Di Matteo is better off out of it.

Football/Soccer

Here we go again. Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich has sacked yet another manager. This time it was Roberto Di Matteo - the Italian who took over the team as a caretaker manager in early 2012. Di Matteo, against all the odds, guided Chelsea to Champions League success in May this year, and was given a full time position by Abramovich, then told to pack his bags after just several months and a string of recent bad results. Abramovich, the Russian billionaire, seems to have no patience in wanting to generate a team with immediate success, a team that exists without any sort of failure whatsoever. That is almost impossible in the competitive environment of European club football, including the English Premier League.

Carlo Ancelotti, another Italian, was appointed Chelsea manager in 2009, and for the 2009/2010 won both the Premier league titles and the FA Cup. Pretty decent. However, after finishing second for the 2010/2011 season, he was soon sacked. Abramovich has made it no secret that he wants Champions League success. Well, Abramovich got it with Di Matteo, yet has shown him little respect in giving him his marching orders. Also, Di Matteo has history and pride with Chelsea. He played over 100 times for them over a six year period. Abramovich has money, greed, and a disillusioned ambition. The fact is you cannot win everything. The most recent result for Chelsea, a 3-0 loss away to Juventus, comes as no surprise. Juventus are the best team in Serie A by a long way at the moment and have been for almost two years now. Chelsea played without their stalwarts of Frank Lampard and John Terry, and are essentially the fourth best team in Britain at the moment in my opinion. Abramovich needs to open his eyes to the real world.

A statement on Chelsea's official website is somewhat confusing: "The team’s recent performances and results have not been good enough and the owner and board felt a change was necessary now to keep the club moving in the right direction as we head into a vitally important part of the season." So heading into a vitally important part of the season, the players must adjust themselves to a new manager with new ideas. Is it a right direction when this is happeneing every several months? Yes, the same thing happened last time with Di Matteo taking over Andre Villas Boas during the 2011/2012 season, but the difference was that Di Matteo was already assistant manager and had shared the same environment with the players before becoming head manager.

Former Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez has now been called in to Chelsea in an interim role to try and fix the team, if that is possible. Perhaps he will be able to get the best out of Fernando Torres, rekindling their partnership at Liverpool from a few years ago. Benitez has not coached since he was sacked by Inter Milan in late 2010 after a poor first half of that season. Unless Benitez manages to guide Chelsea to success in the Premier League, and the FA Cup, and the Champions League, then Abramovich, assuming he stands by his values, will sack Benitez by June 2013.

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Golf

It is great to see Michael Campbell continue his recent run of form. He has now recorded 4 top-15s in his last 9 tournaments, which is not exactly spectacular, but has allowed him to improve his world ranking from 750th at the start of 2012, to 288th as of Novemeber 18, 2012. Last week "Cambo" finished tied for 8th at the Hong Kong Open, and took the lead in the fourth round with a birdie on the first hole. He eventually stumbled to a 2-over 72 and finished 7 shots behind the eventual winner Miguel Angel Jimenez. With this win, the 48 year old Spaniard became the oldest ever winner of a European Tour event. Campbell, who is 43, has stated that the current crop of succesful golers in their 40s have insipred him and given him the confidence that he still has several good years left in him to make some noise on the golfing world. I wish him well.

Is it Del Piero's fault? What happened to the Phoenix?

On Sunday, Ian Crook stepped down as coach of Sydney FC. The Sky Blues have had a dismal start to their season - two wins and four losses from six games - and currently sit third to last on the A-League table. Crook cited health issues as the reasons why he could no longer continue his role as head coach, and also noted that, from the outset, he was never really fully convinced he could cope with all the media attention and responsibility of coaching Sydney FC.

"I felt it started to affect me and my health ... I haven't enjoyed it (coaching) for a few weeks, if the truth be known" - Former Sydney FC coach Ian Crook (theaustralian.com.au)

So what makes Crook's case any different from all the other coaches in the A-League? The answer to that is Alessandro Del Piero - the Juventus legend who signed a million-dollar deal to join Sydney FC for two years. Del Piero is undoubtedly the biggest signing in the A-League's history, in terms of money and player quality. It opened the A-League to the world, with Del Piero's most passionate supporters back in Italy turning on their television sets in the early hours of the morning to watch one of their favourite sons.

And Del Piero, after 5 games on the pitch, has done everything but flop. Sydney shirts with his name on the back have sold by the thousands. Three goals, numerous assists, and thousands of autographs signed. He has also maintained his leadership qualities on the field, although not officially the captain of Sydney FC (he captained Juventus numerous times), cameras have constantly picked up Del Piero telling, sometimes screaming, his team mates what they should be doing.

Del Piero celebrates after scoring his first A-League goal against Newcastle last month

But so far, it has all been for nothing when it comes to results. Sydney have conceded 16 goals in 6 games, and just last week suffered a record-equalling 7-2 loss to the Central Coast Mariners. Not surprisingly, Del Piero did not play due to a hamstring injury. In their last game against the Melbourne Victory, Sydney led 2-0 and Del Piero was taken off after 60 minutes because it seemed his hamstring was playing up again. Melbourne scored 3 goals in the last 15 minutes to win 3-2, and Crook was seen kicking sideline chairs and explaining himself to fans in the stands. Crook's resignation is an accumulation of these instances, not to mention the opening 2-0 loss to the Wellington Phoenix, and a 2-1 win over a ten-man Perth Glory where Syndey FC really should of used their one man advantage to put Perth to the sword but failed to do so.

So is Sydney's appalling start to the season Del Piero's fault? Simple answer, no. The underlying pressure has obviously taken its toll on Crook, and perhaps the players themselves are feeling more pressure to perform as well. But I argue that having someone like Del Piero around you can only inspire you to perform better, to impress one of football's great players. As mentioned above, his leadership on the field has made a positive impact.

 "What I love is coaching on the pitch, all this (press conferences) becomes a burden and with Alessandro coming all of this has become bigger than Ben Hur" - Former Sydney FC coach Ian Crook (news.com.au)

The expectations of success that came with Del Piero do not pull a blanket over the problems with Sydney's team as a whole. I do not know enough to make accurate observations on this matter, but from what I have seen Sydney's defending has been poor, the midfield not that much better, and communication and accurate passing have been non-existent at times. This has not been helped by injuries resulting in the inability to put together a consistent team, and the cancellation of pre-season games that would of given Crook more time to witness Del Piero and develop some combinations. Essentially, Del Piero's influence has been positive in an individual sense, he is not a has-been and still has much to offer football in Australia. But if the other players are not performing their duties, and are unable to live up to the exaggerated expectations that have arisen because of Del Piero's arrival, then trouble is not far away.

The public, players and media - need to realize that Del Piero can not single handedly guide Sydney FC to A-League glory. I only jumped on the Sydney FC bandwagon because of Del Piero, but now I genuinely do care about what happens to this team. Their pride and confidence has taken a massive blow. A caretaker coach recently guided Chelsea to the pinnacle of European club football and I'm not suggesting that something similar will happen with Sydney FC.  Maybe some fresh ideas from a coach who, unlike Crook himself said, will put their heart fully into the job with one hundred percent passion, will be fed on to the players. The most important thing now is for Sydney to lower their expectations a little and aim for a top six finish.

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I boldly predicted, after the first game, that the Wellington Phoenix would win the A-League. I never blogged that statement and it seems rather ridiculous of me to say it now. It is just that they started so well. Louis Fenton and Stein Huysegems scored some great goals, and that was followed by a 1-1 draw with defending champions Brisbane Roar. Ironically, Wellington and Brisbane now occupy the bottom two spots on the A-League table. I would like to see less long, overhead passes and - it pains me to say this - more tiki-taka style football that the Spaniards play. Close, short passing can only be achieved with wide vision across the field, which every footballer is capable of. 

I want to see the Phoenix working their way around the field through a lot more ground passing. Long balls are effective when used to desperately clear the defensive goal box; as crosses into the goal box (headers) or to assist a fast and/or tall  player running towards goal who breaks the defensive line(ala Mario Balotelli's second goal vs Germany at Euro this year). But this sort of play in midfield does not appeal to me. There is no need. Be patient and take the time to pass around and not make hopeful passes over your opponents' heads.