Football

Roddy Forsyth deserves our congratulations for revealing this: One of the unforeseen consequences of Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi's incarceration in Greenock Prison was that, by his own account, in whiling away the hours by watching live football on the now-defunct Setanta network he became a Rangers supporter. No surprise that a man convicted of the worst terrorist atrocity in British history would forsake his local team - Morton - to support one of the Gruesome Twosome*. He and Rangers deserve one another. This, mind you, could run and run.

Left Back in the Changing Room and More than Mind Games have already commented on Simon Kuper's* article in the FT that argues that football managers have no real impact on their teams' fortunes. But that doesn't mean I can't have a say too! Kuper writes: The obsession with football managers is misguided. Hardly any of them make any difference to results. The institution of manager is something of a con-trick. Ferguson and Ancelotti are best understood as marketing tools. The fact is that players’ salaries alone almost entirely determine football results. Stefan Szymanski, economics professor at Cass Business School, studied the spending of 40 English clubs between 1978 and 1997, and found that their spending on salaries explained 92 per cent of their variation in league position.

Sir Bobby Robson's death yesterday left one wondering just what has happened to English football management. Or, to be more precise, what has happened to English football managers? Of the top ten sides in last year's Premiership just two - Fulham and Tottenham - were led by Englishmen and in the last 25 years Howard Kendall (Everton) and Howard Wilkinson (Leeds) have been the only Englishmen to helm Championship winning sides. What happened? True, Alex Ferguson has had a lot to do with this, while Arsene Wenger's residency at Arsenal has prevented another of the top jobs from coming open.

Like any sensible person, I shall be supporting Barcelona this evening, even if that does also require one to endorse the insufferable Thierry Henry. Nonetheless, give me wee Lionel Messi over Christiano Ronaldo any and every day. Alas, I fear the worst and suspect that Manchester United will prevail and that they may do so more comfortably than might be expected. Not that I have too much against United, even if Sir Alex Ferguson did once, inexplicably, scoff at my suggestion* that he could only further secure "legend" status by returning to Scotland and guiding Heart of Midlothian to their first league championship since 1960. Anyway, consider this an open thread or whatnot for your theories on the final. *Made, if mermory serves, in Eamonn Doran's nightclub in Dublin, circa 1996.

Jim Henley had a great post a while back naming names and shaming those people who blog too much. As Jim rightly put it, these days you need to be a professional blog reader just to keep up. On the other hand, there are those people who don't blog nearly enough. My friend Kerry Howley is one. Blimpish is another. And so is James Hamilton, whose More than Mind Games has been in a kind of extended winter break for some time. Happily, however, there are signs of the green shoots of bloggy recovery. Happily James is back to remind us how grateful we should be that Barcelona did the entire continent a favour by knocking Chelsea out of the Champions League last night: And Chelsea were robbed. There’s no doubt that the tie was theirs on balance.

So, Scotland host Iceland tonight in the latest "crucial" World Cup qualifier. The loser will have almost no chance of making it to South Africa so tonight's tussle is effectively an elimination contest. Just as importantly, the losers will assume the official, undisputed title of Worlds' Worst Bankers. The Scotsman's David Maddox runs through the line-ups here. Given the importance of the occasion it was reasuring to see the Scotland skipper prepare for the match in traditional style  - by getting bladdered in what the Daily Record called a "marathon booze session" after the team returned to their Loch Lomond HQ following Saturday's 3-0 drubbing by the Dutch. Anyway, consider this an open thread to discuss the World Cup and other football-related matters.

Lord knows, we all blunder from time to time. Still, this is pretty impressive: "Each year, in my last Economic View before Christmas, I try to shed some light on economic events of the previous 12 months by comparing what has actually happened with expectations published here in early January. This year, even more than usual, reading back through January's predictions has been a shock. Almost all have turned out to be wrong". Anatole Kaletsky, The Times, 18/12/06."My last article of every year looks back on the predictions I made in early January to shed some light on the economic and financial events of the previous 12 months. This tends to be a humbling experience, and this year it is even more so than usual." Anatole Kaletsky, The Times, 31/12/07.

Small guest-posting at The Plank on taxpayers' football. We have Newcastle United and Northern Rock, the Americans get AIG and Manchester United. Sums up the "Special Relationship", you might say... [Link corrected.

More evidence emerges that England selected the right man when they asked Fabio Capello to rescue their football team. From the Times today: On another issue - Wayne Rooney's smoking habit - Capello was curiously indifferent, a stance that brought out sweat beads on the foreheads of his FA employers, fearful of their manager unwittingly being cast as the spokesman for a generation of English butt-heads. Capello later returned to clarify his position and the moral guardians were headed off at the pass... Capello's lack of interest in making a judgment revealed that the difference between football people in Europe and Britain is not merely a matter of tactics or technique. The fact is, smoking is not seen as the great taboo for a sportsman abroad that it is here.

There's no need for the Scottish football league to kick-off on Saturday. Cancel it. The season can't* get better or more more amusing than this. *OK, it can. It would be too perfect, even too much to hope for, if Celtic were also turfed out of europe in their first match. Ah, sweet, sweet schadenfreude how I love you so...

James Hamilton from the superb (if infuriatingly-often-on-hiatus) football blog More than Mind Games has a question that merits pondering: If you had to name one player who, in your opinion, epitomised the history of English football (not necessarily its ethos or its greatest moment or its values), who would that be? He doesn’t have to be English, but he does have to exemplify the way the game has developed in England. Good question! One that will take time to answer. In the same vein, then, using the same rules, which player could most reasonably be considered the epitomy of Scottish football? Or Italian?

The New Republic, America's most football-friendly political magazine, asked me to write something mean about the Germans: Today's question then, is: Does Germany's record in international soccer confirm: (a) the absence of God, (b) the capriciousness of justice, or (c) the futility of romance? Or: (d) all of the above? Full piece here. Prieviously, in a more generous mood, I defended David Beckham for TNR here.

Euro 2008 starts today and happily we're spared the agony of watching Scotland play. The BBC are doing their best to persuade us that even a tournament "without England" might be worth watching even though most sentient people appreciate that England's failure to qualify actually enhances the tournament, especially for the TV viewer who might have an increased chance of intelligent, astute, imaginative, perceptive TV coverage. Not so fast my friends! Here's the BBC's Gary Lineker explaining why he thinks Spain can win the tournament: It is open, but I am going for those perennial underachievers in Spain...the feeling is that [the] team chokes, but they have done well in sports like golf and motor racing where they have shown they have the bottle.