DONE and dusted. The 2014/2015 English Premier League football season I mean, and for many Malaysians, always a period where some degree of planning for their weekend nights is necessary, every year from August to the last match played at the end of May the following year.
Whether or not Chelsea parked a bus in front of their goal in every of their matches matters no more. They will start the next season as champions, their sometimes aloof Portuguese manager, Jose Mourinho, having achieved what he set out to do in his second spell at the London club, perhaps by adhering to that age old “the end justifies the means” strategy. Their detractors aside, and from a neutral point of view, I did enjoy watching Chelsea’s Belgian midfielder Edin Hazard and striker, Diego Costa, wreak havoc inside their opponents’ six-yard area throughout the just-concluded season.
Liverpool’s otherwise towering captain, Steven Gerrard, meanwhile, proved that one may not always be able to leave while at the top. Gerrard’s last match for the tradition-filled club was also one he may want to forget before crossing the Atlantic to probably end his playing career in the American Major League Soccer. Liverpool was trashed 1-6 by an always stubborn Stoke City side on Sunday, leaving their diehard fans having to continue assuring themselves that they will never walk alone, while perhaps reminiscing the long gone golden era of the club’s most successful manager, Bob Paisley.
Manchester City, who lost the crown they won last year, looked a tired team as their strike force of Sergio Aguero, Yaya Toure and David Silva became somewhat predictable and offered nothing new to keep the title at the Etihad Stadium. Across town, arch rivals Manchester United continued to live in their “Theatre of Dreams” as filling the gaping hole left by the retirement of influential former boss Sir Alex Ferguson two seasons ago remained a work-in-progress. United’s present manager, Dutchman Louis Van Gaal, is expected to bring in new players to the Old Trafford stadium during the summer.
In another part of London, Arsenal will continue chasing the elusive title next season, after ending at a somewhat respectable third spot. Still a far cry from the days of French sharpshooter Thierry Henry, his fellow countryman Robert Pires and Dutch striker Dennis Bergkamp, Arsenal, too, may shop for new players in summer. They now wait for this weekend’s FA Cup final against Birmingham-based club, Aston Villa, to possibly end the season with at least a silverware and what little bragging rights there is left. Elsewhere, Geordie club, Newcastle United, was saved from relegation by the skin of their teeth with a victory at St James’s Park against West Ham United on Sunday.
Next season, Malaysians will not be watching Queens Park Rangers, Burnley and Hull play on television. The three teams were just simply not good enough to stay in the much revered Premier League and will have to work their way up again from the Championship league (it used to be called Second Division) next season. Three Championship league teams, Bournemouth, Watford and Norwich, will take their places to play with the best in the Premier League next season.
With the season having ended, save for this weekend’s FA Cup final, Malaysian fans of the English Premier League (there is an abundance of them) will have “empty” weekend nights as far as football is concerned until mid-August when the new season starts and rivalries are renewed. I first watched English football in the Star Soccer television programme aired many years ago from reading the Shoot! magazine. I counted myself then as a fan of the Yorkshire-based Leeds United, never mind the fact that I only read about them in the sports pages of this newspaper.
When they played Bayern Munich in the 1975 European Cup final, I thought Leeds was the best team in the world although beating the Munich-based team would not have been easy, as few who formed the backbone of the victorious then West Germany squad at the World Cup a year earlier were playing for Bayern. They included goalkeeper Sepp Maier, Franz Beckenbauer, Uli Hoeness and Gerd Muller. But Leeds had fighters on their side, too, including captain Billy Bremner, Norman Hunter, Terry Yorath, Alan Clarke, Peter Lorimer and, arguably the best header of the ball during his time, the Scot Joe Jordan. Bayern won what was for many years considered a “controversial” match 2-0. Though Leeds United lost, it became my personal ambition then to watch them play live, a dream fulfilled two decades ago when I watched them at their home ground, the Elland Road stadium. But the team never recovered and is now languishing at the bottom half of the Championship table.