By Myles Palmer
Borussia Dortmund will play for a 0-0 draw at Highbury.
Sammer’s team is good at draws. They’ve drawn four of their first five Bundesliga games
Overall,German teams are often dour.
And dour is Sammer’s best bet. Maybe his ONLY bet.
Dortmund have less flair than Leverkusen when they had Basturk, Ze Roberto and Ballack.
OK, they have a good coach in Sammer, who was a world class midfielder-sweeper.
They have the beanpole defender Christoph Metzelder,who was a big success in the World Cup.
And Torsten Frings and Jan Koller.
Tomas Rosicky is a creative Czech who can dribble and take a cute free kick.
Dortmund drew the Ruhr derby 0-0 with Bochum last Tuesday night.
On Saturday they were at home to Schalke.
After 70 minutes Metzelder was caught in possession by Agali, the lanky, aggressive Nigerian,who put Schalke 1-0 up.
Then Brazilian Ewerthon equalised with a header a minute later.
Arsenal’s phenomenal goals at Charlton will have made Dortmund pretty apprehensive about this game.
On ANR I’ve already said a lot about Wenger’s uniquely fast,athletic style of play.
Many pages of my new paperback, The Professor, are taken up by an analysis of how that style of play has been achieved.
Two years ago here I talked about the geometry of destruction.
Last season I called it 21st century speed-football.
Sammer will have studied the tape of Leverkusen’s 4-1 annihilation in February.
When Pires and Henry put Arsenal 2-0 up seven minutes.
Ballack was invisible, Toppmoller’s top cats were just blown away.
SAMMER WANTS TO AVOID THAT SCENARIO.
How will they play? Dunno. Haven’t seen them recently.
Last season they looked a good side and I remember thinking that Dortmund played more attactive football than Bayern or Leverkusen.
VALENCIA away is a big test for any team, so Gerard Houllier will be tense on Tuesday night.
He pulled Dudek from the Poland-San Marino game last week.A slight groin strain.Poles were surprised.
And he had Diouf and Owen on the bench at Bolton, where they won 3-2.Luckily.
Milan Baros scored two fabulous goals on his debut. If it was Liverpool-Valencia I would play him!
But in the Mestalla, a cauldron, it would be a stretch for a 20-year old striker in his second game.
We know Michael Owen is off-form. No goal in open play this season.
But Houllier knows Owen can play badly and score two goals. He did that in Rome in the UEFA Cup first leg. OK, I know Roma weren’t trying that night.
As I say, Valencia is a big one for Houllier.
And Dudek. And for two of his most electric players, Riise and Diouf.
It’s a formidable test.But a very interesting opportunity, if they are up to it.
Big stage,too, for Steven Gerrard,England’s best footballer, who missed the World Cup.
Trouble is, Valencia are better than 31 of the teams who were in Korea-Japan 2002 !
Interestingly, at a time when Liverpool are conceding goals from crosses, big John Carew scored twice in a 3-0 win on Saturday.
LEEDS deserved to beat Man United 1-0.
I had fancied Leeds, but in the first half United swarmed all over them and Harry Kewell was showboating and being a prat.
The most selfish, annoying performance this season. If you wear white boots you’ve gotta play better than that, Harry!
Tel made two changes at half time: Bakke for Barmby,Radebe for Matteo, who was injured.
Bakke gave them more power. His tackle put Nicky Butt out of the game.
Then Kewell scored the only goal after 65 minutes.
We’ve seen that a thousand times : the worst player on the field scores the goal.
England captains can do anything in league games, as we saw with Bryan Robson and Alan Shearer for years.
Same again here when Beckham’s calculated elbow went into Bowyer’s face. Jeff Winter only gave Leeds a free kick.
Woodgate was very good in aerial duels with Rio.
And he tugged Solskjaer’s sleeve and got away with it, as Alan Hansen did a million tines.
The fine art of fouling in the box without conceding a penalty was easier in those pre-Sky days when Liverpool were omnipotent.
Amazingly, Ferguson took off van Nistelroy and put on Forlan after 71.
He knew Forlan would not score. But he wanted to show RVN,and us, how annoyed he was by the Dutchman.
Myself, I would not have taken Ruud off. The way he spurted away from Woodgate, and forced a world class save from Paul Robinson, was reason enough to leave him on.
Fergie was probably thinking that RVN has had the summer off and should be flying.
Beckham has had a metatarsal, a World Cup, and a baby.
Becks can’t be expected to pick this team up and carry it on his back for the next 50 games.Or even the next 10 games.
Everyone says the defence has let United down, but Roy Keane was right.
He said that in the six home games they lost last season they ONLY SCORED THREE GOALS!
Ruud has to start scoring this week!
For me the highlight was the Tel-tale moment after 25 when Beckham hit a free-kick low round the wall. The ball was going sweetly into the bottom corner.
But, as Beckham ran up,Ian Harte broke backwards off the walland skipped back to cover that exact spot.
Harte blocked the shot. Preventing a certain goal.
Pure Tel, that. A telltale moment. We shall be seeing a lot of that type of thing from Leeds.
And other managers will copy what Harte did.
Harte crossed right footed for the goal.
Silvestre dimly let Kewell drift inside him and score with a simple header.
Barthez is now looks a millionaire keeper who doesn’t want to get hurt.Faced by an unmarked striker jumping for a clear header, he took one step forward and stopped!
Maybe it was what I call August goalkeeping.
Keepers never get hurt on their summer holidays.
They don’t have to be brave in July and they get soft. So every August they bottle crosses because they have lost their nerve.
Right now we are seeing a lot of August goalkeeping in September.
We might see more of it in the Champions League.
But I hope not. I love good goalkeeping. It adds tension to the spectacle, adds value to a goal.
Cheap goals are fun, but good goals are better – and great goals are memorable.
15th September 2002
PS
It’s been a weekend of exciting gossip about big names.
A pity all the stories are libellous.
The Sunday papers suggested that a chairman has taken a bung.
Can’t say who it is. Don’t know if the papers will be able to stand it up.