LIVE BLOG: Hamburg SV v Bayern Munich

Since I moved a few months ago, the loss of Sky Sports has been a constant annoyance. Sure I have Setanta on freeview, and so boxing and UFC, and the odd Premiership game, but the absence has been significant.

However tonight Setanta can stick two fingers up to Sky Sports because while their viewers have nothing to watch, freeview folk like me have the glory of Hamburg v Bayern.

Let’s hope Jurgen looks this glum in two hours.

For a Hamburg fan, with the possibility of going top, it is exciting enough. However as a Spurs fan the prospect of Jol v Kilnsmann (a managerial mis-match in terms of skills) it becomes even better.

I’ll be updating the comments with any observations I find relevant so if you stumble upon this in some way, and are watching it yourself, then please do join in.

Blog tip

I wasn’t aware of it until recently but you should all go out of your way to check out the ‘Some People Are On The Pitch’ blog (link on the left).  It’s frequently updated with quality content such as their weekly “Weekend TV Preview’ which is an invaluable resource for alerting you to J-league stuff that you will never get round to seeing but might do if there was absolutely nothing else going on or nobody else around.

What I’ll be watching this weekend:

- Arsenal v Newcastle Utd, Premier League, Setanta Sports 1
- Chelsea v Tottenham Hotspur, Premier League, Sky Sports 1 & HD1
- (After this I shall be flicking between) Bayern Munich v Hertha Berlin, Bundesliga, Setanta Sports 1 & Aston Villa v Liverpool, Premier League, Sky Sports 1 & HD1 & Numancia v Barcelona, La Liga, Sky Sports 1 (First half on red button only) & Fiorentina v Juventus, Serie A, Setanta Sports 2 & Deportivo v Real Madrid, La Liga, Sky Sports 1.

Monday morning headlines

With the seven days likely to be some of the most newsworthy of the year in footballing circles due to the end of the European transfer window, and the start-up of the remaining major leagues from the continent, I thought it would be a good time to take a look at what’s make the headlines on this bank holiday Monday.

International

We have new and retaining Olympic champions in the shape of Argentina, after their 1-0 defeat of Nigeria on Saturday. Brazil claimed the bronze medal after 3-0 win over surprise package Belgium on Friday.

Messi and Co were hot favourites for the title thanks to his inclusion and those of Javier Mascherano (who became the first man to win two gold medals) and captain Juan Roman Riquelme. Conversely, Brazilian coach Dunga went into the tournament with much pressure on his shoulders with the nation keen to claim the only international silverware that it has never won it its proud history. The inclusion of a half-fit and ineffective Ronaldinho was seemingly forced upon him by the FA, but as a side they still underperformed. Two sendings off in the South American semi showed an unusually frustrated and aggressive edge to a group of players struggling to live up to expectations back home.

Everton’s Victor Anichebe spoke highly of Nigeria’s home-grown coach and his achievements in African football. The hope now is that the continent will have more faith in home-reared managers rather than relying on European imports keen to earn a good salary without investing any passion into the job… ala Berti Vogts. The focus now turns to London in 2012 but questions remain over the sports inclusion in the games at all. Maybe the landmark “Messi ruling” before the tournament will neuter all future competitions pointless. Regardless of if the players themselves like it or not.

England

I didn’t get to see either of Sunday’s games but the scariest story I woke up to (in the trivial world of football anyway) was the injury to Man City defender Micah Richards after a clash of heads with Tal Beh Haim. City went on to win the game 3-0 with Daniel Sturridge, who looks a top prospect, opening the scoring. If you have high blood pressure then don’t read the next link but ‘Executive Chairman’ Garry Cook gave a series of horrifyingly self-serving interviews to all the broadsheets at the weekend with his views on the future of football. Here he is talking to the Guardian.

Deco continues to impress everyone although by all accounts Wigan were unlucky not to get something from the 1-0 loss to Chelsea.

Spurs are in disarray with Berbatov refusing the play as the club went down at home to Sunderland, to repeat last season’s terrible start. I was present at White Hart Lane and can take very few positives from the game but shall refrain from going into detail as I’ll be here all day. Check the Spurs form on xtratime (left) for more in-depth analysis. At least Arsenal lost.

Italy / Portugal / Spain

Jose Mourinho wasted no time in picking up his first silverware in Italy when Inter Milan claimed the Supercoppa on penalties after a 2-2 draw against Roma. Italy is also following the example set by Ebbsfleet United by offering fans the chance to part-own a football club and have a say in its running.

The Portugese league kicked off with last season’s champions Porto starting with a home win. Sporting Lisbon, who beat Porto in the Supercup, also got off to a winning start with a 3-1 home win while Benfica were held 1-1 by a newly-promoted side.

Real Madrid won the Spanish season opener with a remarkable 4-2 (and 6-5 on aggregate) win over Valencia despite having two men sent off. With nine men on the pitch, they rallied to score three goals in the last thirteen minutes to cap an unbelievable comeback. Ruben De La red will be a name to keep an eye on this year – hopefully his progress is not held back too much by the embarassment of riches Madrid have in midfield. In Barcelona, Juan Laporta retained control of the club after just surviving a vote on confidence at the general meeting.

Scotland

Celtic sit top of the league ahead of Rangers and Kilmarnock on goal difference, with all sides having seven points after three games. Maybe Killy will be this season’s Hearts (who have six points) and push the Old Firm slightly. I doubt it too.

Germany

A few posts ago I talked about Hoffenheim (search function at the top) and their incredibly story. Well, they continued the adventure by claiming their second win of the season and moving clear at the top of the league. Klinsmann is yet to record a league win with Bayern but they fought back from 1-0 down with ten men to get a draw at Dortmund. It beats throwing away two goal leads I guess. My German team of choice Hamburg won 2-1 to remain undefeated under Martin Jol, and sources in Brazil say we may be close to signing two players.  Alex Silva (if I’m thinking of the right player) should replace Kompany who impressed on debut for Man City yesterday.

France

Lyon and Marsielle are already one and two in ligue 1. Expect that to be a pretty familiar theme. Auxerre lost 1-0 at home to Nice. Bordeaux, who have a number of players that I like, beat Nantes 2-0 to move third. Exciting prospect Henri Saivet made an appearance from the substitutes bench late in proceedings.

Another Bundesliga post

I mentioned at the bottom of yesterday’s entry that Bild have an English language site now and that it might be a good place to keep up with events in Germany.

I completely forgot of course that Guardian Unlimited has an excellent Deutschland correspondent itself and that he writes a brilliantly concise and witty weekly column on the weekend that was.  Raphael Honigstein, who also makes regular appearances on the site’s excellent podcast (see left), is the top English-speaking Bundesliga journalist that I have come across thus far and deserves to be read by everyone.  It’s only an anomaly that he was not one of the first name I added to the relevant section on the left before now.  Consider it rectified.

He not only covers the stories you would expect but also gives mention to news that cannot be gleamed from skimming results, scorers and league tables.  This week’s piece mentioned horrific lacerations, the story of the club with 49 fans who currently top the table and, of course, why Klinsmann is already under pressure in Munich.  Make sure to add him to your regular reading list.

In other German news: Pizarro has cut short his miserable spell in West London by moving to Bremen, Bayer Leverkusen have signed Michal Kadlec and Zidan has been handed the number 10 shirt by his new employers.

Football’s back

English league football returned in glorious fashion last weekend and was swiftly followed by the Premier League, note FA lawyers – I did not say Premiership, on Saturday just gone.

It’s that exciting part of August as all major European leagues are resuming after the winter break.  Pre-season tournaments such as Feynoord, Ajax and Arsenal ones that collate teams from all over the continent are all well and good but I can’t think of a fan out there that wouldn’t prefer Hull vs. Fulham on the opening day of the season to even the most glamorous friendly such as Real Madrid vs. Arsenal.

Like a child who’s just received Easter Eggs from every auntie they have, now is truly the time of year to gorge on everything available to you as a football fan.  When browsing the European page of Soccernet earlier on, I was even interested in reading the Belgium first division results purely because it was the first day of the season.  None of the teams bar the perennial qualifiers for Europe really resonate with me but I looked at them anyway.  You’ll be interested to read that Genk, Anderlecht and Standard Liege (who impressed me so against Liverpool the Wednesday before) have already pulled away at the top of the league.  Ok, maybe not everyone is interested…

In honour of early season enthusiasm, here is a brief guide to everything that went on over the weekend.

Belgium
As mentioned above.  The Jupiler League, to my untrained eye, seems to have started exactly as expected.  Liege looked a good, if slightly aggressive outfit, against Liverpool and the old rule that “Football Manager is never wrong” was re-inforced with a good performance from Axel Witsel.  I sometimes wonder if it is just that well-researched or a case of life imitating art such is the scary level of accuracy.  Do players on the computer at home see that someone like Witsel has an 18 for pace, dribbling and crossing and automatically give him more respect than perhaps is deserved?  It’s an unlikely theory, and one probably deserving of being written on the back of a lager-stained beer mat.

France
Ligue 1 (or ‘un’‘ if you’ve perfected the accent) has been going for two weeks now so the league has slightly more credibility.  The story of the early season is that newly-promoted Grenoble are top of the league after impressing all by winning their first two matches.  At the weekend they beat Rennes 1-0 to move above the likes of Lyon, Marsielles and Monaco to the top of the heap.  Houllier’s men dropped their first points of the season by drawing at Lorient but they will surely be at the peak soon enough.

I claim to support Auxerre but could not name more than a couple of players from their side.  We lost 4-0 to Mariselle at the weekend.

Germany
Like England, the Germans have chosen Aug 16th as their preferred kick-off date.  The Bundesliga games are shown live on Setanta (like a lot of European football – if you haven’t got it then get it) and when I move out (in a shared house they’re on at too inconvenient a time to hog the television) I shall keep fully up to date with proceedings.

I’m following a team for the first time ever in Germany this season thanks to Martin Jol taking the Hamburg job and my fandom has been instantly rewarded by their opening day 2-2 draw away at Bayern Munich (including some classic Atouba moments), the hardest fixture in the league.  They have a right winger who hails from Burkino Faso called Patroipa who particularly stood out when watching them in a friendly against Real Madrid and I’m keen to see how they do despite the loss of Rafael Van Der Vaart.

The result is even more impressive considering they went 2-0 in thefirst 20 minutes but valiantly fought back against a team including Klose, Podolski, Schweinsteiger, Kroos (who is one to watch) et al.  Bild, the German version of the Sun, has an English language Bundesliga section which makes it a bit easier to follow.

Scotland
I should give a brief mention to the fact that Mo Edu has joined Rangers.  As a completely fairweather Toronto FC fan who sometimes forgets to even check results, I’m disappointed one of the best players they had have left – especially for Scotland.  Their new-look central midfield pairing of Edu and Pedro Mendes is such an obvious attempt to woo my courtship that I cannot be too angry however.  Hamilton surprisingly lead the way but both Glasgow clubs are hot on their trail in second and third.  I’m in no way politically influenced by Scottish football but have a preference for who I’d like to see in this year.  I’m not religious so the Protestant / Catholic connotations mean nothing to me but as an Englishman history dictates that I should prefer the blue side of Glasgow.  Again, I’ve never payed any attention to this.

However Edu, Mendes, ShogunIIIEmperor (join the Facebook group to show your appreciation) and just the general misery that is Gordon Strachan have convinced me to finally pick a side, for one year at least.  My decision has the added benefit of them already having been eliminated from Europe so I don’t need watch or justify a horrific anti-football performance from them either. ‘Mon the Gers.

Misc
Football Weekly (see left) started again today after the summer break, and that’s a great place to learn more about European football in a humourous manner.

£5 Euro 2008 betting preview

Around two weeks ago I was considering writing about one of the 16 teams in Euro 2008 every day in the build up the tournament’s start. On Monday I was considering a four-day-long preview where I examined a different group every day. This morning I was thinking about an all-encompassing preview in one long post. Now, with the tournament starting tomorrow, you get something better than all those three combined. My much sought after gambling preview which, due to me covering so many bases, should be live throughout the tournament.

I have a massive fiver burning a hole in my online Bet365 account and as finances are slightly stretched I don’t plan on investing any more during the tournament. With such limited funds, betting on favourites or short-odds bets doesn’t seem worthwhile. I could try and keep backing winner favourite after favourite and re-investing every time I’d inevitably be let down by Austria getting revenge for 1938 against Germany or something. This means that backing an outright winner seems largely pointless as everyone, except one team, with half a chance is below 10-1.

Top tournament goalscorer is a more tempting market. Although once again it seems a little small-fry for me. I want to win BIG on this tournament and that means combining the two. Tournament winner / top goalscorer. This is a dodgy bet because someone like Torres could easily score the most goals yet Germany win the show outright. These fixed markets only account for one country winning the Golden Boot and the trophy. Still – It’s only a fiver. I’ll start with the most interesting bet first.

Romania & Adrian Mutu @ 351.00, £1.00 Single

This is my most outlandish bet and I expect to be laughed at heartily for picking it.  However it is far from as unlikely as the odds would suggest.

I think the winner is going to come from the ill-fated GROUP OF MURDEROUS DEATH but I think Holland can be pretty much written off.  I like Robben, Van Der Vaart and Sneijder but their defence is poor and overall I don’t think they quite have what it takes.  Romania on the other hand are being written off as the whipping boys of the group but they actually took four points from Holland in the qualifying stages.  They won said group, which also contained Bulgaria Slovenia, with +19 goal difference over only 12 games.  This suggests they score goals and don’t concede many at all, even against good teams (Holland failed to score against them at all).

They have two outstanding players in Adrian Mutu (above) and Christian Chivu with a promising young striker in Ciprian Marica also leading the line.  Mutu is only seven goals off equaling Hagi’s national record for international goals and could feasibly match or better that in the coming weeks, in about half the number of games it took the ex-Barcelona man.  It’s not been a great start to June for Adrian, but it could end very nicely.

In my mind they are capable of getting 5 points in the group and have enough acumen to beat anyone in Europe on their day.  I know this sounds quite obvious for a team ranked 12th in the world but for reason they have been largely ignored.  I am getting in early so I can say I told you so when they take the trophy back to Bucharest.  Nobody gave Greece a chance four years ago, and their squad didn’t contain players possessing the class and guile that Mutu and Chivu provide.

France & Karim Benzema @ 81.00, £1.00 Single

Now for the first of the four more obvious choices.  France have an amazing squad despite their trouble in qualifying.  Nasri, Ribery, Toulalon, Henry, Anelka, Makelele and yet a young guy from Lyon could very well be in the ace in the crown.

Lyon have slapped a €50m price tag on his head after Man Utd were rumoured to be sniffing around and for good reason.  He is arguably the best striker under the age of 21 in the world and doesn’t seem to have any flaws.  He is tall, strong, good in the air, pacey and capable of finishing with both feet.  My only worries would be that despite all the above, France tend to have loyalty to the veterans in their side and he may not start every game with Henry and Anelka also in the squad.  Also, the GROUP OF TORTUROUS DEATH is likely to a tight one and strikers in weaker groups (see my next pick) could have a major head start by the time it gets to the qualifying rounds.

Still though, 80-1 seems very generous and worth a pound of investment.

Germany & Mario Gomez @ 34.00, £1.00 Single

With reference to my Benzema / France comments, Germany find themselves in a very different situation.  They are favourites to win the tournament and it is hard to argue even considering their lack of star power compared to rival nations.

First of all, they have the easiest group by far.  They could not have cherry-picked it any better.  They will face co-hosts Austria – who must be one of the worst teams to qualify from a European Championships in some years, Poland – Another poor side who seem to perennial qualifiers but consistent early-leavers at the same time, and Croatia – a talented team but one lacking their top scorer and only potent goal threat.

It is basically a home tournament for them as well and you would expect them to score hatfuls of goals early on.  Miroslav Klose has profited in recent tournaments from similar situations and could do again this time.  However better value can be found in his likely strike partner Mario Gomez.  He has scored 44 goals in his last 62 games for his club Stuttgart and is being tipped as one to watch by informed European journalists.  I don’t personally think Germany will be outright winners, but the much-spoke cliche tells us to never write them off and if they are to triumph then this man may be hailed as the architect.

Italy & Luca Toni @ 34.00, £1.00 Single

Whose to say that the world champions don’t have a shot of doing the double, ala France in 1998 and 2002.  Captain Fabio Cannavaro is injured but expect their defence to be as water-tight as ever.  Their problems could lie up front if anywhere.  Del Piero is being trotted out for another tournament but it could be one-too many for the legend from Turin.  Cassano is talented, but also mental.  Borriello and Di Natale have had good seasons but are unproven internationally.

Their go-to man will undoubtedly be Luca Toni.  He has just had a great debut season in Munich where he claimed top scorer honours in the Bundesliga.  He also averages a goal nearly every other game for his country.  Italy are second favourites to win the tournament with most bookmakers but that will not be possible without a good tournament from the highest paid player in Europe.

Spain & Fernando Torres @ 17.00, £1.00 Single

My final and most predictable choice.  This is reflected in the frankly awful odds on offer.  However if I had to stake my reputation (ha!) on choosing one combination then this would be it.

Spain have an outrageously talented group of players including Fabregas, Casillas, Xavi, Villa and a favourite of mine in Iniesta.  Their shaky defence is offset by an easier potential route to the finals compared to their main rivals.  Ignore the boringly repetitive pundits who will Pavlovian repeat to you “they never do it in big tournaments”, this is their best chance in ages and El Nino is the most likely out of anyone to help them finally fulfil their potential.

Calm before the storm

First of all, it’s been a while since my last entry to this blog and there really is no excuse given the amount if important football going on in this time. So what have I missed…

FA Cup Final – I previewed this in glorious fashion but never got around to talking about the match itself. That’s probably because it didn’t inspire me to wax lyrical about it. Portsmouth played overly defensively as soon as they went a goal up and it largely killed the contest. They have played like this all season in the Premiership and their physically and commanding and tactically intelligent back five have been a key reason for their league position.

However such tactics are not really in line with what neutrals would like to see in an FA Cup final, especially from a top ten side in the country playing someone mid-table in the league below. You could say that they were slightly nervous and wanted to avoid a spectacular fall at the final hurdle and as such just did enough to finish. They started with one man up front and in the final minutes were running the ball into the corner to kill it off once and for all. Disappointing.

Champions League final - In contrast, I could probably write about this game forever but I think everything has already been said. I thought it was a tremendous game that kept me entertained all the way through. Chelsea more than deserved it based on the efforts of the night itself and will consider themselves unlucky to have finished runners up. Frank Lampard is not my favourite player but I have developed a new-found respect for him in the past few months and thought he was excellent in midfield along with Michael Ballack.

My liking for him is nothing to do with sympathy over his family circumstances, but initially were due to an interview on The Game podcast (link on the left) conducted with Gianluca Vialli and the usual presenters. He spoke very intelligently and showed a different side of character that we see all too rarely from professional footballers. Maybe it’s because the tabloid press is obsessed with headlines but it was more than refreshing to hear such a high-profile professional talk about aspects of the game including media intrusion, why players are reluctant to talk to journalists in this country and thoughts on foreign climates. I’m sure it will still be in their archives and is worth a listen if you haven’t already.

Whilst I found something very uncomfortable about the tribute when his mum died (picture above), in the public eye at least he has responded excellently and played some of the best football I have seen him play. His interview after the final whistle where he talked about how he has to hold his family together in the past few weeks while trying to win the double with Chelsea put a lot into perspective. This is a man who scored in the semi final and never looked like missing his penalty when the pressure was on. In contrast Nicolas Anelka (everyone’s favourite whipping boy) apparently refused to take one of the first five penalties in the shootout because he had not had adequate time to warm up. I’m sure that the usual morons will continue to boo him and some fans will even make sick comments chants about the death of his mother, but hopefully I am not alone in my change of opinion.

The play-offs - I don’t have a lot to say on these but I want to air a gripe I have that nobody has so far been able to answer. Why is it that they have suddenly decided to switch the order in which the play-off games are played. it is tradition that we start with League 2 on the Saturday and progress accordingly until the Championship game on Bank Holiday Monday. This year it is all different and as as result it all seems like a massive anti-climax. Typical case of change for the sake of it seemingly although I;m willing to be corrected if there is any thought behind the decision at all. I was pleased to see Hull go up mainly because of Nicky Barmby but their manager Phil Brown seems like a skilled coach as well. Everybody is naturally predicting that they will be next season’s Derby County but with the right investment they could surprise people. Doncaster also thoroughly deserved their victory over Leeds in yesterdays game.

Rangers - Their never-ending season has, err… ended. After 68 games their players are able to put their feet up. I don’t think many if any of them will be taking part in Euro 2008 and so can have a deserved few weeks off. Ultimately they fell short in the two competitions they put most effort into winning but they can still look back on a successful season. The SPL’s refusal to extend the season to accommodate the European success of one of their teams was both spiteful and unnecessary. If Rangers decide to rest players in domestic cup games in future seasons then they will attract plenty of critics for devaluing the cups. However when the authorities do nothing to help them then what loyalty should they have in return?

Jol to Hamburg – My love for Martin Jol is unabound and so I am delighted to see him back in football at a high-profile European club in Hamburg. My interest in th Bundesliga has already increased exponentially and they become my official German team to follow. I loved spending some time in Cologne a few years but the lure of Jol and Rafael Van Der vaart, along with recently departed Spurs coach Ricardo Moniz, is too big to ignore. Come on the Rothosen!

And now, a week or off until Euro 200 begins. I shall try to update this daily or thereabouts from now on as there won’t be a shortage of stories and transfer rumours going around to keep everyone entertained.

The finishing line approaches

Having finally decided that someone may as well win La Liga, despite nobody apparently wanting it that much, Real Madrid confirmed regained the La Liga title for the second consecutive year with a dramatic 2-1 victory over Osasuna. Coach Bernd Schuster has apparently been assured that he will not be sacked over the summer and will be given the chance to mount a proper challenge for the Champions League next season.

Reports in Bulgaria also suggest that Madrid may be the likely destination of Dimitar Berbatov should (when) he leaves Spurs this summer. if he has to leave, and I sincerely hope that he doesn’t, then I’d love him to go to a team like Real or AC Milan so that I could continue to follow his career with a clear conscience. It would be heartbreaking to watch him play for a different English team every week and even see him come back to White Hart Lane in someone else’s colours.

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Chelsea kept their Premiership dream alive at least for a few more days with a 2-0 win away at Newcastle earlier today. The match was fairly routine but it was followed by anabsolutely bizarre interview from Kevin Keegan where he said he doesn’t expect Newcastle to progress next season.

The ever-useless Jamie Redkanpp then said that Newcastle can’t expect to finish higher than tenth at best with their current squad. The same squad that contains Michael Owen, Obafemi Martins, Mark Vuduka, Shay Given, Habib Beye, Abdoulaye Faye, Steven Taylor, Joey Barton etc etc… Not all of them are top drawer players but Reading finished eigth last year with a team substantially poorer on paper.

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Bayern Munich confirmed what everyone already knew when their nil nil draw confirmed them as Bundesliga winners. Raphael Honigstein has a lovely line at the end of his weekly article…

In Munich, policemen scrambled to close off the main streets in anticipation of revelling crowds. But no one turned up. The 21st title had been a formality a long time ago. No one could pretend otherwise. The Red and White faithful were no more in the mood to celebrate this success than a man who’s filled out €70m-worth of lottery tickets and finds he has won his money back.

His column also tells a very interesting story about Jan Koller’s own fans turning on him despite being their best hope of avoiding relegation.

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In Italy Inter Milan missed out on the opportunity to effectively clinch the title by losing “El Derby” 2-1 to AC Milan. Highlights of the game can be found here (including a completely amazing miss from Filippo Inzaghi at the 1.35 mark) and it provides suitable ammunition for those Kaka obsessives following on from a post made yesterday. For the time being at least Roma still have at least a mathematical chance of snatching the title at the last minute although given the team’s relative fixtures remaining you would be foolish to bet on it.

One such fixture for Inter Milan will be when they travel to Parma, my Italian team, for the last game of the season. This game could both crown them as champions and unfortunately send their opponents crashing to Serie B at the same time. They currently lie one point adrift of safety and depressingly their other remaining game is away to Fiorentina who themselves are fighting for the final champions league place. It’s not looking promising.

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Talking of AC, in the least surprising bit of transfer news we’ll see all summer, Matthieu Flamini shocked nobody by turning his back on Arsene Wenger in favour of receiving Milanese bags with a € sign printed on the front. This doesn’t bother me but it strikes me as a pretty mercenary act on his part. If this was at the end of last season then I could understand him leaving after not having secured a starting spot or even worse being played out of position at left back, excellently, and being dropped for a Champions League final. Maybe he bears a grudge?

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His soon-to-be former central midfield partner Cesc Fabregas features in an advert that is the subject of much outrage over at The Offside. For those that haven’t seen it (and as someone that doesn’t watch a whole heap of television I couldn’t tell if it;s started airing yet or not) it involved the Arsenal midfielder being covered in fireproof clothing and then set alight. A football is then is then doused in lighter fluid and set aflame which he uses to perform kick ups.

I can’t say I’m as outraged as they appear to be, and I’m inclined to agree with one of the commenters that it is probably someone else rather than Fab who was actually set light to, but it’s reasonably impressive nonetheless.