jazzeum
Four Star General
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2005
- Messages
- 38,434
This was in today's NY Times.
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LONDON — For good reason, American soccer fans appear to have taken Burnley as a team to follow in the English Premier League. Burnley lost to Chelsea, 3-0, on Saturday at Stamford Bridge, but that should not alter the sentimental support.
The attraction to Burnley is that it is a Lilliput in the land of soccer giants. It is a small-town team with a small-time budget. The players are developed through the youth academy at the club or purchased from the bottom end of the player market.
Yet the team’s credo is to have a go, to try to play decent soccer and to see where team spirit may take it.
The Clarets, as Burnley is known because of the club color, did not crow when they beat Manchester United two weeks ago, and the coach and players did not hide when they were overwhelmed at Chelsea. The season is long, and if they are to survive in this league, they know that their only hope is to accept the beatings, regroup and play the next match as if it were a new beginning.
“Our strength is in our group,” Burnley Coach Owen Coyle tells everyone who holds a microphone to him. “Everything we have to offer is in our unity.”
Moments after Saturday’s match, in which his defense was battered to the point that Chelsea had 15 shots on goal to none for Burnley, Coyle told ESPN and the reporters at his news conference: “We couldn’t argue that Chelsea were the better team. It’s no disgrace to lose to that kind of quality, and I’ve thanked my players in the dressing room for their effort and their honesty. We have to pick ourselves up because we have Liverpool next.”
Coyle did allow himself to say that his club had the smallest budget in the Premier League, by a country mile.
The core of this dichotomy is something that does not happen in the United States. The English leagues, like those in Europe and other parts of the world, operate in a system of promotion and relegation.
Each season, three teams drop out of the Premier League, and three take their place, irrespective of financial clout. If a team wins the points, it goes up. If it fails, it goes down.
Burnley, the champion of England in 1960, is the team of a town populated by fewer than 73,000. Style has always mattered to the team, and it has never sacrificed that, even though it has taken 33 years to rise back to the Premier League.
“But we still want to play, and to pass the ball,” Coyle said. “We knew that coming up to this division meant having to concentrate on everybody being at the top of their game for 90 minutes.”
Burnley’s emphasis on style may be why some soccer followers in the United States, especially older ones, share the perspective that this is a club, a philosophy, to admire. It tries to bridge an income gap that guarantees each of the Premier League’s 20 clubs a minimum of $50 million a season.
That is from global television fees alone. The clubs are free to bank their attendance income and their marketing profits.
Burnley remains locally run, but half the league has sold its heritage to wealthy investors from abroad. Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch, has so far spent $1.18 billion over seven seasons as the owner of Chelsea. The owners of Manchester United, Liverpool and Aston Villa are from the United States. Manchester City, currently spending more than any club besides Real Madrid, belongs to a group from Abu Dhabi.
Competing in this billionaire’s playground, even for one season, is the stuff of fairy tales. Burnley’s most overworked player at Chelsea was Brian Jensen, a Danish goalkeeper who, at 34, is still hoping that the Danish national team coach will select him for the first time.
Jensen, known to Burnleyites as the Beast, made 12 saves Saturday, throwing his hefty bulk bravely at the feet of Chelsea warriors like Didier Drogba (from Ivory Coast), Nicolas Anelka (France), Michael Ballack (Germany), Deco (Portugal), and Frank Lampard and John Terry (England).
Every player in the league of nations that makes up the Chelsea lineup is a household name. Two-thirds of the Burnley players are English born and bred. Most had never played at this level.
Graham Alexander, 37, for example, is a gritty defender who had played 900 matches in professional soccer before experiencing the top flight. This month, he was on a team of winners against Manchester United, and for 44 minutes at Stamford Bridge, he made tackle after tackle against Chelsea’s onrushing blue tide.
For those 44 minutes, it was a very good game; after that, it became a reality check.
The dam burst in the last seconds of the first half, when Drogba set up the first goal and Anelka scored it. The blows then came swiftly, as Ballack headed the second goal and Ashley Cole shot the third.
All the scoring came within seven minutes bridging halftime. That reflected the technical and tactical superiority that will probably make Chelsea a top contender in England and in the Champions League this season.
Chelsea, which has won all four of its games this season under its new coach, the Italian Carlo Ancelotti, appears to have regained a strong bond among its worldly collection of stars. Each player earns more in a month than Burnley’s are paid for a season. If the Chelseas of the Premier League match Burnley (2-2) for effort, the Clarets can expect more punishing results.
But Lilliput never gave in to the giants, and Burnley is up for the fight. Win or lose, it has put the northern England town back on the sporting map.
****
LONDON — For good reason, American soccer fans appear to have taken Burnley as a team to follow in the English Premier League. Burnley lost to Chelsea, 3-0, on Saturday at Stamford Bridge, but that should not alter the sentimental support.
The attraction to Burnley is that it is a Lilliput in the land of soccer giants. It is a small-town team with a small-time budget. The players are developed through the youth academy at the club or purchased from the bottom end of the player market.
Yet the team’s credo is to have a go, to try to play decent soccer and to see where team spirit may take it.
The Clarets, as Burnley is known because of the club color, did not crow when they beat Manchester United two weeks ago, and the coach and players did not hide when they were overwhelmed at Chelsea. The season is long, and if they are to survive in this league, they know that their only hope is to accept the beatings, regroup and play the next match as if it were a new beginning.
“Our strength is in our group,” Burnley Coach Owen Coyle tells everyone who holds a microphone to him. “Everything we have to offer is in our unity.”
Moments after Saturday’s match, in which his defense was battered to the point that Chelsea had 15 shots on goal to none for Burnley, Coyle told ESPN and the reporters at his news conference: “We couldn’t argue that Chelsea were the better team. It’s no disgrace to lose to that kind of quality, and I’ve thanked my players in the dressing room for their effort and their honesty. We have to pick ourselves up because we have Liverpool next.”
Coyle did allow himself to say that his club had the smallest budget in the Premier League, by a country mile.
The core of this dichotomy is something that does not happen in the United States. The English leagues, like those in Europe and other parts of the world, operate in a system of promotion and relegation.
Each season, three teams drop out of the Premier League, and three take their place, irrespective of financial clout. If a team wins the points, it goes up. If it fails, it goes down.
Burnley, the champion of England in 1960, is the team of a town populated by fewer than 73,000. Style has always mattered to the team, and it has never sacrificed that, even though it has taken 33 years to rise back to the Premier League.
“But we still want to play, and to pass the ball,” Coyle said. “We knew that coming up to this division meant having to concentrate on everybody being at the top of their game for 90 minutes.”
Burnley’s emphasis on style may be why some soccer followers in the United States, especially older ones, share the perspective that this is a club, a philosophy, to admire. It tries to bridge an income gap that guarantees each of the Premier League’s 20 clubs a minimum of $50 million a season.
That is from global television fees alone. The clubs are free to bank their attendance income and their marketing profits.
Burnley remains locally run, but half the league has sold its heritage to wealthy investors from abroad. Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch, has so far spent $1.18 billion over seven seasons as the owner of Chelsea. The owners of Manchester United, Liverpool and Aston Villa are from the United States. Manchester City, currently spending more than any club besides Real Madrid, belongs to a group from Abu Dhabi.
Competing in this billionaire’s playground, even for one season, is the stuff of fairy tales. Burnley’s most overworked player at Chelsea was Brian Jensen, a Danish goalkeeper who, at 34, is still hoping that the Danish national team coach will select him for the first time.
Jensen, known to Burnleyites as the Beast, made 12 saves Saturday, throwing his hefty bulk bravely at the feet of Chelsea warriors like Didier Drogba (from Ivory Coast), Nicolas Anelka (France), Michael Ballack (Germany), Deco (Portugal), and Frank Lampard and John Terry (England).
Every player in the league of nations that makes up the Chelsea lineup is a household name. Two-thirds of the Burnley players are English born and bred. Most had never played at this level.
Graham Alexander, 37, for example, is a gritty defender who had played 900 matches in professional soccer before experiencing the top flight. This month, he was on a team of winners against Manchester United, and for 44 minutes at Stamford Bridge, he made tackle after tackle against Chelsea’s onrushing blue tide.
For those 44 minutes, it was a very good game; after that, it became a reality check.
The dam burst in the last seconds of the first half, when Drogba set up the first goal and Anelka scored it. The blows then came swiftly, as Ballack headed the second goal and Ashley Cole shot the third.
All the scoring came within seven minutes bridging halftime. That reflected the technical and tactical superiority that will probably make Chelsea a top contender in England and in the Champions League this season.
Chelsea, which has won all four of its games this season under its new coach, the Italian Carlo Ancelotti, appears to have regained a strong bond among its worldly collection of stars. Each player earns more in a month than Burnley’s are paid for a season. If the Chelseas of the Premier League match Burnley (2-2) for effort, the Clarets can expect more punishing results.
But Lilliput never gave in to the giants, and Burnley is up for the fight. Win or lose, it has put the northern England town back on the sporting map.