Yesterday afternoon I watched the Sunderland vs Tottenham
Hotspur game in the Premier League Asia Trophy, the report I did for the game
is available to read on the websites listed at the bottom of the page, but
while The Black Cats ran out 3-1 winners in the end, the game was overshadowed
slightly by a somewhat controversial incident caused mainly by “Mother Nature”.
The game looked in serious doubt at first as heavy rainfall
meant huge puddles were starting to form all around the pitch, particularly in
the central area. After consideration from the authorities in charge of running
the tournament, it was decided that the Sunderland-Tottenham game and the
Manchester City-South China game that followed would both still take place, but
with a 30 minute delayed kick-off time and two 40 minute halves being contested
instead of the usual 45.
At first I was pretty happy that the game was to go ahead as
I was looking forward to reporting, and I’m certain the fans in attendance were
even happier as they still got the chance to see some of their favourite
players in action instead of having to go home and wait until the next day for
the matches to take place. However in the 30 minutes before kick-off, there
didn’t appear to be any sign of water being brushed off the pitch or anything
else being done to try and get the surface in a slightly safer and better
playing condition which surprised me.
I then had a feeling that the standard of football was going
to suffer because of the poor conditions and I was absolutely right. The pitch
looked like it had just hosted a rugby match beforehand, central based players
were struggling to pass the ball properly at times and it certainly made the
potential for mistakes to occur during the game and even bigger possibility. Unfortunately
there was an injury moment during the game, but just the one. Tottenham’s Jan
Vertonghen was stretchered off early in the second-half after landing awkwardly
during an aerial challenge and damaging his ankle.
Manager Andre Villas-Boas admitted after the game that he
was not happy with the conditions and revealed that Vertonghen was due to to go
for an MRI Scan today to discover how serious the injury is and if it puts him
in doubt for the opening game of the Premier League season next month. While I’m
not convinced that the conditions were completely to blame for his injury as
players don’t always land in the safest way when challenging for a high ball
all the time, but I completely agree about the poor standard of playing
conditions.
It reminded me of last year when England travelled to Warsaw
to play Poland in a World Cup Qualifier. Despite The National Stadium having a
retractable roof, it was left open and on the day of the game, heavy rain fell
for an extended period, and by the time night fell and the supporters were
turning up to the stadium for the match, the pitch was drenched. Kick-off was
delayed and the match was in jeopardy. Instead of looking at trying to close
the roof and clear as much water off the pitch as possible, the roof stayed
open, and not once, not twice, but three times the referee and his officials
came out of the tunnel every 20 minutes or so to throw the ball on the surface
and see if it would roll, it turned out to be a complete waste of time, the
match was then called off and rearranged for the afternoon of the following
day.
Back then the right call was made, but it meant a lot of
travelling England fans missed out on seeing the team play the next day as most
had flights booked to travel back home and could not rearrange. Rescheduling
yesterday’s games for today could have been a much better option if it meant
the playing surface would be in slightly better condition. Most fans watching
these games in Hong Kong live locally, and any that have travelled from here to
see their team play will most likely be there for Saturday’s games as well and
will have accommodation and flights booked for after the tournament has
finished.
I do have some sympathy for Richard Scudamore and everyone
else at The Premier League though. Whatever decision was made was never going
to please everybody. If you let the game go ahead like they did, you annoy the
staff of the teams involved because you put their player’s health and safety at
risk on a bad playing surface, but if you call it off, you disappoint all the
fans in attendance that have travelled to the stadium to see some of the best
players in the world, and you then have to send them straight home again
because you’ve decided they can’t play because of the rain and a pitch not
being very well maintained because of it.
Both games went ahead in the end and now Sunderland will
face Manchester City in the trophy final on Saturday. Hopefully some lessons
will be able to be learnt from this experience and football’s governing bodies
may wish to discuss how these issues can be dealt with in a better way than
before, but unfortunately because of how unreliable the sky can be, only a
certain amount can be done, and football must work around the weather, because
the other way round just isn’t scientifically possible.
Andrew.
http://www.soccercv.com/articles/latest_news/ < News and Reports by me found here.
http://www.swol.co/profile/show/1390 < News and Reports by me also found here too.
http://soccerisma.com/author/andy/ < News and Reports by me found here as well.
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