Young England star Oxlade-Chamberlain

While the exclusion of former captain Rio Ferdinand was a surprise to England fans, another surprise came in the shape of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s inclusion in Roy Hodgson’s 23-man Euro 2012 squad.

Oxlade Chamberlain, 18, who becomes the youngest member of the squad has never previously played for the England senior side, though he has impressed with four goals in eight games for the Under-21s and has sparkled for Arsenal this season.

This may not be a bad move for Hodgson as in my mind the England squad doesn’t look very fresh or impressive – on paper at least. I’m not picking them to get out of their group – mostly because the team will be lead by an old guard which never accomplished much when they were known as the Golden Generation.

Btw – I do not think that Hodgson picking the Ox is like Sven Goran Eriksson picking previous Arsenal wonderkid, Theo Walcott, to go to the German World Cup in 2006. I think that the Ox is more mature than Walcott was at the time, plus he has a wider range of skills and personality.

The Ox could help England at these Euros but I still don’t think he will help them enough to get out of their group.

No Rio at Euros

At one time he was thought to be one of the best defenders in the world but today he is not good enough to play for England.

While manager Roy Hodgson has made no official announcement, Rio Ferdinand himself announced that Hodgson told him that he has chosen to take Chelsea centreback John Terry instead.

While some may find injustice in seeing the racially abusive Terry go to the Euros ahead of the brother of the player he abused, in footballing terms this move does make sense. The fact of the matter is that despite Rio having played more games this season than he had previously, he no longer has the physical ability to be a dependable day-in-day-out player. To put it simply, Ferdinand is old and injury prone.

John Terry is old too – but is not prone to injury. Plus – despite being a controversial figure in the England camp, he is the one true leader the team has.

Having said all of that – I don’t think that either John Terry or Rio Ferdinand will make any kind of difference to England’s prospects at Europe’s tournament of it’s best footballing countries.

My prediction for England in fact is that they will not get out of the group stage.

So Rio may as well put his feet up at home, getting himself healthy for the next Premier League season, and enjoy watching what is always one of the best, most dramatic tournaments in the world.

With just four teams left in the Stanley Cup playoffs (and all of BP’s picks now watching May’s games from the 19th hole), it’s time to name the two players who will have the biggest impact on their teams’ trip through to the finals.

You mean the goalies? Nope. King Henrik Lundquist and Jonathan Quick are both among the best goaltenders in the world, and they will star as they lead the Rangers and the Kings very close to the Cup. But it’ll be two skaters who truly carry their teams by scoring, assisting, and inspiring their teammates.

Brad Richards of the New York Rangers, and Dustin Brown of the Los Angeles Kings.

Richards is a blue-chip veteran who’s had success on each of his two previous teams. He won the Conn Smythe Trophy and the Stanley Cup as a 24-year-old in Tampa, and at 32 still has the jump and the leadership to be the Rangers’ key player. Although he didn’t stand out in the Rangers’ Game 1 win over New Jersey, he will soon step up with key plays at crucial times. He’s one of those players that does everything well, without any one part of his game standing out above the others. Richards is a complete player and a leader – that’s why the Rangers spent so freely to grab him in last summer’s UFA sweepstakes.

The Kings’ Dustin Brown has a similar effect on his teammates, though he gets things done a little differently than Richards does. Brown is skillful, for sure – but he’s also a fireplug and an agitator. He’ll score a key goal with sheer hustle, after levelling the other team’s top guy with a brutal hit. In these playoffs, he seems to have been operating at a different speed than anyone else on the ice, and he’s why the Kings’ #1 line (Brown, with Kopitar and Williams) has been the most dynamic of the post-season.

Watch for both these guys in a showdown for this year’s Conn Smythe.

Sergio Aguero scored the most dramatic and memorable goal in Premier League history, winning Manchester City the 2011-2012 title.

Jamaican sprint records: more where this came from

Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Yohan Blake, Kerron Stewart, Nesta Carter, Merlene Ottey…just a few of the great Jamaican sprinters who have dominated athletics in recent years. But why them? And why Jamaica?

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Related:

• Running Motivation: Usain Bolt, Tyson Gay, Yohan Blake, Jeremy Wariner
• Interview: Usain Bolt Looks Forward to London
• Jamaica’s Sprinters on top for London Olympics – and beyond

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Jamaica punches way above its weight when it comes to sprinting. One little island with just under 3 million people, it ranks 113th in the world in per-capita GDP ranks – down there with the Congo, Brunei, and Iceland. It doesn’t have leading universities, global corporations, a network of well-endowed pro sports clubs, or other institutions that support athletic excellence in the world’s developed nations. And yet, for decades, a disproportionate number of the world’s fastest men and women have run in the gold, green and black of Jamaica.

The two possible explanations for Jamaica’s success on the track? The same “explanations” habitually proposed for almost any variance in any human behaviour – it’s either genetics or culture. Nature v nurture. Or both.

A study published in 2008 and co-conducted by Errol Morrison, the president of the University of Technology in Kingston, Jamaica, seems to favour the genetic explanation. Morrison and his colleagues in Jamaica and in Glasgow (!) analyzed the chemical composition of the muscles in sprinters like Powell and women’s 100m national champ Sherone Simpson.  A motherlode of an enzyme called Actinen A was found in the runners’ fast-twitch muscle fibres (the muscle components that determine acceleration, reflexes, and speed). Seventy per cent of the 200 Jamaican sprinters in the study were found to have Actinen A – but only 30% of Aussies (the control group in this study) have the magic ingredient in their muscle fibre.

(The Aussies, though, were off the charts in the occurrence of a digestive enzyme that makes it possible to drink enormous quantities of crap beer without showing any apparent effects.)

So if you believe this research, you’ll believe that Jamaicans are naturally gifted for sprinting and Australians are not. So far, though, I haven’t seen results for other nations that normally place runners on the start line at Olympic Games and World Championship sprint finals: principally other Caribbean countries and the United States. We need some data on top runners who don’t come from Jamaican bloodlines.

From Best Player’s perspective, the cultural explanation for Jamaica’s success is more interesting, because it suggests that excellence can be cultivated whether or not its potential is already there in the genes. In Jamaica, excellence in running is the thing: the same way Brazilians and Italians live for soccer or Canadians for hockey is how Jamaicans feel about athletics. In writing an in-depth Globe and Mail exploration of Jamaica’s love of running, columnist Jeff Blair attends the country’s 4-day high school track & field championships, along with 30,000 other fans, including the Prime Minister, some Olympic medalists, and execs from major corporate sponsors…and tells us of the massive effect that a running culture has on the track & field performance of the country’s young athletes.

Wait a sec: high school championships? Not even American football draws that much hometown support for 16- and 17-year-old athletes. In Jamaica, says one famous track coach, “We are a country of runners, who from a young age aspire to be stars.” Winners at this high-school meet have gone on – 26 times – to represent Jamaica at the Olympics. They’ve also gone on to become local and international stars, as Jamaican and global TV networks also cover the events, and those sponsors appear willing to bestow riches on the next Shelley-Anne Frasers and Yohan Blakes.

What effect does this have on the rest of the country? Well, put it this way: Jamaica doesn’t produce a lot of soccer players, hockey stars, boxers or basketballers. There are some cricketers who make it to the world stage, and the famed bobsled team – but mostly, kids grow up idolizing runners – especially sprinters – and competing in their own school and community races as long as they have a chance of succeeding.

So, sure – maybe Jamaicans have some genetic advantage over Australians, Poles, and Greeks when it comes to flat-out speed. But maybe more important is the advantage their culture gives them in incubating, fostering, and exploding their track stars onto podiums around the world. Expect to see more green-and-gold taking medals in London…and by the way, the East Africans had better be watching over their shoulders in the 10,000m and marathon a few years from now – Blair’s article mentions in passing that Jamaica’s next focus will be the middle- and long-distance events.

1) 17 September 2011 Barcelona vs Osasuna > Report

2) 25 September 2011 Barcelona vs Athletico > Report

3) 29 October 2011 Barcelona vs Mallorca > Report

4) 1 November 2011 Barcelona vs Viktoria Plzen > Report

5) 22 January 2012 Barcelona vs Malaga > Report

6) 19 February 2012 Barcelona vs Valencia (4 goals) > Report

7) 7 March 2012 Barcelona vs Bayer Leverkusen (5 goals) > Report

8 ) 20 March 2012 Barcelona vs Granada > Report

9) 2 May 2012 Barcelona vs Malaga > Report

10) 5 May 2012 Barcelona vs Espanyol (4 goals) > Report

Note: We count all of the meaningful games, including La Liga, UEFA Champions League and International matches, during a full footballing season. We do not count friendlies. Therefore we have counted Messi’s hat-tricks vs Plzen and Leverkusen but not his triple for Argentina in their friendly on 29.02.2012 vs Switzerland or his “pre-season” Super Cup feat vs Sevilla on 21.08.2011. Had we counted the latter two, Messi would have recorded an unprecedented 12 hat-tricks in one “season”.

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Related > Hat-trick Tracker 2011-2012
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That’s right – Lionel Messi scored ALL four goals yesterday as Barcelona defeated Espanyol 4-0.

That incredible performance gives Leo his 11th hat-trick for the 2011-2012 season, 50 total La Liga goals and virtually guarantees him > the Pichichi over Cristiano Ronaldo, who has 45 goals.

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Related
> Spanish La Liga Top Goal Scorers 2011-12
> Hat-trick Tracker 2011-2012
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People are calling it the goal of the season. And perhaps they should. Is it more inventive than Luis Suarez’s long-range effort vs Norwich? You be the judge. This is the kind of goal you attempt on the training ground and sometimes score. Scoring it causes you to dream about scoring it in a real game – which of course never happens. Unless of course you are Papiss Demba Cisse : )

Not a bad way to complete a hat-trick. The key here is that he pretty much keeps his head down until he shoots, thereby not cueing the keeper as to his intentions. A great goal. One of the best of this season.