RGdot

Month: March 2019

  • 2019 Africa Cup of Nations

    The 2019 Africa Cup of Nations features 24 teams for the first time. 51 teams entered the qualification and near half have made to the tournament. It will be held in Egypt from June 21st to to July 19th. Cameroon were initially awarded the 32nd edition but due to political and infrastructure problems were stripped and the dates were also pushed back from a June 13th start due to the holy muslim month of Ramadan.

    As with every edition of the Cup controversy and lack of organization is a problem. Egypt do have the stadiums and are well suited to host, all despite the violence that has been rife in their stadiums in the recent past. Sierra Leone were disqualified after FIFA for the usual ‘government interference’ reasons. In part due to that disqualification Ghana and Kenya found an easier path to Egypt.

    Twelve groups of four competed with top two of each group qualifying. The 51 teams had been reduced to the 48 after a mini preliminary round led to the exit of Sao Tome and Principe, Mauritius and Djibouti at the hands of Madagascar, Comoros and South Sudan respectively. Somewhat surprisingly Madagascar have qualified for the final tournament after finishing second in a group that included Equatorial Guinea and Sudan.

    The full list of qualified teams is not all that surprising and although some groups threatened upsets – for example at one point South Africa tied Libya and the Seychelles to put qualification a bit in doubt – none really occurred.

    The 24 teams are divided into four pots based on their African Confederation (CAF) rankings. Six groups of four will play, top two of each group plus the four best third placed teams will qualify for the round of 16. The draw will take place on April 12 in Cairo, Egypt.

    Egypt
    Cameroon
    Ghana
    Ivory Coast 
    Tunisia
    Senegal     		Morocco
     Nigeria 
     Algeria 
     Guinea 
     Mali 
     DR Congo     		Uganda
     South Africa 
    Guinea-Bissau
     Zimbabwe 
     Angola 
     Burundi     		Mauritania
    Namibia
    Benin
    Kenya
    Madagascar
    Tanzania

  • FIFA Club World Cup

    Gianni Infantino wants World Cup and World Club Cup expansion

    FIFA has seen the money in the Champions League and has always wanted to add a potentially lucrative club competition to its assets.

    The Confederation Cup was an idea that started in 1992 and expanded to eight teams, from four, in 1997. It became a once every four years tournament taking place one year before the World Cup in the same country as the World Cup host. It became a de facto warm up for the World Cup host. Commercially it wasn’t the biggest success and FIFA has now decided to scrap it, for now at least. Scraping it presents FIFA with an opportunity to expand on its also not very successful annual FIFA Club World Cup (previously Intercontinental Cup) which had grown from two teams to six in recent seasons. The aforementioned six team tournament takes place in the middle of the European season in December and scrapping the summer Confederations Cup allows FIFA to move it to a more friendlier summer time.

    The European Club Association which represents many European clubs opposes this and doesn’t want its members to participate until at least 2024. The year is significant for the clubs because there are fixture calendar agreement until that date and any change to it are opposed by clubs. After 2024 there may or may not be an agreement for the World Club Cup, which is due to include eight European teams and eight groups of three.

    Any additions to the fixture list are an over burden and potentially dangerous for the players. As it stands the players and quality of football benefit from even less games, even as far as reducing top leagues to 18 teams, from 20.

  • Value Tracker: Messi and Ronaldo March On

    The 2018-1019 Champions League round of 16 featured more than two outstanding individual performances. Manchester City’s Leroy Sane scored one and assisted on three in City’s 7-0 win over Schalke. Two other very familiar names did better than the German international.

    Ronaldo and Messi continue their super form with a hattrick for the Portuguese and two goals and two assists for the Argentinian. Juventus and Barcelona advanced and eliminated Atletico Madrid and Lyon respectively once again mainly due to the work of the aforementioned.

    Ronaldo is 34 and Messi is 31. Both, especially the former, insist on continuing for more years to come and why not. Ronaldo has shattered records by scoring 124 times in 160 Champions League appearances. Messi is just behind and with a slightly better goals to games ratio with 108 in 131 games. The third position is held by
    Raul, the Real Madrid legend scored 71 goals in the competition. Ronaldo’s 160 appearances is second only to Iker Casillas’ 175.

    The draw for this edition’s quarter finals takes place on Friday with four English teams still in the competition, reversing a recent trend. The last time this many English teams had reached the same stage was 2008-09. That year 3 of 4 semi finalists were English but Barcelona beat Manchester United in the final.

    Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur are joined by Juventus, Ajax, Porto and Barcelona.

    ↑ Ronaldo for his continuing records
    ↑ Messi for the same

  • Value Tracker: Napoli and Dortmund

    Insigne scores but Napoli drop more points

    Teams can dominate a league, sometimes to the point of making seasons an exercise in futility for others. Whether due to financial wealth, questionable relationship with referees or just honest good management there are leagues where a team has created a sort of monopoly on titles. Some smaller countries and leagues have a dominating teams as almost a tradition.

    In the case of the Bundesliga and Germany Bayern Munich could be considered one such monopoly. Since the last time any team other than Borussia Dortmund won the league (Wolfsburg in 2009) Bayern have won 7 of 9. This season started as a chance for the others or at least Dortmund. In 2018 Jupp Heynckes retired after his fourth spell in charge of the team and Niko Kovac replaced him. His relative youth and lack of big team coaching experience had him off to a tough start and Dortmund managed by the experienced and highly rated Lucien Favre took the league by storm. But as has been often the case we sit in early March and Bayern lead the league (albeit only on goal difference). Bayern have won 9 of last 10 games while Dortmund have managed 5 wins in that span. We are on the cusp on another surrender.

    In Italy Juventus have won 7 Serie A titles in a row. The Turin champions emerged from the calciopoli imposed relegation in 2007 and rebuilt quickly. Milan won the last non-Juve title in 2011 but have faded since. Inter won with Jose Mourinho but he had long left and Inter have returned to their almost expected under achievement. Napoli are the team that have been the closest challengers in recent seasons but have faded late in the season and lost the head to head matchups. As of early March Napoli have 4 wins in last 10 while Juve have won 8 of the last 10 and lead by a whopping 18 points. That lead was 8 points late last December.

    ↓ Borussia Dortmund for failing to keep up with Bayern
    ↓ Napoli for failing to do the same with Juventus

  • Value Tracker: Manchester United & PSG

    The Champions League followed the humiliating exit of Real Madrid by the hands of the young Ajax team by producing another upset, PSG’s exit was not as big as the previous day’s but nevertheless a testament to the misguided and devious wealth in football. PSG are of course one of the mega rich teams that were bought by Qatari money and very clearly cooked the books to escape or at least hide from Financial Fair Play rules. The football leaks revelations may or may not inflict real punishment on the likes of PSG, UEFA may look the other way except for a fine or relative minor restrictions, but the French team did not escape a lackluster Champions League elimination.

    PSG were often accused of playing without tactics and relying on the stars to win. Thomas Tuchel arrived from Dortmund to be a sort of tougher no nonsense coach but little has changed and the questionable ‘non tactics’ continue. The round of 16 match up were to be a big test for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Manchester United – not PSG – and indeed United lost the first leg 2-0 at home but PSG haven’t and didn’t impress. Losing 3-1 at home with a Buffon dropped ball can be summed up as a symbolic moment for big money in the sport. Buffon’s exit from Juventus to fly to PSG will be remembered as such a moment too. Not that Manchester United are anything like the Ajax team of the previous day…

    ↑ Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and all of Manchester United
    ↓ Gianluigi Buffon and all of PSG

  • Value Tracker: Ajax and Real Madrid

    The 2018-2019 Champions League Round of 16 has featured a match up of a super wealthy team vs a develop and sell team. Real Madrid, winner of 4 of the last 5 Champions Leagues vs Ajax, a team who are unable to compete on the European stage and have all their continental success in the relatively distant past. Even at the domestic league level Ajax are not all conquering as many of the recent Eredivisie seasons have belonged to PSV.

    The team’s famous supply line still churns out talented players but they leave too soon to have a major impact at Ajax, and in particular Ajax in European competition. The current team features several young and highly touted players. Frenkie de Jong, a midfielder who is set to leave for Barcelona in the summer. Matthijs de Ligt, a teenage defender, who has matured into an in demand player. Hakim Ziyech who has grown into an important player. And many more complemented by the 30 years old Dusan Tadic. The Serbian is ancient in comparison to the players around him and arrived from Southampton to provide depth and class.

    One such class performance was at Real and Ajax’s 4-1 at the Bernabeu can indeed be called historic. The overconfidence by players such as Sergio Ramos back fired in a big way. On February 13th with Real leading 2-1 late in the first leg in Amsterdam the Spanish international got what almost everybody agrees was an intentional yellow to rule himself out of this return match and save himself for the games to come.

    He was not on the pitch to be part of this second leg humiliation.

    Ajax move on and will make more noise, until the summer transfer window at least. Real will do some soul searching and solve this so called crisis by buying players and/or firing their young coach. Santiago Solari only became Real’s coach last October.

    ↑ Dusan Tadic and all of Ajax
    ↓ Sergio Ramos and all of Real Madrid