“Jack who?” I hear you ask? Well for the more educated of football fans, the name of Jack Reynolds is one they like to role off the tongue to prove their education of the beautiful game but for many it’s a name and a legacy that is often over looked, especially in a week where we are celebrating legends. I had only discovered his story when researching the roots of ‘Total Football’ which I assumed like many to be a Dutch revolution in the 1960s, but the English man in question had a huge part to play.
Manchester born Jack did not have a highly regarded playing career starting at the turn of the 20th century playing a few seasons at Burton United and Grimsby Town before becoming a coach at F.C. St.Gallen in Switerland in 1912. There are sources linking him to the coach of the German national side but the outbreak of World War 1 saw Reynolds move to Holland where his legacy began.
He became coach of Ajax Amsterdam, then a new and small club in the football world but Jack transformed them into a professional outfit even though the players were still unpaid. He made improvements to the club’s facilities and introduced training methods that progressed to players working on skill with the ball rather than the physical side of the game.
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Over his 27 years with Ajax, Reynolds won the Eredivisie as many as 8 times and Ajax expert and author, Menno Pot speaks very highly of the legacy that Reynolds left at the club saying : “He was the man who came up with the idea that every player at Ajax should play the same system and the same formation.”
It sounds like a very similar system to what managers like Arsene Wenger at Arsenal and Pepe Guardiola at Barcelona use today.
The roots of Ajax and Holland’s “Total Football” are credited to Rinus Michels who was a former product of Reynold’s youth system in Amsterdam. Mr Pot believes that without Jack Reynolds, Ajax would never have become a force in European football and he is seen as one of the club’s founding fathers.
His reign at Ajax was also interrupted due to World War II where he was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Germans from 1940 to 1945. He made a return to football after the war was over and lifted his final trophy with Ajax in 1947 but decided to retire from the game.
Today, Ajax still recognise the contribution he made to their club and having previously had a stand named after him at their former ground, they now have the ‘Jack Reynolds Lobby’ at the Amsterdam Arena.
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Reynolds spent his retirement in Amsterdam and his story is one of most remarkable and impressionable I have ever seen in the history of the game. His modern philosophies and actions on the game created a huge influence, not only on one club and a nation but also the football world, a true LEGEND.
For more lessons of Football History, follow me on Twitter @verbal_football
Sevilla goalkeeper Javi Varas is refusing to give up hope of his club stealing a Champions League spot from La Liga rivals Villarreal.Villarreal occupy the fourth and final Champions League qualification spot on the Spanish table with 54 points, eight more than Sevilla in fifth place.
With just seven games to go it would seem Sevilla’s chances are all but shot, even more so given their mixed form of late.
Sevilla have won two of their past five league games and still face a visit from Real Madrid and potentially tricky trips to Espanyol and Osasuna.
But Varas believes the club can still engineer a miracle – beginning with their trip to relegation-threatened Getafe on Saturday.
“I think that the team are able to win the remaining seven games,” Varas said.
“If we win them all, then Villarreal will have slipped up. We need them to slip up a further two times.”
“There is still a long way to go. We have to win at Getafe and then we face a situation that isn’t in our hands. We don’t know what Villarreal will do – only ourselves.”
Sevilla scraped into the Champions League by one point last season only to fall to Portuguese runners-up Braga in the playoff round.
The club made it through the group stages of the Europa League but were bundled out by another Portuguese club, Porto, in the round of 32.
Picking the ten best moments of the season so far is never an easy thing to do. ‘Best’ is such a subjective word to use in football, what I might have loved, you might have hated. So here are my most memorable moments. The media have a massive influence in such things as memorable moments. It is no wonder that the most memorable moments surround the top teams as the media give more coverage to such games. That’s just the way it is.
But the best games are not necessarily top of the table clashes. A game like Manchester United v Liverpool might be a massively hyped up game, but it will often stagnate into low scoring match. The most memorable games, for me, are high-scoring, upsets or comebacks.
What follows are the moments that when I think back on the season, come to mind first of all. I have tried to take my Tottenham hat off and include moments for all fans. Some are iconic goals, others fantastic results. Either way they are moments that I thought of first when I reflected on this season of English football.
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Inter Milan coach Leonardo has paid tribute to Cameroon striker Samuel Eto’o after his goal was enough to put them in the Coppa Italia final.Already 1-0 up over Roma after the first leg of the semi-final in Rome, Inter returned to the San Siro on Wednesday and went a goal ahead when Eto’o was picked out by a Houssine Kharja cross and fired a low shot home.
Marco Borriello scored for Roma with six minutes remaining to ensure a few anxious moments down the stretch, but Inter hung on to secure a berth in the final against Palermo on May 29.
Leonardo credited Vincenzo Montella’s side, but reserved special praise for Eto’o.
“It was so difficult,” Leonardo said. “The first half was played at a slow tempo and after the break we created the chances that allowed us to control and take the lead.”
“This squad worked hard and it was not easy. Eto’o understood the moment the team was going through and has had a marvellous season, as he works for the team.”
Despite many observers seeing Inter’s season as a disappointing one, after they lost their Serie A title to AC Milan and suffering a Champions League quarter-final exit at the hands of Schalke, Leonardo believes a cup win will not ‘save’ their campaign.
Inter have already claimed the Italian Super Cup in August and the Club World Cup in December, but those victories were achieved with Rafael Benitez at the helm.
“Our season does not need saving,” he said. “It has been a tumultuous campaign for the squad with a change of management, so we have to take that into account.”
“I have a rapport of mutual respect with the President and he has always been close to the side, even in difficult moments.”
Montella, meanwhile, felt his side was unlucky to be denied a place in the final and was bemused by the lack of stoppage time allowed.
“There are regrets and we tried until the last second of stoppages,” Montella said.
“Considering there were five substitutions, I’m surprised the referee only gave three minutes.”
“We were unlucky tonight and it’s a pity to lose like this, as we did not deserve to go out. We really wanted to play the final at the Stadio Olimpico.”
Since we can’t always be plonked in front of the TV watching Soccer Saturday and because we might miss the occasional game, any football fan, would be all too glad to have the option to follow the action on their phone. It’s a real luxury to be updated with live scores, results and the like without the need hunt down a computer.
There are plenty of apps out there which give iPhone and iPod users the opportunity to do just that. But with a world of choice available, it can often be pretty difficult to decipher which application does the best job. Football fans looking for a way to pass the time may also be wondering which football simulator to purchase. Is ‘FIFA 11’ better than ‘Real Football 2011’? Moreover, is ‘Championship Manager 2011’ better value for money than ‘Football Manager 2011’? Or has Heineken’s recently launched ‘StarPlayer’ changed the football app landscape with its latest Champions League game? All shall be revealed below as we count down the top ten football related applications.
Click on the iphone below to reveal our top 10 football apps
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Sir Alex Ferguson took exception to questions about Ryan Giggs in a press conference at Old Trafford yesterday. The unlucky journalist will be banned ahead of the pre-match conference at Wembley as the Scot makes it perfectly clear that the very subject will not be allowed to be mentioned within his company.
In the papers this morning there have been a mixed bag of stories that include Usmanov raises his Arsenal bidding; Robert Green makes himself available for selection, while Chelsea plan a summer spending spree.
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Usmanov raises bid for Arsenal shares – Guardian
Giggs refuses to hide amid gathering storm – Daily Telegraph
Mancini seeks support in Abu Dhabi – Guardian
Fergie: The Pea is the key – Sun
Balotelli ‘2,000 per cent certain’ to stay at City – Mirror
Green returns as England are exposed – Daily Telegraph
Chelsea plan summer spending spree – Guardian
Arsenal help out Barca as ash cloud forces flight to London two days early – Daily Mail
Redknapp hopes to oversee Spurs fire sale – Guardian
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Villa and O’Neill finally settle dispute which opens door to top flight return – Daily Mail
Palermo are open to offers for Argentine midfielder Javier Pastore, who wants to leave the Serie A club.Barcelona, Real Madrid and Manchester City are just some of the sides linked with a move for the exciting prospect, who turns 22 on June 20.
Pastore, currently on international duty with Argentina as they prepare for the Copa America, joined Palermo from Huracan in 2009 for approximately five million euros.
“I feel that the time to leave Palermo has arrived,” Pastore told Fox Sports Radio Del Plata.
The club’s owner Maurizio Zamparini will reportedly demand a transfer fee of close to 50 million euros for a player who has made 69 appearances since his arrival from Argentina’s Primera League.
“Pastore is the only player who could leave. It all depends on the boy,” Zamparini told Sky Sport 24.
“He earns less than one million euros and if a big club offered him four million euros then it would be hard to keep him.”
“Palermo can’t afford that and we have to balance the books.”
“I’ve almost resigned myself to losing him. He speaks to his agent more than he speaks to me and the big clubs want him.”
“It is only logical that he could stay here for just one more season anyway. If he did then it would be with great pressure and it would no longer be the same Pastore.”
While Italian giants Juventus, AC Milan and Inter Milan, together with Napoli, have all been linked with moves for Pastore, Zamparini believes the player’s future lies away from Serie A.
“I think he is too expensive for the Napoli of my friend Aurelio De Laurentiis,” Zamparini said.
“It will be difficult for the Italian sides to net him. Foreign clubs have bigger transfer budgets.”
“The Spanish game is the one that will suit the talents of Pastore. Real Madrid would only sign him if they sold Kaka.”
The British Olympic Association (BOA) last week said a “historic agreement” had been reached with the English Football Association over fielding teams at the 2012 Games. Great Britain were Olympic football champions in 1908 and 1912, but haven’t appeared since 1960 (though it attempted to qualify as recently as 1972). Good news then. It seemed differences had been sorted out, and a compromise found.
Or not. A collective statement from the other nations denied this was the case.
“No discussions took place with any of us, far less has any historic agreement been reached,” it said.
“We have been consistently clear in explaining the reason for our stance, principally to protect the identity of each national association. With that in mind, we cannot support nor formally endorse the approach that has been proposed by the Football Association.”
Their view is straight-forward. Football is autonomous for the home nations. The four countries have their own leagues and their own international teams. The Olympics is not considered a major football event, but people might use it to tell the four associations that they have to compete as Great Britain in other tournaments.
Maybe their stance is shaped by the presumption that the team would be a largely English one anyway. But what really annoyed them was the fact that the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland FAs conceded some time ago for the right of the BOA to choose an Olympic team consisting of English players, but the BOA announcement last week appears to say that an agreement had been reached to choose players from all four nations. No such agreement exists, and it seems never will.
So what will the FA do? Pick just English players, or pick from all four nations and risk the wrath of other FA’s? Or perhaps just wait for players like Bale to publicly declare their availability and desire to play?
The squabble is an old one, that has rumbled on for many a year. Before London was chosen to host the Olympics, the BOA thought a British football team would be a good way to galvanize support for the bid, and provide an extra chance of a medal.
And yet as squabbles elsewhere constantly erupt over the difficulty in getting Olympic tickets, it seems that the biggest sport in the world will be the one that has the least appeal and the possibility of empty seats next year. It is a different debate however as to whether football should be there at all, but there is little doubt that despite what our football associations may say, this is a huge deal to a lot of players. Cameroon’s victory in 2000 is proof of that. But then when have the men in suits ever had the remotest idea of what players and fans think?
FIFA have said unequivocally that this will not change anything, so it seems the home nations’ distrust is misplaced. However, Sepp Blatter has sung to a very different tune in the past , saying in March 2008:
“If you start to put together a combined team for the Olympics, the question will automatically come up that there are four different associations so how can they play in one team,” he said.
“If this is the case then why the hell do they have four associations and four votes and their own vice-presidency?
“This will put into question all the privileges that the British associations have been given by the Congress in 1946.”
Blatter is of course here to stay for another four years, but wouldn’t be able to merge the Home Nations without huge support and an almighty struggle. These are football associations that existed long before FIFA did. Jack Warner has called for a GB team, but he is gone. This is one fight FIFA is very, very unlikely to pick.
The fact is I imagine other countries would prefer for the nations to stay separate. A Great Britain team with the likes of Bale and Ramsey would be stronger, after all. And what’s more, it hard for the Welsh to argue about autonomy when Swansea will play in next season’s Premier League, or the Scots to argue the same when Berwick Rangers play in the Scottish League, and rumours persist about Celtic and Rangers coming to play in England.
Some agree with the stance of the non-English FA’s. Gerry Hassan in the Guardian called the decision a farce.
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“The existence of a Team GB isn’t just a threat to the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish and their place on the global stage of world football, but the English, too. This could be a threat to all of us, our separate histories, traditions and teams, and for what?”
A total overreaction in my opinion – this is a football tournament for two weeks next year, not devolved parliaments, Bannockburn or the future of western civilization as we know it. A bit of perspective is needed. A one-off event, well almost anyway. It’s almost as if the four nations merging for every other sport in the Olympics doesn’t matter – but how is football different? The answer – it isn’t.
In some respects, what the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland FA’s think on the matter is irrelevant. If Gareth Bale wants to play in the Olympic team next year, then he can – they can’t stop him. More likely to stop him is his club, as we all know club managers will not want their players burnt out in the summer months – just look at how Jack Wilshere was pressured to pull out of the U21 squad last month. The competition runs from 26th July-11th August, though the early games are preliminaries. Thus players who play in the semi-finals and beyond will walk out of the Olympics and straight into a new domestic season.
Seeing a British team would be enjoyable in my opinion, and a novelty. Rugby teams manage to amalgamate the home nations. And as the host nation, Britain has an obligation to compete in every Olympic event (unless not of the required standard of course). I tend to look at things simply – many have tried to make this a political issue when at the end of the day it is about putting together a football team for a fortnight, and competing for a few medals. I will watch every England match keenly, as a fan of football, sport in general, and a follower of all Olympic events. I look forward to it greatly, whatever team is put out, and I will bet you the players will too, along with millions of other fans Though don’t get too excited just yet – the manager will probably be Stuart Pearce.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter has blasted the latest doping revelation involving North Korea at the Women’s World Cup.The number of players from the country who have tested positive to a banned substance at the Women’s World Cup has risen to five after three more players failed drug tests.
The North Korea squad was tested after the group match against Colombia following failed tests by Song Jong-Sun Song and Jong Pok-Sim.
Now a further three players have tested positive, although FIFA said they wouldn’t disclose the players’ names nor the banned substance.
“As the proceedings are still in progress, FIFA will not disclose the names of the three players whose test results have produced adverse analytical findings, in accordance with the World Anti-Doping Code,” a FIFA statement said.
Blatter told a news conference he was stunned by the results.
“This is a shock,” Blatter said.
“We are confronted with a very, very bad case of doping and it hurts.”
However, North Korean officials are blaming traditional steroid-laced Chinese medicine from musk deer glands which they claim they used to treat injuries to players who were alleged to have been hit by a lightning strike.
“The North Korean officials said they didn’t use it to improve performance,” the head of FIFA’s medical committee, Michel D’Hooghe, said.
“They said they had a serious lightning accident with several players injured and they gave it as therapy.”
Manchester United chief executive David Gill has indicated the club could yet sign one more player before the transfer window closes.English Premier League champions United have already strengthened heavily since winning a record 19th championship in May, spending heavily on goalkeeper David De Gea, defender Phil Jones and winger Ashley Young.
Inter Milan playmaker Wesley Sneijder and Arsenal midfielder Samir Nasri have both been linked with moves to Old Trafford during the close season.
And while manager Sir Alex Ferguson suggested earlier this week there would no further acquisitions, Gill claims United remain active in the market.
“We’re looking at one more player to bring in,” Gill said.
“Nothing’s happening – nothing imminent – on that at the moment, but we’ll see what happens when we get home (from the tour of America).”
“There’ll be 31 days of the transfer window to see if anything develops. But I’m not working on anything at the moment, in that respect.”
Gill said United would only be looking to sign a ‘world-class player’, fuelling more rumours that Netherlands international Sneijder could yet join the club.
“The important thing to understand, and Alex has made it clear, is that we need someone who’s going to improve the quality of the squad,” he said.
“We’ve got a great squad and to get into that squad you need to be a world-class player.”
“There’s no point, if you can’t get the players you want, in buying someone for the sake of buying someone.”