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Police in Poland pepper sprayed a guy holding a flare at a footfall game (Zaglebie Lubin ,at the weekend I think) and set him on fire ! Dunno how to put the pictures up sorry.
That man is still treated as a hero here in Verona, and rightly so, espescially for the goal he scored after losing a boot, not too many other teams the size of Verona have won the scudetto.
OT. People are constantly telling me that Joe Jordan lived about 2mins from where I live now during his short spell with Hellas
Idraettens Hus. Even the name sounds cold, bleak and forbidding. It had all the warmth and humanity of a prison. After years staying at the delightful Hotel Marina, with its lovely food and view of the sea, this was a significant culture shock. There were no TVs or phones in the players" rooms, and those coming from abroad had to scrabble about for the right coins to call home. The mattresses were on the gossamer side of thin. So was the players" patience. They hated it.
The coach, Sepp Piontek, theorised that hardship would beget hardness. "I could see that the last thing was not there," he says. "That last: you have to do this, you have to qualify. It was something in the Danish mentality." The players had taken liberties, so Piontek took their liberty away. "All of a sudden we had to be punished," says Søren Busk. "I remember there weren't TVs in the rooms and when you flushed the toilet it sounded like it sucked all the way from below. "Swhooossh", it said. We had become too spoiled so we ended up in the concrete building, which was fine because we shouldn't think that the trees grow into the sky."
Spoiler: click to toggle
Nor should they think Piontek was born yesterday. Some of the players asked Allan Simonsen, the team's greatest player and biggest name, to tell Piontek he was sick in the hope it would force a move back to the Hotel Marina. "We said to him, 'Allan, you have to go down and tell the coach you are ill. Maybe then we can move somewhere else'," says Preben Elkjaer. "So he invented this very bizarre illness: concrete illness."
Betonsyge, or concrete illness, is something that traditionally afflicts bridges rather than waspish attackers. Simonsen said he had a constant headache and his sense of smell had gone. An unimpressed Piontek told him to go to the doctor. There was only one way the players could get out of Idrættens Hus. "It was his way of showing us that you cannot just have fun," says Klaus Berggreen. "'I want to see results – if you want nice hotels, make me results'."
So they made him results. In 1981 Denmark won eight of their nine games. They also won four of their last five World Cup qualifiers, although losing those first three group games had left them with too much to do. They might have qualified but for a 2-1 defeat at home to Yugoslavia, when the winning goal came from a dreadful mistake from Per Røntved. Denmark left their mark nonetheless; they were the only team to beat the eventual champions Italy in qualification or at the World Cup. Eight of the Italian side beaten in Copenhagen played in the World Cup final a year later, including Dino Zoff, Gaetano Scirea, Claudio Gentile and Marco Tardelli.
Italy were well beaten 3-1 on a foggy Saturday night in Copenhagen, with Denmark giving their defence a rare chasing. The first half was goalless, although Denmark could easily have scored three, most notably when Simonsen"s glorious volley was spectacularly saved by Zoff. Eventually the libero Røntved sauntered forward to drill past Zoff from a narrow angle. "I'm just lucky," he says, watching it 30 years later. "Zoff takes a step forward to intercept the pass. What's lucky for me is that I hit it with the outside of the foot so it goes in between the post and his legs. It was a shot."
Italy's raggedness was reflected two minutes later. A comical flying handball from Antonio Cabrini should have led to a penalty but the referee awarded a free-kick. No matter: Frank Arnesen drove through the wall and into the far corner. When Francesco Graziani made it 2-1, there were 21 minutes remaining. Denmark's subsequent nervousness reflected the subconscious belief that the natural order was about to be reasserted, with Italy likely to equalise and maybe win the game.
This was the psychological rubble Piontek had to sift through. "When you lose, lose, lose all the important games for the last 40 years," says Elkjaer, "it"s difficult to believe you actually can beat the great teams of Europe."
Elkjaer was involved in the goal that helped them finally beat one of those great teams. He led a counter-attack with Simonsen in the 87th minute and, after Elkjaer went down in the box, Lars Bastrup rammed home the loose ball before the referee had time to decide whether it was a penalty or not. Bastrup and Simonsen threw their arms around each other before falling over, still clinging to their clumsy embrace. It's impossible to overstate the significance of the victory. "That was the start of everything, because then the players realised that all the shampoo they blamed Piontek for, it worked," says the TV commentator Svend Gehrs. "They saw that, somehow, this bloody German might be right!"
Victory was celebrated at Tordenskjold, the Clubhouse, where the only thing that had an ice bath was the champagne. Piontek had, for the first time, imposed a curfew − a generous 2am with a fine of 200 kroner (around £20) for every five minutes a player was late. At 2am he sat on the stairs of the team hotel, where they stayed on the evening of the match, with a checklist of those due to return. As Piontek"s watch ticked on, so he started ticking.
At 2.07am a group of players arrived in a series of taxis, blaming their lateness on the drivers. A few were still missing, and as the clock moved towards 3am and the cartoon clouds gathered above his head, Piontek decided to drive to Tordenskjold.
When he entered the nightclub he stomped towards the dancefloor, every step turning a few more heads. He found a group of players, some of whom he had ticked off on his checklist an hour earlier; they had gone straight out of the bedroom window and back into town. One was slumped on a black leather sofa with his arms round two girls. Another, not realising he had been seen, hid in the toilet until Piontek knocked on the door and told him to come out. A third player was in the middle of a slow dance when he felt a tap on the shoulder. As Piontek tells the story, he closes his eyes and makes a dreamy face, lost in lust. "He had not seen me, but perhaps she knew me or could see there was something wrong. Then he opened his eyes: "Nej nej nej!""
It became famous in Denmark: the night Piontek literally pulled the players out of Tordenskjold. The identity of the third player is the subject of omerta, even 30 years later. What goes on at home stays at home. Whoever it was, he paid his fine of 2,500 kroner, as did the other players there. Such fines became the norm in the first few years; an anecdote in the book Landsholdet suggested that, on one occasion, Elkjaer pulled out two 500-kroner bills and paid his up front because he knew he'd be late.
Piontek created bødekassen [the penalty box], in which players' fines were kept. It swelled. The money was put to good use: Piontek bought presents for players on special occasions, such as when they had a baby or reached a landmark of 25 or 50 caps. The gifts ranged from the expensive to the absurd. When Elkjaer turned 27 in 1984, he received a copy of Ugens Rapport, the porn magazine in which he had a column, a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. "In the beginning we had good gifts, lamps that cost 8,500 kroner," says Piontek. "At the end, there was only chocolate."
The players knew that if they continued to err they would get the Birger Jensen treatment. They soon began to make curfews almost all of the time. A combination of fines, good results and increasing respect for Piontek helped change the culture of the team. "Trust is OK, but control is better," laughs Piontek. Better still was a combination of the two. "He found the right balance between being the hard man and the soft man," says Berggreen.
"Everything Sepp did was 100 per cent correct – the only thing that wasn't, because he didn't know it yet, was the training at the World Cup. He has a lot of humour. That's why he had success, because we had so much fun. At the same time he taught us to concentrate and to focus."
Sometimes Piontek was inadvertently funny, usually because of his accent, but even when the players laughed at him they also laughed with him. "If you had to make a speech to two hundred people he is number one in Denmark for me, because he has so many funny stories," says Berggreen. Ivan Nielsen calls him "the funniest guy I know".
On one occasion, ahead of a game against Romania, Piontek asked for help so that he could show the players a video of the Romanians' free-kicks. Elkjaer came to his rescue and sat down. As Piontek started to address the room, everyone burst out laughing; Piontek was about to admonish the team when he turned round to see a porn movie on the screen. "That was later," says Elkjaer. "The first couple of years nobody dared to do that! But as we began to win the atmosphere was different. When he noticed that now they are serious, now they want to win, now we have a great team, he could relax more and he showed also his funny side. At the start he wasn't funny. We taught him to be funny!"
Alex McLeish was a Argentinian international called Carlos Javier Mac Allister.
Sounds like one of those players that'd turn up in FIFA 09. Back when the computer would just throw together some names for the new youngsters generated.
You'd end up with guys called stuff like Barry Lima de Muller and he'd be from Northern Ireland.
Alex McLeish was a Argentinian international called Carlos Javier Mac Allister.
Sounds like one of those players that'd turn up in FIFA 09. Back when the computer would just throw together some names for the new youngsters generated.
You'd end up with guys called stuff like Barry Lima de Muller and he'd be from Northern Ireland.
Loads of British Islanders though moved to Argentina and Uruguay over the years though. There was a Uruguayan player about 15 years ago called Fabian O'Neill. Think the Argentina teams of the 80s also had someone called Brown on the squad.
Alex McLeish was a Argentinian international called Carlos Javier Mac Allister.
Sounds like one of those players that'd turn up in FIFA 09. Back when the computer would just throw together some names for the new youngsters generated.
You'd end up with guys called stuff like Barry Lima de Muller and he'd be from Northern Ireland.
Loads of British Islanders though moved to Argentina and Uruguay over the years though. There was a Uruguayan player about 15 years ago called Fabian O'Neill. Think the Argentina teams of the 80s also had someone called Brown on the squad.
Alex McLeish was a Argentinian international called Carlos Javier Mac Allister.
That's brilliant, "Despite the Scottish name which confused some commentators, Mac Allister was fully Argentine. " I think there may be a bit of Scottish in there somewhere
Loads of British Islanders though moved to Argentina and Uruguay over the years though. There was a Uruguayan player about 15 years ago called Fabian O'Neill. Think the Argentina teams of the 80s also had someone called Brown on the squad.
Aye but, look at this guy!
Well his skin and hair color are hardly gonna change just cause he lives in Argentina.
I remember reading an article on MacAllister years back in World Soccer. They asked him if he knew anything about his Scottish heritage and he had no clue whatsoever (someone show him pictures of Scots ) He was a driving force for Boca (I think?) in their league title quest. Kind of a, I hate to say, Bomber Broon type player. Represented Argentina, if I remember correctly, but not at any tournaments.
Napoli respond to story calling Naples a 'mafia stronghold' by saying they wouldn't judge Newcastle residents on Geordie Shore
Daily Mail
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Napoli have responded furiously to a transfer story which calls Naples a 'mafia stronghold', arguing they would not judge the residents of Newcastle based on the behaviour of the protagonists of Geordie Shore. The article on the Guardian's website linked Danny Welbeck with a potential move to Serie A, saying the club would make the England striker and Manchester United 'an offer they can't refuse'. The language used was widely condemned in Italy and provoked a Twitter storm aimed at the website's deputy sports editor Barry Glendenning, the author of the piece.
'Napoli sporting director Riccardo Bigon has let Welbeck's agent know that Napoli are interested in signing up his client,' Glendenning wrote in his daily transfer round-up, 'but with Everton and Tottenham also interested, the club from one of Italy's mafia strongholds will need to make Manchester United and Welbeck himself an offer they can't refuse'. Napoli's Communications Director Nicholas Lombardo wrote a damning retort to the Guardian's sports editor Ian Prior, arguing Neopolitans would not use the MTV reality show as a barometer of behaviour on Tyneside. 'We would not judge a city like Newcastle on the basis of MTV’s Geordie Shore; we do not think all of that city’s inhabitants are rude, gym-addicted and sociopathic. It is a shame to see the Guardian did not afford Napoli the same courtesy,' he said. 'I am aware that it can happen that an article is not read carefully before being published. It is possible that as the editor of the Guardian’s sports pages you may not have realised what was written. If not, we would be dismayed to read such a dated, dumb, vulgar cliche as this, linking the city of Naples to the mafia. 'This is an archaic impression that is also rejected by English tourists who every year choose Italy – and Napoli – as their holiday destination. They would not do that if they thought that Naples is Italy’s mafia stronghold, a place where people fire at or rob each other in the street,' the open letter continued.
Napoli respond to story calling Naples a 'mafia stronghold' by saying they wouldn't judge Newcastle residents on Geordie Shore
Daily Mail
Spoiler: click to toggle
Napoli have responded furiously to a transfer story which calls Naples a 'mafia stronghold', arguing they would not judge the residents of Newcastle based on the behaviour of the protagonists of Geordie Shore. The article on the Guardian's website linked Danny Welbeck with a potential move to Serie A, saying the club would make the England striker and Manchester United 'an offer they can't refuse'. The language used was widely condemned in Italy and provoked a Twitter storm aimed at the website's deputy sports editor Barry Glendenning, the author of the piece.
'Napoli sporting director Riccardo Bigon has let Welbeck's agent know that Napoli are interested in signing up his client,' Glendenning wrote in his daily transfer round-up, 'but with Everton and Tottenham also interested, the club from one of Italy's mafia strongholds will need to make Manchester United and Welbeck himself an offer they can't refuse'. Napoli's Communications Director Nicholas Lombardo wrote a damning retort to the Guardian's sports editor Ian Prior, arguing Neopolitans would not use the MTV reality show as a barometer of behaviour on Tyneside. 'We would not judge a city like Newcastle on the basis of MTV’s Geordie Shore; we do not think all of that city’s inhabitants are rude, gym-addicted and sociopathic. It is a shame to see the Guardian did not afford Napoli the same courtesy,' he said. 'I am aware that it can happen that an article is not read carefully before being published. It is possible that as the editor of the Guardian’s sports pages you may not have realised what was written. If not, we would be dismayed to read such a dated, dumb, vulgar cliche as this, linking the city of Naples to the mafia. 'This is an archaic impression that is also rejected by English tourists who every year choose Italy – and Napoli – as their holiday destination. They would not do that if they thought that Naples is Italy’s mafia stronghold, a place where people fire at or rob each other in the street,' the open letter continued.
They've obviously never actually been to Newcastle then...
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