International circuits through various pieces of stock footage and conjecture. It turns out that Frank actually created a fraudulent alias for himself, who acted on his behalf to contact various football clubs around the country and offer them fake certification of youth careers at a range of top flight sides.

West Ham United took the bait and before you can say “two pie, two chips, and you better make them both LARGE chips,” a contract was signed. Obviously in training it became quickly clear that Fat wasn’t actually a footballer, but to spare the board’s blushes, the young Lampard was fast-tracked to the first team and the media-hype machine started ominously spinning. Soon, other clubs heard how fantastic this new West Ham prospect was, and offers started to fly in without any of them actually ever seeing him play.

In an epic finale, the show went on to tell of that fateful night when Lampard’s move to Chelsea was agreed. One night all the chairmen of the London Premier League clubs got together for their monthly ‘scissors-paper-stone night’ and, not for the first time, former Hammers chairman Terry Brown had a little bit too much to drink and ended up spilling the beans about Lampard’s fake career. The uproar was immeasurable, with several of those chaps interested in buying him actually taking part in the game. So now no-one wanted Lampard; he had gone from the hottest property in London (aside from Keeley’s rack of course) to as unwanted as a dose of the clap. It was decided that the only way to settle this was to play for him, loser had to sign him.

15 rounds of scissors- paper-stone later and Mr Brown was shattered, barely holding on in the all-against-all tournament, but in an unforeseen show of bravado, decided to play ‘rock’ against Chelsea’s then-owner Peter Kenyon. The gamble paid off as Kenyon played ‘scissors.’ The screams could heard echoing throughout the night and it came as no surprise when he resigned shortly after, so humiliated at what he had inflicted upon his beloved club.

So now will action finally be taken? The world knows the truth. The metaphorical cat is out of the bag. Can someone please stop this clown ever playing professional football again please?

Frank's thinking of giving up his day job

Congratulations this week to Mr Frank Lampard for becoming the world’s first footballer to have his own personal TV channel, imaginatively called ‘FrankTV’. Those unlucky enough to subscribe to Orange mobile contracts can now suffer through 50 minutes of Frank “at home, with team-mates and at training” on their 3G phones. Particular highlights in this first thrilling installment (more are threatened throughout the season) include scenes of Frank wrapping Christmas presents, Frank playing with dogs and Frank cooking Brussels sprouts. Now we at STT have heard of some masturbatory and self-indulgent projects in our time (Tom Hanks’ Castaway anyone?) but surely this takes the crown?!

Future program ideas include:

• “Frank’s rub-n-tug tour” where he highlights the best ‘massage’ parlours in poor European countries
• “Frank’s ulti-burger van” where attempts to cram, and subsequently eat, as many cooked fillings between two halves of a bap as physically possible
• “Frank’s invisibility challenge” where he offers his own personal take on the ‘Where’s Wally?’ series, but throughout the entirity of Chelsea’s Champions League campaign
• "Frank on gangs", where Frank emulates everyone's favourite sausage-in-a-shirt Grant (or is it Phil) Mitchell, as he explores the seedy underworld of criminal gangs. He finds out that nobody in his family has ever been connected with organised crime. Not even Frank Snr. Or his uncle Harry
  
• "Frank on Crank" where he gets hooked on Meth-amphetamines and ends up having to 'service' wierdos under various West London bridges to pay for the habit. Co-hosted by Fergie from the Black Eyes Peas and featuring Rio Ferdinand in a mentor role