I am geniuely wondering…if by any chance, FIFA, UEFA-Platini-land and FAs manage to agree on the policy of paying the clubs for such injury issues…they may be looking at a hugh sum as payout! Anyone heard of Countries going into “International Administrations”???

But on a serious note, me wife was mentioning this… why do Arsenal Players tend to get injury even in training! As if it is not enough that other club’s players are out to “re-shape” our players, UEFA-Platini-land hell bent on “tekaning” (that’s torturing in Malay-singish in S’pore) Arsenal and what have you. Maybe our training is a bit tough on the players? The English weather playing a part in this? Dieting? Maybe play with less internationals in the team?

A more sensible approach is for all power-managers at club level to peacefully congregate to reason with FIFA, UEFA-Platini-land and FAs mafias. A common calender period for international matches seems good, player’s injuries and his wages to be negotiated with a reasonable outcome for both club and countries, play less or no friendlies with club managers assisting national team managers with sufficient data on players’ playing profile for future Qualifying matches…etc

(Off-topic again)

If only Singapore can play such high level matches…We can’t even beat Malaysia for goodness sake…

Perhaphs Tony can do a full post on this. What do you think, Tony?

However, friendlies, qualifiers and the ilk are necessary for coaches to get used to their team and tactics.
Also for smaller nations such matches generate much income and interest than their domestic leagues.

“For the nations who don’t have a strong domestic league, national teams are almost 80 per cent of everything,” Bilic said. “Not only income, but the interest. It was a blow for [England] not to qualify for Austria and Switzerland, but six weeks after that, you had Manchester United against Chelsea or the Champions League or something, the Premier League, but not here… so that’s why it’s important for us.”

I took great pleasure in England’s performance against Croatia last night, but the only time I cheered out loud was when Eduardo scored. It was an automatic reaction. Is this wrong?

All in all, it’s good that England qualified for the World Cup…as this would further irritated the UEFA-Platini-land. Wonder what nonsense would come from his lordly.

(A bit off topic here)

Btw, I’ll try my best to observe mouth discipline during the Man Arab vs Arsenal match…me wife complains that Colourful language is quite bad for personal health…

Wonderful post and many thanks to Mr.Tony…Keep it going…

tony’s post fully grasps the contradiction between club and nation. like LRV and marc, i am skeptical that any substantial change would ever occur. UEFA, FA, etc. simply have too much money at stake.

but i wonder if a more important factor might be that even those who want change won’t be willing to carry it through to the end. we may recognize these nationalistic tendencies for what they are (i despise harry redknapp for everything he stands for), but we all take pride in seeing our respective nations do well…and there’s an added emotional boost when one knows that the players performing in these games aren’t doing it–at least at that moment–”for the money.” i mean, look at beckham! he is a walking dollar sign, but his devotion to England is unchallenged, and is lauded for having the same love of the game as an 8-year-old might have.

This goes a long way in explaining 2 things. 1) Why we have so many “Friendlies” 2) Why the FA allows clubs to be financially run in such a sustainable way. After all how can the FA tell clubs to balance the books!

In fact, this time round (assuming there are no more injuries found) we’ve done quite well. Ok, lost AA but both Cesc and Rosicky have had valuable match time making playing them on saturday less of a risk, Theo has returned to training, Almunia, Denilson and Clichy have had a rest and RvP, Bendtner and Eduardo have all had confidence boosts by getting on the score sheet.

The fact that the luck seems to be against us a lot of the time could well be just that we easily notice when a player of ours is injured on international duty where as, on the other hand, we take it for granted when a player gains confidence or gets valuable match time.

Take Carlos Vela for example. Ok, injured now due to international duty but he rarely played last season and the confidence boost he must have gained from having such a successful CONCACAF cup in my opinion greatly outweighs the fact that we’ll miss him for a couple of weeks.