Robert Lewandowski moves to Bayern Munich

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There was much debate and speculation recently over the fate of Borussia Dortmund’s Robert Lewandowski who looked set for a move away from the club to pastures new. Ultimately, the player agreed to be transferred to Bayern Munich who are Bundesliga league rivals, as a free transfer.

Arsene Wenger, the popular Arsenal manager has said that he did consider Lewandowski for the Arsenal Football Club, but he knew that the played signed with Bayern over a year ago so unless that situation changed he wouldn’t be able to seriously consider him.

Wenger also went on to point out that the team at Arsenal continue, like with all other clubs, to keep and eye on the transfer market to see which players might be looking to change teams or whose contract is coming up for renewal.

It is difficult to get big players because they are already at the largest clubs. Occasionally it’s possible to pick one up if the football club is experiencing some financially difficulties, but otherwise it is quite difficult, Wenger pointed out.

As with most clubs, they look at their youth teams and the youth teams of other clubs to see where there might be undiscovered talent that can develop with their club.

With Lewandowski going to Bayern Munich this summer, this brings into question the future role of Mandzukic who is another forward at the same club. The player from Croatia is not looking to move away, according to his football agent.

While the Bayern CEO Rummenigge stated that Mandzukic is not on the market, Wenger didn’t act surprised because the football season is not finished yet. At that time, people may start to sing a different tune and eventually be wearing different football jerseys too.

 

 

Vitessa Arnhem player refused entry into UAE

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The Dutch football club Vitessa Arnhem was dealt a blow recently when a member of its squad, Dan Mori, was refused entry into the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to attend a training camp there.

The position is a confusing one because the club says that they had sought and received a verbal confirmation that the defender from Israel would be allowed into the UAE, but this proved later to be worthless.

A spokesperson for Vitesse Arnhem said that the move was strange because both Israel and the United Arab Emirates are both members of the football organisation, FIFA.

The plan has been for players to practise at the training camp at UAE before playing in some friendly matches with German Bundesliga clubs, namely Hamburg SV and Vfl Wolfsburg.

The club felt they did not wish to walk away from their commitment to play the German teams, however the Dutch minster for finance, Jeroen Dijsselbloem was on television recently to condemn the decision to still go ahead with the trip to the UAE. He felt that the club should have backed their player, rather than leave him back practicing with the reserve team.

This is not the first time that the great sport of football has become a political punching bag instead of being a simple game of sport to be enjoyed by club owners, players and their supporters.

One would have hoped that in one of the more progressive and forward-thinking of nations in the Middle East that is experiencing a steady growth in visitors from tourism and luxury shopping markets, that the United Arab Emirates would have a more open stance when it comes to international football, including the players who participate in it.

With this kind of old fashioned political thinking, it is difficult to imagine peace in the Middle East region when even the simple elegance of a game of football cannot see people overcome their differences.

 

Michael Owen blames football academy structures for lack of young English players

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Michael Owen has urged the footballing authorities in the UK to adopt a draft system similar to the one used in the US for young English footballers. He says this will allow teams in the Premiership to effectively field B teams elsewhere in the football league this ensuring the future success of football in England. The blog from ex England star Owen appeared on  Sportlobster  the dedicated sports social network  which is also launching its new iPhone app today.

Michael Owen has the credentials to make this statement being one of the most famous, and successful, products of the youth set up in England. Nevertheless, he feels that this is now failing in its task and his idea of bringing in a system similar to that of the NFL draft in America is certainly an interesting one,

Owen said on Sportlobster :

“I feel what would be hugely beneficial to the state of our national game is the creation of a loan system whereby every team in the Premier League provides a set number of English players to be distributed fairly among The Championship, League One and Two clubs. This is similar to the draft system they use in American Football.

“Each league club would receive two or three players per season in two waves (start of the season until Christmas then Christmas until the end of the season) from random Premier League clubs which would not only help our lower league teams but more importantly help the development of our future talent. Fairly distributing these young English players across all teams in every league as this would be much fairer than the current system.

“Imagine 150 or so young English players learning their trade in the lower leagues. It would do absolute wonders for their development. The experience gained and the ability to perform under pressure would be priceless. These are the challenges our youngsters need to be exposed to early on if we are to expect them to rise to the challenge later in their careers.”

Sportlobster co-founder and CEO Andy Meikle said:

“It’s important to have sporting heroes like Michael Owen using Sportlobster to talk about issues in sport and voice their honest opinions. It is also important for everyone else to get involved in such debates and be heard. This is exactly why we created Sportlobster, it gives fans a way to interact in an environment completely dedicated to sport.”

Read Michael’s full article and join the debate: https://sportlobster.com/themichaelowen

Link to the app: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/sportlobster/id726335461?ls=1&mt=8

 

Transfer prices break all records this season

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Premier League transfers broke all records this season with expenses of up to £630 million having been incurred. This was only the tip of the iceberg however since this kind of expenditure not only existed at the first level but extended through all leagues in football. There has been a general rise in the amount of money that clubs use to acquire players, including the young ones whose talent seems promising.

These young players go through the academy system of training where they sharpen their skills. It is apparent that expenditure of this kind has had a positive effect as seen by the results shown by Leicester City. It has now started competing effectively with established academies that have huge budgets on player acquisition and training.

It is becoming more apparent that football is big business with first level clubs offering more money to recruit hot potential talent. City boys have started reaping the benefits of being in top tier football that involves big spending. The increasingly competitive bidding between the clubs and the recruiting agents has had a toll on City this season. City’s academy team has suffered defeats to many teams with an international standing such as Manchester City, Manchester United, Everton and Aston Villa.

The development team fared slightly better in their campaign. They scored a convincing 2-1 victory over Stoke last week. This win put them in the 11 top teams in this Premier League. They will have to try hard to retain their position when the league splits towards the end of the season. The losers will be classified in the bottom half and the top division will retain all the top teams.

The victory against the Stoke side is particularly sweet for them because the Stoke team had players like Jamie Ness, Mo Edu and Brek Shea who was acquired for a £2.5 deal, the American international. Jamie Ness and Mo Edu are former Rangers players. Steve Beaglehole, Development Manager, also agreed that expenditure had risen of late at the youth and development level. Football, which has always been big business just, seems to be getting bigger.

Michael O’Neill set to continue as NI manager

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The Irish FA has has announced that Michael O’Neill will continue as the manager of the national team. It seems to be the best choice for Northern Ireland football team but the manager will have to review his timetable once talks about his contract resume later this month.

Even though O’Neill’s initial campaign for qualifying for the Brazil World Cup suffered big blows following losses against Azerbaijan and Luxembourg he has one last chance to prove himself when the team plays against Israel tonight. However, he has already been receiving overwhelming support from different quarters.

When he first succeeded Nigel Worthington and when asked about his opinion on this responsibility and whether he felt that he could accomplish the task within the two-year period, he said that if he were comparing the team with others in the world, it would require 25 years of training to attain the goals ahead of him. Though this kind of humorous reply showed serious intent, there is little chance that the IFA will give the manager a 25-year contract. He might have to attain such goals within his contract period, 2 years.

O’Neill has to prove himself as an able candidate in tonight’s match with Tel Aviv, otherwise some people may question his abilities. His attitude, as he spoke before the clash tonight, was definitely that of a man committed to his new work. When commenting on his attitude towards a continued commitment he was as steady as ever saying that this has never changed since the contract began.

He quoted the former Wales manager as saying that not many international managers had done the job effectively before him and that he has had to learn through experience to deliver positive results. He said that it all boiled down to whether one believed that the players would deliver or not.

He was convinced that their performances deserved better results and that it was coming. He said that it was just a matter of time. He also spoke of some of the problems he was facing in his job. Though his fans might disagree, O’Neill seems to perceive problems, which were tougher than just the occasional loss to Luxembourg or the one at Baku.