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Upcoming Champions League!! AZ is thrifty…

September 15th, 2009 | By: Jan | 38 Comments »

Koeman: “So tell me exactly what Louis told you and I will tell you what to do…”

I’m always excited to start talking about the European competition – OOPS – I mean Champions League!

The names, the history, the venues and the alarm clock at 4.30 am…

But, once it’s so close at it is now, I kinda think…will the group stages be worth getting out of bed for? I’ll know tomorrow. With red eyes.

32 clubs will compete as off tomorrow for the most coveted prize in club football. These clubs jointly spent a billion dollars on new players. How much? A billion!

The biggest spender is Real Madrid, with 257 million euros of new Galactico’s (not taking into account the losses they copped on selling pretty darn good players, like…oh…get over it!). Real – playing FC Zurich in the first leg – will have to reach the semis to be able to pay some of it back to the banks.

Barca, normally pretty humble, is the numero dos, with 111 million for new names, like Zlatan, Maxwell and Chygrynskiy (I won’t mention his name ever again).

Inter takes the third position with 91 million worth of new names, while Van Gaal was allowed to spend 75 million on his new players. Arjen Robben’s price-tag read 24 million alone.

So where does that leave Holland’s hope in dark days, AZ Alkmaar. The champs of Holland are in the poor-clubs group. Arsenal, AZ, Olympiakos and Standard Luik together invested 28 million. The least of any CL groups.

AZ spent 5,5 million euros, which equals the yearly loss of Standard Luik. The two new signings won’t play, however. Elm was bought and registered too late while Wernbloom is injured.
According to CL law, you won’t get far with these kinds of investments, but then again, Arsenal only spent 10 million euros on Ajax defender Thomas Vermaelen.

Interestingly enough, the AZ group sold more and better than that they bought. Arsenal netted 50 million euros for Adabayor and Toure but coach Wenger refused to spend his money. Which could be the main reason why Arsenal fails to reach the absolute top in Europe. Wenger desperately wants to pprove he can win the Champions Leauge Van Gaal-style. He was close, a couple of time, losing in the 2006 finals to Barca and last season Arsenal was ousted at semi-finals level.

AZ coach Ronald Koeman couldn’t make a dent in the transfer market. AZ is a small fish in a large pond. And with only 94.000 inhabitants, Alkmaar is after Urziceni (last time I write this too) in Rumania the smallest CL city of all.

AZ will be in profit if they survive the group stages. Last year, the EUFA made 1 billion in turnover, and paid out half of it to the clubs.

Arsenal player Eduardo’s suspension has been overthrown. The Croatian attacker was suspended for a dive, but the court overthrew that decision yesterday.

Louis: “Koeman, look at your butt! It’s this big!!”

Louis van Gaal will make his comeback in the CL after seven years.

Michel Platini gave an interview to the Telegraaf. “In 2012, clubs who don’t have balanced books and operate on the basis of negative equity (Finn, help me out!) will be banned from Champions League or Europa League football. Obviously, if it’s an incident and a club has been operating in a sustainable manner for years and have one bad year, we’ll take all that into account. But, clubs who simply use these accounting purposes year after year, well…they better start worrying…”

Tags: Ajax, AZ, Champions League, Group C, Koeman, Platini, van Gaal

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Comments

Displaying the most recent 25 comments from a total of 38 comments.

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By sonneveld | September 15th, 2009 at 7:06 pm

how come some of Jans posts are blue?

i read someone post that gio will tell the coach if there is a lb better than him, do people actually beileve him? i wouldn’t mind if he stayed in the first team and only oijer is droped. if he didn’t play who would be our captain supposing vdv didn’t play? not much choice!

By Marc | September 15th, 2009 at 7:17 pm

Van Bommel or Sneijder could be the captains VBommel is captain of Bayern and Sneijder has captained Ajax and Holland before. Or perhaps Kuyt.

Posted from United States

By sonneveld | September 15th, 2009 at 7:40 pm

thanks Marc! can’t beileve i forgot about van bommel. I did think about sneijder but wasn’t sure he is the best option. kuyt could be good aswell.

By Peter vdL | September 15th, 2009 at 8:27 pm

the goal.com’s reviewer mustve been watching a different game to me.

By Carlos | September 15th, 2009 at 8:45 pm

Peter he mistook Drenthe for Seedorf – both were wearing white

Jan’s posts are blue when he’s feeling blue !!! how relevant is that question ?

Posted from Singapore

By Carlos | September 15th, 2009 at 8:51 pm

I think it would be great if teams are given “handicaps” based on their assets. So Real would start 0-3 down against a team like Getafe or in the Champions league against AZ (maybe 0-4 down) That would even up the playing field. You get handicapped against the money spent on players and total value of players on the teamsheet as per last traded or Fair Market Value (to be decided by Tiju). Wouldnt that quickly put a stop to just buying big ? Imagine how well Arsenal would do ! Or Everton ! even FC Den Haag !

Posted from Singapore

By Marc | September 15th, 2009 at 9:38 pm

@Carlos
Thats an interesting point. That could balance the playing field and then the teams would stop buying big and focus on the youth academies. And if they were to do that maybe it wouldn’t be as extreme as 3-0 down but perhaps a goal for Real is worth 1/2 a point or a goal for say Sporting Gijon is worth 2 points. Or they start 1-0 down.

Posted from United States

By Jan | September 15th, 2009 at 11:38 pm

Great idea, Carlos Platini!

By Tiju | September 16th, 2009 at 12:26 am

Carlos bro…….you can chage rules but i dont think though arsenal will win the champions league…Coz…arsenal also has the disease of orange…….

Posted from India

By Carlos | September 16th, 2009 at 1:26 am

Oh and about 10 years ago I wrote to FIFA in Switzerland that they should look at inventing a spray can with white paint that disappears after 2 minutes so that the Ref can draw a line for free kicks to be taken and the wall doesnt creep over it. I believe someone finally did that too in Argentina. Another rule I told them to change is that there will be no offside if ball is played from inside your own half. Wouldnt that open up the game more…….. By the way Fifa said to apply all these things through “your own Fifa representative in your country”

Posted from Singapore

By Tiju | September 16th, 2009 at 5:17 am

@ferenec buddy i think clarence is aiming WC spot…ohhhhhhh no…we dont need him.

Posted from India

By Tiju | September 16th, 2009 at 5:46 am

how about
our next WC second round match VS russia in 2010.
with Reffery
Valentin IVANOV is it ok???????????

Posted from India

By finnster01 | September 16th, 2009 at 5:47 am

@Carlos: You forgot to put your letter to FIFA in a brown envelope, add a personal check, and address it all to Mr Sepp Blatter.

By Jan | September 16th, 2009 at 7:11 am

Well well Carlos… Great ideas!

I wrote some ideas as well:

divers should be put on the lap of the ref who lowers the player’s short to spank him on the bare butt in the center of the pitch.

Coaches who have little notebooks have to sit in the corner of the pitch with a dummy hat on for 10 minutes.

Players who ask for cards have to do 40 hours community services of ticketing parking offenders in the bad-ass neighborhoods in Mumbay.

Goalkeepers who hit the ball with opened hands like a sissy should wear pink tutu’s for the rest of the game.

Clubs that sign Dutch players only to want to discard of them the next season should allow them to leave transfer-free.

Players who score and then run to their coach to suck up should be tagged along on a dogleash during the next training.

By ferenc | September 16th, 2009 at 8:52 am

i’m surprised that clarence did an astonishing performance yesterday and apart from Jan,Carlos,Tiju and me no one has mentioned it here. if sneijder,vdv or van persie had done the same,everyone would have written pages about him. why? am i the only clarence seedorf fan here? (hopefully wes won’t be as good tonight as clarence was yesterday,he should perform against other teams:-)
clarence has his place in oranje. definitely. age is not a factor for him. his intelligence is exceptional. he should be in milan’s starting eleven instead of ronaldinho.
Jan: actually i do like pippo inzaghi… i have always liked him.

By ferenc | September 16th, 2009 at 8:55 am

there are some teams i only watch because of some players. actually there are 2 teams like this: i watch ac milan as much as possible because of clarence and inter milan because of samu(el eto’o).

By goose | September 16th, 2009 at 10:09 am

AZ will fail cause Koeman is a crap manager

Posted from Netherlands

By sonneveld | September 16th, 2009 at 11:18 am

@ferenc how do we fit him in the team though? many would say kuyt elia robben van persie sneijder also deserve a spot in the starting 11.

back 4

seedorf v.bommel sneijder

robben v.Persie elia

i think seedorf needs more than one great game to have a spot in oranje

why dont you want sneijder to play well, if you are a barcelona fan i understand?

By Jan | September 16th, 2009 at 1:32 pm

Hi Ferenc, I do think most people have written Clarence off, basically. It’s weird, but I have never been a huge fan of him. I highly respect him as a human being, I think he’s a profound man and I highly respect his career but as a player he never did it for me. Is it his walk? Is it the aloofness? Is it the missed penalties? I am not sure… But if there’s a AC Milan game on telly, I don’t have that “Ah, let’s see how Clarence does” feeling.

I wouldn’t have that with Bommel either. Or Van der Sar.

I do have that with Van Nistelrooy though… Dunno know…

By Jason | September 16th, 2009 at 3:41 pm

It’s Clarences humungous ego. An ego that puts his own interests ahead on the Dutch team. We have enough millionaires on the team… having said that, you can’t doubt his talent.

Posted from Canada

By Mohamed | September 16th, 2009 at 4:08 pm

I am here ferenc
i am also a great fan of seedord
totally agree with you , it is really disappointing to see players like engelaar and ooijer wearing the shirt of the oranje , and seedorf who wears no. 10 jersy in a team like Ac milan not in the dutch squad !
I’d prefer to select seedorf and de guzman instead of afellay and da silva .
His experience and self-confidence are great .. In my opinion .. he is a must in the dutch squad in SA .
De jong , schaars , seedorf , vdv , sneijder , de guzman and v.bommel
great midfeild for the world cup . you can’t even know who is a starter and who is a sub. !!

By ferenc | September 16th, 2009 at 5:23 pm

i see xlarence like zidane in the 2006 french team,he could be our jolly joker

By Leon | September 16th, 2009 at 5:39 pm

I’m a Seedorf fan as well Ferenc and if he carries on with this form a call up from Bert van Marwijk may be a reluctant inevitability. Although, I doubt this would ever happen again as Clarence has stated previously that if he’s not the ‘main man’ in midfield he’d rather not be part of a squad to merely ‘make up the numbers’.

By Jan | September 16th, 2009 at 9:52 pm

And that’s what Bert said about Clarence as well. He said: Clarence is too good to call him up for the bench. It would be disrespectfful to do so. If I need him in the team, I’ll call him.

By Sol | September 17th, 2009 at 4:30 am

The reason Seedorf “never really did it for me” wasn’t even the missed penalties or his ego/walk/aloofness/whatever. For me it was the way he passed and wasted chances by losing the ball (sometimes even resulting in a countergoal). His passing was often very high or too long, same with his shots on goal, very inaccurate. When Sneijder came along I was happy with someone who could give a “strakke” pass (not so high, faster to the target, also easier to head in if you are in front of goal because of the speed).

Seedorf was also in a dreamteam where I think we had better options than Seedorf (Cocu, Davids or other great players sometimes got benched to make room for Seedorf).

Things are different now I think and if he keeps playing like this I’d like him somewhere on our defensive midfield. I still prefer Sneijder or vPersie on nr.10 and Robben and Elia for the wings, so no room for him there with the amount of backup we already have in those positions, Kuyt, vdVaart still look like better options for those positions than Seedorf (unless vdVaart doesn’t get to play at all anymore ).