zidane - the province · 2009-07-02 · 2 free kick july 2009 july 2009 free kick 3 cover photo by...

Serving the Beautiful Game

freekickmag.com | July 2009

ZIDANE

free kick2 July 2009 July 2009 free kick 3

Cover Photo by Martin Bazyl

Contents4 Contributors

5 Editor's Note

6 Football Under the Rising Sun By Trevor Kew

8 Soccer Shorts

11 Red Card Yellow Card

Recipe: Chocolate Chip Banana Loaf By Heather McLean

12 Zizou 16 Football Economy By Michael Oldham

18 Ayurvedic Coaching: The Science of Life By Jeffrey Armstrong (Kavindra Rishi) &

Carrie Serwetnyk

20 Cosmo Striker By Piper Bradley

21 Kidz Section

22 SoccerScopes

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Contributors

Free Kick Team

Lindsay Marsh, Editorial AssistantEquipped with a BA in English Lit and a Sustainable Community Development Post-Bacc Diploma, Lindsay spent 3 years teaching and volunteering in Japan and SW Asia. Her passion for sports led her to many muddy games of soccer with boys and girls at a children’s home in Thailand. www.go-mad.org.

Fernando Fei, Design & ProductionRaised in Argentina, Fernando always jokes that football runs through his veins. His passion, knowledge, and design talent gives Free Kick its face.

Piper BradleyAnna is a 17 year old Vancouver artist who is crazy for cartooning…and just a bit crazy in general. She migrates around the city in her cardboard starving artist box doing art for food and stealing your single socks from laundry machines.

Neil Humphrey, WebmasterNeil is a passionate local coach and suit in the football community. His multi-talented skills in competitive sailing and the beautiful game gave him a compass to travel extensively around the world. Here at home, he consults in marketing, PR, Internet sectors and all the latest soccer junkie info. Beware Voyageurs!

Martin Bazyl, PhotographyMartin is a freelance photographer, with a passion for the game that unites all. Based in Toronto, he hopes to be a part of a rise and breakthrough in the nation where football is the number one played sport.

Jeffrey ArmstrongJeffrey is the Founder of VASA - The Vedic Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a charismatic speaker and counsellor who teaches the Philosophy of Yoga as a way of being, and Enlightenment as a way of life. www.JeffreyArmstrong.com

Heather McLeanHeather's specialty is healthy and alternative vegan creations. She lives in East Vancouver.

Michael OldhamMike is a soccer journalist from Edinburgh. Along with Scottish haggis, he eats up anything to do with the beautiful game. He is the producer of football phone-in radio show and is presently writing a book on the MLS. www.insidesoccerusa.blogspot.com

Trevor KewTrevor is a Canadian teacher and writer based in Yokohama, Japan who spends most of his time playing, coaching or watching football. Trevor supports Watford and Manchester United. He also claims to have fouled strikers on three continents. Red Card!

Editor’s NoteCarrie Serwetnyk, First Woman Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame

Our man on the cover is a face easily recognizable around the world. Almost. In our country, many people tilt their head trying to remember why they might know him. For others, he brings instant joy

and love. Zinedine Zidane is the three-time FIFA player of the year and he is coming to our backyard to play. A tour was set up for him and his “friends” to play in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. For Free Kick Magazine, he is literally coming to our neighbourhood.

Free Kick has organized for 100 children in East Vancouver the opportunity for a free two day camp which includes tickets to the match at BC Place and a session with Zidane and top stars from Europe. The Britannia Soccer Program could only dream up such stars on their field each spring when kids wear t-shirts with a variety of countries’ names on the back. This time, French, Italian and Cameroon mega-stars really will strut their stuff. We are extremely grateful to bring this opportunity to the Commercial Drive community.

We are also delighted to share experiences from other parts of the globe. Trevor Kew is our traveling writer who now lives in Japan. Having played in Nihon myself during the rise and heyday of the J-League, I could relate to his research and expe-riences attending games. Cramming into trains where strang-ers use your shoulder as a pillow while kids across from you munch on small dead fish seemed quite surreal. Often I sang to myself, “I’m turning Japanese” at trainings to amuse myself over our vast cultural differences. The Japanese fan has their own unique brand of polite, ordered zaniness.

The economy is a subject we would like to ignore but it is in-deed an undercurrent affecting us all. For players like Ronaldo, who transferred to Real Madrid for 142 million dollars (CAD), we hope his fans can afford tickets to see him play. Regard-less of the crash and burn economic situation hitting businesses in every category, football has always been known as the poor man’s sport and will continue to bring intrinsic joy and passion to billions of people, no matter the story.

In the case of our journey with the beautiful game, we hope you will enjoy and embrace our gift of passion to your pursuits.

Best wishes,

Free Kick is a free publication. It is published monthly and distributed to retail soccer stores, stadiums, sporting retailers, community centres, and many pick-up locations throughout the greater Vancouver area. For more information please contact [email protected] or visit our website at www.freekickmag.com.

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Publisher’s Note:

Why “Serving the Beautiful Game?”

As a magazine we have the ability to give a much needed acknowledgement to individuals who contribute their energy to soccer. Our mission is to serve the players, fans, parents and coaches who want information and

support for their passion.

Brazilian star Pele’s most renowned quote was when he called “football” the “beautiful game.” The quote

speaks for itself to all those who have played soccer or admired it in the stands. It hits the mark between how it looks on the outside and how it feels on the inside

playing it.

We feel the combination to “Serve the Beautiful Game” matches our ambitions as a magazine.

Serving the Beautiful Game

Copyright © 2007. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, without the written permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

Free Kick Magazine is an environmentally friendly publication. Printed on recycled paper.


running onto the pitch.

Even more surprisingly, they hold on. It ends in a 1-1 draw, with Uzbekistan, at home. I glance around at the Japanese supporters.

No one is swearing or kicking things. No one is even frowning much. Most of the fans, so passionate during the match, are simply emptying out of the stadium in an orderly manner, bowing slightly when they get in somebody’s way.

Having lived in both Canada and England, I was baffled. Drawing with Uzbekistan in football is like Canada tying a hockey game with Japan. And if England ever drew with Uzbekistan at home…well, you know what would happen then.

“Is that what Japanese people look like when they’re angry?” mumbles my English friend.

“Guess it must be,” I reply.

National obsession with football is, unlike in most countries, an incredibly recent phenomenon in Japan. The J-League, which now averages 20,000 fans per match and is one of the most successful leagues in Asia, only began in 1992 as an organization, cobbled together from former amateur clubs. Since then, Japan has participated in three World Cups (including, of course, the World Cup they co-hosted with South Korea in 2002), won three Asian Cups, and its clubs regularly feature prominently in the Asian Club Championship. Youth club teams and school teams have multiplied rapidly, and there is a women’s league, the L-League, with an ever-growing fan base.

In so many ways, Japan is not suited to football. There is little available flat land and the facilities are generally horrendous. I never thought I’d actually feel relieved to play on a packed dirt pitch, but in Japan, a lot of football is played five-a-side on something resembling a tennis court with sand thrown all over it. It would be hard to think of a worse surface for football, actually. Also, when the J-League began, it had to compete with long-established (or in one case, ancient) sporting traditions: sumo, baseball and golf.

In the first few years of the J-League, a rush of foreign stars in their twilight years flooded the rosters and attendance spiked. But when the league over-extended itself and Japan entered into a recession, fans began to shy away and teams began to go bankrupt. It seemed like it had been all just a passing fad.

Instead of giving up, the J-League re-organised, reducing the number of teams and encouraging local involvement. Most importantly, perhaps,

Japanese players became the focus, which helped bolster the national team. The league now boasts two professional divisions and ambitiously aims to gradually increase the number of football clubs in Japan to 100 by the year 2092.

Hailing from Vancouver as I do, I’ve been as thrilled as anyone since the Whitecaps made their recent glorious announcement. And so, that day, sitting there in a packed stadium in a nation which didn’t even have a professional league when I started high school, I was filled with hope that professional football in Canada might this time be here to stay.

I also hoped that one day, I might sit in a stadium back home amongst tens of thousands of my fellow Canadians, even if just to give our own unique Canadian reaction to a 1-1 draw with Uzbekistan.

It is not the first time I’ve been on a packed train to a football ground, but it is the first time I’ve done so with a whole lot of men in suits.

I glance around. Where are the football kits? Where are the scarves? Where are the uncomplimentary songs about the mating habits of the other team’s players’ wives?

The train pulls into a station too populated to see the name and a few more bodies, through some miracle of physics, manage to squeeze in. As we pull away, I shake my head, amazed, but not at this fine example of human tetris. What I simply can’t believe is that we are now one subway stop away from a World Cup Qualifier and yet I’m actually able to hear the train accelerate.

Trains in Japan are meant for two things: getting to where you’re going and sleeping. I have Japanese friends who actually factor train travel into their daily amount of shuteye. I’ve been on a bullet-train with several hundred people and been the only one awake. It isn’t uncommon for businessmen to wake up back in Tokyo after tumbling into a deep slumber on their way back to the suburbs.

But on the way to an international football match? It’s all a bit hard to believe.

Thankfully, things quickly change when we get outside. On the road towards Saitama Stadium, men shed company jackets, tugging scarves from briefcases, and Japanese National Team shirts begin to appear all around us.

And the songs begin.

“Nippon, Nippon, Nippon…hey! Hey, hey, hey…!”

Luckily, most are so easy that even a gaijin (foreigner) like me can figure them out.

Inside, the large stadium – a legacy of the 2002 World Cup – is crammed to the roof with blue and white shirts, large

Japanese flags, smiling faces and clapping hands. We find our seats, park our beer cups in the drink-holders and sit back, listening to the roar of the crowd. It all begins to feel pretty much like any other football match, despite the fact that we’re in Japan and aside from the girls sitting in front of us chopping cucumbers while munching on noodles and dried fish.

The opponents tonight are Uzbekistan, that overlooked nation of Central Asia, best known in the West as the fictitious enemies of Borat Sagdiyev. They are not exactly powerhouses in the Asian football world. Unbelievably, at

least to me, a solid contingent of perhaps two hundred Uzbeks have actually made the trip to cheer on their team.

Japan scores first and the crowd explodes, fifty thousand supporters jumping up and down, high-fiving, beating drums, and singing.

But in the second half, against the run of play, the Uzbeks snatch an unlikely equalizer. Their two hundred fans do

everything short of ripping the seats off and

Football Under the Rising SunStory by Trevor Kew

Photos by Kujira


Robbed might be the kinder words the Vancouver Whitecaps choose to describe their hopes during the Nutrilite Canadian Championships. All they needed was for Toronto not to beat the Montreal Impact by four goals

in the final game of the series – a huge long shot in the low scoring game of soccer. Instead, the Impact rested seven of their starting

players including their defenders and goal keeper declaring that the game wasn’t important to them. As the Whitecaps sat in the stands anticipating their winning hardware and the opportunity to represent Canada in the CONCACAF Champions League, Toronto flooded the goal. In the end, the scoreboard revealed their worst nightmare:

Toronto 6 – Montreal 1.

$uper Deal for Cristiano Ronaldo

$uperstar champion Cristiano Ronaldo agreed to a world-record, unconditional transfer offer from Manchester United to Real Madrid for 142 million dollars (CAD). The 24 Portuguese winger stirred up controversy with the price tag but FIFA President Sepp Blatter backed

the move on the Real Madrid website. “Cristiano Ronaldo’s signing is good for football. It shows the market of the sport is healthy despite the world financial crisis. This means our product is still good. This is the people’s sport and they need stars. The transfer will cost a lot of money, but it shows that there is still demand for a football star.”

United fans were not too keen when they learned that Madrid had courted Ronaldo last summer and convinced him to leave the following year. Ronaldo told reporters “after we won the European Cup, I thought there is no more I can achieve here. And when you have done all you can, you know it is time for a new challenge. I stayed one more season and it was nice to make it three titles in a row but it was my dream to play for Madrid.”

“Of course, I have not gone for the money. To go down as the greatest. It will take lots of work but that is my target. If you go down as the greatest at Madrid it means you are one of the greatest of all time."

Ronaldo also praised his Red Devils manager Sir Alex Ferguson, who brought him to Old Trafford from Sporting Lisbon in 2003. “I have said many times that it is the relationship a son has with a father. He respects me and I respect him and when one of us is talking, the other one listens. He taught me everything about football and I have never met a man who is so passionate about the game after so many years. In an ideal world, I would like him to be my life coach and for me to never leave him but that is not possible and I just have to continue my journey and hold on to what he has taught me.”

Whitecaps Hopes Turned Upside Down

Photo Credit Gil Gatchalianl

July 2009 free kick 11

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by Heather McLean

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and oil loaf pan

- In bowl combine 1/4 cup ground flax seeds and 1/2 cup water. Let sit. If you have flax seeds combine same amount in blender and blend on high until mixture is gooey and thick.

- In seperate bowl mash 2 1/3 cups bananas (about 5-6 ripe ripe black bananas). Beat in 1/2 cup butter, 3/4 cup brown sugar. Mix until well blended and creamy. Stir in flax mixture and 1 teaspoon vanilla.

- Finally add 2 1/3 cups spelt flour and 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon baking soda. Mix well, but don’t overmix. Lastly stir in 3/4 cup chocolate chips/carob chips and 1/4 cup crushed pecans.

- Pour into loaf pan, spread evenly.

- Bake for 45-60 minutes until done.

- Let sit for 15 minutes before cutting into it.

She makes an excuse to go for a pedicure every time I ask her to come watch me play.Bruce, Langley

My girlfriend thinks she’s a pro player and won’t shave her legs throughout the entire playoff period.Ken, Kelowna

I played soccer with him once and he didn’t pass the ball to me. He said “I play like a girl.”Maria, Scarborough

He told me he couldn’t see me the night before his games because he needs to be alone to prepare for them. Then I saw him out at the pub with his friends doing shooters.Kelly, Brampton

She has a “soccer ball” tattooed on her hip and I don’t even like soccer.Kyle, Vancouver

We interviewed folks about their ‘nightmare’ dating moments. You know those situations, when you are on a date and suddenly the other person says or does something that makes your head swivel, eyes bulge, or sends a shiver of major doubt down your spine. Just for fun, YOU get to be the referee in this scenario. Does this person get a red card, yellow card or would they be a perfect match for your team?


Photo credit ALEXANDRE BATTIBUGLI

Won: ‘98 World Cup in France scoring 2 goals in the final. Zidane was crowned Ballon d’Or (MVP) of the tournament. Afterwards the French showed they know how to throw a party. The Champs was shut down for a parade that surpassed the end of World War II. Apparently everyone called in sick that day to say their great aunt died.

Also won: Euro 2000, 2002 UEFA Champions League with Real Madrid.

FIFA World Cup Player of the Year – 3 times!An American was once overheard saying with a thick southern accent “What country’s FIFA?” Don’t ever ask that question yourself. FIFA stands for Federation International Football Association and it is headquartered in Switzerland. It is the second largest organization in the world behind the Catholic Church. Sepp Blatter is the President.

He is on “Pele’s Choice” for the greatest footballers ever.Pele was a dazzling Brazilian in the 70’s and 80’s known as the greatest player ever. Maradona fans will argue their stocky Argentinean favourite was the best.

At age 17, he played in his first Ligue 1 match with AS Cannes. On Feburary 8th, 1991 he scored his first goal and received a car as a gift from the club president.

In 2000, Zidane tested his first head butt in a Champions League game on Jocher Kientz from Hamburger SV. He liked it so much he would later be expelled a total of 14 times in his career for a variety of infractions.

In France, he is affectionately known as “Zizou.” Around the world, he may be known as the guy who “headbutted” the Italian in the World Cup Final. To soccer fans, he is considered a genius the likes of a Maradona or Pele. In Canada, as he makes his way in charity matches in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, it’s a mix between blank faces requiring explanation and genuine

admiration and gratitude from the converted.

We thought we would help our Soccer 101 nation out with some basic facts about superstar Zinadine Zidane.

Jersey Number: 10

hits for Zidane on Google: 10 x 10,100,000

Born: June 23, 1972 in Marseille

Sign: Cancer (see SoccerScope on page 23)

Position: Attacking Midfielder

Professional Teams: Cannes, Bordeaux, Juventus, Real Madrid

Country: France

Children: 4 boys – Enzo, Luca, Theo and Elyaz.(2 are members of Real Madrid Infantil B Team)

Teammates at Real Madrid in 2003: David Beckham, Luis Figo,Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos

UEFA European Championship 1984: Ball boy

Urban Dictionary: July 29, 2006 Urban Word of the Day: Zidane

To headbutt someone in the chest during a crucial moment. Player 1: Give me the ball. Player 2: No. Player 1: Don't make me go Zidane on you.

Christian Dior:First Male Model

Profile...

In 2001, he was a part of the largest transfer fee in football history at the time, joining Real Madrid for 73.5 million Euros.

In 2005, French center midfield star Eric Cantona kicked a pesky fan in the chest during a Premiership match resulting in the end of his international career. This gave the opportunity for Zidane to take over the playmaking position for Les Bleus. Fans at the Euro Championship in England wore t-shirts with a footprint in the chest saying “I met Eric Cantona.”

In 2006, Zizou was talked out of retirement to lead the French to the World Cup final against Italy. After 110 minutes in overtime during a 1-1 tie, ZZ shocked the world when he rammed his head into Marco Materazzi. The Italian defender immediately flopped onto the ground like he had been hit by a stampeding bull or rocketship and Zizou was sent off with a red card – never to play an official match again.

Surely one of the most remarkable and controversial moments in sports history, the story has been relived over and over via the internet where fans can play numerous video games of Zidane headbutting Materazzi. Lip readers were hired and believed Materazzi had called him “the son of a terrorist whore.” Nearly a year later, it was revealed that the Frenchman annoyed by the pulling of his jersey by the Italian defender said “if you want my shirt I will give it to you afterwards,” which followed the remark, “I prefer your whore of a sister.” Then Bam!

France lost 5 – 3 in overtime penalty kicks.

Today, Zinedine is the Advisor of the President for Real Madrid. He is actively involved in charity matches around the world. He is the Goodwill Ambassador for the UN and is endorsed by many companies including Adidas, France Telecom, Orange, Audi, Volvic and as an action figure with Lego.

Asked why he enjoys coming to Canada, he says its one of the few places he can go where no one recognizes him.

ZIZOU10

Zidane Interview upon arriving in TorontoListen, everyone spoke in English, I will not be able to do it, I will do it in French. I hope that you all will understand. I am charmed to be here. I believe that it is true, as you said, Achène (tour promoter) had come to see me with an aim of having me come here to Canada to make a small tour. And then it is true that is also to promote football. I found the idea sympathetic. He said that it was an insane dream but it is a good thing for me to come to Canada far from Europe. I had already come here on holiday, to spend time with my family. I am happy here to make 3 matches in Canada here in Toronto, in Montreal and to finish in Achene’s town Vancouver.

Precisely why does it interest you to come here to Canada? There is an effervescence of football here recently since Toronto FC. Are you aware of this in Europe?

I think that we realize in Europe that soccer is not the number 1 sport in Canada, but at the same time when one is young, it is. I think it is the most played sport. After when the young players grow up, he turns to another thing because there are other activities to do, other sports more important and soccer becomes less and less. It would be good to change the mentality. If the tour can help to change this and to bring fun, it is my goal and also the goal of Achene.

Do you believe your presence will help young people to be more interested in soccer in Canada?

Yes, even though I have been retired for three years, I hope that young people are inspired by memories of the highlights of my career to which they identify as players themselves. The goal of my visit is to inspire young players and this is what I wish to do with these three matches. Also, it’s a pleasure for my family to spend time here in Canada.


As we are now reminded every time we switch on the TV, the economy has seen better days.

It is only when we turn off the news, and switch over to the soccer, that we see the stands full; the fans decked out in their club kits and their money being handed over the junk food stands left, right and centre.

At this stage of the season (and I’ll try not to call it the ‘business’ end), there is so much at stake that people can’t afford NOT to see their team in action.

But has football really managed to escape the economic crisis?

Well, as the season draws to a close, and with no international tournament to look forward to until next year’s World Cup in South Africa, the players will no doubt head off to Capri or the Costa del Sol for a couple of weeks of sea and sun.

But back home, this promises to be a much tougher summer for the fans, not to mention the clubs. Believe it or not the English Premier League, the most lucrative league in world soccer, could be as badly hit as anywhere else.

According to the Virgin Money Football Fans’ Inflation Index, the cost of going to a single match for an individual in the EPL is now £89.53 (about $135). For a single match!

That cost has gone up by 14% in the last three years and, according to the survey, one response from fans is that only one in four fans will now purchase next season’s kit. With prices varying from £25-40 ($35-60), these are a major earner for EPL teams.

Clubs rely heavily on shirt sales, as well as TV money and player sales, to generate revenue for new signings. And while the rest of the world counted its pennies at the start of 2009, the Premier League clubs seemed almost oblivious to the economic downturn, with teams forking out a record £160M ($240M) on new players in the January transfer window alone.

Thanks to the recession, those levels of spending could become a thing of the past.

As it stands, Premier League clubs each receive at least £30M every season from TV money. Just three seasons ago, that was the amount the champions would receive for winning the competition, giving an indication to the league’s growth in recent years.

But those huge sums could soon disappear, due in part to the financial collapse of Setanta Sports, the Ireland based sports broadcaster. Setanta failed to retain both of its Premier League rights packages beyond 2010. Their main rival Sky has exerted its power, winning five of the six packages of games available.

Though it does not represent a full monopoly, Sky will be in a strong position when the next set of rights becomes available, and with Setanta out of the picture, prices will inevitably be lowered. As a result, prepare to see the EPL clubs rein in spending until the competition for TV rights can be re-ignited.

It is not just the TV companies who have

been affected, though. Newcastle United’s Mike Ashley has shown that even club owners are not immune to the recession, losing half his £1.4bn fortune in the last year alone.

Ashley, the 60th richest man in the UK according to the Sunday Times Rich List, valued the club at £350m last September. He is now reported to be willing to sell for a third of that figure.

The club’s wage bill is currently more than £60m, and for a club that’s on the brink of relegation, and without a meaningful trophy since 1955’s FA Cup, the £120M price tag still seems fairly high.

But relegation could be just the start of Newcastle’s problems, should it come to that. They are no doubt aware what happened to Leeds Utd when they lost their Premier League status, and this season another former EPL team – Southampton – took Leeds’ place in League One. Southampton, along with several other football league teams including Stockport County, also went in to administration.

According to research by John Beech at Coventry University, there have been 68 cases of clubs in English league football becoming insolvent since 1986. It could well become a far more realistic threat than before to many teams over the coming months.

But it is not only in England that the recession is affecting soccer. North of the border, Scottish Premier League side Rangers announced in March that they were offering their staff the option of voluntary redundancy. They also announced that they were willing to listen to offers for any of their players.

And in Spain, where many clubs have been plunged in to the red amid struggles with wage and transfer costs, the Spanish professional soccer league (LFP) has been forced to defend the surging level of debt among its clubs.

A study by Jose Maria Gay, a professor at

the University of Barcelona, warned that Spanish soccer faces financial collapse if clubs continue to spend what they do not have.

“We have to force the clubs, via a supervisory body, to live within their means”, said Gay. “The bubble is being inflated with even larger amounts of air and at some point it’s going to explode.”

Valencia in particular have been under enormous pressure, and stars such as David Silva, Joaquin & David Villa could all be offloaded in the summer to keep the club afloat.

In France, and particularly at Lyon, the situation does not look quite so ominous. In recent weeks, Lyon’s president Jean-Michel Aulas refuted claims that team manager Claude Puel would remain in charge for purely financial reasons:

“The cost of sacking him does not come in to consideration – financial issues do not bother us, since we currently have the best economic structure in French football.”

Major League Soccer, famous for its cautious

financial approach (perhaps Beckham aside), are another of the few leagues bucking the trend. Seattle Sounders FC, the most recent addition to the league, have enjoyed the largest crowds, with Qwest field attracting an average of more than 29,000 fans every home game. In Toronto, there are talks to build additional seats considering there is a seven year waiting list for season tickets

Philadelphia Union will join MLS next season while Portland Timbers and the Vancouver Whitecaps will enrol in 2011. And the early signs are good, with the Whitecaps selling all 5,000 of their first allocated season tickets within 48 hours of going on sale.

MLS commissioner Don Garber, focussed on achieving overall league profitability, remains aware of the potential risks. He used the New York Yankees baseball team as an example of how sports in general are struggling to cope.

“It’s incomprehensible that you watch a game, and there will be front-row seats empty,” said Garber, referring to the highest priced seats remaining empty at the new Yankees stadium.

While this reference was met with a less-than-grateful response from Yankees President Randy Levine (“Hey Don, worry about Beckham, not the Yankees. Even he wants out of your league” - Levine), Garber asserted that “all businesses are experiencing some impact from the economic downturn.”

On a global scale, FIFA president Sepp Blatter agrees. He is worried that while the effects of the recession have not yet hit soccer, we have yet to see the worst.

With the World Cup in South Africa on the horizon, FIFA can expect to make around $3.2bn in TV and marketing revenues over the next year or so. But in the four years until the next World Cup, perhaps we will see what Blatter refers to as the football economy ‘Tsunami.’

“Football has not yet been touched by the first wave,” warns Blatter, “but the second wave will touch football, especially with the sponsorship of club football and sport in general.”

Perhaps this is the calm before the storm.

Football Economyby Michael Oldham

Southhampton 0.1 Leeds Utd 4.14 -5.88%Manchester Utd 10.9 -23% Chelsea FC 1.44 +1.78%

New Castle Utd. 8.22 -12.81% Southhampton 0.1 +0.03% Leeds Utd 4.14 -5.88% Rangers FC 3.05 -8.27% Barcelona FC 4.2


www.scrimmageville.com

Coach’s Corner

During the winter when I was traveling through India, I kept coming across Ayurvedic signs. I even stumbled into

a “World Ayurvedic Conference” with plenty of booths selling magic potions curing everything from arthritis to cancer. Despite all of the pamphlets and experts around me, I didn’t really understand what it all meant and why it was so prevalent in India, yet only remotely visible in my own Western community.

One of the intentions of my trip was to stay in ashrams to meditate, do yoga and to learn from the spiritual culture. I discovered that a number of the yogis actually had PhDs in yoga. I thought seven years of study to teach a downward dog was quite extreme, but it turns out these spiritual seekers were soaking in thousands of years of Vedic Knowledge in places like Benares, Hrishikesh and Varanasi. Their role in life is to keep learning and passing on the energy and teachings of the masters who preceded them.

After meandering through a few books, conversations, lotus postures and amazing Ayurvedic treatments that included massages, cleanses, steam baths and herbs, I felt I had enough information to access and realize how valuable this knowledge

would be to the soccer community. As coaches or teammates, we would all benefit enormously if we understood ourselves and others a bit better via our own true natures, the type of body we live in and the way our personalities are generated to align with our physical makeup. Instead of judging ourselves or others for our differences, our behaviours, our perceived limitations or talents, we would instead learn to see ourselves as a product of Nature and with the particular nature of the body we were given.

I went to see an Ayurvedic doctor in a town called Rishikesh at the foot of the Himalayas. After a friendly hour-long consultation including the measurement of my pulse and a look at my tongue, she described to me in full detail elements of my personality I had never quite thought about, past health conditions I had forgotten about, future health challenges I needed to consider and even my probable death until I cut her short, not wanting to know. Quite frankly, I was amazed and I asked her how she knew all of this information about me and she said “its science, we see it everyday.”

I did six days of treatment like a car going in for an incredible tune up and off I went with three months of herbal treatments and recommendations for my diet and lifestyle.

Talk about preventative medicine.

As coaches stepping into practice with multiple body types and characters, it’s easy for us to lump all players into a mass of similar expectations and challenges without taking note of each individual’s innate disposition. There will be the player who doesn’t like to run or the kid who brings you up to date on every statistic, the striker who cannot sit still or appears not to listen to a thing you said. There will be the player who everyone likes to be around, who organizes the food or team activities and the person who cannot stop screaming about the referee’s miscall. In the Ayurvedic community, they would explain these different scientifically, based on each individual’s body type.

Unfortunately, since soccer is often dominated by an old-school mostly male mentality, and because on a good day men are not oriented toward nurturing and preventive medicine, the connection into eastern philosophy remains obscure to most sports leaders. Similarly, the spiritual community often balks at the mention of sports, especially team activities or physical contact games like soccer, probably due to the conflicted and competitive nature of the activity. Ironically, to its players, soccer is probably one of the most spiritual activities on the planet: it improves fitness, allows us to overcome challenges, inspires sportsmanship, and contributes to social development. So naturally I began to think of a “best of both worlds” scenario where the greatness of Ayurvedic preventive medicine could be combined with the greatness of competitive soccer.

When I returned to Vancouver, I consulted Jeffrey Armstrong, a leading scholar of Yoga philosophy, meditation, Vedic Astrology and Ayurveda and the Director of VASA-The Vedic Academy of Sciences and Arts, to describe some of his findings.

He believes we would all benefit tremendously if we began learning this knowledge of our specific body type from the time we are in kindergarten.

He explained it like this:

Say you owned a Mercedes, took it in to a garage for some repair and maintenance, and said to the mechanic, “Do you repair Mercedes?” If the reply is, “No problem, a car is a car, they’re all the same. They all have engines, tires, wiring, brakes and exhaust,” would you be confident that your expensive car would be fixed properly? Just because cars run on the same principles, are they identical and therefore all repaired, tuned and operated in the same exact way? Or are there different types and models with precise specification, design and performance differences?

The answer, of course, is that there are many kinds of vehicles, each of which must be maintained according to its manufacturing specification. This being so, when was the last time you went to a doctor and were told the exact body type and repair specifications of your unique body? The Western or Allopathic doctor will usually tell you the condition of your body or which part is stressed, diseased, or broken, but will never tell you what model of vehicle you are driving. Like an ignorant car mechanic who treats all cars the same, the modern allopathic doctor will confidently tell you your diagnosis and the recommended medicine to improve your condition, but there are two things they will never tell you: your specific body type and the lifestyle that will be correct for maintaining and improving the condition of your body. This is the reason why modern medicine is not preventive. They are body mechanics who in spite of their skills and considerable learning, do not know how to recognize the make and model of your vehicle.

Of all people, athletes should be the first to take note of this ignorance. Athletes are driving their vehicles the hardest, expecting very high standards of competitive performance and must constantly recuperate from injuries quickly and even small errors or gaps in performance can be the difference between winning and losing. That is why the ancient science of Yoga/Ayurvedic medicine is an absolute necessity for all athletes, because they can’t afford to be ignorant of their body type and the correct technology for fueling, repairing and maintaining their “Mercedes.”

The Sanskrit word “Ayus” means “the life force,” and “Veda” means “knowledge,” so Ayurvedic medicine is the science of cultivating the life force in all that we do. Ayurveda is based on a deceptively simple view of matter that sees five basic elements that are the building blocks of all material reality. These five elements are visible to our unaided senses and so do not require complicated equipment to recognize. The five elements are: Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Space. All organic bodies are made of these five in varying ratios. From those ratios, one can understand the design specifications of each body and how it will function, since each of the five elements functions differently.

Nature is very practical, so these five elements combine to make three basic building blocks for all bodies. Earth and Water combine to make the substance of any body. Fire and Water combine to create the engine of transformation. Space and Air work

together for movement and data transfer. These three are called respectively: Kapha (Earth and Water), Pitta (Fire and Water) and Vata (Air and Space). They are the three formative substances of all bodies, also known as Doshas.

Whichever one of these three Doshas is most abundant will define your primary body type. In modern terms, these create three body types: Endomorph (‘morph’ means body), which is the heavy, curvaceous body, smooth, slow moving, deep sleeper and able to skip breakfast. The second is the Mesomorph or medium build, muscular, hot, impatient, tolerates pain easily, intense, and must eat breakfast. This is the fire type dominated by force, heat and direct intensity. The third is called Ectomorph, which is slender, nervous, a light sleeper, fast in speech and action, high strung, cold in the extremities and irregular and inconstant in habits. The Endomorph is Kapha or Water and Earth. The Mesomorph is Pitta or Fire and Water. The Ectomorph is Vata or Space and Air.

By Nature’s arrangement, the three types expand by combination to ten basic body types, according to the dominant Dosha: Kapha, Pitta, Vata, Kapha/Pitta, Kapha/Vata, Pitta/Kapha, Pitta/Vata, Vata/Kapha and Vata/Pitta. Equal amounts of all three are called tridoshic or Kapha/Pitta/Vata. Once you understand your specific body type, how that body will perform in different climates and when fed various foods and herbs will become clear. This is because food and climate are also simply some combination of the five elements.

Thus, it is possible to tailor an exact regimen of living, eating and healing that matches the precise body type of every individual. This ancient secret is the missing paradigm that supports correct maintenance. Once we know the model of the car in some detail, then the most empowering fuels and ways of living become obvious. There are hundreds of Ayurvedic books in English now to study and understand your body type and dietary needs, as the science of Yoga/Ayurveda is currently being revived. The optimum situation is to have the best of both worlds–the emergency technologies of Allopathic medicine when needed, and the day-to-day wisdom of living properly in our unique vehicle, which is the gift of Ayurveda. In the future, all successful athletes will use both for their high performance needs.

Imagine if you were a high-level coach deciding where to place specific team members in certain situations based on an Ayurvedic model rather than guesses and biases. There are a number of personality observations we already incorporate to increase team performance: he’s fast but lazy; she’s short and feisty but doesn’t concentrate etc. The science of soccer investigates every technical, tactical, physical and psychological edge to gain optimal training and advantages over opponents. However, if we started to understand ourselves specifically through the lens of Vedic Science, our dietary needs would be better adjusted, our relationships with our colleagues would be more effective and our expectations with ourselves and others would be more in line with the exact kind of body in which we are living. This awareness could lead to greater explorations in human achievement, health, social cohesion, relationships and ultimately the enjoyment of the beautiful game we all love. Welcome to the new world of Ayurvedic Soccer.

For more information visit www.JeffreyArmstrong.com

Ayurvedic CoachingThe Science of Life

by Jeffrey Armstrong (Kavindra Rishi) & Carrie Serwetnyk


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SoccerScopes

Which sport do you wish your Boyfriend played?

Aries: Saying ‘my bad’ to traffic cops may help negotiate fines.

Taurus: Organizing the pub crawl for your team will not guarantee playing time on the field.

Gemini: Washing your shirt may erase all those amazing passes and plays you made in previous matches.

Cancer: Diving in the penalty box may lead to a career in entertainment.

Leo: Watching too many international football matches on TV will lead to alterations in your accent.

Virgo: Best to start following soccer so you know what you are talking about once the MLS comes to Vancouver.

Libra: Noogying your teammates may lead to cooties.

Scorpio: Hanging soccer balls on your rearview mirror will inspire winks from admirers during traffic jams.

Sagittarius: Teammates will be impressed with your ability to change your clothes out in the open without prompting neighbours to call the police.

Capricorn: Finding someone to massage your feet after your game will reveal true love.

Aquarius: Belting out your team cheer or "We Will Rock You!" in your car with the windows down will release unwanted body toxins.

Pisces: Working on your creative foot skills will prepare you for auditions to “So You Think You Can Dance.”

free kick24 July 2009

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