Thirty One Nil - Interview with James Montague

Following on from my review of Thirty One Nil last year, I was pleased to be afforded the chance to interview the author James Montague (@JamesPiotr) with the paperback release of the book by Bloomsbury Sport.

- What is the appeal of travelling to watch football around the world?

Doesn't everyone want to do that?! For me, the highest form of the game was international football. From a young age, before the internet, it was a window on the world. I vividly remember my Panini sticker album from Mexico 86 and it was glorious. The Iraq team! They all had these tremendous moustaches. So I grew up fascinated by the rest of the world and was lucky enough to get a job in the Middle East in my mid 20s, and started going to local games.It all started from that.

- Do you see it as an alternative or escape from the mainstream of Sky Sports coverage?

I can't stand what's happening to the game. The Sky-ification of football. It's an idiotic gentrification that is stripping football of its identity and will, eventually, kill the goose that laid the golden egg. You don't have to travel far to find the game's true soul, but for me travelling to different countries, understanding them through football, shows me that the game as we all remember it, the game we fell in love with, is still out there. It's messier sometimes, and fucked up, but who wants everything to be perfect? 

- What was your total mileage?
Christ knows. But if I wanted to offset my carbon usage I'd have to replant a forest the size of East Anglia.

- Were you afraid of anywhere you did travel to?

Yeah, there were times when I was properly scared. Egypt post revolution. When it was all falling apart. I remember being in Port Said, after the announcement that 20 people were being sentenced to death for their role in 72 Al Ahly fans killed at a  match in the city. Protests broke out there, dozens were shot dead, a curfew had been put on the city. I managed to get in just before the curfew started. It was chaos and terrifying. It seemed so far removed from football, but you have to follow a story all the way. Or you've failed.

- Would you visit these places if there was not a football match taking place (I have the same belief with cricket, would I travel to the sub-continent if a test match was not happening)?

Luckily, we live in a world where a football match is taking place in every country on earth every day. So there is nowhere I could possibly go where a football match isn't going on. Expect perhaps Antarctica.  

- Do you feel the minnows are closing the gap on the world powers, will the extra teams in Euro 2016 close it further?

Yeah. There was a lot of criticism of the expansion, but it has proved to be a genius move. Sport lives or dies on competitive balance so what was seen as a weakening of the tournament has motivated teams to up their games. Every game counts now because every team believes they have a chance. Hope is important. Look at Armenia, Albania, San Marino even. Everyone benefits from this system.  

- Why are smaller nations getting better?

Hope is a big factor. But football is getting smaller. You can watch any game in the world at any time online. Football across the world is becoming increasingly professionalised. That will improve hugely in the next 20 years. But the main reason some countries are making huge strides is money. Iceland is a case in point. They narrowly missed out on being the smallest nation to ever qualify for the World Cup. It would be a record that would never have been broken. They invested heavily on indoor halls, for their harsh winter, and in training up coaches. They are lucky. They are one of the richest nations on earth so can afford it. But it shows what resources can achieve.  

- What are your thoughts on Russia and Qatar hosting the World Cup?

There has been so little scrutiny of Russia's World Cup. There is a very strong case that it should be moved elsewhere given Putin's actions in Ukraine. Qatar is little trickier. I was pleased the Middle East won the chance to host it. it is an important region that loves football. And having lived in the Gulf i wasn't at all surprised they won. Qatar and the UAE have been perusing these mega events for years. What is clear is that there is some very important scrutiny of Qatar including the kafala system. I started visiting worker camps when I lived in Dubai, in 2005. The treatment of humans in them is a disgrace. And the UAE has zero interest in reforming it. Qatar on the other hand has been forced to confront it. It is a far more reform minded place than the UAE or Saudi Arabia. So for that reason alone I hope they don't lose it. Kafalla is one of the world's great evils and if the World Cup can in any way help bring about its timely demise then I can live with a winter World Cup in 2022.

- What are you working on currently?

I'm typing this out in an Irish pub in Macedonia, covering the protests out here. I've moved to Belgrade and working on my next book, about money in football. But first I've got to get out of this god damn pub. They've had the same CD on for four hours now and if I have to here that Ke$ha song again I might kill someone.

The Stupid Footballer is Dead

The title is not a vendetta, and this is not a knife in the back versus the stupid footballing culture of young men getting lots of money too soon in the career.  Instead this small tome is a nice piece of intellectual and insightful piece of work by a former professional footballer.

Paul McVeigh, is a former Northern Ireland international who played in the top flight for amongst others Tottenham Hotspur and Norwich City.

McVeigh retired in 2010 after making his debut in 1996 at the age of 33.  That might sound a bit too early, yet McVeigh is now a highly respected motivational speaker and media analyst (www.paulmcveigh.co.uk) who is utilised by high ranking sides as a voice of reason and personality to speak to young players who are going through bad times.

Part autobiography, part memoir mixed in with the type of intellect seen previously in Matthew Syed's Bounce and Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers; McVeigh's book looks back on his own life lessons - such as turning up hungover for a reserve game, playing out of his skin in the first half and then hitting the physical wall after half-time.

Unlike present day players it seems McVeigh learnt from his mistakes and this is part of his theory into practice; he believes players need to put into practice mental preparation exercises as well as the physical conditioning and innate talent and skill at their disposal.

Each chapter has a mental framepoint exercise, where McVeigh mixes personal stories with mental exercises, ending with a personal appraisal of a role model. For example, Lesson Seven - Mix Intensity with Control where the author gives examples of Joey Barton, Mario Balotelli and Wayne Rooney as players who give into the red mist of anger from time to time, the role model he selects is Scott Parker.  A player who plays hard in training, and yet is a model professional off the field and like McVeigh has made the most of his ability to become a Footballer of the Year and England international.

McVeigh goes in depth with self-visualisation (which David James lived by) so players should imagine themselves scoring goals or saving them; focus on the game from day to day; by doing mental preparation it will improve your physical play.

My only concern would be when do young footballers get the time to do this self-assessment work on their own performance, players usually train for two hours a day and then go home.  Can they be expected to do this sort of homework when no-one is watching them?  He praises Paul Lambert immensely, and you can imagine Lambert was big on mental preparation for his young side as Aston Villa fought off the threat of relegation.

An especially enlightening story told is how Norwich lost at Leeds United due to a last minute mistake by Fraser Forster (now of Celtic).  Instead of reading the riot act to his side for losing all three points, he praised his side for doing so well and mistakes happen.  Forster felt better immediately, and his play at Celtic last season led to an England international call-up, Norwich then went on an unbeaten seven match run.  McVeigh's point is that by moving on to the next game and not focusing on the negative and instead focusing on the positive led to greater results.  Other managers would have crucified Forster and probably dropped him.

McVeigh says this was due to the time Lambert spent in Germany with Borussia Dortmund.  The perfect player for him would be a mixture of German mentality and technical ability of the Spanish footballers, particularly those from the Barcelona academy.

The Stupid Footballer is Dead is not a critique or an appraisal of the modern day footballer, more a plan of action to change the way footballers prepare for a game and then analyse their game to gain a further improvement. A must not only for football fans, but footballers themselves which is both accessible and riveting.

The book is out now from Bloomsbury Sport in paperback for £14.99

www.bloomsbury.com

The Gaffer - Book review

Released in time for Father's Day, Neil Warnock has released a book entitled The Gaffer: The Trials and Tribulations of a Football Manager.

The book which can be considered Warnock's first public statement since he departed Leeds United is a look back on his career throughout football via the big moments of his career from guiding Sheffield United to the Premier League, to the fall-out of being relegated and the ensuing Carlos Tevez saga which ultimately cost him his job.

Focusing primarily on the time at his QPR and the money involved with the club, Warnock is keen to stress he holds no ill will towards the owners who sacked him but would be more inclined to focus on the privilege in guiding the club from near relegation the previous season to table toppers helped by such talent as Adel Taarabt, Heidar Helguson and Jamie Mackie.

Warnock's tone throughout the book (helped by Glenn Moore of the Independent; for whom Warnock wrote a weekly column which was as entertaining as this title) is one of eternal optimism, you get the sense that Warnock loves doing the job he does, and for every job he loses due to poor form or new owners, he is reflective on the job he has done has been to the best of his abilities.

Warnock comes from the same school as Harry Redknapp - not the greatest of players during the playing career but a man who has a keen observation of tactical formation and man-management. Warnock mentions how he used speed of his youth team at Crystal Palace to good effect prompting the promotion of John Bostock and Nathaniel Clyne amongst others to the senior side; Warnock set the framework by which Palace continue with Wilfred Zaha at the forefront of Palace's promotion season.  Warnock's belief was that these youngsters need to play games before moving on to bigger clubs, where they will stagnate and plateau - a telling remark in light of England U21s disastrous European tournament.

This may be a view of one man on his life in football, and at times like most biographies it can be self-congratulatory yet Warnock's joie de vivre for life and football does come across mostly; his numerous famous interviews made him appear to be a man you would like to sit down with for a pint.  This book does not disappoint in that respect, and his chapter on refereeing standards is both enlightening and eye-opening.

The Gaffer is a perfect gift for Father's Day, for a no-nonsense account of life as a somewhat scapegoat in a business first approach to football.

The Gaffer is out now from Headline Publishers at £16.99 and is also available as an e-book.

www.headline.co.uk

The Numbers Game - Book review

Following on from the trailblazing work of Moneyball which told the story of how Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland A's transformed the worst team in Major League Baseball into a viable contender, and after Soccernomics by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski which indicated why England lose more often than win at major tournaments - comes a new book by English football loving, American scholars Chris Anderson and David Sally, entitled The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Football Is Wrong.

Both Anderson and Sally's academic background is from the Ivy League schools of Cornell and Dartmouth respectively.  Anderson is an award winning social scientist and football analytics pioneer who consults with leading clubs, Sally is a former baseball pitcher for his alma mater of Harvard and analyses strategies and tactics people use.  In reading the book, it is clear that the men's love of the game of football or soccer is very evident.

Whilst the book does focus on number crunching, it attempts to dissuade the well praised myths of football such as those who believe Barcelona's tika-taka passing game is the be all and end all of current football theory.

As a self-professed football nut and lover of statistics this is the sort of book I digested in two sittings, as the theories soaked into my brain.  Anderson and Sally write with a genuine passion for the game, and are optimistic about the future of the game whilst making clear that football is a team sport and for all the genuine brilliance of a Lionel Messi, he is but a part of a team.  A favourite theory is the 'The O-ring theory of Economic Development' originally published by Michael Kremer at Harvard in 1993; they set the theory that one faulty or weak o-ring like the one that caused the Challenger Space Shuttle to explode in 1986 can be applied to top class football.

By saying that a faulty member can affect the performance of the team as a whole, clubs tend to pay out more on human capital.  They state the difference between Everton's Finch Farm training complex with 15 pitches, weight room, canteen in comparison to Walsall's three pitches, gym and you can see the picture.  Everton can pay for more scouts to watch more players, Walsall cannot.

Other favourite theories they found from their data supplied by amongst others ProZone and Opta Sports include that goals are not as common as we believe.  On average, a goal is scored every 69 minutes and 1-1 is the most common score - the most valuable goal for a team to score is the second goal as it can be directly translated to more points being garnered.  They also state that if you concede less you are more likely to gain more points, meaning that for all the money expunged on strikers the more valuable players may well be the defenders and goalkeepers to keep clean sheets.  Whilst you can score three goals you may not get three points, whilst conceding no goals is more likely to obtain three points.

Another one that may raise fans eyebrows who bemoan the lack of proactivity from managers may be the analysis that says managers should make their first substitution prior to the 58th minute, the second prior to the 73rd minute and third prior to the 79th minute.  Substitutions with 10 minutes remaining are statistically not effective, so when you see a manager still not making a change after an hour of play, the chances are your chances of turning around a deficit are diminishing.

Pleasingly for all their success the heroes of the book are not Manchester United, Barcelona or Chelsea but the smaller names of Wigan Athletic and Stoke City who have succeeded in the long term by changing their game style to suit their weaknesses; whilst Stoke may be derided by some for the way they play, yet Stoke as the figures show can win a game by passing less and utilising their ability to score from a direct form of play.

The book is a wonderful read for sport nuts and number nerds - it is a testament to the authors that the book reads so easily and can be digested with such ease in a manner that is neither patronising nor feel that you are being spoken down to with such a wealth of information.

THE NUMBERS GAME by Chris Anderson and David Sally is published by Viking Trade in Paperback on 30th May, priced £14.99 and is also available as an ebook across many suppliers.