Jack against Cologne, Kos is out, crowd trouble worries, and doping in German football.

By Tony Attwood

We’ve had the story that Jack Wilshere will be brought back against Cologne abut 20 times, which can only mean he probably won’t start, but if he is in the squad, he’ll be on the beach.  And I write that because normally when the same story goes around and around and around with very similar wording in each case, it means no one has much in the way of real news, and each is just copying from the other.

And Koscielny is banned for this match because of an indiscretion (that is to say a red card) in the final Champs League game of last season.

But wait, there is more, because we are seeing a series of reports that use the words “Arsenal are braced” and “according to reports” which are journalist code for “here’s something I just made up”.  In this case the story is from the Journal of Hate (ie the Daily Mail, sponsors of a rather nasty anti-Arsenal blog that I prefer not to name) which says:

“Arsenal are braced for a mass invasion by thousands of fanatical Cologne supporters.”

Well, yes, I do see the two lines of security men every time I enter the stadium, although whether I would call them “braced” I’m not sure.  Anyway, we are then told “The German club have an allocation of 3,000 tickets for the Europa League opener at the Emirates Stadium on Thursday,” which by and large does not count as news in my book.  More like the standard allocation at the Ems which goes back to the moment we moved in, in 2006.

So nothing to worry about in the first two sentences but then we have, “But there have been reports that as many as 20,000 are preparing to travel to London to savour the atmosphere of their first European campaign for 25 years.”

I suspect that “reports” and “preparing” are the key words here.  Three guys in a bar having a chat maybe.

It goes on to tell us that Arsenal have warned visiting supporters that buying from touts is a risky business, and that they don’t sell tickets to Euro games to members who have joined after the European draw has been made, in order to avoid people becoming members simply to buy a ticket for one Euro match.

There is a message on the Arsenal website saying, “Please note visiting supporters that purchase a ticket in the home end for this fixture are likely to be ejected from the stadium.   We have made this decision following consultation with the police and to ensure we are in line with crowd segregation requirements.”

The Mail quotes this although what the Mail failed to point out (maybe because their journo was down the pub or slipping stories to the rather nasty blog they sponsor) is that the self same message appears for each European game – so if you go to the Arsenal v Red Star page on the Arsenal site it says exactly the same.  It’s not really news about Cologne.

Anyway, moving on…

While the English media continue to make the point that Arsenal players get injured more than those of other clubs and it is all the manager’s fault, in Germany the matter of injuries does get a propoer serious analysis and debate in the media.

And it appears that the number of injuries in the Bundesliga is increasing season by season, but at the same time the players are coming back faster and faster – a finding that has come as a result of a data analysis over the past eight years. (Can you imagine the English media doing that?)

According to the survey muscle injuries are the most common type of injury, but they are actually the easiest to prevent.

Their analysis also shows that as one finds in England, some players are significantly more common than others (the Bender twins, for example).  In case you are interested the journalist Fabian Siegel has been collecting the data for the website fussballbeletzungen.com since 2009, with more than 10,000 injuries listed.  Oh for such data in England – instead of “Arsenal have the most injuries – official” which we get most seasons.

Meanwhile, as players in England think that drugs testing is so unimportant that they can do as they please with them (resulting in Phil Jones being banned for two matches and Daley Blind fined by Uefa after they were found guilty of breaching doping regulations after the Europa League final) in Germany we find a somewhat different approach to drug testing in the media.

The rules of the German Football Federation (DFB) are clear as to how a player proceeds to a urine test, and what happens if he urgently needs to go to the toilet between the timing of the final whistle of the game and the taking of the test.  On the first week of the season in Germany a player from Hannover apparently had such a need but did not have permission and did not follow the correct procedure in terms of having two people with him (to ensure there is no swapping of samples between players etc).

And there is indeed a touch of outrage in German clubs about such “petty” rules – as one can imagine in England.

But in Germany, as soon as the “petty” argument is raised the rest of the media strike back.  As one said, “​​what would happen if a similar case had occurred in another sport? Cyclists or rowers are regularly (and rightly) challenged in the event of violations of the control rules. Once again, football thinks it can be different.”

Oh for a media that took such things seriously in England.

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