Wenger: Ivory Coast ‘Stubborn’

Arsene Wenger had a bad experience with Ivory Cosat last time in the African Cup. He asked the permission to play 2 players in an FA Cup match which would delay their international release for like a day or so, and although they were not going to start any fitness tests only after 2 days, they still refused and Wenger had to pull Manu and Kolo out of the squad. So now he says he wont even bother asking them anything and that he would just stop using the players from the 5th of Jan 2008.

Here is his full rant, eh, interview.. (After the jump)“They are so stubborn that there is no point in even speaking to them, They will go at the beginning of January.  They have to be available for their country 15 days before the start of the tournament.

Before the last tournament we tried to negotiate a later release date with the Ivory Coast, but we had no success so we won’t try this time.  We will give them the players when they are due, and won’t even speak to the Ivorian federation about it.

We were so disappointed with their attitude last time. We had to pull Manu and Kolo out of the 2006 FA Cup game against Cardiff an hour before kick-off because the Ivory Coast were adamant they had to join up, even though they were only going to be sitting in a hotel room in Paris doing nothing.

Eboué had not played many games back then, so it would have been good for him to play in the FA Cup tie.  But they wanted to meet up on a Saturday night, and even though our game was early that day they refused to give us permission to play them.

This was not even to go to Africa, but to go to Paris, where they would not even start fitness tests until the Monday.  They just sat in the hotel that weekend, and I said to them ‘let’s be a little bit logical here’ – but it was impossible.

It is not the players’ fault at all, but the Ivory Coast management were very stubborn, and unnecessarily so because it would have been better for their preparation.  So this time I will count them out of action from about January 5th until approximately the middle of February.”

Comments November 21st, 2007

Real Madrid puts Mahamadou Diarra up for sale

Real Madrid rumors keeps puring in, the Spanish sports daily Marca is insisting that Diarra is on his way out of Real Madrid maybe as soon as the winter. The rumor says that Schuster, altho using the player in different amount of times and positions, still does not want him in the squad and informed the board with his decision and the board have approved it.

The reason why it could be in winter rather in the summer, simply because Diarra will be playing in the African Cup in the winter which means not being available to play for Real Madrid for about 5 weeks, which makes the player even less valuable to them.

In the end, my opinion is that Schuster will miss the player if he does not have a replacement in winter, Diarra have  played a good role especially when Schuster had dual defensive midfield plan. I know that Gago is there and Gago is heavily competing in that position but still Diarra will be missed.

Comments November 21st, 2007

World Cup 2010 South American Qualifiers (Schedule & Channels)

In Europe countries are battling today to reach Euro 2008, but in South America its a whole different kind of battle, 6 nations will be playing each other to qualify to the  Word Cup, which will be held in South Africa in 2010 between 11 June and 11 July 2010.

In my opinion, it would be very interesting to watch Colombia and Venezuela.

GMT
19:00    Argentina X Bolivia [Aljazeera Sport 1]
21:10    Colombia X Venezuela [Aljazeera Sport 1]
23:10    Paraguay X Ecuador [Aljazeera Sport 1]

Comments November 17th, 2007