Striker or Forward?

I have a question, I need to ask somebody. What is the difference between a striker and a forward, a centre forward by its greater catergorisation?

striker

ˈstrʌɪkə/

noun

1. 2.

   the player who is to strike the ball in a game; a player considered in terms of ability to strike the ball.

   "a gifted striker of the ball"

forward

ˈfɔːwəd/

adverb

1. 1.

   in the direction that one is facing or travelling; towards the front.

   "he started up the engine and the car moved forward"

   synonyms:

   ahead, forwards, onwards, onward, on, further "the traffic moved slowly forward"

   • 
     

adjective

1. 1.

   directed or facing towards the front or the direction that one is facing or travelling.

   "forward flight"
2. 
   

noun

1. 1.

   an attacking player in football, hockey, or other sports.

These are the Oxford English dictionary definitions of the two terms. Football throughout its history is defined by the goals scored and the players who score them. Goalscorers are widely lauded and more fondly remembered in the annals of football; the Ballon d'Or (FIFA World Player of the Year) has been won by defenders and goalkeepers on only three occasions (Yashin, Sammer, Cannavaro).

The reason I want to ask this question is because of the way pundits and commentators refer to them during a game and in analysis. How would you describe someone like Diego Costa? Is he the same sort of player as Harry Kane? How would you differ between the categorisation of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo?

This writer is hopeful that there is a way of distinguishing between the two based on the role in certain formations and the tactics employed by various managers throughout the years.  For instance, I would categorise Ronaldo as a striker, one who is able to strike the ball well and scores goals. Messi therefore would be construed as a forward, he plays in the direction of the goal and is an attacking player; because he receives the ball some distance from the opponents goal and he travels towards it. Ronaldo, meanwhile, strikes the ball when he is near the goal making his late runs into the box and awaiting assists from his team-mates.

This is not an essay to say which one of those two amazing individuals is better than the other, that debate has gone on for far too long and they both are worthy of the praise they constantly receive with their place assured in the historical annals of the game.

My query is more so on how the positioning of these forward players is slowly changing as tactical mindsets alter in an ever changing football climate.

To go back to my earlier examples, Diego Costa by my definition would be a forward in both the current definition of an attacking player but also the forward in the mindset of British football as that strong individual who would lead the line up front, hold the ball up so supporting runners can join in the attack, distribute the ball to flying wingers much in the same vein as an Alan Shearer did do.

Harry Kane, meanwhile, is a striker in the vein that he is able of striking the ball well but fundamentally scores goals at a good conversion rate, able to score all manner of goals in differing varieties such as headers, curling shots, powerful drives much like Gary Lineker did or his current contemporary Sergio Aguero can.

By my reckoning, a striker is the one who scores goals regularly and a forward is the number 9 who assists the number 10 in scoring more than him.  Think of Mike Newell/Chris Sutton assisting Shearer at Blackburn or Peter Beardsley assisting Andy Cole at Newcastle United; all three players scored their fair few of goals but less than the striker.

A better example is probably the forward Niall Quinn playing in tandem with Kevin Phillips during his phenomenal 30 goal season in the 1999-2000 season, Quinn had 14 goals himself. That was the end of a three year partnership where Phillips scored 82 goals in 105 games, a ratio of 0.78 per game. That is a rate up there with the best of current prolific forwards such as Aguero and Kane.

So can we distinguish between a forward and striker so easily based on the number of goals they score, when you have the battle between Messi and Ronaldo going on and on, goal for goal? It may never be a clear distinction between the two but perhaps it is open for a longer and more thorough examination.

Tasseomancy : Do Easy

The Canadian duo Tasseomancy made up of twins Sari and Romy Lightman release their new album on the Bella Union label on Friday 18th November.

The new album combines the folk foundations of the pair along with the psychedelic influences of with experimental pop art.

Influences abound throughout the album from Kate Bush to PJ Harvey to other ambient electronic sounds that are awash on many tracks. Personally I found a lot of the tracks to be hard to listen to and not capable of crossing to the mainstream apart from the lead single and title track 'Do Easy':

https://soundcloud.com/bella-union/tasseomancy-do-easy

This track is the one that grabs your attention due to the unique combination of the dual vocals by the twins along with a quite hypnotic bassline. The only other tracks that comes close to matching the level of 'Do Easy' is third track on the album 'Jimi Infiniti' for possible cross-over appeal and 2nd single, 29 Palms

All in all, an album that on paper looked good but unfortunately did not totally convince once committed to the studio and a chance missed to perhaps do something special.

'Do Easy' is released by Bella Union on Friday 18th November.

www.facebook.com/tasseomancy
www.twitter.com/tasseomusic

My thanks to OneBeatPR for the preview listen

Netflix and the Current Climate of Sitcom

When saving for a house with your lovely girlfriend you need to make sacrifices, you need to do away with treats as you used to term them. That means making do without visits to the cinema or meals out at Pizza Express every week. It means being with the one you love, sharing those time together so all money can go into savings towards a better and brighter future in your first step on the property ladder.

A benefit of this also means committing to a different viewing practice of television. Luckily, my girlfriend had a Netflix account but this was in the early days of the provider. We used it initially for catching up and bingeing on Breaking Bad, then we noticed that the company started to release more original content. Firstly, with comedy specials by John Mullaney, then they went into original half hour format of comedy sitcoms vehicles for specific talent.

First to appear was Master of None by Aziz Ansari (who co-starred in Parks and Recreations) wrote and starred in this semi-autobiographical sitcom of a struggling Asian actor in the big city coping with pigeon-hole casting and casual racism, whilst also incorporating Ansari's rye eye on relationships in the modern world.

The cherry on the cake though is possibly Joe Swanberg's Easy; an anthology of eight episodes set in Chicago starring a multitude of talent from American independent cinema but where Swanberg as writer and director is given a platform to for a larger audience to access his work.

Swanberg who came from the Mumblecore movement of ten years ago, has always been able to write relationships and like the better writers of the last 30 years in American cinema, can write women well and effectively, something his sometime mentor Apatow struggles regularly with.

Swanberg puts his lense and scripts on differing relationships. From a marriage of 15 years struggling to add fire back into the bedroom, to a lesbian love affair that could be make or break by the adoption of vegan eating practices.  Yet he also comments on how people change in a relationship or struggle to adapt to the big life changes in their life such as impending fatherhood or new employment.

Swanberg by employing a revolving door of talent makes it easy (pardon the pun) for us to not fall in love with characters, historically the appeal of sitcom is you would want to be friends with the Friends cast - yet by having just a swift peek into this couple's life, we are now in a position of either taking it or leaving it without the need for a fully committed 24 episode season as is the want on network television.

The Ranch, meanwhile, is one of the more consistently funny sitcoms of recent years. It has the tropes and mannerisms of a typical family sitcom, yet it deals with an undercurrent of social themes - a family business struggling in the current economic climate, a married couple parting ways as well as a talented individual having to come to terms with the fact that his career and life did not pan out as he wished.

The show was released via the online network with 10 episodes and after a short hiatus, returned again with 10 more episodes making them more of an extension and conclusion of Season One rather than a stand alone Season Two.  Despite the hiatus, I could not imagine how much I missed the characters and the ease of the sitcom world inhabited by the Bennett family.

What is at times so refreshing and pleasing when you watch the show, is that even though a lot of the jokes are telegraphed and the characters are generic; it is that sense of wholesomeness and heart on the sleeve honesty that runs through the show that fills you with a sense of warmth and belonging.

And yet because the show is so professional, perhaps too polished, it can still hit you with an unexpected surprise such as the end of Season 1, Episode 11, 'Gone as a Girl Can Get' when Rooster (Danny Matherson) finds his Dad, Beau (Sam Elliott - grizzly and terrific) crying as he plants some flowers and wonders why people leave him. The scene is played not for laughs, but seriously, like families can be on occasion and it ends with two people at loggerheads usually on equal terms; there for each other.

The Netflix vehicle should be applauded though as gone are the time to sit down and watch a 90 minute comedy, and why so many comedies struggle due to the lack of jokes and hit count of laughter.  By minimising the screen time per episode to the 25-30 minute running time, you have to hit a home run less often, and if it is hit and miss, there is no need to worry due to the next episode being available straight away. An audience is more inclined to sit down and give the next episode another chance rather than dismiss it and forget about watching another episode the week after.

The Ranch, Easy and Master of None are available on Netflix now.

There For You

There for you
No matter what you do
I'll be there for you

Through the ups and downs
Over and around
High or low
The to and fro
No matter what you do
I'll be there for you

You're the one for me
It is plain to see
Never knew I would feel
Like I do about you
There for you
I'll be there for you

Times are hard
And hard to overcome
Days are long
But songs are sung
Play your guitar
Sing out your heart

You're the one for me
And you're there for me
All the time
When I need you most
For a hug, a kiss
Or a dance on my toes

No matter what you do
I'll be there for you

Showboat: Book review

From the much heralded author, Roland Lazenby comes the sure to be seminal text about one of the generational icons of basketball.  Lazenby has written numerous tomes and novels about the stand out performers in the NBA culminating in his biography, Michael Jordan: The Life (2014).

Lazenby's knowledge over his subject is second to none having written five dozen nonfiction books mostly about basketball and American football.  In taking on the subject of Kobe Bean Bryant, he is attempting to make sense of one of the most difficult personas in professional basketball of the last 25 years.

Kobe Bryant is one of those lightning in a bottle talents that come along once in a lifetime. Unless you compete in basketball when there are talents such as his every 10 year cycle. Before Jordan, there was Magic Johnson, before Magic there was Dr. Julis Erving, before Erving there was Wilt Chamberlain.  And after Kobe there was LeBron, and now there is Steph Curry.

Talents such as the men just mentioned are seminal, they are awe-inspiring, they are able to do things on the court not seen before and not seen since.  They rekindle your love of the game, leave you gasping for breathe and adjectives to describe wheat they achieve. And yet this talent and gift to the public is single-minded, selfless and full of sacrifices.

Lazenby makes not of this following Bryant's young life following in the footsteps of his father Joe, a talented player in his own right who left the NBA to play in Europe, primarily Italy.  This brought young Kobe into contact with players of flair and individuality but also showed him a lifestyle he did not want to replicate. Bryant wanted to be better than his father, and that meant succeeding in the NBA, a place his father could not.

Bryant, along with LeBron, was the last great player to forego the route of College Basketball and jump straight into the big time. Since LeBron, the rules have changed as the NBA and NCAA agreed that any player must complete a minimum of one year in college before declaring for the NBA draft (in football it is two years).

Bryant was always going to make the jump when he was mixing it up with pros at his junior year of high school culminating in a state championship of Pennsylvania as he was the talk of Philadelphia.  The leap to the Los Angeles Lakers was a dream come true and a meeting of two great world views, with the end of Magic Johnson due to his HIV illness, the Lakers were a big team struggling to be relevant as Jordan and the Chicago Bulls ran the show. The Lakers needed to be relevant and with the acquisition of Bryant in the draft they had a large piece of the puzzle to regain a championship banner.

Throughout the novel, Lazenby goes to great lengths to make sense of Bryant's supposed selfishness and bloody single mindedness throughout his career; an individual who cannot play well with others, not a team player, shouting at team-mates for not passing him the ball.

These accusations followed Bryant throughout his career with him taking too many shots, ultimately missing too many shots and yet when he was hot there was probably no hotter shooter in the NBA. Bryant could score 30+ in halves of games quicker than others, from all regions most famously his fadeaway from 12 feet over the despairing arm of a defender.

Lazenby goes deep into the relationship with Shaquille O'Neal, an unbeatable tandem that garnered three straight NBA titles together something to rival Jordan's Bulls of the mid 1990s and yet O'Neal had to leave as it was Kobe's team and his alone.

By the end of the career, injuries mounted up onto a body that had played non-stop in the NBA for close to 20 years and the years of preparation before that.  His contract crippled the Lakers when they needed to rebuild and his last season turned into a farewell tour as he took to the floor of many courts for the last time.

It culminated the only way Kobe knew how to, bringing down the curtain on his professional career with 60 points in his last game at Staples Centre. Bryant brought the house down and left you wanting more. Yet Bryant could not give anymore in his desire to succeed and to be the best; his ambition was reached yet he broke some hearts along the way.

A great book and read for lovers of the NBA and Basketball for one of the more complicated players of all time.

Showboat is out now from Little Brown and Company now for £19.95 RRP, although the kindle edition is better with more pages.