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Evenin’ sports fans.

I mentioned my love of Tim Vickery’s column a few posts ago. And I realized I didn’t link it.

Tim Vickery is a football reporter in South America. He writes for the BBC, World Soccer, Sports Illustrated and The World Game – but it is his weekly column on the BBC that I’m starting to become rather addicted to.

If, like me, you are obsessed with football and like to learn as much about football outside of the UK as possible – because lets face it, if you live in the UK, the press don’t care about shit all that happens outside of this country – then Vickery’s column might be for you.

As he likes to point out, South Americans influence so much of what happens in Europe’s major leagues that it is ignorant to ignore their domestic leagues. After all, Brazil and Argentina are constantly where Real Madrid, Barce and the major European clubs look for their next world-beaters. And South America always obliges, sending us phenomenal players every generation. Since the turn of the millennium we’ve had Kaka, Lio Messi, Adriano, Sergio Aguero, Robinho to name just a few – and even more recently the story of Alexandre Pato seems to show a new South American star.

If you’re a fan of the game, why wouldn’t you want to know about a continent that always has, and most likely always will, produce a conveyor belt of quality?

But Vickery doesn’t just comment on the domestic action in Brazil, Argentina or any of the other countries. Nor does he simply report on the Copa Libertadores. He talks the National Teams, and he also explores the South American influence in Europe fairly regularly. In recent times he’s talked about South Americans in the Champions League, he’s talked Fenerbache’s progress this year and also, as I’ve just mentioned, the story of Milan’s new wonderkid Alexandre Pato.

Personally, I’ve been a footballing junkie for about a decade now. I remember staying up on school nights against my parents wishes until 2/3am in the morning to watch River Plate v Boca Juniors on Channel 5 - without a clue who any of the players were - but I left with an introduction to players like Aimar, Riquelme and D’Alessandro who we would later come to see in Europe. Likewise, I would catch as much Brazilian football on Bravo as I could, despite that not kicking off until the early hours of the morning, and that introduced me to Robinho and Luis Fabiano before they came and made waves over in Spain. So Vickery’s writing is of natural interest to me.

He makes some brilliant, insightful points too. I read a piece from him a few weeks ago about players from Argentina/Brazil struggling to adapt in England in particular because the game is simply to fast for the majority of players - and that is why clubs are wary to sign South American starlets. That might sound like a simple statement, but he goes on to quote a South American manager who says that in the Premiership that players will run 20-22km a game and South Americans will run 16-18km a game which might not sound hugely different - but when you think about it it is. Other detailed looks at humidity, infrastructure and culture make this more than a simple look at the continent’s key players.

Sick of seeing 20 articles about the same British stories every day? Well then take a look at Tim Vickery’s column. Links to some recent good reads are below…

• “Zico’s Fenerbache are the surprise package of this year’s Champions League”
• “Veron’s progress in the Copa Libertadores is gripping South American football”
• “Winning away in South America is more much difficult than in Europe”
• “South America has always had a huge influence on the Champions League”
• “Brazil have turned out a conveyor belt of top class defenders”
• “AC Milan teenager Alexandre Pato has been touched by the hand of genius”

EDIT - A link to an interview with Tim Vickery, all about his introduction to South American football. If you like the column it makes for a good read.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 1:51 pm and is filed under Football, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.