The shockwaves of the 2008-2009 season are being felt in some European leagues as the season ended in most nations on the weekend. Some major and minor moves have already been made, and if you don’t keep up with them now, you may not know who’s who when next season starts.

First of all, Celtic manager Gordon Strachan quit his job after the last game on Sunday as Celtic could only muster a draw at home to Hearts. This meant their quest for a fourth straight Scottish Premier league title was over and arch enemy and cross town rivals Rangers won the league. This move may prove that Strachan has some ulterior motives as it’s been rumoured he will take over at English Premier League team Sunderland as their manager Ricky Sbragia also quit after the last game, a 3-2 loss at home to Chelsea. But despite Sragbia appearing to be clueless by leaving his top league scorer Djibril Cisse on the bench again, Sunderland managed to stay up. And speaking of  Cisse, it’s no surprise that his contract won’t be renewed and he’ll be on the move soon.

Aberdeen manager Jimmy Calderwood also quit after guiding the SPL club to a Europa League spot next season.





Up in Newcastle, it appears that interim manager Alan Shearer may be ready to sign a four year deal to take over the just-relegated Geordies. The contract appears to be way too long for a team with Newcastle’s recent problems, especially for an unproven manager. Start off with a two-year deal and see how it goes. What’s the rush?

Aston Villa will also try to resign Gareth Barry, who has a year to go on his contract with the Birmingham club.

In Holland, Dutch giants Ajax Amsterdam grabbed manager Martin Jol from fifth-place German Bundesliga club SV Hamburg and signed him to a three-year contract.  Ajax manager Marco van Basten resigned after missing out on a Champions league spot.

In other Bundesliga news, Stuttgart striker Mario Gomez will sign with Bayern Munich in a deal that could make him the most expensive Bundesliga player ever. Both teams and Gomez said they have agreed to a deal that could be worth about €30m. If true, it would be the biggest in German league history. Werder Bremen just raked in some serious coin though as they sold Brazilian playmaker Diego to Juventus for €24.5m. Also, injured striker Vedad Ibisevic has extended his contract with Hoffenheim until 2013.

In France, where there’s still one game left in the season, former Brazilian midfielder Juninho will leave Olympique Lyon at the end of the season. He has won seven Ligue 1 titles with Lyon. The 34-year-old will be let go for free even though he had a year left on his contract. He is suspended for the last game so he’s already played his last match withn the team.

There’s also a game left in Italy, but AC Milan manager Carlo Ancelotti has said he will remain with the club if he’s asked to. It’s been widely rumoured that he’ll be heading over to Chelsea in England at the and of the season when interim manger Guus Hiddink leaves London and heads back to managing the Russian national team.

Inter Milan boss Jose Mourinho signed an extension to stay with the team until 2012 after guiding them to the title this year.

In Greece, Olympiakos has hired former Newcastle player Temuri Ketsbaia is their new manager.

And in Russia, former CSKA Moscow manager Valery Gazzayev has been appointed hired to lead Dynamo Kiev.

According to a report by media giants CNN, the richest match in all of football took place at Wembley Stadium in England, yesterday (May 25th). The game featured Championship League teams Burnley and Sheffield United squaring off in a playoff match to see who would go up to the Premier League next season. Burnley won the game 1-0 on a fantastic goal by Wade Elliot in the 13th minute. Sheffield tried to mount a comeback even after controversial referee Mike Dean had reduced them to 10 men in the 80th minute when Jamie Ward was sent off for his second handball. The game wasn’t bad, but I guess the big story here is how much this match can mean financially to the winner. It’s estimated that the windfall from being promoted to the Premiership can mean as much as 100 million American dollars. This is a lot more than any American Superbowl and World Cup final can bring in. Actually, international accountancy company Deloitte list the English Championship play off final as the richest single match in any sport.

Burnley will rake in $53 million towards next football coming season as well as a minimum of $18 million in each of the following two seasons. The Sport Business group at Deloitte stated that the difference between the $100 million that the winner gets and what the losing team earns is greater than in any other single event of any sport. But where does all of this money come from and who supplies it you may ask. Well, the biggest amount of cash comes from the unbelievable tv deal that the Premier League has. The TV rights for the 2010-2013 seasons are worth a record $2.70 billion (£1.782b). When you split that up into 20 teams, you’re looking at a sizeable amount of cash.






A study in 2008 showed that the winner of the Champions League could earn as much as $149 million (€110m), but the actual difference between winning the Champions League and losing it was only about $6m. So basically, making it to the final is the trick in the Champions League, once you’re there, you’re guaranteed of a pretty decent payoff either way. But in the Burnley vs Sheffield playoff yesterday, there was so much more riding on the game as you had to win it to get the financial rewards. There’s a hell of a lot more riding on the game and the pressure can probably get to some players. That’s why each play and referee’s decision is so important during the championship playoff. It’s sort of like a boxing match where winner takes all. Burnley should actually see its bank account swell from a lot more than just TV money, as it’s a given that their gates will grow along with season ticket sales and kit sales. Various advertising and sponsorship revenue should also go up as well. This is why it’s so important to remain in the Premier League and why bad mangers are costing owners more than just points in the standings.

However, any teams that do get relegated will still receive the guaranteed payment of $18m for two further seasons. But that’s nothing compared to the money to be made in the top flight. You need to still have a good management plan and development system in place for this money to do you any good though. If you just go out and spend it on players and then sit them on the bench, it’s being wasted. Out of all the play off game winners in the last decade, only West Ham, Bolton, and Hull City are still in the Premiership, and in Hull’s case, just barely. In fact, West Ham and Bolton are no world beaters either. While the money certainly helps, it’s no guarantee that you’re going to stay up in the top division, it has to be  spent wisely, but it appears that 70 per cent of newcomers to the Premier League haven’t figured this out yet.

It’s not really hard to figure out why Middlesbrough, West Brom, and Newcastle are all going down to the Championship League next season and why Sunderland and Hull came perilously close to being relegated. Not one of those five teams managed to pull out a win on the last day of the season when their Premier League lives depended on it.

Hull lost to a second string Manchester United side at home 1-0 and I’m thinking if they can’t beat a weakened Manchester side that’s full of kids, at home, when they’re fighting for survival, then is there really any point of them being in the Premier League?

Newcastle was just as bad. They had a pretty decent first half against Aston Villa, but were down 1-0 at half time on an unlucky break when Gareth Barry’s shot bounced off of Damien Duff and behind keeper Steve Harper in the 38th minute. But Newcastle came out as flat as a pancake in the second half and with Hull losing, they only needed a draw to stay up.

They were so bad they didn’t even get a shot on net in the second half. Acting manager Alan Shearer didn’t bring Michael Owen on until the 67th minute and took off striker Mark Viduka for Shola Ameobi with 15 minutes to go. Not very bright I must say when you’re looking for a goal to stay up.

Middlesbrough was relegated after losing 2-1 at West Ham. The Londoners went up 1-0 through Carlton Cole in the 33rd minute only to have Gary O’Neil tie things up for Boro five minutes into the second half. However eight minutes after that, the inevitable happened and Junior Stanislas put woeful Middlesbrough out of their misery and officially sent them down.

West Brom managed to get a point at Blackburn as they played to a 0-0 draw. It was irrelevant though, as their fate was already sealed last weekend and they were the first team relegated and ended dead last in the league with a worse goal difference than Middlesbrough.

Sunderland had luck on their side as the other results meant they could lose and still stay up, and of course lose they did. Over 42,000 came to the Stadium of Light to see their heroes go down 3-2 to Chelsea. Kenwyne Jones scored for Sunderland in the 90th minute to make the score look respectable.

Again, Sunderland manager Ricky Sbragia disrespected the paying fans and the players by leaving the team’s top scorer Djibril Cisse on the bench, this time for the whole game. At least against Portsmouth last Monday he gave him a whole nine minutes of playing time.

It’s no wonder that world-class players like Cisse leave teams like Sunderland when they are heads and tails above everybody else on the team in skill, but are left on the bench to watch inferior players struggle. Sbragia quit his job after the game and it was the best move he’s made all season, believe me.

Liverpool beat Spurs 3-1 to end up in second place with 86 points. Chelsea end up in third with 83 and Arsenal, who beat Stoke 4-1, come in fourth with 72 points and grab the Champions League qualifying spot for next season. Everton won 2-0 at Fulham and grab a Europa League spot with 63 points, while Villa at 62 points also make Europa, as do Fulham, with 53 points.

If there was ever a football manager who’s living on past glory, it’s got to be current Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez. This guy is basically the one-hit-wonder of football. He’s still milking the 2005 European Champions League victory in Istanbul, where his team managed to overcome a 3-0 half time deficit to AC Milan and beat them in penalty kicks.

However, even this victory is hollow. It’s comparable to Milli Vanilli winning a Grammy award, only to find out it was somebody else who did the actual work while they lip-synched. If you recall back in 2005, Benitez, as usual, sat two of his best players at the time (Dietar Hamann and Igor Biscan) on the bench when the final kicked off and paid for it very quickly. It didn’t take Milan long to totally outclass Liverpool and expose Benitez’s lack of sensible tactics, by building a 3-0 lead by the 44th minute.

It was in the second half when Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard took it upon himself to grab the squad by the scruff of the neck and single handedly turned the game around by putting in one of the best performances seen on a football pitch in decades. To hell with the lip-syncher Benitez and his tactics, Gerrard knew what his teammates were capable of and didn’t want to see the opportunity of glory go down the drain…and of course it didn’t.

Benitez, who was clueless and down 3-0 in Istanbul, should be giving Gerrard half of his paycheque every week, because if it wasn’t for his skipper, he’d still be a nobody. In fact, winning the Champions League back then in 2005, was probably one of the worst things that could have happened to the club as Benitez was revered as some sort of genius and rewarded with contract extensions. The club and its fans have been paying for it ever since with a trophy haul of just one FA Cup in 2006.

While this year’s Liverpool squad was probably good enough to take the English Premier League, it was definitely a case of too little too late for The Reds. Granted, they finished runners up, but who cares? Nobody’s going to remember the second place team years from now.

The problem now is Benitez is showing his true colours and refuses to congratulate Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United on a job well done. He lays the blame everywhere but himself for the club failing to win the League again for the 18th year in a row.

He even had the audacity to suggest Liverpool would have won the League if Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard had been healthy all season long, but fails to explain why he often left both of them on the bench when they were healthy, or substituted them during games they needed to win.

Benitez likes to take credit for beating Manchester United twice this season and figures his club was the league’s best because they did. But again, he’s nowhere to be seen when the topic of his team’s uninspired home draws to the likes of Stoke and Fulham are brought up. Where were his brilliant tactics then? He should also take full responsibility of blowing the Robbie Keane transfer deal by costing his owners millions and alienating a pretty decent striker when his team was dropping points week after week in scoreless draws.

All this guy has proven to me ever since he’s been in charge of Liverpool is that he is the most overrated and overpaid manager I have ever seen in football. I’m afraid Liverpool supporters are never going to celebrate a Premier League title until Sir Alex Ferguson retires, or Benitez is given the boot… and when he is, it’s going to cost the club millions more to get rid of him and his ridiculous contract.

Italian Serie A team Juventus fired manager Claudio Ranieri with only two games to go in the season and replaced him with former player Ciro Ferrara. Juventus is only a point in front of fourth-place Fiorentina and could still miss out on the automatic Champions League berth for next year after going winless in their last seven league games.

Ranieri took over from Didier Deschamps in 2007 when the Turin team was promoted back to Serie A after being demoted to the second division for match-fixing. Club chief executive Jean Claude Blanc said Ferrara’s appointment is for the last two games of the year.

“The next two games are our future,” Blanc said at a news conference. “It is not our style, but we cannot miss out on Europe. We wanted to shock the players so they’d take the right path with the right man at the right moment.”

Ferrara was a famous centre-back for Juventus, and is also an assistant to Italian coach and ex-Juventus manager Marcello Lippi, but this will be his first time managing a club on his own.

Juventus finished in third place last season and beat Spanish side Real Madrid home and away in the Champions League, but their winless streak has shown no signs of ending. They are currently three points behind second-placed AC Milan.

Over in England, Manchester United defender Nemanja Vidic said he was surprised to be named the club’s player of the year by his team mates and the club’s fans. The 27-year-old Serbian international won both awards for his fine play alongside Rio Ferdinand in the centre of United’s defence this season.

Vidic, who moved to United from Spartak Moscow three years ago, has been an important figure in Manchester’s Premier League triumph and their run to the Champions League final.

“It’s a great night for me,” he said on Manchester United TV. “It has been a really good year. I am surprised I got it but I have really enjoyed it.”

Vidic also chipped in with a few goals this year and scored the opening goal in United’s 2-0 second-round second-leg win over Inter Milan in the Champions League.

“To be honest I don’t have so many individual awards,” Vidic added. “That’s why I am a bit confused and my speech is not the best. Next time my speech will be a bit better.”

Meanwhile, United keeper Ben Foster will be out of action for the next nine weeks after undergoing surgery to repair a ruptured ligament in his thumb. This means he will certainly miss the Champion League Final against Barcelona in Rome on May 27.

The 26-year-old will also miss the last match of the season against Hull City, along with England’s World Cup qualifiers against Kazakhstan, and Andorra on June 6th and 10th.

Dutch goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar was scheduled to start against Barcelona on May 27 anyway, but Foster hoped to be on the bench for the cup final.

United manager Sir Alex Ferguson stated: “It is big blow for Ben as not only will he miss the Champions League final but also England’s summer internationals. Ben has tried to continue the season with this injury but it got so critical that an operation was the only way forward.”

Foster has been injury prone at United since being loaned out twice to Watford. He has also had major knee surgery and has only appeared in nine games for United this season. His biggest match was in the penalty shoot-out win against Tottenham Hotspur in the Carling Cup final.

Sunderland blew a chance to stay in the English Premier League today (May 18) as they lost 3-1 at Portsmouth after taking a 1-0 lead and generally outplaying their fellow bottom-six team.

Sunderland had enough chances to put this one away early, but couldn’t beat debuting Portsmouth keeper Asmir Begovic, who was filling in for the injured David James, until the 59th minute when striker Kenwyne Jones buried a perfect low cross from the right wing. It was Sunderland’s first away goal in over three months, since they scored against Newcastle on February 1st.

The lead didn’t last long though, as John Utaka tied things up about 90 seconds later after he fought off a defender and buried a shot into the low corner. The goal came with some controversy though as the referee’s whistle could clearly be heard just before Utaka placed the ball into the net.

Phil Bardsley then scored an own goal in the 68th minute to put the home side up 2-1 after Anton Ferdinand made a mess of things in his own end and completely missed a routine long ball. Utaka got hold of it and rounded the keeper, but the unfortunate Bardsley put it into his own net in an attempt to make up for Ferdinand’s gaffe.

Now I may be missing something here, or is it just me? But Sunderland needed a win today to guarantee themselves a spot in the top flight for next year and will lose millions of pounds if they are relegated to the Championship League. But manager Ricky Sbragia left his top scorer Djibril Cisse on the bench until the 80th minute.

He gave the French speedster a whole 10 minutes to rescue the game for his woeful side and perhaps rescue the season as well. I just don’t understand for the life of me how you can go into a game as important as this one and leave your top scorer stewing on the bench. I also don’t understand how the hell managers like him get jobs in football in the first place, let alone keep them.

Cisse came close to leveling the score a couple of minutes after he came on, but Sunderland’s fate was sealed, at least on this night as Armand Traore slammed home the heartbreaker in the 88th minute.

Sunderland isn’t dead and buried yet, but they play Chelsea in the season finale on Sunday at home. However, if luck is on their side, they could get thumped in that game and still stay up if Hull loses to Manchester United and Newcastle get beat at Aston Villa.

Now, it doesn’t matter to me who goes down and who stays in the Premier, but I still can’t believe that managers like Sbragia are getting away with sitting top scorers on the bench during must-win games. They need to be held accountable for their actions and suffer repercussions from fans and upper management for their nonsensical decisions during football games. A move like that could literally cost your club a lot more than just money in the long run.

Manchester United won their record-tying, overall 18th championship today (May 16th) at Old Trafford after a 0-0 draw with Arsenal, killing any hopes of a Liverpool miracle comeback. That’s it, it’s all over for this year and it’s really pretty hard to say that it’s not deserved.

Yes, Man United may have dropped quite a few points to the likes of Liverpool and Arsenal during the course of this season, but they beat the teams they’re supposed to beat all season long instead of drawing with them, and this is basically how they earned enough points to take their 11th Premier League title. Liverpool only have themselves to blame after a series of uninspiring 0-0 draws earlier this season with some of the dregs of the league.

While United definitely didn’t look like world beaters today, they did enough against Arsenal to earn the draw and the right to celebrate. The Londoners had quite an edge in possession, but didn’t really create anything out of all the time they had the ball.

Andrei Arshavin came close for the Gunners, while Wayne Rooney almost put the home side in front with a header that just missed the post. Ronaldo saw a free kick curl just wide of the post and Cesc Fabregas slammed a shot off of the upright for Arsenal with a few minutes to go. Robin van Persie shot directly at United keeper Edwin van der Sar about a minute later and that was basically it as far as the offense went. It should also be noted that Arsenal received five yellow cards to none for United.

Though it came as no surprise really that the trophy stays at Old Trafford, it will be interesting to see who’s still around next season to defend it. Will Ronaldo still be there to lead the team in scoring, and will Carlos Tevez be hung on to as a source of energy from the bench? It appears Gary Neville may as well hang up his boots now as he’s fighting injury after injury and his recovery time is taking longer now because of his age. Wes Brown and Owen Hargreaves might as well be shipped out as well as they don’t seem to want to put in the effort to play, injured or not. They strike me as players who are perfectly satisfied in cashing their paycheques instead of working hard on their fitness, and are constantly injured because of it.

For United to improve, they need to cut the dead wood and give more playing time to youngsters such as Fabio, Rafael, Jonathan Evans, Rodrigo Possebon, Federico Macheda, goalkeeper Ben Foster, and perhaps striker Danny Welbeck. Of course, it’s hard to argue with Sir Alex Ferguson’s managerial record, but he can also show some improvement by taking every FA Cup and League Cup game seriously. He needs to at least dress his best players and have them ready on the bench just in case they’re needed, instead of leaving them at home.

With a combination of excellent depth, youth, and experience, there’s no reason United can’t hang onto the title again next year as well.