Sepp Blatter wants an alternative to penalties

Sepp Blatter wants to find an alternative to penalty shoot outs in the next couple of years. He claims that ‘football should never come down to one vs. one’. Yet penalties often decide some of the most important matches of major competitions, and the destination of trophies. Of the five competitions open to premier league clubs last season, two of them were decided on penalties (whilst the premier league itself was decided on goal difference after injury time goals in the final match of the season).

So what is my alternative? The golden goal an silver goal trials of a few years ago were on the right track. The golden goal rule said that the once a game goes to extra time, the next goal wins and ends the game. Silver goal games ended at half time in extra time if one of the teams had taken the lead. The problem with both of these methods was that teams generally became negative. They were so scared of conceding a goal, and therefore losing the game immediately, that teams were reluctant to push players forward in case they over stretch themselves and leave openings at the back.

A better solution is this. At the end of 90 minutes the game goes into extra time and the first goal wins the game, as with the golden goal format. But every five minutes in extra time, each team loses one player. So at the beginning of extra time it is eleven vs. eleven (assuming no sendings off in normal time). After five minutes both teams go down to ten players each. Another five minutes and it’s nine vs. nine, and so on. Potentially at the end of 30 minutes of extra time it will be six a side.

This approach means that the longer the game goes on, the more space on the pitch to attack into. As players get tired they are more likely to make mistakes and give scoring opportunities.

After extra time, of the scores are still level you would have to go to penalties (with the whole team eligible to take one). But I’m sure the number of occasions that penalties would be required would be fewer.

What do you think? Are there any other good alternatives to penalty shoot outs?

Praying for Fabrice Muamba

On Saturday I was at a training day with other pioneer ministers and the speaker said something which resonated:

One of the best things you can do for those who aren’t Christians is to teach them how to pray. Most people want to, but aren’t sure how.

On Saturday evening and through Sunday the truth of this statement became evident. People were wanting to pray.

In the forty-first minute of an FA Cup tie with Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday 17th March, 23-year-old Bolton footballer Fabrice Muamba collapsed to the ground with no-one around him. It was immediately apparent that something serious had happened. The game stopped, later to be abandoned, as emergency medical staff ran onto the pitch. He had suffered cardiac arrest. The other played looked onwards. The Spurs player Rafael van der Vaart fell to his knees and started praying whilst a defibrillator was used to try to restart Muamba’s heart. One cardiologist who was at the game as a fan ran onto the pitch to assist. This doctor accompanied Muamba, Bolton manager Owen Coyle, club captain Kevin Davies and the Bolton and Spurs medical staff to the London Chest Hospital where his treatment continued.

At about the same time the twittersphere heard about the news and quickly a #pray4Muamba hashtag began spreading. People began praying. The family of Fabrice asked people to pray. Owen Coyle, a Christian, requested that people “keep him in their prayers“. The following day the Chelsea player Gary Cahill who is a former team-mate of Muamba at Bolton celebrated his goal after scoring by lifting up his shirt and revealing a t-shirt displaying the words “Pray 4 Muamba”. The twitter trend continued.

On Monday, British newspaper The Sun ran the headline “God is in control” in bold on the front page of both their print and online editions, quoting Muamba’s fiancé. The following day the London free paper Metro ran with “Your prayers are working“. That evening entire Sunderland and Blackburn teams displayed similar messages on t-shirts during their warm-up. Prayer and god was in the headlines in ways not usually seen in the UK.

We later learned that Muamba’s heart had arrested, the defibrillator was used 15 times to get his heart beating again – he had been effectively dead for 78 minutes before his heart started beating again without help. Peter Ould has done a bit of research and determined that the time Muamba’s heart started beating on its own again coincided with the peak usage of the twitter hashtag #pray4Muamba.

Since Saturday, Muamba has begun making a remarkable recovery. The consultant cardiologist, Dr Andrew Deaner who ran onto the pitch and accompanied his treatment said:

 ”If I was ever going to use the term miraculous it could be used here. He has made a remarkable recovery so far.”

Prayer was being talked about in the public sphere. People who don’t usually pray were praying.

Since Saturday, fans have also been turning up at the Reebok Stadium (Bolton) and White Hart Lane (Spurs) to lay flowers, cards, and shirts bearing messages of support. A minutes applause has also been given for Muamba before each premiership game since. As I watched this it struck me that these were the same rituals that football uses when commemorating the life of a player after his death. Fabrice Muamba was still, and is still alive. Surely we should have different rituals for those who are sick and ill?

People were talking about prayer and people are praying, which is great. But one thing is missing, one thing that I believe would make the rituals of ‘hoping he makes a recovery’ deeper, and that is public prayer. Why not, before each premiership match, lead the crowd in one succinct and to-the-point communal prayer, as they do before many sports events in the US? The prayer of the chaplain could then become the prayers of the people, if they want. He gives the words to use, he helps them to pray. Would this not offer the kind of communal concern that people seem to be after – one that is not indistinguishable from the rituals used in football for commemorating of the dead?

People want to pray, but often they do not know how to pray. Public corporate prayer may help those who struggle to find the word for themselves to resonate with the words of another, and maybe to start to form those prayer for themselves.

What is your most prized possession?

I would probably say that’s my Bible. It’s important to me because I’m very religious. I believe that you have to pray, as well as work hard, in order to get what you want in life. When I was growing up, I prayed every morning and night – and I still do that today.

Daniel Sturridge, Chelsea forward, speaking to Match magazine (30/01/12)

Premiership Predictions 2011-12

It’s time again to take a guess on who will finish where. Last season I did pretty well at predicting the top six, but got two of the there relegation places wrong. This year

Champions: Man Utd – their squad strengthening has given them an extra edge over the others.

Runners Up: Man City – if they can keep their team spirit together all season.

Champions League Place: Chelsea.

There will be an almighty battle for fourth from Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs, But I predict that Liverpool will gett the final champions league spot, with Arsenal edging out Spurs for the Europa league place.

Newcastle will finish 11th.

Relegated: Swansea, QPR and Blackburn. Norwich will just escape.

The Championship is less open this year than last with some strong teams coming down from the Premiership.

Promoted: West Ham, Blackpool and Middlesbrough

 

Premier League Predictions 2010-11 – how did I do?

With the Premier League decided today, how were my predictions this season?

Champions: Manchester United

Runners up: Chelsea

Champions League positions: Arsenal and Manchester City

Top four were all correct although I got the third and fourth places the wrong way round

Europa League: Liverpool and Spurs

Positions correct but again the wrong way round (I thought fifth and sixth both qualified)

Relegation: Blackpool, West Brom, Wolves

Wolves survived by the skin of their teeth, Blackpool peaked to soon then couldn’t turn the season around despite playing attractive football. West Brom were always heading out of trouble as soon as Roy Hodgson arrived. West Ham surprised me at being consistently dismal all season whilst Birmingham lost their form after the Carling Cup win to slip out. I can’t say i’m disappointed to see the back of Birmingham. This morning I would have liked Wigan or Blackburn to join them and I’m glad Wolves stayed up.

Newcastle will finish 12th.

Bang on the money (thanks to a poor second half performance against West Brom with us losing a 3-0 lead on the last day)

The Championship is more open this season than it has been for a long time. There’s no obvious big teams to go up like there were last season. I’m going for Cardiff, Middlesbrough and Nottingham Forest to go up.

League One – Charlton, Southampton and Sheff Wed. I don’t think my former town of Plymouth will be able to make it.

It’s fair to say my predictions for these divisions were way off. Cardiff and Forest went close but Norwich, QPR and either Reading or Swansea will join the premiership next year. I wasn’t expecting Plymouth to do quite so badly, but the 10 point deduction was the thing that really relegated them.

Premiership predictions

So, I was fairly close last year here’s my predictions for the upcoming season:

Champions: Manchester United

Runners up: Chelsea

Champions League positions: Arsenal and Manchester City

Europa League: Liverpool and Spurs

Relegation: Blackpool, West Brom, Wolves

Newcastle will finish 12th.

The Championship is more open this season than it has been for a long time. There’s no obvios big teams to go up like there were last season. I’m going for Cardiff, Middlesbrough and Nottingham Forest to go up.

League One – Charlton, Southampton and Sheff Wed. I don’t think my former town of Plymouth will be able to make it.

Lucio’s most prized honour.

Below is a Saturday Thought article of mine written for the Plymouth Herald local paper, published on Saturday 5th June 2010.

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In the 2002 World Cup Final between Brazil and Germany, the Brazilian superstars of Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho easily outclassed a weak German side winning the game 2-0. At the final whistle, before going to their fans, lifting the trophy, or celebrating, Brazilian captain Lucio gathered his team mates around him where they knelt in a circle on the pitch and prayed. He then took off his yellow strip to reveal a T-shirt bearing the slogan “I love Jesus”.

Lucio has everything going for him in life. He has reached the pinnacle of his chosen career, winning four league titles, the Champions League and the World Cup in 2002. He has a loving marriage, three young children and he is very well paid. In our culture of celebrity where footballers are routinely placed on metaphorical pedestals and worshipped as gods, you might think that Lucio’s life was complete and fulfilled and that he had no need for God. Yet he chooses to worship God through Jesus.

As humans we are created ‘in the image of God’ (Gen 1:27). We were created by God, to know God and to be a little bit like God. This is why we have an inbuilt sense of justice and morals and a longing for loving relationships with others – these are characteristics of God which have been imprinted on us by Him. It follows, therefore, that since we are made to be with God, no amount of good things such as family, money or celebrity, will completely fulfil us. We will always experience an emptiness unless we relate to the One who created us. The early church leader, St. Augustine, rightly commented that “our hearts are restless, O God, until they rest in you”.

Amongst all the honours he has won in his life, Lucio speaks of his faith in Jesus as the most prized:

“Anyone who thinks that he has everything and doesn’t have Jesus doesn’t have anything. I think the person who has everything is the one who has Jesus. He has happiness and peace. With Jesus in your heart you need have no fear. That is the person who has everything in life.”

Lucio and Kaka show their faith

Article for the church magazine:

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The final whistle blew in the 2002 World Cup Final declaring Brazil to be the winners. Rivaldo, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and colleagues had easily outclassed the German team which, it was widely agreed, was lucky to be in the final.

This moment is the pinnacle of any footballers career – the moment they all aspire to reach. At that moment, what would you do? Brazilian defender and captain Lucio gathered his colleagues around him where they knelt in a circle on the pitch and prayed. Before going to their fans, before lifting the trophy, before celebrating, Lucio and his team mates prayed. He then took off his yellow strip to reveal a T-shirt bearing a home-made slogan on the front scrawled in marker pen which read “I love Jesus”.

In an interview, Lucio said:

“Believing in Jesus has brought a total change to my life. Before I knew Jesus I did not have a disciplined life. I had low self-esteem. I did not have confidence in the things that I did day by day. Today I want to walk with the Lord and have a purpose for my life.”

Fast forward five years, to the 2007 Champions League final between AC Milan and Liverpool – whilst those on Merseyside were hanging their heads in despair, Brazilian midfielder Kaka celebrated his team’s 2-1 win by removing the red and black stripes of Milan, sinking to his knees, raising his hands to heaven. The world could see the slogan on his T-shirt too, which read “I belong to Jesus”.

These acts of witness are excellent examples of Christians using their God-given talents for His glory. They had been given the gift of being able to do extraordinary things with a football. In a culture of celebrity and money where they could have quite easily regarded themselves as gods, they choose to worship the one true God through his son, Jesus, and to stand up for him publicly.

Recently, FIFA has told the Brazilian football team that they are not allowed to make statements of faith, or T-shirts or otherwise, during the 2010 World Cup. FIFA’s implication is that faith should be a private thing. As Christians, we know that our faith impacts every aspect of who we are so that it can never be private. I hope the Brazilian players ignore this ruling.

In many ways, the public witness of Lucio and Kaka is not that far removed from the experience of many others. The Old Testament character Daniel was living in an alien culture and was doing very well in Babylon. He could have kept his faith private but he chose to acknowledge the Lord. At the time in that culture, worshipping God wasn’t allowed. Daniel was caught praying and thrown into a den of lions to be killed, but God was faithful and he rescued him.  Our culture can often seem opposed to God too. We hear of nurses being suspended for offering to pray and teachers being warned not to talk about their faith. The temptation can be to keep our faith private. By doing so, however, we are only denying our identity ‘in Christ’. We may not have at worldwide TV audience of about billion watching us work, as Lucio did, but everyday we do have opportunities to share our faith by what we do, how we act, and what we say to friends, family and colleagues. Let’s pray for the courage of Daniel, Lucio, Kaka, the nurse and the teacher to live our lives wholeheartedly for Jesus and to stand up for Him when the opportunities arise.

premiership predicitions

Here were my predictions for the prizes this season (made 2 weeks into the season)

A bit late, but here goes:

Champions: Chelsea (unfortunately)

Champions League places (rather uncontroversially): Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool

Europa League: Tottenham, Man City

Relegation: Portsmouth, Hull, Wolves. (Bolton narrowly escaping)

Championship Promotion: Cardiff, West Brom, Newcastle (hopefully)

I’m still on course for the title and two of the champions league places, and for the Europa league places. Looks like I got Wolves and Burnley wrong but the rest right. Championship promotion is still on course with Cardiff in the playoffs. Not bad predictions in the end then!

Ashley, John, and Tiger and temptation.

“Go on, nobody will find out. We can sneak into this hotel room, close the door, and I’ll sneak out again later. Nobody needs to find out. It’ll be fun. I won’t tell your wife…”

We have heard a lot about temptation recently with some much publicised celebrity transgressions. I wonder if these thoughts crossed the minds of golfer Tiger Woods, or Chelsea footballers John Terry and Ashley Cole. I’m sure, for them, it seemed worth it at the time – a lust satisfied and a bit of fun – but now, their personal reputations are in tatters as they struggle to maintain their relationships and to deal with damaging newspaper allegations.

Ashley Cole has been the subject of constant newspaper allegations for the last year which culminated last month when his wife, singer Cheryl Cole, announced that they were separating. John Terry, after details of his infidelity were published had to miss Chelsea’s FA Cup game in order to fly out to Dubai to patch things up with his wife. And Tiger Woods, possibly the most talented golfer that ever lived, has not played golf since he was discovered after crashing his car on his own drive at 3am last December. He has since admitted being unfaithful and issued a full and very public apology last week. However, In all three cases, their transgressions have damaged their sporting life, their marriages, and has undermined their credibility as a role model.

As we step into the season of lent, it is the time of the year when we remember not only Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and the cross, but also the 40 days he spent in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry as he faced temptation from the Devil. (See Matt 4:1-11 or Luke 4:1-13.)

Jesus has been fasting and praying in the wilderness for 40 days, so in the first temptation the Devil simply encourages him to eat something. “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread” (Matt 4:3).

The Devil’s second suggestion tempts Jesus to take some short cuts in his ministry by doing something spectacular. “‘If you are the Son of God’ he said, ‘Throw yourself down [from the temple]’” (Matt 4:6).

These are much more than simple temptations to do a particular thing. Immediately before his time of fasting, praying and temptation, Jesus was baptised. During the baptism, the Holy Spirit decended upon him and a voice from God was heard saying “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matt 4:17). The Devil then begins his tempting by saying “If you are God’s son….” So these are temptations for Jesus to step away from and undermine the person that he is and from his role as Messiah and Saviour.

These temptations of Jesus go right to the heart of every human temptation that we or anyone else has ever faced. They are not so much nudges towards a particular indiscretion, but a temptation to step away from the role that God has defined for us. For Christians, the tempter wants us to undermine our roles as God’s children. To us, the Devil might put subtle temptations in our way – “If you are God’s children, he won’t mind you cheating on tax forms” or “Surely God won’t mind an illegal short cut to a noble end?”. Or even “If you are forgiven by Jesus, surely a little bit extra sin won’t matter?” In these, the devil is trying to lure us away from the path of holiness and servanthood and to disown our loving and Heavenly Father.

Each time Jesus responds to temptation, he overcomes it by quoting scripture. Jesus knows what the life of God’s son should look like and we too can know what the life of a follower of Jesus should be like. It is all outlined for us in scripture and we find strength for this way of life in Christian community.

Tiger Woods, John Terry, and Ashley Cole will probably rebuild their careers, win more trophies and make more money. Tiger Woods and john Terry may even rebuild their marriages (lets hope they do and remain faithful), although it all seems to late for Ashley and Cheryl now. But for all of them, rebuilding a reputation will take a lot longer.