The 110th Percent

Debate is indigenous to football. And Messi vs Ronaldo is still the headline act. For what it's worth, I believe it is possible to end the debate. This is a debate about performance; about who performs better. This is not a debate about who has the greater assets. Most will agree that Ronaldo has the better raw materials to work with. He's stronger and quicker than Messi. He's fitter, more powerful, he's better in the air and he's better with his weaker foot. Ronaldo has the better tools of the two. However, imagine an ametuer artist who buys the finest paints, easel, brushes and art studio. He could not argue that he is greater than Monet or Picasso simply because he had the better tools. What matters is end product and performance. My personal opinion is this. Let's say, for argument's sake, that on a statistical level the two are equal. They are certainly comparable. My own observations are that Ronaldo's greatness comes at a cost to his team. Tha...

England cricketers don’t retire quietly. Of the last five long-term test captains (Strauss, Hussain, Vaughan, Stewart & Atherton) only Alec Stewart does not regularly occupy a commentary box. If you throw in Boycott, Botham & Tony Greig, then the captains from well over a quarter of England’s 953 tests are represented in the commentary box. Despite lacking the platform of the commentary box, Graeme Swann has managed to keep his voice echoing around public consciousness. His passionate, patriotic, opinionated and eloquent reflections on English cricket distinguish his viewpoints from the lifeless opinions that plague so many sports. His talent matched his mouth too. He is undoubtedly England’s best spinner of the last 30 years, & I believe a case could be made that he is our greatest ever spin bowler. In a recent column, Swann indicated that England should revamp the top of their 50 over line-up. “Cook, Bell and Ballance are not players who will win you a World ...

Despite England’s failure to qualify for the World Cup in 1994, England was full of striking options between the flops of ‘94, and the near-fairytale side of ’96. Had we known, 20 years later, exactly how thin our options would be, perhaps we would have savoured them a little more. Comparing eras is difficult, even only 20 years apart. But this is hardly chalk and cheese; it’s hardly comparing Gareth Bale to Stanley Matthews. The mid-90s Premier League was more British and more physical, with less rotation and whinging. But the goals per game rate has increased by a significant amount. Between 93 and 97, the scoring rate never exceeded 2.6. The last five Premiership season have hovered around or above 2.8 goals per game. Whilst being aware of the differences in eras, however small, the chasm between the strikers is staggering. By the time Euro ’96 rolled around, Terry Venables had a choice from 11 English strikers with at least one 20 goal season behind them. I’ve ignored player...

Out of the rubble of an England tournament exit, the footballing public are quick to scapegoat the number of foreigner players present in the English Premier League. It is an argument that resurfaces at the beginning of each season as the numbers accelerate. The argument is popular, and the pros and cons have become nauseatingly bland. I do believe that there are two factors that have been overlooked, which I should like to advance here. 1.          Everyone is a foreigner. Everyone is a foreigner to someone. The French players in the Premier League are foreigners to us, but not to the French, obviously. To say ‘the number of foreigners in our game has depleted the opportunities for English players to play’ is not wholly accurate. Rather, it should be said that ‘the number of foreigners in our game has depleted the opportunities for English players to play in England’ . The reason foreigners harm the English game is because, by and large...

As the 2014/15 football season approaches, it’s worth re-visiting an infamous opening day blunder. ‘It only takes one tree to make a thousand matches, but it only takes one match to burn a thousand trees’. While Alan Hansen was a fine Scottish footballer and is a fine football pundit, his good work is largely undone by two high profile mistakes. In the case of Alan Hansen, it was two matches that burned a thousand trees. Despite his reputation as a solid defender in a successful Liverpool side, he is often remembered as the player who committed the decisive blooper in Scotland’s 1982 World Cup loss to the Soviet Union. And despite his established reputation as a pundit, he is largely remembered for, and haunted by, his 1995 comment regarding the title prospects of the Manchester United squad: “you’ll win nothing with kids”. Amidst the mockery from his fellow analysts, three words constantly run through my mind: HANSEN WAS RIGHT. Well, sort of. I agree with Alan Hansen. I agre...

To the tune of ‘Deck The Halls’, junior school children of my age would mockingly sing: Man United are short-sighted, never scored a goal in history. My admiration for the rhyming of ‘Man United’ with ‘short-sighted’ outweighs the slightly bizarre doubts cast upon the team’s vision. Yet the idea that the reigning champions of England had ‘never scored a goal in history’ would prove difficult to substantiate. Oddly, the a-historical nature of the poem did not stop us from singing. Often in sports, the truth refuses to match the reputation we give it. Yet rarely does the truth prevent us from believing the things we choose to be convinced of. In the months leading up to the first Ashes Test of 2013, Ian Bell had been struggling for runs. I am tempted to say that he struggled for form, yet he seldom looks short of form irrespective of how many runs he scores. He is the reverse of Paul Collingwood, who looked permanently short of form whilst scoring big runs. Following Be...