Sonstiges » was written with Stan Fisc

ESPN raised some eyebrows recently when, attempting to find the best modern day side of the Champions League era, they ranked Manchester Uniteds 1999 side higher than the 2008 winners. Oleksandr Zinchenko Jersey . United fans have little to do during the week at the moment, being out of Europe for the first time in 25 years, so this topic certainly got a lot of their attention as they debated the merits of both sides. Why not, right? It was certainly more fun than picking the bones out of a 4-0 loss to Milton Keynes Dons in the League Cup or a recent 0-0 draw at Burnley. United fans have been doing a lot of looking back recently. They regularly cast their minds back to the Sir Alex Ferguson era and wonder if any of the current issues existed then. They are regularly reminded of the short David Moyes era where they became forlorn, former giants of the domestic game, forcing the clubs upper management to shop on a different street in the transfer market and finally bring back some expensive class home that can make a difference. Yet this season was supposed to be a new dawn. A new era away from Fergies 2012-13 and the Moyes nightmare of 2013-14 where they can draw a line under the past and move forward. If any comparing of recent eras were to take place, United fans simply hoped it would be in comical fashion referring to how poor they were last year compared to this. That ambitious leap looks far too premature at the moment after their most recent defeat, a 5-3 loss to Leicester City, in which they were massacred in the second half by a club who was playing in the Championship last season. After taking one step forward in their 4-0 win over Queens Park Rangers, they took another two steps back in humiliating fashion at the King Power Stadium on Sunday losing the last 30 minutes of the match 4-0, after being ahead 3-1 after an hour. Captain Wayne Rooney ended the game with a foul-mouthed rant in the face of the officials, believing referee Mark Clattenburg had gotten two major decisions wrong that led to two of Leicesters goals. There was no question that Jamie Vardy fouled both Rafael and Tyler Blackett on the buildup to the penalties being awarded but United will be naive and completely missing the point if they lay this loss at the hands of the officials. The simple truth is United were poor enough to allow the officials to be an excuse. Louis Van Gaal is known to be a coach of great details. He carries around a giant folder to each match and this week he gave us a glimpse of what kind of information was in it. a€?I have analysed them (Leicester) three times,a€? he said. a€?I prepare all my matches very thoroughly. I know all about the games they have played already and the game they lost to a minor team [Shrewsbury] in the Capital One Cup. I know everything about the team, about individuals, substitutes, what the atmosphere will be like in the stadium, how they take free-kicks, everything. My staff check all that out and then we send it to the players. Ryan Giggs gives them a presentation, then we simulate our opponents in training.a€? Whoever simulated Leicester in training this week got it wrong. Very wrong. They failed to show that two men would press Daley Blind whenever he received the ball, ensuring he made less than half of the passes he attempted last week against QPR. They failed to simulate Leonardo Ulloas instincts in the box shown when he scored a crucial header, not tracked, at 2-0. They failed to simulate the tempo that Leicester played with, even when they were down 3-1, something Van Gaal will never have experienced from a promoted team when coaching the likes of Ajax, Barcelona and Bayern Munich. Above all, they certainly failed to test an embarrassingly open team that showed no backbone, belief and leadership when faced with adversity. In parts United were breathtaking, looking nothing like their former selves, when Radamel Falcaos brilliant cross found the head of Robin van Persie and when Angel Di Maria dribbled his way into the box and lobbed Kasper Schmeichel soon after, but in many ways it is those moments that makes Uniteds second half performance even more alarming. The Premier League has a video library of all of their past matches and inside that library is a list of what they call a€?EPL Classics. These are offered at a price to their broadcast partners around the world. United feature heavily in many of these games and most of them they win. Even when they didnt always play well such classics showed Uniteds incredible resolve and recovery abilities to come from behind and win matches, like the famous 5-3 victory at Tottenham in September, 2001. Sir Alex Ferguson called that one of his most memorable victories and talked in his book about the belief the team had down 3-0 at half-time. He wrote: a€?As they traipsed into the dressing room, three goals down, the players were braced for a rollicking. Instead I sat down and said: a€?Right, Ill tell you what were going to do. Were going to score the first goal in this second half and see where it takes us. We get at them right away, and we get the first goal.a€‰a€? It was a 5-3 that said everything about that United team. The moment they scored the first goal the entire ground wondered about a comeback. Sundays 5-3 loss to Leicester said everything about this current United team. Up 3-1 they should have seen it out but they left too many attacking players on the field and crumbled, losing a Premier League match, after being up two goals, for the first time ever. At 3-3, with 25 minutes left for them to still go on and win, they walked back to the centre-circle with their heads down. The only one whose head was up was captain Rooney who screamed at his United teammates. It is not all Rooneys fault but it was hardly the image of leadership and it speaks volumes that there is no better option than the Englishman to wear the captains armband. A team that once had incredible leadership and characters relied upon individual brilliance to insert their dominance over Leicester but when the going got tough they disappeared. Some blame falls at the feet of Van Gaal, of course, and it is clear his folder needs more chapters, and the profile of a world class centre-back wouldnt hurt either, but the capitulation falls on the players. There is no hiding behind an inadequate manager anymore. The Premier League has a new game to place inside their classic library. It is up to the current crop of United players to now ensure its a match that doesnt define this era. Nicolas Otamendi Jersey .Y. - Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby captured his second career Art Ross trophy on Sunday after leading the NHL in scoring this season. Benjamin Mendy Jersey . -- LeGarrette Blount made one last big splash into a soggy end zone. http://www.tmancitysoccershop.com/c-32-gabriel-jesus-manchester-city-fc-jersey.aspx .The Los Angeles Lakers star passed Michael Jordan for third on the NBAs career scoring list Sunday night in a 100-94 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves.At 80, Don Cherry still hasnt run out of stories, as his new book Straight Up & Personal shows. But he doesnt get to share them with Ron MacLean as much these days.The two are spending less time together, with MacLean busy with his Hometown Hockey duties.In his book, subtitled The World According to Grapes, Cherry fondly reminisces about their road trips and bucket of beer, six apiece, on ice after Hockey Night in Canada sessions.When things went wrong on the set of Hockey Night in Canada, and it happens a lot, when I would be in a tantrum, Ron would hold up six fingers, meaning six cold ones waiting in the (hotel) room, and I would say, Youre right and calm down, Cherry writes.Popcorn for MacLean, peanuts for Cherry, a game on the TV and a chin wag. Sometimes heated, mostly fun times.Such social time is at a premium now.We do Coachs Corner and then hes gone, Cherry said in a recent interview. So it has changed, I must admit.Before we used to sit together and watch every game ... every Saturday wed sit together for three hours. Sometimes now we dont sit together for two minutes, he added.Traditionally the two have shared Saturday nights and the playoffs together.We dont know what were going to do in the playoffs this year, Cherry said. But in the playoffs, were together from April 8 until June 19 every other day. You do get close, you cant help but get close.Otherwise, Cherry says not much has changed under the new Rogers broadcast regime although he doesnt see the other fellow hockey analysts because they are on a separate set.Its not quite the same because we were all together there before. But I have to admit theyve never told me what to do. I dont think they quite understand me quite the same but theyre never come and said You cant do this, you cant do that.I had a problem with them at the start about the time, as you saw ... They were a little upset over that.Its Cherrys fourth book, but first that he has written alone. Grapes: A Vintage View of Hockey, was written with Stan Fischler while he collaborated with Al Strachan on Don Cherrys Hockey Stories and Stuff and Don Cherrys Hockey Stories, Part II.Cherry wrote this one longhand, often in the middle of the night, starting last fall. An irregular sleeper, he would find himself up at 3:30 in the morning and start writing.I had a grand time doing it, he said.Straight Up & Personal covers a lot of ground, including a painful gout-ridden expedition to Afghanistan (he credits comedian Jimmy Mac for getting him through it) and his stint in Sochi, which left him praising the Russians.It opens with a near-death experience two years ago in the St. Lawrence River when Cherry had to be rescued after his canoe tipped over.I oftenn wake up at night thinking of that water pouring into the canoe, said Cherry, who says he will never go on the water again without a life jacket. Eliaquim Mangala Jersey. It also lays out Cherrys peripatetic minor-league career with special attention on his time under Eddie Shore in the American Hockey Leagues Springfield — the Alcatraz of Hockey.Years later, Brian Kilrea told Cherrys daughter Cindy what Shore had said when he was asked about the animosity.Cherry never said a word back, but that look of insolence on his face said it all, said Kilrea, quoting Shore.Cherry paid dearly for that expression. He says he was singled out and harassed on and off the ice, calling his time in Springfield torture.I went from Lord Fauntleroy and left, I think, as Attila the Hun, he said. I really toughed up in those three years. I found out the world is very cruel.And I had an attitude for almost the rest of my life after that — youre not going to get me. I walked in there as a babe in the woods. It taught me what life is really about. Youve got to be tough.Viewers may not know that Cherry spent time in camp with the Leafs. As a minor leaguer, we were treated terrible in Toronto, he recalled. Really bad.Cherry also relates how he got his start in coaching. Retired from playing, he worked construction for two years until he was laid off. A friend, Bob Clarke, asked him to coach a high school team in Rochester.He didnt want to do it, but accepted after realizing he had nothing else to do.Thats where I learned to change lines, he said. That eventually led to a coaching job with the Rochester Americans, where Clarke was a co-owner, and Cherry was on his way.Cherry remains a Canadian icon, with a 1993 Ford F-150 pickup and a 1983 Lincoln in his modest garage. Today he cannot walk through an airport without being stopped for pictures and autographs.But he remembers when times were tough. Once asked what his greatest fear was, he replied unemployment.The feeling when youre unemployed, you think everybodys against you. You start thinking that youre less than a man because everybody else is working ... Dark clouds come into your mind when you cant get a job, I tell you.I often wonder, boy, how lucky I was. Cherry says he had fun writing this book but it will be his last.I like to leave it having a lot of fun. Thats the big thing. Its like Coachs Corner. As soon as Coachs Corner is not a lot of fun, then I wont do it.So far so good, on that score.They leave me alone and thats why its fun, he said. As soon as people start telling me what to do and stuff like that, then it wont be fun.— Straight Up & Personal, by Don Cherry, Doubleday Canada, 195 pages, $29.95---Follow @NeilMDavidson on Twitter Cheap Heat Jerseys Cheap Bucks Jerseys Cheap Timberwolves Jerseys Cheap Pelicans Jerseys Cheap Knicks Jerseys Cheap Thunder Jerseys Cheap Magic Jerseys Cheap 76ers Jerseys Cheap Suns Jerseys Cheap Blazers Jerseys Cheap Sacramento Kings Jerseys Cheap Spurs Jerseys Cheap Raptors Jerseys Cheap Jazz Jerseys Cheap Wizards Jerseys ' ' '