´óÏó´«Ã½

Without Colombian defender , Liverpool may well have returned from last week's Europa League clash with Atletico Madrid with a vital away goal.

Perea made his name in another red shirt, that of Medellin back in Colombia, after first working at their stadium selling ice creams and in 2003 he was one of the star attractions in a side that reached the semi-finals of the .

Seven years later in the same competition Medellin have paraded a young defender with many of the same attributes. has a similar slight build and like Perea, he is not great on the ball, but he has an excellent anticipation, recovers quickly, times his tackles well and takes responsibility for things around him.

Jimenez is 21 this Monday, and can celebrate his birthday by looking back with pleasure on a promising Libertadores campaign, even though they fell short of reaching the knockout stages.

Medellin conceded just four goals in their six group games, but to Mexico on the eve of the competition fatally undermined their hopes and they only scored three times and failed to make it through.

This constant selling in South America means that there are always opportunities for good young players and though Jimenez will not be in action, there are plenty of other names for the notebook lining up this week when the knockout phase gets underway.

Read the rest of this entry

I have been back in England for a quick visit and I was struck by an .

"Sometimes the players have to forget about the iPods," he said. "They need to think about what really matters."

He went on to admit: "I'm not a big fan of these big earphones on the way to games," and that "my thing with the iPod generation is that when they leave the ground and go away to their closeted little lives they shouldn't forget what's got them where they are and what impact they can have."

It is, of course, the complaint of a member of one generation about the desocialising effect of technology on the next.

Read the rest of this entry

A century ago when the was founded in Argentina their shirts were plain white - the cheapest they could find. Then they went with stripes of red, green and white - a tribute to the Italian origins of the club's founders.

Finally they settled on the current strip - which, with a blue V on a white background looks like something out of rugby league. This is no coincidence. The story goes that they were offered a good deal on the shirts, which a rugby club had ordered and not bothered to collect.

The tale of Velez and their changing strip, with its conflict between immigrant pride and working-class thrift, tells us much about the .

Read the rest of this entry

Reading Phil McNulty's blog after the Arsenal-Barcelona game, I was struck by the number of people who went out of their way to criticise the performance of .

It is indicative of the enormous pressure the young Argentine will be under in the - the same pressure that broke his friend and former Barca team-mate four years ago.

People are expecting circus tricks and something special in every game. It is the dilemma of the big name star in today's football.

The overkill of the marketing industry means that there is more focus than ever before on the top individuals - at a time when the physical and tactical development of the game makes football more collective than ever before.

Read the rest of this entry