With 4th place and a place in the UEFA Champions League at stake, tomorrow's English Premier League match between Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City proves to be a playoff match with massive implications.
“It’s winner takes all on Wednesday,” Crouch, the Tottenham striker, said.
Vieira, the City midfield player, said: “We have our destiny in our own hands.”
Crouch knows exactly what Tottenham have been missing, having enjoyed Champions League football at Liverpool. “It is where every footballer wants to be; the night games, the great atmosphere,” he said. “When the music starts the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. It’s fantastic, that’s where we want to be. A club like Tottenham deserves to be there as they are such a big club with fantastic fans who backed us all the way. To get some of the big European games down at the Lane would be just magic.”
A Spurs victory would seal fourth spot and, as the North London side face relegated Burnley on the final day, City cannot realistically be content with a draw tomorrow either.
“The first step was to beat Villa [on Saturday] and we did that extremely well,” Vieira, the former captain of Arsenal, Tottenham’s great rivals, said. “The next one is Tottenham and that is going to be more difficult. It doesn’t make any difference that it is Spurs. I am past that stage. I am not focused on that [rivalry] any more.
“With the players we have in the dressing room the target has to be, and still is, the Champions League. The club made it very clear they wanted the Champions League and we are really close. We will have to fight for it, it will not be easy but then it has not been easy in the last few months. But we can do it now.”
According to Crouch, Tottenham are no longer a team liable to fold under the pressure of potential league success. “We have a lot more physical strength, a lot more mental strength,” he said. “The resilience is there, we seem to get results even when we have to dig in and fight and maybe that has not been the case in previous years. Now we are a lot more consistent.”
A good manager crafts a game plan by looking at the opposing team's strengths and weaknesses, and looks at how he can minimize their strengths while exposing their weaknesses.
Allardyce bombarded the Arsenal 18-yard box that put Arsenal goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski under pressure all game with high balls.
Blackburn also could have had a penalty when Morten Gamst Pedersen went down under pressure from Sol Campbell.
"If you expose the opposition's weaknesses enough then in the end those weaknesses will be exposed," he said.
"The amount of balls we put into the box on the keeper, who has obviously been a weak link for them, paid off.
"We beat Arsenal fair and square. The referee gave some that were fouls, he gave some that weren't fouls and he didn't give some that might have been fouls.
"You can't give everything as a foul on the goalkeeper and he certainly gave his fair share.
"You can argue all you want about those two particular incidents but we could argue Morten Gamst Pedersen should have had a penalty when he got brought down in the second half.
"I'm not overly concerned about what Arsene says - he's said it before about my tactics.
"But we know these tactics work against Arsenal and they've worked again today."
Allardyce admitted he was delighted to come out on top in the battle of wits against Wenger.
"We play the game as managers, we look at each other and you see if you can find any weaknesses in the opposition manager as well as the team.
"Criticising me is great because I'd sooner him criticise me when I've beaten them rather than him praising me when they've beaten us.
"It is very pleasing we have won the game and I think we won the game because we deserved to."
Wenger felt Rovers' players often played the man and not the ball. "There is no purpose to play the ball from the Blackburn players - they don't even watch the ball," he said. "He (Fabianski) had two players in front of him all the time and every time it was to stop him getting the ball. "In football when you don't go for the ball and you stop the keeper going for the ball it is a foul. "I think the referee cannot allow that. I am very disappointed the referee lets that happen in a football game, it is unfair to a goalkeeper. "They (Blackburn) do it well but when you feel that as a referee you have to give more protection. "It doesn't take away the fact we weren't good but that is completely unfair."
After reading recently about the H.D. Woodson HS girls basketball team from Washington D.C. defeating their opponent 86-1 and 94-0 in consecutive games this past winter, it made me reflect on the responsibilities of both coaches to maintain integrity in a one-sided game.
After seeing one-sided games at the collegiate and youth levels this Spring, it also made me think about how to not only keep good sportsmanship and ethics when leading, but also to keep it challenging for the players that are ahead in those games.
When you see score lines like I described earlier, it makes you wonder about the insecurity of that coach who ‘runs up the score’, or that coach’s ability to develop good players into better people on and off the field of play by allowing them to believe that is accepted behavior.
Saying that, there is also a fine line between the responsibilities of a coach to be able to show respect to their opposing team while also maintaining the integrity of sports.
We now live in a very sensitive society – one that worries just as much about a player’s bruised ego as we do in teaching young athletes ‘how to win’ or ‘how not to lose’.I have attended basketball games where both teams get points added onto the scoreboard when one of the teams score, and soccer games with no scores or standings kept.
Important points to reference here are 1) sports should teach life lessons that transcend sport, and no one will be successful all the time; 2) a lot of these scoreboard rules are created more for complaining parents than for fragile athletes – your child is probably tougher than you give them credit for; and 3) your kid knows the score...regardless as to whether you manipulate the scoreboard or standings.I have coached my son in little league soccer for about 4 years, and despite ‘not keeping score’, there hasn’t been a time in any of those games where he didn’t know what the score was.My guess is that your kid probably knows the score, too.
Peter Vermes, former captain of the 1990 United States World Cup team, once told me that he thought learning how to be excited to win and humble in victory, as well as to be disappointed and learn how to deal with disappointment, were as important skills to acquire as passing or shooting.
As much as I can’t imagine a basketball coach justifying the idea of defeating a team by 85 or 94 points, I can also tell you that at times it is just as hard to coach the team leading in a one-sided game as it is to coach the team that is trailing.It is very difficult to keep players focused on playing the right way and keep them challenged.
Here are some ways to help keep your team motivated and challenged while leading in a one-sided affair, while also showing some humility and respect to your opposition-
Make your team connect a set number of passes before they can shoot – Telling a team that they can’t attack the other team’s goal or basket doesn’t maintains the integrity of that game.I think being played ‘keep away’ from would be more embarrassing than getting scored on.Having your team connect a specific number of passes prior to going to goal encourages good tactical training – possession, opening up, talking – as well as uses specific tactics that might limit the number of scoring chances.
Create a specific way for your team to score – a friend of mine told me recently that in situations like described, he told his team that they could only score with their head.Similar to asking them to connect a set number of passes prior to scoring, this encourages work with a specific skill set (heading, crossing) as well as minimizes the total number of scoring chances.
Put your reserves in the game – After a team takes their starters out of a game, the responsibility of the score line now falls squarely on the other team.How can you tell players that play less frequently that when they finally get into the game that they have to play with restrictions?Doing that harms the integrity of the game more than a one-sided score line ever does.
Take a player off the field – by playing with one less player than the other team, it might put your own team under a larger degree of pressure defensively, and force them to work harder to keep possession once they win the ball.
No one wants to play in a game where sportsmanship and integrity isn’t maintained, regardless of the score line.If both the coaches on the field and parents off the field can do a successful job in preaching realistic life lessons learned in victory and defeat, maybe we will have fewer issues about score lines.
Ferguson in pre-game: "Before a game he always tells a small story. Sometimes he talks about when he was the Aberdeen manager. Another time he went round the dressing room and talked about the different players. The fact that here we were, from Korea, France, Serbia, Bulgaria, from different parts of England and the world, and how we had all come together to be in the same place. He talked about our stories. The different obstacles we had overcome to get here. It gave the players this huge lift."
About Ferguson's hair-dryer treatments: "Alex Ferguson is a culture,' he says. 'And he is a winner. Football is like a pyramid. To reach the top is easy. It is staying there that is difficult. He does not let you rest. He is always hungry for the next game.
'I remember one match when we were winning 2-0 by half-time and he still gave us the hair-dryer because we should have been four or five up. He reminded us that people had paid money to watch us. "Why don't you respect them?" he screamed.
'He demands the highest standards. If you play a good game for United, you sit on the bench. Only if you play an amazing game do you stay in the team. Those are the rules and the players accept them.'
Even in this modern era of millionaire footballers, they also accept that infamous, aforementioned hair-dryer.
'After the Christmas party we had a couple of years ago, when there were the stories, he called us to a meeting and just killed everyone,' he says.
'The experienced players. The young players. It was our fault and he told us, and reminded us of the responsibility we have. He managed that situation with his temper, but he doesn't always have to because the players here have so much respect for him. If he thinks the team is sleeping he will still use the hair-dryer, though.'
Soccer America reports on what Jozy Altidore needs to do to succeed in the English Premier League.
Hull City manager Iain Dowie says U.S. striker Jozy Altidore, on loan this season from Villarreal, must focus on training harder and work on his "football intelligence" if he is to achieve his potential.
Altidore is suspended for the rest of the English Premier League season following his red card on April 24 against Sunderland.
He finished with one goal in 28 EPL games. According to Dowie, "for the level of investment it's probably not enough."
"I've spoken to Jozy a number of times since I've been here and, if Jozy can train the way he plays, I think he's got a great opportunity but he needs to understand that it's that day in, day out," said Dowie. "He's a lovely, laid-back boy and there's no side to him but he needs to focus on training at a better level. Kevin Kilbane keeps turning it out because he trains at that level, Nicky Barmby can keep playing because he trains at that level. It's a different level than Jozy's used to training at and he's got to get used to it. He found the physicality of the Premier League very hard when he came in. He's got used to that now but he must not get comfortable."
Dowie, who he would not be surprised if Altidore would have a good World Cup, has lots of qualities.
"He's got the right attributes if he can play to his strengths," said Dowie, "and that is turning defenders and running at goal. He's a monster of an athlete but he's got to use that physicality, it's about imposing that."
Dowie said the key to a player's makeup was his mental approach, listing players such as Teddy Sheringham, Alan Shearer, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Wayne Rooney, who are "two yards ahead of you in their head."
"Their football intelligence is bright," he said, "and I think that's also something probably Jozy needs to work on."
United continued to dominate passing and to control the game after half-time. Sunderland's rearranged central midfield, with Lorik Cana and Lee Cattermole, who had replaced David Meyler in the first half, could not cope with the clever triangles that United played using a combination of their midfield and front men. The work of continually making angles requires application and intelligence. Scholes always had passing options and Sunderland, though they fought to resist, were never able to get enough of the ball to create. Their front two were too far from their midfield, who were forced back, and longer passes were won by Vidic and Evans. Sunderland's best chance of gaining more possession would have come from replacing one of their front players with a midfielder, who might have deterred Rooney, and certainly made it harder for him to collect the ball. At the very least one forward needed to drop back and lend support to his midfield but no tactical shift was forthcoming. Berbatov, who worked well, with some clever touches, had no luck near goal and was replaced by Michael Carrick as United sought to hold the game. Rio Ferdinand and Owen Hargreaves were further additions in the final minutes but United should have been well clear by that late stage.
I believe 'the Art of Coaching' comes down to three areas- tactics (creating an on-field plan), player identification (assessing & acquiring players to implement that plan), and man-management (the ability to convey that plan to your players, & have them believe).
Jose Mourinho's recent performance in the UEFA Champions League, masterminding victory for Inter Milan over Barcelona, has magnified his mastery of 'the Art of Coaching' in each of those areas. Simon Barnes of the Times also believes that a coach can influence a match in the three areas I mentioned, and writes of how Mourinho's foundation of success is built on those areas.
What does a coach bring to a sporting operation that a mere player can’t? He operates in three areas simultaneously. The first is strategy. In club football, that’s acquiring and offloading players and developing the chosen style of football. Mourinho is doing that at Inter, a continuous Forth Bridge task.
The second is tactics: the decision on the way each match should be approached, who should play and what assignments they should take on. Inter’s two-leg semi-final against Barcelona was a tactical masterclass. The first leg in Milan, which Inter won 3-1, involved two separate game plans, each scrupulously carried out.
The second leg was always going to be defensive; after the sending-off of Thiago Motta, it became almost parodically defensive.
Mourinho’s tactics worked triumphantly. Barcelona were restricted to four chances, Messi to just one. Of these chances, Messi’s was brilliantly saved, another was disastrously muffed, one produced a goal and the last a goal that was disallowed for a rather unlikely handball. Mourinho’s skill was in restricting his opponents to those four chances — luck bore a part in what came of them. That is often the way of things in football.
Strategy, yes, tactics, yes. But there is something else. There is the third area of expertise — the talent that lies a little way beyond the scope of definition. The existence of this elusive third way was summed up for me for all time when I asked for directions in India: “Continue until the road divides. Then take the central bifurcation.”
Trying to pin down the essentials of the central bifurcation is like the ancient experiment in weighing the human soul. A dying person was set on a bed that was also a weighing machine, so that the instant he died, it registered the sudden decrease in weight as his soul left his body.
The reason that Mourinho’s long-term strategy and his short-term tactics bore fruit so spectacularly in the two matches against Barcelona came down to that third element. To defend for an hour with ten men is a hard task; to do so against the best club side in the world is all but impossible. It required great tactical organisation, it required great fitness. But it also required a great willingness.
Inter won because Mourinho’s players were willing to run themselves into exhaustion to bring off a battle plan they believed in totally. Only at the end, when they were knackered, did Barcelona get close to them. That willingness, that soul, that spirit was ultimately the difference between the sides — that, and the iffy handball, the slice of Napoleonic luck. And that spirit, that third thing, is ultimately the work of the coach.
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you But make allowance for their doubting too, If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream--and not make dreams your master, If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much, If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
