The Ten Key Footballing Moments of the Decade

This is my second "..of the decade" list. These things are always subjective and I am ready for the backlash: the list is unashamedly based on the view of an English football fan and includes five on-pitch and five off-pitch moments.

England beat Germany 5-1 in Munich
After Keegan´s walkout, England fans feared not making the Japan-Korea World Cup. Sven Göran Eriksson inspired the national team to a series of victories in the remaining qualifiers, and the icing on the cake was this 1st September 2001 win, in which Michael Owen notched a hat-trick. The Germans being Germans, they still went on to be the most successful European side in the following year´s World Cup Finals.

The Collapse of ITV Digital
The cost of the football rights was the main reason for the 2002 liquidaton of the company and its failure to be forced to pay (the Football League´s lawyers – Hammonds – were sued for 150 million pounds but asked to pay only four pounds in damages) meant it was the league teams which suffered, having budgeted for the television contract.

A ten point penalty for entering administration
Football league club woes were added to two years later when the league introduced a penalty for those clubs entering administration (a procedure allowing businesses to keep operating without being forced to sell assests in order to pay their debts). This has affected a number of clubs – most recently Southampton – and threatens more this season. In addition, there has been an increase in the number of teams having points deducted for other (often related) reasons and that the number of points deducted has shown a gradual increase (ask Luton fans).

France 0 Senegal 1
Pape Bouba Diop´s goal provided one of the biggest World Cup shocks in history. The holders went out at the first hurdle without scoring a goal and unfancied teams such as South Korea, Japan and Turkey performed far better than anyone expected. The trend in non-favourites exceeding expectations continued into Euro 2004, and culminated with Greece winning that competition.

Leeds implode
After 14 years in the top flight and extensive loans taken out to chase the dream (I´m not sure they quite lived it), Leeds went into freefall and – after suffering a ten point deduction as outlined above – plunged to football´s third tier. The financial problems associated with adapting to relegation from the English Premier League have been experienced more recently by a number of teams including Charlton.

Abramovich buys Chelsea
While many Football League clubs were impoverished, in 2003 the world´s super-rich began to see the English Premier League as an outlet for the pesky interest on their billions. Roman bought Chelsea back to back titles (with no little help from Jose Mourinho) and since then Aston Villa, Liverpool, Manchester City (twice), Manchester United, Portsmouth (twice) and most recently Birmingham have been sold to foreign owners, though admittedly with differing levels of benefits to the clubs concerned.

Zidane uses his head
“Magic is sometimes very close to nothing at all”: the thoughts of the great French player some time before he headbutts Mazerrati and ends his final professional match as the first man to be sent off in a World Cup Final.

Andres Iniesta scores against Chelsea
The late late Barcelona goal prevented a second all-English final in a row, which would have been the first time ANY two teams met in consecutive European Cup/Champions League Finals. Much of the world felt grateful until they were forced to sit through the lamentable Manchester United – Barcelona final.

Spain win Euro 2008
The “perennial underachievers” ™ finally shrugged off that title in style.

Real go for Galacticos II
After Barcelona´s fine year, their great Spanish rivals Real Madrid went on a spending spree to shame Roman Abramovich, yet their purchase of Manchester United´s Cristiano Ronaldo and Liverpool´s Xabi Alonoso may prove to benefit Chelsea more than anyone else in English football. The resurgence in Spanish football might also see a decline in English clubs recent (relative) domination of the final stages of the Champions League.

How wrong did I get it? What would you include in your key footballing moments of the decade?

Video Technology in Football

(Please read and comment on the original site.)

Video technology won't solve the problems of subjectivity and accusations of bias which already exist in the beautiful game.

The worst refereeing decision of 2008/9 went against my football team. Video replays? No, thanks.

This Watford fan was sitting behind the goal which was at the centre of the biggest controversy of England´s last football season. On that day, in September 2008, Reading were awarded what was later referred to by the national and international media as “the goal that never was” and “the phantom goal”.

The ball went over the goal-line about four yards to the right of the goal, but was deemed to have entered the goal by the referee´s assistant, Nigel Bannister. There were other terrible decisions last season, as Crystal Palace fans will testify, but usually these decisions rest on doubts as to whether the ball crossed the line. At Watford, Bannister mistook which line the ball had crossed, a uniquely farcical error.

You might expect me to be a proponent of video replays in light of this decision against my beloved team. You would be wrong.

Though I have great sympathy for the Irish, I am more inclined to agree with the sentiment expressed by Roy Keane, who – after Thierry Henry´s handball – reminded us that the Irish had benefitted from a controversial penalty decision against Georgia earlier in the campaign. The Irish FA did not appeal then.

There are several arguments against video replays. Keane implies that “what goes around, comes around”, but the most important of these points against video, is that such replays are not always incontrovertible.

I was at the Brazil-England 2002 world-cup quarter-final in Shizuoka, Japan, and – despite being unable to see what had happened – joined in the booing-off of Ronaldinho after his foul on Danny Mills earned him a red card. On the train after England´s defeat, I sat with a TV camera-crew who showed me their footage of the incident.

Their angle showed the Brazilian had done nothing wrong and my misery at England´s exit was compounded by the feeling that I had unjustly booed an innocent man. A different angle on television later confirmed that Ronaldinho had gone in with his studs up and that the sending-off had been correct.

Video replays don´t inevitably provide indisputable evidence then. In cases of alleged fouls and handballs, there will almost always be a subjective element to the decision. Every fan knows this. Watching action replays of the same incident, supporters of different teams will see justification for a decision which favours their club. The ensuing arguments are part of the fun of being a passionate supporter.

The second point against the use of video replays in football is the question of who owns the technology. At the moment, companies such as Sky and Setanta pay billions to televise the games and it is this we use to judge events in a match. If their video becomes part of the rules of the matches, why would they continue to pay such sums to televise it?

More importantly, however, there may be legitimate doubts about the biased nature of the media. To assume that multi-national telecommunications corporations have no self-interest in decisions that affect big football clubs - which millions pay those corporations to watch - is simply naive.

What if, after a minute´s delay, the footage of a crucial incident affecting the premiership survival of a big team was said to have been “accidentally deleted” by the television company? Accidents happen, sorry.

During some international games only entities from the host nation have control of television cameras. We hear the BBC commentator saying “we have no control over what images we see” as a controversial decision is simply not replayed. This fact is demonstrably open to abuse and could become extremely contentious.

These two points easily override arguments for the use of video replays in football. It is fine to say that only captains could request replays and that the number could be limited by removing one for each incorrect challenge, but this does not deal with the essential fact that video can and does lie and would not resolve most issues to the satisfaction of players with so much at stake.

These points do not preclude goal-line technology. FIFA has not ruled out the use of a chip at the centre of the ball combined with computer technology that alerts officials if the ball crosses the line. This seems flawless (television angles are not conclusive) and does not preclude the ruling-out of the goal for other reasons.

To my mind, this technology is far superior to the current Hawk-Eye technology used in tennis, which, after-all relies on cameras and a projection of the ball´s statistically most likely path. Not only that, but there have been numerous examples of mistaken Hawk-Eye decisions, the latest being in this year´s Indian Wells Masters quarter final match between Andy Murray and Ivan Ljubicic.

Perfected goal-line technology? OK. Video replays? Never.