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Sky Sports Football
Yearbook 2006-2007
The 37th edition of the 1056-page Yearbook, which is the fourth with new sponsors Sky Sports, is a treasure trove of information and "the thinking fan’s guide to the Game." "As part of our pre-season training, there’s only ever been one source of reference, one that’s been part of the fabric of football throughout my career on and off the pitch—The Year Book," writes former player and now a Sky Sports commentator Andy Gray in his foreword. There is well-rounded coverage of the World Cup finals in Germany with a round-up of the qualifying matches in Europe and South America. The editorial takes critical note of the performance of the players, coaches as well as the officials and FIFA, sparing none in its sweeping analyses. Sven-Goran Eriksson has been ripped apart for his tactics or lack of it which did not live up to the pre-World Cup hype and hoopla. Eriksson has been castigated for not being "adventurous at least on the field of play, and his lack of innovativeness dulled England’s hope of winning the World Cup trophy". The World Cup has been eluding England since Alf Ramsey’s boys won the title in 1966. The book takes Eriksson to task for doing nothing to "champion the cause of the strikers", as Ramsey had done with the wingers in the 1966 World Cup. "Ramsey made wingers redundant and the word was erased from the football dictionary", notes the editorial. The poor supervision of some of the matches has also been clinically torn apart. Graham Poll, described by the media as "The Thug from Tring", showed three yellow cards to one Croatian player when ‘pencil and paper’ might have saved him an early trip home. (Two yellow cards make it a red card, resulting in the automatic suspension of the offending player, but here the referee forgot to note down the number of times he flashed the card to the Croatian player and hence the faux pas and his own early exit from refereeing duties as well!). Valentine Ivanov of Russia, referee for the Holland vs Portugal tie, flashed four red cards and 16 yellow cards, which was a dubious record for the World Cup. No wonder, FIFA (Federation Internationale Football Associations) boss Sepp Blatter wants two referees for the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa. But Ken Aston, the referee who introduced red cards in the 1970 World Cup, feels that two referees could mean "double the mistakes." In the last 40 years, football has become a big business with FIFA as a virtual money-spinning organisation, and little else. FIFA has also been criticised for allowing penalty shootouts to decide the World Cup final as the "concept of a penalty kick is a punishment, not a door to success and as such, at odds with the game’s spirit". "Extra time invariably becomes a mixture of either a comfort zone or fear-ridden, until the spot kicks take over. If this is the game’s only spectacle, why not dispense with the 90 minutes altogether and get down to the penalties?!", ask the editors. "If FIFA are serious about the effect on player’s health, streamlining the finals with seven groups of four teams, two of whom are seeded, two unseeded, the four thus kept apart, is essential. Four games per group, 28 in total. The top two in each section, plus the two best third placed teams, go straight into a knock-out competition. No extra time — play to finish. Total matches 44, compared to 64 (in the present format of 32 teams)", the book has suggested. Presently, there are "too many meaningless World Cup final group matches involving teams who are already qualified for the knock-out stages or those with their departure bags already packed. Not easy to provide a solution unless you have two seeded teams who do not meet each other in their group. But since FIFA doubled the number of finalists from 16, they have little scope for anything that revolutionary. Reducing the qualifiers to 28 would give some scope for such a system. But it would be fewer overall games and inevitably less income, so that is a non-runner for FIFA".
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THE
2006 Soccer World Cup
in Germany stood out not only for France’s captain Zinedine Zidane’s
headbutt of Italian player Marco Materazzi in the title clash, but also
for many other notable feats, which have been meticulously chronicled in
the Sky Sports Football Yearbook 2006-2007. This football Bible has
comprehensively covered not only the World Cup, but also other soccer
events such as the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Cup. It is a
painstaking work with amazing attention to detail as editors Glenda
Rollin and Jack Rollin have left nothing to imagination.