News of the Day

photo courtesy of bbc.co.uk/sport

OWEN IS BACK...but for how long?

Already Steve McClaren is saying not to "expect too much" from Michael Owen, the perennially injured striker has been named as captain of the England B squad. He will be paired in the attack with Alan Smith.

Despite any mental anguish surrounding the sequential injuries, Owen told BBC that any further injury really hasn't entered his mind. Owen is happy to be back in action again and said the thought of suffering a recurrence of his knee injury would not play on his mind. "No, no, not at all," said Owen. "It only enters your mind if you have had an injury and you still feel something, or you are getting swelling in a certain area or if you pull a muscle, you are still feeling it tightening.

"That is when it enters your mind because it is sending a message from your body to your head saying you are still hurting.

"But, right from minute one, as soon as the swelling went down after my operation, I have sailed through rehab.

"Every time I have been asked to step it up and do the next thing, I have done it with no problems at all."

As speculated, Owen is not going to bow out of his career silently. "That is the life I live. I feed off expectations of myself, of wanting to make myself happy and my friends and family proud, and the country happy," he said.

"Winning games make this country a better place. This game is no different to many of the games I have been involved in.

"I like feeling pressure, I like there being something on the game and going into the game under pressure. I feel some of my best performances have always been when there is a lot riding on it."

UEFA BLAMES LIVERPOOL FANS FOR PANDEMONIUM

Because it was England, there was of course a good deal of hooliganism expected to accompany the Champions final yesterday. For once, however, their anguish may be deserved. A "minority" of fans with legitimate tickets were not allowed into the final due to UEFA's poor job at scouting out counterfeit tickets. The counterfeit ticket holders were allowed in while many actual ticket holders were left out. UEFA needs to get more advanced technology (think the bar codes put on all tickets via ticketmaster) to ensure that counterfeit tickets are neither bought nor sold nor honored. Its disappointing that UEFA is defraying so much of the flack onto Liverpool fans.

Uefa spokesman William Gaillard told the BBC, "The behaviour of the Liverpool fans is in the end responsible for the problems that took place before the game."

However that is not completely accurate. Certainly any antics Liverpool fans employed out of frustration are their own responsibility, but its UEFA's responsibility to ensure that lawful ticket holders are honored and that counterfeit holders are weeded out. For UEFA to drag out riot police seems too much, too late. Riots breaking out because legitimate ticket holders are being denied entrance should never be contemplated with an organization as vast and advanced as UEFA, especially when it was for the otherwise European football super bowl of games. For UEFA to point the blame onto the fans, who traveled from the UK to Athens, only to be turned away, despite the possibility that some that were denied were illegitimate, is not how to handle this. UEFA should take this opportunity to reexamine how they distribute and organize their ticketing, and not fall back on the hooliganism that has plagued football of late. Really, the two have nothing in common.