The Warm-Up: De Boer's big talk, Dioufy strikes again
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Published 27/06/2017 at 07:33 GMT
Also: Dioufy is back, some sensational play-acting and can you believe it's been a whole year...?
Former Dutch international great Frank de Boer poses as he is unveiled as the new manager of Crystal Palace
Image credit: Getty Images
TUESDAY’S BIG STORIES
Frank de Boer arrives at Crystal Palace with some big talk
After weeks of messing about, seeing other targets go to dispiritingly similar clubs and fiddling with a 37-name long ‘short’-list, Crystal Palace finally have a new manager, and his name is Frank de Boer.
De Boer, whose last gig was trying to make sense of the absolutely flaming bin that is Inter, arrives in south London presumably wondering about the fairness of the universe: after all, he won four titles with Ajax and ends up here, while Peter Bosz didn’t even win the league in Amsterdam and is now Borussia Dortmund manager.
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Frank de Boer and Steve Parish during a press conference at Beckenham training ground on June 26, 2017
Image credit: Getty Images
Still, he arrived making some big promises. Sort of. “I want a team where the fans are excited to come to our games, to see a team that wants to win and wants to fight for every minute,” De Boer said. “ That’s always the starting point for me. [At Ajax] it’s also in our DNA to try and play technical football and dominate. When you do that and do that well it’s a plus, it’s attractive and it looks nice.”
So there we have it: De Boer promises Palace will play like Ajax. Well, he sort of did. Not really.
Of course the biggest news is that Frank and his brother Ronald have separated on Twitter. Previously they had an odd, sort of Bert & Ernie style joint account, but now he has spread his wings and flown free.
England to face Germany…oh no
Even at junior level, whenever England face Germany in any sort of football it provokes excitement and dread in equal measures, from English fans.
But ahead of their game in the semi-final of the Euro Under-21s Championships this evening, England are in the curious position of perhaps being slight favourites. Or at least not complete lambs to the slaughter. Which is basically the same thing.
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England's head coach Adrian Boothroyd (C) stands with players before the UEFA U-21 European Championship Group A football match Sweden v England in Kielce, Poland on June 16, 2017.
Image credit: Eurosport
“Development isn’t just about getting out of the group, achieving par by playing in a semi-final,” said England coach Aidy ‘Betty’ Boothroyd. “We don’t see everything now as a bonus. We haven’t achieved what we set out to do. It’s not OK because we got out of the group, we set out to get our players used to winning tournaments. We are not tourists when we get here, we are here to win it. It’s not about enjoying the experience, it’s about winning.”
Big talk. But will these England kids melt like a Cornetto in the sunshine when faced with Germany, as basically everyone else has ever done when it comes to major tournaments?
El-Hadji Diouf picks at an old scar
Remember El-Hadji Diouf? Of course you do. And even if you didn’t, he’s making sure that you don’t forget even now he’s retired, by doing exactly what he did during his playing career: specifically, be a professional irritant.
And specifically, he’s trying to irritate his favourite subject, Steven Gerrard. Why? Well, that’s not really clear, but it’s not our job to wonder why, just to enjoy a man still being so spectacularly petty about someone he last worked with 13 years ago.
Take it away, Dioufy:
I have no problem with him. He [Gerrard] is a strong character and I am a strong character. ‘Stevie G’ was a very good player. People like him in Liverpool but he never did anything for his country. I am Mr El Hadji Diouf, Mr Senegal but he is Mr Liverpool and Senegal is bigger than Liverpool and he has to know that.
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El Hadji-Diouf has reopened his feud with former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard.
Image credit: PA Sport
You can’t fault the logic. But by the same token Kazakhstan is bigger than Senegal, so their record caps holder Samat Smakov must be Mr Kazakhstan, and thus better than Dioufy.
Of course, Diouf wasn’t nearly finished: “We put Senegal on the world map,” he said. “Before the World Cup nobody knew Senegal, but after the World Cup everybody wanted to know where Senegal was. What Maradona did for his country is what I did for Senegal. I was one of the biggest men at the 2002 World Cup.”
We would say we miss him, but we really don’t.
IN OTHER NEWS
Villa owner takes on a journalist
If you’re on Twitter and not following Aston Villa owner Dr Tony Xia, sort that out right now. Here he is throwing insults at a journalist who wrote something he didn’t like. What’s not to enjoy?
HEROES AND VILLAINS
Heroes: the Aubameyangs
It must be tricky for families of footballers to spend time with their loved ones, so they should take every chance they can. Like Pierre Emerick Aubameyang did, when in visiting Paris he appeared in a friendly for Paris FC with his dad, Pierre Aubane. And it went rather well: their team won 12-1, thanks in part to six goals from Aubameyang Jnr.
Villain: Lucas Fonseca
Come on mate, at least make an effort.
HAT TIP
There are nuances, but essentially a brand-new team – the Vegas Golden Knights – was conjured from thin air and added to the league. Not to replace another team, either: the league just went from 30 members to 31. And to form a squad, the newbies were allowed to simply pick one player from each of their competitors. Clearly, this would be absolutely unthinkable in football. OR WOULD IT? Join me, ladies and gentlemen, in extending a warm welcome to the Premier League’s newest force, the Cornwall Cavaliers…
Not entirely sure what’s going on here, but the Warm-Up’s own Jack Lang has written something long and complicated, about an imagined scenario in which another team is added to the Premier League. Stick with it.
RETRO CORNER
Is a year ago ‘retro’? Well, loads of stuff has happened in the last 12 months so let’s call it retro. Enjoy Steve McClaren talking us through how well England dealt with conceding a goal to Icela…oh. Oh that’s right.
COMING UP
It’s the big one, as the European Under-21s reach the semi-final stage, where England face their bete noire, their old foe, their team that always beats them in some sort of calamitous fashion – yes, it’s Germany. The other semi-final sees Spain face Italy, so these should genuinely be a couple of smashers.
Tomorrow’s Warm-Up will be brought to you by Alex Chick, who’s responded perfectly to going a goal down, no danger of….oh.
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