"Courage is as often the outcome of despair as of hope; in the one case we have nothing to lose, in the other, everything to gain."
So said Diane de Poitiers sometime in the early 1500s. She was no doubt completely unaware at the time that she was uncannily summing up the challenge facing the teams fighting out the 2009 Brasilerão title race.
A club's sponsor can say as much about the club as its fans, stadium or league table position.
Everyone wants to be sponsored by a reputable company known for their class and reliability.
Arguably Arsenal fall into this category. Fly Emirates is the largest Middle Eastern airline in terms of revenue and was voted the fifth best airline in the world by Skytrax, who know all about stuff like that.
After an extended international break over the last week, the Premier League was raring to get going again this weekend. However, the latest bout of international matches did not pass by without claiming some victims and certain clubs could be forgiven for wondering if fate wasn't conspiring against them.
The most notable casualties concerned the top 2 in the Premier League, as they were on Saturday morning. League leaders Chelsea were made to do without the influential Frank Lampard, whereas Arsenal had to face up to losing the fulcrum of their recent good form- Robin van Persie.
When speaking to colleagues and friends who like their football it is not always easy to find agreement, but in the last few weeks there has been a general unison over one topic in particular. Unless you are French, Portuguese or dare I say a little too diplomatic, almost all football fans were supporting the Republic of Ireland and Bosnia-Herzegovina for last weekend's 1st leg World Cup play-offs.
The overly diplomatic of you will naturally say that the World Cup would be much poorer for the absences of Cristiano Ronaldo, Thierry Henry, Deco, Franck Ribéry, the list goes on. That is a fair point, but it's far from unusual for a World Cup to be missing the odd 'major' international side. Some country that is expected to participate always messes up their qualification.
Another weekend passes in the Netherlands and still the top 2 teams refuse to be beaten, is it possible that the Eredivisie will have it's own alternative to the Arsenal 'Invincibles' this season?
With 21 more fixtures until the end of the campaign it may just be a little optimistic to consider such a possibility, but judging by the dominant form of FC Twente and PSV Eindhoven so far it may not be at all fanciful. This last weekend saw probably the biggest league game of 2009-10 to date, with leaders FC Twente facing off to Martin Jol's free-scoring Ajax who are in third place.