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10. Lars Bender (Bayer Leverkusen)

Young midfielder said to be on Man United wish-list. Now in the German national team set-up and a strong box to box player who has great potential.

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10. Gina Pistol – Ciprian Marica

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Neven Subotic (Borussia Dortmund) – age: 22; defender

A tall, composed and graceful defender with solid distribution from the back. The Serbian controlled and marshalled the Dortmund defence in their title winning drive last season. A £15million price tag will not put off Arsenal or Manchester City, but Dortmund are unlikely to sell.

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The UEFA Association coefficient, or ‘league coefficient’, is calculated each year by UEFA and determines the number of places in continental competition for each league. This year has seen the rise of the German League into third spot, forcing the position of Serie A down to 4th. If these provisional coefficients are the same come the end of the season, then the Bundesliga will have 4 teams entered into the Champions League, along with England and Spain, while Italy will only have 3. These changes will come into action for the 2012/13 season.

For years the Italian League has provided teams that have been a force to be reckoned with, such as Carlo Ancelotti’s Milan, Jose Mourinho’s Inter as well as Lazio. From the 1989 Champions League final to the 1998 Final, only one in 1991 did not have an Italian team in. During the same period only one German team was involved in the final, being the Borussia Dortmund winners of 1997. Since this golden period, it seems that a lack of depth in quality teams provided from the Serie A has seen it fall behind the Germans. The domestic league has a handful of quality teams, continually competing for top spot, while the rest of the league remains streets behind.

Whereas in the Bundesliga, despite Bayern Munich’s dominance, the rest of the league is highly competitive and provides differing teams for qualification each year. Juventus used to be a formidable team to face in the competition but have fallen away in recent years. They have tried to keep a core to the team, with Buffon and Del Piero but have struggled to return to their heights of the 90′s after their forced relegation in 2006. Roma were notorious runners-up from 2000-10 and while doing OK in the Champions League, they have never really been serious contenders for the European Title.

Italy has supplied the joint most winners of the Champions League, twice as many as the 6 German winners. They have also supplied the most winners of the Europa League/Uefa Cup at 9. It is a league with so much heritage which has been host to many of the World’s greatest players such as Ronaldo, Maradona and Zidane. Does Italy deserve to lose it’s place among Europe’s elite?

The Bundesliga is far more entertaining to watch than the Italian League with so much more competition. Germany gains its place in the coefficients due to it’s performance over the past 5 years in competition on the continent. It seems harsh when Italy came out on top in last years Champions League, as Inter Milan beat Bayern Munich . Bayern would still have a tough game against Inter or Milan, but would arguably stand a good chance against Juve or Roma.

As you move down the tables, comparing teams, It could be argued that the German league is stronger. To be fair, the German’s haven’t really had a fantastic record in European Competition in the past few years in terms of winning. But they do always seem to have a couple of clubs near the end of the competitions. On this basis it does show the improved quality of the German League, while not a decline in the Italian League, but definitely an increase in the gulf in class within Serie A.

The coefficients don’t lie and over the last 5 years the German clubs have certainly been far more impressive. It will be interesting to see how German clubs will fair in the tournaments to come if they maintain the 3rd spot in the coefficients. It is a shame that having such a fantastic history, the Italian league is having it’s 4th Champions League spot taken away for now.

This is not to say that it will be final. Italian teams may come strong this year and take the 3rd spot back. Serie A does not boast the same amount of quality that it did in the 90s and now the Bundesliga has capitalised on that. It will certainly bring an interesting dynamic next year, as the 4th Italian team, Sampdoria, failed to qualify this year. However, qualifying through this route has become more difficult due to Platini’s reforms meaning that teams from the top countries face each other in the qualification rounds. I think there is a bit of both aspects in this change to the European game. The German league is certainly improving in depth and quality, whilst the Italian quality has remained the same, but the same level of depth just isn’t there.

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At the age of 37, Finland centre-half Sami Hyypia is finally set to hang up his boots, at least at international level.

“I am 99 per cent sure the Hungary game was my last international match,” he said according to RP-Online.

Hyypia last featured for country in a 2-1 loss in Euro 2012 qualifying. The 105-times capped defender remains a first team starter at Bayer Leverkusen, however, and has yet to reveal his plans beyond the 2010-11 season. (Goal.com)

One of Liverpool’s greatest ever signings, Sami Hyypia had the option to stay at Anfield beyond summer 2009, but elected to move to German club Bayer Leverkusen in pursuit of first team football.

Even now at 37 years old, Hyypia is regularly picked for the Bundesliga side, and that illustrates the impressive longevity and fitness of someone regarded as a true professional.

The Finnish player has only ever received one red card in his eighteen years playing the game, against Manchester United in 2003. Hyypia pulled the shirt of Red Devils striker Ruud van Nistelrooy as he went through on goal, and had to walk.

In 2000-2001 he jointly captained Liverpool alongside Robbie Fowler to a treble of the UEFA Cup, FA Cup and Carling Cup (then known as the Worthington Cup), and this will go down as his finest hour in a Liverpool shirt.

In his final match for the Reds on May 24th 2009, Hyypia’s team-mates held him on their shoulders in tribute to his service, as pictured above.

After 105 international caps – second only to Finland legend (and former Liverpool player) Jari Litmanen – Sami Hyypia has elected to concentrate on club football.

Though last month he revealed he will become Bayer Leverkusen assistant manager upon his retirement as a player, one day he may well return to Anfield.

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How great it would have been to see this man in The Premier League…

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He told German tabloid Bild, “Of course I am not entirely certain that I will be able to keep Manuel Neuer and all the other players.”

Schalke’s ability to keep the Germany international could also be weakened by their struggles this season.

With just 9 points from 11 games this season, the Gelsenkirchen side sit in the relegation playoff slot in the Bundesliga, and naturally this heightens rumours of discontent amongst the playing staff.

Neuer’s contract is set to expire in the summer of 2012, meaning that Schalke may be willing to sell him in one of the next two transfer windows in order to generate a fee for the player, and given his impressive performances throughout the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the leading clubs of Europe will surely have taken notice.

Of those in the Premier League, Manchester United would seem the most likely candidates to buy the player. Edwin Van Der Sar is now 40 years of age, and will not be around forever.

A top quality goalkeeper does not become available too often, and Sir Alex Ferguson may see this as an excellent opportunity to secure the no. 1 jersey at Old Trafford for years to come.

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This might make me the biggest nerd in football fandom – though I suspect I have fairly strong competition – but this morning I sat down with a list of all England’s fixtures and results since January 1st 2000, with the sole purpose of establishing whether there is any convincing evidence that England players get tired as the premier league season draws to a close.
I’ve heard it said for years that England’s top flight is the most grueling in the world, but I’ve never really known whether there’s much truth to the claim. I’ve certainly never been clear whether, if true, this impacts much on the national team.

But after England’s abject failure in South Africa I found myself trawling the internet, listening to endless hours of post-mortem on the radio and even hoping ITV’s Adrian Chiles might help me fathom why England had been so miserably, terribly, depressingly awful.

Fabio Capello’s assertion that his players were tired is, apparently, a ‘tired excuse,’ at least according to most football pundits and newspaper columnists. And I too was happy to deride Capello’s explanation, particularly as certain decisions he made leading up to, and during, the World Cup, like personnel, formations and substitutions had driven me mad. But then I heard David Davies, a former Executive Director of the Football Association, tell a story on the radio.

He recounted that when former England manager, Sven Goran Eriksson, was traveling home after his team’s quarter final exit in the 2002 World Cup, he revealed to Davies that when the squad first got together in preparation for the tournament, he was shocked by their initial round of fitness tests, which revealed that only one member of the squad was properly fit to play at their peak in the tournament. That player was Owen Hargreaves.

When I heard this story I wondered whether it was just a coincidence that Hargreaves was also the only member of the squad who didn’t play in England’s premier league. Back in 2002 Hargreaves plied his trade for Bayern Munich in the German Bundesliga and we all know how successful the Germans have been in World Cups.

Eriksson was still in charge of England at the 2006 World Cup. Going into that tournament he believed he had the players to win it. Afterwards he admitted he had expected to win, but once again, when the fitness of the players was assessed on the eve of the competition the same results were found. Only one player was showing the kind of fitness required and once again the player was Owen Hargreaves, who was still playing in Germany.

After another disappointing quarter final exit, the England fans voted overwhelmingly that their player of the 2006 World Cup was Owen Hargreaves. It seemed to the fans, for both those who’d traveled to Germany and for those watching from their sofas back home, that Hargreaves was just about the only England player to play with any real heart, passion and determination – all the assets most commonly associated with English football. To us fans it appeared as though Hargreaves was the only one who cared. But was he really the only player who cared? Or was he the only player with the necessary reserves of energy to give everything for the cause? Had the other members of the team already given too much in the previous weeks and months on the playing fields of the Premier League? I began to wonder.

I hunted around online for any information that might shed some light on the subject. There was plenty of strong opinion, often from the mainstream media’s best known football pundits and writers, but none of it seemed based on any in-depth research into the subject, or if there was, it certainly wasn’t referenced. Clearly, if I wanted statistical analysis, I’d have to be the one to do the dirty work.

So I got myself a list of all England’s results since January 1st 2000 and started analyzing the data. Since the beginning of the 21st century the England senior side has played a total of 125 matches. Of these they won 73, drew 27 and lost 25. Put another way, England won about 59% and drew about 21%. Not bad, but does England’s performance level drop off towards the end of the season? Is there statistical evidence to show that the England team might play better in summer tournaments if, like the Germans, they too had a winter break?

I decided that because a winter break would divide the season into two halves I would divide all the fixtures into two halves, using the international free month of January as my divider, as it is likely that a winter break, if instituted in the premier league, would come in January. This seemed to be an easy way of checking whether, as the premier league season draws to a close, there is any clear statistical evidence for a downturn in England’s performances, while at the same time gathering evidence of whether a winter break might benefit the national team.

During all the months of September, October and December since January 1st 2000 England played 47 matches. They won 27, drew 10 and lost 10. This gives them a winning percentage of 58%. Almost identical to their overall percentage of 59%. That being the case you can probably guess that the statistics for their post January matches are almost identical. In matches during February, March, April, May, June and July, England won 60%, drew 21% and lost 19%. Almost identical statistics in both halves of each season, indicating there is absolutely no credence to the argument that England suffers in tournament football because of tiredness. So that answered that. England plays at a fairly consistent level all year round and tiredness doesn’t seem to be a relevant factor in the country’s failure at major tournaments. Obviously, the Germans are wasting their time having a winter break. With that settled, I went for lunch.
I was meeting a friend at a café. It wasn’t far. Only a ten minute walk, but I didn’t make it. Half way there I stopped in my tracks. Something wasn’t right about this. The Germans are never wrong. Don’t misunderstand me, they’ve been wrong about some stuff (see the history books for more info on this) but they’re never wrong about the most efficient way of doing things. They just don’t make mistakes about stuff like winter breaks, just winter invasions of Russia. Was I really going to back my half-baked analysis against nearly fifty years of German footballing prowess? I called the friend I was meant to be having lunch with and explained I would have to postpone. My country was calling.

Sitting down again with my list of all England’s fixtures and results since the start of the century I decided to look at things a little differently. I wondered how England had fared against the big football nations both before and after January. Might those stats reveal how a little extra fitness makes a big difference when matches are at their closest?

The big football nations of the last decade, I decided, were Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Italy, France, Holland, Spain and Portugal. During the months of February, March, April, May, June and July, England’s win rate against these big teams was a miserable 16%. BUT when England played any of these teams during the months of September, October or November their chances of victory increased to 33%! That’s an astonishing 17% improvement. I wonder how 17% might have impacted on all those heart-breaking World Cup matches lost by the odd goal or after a penalty shoot out. Would 17% have tipped the balance in England’s favour?
Maybe, just maybe, if the premier league had a winter break and England didn’t arrive at tournaments knackered… well, I’m not saying England would win the World Cup, but the stats do seem to indicate that supporting them might be considerably less humiliating. And after what I saw in South Africa, I’d consider anything better than humiliation as a giant leap forward.
Of course there are lots of other factors that contributed to England’s poor performance in South Africa, but having spent some time looking at the data I am convinced that Capello, and Eriksson before him, are right to consider tiredness, at the very least, as relevant.

I’ve read many football writers in the mainstream media who were very quick to scoff at Capello’s suggestion that his players were tired, while at the same time heaping praise on the Germans and marveling at their meticulous preparation for World Cups. Somehow they seem to miss that the winter break in the Bundesliga is part of that preparation. Given the success Germany seems to have at major tournaments it seems odd to think that they are wasting their time and money on having a winter break.

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The Rumour

ARSENAL boss Arsene Wenger is in talks with Stuttgart midfielder

.
The Gunners manager wants to add experience to his side and the former Aston Villa star fits the bill.

Hitzlsperger, 27, is out of contract next year but Stuttgart will do a deal at around £5million.

Yesterday in SunSport Cesc Fabregas called for Wenger to buy a ball-winner in midfield. Hitz fits the bill.

The Source: (The Sun)

The Analysis

Hitzlsperger became something of a cult figure at Villa Park after joining the club at 17 he battled his way through the youth and reserve ranks before establishing himself as regular first team player but it was at Stuttgart where he became more of a household name and an international mainstay.

He helped the Baden based club to their first Bundesliga crown in 15 years in 2007 and regularly weighs in with solid performances and his long range finishing has become commonplace and could well be a welcome addition at the Emirates.

Cesc Fabregas has indeed stated that he wants to see the club bring in a tough tackling midfielder and whilst Thomas isn’t the sort of player that gets his fair share of yellow cards he does know how to break down the opposing attacks intelligently and has already proven himself capable of doing well in the Premier League.

The Likelihood

Hitzlsperger to Arsenal: If Wenger can get the former Villa man for just £5m it would be a bargain and a half!

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