Archive for tag: International friendly fixtures.

Nile Ranger narrowly avoids FA ban

February 12th, 2011 | 3 Comments |

Nile Ranger of Newcastle United
FA nearly banned him
Newcastle United’s Nile Ranger narrowly avoids an FA ban thanks – allegedly – to Manchester United.

It seems that Nile Ranger was nearly banned from today’s game by the FA. This is all due to the fact that he was ‘injured’ for the midweek international friendly but did not get assessed by an England team medic.

Fortunately for Nile Ranger, Manchester United’s Chris Smalling also missed the game in similar circumstances and when an organisation feels like flexing its muscles it obviously doesn’t want to do so towards Sir Alex Ferguson and the mighty Man U.

It’s a bit like the punchy chap in the pub at last orders. Even in a drunken state the chap thinks twice about being punchy with the 6ft 5in 25 stone yeti with hands like JCB buckets. He is in fact rather inclined to ‘let him off’.

Credit where it’s due, I picked up on this story thanks to a comment referring me to FootballFanCast article by Joe Austin, which does a good job of summing up the situation.

The question to ponder, though, is what do we do about international friendlies? (more…)

Colo and Jonas called up for Argentina.

August 6th, 2010 | 15 Comments |

Call-ups for Colo and Jonas.
Call-ups for Colo and Jonas.
Argentinian pair Fabricio Coloccini and Jonas Gutierrez have been called to the Argentina squad for their forthcoming friendly fixture against the Republic of Ireland next week.

Fair play to them and all that, particularly to Colo who missed out on the World Cup, but what a silly time to play an international friendly.

I’m talking in general now, not just because it affects some of our players, but whoever decided that playing meaningless international friendlies a few days before the domestic season is about to start needs their head looking at. Or on the flipside, the Premier League, who knew that this next week was an international week yet still decided to plan the start of the season a few days later, should take a long hard look at themselves. (more…)