Cardiff City vs. Manchester City: Crouching Bluebird, Hidden Wolverine

The whole off-season narrative about Cardiff City has been one of its placement in the animal kingdom.  Are they bluebirds?  Are they dragons?  After last week's performance against West Ham United, I thought maybe they were deer in headlights.  Well it's time to put this discussion to rest, so let me settle the debate once and for all.  

Cardiff City are wolverines.

Not just any wolverines.  They are a pack of eleven man-sized wolverines that have not eaten or seen lady wolverines for a very long time.  And on Sunday, Manchester City were a pack of eleven hot lady wolverines wearing low-cut dresses made out of raw steak.

Cardiff City 3 - Manchester City 2

• Dzeko (MCI) 52'
• Gunnarson (CAR) 59'
• Campbell (CAR) 78'
• Campbell (CAR) 86'
• Negredo (MCI) 90'+1'

Please excuse my earlier graphic bestial hyperbole, I'm saving the "Rocky single-handedly defeats the Soviet Union" analogy for the even more unlikely event that Cardiff City bests Manchester United.

Come on, Mark.  Winning 3-2 is hardly anything to go nuts over, right?  Wrong!  Cardiff City were supposed to get obliterated by Manchester City.  In Week 1, the Citizens spanked Newcastle United 4-0.  And after the Bluebirds lost to the Hammers 0-2, there was no reason to think that Manchester City would win by anything less than 7-0.  

So after 86 minutes, when the Bluebirds..excuse me...the Wolverines found themselves up 3-1 you'd be in your rights to think you weren't tuned into the correct channel.  But it was all very real.

The Cardiff City that showed up on Sunday were awake and scrappy.  I saw for the first time the great defense that I had read helped them win the Tier 2 championship last season.  The announcers said Cardiff looked "compact and organized".  I thought they looked like men possessed.  

I noticed a few things this match.  First, while I found out afterwards that Manchester City won the possession battle, I never once felt like that was the case during the match.  Yes, I saw that Manchester City had the ball and were largely living in Cardiff City's 1/3 of the field, but at the same time Cardiff City's defense seemed to have everything under control and left Manchester City's offense dazed and confused.  

Second, instead of clearing the ball from their side to the complete opposite side, I saw Cardiff City's defense execute controlled passing of the ball up the field.  They didn't attack as often as Manchester City, but it felt like they were methodically testing Manchester City's defense.  To be fair, the three goals Cardiff City scored weren't ESPN highlight reel material, but they were definitely well-earned cases of capitalizing on Manchester City mistakes.

Third, I noticed how awesome the Cardiff City fans were.  There was a point where Manchester City was in the lead by one goal, but the fans never dropped their energy.  With every goal they absolutely lost their minds and I loved when they taunted Manchester City with the "poznan", Manchester City's own goal celebration.  It would be sort of like the Red Sox having "Sweet Caroline" sung at them after some supposed D-list team just hit their third grand slam of the evening over the Monster.  Gracious winners, the Bluebirds' fans are not.  But they are funny bastards.

Lastly, I noticed the managers for the first time.  Cardiff City's manager, Malky Mackay, was in his seat for a total of two minutes.  For the other ninety-whatever minutes he was on the sideline, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, sweating, and screaming his brains out.  Mackay took every break in the action as an opportunity to actually, you know, manage his team.  In contrast, Manchester City's manager, Manuel Pellegrini, was seated right up until his team was losing 3-1.  I don't recall him talking to any of his team.  He looked like a smug and somewhat bored professor.  Honestly, I couldn't even tell if he cared when he found out his team had lost.  

So how did Cardiff City achieve this mammoth upset?  I think there were three reasons:

• They played hard every single minute of that match and did not even blink when they were down 1-0 to far superior (on paper at least) opponents.
• They fought for the ball every second, and were ready to capitalize on Manchester City's mistakes.
• They had forward Fraizer Campbell in fear of his position on the team.  One of Cardiff City's star signings in the Transfer Window was forward Andreas Cornelius.  The only reason Cornelius wasn't in Campbell's role against West Ham United and this week against Manchester City was due to an ankle injury received during a friendly off-season match.  Campbell played like a man with something to prove, and he did so.  The picture below is Campbell flying through the air and scoring the second of his two goals.

(Image Credit:  www.theague.com.au)

Amazing win for Cardiff City, and they have officially given notice to the rest of the Premier League that they will not be pushovers.  The Bluebirds are now at 1 win, 0 draws, 1 loss.  The table below captures the full Premier League standings as of 08/27/13.  The table columns are:  Club Name, Matches Played (Pld), and Match Points (Pts).

Speaking of standings, my Fantasy Premier League squad, the Cardiff'rent Strokes have just finished their second gameweek as well.  How have they fared?  Pretty terribly, to be honest.  We're currently ranked 2,088,815th out of about 2,770,000.  Here are the Bad News Bears themselves (as of end of gameweek 2):

• Goalkeepers - Hart (MCI), Davis (SOU)
• Defenders - Baines (EVE), Reid (WHU), Evra (MUN), Turner (CAR), Baker (AVL)
• Midfielders - Santi Cazorla (ARS), Bellamy (CAR), Colback (SUN), Mata (CHE), Kagawa (MUN)
• Forwards - Berbatov (FUL), Lambert (SOU), Benteke (AVL)

And here they are in my starting 11 for gameweek 2:

The numbers beneath each player's name is how many fantasy points they've earned this past week.  To put things in perspective, after two weeks I have amassed a total of 88 points.  The guy in first place has 191 points.  Yeah I stink at this, but I'm learning.  Lesson one...purchase players that actually play.  I'm looking at you Mata and Kagawa!

I won't bore you all with too much Fantasy Sports nonsense.  But I do have one goal of which I'll keep you updated.  At the end of gameweek 17, the top 2,097,152 players (of which I am narrowly a member) enter the official knockout tournament phase.  Beginning in gameweek 18, those players will be randomly paired in head-to-head competition for points that week.  Winners move on, losers are knocked out.  If you win the whole thing, there's a free trip to England and several Premier League tickets in it for you.  I don't have any illusion that I can win the tournament, but my goal is to do well enough to be entered and win my first round.  Stay tuned! 

Cardiff City's next game is a non-Premier League match against Accrington Stanley on August 28th (don't ask, it's another side tournament that the biggest Premier League teams only sort of try to win).  The next Premier League match is again at home against Everton on August 31st.

Thank you as always for reading Dragon and Bluebird!  You can find me on Twitter as well, @dragon_bluebird.

West Ham United vs. Cardiff City: Hammered

A few years ago, my wife and I started running 5k races.  For the most part, they're community fun runs where you see a complete mixed bag of "athletes" and no one takes the race too seriously.  Last year, we went to Cape Cod and competed in our first triathlon.  I remember commenting to my wife, as we set up our bike station, "Um...everyone here looks like they're in really good shape."  I also remember thinking I probably should have painted some abs and pecs onto my wet suit.

A little while later, as we stood waiting at the edge of the water, I had the same two thoughts that every first time triathlete has...A) this was a horrible idea and B) I probably should have trained harder.  The horn went off and for the next ninety minutes I pushed my body harder than ever before in my life.  It was ugly, pretty much everyone passed me, I didn't win anything, but dammit I finished.  

My first triathlon experience was pretty similar to that of Cardiff City this past Saturday in their Premier League debut.  Ninety minutes of wheezing, sweating, and wondering what the hell you're doing here as eleven other guys who have CLEARLY done this before run circles around you.

West Ham United 2 - Cardiff City 0

• Cole (WHU) 13'
• Nolan (WHU) 76'

Yes, the Hammers shut out the Bluebirds.  But it's not all bad news.  Cardiff City was the underdog in this match and they walked away without getting beaten too badly (more in a moment on why that's relevant).  They also got a much needed wake-up call as to the level of competition they'll be facing every single week in the Premier League.  The press described the Bluebirds performance this weekend as "tepid" and "uninspired".  Why don't we stay postive and call the experience "educational".

Much like Cardiff City, Saturday was also my first Premier League experience.  I won't call it exciting, but it was definitely interesting.  The best part by far was Joe Cole's insane 180 degree "I don't even need to be facing the net" goal.  I mean seriously, it was like watching Shaolin Soccer.

(Image Credit:  London Evening Standard)

And in contrast, the absolute worst part of the match was watching Kevin Nolan's goal celebration.  I've seen some awful taunts in my day, most of which involved indecent exposure or emulation of lewd sex acts.  But doing the Funky Chicken...that's just too much.

Kevin Nolan in the 2012/13 season (Image Credit:  www.itv.com)

A few more observations from my first Premier League match:

• Watching a non-DVR'd, commercial-free sporting event for 90+ minutes was very pleasant.
• The fans shout chants or sing through the entire match.  It kind of fades into the background the longer you watch, but it was noticeably different from the song clips played at American sporting events.
• Free kicks were oddly enjoyable and I found myself wishing there were more.

Overall, a decent first experience.  My wife watched parts of the match with me and I asked her what she thought.  She said, "It's a little boring."  I don't disagree.  I was left with the general feeling that I just watched twenty two guys hauling ass up and down the pitch, in near constant motion, but not much actually happened.  Here's hoping that the more I watch the more I'll appreciate the frantic inactivity.

The table below captures the full Premier League standings as of 08/20/13.  The table columns are:  Club Name, Matches Played (Pld), and Match Points (Pts).

I mentioned earlier that one positive of Saturday's match was that Cardiff City didn't get beat too badly.  As you can see the teams on the "relegation watch" list are Hull City, Swansea City, and Newcastle United.  In the interest of full disclosure, Cardiff City and Hull City are technically tied for 17th place, both having a Goal Diffferential (GD) of -2.  Swansea City have a GD of -3 and Newcastle United got pummeled by Manchester City resulting in a GD of -4.  

Speaking of Manchester City, they will be Cardiff City's opponents in the home opener at Cardiff City Stadium this week on 08/25.

You can catch the match in one of two ways:

• Delayed broadcast on Comcast On-Demand.  Go to On-Demand > Sports and Fitness > Premier League > Match Replays.  You'll see the match listed (Might be an hour delayed from actual match start time).
• Stream the match live on iPhone or iPad by downloading the NBC Sports Live Extra app from iTunes (it's free, but you'll need to know your cable provider-provided Username and Password).

Next week I'm going to breakdown the hot mess that is my fantasy team.  Special thanks to Professor Kevin Fitzpatrick (scholar and gentleman) for putting me through a clinic after I came in dead last this past week in our Fantasy Premier League.

Thank you as always for reading Dragon and Bluebird!  You can find me on Twitter as well, @dragon_bluebird.

Off-season Reflection

It's hard to believe that I've been writing this blog for over two months.  To those of you who have been reading Dragon and Bluebird and providing encouragement, or at least bemused indulgence, thank you so much!  This week marks the end of the Premier League off-season and it is time for the first of three gut checks for me.  

<Looks down at stomach>  Yep, I still have a gut.  Check.  Wokka wokka wokka.

I started this blog with the fundamental question of, "Can an average American learn to like professional soccer if they commit to following one club for an entire season?"  The Bluebirds' first league match is this coming Saturday, so I'll hold my comments on how much I like or dislike actually watching the sport for the moment.  I will however share with you the opinions I've formed on the Premier League itself.  

First the bad news

I think it's lame that the Premier League has no playoffs.  Yes, I understand that having a double round robin season gives you a pretty darn good idea how strong each club is relative to the others.  But there's something (just had to delete "un-American", trying not to be a lout about this) missing without playoffs and a final championship.  

There are 38 matches in the Premier League season, and I don't question that the players get fired up for each one.  But meeting a team in the regular season just   seems like "all in a day's work".  The addition of a "do or die" single elimination tournament post-season makes a good sport a great sport.  Case closed.

Another thing that I don't like is the unlimited club spending on players.  There isn't even a token attempt at achieving league parity through drafts, salary caps, or luxury taxes.  The result of this is that a "good season" for most Premier League clubs is a top 50% finish.  And for the bottom six or seven clubs, success is defined as not being the worst  club (i.e. 18th place or lower).  I prefer leagues where every team at least conceptually could come in first place.

The last item I want to rant about at this time is the animosity expressed by the fans.  I'm told that in terms of physical violence, English football today is infinitely more tame than in the 80s.  Be that as it may, apparently all that aggression gets channeled now into internet comments.  I'm not being a wuss, I just think that the level of uncivil discourse that goes on between Premier League fans is best suited for prison showers.  But if your cup of tea is dropping the "c word" at least five times per comment thread, then cheers mate!

Now the good news

There are without question things that I've found to like in the Premier League.  I think the promotion and relegation concept is novel and exciting.  It improves the overall quality of matches within the league, gives lower tier clubs a goal for which to strive, and creates interesting storylines in the last few weeks of the regular season.  I think introducing promotion and relegation into MLB would inject some much needed energy into "America's Pastime".

Another thing that I really like is the international feel of Premier League.  Yes, all American major league sports have players from across the globe.  But there's something interesting about these players coming from legitimate, comparable leagues in their home countries.  I like the feeling that I'm seeing the best players in the world in a sport that the rest of the world actually plays.  And there have been a few instances already where I've learned something about countries other than Wales while doing research for this blog. 

The last item I want to mention that I genuinely like is the passion of the fans.  Earlier, I dinged Premier League fans for being internet trolls; that's unfair and too broad of a brushstroke.  I'm severely impressed by the level of passion that these fans have for their clubs.  These people don't just wear the club jersey on gameday, they live for their clubs.  It shows when they hang on every ounce of transfer rumor and when they go to the mats at the slightest hint of affront to their club's quality.  And clearly NBC recognizes this as the sport's greatest selling point; it's the focus of all their commercials for the upcoming season.  

I should also mention that I think the fans can be hilarious.  This week Cardiff City signed Gary Medel, a midfielder from La Liga (Spain's equivalent to Premier League).  Depending on who you ask, Medel is either a "robust mid-field general" or an "artless thug".  Immediately upon signing, Twitter lit up with #garymedelfacts...a Chuck Norris-inspired set of hyperbolic claims about Gary Medel.  Some notable examples:

• He can eat soup with a fork
• He once punched a horse in the jaw, this is how giraffes were created
• He once strangled a man...with a cordless phone
• He fell off a plastic chair and got so angry he destroyed it with just his foot...he now has a vendetta against all chairs

Bottom line, do I like professional soccer yet?  Ehhhhhh.  Let's say that I like it enough to be excited to watch the season opener.  That in of itself is an enormous step forward.  There is no question, I am definitely invested in Cardiff City as a club and would be bummed if they got relegated at the end of the season.  But I won't lie to you and say I "like" soccer just yet, so stay tuned for my mid-season and end of season gut checks to see if I become a convert.  

As part of that journey, my good friend Tony suggested to me that if I really want to get into Premier League, I should join their official fantasy game.  I took him up on his advice and it's actually pretty cool.  So one of my regular features going forward will be updates on my squad, the "Cardiff'rent Strokes".

That concludes my off-season posts.  Cardiff City's first match is against West Ham United on Saturday, August 17th.  My regular season posts will keep you up to date on the club's results, league standings, my fantasy club progress, and interesting bits of soccer and British culture.

Thanks for reading and see you next week!

Team

Last season, Cardiff City secured the Tier 2 championship by a comfortable eight point margin.  But now that they're in the Premier League, will the same style of play and personnel be enough to survive relegation?  Let's take a look at some statistics from 2012/13 to get a sense of how they won the championship and what to expect from the Bluebirds in the upcoming season.  

2012/13 high-level season stats:

• 46 matches played (25 wins, 12 draws, 9 losses)
• 72 goals fielded, 45 goals allowed
• 1.57 average goals fielded/match
• 0.98 average goals alllowed/match

These stats didn't tell me too much, so I dug a little deeper and found myself thoroughly confused.  When compared to the other twenty three clubs they played in Tier 2:

• Cardiff City did not field the most overall goals (that was Watford with 85)
• Cardiff City did not allow the fewest overall goals (that was Brighton and Hove Albion with 43)
• Cardiff City did not have any player score more than 8 goals (Crystal Palace had best with 30)
• Cardiff City did not have any player in the Tier 2 top twenty goal scorers
• Cardiff City did not have any player in the Tier 2 top twenty for assists

Ok...so how the heck did the Bluebirds end up winning the Tier 2 championship?  Well there are three stats that I found that I believe help explain the situation:

• Cardiff City had the most "clean sheets" (i.e. opponent shutouts) at 18 times (39% of matches)
• Cardiff City had the highest goal differential (i.e. goals fielded minus goals allowed) at +27
• Cardiff City had a well-distributed set of 17 different goal scorers

That last bullet might need some explanation.  Cardiff City's two highest scoring players fielded only 16 of the club's 72 goals (i.e. 22%).  In contrast, Watford's and Crystal Palace's two highest scoring players fielded 42% and 50% of their respective club's goals.  To be blunt, Cardiff City has no scoring stars, but they do have a lot of potential threats.

Phew, ok enough with the statistics.  My takeaway from all this is that Cardiff City won the Tier 2 championship because they frequently shut out their opponents, they beat their opponents by high margins, they lost to their opponents by low margins, and they had a large number of potential goal scorers instead of one or two stars.  Feel free to throw eggs at this amateur analysis, it's worth what you paid for it.

Next let's look at the projected 2013/14 roster based on the 2012/13 roster and known player acquisitions from the transfer window.  A quick note about soccer positions and formations before we get started.  I'm not yet invested enough in soccer to care about specific positions, but broadly speaking you have:  Goalkeepers, Defenders, Midfielders, and Forwards.  You can shift the number of players in each role into different formations, as long as you have only one Goalkeeper and a total of eleven players.  

Last season, Cardiff City used a 4-4-2 formation roughly 70% of the time.  That means 4 Defenders, 4 Midfielders, and 2 Forwards.  The Goalkeeper is not mentioned in this notation, since you have one and only one no matter how you arrange the rest of the team.  For the sake of discussion, I'm going to assume Cardiff City will continue to predominantly use the 4-4-2 formation.

Below is my projected 2013/14 starting eleven for Cardiff City, and the substitute players that will see the most play time.  The new transfers are in bold, and I've indicated in parentheses any players with prior Premier League experience.

Goalkeeper:

1.  David Marshall

Defenders:

2.  Andrew Taylor (three seasons)

3.  Matthew Connolly (three seasons)

4.  Mark Hudson

5.  Steven Caulker (two seasons)

Midfielders:

6.  Peter Whittingham (one season)

7.  Aron Gunnarsson

8.  Craig Noone

9.  Kim Bo-Kyung

Forwards:

10.  Craig Bellamy (five seasons)

11.  Andreas Cornelius

Substitutes:

12.  Kevin McNaughton (Defender)

13.  Jordon Mutch (Midfielder, two seasons)

14.  Craig Conway (Midfielder)

15.  Tommy Smith (Forward, three seasons)

16.  Ben Turner (Defender)

17.  John Brayford (Defender)

18.  Simon Moore (Goalkeeper)

I've only listed Simon Moore in the Substitute list for completeness.  He's going to be either the first or second backup goalkeeper for Cardiff City.  But last season, the Bluebirds' starting goalkeeper David Marshall played every minute of every league game.  So unless Marshall gets hurt, Simon Moore will be riding the bench all season.

Of the four new additions, Andreas Cornelius is the most promising.  He was the leading goal scorer in the Danish Football Association.  You can make of that what you will, but Cornelius did score eighteen goals last season, which is ten more than anyone on Cardiff City scored so that's got to be a plus.

The transfer window is open until August 31st, and there are still several players who Cardiff City is actively pursuing.  The most widely-reported of these are:

• Peter Odemwingie (Forward, West  Bromwich Albion) - replace or sub for Bellamy
• Tom Huddlestone (Midfielder, Tottenham Hotspur) - replace or sub for Gunnarsson or Kim
• Jefferson Montero (Midfielder, Mexico) - replace or sub for Gunnarsson or Kim
• Etienne Capoue (Midfielder, France) - replace or sub for Gunnarsson or Kim
• Hector Moreno (Defender, Mexico) - replace or sub for Connolly or Taylor
• Anthony Reveillere (Defender, France) - replace or sub for Connolly or Taylor

It's very difficult as a new follower of soccer to assess how Cardiff City's current roster will fare in the Premier League.  From everything that I've read, it seems like the club is decent enough to survive relegation from a defensive perpsective.  But this season will be long slog for every point unless the Bluebirds pick up some higher-quality scoring Midfielders and perhaps a true star Forward.

Next week will be my final post of the off-season.  I'll be doing a gut check as to where I'm at in terms of actually enjoying professional soccer.

Thanks as always for reading, and see you next week on Dragon and Bluebird!