NORWAY - STRATEGY OF TENSION

Attending Bilderberg in 2011: H.R.H. Crown Prince Haakon of Norway.



Norway has experienced the 'Strategy of Tension'.



The CIA and its friends employ the Strategy of Tension in order to control the public.



In 1969, the Piazza Fontana bombing, in Italy, killed 16 and injured 90.



This was part of the CIA's Strategy of Tension.



In 1998, David Carrett, an officer of the U.S. Navy, was accused by a Milanese magistrate, Guido Salvini, of involvement in the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing. (Strategy of tension - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)



Anders Breivik at school - Website for this image



Paolo Taviani, formerly Italy's Minister of Defense and Minister of the Interior, declared of the Piazza Fontana bombing: "It seems to me certain that agents of the CIA were among those who supplied the materials and who muddied the waters of the investigation." (Piazza Fontana bombing: Facts.)



Anders Breivik - 'victim of MK ULTRA' - Website for this image



Thirty years after the Piazza Fontana massacre, during a trial of right-wing extremists, General Giandelio Maletti, former head of Italian counter-intelligence, stated that the massacre had been carried out by the Italian stay-behind army and right wing terrorists on the orders of the CIA.(http://www.isn.ethz.ch/php/documents/collection_gladio/chronology.htm)



We see the Strategy of Tension in India, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Norway...



Norway's King



On the evening of 24 July 2011, in south west Norway, two masked men, in military uniform, shot a 27-year-old man in his home in Sandnes.



(Mann skutt og drept i Sandnes - VG Nett - [ Translate this page ])



He was transported to Stavanger University Hospital after being shot in the head and later died of his injuries.



Reports say the two men in military fatigues knocked on the dead man's door, broke into the house and carried out the shooting.



Police are looking for the two suspects. Witnesses saw two men fleeing from the scene in a red Audi car.



(New Norway violence critically injures 1)



Anonymous comments:



From http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2011/07/25/after-oslo-time-to-crack-down-on-mossad-terrorism.html



The US ambassador in Oslo, Barry White, who is Jewish, complained that the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) rejected two twelve-person British MI-6 intelligence surveillance teams to monitor an 'Al Qaeda' cell in Norway.



In November 2010, the Norwegian government was shocked to learn that the U.S. embassy was operating a Surveillance Detection Unit in Oslo that was monitoring Norwegian citizens.



Norwegian Justice Minister Knut Storberget said he was not informed of the presence of the U.S. spy unit in Oslo, which employed retired Norwegian police and intelligence officials...



The failure of the Norwegian SWAT team to quickly respond to the massacre on Utoya may indicate that Norway’s law enforcement and security networks and command-and-control systems had been interfered with by infiltrators with knowledge of the Norwegian systems.



Those retired police and intelligence officials working for the U.S. embassy’s surveillance unit are likely suspects in sabotaging the Norwegian police reaction capabilities on 7/22.



Just 48 hours before the bombing in Oslo, police units were engaged in a terrorist bombing exercise at the Oslo Opera House, near what would later be 'ground zero.'



In addition, in the days before the terrorist bombing, there was suspicious sewer work being conducted in the area near the Prime Minister’s office.



Bernsten



Trond Bernsten, the step-brother of the crown princess of Norway, was one of the first victims of the massacre on Utoya island. (Norway shooting: stepbrother of Crown Princess among those killed by Anders ... )



Berntsen, an off-duty police officer, had been hired to provide private security at the island retreat.



Berntsen was the son of the second husband of Princess Mette-Marit's mother. The princess entered the royal family in 2001 after her marriage to crown prince Haakon.



Anders Behring Breivik 'was on Norwegian secret service watchlist' ...



Anders Breivik has been on a Norwegian security service watch list since March 2011 according to reports in the country.



Newspaper VG Nett reports that the killer was put on a list after reportedly buying large amounts of fertiliser from an online shop in Poland.



Anders Breivik has been to the united States - for plastic surgery. (Norway shooting: Anders ...)



A friend disclosed that Breivik "had travelled to the US for plastic surgery on his face."



The Black Baron.



Belgium's Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin is the "Black Baron."



His name has been linked to false flag terrorism in Europe.



Former Belgian spy boss Albert Raes was the first to use the term "Black Baron" to describe de Bonvoisin.



De Bonvoisin is said to be connected to fascist groups, to the CIA-NATO's Operation Gladio, and to the Brabant Massacres (Nijvel Gang,) which killed 28 people in Belgium. (Benoit de Bonvoisin - Wikipedia)



In the Dutroux child murder case, one of the people reportedly named by witnesses was Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin. (THE DARK CORNERS OF LIFE DUTROUX_NOTES)



The sort of terrorism that came to Belgium in the 1980s, and which has been linked to people like de Bonvoisin, may be about to hit the UK.



And there is a link to the UK's SAS special forces.



People like this are training in various parts of Britain. These are the sort of people who murdered Jean Charles de Menezes.



UK Police are being given more powerful guns and extra training to prepare for a possible Mumbai-style terror attack in Britain.



Security chiefs are staging a series of terrorism exercises with police sharpshooters training alongside units of the notorious Special Air Services (SAS).



Apparently, the development follows the discovery, in September 2010, of a credible 'CIA-NATO Gladio-style' false flag plot.



The SAS have been accused of training 'terrorists'.



Britain's SAS (Special Air Services) trained the Khmer Rouge.



The British Special Air Services (SAS) firm Keenie Meenie Services reportedly trained the Tamil Tigers. (Southern India, Sri Lanka terrorist groups)



The SAS trained bin Laden's Mujahedin fighters in Scotland



On 30 January 2010, we learn that NATO generals devised Operation Cage (Cage probe deepens with Poyrazköy indictment) which included the idea of detonating explosives during school field trips to military museums in Turkey. The intention was to kill lots of kids.



The UK's General Frank Kitson reportedly developed the idea of the 'pseudo gang'. (General Frank Kitson: Trail Blazing Fake Terrorism)



The pseudo gang works for the military but pretends to be a bunch of terrorists.



The idea of the 'pseudo gang' is to murder innocent civilians and then blame the murders on the people that the military wants to discredit.



Pseudo gangs have been used in Vietnam, Italy, Turkey, Belgium, the Philippines, Kenya, Malaya, Northern Ireland, Iraq, London, Madrid, New York and many other places.



The top researcher on 'NATO-CIA terrorism' is Dr. Daniele Ganser, a Swiss historian and Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. Ganser is the author of NATO's Secret Armies - Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe.



It happened in Belgium.



In 1984, a squad of US Marines was parachuted into Belgium, and met by a member of the Belgian military intelligence. (NATO, Gladio and the strategy of tension. N.A.T.O stay behind.:)



They hid for a fortnight before attacking the police station in Vielsalm. Weapons and ammumition were stolen. A belgian police officer was murdered.



In 1991, a Belgian Senate investigation proved that this attack was the work of the American and Belgian military.



Further attacks took place in Belgium. More arms and ammunition were stolen in these attacks. This stolen weaponry was handed over to fascist groups.



Around this time in Belgium, extremists were carrying out the so-called Brabant Massacres.



These were a group of attacks over a period of two years.



Groups of armed men would burst into restaurants and supermarkets and start shooting.



For example, on 9 November 1985, armed hooded men entered a supermarket and opened fire.



Eight people were killed.



Belgian soldiers roasting a boy. The Belgian military has been linked to massacres carried out in Belgian supermarkets in the 1980s.



An official report published on the Brabant Massacres in 1990 concluded that the killers were linked to people in the government.



"According to the report, the killers were members or former members of the security forces - extreme right-wingers who enjoyed high-level protection and were preparing a right-wing coup." (NATO’s Secret Armies, pg 145)



It should be noted that "The Supermarket massacres occurred during the period when the U.S. was pushing a plan to base the Euro-Missiles (nuclear-tipped Cruise missiles) in different European countries..."



"The Belgian Parliament, which investigated the incidents, felt that they were another attempt to sow confusion and fear among the populace, thereby generating public outcries for a law-and-order government which would be amenable to the Euro-Missiles." - (http://www.etext.org/Politics/Autonome.Forum/Antifa/gladio)



Belgian nobleman Benoit de Bonvoisin has been linked to the supermarket massacres. (Belgium Explained y / aangirfan: MADELEINE McCANN & CERTAIN FASCISTS)



The purpose of most terrorism is to keep the rich elite in power.



The military's 'stay behind' groups have been linked to terrorist acts in Europe dating back to 1944.



In 1944, in Greece, agents of the government opened fire on peaceful protesters in Athens. 25 people were killed.



In the 1960s, CIA-NATO 'secret armies' were used to keep pro-USA governments in power in Greece, Italy and Turkey.



In 1969, a bomb exploded in a bank in Piazza Fontana, Milan, killing 16.



In 1999 the former head of Italy's military intelligence, General Maletti declared that the Piazza Fontana bomb was masterminded by the CIA-NATO's Operation Gladio secret armies, and right-wing terrorists, at the behest of the CIA.



According to a news story in the Sydney Morning Herald, 2 November 2002, "Some time around the 30 October 2002, senior officers in the Indonesian military HQ gave a piece of information to a military attache from a Western embassy in Indonesia - the source of explosive used in the October 12 bombing in Bali was the head of the counter-terrorism unit with the army's special forces." The father-in-law of the officer concerned is Hendropriyono, Indonesia's spy chief.





In 1980, bombs exploded in a Bologna railway station, and at Munich's Oktoberfest, killing a total of 98 people.



In both cases, links are found to both right-wing extremists and the CIA-NATO secret armies (aka Gladio groups or 'stay behind' groups). (NATO, Gladio and the strategy of tension. N.A.T.O stay behind ...)



In 2010 it was revealed that NATO generals plotted to bomb crowded mosques in İstanbul and plotted to down a Turkish plane and blame this on Greece. (Reactions grow against Sledgehammer military plot )



On 30 January 2010, we learn that elements of the Turkish military, linked to Ergenekon, devised Operation Cage as part of its plans to topple the Turkish government. (Cage probe deepens with Poyrazköy indictment)



Operation Cage included the idea of detonating explosives during school field trips to military museums.The intention was to kill lots of kids.

~~



The disappearance of certain children may be linked to the Strategy of tension (Missing Madeleine puts Leh in a tizzy)

NORWAY ATTACKED BY USUAL SUSPECTS

Norway 2010. US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead speaks with Sailors aboard the Skjold-class corvette HNoMS Skudd

There would appear to be two Anders Breiviks.

A school friend told Norwegian TV he did not recognise Breivik as the boy he knew.

"One of his good work-out buddies was from the Middle East, and it seems as though they were good friends all through junior high school, and hung out a lot together," Michael Tomala said.

(BBC Profile: Anders Behring Breivik)

At least one Anders Breivik would appear to be a brainwashed patsy spouting CIA-Mossad propaganda.

"If Muhammad was alive today," Breivik reportedly writes, "Usama Bin Laden would have been his second in command."

(What did the Oslo killer want? FP Passport)

Licio Gelli : CRIMINALS IN CONTROL; BCCI, GANGSTERS & 9 11

A. The people making use of Breivik are probably the same sort of people who were involved in Operation Gladio terrorism in Italy - the organisation known as P2.

In Italy, the P2 masonic lodge linked up all the bad guys belonging to the Deep State.

(http://www.american-buddha.com/darkhistory3.htm)

The Deep State "is a parallel secret government, organized by the intelligence and security apparatus, financed by drugs, and engaging in illicit violence, to protect the status and interests of the military..."

(The Link Between War and Big Finance )

In March 1981, the Italian police found a list of the 962 members of P2, which contained the names of:

3 government ministers and 43 members of parliament,

43 generals and 8 admirals,

Secret service chiefs and police commanders

Top bureaucrats and diplomats, industrialists, financiers, journalists and TV personalities.

Ex-Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky wrote that Licio Gelli, P2's Grand Master, was allied to Mossad and involved in Operation Gladio.

( down with murder inc / Israel, Mossad, Iran and a Nuclear False Flag Attack )

The CIA-NATO's Operation Gladio carried out acts of terrorism such as the 1980 Bologna Bombing.

Top people who allegedly had contact with P-2 include:

Henry Kissinger,

Edmond de Rothschild, and

David Rockefeller.

B. Norwegian media channel NRK reports that Breivik does not have a military background and was exempt from Norway's mandatory military service.

He has not had any special military training, it adds on its website.

(Who is the suspect in the Norway attacks? - CNN.com)

ABC News reports that Anders breivik is a military veteran.

He is "a kind of Norway version of Timothy McVeigh," according to Brian Ross of ABC News.

(Norwegian suspect held in Norway attacks - GlobalPost)

"Mr Breivik had served in the Norwegian military doing national service and had no criminal record according to reports."

(Telegraph)

C. "What we know about the suspected assailant is only what others want you to know.

"Most of the speculation is based on his Facebook and Twitter pages which were only started a few days prior to Friday.

"Clearly either he wanted to leave behind a record for what he was going to do or someone put those together for him in order to create just the sort of 'homegrown terrorist' they needed."

(Unraveling Anders Behring Breivik « American Everyman)

Norway 1941 - rule by fear.

D. On 23 July 2011, Kurt Nimmo at Infowars.com reports that the evidence shows the Norway Terror Attack was a False Flag - "a Gladio operation"

According to Kurt Nimmo:

1. Just before the attacks in Norway, the US Department of Homeland Security released a video showing white middle class people as terrorists - 'rightwing extremists'.

2. The alleged perpetrator in the Norway attacks is a former member of a popular Progress Party a 'libertarian people’s party' with an ideology based on classical liberalism.

Its seeks a reduction in taxes and government intervention.

3. The CFR says the Progress Party and similar political parties in Sweden and Finland represent a European Tea Party movement on the rise.

In the U.S., the Tea Party has opposed government bailouts to the banksters and has called for ending the Federal Reserve.

4. The EU, the IMF and the international bankers are worried about growing populism in Europe.

Millions of Europeans are opposed to raiding their treasuries to pay for debt contrived by the bankers and have turned in large numbers to political parties such as the True Finns.

The True Finns’ main campaign plank is opposition to funding a bailout for Portugal. In April, the Finnish party emerged from relative obscurity and moved into the political limelight. Its sudden popularity took the European establishment by surprise.

5. The false flag attack in Norway arrives as populism grows in Germany, Europe’s reluctant paymaster for the contrived debt-based economic crisis.

Establishment politicians in Germany have balked at a second bankster bailout.

6. The EU and the European political establishment are beholden to the bankers and their “free market” – as in free to loot and plunder – neoliberal policies and have now pulled out all the stops in an effort to crush resistance to endless bailouts designed to crash local economies and destroy national sovereignty.

McVeigh

7. It is no mistake the corporate media is comparing Anders Behring Breivik to Timothy McVeigh.

The Oklahoma City bombing was a false flag event used to roll out several draconian aspects of the police state in the 1990s.

Following the attack, Congress passed at the behest of then president Clinton a number of national security proposals that built the foundation and established antecedents for the PATRIOT Act in response to the staged attacks of September 11, 2011.

8. In addition to establishing a basis for so-called anti-terror legislation, the Oklahoma City bombing was used to demonize the patriot movement that formed in response to the brazen government attack on the Branch Davidians at Waco on April 19, 1993.

9. False flag attacks followed by intense propaganda campaigns are one of several methods used by government to neutralize political opposition.

10. Breivik is obviously a patsy for a Gladio operation to destroy political opposition to the bankers.

Operation Gladio was a “strategy of tension” devised by the elite that employed terrorism – assassination and bombings – to discredit political opponents in Europe.

It was set-up by the CIA and staffed in part with former members of Mussolini’s secret police.

11. In the days ahead, we can expect more false flag terror events.

These will be used by the corporate media to portray opponents to the bankster scam as child killing terrorists.

For the global elite, mass murder blamed on political opponents is a legitimate tool in the plan to take down national economies and install a one-world totalitarian government and banking system run in neofeudal fashion.

Who would blow up a bunch of kids visiting a museum?

Who would deliberately down one of their own aircraft?

According to recently revealed documents, certain military leaders planned acts of terrorism which were to be blamed on al-Qaeda. (Newly exposed coup planned to turn the clock back to 1923 )

Ergenekon is the secret fascist organisation in Turkey which from time to time commits acts of terrorism and which from time to time carries out fascist coups.

Ergenekon is linked to the Turkish military.

Turkish and other media have reported that Mossad has supported Ergenekon. (Mossad implicated in a coup plot in Turkey.)

There have also been reports that the CIA has supported Ergenekon. (aangirfan: Gladio-style terror in Istanbul, New York, Jakarta ... )

Ergenekon has been linked to heroin smuggling from Afghanistan through Turkey. (Deep State Coup Averted in Turkey - by Christopher Deliso )

On 30 January 2010, we learnt that elements of the Turkish military, linked to Ergenekon, devised Operation Cage as part of its plans to topple the Turkish government. (Cage probe deepens with Poyrazköy indictment)

Operation Cage reportedly included the idea of detonating explosives during a school field trip to a military museum.

The intention was to kill lots of kids.

The prosecutor's office began a probe into Operation Cage after it was exposed in Turkish newspapers in November 2009.

Turkish dailies reported that the İstanbul Public Prosecutor's Office summoned for interrogation admirals Kadir Sağdıç and Mehmet Ilgar and retired Admiral Ali Feyyaz Öğütçü, whose names are frequently mentioned in the Cage plan.

Öğütçü has been implicated in the placing of explosives at the bottom of a submarine exhibited at the Rahmi M. Koç Museum.

The explosives were found by police in July 2009.

A letter sent to the prosecutor's office claimed that the explosives placed in the submarine aimed at killing 200-300 young visitors to the museum.

General Firtina was attache in Washington in 1991. The Middle East Report concluded in 1998 that probably the greatest strategic move in the Clinton years was "The Ankara Pact"- an alliance between the Turkish military and the USA and Israel. (Turkey, Drugs, Faustian Alliances & Sibel Edmonds)

Operation Sledgehammer, which is linked to Ergenekon, (OPERATION SLEDGEHAMMER AIMED TO DOWN AN AIRCRAFT) helps us to understand 9 11 and the London tube bombings.
It is a suitcase of documents which reveals Operation Sledgehammer, the 2003 plan for acts of terrorism and a Turkish coup

In January 2010, Mehmet Baransu, a journalist at Taraf newspaper (Turkey) told The Times (UK) that "My source brought the originals of all this stuff in a suitcase one night last week.

"He had been in the First Army and was uncomfortable with developments."

The 'digital imprints' on the files lead back to military computers. Taraf has handed the documents to Istanbul prosecutors.

Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan.

Many top military people are named in the Sledgehammer documents.

The documents reveal that the Turkish military planned to down a Turkish aircraft.

General Ibrahim Firtina, who went on to command the Turkish air force, is linked to this plan for the Turkish aircraft to be downed and the attack blamed on Greece.

The idea was to create the nationalist unity needed for a coup.

The Sledgehammer documents reveal the military's plans to detonate bombs in mosques.

The idea of killing people in mosques was to get the survivors to riot and to create the idea that there were lots of mad Moslems around.

The main Sledgehammer document discusses how to take advantage of the chaos after co-ordinated attacks in large cities, especially Istanbul.

This was written several months before attacks against the British consulate, the HSBC bank and synagogues in Istanbul.

The Sledgehammer documents reveal that Stadiums were to be prepared for mass detentions.


A Turkish court, on 16 February 2007, sentenced seven 'suspected al-Qaida militants' to life in prison for the November 2003 bombings in Istanbul, which hit the British consulate, the HSBC bank and two synagogues.

The defendants included Syrian Loa'i Mohammad Haj Bakr al-Saqa, also known as Luai Sakra . ( Al-Qaida suspects on trial for Istanbul bombings give final ...)

The British Consul General Roger Short was killed by the bomb as he was entering the consulate building. Press reports confirmed that he had cancelled an appointment at the last minute and "if he had gone to his appointment, he would have been alive."

According to Michel Chossudovsky, at globalresearch.ca/articles/ANA311A.html, "The attacks created conditions for Turkey's participation in the war on terrorism.

"The attacks served to strengthen the Anglo-American military axis and the legitimacy of Bush's 'War on terrorism.'"


Ercan Gun, at zaman.com (TODAY'S ZAMAN ), 15 Agust 2005, reported on the Syrian 'Al Qaeda Militant' Luai Sakra (Saqa) who was arrested for organizing the double bomb attacks in Istanbul on 15-23 November 2003.

Sakra 'has confessed to Turkish police that he provided the attackers of 9 11 with passports'.

Sakra 'claims that he knew Muhammad Ata'.

Sakra 'claims he drinks alcohol and does not pray'.

Sarka reportedly said: “I was one of the people who knew the perpetrators of September 11, and knew the time and plan before the attacks. I also participated in the preparations for the attacks to WTI and Pentagon. I provided money and passports.”

Reportedly, some of the passports, which Sakra claimed to have provided himself, were found in the ruins of World Trade Centre I.

Ercan Gun wonders if Al-Qaeda is a Secret Service operation.

Sakra was interrogated for 4 days at the Istanbul Anti-Terror Department Headquarters. Reportedly this has provided some important information.

According to Ercan Gun, Turkish intelligence specialists now believe:

1. Al-Qaeda is the name of a secret service operation.

2. Al Qaeda is linked to a strategy of tension.

3. Sakra, the fifth most senior man in al-Qaeda, was offered employment by the CIA. The CIA gave him a large sum of money.

The CIA claimed it eventually lost contact with him.

Reportedly, in 2000, the CIA asked the Turkish security service MIT to capture Sakra. MIT caught Sakra in Turkey and interrogated him.

At a different period of time, Sakra was sought and caught by Syria's al-Mukhabarat. Syria too offered him employment. Sakra eventually became a triple agent for the secret services.

Terrorism: Top al Qaeda operative, Sakra, 'worked for the CIA'.

The 1980 Bologna Bombing was blamed on agents of the CIA and NATO, working for Operation Gladio.

Operation Gladio involved “the strategy of tension”. The strategy involved getting right-wing terrorists to carry out terrorist attacks in Europe and in Turkey. Operation Gladio was reportedly organised by Nato and the CIA.

http://www.stopthenato.org/m/zit/id_ses/2337520f9/id_p/10/opt/read_e/id_s/433.html

BLACK ECONOMY; DEAD CHINAMAN

Naples

There is LOW unemployment in Spain.

Most of the so-called Spanish unemployed have jobs in the 'black economy'.

This might explain why Spain does not have major riots.

In Spain the 'black economy' is said to be 19% of the official gross domestic product.

(FT.com / Europe: Hidden economy)

The Spanish jobless rate "is a fiction."

There are problems when a country has a large 'black economy'.

1. The goverment does not get social security contributions from the people in the 'black economy.

2. The 'black economy' is often linked to illegal immigration and sweatshops.

Bangkok

The small town of Prato, in Tuscany in Italy, has a population of 180,000 people.

There are 35,000 Chinese living in Prato.

Half of them are illegal immigrants.

Prato has Chinese marriage agencies and Chinese massage parlours.

The Chinese in Prato are in the garment industry.

The Chinese workers work long hours.

29 year-old Shi Songbin was an illegal Chinese immigrant found dead in Prato.

He died from an overdose of drugs.

The purpose of the drugs may have been to help him work long hours in a sweatshop.

(FT.com / Europe: Hidden economy)



Many Chinese emigrate to places like California.

"Migration involves incurring large debts to 'snakeheads,' who arrange for transport and entry and often brutally enforce payment.

"Because of their illegality and constant pressure from their creditors, Chinese immigrants often accept jobs that pay far less than the U.S. minimum wage and violate American labor standards, and they have no effective legal recourse."

(Immigration in a Changing Economy: California's Experience ...)

The Chinese make up the largest Asian population in the United States today.

~~

England all played out again

The Emperor has no clothes and it’s official.

For the first time within the walls of the awesome citadel that is the new Wembley Stadium, the English national team has come a cropper in a big way, and this time there can be no hiding from the naked truth.

Now let these sombre words ring out across our green and pleasant land: England are a mediocre football nation and it’s high time we accepted it.

One final appearance in 57 continuous years of international football competitions tells its own story and cannot by any logic justify the perennial Mount Everest of expectations heaped upon the Three Lions.

As the 3-2 victory over England by a competent yet not exceptional Croatian eleven on Wednesday proved once more, there is simply no case for believing we deserve a place at the high table of the world’s football nations, so please don’t try to make it.

After such a miserable and humiliating surrender, can anyone seriously believe we can win the 2010 World Cup? Will the patriotic punters be out in force again to waste their money, like they have for the last forty years since we won the World Cup at home?

That the English invented the sport and still sustain a 92-team professional league is utterly immaterial if the national team consistently fails to perform, yet year after year, an inferno of fan fervour is stoked up by London’s boorish tabloid media with no basis in reality.

But the media is only partly to blame for the unrealistic expectations and to a great extent is only a mirror of the national zeitgeist.

The obscenely ballooning waistline of the cash cow that is the FA Premier League is also only reinforcing an existing tunnel vision shared by millions throughout the home of football.

There is a foreign influx in our leagues and globalization all around us, but it clearly does not follow that a great domestic league can produce a world-class national team.

So who do we blame this time?

The usual suspects for the latest shambles are lining up and while they all shoulder a part of the blame, are mostly red herrings while the prime suspect is still at large.

Steve McClaren is not the main culprit and I take no pride in having predicted as soon as he was appointed that he would fail.

Although guiding your club to 15th place in the Premier League is not the best preparation for coaching your country, McClaren had served apprenticeships under Alex Ferguson and Sven-Goran Eriksson and there were no realistic alternatives for England last summer.

While some fans are slating McClaren for starting with 4-5-1 at home, without Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney his striking options were limited and when reinforcements did arrive in the shape of Darren Bent and Jermain Defoe, the much-needed punch up front was still lacking.

In fact, the catalyst for England’s comeback was the arrival of David Beckham, in perhaps his last national team appearance, after halftime, a player from Major League Soccer who provided an artistry and finesse with the ball otherwise lacking from his team on the night.

The English players’ superstar salaries are almost irrelevant too. Serie A pays huge wages but that never stopped Italy’s national team winning the World Cup impressively last summer. And English players certainly do not lack passion. If anything, they play with too much heart and not enough head, yet England critics routinely bemoan a lack of passion and self-belief as the reasons for falling short.

That there may be too many foreign players in England for the national team’s good is also an argument that looks shakier by the day. In fact, on the evidence of last night, no wonder Arsene Wenger shops overseas.

The dissections and post mortems on the corpse of England’s latest failure are everywhere, though few have realised the fatal disease is merely an inherited and myopic attitude that the English way is best.

Like Charybdis, the fearsome whirlpool of Greek mythology, our semi-permanent debate on the national team ends up going round in circles of self-delusion, our consistent demand for unrealistic success devouring all passing managers lured too close to the job.

This insular hara-kiri was evident off the field as well as on. Thousands of England fans pointedly ignored the Wembley announcer’s request to respect both national anthems by booing Croatia’s loudly, before revelling in taunting the traveling fans with several renditions of ‘You’re not singing anymore’, only to be confounded as supersub Mladen Petric speared a spectacular 25-yard winner with 13 minutes remaining.

‘Rule Britannia’ is still one of our favourite songs, but its boasting of global dominance had a particularly pathetic ring at Wembley last night, a specious self-aggrandizement amid the carnival of English obsolescence on the field.

Sheltering from the Wembley monsoon while the queues to the tube station still stretched down Bobby Moore Way a full hour after the final whistle, I got talking to some Croatian fans, who gave me some refreshing points of view on our particular malaise.

The heavens were downright miserable, but there was some blue-sky thinking to be found beneath the deluge.

“England has good players, but they don’t play as a team,” thought Branko from Dubrovnik.

“You’re right,” I said, “but we don’t know any different.” Contrary to some opinions aired this week, England can produce great talents.

I could reel off names such as Bobby Charlton, Tom Finney and Stanley Matthews, but from more recently, what about John Barnes, Paul Gascoigne, Gary Lineker and Chris Waddle from the 1980s and David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Owen and Rooney from the ‘90s.

“Your style is twenty years behind the times,” offered Zlatko from Mostar. “You hit long high balls to the big forward, Crouch. We know that is what the English do. It is simple to play against.”

“Well Crouch did score tonight,” I offered in defence, but I broadly agreed with his analysis.

“Look at the Germans,” said Goran from near Split. “They work hard the whole time too, but they do it as a team.”

I then racked my brains for times in my life when England have played with great fluidity and got stuck on a handful of occasions: In the latter stages of Italia ’90, for the first half of a friendly against Mexico in 2001, against Italy in Rome in 1997 and most famously smashing the Netherlands 4-1 at Wembley in Euro ’96 and Germany 5-1 in Munich five years later.

Our national style still leans towards passionate and direct attacking – ‘droit au but’ –‘straight to goal’, as the motto of Marseille says. And we have to change this mindset, wholesale, from the grass roots up, if we want to challenge for international trophies.

One final in 57 years of FIFA and UEFA competition is surely proof there is a hairline fracture in the monolith of the Football Association, a lingering faultline that cannot and should not be attributed to any particular coach or set of players.

The one excuse I didn’t hear on the tortuous journey from the Wembley mega-arena back to my home in North London was perhaps the most obvious one: Croatia were just better than us.

“Wake up,” Croatia coach Slaven Bilic said succinctly post-match. “We’re simply a better team.”

They undoubtedly were the superior side, having defeated England home and away in the qualification campaign, yet I still heard a fan moaning that England had played badly and lost to ‘a shit team’. ‘Yeah, they are a shit team,’ echoed his equally dim friend.

Well, relativism aside, any team who tops a UEFA qualification group cannot by any sound reasoning be made of caca.

The Croats gave England a footballing lesson in both Zagreb and London in soaking up pressure, throwing bodies into attack or defense appropriately, counter-attacking and shooting from distance.

But what really stood out for me at Wembley was their outfield players’ superior technique.

The Croats’ creed is possession, like it is for all great football nations, while England still go for broke in the final third and try to hit that killer ball into the channels or lump it onto the head of that big lad in the box, too often finding their optimistic punts intercepted or overhit instead.

On the night, Shaun-Wright Phillips typified what is wrong with English football. Energetic and brimming with passion, the Chelsea winger charged goalward whenever he was given the ball, but too often his ardour burned out as he mishit a cross, collided with a defender or ran the ball out of play.

Time and again, England played without any telepathy when they managed to get the ball near the opponents’ box, while every Croatian tap, layoff or backheel seemed to be wired to an incoming teammate.

The Croats clearly knew how to counter-attack better than we did, sprinting upfield, stretching our retreating defence and hitting first-time passes to runners without hesitation. They built a shape-shifting, multi-dimensional game which defeated our rigid, one-dimensional structure with ease.

We might lazily lump all Eastern European football nations together as tough, former communist, crack army sides from chilly lands, but remember Croatia, like Romania, is essentially a Mediterranean country whose warm weather breeds skilful ballplayers.

Facing Italy across the Adriatic, Croatia has only been a country since 1991 and with a population of under five million, has in that short space of time, produced stars of the calibre of Zvonimir Boban, Alen Boksic, Robert Prosinecki and Davor Suker.

Yet however you compare the two countries, England should be a far better football nation than Croatia.

Once again, I fear we will skirt around the answer to our ills – a complete and radical overhaul of the coaching culture.

The intangibility of the problem and its equally nebulous solution just discourage us from addressing it properly, and so England stumble to under-achievement every time.

It almost seems a treasonable offense to the Anglo-Saxon virtues ingrained in our national game to tell our kids to keep the ball instead of to ‘get it in there!’, to think about their shape and position instead of to ‘get stuck in lad!’ and to bring others into attack instead of to ‘go on your own, son, have a pop!’ etc.

The continental method does seem anathema to a windy Sunday morning league game in Rotherham, but ask yourself who is the more successful soccer nation – Italy or England?

‘Look at Arsenal,’ Zlatko continued. ‘They have a great coach and play in a European style but are an English team’.

Treating football seriously from a young age also draws us into a political debate we would rather steer clear of, that of mass education’s historic lack of importance in England in general.

If we want well trained footballers, we need well educated players, who understand the professional commitment and the intellectual ability the game demands at the highest level.

‘What about Wayne Rooney?’ you holler. Nothing can compensate for raw talent like his, surely; only to a point. Imagine what Gascoigne could have done with the self-discipline of a Zinedine Zidane, or how Rooney could prosper with the spatial awareness of strikers like Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry or Henrik Larsson.

On the train home, there was no anger, nor misery at England’s premature exit from Euro 2008, just a resigned mood, an unspoken acceptance that we have seen it all before.

I really felt that maybe for the first time, an accommodation of our ineptitude had begun to set in with the fans, a growing acceptance of the obvious mediocrity we have been dealing with for years.

Make no mistake. This umpteenth failure for England will not be the last, unless we do start again from the grass roots, bite the bullet and admit the FA’s manuals are mistaken in many ways and our coaching outdated.

Or, we can bury our heads in the sand once more, blame Steve McClaren or whoever underperformed last night and come 2010, summon up the blood to bellow from the rooftops our belief that England can win the World Cup, if only we the fans and they the players want it enough.

Unless there is a revolution, the future history of the England team writes itself.

All may not be lost however. As I traipsed down the many steps from Wembley’s upper tier, and some fans began to sing ‘Jose Mourinho’, I began to think that the foreign influx in our game could end up being the solution instead of the problem, whoever the next coach may be. The tide of the world game is all around us now, at home and abroad.

And what is for sure is that England’s national football culture, more than ever, is all played out.

(c) Sean O'Conor & Soccerphile

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A Kingdom United in hope and grief

Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson will tell you otherwise, but it if anyone in the UK thought club international football was no longer the best, they only needed to follow this weekend's relevant Euro 2008 qualifiers.

The fact remains no one club's Champions League success can inspire a country like their national team can on the edge of glory.

After a week of nationalistic hyperbole at the prospect of making the finals ahead of the Sassenachs (their derogatory term for the English), Scotland failed heroically by losing 2-1 at home to Italy and will stay on the Eurostar platform, while England advanced to within a point of qualification without playing a game, thanks to Russia's equally calamitous 2-1 loss to Israel.

You can have all the confidence in the world but that's not enough if you don't have the quality was the painful lesson of the Scots' narrow loss to the Italians in Glasgow.

The gods had done their best to help the home team, chilling the air and opening the heavens to welcome the Azzurri to a Hampden Park that recalled the glorious days of the 'Hampden Roar', when the national stadium was Europe's largest.

But the world champions showed their class by grabbing the game by the neck with a second-minute strike from Luca Toni, and then having weathered the inevitable Scottish storm and equalizer, they stole their hosts' thunder by snatching a last-gasp winner through Christian Panucci.

For England, their late late goal was scored by Israel's Omer Golan in Tel Aviv, but was cheered up and down the land as if it had been struck by Wayne Rooney himself, awarding the little-known Maccabi Petah Tikva striker cult status in the home of football.

Three Lions boss Steve McClaren must have felt like Mark Twain reading his own obituary this week in every newspaper, only to prove reports of death had been greatly exaggerated. Few entertained the possibility of Russia falling short in Israel but with only a point to gain at home to already-qualified Croatia on Wednesday, McClaren has had the last laugh and forced Fleet Street's hacks to file away their epitaphs for another day.

Scotland are still the brave in most people's eyes, but time was when the Scots were shoe-ins for international tournaments and Hampden one of the most feared venues in UEFA. Their near miss in 2007, thanks to a superb team ethic, should not disguise the fact the Scots are still a long way short of their sides of yesteryear and have a lot of catching up to do.

For England the picture is no brighter in reality. The zeitgeist is gloomy in fact. Complaints about the high numbers of overseas players in England grow louder by the hour with more famous players and coaches adding their names to calls for a re-Anglicisation of the national sport.

While laments about the lack of home-grown talent increase, one can't help thinking this was the same crop of players that was called England's 'golden generation' last summer.

There are three other nations in these islands of course, none of whom have much to cheer about either.

The Republic of Ireland and Wales played out a 2-2 draw in Cardiff knowing they had both already been eliminated from UEFA 2008, and while Northern Ireland overcame Denmark 2-1 in Belfast in appalling weather, their qualification for Austria and Switzerland hangs on the unlikely scenario of them winning in Spain and Latvia winning in Sweden on Wednesday.

England look like scraping through to the finals now, but the cradle of the game, the British Isles, is inescapably one of UEFA's weaker regions in 2007.

Beyond these shores, notable mentions must go to Croatia, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain, who all booked their tickets to Euro 2008 on Saturday. The Czech Republic, Germany, Greece and Romania will be there too.

(c) Sean O'Conor & Soccerphile


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Blatter U-turns on World Cup rotation

FIFA President Sepp Blatter has signalled that the policy of World Cup rotation is about to be ditched.

Speaking to the BBC, Blatter admitted he would welcome England bidding for 2018, a tournament which under the present model, should be held in North or Central America.

"I am advocating we open the market," said Blatter. Back in May, he described rotation as "a milestone", speaking to FIFA delegates in Zurich, while only a month ago, announced that a final decision on rotation with regard to 2018 would come at the end of October.

With 2010 going to (South) Africa and 2014 to South America (Brazil), Europe's next turn would not have been in 2018 (CONCACAF) but in 2022, a ridiculously long wait for that continent's front runner, England.

Given the concentration of money, power, media and fan interest in European football, it seems brave, or foolhardy, to award it the tournament only once every 24 years (there are six FIFA regions).

The traditional system of alternating from Europe to South America was ripe for reform with the global spread of the game and now Japan/Korea, South Africa and the USA have all hosted, or are about to host, the sport's showpiece event.

Outside of the traditional power bases, Australia and China could both mount serious bids before long, but political worries will probably keep the Islamic world, in the form of Morocco and Egypt, excluded for the foreseeable future. The USA is also determined to host the World Cup again after the success of 1994, the the swathe of impressive new American stadia and the arrival of David Beckham to MLS. Mexico, too, is interested in hosting its third World Cup.

It is therefore, unquestionably the world's cup, yet any change to the traditional Atlantic alteration should not be so rigid as FIFA's rotation system. Four years is a long time to wait and in a continent like Europe where England, Russia, Spain, Italy and Holland & Belgium are all itching to host the World Cup, a possible wait of half a century is too long for any country.

Rotation was never fully explained - does Oceania or CONCACAF has as much right to host the World Cup as Europe? , never universally accepted by the football world and was only rushed in as a response to Germany sensationally snatching the 2006 tournament from the heavily Blatter-endorsed South Africa by the narrowest of margins (Oceania's Charles Dempsey abstained on the final vote).

Brazil had a shoe-in for 2014 because South America had not hosted the event since Argentina in 1978.

Brazil and its decrepit stadia and infrastructure is far from ready to host the World Cup however, a fact which swayed Blatter to renege on one of his favourite pet policies.

After Colombia and Argentina withdrew, the one-horse race south of the equator illuminated a flaw in the rotation system if the only contender is manifestly unable to host the month-long show.

"We are not in a very comfortable situation in South America," admitted the FIFA President.

"It is better to have three or four associations trying to get the number one competition of the world."

Rumours abound that a new system will prevent only the previous two host regions from applying, reducing the minimum wait for any country to 12 years.

It should be remembered of course that the FIFA Executive committee and not Blatter ratifies policy and CONCACAF's controversial Jack Warner for one is against any change to the status quo.

However, the days of the half-baked, hasty and unconvincing rotation system are now clearly numbered.

(c) Sean O'Conor & Soccerphile



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New Year Same Old Stories

Ahn Returns




It’s that time of the year again when it feels like half of the K-League is on the move. The close season in Korea is a frantic affair and at times hard to keep up with.

The fate of Ahn Jung-hwan has been the big story of the new year so far. Precisely a year ago, the “Lord of the Ring” was in the process of turning down a trial with Blackburn Rovers. Instead he headed to MSV Duisberg who were then in the Bundesliga.

After relegation, Ahn was released from his contract but since August has been without a club. On the wrong side of 30, his options are not likely to increase and he finally decided to return to the K-League on January 9 when he signed for Suwon Samsung Bluewings.

The three-time champions who already boast international stars such as Kim Nam-il, Cho Won-hee, Baek Ji-hoon and Song Chong-guk, took some time to close the deal with the ex-Perugia, Yokohama, Shimizu and Metz striker.

``We met with Ahn and his agent for the negotiation several times. There was huge difference at first over contract terms, but our talks has recently moved forward further,’’ Suwon club boss Ahn Ki-heon told Yonhap news agency.

``Ahn’s side has yielded a lot in the contract term including the annual salary. We are positive we could bring him unless there is significant disagreement during the rest of the talks.’’

A week later, Ahn signed and was given the number ten shirt. Now the challenge is to win back the red shirt of the national team.

Seoul Life

FC Seoul have released Portuguese midfielder Ricardo Nascimento -the 34 year-old playmaker spent two years in the capital, becoming a firm favourite with the fans. He returns to his homeland’s top flight to join struggling Desportivo das Aves.


Passing in the opposite direction was the club’s new manager. Senol Gunes arrived on January 6. The capital was sitting under a few inches of snow by the time the ex-Turkey coach returned to Korea for the first time since participating in the 3rd/4th play-off game at the 2002 World Cup.

“Thanks to those who came to meet me despite the bad weather,” he said. “My first impression of the fans is a good one.”

“Of course the most important thing is victory but I will try to give fans football that they can love.”

“I still have a good feeling from the 2002 World Cup. Turkey and Korea got good results. The two nations are brothers and that is one reason why I decided to come here.”

At a press conference in the bowels of Seoul World Cup Stadium 48 hours later, the 54 year-old made all the right noises and promised entertainment and results for fans.



The two Lees

A constant story since the summer has been that of Lee Young-pyo. The versatile Spurs star lost his place at the start of the new season and was a whisker away from joining AS Roma at the end of August. At the last minute however, the 29 year-old changed his mind and decided to stay in North London.

The reason for the change of heart has been kept close to the chest of “Chorongi” who had to deny in a press conference that his deep religious beliefs were behind the decision.



Stories in Italy also talked of financial reasons and pressure from Sky Sports on the player not to reduce Korean interest in the Premier League by leaving it. It sounds about as likely as reports of Chelsea interest in the defender.

Fortunately for the player, he has since won back his place in the team but the rumours still abound that he could soon swap England’s capital for its Italian counterpart. Supposedly in the first week of the New Year, Roma asked for a loan and then a full transfer.

Lee will stay put but the same can’t be said of 2002 and 2006 World Cup team-mate Lee Chun-soo. The 2005 K-League MVP said in December that he was ready to leave Ulsan Hyundai Horang-I and the K-League.

Yokohama Marinos and Urawa Reds in Japan fancy the winger who hit six goals in two and a half games in last August’s East Asian Champions Cup held on the archipelago.
As documented on here before, Lee is eyeing Europe – especially England. There has been little mention of possible moves for the winger since the transfer window opened.

It remains to be seen if that is good news or bad.

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