Vocalizing Sport

With 2012 now the next summer Olympics, global attention turns to London, the host City, however the British attention will be towards the FA’s of England, Scotland and Wales, as they will be trying to decide whether or not they will combine their most talented football players in a bid to win Olympic gold medals in the football, for both the men and the women’s teams. The FA’s of Scotland and Wales are worried because they fear losing their independent national football teams if they agree to join England for the Olympics.

Fifa will have to give their verdict on their being a Great Britain Football team at the Olympics, and for all three nation’s sake, they hope that Fifa will allow the Great Britain team to compete, but with England, Scotland and Wales all individually being allowed to compete in future World Cup’s and Euro’s.

Another main concern of the FA’s of both Scotland and Wales is that they feel that the players chosen will be mainly English, however there are three reasons that could potentially mean that there is an even mix of nationalities.

First is the choice of manager, as it looks as if Manchester United’s current boss Sir Alex Ferguson could take on the challenge, as it is likely that he will have retired from managing United by the time 2012 comes around. Sir Alex is Scottish, and so if he were to accept the job, then it is likely that he would have an even mix of talent from all three nations, especially as some of his more favoured players at Manchester United have come from the three nations, with Ryan Giggs (Wales), Gary Neville (England), Paul Scholes (England) and Darren Fletcher (Scotland) being some of those players. Sir Alex will be very much aware of the teams failure to do well in competitions such as the World Cup, and may look to combine the talent of the English players, and the teamwork of the Welsh and the Scottish players.

Secondly is the fact that there is likely to be a lot of young players in the team, and when they are around the age of 18, most young players are roughly the same, with only a few exceptions to that rule, and especially rare when it comes to the nations of Great Britain, with Wayne Rooney being the most obvious exception.

Thirdly is what Fifa will do, they may impose a quota to tell the manager the minimum number of players there has to be from each nation, similarly to the one they are trying to impose on the teams in the Premier League, as it seems Sepp Blatter, president of Fifa is sick of seeing Champions League semi-finals containing mainly English teams.

It seems as if Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur FC are two completely different clubs, with the Red Devils having much success in all competitions, meaning their trophy cabinet is full of silverware, whereas Spurs have had very little success in competitions, with their only trophy in the last few seasons being their Carling Cup victory against Chelsea, and with their league and European form being at either extremes of the scale, with United having great form, and Spurs sinking without trace.

However one thing that these two clubs share in common is their transfer targets. It seems as if whoever Manchester United are interested in, Spurs put in an official bid. Gareth Bale, Tottenham’s current left back was one of these players, as whilst plying his trade for Southampton, United expressed their interested in signing the young Welshman, mainly due to their being a problem at left-back, with both Gabriel Heinze (now of Real Madrid) and Mikael Silvestre (now of Arsenal) being injured at the time, however Tottenham pipped them to signing him, the same story applies to the more experienced left back Gilberto, who is also a Tottenham player, challenging both Lee-Pyo and Bale to the left back position.

Alan Hutton was in a similar position to both Gilberto and Bale, with United having a slight right back problem, with Wes Brown seemingly not up to standard to be Gary Neville’s successor as United’s first choice right back, and so Sir Alex focussed his attention to fellow Scot Alan Hutton. During July 2008, Manchester United welcomed the long waited arrival of the Da Silva twins, with one able to play in the left back position, and the other in the right back position, and with Wes Brown proving he can be a first team regular in the right back slot during the 2007/08 season, when Gary Neville suffered a series of injuries meaning he missed out on all but 2 of United matches, it seems as if United’s problems in those positions are over.

Shortly before United bought Nani, Spurs were chasing the young Portuguese winger, who plyed his trade in the Portuguese First Division, for Sporting Lisbon, a very similar case to that of Manchester United’s current talisman Cristiano Ronaldo, however Nani stayed at Sporting for a year longer than Ronaldo had done before being lured to Old Trafford.

Giovanni Dos Santos and Darren Bent have two similar stories, although the difference being that both Man United and Tottenham placed official bids for Dos Santos. Although Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Berbatov seem to be the biggest links. When Berbatov was plying his trade for Bayer 04 Leverkusen, both United and Spurs were after him, however he opted to join Spurs, supposedly because he was after first team football, even though United were after a striker, due to the departure of Ruud Van Nistelrooy to Real Madrid, and the injury-prone striker, Louis Saha. With Berbatov now wanting to move to Old Trafford, stating it has been his dream, even though his idol was former Newcastle striker Alan Shearer, and Berbatov loved Manchester United’s rivals Newcastle United so much, that he even slept in a Newcastle shirt, hardly a United fan’s dream. Spurs are holding out for £30million for Berbatov, however it looks as if United will turn their attention to long term target Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, currently of Ajax, however, if either United match the £30million wanted or Spurs lower their asking price to around £25million, then it could be Spurs who look to sign Huntelaar from Ajax, to replace Berbatov as their out and out striker.