Monday, November 16, 2009

Gerard Pique and THAT hair-do

This is an old pic of Pique, I had to post it because his hair looks Ridonk! We still love him though http://i01.bdbphotos.com/7L/63/0001355763-36870L.jpg

They mocked Higuain when he first joined Real - Casillas

http://www.tribalfootball.com/casillas-they-mocked-higuain-when-he-first-joined-real-madrid-447131
Sent via my BlackBerry from Vodacom - let your email find you!

Real Madrid have nothing to be jealous of at Barcelona- Marcelo

http://www.goal.com/en/news/12/spain/2009/11/15/1626526/real-madrid-have-nothing-to-envy-at-barcelona-full-back "Real MAdrid have nothing to envy at Barcelona" are the scathing words issued by RM fullback Marcelo. He believes that the Trichampions are not in any way better than Real Madrid. He believes that the addition of the stars to the club as well as the new manager will help the club prise the title away from the Catalan Giants. 29 November is the date the two will meet.
Sent via my BlackBerry from Vodacom - let your email find you!

Testing Mobile Blogging

Just to test if my posts are coming through
Sent via my BlackBerry from Vodacom - let your email find you!

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Champions League Preview!

Wednesday, 04 November 2009


Arsenal v AZ Alkmaar
Dynamo Kiev v Inter Milan
Fiorentina v Debrecen
Lyon v Liverpool
Rubin Kazan v Barcelona
Sevilla v VfB Stuttgart
Standard Liege v Olympiakos
Unirea Urziceni v Rangers


It’s the big one for Liverpool. Tonight’s match will pretty much tell us how the rest of the season will pan out. The Reds are well and truly out of the Premier League, Carling Cup ambitions are over (it didn’t seem like there were any ambitions for that in the first place)and the Champions league may be the only way to salvage a trophy this season. Is Rafa trying to repeat what he managed in his first season with the Reds? Two weeks ago, Lyon came back in the dying moments of the game to break Kopite hearts, will Liverpool be able to go to Lyon tonight and inflict similar damage? I am still finding it difficult to accept the situation at Liverpool. ..

Torres was pulled off early in the weekend’s slump to Fulham; he was taken off to be rested for this match. He is likely to start despite reports that he’s suffering from Hernia (???). Almost all of Liverpool’s entire first team are carrying injuries: Gerrard is unfortunately, still recovering from that groin injury, so he’s definitely not going to play. Riera, Kelly, Aurelio, Johnson and Skrtel are all harbouring injuries; and there are doubts over Agger and Ngog’s fitness. Aquilani was struck with a virus, but seems to have recovered in time. Hopefully he will start today.

The ideal situation for Liverpool would be a win, and for Debrecen to beat Fiorentina... very tough indeed for either to happen! Lyon heads the group with full marks (9points), Fiorentina on 6, and ‘Pool on 3 points. Debrecen is pointless. If Liverpool lose tonight and Fiorentina win, a miracle will be needed for Liverpool to qualify for the next round. YNWA


Meanwhile Barca takes on surprise package Rubin. The Catalan giants travelled to Russia a couple days ago, to be met with icy weather which forced their training to be called off, as well as their usual “tour” of the city. How are they to play a 90 minute match when they couldn’t manage a training session? This is going to be a true test of Barca’s will. Having dropped points over the weekend to Osasuna (remember Pique’s own goal?), and they lost their last CL match to Rubin at Camp Nou, I imagine Pep would put together his strongest side for this one. A 19 man squad made the trip to Russia, Milito and Chygrynsky were not included. “Chysy”, because he’s cup tied; and Milito is still recovering from that injury (it feels like it’s been forever!). Dani Alves should make a return to the team sheet, but it’s still not certain whether Henry will start. Rumours having been floating around that Pep and Titi don’t see eye to eye. If this is true, could this mean it’s his last season with the Blaugrana?? Word has it that Rubin is in top form (I cannot confirm this, I do not watch Russian football, duh!) and they are out to do a double over Barca. They also have the advantage of being acclimatized to the blistering cold. I think this is going to be a tough one for Barca, hopefully they can come away with the win, if not, they could find themselves in hot water, trying to get out of what’s turning out to be a tough group F. As it stands, Rubin, Dynamo Kiev and Barca are all tied on 4 points whilst Inter are bottom with 3. If Barca were to lose tonight, and the other match produces a result, Barca will drop to 3rd/4th place, placing extra pressure on them for the next 2 ties. Hopefully, this won’t happen! Visca Catalunya!

Champions League Results: Matchday4 - Tuesday

AC Milan 1-1 Real Madrid
Apoel Nicosia 0-1 FC Porto
Atletico Madrid 2-2 Chelsea
Bayern Munich 0-2 Bordeaux
Besiktas 0-3 Wolfsburg
Maccabi Haifa 0-1 Juventus
Man Utd 3-3 CSKA Moscow
Marseille 6-1 FC Zurich


Although I was fixated on the Milan-Madrid tie, I did flip over to the other matches to see what was going down. I was shocked to see that Man U had come back from 1-3 down to equalize. So they’re practically through. I did manage to catch CSKA’s first goal, and it was sublime! It kinda of reminded me of Roberto Carlos’ “impossible goal” (see my post: http://wp.me/pGB6F-2F ). I suppose it’s exactly that which separates the mediocre teams from the big boys. One team can’t hold onto a 2 goal cushion, while the other can recover from being two goals down.


Atletico Madrid managed to salvage a point. Aguero came on in the second half despite carrying an injury, and the game livened up. Braces from him and Drogba saw the scoreline finishing 2-2. I feel, despite Atlectico’s poor run of form, they would’ve backed themselves to come away with 3 points. Nevertheless, a draw against Chelsea is always a good result.


It was a display of good attacking football at the San Siro. I feel Madrid created the better chances and Milan initially gave them too much room, which is what I felt, led to the goal. Referees seem to be making the headlines as much as players lately and German ref Felix Brych made a few controversial decisions. First the awarded a penalty to Milan for a handball that Pepe really couldn’t do anything about. Then a couple minutes later, he disallowed Pato’s goal, for reasons I’m not entirely sure about. Milan took longer to settle into the game and Madrid were playing with purpose, going forward, while Milan tried to counter. Whilst Dida looked shaky yet again (sigh), he did pull off a save from Raul’s strike in the dying moments of the match, so all is forgiven. But the Milan backline, once they found their rhythm, really were outstanding. Madrid were attacking from all angles and they did well to not concede more than the one. Pato, the “baby-face assassin” put on a good show, but he goes too easily to ground, maybe he’s not physical enough? (Come on he’s only 20!) He did however manage to get Arbeloa and Pepe booked, so job well done! But Milan’s true star was Ronaldinho (well, for me at least)! Ahh, hopefully the comeback to his best is on! He had a couple of good tricks up his sleeve today, and put away the penalty with ease. He was however limited by Ramos, another solid performance by the Spaniard. Other Madrid players that shone were Marcelo, who complemented the attack; and Diarra! The disappointments were former Liverpool boys Alonso (I barely saw him the 90mins) and Arbeloa who struggled to deal with Pato.


Tomorrow’s the crucial Lyon-Liverpool and Rubin-Barcelona ties. Thankfully they’re at different times, so I’ll be able to watch both.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Weekend Football Roundup: Premier League, La Liga, Serie A

Weekend Round-Up



Premier League Results:

Arsenal 3-0 Tottenham
Bolton 0-5 Chelsea
Burnley 2-0 Hull
Everton 1-1 Aston Villa
Man. United 2-0 Blackburn
Portsmouth 4-0 Wigan
Stoke 2-2 Wolves
Sunderland 2-2 West Ham
Birm’ham 0-0 Man. City


Arsenal’s north London supremacy was instilled in their emphatic win over rivals Tottenham. It was a thrilling match and Arsenal put on their usual display of beautiful possession football. Tottenham too, did well to close down in the midfield. With half time approaching, it took Robin van Persie’s excellent read on Sagna’s cross in the 42nd minute to break the deadlock. And seconds later, from the kick-off, Cesc Fabregas run from the half-way line through the somewhat stunned Spurs defence. “Fab” easily put it past Spurs keeper Gomes to make it 2-0 after 45 mins. In the second half, Sagna set up Van Persie again, 15 minutes into the second half. It was a day of poor defending on Tottenham’s part; and excellent play from Arsenal...you can deduce who the better side was.

Chelsea saw off Bolton 0-4, again. It really could’ve been more, had they not been wasteful with some of their chances. But nobody can complain about a 4 goal win. Chelsea’s dominance in the English game was maintained with goals from Lampard, Deco and Drogba and an own-goal from Knight.

The partnership of Berbatov and Rooney finally paid dividends in the second half of their match. United looked shaky throughout. They were without Vidic and Ferdinand, and relied on Wes Brown and Jonny Evans to hold fort at the back. However Berbatov and Rooney got the job done, but it was by no means a good display of football, United were made to work for their 3 points.



Birmingham held Man City to their 4th league draw in a row on Sunday. The Eastlands club may have more stars in their line-up, but if anything, Birm’ham outplayed the Manchester Club. Keeper Shay Given saved McFadden’s penalty in the second half to ensure that Man City didn’t drop three full points. City didn’t do much upfront, but their defence was put to test. The match ended goalless, the Citizens would know they were lucky to escape a loss.

For my thoughts on the Fulham-Liverpool fiasco, see my earlier post.






La Liga Results:

Real Madrid 2-0 Getafe
Xerez 0-2 Sevilla
Osasuna 1-1 Barcelona
Athletic Bilbao 1-0 Atletico Madrid
Villareal 5-0 Teberife
Espanyol 1-1 Real Valladolid
Real Mallorca 1-0 Racing Santander
Real Zaragoza 2-1 Almeria
Malaga 0–1 Valencia
Deportivo La Coruna 1-1 Sporting Gijon

Real Madrid recovered from the early loss of Raul Albiol (who was shown red for bringing down Soldado just outside the box) to secure a win over Getafe. A brace from Argentine Gonzalo Higuain was enough to give Los Galacticos the 3 points. They were without Cristiano Ronaldo again. Under fire coach Pellegrini will breathe a sigh of relief and look to the much anticipated clash with Milan midweek.

Los Che edged out bottom of the league Malaga thanks to a sole goal from Navarro. Malaga however can take comfort from the fact that they pushed Valencia and were in no way walked all over. Valencia sits in 4th position and has closed the gap between themselves and leaders Barca down to 5 points.

Elsewhere in La Liga, Sevilla maintained their 3rd position with superb strikes from Negredo and Luis Fabiano against Xerez. And Atletico Madrid has dropped more points and has slumped to 18th position. Javi Martinez’s header in the first half was enough for Bilbao, leaving Atletico in the relegation zone.

For the Osasuna-Barcelona match review, see my earlier post.




Serie A Results:

Juventus 2-3 Napoli
Milan 2-0 Parma
Fiorentina 3-1 Catania
Sampdoria 0-0 Bari
Cagliari 3-0 Atalanta
Livorno 0-2 Inter Milan
Chievo 1-1 Udinese
Roma 2-1 Bologna
Siena 1-1 Lazio
Palermo 0-0 Genoa

Inter won their away tie against Livorno, in what turned out to be an important weekend in Serie A. With Juventus losing to Napoli, the gap between the two stretch to 7 points. Goals from Maicon and Diego Milito secured Mourinho’s side the win. Milan also secured a crucial win against Parma, and is now back in the big time as they sit in 4th.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Fulham 3-1 Liverpool: The Situation at Liverpool




Fulham 3-1 Liverpool

Painful, utterly painful. As I watched my beloved Reds fall to pieces yesterday, I wondered what we are doing wrong.

Given the clubs financial problems, I don’t expect Liverpool to pull a Real Madrid, but I honestly do believe we have class players. Why, then, can’t they get it right? I recently read an article about how Rafa has a gentleman’s agreement with Real Madrid to move to Los Blancos. It went on to speculate that he cannot leave Liverpool as he is under a contract, so he is trying to get fired! I personally don’t believe these claims, and due to our bad spate of results, speculation is bound to do their rounds. But I feel a club of Liverpools stature need proper financial backing. It feels like the American owners Gilette and Hicks, are barely managing to keep the club from drowning. How are we to compete with the crème de la crème of Europe without funds? I like to believe that money doesn’t talk in today’s game, but it sure as hell couldn’t do any harm having an extra buck or two!

The injury problems keep many a Red fan up at night. Not only does Torres’ fitness seem to worry us every couple of months, but we’re buying players so that they can sit on the recovery table for 6 weeks before fit... Let’s hope Mr. Aquilani is worth the wait. Our problems really began before the season kicked off. Our players seem to take blows one after the other.

We were without Gerrard, Johnson, Reira, Aurelio, Skrtel, Agger and Aquilani for yesterday’s match. Yes that’s seven, SEVEN of our first team not even named in the squad! I agree that we didn’t have a full strength squad to face Fulham, but nobody was expecting this result.

Next thing is... What was Rafa Benitez thinking when he made those substitutions??? Let me run you through it...

Okay, so he took off Torres and he explained his decision. His logic was that Torres needs to be protected. He’s not 100% fit, he’s still carrying that groin injury. We face Lyon in a must win match midweek. He needs to be rested. Fine! But to take off your star man when your team is stuck in a 1-1 deadlock, and when no one else is looking like scoring? More so, once Torres was subbed, Fulham’s confidence seemed to grow, which ultimately led to their second goal. Ryan Babel gets brought on. Without being disrespectful to Babel, he is not nearly half the player that Torres is... Maybe we can look past the Torres sub, after all, we do need him for Lyon.

Next, when we were 2-1 down, Yossi Benayoun, who was the most creative player on the field gets withdrawn, and Ayala comes on. Why withdraw your best chance when he’s fully fit for someone who’s never really proved himself in the Red shirt?

Then, when your team is down to 9men with the captain is sent off; Dirk Kuyt, who was the most experienced player in the pitch at that point gets subbed for newbie Ecclesten. This seemed to give Fulham an extra surge of confidence and exploited their 2 man advantage and went on to score the third.

Very, very poor decisions Mr. Benitez!

I feel all of the above mentioned factors are contributing to Liverpool’s fall from grace. I just hope we can pick up the pieces. A niggling thought that still bugs me every time I watch Liverpool, is that big gaping hole in our midfield! We really do miss Xabi; there is no replacement for him. Watching him play for Real Madrid is really tough. Madrid has also had a bit of a hard time recently, but Xabi has been phenomenal! This was supposed to be our year, instead, yet I wonder if we’ll be competing in the Champions League next season...

Let me know how you feel about the situation at Liverpool.

YNWA

Barcelona Drop another 2 points..


OSASUNA 1-1 BARCELONA


Barcelona dropped points yesterday. They paid the ultimate price for missed opportunities, when Gerard Pique scored a last minute own goal. After their 6-1 thumping of Zaragoza, it was a disappointing night, Barca didn’t look like the team they did a couple months back. I also feel that the team selection contributed to the result. Why was Toure not started? Maybe Pep felt that a few players should be rested before their trip to Russia midweek? Also, the starting of Sergio Busquets and the exclusion of the inform Pedro just baffled me. Not to mention that a fit-again Henry was left on the bench. But the team looked tired and they didn’t play with the fluidity that they usually do. Messi had a couple of good shots that were missed. The most frustrating came in the second half when they were trying to build on their 1-0 lead, and instead of passing to a free Ibra, he decided to try chip it over the keeper. A waste of a chance in my opinion. However, his bad day=most players good day. He still managed to pull out a few good dribbles and helped set up the goal (Keita’s not Piques:-P). I think he needs a rest. Barca still lead La Liga but are only 1 point ahead of bitter rivals Real Madrid, who won against Getafe yeaterday.

My Barca Ratings:

Valdes 7: He wasn’t really challenged much. But the few saves he had to make were class.

Puyol 8: A solid performance from the captain. Held the defence together and assisted Keita’s goal.

Pique 6: I felt he had a quiet show...till he stuck out his foot and the ball went into his own goal.

Chygrynsky 4: still hasn’t done much to prove that he’s worth his money. Got booked and was subbed for Marquez.

Abidal 7: Had a shaky first half, but settled in after a while. Was creative down the left and had a couple of good passes.

Busquets 5: Wasn’t really in the game. A couple of poor tackles here and there.

Keita 8: Superb! His goal gave Barca the lead. He controlled to ball well and didn’t lose a lot of possession. Was really the star of the midfield.

Xavi 6: the conductor of the Barcelona was unusually off form. He managed a few good balls but was relatively hushed.

Iniesta 7: Combined well with Abidal down the left. A relatively good performance. Was subbed for Pedro.

Messi: 7 not at his usual best. But gets a 7 nonetheless for creating chances and being a nuisance to the Osasuna defence.

Ibrahimovic: 6 I feel had he received better service he could’ve done better. He almost made a break-away from the midline only to be fouled by Flano.

Substitutes:
Marquez 4: Poor. Not what he used to be.

Pedro: Don’t think he touched the ball. Was brought on as a time wasting tactic. But a couple seconds later... oh well!