Total Football Club

I had the pleasure to listen to an interview with Sir Alex Ferguson the other day, an interview with Spoony (The Guardian football podcaster).

What it delivered was a fresh change of a football insight, into how the great manager goes about his business conducting himself and the club.

I’ll pick up from the point about dealing with your squad and letting your squad know about team selection.

I pick the team and I explain to them why and I’m pretty restrained with it and I say, “I picked the team today, because I think it’s the best team, but next week it may be different and you may be involved ” and I think by doing that at least you are giving them a little respect and by doing so they’ll keep your trust in you, because they know that if ask someone else, I’ll give them the same story, I’m not changing it for anyone.It’s a matter of picking the team you think is right.

All the players know they can trust me and I’ve had many of them come to me with personal problems that we never reveal to anybody, EVER……and I would try and help them the best I can. That trust is important because, they can depend on that trust all their lives, because they’ve been my player. I think it’s an important partnership with a human being.”

Throughout the interview, the importance of trust between players and the coaches is highlighted. It fits in well with the first rule of our “5 Dysfunctions of a team“, that I blogged here.

When asked, about managing some of  the best players in the world, and how do you keep attracting them, how do you keep reinventing Man Utd? He stayed on point from an Academy point of view.

“Anyone brought up as our players is not a problem, because they will have on them the youth coaches, the reserve coaches, myself and my own staff are very firm with them, in terms of behavour patterns, training ethic, work rate, all these things, are easy to develop when they’re young.”

“If education is correct, you’re putting kids into nursery at 3 or 4 years of age,  you’re getting an early grounding in terms of educational values, going to school, that type of thing, discapline.”

“I think it (discipline) is a great asset to have.”

“They learn also to respect our coaches, all the young players shake hands with the coaches every morning when they come in and say “good morning”. We do that because we want them to respect the coach and let them know how  important that coach is to them, because that coach is their best friend.”

The design of the Man Utd Academy is exactly what I observed at Royal Standard when meeting Michel Bruyninckx. The academy in Belgium is home to young talent from all over Europe, from some of the very best clubs. While walking the corridors of the Academy, most of the young players not only stopped to say good morning and shake hands of my generous host, but most also approached me as the friend of their head coach/Academy director.

The sense of respect in the academy was very evident and with this obviously comes a great sense of trust among team members, which again leads clearly into developing a culture of team work based with our 5 dysfunctions of a team.

(“In the News” for Total Football Club, the team management website and Total Football Schools.)

This article titled “In praise of Blackburn’s Steve Kean: one man’s stand against indignity” was written by Daniel Taylor, for The Observer on Saturday 31st March 2012 22.00 UTC

The last time Blackburn Rovers played Manchester United at Ewood Park, Steve Kean overtook a police car on his way home in the fast lane of the M6. He was doing 90mph, on a telephone call to the club’s owners in India, and he reeked of beer. After that, it was down to the station, shoelaces out and breathe into this, sir.

He will get a lift into work on Monday when Sir Alex Ferguson’s team are back in town and, as is the norm these days, there will be Rovers fans waiting outside to let Kean know he is not wanted. Just before they go inside to tell him the same, in even greater numbers. The volume has been turned down a little recently but the message is still the same, even though they have clambered out of the relegation places.

Match of the Day zoomed in one night on the different faces, contorted with hate. Mums, pensioners, dads with kids, scrawny teenagers in tracksuits. It felt symptomatic of the times in which we live, when the lay masses like to believe they know more than the specialist, in this case a man with 27 years in the industry. It is the culture of zombies, to attack, with an anything-goes mentality, and it is easy to understand why so many football people have been shocked when Kean has been assigned a minder and, in the worst moments, is smuggled out of Ewood Park like a murderer being taken from court. Whatever his mistakes, however galling the results sometimes, there is something not right, surely, when a football manager needs a seventh dan in karate as extra muscle.

Ferguson got it wrong, though, when he suggested Blackburn’s fans must be filled with regret now they have scaled down the protests. Kean’s name is still never sung or applauded and the resentment is never far from the surface. A lot of Blackburn supporters feel maligned and patronised, particularly by the national press, and maintain they have legitimate reasons to want a change. It is just they have made their point so forcibly it has backfired and Kean is suddenly being championed for the way he has handled himself in exceptionally difficult circumstances. One newspaper columnist named Kean last weekend as manager of the year for taking Rovers to 16th. Blackburn promptly lost to third‑bottom Bolton Wanderers for the second time this season.

The problem with a sympathy vote is that it tends to blur how we ordinarily judge someone’s work and, in the case of a football manager, that is the team’s league position, how much he has spent, and how his signings have done.

Blackburn, to recap, were 13th when Sam Allardyce was sacked two Decembers ago and had finished 10th the season before. A mid-table team have become a bottom-five one, and sometimes worse. Kean has won back‑to-back matches and kept successive clean sheets once in 15 months. Last weekend marked Bolton’s first double over them for 34 years.

Nationally, a perception has grown that he has been the victim of mass bullying and deserves some slack because nobody likes a bully, do they? Locally, they point out the team’s failures, with the worst defensive record in the league, 62 goals conceded in 30 games. They cite how he got the job, why his relationship with Allardyce has disintegrated to dust, and the moderate, sometimes nonexistent contribution of signings such as Simon Vukcevic, David Goodwillie, Rubén Rochina, Mauro Formica, Bruno Ribeiro and Myles Anderson (point out that Yakubu’s transfer from Everton was a great piece of business and they will tell you Kean actually wanted Jermaine Beckford). The Lancashire Evening Telegraph has called for his sacking. So, too, has his local MP, Jack Straw. At times, it has felt like a whole town against one man.

When Venky’s moved into power they talked about signing Ronaldinho and qualifying for the Champions League. What Blackburn have actually had is a wild, eccentric and utterly chaotic ride that makes it difficult to know where to start. The game against Stoke, perhaps, when police confiscated a number of chickens that had been taken to the ground as part of the protests, one in a Blackburn scarf. Or maybe the case of Michel Salgado, told he will never play for the club again because another appearance will trigger a clause that he gets a new contract. Salgado is still being paid but does not even have to turn up for training these days. Last weekend he was at the Malaysian Grand Prix. Before that, on holiday in Dubai.

Then there is the complicated involvement of Jerome Anderson, the agent who represents Kean, advises Venky’s and has a personal interest in how Myles Anderson does, being his dad. So far, not very well. Anderson is 22 and still waiting to play a single minute. At his previous club, Aberdeen, his career consisted of one appearance as an 88th-minute substitute. “A late developer,” Kean had said. “Another Chris Smalling.”

It would be some book, and Kean has played a full part in the madness. In his drink-drive case he denied the charge, arguing that his drink must have been laced. The judge banned him for 18 months, pointing out “there is another explanation – that Mr Kean had more to drink than he has admitted”. A couple of months later, in a late-night hotel bar, Kean had a bizarre exchange with a television reporter. He ended up telling the reporter’s cameraman he had lovely hair.

The problem for Kean now is that the feelings are so deep-rooted it is difficult to imagine a day when there is anything close to harmony while he is still manager. For the supporters, it is that the protests failed to break him and simply reminded us that, even in football, shouting and screaming gets you nowhere sometimes. The complaints may be legitimate but Kean deserves our praise because of the quiet, understated way he has kept his dignity, even when the protests were at their most brutal and dispiriting. It is no way any manager wants to be judged but, in his position, you suspect he will take what he can get.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

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(In the News : for Total Football Club, the team management and organiser website.)

This article titled “Sergio Agüero injury leaves Manchester City with striking dilemma” was written by Jamie Jackson and Daniel Taylor, for The Guardian on Friday 30th March 2012 22.02 UTC

Sergio Agüero will be missing from Manchester City’s game against Sunderland on Sundayon Saturday after a freakish injury that has infuriated Roberto Mancini and may also keep the Argentinian out of the game at Arsenal next weekend.

Agüero, City’s leading scorer, is understood to have suffered an extreme reaction after a member of staff applied a spray to his foot. His skin is said to have reacted so badly to the spray that he has been left with burn-like blisters and his entire foot has swollen.

Mancini refused to say what had caused the injury beyond repeatedly describing it as “stupid”.

The treatment was administered after the Argentinian banged his foot in the 2-1 win over Chelsea at the Etihad Stadium 10 days ago and meant that he also missed the 1-1 draw at Stoke City last weekend. Mancini was clearly aggrieved and said he would wait until the end of the season before explaining exactly what had befallen Agüero.

“I don’t know what’s happened with Sergio,” Mancini said. “It’s better that we don’t talk about this. For us it’s a big problem because we lost Sergio against Stoke and tomorrow he can’t play [against Sunderland].

“We can’t lose our top scorer for stupid things like this. It is a stupid injury but not his fault. He can’t play with this injury for one week, 10 days, two weeks. I am really disappointed about what has happened. It is impossible that we can lose a player to a stupid situation.”

Carlos Tevez has made substitute appearances in City’s last two games and also played again for the reserves this week but Mancini said the striker was not fit enough to replace Agüero against Sunderland. “Next game maybe because he has improved a lot in the last 10 days.”

Agüero has scored 24 goals in 41 City appearances this season and Mario Balotelli has 15 in 29. But Mancini was frank when assessing whether the Italian could be trusted to take over the role as City’s main striker.

“No, never. But Mario is like this. No, I don’t trust Mario. I don’t think anyone can trust Mario.

“But he is a top player and he can do everything. He could easily score two goals tomorrow or in the next game at Arsenal. But we can’t trust him.

“He is a top player, he can do everything in a game, he can score three, he can take a red card. Up until now he did well. And he can be important for us in the last eight games.”

This week Balotelli flew to Milan and interrupted an Internazionale press conference to congratulate the new manager, Andrea Stramaccioni, on his appointment.

Mancini laughed off the incident and the pictures of him earlier in the week apparently clashing with the 21-year-old on the training ground.

“I can’t take him and put him in his house for two days,” he said. “Probably the moment will arrive when he understands what he should do when he has two days off. I hope for him [he grows out of this behaviour] because he needs to improve in this.”

Mancini, who should have Vincent Kompany available against Sunderland and Joleon Lescott against Arsenal, denied Sir Alex Ferguson’s claim that bringing back Tevez was an act of desperation.

“It is not important what Sir Alex said on this. I have a big respect for him but it is not important, the same for him in what I say,” said Mancini, who was also calm about the comments of the City executive Patrick Vieira, who claimed that the major clubs like United can get the benefit of referee’s decisions. “Sometimes it can happen like this.”

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

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Some 5  years back, I came across a business management book that would change the way I would approach football team management on a  personal level.

There are plenty of resources for actual coaching of tactics, principles of play etc, but there is very little out there that will help you to get your players to gel, to get on with one another and find that little bit of magic that turns a group of players into a team.

In LAX airport I picked up a copy of Patrick Lencioni’s “5 Dysfunctions of a Team”, by the time a touched back down in Hong Kong I had a new approach to the teams I was coaching and to be honest, many people that I had any kind of working relationship with.

In his book, Patrick Lencioni outlines 5 dysfunctions and then the methods of righting those wrongs, to create a harmonious, productive team. You can see what these are from the pyramid image above, working from bottom to top.

Let me simply summarize this for you now.

Members of teams with an absence of trust…

• Conceal their weaknesses and mistakes from one another
• Hesitate to ask for help or provide constructive feedback
• Hesitate to offer help outside their own areas of responsibility
• Jump to conclusions about the intentions and aptitudes of others without attempting to clarify them
• Fail to recognize and tap into one another’s skills and experiences
• Waste time and energy managing their behaviors for effect
• Hold grudges
• Dread meetings and find reasons to avoid spending time together

Member of trusting teams …

Admit weaknesses and mistakes
Ask for help
Take risks in offering feedback and assistance
Appreciate and tap into one another’s skills and experiences
Focus time and energy on important issues, not politics
Offer and accept apologies without hesitation
Look forward to meetings and other opportunities to work as a group

Overcoming the absence of trust …

Personal histories exercise
Team effectiveness exercise
Personality and behavioural presence profile
360 degree feed back
Leader role

Teams that fear conflict…

• Have boring meetings
• Create environments where back-channel politics and personal attacks thrive
• Ignore controversial topics that are critical to team success
• Fail to tap into all the opinions and perspectives of team members
• Waste time and energy with posturing and interpersonal risk management

Teams that engage in conflict …

Have lively, interesting meetings
Extract and exploit the ideas of all team members
Solve real problems quickly
Minimize politics
Put critical topics on the table for discussion

Overcoming Fear of Conflict …

Acknowledge that conflict is productive, and that many tend to avoid it.
Team Members must occaisionally assume the role of a “minor of conflict”
(someone who extracts disagreements in the team to sheds light on them.)
Team members need to coach one another not to retreat from healthy debate. Remind them what they are doing is necessary.

A team that fails to commit…

• Creates ambiguity among the team about direction and priorities
• Watches windows of opportunity close due to excessive analysis and unnecessary delay
• Breeds lack of confidence and fear of failure
• Revisits discussions and decisions again and again
• Encourages second-guessing among team members

Teams that are committed …

Have clear directions and priorities
Are aligned around objectives
Develop an ability to learn from mistakes
Seize opportunities before the competition
Moves forward without hesitation
Changes direction without hesitation or guilt

Overcoming lack of commitment …

reformulate action plan
Set and honor deadlines, including interim milestones
Worst case scenario analysis to remove the fear from mistakes
practice quick decision making with limited analysis

A team that avoids accountability…

• Creates resentment among team members who have different standards of performance
• Encourages mediocrity
• Misses deadlines and key deliver-ables
• Places an undue burden on the team leader as the sole source of discipline

Teams that are accountable…

Ensure that poor performers feel pressure to improve
Identify quickly problem by questioning one’s approach without hesitation
Establish respect among the team who are held to the same standard
Avoid excessive bureaucracy around performance management and corrective action

Overcoming avoidance of Accountability …

Publication of goals and standards: no one can ignore them and we know who is responsible for what
Progressive review : team members should comment on their peer performance against objectives and standards
Reward team instead of individuals
Do not relegate accountability to consensus approach: shared team responsibility with individual responsibility

A team that is not focused on results…

• Stagnates/fails to grow
• Rarely defeats competitors
• Loses achievement-oriented employees
• Encourages team members to focus on their own careers and individual goals
• Is easily distracted

A team that focuses on collective results …

retains achievement-orientated employees
minimizes individualistic behaviours
enjoys success and failure acutely
has individuals who subjugate their own goals for the good of the team
avoids distraction

Overcoming inattention to results …

public declaration
the team must make results clear
have results based awards
reward only those behaviors and actions that contribute to those results.
They must be careful not to get sidetracked to tangential action items.

Teamwork ultimately comes down to practicing a small set of principles over a long period of time.  Success is not a matter of mastering subtle, sophisticated theory, but rather of embracing common sense with uncommon levels of discipline and persistence.

(In the News : for Total Football Club, the team management and organiser website.)

This article titled “Walter Smith: Rangers were debt free when Craig Whyte took over” was written by Ewan Murray, for The Guardian on Thursday 29th March 2012 23.27 UTC

Walter Smith, the former Rangers manager, has defended the regime that existed before Craig Whyte took control of the majority shareholding.

Rangers went into administration in February, nine months after Whyte replaced Sir David Murray as owner. During the intervening period Whyte was regularly scathing about the actions of Rangers’ board members who opposed his takeover and subsequently departed Ibrox. One of them, Martin Bain, dropped a legal case against Rangers on Thursday relating to his departure.

“You can make your judgments on what happened previously but the fact is that none of that mattered,” said Smith.

“In May of last year all of that had disappeared. There was no debt; the club had managed to cut £16m off the overall debt, Craig Whyte gave the other £18m to the bank. The bank had received £34m in three and a bit years.

“Rangers weren’t a business going into administration or anything like that, they were actually a business which was fairly well run over that period of time. How many businesses can take £16m off their debt during a period of recession?

“Martin Bain, as chief executive, seems to have come out of this worse than anybody. He could be quite proud of what he did, handling a situation with the bank and having me moaning at him for not spending any money. He seems to be getting vilified only I think because he stood against Craig Whyte’s buying of the club.”

Paul Clark, Rangers’ joint administrator, said of the Bain lawsuit: “He [Bain] has made plain the litigation was a response to the actions of Craig Whyte and not Rangers FC and, given developments, he now wishes to end the litigation action and do what he can to support the club in these difficult times.”

Rangers will not, as scheduled, return to the high court on Friday to pursue a £3.6m claim against funds held by Collyer Bristow, the former lawyers to Whyte and the club. It is understood Rangers are now seeking up to £9m from the firm. Clark added: “We have substantially larger claims against Collyer Bristow, which we wish to bring as soon as possible. The original trial dates of 30 March – 4 April are now not being utilised as the wider claims are still being formulated.”

Brian Kennedy, the owner of Sale Sharks, has said he is “surprised and disappointed” after his first formal offer to take over Rangers was rejected by the administrators.

On the prospect of Whyte having influence on who buys his shares, Smith added: “It is quite amazing to see it in front of you, that you can put a club into administration and then you have a say as to where it is going to go in the future.”

A Scottish Football Association disciplinary case against Rangers and Whyte has been adjourned until next month. Between them Rangers and Whyte are alleged to have made seven breaches of the association’s regulations. It will now be heard on 17, 18 and 20 April.

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(In the News : for Total Football Club, the team management and organiser website.)

This article titled “Stuart Pearce making plans as though he will be England manager” was written by Daniel Taylor, for The Guardian on Wednesday 28th March 2012 21.59 UTC

Stuart Pearce is increasingly immersing himself in the role of England manager and has stepped up the process of identifying the players he wants to take to Euro 2012 if the Football Association decides to keep him in the job for the summer tournament.

Pearce has taken it upon himself to initiate a series of meetings with Premier League managers to discuss the form and fitness of some of the players he intends to take to Poland and Ukraine now he has been led to believe there is a chance he may get the job.

He has also been prominently involved in the FA sending a letter to all the players who have been involved in England squads for the past 18 months and are still available for selection. The letter tells them they are under consideration and gives them a brief outline of the dates they need to keep clear for the tournament and its buildup.

While Harry Redknapp is still the overwhelming favourite to take the job, Pearce is planning for the role with two possible scenarios in mind. The first is that he gets the job as Fabio Capello’s replacement on the back of his work so far, and the second is that he names the squad and another manager, in the words of the FA executive Sir Trevor Brooking, is “parachuted in” shortly before the tournament starts. Either way, he is going about his business on the basis that it will be him who decides which players make the cut.

Pearce, who replaced Capello for the 3-2 friendly defeat against Holland at Wembley last month, has also stepped up his scouting of the players he would involve. Whereas he would usually watch matches specifically to look at players for the England Under-21s, he was at Chelsea’s game against Tottenham Hotspur last Saturday and will be at White Hart Lane on Sunday to see Redknapp’s team again, this time when they play Swansea City.

It is an unusual set of circumstances, with Pearce effectively keeping tabs on a number of players Redknapp will know far better. However, Pearce feels it necessary in case it is left to him to name the squad. The FA have made it clear they will not make their move for Capello’s successor until the tail-end of the season and, until the decision is confirmed, the former England left-back is determined to prepare meticulously.

This has already incorporated changing the warm-up programme Capello had put in place, making recommendations for the operational side and even going as far as arranging a penalty shoot-out in training before the Holland match, so he could begin the process of working out the best men for the job should it be needed this summer.

His preparations will also see him take in Monday’s game between Blackburn Rovers and Manchester United, specifically so he can assess the form of the players in Sir Alex Ferguson’s squad who are likely to be involved for England.

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This article titled “Arsène Wenger says Arsenal’s Jack Wilshere should be fit for Euro 2012″ was written by Paul Doyle, for The Guardian on Friday 23rd March 2012 22.30 UTC

Jack Wilshere is on course to give Arsenal and England a major boost by returning from injury in time for the Premier League run-in and the summer’s European Championship. It was previously feared that the midfielder would be unable to play again until next season but Arsène Wenger has revealed that, if the 20-year-old’s recovery continues to progress at the present rate, he should be available for selection in about five weeks.

Wenger, whose team host Aston Villa on Saturday, said: “He is not back training with the squad yet but he is back with the ball and that is a huge step because the work we do with the ball is quite demanding. Now we can say that if all goes well, then in three weeks he can be back in full training with the squad and then it will take another two weeks to get fully fit. I think he will play this season if he has no setback. The last scan was positive so he should be capable of playing.”

Wilshere has not played a match since appearing for England against Switzerland last June at the end of his breakthrough senior season. Wenger warned at the time that the strain of that campaign had taken its toll and successfully lobbied for him to be withdrawn from the England squad for last summer’s Under-21 European Championship, but Wilshere subsequently broke down with a stress fracture of the ankle during pre-season training with Arsenal. He was expected to return from that around February but injured the same ankle again in late January, and his hopes of featuring this season appeared to have vanished.

That was a powerful blow to club and country, since in the course of last season Wilshere established himself as a player whose influence exceeded his years. Accordingly, the prospect of him returning to competitive action in time to feature in the business end of the domestic season and Euro 2012 will delight Arsenal and England supporters.

While declaring Wilshere’s return an imminent probability, Wenger is wary of putting too much pressure on the player. The manager said Arsenal will only field him if they are convinced he has regained full fitness and that if he has not featured for his club before the end of the season, then England should not consider calling him up for the Euros.

“That is a decision that, fortunately, I will not have to make,” said Wenger of a potential international call-up for his player. “I will only intervene if I believe medically he is at risk. If he has played some games before the end of the season for us, then it is a possibility. If he has not played before the end of the season, then I don’t think it is realistic. The next three weeks will decide how he progresses.” We have gone for a very cautious attitude with him – I will not force him into training with any pain so we might have to be slower than expected. I say three weeks to go back to full training with the squad but that is not sure. It all depends on how well he develops.”

Wenger added that if Wilshere is summoned for international duty in the summer, Arsenal would prefer he play in Euro 2012 rather than the Olympic Games, as the timing of the latter “destroys the start of our season”.

Wenger’s other plans for next season are well advanced, as he explained he hopes to conclude his transfer activity earlier than they did for the current campaign, when they had to scramble to sign three multi-million pound recruits on deadline day. “Last year was terrible for us because we finished on 31 August at five minutes to midnight and we do not want to repeat that. Quantity-wise we will not do a lot [this summer]. Quality-wise certainly and we will take a gamble if we find top quality.”

He expects to conclude the signing of the German striker Lukas Podolski from Köln but would not say how close the deal is to being done. “I would like to see it completed sooner rather than later because the speed at which deals are done is important,” said Wenger, who denied reports that striker has already passed a medical at the club.

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This article titled “Five talking points from Manchester City 2-1 Chelsea” was written by Jamie Jackson at the Etihad Stadium, for The Guardian on Wednesday 21st March 2012 21.56 UTC

1: Is Balotelli most under threat from Tevez?

Mario Balotelli could lay his 15 goals in 29 City appearances on the table against Sergio Agüero’s 24 in 41 as Carlos Tevez hovered on the bench. With numbers like these Roberto Mancini would hope that the pair could fire the club all the way to a first championship in 44 years. The problem in this theory is Balotelli’s split football personality that has also acquired seven yellow cards, one red and the kind of fitful display last time out, against Sporting Lisbon, that has Mancini yanking at his hair. Handed another opportunity to make things happen, his best chance came on 29 minutes just as Tevez was warming up. A Frank Lampard howler gifted the ball to Balotelli and as he raced at Petr Cech the Etihad Stadium rose to witness him fluff his lines, managing only to make the keeper save. Taken off at the break – for reason unknown – Mancini will find it hard to bet the bank on him.

2: Torres gets nod over Drogba

The team sheet already a collector’s item for featuring Tevez among the replacements for the first time following his prolonged hiatus, Fernando Torres joining him there in the Chelsea starting XI before Didier Drogba added to the curiosity value. The opening suggested this was a good call by Robert Di Matteo, an impression that faded as the contest aged and he was substituted on 72 minutes – for Drogba – greeting his manager with a grimace as he passed on the way to the bench. The problem, as it always is with Torres, was his reliance on the premium service that he requires and which had been lacking from his colleagues – Drogba is able to thrive on the scraps offered his Spaniard competitor. Torres’s best bits could be filed under no-end-product or a finishing failure from team-mates. Early on, he created an opening for Juan Mata but his countryman blasted high; how the striker would have loved the chance himself.

3: City’s title hopes still alive

Ahead of a raucous evening here, Mancini had said: “Tonight we continue our battle to be Premier League champions. There are ten games to go and if we win them all then we finish as number one. That is, of course, easier to say than it is to achieve but when people ask me if we can do it I say, ‘Why not?’” The longer a goalless City went on and they fell behind the more the answer was the worrying disconnect between brain and sky-blue boot as passes were sprayed awry and a restlessness spread to the home faithful with Yaya Toure starting in on his familiar berating of Balotelli before he departed the piece. This had Mancini shuffling in fury and you felt the cushion of three goals might be needed to settle the place down and remind the Blue millionaires why they led the division for nearly seven months. In the end, only one was needed for a vital win.

4: Chelsea’s hopes of finishing in Champions League spot

As the festivities began Chelsea were three points behind Arsenal, who were at Everton, and just four off Tottenham Hotspur who hosted Stoke City, with this encounter against the title pretenders offering a Chelsea form barometer ahead of a run-in that now comprises Aston Villa, Wigan Athletic, Fulham, Newcastle United, Arsenal, Queens Park Rangers, Liverpool and Blackburn Rovers. City offered the greater threat in the first half and at the close, with Samir Nasri hitting the bar before the break, but in Ramires, Torres and Mata there were individual flashes of light. The problem on this showing is that the final ball required to kill teams off and gather the points needed to make up that gap can be lacking, with even Gary Cahill’s goal requiring a touch of fortune. Ahead of those challenges they can, though, still take heart at giving City a proper game.

5: Robert Di Matteo’s prospects of being long-term manager

Twelve goals for, three against and all four matches won was the interim manager’s count since taking over from André Villas-Boas as he sent out a side captained by Frank Lampard which had Mikel John Obi anchoring midfield and Torres up top. A case could be made for all three’s inclusion being throws of the dice but when Cahill’s deflected shot gave Chelsea the lead and took City towards frantic on the mood-scale the sense was that again Di Matteo was continuing to offer Roman Abramovich a convincing audition for the permanent role. Standing throughout like a diminutive doorman in the technical area, the Villas-Boas raincoat replaced by a coat of fine Italian wool, the man in black offered a hand to a verse of “There’s only one Di Matteo” from the delirious travelling support. Could his Russian owner ever begin to think the same?

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This article titled “Underdogs: The Unlikely Story of Football’s First FA Cup Heroes by Keith Dewhurst – review” was written by John Crace, for The Guardian on Wednesday 21st March 2012 14.50 UTC

Put any team from a lower division up against a premiership side in a cup competition and it’s odds on that every neutral will be cheering on the underdog. Some might call it schadenfreude, but most would prefer to see it as something more noble: the embodiment of the British sense of sporting fair play born out of the Corinthian spirit of the upper classes. Keith Dewhurst doesn’t deny that the origins of footballing underdogs can be traced back to the playing fields of Eton, but he does deny the romance: far from being a sporting version of noblesse oblige, generously donated to the masses to be handed down from generation to generation, it’s just a variant expression of class warfare.

In 1879, Darwen, a football team made up of cotton mill workers from a small town near Blackburn, Lancashire, were drawn against the Remnants, a Berkshire club for the well-off gentleman amateur, in the third round of the FA Cup. And beat them, in what was football’s first recorded act of giant-killing. Darwen’s reward was a quarter-final against Old Etonians, finalists in 1875 and 1876 and hot favourites to win the competition – they had three England internationals in their team. If ever a game symbolised a sport in transition – rich versus poor, the old order against the new, the well-fed against the hungry (the Old Etonians were man for man two or three inches taller than the Darwen team and more than a stone heavier) – this was it.

It seems never to have occurred to the Old Etonians that they might be beaten. The game was to be played at the Kennington Oval in London, so most of the team appear to have imagined all that was required of them was to turn up for a gentle kick-about before returning to their gentlemen’s clubs for a celebratory drink and dinner. If any of them could place Darwen on a map of England, they certainly couldn’t name a single Darwen player. More conveniently still, the game was to be played to pretty much the Old Etonians’ own rules. Even in the late 19th century, football had no single code, and teams often had to agree which laws they were playing under; everything was up for grabs – including, on occasion, the ball.

Darwen’s problems started long before kick-off. Once the excitement at being drawn to play the Old Etonians had worn off, the club had to deal with the practicalities. How was it going to afford to get to London and would their players be willing to lose money by taking time off work on Saturday morning? Some were already on short time or had been laid off due to an economic slump. A Saturday afternoon kick-off was as necessary for the players as it was for their co-workers who came along to give their support. (The Old Etonians faced no such restrictions.)

Still, a cup tie against Old Etonians was a big event for the town and money was found. Not that it initially made much difference as Darwen soon went 5-1 down. And then the unthinkable happened. The Old Etonians started to tire and Darwen came back; eventually, they equalised, and by full-time the Old Etonians were just hanging on. Most cup ties that ended in a draw went to extra time; the Old Etonian captain declined the offer of the extra 30 minutes, preferring a replay.

Nor was that the end of Old Etonian gamesmanship. The Old Etonians also declined Darwen’s offer of £40 to stage the match in Darwen – presumably once they did know where the town was, they had no desire to visit it – and instead offered the Lancastrians £25 to return to London the following weekend. The FA, as spineless then as it is now, did nothing to intervene. So once again Darwen was forced to shell out for expenses the club and its players could barely afford. The result was again a 2-2 stalemate, and once more the Old Etonians refused to travel north. For the third replay, with cash increasingly tight, Darwen travelled down on the overnight train, arriving on the morning of the game. This time they lost comprehensively.

So there was no more giant-killing in the end. Darwen may have returned to Lancashire as heroes, but it was the Old Etonians who walked away with the FA Cup. Yet something changed forever as a result of that tie. Professionalism, long regarded as anathema, slowly became the norm, and the entitlement of the amateur elite was eroded as football’s working-class roots took hold.

Not that it was all straightforward. There were a great many detours and dead ends along the way. But, as with the game itself, this book rewards those who stick with it. For some readers there will be a sense of déjà vu in learning that the game was as riddled with self-interest 150 years ago as it is now, but for all there will be that most joyous of contradictions in wondering how the most simple and beautiful of games can get so complicated and messy.

John Crace’s Vertigo: One Football Fan’s Fear of Success is published by Constable.

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This article titled “Lionel Messi’s achievements beyond exaggeration as another record goes” was written by Sid Lowe, for guardian.co.uk on Wednesday 21st March 2012 18.34 UTC

The first meeting Lionel Messi ever had with Pep Guardiola ended on a promise. “With me,” the new Barcelona coach said, “you’ll score three or four goals a game.” Guardiola exaggerated for effect; the ridiculous thing is that he was not that far wrong. Leo Messi scored another hat-trick on Tuesday night. It came just a fortnight after he became the first ever player to score five in a Champions League match, and it was the 18th hat-trick of his career. Eighteen is a record. Another one.

Messi’s three took him past César Rodríguez as Barcelona’s all-time top scorer. Some question the validity of the record, because Paulino Alcántara – the man they called Romperredes, the net buster – got more. The problem is that Alcántara’s goals, scored in competitions like the Catalan Championship between 1912 and 1927, are not classed as official; the solution is that Messi will probably end up breaking his 364-goal tally anyway. He has broken every other record going. He now has 234 official goals for Barcelona. He is 24.

Messi’s goalscoring record was good before: he had scored 24 league goals in two injury-hit seasons between 2006 and 2008, averaging close to a goal every other start. But since Guardiola arrived the statistics have been barely believable. They have also been getting better. Thirty-eight in all competitions in 2008-09; 47 in 2009-10; 53 in 2010-11; 54 already this season. And it is not over yet: for Barcelona, there are still at least 13 games to go this season.

“If he carries on like this he will set records that no one will ever break, ever again,” Guardiola said. “And he doesn’t just score goles, he scores golazos.” He doesn’t just score goals, he gets assists too: 11, 10, 18 and 13 (with two months left) in the league in each of the last four seasons.

There was a nice symmetry about the goal that took Messi past César’s record. Controlling the ball with his first touch, he lobbed gently it over the goalkeeper and into the net: it was impossible not to be reminded of the very first he got for Barcelona against Albacete, at the same end. Recently, Messi has developed a taste for lobs. Of his 234 goals, 184 came with his left foot, 38 with his right, 10 with his head, one with his hand and one with his chest – or his heart, as Barcelona fans prefer it. His 222nd, 224th, and 231st all arrived the same way as the 233rd – with lobs.

Flashy? Not at all, insists Guardiola. “If there is a player who plays with zero adornments, it is Leo,” he said, “I’ve never seen a stepover from him, or a [pointless] flick: he is the ultimate in effectiveness.”

There is a simplicity about Messi’s brilliance; a relentlessness too. If it feels like he has been talked about a lot recently it is because he has broken long-standing milestones, that oblige you to stop and take a look: last week he became the youngest player ever to reach 150 goals in La Liga. Yet what the consistency of his brilliance actually achieves much of the time is to make the extraordinary routine. Just another wonderful Messi goal: like walking past a thousand-year old ruin in Rome that, picked up and placed in Milton Keynes would have them rushing from miles around, and in the Eternal City hardly even gets noticed.

Besides, there is another problem. “I am sorry for those who have designs on the throne, but Messi is absolutely the best,” Guardiola said. The Barcelona coach even likened him to Michael Jordan – a player capable of dominating his sport with ease, defining an entire era. Which is fine. But if he is so good, how can you express that? The superlatives ran out ages ago. On these pages, swearing has been tried. Or perhaps a symbol, something to signify that we have gone beyond words now.

“Don’t write about him, don’t try to describe him,” Guardiola quite rightly said, “watch him.”

Watch him and watch those numbers and their inexorable rise. The statistics are almost surreal, utterly stupid. They belong to a different era. He is on course to be the Champions League’s top scorer for a fourth consecutive season. Last year he equalled the competition’s best ever tally; he needs one to surpass it this year. He has already scored more goals in a season than anyone else in Spanish history. And who would bet against that 54 becoming 60 or more? At 24, in his eight seasons, Messi’s record is better than the very best. At this stage, Maradona had 196, Ronaldo 153, Henry 226, Cruyff 229 and Charlton 133. George Best got 179 in 11 seasons.

No one had as many trophies at this stage of their career either: Messi has 18. He has earned them: he scored in the final of the Copa del Rey, twice scored in the final of World Club Championships and twice scored in the Champions League final. Twice. Tuesday night was only a league game and his victims were only Granada. It might have been just another hat-trick except that it took him to 234 official goals for Barcelona. More, at 24, than anyone else has ever scored.

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