Couchsurfing RIP

Hello y'all. Very unrelated to football, but those of you who know me will know that couchsurfing.com meant a lot to me. This morning almost a hundred thousand of us were informed that it is no more- link. Anyone who ever hosted me or i hosted, please get in touch. This is not the end (trigger pheonix from the flames).

Football Philosophy

So, this is my first ever drunk blog. i really am pissed, and yet dominating this keyboard...awesome. probably gonna regret this. As the byproduct iof the particularly drunken conversaTION i have just been having, i have had the following epiphany..........

to be a successful footballing nation you need the requisite ammounts of the following ingredients...ie they all need to balance out at about 7 out of 10. you'll understand in a minute.

1) Demographics
law of averages..the more people you have, the more likely you are to produce a footballing genius.

2)Economics
pump enough money into something and it has more chance of succeeding

3)Enthusiasm
if you want something bad enough you can get it

4) physicality
football is a sport. these days you need to be smehting pretty special if you aren't physically strong.

Now, as you are all screaming out...these are all gargantuan generalities..but my point is that you need a balance of the four. Trinidad's demographic deficiency is made up by their physicality and enthusiasm. China are currently not that good because their lack of natural physicality renders their demographicd, economic input and enthusiasm redundant. Brazil are amazing because their physicality, enthusiasma and demographics vastly outweigh their lack of economic input, whcih proportionaly is still pretty good.

so, to be a succesful footballing nation you need a balnce of the four. What do you lot think?..i genuinely want to know...

Ribery to do an Owen?

Whilst in Marseille the other night (darling) i saw the French team almost slip up against oriental upstarts China. For anyone who didn't watch the game, do not be fooled by the result...had a Chniese player not scored a hillarious own goal in the 90th minute the match would have finished 1-1, Henry's goal a minute later was meaningless.

However, I wish not to comment on France's near humiliation, nor on the recent penchent of international teams to play a bunch of absolute arse pre-tournament to boost morale (Luxembourg got twatted by both Germany and Portugal, whose previous opponents were the Cape Verde Islands, England destroyed Jamaica etc...)..but instead of a young Mr Frank Ribery.

France's starting midfield last night was Malouda, Zidane, Vieira and Makalele...can anyone spot the problem? Two holding midfielders require either two attacking wingers infront of them, or an attacking midfielder and two wingers (like Chelsea). So then lets see...Malouda did the bit on the left, but Zidane has never been a winger, so barely bothered going wide, leaving France's only threat from the right as Willy Sangol...it was all a bit akward, and cocequently rubbish. Then Ribery came on, filled in the gaps that Zidane was only filling half of, and was the key force behind France's last two goals.

Rather like Hoddle's conundrum with Beckham and Owen in 1998, Domenech has to drop favourites to get Ribery in...either Zidane straight up, or one of Makalele or Vieira to make the midfield a diamond with Ribery on the right- what i would have thought is the best solution. Either way, France's midfield is a bugger to pick. Maybe then Guilly's exclusion was merely to spare a further headache! (And it seems our left-wing problem has headed south, as with the only natural left foot in the squad- as my hon. freind Johnny pointed out- Maloudiocre is the only one who's place is semi-guaranteed.)

Whatever Domenech decides, Ribery looks shit hot, and i predict him to shine when he plays. I also predict him to be an arsenal player next year, he had Arsenal written all over him...quick passer and runner, direct, seemed to flourish on the break, linked up nicely with Sir Thierry etc...watch this space.