Arsenal have William Gallas, a player who agitated for a move away from Stamford Bridge on a contract dispute, was at Arsenal for only an year before he was made captain, has spent less time at Arsenal than most players at the club, is inspirational and temperamental, and has a habit of talking to the press (and criticises his teammates).

Liverpool have Steven Gerrard, a home-grown player, a leader on the pitch and off it, and most importantly, someone who commands the respect of the squad and manager.

Chelsea have John Terry, as home-grown a player as Chelsea are going to get, a leader and much respected by teammates and coaching staff.

Manchester United have Gary Neville, United boy for life and a capable leader. In his absence the standard-bearers have been Ryan Giggs (another home boy and well-respected) and Rio Ferdinand, the de facto captain, a leader on the pitch, a senior member of the squad and determined to see his career out at the club after having spent 5 years at Old Trafford.

Notice the difference?

Now the interesting thing here is the link between man-management in a business and man-management in a club. In both cases you have personality clashes, the drive to work as a team, egos, respect issues, people coming and leaving, leaders and star performers. In both cases, the owner / manager must know everything there is to know about the squad - (preparation can help but ultimately Benitez has a better understanding of Liverpool’s squad and capabilities than Scolari has of Chelsea’s) - Ferguson’s statement that the manager was the most important man at the club is spot on.

Similarly, if you are appointing leaders within your organisation, the man from within has a substantial advantage in terms of knowing his peers, of knowing how things work in the organisation and being in sync with the organisation’s mindset and philosophy. All else being equal, promoting from within is a more effective solution than promoting someone who is an outsider (relatively speaking).

In Gallas - and we said this last summer as well - Wenger made an outsider the leader when there was a suitable candidate within the club - Kolo Toure. Not selecting Silva or Lehmann was understandable - neither were expected to be long-term fixtures at Arsenal. Henry’s departure meant that Arsenal needed a fresh start, and as one of the senior members of the Gunners‘ side (in terms of stature, experience and time spent at the club), Toure was the ideal person to take over the captaincy.

The one thing Toure lacked in comparison to Gallas was experience. And as I said last year, the decision was probably motivated by the desire to raise Billy’s game to a higher level by building the defence around him.

Whether it raised his game and saved Arsenal more points than he cost them is debatable and those who have followed Arsenal more closely than I have will be able to answer this better. The question I’m more interested in is - does the choice of captain influence a club’s form in any way and can it have enough of an impact to decide a closely-contested title race?

Going back to the comparison between businesses and clubs, as a leader Gallas faced several challenges. Some of those were impossible to cater for, such as the refereeing decisions that led to Arsenal’s exit from the Champions League. Others required a strong team spirit, mental fortitude from the players and a leader / manager who could drag his players kicking and screaming through the bad times so that they could come out the other end fighting.

As captain and leader, Gallas shoulders some responsibility for both Arsenal’s successes and failures. He bailed Arsenal out on several occasions with his defending and contributed with goals as well. On the other hand, he failed as a leader in gelling the squad together when they needed to play like a team and he failed in leading by example by complaining about the unfairness of Arsenal’s situation instead of fighting for Arsenal’s chances in the league while they still had the lead.

Could a different choice of captains have changed history? Not as much as getting refereeing decisions right (which see Everton qualify for the Champions League ahead of Liverpool) but in the context of the title race and how close it was right till the end, would a captain who was better at building team spirit and a more durable character under pressure than William Gallas have changed history for Arsenal and the Premier League?

Share your thoughts below on the impact Gallas had as Arsenal captain last season and on the broader question - can the choice of captain influence a title race?

The world’s greatest nation is surprisingly mediocre when it comes to playing the world’s most popular sport. It’s not that they keep losing - far from it. Americans have a winning mentality that automatically ensures that whatever team they put out will be competitive.

However, when it comes to genuine footballing talent, the US are found wanting. Many people have blamed this in poor infrastructure, training methods and the short period of time that proper club football has been around in the US. I disagree - these might be symptoms of a country that doesn’t generate footballing talent but when you consider the sporting talent in general that the US has produced over the years it’s clear that there’s something else at hand here.

Personally, I put it down as a cultural issue - Americans by and large just don’t care about football. Sure, there are fans here and there, but compared to a nation like Spain or Italy, the US as a people do not value soccer, they don’t respect the game and there’s very little cultural love for it.

So here are 7 cultural reasons why Americans have no real talent for soccer:

1. No Hands

The most popular American sports - basketball, baseball, American football, ice hockey, golf - primarily involve the use of hands / upper body to compete in. In fact, you could argue that feet are only for mobility (only American football allows for kicking, and that too is best done long-range).

Now if you drop a sport like soccer - all feet, some head and no hands - it’s like asking someone to walk on their hands instead of their feet. It’s not easy to switch around to compeletely different way of playing a sport.

This is the primary reason why when you see the MLS, the terms ‘long-ball’ and ‘headless chicken’ come to mind.

2. Ridiculous Name

Soccer? Seriously? The biggest obstacle to soccer’s popularity in the US may well be its name. You can’t have two sports by the same name, unless you want to see Eddie Johnson pick up the ball and then do his customary dash up the pitch and then look around all confused as opposition defenders pile up on him.

Soccer. Sawker. I feel dumber just saying it. It’s called football, and unless the American people learn to call it by it’s real name (come to think of it, Australians have their Austrian Rules footy and they still call the beautiful game football), it’s not going to be successful.

3. No Breaks

Who in the world thought of a 90-minute game that only took one break, and that too after 45 minutes? The American public is used to a quick break every 5 minutes, if not sooner. Basketball has its quarters. Baseball has its regular breaks with batters coming in and going out. American football is a stop-start game. In golf you hit a ball a couple of hundred yards and then you walk towards it (the game is a candidate for the most retarded sport ever award).

On the other hand, soccer has a natural ebb and flow to it that no American sport can match.

Americans have been bred on small, easily digestible segments of everything - sport, news, knowledge, etc. It’s a cultural effort to make low concentration levels a standard across the country. It’s also why the typical American watching soccer feels the inevitable urge to flip to another channel and watch commercials every 5 minutes.

This is why you see US goalkeepers do so well - they thrive in the stop-start nature of a goalie’s involvement in the game.

4. They Hate It

They didn’t create it, and they’re not very good at it. Either one would have been enough to foster some passion for the sport, but since there are so many countries in the world that are better than the US at soccer, the American people have little interest.

And it makes sense too - why follow something in which your side keeps losing? After being subjected to a lifetime of doctored news and world views, this sudden brush with reality is overwhelming for the average American psyche and they do what any American would do when faced with something they don’t know - they turn their back to it.

Ironically this disdain for soccer makes it more difficult for the sport to take off in the country - a vicious cycle.

5. No One Likes The Americans

Usually, when there’s someone in your family who’s not as good at a sport as you are, you tend to try and help them out so that they can get better and (hopefully) provide more of a challenge to you later on.

At least that’s what I’ve seen.

With the US though, the rest of the world isn’t so kind. We’ve made it acceptable to make fun of US soccer instead of going there and investing in the sport in America. We’ve made it acceptable to mock them instead of training them and coaching them.

That’s why when someone like David Beckham - an excellent businessman - goes to the US to invest in soccer, the world laughs at him. Would you laugh at Bill Gates if he invested in a new technology startup? People would scramble to get involved. The world doesn’t take Americans seriously, and soccer is worse off as a result.

6. It’s Illegal To Cheat

Did you know that American sports in general do not follow WADA rules? That the use of performance-enhancing drugs is not strictly regulated in US sports? The World Anti-Doping Agency has strict regulations that almost all sports adhere to, especially soccer with it’s spot drug testing and what not. American sports, on the other hand, play by their own rules, which is a nice way to say that American sports feature more drug abuse than more global sports.

In some cases, having a global authority making sure that you follow certain standards is a good thing.

But hey, what’s the point of playing a sport when you can’t pump yourself with drugs to make you faster / stronger? If you can’t cheat, why play?

7. No Cheerleaders

In all honesty this is where I agree with the Americans. Soccer needs cheerleaders like one need a glass of cold water on a hot day. As we’ve discussed before on Soccerlens, cheerleaders can stop hooliganism, provide suitable pitch-side (or on-TV) distractions when the game itself gets a little tedious and once you give each club their own cheerleading squad, there’s a whole new set of rivalries to play upon for the advertisers.

Plus if there’s no porn, how can a genuine American sports fan enjoy the game? Without cheerleaders soccer just isn’t manly enough. It’s blasphemous.

…

So there you have it - 7 reasons why American society is setup to undermine the soccer’s success in the US. Let us know what you think in the comments (or on your blog).

It’s Friday, and I’m back to give you all the latest top transfer headlines. I’ve been away for most of the past week, as regular readers can tell (cheers to Ahmed for taking over in the meantime), so I’m still getting caught up, which means that if there are any transfers that need to be brought to my attention on the summer transfer lists, make sure to leave them in the comments, and I’ll get to them.

So, what’s the latest in the Cristiano Ronaldo saga? Some reports have his sister saying that he wants to stay at United, while others are saying that United not only see the writing on the wall, but that United and Real Madrid have agreed a fee in the region of 90 million euros for him.

Rumor Rating: 3 - Tomorrow, on the next episode of the Cristiano Ronaldo Show, we’ll find out what his cousin’s hairstylist’s uncle thrice removed knows about Ronaldo’s future. Stay tuned!

The Daily Mail says that Barcelona are going to make a ‘take it or leave it’ 30 million pound offer for Emmanuel Adebayor.

Rumor Rating: 3 - Arsenal have held firm thus far, but 30 mil could very well get them to cave in.

You know what they say about father knowing best, and Ian Wright feels like the best thing for son Shaun Wright-Phillips should leave Chelsea, and that Portsmouth would be a great fit for him.

Rumor Rating: 3 - Can’t say I disagree with him in the least. If only he’d beaten it into his head three years ago that actually going there was a bad, bad decision…then again, hindsight is 20/20, as ‘they’ also say.

Spartak Moscow striker Roman Pavlyuchenko is reportedly the object of a bid from an English team, and the Daily Mail says that it’s Tottenham. Pavlyuchenko has finished atop the Russian Premier League scoring charts in each of the last two seasons.

Rumor Rating: 3 - While Andrei Arshavin is getting all of the attention, Pavlyuchenko had a great showing at Euro 2008, scoring three goals. As for his potential move to England, he’s also been linked with Manchester United recently, but whether he could go to Tottenham will hinge on the Robbie Keane-Dimitar Berbatov situations.

Fulham have made an offer for Swedish defender Fredrik Stoor. The 24-year old, who plays for Rosenborg, has eight caps for Sweden.

Rumor Rating: 5 - Stoor is rated at seven million pounds, which might be a little higher than Fulham might want to spend on one player this summer.

West Brom have sealed a 3.2 million pound deal for Heerenveen right back Gianni Zuivertoon. Zuivertoon, a Holland U-21 international, has signed a three-year deal.

Rumor Rating: 5 - Zuivertoon, who scored the decisive penalty in Holland’s epic shootout victory over England in the 2007 Euro U-21 championship semifinal, is expected to compete for a regular place right away, so he could make an immediate impact in Tony Mowbray’s side.

Birmingham could soon snap up Kevin Phillips in a two-year deal, keeping the veteran striker in the Midlands after he helped lead West Brom to the Premier League.

Rumor Rating: 5 - Phillips still has a lot of goals left in him, and just like he proved to be a key part of the Baggies’ Championship title success, he could do the same with Alex McLeish next season.

Spain

Villareal continue to be busy in the transfer market this summer, and they’re now set to snap up Velez Sarsfield midfielder Damian Escudero. The 21-year old scored six goals for Velez over the 2007 Apertura and 2008 Clausura, and he made his debut for the Argentine senior national team earlier this year.

Rumor Rating: 5 - Along with purchasing Escudero, Villareal will send midfielder Leandro Somoza to Velez.

Former Liverpool striker Florent Sinama Pongolle has moved from Recreativo Huelva to Atletico Madrid. After not making much of an impact at Liverpool, he spent the last two seasons at Recreativo, scoring 22 goals.

Rumor Rating: 5 - Coincidentally, Anthony Le Tallec, who arrived from Le Havre along with Sinama Pongolle in 2003, just completed his permanent move from Liverpool to Le Mans.

Italy

Sampdoria have signed Brescia defender Marius Stankevicius for a reported fee of 950,000 pounds.

Rumor Rating: 5 - The 26-year old, who has 25 caps for Lithuania, can play either center or right back.

France

Monaco have offered Juventus 7.5 million euros for midfielder Tiago, who had a forgettable season in Turin after a big-money summer move from Lyon.

Rumor Rating: 4 - Juve would be taking a loss of 5.5 million euros, but sometimes letting go is better than holding on, isn’t it?

Germany

FC Twente midfielder Orlando Engelaar is set to join Schalke 04, where he’ll be reunited with former Twente coach Fred Rutten.

Rumor Rating: 5 - This is a blow for new Twente manager Steve McClaren (that name doesn’t sound Dutch, but it does sound familiar), but the money will help McClaren make some vital reinforcements ahead of Champions League play.

Well, that’s it for today’s rumors–chime in, chip in, and I’ll be back tomorrow!

Or rather, 10 things I hated about the abysmal Euro 2008 coverage by the British media (online and TV).

Football is a source of joy, but the buffoonery surrounding football can drive the viewer to the madhouse. Here’s a look at the top 10 reasons I’ll be spending the summer ‘in rehab‘ after being put through the misery that is the British media’s coverage of Euro 2008:

10. Aragones is now a ‘good guy’?

Aragones was conveniently the fall-figure when he made a ’somewhat’ racist comment about Thierry Henry, but now that he’s had the perfect swansong, he’s a great guy? Or is this not the right time for us to ‘remember’ that Aragones has his flaws, and that Spain won not only because they made the fewest mistakes but because they never really met their match in skill and preparation. France v Spain, with France fit to fight, or Portugal v Spain would have been a genuinely good game. Ditto for Italy (with Toni scoring goals and Pirlo on the pitch).

Not to take any credit away from Aragones or Spain - he was tactically excellent and Spain are worthy champions. Which brings us to…

9. Why do we insist on the ‘worthy’ / ‘deserving’ label?

It’s as if someone in the past didn’t ‘deserve’ to win it. Or that if a lesser team had won it, they wouldn’t be ‘worthy’ champions.

Italy were worthy champions in 2006 - they were the better team in the final and got the win fair and square.

Greece were deserving champions in 2004 - they won their games throughout the tournament fairly and beat better teams than themselves.

Enough of this ‘worthy’ business.

8. The ‘Great’ Performers

Cesc Fabregas is a very good player but as Iniesta and Xavi showed, those two are better and far more experienced. Fab still has some way to go, despite the praise heaped on him after the quarter and semi finals.

David Villa really showed up for one game and 5 minutes for the other. 4 goals to show for it and he gets the Golden Boot. For a wonderful tournament, where were the strikers?

Cristiano Ronaldo had an average handful of games and most of it can be attributed to the fact that he didn’t have midfielders creating for him nor forwards to play off on. Like Ballack, Ronaldo was hampered by the lack of ability of his teammates. Ditto for Arshavin.

Torres and Podolski - two fantastically talented footballers, one coming in on the back of a great season and the other trying to prove himself all over again. Two footballers who fall over at every opportunity and yet are strong enough to outjump most defenders and fast enough to nip past any set of players. Come on guys, really…

7. The ‘New’ Arshavin fans

Get off it. If he was as good as they claim he is he would have been snapped up a season ago. Not to say that his agent has tried - they were hawking him off to the Premier League in January as well. Don’t get me wrong - he’s a very good player. But the hype came too quickly, too easily.

6. Best Tournament Ever?

Really, is it? People point to the Dutch extravaganza in the Group of Death, Spain’s quiet domination, the Russian revolution and Turkey’s amazing comebacks as proof that this was great, entertaining football played in true attacking spirit.

In reality, the football on offer was poor - Portugal were muscled out by a technically-limited Germany, Holland’s fine counter-attacking couldn’t handle Russia’s slick movement in which they hardly gave the ball away, Russians themselves were undone by their impatience and Spain triumphed despite having a shaky defence thanks to them playing an anchorman and using the pace of Villa / Torres for viciously-quick counter-attacks.

Some good tactics? Yes. Some great football? Yes. But there was a lot of boring, below-par stuff, nothing that makes it a fantastic tournament. Unless you’re a fan of the four teams that got to the semifinals.

5. The Promise To Unearth Hidden Gems

We were promised that Euro 2008 would bring forward the stars of tomorrow. As it was, it was today’s stars doing much of the talking, with only Pepe and perhaps Fabregas - both ‘established’ in reputations - being the outstanding ‘youngsters’. Benzema, Gomez, Nani…pffffftttttt. The Russians? How Premier-League centric do you have to be to think that Arshavin is a ‘hidden gem’?

4. The Commentary

Please, spare me. Not only do they have their ’scripts’ which they mindlessly stick to (or fall back on after events take a breather from contradicting them) in the face of obvious truth. Cliches upon cliches pepper the filtered narrative - and all of this would have been palatable if they got it right some of the time. They hardly do, which is why watching the game without sound (except when the visuals alone doesn’t tell the whole story, like when an off-the-ball incident happens) is so refreshing.

They could improve things by getting public ratings for all pundits and sending the worst of them back to doing something useful, like investing their time training young footballers.

3. Fan Watch

For all the focus on the fans and the wags, this was more of a WAG-watch or BOOB-watch than fan-watch. To be blunt, if a lady had her tits hanging out she’d get photographed, but the pretty ladies had to be semi-nude to even get a glance. It made it so hard to find good pictures for the euro 08 babes roundup…What happened to style and subtlety?

2. Cristiano Ronaldo Rumours

For the love of god. Please. Decide. Get on with it. The tournament was over-shadowed by the Ronaldo rumours and even when he went off on holidays they followed him around and ogled his new girlfriend, Nerieda Gallardo, and concocted half-brained rumours with one hand tied behind their back (or otherwise occupied)… He’s good, he’s really good, but is he bigger than Euro 2008?

1. The Anti-English Rants

So England didn’t make it. It hurt, but big deal, we can move on right? Afraid not.

The British are a sadist bunch, and none are more sadist and prone to self-infliction of pain than the press themselves. The journalists brilliantly tapped into British guilt for not making it to the Euros and turned June into a celebration of their own failures. How refreshing to see a tournament without England? How refreshing to see a tournament without the WAGs dancing on tabletops? How refreshing to not have to deal with boring, boring England?

Except that England were miles ahead of several teams playing at the Euros and the nauseating coverage of WAGs was a staple for the media only 2 years ago (everyone made a feature on ‘Euro 2008 WAGs / Euro 2008 Babes’, from Fox Sports to BBC to Guardian to the Sun and all the blogs too). Boring England? Romania, Greece, Austria, Switzerland, Poland…even Sweden and France and Italy…were boring as hell. Under Capello, I’d fancy England to beat half the teams at the Euros.

Some honesty would be refreshing too.

And now it’s your turn…