Here.

We played our 12 hours yesterday and, even though I was in goal most of the day, I’ve pretty much seized up.   Ho hum.  The young me would have laughed at the old me, but such is life and we must do our best.

I’m in Edinburgh via Birmingham as of this evening, so see you later next week.

Fulham lost 2-1 to Gold Coast Utd today.  The second half midfield was Kelly, Baird, Andranik, Seol, which tells you all you need to know.  A run around and nothing else.

Meanwhile, there is no transfer news.

I have two more working days before the 12 hour football marathon.  If you are feeling generous it is still possible to sponsor us at JustGiving!

I have taken  training inspiration from Milo of Croton:

Milo was a six time Olympic victor. He won the boys’ wrestling (probably in 540 BC),[4] and thereafter five men’s wrestling titles between 536 and 520 BC.[1][2][3] He also won seven crowns at the Pythian Games at Delphi (one as a boy), ten at the Isthmian Games, and nine at the Nemean Games.[2] Milo was a five time Periodonikēs, a “grand slam” sort of title bestowed on the winner of all four festivals in the same cycle.[3] Milo’s career at the highest level of competition must have spanned 24 years.[2]

Impressive, eh?

Anecdotes about Milo’s almost superhuman strength and lifestyle abound. His daily diet allegedly consisted of 20 lb of meat, 20 lb of bread, and eighteen pints of wine.[3] Pliny the Elder and Solinus both attribute Milo’s invincibility in competition to the wrestler’s consumption of alectoriae, the gizzard stones of roosters.[2][11] Legends say he carried his own bronze statue to its place at Olympia, and once carried a four-year-old bull on his shoulders before slaughtering, roasting, and devouring it in one day.[2][3] He was said to have achieved the feat of lifting the bull by starting with a newborn ox, and carrying it everyday.

Modern sports science has nothing on the ancient greeks.

Anyway, we’re playing footie for 12 hours in what’s likely to be rain, and, as luck would have it our team has been allocated pink t-shirts.  So…. well, that’s just dandy isn’t it?    All money raised goes to raising awareness about AIDS in Africa.

Diomansy Kamara, seen here doing his bit to ensure we held Derby County to a 2-2 draw, is missing.

Here is the preview of the Fulham v Australian Teams games.

The relevant bit for us is:

Meanwhile, up-front, Roy will select from the tried and tested trio of Andy Johnson, Bobby Zamora and Erik Nevland, with Eddie Johnson providing additional competition after his spell at Cardiff last term.

Hmmm.   Was he on the aeroplane?  Is he injured?  We need to know.

Meanwhile, plots thicken.  Hull City have told the world that they have a deal in place to take Bobby Zamora, but only if we find another striker.   Intriguing.    Elsewhere, Brede Hangeland and Clint Dempsey have rejected contracts, presumably as part of the normal negotiating rounds.   At present our first team looks like:

Schwarzer; Paintsil, Hughes, Hangeland, Konchesky; Davies, Murphy, Etuhu, Dempsey; Zamora, A.Johnson.

If you try to back them all up you get:

Stockdabuhler; Kelly, Baird, Smalling, Kallio; Gera, Andranik, Milsom/Brown, Bouazza; Nevland, Kamara/E.Johnson

I have no real concerns with the defence (you can add Stoor and Omozusi to that) but the midfield after Gera is very ‘bench’, and if Kamara doesn’t turn up we’re left with the underrated but unsuccessful Eddie Johnson and the enigmatic goal machine that is Erik Nevland.   Still, the night is young.

We have been linked with Polish striker Pawel Brozek this week.   In the last two seasons Brozek has scored 23 in 27 and 19 in 27 (30 game seasons) as Wisla Krakow have dominated the Polish league.

2007-08

2008-9

Top scorers 07-08

23 goals

• Paweł Brożek (Wisła Kraków)

16 goals

• Adrian Sikora (Dyskobolia Grodzisk)
• Marek Zieńczuk (Wisła Kraków)

Top scorers 08-09

19 goals

• Paweł Brożek (Wisła Kraków)
• Takesure Chinyama (Legia Warsaw)

14 goals

• Robert Lewandowski (Lech Poznań)

In short he’s been top scorer in the league and scored a third of his team’s goals.    And the thing that interests me is that his team have only conceded 18 and 21 goals along the way, which gives their goal difference a Man Utd/Chelsea/Liverpool type shape:

From this we can see that Wisla are a very good side I think, neither emphasising attack nor defence.   Further to all this, the Polish league doesn’t appear especially “open”, with most teams quite tight in defence and nobody conceding more than 46 goals and plenty of teams a lot less than that.

P	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification or relegation	Head-to-head
1	Wisła Kraków (C)	30	19	7	4	53	21	+32	64	UEFA Champions League 2009–10 Second qualifying round
2	Legia Warsaw	30	18	7	5	52	17	+35	61	UEFA Europa League 2009–10 Second qualifying round
3	Lech Poznań	30	16	11	3	51	24	+27	59	UEFA Europa League 2009–10 Third qualifying round 1
4	Polonia Warsaw	30	15	9	6	40	23	+17	54	UEFA Europa League 2009–10 First qualifying round	GKS 1–2 PWA PWA 1–0 GKS
5	GKS Bełchatów	30	17	3	10	40	28	+12	54
6	Śląsk Wrocław	30	11	12	7	40	34	+6	45
7	Polonia Bytom	30	10	5	15	30	46	−16	35
8	Jagiellonia Białystok	30	9	7	14	28	34	−6	34		JAG 1–0 RUC RUC 0–0 JAG
9	Ruch Chorzów	30	9	7	14	22	32	−10	34
10	Piast Gliwice	30	9	6	15	17	26	−9	33
11	Lechia Gdańsk	30	9	5	16	30	44	−14	32		ODR 1–0 LGD LGD 3–1 ODR
12	Odra Wodzisław	30	8	8	14	23	40	−17	32
13	Arka Gdynia	30	7	9	14	27	39	−12	30		ARK 2–1 CRA CRA 0–0 ARK
14	Cracovia Kraków	30	7	9	14	24	40	−16	30	Relegation play-offs
15	Górnik Zabrze	30	7	8	15	20	33	−13	29	Relegation to First League 2009-10
16	ŁKS Łódź	30	10	5	15	27	43	−16	352

So what we appear to have is a player who is top scorer in a league where scoring isn’t that easy, is delivering the goods for the best team in the league, and has done this twice in a row. Intriguing.

Incidentally, note the contrast with the above and the 2006-07 Heerenveen/Alfonso Alves season:

Heerenveen finished fifth:

Their defence wasn’t great, their attack nothing out of the ordinary (not when you’re conceding over a goal a game), and that year the Eredivisie featured 2.99 goals per game, the most in Europe.   To be fair to Alves, his 34 goals is impressive, but then again, people have always scored goals in Holland:

1994-95	Ronaldo	30	PSV
1995-96	Luc Nilis	21	PSV
1996-97	Luc Nilis	21	PSV
1997-98	Nikos Machlas	34	Vitesse
1998-99	Ruud van Nistelrooij	31	PSV
1999-00	Ruud van Nistelrooij	29	PSV
2000-01	Mateja Kežman	24	PSV
2001-02	Pierre van Hooijdonk	24	Feyenoord
2002-03	Mateja Kežman	35	PSV
2003-04	Mateja Kežman	31	PSV
2004-05	Dirk Kuijt	29	Feyenoord
2005-06	Klaas-Jan Huntelaar	33	SC Heerenveen/Ajax
2006-07	Afonso Alves	34	sc Heerenveen
2007-08	Klaas-Jan Huntelaar	33	Ajax
2008-09	Mounir El Hamdaoui	23	AZ

There are some big names on that list, but not every player has turned out to be the success their goals would suggest they might be.  Clearly this is second guessing of the worst kind, picking an obvious example while showing why it might not have been a good idea, but hopefully the general thrust of what I’m saying has a bit of substance.  I’m not saying for a minute that you could look at the above and say that Alves was doomed to be a bad buy and that Brozek will work out, but it’s all this kind of stuff that needs to be factored in.

(The French league intrigues me, incidentally, having traditionally been the hardest to score in in Europe.)

So anyway I’d be curious about Brozek.    When I initially heard his name I assumed he’d been filling his boots in a wide open league, but having had a rummage around I don’t think that’s necessarily the case (although we must note that the standard of opposition is relatively low).