As it is getting close to the World Cup he will probably take a strong squad. There is no point in taking players who will not play in the World Cup.”The fixture coincides with the first leg of the European Zone’s play-offs which will involve one country, possibly England, playing home-and-away fixtures against a nation from the Asian confederation.Arsenal cannot even ask for the 17 November fixture to be moved back to the Sunday as the Champions’ League resumes the following week and the Gunners could have to play on the Tuesday.The French have also arranged friendlies in February, March and April, against Romania, Scotland and Russia However, these matches are all to be staged in Paris.. Laurent Blanc’s move to Manchester United stalled last night over an argument about a £500,000 golden handshake. Laurent Blanc’s move to Manchester United stalled last night over an argument about a £500,000 golden handshake.
The French centre-half was due to arrive in Manchester for a medical before signing for United in time for tomorrow night’s Champions League midnight deadline. Blanc, who is available on a free transfer, has been lined up as a replacement for Jaap Stam, who joined Lazio for £15.25m on Monday.But Blanc refused to leave Internazionale without receiving money due to him in signing-on fees and loyalty bonuses – a sum close to £500,000, according to Italian sources.Instead of heading for Manchester, Blanc continued training while the clubs tried to resolve the issue.
Inter do not want to give Blanc the money as they are not receiving a transfer fee, while United declined to pick up the tab.United do not have any alternatives lined up and their manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, faces an anxious wait for Blanc. Inter know that United are under pressure and are happy to hold out for them to pay the money that Blanc is looking for.Blanc, a close friend of the United goalkeeper and his international team-mate Fabien Barthez, has turned down moves to Old Trafford on least three previous occasions.Blanc is likely to demand wages of around £2m a year but is the sort of experienced defender Ferguson is seeking as a replacement for Stam.Blanc sat on the bench at the weekend as Inter beat Perugia 4-1 at the San Siro after being replaced at the centre of the defence by the Colombian Ivan Cordoba and the former Everton player Marco Materazzi.United’s efforts to find a long-term defensive replacement are also being frustrated. Valencia have dismissed speculation that their central defender Robert Ayala may move to United.The former Napoli and Milan defender has been valued by Valencia at £37.1m, and the Valencia president, Jaime Orti, said: “We know that Manchester United are interested in the player. However, Ayala is an important player for Valencia and we do not want to sell him. “We have not been contacted by Manchester United recently but some time ago we were asked by them about the player.”PSV Eindhoven told Ferguson he would have to wait at least a year to sign Kevin Hofland.
The player’s agent and father, Huub, said: “We have agreed with PSV that Kevin will play at least two seasons.”Parma’s Fabio Cannavaro was courted by Lazio until United sold Stam to the Rome club but the Parma president, Stefano Tanzi, is insistent that the defender is not for sale.. Published in conjunction with the 1966 World Cup final, a variation of the following remark is attributed to Frank McGhee, late of this life and the Daily Mirror: “If, on the morrow, the Germans beat us at our national game, we’d do well to remember that, twice this century, we have beaten them at theirs.”
Published in conjunction with the 1966 World Cup final, a variation of the following remark is attributed to Frank McGhee, late of this life and the Daily Mirror: “If, on the morrow, the Germans beat us at our national game, we’d do well to remember that, twice this century, we have beaten them at theirs.”
Upsetting as this was for West German FA officials, including the press officer Wilfred Gerhardt, a confirmed Anglophile who had risen to a position of trust alongside the coach Helmut Schoen, it scarcely astonished them. “Germany’s past is something we have to live with, something that only time will repair,” Gerhardt said.Gerhardt’s words came back to me many years later when, between us, we were successful in persuading Schoen to be guest of honour at the annual dinner of the Football Writers Association. Significantly, you may think, Schoen, whose team had gone on from Wembley to put England out of the World Cup finals in Mexico four years later, brought the house down.Deeply moved by the respect shown for his feats of winning the 1972 European Championship and the 1974 World Cup, Schoen spoke that night of a bond between English and German football. “In character and style, I think we are closer than any other two football nations,” he said.Since the Germans were forging ahead to their present record of three World Cups and three European Championships with six appearances in the final of both competitions, it was interesting to hear Schoen privately admit he didn’t think they had England’s measure until a 3-1 European Championship victory at Wembley in 1972. “We had built an outstanding team,” he said, “but the shadow of English football still hung over us.”Not even Franz Beckenbauer, who had retreated from midfield to turn the sweeper’s role into an art form, felt confident.
“Until I scored the only goal to win a friendly in 1967, we had never beaten England,” he would recall, “and our victory in the 1970 World Cup came after we had been outplayed for most of the game, so we were very nervous But everything worked out for us. England had lost some of their best players, including Bobby Charlton, while our team had improved.”A denial of arrogant expectation, England’s defeat caused a storm to break over Alf Ramsey, who immediately came under pressure to bring in younger men for the return leg in Berlin two weeks later.A couple of days before the game I fell into conversation with Schoen after watching the Germans train. By then we were on quite friendly terms, and he asked whether Ramsey would yield to popular opinion “No chance,” I said At this, Schoen smiled “I didn’t think so,” he said. “Shame, because we would have torn an inexperienced team to pieces.”There is nothing on which football correspondents can grow more caustically critical than the subject of national team managers, who, they imply, are public servants and had better not forget it. Thus, when Ramsey did not heed their advice, and a 0-0 draw led to England’s elimination, he was wickedly accused of merely trying to save face. He never confronted the Germans again.Events since then have done little to ease the trepidation England’s supporters are sure to feel in Munich on Saturday where a draw would be good enough to secure Germany’s place in the World Cup finals. The finals of 1982 saw England, under Ron Greenwood, go out with a goalless draw against Germany in Madrid.
The better team when they met Germany in the 1990 World Cup semi-finals, England lost in a penalty shoot-out that set Beckenbauer up to become the only man, other than Mario Zagallo, of Brazil, to win the World Cup both as a player and manager. Heartening revenge was on the cards when Terry Venables sent out England to face Germany at Wembley for a place in the final of Euro 96, but he too had the agony of losing on penalties.Earlier this week, Beckenbauer declared himself bored with the crass hyperbole that erupts in sections of the English press whenever Germany are in opposition. “All that stuff about war, Panzers and Stukas doesn’t bother us,” he said “We leave that to the English.” Anyway, McGhee did it first And, with tongue firmly in cheek, he did it better Gerhardt thought the world of him.. The West Ham United manager, Glenn Roeder, last night completed the signing of Sunderland’s Don Hutchison for a club-record £5m fee. The West Ham United manager, Glenn Roeder, last night completed the signing of Sunderland’s Don Hutchison for a club-record £5m fee.
“Glenn likes to play football like all West Ham managers have done, and I hope we can turn that into winning football as well,” said the Scotland midfielder Hutchison, who rejoins the club he left in 1996.”I have followed West Ham from a distance since I left and a lot of my mates are West Ham fans.