Just before the football season started I saw the LG Amsterdam tournament. It was the usual pre-season gig with four teams, two of note and two make-weights. It looked very un-FIFA. There was no Real Bhutan, no Darfur Rovers and no Sepp Blatter blatthering. Herr Blatter has an opinion on everything and some of his opinions are even about football.

When a game in the Women's World Cup ran up phone-number scores, he declared high scores are not good for the game. Perhaps he has a good reason for overlooking the notion that viewers like to see goals scored - but if he did, he forgot to tell us. More recently, he pontificated on restricting the number of foreign players in a team which must have looked good to Chelsea and Arsenal with their UN squads.

What the European Commission have to say about restricting the movement of workers we have yet to hear. Herr Blatter may have expected some pronouncement from Brussels on the matter because he swiftly added a caveat that footballers should be regarded as artists, not workers.

'Mostly Wesley Sneijder blasts the ball in the general direction of Mars via the floodlights. The missus says it could be a cry for help'


My missus suggests that if footballers are artists then they should be paid accordingly. Starving artists' wages won't go far if you want a Porsche on the driveway. Can anyone imagine Ashley Cole with a palette of paint and a beret?  Would the Milan defence be classed as 'Post Destructionist' ?

Meanwhile, back at the LG Amsterdam tournament, it all went as expected. Arsenal and Ajax reached the final and played a game like we all expect at such fiestas. It was that good, I can't remember the score. I think it was a draw but with everyone playing for a point because a draw is better than attacking and getting beaten, who knows?

Or maybe Arsenal won. Who cares? Arsene Wenger gave notice he was up to something again, like the Zen master of football he is. And Ajax have enough to worry about without thinking about football. Dutch football, it has to be said, is nowhere near the Premier League. But they are trying very hard to be just as bad. Players are going so fast that they arrive before the ball - some players play at such a speed that they can't possibly see the ball.

Wesley Sneijder is a perfect case of trying to play Premier League football. He is capable of scoring the odd goal here and there. Sometimes he even scores what could, with a little imagination, be called a good goal. Mostly he blasts the ball in the general direction of Mars via the floodlights. The missus says it could be a cry for help. I don't think that's what Brian Clough would have called it but I think she means the same thing.

The Clough ethos has not vanished under the juggernaut of advertisers and role models. Bert van Marwijk at Feyenoord shows sparks reminiscent of Clough, such as charging onto the pitch when handbags are flying and dragging his own players out of the melee. His post-match explanation is: " If we want to win I can't be doing with that carry-on and the time to stop it is now."

I must confess I felt a touch of a tear at the thought of Clough giving a pitch-invading yob a slap around the ear. Feyenoord are top of the table in Holland, but they are not running away with it. The focus is on who can catch them and you can count the possibles on your nose.

Memories of this tournament come back again and again. Henk ten Cate, then trainer-manager at Ajax, has moved to Chelsea. It never dawned on me that the managers were running as fast as the players into the Premier League.

Henkie has an interesting pedigree and an even more interesting idea of how to win football games. He is renowned for statements like: "I thought it would work but it didn't." So Henk's off to Stamford Bridge. Thus far there has been not one word about what he intends to do there.

The only mention is how much money he will make. In China it's President Hu. In football it's President How Much. Chelsea had just estranged Jose Mourinho, the only manager since Clough to show character. He was replaced so fast his seat in the office wasn't yet cold for Avram Grant.

In the same period, Sneijder went to Real Madrid after more phoney wars of bogus bids and media non-news. He is now threatening the seagulls over the Bernabeu with his unusual ideas of accuracy. Again echoes of times past arrive. One Mr. Ashley Cole [footballer] has that same ballistic gift as Snijder when it comes to shooting out the floodlights.

Andy Cole becomes Andrew Cole. Sneijder is Wesley Sneijder, more often than not referred to as 'Wesley ' as in tennis, with 'Martina' and 'Venus', all spoken of with a reverence that suggests they're around in granny's every pension day giving the sherry a good wallop. Football has that way of calling up the perspective of history, the ' what if ' and' but what about ..'

During all this circus, there was nothing said about how winning games is to be achieved.

In the meantime Arsenal and Wenger moved like smoke into top spot. No words from on high. No intrigues. I wait for Wenger's reaction when he hears Ashley Cole wants to leave Chelsea along with Didier Drogba.

Wenger has that quality that enables him to say "ha ha" by saying nothing. He continues to fashion teams that win and play attractive football with almost spooky ease. You don't have to be an Arsenal fan to see someone who stands out from the mob. What makes a manager besides winning? I go with those who believe dignity and integrity matter.

How did teams such as Ajax, the team of Rinus Michels and Johan Cruyff, and more recently the Chelsea of Alan Hudson and Peter Osgood become open-plan soap operas? More at issue, does it matter? Do the endless tabloid creations have any effect on the game in how it's played and won? You could do worse than ask Wenger but don't hold your breath waiting on an answer. He continues to acquire the skills and minds of players who know that the money is related to the performance.

True artists, Herr Blatter take note. They win games. More and more Wenger becomes the Clint Eastwood of football, the pale rider who says little but delivers the goods, even with his own boardroom rumbling. This is today's game where winning seems the last thing on anyone's mind. What matters is what's on the shelf at the end of the season.

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