Gareth Bale makes an international talisman XI in Mailbox
The World Cup play-offs and Gareth Bale have woken up the Mailbox so we have banned talk of an anti-Arsenal agenda. Send your mails to theeditor@football365.com
Gwon the Welsh parasite
I am not a particularly great fan of Gareth Bale, but it makes me smile when he continuously manages to piss off Real Madrid, the most arrogant club in football, who thinks they can do and get what they want – always.
As the Stones sang, ‘You can’t always get what you want…’.
They mostly get their way, so to see Bale just not give a **** really amuses me.
Andreas (Refereeing season is over, so a quiet weekend ahead) Brussels
International XI
Does Bale ever score a scruffy, or even inconsequential, goal for Wales? He is the one of the best international players of my lifetime and the definition of a talisman. In fact, I trawled my brain to come up with a ‘best XI’ of my time, with all bar one of the selection below, post-dating 2000. Some big-game players here, many of whom dragged their nations to unprecedented heights:
Buffon
Thuram
McGrath
Cannavaro
Lahm
Modric
Iniesta
Beckham
Zidane
Bale
C.Ronaldo.
Subs: Casillas, Cafu, Marquez, Sneijder, Schweinsteiger, Klose, Ronaldo
Brian Carty
Smashest and grabbest ever?
Was that the smashest and grabbest match of football ever from the category of smash and grab? Only closest of such event in recent memory was the Greece campaign back in the Euro 2004, which included the silverest goal ever in the history of silver goal.
Would be cool if fellow mailboxes can share their recollections.
Syfq Amr, Malaysia
I’m out
After much contemplation this evening, I have decided to boycott the World Cup in Qatar.
This is purely for moral reasons, and has absolutely nothing to do with an awful, embarrassing Italian performance in their loss to North Macedonia.
Dario (football is stupid and I don’t know why I bother)
But Italy is a worse league
I like John Nicholson’s article on playing abroad not being a step down. Centred around Tammy Abraham. I do agree that we don’t give enough credit to English players who go abroad to play but I’m not convinced that this proves that abroad isn’t a step down or that there’s the usual English nonsense about all things foreign.
Firstly, Tammy Abraham. There is a list as long as your arm of players who, for whatever reason, haven’t worked out at an English club only to leave and do well or still be recognised as a Good Player. From Veron to Pogba, De Bruyne to Salah. De Bruyne in particular was more famous for his ginger hair at Chelsea. Now he’s rightly considered one of the best footballers on the planet. Perhaps we’ll see Abraham fill City’s striker shaped hole at the end of this.
Secondly, the Italian league is, by every measure, a worse league than the Premier League. It has lower player salaries, lower attendance, lower TV figures and a considerably lower UEFA coefficient. There hasn’t been any systemic match fixing in the Premier League beyond the financial doping of two or three clubs. The top two European club tournaments have one Italian club left in still in Atalanta compared to four Premier League teams. An English team has won the champions league three times since the last Italian win. Even the Euros, which Italy won, had more players from the Premier League than the Italian league.
Probably 3 of 5 best teams in the world at the moment are City, Chelsea and Liverpool. It’s totally OK for a player to not break into these first teams and still be a very good player. Had Abraham been scoring goals in the say Moldovan league we’d rightly be saying well it’s a weaker league. Just because the little Englanders say abroad isn’t as good, doesn’t mean that they are wrong by default. Also, because he’s scoring abroad doesn’t mean that he isn’t cut out for the Premier League.
Alex, South London
Knowing the league is nonsense
Was reading something on the BBC yesterday, and their ‘European expert’ suggested that United would, or at least should, pick Pochettino over ten Hag because he has Premier League experience, and “knows the league”.
The oft, and rightly, criticised phrase is thrown around all the time with regards to new managers, but does it actually make sense? Do the numbers back up the concept?
Well, there have been 11 managers who have won the Premier League. Jose Mourinho won the league in his first season, having never managed on these shores before. So too did Carlo Ancelotti, Antonio Conte, and Manuel Pellegrini. Sir Alex, while having managed Man United before, was a Premier League newb, a greenie; yet also won the title in his first season in the league. As for the other winners, Wenger was new to the league, and went onto win the title after a solitary introductory spell. The same applies to Roberto Mancini, Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp. All of them were complete novices when it came to Premier League experience, but after a small settling spell of a season or two, have gone on to win the Premier League title. Kenny Dalglish falls into the same bracket as the above, mixed with a little Sir Alex. Been at the club before, but was fresh PL meat, and needed a couple of seasons to earn his title.
That leaves us with one manager, one guy who should have won the league, and was expected to, based on his previous experience managing in this league, and that is the big man; Claudio Ranieri! Of the 11 Premier League winning managers, he was the only one who had the requisite level of experience, who “knew the league”, and then went on to win the league, as he bloody well should have.
So there you have it, the facts don’t lie. If you want to win the league, the best managers to hire are the newbies, the ‘no experience of the English game’ lads. They’ll either win it in their first season, or a few seasons later.
Neill, Ireland
Best Liverpool free transfer ever is…
I didn’t really want to get involved in the ‘Worst free transfer’ conversation because I don’t really remember most of them and it’s all happy funtimes at LFC now anyway and I’ve been around long enough to know to enjoy the good times while they’re here.
So, with that in mind, I immediately got to thinking about the best frees. I know, I know. It’s been done to death. Gary Mac, Matip etc etc. But no. Absolutely not for me. There is only one man that can ever possibly be number one on that list and it’s not the 47 year old Scottish genius or the Performance Artist with magic boots from Shalke. Great players both, but great d’oth butter no parsnips.
This player was different. This player was special. This player was bringing the best left foot in the business to Anfield. He was ethereal. He was broken. He was perfect.
He was Fabio Aurelio.
Brian Morrissey, Waterford
This means more money
I see that Liverpool have decided to get into the peddling NFTs game, and I would like to go on record as telling them to f**k right off with that shit.
Dan, Plastic LFC
