Thank Goodness: Club Football Is Back

With top-level club football around the world on a two week break the focus of the media and supporters has been on International competition - World Club Qualifying. How boring have these 2 weeks been?

Of course I understand that if we are going to enjoy an international football tournament every couple of summers - a World Cup or Euro Championship - we have to have have a qualifying campaign. But the 2 weeks without a club game felt like forever.

From an England perspective Week 1 focused on the build-up to a home match v Slovakia. A friendly. A week listening to International footballers speaking a lot and saying very little (if nothing). A week for the host broadcaster to convince us that the game was important, it mattered - it was, apparently, a 'massive' game. On matchday, and before an almost full stadium (in itself remarkable, with money so tight everywhere), England ground-out a big win against very poor opposition. Supporters leaving the stadium, many with long journeys home must have wondered why they bothered. Those watching the game on TV at home quickly changed channels to catch Robin Hood.

Post-match media reaction took on a 'so what' tone - after all the next match was the big one - apparently whatever is bigger than massive. For the next 72 hours the England players grasped every opportunity to appear in front of the cameras ... and say nothing. Matchday came, England ground-out a win against average opposition, supporters left the gound excitedly thinking about their 2 hour wait to get away from the car parks and the media announced that England were well on the way to South Africa 2010 ... where they would almost certainly come up against one of the 'massive' teams - Argentina for instance - who would of course prove too strong.

Later that night massive Argentina lost 6-1 in Bolivia.

This weekend attention returns to the club games - Manchester United, Barcelona, Inter, Bayern et al: welcome back.