CIDWDM Theory - Super Mario

Balotelli's showboating fail last week was deeply disturbing, but not for the more obvious reasons... Surely for a guy who is constantly criticized for his lack of respect, team spirit and maturity; for a guy dropping lower and lower in the pecking order and who needed to get into the coach's good books; for a guy who HASN'T DONE SHIT IN LIFE SO FAR, surely this mega embarrassing showboating fail could not possibly have been his own decision. Granted his brain is the size of Arsene Wenger's purse, but even bodies without brains have been known to process reality enough to not decide such a thing... Which brings us to the disturbing part, DANGEROUS DAVE VILLA HYPOTHESIS a.k.a cosmic inter-dimensional web of destiny mechanism theory IS TRUE :( WE ARE ALL DOOMED! (well technically, we're not all "Doomed"... only those of us who are space marines marooned on Phobos... but that's not much consolation, considering that the rest of us might well be Warcrafted, Wolfed, and DuckHunted....)

Saturday Stuff

Last time around I could get away with writing an entire post that had almost nothing about actual football, thanks to a preseason friendly in which there was no actual football anyway. A 1-1 draw with a team of Malaysians.. no wait Chinese All Star XI who had Jackie Chan as their striker and Confucius for refereeing meant the trippy advertisements during the half time break were the most exciting bits of the game. The 90 minutes that were meant to be watched  were as unwatchable as The Unwatchable Hour on Unwatch TV. Hosted by Unwatch Goswami.  Some argue that is the case whenever Arsenal take to the field. 

In a fitting riposte (Arsenal French Word of the Day) to those who argue in that annoying manner Arsenal dished out 90 minutes of all round exciting football that if it were made into a movie would be given a U certificate and be reviewed by critics as 'a feel good movie suitable for family viewing'. 2-1 to Arsenal. Three goals in the game. All scored by Arsenal. That is the comedy track right there.

It was to the viewers' benefit that the defence of both clubs decided to go on a little vacation right after kick off. Much of the free flowing attacking football of Arsenal was aided by the back four who just stood to one side and muttered 'scheisse'. Our newly signed Brazilian French winger Gervinho scored from his first touch. He latched onto a brilliant over the top ball from Wilshere and slid it past a hapless goalkeeper. His movement was good, his runs  cleverer and more precisely timed than the roadrunner with coyote's brain Theo Walcott. And he gives us something radically new: an ability to shoot at the goal when you have just the goalkeeper to beat. Surely a flaw that Wenger will rectify in the coming weeks on the practice ground by attaching a metal helmet that sends painful high voltage shocks to his brain whenever his 'shoot' synapses get activated. 'Must shoot'. Zaaap! 'Mustn't shoot'. Easy.

The second goal was also scored by Gervinhooooooooo. Ramsey's pass to Walcot was not perfect and was too close to the Cologne left back who instead of kicking the ball off the premises by the seat of its pants just stood by, opened the doors, ushered the ball in, took its hat and coat off and introduced it to Walcott who was standing by the doorway filing his nails. Mr. Walcott Herr.Fusball. Herr Fusball Mr.Walcott. A surprised Theo said beep beep and raced off to the backline before cutting it back to no one in particular. No wait! Here was Gervinho who had made one more quick dash to be there to meet the ball and send it packing into the goal. Gervinho 2 goals in the first half an hour of his career with Arsenal! Now now, let us not hype him. About 243 goals this season should suffice.

It was New Signings Score Day at Arsenal and our only other buy this season, 19 year old league1 rightback Carl Jenkisnon scored a peach of a goal. Only thing, it was at the wrong end. It is very tempting to break the no-youtube-links on the blog rule and post a video of the own goal for it defies description. And it is by using words clever phrases like 'defies description' that I wriggle out of trashing out words on a blog that no one reads. But, do check out the own goal! It is priceless.

All in all, it was far more exciting than the previous friendly against the chinks XI. And hopefully tomorrow's game in the Emirates Cup will even more killer. Minus the own goals. Plus the Henry. Oh, and I am going to the game. Did I mention I have a red membership?


Update P.S: If you are reading the post and are not on of the blog's authors, then take note: the above post was a review of the FC Cologne - Arsenal game.

Shirt Sale Strike

Baggage Claim

The Dark Cloud and its Argentum Lining : Part 3

Bleary eyed fans bit nails and sat on sofa edges, nervously taking swigs of a fast dwindling alcohol of pink hues and suspicious origins (“nervously” less because of match and more because of people casting judgmental yet inwardly jealous eyes at the pink hue-ness of said drink) as the quarterfinal slipped inevitably into a penalty shootout. As the grisly nail graveyard behind the TV would testify, this edition of the Copa had not been kind to keratogenous membranes covering dorsal aspects of terminal phalanges (or pin-shaped fastener used in engineering, woodworking and construction..depending on which wiki disambiguation page you clicked...) with 3 penalty shootouts in 2 knockout stages. While the tender hearted quietly slip away to spare themselves the agony, one man calmly whistled in the corner oblivious to the tension that hung in the air like an alien mothership from Independence Day.. one man seemed insulated by his apparent knowledge of how those shootouts would play out.. that man is no other than..

Isaac Newt – Lizard Scientist

Maybe we exaggerated when we said "man", but Dr.Newt has shocked the world with an almost accurate polynomial that explains the degree of awfulness of a penalty during important tournament shootouts.

Isaac : Well its quite simple really, taking a set of data points from this transfer season and another set from transfer seasons coinciding with prominent Euro’s of the past – we can not only determine the probability of a penalty being awful, but also the degree of awfulness based on which quadrant the penalty taker falls, in my Transfer-Share Matrix – completely original and not resembling any other matrix in popular use today...

The Stars : These guys badly want to move, and are probably going to get the move of their choice. Tevez, this year, has made it pretty clear he wants out of Manchester (breathing the same oxygen as Ferguson??? Who wouldn’t want out!!). With Real, and Corinthians (till recently) breathing down his neck, he gets to be on the top left quadrant. So, even though his penalty is probably going to be awful, it’ll be the least awful of the lot. Evident from the Argentina – Uru shootout, sure his shot was blocked but it was a powerful drive to the side of the keeper, unfortunately the wrong side. We’ve seen worse. Same for Cocu in Euro 2004. Wanted back to PSV from Barca, was almost certainly getting his wish – misses penalty in the Netherlands – Sweden shootout..but all in all not a horrible penalty.

The Question Marks : Despite being irrationally quite happy where they are, either greedy management, or merciless management, wants to cash in on deals too good to resist. Since his vampire teeth weren’t enough for celebrity status, Madrid obviously want to ship out Higuain before he infects their stars with his lowliness. Though swap deals with ManC are the gossip-par-for-course on Goal.com, the fact remains RM’s search for some star strikers this summer means Higuain should be packing his bags. So then he goes and blasts an awful penalty, that was scored, but doesn’t take much away from its awfulness..

Dani Guiza in Euro 2008. An incredible 2007-08 Pichichi season with Mallorca, he was quite happy to stay and lift a club that was obviously on a giddying ascent, but somehow greedy management started stringing him out to complete INSULT clubs like Fenerbahce!! Awful penalty in the Spa – Ita shootout of 2008. So for national coaches with Question Mark players, it is important to make them stars by abusing their current clubs so badly they start wanting the transfer as much as their club. This might be counterproductive, as less-awful penalties like Tevez’s might end up getting saved while more-awful ones like Higuain’s are successful.

The Cows : Javier Pastore apparently had a great season last year, I was too busy not following teams from the mid to lower half of the Serie A to notice (the only game I watched was when they got mauled 7-0 by Udinese.. and Alexis Sanchez in particular, BOOYA WELCOME TO BARCA). Interest from EPL heavyweights ManU, ManC AND Chelsea must mean... nothing much, I never can figure out how these fools decide targets. But with no deal materializing, though Zamparini says he can leave, coupled with Pastore’s ambitions themselves climbing above mid to lower half of the Serie A (fighting for my attention obviously..) he is..... A fat-ass cow! Penalties are awful, little worse than the question marks. Terrible penalty in the Uruguay shootout that should have been saved.

Rui Costa in 2004 – little upstart Kaka comes along and relegates Costa to the bench, causing him to desperately look for a way out and realizing the only club who would possibly sign an old saggy has-been was the one he was trying to leave... The only Portuguese player to miss a penalty in that uber-cool sudden death shootout against England in Euro 2004. Again, at the risk of counter-productivity, coaches might consider bribing agents to push a move through for these guys and make them stars.

The Dogs : Personally, I like dogs more than cows.. even though we are their natural prey... but these are mutts that neither want to get off their lazy butts, nor find offers too forthcoming, but yet they are inevitably on their way out. Take Beckham in 2004, fish out of water in the 2003-04 season, and Carlos Quieroz, the only reason he ever started a game, got sacked at the end of the season. RM went on to run through coaches like a TT with his butt on fire, and Becks sat wondering if the cynicism from the crowd (my personal favorite crowd poster from those times “First Becks played...then he ran a lot and played a bit..then he ran a lot...now...um...”), lack of faith from coaches and president, and an injured Nistelrooy all made sense for him to leave. Trouble was, who th fvck wants that pretty boy homo!!! The dogs take the worst penalties, as Becks showed in his incredibly bent shot in Euro 2004 Portugal shootout. Nothing says sweet vindication like watching his crybaby face stare at the pitch like it was the reason he sucks.

Same year, same tournament, Zlatan Ibrahimovic scores almost the same penalty (miss). It feels strange to say this, but that was a year Ibra actually didn’t put himself out like my ex-wife (may her soul rest in peace... goddamn garden snake I’ll make you pay...). He had a great year with Ajax, who back then played football with a beauty and pace that could rival Roma’s Totti-Cassano days, and actually wanted to stay. No real offers either for the then-unknown striker (he only scored that oft-youtubed goal in the next season), but his head was just as big back then and his team hated him just as much back then. Faced with an inevitable edging out of the team, he skies the penalty into the crowd. So what should national coaches do about the dogs? Yeesh just don’t let them take penalties how hard is that.....

That was a presentation on my (ISAAC NEWT...thats 2 A’s) Transfer Share Matrix, which answers ALL questions and leaves nothing to ambiguity...

The Dark Cloud and its Argentum Lining : Part 2

There are quite a few reasons this post has lost all meaning... Firstly, it is now more of a Silver Cloud (Uruguay through clean on Copa with Brazil, Chile ex-favorites now gone.. and annoying Mexico having their worst Copa EVER!) and its dark lining (Argentina...i.e Messi, Zanetti and Banega, are also gone). Secondly, the only Argentum left in the lining is the venue (which is not enough to write a three-part blog post about... although we have written about far less...assuming you've seen the post on an Arsenal pre-'pre-league' warmup match with viewership of 1 and where nothing happened...).

But most importantly because, part 2 was supposed to be my brilliant prediction of Arg - Uru ; Par - Chile semis, effectively ruined after Bolivia, who had played with a flair that was missing from any of Colombia's games buckled against them in the last group game meaning Argentina finished 2nd and an Arg-Uru quarters was forced. Part 3 was of course my Arg - Chile final and Arg victory prediction...Obviously as an Uruguay fan, I'm quite pleased with the way things eventually played out, but quite surprised despite all the blahblah about how 'sub-par' Arg were in their opening 2 games. On evidence of those 2 games, I was happy enough to predict that Argentina would end up lifting the cup and making dumb fans look...well.. dumb...Here's why.

1. Brangentina




























My first Copa America, in my impressionable youth, saw Colombia, Mexico, Honduras and Uruguay in the semis, making me think wow South American football has very evenly matched countries!! Wrong! 2 Copas (and some statistics digging) later, the no longer impressionable (but still youth...) realized that was one of just 3 occasions in Copa History that the Brazil-Argentina pair was absent from the semis. My Uruguay fandom started with that 2001 Copa, and they are looking good to go all the way and in the process beat Argentina to the most number of Copa trophies this time, given that (after more statistics digging) a final with neither Brangentina nor Uruguay has, again, happened only thrice in history...

2. Captain Fanslut
Your average ignorant Indian football fan can be categorized into 3 individual fansluts.











Before every tournament, the favorite team is the unholy delta where these 3 fans find common ground and agree on something. It is usually Brazil, this year it is Argentina. Messi Aguero style for Arsenal bigots (although these are fans who usually think "Skills" means bicycle kicks, free kicks, and that annoying juggling off the air crap), Messi Tevez goal tallies for the ManU monkey "practicalists", and the highest number of RealMadrid/EPL players, for the bollywood jackasses (Argentina - 6, Brazil - 3!). Somehow before major tournaments, these 3 fans always seem to combine - giving.... Captain Fanslut, a focused spotlight for the duration of the tournament spawning 1000 articles, views and reviews each dumber than the other.

So it should really be no surprise there was 'universal dismay' at the quality of Argentina's first 2 matches (and as one of the few Indians who probably watched all their matches, I can safely say those first 2 were their best...). Meanwhile, Brazil happily played like utter crap (as usual, as far as I'm concerned) without anyone noticing. Chile, in jaw-dropping bafflingism, developed a "pragmatic" (read : defensive counter attack) approach synchronized with the departure of Bielsa, and Uruguay struggled with an injured Cavani and dreadful 2010-11 league performances that I saw for Forlan, Godin and Caceres. So while Captain Fanslut moaned about Argentina playing horribly, they really did look like the best team that time.


3. The Performances
As I said, the first 2 games I'd seen were quite excellent. Zabaleta looked like the only weak link in a defence that inspired confidence for the first time since the mega-awesome Samuel - Ayala - Coloccini trio of Bielsa times. Banega continued right where he left off from Valencia being brilliant in possession/skills in midfield, Messi was mindblowing as expected (though not as reported...since he didn't score...) and Pastore-Lavezzi were showing me why I need to follow the Serie A more...negatives - Higuain was the Nistelrooy piece of crap I always saw him for; Di Maria was the kind of headless chicken that would make Diego Capel look as composed as Riquelme; Tevez was..well...English; and just spotting Gago's name even in the subs list made my eyes pain...but I thought hey! they were so obviously horrible there was no way they would actually play...and in place of players who were playing extremely well....right???

WRONG! Unfortunately, Captain Fanslut who is usually not powerful enough to change coaches' minds, managed to make stupid Batista change the team around after the former's incessant baying. Worse, he then actually kept the team that way for the quarters (even after their last group game against Costa Rica was arguably their worst, but CF was quite blindly happy with the 3-0 result of course), at which point all bets were off and I officially rescinded my reluctant acknowledgement of possible Argentina triumph and shifted to gleeful hope that perhaps this is Uruguay's Copa after all...for the first time since 1995 (when I used to watch cricket...and no I'm not ashamed of that... Lara used to play back then...)

Weekend Waffle

Finally. A fate that I was trying to stave off as much as humanly possible has caught up with me. I knew this day would come, but it could have come a little later than just the 2nd weekend into corposlut life. Yes, I have become the man who updates blogs with readerships of one on weekends instead of going out and having a life - a life that society expects to be centered around sin and debauchery. The all round miserableness of the situation is compounded by the fact the person who usually does this (updating blogs with readerships of one on weekends instead of having a life) is actually having a life as I write, a life that has sin and debauchery gob smack in the centre.

Right then. Let's start off with all things Arsenal which, surprisingly, brings us to me - Arsenal's newestest red card holder! As a red card holder I can buy tickets for Arsenal games, watch Arsenal games online, see player interviews and Wenger's press conferences, get invited for official events, use the plural pronoun 'we' when referring to Arsenal and also be called upon to serve as left back when Gibbs gets crocked about two weeks into the season. Clichy was not a very dependable fullback even when playing at his best but was definitely more reliable than Kieron one-ankled Gibbs. Wenger's hints that he might not buy someone to replace Clilchy has not gone down well with the fans, especially those who have paid to become red card holding members of the club and have hence directly contributed to the transfer kitty at Wenger's disposal. Like me.

Arsenal's transfer season till now has been a microcosm of their playing season: pretty to watch, piss poor result. Names ranging from Benzema and Mata to Cahill and Samba have been linked only for us to end up buying Gervinho who checks all the boxes in Wenger's list of criteria: young, black, frenchish. And Carl Jenkinson: young, not black, English. That is the other list of criteria in case you were wondering. He uses many lists. That is about the entire list of purchases this season.

As if this level of hectic transfer activity wasn't enough there is the potential loss of Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas. The former had a remarkable season last year and could very well prove to be crucial to the team as a playmaker this season if he continues to be fit and in form. The latter, we are told by the thoughtful, reticent and media-shy Xavi, is suffering at Arsenal. Presumably in a Jesus kind of way. Cesc the son of god, sent to earth to suffer for the stupid sins of other players around him like Denilson and Eboue. Forgive them Cesc, for they know not what they do.

Fabregas and Nasri are two players whom we don't want to let go but they seem the most probable departures this summer. In contrast there are loads of players who, if I had my way, would be given as free along with a red card membership. Buy a red card membership, get Almunia to be your butler. He would probably keep fumbling with and dropping the dinner tray, but what the hell, he came on a free. The others in the must get rid of category don't seem to attract any bids whatsoever! Denilson, Eboue, Bendtner, Vela, Rosicky, Squillaci - these are players who have outlasted their usefulness, which was very little to begin with in some cases, and Arsenal don't seem to have found a way to cash in on them. Denilson was used as a makeweight in a transfer with Shakthar for one of their midfielders until it was found out that the makeweight was weighing on the wrong side. Shakthar were asking for more money to take Denilson off our hands.

I also got to watch Arsenal preseason friendly against some Chinese side on Saturday exclusively on Arsenal.com, streamed high quality only for members of the club. Which I happen to be. The last time that Chinese outfit played an English club (Manu) they lost 8-2 and this embarrassing loss did not go well with the Chinese resulting in a breakdown of Anglo-Chinese diplomatic ties. It was down to Arsenal to rebuild those ties of friendship and we couldn't have done it in a chummier way. We gracefully let our opponents take the lead and dominate us for quite a while. Like the first 45 mins or so. Then equalized with a scrappy goal. When other unthoughtful teams would have gone for the kill and demolished a very inferior Chinese team, we were more than content to let things be and played at a level that made the Chinese club look like Barcelona but with slanty eyes and flat noses. All part of the plan of course. To flatter the Chinese and rebuild international ties. Cunning.

The game as such was as lifeless and boring a game that you ever saw. Nothing happened in the first half and nothing continued to happen in the second. Which kind of makes it very easy for me to review it. Nothing happened.

And I have managed to write an entire post about pretty much nothing. On a weekend. For a blog that has a readership of one. I might as well go live in Siliguri now. Cesc fucking Christ.

Arsenal Kids say the Damnedest Things

After a long hard day’s work, it’s nice to come home and read a new set of incredibly stupid comments by Arsenal players/coach. At least, I like doing it.. so I imagine those people who actually have long hard days at work probably do too. I’ve been very happy about Jack Wislhere’s promotion to the first team, it’s always nice to expand the pool of bigmouth players with really dumb things to say, and with that delightfully endearing pride in their idiocy. Its times like this decline of press-Deco and rise of press-Wilshere that make me wonder if the universe really does ensure stability of iq-less-ness in public. Take his last comment for example – “if you are loyal, it means you are a real man”, supposedly aimed at Fabregas and Nasri...but was it? WAS IT???? In one fell swoop of apparent teammate-baiting he has delivered a brain crushing logical puzzle that philosophers will debate about for centuries to come (you can tell, the centuries to come don’t look too exciting...)

If you are loyal......=> you are a real man.......Logical Reasoning 101

Ideas?

AAANDDD In other news, Wenger says ManC sponsorship deal questions the credibility of financial fairplay. No... not “it makes us question”.... "it questions"....that nosy sponsorship deal always playing Gestapo..

The Dark Cloud and its Argentum Lining : Part 1

In the first installment of this 3-part series on Copa America and Argentina in particular, we focus on the ever blog-worthy Media...

It has become quite convenient to use the Media as whipping boys every time seemingly stupid articles come our way. I personally found the "Summer Break Fail Awards" in quite bad taste... (yes I know that was my post...your point?). Sure when the media is news-starved they churn out utter nonsense, but then there are football-starved fans who are happy enough to read the utter nonsense. The problem is when there IS football happening and there IS real news, it should be sequitor that utter nonsense ceases. So when you do come across seemingly stupid articles in times of non football-starvation, don't be hasty to label it utter nonsense. Perhaps it is meaningful and rich on a much deeper level that you need to patiently dissect and comprehend. For Example : 2 days back, Goal.com publishes an excellent article titled "Zanetti disappointed with Argentine performance in Copa America" after their 2 consecutive draws put them in danger of not qualifying out of the group stage... You might think this is such a duh useless article, but think...take some time out to analyze it and peel the layers of this complex intricate onion of knowledge...you might be surprised how well researched it is...

The Sad Tale of the Wallet that said "Juventus"

There aren’t too many Villarreal fans welcoming the purported move of Guiseppe Rossi to Juventus after the Barca flirtation ended, but for the sake of Juventus I really do hope this comes through. Surprising for someone who really enjoyed Rossi’s renaissance at Madrigal last year, more surprising for a Roma fan to care what happens to Juve. Little less surprising when you see the 12yr old (and quite obviously so..) Juve wallet the Roma fan still carries. I neither hate nor love Juve (very few clubs can boast of that, given my neatly polarized football brain), I simply follow them year after year with academic interest. Juve’s 2010-11 season was seen as dismal by most people, but I quite liked the return to Italian fundamentals w.r.t squad and style.

Though Serie A in general has been based on home grown talent, I’ve always considered Juve to be the Valencia/Barca of Italy for the number of national players it supplies, but before the Calciopoli, Juve was suddenly carrying a record number of non-Italians in the starting XI (almost all of whom promptly left after the demotion of course). This brings me to why I like their dismal-ity last few years, return of dominantly Italian lineups, crisp recovery from defense to midfield, and an easy calm on the ball that I’m ashamed to say Roma seems to be losing these days... Evidence enough that Melo, Sissoko, and Grygera were quite easily their worst players last season – all non-Italians (I’ll conveniently leave out how Krasic, another import, was most likely their best player of the season...convenient and also because I disagree and think the Marchisio – Pepe pairing did most of the work). Add the newly acquired Pirlo (don’t tell me you didn’t know about that..) to this pair and, fingers crossed they actually start together, they’ve suddenly got a hugely dynamic midfield trio extremely comfortable on the ball (you have no idea how much restraint it took me to not insert a few digression lines about how awesome Pirlo was, is, and always will be. Stupid Milan I hope the San Siro collapses during the derby and buries both the teams...except Nesta and Zanetti...).

Rossi didn’t make it to the 2010 WC squad, but there’s not much doubt he’s a mainstay in the Azzuri now. Sure Villarreal isn’t jeopardizing his national carreer, Prandelli isn’t the ‘Serie-A based players only’ that Lippi always was, but maybe he should be... it makes sense. Over the years, the flux of nationalities in club sides has obviously been on the rise, but paradoxically the fortunes of the national sides seem increasingly tied in with the better sides of their respective leagues. A lot of this seems quite duh but think about it, 30 years ago Yugoslavia’s and Czechoslovakias and Elbonias were running riot on the national scene but never had a club make a dent in the UCL (erstwhile European Cup). Contrast that with the Germany 80-90 domination and corresponding Bayern, Leverkusen, Hamburg at club level, and more recently – Spain and Italy sandwiching WC victory with UCL victories.

2010 WC Winners – Spain

2009 UCL Winners – Barcelona, 2011 UCL Winners – Barcelona

2006 WC Winners – Italy

2005 UCL Runners up – Milan, 2007 UCL Winners – Milan

I’m not saying given a choice, coaches should choose players from the local league, neither am I saying there’s a divine equation that can help us predict WC performance based on the UCL. I’m not even saying Rossi needs to join Juventus for tactical reasons of utilitarianism principles or that this post had anything poignant and insightful to justify you reading so far. All I’m saying is... someone please get me a new wallet, it's so old the “VEN” has faded out and now it just says “JUTUS” ...and no way am I ‘academically interested’ enough to carry around a rag bitten JUTUS wallet!!

P.s I’m quite glad he didn’t join Barca though, like the initial rumors suggested : guaranteed end of national career! Poor Maxi Lopez... he's even cut off his cute ponytail now :(

CorpoSpawn : The Equity Brothers

No spine curling Bill Pullman speeches this 4th of July. For it is a dark day, maybe the darkest of days...the sluttification of Batch 2011 is complete, and 2 more footballing personalities have been claimed by the vile underbelly of society known as CorpoSlut Inc (with their evil CEO Dhruv). Now only DarkNarz the Flame Serpent of the Los Che Clan remains steadfast against the fast spreading corposickness that plagues MiddleIndia (Ahmedabad), but even he cannot stand long against this horde that grows with each soul it captures (think "Night of the living dead"...or of course Chain catch, and Kings from school...). But for now, we mourn the loss of 2 carefree servants of football (one who served with feet, and one with mouth) - Tazimbhai Vicelord of Gooner clan and Yumbhai Greatcalf the Clanless one, have discarded their names of old and taken on the new monikers of Debt Equity Marai and Brand Equity Mandal... known in hushed whispers as... The Equity Brothers

Using their mastery of CorpoSpeak, the Equity Bros took the football commentary world by storm, breaking down simple footballing news into complex derivatives of Capital Market analysis, faffy frameworks, and well constructed nothingisms.






















Before our first feature starring the equity brothers, here is a glimpse of what they do and how they manage it, using their latest comments on the ongoing transfer season and what it has to offer.

What they believe :

Debt Equity Marai (DEM) - Transfer scenario probabilities are uniquely dependent on structural fundamentals and related activity in similar transfer assets like livestock and oil. After cross referencing graphical trends of these adequately benchmarked collaterals, separating the chaff to predict the transfer is just a simple matter of applying basic intuitive 10th differential series.

Brand Equity Mandal (BEM) - What's important is to consider both stakeholders, and figure out what their needs are, and categorizing these needs by their relevance to any of 34 well named matrices. Segmenting the player pool by psychographics and aligning the value proposition to reflect proper shared vision can pinpoint a potential transfer with a whopping 12% accuracy.

How they do it:

DEM : I just project cash flows of the asset with due consideration to its accelerated depreciation and opportunity costs of superior investments in a comparable time frame.

BEM : I analyze any Transfer candidate using the 4 P's - Position, Pace, Power, and Penis size (the 4P was invented by my girlfriend. Curiously enough she dumped me the very next day, what a coincidence!).

Why they're always proved right:

DEM : My in-depth analysis leads me to share my result as a number, say 123. While everyone struggles to figure out what this means, the transfer plays out and i back calculate from said number and show how I meant the exact transfer that happened.

BEM : By making full use of the wonderful phrase "looking at it from all perspectives" to seamlessly transition sentences to their exact opposites, I am able to cover all bases and inject just enough ambiguity in my predictions to always be right whatever happens. Or wrong whatever happens... see in case I'm wrong, I'll be right about that...

Cesc - Barca : Epic Ballad gets Epic Twist

The Cesc ballad has always been quite loyal to the script of the Illiad, for almost 10 years now... To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, here are a few snippets...

Everything was going as planned... we knew what was supposed to happen next...

Right? That's what we thunk! Until Sky Sports drops the bombshell that Real Madrid have launched a 50M bid for Cesc.... I have a bad feeling we've been following the wrong epic for Cesc's destiny the whole time... maybe he's actually loyal to the script of KingKong (the Peter Jackson one...).

Above : Dainty Cescina watches as Real and Barca apparently fight over her...