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Fabian Delph sits across the Man City club photographer, letting the ink dry on a new 5-year-deal and a nice wage hike due to his international plaudits and an all round good form. Turn the clock back to January and a similar scenario was taking place, but at a different club.
In the biggest set of U-Turns in football for as long as I can remember, Fabian Delph has signed for Manchester City for around £8 million thanks to the attraction of Champions League football and the opportunity to play with world class players.
This comes six days after releasing a statement stating his desire to lead Aston Villa into the new season as captain, a few months off signing a brand new deal with Aston Villa, and publicly announcing how he is proving loyalty still exists in football.
Now as a Villa fan, I well and truly feel betrayed by a player that the club could have easily disbanded at any point and cut our losses – with the player picking up several injuries and getting into a fight at a Birmingham nightclub, but the club stuck with him through thick and thin – realising the investment and the quality.
It seems to the outside looking in that at the first opportunity he left Villa and used us as a springboard which so many players are doing recently; Benteke is another who is expected to leave soon.
However, some may argue that signing a contract got Villa a fee that we can use to replace him with unlike if he didn’t sign a deal which would have seen him leave on a free transfer.
It’s a mixed kind of deal, but whatever the case is it has left a very bitter taste to Aston Villa losing two of their best players within one summer.
However, with around £40 million to reinvest – it is thought that Villa will make a better side with the money while replacing the players that have left.
Written by James Clark
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Bayern Munich’s chief executive Karl-Heinz Rummennigge wasn’t at the launch of his club’s new kit to hear the jeers from a number of supporters, but he did say he expected it. “I don’t know if they were booing Bayern Munich or just the transfer itself” he told Bild, referring to the exit of Bastian Schweinsteiger to Manchester United.
The midfielder who had won everything with Bayern over 13 years and the friendly face who drank in the local pub and played with friends in the park, Schweini as he is endearingly known to Bayern loyalists, was suddenly leaving Bavaria, where he holds a saint-like status, behind.
Rummennigge, who himself served the German giants for a decade, would have empathised with Bayern’s supporters and would have braced himself for the reaction. He would be aware Schweinsteiger would have been extremely difficult to replace, if not for his expertise on the pitch but for the admiration and worship he received off it.
Juventus’ 28 year old Arturo Vidal may have been identified as the on-field replacement however, in a move that at first glance is most unlike Pep Guardiola. Analyse it to more detail however and it takes on greater levels of curiosity.
Anathema to the graceful ball-movers that the Spaniard usually prefers, Vidal will bring with him tenacity and the raw aggression that earned him 49 bookings in his four years in Italy. Guardiola may be directing Bayern to a shift in style, but with the 44 year old entering the last year of his contract at the Allianz Arena those fond of a conspiracy theory may query if it is Bayern preparing for life without the coach.
If Guardiola is to bow out at the end of his three year deal his time will be unfulfilled if he fails, at the third attempt, to secure the Champions League that Jupp Heynckes discovered couldn’t prevent him from being shuffled aside to make way for the Catalan.
The box of league supremacy has been ticked emphatically, but humbling defeats to Spanish opposition on the continent has left a sour taste in the mouths of the hierarchy who may have even handed Guardiola a show of strength by sanctioning the sale of Schweinsteiger. The politics may be uncertain, but this coming season is undoubtedly pivotal for Guardiola.
The €30 million signing of Brazilian attacking midfielder Douglas Costa from Shakhtar Donetsk suggests he is looking for an injection of pace and he would also get that in abundance from Vidal who operated as the legs for Andrea Pirlo at Juventus.
With Schweinsteiger the one to be offloaded from glut of Bayern midfielders who all appear so similar; Phillip Lahm, Thiago Alcantara, Javi Martinez and Xabi Alonso, Vidal will offer much-needed bite and steel. Guardiola may envisage the Chilean, supported by Alcantara, doing the same dogged shielding job he did for Pirlo at Juve with Alonso.
Given his senior Chile debut by the revolutionary Marcelo Bielsa and a vital cog in the exciting teams of the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, the latter under Jorge Sampaoli which eliminated Spain and nearly did for Brazil, Vidal’s education in the persistent pressing game will appeal to Guardiola who coached it so effectively at Barcelona.
He attempted the most tackles (134) at Juventus last season and won the ball back through challenges and interceptions at a rate of 4.7 per game, stats that will be alluring to Bayern’s studious coach.
Vidal also won this year’s Copa America under Sampaoli’s tutelage, earning himself a place in the team of the tournament, a consolation prize for the failure to secure a Champions League for Juventus under Massimiliano Allegri whose focus on relentless hard-work secured a league and cup double.
It was Vidal’s fourth successive league title in Italy and a £28 million move, with Juve looking to recoup funds after renovating their squad with Paulo Dybala, Mario Mandzukic, Simone Zaza and Roberto Pereyra in a spree which has exceeded £60 million, will see him join a side who enjoy a similar level of domestic dominance. It will be on the continent that will provide the true test of his pedigree and mettle.
It will not always be pretty; Vidal is a persistent fouler and will too often walk the tightrope between the yellow and a second red card, but perhaps for once the idealist in Guardiola isn’t searching for aesthetics.
He will be asking Vidal to prowl fiercely around his midfield to allow his possession-artists to operate, and to drive an irrepressible will to win, the same kind that got Carlos Zambrano of Peru sent-off in the Copa America semi-final. With Vidal in it, Bayern won’t have the same team that bowed with a whimper to both Real Madrid and Barcelona over the course of the past two seasons.
For a reasonable fee in this current market, Vidal will provide a satisfactory replacement for Schweinsteiger and is three years the German’s junior. Though regardless of how much of a fighter he is on the field or how much he work he ploughs through in his midfield station, replacing Schweinsteiger’s Bavarian void will be way beyond him.
Written by Adam Gray
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Top 50 tennis professional Sergiy Stakhovsky from Serbia has claimed that there are no gay men on the professional tennis tour but that “every other player is a lesbian” in women’s tennis, and for that reason he wouldn’t let his daughter play tennis.
Putting aside the aggressive homophobia and misogyny of his comments about women’s tennis, unsettlingly Stakhovsky does make a valid point: Women’s tennis seems to be much more accepting of diversity than men’s tennis.
It’s easy to point to women who are lesbians that have had phenomenally successful careers in tennis – Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova are among the most famous; Amélie Mauresmo (now Andy Murray’s coach) has recently announced that she is pregnant and expecting a baby with her female partner. No one bats an eyelid.
Can you name a gay player in the men’s top 100? Can you name a gay player who has ever been a successful tennis player? Maybe Stakhovsky is right and there simply aren’t any, or maybe his homophobia is one of the factors forcing gay tennis players to conceal their sexuality.
Predictably, both the Women’s Tennis Association and the ATP (the men’s association) have publicly condemned Stakhovsky’s comments as unacceptable. Navratilova took to Twitter to confront Stakhovsky directly.
But what are the ATP doing to address the obvious homophobia within their ranks? What are they doing to promote diversity and support gay players? On the face of it, nothing.
We know from research around the world that there are a range of complex factors that prevent gay men from participating and excelling in sports. The research indicates that steps that can be taken to help make sport accessible for gay men is high-profile role models at the elite level, as well as grassroots support at the local level to provide an environment that is welcoming of all athletes regardless of sexuality.
It seems that the ATP are a long way behind other sports organisations, saying the right things publicly (when forced into a corner by rampant homophobes like Stakhovsky), but not taking any action to make men’s tennis a safe and supportive space for players who are gay.
Tennis is a fantastic sport. A sport that provides opportunities for individual excellence as well as teamwork. It seems a shame that it is a sport that gay men are being excluded from.
Sergiy Stakhovsky may not speak for the ATP, but if in any way he represents the culture within men’s tennis then we will have a long time to wait before we see an openly gay man playing at the elite level.
Ultimately, tennis is the loser here.
Written by Gareth Johnson
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