Landon Donovan needs to leave the US to further the beautiful game in his country. This may sound counter intuitive but even as his country rides on a post-World Cup high, soccer still only attracts high numbers of fans through TV – and even then it is watching European Leagues – and especially the Premier League – rather than Major League Soccer.

Mike Teevee: Definitely American. Quite possibly a NASL fan.

Donovan then, could become more of a household name in the States by playing abroad rather than staying in Los Angeles. It’s obvious that we still pull at the little man’s heart strings – even his Twitter page still contains a profile picture of him in his #9 Everton shirt. Love child or not, he’s still left a little piece of him on Merseyside – and with Steven Pienaar procrastinating over his contract, and Dan Gosling running away from his – it is no wonder there are lots of longing glances across the pond towards Landon. With most sources dismissing yesterday’s transfer rumblings about Mancini being “interested” in Donovan, coupled with the Californian’s previous comments about not wanting to play for another English club aside from us – makes me think that we could see a Christmas arrival of Landon on Merseyside.

Landon Donovan's Twitter Profile: in our number 9 shirt.

 I’ve said it before: Landon Donovan is no Li Tie, a stooge brought in to simply sell shirts in a foreign land through his celebrity, but there is also no doubt that Donovan would raise awareness for Everton in America.

Preki - In his Everton days.

Aside from Donovan, there are a huge amount of US Links to Everton: – John Spencer, Mo Johnson (Colorado Rapids), Dixie Dean (reportedly turned down a hefty offer to play baseball for the New York Giants in 1928) , Steve Sergeant (Detroit Express in NASL) , Jimmy Gabriel (Seattle Sounders and others) , Terry Phelan (played for Charleston Battery) , Preki (and all star MLS player several times, now manager of Toronto FC), Robert Warzycha (played for and now managing Columbus Crew), Alan Ball (Vancouver Whitecaps and Philadelphia Fury) , Peter Beardsley (Vancouver Whitecaps). Also of note are Brian McBride and Joe-Max Moore - and I’m sure I’m forgetting others…

"Wazza" in salmon pink for Everton, before he became manager of Columbus Crew

With this kind of history we should be drawing American fans in droves, and with Landon Donovan still hinting that his flame still burns blue, we could be forging even more links…

Top Podcast! Followtonians

Followtonians - A damn fine podcast

Podcasts are a brilliant tool, especially for a club with a large, passionate fan base like us. There also very useful for the listener too, as you can fling a podcast onto your MP3 player with the same ease that previous generations put a kettle on.

This particular podcast – featuring an American, a Scouser, and an Australian (what other club could boast a wingspan of fans as wide as that?) covers a lot of information. My favourite podcasts are always the irreverent humourous kind, in general you want to steer clear of “official” podcasts; I stopped listening to the official Everton one after a particularly sycophantic interview with “Shandy” Andy van der Meyde (during a rare moment of lucidity from the Dutchman)…

The Followtonians crew, and especially Ped, seems to have his radar tuned on Goodison. From goalies getting kicked off planes, forensic analysis of transfers (and even examination of shirt numbers), to transfer gossip and occasional rants – this is a good one to listen to. I also love their motto – “Same club. Different accents.” – quality stuff.

Check out the podcast here: http://www.followtonians.com/

…or alternatively follow their tweets: twitter.com/followtonians

 He’s done well to come this far considering the state of his foot this time last year. Seamus Coleman’s blistered foot was such an infected mess that it was considered career threatening by Everton’s medical staff.

Having glistened in both his handful of appearances for Everton and his part in Blackpool’s promotion charge, he is now looking very lively in our pre-season tour of Australia.

After years of waiting for a good right back, it appears that we may have got even more than we asked for; this boy is  ruthlessly direct – like a mouthy child that spouts awkward home truths – and he has the fearless effervescence of youth. Coleman, an explosive and skillful player, is a full back itching to roam higher up the pitch.

 Attacking full-backs can be very effective when everything clicks. Baines was the perfect example of this as his relationship with Steven Pienaar ripened, but I’d love to see Coleman cutting even deeper into the opposition than Baines has on the other side.

 When Phil Scolari first came to Chelsea people were falling over themselves to praise his attacking full backs – and just before this summer’s World Cup one famous journo was openly declaring that only a team with truly accomplished full backs would win the tournament.

Although it may sound stupid – and premature – to compare Coleman with some of the best that international football can offer – that’s exactly what I want to do. 

Right backs can be very hard to find, especially at Goodison – where Hottiger, Burroughs, Jackson, Barrett, and even Hibbert have all auditioned and ultimately failed to get the right back position. After Inter Milan (stupidly) sold Roberto Carlos to Real Madrid they went through twenty-eight left backs while the Brazilian was starring at the Bernabeu.

Roberto Carlos was also used in a very attacking manner at Real Madrid, especially when Capello took charge there. The Brazilian was part of an ingenious routine which flummoxed the opposition continually. Hierro would pass the ball out of defence to a charging Roberto Carlos, who – through a number of clever movements and screens from his teammates - proved virtually unstoppable. The purists at Madrid looked down their noses at this tactic but it was hugely successful.

Interestingly, Capello also employed a very attacking full back when he won the title with Roma, using Cafu so high up the field that he was often level with Batistuta.  Another important factor to note, in both these examples, is that Capello used well drilled and stamina laden players like Redondo and Delvecchio to close down any open spaces. Everton, a team brimming with hard workers, and also a unit that closes down space, could be perfect for a really attacking full back.

Moyes is blessed with a squad that is enormously hard working and also very versatile. As Coleman attacks – players like Jagielka, Heitinga, and Neville could easily cover for him. This could be an excellent option for Everton, especially if Moyes really gives him license to attack – the last time we had a player who scared the opposition on the right it was Andrei Kanchelskis – if Coleman can get anywhere near that level of performance I’ll be ecstatic.

The third-fourth World Cup playoff between Uruguay and Germany was a good game with both teams bouncing from one end of the field to the other – the only thing that marred the game was the consistent booing of Luis Suarez.

Luis Suarez

The Uruguayan forward has been accused in some quarters of being a cheat for handling Ghanaian Adiyiah’s shot when it was destined for the back of the net in the last minute of injury time. Suarez didn’t cheat. He handballed – a barefaced handball in front of the world. He didn’t take performance enhancing drugs, or get paid to lose a game – he did what happens hundreds of times every year. A deliberate handball, not a big deal. It became a big deal because it was in the last minute of injury time, and the resulting penalty (which would have won the game for Ghana) was missed by Gyan. If Gyan had scored, no one would have directed opprobrium towards Suarez. In fact if Suarez had headbutted Adiyiah no one would have minded. Note that Holland’s Mark van Bommel, decried for being a filthy fouler who has somehow escaped with only one booking to his name despite a scandalous back catalogue of “tackles” is only given the epithet ‘dirty’ rather than ‘cheater’. Former teammate Landon Donovan said of van Bommel “Oh my God, that guy’s psycho, man.” But Suarez, who handballs on the line, gets sent off, concedes a penalty, AND then misses the following game is a cheat.

Cheats try and subvert the game outside the rules, they try and hide their discretions – Suarez didn’t cheat, and part of me thinks he is being called that because he is South American…

World Cup 2010: USA

https://twitter.com/TimHoward2010

“Detroit has a nice smile, it’s just that some of her teeth are missing.”
 
Detroit’s slump comes in more varieties than Heinz Ketchup. She’s an ugly one industry town. Her ex-Mayor is in jail for stealing from her, and worse still a documentary ran recently that gave her that final kicking, a beating in the face from the buckle of the rust-belt. The infamous, can’t pull your eyes away from the screen  – watch through a crack in your hands – moment came when a hapless Detroiter showed the camera how he catches and sells raccoons as food.
 
One of Detroit’s strengths is her sport – Pistons, Redwings, Tigers & Lions – but no football team. In the 1920′s soccer in Detroit was a boom sport but after those initial halcyon years football flickered like a faulty light bulb through the decades. In the 70s came NASL and the Detroit Express – with Jimmy Hill  as the owner and Trevor Francis as the star in the cavernous Pontiac Silverdome. That stadium again brushed cheeks with the beautiful game in 1994. with the World Cup. Romario even scored there. The Silverdome now lies fallow, only to be graced by occasional Monster Truck rallies and even more seldom football exhibition games. It deserves to be rammed full, not pockmarked with the faithful few.
 
Nationwide, World Cup success is craved, but in Detroit – this sport is largely ignored by the media – leaving it stillborn. In a prominent local paper football vies with, and loses out to, girls high school soccer and hunting. Detroit news is slick, and populated with a bevy of beauties (see pics), but any mention of football is clunky in the extreme – goalscorers are mispronounced (or just plain wrong), and all reportage is done with a barely concealed smirk.

Exhibit A - Gorgeous Detroit Newsreader

Exhibit B - Another gorgeous Detroit newsreader (on left, clearly)

 
Soccer and the World Cup may be a buzzword in some locales but as far as Detroit is concerned it is all quiet on the Midwestern Front. American detractors see football as a hoary old sport, but Detroit media are the real troglodytes. There are many people out there, fighting to bring this sport to Detroit, but without the media, there is a little corner of the Midwest that will remain forever North Korea.

Now is the summer of our discontent.

Summer is an atrocious time to be an Evertonian. Nails are bitten to the quick, nights are sleepless, and the fevered clamour amongst the gutter press for a full-scale Everton exodus reaches unbearable levels. With Pienaar still flirting with our offer, Arteta a possibility to leave, and Johnny Heitinga sending a volley of mixed messages our way we could be forgiven for forgetting about Dan Gosling.

If you’d have asked me my opinion of Gosling last week I would have told you that he is a solid young player, and a promising prospect for the future. All that is now in tatters. As word first spread my initial ire was focused on Everton. Let’s face facts, we are noted in society for our cock ups – from Muller to Ravanelli, from Rooney to Lescott and from Kroldrup to Manny Fernandes - we know how to botch a deal and sell a player.

However, as more noises have emanated from Goodison it now looks like Gosling deliberately intimated that he would sign a contract extension whilst behind the scenes he was planning to leave Everton for nothing by using a loophole (the loophole being that the contract extension offer was verbal not written). He dragged Bill Kenwright and David Moyes through a tribunal (and they must have been spitting bullets) to secure his “freedom”.

Still more rumours claim that the £15,000 a week offered  by Everton wasn’t quite enough for young Gosling, and that he wanted guarantees about first team football (madness for someone as young as him) and to play in central midfield (even more idiotic considering the wealth of talent we have there).

The pain comes from a combination of factors. His move to Sunderland/West Ham/Newcastle is an illogical move down. His move has weakened us financially (we could have got at least £4 million for him) – and in terms of our squad. The betrayal also hurts – and it was a betrayal that showed barefaced cheek.

One word of warning to young Gosling: Players tend to sink without the Moyes buoyancy aid. Players far far better than you (Lescott, Pienaar, Andy Johnson, Saha) have proven what a man manager Moyes is; he squeezes players’ talents to the pips…I hope you sink like a stone you cheeky bastard. You reneged on gentleman’s agreement, you don’t deserve one iota of respect.

PS. I cannot wait until you return to Goodison, and long for your red face to be replaced by one of our blue shirts.

World Cup 2010: England

http://twitter.com/dixiessixty
Germany 4-1 England. It was an escape from victory not Escape To Victory, a bust rather than Dambusters.
 
And soon after a stampede of familiar moans charged across the horizon:
 

•   “It was because we have a foreign manager” (forgetting how the last English manager performed)
• “They are overpaid” (forgetting how well the players did for their clubs)
• “We need a manager like Maradona” (I thought Capello’s appointment was needed to add discipline; to tame the wild English style)

It is interesting that we compare England to Italy, Germany and France (“they would never employ a foreign manager”) when in reality there is no comparison. England are miles behind.
 
 Of them all, Rooney confused me the most. I’ve never seen him play that poorly. He was a Bruce Banner who couldn’t turn green, a Clark Kent so glum and listless that he couldn’t even be bothered to look for a phone box. For a player so used to harrying and dazzling opponents, he was unbelievably off form. He wasn’t himself. Rooney was so incognito, so unrecognizable,  he could have held up a South African bank in broad daylight and still not have been picked out of an identity parade.
 
In the end, it was just like watching Brazil. The dystopian film, not the fantastic team. 

David Moyes has continued his strategy of scouting and buying young, promising, but undeveloped, footballers with the acquisition of France U-21 striker Magaye Gueye from RC Strasburg for a fee in the region of £1 mln. The 19-year old was born in the same Paris suburbs that produced the ‘golden crop’ of Louis Saha, Gallas, Henry and Anelka. Gueye stands 5’10″ tall and is capable of playing striker or on the wing. He netted 11 times in 30 appearances for Strasbourg and has represented France at youth and U-21 level, notably scoring against England. Harry Redknapp’s famous and vivid description of Theo Walcott’s pace - “he’s so quick when he runs through a puddle he doesn’t make a splash” – is said to apply to Gueye.

Everton have been persistent and determined in their pursuit of young and relatively cheap talent from across Europe. The last few seasons have seen them sign Jutkiewicz, Mustafi, Agard, Gosling, Garbutt, Coleman and Fellaini, who although a big money signing, was seen at the time as far from the finished article and a bit of a gamble. This summer this pool has been further strengthened with the arrival of striker Joao Silva from Portugal and now Magaye Gueye from France. With Jermaine Beckford clearly part of the first team squad it would seem to be only a matter of time before the much loved, but injury prone, James Vaughan is allowed to leave.

If the media reports are correct and Mikel Arteta and his wife Lorena want to return to be closer to their extended family in San Sebastian after discovering that their one year old son Gabriel is partially sighted, then the Everton hierarchy can do only one thing; allow him to leave with their best wishes. There are times when football comes a distant second, and this is one of those occasions. If it is the end of Mikel’s Everton career then he will be remembered as one of the greatest players to have worn the blue shirt, and he will leave us with many, many, glorious memories.

The return of Gareth Barry to the England midfield is being hailed by the media as though it were the second coming. It is to be hoped that he can indeed deliver a resurrection of English spirits and confidence. What is certain is that he will unshackle the imperious Steven Gerrard and change the balance of the team giving it a more solid base. Another positive is that it should mean that the worthy, but uninspiring James Milner, will be nowhere near the starting XI. One of the great mysteries of the USA game was the absence of Joe Cole, even as a substitute, and we find it perplexing that Milner should have been chosen ahead of him, though this was perhaps a defensive selection driven by Capello’s desire not to lose the first group game.

The other hot issue is whether to drop Robert Green. Much is being made of a session he will be spending with a sports psychologist and his state of mind as assessed by Fabio Capello. Even more fuss has been made by the media of a ‘fumble’ he made in training, photographs of the error litter the sports pages much as they would if he had been caught drowning kittens or shoplifting; this way lies madness. Tim Howard in an interview for The New Yorker magazine spoke eloquently of the pressures goalkeepers feel saying “to tell you the truth, I don’t enjoy the game, I’ve never had fun within the course of those 90 minutes” – he then went on to describe how a job that requires little running can reduce a player to a state of exhaustion, “when the final whistle blows I’m completely exhausted physically and mentally”. We have always viewed the West Ham player as being phlegmatic and level headed. One thing is certain, if Green is dropped he might as well catch the next flight home because his value to the squad will have evaporated. Joe Hart has been described as a simple, straightforward soul. Perfect, that is just what we want in a goalkeeper, rather than the over analysis bordering on the self-destructive which David James allegedly indulges in. We would have chosen Joe Hart for the USA game and would pick him for this one. We repeat, if you are good enough you are old enough.

Jermaine Defoe is rested, fit, and not just hungry but famished. His speed and deadly shooting should be utilized for this game alongside Wayne. Against the USA Jamie Carragher’s lack of pace was exposed for all – including the Algeria coach – to see. Dixies60, having witnessed first hand Dawson’s fine display for Spurs at Goodison last season in the thrilling 2-2 draw would, without hesitation, and in the inexplicable absence of the speedy Phil Jagielka, select him to partner John Terry. We suspect though that Capello will stick with Heskey in attack and Carragher at the back.

And what of Algeria. They stand 72nd in the FIFA World Rankings and have Nadir Belhadj of Portsmouth playing at left back, other than this, to paraphrase Neville Chamberlain, this is a far away country of which we know little.

ENGLAND (4-4-2) Dixies60 XI: Hart; Johnson, Dawson, Terry, Cole; Lennon, Lampard, Barry, Gerrard ©; Defoe, Rooney