Field #5 by Field Matchday

Owen Hargreaves

Bastian Schweinsteiger

Interview with the exBayern Munich and Man Utd player

Dylan Fahy writes on the Germany and Bayern Munich maestro

Frankie & the Heartstrings

Alex Dunn

Interview with Sunderland fan and singer Frankie Francis

Is Arsene Wenger destined to be footballâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Charlie Brown?

Bastian

Owen

Frankie & the

Schweinsteiger

Hargreaves

Heartstrings

Dylan Fahy

Paul Gleeson / CNN FC

Dan Byrne

08 One Club Men Paul Gleeson

Arsene Wenger: Charlie

The English Premier

HOW MANCHESTER UNITED

Brown

League?

RECLAIMED THE TITLE

Alex Dunn

Scott Anthony

Chris Mann

Online: www.fieldmatchday.com @field_matchday

Contributors: Scott Anthony @guardian_sport Tom Bingham Will Daw @william_daw Ian Duke @ian_duke Alex Dunn @SkySportsAlDunn Dylan Fahy @dylan_fahy Chris Mann @equaliserblog Liam Ricketts @LiamRicketts

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Bastian Schweinsteiger At Barcelona Xavi has come to define a generation that has dominated European football for the last few years. Is Bastian Schweinsteiger about to do the same at Bayern Munich?

weekend, but stuttered through the opening half against a spirited Frankfurt. The club’s strong contingent of skeptics hastily concluded that the team had choked, and were set to postpone their long overdue celebrations. The ever-present Bastian Schweinsteiger was the coveted figure that stepped up to the

plate. Philipp Lahm burst down the right flank and delivered a knee-high cross, which the battling midfielder carved out the necessary space to back-heel elegantly into the net. The 23rd title was secured with an unusually narrow win for Jupp Heynckes’ men, who had only dropped a staggering six points at that stage in the campaign. Lahm has subsequently revealed he does not know the meaning of the expression to ‘choke’ at a decisive moment. Despite sustained domestic success, the Bayern captain and his fellow countrymen at club level have experienced the sentiment. They have failed to lift the Champions League having glided to two finals in the last three years. Similarly, Germany has not secured honours with their current generation. Schweinsteiger has been the linchpin in the middle of the park that has driven Bayern to towards defying their recent history and perhaps at last securing European success. The 28-yearold spearheaded his side in steamrollering their lacklustre league opponents. Meanwhile, he had influential displays over two legs in crucial encounters with Arsenal, Juventus and ultimately embarrassing a historic Barcelona side. Defeating

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Bastian Schweinsteiger

Bayern Munich merely needed to dispatch Eintracht Frankfurt to seal the Bundesliga title. The Bavarian giants had smashed Hamburger SV by a barely believable scoreline of 9-2 the previous

The ever-present Bastian Schweinsteiger was the coveted figure that stepped up to the plate. Philipp Lahm burst down the right flank and delivered a knee-high cross, which the battling midfielder carved out the necessary space to back-heel elegantly into the net.

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Bastian Schweinsteiger

the Catalan giants emphatically both in Munich and at the Camp Nou typified the German outfit. Schweinsteiger executed a tactical plan that outmuscled Xavi Hernández and Andrés Iniesta. While in the quarterfinals, his contribution also nullified Andrea Pirlo’s presence for the Italian champions. Perfecting total football, the deeplying playmaker has also chipped in with four assists to date in Europe. Bayern have progressed substantially since falling to Chelsea at the Allianz Arena exactly a year ago. Schweinsteiger has remained in the heart of the side, but now has a worthy companion in the form of Javi Martínez to marshal the midfield. Thomas Müller and Toni Kroos have been handed licence to dictate the play further forward. Further additions in defence and attack have complimented these adjustments perfectly, and as a result the team have become a concrete side without any indispensable players. Heynckes has taken Champions League final opposition and league rivals Borussia Dortmund’s system of early pressing, terrific speed in counterattacking and quick combinations that has previously outdone Bayern in the league and perfected it with simply a better overall squad. Dortmund manager Jürgen Klopp compared his arch rival’s controversial approach to that of China’s outlook on industry: “They just look at what the others are doing, and then they copy it with other people and much more money.” In spite of the eccentric tactician’s complaints, the strategy has worked and outdone Europe’s finest. Stealing home grown playmaker Mario Götze from under Dortmund’s noses for next season after exercising a buy-out clause in his contract worth £31.5m only asserts their dominance. The imminent arrival of the young talent, and that of storied tactician Pep Guardiola after intense negotiations for next term too, also demonstrates that the battle for midfield is becoming ever more vital to succeed at the top. The past campaign in Europe has demonstrated the requirement for complete midfielders.

Athletic players who can defend masterfully while also spray decisive passes such as Schweinsteiger have replaced miniature maestros like Xavi. The intense battle to become the best in that particular position will be fought by the Bayern vice-captain and Dortmund’s İlkay Gündogan in Wembley. The pair has also been tussling for the exact spot in Joachim Löw’s national team, with the 2014 World Cup on the horizon.

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Bastian Schweinsteiger

The intense battle to become the best in that particular position will be fought by the Bayern vice-captain and Dortmund’s İlkay Gündogan in Wembley.

Heynckes and Klopp refusing to shake hands in the aftermath of their fiery recent league clash have spiked tensions. Having made history with the quickest-ever triumph in Bundesliga history by clinching the title with six games to spare and reaching the German Cup final, the stage is set for Schweinsteiger to learn from his past experiences and finally lead Bayern Munich to glory in the Champions League final.

Words by Dylan Fahy Photography by Ben Duffy Front cover in association with Adidas

One Club Men In the pantheon of great footballing myths perhaps the greatest is that of the one club player. In today’s culture of short-termism, are the days of loyal servant to one club numbered?

Looking back at footballs formative years we like to picture a time of greater honesty, integrity and most notably player loyalty. It’s one of the modern games great myths that players used to have greater loyalty to their employers. Sure, there may not have been the dressing room strops, relegation-day transfer requests or players scarpering on Bosman’s in search of lucrative contracts. But then, as now, players left to enhance their careers, either for greater financial reward or the elusive hunt for silverware. Quite often we can be accused of looking back at previous eras with more than rose tinted glasses. We hark back to a time when waxed-moustaches we de rigeur and a shilling could pay for your travel and entry into a match, with enough change for a penny-whistle to boot. But we forget that there was still a hierarchy, big clubs could cherry pick the best talent from around the country and players left in search of greater glory. Speaking in 2009, Franco Baresi - one of the modern games great one-club men - noted that he felt the days of players seeing out their entire careers with one club were over. If we look back

through history though, we can see they never really began. Of course, most fans can recall the legends who represented their club from beginning to end. Wolves fans will tell you of Billy Wright’s heroics during the club’s golden era; Bolton supporters will regale tales of Nat Lofthouse and the 1958 FA Cup final; likewise Liverpool fans may talk of their great winger Billy Liddell. If we look back throughout history it’s rare that a club will have more than a handful of players who’ve turned out for them from beginning to end and often examples of this will coincide with a period of success, either that or they simply weren’t good enough to play elsewhere. There are of course exceptions to this rule, players who could have moved to pastures new but decided to stay put; Matthew Le Tissier being perhaps the most obvious as he stayed at Southampton despite their relatively lowly status. What causes our perception that loyalty was once more commonplace is perhaps the notion that players predominantly played for the love of the game or club they represented; not for the money

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One Club Men

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One Club Men

One Club Players Franco Baresi AC Milan Debut: 1978 532 apps (16 goals) Lars Ricken Borussia Dortmund Debut: 1993 301 apps (49 goals) Lev Yashin Dynamo Moscow Debut: 1950 326 apps (one goal) Santiago Bernabéu Real Madrid Debut: 1912 689 apps (341 goals)

or fame that go hand-in-hand with playing in today’s Premier League. It is tempting to blame this on recent events, on the greed of the modern game or on Jean-Marc Bosman’s landmark 1995 European Court of Justice ruling, but this is not strictly true; players have been in financial disputes with clubs since the dawn of professionalism. One such challenge was that by Herbert Kingaby against the old ‘retain and transfer’ system, which restricted players movements even when they were out of contract with a club. In a 1912 court case, Herbert challenged this archaic system and but for disastrous decisions by his legal team would have won. The system was further derided by the great former-Manchester United and City player Billy Meredith as being run for and by “little shopkeepers who governed our destiny.” The eventual end of ‘retain and transfer’ came as a result of legal action against Newcastle United by one of their former players.

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With football at the time surrounded by rumours of illegal payments to players, we can see there’s always been a mercenary streak abound in the game. Even the footballing greats were at it; in 1937 Stanley Matthews requested a transfer from Stoke after a dispute over loyalty payments and in 1961 Johnny Haynes celebrated the abolition of the maximum wage by signing a £100 per week contract. The history of power struggles between players and clubs has always been of players reacting against contractual constraints and seeking to increase their bargaining power over clubs. That we have a perception of a disloyal generation of players is a consequence of the fact that the players in the past have been successful in this. How does this reflect though on the players we now see remaining with one club for their entire careers? Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes at Manchester United; John Terry at Chelsea; Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard at Liverpool. They’re the first players in quite some time to do so at each club and perhaps more tellingly they are doing this in a legal and contractual environment that would have made it easy to leave. It seems that instead of an era where players are decried as money grabbing mercenaries we may be about to see an unprecedented number of players choosing to remain at one club for their whole careers. So next time a promising youngster or star players leaves - either for more money or in search of trophies - don’t decry it as an ill of the modern game. Players have and always will go where they think the grass is greener, you just have to make sure that your grass is the greenest.

Words by Paul Gleeson Illustration by Will Daw

One Club Men

Owen Hargreaves As the first England star to emerge from the Bundesliga Owen Hargreaves brought a touch of continental class to the National team’s midfield. His silverware laden career though has been largely overshadowed by injuries. With CNN FC we look back at his career and his aims for the future.

Owen Hargreaves has come a long way since making his debut for Bayern Munich in 2000, when he came on in place of the hulking Carsten Jancker. In a career that has spanned three clubs and two countries, he’s picked up four Bundesliga’s, three DFB-Pokal titles, two Champions League triumphs and a Premier League winners medal. Not bad for a boy from Calgary who didn’t even play football seriously until he was in his mid-teens. Unfortunately for Owen, the spectre of injury was never far away. First at Bayern and then United and City he would suffer a series of recurring knee injuries, which would ultimately leave him struggling for form, fitness and consistency. For a player who was heralded as one of England’s best players during the 2006 World Cup, this was particularly difficult to comprehend as Owen explained: “Well, it’s pretty frustrating. I mean, when you rely on your physical attributes as

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a player and as an athlete. I think in the 2006 World Cup, I remember everybody saying I was the fittest guy on the team. And then to have one injury, kind of, change that dramatically for you is virtually, for me at the time, impossible to get my head around because I had virtually never had any injuries and then that one injury kind of changed it for me pretty significantly. I think at the time I was so young and so hungry to play and so stubborn, in a way. I probably should have stopped earlier but I just wanted to keep playing big games at the time and obviously I’ve learned a lesson now, and a pretty significant one.” Owen was fortunate enough to lift the Champions League with both Bayern and United during his time at the clubs, playing alongside some of the finest midfielders of his generation; Stefan Effenberg, Mehmet Scholl and Ryan Giggs have all graced the pitch alongside Owen but in his opinion,

Owen Hargreaves

one stands out above all the rest: Paul Scholes. “It’s difficult. I’ve been so fortunate to play with so many great, great players. And everybody, in a way, does something different but it’s tough to look past Paul Scholes.” Despite only being 21 at the time, Owen played an integral part in his first Champions League final for Bayern against the imperious Valencia side of Gaizka Mendieta, Ruben Baraja and the mercurial Pablo Aimar. It’s this victory in particular he feels was the most remarkable of the two he competed in, explaining: “Bayern Munich - I just think, for me, coming through it was virtually my second or third Champions League game playing in the semi-final and then the final. I was so proud to have the opportunity to present myself to a whole new audience and play. I dreamed of that opportunity as a kid. I think that, in itself, people talk about experiences – and it’s priceless – but I think that hunger and that passion to succeed and to prove yourself is sometimes far greater than the experience. And I think for me at the time, that was the case.” With the arrival of Robin van Persie at his former club, this season has seen Rooney move from being the team’s primary goal scorer to, in recent weeks, occupying a more combative position in midfield. Although some believe this signifies his role at the club diminishing, Owen is not so sure: “It’s hard to think his importance has diminished just because he’s such…he’s one of the best players in the world. But I think as a team player he’s embraced that – he’s allowed someone else to come in and have a positive impact, which he has because

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they’ve won the league, which they didn’t last season. I think he’s smart. He’s trying to fit in and have an impact on the team and not be a distraction, which some star players could do.” With football on hold, at least for the time being, what’s next for Owen? “Good question. I think I’ve done…you spend a long time playing as a kid and then becoming professional. There’s different opportunities, I think, to stay in the game. Whether you want to start coaching, get back to some of the younger players coming through, or there’s media work. There are lots of different avenues you can go down – I haven’t really fully decided which one’s for me yet.”

CNN Football Club airs on CNN International (Sky 506, Virgin Media 607 & Freesat 207) Thursdays 5pm. Join the global, social soccer debate online at cnn. com/cnnfc and on twitter by following @CNNFC Words by Paul Gleeson Photography by Liam Ricketts

Owen Hargreaves

Arsene Wenger: Charlie Brown The hunt for silverware can be an exhausting, prolonged affair which Arsene Wenger knows all too well. But like Charlie Brown trying to kick the American football, is his a thankless task doomed to end in failure?

A recurring theme throughout Peanuts’ reign as the world’s most popular comic strip saw Charlie Brown repeatedly frustrated by his nemesis Lucy. On cue she would regularly yank an American football away from him just as he was about to kick it. Peanuts ran for 49 years, three months and a day and never once in that time did its creator Charles M Schulz allow Brown to make contact. The closest he got was kicking Lucy’s arm. On the one hand it demonstrated our Everyman’s relentless optimism; on the other it represented the thankless task of striving for a goal in the knowledge that it’s a futile gesture. Which brings us nicely to Arsene Wenger and Arsenal. It’s a good while until he clocks up half a century in north London but as each passing season morphs into the next, a perpetual narrative written in 2005 becomes ever more difficult to break. A summer sale, a bright start, a blip, a resurgence, a cup exit(s), Wenger out, a cup run(s), Wenger in, a chase for fourth, cup exit, fourth secured, a summer sale…

Perhaps the biggest surprise over the summer was not that Robin Van Persie defected to Manchester United but that Steve Bould and not Bill Murray replaced Pat Rice. Over the past seven years a cast of thousands led by Cesc Fabregas, Bradford City, Terje Hauge, The Emirates, Stan Kroenke, Stephane Henchoz, Obafemi Martins and van Persie have all played the role of Lucy. Wenger could be forgiven for seeking solace at her $5 psychiatry booth. It’d certainly do a roaring trade outside the ground if fish and chips can command £14.50. The question, amid purported interest in his services from Paris Saint Germain, is whether Wenger truly believes that one day he’ll strike that ball or has he resigned himself to a Willy Loman existence, selling a dream he long-since stopped believing himself? Herein lies not just Arsenal’s problem but that of modern football per sae. Danny Blanchflower would turn in his grave to hear of the glory of finishing fourth and yet to the money men, once that box has been ticked anything else

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Arsene Wenger: Charlie Brown

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Arsene Wenger: Charlie Brown

is a bonus. Wenger’s rhetoric on the subject of silverware is invariably bullish but the proof is in the pudding and it is an ability to deliver the tidiest spreadsheets in the league that has allowed him to sidestep crass talk of trophy droughts in the boardroom. Wenger has always been a fan of Barbara and Tom’s self-sufficient business model, while the club’s supporters and Alisher Usmanov hanker after a little of Margo and Jerry’s good life. This isn’t to downplay Wenger or Arsenal’s achievements in any way. They’re clearly run in an exemplary fashion (at least from a business perspective) and the manner in which his sides have always played, true to the philosophy he’s espoused in the past of football being almost an art form, allows for an indulgence reserved for the prettiest girl in the class if not always the smartest. A marriage of convenience is the cry of his detractors though, with Arsenal no bolder than Linus, clutching Arsene to their bosom like a security blanket that has seen better days. Despite the protestations of some of their members, there are clearly some things in life worse than being an Arsenal supporter. Like being a fan of at least 88 of the other 92 clubs for starters. And yet, do any of us believe Wenger still holds as much disdain for finishing second as he did when pitching up in the capital from Japan looking like a lost geography teacher determined to take gravy off the Highbury canteen menu back in 1996? The fact he’s pally with Sir Alex these days is not a good sign either. Once happy to trade deep crusts at 40 paces Wenger now indulges the Scot as a sibling who inherited too much of the family’s anger gene. ‘For god’s sake Alex, if you’re going to cry about Robin, just take him’. Earlier in the season when Ferguson was asked if he would feel under pressure if he went five years without winning a trophy a puzzled countenance enveloped his face, before he spat ‘impossible’ out of the side of his mouth as if quizzed on voting Conservative. That Wenger is a brilliant coach, a fine man who exerts every sinew of his being for his football club is not up for discussion - it’s just I’d question whether the incorrect award of a throw-in still

ruins his weekend. The passion is still there, it’s just a passion with perspective and that’s a rare thing in football. Wenger’s intelligence appears to stretch beyond the touchline and thinking of life beyond the prism of 4-3-2-1 and false nines clearly isn’t beyond him. Nowadays when he says ‘I did not see it’ I tend to believe him. He was probably distracted trying to remember whether he’d set the Sky+ for that Rothko documentary on BBC4 or wantonly daydreaming of the Little Red-Haired Girl. It’s ridiculous that pastimes that aren’t watching VHS re-runs of Rinus Michels training sessions are treated with grave suspicion in football but I bet Roy Hodgson wishes he’d never mentioned John Updike or Philip Roth residing on his bedside table. Their books that is, not the novelist themselves. Wenger behaving as a realist with aspirations for Arsenal tempered to match becomes difficult to consume as the past seems barely that for all the talk of famines in the capital. For many, while it is Manchester United who have scaled the mountain most often since the Premier League’s inception it is Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal circa 2001-04 who hit the peaks. The writer Rainer Maria Rilke was on the money when proffering the view ‘beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror’ and so it has proved for Arsenal in the fallow years that have followed those of the halcyon variety. Like it or otherwise, Wenger, the alchemist who concocted the perfect juxtaposition of new (European) ideas with old (English) ideals back in ‘96, but no longer holds first mover advantage in terms of the French market or diet and nutrition, is now dictated by the swells of finance like any other coach.

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Arsene Wenger: Charlie Brown

Good grief, Charlie Brown.

Words by Alex Dunn Illustration by Tom Bingham

How Manchester United Reclaimed the Title Robin Van Persie

One of the hallmarks of Sir Alex Ferguson’s long and distinguished career has been his active rejection of complacency in all its forms. No matter how illustrious and successful, his squads are never complete in their composition. There are always enhancements to be made, upgrades to be sourced, wrongs to be righted. Last season, after being humiliated at Old Trafford and ultimately beaten to the title by

Manchester City, Ferguson appeared more determined than ever to reclaim the Premier League crown. In order to achieve this he set out in pursuit of Arsenal’s Robin Van Persie, the Dutchman having exhibited some of the finest individual displays the league has ever seen in his final season at The Emirates. £24m, 25 goals and eight assists later, United are champions of England once more.

Michael Carrick

Michael Carrick has long been the metronome at the heart of the Manchester United midfield, but rarely before has he displayed the consistently world-class form that has characterised his performances this season. A calming, methodical presence, the unassuming Englishman has grown to arguably become his team’s most tactically significant player. Enjoying the finest days of his career, the PFA Player of the Year nominee has been one of the key architects behind United’s success this

season. Producing quality passes at high volume, Carrick is currently the closest thing that Premier League has to a master of the possession style made famous by Barcelona. Intelligent and assured, were it not for Carrick’s expert marshalling of the midfield, United’s twentieth title may not have been won with such apparent ease.

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manchester united

December

Often viewed as a crucial month in the race for the title, December brings a relentless stream of fixtures that can make or break a team’s campaign in a matter of weeks. As winter grips the country, so the top half of the table begins to adopt a more permanent appearance. As Manchester City struggled, picking up just 10 points from their six games (including a 2-3 defeat to United at The Etihad), Ferguson’s

men were at their imperious best over the festive period. Indeed, the five wins and one draw that United recorded during December formed part of an outstanding 18-game unbeaten run which stretched from 24th November to 30th March. City began December just a point behind United. They began the New Year seven points adrift. This was a title forged in the depths of winter.

Manchester City

Championships are not won unilaterally, they are the product of opportunity and misfortune over time. One of Manchester City’s misfortunes in 2012/13 has been the apparent loosening of the internal discipline that was largely held in check last year. There have been training ground brawls, reports of unrest and uncharacteristic errors from senior players in the blue half of Manchester this

season. Despite offering flashes of the form that carried Roberto Mancini’s side to the 2011/12 title, City struggled for consistency at crucial times throughout the campaign. The 2012/13 title race will be remembered as a battle won through the champions’ consistency and sealed by the sporadic deficiencies of their cross-town rivals.

Sir Alex Ferguson

After missing out at the death last season on goal difference, Sir Alex had a decision to make in the summer: enforce the defence and midfield or look to bolster the forward line. Despite boasting one of the league’s best striker forces, he opted for the latter, bringing in Robin van Persie. Tactically this season, he’s let United off the leash as well and for the majority of it, they’ve

been at their swashbuckling best. Although they’ve sometimes looked prone to making mistakes at the back and conceding, one thing has been consistent: their ability to outscore the opposition. With Sir Alex having announced his retirement, it’ll be interesting to see whether his successor adopts the same approach next season.

Illustration by Ian Duke

Words by Chris Mann

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manchester united

The English Premier League? For decades the Premier League has borrowed from rival leagues, whether it’s players, managers or tactics. We’ve already witnessed the Gallic and Iberian revolutions, is it about time we saw the Germanic one?

The Premier League, or the ‘English Premier League’ as it’s sold abroad, has always been a rough and ready mix of the ultra conservative and blithely revolutionary. Foreign players, coaches and cash have long been welcomed with open arms but this season things have gone further. There’s a glut of Premier League clubs now importing their tactics from abroad en masse. French, Dutch, German, Spanish – the English Premier League is currently borrowing from them all. Simultaneously. It all started, as so much did, when Arsene Wenger turned up at Arsenal back in 1996. Wenger brought with him an unparalleled knowledge of the young French players coming out of the elite academy at Clairefontaine, and a Gallic revolution – which like most revolutions had been decades in the planning – swept through English football. Although the Clairefontaine model was itself borrowed from Romania, France were the team of the new millennium and from Arsenal to Newcastle United, top flight English teams built their side around French players, French preparation and French tactics. It was the era of David Ginola, Youri Djorkaeff and Laurent Robert.

The Iberian age – which fans of geological jokes might call the Messinian – came next. The achievements of lesser fancied sides from south west Europe like Porto, Sevilla and Valencia gave a signal as clear as a wave of a red rag that Iberian football talent – the first generation to grow up free of the yoke of dictatorship – was about to barge its way centre stage. It was at this moment Wenger poached a 16 year-old Cesc Fabregas and Barca vowed never to let a young players slip through their fingers again. A style of football that tried to pass itself into paradise took hold. Xabi Alonso – the Spanish equivalent of Vinnie Jones – often passed the ball better than Joe Cole, the best English playmaker of his generation. Although this model of football arguably had much to do with Dutch coaching methods, and its poster boy is an Argentinean, perched on expensive seats and from behind televisions, football followers across the UK had seen enough. If the local pub could do Salsa lessons, their football club could master tiki-taka. To their immense credit Roberto Martinez, Paulo Sousa and Brendan Rodgers have actually

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The English Premier League?

been able to build this brave new world at Swansea. And when Rodgers left for Liverpool it said it all that Swansea appointed a manager from La Liga, Michael Laudrup, able to bring in players ready made for the playing system. Swansea even modelled this year’s home shirt on Real Madrid. It was shameless.

However, the win ratios of Martinez, Rodgers, Sousa and Laudrup at Swansea (and elsewhere) are far from impressive. Keeping possession well does not always or even often translate into winning well. In fact, the obvious limits of tiki-taka – ‘sterile domination’, as Wenger once described it – along with the obvious strength of German club football has now pushed the Bundesliga to the fore. Like French football in the 90s, the German game has benefited from sustained investment in the footballing infrastructure required for the staging of a World Cup. (Something very similar has happened in Japan and South Korea.) The success of Bayern Munich, Dortmund and Schalke – not to mention the attractively equitable nature of German football, a ticket for a top game for £30 rather than £60 odd – has already prompted a response. English clubs scramble to buy players from German clubs. German managers are increasingly linked with top Premier League jobs. Safe standing and fan ownership are ideas that are beginning to generate sympathetic nods of approval. We’ve come a long way since the days of Steffen Freund.

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To top it off the current Premier League season is finishing with Paul Lambert, a European title winner with Dortmund as a player, preaching a Lutherian gospel of ‘quick transitions’, fiscal probity and the long term development of youth players. If Lambert keeps them up, it’s not a stretch to imagine the newly Vorsprung durch Technik Villa in the top 10 next year. Football goes in cycles, but the current bricolage of styles in the Premier League represents something more than a tactical changing of the guard. Something strange and interesting is happening to the way football is played in the Premier League. Something strange and interesting that is happening everywhere but Stoke City. A cynical way to understand it is that what makes the English Premier League ‘English’ is the mad jump into every passing bandwagon (and the mad jump from it into the next one) with very little learned at extremely high cost and with maximum upheaval. But the other way to understand it – despite the fashionable scepticism about all-things continental in the air at the moment – is that for better and worse, the Premier League has finally, irreversibly, become a European league. It could even be that this is why the league is now sold so heavily abroad as ‘English’.

Words by Scott Anthony

The English Premier League?

in association with

Frankie & the Heartstrings Frankie Francis, lead singer of Frankie & The Heartstrings, on their new album and an eventful season for Sunderland.

Frankie & the Heartstrings’ debut album ‘Hunger’, produced by Orange Juice’s Edwyn Collins, received widespread acclaim and precipitated the band’s rapid rise to stardom. Tours and festivals followed but the band have remained grounded in the North East; ahead of the release of their second album Frankie looks back with a bit of perspective on the hype that surrounded their launch: “I was running a bar in Sunderland and started the type of band I wished I could see playing in the bar. Then we got all of this mad hype; we were championed as this new indie band for everyone. We’d only played a couple of gigs and we had loads of industry people blowing smoke up our arses. It was completely unexpected.” Though they were unwilling recipients of hype,

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Frankie is delighted with some of the opportunities it has afforded the band. Their second album, ‘The Days Run Away’, is produced by former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler. “He came to a gig we played in London and said that he’d like to work with us. We did a single with him and really got on so went on to do the album. What he’s done for British guitar music with Suede and for pop music with McAlmont and Butler and with Duffy... He’s just worked with so many amazing artists. No one had ever really taught me how to sing before and Bernard taught me techniques and tips of how to do it, how to get a better vocal range. You have to pinch

Frankie & The Heartstrings

in association with

yourself... a couple of years ago I was working in Oxfam and then here I am in a studio talking to Bernard Butler about my falsetto.” Fame hasn’t taken the band far from their roots though as Frankie and bandmate Michael are still season ticket holders at the Stadium of Light. Though not a year for stellar football at Sunderland, Frankie is keen to stress that this season has certainly been good value for excitement and intrigue: “Its been a really weird season. The sacking of O’Neill came as a surprise - as much of a surprise as Di Canio coming in really. We are still fighting a relegation battle and I think ultimately we’d have been doing the same under O’Neill, but against Stoke we got a crucial point and there were times in the game when it looked as if we’d come away with nothing. We’d have been right amongst it if we hadn’t got that point. I think we’ll avoid the drop because we’ve got a really good goal difference - alright we got hammered by Aston Villa the other night - but we’ve got about 10 goals on the other teams around us. A goal difference like that can come in handy at the end of the season” We were speaking after Sunderland’s second half comeback to draw with Stoke, which perhaps accounts for some of his optimism. Frankie was tipping Wigan for the drop even before their defeat against Swansea and has little sympathy for the Latics:

Field — Issue 05

“Wigan keep escaping in the last few weeks of the season - they start playing football, winning games and they stay up. It’s crazy. As a club you can argue whether they deserve their Premier League status; I think their manager is great and they

“Its been scary as a Sunderland fan this year you are always looking over your shoulder” somehow end up with some good players but when you go there as an away fan it feels like you are taking more fans to their home games than they do.” The story of the season at Sunderland has been the appointment of Paulo Di Canio and Frankie shares the opinion of most Sunderland fans in thinking that a managerial change was needed: “Politics aside, he has had an impact. We’ve had one of the greatest derby wins ever and even if went down I think he’d have been a legend for that. We won a couple of games on the bounce when he came in and he’s got the team fired up. Under O’Neill the players didn’t look like they had any passion or belief in themselves and every game we’d get the same thing; the first 20 minutes of each half it’d look like we were sitting back. Di Canio switches

Frankie & The Heartstrings

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things around and changes games. We have got some optimism with Di Canio now and with O’Neill we just didn’t. In the Stoke game we were behind and down to ten men at halftime but he’s told them to go out and give it a go and we finished with a well fought draw in the end.” Frankie’s take on the controversy surrounding Di Canio’s appointment is a balanced one and perhaps

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“Its been scary as we were behind and down to ten men at halftime but he [Di Canio] has told them to go out and give it a go and we finished with a well fought draw in the end”

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his own dealings with fame and media attention give him an insight into how the story developed: “Well there is the whole fascism thing... I think because he didn’t come out straight away and say ‘no, I’m not a fascist’ you have one story leading on to another. It was a real shame that none of this was cleared up before he became manager of Sunderland. He’s been a football manager in this country for years and it has never been a big story, but then that’s how rollling news works now.”

Interview by Dan Byrne Arranged by Shoot Music Promotio

Frankie & The Heartstrings play Sunderland Minster on May 25th and tour the UK in June. The band’s second album ‘The Days Run Away’ is released on May 27th.

Field — Issue 05

Frankie & The Heartstrings