“We are honoured to announce that Aston Villa will be in the P*ss Cup. “
The shaky gestures of those of us who deserved to have been better informed were a telling sign that this was not an excursion. Summoned to the Bodymoor Heath press room for a vital announcement, the assembled journalists, myself included, couldn’t suppress our younger laughter as news of Villa’s summer excursion was revealed.
Of course, the dignitary who delivered the news meant “Peace Cup,” but the tone was set and over the course of that summer, his unfortunate mispronunciation was probably more accurate than the actual call of the competition. Villa’s 2009 pre-season adventure like no other.
After finishing in sixth place last season, Martin O’Neill’s men (and boys) were invited as the sole representatives of the Premier League in a 12-club tournament that also featured Real Madrid, Juventus and Porto.
In fact, those 4 European powers, adding well-known names such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Alessandro Del Piero, Hulk and. . . Uh. . . Shane Lowry, reached the semi-finals of the festival in mainland Spain.
Villa won the Peace Cup and pocketed the lucrative prize – it’s their last genuine ‘trophy’, barring the 2019 play-off triumph and that ridiculous, oversized thing that John Terry and James Chester lifted in Germany a few years ago. “That doesn’t even begin to tell the story, though.
A typo in the official program for the first game saw O’Neill call up Martin O’Leary, while the recently deceased Gareth Barry was among Villa’s existing player profiles and director Paul Faulkner. He almost missed the opening game after a mix-up. His accreditation left him temporarily stranded in front of the La Rosaleda stadium in Malaga. Oh, and there was a case of mistaken identity when broadcaster Ashley Young with Steve Sidwell.
Divided into four teams of three, Villa faced Spanish hosts Malaga and Mexican club Atlante. Three of their four draws in the tournament came at La Rosaleda.
It has become Villa’s second home, but it was home to La Liga rivals Malaga, who beat them 1-0 in the opener, leaving O’Neill’s side on the brink of an early and inauspicious exit. It didn’t take long for the loyal burgundy and blue travelers to put on their sunscreen and start dining in San Miguel, and they feared they would have to put away their reproductions of Nike Acorns T-shirts and flip-flops and return to Brum.
“The Peace Cup was a weird preseason tournament,” recalls Faulkner, who was Randy Lerner’s right-hand man at Villa from 2006 to 2014, and then executive director. “We were worried and the fees for the appearances were quite old. “I think we lost the first game and ended up qualifying for the final. We had all booked to go home. All of a sudden you want to extend your stay and look for another hotel. “
Gabby Agbonlahor and James Milner stayed home to withdraw from England Under-21 efforts, while new signing Stewart Downing and full-backs Wilfred Bouma and Luke Young also returned to Bodymoor, rehabbing from their injuries, which meant call-ups to a number of academies. Adolescents.
Emile Heskey added salt to the wound when he suffered a concussion six minutes into the tournament, but that allowed a boy named Marc Albrighton to shine as Villa’s teenagers frolic in the sun (too, if you’d noticed Barry Bannan’s condition). Sunburnt nose at the end of the trip!).
Juventus comfortably won Group A, beating Sevilla 2-1 in Seville and South Korean club Seongnam 3-0 in Jerez, while Porto emerged from Group D by beating Lyon 2-0 in Huelva and drawing 0-0 with Besiktas in Seville.
At the Bernabeu, Real Madrid dominated Group B, drawing 1-1 with Saudi Arabia’s Al-Ittihad and beating Ecuadorian rivals LDU Quito 4-2 with new signing Cristiano Ronaldo opening the scoring.
However, the conversation among the Villa fans who scored the goal (including legends such as Steve Gough, Dave Hodges, Bob Gough, Pam and Bridge and Mick Parker) was not about CR7’s first goal in Madrid, but about the promising performance of a 19-year-old winger from Tamworth. Oh, and if they needed to find reasonable flights home, their Group C hopes hang in the balance after the disappointing defeat to Malaga.
They shouldn’t have been as worried as Albrighton and Villa were about giving Peace a chance.
At the time the tournament was unfolding, Ronaldo had just won his first Ballon d’Or with Manchester United in 2008 and was on course to win the silver medal. But the Portuguese superstar’s creaking fireplace can’t boast of winning the Peace Cup bronze ball that Albrighton won in the summer of 2009. It was awarded to Albrighton for being the third-best player of the tournament, according to media voting, along with teammate Ashley. Young won gold as a star of the Peace Cup and Porto’s Hulk won silver.
It was Albrighton who opened the festival for Villa and admits his first glimpse into senior football, also guilty of launching a career that included a name in the Premier League and an FA Cup winner’s medal with Leicester City.
“Yes, the Peace Cup was the first one I had and it was incredible,” he recalls in a verbal exchange with our Claret podcast
“I was with Emile Heskey, John Carew, Ashley Young, all the players. On the pitch it was amazing, but off the pitch I learned a lot about the team. I was in the locker room of the reserve team on the educational field. Although we practice every day, we didn’t really interact with them and never saw them outside of education.
“So to be in a hotel with them every day in the afternoon on a field trip is amazing. We would go around buying groceries and things like that. That’s when I discovered that footballers are human beings and not the stars you think are human beings. ‘They are placed as. ‘
After the opening 1-0 loss to Malaga, which they lost 3-1 to Atlante in the second match of Group C, Villa scored three goals to stay in the festival after an own goal by Curtis Davies in the third match against the Mexicans. .
O’Neill was sent into the stands for angrily throwing the ball into an opponent’s chest outside the dugout (resulting in a suspension for the semi-finals) and Stiliyan Petrov, the guy selected to upgrade Barry as club captain, forced when a dislocated shoulder ended his involvement in the Peace Cup adventure. That gave Albrighton another chance on the bench and they took advantage of it, scoring Villa’s equaliser against Atlantea and sparking a 3-1 win with John Carew and Ashley Young also on the goals.
Villa had come back from the brink, sitting atop a stricter organization than Randy Lerner after 2011. It all came down to goal difference as all three clubs finished with 3 points. Villa was plus-1, Atlante 0 and Malaga minus-1.
After tearing themselves apart and sneaking into the semi-finals, Villa’s team’s celebrations died down a bit when they returned to their team’s hotel in Marbella to check that the 3-player room had been raided with sunglasses, a computer and a set of keys.
There’s nothing that can dampen the fans’ enthusiasm, though, as bars in the Andalusia region reported a colourful industry in Cruzcampo’s sales, while the sun-scorched Brummies found themselves stuck on a longer-than-expected holiday.
As a young journalist (sort of) suited to his dream job, it’s been exciting to be among the mentors of Midlands Patch, along with Neil Moxley, Stuart James, Dave Armitage, Janine Self and John Wragg, as well as local radio royalty Tom Ross.
Spanish sun, a stable source of beer and. . . How to say it?!- Much more generous in print and online format than today, which allowed us to spend hours between matches, press conferences and interviews talking about football and laughing, with a beer (plural) in hand.
Chuck in a hotel in Malaga (a stone’s throw from La Rosaleda), at a friend’s holiday home in Marbella (a short drive from Villa’s team base), in some other apartment in Fuengirola (halfway between the two) and a rental car driven by my friend Brendan McLoughlin from the Express
“And I’m on fire. . . “
Little did we know that between games, our super-relaxed running holiday corresponded (and even more so) with some of O’Neill’s players, albeit in a much more exclusive atmosphere in the chic bars of Puerto Banús.
“When someone mentions the Peace Cup, I have a huge smile on my face because it’s the most productive bachelor party I’ve ever seen in my life,” Curtis Davies said, with a huge smile on his face.
“Considering all those big clubs that were in the competition, Real Madrid, Sevilla, Juventus, we were there for 12 days, and I think I only went out for about 8 of the 12 nights. Carew may have been in the simplest place 10 but that’s because we had the right to laugh in Marbella.
“We’d go to the Ocean Club and Plaza Beach. The beers turned into five or six, and then you practice, you play, you win, and you think you’ve made it!You’ve got game in a few days, so you’re thinking, “Should we go back to Plaza Beach?”
“It could even have been Porto Day, we were on the beach drinking a few beers. Anyway, they’re going to beat us because we played in Porto, but we beat them and honestly, it’s very smart to laugh. “
Which brings us to this semi-final.
Villa returned to La Rosaleda for the quarter-final against Porto and dispatched them with goals from Heskey and Steve Sidwell, already in form, before the great striker was sent off for taking on Maicon and Hulk pulled off a delayed comfort goal. position after a foul by Nigel Reo-Coker.
The back-to-back dismissals of O’Neill and Heskey were precisely in keeping with the “peace” vibe sought through the Sunmoon Peace Football Foundation when it first envisioned the faith-based tournament in 2003.
But if the founder of the “Moonies” church, Sun Myung Moon, faced Villa the first and last time in the Peace Cup in Europe instead of his former South Korean base, he certainly didn’t show it when he exchanged pleasantries with Lerner and Faulkner in an odd way. Match prior to the final against Juventus in Seville.
Faulkner recalled, “The Peace Cup was funded through Reverend Moon of the Moonies. We played the final against Juventus in Seville, at the Olympic Stadium. It’s a huge stadium with a capacity of 60,000 people and there are a few thousand enthusiasts there. It was just weird and we met Reverend Moon.
“So Randy and I moved into this central room somewhere in the bowels of the stadium. There are all the armed guards around him. There’s this guy who’s a 90-year-old Korean, who didn’t speak a word of English, so we’re looking to bow. He presents Randy with a small gift and we have a Villa pennant for him. We walk out of there and say, “Well, that’s weird!
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As for us, the writers, quotes and careful previews of interviews at the team hotel for the next few days’ editions – at a time when access to players was much more open than it is today – we returned to our sunny terraces to dine at some of those midlands media doyens. The trip to Seville brought back fond memories for one of the esteemed veterans, former Evening Mail and News of the World journalist David Harrison.
Dave was in the fiery Spanish city covering the World Cup in 1982 when a report there gave birth to arguably the most productive name of all time. Due to the warmth of the cuisine, Seville is known as La Sartén. So when a voyeur was caught rummaging through tents at a camp set up for fans, there was only one name imaginable for the story: “The nosy fan in The Frying Pan!”
Villa’s stars, meanwhile, were literally sweating at the thought of being caught by O’Neill or one of his coaches as they sneaked out of the hotel for a night out.
“There were times when we were allowed to pass out and times when we weren’t, but we went out anyway,” Davies says with a mischievous smile. “We would meet near the emergency, go out and take taxis from there. We also had young children with us who, at the time, were just children and should not have been with us. “
Obviously, a taxi driver failed to get the memo to the hotel’s reception area, fearing that Villa’s control patrols would spot the revelers.
“The taxi driver picked us up from behind and started moving forward,” Davies continues. “Maybe it’s just turning around, we thought. He stops in front of the hotel. I’m in front of the car with Steve Sidwell. Freddie Bouma and Shane Lowry are in the back and the driver rolls down the window.
“Who starts walking to the car? It’s Martin O’Neill. I had a bandana on my face to look at and hide in and I was just Freddie sitting on the floor. Shane probably thought his career at Villa was over!The manager had to see I had to do it, but luckily he didn’t say anything!
“Because we’re still winning, I don’t think he’s ever talked about it. I think he pocketed it unless we lost. But I’ll never see Freddie Bouma’s face when he yelled at the taxi driver!”
In short, until the final.
After setting up camp in Malaga for a week and a half, our two-hour, 130-mile road holiday to Seville in Brendan’s rented motor turned into quite an expedition. Fearing we’d fall behind in the game, the lasting memory is of us taking a ridiculous wrong turn and making our way down a narrow alley in the quaint Spanish city of Seville. It was like anything out of the Pamplona Running of the Bulls, or a scene from a movie where boxes disperse a car chase. Only with 4 hacks on a sedan rented from Hertz.
Not only did we arrive just in time, but Sandy Macaskill, our colleague from the Daily Telegraph, blamed himself on the directors’ podium while we said it in the press box, such was his confident talk. the vital personalities of the Olympic Stadium of Seville, an organization of teenagers from Villala.
Alongside Albrighton, young team members Eric Lichaj, Barry Bannan and Andi Weimann were in the starting line-up, while Chris Herd and Lowry came from a very young bench, which also included Elliott Parish, Dominik Hofbauer and junior James Collins. and Gary Gardner.
“I was in my sophomore year when we went to the Peace Cup,” says Weimann, who was given the green pass with Heskey suspended. “There were a lot of injuries and we had a lot of young players. Forget about our game against Juventus in the final. I started and in the end we won because of the consequences. It was a wonderful day for me personally, I was only 17 years old.
“It’s unbelievable. We had so many kids playing that no one expected us to win. They had Alessandro Del Piero, Gianluigi Buffon, Mauro Camoranesi. When we looked at the exit, we thought it might be difficult. We finished 0-0 and then won on penalties, so it was a brilliant experience. “
The repaired Villa were lucky at times as Juventus had chances, but O’Neill’s side held on against last season’s Serie A finalists in a mundane final that ended goalless after extra time.
Then came the sanctions.
“I don’t forget Barry Bannan picking up the ball and walking halfway through. He looked tiny in that giant empty stadium,” Faulkner recalled. “They put Buffon in goal, one of the greatest goalkeepers in the world, and Barry scored that. “
After four goals each, the score was 3-3 with Lowry and Ashley Young joining Bannan to beat Buffon, and David Trezeguet, Amauri and Felipe Melo converting ahead of Brad Guzan, while Sidwell and Vincenzo Iaquinta failed to score.
Villa thought his Peace Cup hopes were in tatters when Herd rejected through Buffon and outplayed Del Piero with a chance to win it for the Old Lady of Turin.
Instead, he produced an old penalty. One player, a world-class striker, who had scored a penalty kick to help Italy win the World Cup final against France three years earlier, grimaced as he erased the weakest attempt directly on Guzan. provoking incredulous laughter from the burgundy and blue contingent among the modest crowd.
Quarterback Del Piero explained: “In the last penalty shootouts I saw Guzan move early. So I expected him to do the same for me. When he stood still, I had to adjust my balance and try to curve the ball in a safe way. In a way that the point guard couldn’t pull off. Unfortunately, due to the delayed calculations, I stabbed under the ball and ended up generating a weak shot. “
Check it out on YouTube (below), it’s more of a back pass than a penalty, and to this day, it’s still a lot of fun.
Still tied 3-3, the shootout ended in sudden death, with Spanish star Carlos Cuellar capping his comeback with what turned out to be the winner. When Nicola Legrottaglie smashed his shot over the crossbar to verify Villa’s victory, wild celebrations erupted among Villa’s youngsters as they ran from the halfway line to congratulate Guzan.
“At the time, for the first team it was just a general pre-season tournament, but for the teenagers it was the most productive tournament of all time,” Albrighton smiled. “All the kids ran from the center circle to jump on Guzan. They were a little bit more reserved because they only knew him in pre-season, but for us he’s unbelievable. “
Davies laughs at the memory of Del Piero’s penalty mistake and the general delight from Plaza Beach to the Peace Cup champions.
“When it comes to footballers, Del Piero is a legend and I was a bit stunned to see him, but I had to laugh when Brad Guzan confronted him after that penalty!” he adds. “This was one of the most productive. ” What I’ve done sometimes, not only in the evenings, but also for the football point we play against some of the more sensible teams. It was a huge, huge experience and one that I will never forget and will not forget fondly. forever. “
Trophy wins of any kind have been rare for Villa for a generation, which is why our Birmingham Live archives many images of exchange captain Reo-Coker smiling as he lifts the Peace Cup trophy on this warm August afternoon in 2009.
It’s a little-known fact that part of the Peace Cup prize money was used to move to Villa, however, given who he was and the acrimonious manner in which he left six years later, you might prefer not to know. . . Well, we’re going to tell you anyway!
“I think we made a few million euros with that,” said Faulkner, who ended up spending the night of the final with the trophy in his hotel room. “We actually used that money the next day to close the deal with Fabian. Delphus.
“There was a little party and the trophy came in a padded box to take care of it and at the end they left it on a table. I took him to my room and slept with the Peace Cup. That night! Very surreal!”
It’s surreal.
After the final, my former Mail colleague Bill Howell and I, a constant source of laughter and mischief throughout the trip, recreated Del Piero’s penalty, “in the manner of the Phoenix of the Flames”, in a vacant lot outside the gates of the Olympic Stadium in Seville.
Smartphones weren’t that smart back then, so we filmed our nonsense with a camcorder and decided to hand them over to a high-level colleague, who is now my big boss, to download, for a lighthearted conclusion to our tournament policy (explain how to make friends and influence people!).
While Villa’s supporters celebrated well into the night, we finally had to do some work, relaying our reports, research, and reactions to our editors for the next day’s paper, using the light from our laptops from the back seat of Brendan’s rental car. He guided us safely along the A-92 towards Malaga.
Taking into account the great adjustments that have taken place in the industry since then, adding the deterioration between some clubs and the local media and the camaraderie of my colleagues in the press group, those 12 days in Spain are still some of the happiest of my career to date. .
In hindsight, the scenes, much of the coordination and management around the Peace Cup were chaotic, as we suspect from the moment the tourcallnt call was so badly pronounced.
Couldn’t you host a “P*ss Cup” at a brewery?Luckily, we, the hackers, the enthusiasts, and the real winners of the Villa Trophy, could do it!
Peace.
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