Premiership pre-season friendlies
Manchester United, Tottenham and Arsenal prepare for the new season
Kaizer Chiefs 0-0 Manchester Utd *** Birmingham 0-2 Tottenham *** Arsenal 2-1 Ajax
With barely a fortnight's rest after the end of the World Cup, professional clubs up and down the UK and across Europe are warming up for the season ahead by playing meaningless matches against their neighbours, celebrating retiring players (known as testimonials) or embarking on exhausting tours in far-flung climes.
An example of the latter is Manchester United, currently dragging their B team (World Cup players are still on their hols) around South Africa.
Although they won their first two tour matches against Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs, they lost on penalties to the Chiefs in a second match and missed out on adding the not-at-all-coveted Vodacom Challenge Trophy.
Despite not having their international stars on show, the stadia were full for the visit of the Red Devils -- even with the games live on TV and tickets costing more than the average Castle Premiership match in South Africa.
Talk that the tour was a good chance to blood a promising batch of youngsters seems a bit disingenuous -- most of the news was about returning veterans Paul Scholes and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. The truth is that these tours are always about money.
And on the subject of Manchester United's money, or rather the incredible amounts Malcolm Glazer has borrowed of other people's to buy the club, their debt climbed to even more monstrous heights last week through a debt restructuring deal that sees the club's annual interest charge fall to a trifling £62 million from £90 million but overall borrowing increase by 14% to £660 million.
Back to matters on the pitch and on Saturday another side bereft of stars due to the World Cup (Spurs) took on a side also sadly bereft of stars (Birmingham) - but that's because their team is shite, and nothing to do with Germany 2006.
Spurs won the match 2-0 with a brace from new £10.8 million Bulgarian signing Dimitar Berbatov - the second a blistering volley from the edge of the box. Berbatov is the sort of rangy striker that Tottenham coach Martin Jol likes leading the line and Spurs fans will hope he can emulate and surpass the front running exploits of the Egyptian Mido from last season. He certainly has the pedigree - a skilful striker as well as being strong in the air, Berbatov bagged more than 20 goals in both of the last two seasons he spent in the Bundesliga with Bayer Leverkusen.
Also of note, is that both Berbatov goals were laid on by Hossam Ghaly, a signing from Feyenoord last season who failed to make a first-team appearance, but has impressed in the reserve league. The Lillywhites' challenge for a Champions League spot may be more successful this time if they can keep hold of all their players and the new additions hit the ground running.
Not that pre-season friendlies are much of a guide to the season ahead. These matches are the Phoney War before the real fighting begins, and friendlies don't get much more phoney than the sickening Dennis Bergkamp lovefest on Saturday that saw the official opening of Arsenal's new home at the Emirates Stadium.
Bergkamp was a fantastic footballer for both club and country over the last twenty years and as loved in his native Holland as he is in his adopted North London. To honour Dennis, Arsenal arranged a friendly against his first team, Ajax of Amsterdam, to open their palatial new stadium (and very nice it looked on TV, too).
Arsenal - like Spurs and Man Utd - were still giving their World Cup stars a rest and fielded a very young side. Ajax had a full team out due to the fact not many of their players stayed for long at Germany 2006. Despite the disparity, the young Gooners gave a good account of themselves and only trailed at the interval by a single goal scored by the prolific Klaas-Jan Huntelaar - how long can Ajax keep hold of him?
And it was after the first 45 minutes that it all went horribly wrong as any kind of serious event. Old Arsenal players both sublime (Ian Wright, Patrick Vieira) and ridiculous (Oleg Luzhny, Gilles Grimandi) got in on the act while current Dutch coach Marco Van Basten played for Ajax alongside the legendary Johan Cruyff.
Arsenal turned the game around in the second half through goals from Thierry Henry and Nwankwo Kanu but the score wasn't the important thing. It was all about glorious Dennis Bergkamp and the adoring hordes in Islington. Pass the sick bucket. At least the money raised from the match proceeds is going to charity.
As an interesting postscript, Dennis Bergkamp was named after former Manchester United and Scotland legend Denis Law. In the year of Dennis's birth (1969) the paternalistic Dutch authorities could veto any 'unusual' names and Denis was considered too close to the female Denise, so Dennis it was. What they didn't veto was his middle name of Maria - apparently perfectly normal for many Catholic boys of the time. Go figure.
