Posts Tagged ‘Hull City’

Why I Haven’t Blogged In A While

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

As I said in my previous post, an extremely busy stretch at work kept me from posting things. There were about two weeks at Revlon that I was practically twiddling my thumbs, then the dam burst with projects. On top of that, I picked up three REALLY big freelance projects, keeping my busy not only nights but weekends, which kept me from watching matches.

Thing is, my weekends were not THAT busy. I could have stepped away for bit and watched some footie. I’ve also got a DVR which allows me to time-shift a boatload of games…I just never seemed to do that. For a minute, I though that my time as a soccer fanatic was over.

Then I started to recap the last few weeks in my head. While it may have seemed that I wasn’t watching recorded games, it turns out that I was wrong there. I watched a TON of games, particularly in La Liga. I watched a seemingly beaten-down Real Madrid go through a phenomenal rebirth of winds while simultaneously watching a fatigued Barcelona club go on a ridiculous string of draws and losses. Real Madrid may not win the league this year, but they DEFINITELY have a chance to take three points from Barcelona at the May 3rd superclassico.

I witnessed Liverpool’s annihilation of Manchester United in the best match of the year. Many believed that Liverpool manager, Rafa Benitez, couldn’t pick his best team of eleven players but it seems that team is gelling right now. Doubt that they’ll win the EPL trophy this year though.

Of course, there was the Champions League, where the round of 16 has come and gone. Inter Milan’s out. Real Madrid’s REALLY out. And we’re all hoping for a Barcelona – Man United match in the final, which seems possible.

Palmeiras
But best of all, GolTV is now carrying Brazilian club level football from the Sao Paulo state…and I LOVE it!!! Jumping back to rebirths for a second, I have been born-again thanks to Sao Paulo football, especially since I have access to Corinthian club games, which I can watch the great Ronaldo. But while Corinthians are great, I’ve decided to support the the Palmeiras club after watching them play. These games, I’m not missing.

So I watched a decent amount of football, just not a lot of English Premier League football. And this brings up an interesting point.

See, the EPL promotes itself on a scale much grander than any other football league in the world. Said promotion has created a strong customer demand for access to as many televised games as possible, particularly in America. The American cable and satellite operators know all this so they try to sell as many sports packages with EPL access as they can to customers. All of this means that whenever an American begins to get into football, they are most likely to be exposed to EPL football first.

This happened to me. When I first got in to footie, all I knew was the Premier League. Thanks to the Fox Soccer Channel and GolTV, I watched at least two EPL games over the weekend along with the Barcelona and Real Madrid matches in Spain. Then we brought a condo and got satellite subscription with Setanta, meaning that I now had access to all games played by the EPL’s big four teams every weekend. And since the condo increased our monthly expenses, we had no problem substituting football for our weeklong entertainment in lieu of going out as much.

Now after two years of being a football nut, I’ve realized the the English game is just not that exciting as the game in Spain and Brazil and Italy and France and many other regions. Don’t get me wrong, I love Chelsea and am curious about how Man U, Arsenal, Liverpool and Hull are doing, but not enough to give all five of these teams all of my weekend time. And now that I’m getting into the Brazilian game, the Italian game and (sorta kinda) the French game, I just cannot get into the EPL as much as I did in the past. As a result, I will budget my time around the really good games from ALL leagues, while using the internet to keep up with standings and fixtures of others. This means that whenever Man U plays Arsenal, I’ll be in front of my TV. But I’ll be somewhere else when Man U play Stoke City.

Don’t misunderstand me here. I absolutely do NOT hate the British game. It’s just that with the three soccer channels that I have, I have access to so much more football now. And when you watch all types of football from all types of leagues you start to notice the difference in styles of play, and the British style football is just not as exciting right now. It’s as if I’d been listing to my parents record collection all my life and have now discovered punk rock and rap music.

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Boaz Myhill Gets the Call-Up for Duty from Wales

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008


One more feather in the cap for Hull City as whole as Boaz gets picked as keeper for Wales’ friendly against Denmark.

GOOD FOR HIM!

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This Post Got Me Thinking About “The Business End Of The Season”

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008


When you’re blogger, it’s a must that you carefully consider how to categorize each post. I put this one under ‘Football Knowledge’ but I swear that for a nanosecond, I considered creating a category called “What Are You Smoking” in reference to this story. Tottenham Hotspur Chairman Daniel Levy insists that his team is the fifth best in the Premier League right now. He goes on to say that it’s still early in the season and that the Spurs have the potential to turn things around.

Now as most footie fans know, the timing of this comment makes the comment all the more humorous. A few months before the start of the season, many (including myself) hailed Tottenham Hotspur as “The Chosen One”. A decent finish during the 07/08 season and some key additions to the roster like Giovanni Dos Santos made the team look primed to finish at least fifth in the EPL. That they lost Jermain Defoe to Portsmouth was something that they could work around.

But the loss of both Defoe AND Dimatar Berbatov to Manchester United was simply too much for them to work around. One thing I’ve learned about footie is that all the top tier teams either have at least one marquee player for scoring or have a whole team of hard working guys that play their positions well and develop into a cohesive unit that can get the ball to the back of the net. Once Berbatov was gone, the Spurs had neither. The end result: top-tier and mid level teams pimp-slapped them all over the pitch and they lost games…a lot of games. Hull City was now hailed as “The Chosen One”. The Spurs wound up in the relegation zone. Manager Juande Ramos was served his walking papers.

While many are now writing them off and mentally sewing Championship League patches onto Spurs jerseys, I’m gonna hold off. Because there is such a thing as the “Business End of the Season,” when teams who know that they have to win games, go out and win games! Look at Fulham last season . They were kissing the relegation zone but won enough games towards the end to avoid it. Real Madrid were written off as finishing in second place in La Liga in 06/07 and 07/08 and ended up capturing the League title for both seasons. Both of these teams acheived their goals towards the close of the season.

My point is that one of the qualifications of good team is one of the simplest: get all three points when you need to. For many teams this qualification manifests itself during the last weeks of the season. I don’t know if it will manifest itself for Tottenham, but their past performance is good enough for me to say that it’s possible.

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Edwin van der Sar Gives Hull Some Respect

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

Personally, I’d like to see him give a little more, but at least he acknowledged that the Tigers “are a team that never give up.”

In this Goal.com article, Edwin states that Man U needs to learn from their mistakes and not slow their game down when they have a good size lead, which they did last Saturday. As I’ve already discussed, they were up 4-1 by the 60th minute and ended the game in a 4-3 win…kinda sloppy for Man U.

I say even if United full-on attacked, Hull would’ve still gotten those two goals because, as Eddie just said, Hull City do not give up.

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Hull City…What I’ve Learned…

Sunday, November 2nd, 2008

…and the answer is A LOT!!!

Let me start off by saying that I am THRILLED that my Chelsea Blues beat Hull on 29 October. I was, however, disappointed by their 1 November loss to Manchester United: partially because I wanted to see the underdogs win and partially because when one supports Chelsea, throwing a little dislike to the Red Devils is the default position.

But while watching these two games, I had my BEST footie knowledge experience to date.

The Chelsea game was a mess for the Tigers from start to finish. Geovanni and Daniel Cousin did what they could but the entire defense (Boaz Myhil included) acted as if they did a few bong hits prior to coming on to the pitch. They gave up a goal with in the first three minutes and allowed Nicholas Anelka a goal. I mean, I love my Blues but Anelka is not exactly a goal scoring machine. Chelsea takes the match 3-0…a bit of a surprise but not a disappointment on my part. Hull City then goes on to lose at Old Trafford three days later, but it was a completely different game. Hull lost to Man U 4-3 but not after getting three goals off of the Red Devils and forcing them to work to preserve their lead. Any team that forces Manchester United to work deserves props.

Now while none of these end results are surprising when you think about it, the Chelsea game deserves a little scrutinizing. See, Chelsea’s good right now, they’re just not that good. Regardless of Anelka’s performance, he’s no Didier Drogba and can be locked down without much effort. And Frank Lampard may be the most consistent scorer for Chelsea right now but is he scoring that much? Nope. Hull could’ve beaten Chelsea last Wednesday, but played as if they didn’t want to. But it was WHOOOOOOOLE different ball of wax against Man U. Hull faced a marquee team which contains three of the current top scorers (Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Dimatar Berbatov) and puts three goals on them. This was without question, United’s toughest win to date as Hull pushed them to the limits, forcing Rooney to try and score and making sure he was unsuccessful at every attempt. Either they blocked him or they forced him to take quick shots, but the belief that he was the man this season in the EPL was, for 90 minutes, shut down by the Hull Back Four. Hull earned the respect of many on 1 November, including Manchester United. Why? Because they walked out onto the pitch with the confidence that they could win!!!!

And therein lies the moral of this post: that I learned that confidence is a key characteristic of any winning team, and it’s a must that Hull corner the market on it since it’s what’s really winning them games right now. As an example, let’s take a look at Chelsea again, particularly during the 2007/08 season. When José Mourinho vacated the Chelsea managerial post in October 08, everyone wrote them off for the rest of the season. Yet they not only made the UEFA Champions League final that season but also made sure that the EPL Champions didn’t get confirmed until the last day of the season. That’s confidence and that’s one of the many reasons why my Blues support is unwavering.

I’ve said before that Hull has such confidence and still believe that they have it. They just need to be consistent with it, especially if they want to stay in the EPL.

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Chelsea Vs. Hull City (10/29/08) – My Conflict And My Assesment

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

Anyone that’s read this blog knows that the current EPL season is causing me some internal conflict. I’m a “blue-till-I-die” Chelsea fan; however, I find myself passionately rooting for the Tigers in every game. And with the two due to meet up tomorrow, I found myself somewhat conflicted on who to root for. I LOVE Chelsea but how can one not root for the underdog?

I meditated over this and have decided to stick to my guns and root for Chelsea, but have acknowledged that Hull City could win it. Not only could they win it but they have a good chance when you line up each teams good points and bad points. Let’s take a look at those, shall we:

CHELSEA CAN WIN BECAUSE…

They have more experience: Chelsea’s been in the top flight for sometime now and it’s been ages that they’ve been anywhere else. They’ve been against the best and have beaten more than their fair share of top notch clubs.

They have a better manager: Phil Brown is great but Felipe Scolari is better.

They have the home pitch advantage: Regardless of Liverpool ending Chelsea’s loss-less home record, the Blues are still tough to beat at Stamford Bridge. Speaking of which…

They’re pumped to win after their Liverpool loss: Chelsea’s home record (86 home games without a loss) is phenomenal! Because the Merseyside Kings just ended it, the Blues are most likely seeking redemption from any source that they can get it….destroying Hull may be that source.

HULL CAN WIN BECAUSE…

They have the confidence: If you ask me, this is the primary source for the Tiger’s success. Simply put, Hull have either won or drawn games that many (including myself) predicted that they would lose, and one of the games that they won was against Arsenal at the Emirates. They know that they can beat the best when it comes down to it.

Their team “backbone” is stronger than Chelsea’s right now: By this, I mean that on each level of pitch formation (goalie, defender, midfielder, striker) lies a top notch player. And with Boaz Myhill, Ian Ashbee, Geovanni. and Daniel Cousin, Hull’s backbone is the strongest. Chelsea’s almost there, with Peter Cech, John Terry, and Frank Lampard. but Nicholas Anelka is the weakest link in the chain right now.

Peter Brown is still good at what he does: As I said before, Scolari is the better manager. On the other hand, so is Arsene Wenger and just look how Peter came off on that one. Yes, Hull City is confident that they can beat the best, as is Peter Brown.

Look REAAAAAAL closely at the standings: Yup, Chelsea’s in second place and Hull’s in third. Look at the games played though and you’ll notice that Hull is one of only two teams have beaten the traditional “big four”. That counts for something.

At the end of the day, I’m rooting for Chelsea but will be secretly happy if Hull takes it. All in all, I expect a good game.

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Who is this Phil Brown guy?

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008


Continuing with my current love affair with the Hull City Tigers, I looked for some info on their current manager, Phil Brown. Gotta say that this guy intrigues me: he’s personable, loves his club, and quite animated on the touchline like Jose Mourhino is. Phil’s also kinda stylish like the Special One, too: he’s Target to Jose’s Armani though.

My research shows that the man has every right to hold a managerial job: 18 years of playing on the pitch for four clubs (including Bolton and Blackpool), was a caretaker for Bolton, and a full-on manager for Derby County. Only at Derby for seven months but don’t hold that against him: DC will continue to rotate managers until it finds one that can accomplish the difficult task of whipping the squad into shape. Phil just happened to be in the rotation.

But enough of the past, let’s move on to the present. He took Hull City to the top during the Championship League promotion playoffs, earning them a slot in the EPL. Since joining the top flight, the Tigers have played six games and have lost only one, but man did they lose that game! 0-5 against Wigan. Past that, they’ve won or drawn five games that many (including me) thought that they would lose, especially the 2-1 pimpslap they put on Arsenal this past weekend. Yes, performances by HC players Boaz Myhill, Daniel Cousin, and Geovanni led to victory (how about that Geovanni strike?!?!?!?!) but tactical moves by Phil Brown paved the way for those performances. ‘Nuff said.

Now let’s just hope that Phil keeps both his squad and himself from becoming cocky because if anything can do them in, it’s that. My hope is that they continue to go out and play the best game that they can, with goal of remaining in the Premier League at the end of the year. If they do that then I believe that the team will will develop into more of cohesive unit and they’ll get some more TV rights money which will allow them to grab one or two key players, possibly from La Liga. I’ll repeat my very risky prediction and say that they’ll grab the fifth spot in the EPL next year, hereby securing a UEFA Cup slot (Cup, NOT Championship). But I’ll add to this risky prediction that none of this will happen if Phil Brown leaves the club. He’s the straw that’s stirring the drink right now.

As stated, the main purpose of this blog is for me to learn about footie and the biggest lesson that I’ve learned so far is that every season is full of surprises. The last season is different from the next and the Phil Brown-led Tiger’s current performance has done the most to drive this point home to me. I seriously believed that Tottenham Hotspur had the best chance to break the EPL’s top four, while the Tigers were simply on a little vacation from the C’Ship League (Along with West Brom and Stoke) and would go back there next year. Now the current sixth-place Hull is set to square off against the current last place Spurs this weekend in an already sold out match where Hull is the away team but is still the odds-on favorite. Throw this surprise in with less-than-stellar performances by Man U, Real Madrid, AC Milan, and Inter, and very little has happened as I predicted it would this season…so far.

I need to close by referring back to what this post is about: my love affair with Phil Brown and Hull City. “Love affair” is the active phrase here because Hull City is my mistress while Chelsea is my wife. I am geeked that my Blues are currently number one and will be fully rooting for them when the play Hull on October 29th this year and February 7th in 2009. But I will be watching every Hull City game I can and root for them full on.

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