Is Milan cursed?

Milan is inside every target they set in the beginning of the year. They are 1 point behind Udinese who sit on the top of Campionato. They are also qualified on the Top 16 in Champion's League 2 points behind Barcelona and with a home game against last year's winners.

However, despite their performance on the pitch they are various reasons so far this season not to be happy in Milanello. It was firstly Gennaro Gattuzo who had a serious eye injury which threatened his career. He remained two months out of training but now he is back and participated today in his first training after his eye injury. Gattuzo in his 13th season in Milan will become 34 this January. He started his career in Perugia passing from Rangers and Salerno before joining the Italian Champions.

Then it was "Tonio", Antonio Cassano aged 29, who had health problems but now recovers from a heart surgery a few days ago. Cassano was transfered from Sampdoria last January for €1,7 mil. He started his career from Bari in 1999 and then played for Roma before joining Real Madrid. Our wishes are with Tonio and we wish him a quick comeback to football without any further health issues.

The 3rd reason not letting Milan to concentrate on their following obligations is Cavaliere. Silvio Berlusconi, the 3rd richest Italian according to Forbes, among other businesses is the owner of A.C. Milan. He was forced to resign as Italy's Prime Minister as he lost the majority in the Italian Parliament. He is a very active but in the same time controversial person. He is accused for sex scandals and also criticised for keeping his assets in Mediaset, the largest broadcasting company in the country, while being Prime Minister. Despite his political problems he still remains loyal to his team. 

So far Milan proves to separate their performance to the problems they face off the pitch. It seems that Milan is still concentrated on its targets. It remains to see if they can continue on this rythm. What a better game to show its strength, against Barcelona next week for Champions League. Let's enjoy the game. 

Manchester divided!

This is the time for the big game in Manchester. Manchester United faces Manchester City. Unlike past years, Manchester City leads the championship, 2 points ahead of United. Ready to benefit from a possible draw is Chelsea facing QPR away.

American owners of United meet their Qatari counterparts in a game where Carlos Tevez will not perform as he is banned from his team, following his refusal to play as a second-half substitute in the game against Bayern last month for the Champions League. Earlier this week Sir Alex Ferguson (25 years United's Coach) agreed with Roberto Mancini's (2 years in City's bench) handling on Carlos Tevez issue. Ferguson had similar problems with Tevez while he performed for United.


Manchester United surpassed last year Liverpool in League titles with 19 against 18. Manchester City on the other side won their last League title in 1968! Are they capable of becoming English Champions after 44 years? We should wait until May but before that we will watch the Manchester derby and see if the investment from City's owners is capable for the win against City.

This season began with a 3-2 win for United against City for the Community Shield, a revenge for last year's defeat in the FA Cup. In 160 games United has 67 wins against City, 24 more than their counterparts, when 50 games ended without a winner.

For another transfer market, City invested heavily in buying players with the amount passing €92 mil. much less than the previous 3 years when on average they spent €162 mil. On the other side United bought mainly young players worth €57 mil. one of them being De Gea, Van der Sar's replacement.

Both teams have very talented players. Especially this season Kun Aguero and Wayne Rooney have a very good start of the season with the Argentianian scoring 8 goals in 7 games and Rooney 9 goals in 7 games. Aguero shows on the pitch the reason why City spent €45 mil. this summer to take him from Atletico de Madrid. But is he able to score tonight in his first Premier League Derby against United and help City win again in Old Trafford after 2008? We will found out in a couple of hours. Until then we will stay tuned for this big game.

Football against Crisis

I am back to share my thoughts on football and it's relationship with Economic Crisis.

There are a lot of debates in Europe for Greece's rescue plan and for the terms that will help both Greece and Europe breathe normally.

Of course economic problems play an important factor in people's lives but it is not the end of the world. Greece will survive and we should prepare for the next step. 

Football offers a good reason to forget for a couple of hours all the problems we face and celebrate, in case of win. 

Last week was the moment for Greek people to celebrate the win of the football national team against Georgia and the qualification to the 2012 European Championship, for 3rd consequtive time, in Poland and Ukraine.

Greek citizens do not anticipate to win the Championship again, after 2004 in Portugal, but it is a good reason to dream. Dream that Greece will survive and do the unbelievable once more. In 2004 we had Otto Rehagel, a German coach, now we have ... Angela Mergel with Nickola Sarkozy .

Does Greece need a German to survive? 

History will show if the decisions made today will have the possitive effect.

Until then let's forget crisis with football, let's dream the unbelievable.

Porto ... An example to follow

Despite the drought in football economics, Porto is providing an outstanding business model in the football industry. They buy players in low prices and sell them in a much higher price.
However this is also the case for Porto's coaches.
A few weeks ago Villas Boas went from Porto to Chelsea for 13,6 million pounds. Villas boas became thus the coach for the highest transfer fee ever paid.

Bruno Alves was transfered last year to Zenit in Russia for € 22 million, a player that costed nothing as he was playing in Porto's youth team.

Another example is Lisandro Lopez moving to Lyon for €24 million, when Porto bought him from Racing, Argentina for almost €7 million.
Last Thursday Atletico acquired Falcao for 40 million euros when in 2009 gave River Plate only €5,4 million.

Despite selling top tier players and even coaches Porto remains succesful. They dominate the Portuguese Championship with 7 titles the last 9 years. They also won Europa League last sason.

Is it a matter of successful scouting, good networks or just a matter of good timing?

Despite the answer to that question, this is the way teams should work and in this way they will not have to worry for Financial Fair Play sanctions from UEFA, a topic to be discussed  in another post shortly.

For the moment let's watch this week Champions League games and the draw on Thursday.

A new season soon to begin...

We are in the end of July and football clubs are giving their pre-season games!
However their squads are not yet finalised. A lot of clubs are searching for players that will add value and help them achieve their goals!

So far we do not see big transfer fees from the teams as the economic situation does not help on this direction. As the transfer window will close in nearly a month from now, we need to be patient and give a thorough outlook in September.

Football fans are anticipating to see whether Barcelona will keep on the same extraordinary level or if other teams can find ways to conquer the top!
Can Real Madrid with Jose Mourinho in his second year in Bernambeu, beat Barcelona?
Will Liverpool and Juventus recover from last year's crisis?

We will find it out together.

What we can discuss for the time being is only rumours.

So please stay tuned on Sports-development.

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Thank you a lot for your support.

Welcome to Sports Development

Hello all sports fans!

This is my personal blog for my biggest passion ... sports!

It is an attempt to explore the continuously changing and challenging environment of Sports Marketing.
In a series of articles we are going to find out together interesting things on various Sports topics from a business perspective.

However this is not supposed to be a monologue but a sharing of thoughts which need your challenge.

Thus your comments would be of great importance for the success of this attempt.

So let us now begin!