Tamworth: Back To The Future

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Set em up and knock em down, Tammies!

Heh...Tammies. We're Lambs, dammit!

What is a better nickname? That we're a bunch of baby sheep or we're a bunch of valley girls all named Tammy?

You know by now we would have grown up into Rams, I figure.

CR

[Chief Rum]

Top Players In The World

In order to get a feel for what the football world of 2008 is like, I feel that I should introduce you to the best players in the world. This isn't so easy to do, though, as there are a wealth of leagues.

In the end, I felt I had to go by value. It's not the best way to do it, as quality of player is just one part of the measure, which includes the player's accomplishments, the reputation and achievements of the club he plays for and the league he plays in, how close he is to his peak playing form and peak age, how big his contract is and how long he has left on it, and how he does for his country in international competitions, and that's probably not all of it. There is almost certainly positional bias as well, along with an emphasis toward offensive players over defensive players. Fortunately, you can make an argument that much of these qualities are at least partially related to the player's skill. So while I wouldn't bank that the best player int he world is actualyl also the most valuable, he's probably on the list of best players in the world. So here goes:

1. SC Adriano (BRA)-- Inter, $73 M

Brazilian superstar striker Adriano is just 26 years old, but he has already scored 27 goals in 58 international appearances for Italy. He has scored 65 goals in the past two seasons with the team, and 101 in the last four.

2. SC El-Hadji Diouf (SEN)-- Liverpool, $61 M

The 27-year-old Senegalese striker has been one of the Premiership's more consistent offensive performers for several seasons now. He has scored 77 goals in five seasons with the Reds, and also had 10 assist in two different seasons. Internationally, he has scored 31 goals in 60 matches with Senegal.

3. SC Martins (NIG)-- Inter, $56 M

The young Nigerian striker is just 23 and could be just coming into his own. I'm not sure what's more amazing. That two of the top three players int he world are from Africa, or that two of the top three players in the world are on the same team--and are best of friends as well. Martins hasn't really turned his immense talent into the kind of production he may some day, but that's probably partly because Adriano is taking all the shots. Martins often comes off the bench for Inter, which has limited his time. He has 22 goals in 47 appearances with Nigeria.

4. SC Shola Ameobi (ENG)-- Newcastle, $54 M

This 27-year-old English striker probably has every right to be peeved he isn't considered more valuable than Diouf, as he has clearly outplayed him in the Premiership. Ameobi has established himself as perhaps the most dangerous player in the Premiership, with four straight 30 goal seasons. In that time period, in which he has scored 134 times, he has also never had less than a 7.49 rating and 53 assists. The reason he isn't as highly regarded than the less productive Diouf is probably because it took Ameobi longer to break into England's tough international squad. Ameobi only has 22 caps, with 10 goals in that time.

5. MF Andrés D'Alessandro (ARG)-- Milan, $53 M

The target of the highest fee ever paid in this dynasty ($68 M) comes in at fifth on this list. And as you can see from the Super Cup, sometimes D'Alessandro doesn't even start, amazingly enough. He is versatile enough to play both forward and in the midfield, but tends to play in the middle more. In two seasons with Milan, the 27-year-old midfielder has 12 goals and 15 assists to go along with a 7+ rating. D'Alessandro also has eight goals in 45 caps with powerful Argentina.

6. MF Pablo Aimar (ARG)-- Valencia, $48 M

That's one terrific midfield Argentina is sporting. D'Alessandro's international partner in the middle of Argentina's tactic comes in at sixth on this list. The 28-year-old playmaker has been at the center of Valencia's midfield since the turn of the century, and he still has a lot of game left. Aimar has 24 goals and 32 assists in the past five seasons for Valencia, to go along with 6 international goals in 56 appearances with Argentina.

7. SC Kapo (FRA)-- Barcelona, $48 M

As Thierry Henry gets older, it seems the torch has been passed to Kapo, the long time Auxerre scorer who was recently brought into powerful Barcelona. The 28-year-old Frenchman put up 77 goals in the last five seasons for Auxerre. He has long been a regular with the worldclass French team, with 12 goals in 41 caps.

8. MF Joe Cole (ENG)-- Chelsea, $48 M

England checks in with its second player in the person of 26-year-old Cole, who, despite his younger gae, has been manning Chelsea's midfield since he was 20. Cole has yet to finish a season with under a 7 rating. He has 18 goals and 21 assists in the past five seasons. For England, he has scored much more often, with seven goals in 34 caps.

9. RW Cristiano Ronaldo (POR)-- Man Utd, $47.5 M

Ronaldo is yet another player who seems to play a backup role who yet finds himself considered among the best in the world. Ronaldo is often used as Man Utd's offensive injection midway through games. Ronaldo doubles as a creative wing and occasional striker. In the last five seasons, Ronaldo has 59 goals and 64 assists. At just 23, Ronaldo still has a long way to go in his career. Despite the young age, he already has 10 goals in 33 appearances with Portugal.

10. SC Samuel Eto'o (CAM)-- Mallorca, $47 M

Eto'o, the third African striker in the top ten, is one of the Primera Liga's top scorers. The 27-year-old Cameroonian was great last year, scoring 35 goals in 38 matches with Mallorca. Eto'o has 93 goals in the last five seasons, all with Mallorca. He has also been explosive with his native Cameroon, scoring 35 international goals in 67 appearances.

Other Lists

Top Ten Young Players

Below are the top ten most valuable players who are 21 and younger as of October 25, 2008.

1. SC Andrija Kaludjerovic (SER), Perugia, 21 y.o., $23.5 M
2. SC James Graham (SCO), Leicester, 21 y.o., $19.25 M
3. SC Avi Ohayon (ISR), Chievo, 19 y.o., $18.5 M
4. SC Emiliano Viganò (ITA), Valencia, 21 y.o., $16.5 M
5. SC Eric Veld (SWI), Cottbus, 20 y.o., $16 M
6. FB Miguel Villanueva (SPA), Sevilla, 21 y.o., $15.5 M
7. SC Paul Dixon (IRE), Inter, 19 y.o., $15.25 M
8. MF José Antonio Gil (SPA), Lleida, 20 y.o., $14.75 M
9. SC Masahiro Yoshimura (HNG), Milan, 17 y.o., $14.25 M
10. LW Michael Schaafsma (NED), Milan, 18 y.o., $13.5 M

Top Ten Strikers

1. Adriano (BRA), Inter, $73 M
2. El-Hadji Diouf (SEN), Liverpool, $61 M
3. Martins (NIG), Inter, $56 M
4. Shola Ameobi (ENG), Newcastle, $54 M
5. Kapo (FRA), Barcelona, $48 M
6. Samuel Eto'o (CAM), Mallorca, $47 M
7. Roque Santa Cruz (PAR), FC Bayern, $45 M
8. Arjen Robben (NED), Chelsea, $43.5 M
9. Antonio Cassano (ITA), Roma, $39.5 M
10. Miroslav Klose (GER), Man Utd, $36 M

Top Ten Midfielders

1. Andrés D'Alessandro (ARG), Milan, $53 M
2. Pablo Aimar (ARG), Valencia, $48 M
3. Joe Cole (ENG), Chelsea, $48 M
4. Steven Gerrard (ENG), Liverpool, $45 M
5. Belözoglu Emre (TUR), Inter, $43 M
6. Jermaine Jenas (ENG), Newcastle, $38.5 M
7. Alonso Xabi (SPA), Real Sociedad, $36.5 M
8. Eric Djemba-Djemba (CAM), Man Utd, $35.5 M
9. Owen Hargreaves (ENG), Arsenal, $33.5 M
10. Aliaksandr Hleb (BEL), Chelsea, $33 M

Top Ten Wingers

1. Cristiano Ronaldo (POR), Man Utd, $47.5 M
2. José Antonio Reyes (SPA), Arsenal, $45.5 M
3. Mancini (BRA), Real Madrid, $43 M
4. Joaquìn (SPA), Betis, $41.5 M
5. Damien Duff (IRE), Chelsea, $40 M
6. Daniel Bierofka (GER), FC Bayern, $38 M
7. Ricardo Quaresma (POR), Barcelona, $37 M
8. Evandro Roncatto (BRA), Alavés, $37 M
9. Vicente (SPA), Valencia, $28 M
10. Rafael van der Vaart (NED), Liverpool, $24.5 M

Top Ten Fullbacks

1. Ashley Cole (ENG), Arsenal, $28.5 M
2. John Arne Riise (NOR), Liverpool, $23 M
3. Mbulelo Mabizela (SAF), Tottenham, $22 M
4. Brett Emerton (AUS), Blackburn, $21 M
5. Christian Chivu (ROM), Roma, $20 M
6. Luciano Zauri (ITA), Real Sociedad, $18.25 M
7. Gianluca Zambrotta (ITA), Milan, $17.25 M
8. Tobias Rau (GER), FC Bayern, $17.25 M
9. Fernando Navarro (SPA), Barcelona, $16.5 M
10. Kasper Bogelund (DEN), Man Utd, $14.75 M

Top Ten Centrebacks

1. John O'Shea (IRE), Man Utd, $32 M
2. Rio Ferdinand (ENG), Man Utd, $32 M
3. John Terry (ENG), Chelsea, $31 M
4. Paolo Cannavaro (ITA), Parma, $22.5 M
5. Phillip Mexès (FRA), Real Madrid, $22.5 M
6. Daniele Bonera (ITA), Arsenal, $21 M
7. Joseph Yobo (NIG), Everton, $19.25 M
8. Kakhaber Kaladze (GEO), Milan, $18.5 M
9. Miguel Villanueva (SPA), Sevilla, $15.5 M
10. Alessandro Nesta (ITA), Milan, $15 M

Top Ten Goalkeepers

1. Shay Given (ENG), Newcastle, $22.5 M
2. Gianluigi Buffon (ITA), Juventus, $21.5 M
3. Tony McDermott (ENG), Arsenal, $9.5 M
4. Stipe Pletikosa (CRO), Marseille, $9 M
5. Andreas Isaksson (SWE), Alavés, $8.5 M
6. Sébastien Frey (FRA), Parma, $7.5 M
7. Iker Casillas (SPA), Real Madrid, $7.5 M
8. Dimitar Ivankov (BUL), Levski Sofia, $7.25 M
9. Ivan Pelizzoli (ITA), Roma, $7.25 M
10. Tim Howard (USA), Deportivo, $ 7 M

CR

[SirFozzie]

Bah, you're still a bunch of Tammies

[Chief Rum]

English Premier League Predictions

I put together a little preview of the League this year, with my predictions. I am modest for myself, although I will, of course, be expecting to contend for the title. So hopefully my predictions will be wrong.

With each team capsule, I have listed players ranked significantly high among players based out of the Premier Division. I only took so much fullbacks and centrebacks, while I took down a lot of strikers and midfielders names. That is why you will see more names for guys up front than in the back. Regardless, the numbers in parantheses following the players' names is their rank, by value, at their position within the EPL.

Just because no players are listed at a position doesn't mean there aren't players there, or even good players. I'm just too tired to list everyone, and I don't know if I could really pick out the best non-valuable players anyway. Just rest assured in knowing that teams that seem short of players in the capsules didn't have many players ranked as high as the other teams (which should give some indication of how they will do this year).

Here are my predictions:

1st MAN UTD (Last Year: 2nd)

Tactic: 4-4-2
Rep: Worldwide
Finances: Rich

SC: Miroslav Klose (4), Nicolas Anelka (7), Giuseppe Sculli (29)
MF: Eric Djemba-Djemba (4), Gilberto Silva (17), Gaetano D'Agostino (20)
WG: Cristiano Ronaldo (1), Sidney Govou (5), Kieran Richardson (12)
FB: Kasper Bogelund (5), Patrice Evra (7), Bernd Korzynietz (11)
DC: John O'Shea (1), Rio Ferdinand (2)
GK: --

Outlook: Man Utd is as powerful as ever, with one of the top forward combos, a deep midfield and easily the best defense in the league. Fabien Barthez is still the goalkeeper, but he has fallen off enough to not be a top ten EPL keeper. Not that it should matter behind the top two defenders in the EPL.

2nd ARSENAL (Last Year: 4th)

Tactic: 4-4-2
Rep: Worldwide
Finances: Rich

SC: Thierry Henry (6), Jérémie Aliadière (18), Hernán Crespo (36)
MF: Owen Hargreaves (5), Gennro Ivan Gattuso (10), Edu (14)
WG: José Antonio Reyes (2), Denílson (7), Jermaine Pennant (11)
FB: Ashley Cole (1)
DC: Daniele Bonera (4), Kolo Abib Touré (6), Michael Jakobsen (10)
GK: Tony McDermott (2)

Outlook: The Gunners have the best midfield in the EPL, and maybe the world. Henry isn't what he used to be, but he remains a star, and McDermott is one of the best young goalkeepers to come around in England in a while. With this talent and their resources, Arsenal should jump back up to near the top.

3rd CHELSEA (Last Year: 6th)

Tactic: 4-3-3
Rep: Continental
Finances: Rich

SC: Arjen Robben (3), Adrian Mutu (5), Mido (9)
MF: Joe Cole (1), Aliaksandr Hleb (6), Christian Poulsen (23)
WG: Damien Duff (3), Salvador Aguado (18)
FB: Diego Placente (9)
DC: John Terry (3), Robert Huth (11), Mikell Bischoff (15)
GK: Petr Cech (6)

Outlook: Top to bottom, perhaps the EPL's deepest squad. The best trio of strikers int he league man the frontline for the Blues, and a midfield nearly as strong as Arsenal's will feed them the ball. The defense is very solid, and with better goalkeeping than Man Utd, and better backline defense than Arsenal, it might be enough to make the leap forward.

4th LIVERPOOL (Last Year: 3rd)

Tactic: 4-3-3
Rep: Continental
Finances: Secure

SC: El-Hadji Diouf (1), Anthony Le Tallec (10), Emile Heskey (20)
MF: Steven Gerrard (2), Mark Bresciano (13), Benoit Pedreti (31)
WG: Rafael van der Vaart (4), Harry Kewell (10)
FB: John Arne Riise (2)
DC: J'Lloyd Samuel (17), Djimi Traoré (24), Igor Biscan (25)
GK: Jerzy Dudek (4)

Outlook: The Reds have spent a lot of money of late and aren't as well off as they used to be. That means they might have to count on this gorup--so these guys better come through at the levels they were paid for. Diouf is supposed to be the second best player in the world, and he should be leading a top notch frontline. Except for the middle of the backline, the first team is riddled with players at the top of the EPL talent pyramid. Liverpool can repeat their standing last year with this squad, but they could use finishing higher.

5th TAMWORTH (Last Year: 1st)

Tactic: 4-1-3-2
Rep: Continental
Finances: Rich

SC: Yakubu (13), Andrei Pereplyotkin (26), Mark Hicks (27)
MF: David Pizarro (16), Michael Stewart (22), Johnnier Montaño (24)
WG: Lionel Morgan (19), Richie Partridge (20), Carl Motteram (25)
FB: --
DC: McEveley (23)
GK: --

Outlook: The Lambs had incredible success last year playing their high-octane offensive game, and much of that offensive talent returns. One of their top offensive players from last year in José Alexander Amaya is gone now, though, so it will be up to the new players to try and replace him. That shouldn't be a rpoblem--it's the leaky defense that could cause problems. If Tamworth can show improvement there, they are strong enough to make a run at a repeat.

6th NEWCASTLE (Last Year: 5th)

Tactic: 4-4-2
Rep: Continental
Finances: Secure

SC: Shola Ameobi (2), Mateja Kezman (16), Craig Bellamy (17)
MF: Jermaine Jenas (3), Barry Ferguson (15), Hugo Viana (21)
WG: Darren Ambrose (13), Jonas Kamper (14), Bojan Djordjic (17)
FB: Olivier Bernard (14)
DC: Jonathon Woodgate (7), Aaron Hughes (8), Titus Bramble (18)
GK: Shay Given (1)

Outlook: Like Liverpool, the Magpies aren't nearly so well off anymore, thanks to faltering in Europe the past couple years. So they may have to go with what they have here. Fortunately for them, they have enough to contend for the title with the other top five contenders. Ameobi si the most exciting offensive player in the league, and a tough backline fronts the best goalkeeper in the league. If Ferguson can pair with Jenas to energize the midfield, this could be a title team.

7th ASTON VILLA (Last Year: 8th)

Tactic: 4-4-2
Rep: National
Finances: Rich

SC: Darius Vassell (12), David Villa (31), Peter Crouch (37)
MF: Stilian Petrov (8), Fredy William Thompson (9), Steed Malbranque (30)
WG: Jérome Cartier (24)
FB: Seth Johnson (15)
DC: Gareth Barry (9)
GK: Thomas Sorenson (9)

Outlook: The Villans have always managed to stay around respectable, but never take that next step. No one on this roster has the look of taking them to that next level, and it looks like more of the same. With a solid first team at all points, Aston Villa will certainly make some noise. But expect them to just be mediocre enough to finish behind the big boys again, but ahead of the smaller fish.

8th MAN CITY (Last Year: 10th)

Tactic: 4-4-2
Rep: National
Finances: Secure

SC: Aruna (21)
MF: Dickson Agyeman (12), Jurica Vranjes (29), James O'Connor (41)
WG: Shaun Wright-Phillips (29), Jon Harley (31)
FB: Wayne Bridge (6), Phillip Evans (21)
DC: --
GK: Nicky Weaver (3)

Outlook: Manchester City has some fine talent in Aruna up front and Weaver in back. They will need both players to have their best years to get them this far, as thw Citizens might not get much help outside of a solid midfield.

9th TOTTENHAM (Last Year: 17th)

Tactic: 4-4-2
Rep: National
Finances: Secure

SC: Hélder Postiga (8), Robbie Keane (38), Paul Gallagher (42)
MF: Fabien Ernst (32), Gary O'Niel (37)
WG: Simon Davies (8), Christian Tiffert (16), Claudio Ercoli (32)
FB: Mbulelo Mabizela (3)
DC: Ledley King (16)
GK: --

Outlook: The Spurs were a tremendous disappointment last year, when many picked them to contend for the title. They return plenty of that talent this year, and the whole team should play better with a year to get used to one another. The wings are excellent, and Postiga is a strong talent up front, but they will have to overcompensate for an iffy midfield and an at-best adequate defense. Still, it will be enough to be a marked improvement over last year, when the Spurs skirted relegation.

10th FULHAM (Last Year: 14th)

Tactic: 4-4-2
Rep: Continental
Finances: Secure

SC: Alan Smith (45)
MF: David Dunn (19), Michael Essien (25), Mike Douglas (40)
WG: --
FB: Carlos Bocanegro (10)
DC: Zatyiah Knight (20)
GK: --

Outlook: The Cottagers seem to have made being mediocre an art form. They have that same look again this year, right down to returning Alan Smith--who isn't getting any younger--as the lone true source of offense up front. Smith is no longer good enough to pull it off, and with little help scoring, he and his teammates are going to find themselves in a lot of defensive matches. And that's bad news, because htey aren't all that good defensively either.

11th SOUTHAMPTON (Last Year: 7th)

Tactic: 4-4-2
Rep: National
Finances: Rich

SC: James Beattie (15)
MF: Shaun Neville (44)
WG: --
FB: Peter Canero (13), Paul Tierney (19)
DC: --
GK: Owain Fon Williams (7)

Outlook: Much like Newcastle and Man City, Southampton will be relying on a strong striker and a strong goalkeeper to make ends meet this year. Where Southampton differs, though, is in that its talent elsewehre just isn't up to those squads. Even the best of years from its top two players are unliekly to get in contention for Europe.

12th BLACKBURN (Last Year: 9th)

Tactic: 4-4-2
Rep: National
Finances: Rich

SC: Peter Lovenkrands (19), Matt Jansen (24), Dean Ashton (32)
MF: Steven Reid (7)
WG: --
FB: Brett Emerton (4), Lucas Niell (8), Nils-Eric Johansson (16)
DC: --
GK: --

Outlook: The Rovers should be exciting on offense, with creative youth Reid feeding the ball to a solid trio of strikers. The Rovers are too weak along the wings and in the net, though, to take advantage of it. Expect a lot of high-scoring affairs from these guys as they score--and are scored upon--a lot.

13th LEICESTER (Last Year: 15th)

Tactic: 4-4-2
Rep: National
Finances: Rich

SC: James Graham (11), Tommy Wright (14)
MF: Muzzy Izzet (35)
WG: Jordan Stewart (23), Stefano Mauri (30)
FB: Lee Atkinson (18)
DC: --
GK: --

Outlook: Leicester was promoted just last year, and now, having escaped the common doom of recent promotees and saved itself from relegation, the City will take the next step into a legitimate EPL squad. This will, of course, be courtesy of Graham, the best young player in England. He and Wright will form one of the league's best striker combos a lower-end EPL team is ever likely to have. Of course, defense will eb an issue, and that's why Leicester will struggle to finish higher than it did last year--but the matches will be closer this time.

14th EVERTON (Last Year: 16th)

Tactic: 4-4-2
Rep: National
Finances: Secure

SC: Wayne Rooney (22)
MF: Li Tie (27)
WG: James McFadden (6), Daniel Cruz (22)
FB: --
DC: Joseph Yobo (5)
GK: Richard Wright (5)

Outlook: At some point, the Blues need to realize that they need to get Rooney some help. He can't do it all hismelf. At least the midfield is creative enough to get him the ball. Wright is a fien netminder, and Yobo a strong defensive leader, but they are going to need more help for this team to be better than average defensively.

15th BIRMINGHAM (Last Year: 13th)

Tactic: 4-4-2
Rep: National
Finances: Rich

SC: Milan Baros (25)
MF: Darren Carter (18), Aliou Cissé (28)
WG: --
FB: --
DC: Matthew Upson (12), Matthew Taylor (21)
GK: --

Outlook: Birmingham is headed in the opposite direction, and nearby Tamworth is beginning to leech away its fans. The Blues have the money to get themselves back into things, but they don't seem intent to spend it. So they return to the league with little looks of improvement, and will likely fall even further and be a relegation candidate.

16th BRISTOL CITY (Last Year: First Division)

Tactic: 4-4-2
Rep: National
Finances: Rich

SC: Lee Miller (34)
MF: Tommy Doherty (34), David Vaughan (38)
WF: --
FB: --
DC: --
GK: Mark Brown (10)

Outlook: Usually, recent promotees aren't rich before they get to this league, but Bristol City has that advantage and a handful of decent players as well. They are good enough to make some noise this season, and will liekly be the best candidate of the three new members to stave off relegation.

17th NOTTINGHAM FOREST (Last Year: 11th)

Tactic: 4-4-2
Rep: National
Finances: Rich

SC: --
MF: Gareth Williams (42)
WG: Michael O'Sullivan (26), Andy Reid (28)
FB: --
DC: --
GK: --

Outlook: Forest got to 11th last year with smoke and mirrors. It's inconceivable they could do it again. They have very little quality up front or in the back. A decent midfield alone isn't going to get them very far.

18th BLACKPOOL (Last Year: First Division)

Tactic: 4-4-2
Rep: National
Finances: Secure

SC: --
MF: Omar Daley (43)
WG: --
FB: --
DC: --
GK: --

Outlook: Blackpool surprised in the First Division last year. It would be an even bigger surprise if they could keep it up here. Daley is a afine player, but this roster just isn't up to EPL standards.

19th SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY (Last Year: 12th)

Tactic: 4-4-2
Rep: National
Finances: Rich

SC: Kim Olsen (46)
MF: Anan Quinn (36)
WG: --
FB: --
DC: --
GK: Allan McGregor (8)

Outlook: McGregor is a fine goalkeeper, and it's a shame he is going to have to put up clean sheets every night to keep his team in the match. And he isn't likely toget any help doing that from his backline either.

20th COLCHESTER UNITED (Last Year: First Division)

Tactic: 4-4-2
Rep: National
Finances: Secure

SC: --
MF: --
WG: Karl Duguid (21)
FB: --
DC: --
GK: --

Outlook: Duguid and recent arrival Amaya should give United an exciting feel in the midfield. Unfortunately, there's not much else to them, as they are easy choices for likely relegation this season.

CR

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Bah, you're still a bunch of Tammies

Quiet you!

CR

[SirFozzie]

(laughs)

KUTGW Chief,

[Chief Rum]

Quik generally went month-by-month, but if I did that, not only would I be glossing over things I don't want to gloss over, there would be a long time between updates, as I am running every league on full detail (so the game can run slow at time).

So I am going to generally go week-to-week, usually Monday to Monday, as rarely do I have to play a match on Monday.

CR

[Chief Rum]

Saturday, August 30 To Monday, September 8

We left off with the win over Milan in the Super Cup, so I will start from there.

Transfer Deadline Approaches, Motteram To Go?

Not long after the season opener, we started getting beseiged with offers for winger Carl Motteram. Apparently, the 22-year-old is thought to have a bright future.

We drew initial interest from German Bundesliga clubs Hertha BSC and Wolfsburg, and from Serie A squad Atalanta. When asked what it would take to move the winger, who was valued at around $5.75 M at the time, I gave serious thought to it and responded with $12 M.

That may seem to high to you all, but I feel he was worth it. Despite his young age, he already eclipsed my high standards as a winger, and given he is actually an attacking midfielder and has a 15 Finishing, I have every right to expect the computer teams will treat him as a striker, which he very could one day be (although in my limited experience with him, he doesn't seem to have the scoring touch).

Given that, and my own depth issues at the position, I felt the offer was fair (and partly, I thought it would scare away interest, too, which was fine with me).

As expected, all three clubs withdrew their offers or offered far less ($7-8 M) than I was seeking. I thought that would be the end of it, especially as we approached the final week before the closing of the transfer deadline.

Just five days before the deadline, Deportivo, of all teams, suddenly weighed in with an offer--and it was the best one yet. Although it was broken somewhat into a two-year monthly payment, the full transfer was for $11 M--and a player exchange of a young right winger named Adam Morgan. The $11 M was fine, but given it was broken into monthly installments, I wouldn't have accepted it by itself. The addition of Morgan, though, made all the difference. The 20-year-old right winger was himself already a very solid-looking wing (yes, also by my standards). I decided that, since Birchall and Partridge could both play the left side, I could do a deal like this, and I agreed to it.

I got offers of $9 M each from Benfica and Atalanta (upping their original offer), but I rejected both, as I didn't want anything to get in the way of the Deportivo deal. I knew it was a longshot anyway, with the transfer deadline approaching, but I figured, why screw with the opportunity?

With a possible Motteram deal in the works, I began to work on a left wing replacement possibility, and made a $1 M offer for Southampton's Matthew Etherington. The left winger was worth far more, but a lack of interest at that price dropped Southampton's expectations. Etherington lacked the aggression I would like to see in a winger, and he could also have been a better crosser, but I knew I was only getting him as a solid stopgap measure. Besides, he was a fine dribbler, had great teamwork, and was nearly explosive in his speed and acceleration.

Southampton agreed to transfers with me, Bristol City and Fulham, all of us high-level English squads. As Etherington was considering our contract offers, powerful Celtic of the Scottish Premier League came in with a loan offer, which Southampton also accepted.

As these deals were going down, we also negotiated a transfer deal for Mallorca's Trond Erik Bertelsen. Left fullback was the one spot I didn't feel entirely comfortable with on the current team, at least in the long term. Bertelsen, a Norwegian international, was listed as a worldclass fullback, and he had the matching skills, too, with a centreback's defensive skills and the winger skills to match my high standards.

These deals were all coming to a fore as the transfer deadline came down. Morgan wasn't interested in a deal with Tamworth (which is dumb, he's an Englishman in Spain for crying out loud), but we made him an offer anyway. Etherington was interested, and we made him a strong offer (which we upgraded when other teams came into the bidding). Bertelsen seemed interested, but said we didn't have the resources to meet his demands. That's kinda annoying, considering we had a good $10 M or so of wage budget room. Our board wouldn't let us offer more than $1.2 M per season, though--that's just dumb. We made our best offer anyway.

As the final days ticked away, it all came crashing down. Morgan refused our contract offer because he felt it was too soon for him to leave Deportivo (he had just arrived there last season), Etherington decided to go with the loan to Celtic, and Bertelsen rejected our offer and refused to negotiate further. Morgan's refusal, of course, triggered the failure of the Motteram deal.

And that was that.

International Duty

It was around about the turn of the month that we started getting messages about several of our players. The beginning of September is usually set aside for international competitions, and with World Cup qualifying getting under way, that meant a lot of national teams in business.

We had the most players called up I had ever had for a team of mine, with 10. Chile called up Pizarro and Colombia brought up Hernández for the South American qualifying (which had already been going on for close to a year). Nigeria called up Yakubu for the African qualifiers (they do theirs in group stages, which is kinda neat, while South America plays a whole fixture against every other country).

And European countries called up seven of our players, with the best team calling being Louis Saha to the powerful French squad. That was a bit of a surprise, actually, since it appears he had fallen out of favor with the team. Apparently his transfer to Tamworth and a significant role with a team in the EPL returned his stature to what it was in his days with Fulham and Man Utd.

Others to get the call were Michael Stewart (Scotland), Andrei Pereplyotkin (Ukraine), Richie Partridge (Ireland), Mike Duff (Northern Ireland), Hermann Hreidarsson (Iceland), and Denny Landzaat (Holland).

Had it not been for injury and perhaps unhappiness in one case, we might have had an additional three others. Orri Freyr Oskarsson has been called up to Iceland's squad with Hreidarsson pretty regularly now for the past year. Andy Williams was called up by Wales for an international match shortly before his knee injury. And Johnnier Montaño has also been capped by Colombia and is only 25. So, I could have as much as 13 players go on international leave at once some day (and that doesn't even talk about future developments by both current players and future acquisitions in this area). Thank the Lord for good depth!

Most of the competitions will be happening from September 3-13.

Champions League

With UEFA and Champions League qualifying running its course near the end of August, we found out where we would be placed in the group stage of the Champions League, as well as the group fixture and even our odds of winning the thing.

As the defending champion of the EPL, we got an automatic entry into the group stage of the most prestigious club tournament in the world.

I felt we got a pretty fortunate draw in the group stage as well, being placed in Group C with Bulgarian power Levski Sofia, Ukrainian High League squad Chornomorets and Portuguese Superleague squad U. Lamas. While all of these teams certainly proved their worth last year and deserve their spots, none of them are top teams from the best leagues in the world--or even were champs in their own leagues (well, Levski Sofia was, but Lamas was second in the Superleague, and Chornomorets, fourth or fifth in the UHL). It's not like I drew Juventus, Barcelona, FC Bayern here.

The oddsmakers seemed to like my chances as well, putting us at 11-1 odds to win the trophy. Milan, the defending champs, were set at 2-1 and placed as co-favorites at those odds with Barcelona and FC Bayern. Juventus and Man Utd were next at 5-2, with Deportivo coming up next at 4-1. The oddsmakers described my quest for the Champions League title as requiring a bit of luck and maybe a key signing or two, but well within the realm of possibility. That may not sound like much, but it's a heck of a lot better than the "you will be fortunate to not be relegated" messages I usually get from those bastards.

Our first match in the Champions League will be a home match against Levski Sofia on September 16. I will give a fuller update of the league as we get closer to the start of competition.

Board Confidence Update

The Tamworth board are absolutely thrilled with the level of commitment you continue to show to the club.

In all its grammatical glory.

Manchester United

Normally, from late August until mid-September, there are no matches, thanks to the international call ups. But with us being in the Super Cup, our regular match at Old Trafford had to be pushed back to September 3.

I figure any match against Man Utd is a critical one, so while it was the only match we played this week, we were really gunning for this one. Pizarro and Hernández were already gone to South America, but our European call ups and Yakubu were both still around. It was a first team game as well, so these were supposed to be our best players (although you could argue our second "first team" is just as good as our actual first team).

We didn't start off so hot. Miroslav Klose received an excellent long pass from Keiran Richardson, and then maneuvered a tight cross to Nicolas Anelka. The move left Jon Masalin out of position and was an easy score for the French striker. By the end of the half, though, Adam Wilde proved he's more than just an injury fill-in for Oskarsson on the first team. He put in a score off of a nice Jim Corbett crossing pass to tie it up. Then Yakubu surprised Man Utd by getting a step on the backline with a nice pass from David Raven, and he put in the go-ahead goal in injury time of the first half.

The second half was all United, though. They tied it up in the 58th minute when Anelka got his second goal of the match, off of a rebound from a Richardson shot.

It looked for a while like it would end up 2-2, but Man Utd kept the pressure on, and forced a corner in the 79th minute. Gaetano D'Agostino swung in a wide-turning cross, which Klose outjumped Mike Duff for and headed in for the go ahead. We kept the pressure up and had our chances ourselves, but we were eventually done in by an awful play by Masalin, who didn't endear himself to me in this match.

In injury time, we had a foul from near the left touchline, and Mark Hicks had a real close opportunity to send the ball into the box. He did so, but a Man Utd defender got to it and headed it out to the left-centreline corner. It was then that I realized that Masalin had taken up space all the way in the offensive side of the pitch! I shit you not, he was closer to the damn offensive box than Hicks was when he launched that cross into the danger zone. So when the ball was headed out, Masalin was scrambling to get back across the centre circle and back to our goal. D'Agostino, who retrieved the ball, couldn't believe his luck. He hoofed it, Kirovski-style, from beyond the centreline, and all I could do is watch in horror as the ball sailed into the empty net from some 75 yards away. That, of course, was the clincher. Manchester United 4, Tamworth 2

We had our first league loss of the season, and if this were real, I think Masalin would be sending his parents Christmas cards now, because by the time he's done doing laps for this one, it will be the New Year.

That pretty much covers this first week of Spetember. I will cover the international competitions in the next post.

CR

[SirFozzie]

*giggles madly for some reason*..

Masalin's in twubbbbbbbbbllllllee

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

*giggles madly for some reason*..

Masalin's in twubbbbbbbbbllllllee

lol...SirFozzie's gotten into the liquor cabinet, I see.

This dynasty may have dodged a bullet. My second hard drive (an older drive) is apparently failing, and that's where the game resides. I spent most of the night working on getting it back up, and I finally succeeded, although I think it's only a matter of time.

I moved critical files to the good drive so I wouldn't lose important things from the second drive falling apart. Ugh, I'm sick of computer problems.

Incidentally, Foz, if you read this, that is why I ended up not being able to get on tonight. Sorry about that, and I hope I will see you online sometime tomorrow (Friday) before I have to go away for my brother's bachelor party.

More to come.

CR

[SirFozzie]

New and innovative way to say "Foz, are you drunk again?"

I Like it!

But no.. not drunk.. just excessively silly from a killer week at work. :/

[Chief Rum]

Early September Internationals

As I mentioned, there are plenty of international qualifiers going during the first half of September, with most steering, of course, toward the 2010 World Cup in 2010.

In fact, pretty much every continental federation besides Asia's is holding some form of qualifier during this time, with only Africa doing it for a competition other than China 2010 (they are doing qualifying for the bi-annual African Nations Cup).

It's probably easiest if I just go from continent to continent and talk a little about where they are at at this point.

Asia

This will be quick. Whereas South America drags theirs out over three-plus years, Asia shoots theirs off like a rocket. The group stage for the World Cup qualifiers here don't start until next May. As such, any Asian international players in Europe will get a break during this stretch of international play.

Asia receives four bids, and they get a bonus, because China will get an automatic spot as the host. That will give Asia five entrants at China 2010, and one team which likely wouldn't have made it will get to take up China's traditional spot.

In 2006, South Korea, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia were the Asian World Cup representatives.

Oceania

The ocean countries in the South Pacific officially begin their final qualifying round this September.

In Oceania's final round, six teams, including automatic entrants Australia and New Zealnd, compete in a complete home-and-home fixture for Oceania's one spot in the World Cup.

Traditional regional power Australia won the bid in 2006.

The highlight of the two rounds played on September 6 and 10 was the matchup between Australia and New Zealand. Australia won 2-0, and are the only Oceania team with two wins throught he first two rounds.

The six nations competing are Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, Tahiti, and the Cook Islands.

North America

CONCACAF is one round short of their own six-team final.

The North and Central American competition is nearing the end of the three-griup semifinal stage, which will yield two teams from each group for the final stage. The final stage, which will be played next year, has four bids up for grabs.

There was round of matches in this group on August 30.

In Group 1, two of the region's 2006 participants, including runner-up Mexico, had bad days, losing this round. For MExico, it was their first non-win in the stage and are comfortbaly int he lead. For Trinidad & Tobago, though, it puts them int he serious position of missing out.

In Group 2, The United States and Honduras seem to be on the verge of clinching after routing teir opponents on August 30.

Jamaica and Canada are leading Group 3, but they made things a little closer for themselves after drawing, while Haiti won to put itself back into the race for a spot.

In 2006, the region sent Mexico, Trinidad & Tobago, Honduras and the United States to Germany.

Africa

As noted, Africa is actually conducting its qualifiers for the 2010 African Cup of Nations. The next round of World Cup qualifying won't take place until January. The continent uses ten group stages, followed by playoffs, to determine its five entrants. Incidentally, 2006 World Cup participants Mali and Burkina Faso have already been eliminated.

In Group I of the African Cup of Nations qualifying, Nigeria smacked Swalizand, 5-0, on September 6, with Tamworth's own striker, Yakubu, contributing two goals.

Besides the above eliminated squads, Africa also sent Nigeria, Angola and the Ivory Coast to Germany 2006.

Sotuh America

With just ten nations on a football-mad continent, South America hosts a three-year fixture in which every nation plays every other nation in home-and-homes. The September 3 round was the eighth match in the eighteen-match fixture.

The big matchup was Colombia visiting Argentina. THe Colombians pulled off a big upset and won, 1-0. Tamworth's Giovanny Hernández started in the midfield for Colombia but did not distinguish himself in either good or bad fashion.

Brazil and Peru got huge wins, both winning 4-0 over their opponents, Venezuela and Paraguay, respectively. Bolivia and Uruguay played to a 1-1 draw.

Ecuador edged out Chile, 1-0, at home, while Tamworth's David Marcelo Cortez Pizarro started in CHile's midfield. He played well, but it wasn't enough to produce the needed score.

South America gets five nations with a shot to play in China 2010, and ti will send the top five squads from its international fixture.

Europe

Europe, of course, is the biggest and most competitive competition for spots, despite being home to 13 spots for China 2010.

The first two group fixtures were played during this first week of September. The nations have been split into nine groups of five or six teams each, and the best team in each will receive an automatic bid. The eight highest second-place squads will battle for the remaining four spots in a follow up playoff.

Here's a quick lookat the European groups:

GROUP 1: Cyprus, Hungary, Malta, Scotland, Spain, Ukraine.

This figures to be a brutal group. Spain is the favorite, but Scotland, the Ukraine and even Hungary will be right there as well.

The Ukraine, with Tamworth's Andrei Pereplytokin as a named sub, beat Malta 5-0 on September 6, and then stunned Spain, 2-1, on September 10. Pereplyotkin wasn't called into either match.

Tamworth's Michael Stewart subbed into Scotland's 1-1 draw with Hungary on September 6, and then started in the September 10 2-0 win over Cyprus.

GROUP 2: Albania, Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg

Defending Euro 2008 champions Croatia was given a diamond opportunity to back its strong play up by getting to China 2010. This should come down to a three-nation race with the Czechs and Greeks.

The Czech Republic scored the first big victory with a 1-0 win over Greece on September 10.

GROUP 3: Faroe Islands, Ireland, Latvia, Norway, Portugal, Wales

Norway and Portugal will be the favorites here, but Norway could be challenged by Ireland and Wales, who both have the talent to compete for entry into the World Cup.

Ireland made the big early noise, getting a step on fellow fringe contender Wales with a 3-1 win, and then shocking Portugal, 3-2, at home on September 10. Tamworth's Richie Partridge played well in both matches for the Irish, starting on the wing and getting an assist in each match.

One shocker to note: Norway 1, Faroe Islands 1. Ouch.

GROUP 4: Bulgaria, FYR of Macedonia, Italy, Liechtenstein, Moldova, Sweden

This has the look of another three-squad race, this time between Bulgaria, Sweden and Italy. The latter two would be the favorites, with Italy expected to breeze, except the Italians have proven they don't do anything easy.

Sweden apparently forgot to show up to the first two rounds, suffering 3-1 and 4-1 road losses to Liechtenstein and Moldova in embarassing succession. I suspect that coaching job might be open soon.

GROUP 5: Andorra, France, Georgia, Northern Ireland, Poland, Romania

This is an intriguing group. France, of course, is the clear favorite for the automatic spot, but if they win it, that could mean some fierce competition for that second place spot. If the 2006 Germany Romanian squad shows up, this will be a cinch for them. If the team that didn't even make it to Euro 2008 shows up, Poland could sneak in there.

Tamworth's Louis Saha was not picked for either team in France's two matches.

A darkhorse emerged early on when Northern Ireland shocked France by drawing them at home, and then beat Andorra, 3-0. Tamworth's Mike Duff started at right fullback for the Northern Irish squad in both matches and played well.

GROUP 6: Austria, Bosnia, Denmark, Germany, San Marino, Slovakia

Germany looks like the clear favorite here, but they can't be feeling too comfortable after a disappointing World Cup in their own country in 2006, followed by a complete no-show for Euro 2008. If Germany returns to old form, the battle for second will be brutal, with four of the other five teams, exclusing only San Marino, differ little in their apparent talent levels.

Germany beat Bosnia, 3-1, but then lost 2-0 to Austria. Denmark, probably the "best oif the rest" slapped around Slovakia, 6-1, in the first round on September 6.

GROUP 7: Azerbaijan, Belgium, England, Estonia, Iceland, Slovenia

England will be favored here, but they haven't exactly been playing inspired ball. Belgium, Iceland and maybe even Slovenia are all good enough to challenge in this group.

It was a mixed first fixtures for the English, which lost 2-0 at Slovenia, but then rebounded with a big 4-0 win over their probable top group rival, Belgium, at home.

Tamworth fullback Hermann Hreidarsson played so well in Iceland's opening 2-0 win over Azerbaijan that he got the Man of the Match for his performance. He and his teammates weren't so solid on September 10, though, falling 2-1 to Slovenia.

GROUP 8: Armenia, Finland, Israel, Serbia & Montenegro, Turkey

The fact it is a five-squad group is counterbalanced by the overall strength of this group. Finland reached the final round of Germany 2006, as did Serbia & Montenegro. The Serbs also got to the semis of Euro 2008. Turkey went all the way to the Euro 2008 final before falling to Croatia. All three sqauds should be bitterly competing in this group.

Turkey failed to capitalize on its recent success in Autria & Switzerland, dropping key 2-1 and 2-0 matches to Finland and Serbia & Montenegro at home.

GROUP 9: Belarus, Holland, Lithuania, Russia, Switzerland

Holland is an obvious favorite here, and they have played decently in recent international competitions.

Russia, Switzerland and Belarus are all good enough to play their way in, thoigh, especially if Holland pulls one of its occasional disappearing acts.

The Dutch gave no indications early on they would do so, beating the Swiss at home, 3-0, and then following it up with a 2-1 home win over Belarus. Tamworth's Denny Landzaat was not picked for the team for either match.

Olympics

Shortly before the actual international qualifiers began, the youth squads of several nations played for a Gold Medal in men's soccer in China.

In the final, France's Under-23 squad beat Mexico's Under-23 squad, 1-0, in a rematch of the 2006 World Cup final that also matched its score.

This competition would probably rank higher on the importance scale if it weren't limited to players 23 & under.

CR

[Katon]

If the Sweden job comes available, will you be applying for it?

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by Katon

If the Sweden job comes available, will you be applying for it?

Yup. I'm pretty much prepared to apply for just about any European job that is bigger than, say, 1 M people in population, and any team that isn't a small Pacific or Carribean island on the other continents.

My goal is to just get a job first. Then I hope to parlay that into relative success on the international scale and move on to bigger nations (football-wise).

CR

[Chief Rum]

Tuesday, September 9 To Monday, September 15

With the club having no matches to be concerned with because of international play, it was a quiet week in the early going.

As it went on, we got our players back from the September 10 international matches, and by Saturday, September 13, we were back in action.

Our opponent was Blackburn, in a home match at the Lamb Ground. Our second team was due to start, but Richie Partridge was still recovering from his play with Ireland three days earlier. I elected not to have him in the lineup (or as a sub), and started Chris Booth instead.

Perhaps inspired by having lost badly to Man Utd the last time they were on the pitch, the club took quick advantage of some breakdowns in the Rover defense. In the 6th minute, Denny Landzaat fed a pinpoint pass to David Pizarro as the Chilean midfielder broke past the Blackburn defense and into the box. Pizarro put a low straight shot into the lower left corner before Blackburn keeper Brad Freidel could get over there. Just seven minutes later, winger Booth collected a clear out and found Andrei Pereplyotkin charging toward the box with a slight step on his marker. The Ukrainian forward didn't have a great shot, at an angle and with his defender closing in fast, but he got it off. It went off Freidel high and trickled into the net for the 2-0 lead.

Blackburn wouldn't go away, though. In the 49th minute, left winger Danny Pugh sent in a long and high pass directly into the middle of the box from the left touchline-centre. Right fullback Andrew Griffin outjumped the Tamworth defende and headed in a high goal over the hardcharging Thomas Heaton to put Blackburn back in the match. They couldn't make a further dent, though, and the Lambs put it away on a 67th header score by fullback Jarl Ander Starbæk off of a Lionel Morgan corner. Tamworth 3, Blackburn 1

The Lambs dominated the match, outshooting the Rovers 20-4. Pizarro got the Man of the Match.

International Roster

With the Champions Cup competitions due to begin next week, we had to submit our international roster.

The EUFA (Europe's governing body in football and the Champions League) require a club to register 28 players for its international roster, and only those 25 players--come injury, suspension or whatever--may play for the team in the matches covered by that period. In this case, this was the roster for the six-match fixture of the group stage, to be played through December.

This probably isn't a difficult process for most teams, but with the depth I have, it becomes hard to pick and choose who to go with.

Here's the roster.

Forwards: Oskarsson, Yakubu, Saha, Pereplytokin, Saha, Wilde, Hicks
Midfielders: Montaño, Stewart, Pizarro, Landzaat, Birchall
Wingers: Corbett, Motteram, Partridge, Morgan, Booth
Fullbacks: Hreidarsson, Duff, Gorman, Starbæk
Centrebacks: Cort, Raven, McEveley, Klompe, Castle
Goalkeepers: Masalin, Heaton

Notable exceptions to the roster (including all remaining first team members) included GK Nelis, DC Warren, DRC Otsemobor, DL Skinner, DMC/DL Clichy, DMC Prutton, and DMC/DC Mark Phillips.

The fact all of these players are backline players puts even more of an emphasis on the fact we have so much depth back there.

Clichy is technically a starting member of the second team, but he is probably the player I feel the least comfortable with among my two starting elevens. I decided to sit him for international matches and rely on McEveley and Starbæk as backups at the spot. I felt that, with Hreidarsson and Duff around, I would be fine for backups at defensive midfield. Probably the area that concerned me worst was in the net. Last year, Nelis was hurt for much of the season, with a string of little injuries, all different from the last. My physios assured me it was no single injury problem but just that Nelis was unfortunately apt to get hurt. It was one of the reasons I didn't want to rely on him this year, and it forced me to sometimes go into international competitions with just one goalkeeper (Masalin was the other keeper).

So I struggled with possibly having a third goalkeeper available. In the end, though, I determined Masalin and Heaton to be low risk for injury. Masalin had never even suffered as much as a hang nail in his career, and Heaton had only had an injury twice in five seasons, with only one being semi-serious (he lost three weeks in 2006-07 with a groin injury).

By keeping Clichy and Nelis off, I was able to give versatile players like Starbæk (fullback both sides, defensive midfielder, winger both sides) and Hicks (forward and all midfield/winger spots) places on the roster. Oskarsson was the only player hurt at the time and is due to be close to a return by our first Champions League match. Andy Williams won't be back until after this round is completed, so I didn't have to worry about including one of ym better wingers for the group stage.

CR

[Chief Rum]

2008-09 Champions League Group Stage

This week (September 16-22) will faeture the start up of the Champions League group stage, as 32 of the top teams in Europe compete for the biggest club prize in the world.

As I have mentioned before, as the reigning champion of the English Premier League, I got an automatic entry into this stage. Here are the groupings:

Group A

Celtic (Scotland), CSKA Moscow (Russia), Guingamp (France), Milan (Italy)

Where They Come From: Celtic was last year's Scottish Premier League champion, a position they have held since 2004. The SPL champion has to win throught he third round of qualifying to get to this stage. Last year, Celtic reached the tournament quarterfinals. CSKA Moscow has won the Russian Premier Division four seasons in a row, which earns them an annual ticket into the second qualifying round of the Champions. The Russian squad made it to the group stage last season, and beat Portuguese Superleague squad Académica in the third qualifying round to get here. Guingamp is the defending champion of France's La Ligue. While always a constant contender for the title, they hadn't succeeded until last season. The French champ gets an automatic entry into the group stage, and this is Guingamp's first visit to the Champions League since 2004. AC Milan is the defending Champions League holder. Milan finished third in Serie A, which is a position that normally requires a visit to the CL's qualifying rounds, but as the defending champion they got an automatic nod into the group stage. Milan is a regular in the Champions, with this being their sixth straight year in the tournament.

Group Outlook: Milan has been installed by oddsmakers as a co-favorite to repeat as CL champs and are clearly the class of this group. If you want an update on the powerful roster this squad has, just look at the Super Cup results. After that, though, it looks like a toss up. Guingamp is led by crafty Burkinabe striker Beli Moumouni Dagano. CSKA Moscow is a defensive-minded team with a strong set of internationals manning its backline, including national team Brazilian fullback Athirston and Czech international defensive midfielder Jiri Jarosik. Celtic has a dynamic international lineup led by home country hero Stephen Pearson up front, Norwegian defender Pa-Modou Kah and David Pizarro's Chilean international teammate winger Mark González.

Group B

Banik Ostrava (Czech Republic), Cannes (France), Juventus (Italy), Leverkusen (Germany)

Where They Come From: Banik Ostrava is the defending champion of the Czech First Division. They have won the division two times in the last three years, and have yet to finish lower than fourth. They have reached the Champions League several times, but have never advanced past the group stage, including last year. Cannes finished in third in La Ligue last year, and won through the qualifying round to get here. This is their first visit to the Champions League. Juventus is the three-time defending champion of Serie A, one of the top leagues in the world, and a true superpower club. Like league-mate Milan, Juventus has been in the CL every season since 2003, and only once did they fail to reach the elimination stage. Last year, they lost in the quarters. Leverkusen is one of the more consistent strong teams of the Bundesliga. They finished second last season and haven't finished lower than sixth in five seasons, but this is their first return to the CL since 2005-06. They do have a Champions runner up to show for themselves in 2002.

Group Outlook: Juventus should make the second Italian group winner so far, as they look much stronger than the rest of the field. The defending Serie A champ is seen as a serious contender for the trophy, among the top five or six teams with a shot at it. Leverkusen is a quality second team, though, and likely has the best shot at the other spot. With Cannes also being a major league member and Banik Ostrava a consistent visitor to this competition, this isn't all that easy a group to come out of. Juventus remains a veteran and tested squad led by well-known international stars, including one of the top goalkeepers in Italian Gianluigi Buffon and star French striker David Trezeguet. This is a very strong defensive squad, including Euro 2008 champion defender Croatian Igor Tudor. German defender Hanno Balitsch and Brazilian centreback Lúcio are two of the best defenders in the world, and they play on the same backline for Leverkusen. Belgian striker Stein Huysegems does the scoring. Cannes will get some great scoring chances from Morrocan star striker Marouane Chamakh and young-star-on-the-rise Brazilian scorer Jo, just 21. Banik Ostrava striker Mario Licka has long been the premier scorer in the Czech First Division and is a very good player.

Group C

Chornomorets (Ukraine), Levski Sofia (Bulgaria), Tamworth (England), U. Lamas (Portugal)

Where They Come From: Chornomorets finished in fourth of the Ukrainian High League and won through to the group stage from the third round of qualifying. They have been a solid team for years, but generally don't finish high enough to qualify for the Champions League. This is their first visit since 2005-06, and also the furthest they have ever gone in the tournament. Levski Sofia is a regular participant in the CL from Bulgaria, a nation whose league is not represented in the game. They have reached the CL five years in a row, and this is the fourth straight year they have reached the group stage. Interestingly enough, Levski Sofia happened to draw fellow Bulgarian club Litex in the third round of qualifying to get this far. Tamworth is the defending UEFA and English Premier League champion, and was perhaps the story of Europe last year. They should have a lot of pressure on them to repeat their performance. They have never been to the Champions League. U. Lamas is Portugal's equivalent of Tamworth. Having only been promoted to the Superleague three years ago, they have finished eighth and then second in consecutive seasons. This is their first visit to the CL.

Group Outlook: If Tamworth needed to establish its credentials as a big time club, it couldn't ask for a much better shot than this group. If England's newest power wants to establish itself as a club to be reckoned with, it needs to win this group handily. No one really stands out amongst the rest. Chornomorets is a decent Ukrainian squad. Levski Sofia is one of the best clubs--in Bulgaria. And U. Lamas is just three years removed from Portugal's Second League (not that Tamworth comes from more vaunted origins). Tamworth is led by an international buffet of strikers, with Nigeria's Yakubu, France's Louis Saha and Iceland's Orri Freyr Oskarsson probably being the best known. U. Lamas, as a member of a top league, is probably the favorite for the second spot, although it really looks to be anyone's game. U. Lamas lone standout player is young Portuguese rising 21-year-old star Roger Schaap, who stunned the Superleague with 38 goals last year. Levski Sofia is almost a pseudonym for the Bulgarian national team. Striker Kostyantyn Balabanov has the look of a strong player with a good pedigree of scoring in the Ukrainian High League, but he has never played at the international level beyond youth squads. He is the offensive leader for Chornomorets.

Group D

Deportivo (Spain), Dinamo Kiev (Ukraine), NEC (Netherlands), Olympiakos (Greece)

Where They Come From: Most of this group is fairly well known. Deportivo has always spent like a superpower, but it wasn't until recently that they really had some success. They finished in second in the Primera Liga last year, which has fallen down abit from amongst the top leagues but is still a very good league. Surpisingly, Deportivo has very little recent history in the CL, and this is their first return to the competition since 2003 (and then it was just to the third qualifying round). Dinamo Kiev is a strange mirror-image to Deportivo, as the star of the rising Ukrainian High League. They haven't finished lower than second in the league in the last five years, and the one time they didn't, they finished in third. They are the defending champions of the UHL, and have won the league two of the last three years. They likewise have surprising success in the CL, where they have yet to fail to reach the group stage, and even won the whole thing in 2004-05. NEC has long been a solid team in Holland's Eridivisie, but this is the furthest they have gotten, finishing second last year. This is their first year in the CL. Olympiakos is the crown club of the Greek National A Division. They have won their league three of the past four seasons, including the last two, and like Dinamo Kiev, have only finished in the league as third just once in the past five seasons. They have reached the group stage of the Champions League in five of the last six seasons, but have yet to get beyond that stage.

Group Outlook: Oddsmakers don't seem afraid of Deportivo's lack of redent strong success or the long break between visits to the CL. They have installed them as one of the top six clubs in the tournament. Still, this won't be an easy group to beat, and is probably the first group you could say that the favorite to win the group isn't somewhat of a lock to advance. As you would expect from a team with the payroll Deportivo puts up, there are a number of significant players on the roster. The midfield is patrolled by veteran quality players in Spain's Sergio and the Italian Fabio Liverani, the offense is multi-faceted and capable while led by Spaniard Albert Luque, and an internationally-reknowned backline of Portugal's Jorge Andrade and Holland's Mario Melchiot fronts American star netminder Tim Howard. Dinamo Kiev may be good enough to play with Deportivo, though, with Argentina's Roberto Nanni up front and Romanian star midfielder Florin Cernat leading the offense, while Brazil's Alessandro and the Ukraine's own Andriy Nesmachnyi form one of the best fullback combos in the world. NEC's Dutch striker combo Frank Demouge and Patrick Ax are in their prime and have been among the Eridivisie's top scorers for several years now. Uruguayan winger Nery Alberto Castillo is a creative winger with a hot future, and he keys Olympaikos' offense, sending more than a few balls to star Greek striker Labros Choutos, one of the National A's best offensive players. The favorites are Deportivo and Dinamo Kiev, but expect a bitter fight in this one.

Group E

Brno (Czech Republic), Genoa (Italy), Partizan (SER), Sporting Lisbon (POR)

Where They Come From: Usually, the Czech Republic doesn't get two teams to the group stage, but this year, Brno joins Banik Ostrava here. Brno finished second last year in the Czech First Division, and third two times in the last four years, but this is their first entry into the Champions League. They had to do it the hard way, winning through from the second round of qualifying, including a third rund win over tough Turkish squad Fenerbahçe. This is their first time in the CL. While Genoa has done nothing to shame itself, generally finishing in Serie A's top ten squads, it is not one of the first teams people think of when they think of Italian football. Genoa finished ahead of vaunted league-mates like Milan and Parma and Roma last season to finish second, a league finish they had never achieved before. While no team that finishes second in a powerful league like the Serie A is to be ignored, this is the highest Genoa has finished by far (seventh was their previous best finish in the league), and this is their first visit to the CL. Partizan has won two of the last four Serbia & Montenegro First Division titles, including last year. They haven't been as dominant as you would like a team from a lower end European league to be, though, with an eighth place finish just two years ago. They haven't been to the CL since 2005-06. Sporting Lisbon has established itself as the team in Portugal's Superleague, winning four of the last five league titles, including last year. While it did have early success in reaching a CL quarterfinal in 2005, and have made it to the group stage now in five straight years, Sporting Lisbon has yet to turn its league success into something more tangible on the international scale.

Group Outlook: Genoa is the likely favorite, given where they play, but I feel this group is about as wide open as any. This is a group Sporting Lisbon can win, and Brno has shown resiliency in getting through two rounds to get here. Explosive Argentinian striker Diego Milito has firmly established himself as a scorer on the highest stage for Genoa, where he gets fed by the creative passing of Croatian right winger Dario Srna and midfielder Mozart from Brazil. Few striker combos in Europe match the ability and skill of Romanian World Cup star Marius Niculae and Portuguese international Yuri for Sporting Lisbon. Brazilian midfielder Tinga and Chilean winger Rodrigo Tello are the creative force behind the two. Former Portuguese backline stars like Beto and Rui Jorge remain to offer veteran savvy, even with declining skills in evidence. Brno's Libor Dosek has built a reputation for being one of the best scorers in the Czech First Division, where he is aided along by another strong scorer in Milan Pacanda. The best midfield name on the team is 19-year-old David Machacek, a potential star in the making. Serbs Sasa Ilic and Vladimir Ivic lead a dynamic and experienced midfield behind lead striker Ivica Iliev.

Group F

Bodo/Glimt (Norway), FC Bayern (Germany), Inter (Italy), Lens (France)

Where They Come From: Bodo/Glimt is as unlikely a name as you will find in this competition. The Norwegian squad had never won the Norwegian Premier Division before doing so last year. It didn't get an easy draw for its first visit to the CL either. FC Bayern is one of the most powerful clubs in the world, and Inter is close to the same level. Bayern has won the tough and prestigious Bundesliga four of the past five seasons, turning one of the world's top leagues into almost a laugher every year. The powerful German club has yet to fail to reach the elimination phase in five straight Champions League tournaments, including a loss in the 2005-06 final, and visits to the semifinals and quarterfinals as well. Inter doesn't have quite so strong a pedigree to fall back on, but they have done nothing to shame themselves in never finishing lower than fourth in perhaps the world's top league in the Serie A. They finished fourth last season. While Inter may not have the CL success Bayern has had, failing to make it past the second round in four of the last five years, the one year they did make it through, they went all the way, winning the Champions trophy in 2006-07. Lens has a hsitory of finishing in the middle of the table in France's Ligue One, so finishing second--five spots better than any previous finish in the five years--was a bit of a surprise, much like Genoa in the Serie A. Drawing into the same group as FC Bayern and Inter is just cruel for the first time visitors to the CL.

Group Outlook: While Lens is no slouch of a team, this group seems like a cinch. The only question is whether FC Bayern or Inter will finish atop the group. Even the bottom ranks are set, as Bodo/Glimt isn't even in Lens league, much less the superpowers. The stars of Bayern are well-known, but worth recounting. The venerable star goalkeeper Oliver Kahn remains in net, with only slight diminishing in skill and seemingly no interest in leaving the game. He is joined by such fellow German stars as midfielders Michael Ballack and Deitmar Hermann, along with aging Italian former superstar Christian Vieri. They lend veteran savvy, but the real stars are those in their prime, like South American superstar striker combo Roque Santa Cruz and Claudio Pizarro of Uruguay and Peru, respectively. Brazilian winger Alex and German star Daniel Bierofka may form the top winger combo in the world. Bayern has been picked as a co-favorite to win the CL this season. Inter can stare Bayern right in the face with the likes of Adriano and Martins, two of the three best players in the world, as one of football histories best ever forward lines. Turkish midfielder Belozoglu and Spanish star Mikel Arteta form a less heralded but as skilled creative force behind the front two stars as well, and all that doesn't mention top striker reserve Mohammed Kallon of Sierra & Leone--and one of the best scorers in the world. Colombian forward Oscar Eduardo Villareal is the established face of Lens' offense, where he is the receiver of passes from steady Malian winger Seydou Keita. Anders Askheim is an offensive force for Bodo/Glimt in the Norwegian Premier Division, where he is supported by fellow forward, Icelandic international Hans Torstein Sigurdsson and winger Tron Olsen. Expect fireworks out of this group, especially between the top two powers.

Group G

AaB (Denmark), Arsenal Kiev (Ukraine), Barcelona (Spain), Werder Bremen (Germany)

Where They Come From: AaB has finished first or second in the Superligaen in each of the past four seasons, and are now an established Danish power. Still, it is Denmark we're talking about here, a decent league at best. AaB are the defending champs. Last year, they failed to get out of the third round of qualifying. Arsenal Kiev jumped up to second in the Ukrainian High League last year after spending the previous years around fifth and sixth. As such, they were a bit of a surprise and are in their first ever Champions League. Barcelona, the three-time defending champion of the Primera Liga, needs no itnroduction, as the club is a world-reknowned superpower. Like Inter, they have a disturbing history in the CL, failing to get beyond the second round in three of the last four years, but winning it all in 2004-05 (over FC Bayern). Werder Bremen, while not on the scale of a Bayern or Dortmund, has quietly truned itself into a very strong German side, finishing third last year and fourth the year before that. This is their initial season in the Champions, though.

Group Outlook: Barcelona is the third favorite, along with Juventus and FC Bayern, and with good reason. Their roster is chock full of superstars. Where to begin? Up front, you have superstars like Holland's veteran striker Patrick Kluivert and new top French scorer Kapo. Well known names like Jan Koller and Diego Tristán back them up with veteran leadership in limited minutes. Kapo often goes to the right wing to pair with Portuguese star winger Ricardo Quaresma as one of the best sets of wings in the world. The midfield is littered with guys like Brazilian vet Emerson and Argentinian Juan Román Riquelme, while defensive stars like Spain's Carles Puyol and Fernando Navarro, and young Englishman Steven Taylor keep veteran Turkish international goalkeeper Reçber Rustu safe from harm. Barca shouldn't have much of a problem reachig the elimination phase, but the second spot seems likely to be up for grabs. Werder Bremen will depend on their quartet of Brazilian star forwards in Diego, Lincoln, Diego Tardelli and Lúcio Flávio. All four have scored double digit goals in the Bundesliga, and are versatile enough to be int he lineup at the same time at various forward and midfield positions. Arsenal Kiev has a versatile midfield headed by Ukrainians Igor Skoba and Olexiy Ivanov and Nigerian international Emmanuel Osey Okoduwa, and a fine lead striker in the Turkmenstani tongue-twisted-named Guvanchmuhamed Ovekov, but they will be hurt by the loss of double-digit goal scoring forward Ruslan Yermolenko, who will be out until early 2009 with a back injury. Rasmus Wurtz and Christopher Poulsen provide solid defense for AaB. Wereder Bremen should have the inside track onthe second spot.

Group H

Ajax (Netherlands), GAK (Austria), Man Utd (England), Shakhtar (Ukraine)

Where They Come From: Ajax has long been one of the powers of Holand's Eridivisie, but usually the Champions League is the home of Ajax rival PSV. Last season, Ajax finally broke PSV's hold on the league's top spot after finishing second three times in the previous four seasons. Ajax has made it to Champions League in four of the past five seasons, and reached the group stage every year. Unfortunately, they haven't gotten beyond the second round, including last season. GAK is one of the better teams in the Austrian Premier Division, but this is the first time they finished on top of the league. Strangely enough, their first place finish in 2007-08 followed a five-year worst ninth place in 2006-07. This is their first visit to the CL since the 2003-04 season, when they lost int he second round of qualifying. GAK won its way through the hard way, winning in two qualifying rounds, including a stunning defeat of English power Liverpool in the third round. Man Utd remains one of the world's richest and most powerful clubs. The premier English superpower finished in second last year, and haven't finished lower than fourth in the English Premier League in five seasons. They also have a history of strong success in this event. They have gone to six straight CL's now, won the 2003-04 trophy, and reached the semis in three of the four seasons since (with a quarterfinal visit in the season they didn't make it to the semis). Shakhtar, along with Dinamo Kiev, is one of the standout clubs of the rising Ukrainian High League. Shakhtar has finished third in three of the past four seasons, including last season, and won the league they year they didn't. They got all the way to the quarterfinals in 2003-04, but didn't return to the CL until last year, when they took it one step further in getting to the semifinals. Obviously, performing well in the CL is not a problem once the club reaches the tournament.

Group Outlook: While no one is going to say Man Utd isn't coming out of this group, this has to be one of the toughest draws in the tournament. Man Utd is one of the six top teams tabbed to have the best shot at the trophy, and they figure to make it out of the group phase, just as they have done every year since the beginning of this dynasty. But it won't be easy with Shakhtar, another team that plays well in the CL, and Ajax, a powerful and rich club itself, as part of the group. Man Utd has a premier level of talent that is matched by few teams in the world. Worldclass is a description that can be thrown around for most of Man Utd's top eleven, which includes superstar Portuguese winger Cristiano Ronaldo, fellow winger Frenchman Sidney Govou and Cameroonian international Eric Djemba-Djemba in the midfield, German superstar Miroslav Klose and French striker Nicolas Anelka up front, and perhaps the world's best backline with such English stalwarts as Rio Ferdiand and John O'Shea. Ajax is led by a strong midfield anchored via Moroccan winger Nourdin Boukhari and Ghanaian midfielder Abubakari Yakubu, while Belgian striker Wesley Sonck--one of the top offensive talents in the Eridivisie--leads the attack up front. Shakhtar's Olexiy Gai and Razvan Rat form one of the better fullback combos in the CL, and the defense is aided by strong work in the middle by midfielders Anatoliy Tymoschuk and Vitaliy Lysysts'kyi. The offense gets much of its scoring from Andriy Vorobey. American striker Steve Jackson is the top talent on GAK, with Austrian winger Matthias Dollinger doing much of the team's creative work. Whiel Man Utd should get one spot, the other spot should be a bitter battle, with Ajax and Shakhtar likely duking it out. Even GAK is no slouch, although in this group, they might lose all of their matches.

CR

[Chief Rum]

Tuesday, September 16 To Monday, September 22

Champions League Fixture

Here is a look at Tamworth's fixture for the Group C group stage:

September 16: vs Levski Sofia
October 1: at U. Lamas
October 22: vs Chornormorets
November 4: at Chornomorets
November 26: at Levski Sofia
December 9: vs U. Lamas

Oskarsson To Return

We have played almost our entire fixture so far without the services of dynamic playmaking striker Orri Freyr Oskarsson. Oskarsson is back in training now after breaking his arm a month ago in the league home opener against Aston Villa. He won't be ready for our opening match against Levski Sofia, but it's possible he could play in our Premiership road match against Leicester on the following Saturday.

Matches

Our match against Levski Sofia didn't start off so well. Just six minutes into the match, centreback Aleksandar Tunchev got a hold of the ball near the left touchline and hit a nice long pass to winger Krasen Trifonov breaking into the left of the box with a step on the backline. Although he came in at a sharp angle, he hit a high, hard shot at Jon Masalin. The Finnish goalkeeper got a piece of it, but it bounced off of him and rolled on into the net for an early Levski Sofia lead.

It didn't take long for the Lambs to tie it back up. Yakubu took a nice pass on the right from Johnnier Montaño on a nice centerfield run in the 13th minute and blasted it across the goal and into the far end of the net. Levski Sofia goalkeeper Dimitar Ivankov had little chance at the finely placed shot.

After that, it was the Johnnier Montaño show. The midfielder spent some of the early season matches on the bench because of his personal problems, and then once I got him back on the pitch, he didn't really seem to take off right away. Well, he put it all together today, scoring ina number of different ways. In the 17th minute, he took a pass similar to the one Yakubu scored on, but instead of avoiding Ivankov with the shot the way Yakubu did, he blasted it directly over and past him. Then in the 24th minute, Montaño scored off of a direct kick from just outside of the box, hitting a score in off of midfielder Anton Kostadinov for the 3-1 lead. In the 58th minute, Montaño found himself with an open look at the goal, but was a good 40 yards out, and closer to the centreline than the box. Despite that, he let off a beautiful shot that sailed like a rocket at the net. It slammed into the right corner of the net with pinpoint accuracy as Ivankov watched in stunned amazement. Montaño finished off his incredible day by scoring his fourth goal with a chip over Ivankov after the Bulgarian keeper charged out to stop him in the 64th minute. Montaño's four goal explosion was an eye-opener (and he assisted Yakubu's goal). Tamworth 5, Levski Sofia 1

Team morale was high following our impressive opening win in the Champions League group stage, so we went into the Leicester road match on September 20 in high spirits. Oskarsson wasn't quite ready yet, but then, he is a first eleven starter, and this match was scheduled for the second eleven. Those good feelings really propelled us in this one as we put in our best effort of the year so far in a dominating match against Leicester. Richie Partridge started us off with a penalty score in the fifth minute. David Marcelo Cortez Pizarro scored in the 18th minute, and Andrei Pereplyotkin moved us up to 3-0 in the 20th minute. We didn't put it into high gear, though, until the second half. Louis Saha put in two scores in four minutes just into the second half, and Mark Hicks, who came on as a sub, finished off the shellacking with two late scores to give us an incredible win. Tamworth 7, Leicester 0

Obviously, we are playing at our best form right now.

CR

[Chief Rum]

Tuesday, September 23 To Monday, September 29

We have just one match this week, a Premier Division home match against Southampton. Incidentally, Southampton is playing well right now and near the top of the league table.

Injury News

Orri Freyr Oskarsson is set to make his return in the Southampton match on September 27, and we look forward to his return, as his absence has stretched us up front abit, considering we run two complete elevens that both require backing up for their matches.

We gain one player, but we lose another. On September 23, centreback and defensive midfielder Mark Phillips broke his foot in training and will be out for two weeks. The reserve backline player was a versatile option for us for regular backup work behind both elevens, but we are particularly deep on both the backline and at defensive midfielder, so he is not expected to be missed too much.

Young right fullback Pat Davenport couldn't have gotten hurt at a worse time when he tore his groin muscle in early August. Not only did it cost him his shot at a spot on one of the two eleven squads, but his chief competitor Kevin Gorman has held up well in the job on his own. Davenport could be ready to return to action by next week.

I won't be opening up the position for competition again when Davenport comes back, so it looks like he will join our other non-two-eleven members as primary backups.

Slovakian Youth Unsettled

When I went over my offseason acquisitions, I only mentioned the guys having an impact on my first team, but as anyone who follows these games know, you have to scout for the future as well. In doing so, I found several young players in Slovakia who looked good enough to bring in. For the most part, I was rebuffed for them, but I did manage to acquire two of them.

I brought in striker Roman Boldyrev from Inter Bratislava and sweeper/defender Andrey Gorbunov from Zlate Moravce. Both clubs are in the Slovakian leagues, and neither player cost more than $170,000. As they were 18 and 19, respectively, at the time, they were slated for my Under-19 squad.

Gorbunov seems to have settled in just fine, but I was soon getting worrisome messages about Boldyrev. The young striker was having trouble settling in the area. Whereas Gorbunov quickly got a basic handle on English, Boldyrev struggled. He would eventually get to that stage, but by then he was sending messages he wanted to leave the club. Since we're in the middle of the closed transfer period, our hands are tied there. I am hoping things will improve enough for the young man to want to stay by the time January comes around.

Matches

Let's just say the Southampton match didn't go down the way any manager would want to draw it up.

Southampton proved to be a tough match defensively, keeping us out of the goal better than teams have been up to now. At one point early in the match, Yakubu took exception to the ref calling a foul on Hermann Hreidarsson for a hard tackle, and the ref gave him a yellow card. Not twenty minutes later, in the 34th minute, David Raven was called for a foul froma hard tackle, and, again, Yakubu let his temper get the best of him. The ref gave him a warning, but it did no good, as Yakubu again went off. This was the last straw; Yakubu was given his second yellow card and sent off with a red. It was really odd, as Yakubu is not noted for being temperemental, nor had I noted such outbursts before.

Fortunately, I have had players sent off before, and have devised a solid defensive plan to still maintain some offense. I adjust my four-man backline into a three-man, with a sweeper who moves slightly forward, and two centrebacks who guard to the touchlines. This is done while allowing the rest of my attack--the offensive attack--to remain as it is, with two wingers, two forwards and a forward-backward pair of midfielders.

We went into halftime tied at zero apiece, but we got it going in the second half. Just a minute in, we got a free kick fromt he right of the box. Jim Corbett sent in a long pass that somehow got to near the far post. Carl Motteram collected the ball in the air, and volleyed it toward the left corner in a very quick move. Owain Fon Williams, the Southampton goalkeeper, couldn't get to the shot int ime, and we had the 1-0 lead. For a while it seemed like that would be it, but we finally put it away in the 72nd minute on a score by Michael Stewart. Darren Birchall added another in the 80th minute, and that was it. Tamworth 3, Southampton 0

CR

[thealmighty]

Chief, this is just an awesome read. I love it.




p.s.- you suck!! I was up 'til almost 3am reading this thing, as I hadn't seen it before today and i just couldn't stop 'til i was caught up.

[Chief Rum]

Tuesday, September 30 To Monday, October 6

We return to Champions League action with a trip to the home pitch of U. Lamas on October 1. We follow that up with a road match at Nottingham Forest on Saturday, October 4.

League Cup Draw

On September 30, we were entered, along with 31 other squads. This is the first entry point for the top returning six Premiership squads. The bottom fourteen participated in the second round, and three squads--Bristol City, Sheffield Wednesday and Leicester City--didn't even make it out of that round. So seventeen total Premiership squads are in this draw.

That meant there was more than an even chance would draw a direct league competitor for our first matchup in the League Cup, the competition we blew in the final last year. And draw one we did, as we were assigned a date with Fulham at the Lamb Ground. The match will be played on October 29.

Board Confidence Update

Same-o same-o. The board members remain impressed with my commitment to the club. This is about the first time, though, that I noticed a key difference between the board's expectations and those of the supporters. The board expects us to challenge for the EPL title this year. The supporters expect us to win the title. Interesting. I had never noticed a difference before in any of my dynasties.

Not surprisingly, I personally expect to hit the mark for the supporters.

September Premiership Awards

Tamworth went 6-1 in the August/September stretch, so it was little surprise that I named the league's manager of the month.

What was cool, though, was that I had some company amongst the Lambs. David Marcelo Cortez Pizarro won the Player of the Month (which didn't surprise me), and Kevin Gorman won the Young Player of the Month (which did surprise me). In fact, Gorman is the first player from one of my teams that has ever won a young player of the month award.

Injuries

The frustration of Pat Davenport continues. The young fullback finally returned to full training and health this week. He didn't last another week.

On October 6, he went down with another torn groin muscle. It's his third groin muscle injury in the past five months, although that fact didn't really impact me until a month from now (more on that later, in other words).

But Davenport's loss once more wasn't the key injury this week. Carl Motteram suffered a broken foot, much like Mark Phillips, in training on October 3. Also like Phillips, Motteram will miss two weeks. His absence will hurt us much more than Davenport's injury will.

It's likely that Lionel Morgan will keep his second eleven spot, and I will just play it by ear on the first eleven left winger spot, with Darren Birchall, Richie Partridge, Mark Hicks and Jarl Ander Starbæk likely being the top candidates. If Parridge, the second eleven right winger, switches to a temporary first team left winger spot, I will probably start Chris Booth in his place. Booth has played very well in limited minutes.

Matches

We got a big test in our first road match in the Champions League. U. Lamas not only played with us, putting up much more shots than our opponents usually do, but they scored on us first and held us scoreless for the entire first half. After a 20th minute score by striker Diocliciano (say that five times fast) Tavares, we founbd ourselves in a 1-0 hole at halftime.

As in the Southampton match, we got it going in the second half. Louis Saha scored in the 47th minute on a close shot on goal. His score was set up by a great run by Andrei Pereplyotkin to the touchline. The Ukrainian striker dished off a nice pass to Saha, who put it in for the tying score. Saha added another one ten minute slater to give us the lead. Pereplyotkin himself put it away with a score in the 80th minute. Tamworth 3, U. Lamas 1

We had lineup problems for the Nottingham Forest match. Thanks to his yellow card bonanza in the Southampton match, Yakubu was forced to sit for a domestic match and would be out for this one. And then we also lost Motteram to injury a day before. So our striker depth was really hurt when we started Adam Wilde in Yakubu's place, and Mark Hicks in Motteram's spot.

Fortunately, both Wilde and Hicks came to play in this one. Despite playing at the wing spot, which isn't a traditional scoring position, Hicks scored our first and third goals of the match, in the 25th and 44th minutes. The first score tied it up after Forest's Darren Huckaby put them up 1-0 in the 7th minute (incidentally, the third straight time we have allowed the opponent to get on the board first). The second score put it away after Orri Freyr Oskarsson scored his first league goal of the season in the 29th minute. Wilde's 67th minute score was just icing on the cake. Tamworth 4, Nottingham Forest 1

International Duty

Follwoing our match against Nottingham Forest, several players were once again off to play for their national teams, as qualifying for China 2010 resumes around the world in early to mid-October.

African national teams aren't in action for this period, so the Nigerian Yakubu would be able to stew over his suspension at home this off period.

Both South America and Europe will be conducting another round of their qualifying rounds.

Once again, David Marcelo Cortez Pizarro was called up to Chile, and Giovanny Hernandez was again called up to Colombia.

In Europe, it was much the same crew that was called up as in September. Mike Duff (Northern Ireland), Richie Partridge (Ireland), Louis Saha (France), Andrei Pereplytokin (Ukraine), Denny Landzaat (Holland) and Michael Stewart (Scotland) were all called up. Hermann Hreidarsson (Iceland) was also called up again, but as was the cas elast year, he had company on the plane trip home, with Oskarsson returning to national team action. Oskarsson's broken arm prevented himf rom playing in the opening rounds of qualifying for Iceland last month, but has been a regualr with the team for the past year.

Once again, Andy Williams might have gotten the call were he not hurt. He won't be available to us or Wales before January.

CR

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by thealmighty

Chief, this is just an awesome read. I love it.

Thanks. Keep reading.

Originally Posted by thealmight

p.s.- you suck!! I was up 'til almost 3am reading this thing, as I hadn't seen it before today and i just couldn't stop 'til i was caught up.

lol...sorry about that. And this is my "short" and "quick" dynasty.

CR

[Chief Rum]

Tuesday, October 7 To Monday, October 13

Thanks to international play, Tamworth the club has no matches this week, and in fact won't play until well into next week (October 18).

Player Rumblings

Just because half of the top elevens are scattered around the world, though, doesn't mean there isn't anything happening. In fact, this is the week things really began to stand out about the attitude of the team, which is, perhaps, less positive than the team's table-topping record.

On October 7, Yakubu told media sources he was unhappy with his role with the team and felt he should be a regular on the first eleven. I met with him and told him he would be selected for the first eleven when I said he was good and ready. The Nigerian striker apologized to me a day later and accepted his role.

This was but the tip of the iceberg, though. Darren Birchall, who is one of my key backups at the moment, has also made rumblings about getting more playing time. Johnnier Montaño remains unhappy from his personal problems, although he is no longer concerned about his playing time. Thomas Heaton and Peter Castle remain unhappy from last year, when they complained about not being on the first team. Castle, in fact, wants to leave the team, a request I don't plan on meeting. I have already spoken about Boldyrev, the young Slovakian striker, of course, and none of the listed players are happy about being placed so except for Klos Kostwinder, the reserve gaolkeeper I can't seem to give away.

And then there are other little things I am picking out. For instance, several players are unhappy with Giovanny Hernández and see his attitude as a distraction. He is the only player who is drawing this sort of reaction besides Yakubu--who is only labeled such by Hernández himself. I have to be concerned that one player is causing so much strife. I have also noitced that, while few players are saying they want to leave the club, few are enthusiastic of being with the club or with their roles with the lambs. There are a lot of unsettleds and unknowns in this group. I suspect this is because of my depth and the use of two elevens. For instance, Yakubu is a first team regular, but since I have a whole other starting lineup, he only appears in half the games. It may come to a point where I am going to have to start cutting down the roster, anoint specific starters for all times they can be available, and move everyone else.

It's a tough situation, as my depth helps me in so many ways. This might be one of the ways it hurts me.

Injuries

No new injuries this week, but we did get someone healed up. Mark Phillips appears to be ready to return to action after missing two weeks with a broken foot. Of course, there is no action for him to participate in right now.

South American Qualifiers

It was a surprising round on October 11, as powerful South American squads Argentina and Brazil both underachieved their way to disappointing results. Argentina drew with Bolivia, 0-0, on the road, while Brazil shockingly lost 3-0 at home to Peru. Ecuador beat Paraguay, 4-0, in another bit of a surprise match.

In matches involving Tamworth players, Colombia took a big step forward by crushing a man-down Uruguay squad at home, 4-0. Hernández played well by rating, but was actually lower in rating than just about all of his fellow Colombian mates. Read into that what you will. Chile drew, 2-2, with Venzuela, but it was disappointing, as they lost at home and allowed the Venezuelans to come back from a 2-0 deficit. The second goal was scored on a penalty by Tamworth midfielder David Marcelo Cortez Pizarro. Pizarro was one of the better players for Chile.

The next round of qualifiers resumes in a few days, on October 15.

European Qualifiers

GROUP 1

The Ukraine drew with Hungary, 1-1. Andrei Pereplytokin was named as a sub, but not used. The surprising result of the day was in Spain, where Scotland surprised by the Spanish by drawing them, 1-1. Michael Stewart got on late for Scotland, in the 81st minute, but did no distinguish himself. In the third match, Cyprus beat Matla 3-1 in a matchup of the likely dogs of the group.

The Ukraine leads the group through three matches with seven points, followed by Hungary and Scotland with five. Spain is a disappointing fourth with four points.

GROUP 2

The Czech Republic has to be upset in drawing, 0-0, with Albania, which should be a win for them. Another group contender, Greece, didn't miss a beat themselves, beating another lightweight in Kazakhstan, 2-1, on the road.

The real heavyweight of the group is defending Euro 2008 champ Croatia, and they didn't disappoint, demolishing lowly Luxembourg 3-0 at home.

Croatia leads the group with seven points, with Greece right behind with six. Surprising Albania has five points now, putting them in a tie with the Czech Republic.

GROUP 3

Ireland had a home match with weak Faroe Islands, so it's no surprise they really smacked them, 6-0. Richie Partridge started on the right wing and played well, although he didn't score an assist or goal in the match.

Portugal, the projected group favorite, also took care of business at home, beating Latvia 3-0. The best match of the round was a 0-0 draw between Wales and Norway. As two of the better group contenders, a draw didn't help either of them too much.

Surprising Ireland has won all three of tis matches so far and lead the group with nine points. Portugal follows with six, Norway five and then Wales four.

GROUP 4

The big match here was a visit by the Italians to Sweden. They are probably the best team in this group, but Italy came away with little after drawing with the Swedes, 1-1. The other key contender besides those two, Bulgaria, beat little Liechtenstein on the road, 4-1. FYR of Macedonia beat Moldava, 2-1, in a matchup of smaller-level sides.

Bulgaria, as much a surprise as Ireland in Group 3, leads the way with three wins and nine points. Italy lost its hold with Bulgaria by drawing with Sweden, and now have seven points.

The shocker here, though, is Sweden, which should be much better than they are. Despite getting good reinforcement from drawing with powerful Italy, the point they have gained is their lone point in three matches so afr, and they are in last place.

GROUP 5

In a rematch of the Germany 2006 semifinal, France beat Romania, 4-0, at home. Louis Saha was a named reserve, but was not used. For Romania, it was a match they probably were hoping to make closer, at least if they feel any pressure to repeat their third place finish in Germany (and they should).

Poland, the other solid team in the group besides France and Romania, handled Northern Ireland at home with ease, 3-1. Mike Duff started at right fullback for the Northern Irish and played decently well considering the result.

Georgia beat Andorra, 2-0, in the third match.

France leads the group with seven points, with Romania and Poland just behind with six each. Northern Ireland has four.

GROUP 6

Germany didn't do so well in the first two rounds, so they came up big with an easy home win over San marino, 3-0. Denmark kept ahead, though, with a key 2-1 win over Austria. Bosnia and Slovakia drew, 1-1, in a match up of former Iron Curtain squads.

Denmark leads the way with nine points, and is another squad that can be said to be surprising at this point. Germany and Austria, so historically untrusting of one another, are tied for that key second palce spot at six points each. Slovakia remains in range with four points.

GROUP 7

England beat Azerbaijan, 2-0, in a key win for the often beleaguered home chaps. The win came on the road.

The big win, though, came courtesy of Belgium, which just absolutely shellacked Slovenia, 8-1. You can bet the Slovenians are feeling that one.

Iceland edged out Estonia at home, 1-0, with Hermann Hreidarsson starting at a centrebacks pot and playing well. Orri Freyr Oskarsson was not selected for the match.

Slovenia's shocking blowout loss was even more surprising given they came out of the first two rounds with two wins and the group lead. They remain tied on top with six points, along with Iceland and England. With Estonia and Belgium sitting at four points, this group is probably the most wide open at this point.

GROUP 8

Finaldn beat Armenia at home, 2-0, as expected. Israel and Turkey drew, 0-0, in a match that not only matches the two most southeastern nations in the qualifying, but also matched up warring religions in Judaism and Islam.

Group leader and favorite Serbia & Montenegro had the round off (as this is a group with an odd number of teams), but still lead the group with six points. They are tied with Finland, which has also won both of its matches.

Isreal is thgird with four points, but did so in three matches, while Turkey has yet to approach the skill it played with in Euro 2008, with just one point in three matches.

GROUP 9

Russia got a huge win when they upset Holland, 2-1, at home. Denny Landzaat came in as a sub in the 73rd minute and played well, but it was too late to save his nationint his one.

Belarus and Lithuania drew, 1-1, in a matchup of former Soviet satellite nations.

Despite the loss, Holland still sits atop the group table by itself, with six points in three matches. Lithuania and Russia are tied for second with four points, although Lithuania has aonly played in two matches. Idle Switzerland, which came into qualifying as a group contender following its surprising run in Euro 2008, has just one point in two matches.

Internationals Up Next

Europe won't return to international action until March next year. South America, though, will be back in action next month after the October 15 round.

Lamb Ground Expansion Completed

OMG, lol...

This is the expansion I had built last year, that reached the completion date, but then nothing happened. Nothing more was said about it other than it was underway. Well, for whatever reason, it finally came through--after I had already manually edited the Lamb Ground to be more comparable to other Premiership stades. The original 2050-seat expansion moved us up to 32,045 total capacity, all seated.

CR

[Chief Rum]

Tuesday, October 14 To Monday, October 20

International play wraps up early this week, and we return to league play by the end of it. And it's a biggie. On Saturday, October 18, we are welcoming powerful Arsenal to the Lamb Ground.

South American Qualifiers

Most of the rest of the world's continents only played one round this break, but South America got two done, with another set of matches on October 15.

The two power squads, Argentina and Brazil, bounced back from disappointments on October 11 to win their matches. Argentine beat Peru, 1-0, at home, while Brazil went on the road to beat a tough Uruguay team, 2-0.

In a matchup of teams featuring Tamworth players, Chile and Colombia drew, 2-2, at Chile. Both Chile's David Marcelo Cortez Pizarro and Colombia's Giovanny Hernáandez started for their respective countries, and put up respectable ratings, although neither player figured in the scoring.

In other South American qualifying matches, Paraguay beat Bolivia, 4-2, at home, and Ecuador surprised Venezuela on the road, 3-1.

After ten matches, there is a glut of teams on top of the table with 20 points. As expected, Brazil and Argentina are two of them, and it's no surprise that Colombia is also up there. The big surprise is Peru, which seems to be making it difficult to exclude them from China 2010.

Of course, with five spots under contention, who cares about table-topping ties. The real competition is for the fifth spot, among teams all running a good distance behind the top four squads. Ecuador and Paraguay are tied for that fifth spot with 13 points, with Ecuador getting the nod with a better (but close) goal differential. With Uruguay at 11 points and Chile and Venezuela at 9, this is far from over.

Phillips Wants A Regular First Team Role

On the same day South American nations were duking it out in the New World, defender and defensive midfielder Mark Phillips told the media he felt he deserved a regular first team role. Of course, he has one--as a backup.

Seriously, though, Phillips isn't in a good position right now. He's a solid player, but he lacks the offensive skills I like for the defensive midfield position, and he isn't as gifted as I like my centrebacks to be for that position. So that result is that he becomes a jack of all trades on the backline and in the midfield, but not good enough to really start anywhere.

As with Yakubu, I tell him he will get his chance when the time is right (not telling him I think that time will never come, of course), and he apologizes the next day. Still, I don't think Phillips will be in Tamworth too much longer, given his relatively unimportant role and my own feelings about players who spout off to the media about their lack of playing time.

Injuries

Nothing new to report, except that Carl Motteram seems to be progressing along toward health, following his broken foot from almost two weeks ago. He's due to be back in full health by the end of the week, but since he is a first eleven player, it won't matter anyway for the Arsneal match (it's a second eleven match). He should be ready for our Champions League home match with CHornomorets at the Lamb Ground next week, though.

Matches

The South American qualifiers did have their impact on this match, as both Pizarro and Hernández came back home tired. Pizarro was rested enough to be selected for the team, but not to start. Hernáandez would normally have been his replacement in that case, but the Colombian midfielder wasn't in condition to play, so we went with Darren Birchall in the middle.

In the 31st minute, we got a quick reminder of just who Arsenal has playing for them. Fullback Dion Dickoff took a short run across the right centreline and launched a curling high pass to Hernán Crespo, running toward the box near the middle of the pitch. He headed the ball on high into the box--where superstar striker Thierry Henry timed a perfect step ahead of our centreback Tieme Klompe. Thomas Heaton advanced on Henry, but the Frenchman executed his play to perfection, floating a chip over Heaton's rush and into the corner of the net.

Arsenal kept us off the board for the entire first half, and once again, we went into the second-45 down 1-0. It's odd how this keeps happening.

We didn't break through until the 57th minute. Denny Landzaat found Louis Saha--Henry's French teammate--with an excellent long pass from the centreline, and Saha blasted it past Tony McDermott's far shoulder for the equaliser.

Never ones to wait, the Lambs immediately put the pressure on for another one with a simply beautiful move. Richie Partridge hit a long cross-pitch up to Saha near the left corner. Saha headed the ball to Lionel Morgan nearby, and Morgan, ont he quick, volleyed a great pass to Birchall, who timed his entry ot the box perfectly to free himself up. He hit the ball past McDermott for the go ahead.

We would get a wrap up score from Andrei Pereplytokin in the 69th minute, and that was that. Tamworth 3, Arsenal 1

Our attendance of 32001 was, of course, a new Tamworth record, what with the expanded ground being officially in place now.

CR

[Chief Rum]

Tuesday, October 21 To Monday, October 27

I can't think immediately of a reason why, but we have an odd Saturday off this week. We do, however, have our Champions League match against Ukrainian High League squad Chornomorets on Wednesday, October 22.

Motteram Set To Return Against Chornomorets

Winger Carl Motteram, as expected, should be ready for our match against Chornomorets. He broke his foot two weeks ago, but fortunately, did so just before a long international break.

Matches

With two wins under our belt in our Champions League group fixture, we were hoping to take a commanding lead in our group with a third win over Chornomorets.

Unlike seemingly every other match for the past month, we got on board first this time, and early, too. Johnnier Montaño sent in a high, short corner that Leon Cort got under, and the dentreback headed it in for the score. Chornomorets goalkeeper Volodymyr Lozinskiy was nowhere near the play when it went in.

It stayed that way for a good while. Despite the bare 1-0 lead, we were never really tested defensively. For the match, we allowed just one shot to the Ukrainian squad.

We put it away in the 74th minute on an odd play set up by Mark Hicks. Hicks sent in a great pass into the box, just to the left of the left goal post. Lozinskiy had been rushing out to counter Montaño's approach, the intended target of Hicks' slightly off pass. Instead of immediately retreating to get the ball, the goalkeeper just froze. Montaño ran past him to the ball and proceeded to make an easy, open shot difficult by blasting it across the net and into the side netting on the other side. Fortunetly, the inside side netting. And that's how it ended. Tamworth 2, Chornomorets 0

Halfway through the Champions League group stage fixture, we have nine points and the Group C lead. Levski Sofia, our first victim, sits in second with six points, while Chornomorets has three, and U. Lamas zero.

Injury Update

We didn't escape the Chornomorets match unscathed.

Starting right fullback Mike Duff hurt his neck and will miss 10 days to two weeks. He had to leave the match in the 15th minute, and was replaced by Karl Ander Starbæk. I don't have any contingent plans yet as to how to replace him in the lineup in the meantime, although his short recovery time shouldn't mean too many missed matches anyway. If I have to, Starbæk and Otsemobor would probably be the primary candidates to start there. This would be where Pat Davenport would step in were he not hurt all the time.

Champions League Midway Point Update

Here's a quick look at the groupings in the Champions League.

GROUP A

Milan 7, Celtic 6, CSKA Moscow 2, Guingamp 1

Milan hasn't swept to victory, but they are leading. Celtic also seems to be right there, as this one could be over as soon as next round.

GROUP B

Juventus 7, Leverkusen 6, Cannes 3, Banik Ostrava 1

This one has a similar look to Group A, and with the expected results as well. Cannes is still close, though, so Leverkusen is no shoo-in. Juventus is doing as expected.

GROUP C

Tamowrth 9, Levski Sofia 6, Chornomorets 3, U. Lamas 0

U. Lamas is the other major league squad here, if you presume the Ukrainian High League isn't as good as its performance in these competitions have shown, and yet the Portuguese squad is doing very poorly. The bulgarian national team--I mean Levski Sofia--has the early advantage, while Tamworth is walking in, as expected.

GROUP D

Olympiakos 7, NEC 4, Dinamo Kiev 4, Deportivo 1

What?!? How about this shocker? It could be argued that Olympiakos was the favorite to come in last here, and right now they are looking very good for advancement to the knockout stage. Lord knows what's gotten into Deportivo. They need to get their act together fast.

GROUP E

Brno 5, Genoa 5, Sporting Lisbon 4, Partizan 1

I said before that I expected this to be wide open, and it has been. Genoa seemed to be a suspect squad compared to other Italian powers, and Brno beat Liverpool to get to this stage. This one should be intriguing to watch go down.

GROUP F

Bodo/Glimt 7, Inter 4, FC Bayern 3, Lens 3

Wow...what else is there to say?

GROUP G

Werder Bremen 5, AaB 4, Arsenal Kiev 3, Barcelona 2

This CL is beginning to get a little freaky. Now two of the three favorites are currently out of the knockout stage, and need to work their way back into it. And that doesn't mention Deportivo, another top six squad on the outs at the moment. At least Wereder Bremen isn't a surprise here--they were the odds on favorite for second behind Barcelona.

GROUP H

Shakhtar 9, Ajax 3, Man Utd 3, GAK 3

Shakhtar is the only team besides Tamworth to win all three of its first matches. They practically have their spot clinched here, as the other three squads are beating up on each other. Man Utd, another top-six squad as set by the oddsmakers, is once again on the outside and need to nail this one down.

CR

[Chief Rum]

Tuesday, October 28 To Monday, November 3

Unlike last week, we don't get skipped over for a Saturday match this time around. On Wednesday, October 29, we play in third round of the English League Cup, a home match with Fulham. And then on Saturday, we resume our league schedule with a road match against Birmingham.

Montaño Changes His Tune

I don't exactly when it happened, but sometime this week, Johhnier Montaño had a lsight change of heart with his current state of unhappiness. And it wasn't good.

The Colombian midfielder now wants to leave the club. We received no messages or no reasons for this seeming aggravation of his previous displeasure. I still don't have any idea what his problem is.

As of right now, I will be keeping him, but obviously, in the end I will try and move unhappy players if they don't improve their attitudes.

Board Confidence

Same-o same-o

October Premiership Awards

We didn't get the clean sweep we did after the first month.

I was still awarded the Manager of the Month for the second time in a row. That was the only award Tamworth received, though.

Man Utd striker Miroslav Klose got Player of the Month with four goals in two matches, while 16-year-old Blackpool defender Richard Swift got the Young Player of the Month after a good run of form.

Incidentally, Theirry Henry's chip score in the Tamworth-Arsenal match was selected the third best goal of the month.

Matches

Mike Duff was still out for the Fulham match, but it was a second eleven match in any case. The last team this squad played, some players were still fatigued from international play. For the Fulham match, David Marcelo Cortez Pizarro was back at full strength, and Giovanny Hernández was ready to return to regular sub work as well.

We got some help from Fulham to get off to a good start in this one. In the 22nd minute, Richie Partridge went on a run down the right side of the pitch, and then took it into the box. As he approached the six-yard box, Partirdge moved the ball across the box. Your guess is as good as mine as to whether it was intended to be a pass or a shot. In any case, the ball went off midfielder Michale Essien and then goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar for the surprising own goal.

An unsuccessful clear out six minutes later gave Andrei Pereplytokin a shot at another goal, and he didn't fail either, putting the ball in the corner from up close for the 2-0 lead.

A bad mistake by Tieme Klompe got the Cottagers back in the match in the 36th minute, though. Striker Collins John made a great tackle on Klompe after the centreback tooka short pass from James McEveley while sitting on the backline. John stepped forward and edged the ball out from Klompe. All of a sudden, the striker was alone on goal versus Thomas Heaton, with Klompe on his tail. Heaton parried John's first shot, but was unable to control it, and the first save left him out of position to make the second one. John put it in for the easy score and cut the deficit to 2-1.

The Lambs didn't take long to respond, though, as Louis Saha scored on a terrific sharp-angled strike off of a free kick. Lionel Morgan had a direct kick on goal, but instead moved it up to Saha, who freed himself on the right end of the box. Saha had just a sceond's opening, but he blasted the shot at the net, and it went off van der Sar's hands and into the net for the score.

That was all she wrote. Tamworth 3, Fulham 1

With our League Cup match taken care of, we returned to league action for the first time in two weeks, with a match against Birmingham. Mike Duff wasn't quite ready, so Jarl Ander Starbæk got the call at right fullback.

Every now and then, you just hit a hot goalkeeper. And, wow, did we hit one today! Carlo nash, he formerly of Middlesbrough at one point, cleared out shot after shot. Some of it was luck, some of it was skill, some of it was "just not my day". We put 21 shots up, with 14 on goal, and not one got by the guy.

Of course, it gets worse. In the 40th minute, Leon Cort got hurt and had to leave the match (we replaced him with Jon Otsemobor). And in the 68th minute, star Czech striker Milan Baros received a long ball from winger Damien Johnson on the run and blasted it past Jon Masalin as the goalkeeper rushed out to meet him. No, Baros didn't get a step on Otsemobor, which would have been fitting. He did it on Cort's regular centreback partner David Raven.

We lost our first match since the September 3 shellacking by Man Utd, a span of five league match wins, and nine wins overall in a row. Birmingham 1, Tamworth 0

We can't win them all.

Injuries

Cort's injury ended up being semi-serious. He suffered a groin strain, which will put him down for three weeks. At the moment, I don't have any set idea on how to replace him in the starting lineup, but I figure to choose his temporary replacement from Otsemobor, Peter Castle and Mark Phillips.

Remember when I mentioned a few posts back about Pat Davenport suffering his third groin injury in six months? I finally decided to pay attention to that areound now. I had my physio conduct an examination, and he determined that Davenport needed surgery to stop the groin injury from being recurring. The resulting rehabilitation will put him out for two to six months. I elected to do it, as Davenport is not currently a critical part of the team, but as a young player is certainly a future prospect. I figured the healthier I could get him, the better it would be. Once I did it, I got the message that the fullback will be out for five months, so we won't likely see him until April.

Duff has returned to health, and will be available the next time the first eleven takes the pitch.

Fourth Round League Cup Draw

Having beaten Fulham in the League Cup third round, we were a part of the 16-team fourth round draw this week. We didn't get too many favors here when we drew Arsenal as our opponent. Fortunately, the match will take place at the Lamb Ground, and despite their still immense talent, the Gunners seem to have problems with us.

The match will take place on December 3.

Incidentally, the third round was the scene for a huge upset, when Second Division Barnsley beat Chelsea on penalty kicks, 2-2. And get this--it was at Stamford Bridge. I'll bet some Blues' fans ain't too happy about that.

CR

[Chief Rum]

Premiership Table, November 4, 2008

| Pos   | Team         | Pld | Won | Drn | Lst | For | Ag | G.D.| Pts | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 1st   | Tamworth     |  10 |  8  |  0  |  2  |  32 | 12 | +20 |  24 | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 2nd   | Chelsea      |  10 |  7  |  0  |  3  |  21 | 12 |  +9 |  21 | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 3rd   | Man Utd      |  10 |  6  |  2  |  2  |  23 | 10 | +13 |  20 | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 4th   | Arsenal      |  10 |  6  |  0  |  4  |  21 | 12 |  +9 |  18 | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 5th   | Birmingham   |  10 |  5  |  3  |  2  |  12 |  5 |  +7 |  18 | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 6th   | Newcastle    |  10 |  5  |  3  |  2  |  15 |  9 |  +6 |  18 | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 7th   | Liverpool    |  10 |  5  |  2  |  3  |  16 | 11 |  +5 |  17 | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 8th   | Southampton  |  10 |  5  |  1  |  4  |  16 | 16 |   0 |  16 | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 9th   | Nottm Forest |  10 |  4  |  4  |  2  |  13 | 13 |   0 |  16 | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 10th  | Aston Villa  |  10 |  4  |  3  |  3  |  17 | 15 |  +2 |  15 | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 11th  | Fulham       |  10 |  4  |  2  |  4  |  12 | 12 |   0 |  14 | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 12th  | Blackpool    |  10 |  4  |  2  |  4  |  10 | 10 |   0 |  14 | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 13th  | Everton      |  10 |  4  |  2  |  4  |  12 | 15 |  -3 |  14 | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 14th  | Man City     |  10 |  2  |  3  |  5  |  11 | 16 |  -5 |   9 | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 15th  | Sheff Wed    |  10 |  2  |  3  |  5  |   6 | 11 |  -5 |   9 | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 16th  | Leicester    |  10 |  2  |  3  |  5  |   6 | 19 | -13 |   9 | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 17th  | Bristol City |  10 |  2  |  2  |  6  |   8 | 14 |  -6 |   8 | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 18th  | Tottenham    |  10 |  2  |  2  |  6  |  11 | 18 |  -7 |   8 | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 19th  | Blackburn    |  10 |  1  |  4  |  5  |  11 | 25 | -14 |   7 | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 20th  | Colchester   |  10 |  0  |  3  |  7  |   8 | 26 | -18 |   3 | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------|

Comments: Ten matches into the season and we have a slight lead in the Premiership. Looking at the standings, there aren't too many surprises so far. Birmingham--who just beat us--is probably the only team in the top six or seven squads that is a bit of a surprise. Biggest disappointments so far definitely have to go to Tottenham and Blackburn, both of which should be much better than they are showing so far.

CR

[Chief Rum]

Tamworth Season Stats, November 4, 2008

Keepers             Age   Wage    Value   Apps   Con   AvgR

Jon Masalin          22   $35 K   $1.2 M    9     13   6.56
Thomas Heaton        22  $100 K   $1.5 M    7      8   6.71
Casper Nelis         31   $35 K   $800 K    0      0   0.00

Defenders           Age   Wage    Value   Apps     G   A  MoM   AvgR

Leon Cort            29  $110 K  $5.25 M   11      2   0   0    7.09
Hermann Hreidarsson  34  $825 K   $325 K    9 (1)  0   0   0    7.20
David Raven          23   $75 K   $3.0 M    9      0   2   0    7.11
Mike Duff            30  $575 K   $2.7 M    8      0   2   0    7.00
James McEveley       23  $1.0 M   $5.5 M    7      0   0   0    7.71
Tieme Klompe         32  $625 K   $950 K    7      0   0   0    6.71
Kevin Gorman         20  $160 K   $1.8 M    6      0   1   0    8.00
Gaël Clichy          23  $160 K   $3.5 M    5 (1)  0   2   0    7.33
Jarl Andre Starbæk   30   $85 K   $1.6 M    1 (3)  1   0   0    7.25
Jon Otsemobor        25   $65 K   $2.5 M    1 (2)  0   0   0    7.00
Peter Castle         21  $100 K   $2.3 M    0 (4)  0   0   0    7.00
Mark Phillips        26  $300 K   $3.7 M    0 (1)  0   0   0    8.00
Mark Warren          33   $75 K   $140 K    0 (1)  0   0   0    7.00
Justin Skinner       36   $40 K    $90 K    0 (1)  0   0   0    6.00
Pat Davenport        18   $40 K   $475 K    0      0   0   0    0.00

Midfielders         Age   Wage    Value   Apps     G   A  MoM   AvgR

Michael Stewart      27  $230 K $10.75 M    9      1   1   0    7.11
Johnnier Montaño     25  $775 K $10.75 M    8      6   3   2    8.00
Carl Motteram        23  $900 K   $6.0 M    8      1   0   0    7.00
Richie Partridge     28  $400 K  $6.75 M    7 (3)  3   3   1    7.90
Jim Corbett          28   $80 K   $2.7 M    7      0   3   1    7.86
Denny Landzaat       32  $850 K   $2.0 M    7      0   6   1    7.57
David Pizarro        29  $500 K $13.75 M    6 (1)  3   1   2    8.00
Lionel Morgan        25  $825 K  $6.75 M    6      0   4   0    7.50
Darren Birchall      30   $85 K   $3.6 M    2 (3)  2   0   0    7.20
Chris Booth          18   $60 K   $625 K    2      0   4   0    8.00
Giovanny Hernández   32  $725 K   $2.2 M    1 (4)  2   0   0    7.40
Danny Prutton        27  $1.1 M   $6.0 M    0 (5)  0   0   0    6.80
Andy Williams        31  $500 K   $1.6 M    0      0   0   0    0.00

Forwards            Age   Wage    Value   Apps     G   A  MoM   AvgR

Andre Pereplytokin   22  $475 K $10.25 M    8      7   3   0    7.25
Yakubu               25  $1.2 M  $17.0 M    7 (1)  4   2   1    7.00
Louis Saha           30  $625 K   $4.1 M    7      8   1   4    8.57
Orri Freyr Oskarsson 28  $950 K   $2.4 M    6      2   3   0    7.50
Adam Wilde           29  $400 K   $2.6 M    4 (4)  3   2   0    7.00
Mark Hicks           27  $450 K   $9.5 M    1 (8)  4   3   1    7.44

CR

[Chief Rum]

One side note to readers:

It is now that I have finally caught up with where I am in the actual game. So don't be surprised if thingsd slow down some--after all, I have to actually play the game to get something to write about.

That said, I think reaching this point will be a lot more helpful for my writing, as the unknown that is the future will impinge upon my impressions, and I won't lose those impressions or gloss over anything because I went through such and such time period weeks ago (in real life).

Let me know if there's anything you guys want to know about the universe this is in.

CR

[Chief Rum]

Tuesday, November 4 To Monday, November 10

I have two matches this week. I resume the second half of my Champions League group stage fixture with a visit to the Ukraine and the home stade of Chornomorets on November 4. And then I follow it up with a home match against my just-defeated League Cup opponent Fulham on November 8.

Tamworth Signs Slovakian Centreback

Late on November 3, our offer to Slovakian centreback Péter Kiss was accepted. Kiss is an 18-year-old centreback whom our scouts thought had a bright future.

Kiss is currently the property of Banska Bystrica, a Slovak Second Division club. He was one of the several Slovakian kids with potential we found in our last run through the country (the one that produced current U-19 talents Roman Boldyrev and Andrey Gorbunov). His contract recently hit the Bosman six months, and we put in an offer.

Kiss is currently on a $10,000 per year contract, and it didn't take much more than that to get him (like $20,000 or so, I forget exactly). Kiss turned down an offer from Banska Bystrica to join us, and the Bosman transfer will be officially completed on May 3, 2009.

Kiss looks a great talent physically (18 Acceleration, 16 Pace, 18 Jumping, 18 Stamina), and he also has good skills in key spots (16 Crossing, 11 Dribbling, 12 Passing, so he is no slouch in moving the ball) and in the mental skills I like (14 Determination, 13 Teamwork, 14 Work Rate). His technical skills need a lot of work, though, and outside of the worker's mental skills I listed above, he isn't the brightest bulb on the scoreboard. He does have a U21 appearance for Slovakia under his belt already.

Kiss has one assist in 17 appearances for Banska Bystrica, with a very respectable 7.47 rating. He also has two men of the match. He was a regular starter last year at just 17 for them.

Chornomorets

My habit in the past was to list out match results in the same section, similar to how Quiksand does his. Since I go by week, though, I don't generally have more than two matches in the same post. Plus, it breaks up the order of things when I am forced by my own style choices to go out of order, at least chronically. So from now on, I will go more or less by the date on club issues. And we have reached the date for the Chornomorets match.

I realize upon looking at the group standings that a win in this match would clinch my spot in the next round. Chornomorets is currently third with three points, six behind me. If I win, I move beyond the possible reach of the bottom two teams and thus secure my spot in the next round. So I have some motivation in this one.

Chornomorets immediately gives me something I have not seen before: a snow-spotted pitch. It's a frigid 23º F, and although it's dry and clear, it clearly hasn't been all the time leading up to the match. I thought my resolution was screwed up at first until I realized the off-white, faded-green pitch coloring was intentional. Good show, SI!

With Leon Cort hurt, I find myself a little less deep on the backline. This becomes particularly obvious in these international matches, where I only have a handful of other backline players available. This is a sceond team match, but I chose long ago not to include my second team left fullback Gaël Clichy on my international roster, and most of my main backline backups (Mark Phillips, Jon Otsemobor, Mak Warren) are not eligible for this. On top of that, the guys I do have aren't really good for the spot for one reason or another (Hreidarsson is the first team starter and needs to be saved for Fulham on Saturday, Jarl Ander Starbæk is at 92% conditioning following the Birmingham match, Peter Castle is a centreback, not a left back). So I went with James McEveley, normally one of my second team centrebacks, as left fullback and started Castle with Klompe in this middle.

I beat these guys by a tight 2-0 score at home, so I wasn't expecting an easy match here. Seeing snow only made it more obvious, and I was right. The Ukrainian squad played with me in a very defensive match, particularly int he first half. At halftime, it was still scoreless, with Chornomorets having two of five shots on goal, to my just two on six. And I survived some doozies, too, as one of their strikers, Olexandr Kosyrin, three times had but Thomas Heaton to deal with on goal, and he failed all three times (he had a '4' rating at the half). If he was on his game, I would have been down big.

It wasn't a great match for centreback Denys Kolchin either. In the 50th minute, he had to make a nice tackle to divert a Louis Saha pass away from Andrei Pereplytokin (who was happy to playing in front of his homeland Ukrainian fans), but under pressure, he attempted to clear it away from the striker. Unfortunately, he was facing his own goal. I watched in some amusement as Kolchin's far too soft clear out floated high above charging Chornomorets goalkeeper Volodymyr Lozinskyi and fell into the open net for the own goal.

I felt bad for Chornomorets being down that way after playing so strongyl defensively, so I was almost happy when, in the 80th minute, Kosyrin got to a rebound from Heaton in the middle of the box and blasted it in for the equaliser.

Leave it to Kolchin to blow it again for Chornomorets, though. In the 82nd minute, the centreback sent an errant side pass in his own zone, and Lionel Morgan intercepted it easily. He moved it forward to Mark Hicks and Giovanny Hernández, who were suddenyl alone on goal with Lozinskyi. Hicks chipped up to Hernáandez, and the Colombian midfielder easily put the shot into the corner of the net for the 2-1 lead. That would be all she wrote. Tamworth 2, Chornomorets 1

With that, we clinched our spot in the second round of the Champions League--with two matches to play! My plan is to start backups for much of the last two matches, just to get them some playing time. Of course, that will be limited, since most of our 25 players on the international roster are starters on one of our two elevens, but I'll see what I can do. As with the other three Champions League wins, we received $350,000 for winning.

Other Champions League Results

Here's a very quick rundown of where things stand in the other groups.

GROUP A: Milan clinched a spot with a 2-1 win over Celtic. Celtic is in second place with 6 points, but CSKA Moscow (3) and Guingamp (2) are still right there.

GROUP B: Juventus (8) and Leverkusen (6) remain the favorites, but they didn't do much to clear the group up by drawing and losing, respectively. Cannes and Banik Ostrava (both 4) are in it still.

GROUP C: This is us. We clinched, of course. Levski Sofia (9) is on the verge of clinching, too, with Chornomorets at 3 points still. U. Lamas has lost all four of its matches.

GROUP D: Deportivo (1) is still the story (or anti-story) of this group, losing to Olympiakos. How pathetic. Olympiakos (10) leads the group, while Dinamo Kiev (7) improved its standing by beating NEC (4), 3-0.

GROUP E: Chalk a couple up for the big dogs. This group was a hueg toss up with surprise leader Brno on top. Sporting Lisbon reminded Brno who they really were, and beat them, 2-0, while Serie A squad Genoa didn't lose ground by drawing with Partizan. Sporting Lisbon (7) is now on top, with Genoa (6) still second. Brno (5) is very much alive, and even Partizan (2) isn't out of it.

GROUP F: This group just keeps getting more and more messed up. Shocker Bodo/Glimt continues to top this group after beating FC Bayern at home, 4-2. Yes, you read that right. Ain't done either--Lens beat Inter, 2-0, at home as well. So, yes, two of the world's most powerful clubs--Inter (4) and FC Bayern (3)--are currently out of it, while Bodo/Glimt (10) and Lens (6) have the spots.

GROUP G: Not much was settled in this group, as there were two draws. Everyone essentially remained as is. Barcelona continues to underachieve with a 1-1 score at home against AaB, while Werder Bremen (6) kept its group leader status by drawing 1-1 with Arsenal Kiev. AaB (5), Arsenal Kiev (4), and Barcelona (3) all still have terrific shots at this one.

GROUP H: It's all about Shakhtar. They are the only squad besides us to win all four of their matches and have their spot clinched for the second round. They did it by beating Man Utd, 1-0, at home, leaving the English power in last. At three points, though, they are just a point behind Ajax and GAK, who drew 2-2, so this one is also very wide open.

Motteram Hurt Again

Just two weeks after returning from a broken foot, first eleven left winger Carl Motteram again hurt himself, disclocating his shoulder in training. He will be out a month.

It's some relief it was his shoulder this time. His last two injuries were both to his foot, so if he hurt that again, I fear I might have to consider a surgery and lengthy rehabilitation, like I did with Pat Davenport.

It's always difficult to shift in midstream with two elevens and limited depth at this particular wing spot, but I think I will get by with second eleven right winger Richie Partridge playing first eleven left winger, and simply move up backup Chris Booth into the second eleven right winger spot. Booth, who has four assists in very limited time, deserves more playing time anyway, and Partiridge is versatile enough to make the temporary switch. My concern is with Fulham, as Partridge never left the pitch in the Chornomorets match, and I am counting on him being conditioned enough to start again against Fulham.

Fulham

Premiership play resumes today with a rematch with recent Tamworth League Cup victim Fulham. The American in me always enjoys playing Fulham because they have American winger Demetrius Williams and fullback Carlos Bocanegro. Both are starting in this one. I beat these guys in the League Cup just ten days before this, 3-1, also at the Lamb Ground.

Notable players here, besides the Americans, are former Man Utd stars Phil Neville and Paul Scholes (both older now), and former Leeds striker Alan Smith.

It took us a little bit to get going, but we got the scoring off right with a very nice passing play in the 30th minute. Richie Partridge (yes, he was able to go) moved toward the cente rof the pitch on a short run, and then moved it up to midfielder Michael Stewart. Stewart turned the balla round and sent a sharp pass to Yakubu, just inside the box on the left. Yakubu pretty much turned and volleyed the pass right past goalkeeper Edwin Van der Sar for the first score.

Partirdge also figured into the second one, although this time he would get credit for it. After a corner was headed just outside of the box, John Corbett moved the ball to Partridge, charging in from the corner spot and near the right goal line. Partridge moved the ball deftly intot he six yard box and Johnnier Montaño left-foot volleyed the ball into the corner of the net before van der Sar could react.

I thought that would be it until Orri Freyr Oskarsson put a very nice score in the 61st minute. Yakubu and Oskarsson were playing a bit of a passing game as they moved the ball forward on short give and goes down the pitch toward the goal. One such pass drew both Bocanegro and centreback Steve Wilkinson to Yakubu, and giving Oskarsson a step on the defense. He was still pretty far out, though, beyond the box. With Bocanegro closing in and van der Sar cutting off the approach to the net, Oskarsson put in one of the nicer shots I have seen him hit (and he has hit a lot), when he sliced a curving shot around the charging van der Sar and into the open net from some 30 yards out.

That would be it in a match we largely dominated. Tamworth 3, Fulham 0

We set another new attendance record, with 32007. That beat the old record--set last month against Arsenal--by six whole fans.

Marc Vaughan...Working For Us?

As some of you may be aware, some of the devilish SIGames programmers have stuck themselves in the game. This includes our common visitor Marc Vaughan, head of programming at SIGames (IIRC) and unofficial company spokesperson extraordinaire here at FOFC. In the game, Vaughan in 2008 is a 37-year0old unemployed coach.

I don't need a coach. I decided I need a scout, though. I had some guys I wanted scouted individually. The problem with that is that you need a scout who is not dedicated to an area or a nation to do that. It sometimes takes a while for a scout without assignment to even get to these. As a result, I usually just ignore individual player scouting and immediately assign my scouts to new nations or areas as soon as they are done with their previous assignments.

I have three scouts sets to do nations and regions, and that has worked well for me. I have a fourth who does upcoming opponent souting reports, which also find useful. So I decide to get a fifth scout whom I will never assign and simply leave in palce to do individual scouting (checking out players I specifically point out for scouting).

I look for 20s in Judging Player Potential and Judging Player Ability in scouts, and don't see the need to go lower if I can get them that high. Well, no free agent scouts had these rankings, and the tranfser window being closed means I can't hire away scouts from other clubs. So I expand to include all job descriptions, and lo and behond, Marc Vaughan pops up. Apparently he fancies himself quite th eye for talent.

I put in an offer for what he claimed he wanted ($35,000), but of course, as a scout and not the coaching position he wanted. Darn it all to heck if he didn't turn the deal down on Monday, November 10. Stubborn programmer!

When I went to offer him again, his demands had changed to a "very large contract to sign" description. I offered him the max my board would allow ($100,000 per annum, $100,000 signing bonus). What the heck? I am $8.25 M under my wage budget and have over $37 M in the bank. I can afford to overpay for a scout.

League News

Not much to note from this week in the Premiership.

The biggest news was the injury to young superstar striker James Graham of Leicester. The 21-year-old striker tore a groin muscle and will miss two months, which won't help a team struggling to stay out of relegation (currently 17th). Graham has two goals in five matches this season, and this his third groin injury in four months. You know what that probably means-- a recurring injury. Last season, Graham had 18 goals, 8 assists, and an 8.03 rating in 30 matches for the Foxes.

Here is the Premiership League Team of the Week:

SC Miroslav Klose (Man Utd)-- 9 rat, MoM vs LEI
SC Hélder Postiga (Tottenham)-- 1 G, 9 rat, MoM vs BIR
ML Joe Cole (Chelsea)-- 1 G, 8 rat vs NOT
MC Christian Poulsen (Chelsea)-- 1 G, 8 rat vs NOT
MC Orri Frey Oskarsson (Tamworth)-- 1 G, 9 rat, MoM vs FUL
MR Omar Daley (Blackpool)-- 1 G, 9 rat vs COL
DL Djimi Traoré (Liverpool)-- 8 rat vs SOU
DC Hermann Hreidarsson (Tamworth)-- 8 rat vs FUL
DC Richard Swift (Blackpool)-- 9 rat, MoM vs COL
DR Robbie Stockdale (Nottingham Forest)-- 8 rat vs AST
GK Richard Wright (Everton)-- 9 rat, 8 sav, W vs NEW

CR

[Blade6119]

What tactics do you use...i cant seem to get goals like you do no matter how much i outclass my opponents

[Chief Rum]

I use a slight variation of the diablo tactic, which is sort of a 4-1-3-2, with the midfielder in the '3' on a long run up to the forward line.

You should be able to find the diablo tactic at the Dugout.net.

CR

[Chief Rum]

Tuesday, November 11 To Monday, November 17

With the league cup and various international matches finally out of the way (for the most part), the Premiership is finally able to slip in two full rounds in a week. This week we play at Everton on Wednesday, November 12, and then face Manchester City at home on November 15--my 36th birthday. Give me a good one, guys.

International Callups

Europe and much of thes rest of the world is taking this time to rest, and won't be in action again until well into 2009. South America, though, has one more round to play this year, next week on November 19. As expected, Colombia calls up Givanny Hernández and Chile David Marcelo Cortez Pizarro. What's new is that Colombia also finally calls up Johnnier Montaño as well. It's about time, considering he seems to be good enough and is already capped. Hopefully his callup and brief return to South America will lighten his mood a bit.

I don't expect any of the players to miss any Tamworth matches, as their World Cup qualifier happens in the middle of a week with only one late Premiership fixture.

Injury

Leon Cort has yet to return to the first team, so the news I got Wednesday, November 12, was not encouraging. Reserve defender and a likely choice to replace Cort during his down time Peter Castle strained a groin muscle in training and will be out for a week. He will certainly miss this week's two matches, although I hope to have him back for next week.

Cort seems to be progressing fine, but he won't be available for this week's matches either. I will likely start Jon Otsemobor or Mark Phillips in Cort's spot in the first eleven's match this week.

Everton

Wow, this was a weird match.

The Blues have a pretty solid team, and are 10th in the Premiership coming into this match. Goodison Park isn't an easy place to play, so I expected a tough match.

Everton has plenty of decently well-known players, but few stars. The one well-known name, which I well get into later, wasn't available for this match. The defense is pretty tough with goalkeeper Richard Wright in net, and tough centreback Joseph Yobo in front of him. I was throwing the second eleven at them, with Chris Booth at right wing to replace the temporarily "promoted" Richie Partridge.

I should have known right from the beginning this match was going to be a strange one. In the first five minutes, my guys hit two posts with shots (one for each). Andrei Pereplyotkin hit one, and Pizarro hit the other.

The match went into the sublime in the 12th minute, though. Striker Nick Chadwick blasted a shot at the net from up close that evaded Thomas Heaton. The ball hit the crossbar and bounced high up to just right of the goal. Left back Gaêl Clichy had his back to the goal, the ball ricocheted off his back, and went past a disbelieving Heaton for the own goal. I say it went that way because that's how I hope it happened. Looking at the 2-D, it actually looked like Clichy was set up perfectly for the score and blasted it into the open net.

In the 35th minute, centreback Declan Power got up for a corner kick and put another one past Heaton, and we were down 2-0.

Meanwhile, we couldn't figure out Wright, who was playing terrific. I thought there was a strong chance we were going to drop this one, entering halftime down 2-0.

In the 53rd minute, Booth got a nice side pass from Denny Landzaat ona poor clear out by Evrton, and Booth moved it up at right angles to the initial pass and a streaking Pereplyotkin in the box. The Ukrainian striker went near post and just slipped the ball in before Wright could put it away.

We kept plugging away, but Everton survived a number of scares. Finally, in the 73rd minute, Clichy made up for his earlier mistake. He sent a nice long ball into the left of the box for Louis Saha. Saha moved the ball straight up to center and Pizarro. Despite being marked strongly by Yobo, Pizarro got his foot on it and deflected it into the goal past Wright for the equaliser.

And that's how it would end. Everton 2, Tamworth 2

The draw came against a win by Man Utd, which moved within two points of our lead. Maybe this year's title race will be an actual race after all.

Marc Vaughan Is Too Good For Us

Well, what a shocker. On Friday, I learned that a hundred grand per year, with a hundred grand up front isn't enough to entice Vaughan out of the SIGames' office and into the pitch stands. I guess he really wanted to coach. We will just have to look elsewhere for our scout (and likely lower our standards, unfortunately).

Manchester City

City itself had an interesting week, but once again, I will get into that under 'League News'.

Man City has struggled this season, and are currently 15th in the Premiership. They were expected to be better than this, albeit not that much better.

We face another top Premiership goalkeeper in Nicky Weaver in this one. City has more well-known names than Everton, although you can't tell from the results. Aruna is the star up front (six goals), and Dickson Agyeman and Jurica Vranjes form a competent midfield. Shaun Wright-Phillips is a solid wing, and Wayne Bridge and Sun Jihai form half of a good protective shell around Weaver. Your guess is as good as mine as to why they are 15th in the Premiership.

With me having to shuffle the lineups a bit because of the Cort and Motteram injuries, I had Partidge in at left wing, and Otsemobor in place of Cort.

Simply put, Orri Freyr Oskarsson came to play in this one. He blitzed City early on, scoring in the 7th and 10th minutes (one on a great swerving corner shot from the outer edge of the box) to give us the early 2-0 lead.

Aruna got them right back in it, though, with his own score past Jon Masalin in the 14th minute. We largely held onto the ball, though, and City couldn't break the defense any further.

In the 37th minute, Jihai took an ill-advised tackle against Jim Corbett, upending the winger. That earned the Chinese international defender a yellow card, his second of the match, and an early bath.

Depite playing a lower end tactic with the lead, we were simply too much at home and against a squad a man down. Michael Stewart scored in the 43rd minute, and Yakubu finished things off in the 56th minute. Tamworth 4, Man City 1

Happy Birthday to me.

We set another attendance record with 32018 in attendance. This beat the previous mark of 32007 versus Fulham by 11. We can only go as high as 32045.

Man Utd won as well and remain just two points behind us in the league table.

Tamworth Signs Turkish Scout

Having failed to lure Marc Vaughan from both programming and coaching, we expanded our scout search to include slightly lesser talents. In doing so, we came upon a Turk named Bekir Kavas.

Kavas is a 40-year-old who only speaks Turkish, but, hey, football is its own language, right? He only wanted $16,000, so he was an easy signing.

As it turns out, I didn't have to compromise too much, with Kavas having the same 20 Judging Player Ability as our other scouts, and only one point less, 19, in Judging Player Potential.

I haven't decided yet, but I may switch Johnny Walsh, currently scouting the opposition, to doing individual scouting, since he does have the 20 Judging Player Potential I like. That skill really matters little for scouts watching the next opposition, so Kavas being slightly less in that won't matter if I have him scotuing out the opposition.

League News

I said there was a name Everton still has that is very recognziable, and there was news about him this week. This would be none other than real life Euro 2004 star Wayne Rooney, long considered a star prodigy in England.

Rooney hasn't quite gotten to that level in this game, and in fact doesn't even get picked for England's national team too often anymore, but he remains a solid player.

The 23-year-old striker tore a groin muscle on Monday, November 10, and will be out of action for two months. The Tamworth match was Everton's first without him.

Rooney has four goals in 10 matches this season, but he has yet to really impress. In the past five seasons, Rooney has topped 10 goals just twice, and he has yet to finish with higher than a 7 rating. Still, he remains one of the Blues' bets players, so they will certainly miss him. Plus, at 23, he could still be improving.

The other bit of news involved our other opponent. On Thursday, November 13, Manchester City hired Pär Zetterberg to be their new manager. The Tamworth match was his first helming the club (welcome to the league).

Zetterberg is a 38-year-old Swedish manager who has an Okay reputation. He seems likely to be an up-and-coming manager.

What's really odd is that this is his second stint as manager of Man City. The former Anderlecht player was hired Sunderland as assistant manager in June, 2006, but six months later, Man City had an opening and gave him the job.

He did fairly well at City before being hired away by Bradford City just a year after taking the Man City job. The Bradford City job was a step down to First Division, though, so who knows why he took it? And then he managed to get fired from it on October 5 this season.

Since he never did badly with City, they decided to rehire him. In all, he is 35-20-34, with 136 goals scored and 138 conceded as a manager.

Man City's last manager, Simon Smith, was sacked on October 26 after a poor club start.

Here is the Premiership League Team of the Week:

SC Lee Miller (Bristol City)-- 9 rat, 2 G, 2 A, MoM in 2 matches
SC Tommy Wright (Leicester)-- 1 G, MoM, 9 rat vs BLK
MF Gareth Barry (Aston Villa)-- 8 rat in 2 matches
MF David Marcelo Cortez Pizarro (Tamworth)-- 1 G, MoM, 9 rat vs EVR
MF Stilian Petrov (Aston Villa)-- 2 G, 1 A, MoM, 9 rat in 2 matches
MF Orri Freyr Oskarsson (Tamworth)-- 2 G, MoM, 10 rat vs MAN
DF Declan Power (Everton)-- 1 G, 9 rat vs TAM
DF Brett Emerton (Blackburn)-- 1 G, 1 A, MoM, 8 rat in 2 matches
DF Aaron Hughes (Newcastle)-- 1 G, 8 rat in 2 matches
DF Luke Young (Aston Villa)-- 1 A, 8 rat vs BIR
GK Mark Brown (Bristol City)-- 8.5 rat, 13 sav in 2 matches, 1 G conceded, 1 clean

CR

[daedalus]

I seem to notice that CM staffers who wants to be coaches will refuse to go "down" to scout no matter what you offer.

[Chief Rum]

Tuesday, November 18 To Monday, November 24

As I mentioned above, we have just one match this week, a match at Blackpool on November 22.

South American World Cup Qualifiers

Pretty much every team won that was supposed to in Wold Cup qualifying for South America on November 19.

Entering this round, the eleventh match in an 18-game fixture for South American squads, there were four standout squads sitting at 20 points apiece. Traditional powers Argentina, Brazil and Colombia were joined by Peru.

Although these four squads have not yet clinched spots for China 2010, their seven-point lead could be insurmountable at this point. The true competition is for the fifth and final spot, where every other nation except for Bolivia has a legitimate shot at it.

Paraguay was one of the two teams tied for the fifth spot with 13 points, but they lost at home to powerful Brazil, 2-0. That made the Uruguay-Ecuador match even more critical, as Ecuador was the other team tied with 13 points, while Uruguay was just behind with 11. The Uruguayans held serve at home, beating Ecuador 2-0 to move into the fifth place spot with 15 points.

David Marcelo Cortez Pizarro and his Chilean teammates missed a diamond chance to move back into closer range for that last spot when they dropped an admittedly tough 2-1 road match to Argentina. Pizarro started int he midfield, but only garnered a 6 rating.

A couple Tamworth players were also present at the Colombia-Venezueal match. Like Chile, Venezuela had nine points and a chance to move up with a win at home over Colombia, which started both Giovanny Hernáandez and Johhnier Montaño. Colombia proved to be too tough, though, winning out with a 3-2 victory.

Colombia's victory was all the more impressive in that they came back from a two-goal deficit and being a man down. Montaño got the comeback going with a goal in the 30th minute. The Tamworth midfielder/forward put up an 8 rating in a solid return to international play. Hernáandez wasn't so strong, with a 6 rating.

Colombia, Peru (which beat Bolivia 2-0), Brazil and Argentina all have 23 points after 11 matches, and a clear nine-point lead over fifth place. This round cleared up that fifth spot a little, in that the losses of Chile and Venezuela will make them unlikely to get back into this one. That leaves fifth place Uruguay with 14 points, while Paraguay and Ecuador are right on its tail with 13 points.

North & Central American Qualifiers

CONCACAF also concluded a key round in its qualifying when it finished the semifinal rounds.

In the semifinals, six teams advance from three four-team groups to the final. The top four squads from the final round will receive the region's World Cup bids to China 2010.

In Semifinal Group 1, Mexico won easily to the next round, with Guatemala just edging surprising Netherlands Antilles, nine points to eight. 2006 Germany participant Trinidad & Tobaggo had just three points in this group.

In Semifinal Group 2, the United States and Honduras dominated play and easily won their way into the final round. The Americans won all six of their matches.

In Semifinal Group 3, it was upsets galore. Island nations Haiti and Jamaica shocked the perceived stronger Canadian and Costa Rican teams to win through to the final round.

The six-team final will begin play in March, 2009.

Club Is Healing

Centrebacks Leon Cort and Peter Castle are healed up and ready to return to action, returning us to a more normal state of affairs with our backline and its depth.

The real good news, though, is that former first team left winger Andy Williams has resumed light training after damaging cruciate ligaments in his knee last May. He looks right on schedule for a full return two months from now.

Blackpool

Blackpool came into this match at a rather surprising 11th in the Premiership. The last time we played a team at this level on the road, we barely escaped Goodison Park and verton with a draw. So I figured today's match wouldn't be a snoozer.

As a recent First Division promotee, Blackpool and its first eleven aren't as well-known as some other Premiership squads, but they are growing on people. The best known players are former Bolton defender Nicky Hunt on the backline, forward Brett Ormerod, most notably of Southampton, and midfielder Omar Daley, whom has been a fixture for Blackpool since they were in the Second Division.

In a strange twist, despite it being a second eleven match, Michael Stewart was in the match at defensive midfielder. It was purely accidental, and I plan on putting Denny Landzaat, the projected starter, into a first eleven match to even things out.

The first score in the third minute was reminiscent of that odd score against Fulham where goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar allowed a ball to roll to the touchline and didn't bother to retreat it, allowing Tamworth to score. Today, it was the Lambs that suffered. The ball rolled to the far left touchline. Thomas Heaton went up the line toward it, but then just stopped, seemingly frozen. He wasn't near the ball, but he was a good deal off his line, too. Striker Joe Murphy centered the ball, but it was cleared out to the edge of the box. Midfielder Imants Bleidelis put a nice pass in close to Oremerod, who was on the far side of the net from heaton and had an easy shot to score--which he did.

Tamworth got it back in the 14th minute, when Stewart put a nice pass into the box for Darren Birchall, who started in the midfield in place of the World Cup qualifying-fatigued Pizarro. Birchall was quicly closed down, but his run drew the direct attention of Blackpool keeper Lee Camp. He had just enough time to skip a sid epass to Louis Saha, who had an open net shot. He blasted it in for the tie.

That was how it would go to halftime, with just eight shots, three on goal, between the two teams by that point. At this point, it looked anything but like an impending shootout.

In the 60th minute, fullback Gaël Clichy moved a long ball up to Saha near the left touchline. Saha moved the ball on on the run to Birchall, charging toward the six-yard box ahead of the defense. He hit a low shot across the goal, catching the side netting on the other side for the go ahead score.

Blackpool didn't give up, though, tying it again just a couple minutes later. Bleidelis, who had a very solid match in the middle of Blackpool's offense, sent in a corner that Murphy blasted at Heaton. The goalkeeper deflected it, but it fell to winger Ricky Waddell in front of the goal for the easy score.

In the 70th minute, Blackpool fullback Steven Kavanaugh made a critical error, though. Having tackled the ball cleanly from Saha near the left corner spot, Kavanaugh attempted to clear the ball to the middle of the pitch. He missed winger Jarl Ander Starbæk, though, who stepped forward and intercepted the pass with an eye for the goal. He blasted a beautiful shot right at Camp from some 25 yards out, and the goalkeeper flailed at the shot as it sailed into the net for the score.

After playing in such a tightly contested match, the Lambs put it away after that with two late scores by Andrei Pereplytokin, who had a wonderful second half. Depite actually being outshot 14-13, and 10-8 in on-goal shots, we pulled out a standout victory. Tamworth 5, Blackpool 2

League News

There was little to report this week in the Premiership beyond the latest round of matches.

Here is the Premiership League Team of the Week:

SC Shola Ameobi (Newcastle)-- 3 G, 10 rat, MoM vs COL
SC Miroslav Klose (Man Utd)-- 3 A, 9 rat vs ARS
MF Harry Kewell (Liverpool)-- 2 G, 9 rat, MoM vs BIR
MF Michael Stewart (Tamworth)-- 2 A, 9 rat vs BKP
MF Jarl Ander Starbæk (Tamworth)-- 1 G, 8 rat vs BKP
MF Chris Booth (Tamworth)-- 8 rat vs BKP
DF Peter Canero (Southamton)-- 1 G, 9 rat, MoM vs LEI
DF Jonathon Woodgate (Newcastle)-- 9 rat vs COL
DF Tieme Klompe (Tamworth)-- 8 rat vs BKP
DF Kevin Gorman (Tamworth)-- 8 rat vs BKP
GK Thomas Heaton (Tamworth)-- 9 rat, 8 sav, 2 conc vs BKP

Pretty good week for us, obviously.

CR

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by daedalus

I seem to notice that CM staffers who wants to be coaches will refuse to go "down" to scout no matter what you offer.

They must be a little too snooty.

CR

[thealmighty]

Chief, I've been wondering if the AI for this game is a bit too easy? The reason I ask is that every dynasty I have seen for CM04, the person playing starts out at a lower level and proceeds to move up a level almost, if not, every year and crushes the opposition.

Each successive year they all say they hope to not be relegated but end up being promoted. So, is the AI lacking a bit, or are FOFC players just an overwhelmingly wonderful group of CM studs?

[SirFozzie]

He's using an ubertactic, take that into account

[Chief Rum]

What Sir Fozzie said. As human players, we have the advantage of relying on past successful tactics the computer isn't aware of. When I try and stick with the tactics that come with the game, I usually end up on some bad run of form that ends up getting me fired. I just don't have a natural enough handle on football tactics to make the proper adjustments. Alsi, I think when you go with the tactics in the game, the computer has almost as good an advantage with its knowledge of those tactics, as humans do with human-created tactics. There doesn't seem to be much of a middle ground.

There are holes in the AI here, too, I am sure, but I have found this game's AI's to be one of the stronger such in the text sim community. The game is also programmed to figure out how to beat your tactic--or at least that's what I have heard (and seen from my dynasties).

FWIW, I am trying to move away from the uber tactic. Last season, I switched to a base 4-4-2 defensive (an in-game tactic) whenever I got a four goal lead. Now I switch when I have a two-goal lead. I only switch back if the opponent catches up (hasn't happened yet). Next year, my plan is to switch after I get a lead (any lead), and keep it until I get a goal down.

CR

[Chief Rum]

Tuesday, November 25 To Monday, December 1

This week will return us to Champions League action, and finish off with a Premiership match. On Wednesday, November 26, we go to the home of Levski Sofia for the fifth round of the six-match Group C fixture. As we have already clinched our spot in the next round, this will be a spot when we will try and get some backups some more time, although our ability to do so is limited because we are limited by the 25-man international roster we submitted in August. It will mean much more for Levski Sofia, which can clinch their spot in the next round with a win or a draw.

The Premiership match carries with it the usual importance of such muches, but isn't likely to draw any better of a lineup from us. We are hosting table bottom-dwelling Colchester and former Tamworth star José Alexander Amaya, and we should be able to win it with ease. So I will be starting more backups there as well, as I give some of the first eleven guys a break, while getting the backups a start or two to salve the wounded egos that usually come with playing those roles.

Levski Sofia

It would take just about a miracle for the Bulgarian club Levski Sofia to not nab the second spot in our Champions League group, as they are six points up on third place Chornomorets with two matches left to play. Still, they figure to be motivated until it's locked up.

Back in September, we opened our march to a bid in the second round with a 5-1 win over Levski Sofia, although enough time has passed that I have no idea if that is a good indicator of how things will go today.

This was a first eleven match, although, as I mentioned, I switched some people around for what is basically an unimportant match for me. Leon Cort is healthy again, so I thought this would be a good spot to put him back in the lineup. I paired him with Peter Castle, though, instead of David Raven, whom I named as a sub. Carl Motteram is still healing up from his shoulder injury, so Richie Partridge returns to starting on the left side in his place. Instead of Johnnier Montaño and Michael Stewart in the middle, I put in Giovanny Hernáandez and Denny Landzaat. Hernández is just in as a backup getting a start, while Landzaat is in to recover the start he lost when I accidentally put in Stewart in a second eleven match. The final change was starting Adam Wilde instead of Yakubu up front.

I don't know if maybe it was that the players weren't familiar with each other, or if it was just a long overdue breakdown in play, but we did not start off well in this one. In the 13th minute, Levski Sofia winger Krasen Trifonov hit a sharp pass intot he six yard box from near the left touchline. The pass was moving fast enough to get lost amongst the scramble of players inf ront of the goal. When it came out, it hit off of Mike Duff and bounced into the net for our second own goal in four matches. Ugh.

Trifonov also figured into the next score. In the 20th minute, he sent in a long pass, again from the left touchline, although this was further out. This pass was more set up for an aerial challenge, and Levski Sofia striker Georgi Chilikov beat out Castle in mid-air to put a strong header on goal. Jon Masalin didn't have time to react and we were, shockingly, already down 2-0 just 20 minutes in.

We got one back eight minutes later, when Hernández converted a wide open shot that was set up by Orri Freyr Oskarsson and the attention he draws when he goes into the box. Depite the nice team play that showed, we couldn't seem to figure out Levski Sofia's defense after that.

I thought it would end up at 2-1 when the 72nd minute came around. Midfielder Petar Shopov received a long pass near the centre circle and headed a terrific pass to Chilikov, who got a step on our defense. Chilikov was a little to the left of the goal, and Masalin was closing on him fast, so he didn't have too much of a shot. He blasted a low shot right at Masalin. The Finnish netminder got a hand on it,b ut it squirted past him and rolled slowly toward the goal. Landzaat ran back to try and get to it, but it just crossed the line before he got there, putting us down 3-1.

We got a late score from David Marcelo Cortez Pizarro, but it was too late. Levski Sofia 3, Tamworth 2

We outshot the Bulgarian club 13-10, and 8-5 on goal, but they made it in when it counted.

Other Champions League Results

Here's a very quick rundown of where things stand in the other groups. As a reminder, note that Milan in Group A, Tamworth in Group C, and Shakhtar in Group H already had spots locked up in the knockout phase before today's round. Today's matches cleared up a lot of the group standings. The group stage will end with one more round in early December.

GROUP A: Milan (11 points) had their spot locked up, but Celtic wasn't in yet. They clinched the second spot with a 1-0 win over Guingamp. Celtic has 9 points now, with CSKA Moscow (4) and Guingamp (2) following behind them.

GROUP B: Juventus and Leverkusen each came into their match today in Germany with a chance to clinch a spot. They both failed, when they drew, 1-1, and allowed Czech club Banik Ostrava back into it, when they beat Cannes at home, 5-3. Now Banik Ostrava and Leverkusen are tied for second with 7 points, while Juventus is still in reach with 9 points. Cannes has 4 points, too, so even they aren't out of it.

GROUP C: We had our spot locked up here, and Levski Sofia finished off the group with their win today. We are both sitting at 12 points now. Even third place and its spot in the UEFA is locked up, as Chornomorets (6) beat U. Lamas (0) to put it out of reach.

GROUP D: Deportivo finally came through and won a key match in this Champions League group when it beat NEC, 3-1. In an odd twist, though, winning essentially eliminated Deportivo. By beating the Dutch club, group leader Olympiakos (10) backed into its spot in the next round. And with Dinamo Kiev beating Olympiakos, 1-0, the Ukrainian club moved too far ahead of Deportivo to be caught, clinching their own spot. Dinamo Kiev is tied with Olympiakos, while Deportivo and NEC are tied with 4 points apiece.

GROUP E: The top two teams met in this one, in much the same situation as Juventus and Leverkusen in Group B. This time, though, Sporting Lisbon beat Genoa, clinching a spot for the Portuguese Superleague club, while dropping the Serie A squad into third place. Surprising Czech club Brno beat Partizan 1-0 to mvoe into second place with 8 points, two ahead of Genoa. Sporting Lisbon leads with 10 points, while Partizan has 2.

GROUP F: It's sad that such a fun and exciting matchup as a 6-4 FC Bayern win over Inter can be reduced to nothing by the fact they have both been underachieving so badly. Group leader Bodo/Glimt lost to Lens, 2-0, but the FC Bayern win clinched a spot int he knockout phase for them anyway. Lens' win moves them up to 9 points, one behind Bodo/Glimt, but they could still technically be caught by FC Bayern, which has six points. They also happen to play each other in the last round, but FC Bayern is going to need to beat Lens by at least four goals on the road to have a chance. Inter is a shocking last place with 4 points.

GROUP G: Well, at least one of the underachieving clubs in this tournament has stepped it up when needed. Barcelona beat group leader Werder Bremen, 3-1, to jump into second place with 6 points. Werder Bremen's loss also allowed Danish club AaB to move into first with 8 points, after they beat Arsenal Kiev, 4-0. With Werder Bremen in third now, and also with six points, and Arsenal Kiev at 4, no one has clinched a spot--and no one has been eliminated--going into the final round of the fixture.

GROUP H: Shakhtar has been the tournament's most dominant squad, and the only one that has made it this far without losing. They were already clinched going in, and now they have 15 points. The story in this group was the tight race for second, where Ajax and GAK were tied with four points, while yet another underachieving superpower, Man Utd, sat in last with three points. This may be a pivotal round, as Man Utd crushed Ajax, 5-1, at home to move into second place with six points. GAK, of course, lost to Shakhtar. Man Utd has the edgem but any of the bottom three teams could still end up with the final spot.

Montaño Declares His Unhappiness Again

I'm beginning to get sick of this needy player.

Midfielder/forward Johnnier Montaño declared on Saturday, November 29, that he isn't happy with being left out of my first team plans. He doesn't seem to realize that I was only getting backups some time. I tell him he will be in the first eleven when I feel the time is right, a statement he accepted that same day, and later apologized for making a huff at all.

Still, this is two times now he has voiced displeasure about his playing time, and I am beginning to get sick of playing to this guy's attitude. He is also still listed as unhappy, as having personal problems, and that he wants to leave the club, none of which have changed in more than a month.

Given that Hernández seems to provoking dicontent with his attitude as well, I am beginning to wonder if I should be staying away from Colombian midfielders. Another strange thing is that Montaño also has a problem with Hernández (along with several others). You would think as countrymen, they would be far more likely to be friends, especially when surrounded by people who don't speak their native language and in a strange foreign land.

I think at this point I have to guess that I will need to move one or both of these midfielders and go with someone else in the middle, at least for the long term. At least Pizarro seems to be a well-settled individual.

Colchester

As against Levski Sofia, I saw little need to throw out a top lineup here against a weak opponent at home. It seemed like a good opportunity to give some guys a break, so I started a largely backup squad. This would normally have been a second eleven match.

I brought up Casper Nelis to take on his first start of the year in net, and started a complete backup backline, with Jon Otsemobor and Justin Skinner at fullback, and Mark Phillips and Mark Warren at centreback. Chris Booth would normally have started here with Motteram hurt, but I started him here anyway, as he is technically a backup and will return to that role in a week or two at most. On the other wing, I started Jarl Ander Starbæk. In the middle, I went with Darren Birchall and Danny Prutton. Up front, I started Mark Hicks and Montaño, at his natural position for the first time this season.

Colchester has had an awful year and seems likely to be headed back to the First Division. They start Amaya in the middle, of course, but he isn't their only significant player. They also have a strong winger in Karl Duguid, and striker Trevor Benjamin up front. Benjamin played several years in the Premiership with Leicester City, and Duguid has been a mainstay of Colchester for several seasons now.

Even with backups in, it was clear early on that this wasn't going to be much of a contest. In the 2nd minute, Phillips sent a ball up to Montaño near the left corner spot. Montaño quickly moved it down to Birchall to the left of the goal. The midfielder blasted a shot at a sharp angle toward the net, and his shot sailed over goalkeeper Ian Walker's shoulder and into the net for the first score.

The next score, in the 9th minute, was sort of a reverse of the first play. Starbæk centered the ball to Birchall just outside of the obx, and he headed it forward to Montaño, charging in from the left of the goal. The Colombian hit another hard shot at Walker, and again the goalkeeper couldn't handle it, as it went past him for the 2-0 Tamworth lead.

Colchester got a little back into it in the 33rd minute. Benjamin sent a centre-circle header forward to fellow striker Delroy Facey, who was alone on goal with Nelis. Facey was still thrity-five yards out, though, as Nelis was charging out to him. He sent a nice curling shot that wheeled around Nelis and managed to fall into the goal, just inside of the right post. It was reminiscent of the curling shot Orri Freyr Oskarsson scored against Man City.

The 49th minute was kinda fun to see. Hicks received a clear out pass from Mark Warren, and then proceeded to go on a run down the right touchline. As he approached the goal line, he turned in to the goal, sidestepped past a defender and charged in on goal at a hard angle. His shot, much like the previous Tamworth scores, went past Walker without hardly stopping, to give the Lambs the 3-1 lead. The reason it was fun to see is because it was very similar to the way Hicks scored many of his goals as a winger for us in the lower divisions. As a forward now and against better competition, you don't see runs like these too often anymore.

We got one more score off of a nice long strike from Hernández in the 87th minute, and that's how it ended. Tamworth 4, Colchester 1

Board Confidence Update

Maybe I should only mention this if it changes. The board remains "absolutely thrilled with the level of commitment" I "continue to show the club."

November Premiership Awards

Oskarsson received the Premiership's Player of the Month award, scoring three goals in our three matches. He also had the second best goal of the month with his curling shot score against Man City.

The Young Player of the Month went to Tottenham's 19-year-old forward Jack Howells, while the Manager of the Month went to Man Utd's Joop Hiele. This last is no surprise, as the Red Devils have won eight matches in a row, and remain right on our tails in second place.

League News

There was more management moves this past week, as boards around the league variously got sick of the lack of success from their teams, or replaced departed managers.

Everton hired former Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri on November 25. Ranieri remained as the Blues' coach until 2005 before being sacked following that season. He was shortly hired by Serie A squad Piacenza, where he has remained the past three seasons. He left the Piacenza job to move to Tottenham.

The 57-year-old Italian manager has a 109-62-78 record, with 353 goals against 270 conceded.

Ranieri replaces Gilanluca Vialli, who took the job at First Division Bradford City last month.

Another club decided it wasn't happy with its boss after a poor start to the season. Blackburn fired Sam Allardyce on November 30. Allardyce had only been managing the club for just over ten months, after he was hired in January.

Allardyce, a 54-year-old native of England, was in his second stint in the Premiership. He managed Bolton in both the Premiership and the First Division until January, 2007. He was then hired away by the Rangers in the Scottish Premier League, but only held the job for less than a year, until last December.

Allardyce is currently the manager of England's national team, a job he was hired for (over me, BTW) last July.

He has an 87-43-109 record as a manager. His teams have scored 315 goals, and allowed 355.

A couple of players had standout performances in league action this week, including Liverpool striker Michael Owen and goalkeeper Mark Brown of Bristol City. Owen seems to be playing better than he has in years, with 12 goals in 19 matches. He received media notice when he scored a hattrick in the Reds' 4-0 UEFA victory over CSKA Moscow on Thursday, November 27. Brown's performance came against Newcastle in a 1-1 draw on Sunday, November 30. He faced off 12 of 13 Magpie shots to keep Bristol City in the match, and has conceded just 20 goals in 16 matches for the new Premiership side.

Montaño wasn't the only player to express displeasure at his role or be the target of criticism this week. Chelsea forward Mido complained about his role with the squad. The Egyptian forward has only appeared in eight matches for the powerful club, and ha syet to score a goal this season. Manager Erland Johnson met with Mido, and apparently mollified him, much as I did with Montaño.

Then on Sunday, November 30, Arsenal manager Bert van Marwijk criticized fullback Daniele Bonera for poor play. The media suggested the team's relatively poor league position--sixth--was at the root of the manager's frustration, although the team has been playing better of late (5-2-2 in last nine matches, including league, League Cup and UEFA matches). Bonera himself told media the next day he felt the manager's criticism was somewhat deserved, and that he would try to play better in the near future. But he also said he didn't feel he should be singled out, and that the Arsenal squad as a whole has played very poorly. Glad I'm not in that locker room.

Here is the Premiership League Team of the Week:

SC Hélder Postiga (Tottenham)-- 2 G, MoM, 9 rat vs BKP
SC James Beattie (Southampton)-- 3 G, 1 A, MoM, 10 rat vs SFW
MF Darren Birchall (Tamworth)-- 1 G, 1 A, MoM, 8 rat vs MAN
MF Mark Hicks (Tamworth)-- 1 G, 8 rat vs MAN
MF Giovanny Hernández (Tamworth)-- 1 G, 8 rat vs MAN
MF Stilian Petrov (Aston Villa)-- 1 G, 1 A, MoM, 9 rat vs MAN
DF Gareth Barry (Aston Villa)-- 8 rat vs MAN
DF Mark Warren (Tamworth)-- 1 A, 8 rat vs COL
DF Olaf Mellberg (Aston Villa)-- 8 rat vs MAN
DF Luke Young (Aston Villa)-- 8 rat vs MAN
GK Edwin van der Sar (Fulham)-- 10 sav, 1 clean, 10 rat vs LIV

CR

[Katon]

Erland Johnson managing Chelsea? I can remember (barely) when he used to play defence for us. How'd he get to be our manager?

[Chief Rum]

Arsenal At Tamworth

English League Cup 4th Round

December 3, 2008

I wouldn't normally single out a game like this, but every now and then, you get a match that just defines a season. It's one the fans would look back on and remember as being an important part of that year. I feel this was one such match.

For Arsenal, their roster is somewhat emotionally challenged at the moment by the recent sparring between manager Bert van Marwijk and defender Daniele Bonera, as well as the squad's poorer than expected league position, currently sixth.

For Tamworth, they have probably played their worst in the past month (this being relative) in dropping two matches and drawing another in their last eight matches (Premiership and Champions League). They are on top of the Premiership again, but are feeling the heat from a hot Man Utd squad that has run off eight in a row, and today they are trying to take the next step in the tournament they blew in the final last year--the English League Cup.

And that doesn't mention the new power-old power dynamics that exist between Arsenal and Tamworth.

Arsenal remains the club with the true superstars. Their lineup shows this, with guys like Thierry Henry and Hernán Crespo playing up front. Other top players include Bonera and Sol Campbell at centreback, Claudio Reyna in the midfield, Gennaro Ivan Gattuso on one wing, and rising goalkeeper star Tony McDermott in net. They even have stars like striker José Antonio Reyes and midfielders Owen Hargreaves and Freddie Ljungberg in the sub spots.

For us, it was time for the second eleven, and we mostly went with that. Chris Booth wasn't quite recovered from playing Colchester four days before, so we started first eleven right winger Jim Corbett, but otherwise, it was the regular second eleven, with Thomas Heaton in net. Since the squad won't have a match until the final Champions League round almost a week away, I have decided to make stronger players available in the subs, going with first eleven players like Yakubu, Leon Cort, Hermann Hreidarsson and Michael Stewart.

Early on, the match was very back-and-forth. We had a strong early shot in the 13th minute when Andrei Pereplyotkin and David Marcelo Cortez Pizarro put together a quick passing game near the centreline to lift a nice pass to Louis Saha. Saha had a step on Bonera and was in on-goal and McDermott. Unfortunately, the French striker blasted the shot harmlessly over the bar.

We got another nice chance in the 15th minute, when Kevin Gorman took a nice pass from James McEveley and ran toward the goal along the right goal line. He passed the ball right into the six-yard box and Saha had a point-blank shot, but McDermott was perfectly positioned. Fullback Dion Dickhoff cleared out the rebound to end the threat.

We finally broke through in the 22nd minute. Gaël Clichy intercepted a Dickhoff throw-in, setting off a quick set of passes amongst the Lambs, before Lionel Morgan found Pizarro charging into the box with a step on marking midfielder Iván Helguera. Unlike Saha, Pizarro didn't miss when he had his chance, blasting the ball past McDermott for the 1-0 Tamworth lead.

In the 25th minute, it was our turn to sweat. Henry chased down a long pass that went down near the right corner and then deftly stepped through two defenders to get on goal. He moved a quick pass up to Denílson, who had a wide open net, but for some reason, the Brazilian winger aimed at the right post, where Heaton had been preparing for a Henry shot. Heaton caught the shot and clutched it.

Just a minute later, though, Denílson redeemed himself. He sent in a long corner that drifted over all of the glut of players closer to the near post, and found Crespo alone on the other side of the six-yard box. The Argentinian star put in an easy shot on a wide open net for the equaliser.

In the 42nd minute, Arsenal threatened again. Clichy sent in a throw-in along the left touch line, but Bonera beat Morgan to the ball and sent it nearly the length of the pitch, to the right of the Tamworth goal box. Henry and Tieme Klompe immediately got into a footrace for the ball, but that's not a contest the Dutch defender can win. After Henry picked the ball up and charged into the box, Klompe went to a desperation move and tackled the French superstar a little too hard. The ref awarded the penalty and gave Klompe a yellow card for the infraction. Crespo stepped up to take the penalty. The striker put a little too much oomph into it, though, and the ball sailed over the bar!

The two teams went into halftime knotted up at one apiece. In a very defensive match so far, the Gunners had a slight shot lead, 5-4, and more shots on goal as well, 4-2.

Hargreaves came in for Reyna at halftime, but that was the only change for the two teams. With the possibility of extra time for this advancement match looming, neither team wanted to commit too early to sending new players on the pitch.

The second half got off to a very interesting start in the 48th minute. Henry was approaching the box on a run again when Klompe took him out from behind. Much to Tamworth fans' horror, Klompe was given his second yellow card and booted off of the pitch. I switched to my three-man backline set up, and more or less prayed it would hold up. On the ensuing freekick, Gattuso sent a sharp pass into Helguera, who blasted a shot at the net, but Heaton was able to turn it over the net for the corner. McEveley headed out the corner harmlessly to end the threat (but not Arsenal's man advantage, of course).

In the 54th minute, the Lambs got their best shot in a long while. Kevin Gorman moved a nice pass up to Pizarro on a run toward the box in the middle of the pitch. He in turn passed it up to Saha, who split the defense on the run and charged into the right side of the box, essentially on-goal with McDermott. Despite juking to the left, Saha was unable to evade McDermott, who amazingly clutched Saha's hard shot from up close.

Arsenal had a similar play in the 63rd minute. Reyes had just replaced Henry, giving Arsenal a powerful Latino striker unit in Crespo and Reyes. Dickhoff retrieved a long clear out from his own end and sent a pass up to Reyes, who was being marked by Gorman. The striker put some space between himself and the fullback, and also juked to his left, much as Saha had done. He maintained control, though, and seemed to have an open shot on the net. The football gods were smiling on Tamworth, though, as Reyes hit it a little too much to the left and it went harmlessly into the side netting.

With them being a man down, this would be just one of many close calls. The next came in the 65th minute. Denílson sent in a quick crossing pass from the left side of the goal for Reyes, and the striker got a good hold of it, but he blasted it over the bar.

The subs continued, as Arsenal brought in its last sub in Ljungberg in the 75th minute for Helguera, while Tamworth brought in its first sub in the 79th minute when it replaced Saha with Yakubu.

In the 77th minute, Denílson took a Dickhoff pass from the centreline and went on a nice run toward the inward left side of the box. He took a perhaps ill-advised long shot from just beyind the box that swerved toward the left post, but went a little too wide, hitting the same side netting that deflected Reyes' first good chance.

The Denílson-Reyes connection continued to produce close calls just a minute later. The winger went on a run into the box along the left goal line before shooting off a quick chip pass to nearby Reyes. Reyes turned and fired a point blank shot on goal, but Heaton made a brilliant move to block the shot. Clichy, who was excellent today, cleared the ball from danger.

Clichy also cleared out a dangerous cross from Denílson in the 90th minute, and then moved a good pass away from Crespo in the box in injury time to preserve the tie.

And so begins the extra time period. You guys probably know where this is going by now. But there is always drama along the way. The Lambs used their second sub at the beginning of extra time, putting in Cort for Corbett, and shuffling the lineup to make the positions work, including moving right fullback Gorman to Corbett's right wing spot.

In the 104th minute, Clichy made another crucial clear out on a nice pass intended for Ljungberg, but his kick away didn't get too far before Reyes put it back on Ljungberg's foot. The Swedish midfielder took a shot right at the hard charging Heaton, and the goalkeeper turned it back hard. James McEveley jumped on the ball and moved it out of danger. That would be the big play of the first extra time period.

In the 115th minute, Denílson blasted a shot too high over the bar, and three minutes later, had a nice pass to Reyes eliminated by an offsides call on the latter player. Without the call, Reyes would have been through on goal against Heaton. Tamworth scared Arsenal a little near the end, when Bonera had to make a nice tackle on Yakubu in the box to stop an imminent shot on goal in injury time of the last extra time period.

And, so it went to penalties. I can't say enough about how intense ths was. Despite there being just two goals in the whole match, Arsenal came so close in the second half with the man advantage. I was surprised we managed to survive the onslaught. Arsenal outshot us 15-6 for the match, and 9-3 on goal.

Adding to the tension was an injury to Yakubu in the 101st minute by Bonera. The striker was barely able to stay in the game, and I needed him to stay in, too, with a 15 Penalty Kicking ability. So I took the risk of leaving him in, with injury possibilities abounding, not to mention how the fatigue might affect his penalty kicking abilities. I set up my penalty kicking order and we went to it.

Dickhoff went first for Arsenal. The fullback stepped up to the ball, and Heaton guessed to the right a little early. Perhaps anticipating Dickhoff would change on the fly, Heaton dove back to the middle as the fullback kicked the ball...

...right where Heaton had been before for the goal. Score, Arsenal!

The pressure was on as the tired (61 energy) Yakubu was my first choice in my PK set up. The Nigerian striker stepped up and blasted the shot...

...past a frozen McDermott, burying the ball into the net to the goalkeeper's right. Tamworth ties it up! Arsenal 1, Tamworth 1

Campbell was next for Arsenal. The centreback took a long run up to the ball. Heaton tensed for the shot, moving just slightly to his right, as Campbell unleashed his kick...

...and sent it right over the bar for the huge miss! Can Tamworth take advantage?

Morgan was next for us. He is also the worst penalty taker of the five I picked by far, although he was still a double-digit talent in this area. He went up close to the ball for his kickoff. McDermott jumped to his right, while Morgan turned and blasted it the other way...

...but too far! Morgan's shot hits the left post and ricochets back onto the pitch for the miss. Arsenal 1, Tamworth 1

Tamworth failed to take advantage of the Campbell miss.

Crespo went up next for the Gunners, and he had a chip on his shoulder. Despite the fact that he scored Arsenal's only goal, Crespo also badly missed a penalty in the first half that would have made this whole mess unnecessary. This was redemption for him.

He also took a short route to the ball. Heaton displayed a little more patience this time, waiting for Crespo's move before reacting. The Argentinian forward let loose on the ball, hitting it to Heaton's right...

...and the Tamworth keeper deftly stepped right over and clutched the shot for the huge save! An amazing save by Heaton. Will Tamworth fail to capitalize on another opportunity?

Gorman went up next for the Lambs. He took a sharp, short angle to the ball, and McDermott seemed ready for him. The keeper took a bead on the direction of the kick as Gorman unleashed the shot to the netminder's left...

...but he hit it high and it sailed over McDermott's shoulder for the score! McDermott was positioned correctly but he missed the high shot, and Tamworth has the penalty kick lead through three rounds. Tamworth 2, Arsenal 1

The hopes of Arsenal rested on fullback Michael Jakobsen. The left-footed back went up to the ball and struck a hard shot toward his near post. Heaton guessed correctly and leaped to get in the way...

...and he did it! He turned the ball away, even though it was almost likely to hit the post! The second straight huge save by Heaton!

Now, all Tamworth had to do was hit this last one to take this improbable match, despite the man disadvantage.

Denny Landzaat stepped up to the ball to try and seal this one for the Lambs. He took a long run to the ball. McDermott tried to gauge his approach and shot out to his left. The Arsenal keeper quickly saw he had guessed wrong, though, and, showing amazing reflexes, he leapt back in the way of the ball, which Landzaat kicked slightly to the right of center. McDermott and the ball raced to the same spot...

...and the ball squirted under McDermott's hands and slipped into the goal for the winning score! Tamworth 3, Arsenal 1

It was a thrilling match to watch. I couldn't believe we had survived this adversity to move on in the League Cup. We are now through to the quarterfinals, and Arsenal's "miserable" (relative here, folks) season continues.

Pizarro got the Man of the Match for his flawless work in the midfield and for scoring our only goal, but in the engine room, I am pretty sure I would hand the game ball to the young Heaton, who showed the poise of a veteran in this one that belied his young 22 years of age.

CR

[daedalus]

Nice win with a man down! Woohoo!

JAR is a Spaniard, however.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by Katon

Erland Johnson managing Chelsea? I can remember (barely) when he used to play defence for us. How'd he get to be our manager?

Heh...that's one of the few problems with CM. Finding old stats and histories, or finding out what a player did before joining the pitch-side employment ranks is next to impossible unless you know and followed the guy.

At this point in time, Johnson is a 41-year-old Norwegian manager, and one with a Good reputation, too. Looking at his stats, I can see why.

It appears that Johnson began this dynasty as either the manager or player-manager of Follo, a Second Division club in Norway. He didn't win any promotion in his year there, but apparently he did well enough to impress the management of powerful Celtic.

The Scottish power hired him away in June, 2004. He managed them from the 2004-05 season through the 2005-06 season, winning the Scottish Premier League both years, taking the Scottish League Cup in 2005, and the Scottish Cup in 2006.

That was enough for the folks at Stamford Bridge, who hired him on July 22, 2006. Obviously, he has been in control ever since. He immediately saw success with Chelsea, leading them to the Premiership championship in 2006-07. This was after the club finished sixth and fifth in the previous two years.

The club has returned to what ti was doing before since then, finishing sixth last year and currently fifth this season. He also led Chelsea to the quarters of the UEFA in 2006-07, and the quarters of the Champions League in 2007-08. They reached the FA Cup semifinals last year as well before falling (and, no, not to us).

In his career, Johnson has three league titles and two cup wins. He has an incredible record of 154-51-69, and his teams have scored 507 goals to 303 conceded in 274 total matches. I would have to do a looksy at the other managers in the Premiership, but I would have to think that kind of success puts him at or near the top of the list of managers in this league--and maybe even the world.

In case you're wondering about the whereabouts of José Mourinho, he stayed with Porto until he got sacked in January, 2006. Then he had a short, unsuccessful stint with Leiria, sacked after a year. And last year all that led to him being hired by...Real Madrid!

Prior to Johnson, Chelsea had Ranieri until May, 2005, and then hired another name recently in the news (in my dynasty)-- Gianluca Vialli. They hired Vialli away from Udinese in the Serie A. Vialli only coached Chelsea for a year, but he seemed to do decently well. He wasn't sacked in 2006, but hired away by Aston Villa. He wasn't sacked by Villa either, or Everton after that. This guy must have nine lives and a penchant for moving down the managing food chain for some reason. If you all recall correctly, I recently noted he left the Everton job for First Division Bradford City.

Johnson was Vialli's replacement.

CR

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by daedalus

Nice win with a man down! Woohoo!

JAR is a Spaniard, however.

Thanks. It was intense. I better win this damn thing now.

lol about JAR's origins. You see, I knew that, but I keep forgetting.

Every time, I think, "he's Argentinian" and then I go look at him, and see he's Spanish and do the whole slap-forehead thing. I think I have done it about 20 times already. Ugh.

CR

P.S. I went up and edited the reference, which fortunately was just once in that long post.

[Chief Rum]

Tuesday, December 2 To Monday, December 8

The Arsenal match was the only match we had this week. So this week shouldn't take too long to recap. Heck, we don't even have a Premiership Team of the Week--no league matches this week.

Tamworth Signs Slovakian Winger

Once again, an opportunity arose to sign one of the Slovakian youths that looked like they could have a long term impact. On December 2, Inter Bratislava winger Petr Novotny reached the six-month point of his contract, making him eligible for Bosman transferring.

We made him an offer at the level he wanted (about $20,000 per annum again).

It took the 18-year-old winger just two days to agree to the change of address. He rejected an offer from Inter Bratislava in doing so, and will join us on June 3, 2009.

As with the other Slovakian youths, Novotny is a fine physical talent (15 Acceleration, 18 Pace). He also has the mental skills I like (12 Determination, 15 Teamwork, 14 Work Rate). Despite his youth, he is around 9-12 in most of his technical skills, putting him a little further on then the others.

He has one goal and two assists in seven appearances for Inter Bratislava, a Slovak First Division squad (their top level). He also appeared in seven matches last year, but didn't figure into any scoring.

We haven't won out on all young players, though. Ipswich's Gary Ross, a 19-year-old netminder we have long kept an eye on, inked a new contract with the First Division squad, keeping him from us.

He hadn't done so good prior to this season (last year, he conceded 75 goals in 54 appearances, which is just solid, rather than incredible), but our scouts said a while ago he had a bright future, and he is just 19.

Good goalkeepers seem hard to come by, so I was hoping he would become available. Every attempt through transfer that I have made for him (among other goalkeepers) has been rebuffed by Ipswich.

Making it all the worse, he is off to a fine start this year, with 11 goals conceded in 12 matches, to go along with five vlean sheets and a 7.50 rating.

League Cup Wrap Up

With the exciting win over Arsenal on December 3, we moved into the quarterfinals of the League Cup for the second straight year.

We received $120,000 for the victory, although at this level, that's just a drop in the bucket.

Centreback Tieme Klompe will have to sit out our next domestic match, as part of his ban for his forced removal from the Arsenal match. I'm glad, though, that the worst of it is him simply missing a match, considering we could have lost the match as well (and almost did).

In other League Cup matches, there were few surprises. Basides our own Premiership-only match, there were several other matches of top level squads. Man Utd was probably the most notable, beating Southampton 2-1. Birmingham beat Blackburn, 2-1, in extra time. The Rovers, of course, are currently without a manager, so this probably didn't help their spirits any. Liverpool barely escaped Everton, winning 2-1 in extra time. And Nottingham Forest beat Blackpool, 1-0.

Manchester City has been struggling this year, but they really should have done better than edging out First Division Walsall on penalty kicks after a 2-2 draw. Aston Villa didn't have similar problems with First Division Norwich, winning easily 3-0.

In the only match not involving a Premiership squad, the Second Division Northwich Vics beat Barnsley--which upset Chelsea in this tournament last month--in extra time, 2-1.

The draw for the quarterfinals will be held Saturday, December 6.

Partridge Becomes Second Player To Complain In A Week

Second eleven winger Richie Partridge told The Observer on Friday, December 5, that he was unhappy at not being placed in a regular role with the first team. Grrrr...

This comes just a week after noted pamper-boy Johnnier Montaño spouted off in a similar fashion.

I think both of these incidents are a direct result of my lineup juggling from injuries, and my recent attempts to get backups some starts in meaningless (or nearly so) matches. This would be plainly obvious in real life, but I have to deal within the constraints I am given here.

I tell Partridge the same thing I did Montaño, that he would be in the first eleven when the time is right. Also like Montaño, he accepted that and said he was pleased I would appreciate him more from now on. Spoiled brat.

Partridge is a good player, and I suppose these things are to be xpected when you have the depth that I do. But considering that Chris Booth has played as well or better than Partridge in a backup role, and that I have no reason to complain about first eleven right winger Jim Corbett, the last thing Partridge should want to do is get on my bad side.

Intercontinental Cup

This is the pinnacle of club competition, as the Champions League winner faces off with South America's Copa Libertadores winner (I think) for the "world championship". This year the cup was played on Friday, December 5.

Hopefully I will play in this next season, but this year the match, which was played at Yokohama International in Japan, is Milan against Argentinian power River Plate.

They made this about as exciting as it could be. The match stayed at 1-1 for the game and then went to penalties. Milan just edged out River Plate, 4-3, to take the Intercontinental Cup.

Exciting Transfer Target Weekend

The weekend of December 6-7 was a pivotal one for Tamworth in the tranfer market.

Second Division German squad SC Freiburg allowed Freddy Adu's contract to reach Bosman status on December 6, and I offered the young superstar in the making a contract. If you weill recall, I also negotiated a transfer deal for Adu last summer, but the Nazis that control Britain's work permit program shot the $10 M transfer down.

Adu was looking for a very reasonable deal, under $500,000 per year, and with a similarly-sized bonus. I made him the offer and the next day, Sunday, December 7, he accepted, turning down an offer from SC Freiburg to stay.

Now comes the dreaded part. The work permit hearing has been scheduled for December 22. I suspect it will fail again, but one can always hope. Adu has one cap for the United States, but he is only 19 right now.

There are some minor quibbles about his ratings I can make, as he doesn't look to be quite the physical and mental superstar you would suspect he would be (although they are certainly strong enough for a Premiership-level player). It's clear I am mostly making the bid on his real life name. Hopefulyl, he can live up to his press clippings--assuming he is allowed to play in the country, that is.

Even as were hearing from Adu on his acceptance of our contract offer, we were also getting a transfer offer of worldclass fullback Trond Erik Bertelsen from Mallorca for $7.75 M. As I mentioned before, Bertelsen was someone I had interest in near the end of the last transfer window. Of course, he asked for far more than our board would allow.

Still, it seems like the board may have loosened up a bit, so I am hopeful. I go ahead and accept the transfer offer again. Regardless of whether we can work out a contract, Bertelsen couldn't move here until the opening of the next transfer window on January 1, 2009.

If I were to add the 24-year-old Norwegian star, I really feel it would solidify one of the areas ont he backline I eel I could be better--and give me a worldclass level name to legitimize this team as a true power. Now if only the board would get their collective thumb out their collective arse. It doesn't make sense to skimp on a contract to a very good player when you are some $8 M below your wage budget.

League Cup Quarterfinal Draw

The draw for the Ebglish League Cup quarterfina was held on Saturday, December 6.

There was only one squad lower than the Premiership in the pool of teams, and we drew them, of course. We have had a long history of success in seemingly avoiding the top teams until the end in most cup competitions (excepting the Arsenal match, of course).

Our opponent is the Second Division Northwich Vics. They are currently third in that division. We will play them at their place in not much more than a week's time, on December 17.

The other quarterfinal matchups were Man City at Liverpool, Aston Villa at Birmingham, and Nottingham Forest at Man Utd.

CR

[daedalus]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

Thanks. It was intense. I better win this damn thing now.

I love the fact that you can get so darn emotionally involved with a CM match. I literally scream and yell at my players. And that's just CM3 engine (CM 01/02, to be precise). Can't wait until I have the computer to run a CM4 engine-based game.

How did what's-his-head come to lead the Gunners? What happened to Le Professor?

[daedalus]

No Landon Donovan for you? With you playing an attacking-type midfielder, he'd seem a good fit. Don't know about his ratings in your game, however.

[Chief Rum]

Tuesday, December 9 To Monday, December 15

We have two matches this week. We wrap up the group stage of the Champions League with a home match against last place U. Lamas, and then we resume our Premiership schedule after nearly two weeks off with a road trip to Bristol City.

FA Cup Third Round Draw

We have finally reached the point where the best Premiership squads are included in the FA Cup draw. This cup, of course, is of special mention to me since I am the two-time holder of the trophy.

We could have drawn anyone from a non-league all the way up to Man Utd, and I thought we straddled the middle ground when we drew Ipswich, a First Division squad.

Ipswich is no slouch--they are currently in third in the First Division and in line for a promotion via playoff. They are also of interest to me given they have Gary Ross, the goalkeeper I mentioned that had signed a new cotnract with them (and whom I had targeted as a possible acquisition sometime last year).

We will play host to the game at the Lamb Ground on January 3.

U. Lamas

Qualifying for the next round has been in the bag for almost a month now. So this is just another relatively unimportant match. I again started a hodgepodge of starters and backups, with the starters coming from the first eleven, as it was their turn to take the pitch. Jarl Ander Storbæk started at left back, and Peter Castle was one of the centrebacks. Chris Booth and Darren Birchall were on the wings, and Giovanny Hernández was in the middle. Mark Hicks and Adam Wilde were up front. The only starters in place were Mike Duff at right back, David Raven at the other centreback spot, Michael Stewart at defensive midfielder and Jon Masalin in net.

Despite having a mostly backup lineup on the field, we dominated fromt he beginning. U. Lamas hadn't gained a single point up to now in this group stage, and it amazes me they even got this far.

We got our first goal when Booth converted a penalty kick in the 24th minute. Wilde added another in the 33rd minute, and Castle scoed his first ever goal off of a corner header in the 42nd minute.

Yakubu, who came in as a sub, scored our last goal in the 74th minute to wrap it up. Tamworth 4, U. Lamas 0

As I have indicated in the past, I scored those last two with a basic tactic (switching after I got the two-goal lead). Despite playing two-thirds of the match outside of our regular tactic, we took 26 shots, 16 on goal, and we didn't allow a single shot on goal to U. Lamas. Not a single one.

We were again awarded $350,000 for our win, although the real money was the club record $1.5 M in gate recepits we brought in.

Other Champions League Results

As this was the last round of the group stage, this was it for qualifying for the next round. Of course, several groups were already settled before today.

GROUP A: Milan and Celtic had these two spots taken care of prior to this last round. Milan won the group with 14 points, Celtic had 12, CSKA Moscow finished with 4, and Gungamp had just 2 points.

GROUP B: Juventus and Leverkusen opened a door for Banik Ostrava with their draw last round, but they shut it today. They both won handily to clinch the spots from this group. Juventus won the group with 12 points, while Leverkusen had 10. Banik Ostrava missed a terrific opportunity after losing to Juventus, 3-0. They finished with 7 points, while Cannes brought up the rear with 4 points.

GROUP C: As I have noted before, we and Levski Sofia had this wrapped up last round. Levski Sofia drew with Chornomorets, so I won the group with 15 points. Levski Sofia had 13, Chornomorets 7, and U. Lamas migth have been the worst team in the competition with 0 points.

GROUP D: Olympiakos and Dinamo Kiev also finished this one up last round. They both finished with 13 points, with Olympiakos taking the group lead on head-to-head goal differential. NEW and Deportivo finished tied for third with four points, in an awful group stage for one of the expected top teams in the tournament in Deportivo.

GROUP E: Sporting Lisbon had their spot clinched, so this came down to the Brno-Genoa match in Italy. Genoa should have won, given they are a Serie A squad playing at home--but they didn't. Brno continued its Cinderella run that began in the second round of qualifying, and qualified for the knockout phase with a 2-0 win. Sporting Lisbon won the group with 13 points, while Brno "checked" (har-har) in with 11 points. Genoa had 6, while Partizan finished in last with 2 points.

GROUP F: Lens and FC Bayern played for the final op[en spot here, although it would have taken a dominating match by Bayern to have a chance in this one. Lens made the point moot by beating the German power at home, 3-1, and clinching not only the group's second spot, but the group lead. Another prominent Cinderella story, Norway's Bodo/Glimt, clinched its spot last round. Lens had 12 points, Bodo/Glimt finished with 10 points, Inter had 7 and FC Bayern placed in a stunning last with 6 points. This is probably one fo the most surprising group results since this dynasty began.

GROUP G: Barcelona looked like another one of the favorites fallen on bad times before it won through to second place in the fifth round of the fixture. So do they take that and hold on to the spot? Of course not. Barcelona finishes off a frustrating group stage by losing ont he road to Arsenal Kiev, 1-0. Arsenal Kiev's win put them in a tie with Werder Bremen, but the German team won out because of head to head away goals. AaB won the group with 9 points, while Werder Bremen and Arsenal Kiev tied at 7. Barcelona had 6 points.

GROUP H: Shakhtar had thid group won eons ago, and had a chance to win all six of their matches to be the only team to do so in the group stage. Alas, they fell short, 4-2, at Ajax, and finished with 15 points. The loss had repercussions elsewhere, though. Man Utd continued its underachiever role, and lost 4-3 at GAK, giving Ajax the chance to leap past them for the second spot behind Shakhtar. Ajax and GAK tied with 7 points, but Ajax won through on head-to-head after winnign and drawing with the Autrian club. Man Utd finished just behind both squads with six points.

The second round draw will take place on Friday, December 12.

Booth Target Of Loan Talk

Apparently believing I wasn't giving him a role with the team, both Burnley and Leeds United offered to loan out winger Chris Booth for three months, despite the fact he wasn't listed as being on loan, and had started six matches this season.

I turned down the offers, as I have no plans to lose Booth in his valuable backup role.

Motteram Resumes Full Training

Yay! First eleven left winger Carl Motteram is finally ready to return to action from his dislocated shoulder injury. He went back into full training on Wednsday, December 10, and should be ready for match work in the near future.

Motteram has been out for a month. His return means that Partridge will return to his second eleven right wing role, and Booth will return to his prior backup position on the wing.

Mallorca Accepts Bertelsen Transfer Offer

Spanish Primera Liga squad Mallorca accepted our offer of $7.75 M for worldclass fullback Trond Erik Bertelsen on December 10, which seemed to be a busy day for player transactions. Of course, this was simply what they offered us, so their acceptance of our offer was a mere formality.

The tricky part is offering a contract to Bertelsen himself. The board won't allow me to offer him more than $1 M per year, and he is currently on a $2.5 M per season contract. As expected, Bertelsen stated he didn't think we had the resources to meet his demands.

Despite that, we went ahead and offered the full millon per year contract and a cool million signing bonus as well. If Bertelsen for some reason actually accepts the contract offer (highly unlikely--he rejected the same contract last summer), he would join us at the beginning of the next transfer window on January 1.

Raven Wants Improved Contract

Centreback David Raven's contract isn't up for another year and a half, but the 23-year-old centreback is apparently already concerned about upping his salary. Of course, if I started for a top Premiership side and I was still on a lower division level $75,000 per contract, I would probably want better terms as well.

Raven has been a key part of our defense, and given his age, I expect resigning him will be a priority this offseason. That said, I see no point in adjusting the contract now while it's advantageous to the club. I promise raven he will receive an improved contract at the end of the season (when I was going to address the issue anyway).

He seemed satisfied with this and went back to work.

Champions Cup Second Round Draw

The top sixteen teams, as determined by the Champions League group stage, were entered into the final draw for the knockout phase of Europe's most prestigious club tournament.

The second round is a two-leg affair, with home-and-home matches.

At this point, it can't be said anyone you draw will be easy. Still, I was happy to not draw a Milan or Juventus to start. We got a middle-ground draw in Dinamo Kiev, a past Champions League holder.

Dinamo Kiev finished in second in Group D. The first leg will be played at the Lamb Ground on February 25, 2009.

The other matchups are Leverkusen-Milan, Olympiakos-Levski Sofia, Juventus-Celtic, Bode/Glmit-Sporting Lisbon, AaB-Ajax, Shakhtar-Werder Bremen, and Brno-Lens.

Bristol City

Recently, starting goalkeeper Mark Brown has been playing very well for Bristol City, so I suspect playing a tough defensive match on the road won't be an easy thing to do, even for the table-topping squad.

Actually, even that's not technically true. Man Utd played an earlier match and won its ninth in a row to leapfrog us in the table by a point. Of course, the Bristol City is our chance to return things to normal status. It's amazing that Man Utd can be so dominating in league, and yet fail to get out of the group stage of the Champions League, even against a decent group.

Bristol City, a First Division promotee from last season, is doing slightly better than expected at 16th in the league. That may not seem high, but it isn't a relegation spot, and that's better than most recent promotees can count on.

Bristol City isn't crawling with top players like many other EPL sides. They are most notable for Brown and a pair of good fullbacks in David Vaughan and Kevin Amankwaah on defense, while Leroy Lita leads the offense up front.

Today is a second eleven match, and the first time in a while, Partridge was on the team. With Motteram back, Partridge returned to the second eleven right wing spot he held prior to Motteram's injury. Tieme Klompe was serving his suspension, though, so the second eleven will have to wait for its next match to get its original starters back in place. Leon Cort will get the start in Klompe's place.

This match was just as defensive as I thought, although Bristol City also struggled to get shots against our defense. We didn't struggle in that way, but we weren't able to solve Brown for a while either. Maybe I should bring that guy aboard...

In fact, our first score took a tremendous shot by Andrei Pereplyotkin. In the 38th minute, the striker went on a long run toward the right end of the box. He came in at the goal from a sharp angle, and usually in that role, the shooter will shoot to the wide far end. Instead, Pereplyotkin surprised Brown by aiming a low shot at the near post, in what amounted to a hole between the post and Brown that was similar in size to the hole Luke used to shoot Womp Rats through on Tatooine. Despite that, Pereplyotkin's shot just weaseled its way by Brown and into the net for the score.

As it turned out, that ended up being the only goal in a tight match. We outshot Bristol City, 15-3, with an 8-1 on-goal advantage, but we only got the one goal. But then, that's all we needed, as we regained first place in the Premiership.

Bertelsen Agrees To Contract With Tamworth

Wow! What changed? In a shocking development, Mallorca's Norwegian star left fullback Trond Erik Bertelsen accepted our offer, despite it being far lower than what he has seemed willing to accept in the past.

That's the good news. On closer inspection, there was some bad news. I discovered that Mallorca had him priced at $3.1 M now, and I was buying him at a premium at $7.75 M. And I was also buying damaged goods--it seems since I originally offered him, he had picked up a groin muscle tear and would be out for two months,

Okay, so it's not the perfect buy. But I lose nothing really in making this deal and gain one of the top backline talents in the world. And he's just 24.

Eventually, Bertelsen will be our first eleven left fullback, moving Hermann Hreidarsson back to the second eleven and Gaël Clichy to a backup role.

Not only does Bertelsen bring worldclass talent to a backline position at which we only had 30-somethings or questionable talents, he also fits in exactly as I want my fullbacks to play. He is an explosive physical talent, with 18 Acceleration and Pace. He is also Strong (15) and has fine Stamina (16).

Technically, he has top winger skills, which is really exciting for the offense. He has 19 Crossing and 18 Dribbling for moving the ball. He is also a standout defensively, with 20 Heading, Marking and Tackling, and 16 in Positioning.

His only real downfalls is that he could be a little better in some of the mental aspects of the position (9 Aggression, 6 Determination, 11 Teamwork) and in Jumping (11).

The Bertelsen transfer will be completed on January 1.

League News

It's been quiet for a couple weeks, but I wasn't too surprised to see an upswing in league news this time. We are getting nearer to the next transfer window, and this is traditionally where the honeymoon ends for many managers of underachieving squads as well.

On Wednesday, December 10, Chelsea worked out a $5.75 M transfer deal for Georgian left fullback Alexandre Amisulashvili, currenbtly with La Ligue's Paris-SG. As a native of a none-EU nation, though, Amisulashvili will have to go through the work permit process. His appointment with the British labor board is scheduled for December 24.

On Thursday, English football was rocked when Blackburn signed away manager Bert van Marwijk from powerful Arsenal. The move is especially interesting in that van Marwijk has made news lately in fighting with centreback Daniele Bonera in the media. Arsenal has been disappointing this season, at least for them, as they are sixth in the league. The Rovers, though, are in a relegation position right now at 19th. Their poor performance led to the sacking of current England manager Sam Allardyce.

Van Marwijk was the longtime manager of Hibs in the Scottish Premier League before Arsenal hired him in June. The honeymoon period ended quickly for the 56-year-old manager, and he chose to leave the tension behind, and try to keep Blackburn from dropping to the First Division.

Van Marwijk has a 62-24-40 record with Hibs and Arsenal, and his teams scored 228 goals against 164 conceded in 126 matches.

The Gunners will begin the search for a new manager.

The spotlight didn't leave Arsenal before more player problems cropped up. On Saturday, December 13, offseason acquisition Spanish midfielder Iván Helguera said he believes he is being targeted by refs in England because of an unfair reputation created by the media and opposition crowds. I had a good laugh at this one, because I have never seen it before. Pretty neat.

As a preface to this, it should be noted that Helguera was fresh off of a two-yellow send off in that day's action versus Lecicester when he made his comments. It was his first red card of the season, and the two yellows were his third and fourth on the year. Arsenal won, 1-0, despite being a man down and playing without a manager.

Aston Villa manager Tord Grip held a different kind of press conference that day. He praised star Swedish centreback Olaf mellberg for his form of late for the Villans. Aston Villa, currently fourth in the Premiership, are one of the surprise teams of the league so far, and Grip said Mellberg was a big reason for that. Mellberg has a 6.92 rating in 26 matches this season, and has been a leader for an Aston Villa defense that has given up just 19 goals in 16 matches, tied for sixth in the league defensively.

Villan fans flooded The Guardian a day later with support for Mellberg.

Although nothing so exciting happened to us (besides the already reported Bertelsen move), we did receive a couple of key offers of players we have had interest in.

On Thursday, December 11, First Division Wimbledon offered midfielder Paul Scott to us for $3.2 M. Scott is a very good dribbling midfielder who still has a bright future ahead of him at just 20 years old. He doesn't quite have the speed I like, though (while still decent), and $3.2 M is a little much right now for him. So I turned down the offer.

Then on Saturday, we received an offer of Grenadan striker Jason Roberts from fellow Premiership squad Birmingham for $6 M. Roberts is 30, and still very fast. He has good technical skills and could play a featured roel for many teams, although his mental skills don't hold up as well. Even so, he wasn't what I was looking for in a new striker, and $6 M is too much anyway. So I turned down that offer as well.

Here is the Premiership League Team of the Week:

SC Adrian Mutu (Chelsea)-- 1 G, 9 rat vs MAN
SC Michael Chopra (Chelsea)-- 3 G, MoM, 10 rat vs MAN
MF Shaun Derry (Colchester)-- 1 G, 8 rat vs TOT
MF Seth Johnson (Aston Villa)-- 1 A, 8 rat vs BKP
MF Karl Duguid (Colchester)-- 1 G, 8 rat vs TOT
MF Joe Cole (Chelsea)-- 1 A, 9 rat vs MAN
DF Luke Young (Aston Villa)-- 8 rat vs BKP
DF James McEveley (Tamworth)-- 8 rat vs BRS
DF Michael Dawson (Nottingham Forest)-- MoM, 9 rat vs SOU
DF Titus Bramble (Newcastle)-- MoM, 9 rat vs SFW
GK Thomas Sorenson (Aston Villa)-- 4 sav, 1 clean, 8 rat vs BKP

CR

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by daedalus

I love the fact that you can get so darn emotionally involved with a CM match. I literally scream and yell at my players. And that's just CM3 engine (CM 01/02, to be precise). Can't wait until I have the computer to run a CM4 engine-based game.

The CM3 match engine was also very good, but I can't say enough about the 2D-pitch, daedalus. Seriously, it's revolutionary for a sim game, and it's very well done. It's the sort of thing they could have totally screwed up, but they have done a brilliant job with it. I highly recommend moving on in the series to this, although I suppose we're close enough to the release of FM2005 that you may just want to wait for that.

Originally Posted by daedalus

How did what's-his-head come to lead the Gunners? What happened to Le Professor?

Heh, after you posted this, van Marwijk left the team.

Arsène Wenger stayed with the Gunners for five seasons, until last May, when he was--prepare yourself--sacked. Yeah, that would happen.

Obviously he was a victim of his own ridiculous success, as he couldn't survive the rise of Chelsea and, yes, Tamworth, to the level of Man Utd, thus reducing the importance of Arsenal (and Liverpool and Newcastle).

In five seasons, Le Professeur won a league title in 2004-05, and also finished as the runner up in the Champions that year. He also won an amazing seven cups (FA Cup 2002-03, 2004-05; League Cup 2005-06, 2006-07; Community Shield 2003-04, 2004-05, 2005-06). None of this includes his pre-dynasty success, of course.

In his time as a manager, Wenger has a 196-53-76 record, with 678 goals for and 336 goals conceded in 325 matches. Wenger finished second, first, second and second in the Premiership before a drop to fourth last year cost him his club job on May 4, 2008.

Wenger has also been bouncing around as a national team manager. He was hired by Nigeria in February, 2004. He only ran Nigeria for a year, but in that time, he led them to the last round of qualifying for Germany 2006 (they would go on and make it to the big tournament under another coach), and he also coached the Olympic Under-23s to a silver medal at the Athens Games.

In February, 2005, he left the Nigeria job for the U.S.A. He coached the American team to third place in the 2005 Gold Cup.

In February, 2006, he was hired away by Cameroon, continuing this strange career jumping that seems to happen every February. He never did much with Cameroon, though, and was hired away by Senegal in July, 2007. He proceeded to lead Senegal to the 2008 African Cup of Nations championship. He also has gotten Senegal to the group stage of World Cup qualifying for China 2010, and led the Under-23s to the quarters at the 2008 Beijing Games.

At 59, Wenger seems to be running out of steam, as he has announced he will be retiring at the end of the year.

Originally Posted by daedalus

No Landon Donovan for you? With you playing an attacking-type midfielder, he'd seem a good fit. Don't know about his ratings in your game, however.

Donovan is a pretty solid player in this universe, currently playing with Duisberg in the second division of the Bundesliga. He is someone I have shorltisted and keep an eye on, but he's kind of a tweener. He doesn't have the dribbling or creative skills I like from my forward midfielders, although he's solid all around. And at striker, although he's good enough to play a role for me, he hasn't leapt to the top of my list yet at this position.

CR

[Chief Rum]

Tuesday, December 16 To Monday, December 22

We have two matches this week. On Wednesday, December 17, we go to the home of the Second Division Northwich Vics to play our quarterfinal match in the English League Cup. Then on Saturday, we have a big match at the Lamb Ground with powerful Newcastle, currently seventh in the Premiership.

Northwich Vics

When I came up to this match and checked out who I was playing, I made a surprising discovery that was a forehead slapper. This was the team former Tamworth youth winger Simon Gray signed with after we allowed his contract to run out.

I had big hopes for Gray when I signed him as a prospect while Tamworth was a Conference squad, and he played well for us when called upon. He only played with the first team one year, but he made a big impact as our starting left winger when we were in the Third Division, starting 30 matches for us.

We got Andy Williams as we went into the Second Division, though, and figuring Gray (who was only 15 at the time) could use more work with the kids, I sent him down to our U-19 squad, where he played for two seasons. I was prepared to resign him, but my scouts insisted he had reached his potential already at just 17. And my scouts were pretty good by then. So I let him go.

He ended up with the Northwich Vics, and has played well with them. In 52 appearances with them in the Third Division last year, he had 16 assists and a 7.10 rating. This year in the Second Division (the Vics were promoted), he has been okay if not spectacular (2 goals, 4 assists, 7.00 rating in 23 appearances. Still, my scout focused on him when he talked about this team, so clearly he remains an important part of the squad. Good to see a former Lamb done some good.

I don't think that's going to help him or his teammates today, though, as we clearly outclass them. Hopefully we don't invalidate that massive effort against Arsenal two weeks ago by dropping a bomb in this one.

It was a first eleven match, so most of that team's regulars were in. The lone exceptions were Mark Phillips in for Leon Cort at centreback, and Darren Birchall at left wing for Richie Partridge/Carl Motteram. Cort started in Tieme Klompe's place against Bristol City four days before (with Klompe on suspension) and isn't ready to return. I suppose I jumped the gun switching Partridge back to the second eleven because Motteram is taking his sweet time builidng up his conditioning from his shoulder injury. So Birchall has to start in this spot today.

I was thinking it was cruel to uinleash most of the first eleven on a Second Division squad until striker Karl Farrimond stole the ball from Johnnier Montaño on an odd play by the Colombian midfielder in the 3rd minute. Montaño had received a clear out pass from Mike Duff in the middle of the defensive pitch, and wasn't under any apparent pressure from the Vics, but he retreated into our own box anyway. He apparently didn't see Farrimond, already hanging out in the box. The striker slipped up to Montaño and just took away the ball--and suddenly he was just a few feet away from the goal with no one to stop him but Jon Masalin. He kicked it low and close and beat the surprised Masalin just inside the post to give Northwich Vics the surprising early 1-0 lead.

Montaño redeemed himself in the 9th minute (well, to an extent, come on that was just stupid). Michael Stewart found Montaño at the edge of the box on one of our standard scoring plays. Montaño turned around and took it in on goal, blasting a shot just to the left of the right post for the equaliser.

Stewart figured into the next score as well. In the 44th minute, he intefcepted a clear out by Gray and moved it back through the defense into the box. The ball fell to Yakubu, who blasted the ball at Northwich Vics netminder Martin Quinn. The ball went high over Quinn and into the net for our first lead (and a long time coming, really).

Just a couple minutes into the second half, we sealed it with a nice interception by Yakubu. The Nigerian striker got in the middle of a backpass by Farrimond from near the centreline. He headed it forward to Orri Freyr Oskarsson, who did what he does best--dribble fast. He took the ball into the box while creating space between himself and Northwich Vics defender Declan Quinn, and then he launched a high shot that was similar to Yakubu's score. Once again, Quinn showed he couldn't handle the high stuff and the ball went by for the score.

I have no idea if those two Quinns are related.

That would wrap the scoring, and we are through to the semifinals of the English League Cup. Tamworth 3, Northwich Vics 1

Other League Cup Results

It almost could have been one heck of a final foursome.

Man Utd just barely escaped Nottingham Forest--and this was at home, too--when they scored a goal in extra time to win, 1-0. Guess who scored it. Klose? Anelka? Cissé? Try Floribert Ngalula Mbuyi (and in injury time of the first extra time period, too). Try saying that name five times fast.

Liverpool scored three goals in the first 17 minutes to quickly put their match out of reach for Man City. The Reds beat the Citizens, 4-1.

The spoiler came in Birmingham, where the home squad beat the red hot Aston Villa squad. The Villans have charged into the top five of the league with a strong run, but they couldn't edge out Birmingham, falling 3-2. Birmingham scored two goals in the last ten minutes to pull off the amazing comeback.

Had Aston Villa won, the semifinals of the English League Cup would have possibly had the four top teams in the Premiership table. As it is, it has three and Birmingham, a solid top ten squad. That's one of the better ending fields this cup has seen in a while.

We won $325,000 for our win over the Vics, and will find out who our semifinal opponent is on Saturday, December 20.

International Duty

Most of the world's national teams are done for 2008, and won't resume until spring, 2009, but Africa is hot all year round. They scheduled a round of the African Cup of Nations on December 27, and striker Yakubu got the call again for his homeland Nigeria. We only expect he will miss one match (which is, unfortunately, a first eleven match).

Newcastle

Newcastle might not be a top five squad anymore (they are seventh right now), but they remain a worldclass side. No visit from the traditional powers in the Premiership can be regarded lightly.

The Magpies are throwing their top guys at us, which always makes it fun. Star English striker Shola Ameobi will start up front with Serbian Mateja Kezman. The two strikers ahve combined for 31 goals this year.

The midfield is nearly as scary, as Scottish star Barry Ferguson has transitioned well to St. James Park. He is joined by longtime Newcastle stars like Jermaine Jenas and Hugo Viana.

As if that wasn't enough, the backline remains loaded, led by star centreback Jonathon Woodgate, and in the net is the best goalkeeper in the Premiership--England's national netminder, Shay Given.

But enough with the worship--we have a match to play.

We are going with our second eleven squad today, playing in its original form for the first time since Motteram's injury forced Partridge onto the first eleven for a while.

As has often been the case with this team, we did not start off so strong. In the 20th minute, Ferguson took a throw in pass from the left touchline and sent a curling cross into the box. Ameobi beat out a mass of Tamworth defenders to the ball and fired a shot at the goal. Thomas Heaton deflected it down the line a little, but still in play. Kezman was first to the ball, where he put Heaton through a round of embarassment by actually kicking the shot off of the goalkeeper and into the net for the score.

We got it back in the 34th minute, although your guess is as good as mine as to why it happened the way it did. Gaël Clichy moved the ball across the left centrelin on a short run before moving it forward to Denny Landzaat near the middle of the pitch, maybe 35 yards out. Landzaat moved lightly forward and then suddenly just unleashed a long shot on goal. It was a slow-developing shot aimed at the left post, and Given was on it with ease--until the ball somehow got past him and into the net for an amazing score. Basically, both goalkeepers look a little silly right now.

That opened up the flood gates. In the 39th minute, Partridge took a throw in and moved on to Andrei Pereplyotkin, charging into the right end of the box with a step on the defense. The striker turned in toward the center of the box, but then deftly hit a ball nearer to the right post. It apparently fooled Given, who was preparing for a shot closer to the far end of the goal, and we had the 2-1 lead.

We officially took control of this one four minutes later, when Klompe headed in a corner pass from David Marcelo Cortez Pizarro.

We got a 46th minute score from Louis Saha and a second half injury time score from Landzaat--who ahd a terrific day--to finish off a brutal walloping of the Magpies. Tamworth 5, Newcastle 1

We finally got a little breathing room, too, as Man Utd's streak of nine consecutive Premiership wins finally came to an end, when they drew with Everton, 0-0. They still haven't lost in league since September 27, when they were shellacked by Chelsea, 3-0.

We set another attendance record against Newcastle, drawing 32020--two more fans than the previous record set against Man City on my birthday last month. One of these days, we may even seat all 32045 spots in the Lamb Ground. Imagine the difference in crowd noise for that one.

League Cup Semifinal Draw

While we were beating Newcastle, the English Football Association was conducting the draw for the English league Cup semifinals, to be held next month.

This is usually where we start drawing great teams. I figured we would get Man Utd, but we got Old Trafford's "little" cousin instead in powerful Liverpool.

The semifinal of the League Cup is a two-leg, home-and-home, so we will play the Reds twice. We travel to Anfield for the January 21 match, and then follow it up with a match at the Lamb Ground on February 4.

Man Utd will, of course, meet up with Birmingham in the other bracket.

Adu's Work Permit

On Monday, December 22, the labor board ruled--again--that 19-year-old American star-in-the-making Freddy Adu was not well-known enough to earn a work permit to play in England. Yeah...right...obviously, this world has some key differences from the current one.

I have appealed the decision, and the board will give me a response on January 9. If Adu's application fails, it will be the second time in a year he has been denied entry to England (and both times for us). I am essentially without hope on this one, although it should be noted that Giovanny Hernáandez's application was also rejected at first and then won through on appeal last August. So it's not impossible--but I'm going to move forward as if I didn't get him.

Adu needs to play in more national matches for the United States. One cap and playing for a Second Division Bundesliga squad ain't gonna get it done.

League News

One of the fun parts of this time of year is the rise of transfer speculation as clubs prepare for the new transfer window, due to open up again on January 1.

Adu is relatively unrelated, as he is a Bosman transfer, although the Bertelsen move is one such move that will go through then.

Last week, Wimbledon offered us striker Paul Scott, a quick dribbling scorer who is just 20 years old. We turned down the offer, as $3.2 M is just too much for him, but apparently Tottenham didn't. The Spurs agreed to a transfer deal for the striker, and he will join them on January 1. That news came down the pipe as we were beating the Northwich Vics.

That ended up being the lone news locally, but this week was rife with speculation about a star Brazilian winger in international circles.

Alex, the 31-year-old FC Bayern star, told his manager Ottmar Hitzfeld that his recent poor performances have been a reuslt of exhaustion and jadedness, all of which he apologized for. I don't know if this then played a part in it, but the worldclass winger was then targeted by uber-rich Real Madrid, which gave FC Bayern an offer of $24 M for the winger, on Sunday, December 21.

Here is the Premiership League Team of the Week:

SC Kim Olsen (Sheffield Wednesday)-- 2 G, 1 A, MoM, 10 rat vs NOT
SC Adrian Mutu (Chelsea)-- 1 G, 1 A, MoM, 10 rat vs BKP
MF Denny Landzaat (Tamworth)-- 2 G, 8 rat vs NEW
MF David Fox (Sheffield Wednesday)-- 8 rat vs NOT
MF Matthew Hamshaw (Sheffield Wednesday)-- 1 A, 9 rat vs NOT
MF Harry Kewell (Liverpool)-- 1 A, 8 rat vs MAN
DF Derek Geary (Sheffield Wednesday)-- 1 A, 8 rat vs NOT
DF John Arne Riise (Liverpool)-- 1 G, 8 rat vs MAN
DF Sami Hyyplä (Liverpool)-- 8 rat vs MAN
DF Brett Emerton (Blackburn)-- 1 G, 1 A, MoM, 9 rat vs FUL
GK Fabien Barthez (Man Utd)-- 7 sav, 1 clean, MoM, 9 rat vs EVR

CR