“I’m happy and proud, I’m moving to big club, big city and extremely strong league”, said Bilić: “And that’s it”.

After he spent six years at the head of the national team, Bilić picked a Moscow-side that hasn’t won anything since 2007, when they celebrated in the National Cup. Lokomotiv have waited for the championship title since 2004, and this season they couldn’t even manage to grab the spot for European competitions.  No wonder that in Croatia they’re asking if he’s made the wrong move.

In his time as manager of Croatia, the former West Ham and Everton player went through typical Balkan rollercoaster. When he unexpectedly got his chance as the manager of national team, the public was unimpressed, concerned that it was his first real job. But, Slaven Bilić gained the public’s confidence with fantastic performances in qualification campaign for Euro 2008. He rejuvenated the squad, introduced guys like Modrić, Eduardo, Ćorluka and after beating England twice turned out to be the most popular personality in the country.

But it all went downhill after that unlucky defeat in Vienna. The team was seriously traumatised after that setback in the last seconds of Euro 2008 quarterfinal, and things started to fall apart. Firstly they missed the World Cup in South Africa after miserable performances in qualification. That was followed by a reasonably poor showing in the campaign for Euro 2012, but they eventually secured the spot in Ukraine after beating Turkey in the play-offs.

In the meantime, Slaven’s fame has begun to fade. He gained more enemies, the popularity vanished, and interest of the big clubs too. Even though Olga Smordoskaya said that Lokomotiv had to “fight for Bilić with clubs from Premiership”, the one who knows Bilić and his work should know how big an Anglophile he is and that rejecting clubs from England was not the option. He would never pick Russia over England, no matter how big the money is. Four years ago Bilić was destined to become manager of West Ham, Everton or some other premiership club. In this moment he had few offers on his table, offers from Russia, Ukraine and Turkey. Very good leagues, very good clubs, but not the top ones.

Bilić has not made a mistake. He wanted to work and he took the best offer he had. Moving to Russia, on the other hand, is always risky for a young coach. He decided to gamble - if he produces a wonder and wins something with Lokomotiv, he’ll be in the game again. If not, there are more turbulent times ahead of him.

England is the desire, he has just decided to take a detour.

As of Saturday, Nguyen may no longer be merely aspiring. His two goal, one assist performance won him the league’s Player of the Week honours, the perfect way to draw attention to a strong if understated start. Ten games into his Major League Soccer career, Nguyen’s carved a position of his own on the left side of New England’s midfield.

That a player with Nguyen’s credentials can hold down a spot in an MLS XI may not sound remarkable, but two weeks ago, the Texas-born Vietnamese looked to be on his way out of the league. That’s when second-year franchise Vancouver cut Nguyen, making him available in the league’s Waiver Draft. New England, a team that has missed the playoffs in each of the last two seasons, picked up the country’s former high school player of the year, giving Nguyen a 4,000 km cross-continent chance to re-ignite his professional career.

That Saturday’s breakout came against Vancouver provides the obvious revenge angle, but the list of entities that have undersold Nguyen transcends a mere second-year MLS franchise. After getting three U.S. national team caps in the summer of 2007, Nguyen’s hopped from the Netherlands to Denmark before playing in Vietnam ahead of his return home. That return came one year later than Nguyen had hoped, with a deal with his hometown team (FC Dallas) falling through before the 2011 season.

Against the Whitecaps, Nguyen flashed the kind of skill that got him looks with PSV and Arsenal. On New England’s winning goal, Nguyen beat two men cutting in from his position on the left flank. When he drew the opposition’s right centre-half out, Nguyen fed a ball through the vacated space, leaving an easy goal for teammate Saer Sene.

Nguyen’s second was one of the best goals of the league’s young season. Taking a throw in from the left at 25 yards out, Nguyen took one touch for control and a second to volley a dipping shot into the right side netting, getting his attempt off too quickly to give Whitecap defenders any chance to close him down.

It’s the kind of display Major League Soccer expected from when the league attempted to sign him out of high school in 2004. Like a number of U.S.-raised players who feel their talents outstretched MLS’s opportunities, Nguyen passed, spending one year at university before being spotting by Guus Hiddink during the 2005 FIFA Youth Championships. Then at PSV, Hiddink wanted to groom him in the mould of Arjen Robben.

Within a year, Nguyen was no longer in PSV’s plans, Hiddink’s wanderlust leaving his American punt stranded in the reserves. Having failed to make an impact with Randers (Denmark) before two years in Vietnam’s V-League, Nguyen’s career was turning into a cautionary tale. Seemingly a glimmer in a old dreamer’s eye, Nguyen had left home, university and Major League Soccer to become a 22-year-old journeyman.

It’s surprisingly common story, though with a number of notable successes, the plan has produced results that range the spectrum. Benny Feilhaber, Charlie Davies, Alejandro Bedoya, and Eric Lichaj (to name a few) are U.S. internationals who left university and leapt to Europe without giving MLS a sniff. Mike Grella, however, left Duke University to join Leeds United but has since seen time with Carlisle United, Swindon Town, Brentford and Bury. Marcus Tracy turned away from MLS and went to Denmark after leaving Wake Forest University, leaving Aalborg after two injury-riddled seasons where the forward failed to get meaningful playing time. And Tony Taylor, lured away from Jacksonville University after two years, is struggling to move out of the Portuguese second division amid questions about his management.

Every year, there are a handful of Taylors, Tracys, and Nguyens. Check back in a few years, and you’ll only occasionally find a Feilhaber, Davies, or Lichaj.

Having caught the eye of Hiddink (at a club with the history of PSV), Nguyen was supposed to be different. Capped three times as a 19-year-old (twice at the Copa America), Nguyen was destined to provide the U.S. with a new type of player: a small (5’8”), quick, technically gifted winger who could break down opponents one-on-one. Contributing to those hopes, Nguyen also carried the promise that the perpetually untapped population of U.S. ethnic minorities may start meaningfully (and proportionally) contributing to the country’s football.

As with most prospects, the hype undermined the dream. After struggling at PSV and Randers, Nguyen almost needed his two years in Vietnam, even if financial gain provided the original impetus to go. In the meantime, he’s faded from the U.S. national team picture, his three appearances from 2007 still the only caps on his international resumé.

Getting cut by Vancouver was a setback, but like his sojourn in Vietnam, it’s set to help Nguyen. Without it, Nguyen would have carried seven-year-old expectations on his lithe shoulders throughout his inaugural season. Now, he can build his own legacy rather than try to live up to one that had been written by others. If Saturday’s show is any indication, if just may lead to Nguyen’s fourth cap.

For two decades Argentina has crowned two league champions per season: at the halfway point, the club sitting top of the table claims the Apertura (opening) title; the table is then reset ahead of the return fixtures, with whoever tops the second table winning the Clausura (closing) championship.

The short-tournament format was first introduced in 1990 when Newell’s Old Boys topped Argentina’s first Apertura table and Boca Juniors claimed the Clausura. In the format’s inaugural season the two sides contested a playoff to decide the overall champion – Marcelo Bielsa’s Newell’s eventually claiming the championship via a penalty shootout. The following year that playoff was scrapped, however, and so it was in 1991 that the first ‘true’ short-tournament champions were crowned when River Plate claimed the Apertura.

While a foreign concept to European football fans, the system wasn’t especially convoluted and undoubtedly served to raise the competitiveness of the league. With form having only to be maintained for half a season, smaller clubs stood a better chance of sustaining a title challenge - Argentinos Juniors, Lanus and Banfield all won their first ever league championships under the format, while the last ten tournaments have produced eight different league champions.

The format has been criticised, however, for creating what many consider to be a pernicious culture of short-termism. In a half-season, every victory is greeted with twice the euphoria, every defeat with twice the vitriol.

The 2012/13 season will operate with one continuous league table, but simply finishing the season top of the pile may not be enough to see you win the title. After 19 games of the 38-game season, whoever occupies first place will be Torneo Inicial champions. The club that finishes the 38-game season in first place will be the Torneo Final champions. A playoff will then be contested between the Inicial and Final champions to crown a single overall league champion. In the event that the Inicial champions finish the season on top, then that club will win the title automatically and there would be no playoff.

There will also be changes the relegation system. Relegation is currently is determined by the average number of points claimed over the last three full seasons – a system introduced following the relegation of San Lorenzo in 1981, and which subsequently saved River Plate from relegation two years later – with the bottom two clubs going straight down to Primera B. Third and fourth from bottom face a two-legged play-off against the third and fourth place teams from second division – a system that eventually did relegate River Plate.

From next season, however, the three teams with the worst points-per-game average over three years – or for however long, up to and including three full seasons, they’ve spent in the top flight – will be relegated automatically. According to Clarín, the decision-makers hope ‘that the extension will result in less hysteria, resulting in fewer episodes of violence.’

The issue of fan violence has been a particularly hot topic in Argentina this month, with Independiente president Javier Cantero waging ‘war’ on the Barra Bravas – Argentina’s institutionalized hooligan groups. The club’s fans have pledged their support, marching against the ‘Diablos Rojos’ Barra, and establishing a separate ‘popular’ terrace at the other end of the stadium displaying signs with messages such as, ‘you don’t support [football clubs] for the money’.

During his election campaign, Cantero met with Salvemos al Futbol and pledged not to bow to the barra like those before him. He had already stopped supplying the barra with free tickets and transport when the decision to confiscate their flags, which are traditionally stored at the stadium, resulted in the barra storming his office. Tensions spilled over last week when the barra were refused entry to Independiente’s clash with Arsenal in Sarandí.

‘This time they will not win,’ a defiant Cantero told the hundreds of fans who flocked to the club’s headquarters last week. ‘Today, we are the first club to stand against a scourge that everyone says is impossible [to defeat].’ As the movement gathers steam it’s hoped others will follow suit. #ChauBarras tweeted popular TV show Fútbol Para Todos after a week that also saw River fans sing songs in protest of their own barra, Los Borrachos del Tablón.

‘The new format is something of hybrid,’ wrote Alejandro Casar Gonzalez in La Nación, revealing the decision was a compromise between club officials who wanted to retain the short championship format but recognised the need for a system that would curb fans’ enthusiasm.

Though it will take considerably more than a change in the league format to put an end to the reign of the barra bravas, a problem the AFA President Julio Grondona continues largely to ignore, Cantero has made a stand. Now it’s down to the rest of Argentinian football to stand with him.

As his audience watched on quietly, the legendary former referee began to clap.

Yet to say a word, every couple of seconds Collina abruptly smacked his hands together.

Then, all of a sudden, the follicly-challenged boss of Italy’s professional referees stopped dead in his tracks and launched into his speech.

At the same time, out the door of the meeting room and through Coverciano’s winding corridors was the complex’s large dining room where Claudio Silvestri was signing autographs and taking photos with the restaurant’s guests.

Silvestri, Coverciano’s head chef, had become nationally recognized as the cook for the Italian national team thanks to an ad campaign for a certain hazelnut based spread.

Back out the door again and continuing along the corridor into Coverciano’s main entrance stood a homage to the four victorious World Cup teams Italy has produced, including an almost life-size photo of the starting XI from the 2006 World Cup final.

The Italian football federation’s Casa Italia is the heart of Italian football, pumping its vital lifeblood of coaches, players and referees across the country.

Along with the world-renowned coaching academy, every other week Italy’s professional referees gather at the complex to look over their recent work and prepare for games, while regular developmental camps are also held there for Italy’s most promising young players.

On international dates the Azzurri gather at the Tuscan complex to train. On these occasions, as the national team is put through its paces on the main pitch just outside the restaurant, relations with the press are worked on through food spreads and access to players.

Back to that Friday morning in early May 2010 though and as Collina briefed his referees before the weekend’s fixtures, it was a good moment for Italian football.

Inter Milan had just qualified for the UEFA Champions League final, Italy were still world champions and Marcello Lippi had returned to the helm of the Azzurri.

Since then, the optimism and confidence that floated around Coverciano that day has largely disappeared.

The Azzurri suffered a humiliating group stage exit at the World Cup and, while Inter won their Champions League final, it was only a stay of execution as Serie A lost its fourth European Cup spot to Germany.

As the full extent of the calcio scommesse match fixing scandal continues to unfold, Italian football finds itself in another difficult moment.

However the one area that seems to be enjoying a renaissance in Italy is the country’s coaches.

The last three English FA cup winners have all been Italian, Juventus’ scudetto winning coach Antonio Conte has been receiving plaudits from the likes of Johan Cruyff and Arrigo Sacchi and Carlo Ancelotti is going close to adding the French Ligue 1 with Paris Saint-Germain to his recent English Premier League crown.

Yet even the most casual observer of Serie A would notice that despite the league’s vast tactical nuances, it remains something of an anachronism in terms of football philosophy.

The situation in Italy’s second division is even more extreme.

While maintaining the top flight’s penchant for drama, the prevalence of regressive tactics in Serie B has seemingly tamed even Zdenak Zeman’s fundamentalist commitment to attacking football - the sight of Zeman’s Pescara going ahead only to drop deep and defend at times this season has been disheartening for fans of his work in the 1990s.

Philosophy v education

Why is it that Serie A has largely resisted European trends, especially considering the detailed and advanced training Italian coaches receive at Coverciano?

Some part of the answer to this lies in the fact Italian coaches may be extremely capable, but they are also restricted by calcio’s strong philosophical beliefs.

Outsiders watching Serie A football often remark on the slower pace of the Italian game and a connection is regularly made between this tempo and the average age of Italian sides.

While there is some truth to this, a large part of the reason for the speed of Serie A is Italian coaches have an almost pathological obsession with protecting certain areas of the pitch - the most obvious being central midfield.

A stubbornness to play a high defensive line is another factor. If both teams are funneling back when on the transition defensively, there is little space for the team in possession to exploit and the game is slowed down.

It’s instructive that the only Italian team to succeed in Europe over the last few seasons was coached by a foreigner who developed as a tactician exempt from these trends – Jose Mourinho with Inter.

Hope on the horizon

After calciopoli ripped the heart out of Serie A, the first objective for the league was to refind its competitiveness.

Since the “year zero” season of 2009/10 this has gradually improved and now the football on display is starting to evolve as well.

While at the start of the season the project Roma had embarked on seemed liked the most obvious candidate to catch up with Europe’s most progressive teams, the departure of Spanish coach Luis Enrique puts this at risk.

The Giallorossi’s Director General Franco Baldini is now faced with the key decision of whether to employ a coach who can continue the project or change direction with a candidate such as former caretaker manager Vincenzo Montella.

In the meantime eyes should be fixed on the most promising coach to come out of the Coverciano system in recent years, current Azzurri boss Cesare Prandelli who’s work at Fiorentina can’t be overestimated.

After Louis Van Gaal and Bayern Munich narrowly overcame la Viola in the 2009/10 Champions League, Van Gaal called Prandelli’s team the most “adaptable” side in Europe.

Now Prandelli has Italy replicating this form as they look to dictate games - only Spain had more possession than the Azzurri in qualifiers for Euro 2012.

For any real change to happen though, it must come from Serie A itself and domestically Juventus coach Antonio Conte has been receiving plaudits since The Old Lady secured the scudetto for the first time in six years last weekend.

Encouragingly Conte doesn’t share his compatriots’ obsession with defending deep and protecting central zones. He won promotion to Serie A with Siena last season using a variation on 4-2-4 and his Juve team aren’t afraid to press high and win the ball in advanced positions.

So impressive have Juve been under Conte, this week Cruyff compared the bianconeri with Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona.

While the Dutch legend might have been leaning towards hyperbole, the fulcrum of this Juve side, Andrea Pirlo, has given some revealing insights into how his coach works.

“Conte is a great,” explained Pirlo in an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport.

“I’ve had a lot of coaches in my career, but never one who has been so prepared, so meticulous in his work and who explains things so well.

“We watch videos of our opponents three or four times a week and it’s difficult for them to surprise us as a result.

“In terms of tactics and the way he teaches, he’s better than Carlo Ancelotti and Marcello Lippi.”

Italian coaches have proven to be very good at learning and adapting from their peers in Serie A.

After last season when Napoli tore through the league on the counter using a back three and two advanced wingbacks, numerous other teams went on to successfully implement variations on this tactic.

With Juventus having now achieved success with a change of approach from the stoic traditions of Serie A, it’ll be interesting to see if Coverciano has prepared Italy’s coaches to be adaptable philosophically as well as tactically.

“I’m sorry, it’s not very easy for me to speak now,” he told Sport Express by telephone when asked for his reaction to the news on Friday morning. “I need to gather my thoughts.”

“What plans do I have for June? None. I’ll watch the Euros on TV.”

Though the player is clearly shocked, Bilyaletdinov’s downward trajectory will hardly surprise Everton fans, who suffered two frustrating seasons watching one of David Moyes’s few big-money signings fail to live up to expectations.

But his omission from Advocaat’s squad to travel to Poland and Ukraine comes as a genuine shock to those who had watched the 27-year-old become an integral part of this ‘golden generation’ of Russian footballers. Bilyaletdinov played every single game as Russia reached the semi-finals of Euro 2008, and even as his form slipped at Goodison Park he remained a part of Dick Advocaat’s plans. He appeared in five of Russia’s ten qualifiers for Euro 2012, but was never once dropped from a squad.

Compounding the shock is the sense that Bilyaletdinov has been treated differently from many other Russian players whose form has dipped in recent months. Advocaat has been the epitome of conservatism since taking over from his compatriot Guus Hiddink as Russia head coach, refusing to countenance bringing fresh blood into the squad and sticking by many of the faces from the class of 2008. Some players, such as Ajax’s Dmitry Bulykin, one of the Dutch Eredivise’s most consistent scorers, and Dinamo Moscow’s Aleksandr Samedov, the Russian league’s outstanding wide man, have been repeatedly overlooked by Advocaat, seemingly because they were not part of the clique of big names cultivated by his predecessor Hiddink.

In that sense Bilyaletdinov - along with other questionable performers, including Anzhi’s Yury Zhirkov and Zenit’s Konstantin Zyryanov - could have had some confidence that he would be selected for Euro 2012 because of his presence in previous squads.

In addition, the player made every effort to catch the eye of Advocaat and get some match practice by returning home from England in January to play for Spartak Moscow. That move hasn’t worked out particularly well - Bilyaletdinov was actually left out of Spartak’s starting line-up to face Zenit last weekend, a match which the Muscovites won 3-2. Still, the effort to get some match practice ought to have counted in his favour. As Bilyaletdinov himself admitted after hearing he wouldn’t be going to Euro 2012: “I thought I had left England for the sake of the national team.”

That is not, however, to defend the player’s implicit assertion that he is entitled to a place on the plane to Warsaw. Had Advocaat built a side based on meritocratic criteria, Bilyaletdinov would long since have been dropped.

His success at Euro 2008 was predicated on playing wide on the left, but having the freedom to move inside - with the luxury of Yury Zhirkov, the tournament’s outstanding left-sided defender, overlapping on the flanks to provide width. But in a cruel irony, though his performances at Euro 2008 were what truly launched his career, in many ways that summer has ruined Bilyaletdinov’s subsequent development, luring scouts, commentators and managers (not least David Moyes) into the erroneous assumption that he was a wide player. He is not - his most comfortable position is in central midfield, and all that time spent playing out on the flank has inhibited his growth.

Now, though, three years on from that move to Everton, his career looks at its lowest ebb. Not even an automatic pick at Spartak Moscow, Bilyaletdinov has lost his place in the Russia side. Nobody would say the situation is irrevocable - at 27 the player still has plenty of time to reassert himself - but it’s hard to see where he fits into a national side which has better options on the left of midfield and already, in Alan Dzagoev, possesses one of Europe’s finest young central playmakers.

Moreover, when Advocaat moves on at the end of the summer, taking up a one-year contract to coach PSV Eindhoven, the Dutchman’s successor may be even less inclined to pick Bilyaletdinov based on past glories. It will be a long way back.

Late Saturday night, after Granada had thrown away a 1-0 home lead against a hungover Real Madrid with a dumbly conceded penalty and a 93rd minute own goal, Pina went on live Spanish TV and said the funny name belonged to Zaragoza counterpart Agapito Iglesias.

“I do not believe we have a clean competition,” said Pina. “I do not trust people who I do not see as clean. Everyone in the football world knows he does not have good intentions. The situation of Zaragoza winning so many games must be analysed.”

Pina might have been better off controlling his players (two were red-carded after the final whistle for insulting the referee, while winger Dani Benítez threw a drinks bottle and hit the Zaragoza-born official in the face), but there has been something at least unusual about Iglesias’s side’s upturn in form.

After winning only three of their first 24 La Liga games they were rock-bottom in late February, and coach Manolo Jiménez himself said he was “ashamed” after a second half collapse lead to a 5-1 hammering in Málaga. Since that game the Aragonese side have won eight matches from thirteen played.

Regular Ramble blog readers will know Iglesias has not always been above suspicion. There was the third-party assisted signing of goalkeeper Roberto last summer and also a judicial investigation into the whereabouts of the €8.5m Athletic paid for Ander Herrera. Iglesias gave a Father Ted style ‘the money was just resting in my account’ explanation to Spanish radio, and is now so unpopular with his own fans he cannot attend home games at La Romareda. Nevertheless, the construction magnate denies any wrongdoing and has threatened to sue Pina for the comments.

There is also something kinda ironic about the Granada president taking the moral high-ground. Pina a former player and agent who was involved in the disappearance of one club (Granada 74), before taking over Granada CF when they were in the third division and overseeing two consecutive promotions aided by the heavy-use of loan players provided by Udinese. Sympathy was in short supply for the 43-year-old from his fellow club owners.

Spanish league authorities had however last week admitted they were examining a number of recent games to determine if any foul-play had taken place. Also, every year around this time rumours of secret payments and results agreed in advance between clubs are rife in Spain. So nobody was too surprised on Monday when news broke of a blazing row in the away dressing room after already relegated Racing Santander had lost at Zaragoza the previous evening.

AS reported that Racing boss Álvaro Cervera rounded on his players, and especially criticised the defending of Christian for the decisive late goal. The centre-half reacted angrily to being singled out and the disagreement continued with Cervera (who was hospitalised for stress last month) shouting “I never play to lose” before other coaches intervened to calm things down.

Cervera’s after-game press conference comments were reprinted in this light and did not look good.

“(Zaragoza) had much more at stake and you could see it,” he said. “I do not have to answer any questions about the honour of either team. I can only talk for myself and I will sleep peacefully tonight. Just as I have in my 30 years in professional football.”

Racing are already down, but the most likely victims in all of this are free-falling Rayo Vallecano. Last month Rayo were celebrating after reaching the 40 point mark with a 6-0 home win against Osasuna, but they’ve lost all six games since and are woefully out of form and struggling with injuries. Then came reports Monday evening that the squad had tried to oust coach José Ramón Sandoval in the aftermath of the previous day’s 5-2 loss at Sevilla.

A press conference was held Tuesday, attended by the first-team squad, president Martin Presa and sporting director Felipe Miñambres, but not Sandoval. All present said they wanted the coach to continue, but his absence was strange. A few months back the usually jovial Sandoval was the most popular man in Vallecas. The club’s administrators then let slip that he had received a bonus last summer, while many players were not being paid their wages. Just the latest twist in the long-running Rayo soap opera, but the timing was all-wrong.

That afternoon brought better news for Rayo (still on 40 points), who face Granada (42) in Sunday’s final round of games, with one of the clubs likely to go down. The visitors’ Benítez got a three month ban for throwing the bottle and three other team-mates had suspensions confirmed. Rayo fans are also hoping key midfielder Javi Fuego will be back from injury, but even still such internal wrangling bodes badly for the Madrid side.

Meanwhile you might have thought that everyone at Zaragoza (also on 40 points) would be keeping their heads down. Especially as a win away at already-on-the-beach Getafe guarantees their survival. But no. Jiménez thought the time right for a full-page interview in AS, where he took umbrage at Pina’s suggestions of impropriety.

“It would be best not to respond, but these are serious accusations,” said the deeply religious coach. “I would bring him to court. It seems clear to me that someone who talks so freely about match-fixing must know that world well. You cannot make accusations without proof.”

So it’s been a busy few days down the bottom of the Primera División. The two other teams in relegation trouble - Sporting Gijón and Villarreal - have to their credit managed to keep out of the spotlight so far. Sporting (37 points) look doomed as they need to win at Champions League chasing Málaga and hope everything else goes their way. The situation is more positive for Villarreal (41 points) as they only need a point at home to Europa League winners Atlético Madrid, who may be less than 100 per cent focused.

But you never know. Few would have predicted all the weeks events so far. All games are 8PM Sunday (Spanish time) kick-offs and for the record Sporting and Rayo (unfortunately) should join Racing in the final bottom three. But there’s likely to be a few twists and turns, and plenty more fireworks, before the trap-door to La Segunda slams shut.

Even held to three wins, LA’s record overstates their quality. Without goalkeeper Josh Saunders (in the league’s substance abuse treatment program) and linchpin defender Omar Gonzalez (knee injury), a defence already allowing 1.4 goals per game could get worse. In midfield, the team is so devoid of creativity that ever-less-mobile David Beckham has been forced into a central role - a huge hit to the team’s speed and athleticism through the middle. In attack, only two players have scored more than once, though Robbie Keane’s three goals is a disappointingly low total to lead a team featuring Landon Donovan (12 goals in 2011) and Edson Buddle (17 in 2010).

Most worrying for Galaxy fans: Head coach Bruce Arena has no idea what’s going on.

“Whatever that reason is, you’ve got me,” Arena said after Saturday’s 1-0 loss to New York. “[T]here’ve been enough chances since early March for us to be scoring more goals.”

Donovan, the team’s captain, is also flummoxed, ascribing a perplexingly disappointing solution.

“There’s no magical answer … The only way I know - the only way this team knows - is to keep going.”

Keep going down a path that has led last year’s champions to seventh place in the nine-team Western Conference? Only “let’s give up” could be worse, though who knows what’s really being said behind closed doors.

“It’s getting even more frustrating week after week ...,” conceded Beckham, an unlikely spokesman for Galaxy fan sentiments. “We keep saying we’re not worried about it. It’s got to come a point where we need to be worried about it, and we’re close to that now.”

And when LA reaches that point of desperate reflection – that moment when any explanation has to be considered – they may be resigned to a surprisingly simple conclusion: LA are just not that good.

Rather than being a real contender, an ageing squad lacking skill and creativity may have overachieved last season. Instead of preparing to defend their title, Los Angeles may be playing out the legacy of a team whose capability no longer matches its reputation.

That reputation is one of a team near-universally picked to dominate the league. The questions surrounding Los Angeles’s 2012 passed over their MLS campaign; instead, analysts entertained hopes the side Anschutz Entertainment Group built could be MLS’s first continental power in over a decade – since Galaxy won the old CONCACAF Champions Cup in 2000. Not only would LA defend their league title (the pre-season tone held), they could complete for four trophies: Supporters’ Shield (regular season champions); U.S. Open Cup; MLS Cup; and CONCACAF Champions League.

For a number of reasons, those were ridiculously lofty expectations, not the least of which is MLS’s struggles outside North America. Over the last decade, Major League Soccer’s only placed one team the final on CONCACAF’s elite competition (Real Salt Lake, 2011). In the 2010-11 tournament, Los Angeles failed to make the competition’s group stage, eliminated in the preliminary round by a club that competes at the second division of U.S. soccer (Puerto Rico Islanders).

Yet this was the team that was supposed to win four trophies?

With Major League Soccer still less the 20 years old, you can forgive the lack of perspective. There’s very little history against which to compare today’s results, firmly placing the MLS community in an adolescence prone to both blissful naiveté and the occasional miscalculation. Data points occupying record books were often collected under vastly different, incomparable conditions. Combined with a fan base that often treats the league as their second-favorite team and you’re left with an atmosphere where a emotion-validating, potential superpower becomes a public good.

The bias underlying that desire may have overshadowed LA’s obvious flaws. Only two of Los Angeles’s first choice players are under 27 years old. Six starters are on the more-venerable side of 30. With a rotation short on emerging prospects or potentially polished diamonds, there’s nobody in-house who can provide new life.

Arena’s practice of stocking his bench with veteran castoffs provides minimal cover for Plan A. It also leaves no options for a Plan B. LA’s depth is comprised of players who would be borderline contributors on other teams, and with the team having already used its three Designated Player slots, there will be no Keane-esque mid-season acquisition.

With so few options ahead of Omar Gonzalez’s return, expectations of Los Angeles need to be reconsidered. It’s easy, almost reflexive to assume that last year’s champions would be competitive this year, but that assumption may have been wrong. When you look at Galaxy’s talent, you see a slow, un-athletic, injury-prone team that lacks creativity.  A better tenant to build the conversation upon: That was then, this is now. 2011 is in the past.

The poor start, the Champions League loss to Toronto, the uninspired play: Once you start assuming LA’ aren’t that good, everything makes sense. Everything, that is, except last year’s title.

When Zenit won last season’s title with a 5-0 win over Rostov, fans celebrated by invading the Petrovsky Stadium pitch and taking whatever they could find. That included shirts off the backs of players, clumps of turf out of the field, corner flags and even pieces of the goalposts, snapped in two by jubilant fans who had jumped up and down on the crossbar.

It was to no-one’s great surprise, then, that history repeated itself this time around. When the final whistle sounded hundreds of fans, many of them intoxicated (either by the occasion or, more likely, by liquor), entered the field of play. Some had prepared well in advance of the end of the game, dismantling the steel fences surrounding some sections of the Petrovsky in readiness for a stampede.

Indeed, there are more parallels between Zenit’s last two title-winning seasons than just the manner of celebration. Both times initially pushed hard by CSKA Moscow, Zenit’s larger, higher quality (and more expensive) squad eventually hit their stride and swatted away all-comers. They won the league at a canter, with a handful of games to spare. As in 2010, this season they have by far the best attack in the league, and only perennial nil-nil-merchants Rubin can challenge them in defence.

Even a long-term injury to their best player, Portuguese midfielder Danny, didn’t interrupt the sense of continuity from last term - Zenit simply signed an equally capable replacement in Andrey Arshavin, who after a slow start has started to remind people why Arsenal shelled out £15million for his signature in 2009. April’s clash with CSKA was Arshavin’s epiphany. He scored an excellent goal on the volley to seal a vital victory in the title race, and demonstrated his newly-rediscovered self-confidence in the most bizarre fashion with a celebration in which he stood on his team-mate Vladimir Bystrov. Don’t try this at home, kids.

Moreover, some of the more unsavoury facets of the club continue to rear up. Back when Zenit last won the title I wrote a rather uncomplimentary piece about the club, criticising the lack of discipline and restraint shown by both players and supporters. In 2012 the club remains steadfastly defiant of many of football’s modern norms. That can be a positive - the Petrovsky is one of the loudest, most volatile stadiums I’ve ever visited, and their fans are among the most passionate I’ve encountered. But the partisan atmosphere is often channelled in a destructive manner, such as happened last November, when a succession of smoke bombs were let off during Zenit’s home Champions League tie with APOEL Nicosia, causing a substantial stoppage. That highly visible show of power by the club’s staunchest supporters was a huge embarrassment to the club, but little has been done to curb their excesses.

Coach Luciano Spalletti has at times fallen into the same trap of believing he is untouchable. Last summer Zenit were forced to forfeit a match against CSKA after Spalletti contravened an obscure Premier League rule mandating the inclusion in a matchday squad of at least one youth team player. Spalletti did so on purpose, he says, in order to challenge what he felt was a pointless piece of bureaucracy, but in another year the 3-0 win awarded to CSKA as a result could have been the difference between winning the title and losing it.

That kind of defiance, verging on arrogance, has become a hallmark of some of the club’s players too. Last season midfielder Igor Denisov earned notoriety for picking a fight with Spartak manager Valery Karpin, triggering a mass brawl on the touchline. This year Roman Shirokov has picked up where Denisov left off, becoming the enfant terrible of the current Zenit side. Aside from snarkily responding to press interviews and writing provocative messages on Twitter (including referring to Spartak supporters as ‘piglets’), Shirokov has also taken the fight to his own supporters in recent weeks.

During the pitch invasion which accompanied last week’s title victory, many fans approached the Zenit players to ask them for their shirts. While many of Shirokov’s team-mates were more than happy to oblige, Shirokov himself pointedly told one fan to “f*** off”, in full view of national TV cameras.

A few days later on an away trip to Kazan to face Rubin, Shirokov was challenged at Kazan airport by a Zenit fan over why he had treated the souvenir-hunting supporter with such disdain. There then ensued a disgracefully foul-mouthed rant, initiated by the player, which was captured by the fan on his mobile phone. The Russian language has its own unique lexicon of swearwords - known as “mat” - but a rough translation of part of the dialogue ran as follows:

Shirokov: “I’ll shake you so much you’ll forget your own name, got it f*****? F*** you, go f*** a donkey.”
Fan: “You play…”
Shirokov: “Shut your hole. I play for you? Who the f*** do you think you are?”
Fan: “I’m a person who supports you across the whole of Russia.”
Shirokov: “I don’t give a f***, you can sit at home, write to me again and I’ll f*** you up.”

The two and a half minutes of vitriol went viral across Russia, and Shirokov’s reputation plunged to a new low. The sad thing is that Shirokov is such a talent - he has undoubtedly, along with Aleksandr Kerzhakov, been Zenit’s best player this year, and is probably the national side’s most important single figure going into this summer’s Euro 2012 tournament. If he had the self-discipline to avoid such scrapes he would be up there with the best - and the same can be said for Zenit as a club.

They may be champions, but for yet another year Zenit’s winners medals come at the price of the club’s good reputation.

For the most part, Major League Soccer’s recent expansion franchises have debunked the second myth. Seattle Sounders, who entered the league in 2009, have been consistent playoff contenders, inching closer and closer to MLS Cup contention since joining the league. 2010 expansion team Philadelphia Union built on an impotent first season by contending for the Eastern Conference title last year. And amongst the two organizations that debuted in 2011, Vancouver Whitecaps sit happily mid-table in the West. They were a mere speed bump a year ago.

True to their city’s reputation as a hipster’s mecca, Portland has embraced sophomore jinx like a pair of crotch-strangling jeans. MLS’s other 2011 expansion franchise, Portland have moved on from a playoff-threatening debut. This year, they seem to be volunteering to take Toronto’s place as schoolyard whipping boys (once us bullies tire of TFC). Through eight matches, the Oregon-based side sit bottom of the West, conceding 13 goals while collecting only seven points.

One week ago, Portland had superficially turned a corner, handing league-leading Sporting Kansas City their first blemish of the season. Last Saturday, the Timbers downed “Sporks” 1-0, though the only goal came after a collision between Sporting players gifted Portland an own goal. The result turned out to be a trap for coach John Spencer, the former Chelsea forward perhaps lulled into believing a cure had been found. Perhaps overlooking reality – that Portland had done only the minimum necessary to capitalize on their good fortune -Spencer left his XI unchanged for the cross-continent trip to Montreal. Almost predictably, the Timbers became the first team shutout by the Impact, losing 2-0.

As disappointing as it is to lose to an expansion side, the details paint an even more disturbing picture. Look under the hood of the Timbers’ sputtering bandwagon and you see an engine that’s destined to break down 15 minutes from home. After conceding in the 78th and 84th minutes at Stade Olympique, Portland have now conceded seven goals during the last fifteen minutes of their last four losses - easily the worst end-match record in MLS.

Having held leads in three of those matches, Portland are developing a dangerous reputation. Psychology is a very important part of finishing off matches. Manchester United are renowned for looking beyond the odds, while in Major League Soccer, Real Salt Lake approach each late-match deficit with a naïve bravado created by self-belief. Portland’s woes, hinting they’re there to be beat up until the final whistle, threaten to make every opponent into a United or RSL, their adversaries given every reason to believe 90 minutes of effort will be rewarded with three points.

To this point, coach Spencer’s been unable to explain the trend, let alone stop it. Theories concerning fitness, mentality and luck are being bandied about, but with the core of Portland’s roster left intact from last season, it’s difficult to see why 2012 has taken this unexpected turn.

Though it’s a bit of a crutch to compare Portland to fellow sophomores Vancouver, the comparison’s informative when trying to determine what’s gone wrong in Oregon. Both teams have experienced, well-travelled goalkeepers (Portland’s Troy Perkins and Vancouver’s Joe Cannon), serviceable defences led by rugged veteran ball-winners (Eric Brunner and Jay DeMerit), and attacks spearheaded by experienced imported strong men (Kris Boyd and Eric Hassli).

The differences lie in midfield – from where you can control matches as you bleed out the clock. Vancouver have a number of players who are comfortable playing out a match with the ball at their feet: Swiss midfielder David Chiumiento, 2010 MVP candidate Sebastien Le Toux, Brazilian attacker Camilo Sanvezzo, and Hassli. Portland have Diego Chara and former second overall draft pick Darlington Nagbe, though the latter is always pushed forward by the end of the game (and is usually gassed).

When not in possession, Portland rely on midfielder-cum-defender-cum-midfielder Lovel Palmer as a ball-winner, a player who lacks the timely aggression of Vancouver’s 20-year-old Ghanian Gershon Koffie. While Palmer’s defensive instincts lead him to playing so deep as to not be a factor in the actual midfield, Koffie is a true disruptor. Late in matches, that’s the difference between breaking up attacks before they’re formed and letting opponents be comfortable in their attacking third.

With that comfort, opponents have been able to exploit flanks where Portland play no natural wide midfielders, leaving little protection for the six different fullbacks who’ve featured this season (Vancouver, by contrast, have a steady Jordan Harvey and three-time World Cup participant Lee Young-Pyo at fullback). Former Ranger Steven Smith (fresh from a spell at Preston) is the latest candidate, though his handball led to Saturday’s match-winner.

Though these problems were present for much of last year, Portland appear to have been found-out on their second go around. They’re a one-footed striker who’s been found out by the opposition. Teams now seem to know how to close out matches against the Timbers. You’re going to be able to control the midfield. You’re going to be able to work the ball wide. You’re going to be able to beat their fullback, and as long as you stay aggressive you’re going to get your three points.

It’s a problem Spencer’s side could have seen coming, but coming off a season that saw them stay in the playoff race until the league’s final weeks, you can see an “if it ain’t broken” mentality settling in. Unfortunately, that stasis has made them an easy mark. Their reliance on the Chara, Nagbe, Jack Jewsbury midfield that was sufficient last season has left Portland deficient in 2012.

Every time a team exploits that deficiency, we see the causes of a second year jinx. It’s a state of mind; a delusion; a believe in what worked beyond its underlying reasons. There’s nothing inherent in a second season that causes the problem. Every time a squad has some success, they’re susceptible to overlooking their problems.

Going into any season assuming your problems won’t be found out is a risk. If your team lacks the talent to adjust, you’ll to find yourself in a slump – sophomore or otherwise.