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| Well that's handball surely? |
Welcome to a special edition of ‘On the Attack’ this week,
as the football season draws ever closer, there is plenty of material to focus
on and so we have given the 11 aside game its own little page on The Sporting Hack.
The ‘regular’
#tshontheattack will follow shortly with news and views from the rest of
the sports world.
France’s 3-0 defeat over England’s women in Sweden yesterday
knocked the three lions out of Euro 2013 in what was a poor campaign for Hope
Powell’s side. It caps a dismal summer for all parties at FA headquarters after
England’s men's under 21’s and under 20’s sides were knocked out of European
and World Cup competitions respectively – none of the trio managed a single
victory. Stuart Pearce (U21’s) paid the price for losing all three group games
in Israel and was duly sacked by the FA and it would not be a surprise to see
Powell either jump, or be pushed, following a fifteen year spell in charge. We all
know about the millions of pounds ploughed in to the national game, but in a
results based business and maybe its not just the head coaches who should be
fired, but some of those above.
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| Perhaps the warning signs were there for Wayne... |
Welcome to Manchester United, David Moyes. What an
introduction for Sir Alex Ferguson’s successor who has walked in to a long
running ‘beneath-the-surface’ feud between Wayne Rooney and the club. Rooney,
or at least his agent, is not daft; they know how to turn this situation to
their advantage and know that if United don’t meet his demands then someone
else will. It’s sheer, utter greed, of course it is, but that’s the business of
professional football. Chelsea’s predatory boss, Jose Mourinho is eyeing Rooney
up as his “only target” and has played the situation beautifully, as you might
expect. Mourinho’s sharpness is only countered by the honest nature of Moyes,
who has bluntly stated that Rooney will play second fiddle to Robin van Persie.
Expect Rooney to be donning the Blues shirt very soon and Mourinho to outwit
many more Premier League managers this season.
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| Ears wide shut: Blatter |
And so to the man who frankly doesn’t give a damn: FIFA
president Sepp Blatter. It seems that when FIFA voted to award the 2022 World
Cup tournament to Qatar, it forget to take one very imp
ortant factor in to
account; the health and wellbeing of the players on show. Temperatures in the
summer months in the middle-east can reach a toasty 50˚C sometimes but the
world body thought that they could conquer this by building air-conditioned
stadiums. This has proved not to be the case, and though Blatter had stuck to
maintaining a summer tournament, he has now had a change of heart. It could present
a lot of disruption for mainly European leagues, who provide the bulk of the
participants. Perhaps former Blackpool boss
Ian Holloway’s expression at a
press conference some three years ago, can do more justice than we can.
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