Thanks to a 1-1 draw by Chelsea at Arsenal, Manchester United have officially won the 2006/07 EPL title. Congratulations and thanks for keeping Chelsea from winning another crown. Mourinho, I guess, has a future in wrestling, but maybe not at Stamford Bridge, especially not if there’s no FA Cup trophy to put in the awards display.

Manchester United won 0-1 at Manchester City on Saturday and then Chelsea’s away draw sealed the deal on Sunday. Must be nice for the ManU fans to “win the league at City,” especially with a game at Stamford Bridge coming up. They’ll be able to gloat to their hearts’ content and no doubt they’ll have snide words for the Blues when they meet in London.

Anyway, congrats.

There are times as sports fans when we must admit our enemies are, actually, really good. This is one of those rare moments. Jose Maria Guti is a good player. Man, that hurts. I just had to get that out there, though, so that I could move along and get to the real issue at hand: Real Madrid vs Sevilla at the Bernabeu.

The game was, to put it pretty mildly, fantastic. There was so much energy on display and no one sat back and defended. The final score (3-2) suggests as much, but it doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what this game was like to watch. The man of the match, Guti, wasn’t even on the field until he came on for Raul in the 59th minute as part of a double switch that also took Miguel Torres off for Ivan Helguera.

Quick Hits first before I get to a detailed breakdown of the game.
Goals: Maresca 41’, van Nistelrooy 62’, Robinho 78’, van Nistelrooy 85’, Chevanton 93’.
Red cards: Luis Fabiano 74’, Robinho 79’, Aitor Ocio 82’.
Yellow cards: Miguel Torres 40’, Sergio Ramos 55’, Hinkel 67’, Robinho 79’, David Beckham 84’, Javier Chevanton 84’.
Man of the Match: Guti

Those lists give you an idea that this was not a calm game, but even that doesn’t let you in on the absurdity that was Luis Fabiano’s sending off: he wasn’t on the field. He was warming up along the sideline and got a red card. For what, I don’t know yet, but no doubt the match reports and the Spanish press will fill us all in. Regardless of why it happened, I’ve never seen that before. And then Robinho was sent off after being shown a single yellow card immediately after scoring the go-ahead goal.

Much, much more after the jump.

The Game, from start to finish:

The lineups started out regularly enough, except that Emerson was starting for Madrid, something that doesn’t normally happen at the Bernabeu. The Spanish press has been all over that, suggesting Capello and Emerson have a deal where Emerson doesn’t play at home because the fans there dislike him. Capello’s side of the deal is that he says he isn’t choosing Emerson for tactical reasons. Now maybe everyone will believe him and stop hating Emerson since he had a very good game. It’s impossible to say whether or not Capello started Emerson out of a desperate need to win the game rather than because the deal didn’t exist and I can’t say I actually care.

I wrote myself a note towards the beginning of the game, which I’ve provided her. “The number of Brazilians on the field is very high: Alves, Renato, Robinho, Emerson, Cicinho and so far they’re all playing fairly well. Emerson never does anything highlight worthy (except his goal for Juventus against Werder Bremen in the Champions League last year).

The first chance of the night went to Sevilla, who controlled proceedings early. In the fourth minute Iker Casillas stood rooted to the spot as Aitor Ocio drilled a very long free kick just wide of the post. Casillas never saw it and was lucky that the shot wasn’t on target. Less than two minutes later, Alves saw his crossed free kick headed wide for a goal kick. Those were the only clear-cut chances for a while, even though Sevilla controlled what was rapidly turning into a fast-paced and enjoyable game. Frederic Kanoute caused problems down the wing while Kerzhakov was dangerous down the wings, combining well several times with Puerta, but the final pass was missing thanks mostly to Madrid’s defense.

Madrid, though, couldn’t finish in the first half, with Diarra the main culprit as he blasted a free header over in the 15th minute. Soon after there was a scramble around the net as Palop made several instinct saves and Madrid kept finding the rebounds at their feet. Emerson defied my previous statement as he blasted a volley that Palop tipped over the bar. Beckham then missed a good chance as the ball fell kindly to him beyond the far post on the ensuing corner, but he could only curl the ball just beyond the post.

Madrid then took over midfield and controlled the tempo and possession, forcing Sevilla into a long-ball team. Still, it was Sevilla that got all the chances, with Puerta shooting wide in the 27th minute. Sevilla were beginning to go in hard at all times; Alves was especially aggressive against Robinho, who didn’t take kindly to some of the challenges. I noted at the time that they were acting like a pack of mini-Gattusos, complete with over-pursuit and leg swipes. It wasn’t dirty, just hard playing.

The commentator pointed out that Sevilla won the title in 1945 (their first and only title), which got me thinking that Sevilla fans must hate that everyone points that out any time they play someone like Madrid or Barcelona.

Even when Madrid could get things working, like in the 36th minute when Robinho busted out some fancy footwork that would have left my legs in knots for weeks, but his cross ended up being cleared easily. Every time he begins to weave through defenses, I shake my head in wonder at his incredible talent which I feel is wasted at Madrid in a system that isn’t designed to give him space and the freedom to run at defenses. I believe he would do well in a system like Barcelona’s (I’m not suggesting he move there, merely that the system is conducive to creating running room), much as Messi has enjoyed his newfound status as an icon of the latest generation of superstars. Robinho is often maligned as not producing enough, but he’s in a system that doesn’t suit his style and it’s no surprise that he can’t score as often as the Madrid fans demand.

The game changed dramatically in the 41st minute when Enzo Maresca smashed a left-footed volley from the top of the box beyond Casillas into the net. I personally yelled something intangible and demanded everyone in my immediate vicinity come running to see the replays. The commentators mentioned that it was very reminiscent of the goal Zidane scored against Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League final in 2002 and it was, but Zidane’s was better.

Immediately after scoring, Maresca had the ball in the box again, but was ruled offside despite having been well on when the ball was kicked his way. The linesman kept his flag down, but the ref overruled his, well, lack of a ruling.

Right at halftime Puerta “chopped Cicinho in half” along the sideline, as I wrote in my notes, but failed to get a yellow card for what was a rough and unnecessary foul. Cincinho ended up lying on the sideline with the medics until the halftime whistle when he limped into the tunnel.

The second half started brightly as Sergio Ramos fell over screaming in the box as a free kick was floated in and the entirety of the Bernabeu screamed for the ref’s head when a penalty wasn’t called. Replays showed that there was minor contact between Sergio Ramos and Kanoute, but that it was more incidental than anything. A solid call since it was obvious Sergio Ramos was already beyond the ball and he went down far to easily.

I noted that Sevilla needed to get Kerzhakov more involved and that Madrid needed to get van Nistelrooy the ball at his feet rather than looping long balls that the Sevilla defense could track down. There was good marking, certainly, but more creativity from the Sevilla midfield would have opened lanes for Kerzhakov which had been shut down after the first fifteen minutes.

Puerta drove the ball just beyond the post after a nice run in the 52nd minute, but he should have seen Kerzhakov at the back post and chipped it to him. Soon after the ref began calling cheap fouls which seemed to favor Madrid a little, but the meringues were the ones who received the next yellow as Sergio Ramos slid in way, way late on Kanoute. It was a well-deserved card. Sevilla should have had advantage called as the ball fell to Sevilla in a good position, but the ref gave a free kick 40 yards out instead. The correct call would have been to let the play run its course and then give Sergio Ramos a card.

In the 56th minute Beckham received the ball in the box and hammered a shot at Palop and then tumbled out of bounds as the ball rebounded and hit Beckham. Palop got in Beckham’s face saying who knows what, but Beckham merely pushed his hands away and walked off. Palop was talking smack to everyone who came near his goal and I really want to know what sort of things he was saying, not that I’d be able to understand his Valenciano accent anyway.

Moments before he was subbed off, Raul was nearly gifted a goal by Escude who let the ball roll beyond him and only just got his foot in front of Raul’s to kick it out for a corner. Had he not, Raul would have been in on goal and would have certainly scored. Even Raul could have scored that one…

And then the game changed completely, as Raul went out and Guti came on. Miguel Torres also went out, replaced by Ivan Helguera, meaning the back line was restructured and the team began to swing the ball through Guti in the middle. Guti’s hair, predictably enough, is still ugly. I don’t think Raul is up to the standards Madrid sets for its players, at least not anymore. And he certainly didn’t do himself any favors by failing completely today.

I noticed that Guti made an immediate impact and began to run the midfield very well and was just wondering why he hadn’t been on from the beginning when he laid a brilliant through ball between the legs of one defender and right to van Nistelrooy who stuck the ball just inside the post to tie the game at one. Van Nistelrooy is so talented with the ball at his feet, as I pointed out before, and he proves it in just about every game. That was goal number 19 of the season, making him pichichi for the moment.
Madrid were dominating after the restart and it looked like they were going to get another goal right off the bat, but Beckham squandered a chance in the box with the ball at his feet, but I didn’t see Palop talking any more trash. Robinho found more space, but disappeared a little as Guti began to feed van Nistelrooy more continuously and Sergio Ramos began to make runs down the side.

Hinkel come on for the largely anonymous Renato in the 64th and then Alves missed an absolute sitter with the goal wide open at completely at his mercy. The ball was slid across the face of goal, but it seemed that he saw it late and the impossible miss I saw the first time around wasn’t quite so impossible when I saw the replays. Still, it reminded me of Vieri against South Korea in the 2002 World Cup.

Kerzhakov was then replaced by Chevanton in an effort to get more out of their front line. Kerzhakov had been a ghost for the entire second half, but two minutes later all thoughts of the Russian were banished when Luis Fabiano was given a straight red. The thing was, Luis Fabiano was warming up on the sidelines. No report I’ve read explains what the card was for, but surely we’ll find out at some point. I’ve never seen that happen before, so now I’m supremely interested.

Casillas made a great save at one end after Alves volleyed from point-blank-range and then immediately on the other Guti released Robinho in the box and he one-timed the ball into the net. I wonder if he said anything to Palop, but his celebration earned him not one, but two yellow cards and Robinho was sent off.

The man advantage Sevilla had was short lived as Aitor Ocio was shown the red 3 minutes later for an elbow to Diarra’s head. Even then I thought that would weaken the sides for their resulting league games and then David Beckham and Javier Chevantón were shown yellows immediately afterwards, meaning Beckham will miss his next game. It’s funny that Beckham is out after just having his yellow card from the previous game rescinded.

Escude then blew a Vieri-esque chance in front of goal and once again, Madrid responded with another goal. Guti, naturally, released Sergio Ramos into the box with yards of space and Palop did well to get his fingertips to the hard shot, but van Nistelrooy was on hand to nod in his second of the game and the 20th of the season. The effectively sealed the game for Real Madrid and the Bernabeu absolutely erupted.

The crowd was fully behind their team, for once, but imagine if they’d lost…fickle those Madrid fan, that’s for sure. There will be no white handkerchiefs in Madrid tonight. Regulation came to an end and then Chevanton did some nifty footwork and won himself a free kick in a very dangerous position. Three minutes of extra time was already gone by the time he got around to banging the ball into the back of the net via a deflection off the wall. Sevilla were on the attack, but just didn’t have enough time to get that third goal and earn themselves a point.

As it stands, Barcelona are 2 points up on Madrid and 4 points up on Sevilla with 5 games to play. I have more, as usual, on my Barcelona blog.

Quite a long weekend of soccer watching for me as I caught all or parts of 5 games. I missed Saturday’s action until the exciting Guadalajara derby, which Chivas took home 2-0 at the expense of “home side” Atlas. The game was pretty exciting with several opportunities falling for both sides; Chivas was the club to take advantage, is all.

My favorite Barcelona took the honors at home 1-0 thanks to a late own goal created by lots of pressure and Javier Saviola banging the ball off the post and then off of Fernando Navarro. Sevilla failed to keep themselves within a single point of the Spanish leaders, falling 2-0 at the Mestalla to Valencia in a pretty fantastic game that starred, above all else, Joaquin. Real Madrid floundered against Santander, losing 2-1 at El Sardinero.

In England, Aston Villa came back from down a goal to win 1-3 on the road against Middlesbrough, pushing the Lions up to 10th in the Premiership table, 10 points from the relegation zone with only 4 games remaining. There is little hope of getting into Europe, but at least relegation has been avoided and a top half finish is more than possible. Games against Portsmouth, Manchester City, Sheffield United, and Bolton should ensure a top 10 end to the season, but both Portsmouth and Bolton will prove tough as they vie for European spots. Sheffield will be desperate to avoid the drop as they’re only 2 points from 17th placed Charlton. Man City has about as much to play for as Villa, so perhaps they’ll come out flat.

A more in-depth look at the Villains’ season is coming up, as well a review of the Valencia-Sevilla game and several longer posts concerning La Liga and the wider European game, especially as the semis of the Champions League draw nearer.

Besides the fact that they burned our capital not even 200 years ago, stole our language but can’t spell it, and care about the Carling Cup, the English are now trying to take away our God-given right to host a World Cup. What I mean is, England is bidding for the 2018 World Cup which should be, according to the cyclical process of where FIFA chooses as World Cups host countries, somewhere in North America. Sepp Blatter has sort of thrown some water on that fire, but just the notion that England deserves a World Cup makes me mad. Back off, Brits. We saved your butts in World War II and this is the thanks we get?

How can you deserve a World Cup if you just had one like 500 miles away less than one year ago. ONE. That takes a single finger to count; a single anything, actually. Cause it’s the smallest whole number that is greater than zero. It’s already been 13 years since we hosted a World Cup in this half of the world. So shut your freaking pie holes. You had one in 1998 on the other side of a body of water that is 21 miles across! You have a train that runs under it! There’s no train from New York to London and even if there was, I wouldn’t take it because the World Cup is going to be over here! Hopefully. England doesn’t deserve it. Actually, neither do we and it should be put hosted by Canada. But that’s still close and I like that.

We’ll come up with a better logo in 2018, I swear!

I know I’m focusing a lot on La Liga lately, but I’m finding the EPL harder and harder to pay attention to as there are now 9 points between the leaders and the 2^nd placed team (Chelsea do have a game in hand), Aston Villa haven’t played for what feels like 6 months, and the Carling Cup final is dominating the headlines. It’s the Carling Cup, for Pele’s sake! It’s the Intertoto of England! Who cares!? Arsenal started what amounts to a junior varsity team and Chelsea, well, they won and Chelsea winning always sucks, but they had to field a starting 11 to do it. Great job, guys, you beat up on the little kids. Enjoy your only trophy of the year! And I hope John Terry is fine, which he appears to be.

Drogba, for his part, scored both of Chelsea’s goals and won the African Footballer of the Year award. I’m not sure they’re directly related, but whatever, Drogba deserves it, even if he is quite a bit of a jerkoff on the field. He has talent, I can’t deny it. 116^th Street has a good discussion of what it’s like to realize that.

InterMilan finally didn’t win (gasp!) in Serie A and it was really about time. F-ing Inter. Serie A is usually entertaining in that you’re not sure if Juventus or Milan are going to win it, but this season…sheesh, boring. (I hope my sarcasm doesn’t drip onto the next paragraph…)

And now to La Liga where things remain tight while the press is trying to hand the league trophy to someone else every 15 seconds. First it was Barcelona that were floundering, falling asunder, in a crisis, and now out of it, flying high, watching as the pedestrian teams like Sevilla and Madrid flounder 2 and 6 points beneath them. But woe is Madrid as they’ve slipped to 4^th on goal differential, falling behind basement-dwellers Valencia, who themselves were considered the greatest team of all time after their 2-1 beating of Barcelona. (Sorry, there’s the sarcasm again).

The scores from last weekend were somewhat surprising, of course, but I don’t read that much into it. Saturday was witness to the first “surprise,” the Madrid derby, which ended 1-1 after goals by Torres and Higuain. It was Torres’ first goal against his cross-town rivals after something like 3 decades of trying and Higuain’s first goal in a Real Madrid jersey. Cannavaro picked up a red card during the game (two yellow cards), which probably endeared him to the Real supporters, but of course, he’ll still have to serve a suspension, though I don’t think it’ll keep him from playing in El Clasico, a game whose hype has already begun.

On Sunday, Valencia drew 1-1 away to last-placed Nastic and Getafe and Sevilla fired blanks at each other, causing the press to go apeshit immediately following the final whistle of Barcelona’s 3-0 pasting of 18^th placed Bilbao. Barcelona are set to be champions! Who can stop them now? Oh me oh my! And after Barcelona held off Zaragoza in the Copa del Rey 1-2 (2-2 on aggregate, advancing on away goals), the press refused to say anything as their were too busy gorging themselves on Frank Rijkaard’s…well you get the point.

So the absurdly uninteresting Primera División sits with the top 2 basically on top of each other, 3 and 4 tied on points 4 behind number 2, all while Atletico and Zaragoza sit within striking distance of Champions League spots, assuming of course that they don’t fall into a deep dark abyss of crisis by drawing with another team. Oops, Zaragoza drew and lost this week!

Disturbing trends from La Liga as violence seems to be rising. I don’t want to be a sensationalist, of course, but Sevilla coach Juande Ramos was knocked unconscious by a bottle hurled from the stands during the Copa del Rey game between Betis and Sevilla. Sure, they’re city rivals, but Barcelona keeper Jorquera was also hit by a bottle in Zaragoza as the final whistle blew. And there was crowd trouble at the Madrid derby, which is basically like saying the sun rose. Anyway, I hope Juande gets better quickly and that people stop being such retards when it comes to sports. Obviously I’m a big fan, obviously I love the competition, I hate certain teams with a passion, but when they are beating me 0-1 in league cup game, I don’t smash their heads in. I don’t even try to hurt them at all, in fact, because sports are about community, art, beauty, passion, sharing; not killing. I hope UEFA/FIFA stuffs a whole shovel full of stadium ban down their throats.

A closer look at Sevilla-Barça tomorrow on The Barcelona Offside and Fulham – Aston Villa on For Club and Country. Next week right here, a look at the Champions League as a whole as well as a look at some of the other leagues around Europe.

Soccernet is reporting that Liverpool have signed Andriy Voronin, who will arrive from Bayer Leverkusen on a free (Bosman) transfer in the summer. Voronin, a 27 year old Ukrainian, is good, if not amazing. What it does mean, however, is that a striker is leaving the club at the end of the season. Soccernet seems to think that it’s Fowler whose Anfield days are over, but I don’t think it should be seen as a definitive fact just yet. When you’ve got a few extra ducats lying around like Liverpool do, you never know who is going to be gracing your club with their presence and it’s not particularly worthwhile for Benitez to have all those robot jokes bouncing around the locker room for the 150th time if he can avoid it. So maybe Peter Crouch is going to Juventus, maybe Fowler is out, or maybe both. Neither would be a bad move on Liverpool’s part, not if they now have a guy who doesn’t even care where the ball is, he just wants to kick it (see above picture). Though, everyone would miss this (warning: 151st robot joke!).

I’ve been lax about posting this week thanks to getting the Barcelona Offside blog up and running, but I promise more stuff this coming week, especially reflections on the Champions League. Also, a look at what’s coming in La Liga and the EPL.

pwnd

From now on, all commentary specific to Barcelona is being posted at the Barcelona Offside page, meaning I am now a proud member of the Offside community. So update all those bookmarks and RSS feeds…Naturally I’ll continue to post here about all the random things that happen throughout the soccer world, so don’t forget to check back here either!

The Disappointment Zone pointed this out and it’s pretty unbelievable. Wait till the end if you think you’ve seen it all before.

UEFA doesn’t see anything wrong with this scene, do you?

The Champions League results are in for today and it turns out that English teams can’t avoid controversy, no matter whether they’re on holiday or actually out there playing. But here’s the thing: I didn’t see what happened, so I don’t know who’s right, who’s not; all I have to go on are the various news reports and they present two wholly different stories. If all you read was UEFA.com, you’d never know that the Giggs goal was even disputed at all, much less by the players being told by their coaching staff to walk off. That and the fact that there was a serious scare at the visiting end of the field as the crowd surged forward. Scary. The game, by the way, ended 0-1 with the Red Devils in serious command of the tie.

The rest of the scores:

Real Madrid 3 – 2 Bayern Munich: this one is hard to call but I think Bayern go through on away goals in the end. And as always I was very surprised to hear that Oliver Kahn didn’t received a red card for eating either the ball or an opponent.

Celtic 0 – 0 Milan…right, like that didn’t have draw written all over it.

PSV 1 – 0 Arsenal: How about some creativity, Gunners? No? Then eat Edison Mendez’s sweet strike. (Link later when I find it)

Regardless of any disagreements with ESPN I may have over what is shown on their Deportes channel (which I obviously don’t get), I’m thrilled about the return of the Champions League. Welcome back o’ great tournament of winners!

As long as golf clubs aren’t allowed on the pitch, we could see this again.

The excrementfaces at ESPN aren’t showing Barcelona-Liverpool on Wednesday. Instead they chose to air Porto-Chelsea, which, in comparison, is about as interesteting as watching Britney self-destruct. I’m still going to watch, but still, up yours ESPN.

Even Mourinho is dejected about the TV schedule.

All the goals from this weekend in La Liga, via Marca.com. The page also has pictures and match reports in Spanish. Click on the links next to the scores for each individual goal.

Alves scoring his worm-burner against Atletico.

Capello is somewhere in Madrid, kicking himself as we speak.

Perhaps Fabio Capello misunderestimated Ronaldo’s abilities after all. El Gordo grabbed two of the goals in a last-second win by Milan over Siena 3-4. In light of Madrid’s recent form, you’d think Capello would be more than happy to have a striker worth his weight half his weight in goals. While I still believe Milan incapable of winning the Champions League, they’re certainly more of a force in Italy. They’ve moved into the European spots and are assured of remaining there through next weekend. Not bad for a group of cheaters.

Speaking of cheating, all of the clubs who were punished for being a bunch of scumbags (that’s the legal term, right?) are out of relegation. Milan and Lazio are in the UEFA Cup spots (33 and 31 points respectively; Lazio with a game tomorrow) while Fiorentina is 8 points from Milan with a game tomorrow. Reggina sit 2 points from relegation with 19 points and a game tomorrow against 8th place Atalanta. Had none of these teams been docked points, Milan would be in 4th, Fiorentina would be in 5th, Lazio would be in 7th and Reginna would be in 9th just above Atalanta.

A look down into Serie B sees uber-cheaters Juventus destroy Crotone 5-0 (Italian) behind a Del Piero hattrick to move 3 points clear of Napoli and new number 2 Mantova. Napoli currently sits on 40 points with their game against Arezzo for 9amET tomorrow (Sunday). Had Juve not been docked points, they’d be comfortably in first by 12 points. Instead they’re in first place anyway. Big whoop. The old lady will be back in Serie A next year and probably pushing for a European spot immediately.

Real Madrid 0 – 0 Real Betis

The game ended in a nil-nil draw, but it was an exciting game, with several sure goals failing to be scored by various strikers. Van Nistlerooy missed an easy opportunity and Fabrice Pancrate missed two for Betis. There were other half-chances throughout the game but spotty refereeing (especially at the end) meant what would have otherwise been a wide open run-and-gun game became a little more stagnant. Beckham picked up a red card in the 90th minute, after getting revenge for what should have been a freekick on the edge of the Betis box. Silly foul and a fully deserved red card that will not help Beckham’s chances of playing for England.

I watched the GolTV feed and the commentators, who I’ve never experienced before, were out of control. I don’t know who they are or exactly where they’re from, but they’re English speakers, one of whom sounds as if he’s from the British Isles and another sounds very American. Regardless of where they’re from, they spent 90% of the time discussing the week’s news items and 5% talking about the game that was in front of them. The other 5% was spent on sighing when Real Madrid were in danger or missed a shot, which brings up my point: the commentary was ridiculously biased towards Madrid. Whoever is in charge of GolTV should really make sure they hire people who know who is on the field for Madrid’s opponents. It’s one thing to be able to discuss Madrid intelligently (and I’ll admit that there were times when they were right on in that regard), but to lack any knowledge whatsoever about the other team on the field is unforgivable. Commentators aren’t supposed to be biased, they’re not supposed to be in favor of one team and against the other. And I don’t think they’re supposed to yell “Jackie Chan!” after Ramos nearly beheaded Melli with a high kick.

Enough about the commentators, I just needed to get that out of my system. It’s also in stark contrast with the commentator for the Zaragoza-Villareal game (also on GolTV) who is obviously Spanish and speaking English as a second language. He knows what he’s talking about and keeps his vocal chords focused on relaying what’s happening on the screen rather than who had what for breakfast.

Real Betis have now not lost in their last 8 games. While only 2 of those were wins, this is their current streak:

D-@Madrid, D-Santander, D-Barcelona, W-Valencia, D-@Sevilla, W-@Bilbao, D-Sevilla, D-@Madrid

That’s a pretty good run against highly ranked opponents (they played the top 4 teams in the league table and drew three times and won once), which makes Betis a pretty solid team at the moment. They’re living up to preseason standards now, in many ways. They’re only 4 points from the relegation zone and everyone below them has a game in hand, but they’re showing signs of life and the grit necessary to pull themselves out of danger. Regardless, no one below them looks ready to make any sort of a sustained run up the table: Mallorca, Levante, Bilbao, Celta, Sociedad, and Nastic.

Madrid, for their part, haven’t been doing so great as of late: 1 win, 2 draws, and 2 losses in their last 5. The loss that hurt the most was definitely the 0-1 defeat by Levante at the Bernabeu. Capello needs a creative midfielder, not another striking midfielder. He’s already got Robinho and van Nistelrooy, so he can rest assured that he’ll get goals if he can provide them with the ball. Adding Reyes on the wing was a great call, but starting Guti as the creative lynchpin is foolish. Need proof? Madrid 0 – 0 Betis. Pretty much all the proof you need. No goals. Surprise! Not only that, but Beckham was playing an almost central attacking role towards the end and you just can’t win games that way. Whatever your opinion of Raul (and mine is low), it has to be admitted he’s a better striker with only one shoe on than Beckham is on his best days. Beckham is a midfielder, leave him there. Gago, while gifted, hasn’t adjusted yet to being surrounded by players who are stronger and faster than anything he experienced in Argentina and it’s a little much to expect he’ll be Madrid’s spark. Still, a little more is needed from him than an anonymous game except for the moment when he got that yellow card. That was basically the only thing he did.

I’ve posted about Villa’s increased potential in this half of the season at The Disappointment Zone. Check it out. I’ll be adding a Barcelona post on For Club and Country in the next two days, covering not only the big week ahead, but also the Eto’o saga that’s been going on.

UEFA has decided the Champions League final should be more like the Super Bowl, I assume because it’s the second most gluttonous day in America. Which is something Europeans need to learn a thing or two about. Perhaps they’ll add a Playboy party too; we can send over Bill Simmons to liven up any celebrity go-kart races; and always add Roman numerals to your sporting events cause that’s not retarded or anything. Another thing Europeans should learn about, time:

There are 60 90 minutes in a game!

What happened? Oh yeah, Dunga.

I’m sure that many, many tears were shed in Brasil today when the new FIFA World Rankings were announced. 55 months on top of the world and now behind a nation who can’t even let fans into their stadiums. Geez. Is there an equivalent page to this for Portugal now?

More hotties, fewer vampires! Go Brazil!

Thanks to Josh at Rebuilding Year for this one.

I’m not sure how often it comes up in soccer, but here in the States a mini-”furor” has been created (once again, I have to admit) by an ex-athlete admitting to being gay. So naturally Chris Broussard weighs in with idiocy. Maybe this is why I don’t read his columns.

A toast to bigotry: Chris Broussard is a shithead.

I couldn’t say it much better than Linda at The Beautiful Game, so I won’t try.

Champions celebrate with coffee!

The weekend is over and now we can assess the damage. In Germany Schalke 04 have a 6 point lead and because they’re neither Bayern nor Werder I am hereby lending my curse-filled support to Schalke. May the prosper and win the title!

Lord is it getting close in Ligue 1!

Goddamn you Sampdoria! I hate being wrong! Serie A is just a joke.

Barcelona have a 3 point advantage in La Liga, thanks to a strong showing against Santander. Beckham scored a goal against Sociedad in a come-from-behind win inspired by ex-Red Devils and Valencia was shown up as title pretenders by Getafe in a 3-0 thrashing. Aguero won’t stop scoring, which is impressive, though sometimes he uses his hands.

In the EPL, Man U retained their 6 point lead over Chelsea, but Liverpool lost to a resurgent Newcastle and are only 1 point ahead of 4th place Arsenal, who used another late comeback to secure 3 points. Beloved Villa dropped all the points against Reading, but remain 12 points clear of relegation, the battle for which is certainly heating up as Watford beat West Ham in a battle of the worst.

I can’t find any information about whether or not Oswaldo Sanchez will get punished (castrated? SFW) — does anyone know?

SoccerSpot has a new sister site! Please welcome For Club and Country to the fold.

It’s my car, I can do what I want to it!

Freakonomics Blog discusses why it is that Americans aren’t as violent about sports as their European counterparts. Wait, Europeans are violent? No way.

Speaking of misunderstandings, thanks to Footie Bird (whose blog I recommend as both funny and insightful) discusses Henry Winter and his douchebaggery. EPL Talk does it’s level-headed best to see the bright side of thing in the Liverpool takeover.

The Free Wisla! movement has reached it’s end. Damn you UEFA!

Wait for it…Oswaldo Sanchez takes a cheap shot at Eddie Johnson right at the end of the clip. Ridiculous.

[Thanks 101 Great Goals]

…the more money they make. Apparently crime does pay.

YEAH! TAKE THAT, MEXICO!

That’ll teach them…apparently Mexico hasn’t scored on US soil since 1999 and that streak continues after tonight’s game (watched in Spanish due to the fact that I don’t have HD so the picture quality was far higher and anyway it wasn’t delayed 10 seconds like ESPN2).

And yes, I realize I said in an earlier post that I don’t care about friendlies since they’re silly, but this is the exception.

WELCOME BACK

Maybe they should get someone better to sponsor their shoes? 

I return now, to New York, after spending a long weekend in frigid Chicago, and so the posting will resume, probably with increasing regularity. The month of February really is reserved exclusively for soccer, without the distractions of anything resembling Miami’s Sunday night Amateur Hour. With that in mind, I preemptively watched Middlesbrough-Arsenal on Saturday at what claims to be “America’s Best Soccer Bar,” Ginger’s Ale House. It was decent enough, especially considering that I was freezing after a six block walk from the L stop (missing the bus in February is not advised). The Arsenal game proved to me that the Gunners have character, but beyond that, they aren’t title contenders without van Persie (before anyone points it out, yes I know they’re out of the title race barring an honest, actual God-shining-down Miracle, but at the same time it’s important to note that even if they were even right now with the leaders or even Chelsea, they’d have no chance).

International friendlies are, basically, silly to me. Usefull of course, but actually lame to watch what with their 78 subs or whatever. So I won’t talk about them except to say: Another England jersey? Seriously? Isn’t this like the 3rd in as many years? Settle down, FA. [Thanks to EPL Talk for this one]

Amazingly representative.

Turns out that the weekend is never complete without a little diving controversy for C. Ronaldo. While the angles I’ve seen don’t clearly indicate a dive on this particular occassion, there is little doubt that diving still exists in the sport. I fully support post-match reviews of potential dives so as to eliminate them from the game.

Found this while looking for “ronaldo diving” pics…

Ronaldo, you’ve changed.

[Update: The Guardian's Simon Hattenstone apparently just thinks it's all a bunch of diving crap.]

It’s Super Bowl weekend, so I’m off to Chicago. I’ll return on Monday with commentary about a few games as I should be hitting up America’s Best Soccer Bar on Saturday.

Colts 24 Bears 20

At least American Somoa doesn’t have to feel so bad…

52-1: Nice!

The new Liverpool kit?

Dubai International Capital Ltd and its owner Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum has pulled a bid for Liverpool in the face of competition from American serial sports franchise owner George Gillett. It’s hard to say that Gillett has a stellar or terrible performance record as a franchise owner: His stake in the Dolphins was neither large (22%) nor important (he left before the perfect 1972 season though it’s unclear whether or not he was around for the NFL merger and the subsequent Super Bowl 6 loss to the Cowboys); the Canadiens are doing exactly as they did before he took over 2000; the Globetrotters, however, were bankrupt before Gillett bought them, though in the middle of what turned out to be a pretty spectacular 2,495 game winning streak that ended 4 years after Gillett bought them (bought in 1967, first loss was in 1971). This, of course, is nothing compared to what Liverpool can expect if they emulate what the Globetrotters did next:

On September 12, 1995, the Harlem Globetrotters lost an exhibition game 91-85 to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s All Star Team in Vienna, Austria ending a run of 8,829 straight victories in exhibition games going back to 1971. The Globetrotters won the other 10 games during that European tour.

Of course, maybe that just means Liverpool should play nothing but exhibition matches…against the Washington Generals.

The Sheik vs the…that guy

If Ismael Matar’s benefactor is from Dubai, then things could be looking up for Liverpudlian goalscorers…but what kind of animals would they get? I mean, camels aren’t exactly the right gifts for Lancashire are they?

Check out this little tidbit from the Liverpool Wiki page…Corinto, Nicaragua? I mean, okay, that’s cool and I hope Corinto gets something out of the deal (which seems to make Corinto a twin/sister town with not just Liverpool, but also Bremen and Cologne, Germany and Portland, USA). This is what being a twin/sister town means.

Thanks to FCBarcelonablog for this one:

In a move that is sure to leave more than a couple people fuming or celebrating, Tottenham have been handed a free pass to the round of 16 in the UEFA Cup. Sounds sketchy to me and just a tad unfair — if you kick out a team, don’t you have to replace them? And I’m not talking about rules here, I’m talking about what should be done. Give Wisla Krakow a chance, for crying out loud!

FREE WISLA! FREE WISLA!

In other news, Ronaldote is going to be a Milanese player in a deal worth about $6million. I think it’ll be a good move for everyone involved and the money, relative to his apparent previous worth, is good. The question is playing time and I don’t think there will be many problems in that department even with Pipo and Gilardino lurking. It doesn’t change my stance on the team’s European chances, but should bolster their domestic form.

Also, Du Nord passed this gem on. Check it out and maybe you can add to it.

[Update: Ronaldo officially moved to Milan for ~$10million and Ricardo Oliveira went the other way on loan. I think this is positive for everyone involved.]

Thanks to Bitter and Blue for pointing the way to this site. It’s got all the match facts you’ll ever want to know about Villa (or any other European team for that matter). It seems that it’s best viewed in IE since I couldn’t get Firefox to display most of the charts.

I’ll be posting more over the weekend (probably Sunday) about Aston Villa’s transfers and a fairly straight forward look at the second half of the season.

Eurosport Statcenter home

Despite the fact that he’s obviously a lying athlete (is that redundant?) it would be completely understandable to avoid a team like Liverpool which goes 99 games without maintaining the same lineup. Playing time is always a big deal, especially for international players looking to sustain their NT status. Still, don’t act like $100,000 a week isn’t enticing.

Will Teddy and co. hold the money against him?

Well, Lee Hendrie’s a dick…He denies it happened, of course.

Why would the fan lie? Why would Hendrie say that? Do EPL players really hear the fans during warmups? How can they not be used to such tough language “you’re a professional footballer, rise above it”? That’s what set him off? That’s actually a worse overreaction than Zidane!

Thanks to the boys at EDSBS for pointing this out. This country, it is changing, I swear. What’s fascinating is how little tolerance there can be in a country built around tolerance. And for a sport–it’s a sport, people! It’s seen as foreign, as different, as going against…well I’m not even sure what it’s supposed to be going against but it sure is going against it!

Nicole Bengivemo/NY Times

This is very interesting.

I honestly can’t get enough of these Saviola pictures. Redemption just never really looked so good. And on a weekly basis I can now get my fix of I-told-you-so, but of course, no one was really disputing that Saviola should have been playing more so I’m just venting some sort of weird pent-up wonder about the fact that I got something right.

Anyway, Saviola was one of three goalscorers as Barcelona dismantled over-matched Gimanstic 3-0 to take the top spot in La Liga on goal differential with a game still in hand. With Real Madrid winning there is a 3-way tie for first on points (Barcelona, Sevilla, followed by Real) so any thoughts of a crisis for the Madridistas should be summarily chucked out the window. Valencia and Atletico sit 2 and 3 points respectively behind the leading pack so discounting them at this point would be idiotic.

On the other end of the spectrum I think we can call Gimnastic as going down as they have 9 points halfway through the season. Even if they had double that number (18, if you can’t do math), they would still be in the relegation zone. The other relegation teams are currently Sociedad and Betis, though Betis has been showing some signs of life recently (in the sense that they knocked Madrid out of the Copa del Rey, not in the sense that they lost to Osasuna 5-1 last weekend). I still think they’ll pull it out and the three going down will be Levante, Sociedad, and Gimnastic. There’s just no way I can say Sociedad will improve enough to recover the 6 points between themselves and survival by the end of the year. That said, there are many games left to be played and basically anything can happen.

Those who will finish in Europe:

CL: Barcelona (title), Sevilla, Madrid, and Valencia

UEFA: Atletico and Huelva

You can find my preseason thoughts here and so far I’m pretty much on the ball with the exception of Chelsea (a fact I’m very happy to report, but which I’m still assuming will turn out right). My biggest forehead-smacker was calling for Villareal to place in a Champions League spot. Who knew this would appear: 26 points. Juan Roman Riquelme 1 goal 6 assists in 13 games. And they still have a legit shot at making the UEFA Cup.

As for the Segunda Division, it looks like Valladolid are getting closer to the jump (44 points, with a 6 point lead after 21 games). I’m still rooting for Xerez to finally make the one-year disaster-inducing jump to the top where they’ll spend a lot of money they don’t have, still get relegated, and go bankrupt. Yay.

In Serie A Inter Milan might as well just get the trophy now. Inter still haven’t lost! Roma and Palermo will duke it out for second while basically everyone else will go for 4th-6th. I’m guessing Lazio pull out 4th while Milan snatch 5th and because they were my preseason 4th, Sampdoria grab 6th. Catania, incidentally, could jump to 4th with a win since they have a game in hand.

Werder Bremen will take the title in the Bundesliga while Bayern will grab second. From there it’s a cascade to mediocrity, but I’ll say Stuttgart then Schalke. Borussia Mönchengladbach stays up for no other reason than their name and history.

I don’t even care about Ligue 1 or the SPL…those are over. (PSG stays up, though)

First, it looks like Andy Johnson broke his ankle today, which is awful news.

The EPL has suddenly gotten a little more competitive at the top, if not more unpredictable. The Big 4 are still the top 4 and Watford are going down. Whether or not Wigan join them is yet to be played out, but my money is on West Ham to eek out a couple of wins where Wigan can’t. Still, it’s getting better and there’s no assured winner yet, unlike several of the other European leagues. Here’s a look at Pennant’s goal against Chelsea. (I forget where I got this link)

I had the pleasure of watching the Arsenal-ManU game and it was a good one. I missed the opening 17 minutes, so I can’t be positive, but Arsenal deserved to win. ManU sat back and played the counterattack the whole game, creating a few chances in the process, but not really ever dominating the game with the exception of the final minute of the first half. Arsenal were a bit unlucky not to get a penatly called before Rooney put a way a header to go 0-1 up, but the introduction of van Persie for Hleb put more pressure on the Devils, who found out the hard way that Robbie picks his spots pretty well. Then Henry was gifted a goal by Rio’s inability to judge the cross in extra time(should there have been a foul called on Rosicky/Fabregas on that play? I couldn’t really tell). After that it was sort of mayhem as Henry celebrated for what felt like half an hour and then Lehmann was typically “injured” for a few seconds while Henry motioned for him to fall on the ground. Then the whistle was blown about 30 seconds too early, but still, ManU didn’t really look like they were going to score so it’s not such a big deal.

A side note: Wayne Rooney is the classic superstar in the sense that regardless of his performances, any time he does anything good it’s considered a reaffirmation of his talent, such as popping up and scoring ManU’s goal early in the second half. Despite how badly he’d been playing up until that point, the commentators crowed that he showed class and deserved to be considered some sort of shining god. I don’t disagree about his talents, but he tends to disappear for long periods of time and make boneheaded mistakes (mostly associated with his temper) too often. To me, he has potential and certainly hasn’t become the player I think he will one day be, so to act as if it’s destiny that he scored is silly. He, like Freddy Adu, has been pushed into the spotlight a little too early and his goal tally should be inconsequential at this point. Rooney is 21, you know, barely able to drink in my country, much less dominate a professional sport.

You know who I don’t like? Flamini. I’m not exactly sure why because he’s not such a bad player, but I really just don’t like him on the field. Not sure if Arsenal have anyone to do a better job in that position…oh wait, Lauren…oh wait no he’s gone. Oops. But still, Flamini did a pretty good job on Rooney, which is saying something. Not that it makes me like him more. I’m sure he’s appalled that SoccerSpot doesn’t look favorably upon him.

Speaking of me not liking people: I didn’t know who to root for in the game today. Am I rooting against all things Chelsea or sticking with my enjoyment of Arsenal. I’d like to see Arsenal take second from Chelsea, of course, but not if it means Chelsea are first. That doesn’t look likely, of course, since ManU are basically assured of a top 2 finish unless Ronaldo, Rooney, and van der Sar all break their legs in the next month or so. Still, despite being a passive Arsenal fan via their style of play, I couldn’t help but wonder if I shouldn’t be rooting for ManU simply so that they could go 9 clear of Chelsea. Difficult times, these.

I ended up cheering for Arsenal, in case you were wondering. Old habits die hard.

I’ll add to this when the Spanish league games are done, but as of right now (halftime of Barca-Gimnastic), Saviola is proving that I am always right. I’ll see if I can’t get something up before the NFL games, but don’t count on it.

Well he looks like a goalscorer…

Apparently Watford have accepted Aston Villa’s $18million ($15.5m at first and then the rest later) bid for striker Ashley Young. [Side note: What's with the name Ashley for boys in England? Did I miss something?] Whether or not this investment will work out hinges on personal terms between the clubs and, of course, whether or not Young turns out to be a talented striker. I can easily see him becoming a second option in O’Neill’s 4-3-3 system when Moore returns and if Baros begins to play like he means it. Agbonlahor should be considered untouchable until he proves himself unworthy which means basically until the end of time at this rate. So long as Villa doesn’t forget to augment the backline it’s not a problem to splash out on Young (and that’s assuming O’Neill knows what he’s doing, which I believe he does).

The Gaffer over at EPL Talk posted about the new TV deal the EPL has signed which will guarantee that money is unfairly distributed between the rich clubs all the more. We’re talking almost $100 million to the title winner, which of course means the richest clubs will only get richer by leaps and bounds unfathomable by the smaller clubs, especially if they’re in the Championship or below. A few positives from this may or may not outweigh the bad that comes from economic disparity:

• Along with the large bonus for the winner, each EPL team will receive $50million. This is a positive for teams like Watford or Reading who aren’t the most cash rich there are in the world. That said, a negative is that it will probably create a top 23 in English soccer, including whoever is in the EPL starting next year and then the next 3 teams to go up. Since even the relegated will get $50m, they’ll be able to spend it on stars to help them return.
• Global exposure for the EPL is definitely good as it will help attract better players (Like, maybe, this one), but that could in turn lead to further economic disparity as European championships fall into the hands of stud-loaded British clubs (the factor keeping someone like Ronaldinho from England is the fact that it’s a much different and harder-tackling game than the rest of Europe where what would be a foul in England can be a red card in Spain).
• The races to the top for that extra $50m could get better as more teams are able to afford the above-mentioned better players. That might not really translate to the truth, of course, but one can always hope. Another factor is that this could lead to newly-promoted smaller clubs massively overspending like Leeds United where they end up defaulting and almost or actually going under. Could easily happen like Osasuna and Celta Vigo in Spain.

Real Madrid get bounced from the Copa del Rey. It happens to the best of clubs and according to SFS, the ref missed a penalty that would have ensured the Merengues of moving on. Despite this only being a domestic cup, I believe it has some major significance in the greater scheme of things (and I don’t mean to belittle domestic cups too much, but it isn’t exactly the league) as Real Madrid are currently being rocked by some serious issues between the fans and coach and players and president. In the background are several transfer rumors that threaten to change the entire complexity not only of Real Madrid but for the entire continent (think La Liga as well as Champions League). The biggest exit rumor (and rumor is all it probably is) doesn’t fall to Ronaldo leaving for Milan or Beckham to El Mundo Nuevo, but rather Robinho’s possible departure. If it’s a sinking ship, someone might snap up a deal worthy of rememberance for a long time. Obviously it’s only a rumor until it happens and it won’t happen until the summer regardless of the money thrown at Madrid, but what a change that would be. Movement away from Robinho would be silly based on his display against Barcelona in the first Clasico this year alone.

Yeah like this isn’t hilarious…

That look of surprise must have been caused by what came out of his own mouth.

There are other things besides La Guerra de Beckham going on in Spain these days, including the Copa del Rey (King’s Cup). Javier Saviola scored a hat trick against Alaves Tuesday to ensure Barcelona advanced to the next round (quarterfinals). It’s just a little more proof that Saviola can indeed still score. He’s a fantastic player (and yes, I mean that: fantastic — he proved this in the World Cup and at Sevilla last season) and deserves more playing time and credit for his abilities.

But someone is back…

…and he’s got one word for Javier: Pichichi. (That’s top scorer in La Liga, fyi)

Samuel Eto’o is back! Fantastic news and now the CL matches with Liverpool look like they could be turned on their heads as the Leo Messi Blog reports that even he will be able to play against the Reds. Could be some amazing football on display, but without Luis Garcia I don’t see Liverpool as quite as good. Bad luck, really, and it means Gerrard will have to really step up.

Short note on the Alaves game: Interesting that Barcelona chose to start a pretty powerful lineup against such weak opposition. Makes sense to give a few youngsters some playing time, but instead Rijkaard chose to get some more experience for his regular first teamers. Makes sense as well, especially since they’ve been off their game, but 2 goals to Alaves isn’t great. The back line needs to close ranks like they did last year and not expect the offense to outgun opponents every time.

“I said yesterday and some people laughed at me, but this move for me is not about the money, it’s about hopefully making a difference in the US with the soccer and that’s what I’m going there for.” (Guardian)

Yeah, that’s the ticket! Decisions influenced by Tom Cruise, eh? I sure hope it means more than just a bit part for Posh, what with her being so talented and all…

Not to be outdueled in lunacy, Chelsea has succumbed to Mourinho’s desires and has offered up a few billion dollars or something for new players. Not that anyone could have seen that coming or anything.

In this edition:

1. Coming To America starring David Beckham

2. Chelsea: total rope-a-dope

3. How Dubai’s real estate prices affect you

1. David Beckham

In an apparent bid to be just like the old NASL, Major League Soccer has spared no expense to snag a superstar. The problem with the NASL’s capture of Pele is that it eventually sunk the entire league. The Galaxy are apparently looking for a repeat performance of that grand failure of sporting hubris. A reported $250million contract in salary and endorsements (definitely the majority from the latter) doesn’t exactly strike me as a solid way to keep your head above water in a tight financial market where the average attendance was 15,502 in 2006. LA is the largest market by quite a bit so Beckham’s appearance will probably only effect an already better market than say, Kansas City, which would benefit the most from adding a superstar. That means regardless of what happens with the Becks deal, places like Kansas City will sell their souls (and all material goods) to get an aging Ronaldo or a semi-star looking for greener pastures. That’s the NASL style and a very probable future for the MLS. Perhaps the optimists are right, though, and the arrival of a foreign megastar still capable of playing at a world-class level will not only boost the LA Galaxy attendance numbers, but everyone’s in general.

Perhaps the slow trickle of big names or half-known, badly-pronounced names will not turn into a merry-go-round of who’s-retiring-from-Europe-now and will instead be solid decisions by intelligent board rooms looking to strengthen particular positions with skillful role players. I’ll leave that one to your imagination…but just think about Al-Ittahad for a second and where they’ll be this time next year: still in Saudi Arabia. The MLS is not going to become a powerhouse league by imitating Leeds United…

2. Chelsea is far from done

Mourinho began his merciless and annoying mindgames this week when he announced he was unhappy with Chelsea’s transfer limits. Well blow me down, 30million GBP for a single player and now you’re bummed you don’t have any more money? I wish credit card companies would accept that excuse after I charged a Porsche, went over my limit, and couldn’t afford food: “But, but, but, how will I live?” Nevermind the fact that you have a team made up almost entirely of superstars, that you probably do have 30million more in the bank waiting for the right moment to drop out of the sky and snag some soon-to-be forgotten benchwarmer worth his weight in gold to any other club on earth. If SWP gets out of there to Villa, that might open the door to a radical transfer policy never before thought of: don’t buy excessive numbers of players, especially if they don’t fit into your system.

There are lots of pundits and fans out there crowing that Chelsea is dead, done, cooked, but anyone who thinks that Chelsea is out of contention in the Premiership or the Champions League because they’ve had a few off games is a fool. Wait until ManU has a double digit lead and not just one of 6 points before popping that bottle of champagne. It’s a long haul from here till the last match and there’s no telling what can happen over that period of time. Just imagine the headlines: CRonaldo breaks ankle, ManU season tanks. Or: Shevchenko actually scores in consecutives. Imagine. And if that happens yeah, you’ll find me bemoaning bad luck and how much I hate Mourinho for keeping the Blues in contention until it really mattered.

3. Dubai Rental Prices and You

I was just catching up on my leisure reading when I came across this article in The Economist detailing the new measures being taken to curb Dubai’s rapidly rising real estate prices. If there is a sudden or even slow decline in Dubai’s cash flow due to these restrictions (meant to curb inflation if you don’t want to read the article), there could be a major lack of transfer funds for Dubai-owned Liverpool FC. You’ve probably heard of them, but if not, well, you should probably find other websites to read.

I love how things like Dubai rental prices can make or break an English team’s chances at major trophies. Dubai is interesting anyway and if you haven’t read it, National Geographic has a good article about the city in its January 2007 issue, including mention of this insanity.

No, you shut up.

Javier “El Conejo” Saviola scored both goals in Barcelona’s 0-2 1st leg away win over Alaves in the round of 16 of the Copa del Rey (King’s Cup). AS covered the match in Spanish, but I’m sure there are several news outlets that discuss it in English. I’m merely too lazy to find them for you. Suffice it to say that AS calls Alaves “unhinged” due to the “very poor” Piterman…sadly that’s probably not very far from the truth of the matter. Regardless, though, Saviola played well and scored twice, which perhaps will aid his movement into some sort of 1st team place before Eto’o returns and knocks him from the ranks pretty much altogether (except in Copa games, of course). It’s telling that Ezquerro was withdrawn in favor of Gudjohnsen and not 8 minutes before Saviola scored his second and, really, AS calls him the most dangerous man of the game. Elsewhere in the Copa, the only major result was Valladolid beating Villareal 2-1 in a match that saw the always unpredictable Guillermo Franco sent off (I have so much more dislike for La Volpe because he included Franco in his WC squad, but that is a topic for another night).

In England Chelsea drew 1-1 against Leaue Two minnows Wycombe in the FA Cup, meaning, well, nothing since there’s another leg to play and it’s at Stamford Bridge. Good result, though! Keep it up Wanderers and you’ll be my favorite team three leagues down! Yay!

The Little One that almost could.

Oh and some contradictory nonsense about Beckham’s future.

The Flash was the opening 16 seconds, the 93 yard run to the end zone by Ted Ginn Jr.; the Bang sounding immediately afterward was the OSU team imploding in on itself. Last night as I watched the BCS title game I couldn’t help but think how strange it is that teams just don’t mentally show up for big games. The lack of passion in the Buckeyes reminded me of Brasil’s failures at last summer’s World Cup. Certainly within those two examples we’re talking about different sports and different skill levels, but there are plenty of similarities as well.

Here’s a little Cliff Notes action in case you missed either last night’s game or the World Cup:

1. Ohio State was ranked #1 in all major polls entering the game and had in fact been ranked consensus #1 all year. They were undefeated (12-0) and had won the Big 10 title by beating Michigan 42-39 in November.
2. Brasil entered the World Cup in June as favorites as well as sporting a #1 ranking in the FIFA World Rankings (which they still hold, but that is a matter for a different discussion). They also finished first in South American qualifying on goal differential.
3. OSU was led by Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith, supposedly the best player in college football whose teammates weren’t exactly slouches either: WRs Ted Ginn Jr. and Anthony Gonzalez were the ultimate deep threats while James Laurinaitis led a very able defensive unit.
4. Brasil had FIFA Player of the Year Ronaldinho as its core and a slew of superstars surrounding him. Dida, Lúcio, Roberto Carlos, Cicinho, Luisão, Ze Roberto, Kaká, Juninho, Ronaldinho, Robinho, Adriano, and Ronaldo reads like a who’s who of European elite clubs and looked to be one of those most potent attacking ever.

Big underdog and mostly written off Florida and seemingly impotent, ego-maniacal France beat them. While the Gators tore into OSU lots of points (the final score was 41-14) and France only won 1-0, neither game was ever really in doubt after the first 10 minutes. Sure, Ginn ran that kickoff back and I thought the game was going to get out of hand in favor of the Bucks and sure, there were some chances for Brazil and I thought the game was going to get out of hand in favor of the Seleção, but neither happened exactly that way.

So naturally I began to wonder why it is that teams so highly favored, so immensely more talented, don’t show up and don’t play. They seem to sit at home mentally or perhaps they go out and party thinking they have already won and that the game is merely an afterthought. Some say the pressure is too enormous on players, but it’s more surprising to me when teams don’t show up than when they play up to their moment ala Roger Federer.* When you train so hard and so long and are so good at a single thing in life, how can you fail to walk out on the biggest stage of your career (be it the World Cup or a high school homecoming game) and be excited, pumped, ready to play hard?

Regardless of how one does it, both Ohio State and Brazil managed to do it. I thought the first few games were flukes, that Brazil would wake up at some point and play hard, smart, and beautiful football; I thought Ohio State would rebound from the first Florida touchdown drive and their own mistakes (2 15-yard penalties), but neither happened. I blame Parreira and I’m pretty sure blame lies with Tressel for last night’s loss.

So we come back to the question of whether or not these teams believe the hype machines that try to make us think they’re indestructible gladiators? Perhaps Jose Mourinho can answer that better than anyone, but since he isn’t returning my phone calls, we’ll have to settle with some theorizing on our own.

There is a lot of expectation and pressure placed on athletes, sometimes of their own doing and sometimes because of external events not the least bit related to sports. The case of the 2002 Argentina MNT springs to mind: thanks to Argentina’s financial collapse and subsequent carrousel of presidents, most Argentine footballers expressed their desires to alleviate the strain on their fellow countrymen and their fellow countrymen expressed their desires to be distracted from the desolation of their daily lives by the football team. So it was no surprise when Argentina got bumped after the first round.

Ohio State is different only because Ohio is not replacing its governors at a Secretariat-in-his-prime pace. Otherwise there is considerable pressure to bring home the bacon to a state that has known mostly sporting misery. So because of failure, Ohio State players are pressured to win (and it’s OSU who hold down the fort so to speak for Ohioans who are used to many moons of disappointment between successes—5 national titles for the Buckeyes, the most recent one in 2002).

Brasil, on the other hand, has almost the opposite pressures: success is an integral part of Brazilian football and is not a momentary thing of jubilation, but rather a commonplace and expected occurrence. Their players are the best in the world** and they must, therefore, mesh into a super-team capable of dissecting any opponent. Their failure to do this in the WC2006 was probably a shock to many Brazilians and, really, many people around the world, but if you look at the way they played, only the Japan game’s score line indicates they ever produced any “Joga Bonito.” Perhaps they were victims of their own hubris, as has been suggested several times recently about Ronaldinho’s relative lack of form.

Either way, I blame the coaches for not preparing their squads better. Sure, OSU had 51 days off and probably lost a step or two, but Florida had 37 days and looked better than ever so that’s no real excuse. Perreira made tactical mistakes against France that cost them any shot at the game and Tressel did the same against UF, but it’s still true that the players didn’t show up and didn’t care.

How can you not care? How can you not be motivated to play your absolute heart out? I felt that way when I played in intramural finals, much less a World Cup!

Anyway you break it down, the game last night, a blowout effectively over by halftime, was boring and that’s the biggest travesty of them all.

—

*Roger Federer’s record in singles finals is a staggering 69-19 (77%) and 9-1 (90%) in Grand Slam singles finals. If you see Federer in a finals match, bet on him. He’s good for it.

**For those of you who dispute this, look at the non-English elite clubs of Europe and their superstars: Barcelona (Ronaldinho), Real Madrid (Ronaldo, Robinho, Cicinho), Milan (Kaká, Dida), InterMilan (Adriano), Olympique Lyonnais (Juninho, Fred), even Werder Bremen (Diego). Now even Arsenal has a legitimate star in Baptista (and no, I don’t consider his one game 4-goal haul a fluke, merely an size-aberration. He’ll score many more. It’s hard to say Brazilians don’t have a massive impact on the global game (they even coach in Japan!) and it’s even harder to come up with a list of top players that rivals the one I put out here, regardless of what countries you look at, but much less from one single country.

All you gotta know.

So I know all of this is rampant rumor and speculation, but it’s worth posting about if only for the humor-factor:

InterMilan president Massimo Moratti has recently been expressing his manly love for Lionel Messi anywhere and everywhere he can. Perhaps he even has a blog of his own where he writes fantasies about winning Scudetti with the little winger. I don’t know. Supposedly he has offered Messi twice his current salary if he joins up with Inter. I don’t know how trustworthy Corriere dello Sport is (perhaps it is The New York Daily News of Italy, or perhaps the Drudge Report, it’s hard to say)…

Also, what is going on in this picture? What are the men in the background doing? Is the one on the right stealing the other one’s jersey?

[Update: According to Tribalfootball, again, Moratti is denying any real interest in Messi. Really, because I can't believe he's not really willing to pay $150million for a single player...]

This weekend was almost as if the Spanish footballing world was turned on its head and the Little Man became the Giant. It wasn’t all roses for David, as Goliath definitely still has some teeth (see Valencia), but for the most part, the big boys were knocked down a peg or two. The scores of note:

Zaragoza 2 – 1 Sevilla Getafe 1 – 1 Barcelona

Deportivo 2 – 0 Real Madrid Villareal 0 – 1 Valencia

Atl Madrid 0 – 0 Gimnastic Real Sociedad 2 – 1 Osasuna

Basically this means that the top of the table is now just a little more squished, with Sevilla only 2 points ahead of Barcelona and Recreativo Huelva sits in 7th 9 points behind Sevilla. The full standings are here, but I don’t understand Valencia (30pts, +9gd) being above Zaragoza (30pts, +11gd). Whatever, it’s a tighter race than anything else other than the Bundesliga, whose top 4 are all within 4 points of each other (in comparison the top 4 of La Liga are within 7 points, though it gets tighter than the Bundesliga after that).

Most of the European leagues are beginning to look like they’re already over and even the “tight” EPL race is actually just between two high-flying clubs. Not that failure is anything wonderful, but I believe the quality of smaller squads in La Liga is higher than that of those in other tables. While it’s probably true that the upper third of the EPL is stronger than most other leagues, especially France, from Reading on down it’s pretty abysmal. I believe in the quality of the EPL’s Champions League representatives, but I’m not sure Liverpool and Arsenal are better teams than Sevilla at this point (that could easily be debated, but Sevilla’s run of form has been pretty impressive over the last 12 months).

FA Cup Weekend in England and a few more games off the beaten path. Villa barely lost after Gabor Kiraly let in a goal in injury time, but from the sounds of it they didn’t even deserve to be in that position in the first place. Not that there aren’t detractors from that point of view, but this coming Saturday at Old Trafford a rematch could make up for it. Regardless, it’s wonderful to see Henrik Larsson back in the big leagues and scoring. Arsenal beat Liverpool at Anfield 1-3 and Blackburn turned on the style to beat Everton 1-4 away. League One club Swansea beat Sheffield United 0-3 at Sheffield’s ground. League One Nottingham Forrest defeated Charlton 2-0 at home while Chelsea mauled poor League Two strugglers Macclesfield 6-1 at Stamford Bridge. Not a good matchup, really. There should be some sort of law against a Div 4 team playing a Div 1 team out looking for blood. At least give Macclesfield homefield advantage! [4 of the 6 goals game after Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee got a straight red in the 48th]

Nice, but against the wrong team.

In other news, the City Pillars mopped up Western Province United 5-0 in the South Africa Mvela Golden League. Thank you Soccernet for letting me keep up with that league.

[Update] According to Tribalfootball.com, Aston Villa are on the verge of signing Manchester United defender Phil Bardsley. O’Neill is quoted as saying he thinks Bardsley will arrive sometime this week. This is good news for Villa who desperately need even mediocre players to fill gaps at the back. Now for every other position…

Finally, something to write about! Luis Boa Morte has moved from Fulham to West Ham for an undisclosed fee most presume to be around the 5 million pound mark. Boa Morte is a solid player, if not particularly brilliant, and his understanding of English football will be invaluable in a side whose most recent imports (need I remind you who?) have been duds. Boa Morte, of course, has his own detractors, but if he plays as we all know he can, he’s a force to be reckoned with. Speaking of those duds, one of them is looking to break some FIFA rules this January. Mascherano and his handlers seem intent on getting him to play for Liverpool, first on-loan and then permanently once the summer comes. Doesn’t make sense to me that you’d splash out cash for or fill up a roster spot with someone who can’t play for you, but I’m not Rafa Benitez so I guess I don’t get to make any of the decisions here.

Breaking FIFA rules to be a Red?

Moving out beyond the EPL, Linda at The Beautiful Game gives her usual good analysis about Barcelona who I’m surprised has moved for at least someone yet this January. Despite the imminent return of Eto’o there are some holes in the forward line, especially if Messi can’t return early like expected. Saviola’s lack of playing time greatly disturbs me, but at this point there’s no real way for him to prove to Rikjaard that he’s capable of holding down at least a subsitute’s position in the Barca lineup. It would make sense for him to move during this transfer period, but the injuries will probably hold him until the summer when a someone can be brought in to replace Gudjohnsen as the main sub for Eto’o. Linda’s look at Quaresma and Messi is also worth your time.

On the Aston Villa front, the rumors are rolling thick and fast as to who will come and go in the next few days. With Manchester United appearing twice in a row on the schedule and only 5 points from the last 10 games, it’s time for Villa to find a way to win against a big boy, whether it be with this current squad or new replacements. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink is the most recently linked striker, but another aging ex-star won’t really fill the gaps up front. There are reports that a Milan Baros-for-Darren Bent swap could happen, which might be good if Villa can get some cash in return as well. Baros is still capable of shining and is only 25 while Bent is 22 and currently on the sideline with a knee injury. Buying a hurt striker not expected to return until mid-February in exchange for Baros would be pretty stupid, I think, especially with Sutton already out through injury. Luke at the Aston Villa Blog reports rumors circulating around Hasselbaink and ManU’s Phil Bardsley (defender, 21), the latter of whom would be a far better investment, if perhaps better as a loan signing. One commenter at the Aston Villa Blog wrote that O’Neill is insterested in signing Saviola. As I personally highly rate Saviola, I think this would be smart, but it’s doubtful he’ll be let go during this break. Also I’m not sure how well his style of play (fast-paced, one-touch) would work in the EPL. Henry pulls it off, but as part of a side that plays one-touch ball, not a more English-centric team like Aston Villa, though the latter does play attractively quite a lot.

It looks like Manchester United might be adding Owen Hargreaves for real this time if they’re willing to pay €30million (~£20million, $39million) for him. It’ll be interesting if that’s the real asking price or an inflated one to get a few extra bucks from United — last I heard they were offering £15million (~$30million, €23million) so perhaps a middle-of-the-road £18million (you do the conversions this time!) will get him to Old Trafford. Only time will tell, really.

I wish I were worth this much with a broken leg…

In honor of the bet I had riding on the Boise State-Oklahoma game, here is my end of the bargain:

Joel Witmer: Better than you

by Isaiah

I know that the Time Person of the Year is “you,” but I’m pretty positive that they meant Joel Witmer. It’s just that he’s such a great guy he declined the offer and extended to everyone on earth as an act of charitable goodwill. It’s not the first time he’s turned down a major honor through humility, even though he fully deserved the recognition. When we were in high school he was asked to be valedictorian not just of our class, but also the next year’s. Granted, they were idiots, but it’s still a first in world history, I think.

There are many things you should know about Joel before you’ll agree with me that he is better than you. He’s certainly better than I am. During the summer of 2004 he took a three-month break from the comforts of his home (which is made entirely of recycled materials) and went to a small Malaysian village to build a free clinic. When he got there he realized that no one else in the group had shown up, but, undaunted, he proceeded to build the clinic by himself with only “Eye of the Tiger” as his only musical accompaniment. I also enjoy the story about when he was whitewater kayaking and saw a raft full of handicapped school children flip over: fearlessly, without regard for his own life in the class 5 rapids, Joel jumped from his kayak and proceeded to haul all 8 children to the riverbanks. He also speaks 8 languages fluently, but has never cursed in any of them. John Paul II used to call him for moral advice as well as that week’s NFL picks.

We used to have poker games a couple of times a week back in college and after cleaning us out Joel would buy us all drinks at the bar after giving the winnings to poor children. He teaches gorillas to read and makes sure to hug every sad person he sees. His sweet right hook was the inspiration for Captain America and years later, Muhammad Ali. Clinton called him before okaying a run for president and Hillary should have done the same but now she’s going to lose because she didn’t.

Happy New Year to everyone out there who has survived the last few days of intense TV watching we’ve probably all gone through. SoccerSpot has suffered from my annual NCAA football gluttonyfest which so far has ended badly on all accounts. Well, one account. And that’s all that matters as a Sooner fan who lost a bet you’ll be reading about in a few days. Apparently there were a bunch of games in Europe, but I can’t say I watched any of them (though I will talk about them in a minute): New Years Day was about 900 straight minutes of pigskin, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t have my brain back to fully-functioning status yet.

Anyway, over the last 24 hours I sifted through approximately 500 articles I fell behind on after a three day trip up north to snowy, 40 degree Boston (global warming scares me) and I came across a few interesting ones. You know, the ones that aren’t about [insert Championship team] buying/loaning [insert unknown player]. There have been few interesting transfers in the EPL as of last night (keeping track of it can be difficult, but here are two sites: Soccernet and FTL) and the only one of real interest so far that I’ve heard about is Kerkazhov moving to Sevilla, which I think will end up being a pretty good move. Also, Clint Dempsey is going to join Fulham for a record $4million fee. That’s apparently a record for the MLS, anyway. I’ve heard the global transfer record is slightly higher…

According to Eurosport, Cristiano Ronaldo had a shot at going to Barcelona last summer, but was denied in favor of Thierry Henry. Oops. I’m not sure that move would have been the best for everyone involved, especially after Ronaldo’s recent run of form for the Red Devils, and since I’m personally not a fan, I’m glad he stayed with ManU. Of course, I was never in favor of an Henry move to Barcelona either, so perhaps it’s the best for everyone involved that things turned out how they did.

SFS has posted about the Barcelona All-Time Best 11 and it’s interesting what people came up with. I’m in complete agreement with Striker that Deco doesn’t deserve to be in that 11. Perhaps second-tier, but not first. Otherwise I think it’s completely correct. Eto’o might make it up there at some point, but only if he has about three more seasons like 2005/06.

The games

While there were obviously many results from the last few days, the most important were Aston Villa 0-0 Chelsea and Newcastle 2-2 ManU. While Chelsea dominated the game (or at least the first half), their inability to put the finishing touches on a truly mediocre Aston Villa squad highlights their current lack of form (blame it on John Terry if you’d like, but they held a clean sheet) and the Red Devils’ own shortcomings. ManU should be at least 9 points up after Chelsea decided to draw their last 3 games, but apparently this weekend by only staying 6 points up they lost the EPL title.

The craziest score, though, was definitely Reading’s 6-0 thrashing of West Ham. Shocking score and it makes me wonder what has gone wrong with the world, other than the aforementioned global warming. 6-0? My god, play Carlos Tevez, please, rather than having him sit uselessly on the bench. Getting him playing time is obviously not going to hurt you…

Other than that, it’s back to normal on all fronts and I’ll be returning to the soccer/football fold this weekend (after all, the Doritos iPod NCAAF title game/commercialfest isn’t until Monday night, which I’m surprised isn’t sponsored too — Microsoft Monday, Fanta Tuesday).

Predictions for Sugar Bowl and title game: LSU by 4, Buckeyes by 15.

Here is a little personal European top 10 I put together to end the year. I decided against a worldwide Top 10 merely because I think it’s almost impossible to judge South American teams against European teams — after all, Internacional beat Barcelona, but does that mean they’d actually fair well in La Liga or the EPL? I personally don’t think so, but it’s open for debate unless, of course, you shut down the discussion by banning them from the Top 10 based on geography.

10. Real Madrid

9. Inter Milan

8. Bayern Munich

7. Sevilla

6. Liverpool

5. Werder Bremen

4. Barcelona

3. Olympique Lyonnais

2. Chelsea

1. Manchester United

Honorable mentions (in no particular order) go to Roma Valencia, Porto, and PSV. I would say Celtic too, but I just don’t hold the SPL in high enough regard to justify such an inclusion.

Also, just a note or two: ManU being on top might be just a fudge to keep Chelsea out of the number 1 spot, but it seems justified in my admittedly biased mind because ManU is top of the EPL by 4 points, though they did struggle in the CL against some pretty lame opposition. Liverpool too might be a bit high (perhaps they should be 7 and Sevilla 6), but the way they’re playing right now is really compelling for their case. Barcelona are in 4th because of their potential, I think, because they’re in the Liga title hunt without two of their best players and they qualified for the knockout stage of the CL with a good performance against Werder at the end, meaning they’re still very dangerous.

Feel free to dispute my rankings in the comments.

So in this week of rumors, it’s time to jump in:

• Mascherano to Juve? Perhaps a tad preemptive?
• Julio Baptista is getting angsty about his future
• Figo is going out to pasture, maybe.
• I’m moving to France if this is the country’s hardest job.

Once again my post about Aston Villa has been published on The Disappointment Zone. Unfortunately Boxing Day didn’t go so well for Villa, who were down by recently linked striker Jermaine Defoe 2-1. Perhaps he was just trying to make a statement about how good he could be for the club…? BBC has the report.

The Christmas season ends tonight, but the gifts are just now about to start rolling in for soccer fans worldwide. And just in time to make it a jolly Christmas (if not very snow white in most of the US) because I love hearing Abramovich promise not to spend money. It’s very funny to me after the above-pictured addition of the summer.

It brings up an interesting point, though, that if you have a solid youth system, you should supposedly not have to invest so much in transfers. It’s what keeps South American clubs afloat, but I can’t think of many teams in major European leagues whose stars are homegrown. Raul (Real Madrid), Puyol (Barcelona), John Terry (does this count? He was a member of Senrab FC until only 14 when he joined up with Chelsea), and several ManU players all spring to mind (there are others, but not many superstars is the point — please point out others in the comments). The majority of superstars move on from their childhood neighborhoods, which is fine, but to expect your youth system to provide a generation’s worth of talent is a bit hubristic. Naturally that seems to go quite well with the Chelsea management (at least the public side) and perhaps they’ll turn out a Golden Generation like Manchester United, but I think perhaps I’ll wait until the first product arrives to displace the galacticos before commending Abramovich for such a move. I can’t imagine there wouldn’t be calls from the Chelsea fans to buy a superstar replacement for young player X and outrage if the money wasn’t splashed out for one, especially if the decision costs them a championship. It seems a vicious cycle to get into and certainly there is no team more embroiled in today’s buy-buy-buy soccer culture than Chelsea. I imagine it would take a titanic struggle to get out of that cycle and only if the fans allow the management the leeway to do so. Fans, of course, don’t allow leeway.

Just a thought.

The transfer window is upon us and that means the deals will start rolling in, even if they’ll only be the usual mid-year ho-hum kind and not the blockbusters we’re all dreaming about. However much we all want to see a big name player fill out the ranks of an already gigantic club (read: I just threw up in my mouth a little), we’ll probably have to be content with minor changes and a few lesser names being moved to larger clubs on loan or for about 1-5 million euros. The only club I can see really handing out a lot of money is Aston Villa, whose season has of late been very Cleveland-ish. Perhaps they should take a cue from their Quicken Loans Arena brethren and employ the motion offense.

Speaking of Quicken Loans, how come American sports stadiums have the stupidest names? There was the small chance that all true sports fans would be able to bask in the glory of the Pink Taco Stadium back in August, but since that would-be-Mecca-of-ingeniousness was unsurprising denied its rightful place in the annals of sporting history all I’m left with is the hope that someone in Europe will come up with the figurative balls and literal money to help this side of the pond come to its senses. Soon, though, I’m sure Emirates Stadium will be considered the least intrusive name after a few more corporations get in on the stadium building craze. I’m going to miss names like Highbury and Old Trafford when they’re gone. Though not Reebok.

Back to transfers for a moment: Daniel Alves has re-upped his contract with Sevilla for an extra year (until 2012), adding something to the discussion of whether or not he’s going to be sold during January. He’s the only major name I can see moving anywhere (sorry Joey Barton, you don’t count) and it’s probably going to take a rather serious amount of money to get him dislodged from Sevilla anytime soon. I read his contract negotiation as a way to get his contract on better terms before he is sold. I am assuming that he got a pay raise along with this one-year extension, but of course I could be wrong. Since both EuroSport and Soccernet are running the exact same article which makes no mention of his salary (something I still can’t get used to as an American who is surrounded by a constant barrage of numerical factoids, especially concerning salaries is the lack of importance the salaries have compared to the purchase prices since they both factor into the year-end budget and thus the transfer “kitty” will be larger for the next year, but I digress) I’ll assume it’s larger. Thus I read this as an attempt to get Alves in a better negotiating position when Sevilla sells him. I still don’t think he’ll make a switch in January simply because Chelsea are too egotistical to think they don’t already have the EPL title locked up (while Kevin McCarra’s Dec.12 post doesn’t hold as much sway now in light of the current 2 point difference at the top of the table, I think it’s still relevant as a commentary on the attitude at Stamford Bridge) and they’re the only ones with the money to throw around for a right back. Some people have thrown Barcelona’s name into the ring as potential suitors, but I thought they already had a right back. If I’m not mistaken (and please correct me if I am), Gianluca Zambrotta just won the World Cup and has proven to be a pretty good player in the process. ManU doesn’t looked to be too interested in splashing cash, but if the reports are true about a “galactico” fund, they could get involved since defense is definitely their weak point, though I look more at the left back position than the right. I think that anyone else stepping in and having the cash to get Alves is laughable, really.

Naturally I’ll follow the transfer market closely in the coming month, but I’ll be quite surprised is there is a big name transfer. Barcelona needs a striker, but only on a temporary basis. They have all the players they need to sweep the domestic and European leagues, they just happen to be injured at the moment. Assuming Eto’o and Messi can return before February, there’s not much of a reason to add anyone to a fairly packed roster. Thuram’s absence will highlight their need for defenders, but again, right back is not their priority by any means (now, now, I know that Zambrotta is out for a month, but remember that Barcelona’s next game isn’t until January 7 and a quick look at their upcoming games shows us this formidable schedule: @Getafe, Alaves (Copa del Rey), @Espanyol, @Alaves (Copa del Rey), Gimnastic, and @ Real Betis before hosting Celta Vigo on the 28th. In fact, even after that, their first serious test isn’t until they visit the Mestalla on February 18, just before the midweek encounter with Liverpool. By that time everyone should be healthy and this “patchwork” team that Barcelona is playing with should be able to not only keep them in the title hunt, but probably put them a few points up on Sevilla and Real Madrid (though neither of those teams have particularly hard schedules during that period).

Real Madrid, of course, have added 40 million GBP worth of South American players (Marcelo, Higuian, and now Gago) and should take a little bit to incorporate those players into the regular rotation. I’ve never considered Capello a good coach for young, creative players, but I suppose we’ll see what everyone is made of shortly.

Enough from me already. I’ll be back after the weekend with a look in on the rumors, transfers, and what seems to be a minor detail these days: the actual matches.

I know I’ve been negligent about posting, but random vacations are random vacations and they’re really great. I shall continue to take them. Despite it being the holiday season for all the Judeo-Christians (and, um, Kwanzaans? Pan-Africanists?) out there, the blogosphere continues to trundle on and games continue to be played for our benefit.

In the unpredictable manner that is my MO when it comes to writing, I’ve written up a thought or twenty on Aston Villa before Saturday’s hosting of ManU. Eek. The post is currently up on my buddy’s site, The Disappointment Zone. If you’re into Cleveland sports, that’s your one-stop shopping center for stats and commentary as well as my thoughts on Aston Villa.

I’ll be posting a January shopping list for the Villains next week (hopefully Monday, but NFL Sunday gets in the way of so much). The first intallment (strikers) can be found in my post linked above, but I’ll be updating it as I do a little more research and think about the question a little more. Also coming up in the next few weeks should be a detailed look at some of the Champions League matchups.

The Champions League draw is out and here’s how it looks:

Liverpool – Barcelona

Valencia – InterMilan

Chelsea – Porto

Man United – Lille

Bayern Munich – Real Madrid

Arsenal – PSV

Lyonnais – Roma

Milan – Celtic

I believe the best matchup is Liverpool – Barcelona and the worst is definitely ManU – Lille. Bayern – Madrid and Lyon – Roma, and Valencia – InterMilan also have the potential to be thrillers. I’ll post predictions later.

Thanks to The Offside for finding and providing these videos.

Essien against Arsenal:

and Matthew Taylor against Everton:

I know that a few things happened in European football this weekend, but there’s a new champion in Mexico: Las Chivas de Guadelajara. The Apertura 2006 season is over after a two-legged final between Guadelajara and Toluca. The final aggregate score was 3-2 for the Chivas after a 2-1 victory at Toluca earlier this afternoon. So congratulations, Chivas, for your championship. The game was pretty good too until the end. The commentators made a big deal out of this being Oswaldo Sanchez’s first Mexican title, which definitely surprised me.

Now for Europe:

The big game of the weekend turned out to be Sunday’s Chelsea-Arsenal “derby”. The game was dominated by Chelsea, who should have won handily, but kudos to Lehmann for a couple of ridiculous saves and, of course, the Stamford Bridge goalposts. I’ve read recently that some Chelsea fans consider Arsenal’s passing style to be boring, unproductive, and unfootballing, but the game today was a perfect example of what can happen if the passes are accurate: Flamini’s goal and an exceptional chance for Hleb after Essien’s equaliser. About Essien’s goal: absolutely amazing. Must have been about 45 yards out and few balls have ever been struck better. I’ll post it as soon as I find it on YouTube. This draw means that Manchester United are still 8 points clear of the Blues, but Chelsea do have a game in hand. A quick note about diving: I hope the FA steps in and fines both Drogba and Lehmann for being assholes. That would be the perfect outcome, really. Drogba really gets on my nerves with his flopping and moaning which he couples somehow with a sense of righteous indignation whenever anyone else gets a call to go their way. What a jerk.

To La Liga, where Barcelona are now 2 points clear of Sevilla after the former beat basement dwellers Real Sociedad despite being a man down for the last 5 minutes and after Sevilla beat Real Madrid 2-1 at home. Kanoute and Ronaldinho netted, meaning they are still tied for pichichi honors (11goals apiece). Valencia look to be returning to winning ways, but are still 12 points off of Barcelona’s pace after 14 games. Zaragoza jumped into 4th after an away win and then a home loss by Atletico Madrid.

In Serie B, Lazio have smashed Roma 3-0 in their derby clash, which I’m betting has sparked riots. This means Inter, who won 0-3, are 7 points clear at the top after 15 games. Palermo are hanging in there after beating Livorno 3-0 at home to stay within 8 points of Inter. All of this means that the Bundesliga and La Liga are the most interesting domestic fixtures (out of England, Scotland, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany, that is — I didn’t consider Portugal or Austria or…Kazakhstan?, which I’m sure are interesting leagues).

I wonder if some of the people who are in charge of figuring up tables and standings shouldn’t be trained at Verizon. (Audio file)

A couple of days ago I was intrigued by a series of comments on BlueChampions blog about the subjective nature of what we call “beautiful football.” All of that, which I will cover in the following essay, became a backdrop for a greater question: why did I, an American raised on other sports, become fascinated by a “foreign” game, a game lower in the domestic professional athletic hierarchy even than the oft-vilified NHL? While I realize an endeavor of this sort might strike some as an attempt to be the FreeDarko of soccer, I assure you that I’m about ten years of experience, several subscriber channels, and 30 IQ points short of such a self-delusion.

Let’s start at the beginning, before there was football*, when I suppose conventional wisdom says I was either a better human being or an empty, soulless casing for organs and muscle (along with some Hot Pockets). There are hurdles for an American to overcome from the very outset, especially if he or she is from a Midwestern background, as I am. There’s a personal history that’s always involved in the selection of sports, be it an attempt to identify with your family and friends, or an attempt to distance yourself from them. In my case, it was always an attempt to connect and so it made sense that I wasn’t into soccer.

My parents are both from southern Kansas and my mother readily supplies that it wasn’t just a personal failure on my father’s part that led him in directions other than soccer, but rather that no one in the 1970s heartland really played the game at all. The only football in existence in 1970s Oklahoma and Kansas** was the gridiron version and with an uncle placed squarely in the typical “NFL-bound-until-the-knee-injury” circle of common family ailments and excuses, it’s easy to see why there was no soccer being played.

It was during this time that the NASL was founded (1968 to be exact), but it wasn’t until 1975 that Pelé made the league the spectacle of glam-centricity that we all remember it for being. I use the term “remember” quite loosely since I was one years old when the league folded in 1984; collective memory, however, is an excuse for misuse of the English lexicon. Without a particular personal attachment to games being played in a far-off land until 1994, a time during which I was living smack in the heartland of college football (Norman, Oklahoma), there wasn’t much of a chance that I would develop into a devout soccer lover.

Again, I must lean on personal history for any of this to make sense: my father attended the University of Kansas and thus, by being born into the family I was, I inherited a profound attachment to Jayhawks basketball and later, when the family moved to Norman for another round of collegiate studies, I became an Oklahoma Sooners football fan. In middle school and high school these attachments were fleshed out and became non-negotiable parts of my life, a not-so-secret corner of my heart where hope and joy were stored with alarming tenacity. Of course, by the end of high school I was mired in what the aptly named “beautiful game,” but it was this early indoctrination into the concepts of how to watch and play sports that has informed my present state of mind concerning this new athletic dimension.

When a buddy of mine suggested during my junior year of high school (in Ohio) that I join a pick up game of soccer, I shrugged and said why not despite having relatively little concept of how to play the game and certainly no understanding of the less obvious rules. We played for several hours that first day, eleven-on-eleven, and I discovered a joy in the pace and speed, the relative ease with which I settled into the game’s flow, and the oddly thrilling sense of watching others do what I knew I could someday learn to do too. I’m too short to play basketball and too small to play football, but I fit right into my new role as a left-footed midfielder. I joined the high school team the next fall and learned to appreciate the game from a player’s point of view, from the vantage point of pouring your heart out on a field in order to achieve group-oriented goal. Until then I had been a tennis player (co-captain of the squad my junior year) and perhaps it is a fortunate twist of fate and perhaps merely another minor detail that there was no tennis season my senior year due to a lack of players (we had 2 and you need 3). So instead I joined up again with the soccer team and we joined the local college’s intramural season, which we, as an experienced squad with a full competitive season together under our belts and relatively few hangovers jostling our brains, won handily.

My schedule senior year of high school put me in the school library several times when the librarian wasn’t paying attention and ESPN2 was broadcasting tape-delayed La Liga games. I remember watching Rivaldo, a year before his 2002 “shin bone is connected to the cheek bone” farce merely reinforced what we all knew about a once-brilliant showman, earn Barcelona a Champions League spot with a brilliant chilena. I used to lie to substitute librarians and other teachers about my TV-watching privileges in the library’s “AV room” (a storage closet with enough space for a TV and a chair) in order to sneak in 30 minutes or less of a game. The addiction took hold because it was something new, something I was sharing with my new friends from the varsity team, and something I could become fluent in which no one else really understood.

I lived for a few of my elementary school years in what was then Zaïre, Africa and as with all places that aren’t named the United States or Canada, the children played soccer on a regular basis. There have been some gems that came out of that country and that time: Tresor Lomana LuaLua and most notably Claude Makelele***. As a child I used to watch talented peers zigzag barefoot through dirt fields in improbable ways, twisting the laws of physics to suit their particular momentary needs; I joined in occasionally and by all accounts wasn’t half bad for an outclassed, inartistic white boy firmly rooted in the Western concepts: beat them with power and tactical acumen. What I failed to note until it was far too late to learn from them, was that these children weren’t merely playing a game, merely competing for the honor of having scored more than another friend, but rather they were painting little portraits of happiness in an otherwise bleak landscape of gray.

Throughout this time I still mourned the Jayhawk’s annual March exit from the NCAA tournament and the occasional bright spot the less important Oklahoma football team provided. Sadly I actually missed that championship season due to personal distractions (such as a soccer season, among others), but that is neither here nor there. That year though, 2001, I ended up watching my first Champions League final, which I half remember as boring and half remember as thrilling because it went to penalties. It was cathartic, really, to not be so emotionally invested, to not be thinking about what could have been had my team won the tournament instead of being bounced as per usual in an earlier round. Devastation is wrought in my heart every March, yet every weekend I can find solace in watching goals poured in by people I don’t really care about on a personal level.

The memories of those young African children (now adults like myself) reside somewhere in the back of my mind when I watch games and I’m pretty sure they are the reasons I ultimately fell for the seductive dance now made famous as Joga Bonito. I am a free-flowing, Brazilian samba-style football fan who hates the entire concept of English football, from the long balls to the midfield bulldogs unleashed on opposing strikers. It is why I enjoy Arsenal and Barcelona rather than Chelsea and Madrid and it is why I love Robinho despite his merengue status. There is no greater pleasure than watching quick passes, sublime touches sending balls at impossible angles; there is no greater sports book than Él futbol a sol y sombra (Soccer in Sun and Shadow) by the historiographer Eduardo Galeano.

On the field artistry was (and is) the one-on-one, slinky passing, the joy you can see in the eyes of the player. That is love of the game and what makes it the beautiful game. In the end, of course, pragmatism can win out over the sheer pleasure of playing as is proven day-in and day-out by the joyless Chelsea teams that are so actively causing pain within my heart. But it is the joy that draws me back time and again, to more and more remote corners of the globe and internet, to witness as first-hand as possible the game as a living, breathing thing. It is stagnate at the top in so many ways, which makes me love the passion of the lower levels such as college.

That passion, that intense need to play the game draws me into college sports and what I look for on the soccer field. Love of the game is why I watch college sports more feverishly and fervently than pro sports on every level other than soccer (the NFL is more widely circulated, but I tend to watch 3 games on Saturdays and only 2 on Sundays and every bowl game I can get my greedy little hands on). During college, when Roman Abramovich reared his ugly, if über-rich head and destroyed all that was left of the EPL (and there wasn’t much as there really isn’t much to any league these days). There is no title chase anymore, but merely a bunch of games before the highest bidder is crowned, but Arsenal and Manchester United should never be seen as underprivileged and neither should Real Madrid or Valencia. They are all rich beyond many of the wildest dreams Watford or Mallorca (not to mention gloriously named Rushden and Diamonds or my personal favorite, Xelajú MC.) could possibly have.

In the end there is no personal passion for me like there exists for those who live and die by their teams. I am riveted by the Kansas Jayhawks because they are not only a link to my own past, but my family’s past, and that is something I cannot share with Arsenal fans, Celta fans, Cottbus fans. They are born and raised in cities where their team is beautiful and historically built around their own memories. We define ourselves, as sports fans anyway, based upon the great games we witnessed when we were young and without that, we have no spiritual connection to the games, to the players, to the colors and crests of particular clubs. I would feel right at home in Allen Fieldhouse waving wheat, damning Kansas State and Missouri to hell and gone, and acting like a Midwest Cameron Crazy (is there a singular of that?), but you’ll never find me truly sick at heart if Barcelona loses, merely unhappy, my day a little less pleasant. The only way I’ll shed the memory of walking home after witnessing the 2003 NCAA basketball title game is if we win the coming one and I can, for the first time in my life (1988 doesn’t count, I was 5 and lived in complete harmony with the sporting world) not utter the bitter-tasting words “there’s always next year.” [Any savvy reader will point out that I’ve won at least one Championship via the 2000 OU Sooners and that was, I admit, pretty great, though that has since been tempered to a minor extent by 2 title game losses] I didn’t enjoy watching Chelsea beat Barcelona a few years ago in the Champions League, but I certainly wasn’t broken up about it. When Barcelona won, I was happy and cheered a lot, but mostly because I had money on the game and was watching from the sports room of riotous and packed casino. Attending a game in person is a whole different experience than kicking back on the couch to watch the same game on TV and that is why I loved living in Latin America where the games were close at hand and cheap.

When you’ve got no personal connection to the teams playing, you become the quintessential “neutral” observer who is anything but neutral. No one in sports is ever truly neutral—the Swiss were neutral, but neutral sports fans are more like the neutral the US was during Nicaragua’s Sandinista Movement: bitterly and irrevocably involved. You always root for someone, even if it’s haphazardly because you know the results will affect all the other teams in the end. If you’re a Bremen fan, you can’t watch an EPL without wondering who you’d rather play in next year’s Champions League group stage. I’d love to see Palermo win the Scudetto this year, from a neutral point of view, of course, since it’s all about parity. I miss parity in soccer, which is what always draws me back to the NFL on Sunday afternoons from September to February. You never know who is going to win up until the very end, which is pretty nice now and then.

Despite the fact that I believe Americans run their sports leagues fairly well (if not their individual organizations; after all, England has about 19 million operating clubs) at least from a financial point of view, the MLS is another universe unto itself. A drawback of being in the United States is once you are infected with the soccer bug, there is no domestic outlet. It’s not like you can go to the local bar and drop down next to your buddies and say “Did you see the Crew game last night?” because no, they didn’t and you didn’t either. The MLS is terrible because the MLS won’t pony up the money, which is certainly not in short supply in the United States, to purchase big name players and draw large crowds. Some say it wouldn’t go well alongside the NFL and NBA, the former being the most-watched programming in the country regardless of whether they’re showing two division leaders going head-to-head or basement dwellers looking to avoid winless seasons. Some say playing games in the northern US in the middle of January would be unfair. No one would want that to happen.

What is bad about the MLS and what has thoroughly moved me towards European soccer is the playoff system that we could do without. I like the concept of a single table and a domestic cup because it makes every game that much more important (until teams start to dominate right at the outset and control all the money and good players, not that that happens). Now that we’re going to have a Champions League-esque cup, things might improve, but I fully expect Mexican teams to capture the first few trophies and perhaps ruin the American interest in the tournament from the word go. Conceptually, a league with higher salary caps and better players would lead me to focus upon a particular team here, domestically and basically end all of my issues with the system currently in place.

            For all my whining and moaning about the game’s global vision and future, you can rest assured I’ll be there watching come the weekend and come 10 years from now. I will buy my children soccer balls before they learn to walk and no doubt they will be signed up for a league, just to see if they like it (I’m also planning on reading to them about 90 hours a day, if you were wondering – novels, not Soccernet articles****).

            The answer to the question (thesis statement if you will) of why I became enthralled with this sport is, in the end, fairly simple: it is different and unique from all that I have witnessed athletically here in the United States. It is also global and passionate, personal and international. And of course you can’t forget Brazilian chicks. 

THE END

* I’m referring to the sport, not the dog-actor, in case you’re a little lost. According to Wikipedia and thus a suspect fact (see below for another), soccer is derived from a “slang abbreviation for Association football,” the original term for the sport.

**This was the Barry Switzer era in Norman and the time period in which my uncle was a player for the renowned Pittsburg State Gorillas (and don’t knock the name until you’ve checked out their list of accomplishments…and then you can knock it). 

***Interesting that Wikipedia, infallible paragon of information that it is, claimed, before it was deleted, that Claude Makelele died on November 23 of this year, which is of course, an awkward thing to explain to everyone who saw him play in the 0-1 defeat of Bolton the 29^th. He has several historical predecessors to guide him in the appropriate response to this situation, my favorite of which has to be Mark Twain’s now famous response to reading of his death in a newspaper: “Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.” Rudyard Kipling, having learned of his death via a magazine article, wrote to them and suggested, “I’ve just read that I am dead. Don’t forget to delete me from your list of subscribers.”

**** The NEA says, “Reading aloud to children is the most important activity that parents can do to increase their child’s chance of reading success.” Also don’t feed your kids honey before they’re one.

Have you looked at the French League standings lately? I mean damn.

ManU 3 – 1 Benfica.

Benfica decided sometime in the last week that qualification for the Champions League knockout stage wasn’t particularly important. I know this because they attempted to out play ManU through the air. Very smart for a team with approximately one player taller than Mugsy Bogues. It took an against-the-run wundergoal from Nelson to put Benfica on top, but after Nemanja Vidic equalized to end the first half, the game was basically over. The Red Devils dominated the entire game, which meant Ronaldo didn’t have to fall on the ground very much. Not that he does it on purpose. My man of the match, though, is Simão, who put on quite a show against Evra. He was the most fun of anyone to watch and created several chances including Nelson’s long-distance strike. I thought Evra should have been replaced by Heinze regardless of whether he picked up an injury or not, especially after Simão turned him that last time and should have picked up another assist…had his team been attacking…is that how you get goals?

Well played, ManU. It means that I went 14/16 in picking who would qualify. So much for going out on a limb with Bordeaux! And screw you too, Anderlecht! Or should I say Anderlicks. Zing!

Here are the complete results from today:

Dynamo Kiev 2 – 2 Real Madrid. Ronaldo makes his reemergence as a goalscorer…in a game that doesn’t matter.

Lyon 1 – 1 Steaua Bucarest

Copenhagen 3 – 1 Celtic. By not winning, Celtic insure they are second in the group. Daft.

Porto 0 – 0 Arsenal. And the Gunners go through since…

Hamburg 3 – 2 CSKA Moscow. Nice time to win your only game…and nice job, CSKA losing to the only team other than Levski Sofia to be pointless up until today.

Anderlecht 2 – 2 AEK

Milan 0 – 2 Lille. I bet AEK is pissed at Milan about this one. The Greeks should have won, though.

This means the knockout stage will consist of:

8 first place teams:

Chelsea, Bayern, Liverpool, Valencia, Lyon, ManU, Arsenal, and Milan

And 8 second place teams:

Barcelona, InterMilan, PSV, Roma, Real Madrid, Celtic, Porto, and Lille

Whatever the matchups turn out to be, they’ll be pretty good for the most part, except for whoever gets Lille is going to decimate them. I bet it’s Chelsea. Because God hates me.

With a 2-0 victory, Barcelona edged out Werder Bremen for second place in Group A of the Champions League, thus averting total distaster and a field day for every sports tabloid on earth. Both goals came early and, really, the only life Barcelona showed throughout the entire game came in the first 20 odd minutes. Ronaldinho scored a brilliant freekick 13 minutes in and Gudjohnsen was questionably offside in the buildup to his close-range putaway on 18 minutes. The score could easily have been 4-0 by the 22nd minute when Giuly slapped a sitter wide of the post after brilliant runs by Deco and Gudjohnsen. In fact, I didn’t know Gudjohnsen was good at the slalom. Barcelona played superbly for the first quarter of the game, looking like the Barcelona of old, the one that could do no wrong throughout much of the 05/06 season. And then they took their foot off the gas and began passing like they were 5.

Werder played hard and pretty well after the first 20 minutes (in which Pierre Wome was absolutely dreadful and gifted Ronnie the chance to score the first one and then by being caught flat footed at least 3 times by Giuly, including on the second goal). I noted in a previous post about Wome’s defensive lapses during the Bremen-Cottbus game and Barcelona’s potential for exploiting this (though I listed Messi and not Giuly at the time as the one to exploit it since Leo had yet to be injured) and I don’t think it’s surprising that this came to pass.

And all this brings me to Ronaldinho: for a few brief and scintillating minutes he was flicking balls around and making defenders look like statues and poof. Just like that, he’s gone. The artist formerly known as the Greatest Player on Earth. Perhaps that status has gone to his head…it’s not like he has his own “global signature” or anything. [Image comes from Nike Football] A breif snippet of conversation from the commentators after Ronnie blew another breakaway by being too fancy.

Derek Rae: Out come the party tricks.

Tommy Smyth: Except the party tricks aren’t working. He’s the only one at the party.

So true, Tommy, even if I still fully support the “drink every time Tommy Smyth says something nonsensical” drinking game. You’ve got to admit that this season the comment is spot on most of the time. So now Chelsea takes first in Group A having beaten Levski Sofia 2-0 at the Bridge (Sheva and SWP scoring!), followed by Barcelona, Werder Bremen, and pointless Levski Sofia. Tough group for the CL debutants, but someone had to be the punching bag.

I guess there were also other games being played in the Champions League today as well:

Roma 1 – 0 Valencia. Roma qualify thanks to the win, but would have anyway since Shaktar Donetsk drew with Olympiakos 1-1. Valencia remain in a freefall, really, though this game probably shouldn’t be added to the list of recent woes since they started what looks to be their C team.

Galatasaray 3 – 2 Liverpool

PSV 1 – 3 Bordeaux

Bayern 1 – 1 Inter Milan in yet another useless game.

Sporting Lisbon 1 – 3 Spartak Moscow for third place

That’s all for today’s action; tomorrow’s should be exciting too!

In case you were unable to follow the BCS-centric rant between myself and Mr. Cleveland found below, here’s an explanation of America’s favorite sport, straight from the BBC, just to help you understand a bit more. Sort of like how I now understand the rules of cricket thanks to a Newsweek description of a wicket thrown into a bowl of ashes…test. What?

While it might be hard for the Americans in the crowd to focus on anything other than Jim Walden being insane, there is something more important than the bungled BCS going on right now: Champions League Matchday 6! It’s not just another series of games, it’s the final group state day and it’s Barcelona – Werder Bremen, for starters. I guess there are some other games too, but you won’t find me thinking about them come 2:45pm EST tomorrow (Tuesday).

The matches: Tuesday ; Wednesday

But let’s talk turkey: Barcelona have to win. Not like one of those, they might be in for some trouble in the future if they don’t win this one kind of things, but more like: if they don’t win they’re eliminated. No draws. No losses. Win or go home. As a Barcelona fan, I can attest to the fact that it’s easy to start making up excuses even before the opening whistle – no Eto’o, no Messi, no Saviola, Figo betrayed us – but it’s put up or shut up time and that’s how it really should be. The azulgrana (or blaugrana if you are a Catalan purist) have their destiny in their own hands and it’s hardly something any true athlete would turn down. You don’t want to be stuck waiting for someone else to lose so you can squeak through.

Ronaldinho should be well rested after not playing in Saturday’s draw against Levante and if his recent domestic form (4 goals in the last 3 La Liga games and a league-leading 10 goals in total) translates to the Champions League, we could witness proof of why Cannavaro probably shouldn’t have won the Ballon d’Or. (Even if Phil Ball says “another vote for Ronaldinho would have seemed like a lack of imagination,” it’s nice to note that Señor Ball does indeed give Ronnie credit for being as good during the 05/06 season as he was in the 04/05 season; after all, Barcelona took home 2 major trophies last year, even if Cannavaro had a better World Cup, but I digress.)

While Barcelona face injuries galore, their opponents seem to be in pretty good shape, meaning what has been a somewhat shaky defense this year will have to watch out for the robust attacking duo that is Klose and Diego. In FCBarcelona.com’s typical yet still surprisingly object manner, the team website has posted a notice of sorts about Klose’s abilities. What the site doesn’t mention, however, is that it is Diego’s abilities in midfield that produce Klose’s scoring opportunities; it’s the Eto’o-Ronaldinho connection of Germany. About 2 weeks ago Soccernet ran a column profiling midfielder Diego that really should have been more praising. I was able to watch him during the Energie Cottbus game in the Bundesliga two weeks before the Champions League victory over Chelsea and he was brilliant, even if the final score was 1-1. There seemed no limit to his abilities to run with the ball and his vision was world class, even if the finishing on the other end of the pass was sub-par most of the time. Barcelona would do well to mark him out of the game like they did Kaká during the semifinal of last year’s Champions League against Milan. Otherwise he’ll feed Klose many dangerous crosses that will more than likely punish Barcelona with the ultimate embarrassment: becoming the first Champions League holder to not qualify for the next year’s knock-out stage. They would become the France of the Champions League, if you will.

There are other games going on tomorrow as well, but they seem so paltry compared to the potential in the Camp Nou. What would have been a clash of the titans between Bayern Munich and Inter Milan is now a battle for first or second in Group B, with Sporting Lisbon and Spartak Moscow mathematically eliminated. Roma need a tie against Valencia in the only other game of interest on Matchday 6 part 1, but Los Che have already wrapped up first place so they might not even field their best squad, hoping instead to rest up for a domestic push this weekend against Deportivo (and next weekend against Recreativo).

On Wednesday things remain a little spicy with Benfica visiting Old Trafford to see if they can’t drop the Red Devils into the UEFA Cup (by the way, the NIT is also stupid, if you catch my drift). They’ll have to win the game to do that, but looking at ManU’s European form of late (2 1-0 losses in a row to Copenhagen and Celtic) that doesn’t seem too outlandish. It must be noted, though, that both of those losses were away games and Wednesday’s match will be at home.

Also on Wednesday, Arsenal plays Porto in Portugal’s Estadio do Dragao. It’s not a must win for the Gunners, but if they lose, they’re in danger of being knocked out at stage 1, if CSKA Moscow comes up with a win against Hamburg. Of course, since Hamburg is 0-0-5 and a –9 goal differential, it’s a pretty good bet that Moscow gets 11 points and forces Arsenal to win.

The ESPN2 lineup for the States is:

Tuesday: Barcelona-Werder Bremen 2:45pmEST

Wednesday: ManU-Benfica 2:45pmEST

Thanks to Lena at Footballista for point this out: PhysioRoom’s EPL Injury List, a complete injury list that seems pretty much up to the second.

So it’s been a crazy weekend around the globe sports-wise, even without the Bush twins making out in La Bombonera. Starting in England on Saturday, there were a couple of big time routs that left this week’s critics holding their dicks, so to speak. Arsenal cruised past Tottenham and Liverpool decimated Wigan. Another big result in the EPL on Saturday was Reading defeating once-3^rd placed Bolton 1-0, dropping the Wanderers to provisional 8th. Chelsea still sits in 2^nd six points behind ManU (who won 1-2 away to Middlesbrough amidst what else but a controversial Ronaldo penalty) but now with a game in hand. For the Aston Villa-inclined, here’s a brief rundown of the game against Portsmouth:

Aston Villa played third-place Portsmouth on Saturday and earned a respectable 2-2 draw, even if they left it late, needing an 82^nd minute deflected shot by Juan Pablo Angel to earn them a point. That said, Villa were winning at halftime 1-0 through a Gareth Barry penalty (and the decision to make Barry the taker is definitely looking more and more solid as time goes on); giving up two second-half goals, one a penalty, is not the way to win games, especially when Lomana Tresor LuaLua and Glen Johnson are both playing when not 100%. LuaLua was forced to be subbed on 34 minutes, but Villa weren’t able to take full advantage and wrap up 3 crucial points. Another note is that Portsmouth were down to 10 men at the end of the game after Miguel Mendes was sent off for a second bookable offense, but that wasn’t until the 86^th minute and it’s hard to take full advantage of numerical superiority in just 4 minutes of regulation. Villa sits in provisional 7^th, awaiting the result of the Everton – West Ham game.

That said, Everton has taken over the 7^th spot after beating West Ham (17^th) 2-0. Tevez and Mascherano have got to be going somewhere now, don’t they? So much for South American saviors in the EPL – I forget who said it, but someone somewhere pointed out how South American players rarely make an impact in the EPL. Perhaps this is evidence of that trend, though I stand by Gilberto Silva (2 goals against Tottenham this weekend).

In La Liga’s Saturday action, Barcelona drew 1-1 away to Levante while Valencia’s run at mediocrity continued with a 2-0 loss away to Recreativo Huelva. Especially with Atlético Madrid stepping up and winning 1-0 away to Real Betis, the pressure is starting to grow on Los Che. Perhaps they should consider toning down their insanity a little. Baby steps, after all. Of course, giving up a first minute goal is perhaps not the best way to go about winning games, but I leave the details of the in-game strategic maneuvers to the experts. They’re now in 9^th, below underachieving Villareal. Real Madrid stepped into second after Sevilla lost to Espanyol. But the best game, stat-wise, looks to be the Deportivo-Racing game that ended 0-0 with 3 red cards (only 2 of which were straight, but still). Zaragoza tied Osasuna 1-1 to outst Atlético from their provisional 4^th place spot on goal differential.

To Serie A, where InterMilan is starting to set up shop and cross-town rivals AC Milan are starting to wither and die, just a little (in that relatively-speaking sort of way). Inter still hold a 4 point advantage over Roma after beating previously-high-flying Siena 2-0 on Saturday and watching Palermo earn a 0-0 draw with Parma. Catania jumped into 4^th with a tie; it’s so nice to see the minnows flying so high. Fiorentina earned a 1-0 win over Lazio in a battle of the criminals and it was Luca Toni who struck in the 15^th minute to earn them the three points and push them ever-so-much-closer to getting out of the relegation zone forever.

Since I visited Fiorentina just last weekend, I was able to gain a certain small measure of understanding as to what goes on in the mind of Florentines when they’re thinking about soccer. Well, perhaps I should say misunderstanding. The Siena-Fiorentina game was the local away derby match for Florence/Firenze (where the hell did we get the name Florence?) and it was pretty fun to watch, even if I missed out on seeing it live in Siena. Drinking good beer with a bunch of Italians who I couldn’t understand was certainly a great experience. When Luca Toni was substituted for Giampaolo Pazzini in the 71^st minute, everyone went nuts and cheered and thought it was the greatest move since Big Ben moved to Pittsburgh. Pazzini then created one chance in the resulting 20-odd minutes he was on the field, proving once again that my inwardly-kept thoughts were right on the money: Luca Toni is better than Giampaolo Pazzini. While Pazzini has an obviously bright future, it’s like the time I went to the Milan-Juventus game here at the Meadowlands a few years ago and got told by a bunch of Juventus supporters that Fabrizio Miccoli would take them to the next level. If by that they meant scoring 9 goals in 25 games before moving to Fiorentina and then Benfica, sure. The guy in Florence sitting next to me fortunately spoke English and he explained that not only was Pazzini going to be a great star, he was already better than Luca Toni. Which is why Luca Toni has started every game for Fiorentina and Pazzini has only played in 5. Got it.

In the Bundesliga, Werder Bremen retook top spot as they beat Hertha and Shalke was held in a goalless draw by Nurnberg. The top and bottom 7 of the standings all maintained their exact positions, making the Bundesliga the second least interesting thing ever. The first? Yeah…

Of course, for all you American sports fans, the BCS is releasing their bowl invitations in about 2 and a half hours after a crazy Saturday and the NFL is trying to complicate the playoff picture as much as possible. The Bruins won! The Browns won! That should make The Disappointment Zone a tad happier.

A note about the BCS: while we all know it sucks a whole lot and a playoff or a +1 system would be so much better, OSU is at least in the title game and their opponent should be the second best team in the country: Florida. Say what you will about Michigan being good, I believe the SEC’s one-loss champ played a tougher schedule than Michigan and lost only to Auburn, another SEC team. While that may not matter to the BCS computers (who I hate anyway because they love the PAC-10), shouldn’t championship games be about pitting good teams against each other? Michigan had their shot and failed and it wouldn’t be fair to Florida to not give them a chance, even if a Florida alum friend of mine puts it: “I hope they don’t play OSU, because they will lose.” Can’t be that bad to play for a national title, can it?

A small preview of the Champions League matches coming tomorrow.

Even with the weekend fixtures upon us, it’s time to take a moment and think about something other than sports; it’s World AIDS Day. Stopping the spread of this disease should be a priority for all of us, as it has affected our community, no matter where we live, and perhaps us in our personal lives. Only through education can we make a difference.

While in Itally I had the pleasure of watching the Firenze Marathon and seeing hundreds of runners from the AIDS Foundation of Chicago competing. It was great to see them out there running and actively taking part in the struggle to fight the disease. There were people all along the course holding up “You are a hero” signs and that was just inspiring to see.

Just a thought.

So I’m back in the US again after far too short a time in Europe, but that’s how it goes, I guess. Wonderful time, lots of history, lots of learning, lots of walking; all of the good things we forget about in the US. For now it’s time to get rid of the jetlag by sleeping, but first, a little taste of what most of you have already seen from the weekend:

Tomorrow or Thursday I’ll post something longer about the Siena-Fiorentina game and the ManU-Chelsea game (both 1-1 in case you forgot).

Every now and then it pays to visit the places we talk incessantly about in this blogosphere we’ve created for ourselves. For that reason and a few others that are probably more important than sports (did I just say that?), I’ll be traveling over the next two weeks in Germany and Italy. Specifically it’ll be a Berlin and Florence trip, but there will be side trips throughout Tuscany and hopefully I’ll have a chance to see Siena play at home against Fiorentina on Sunday the 26^th. Unfortunately there will be no Bundesliga games in Berlin the weekend I’m there (Hertha is playing away to Borussia Dortmund), but hopefully I’ll be able to catch a second-tier match. We’ll have to wait and see.

Euro 2008 results 11/15/06:

Yiannis Okkas after scoring for Cyprus [UEFA.com]

F.Y.R. Macedonia 0-2 Russia

Israel 3-4 Croatia

Finland 1-0 Armenia

Republic of Ireland 5-0 San Marino

Belgium 0-1 Poland

Cyprus 1-1 Germany: The only surprise of the day, I think. Tying Germany is a huge boost for Cyprus, especially Germans were fielding a terrifyingly strong side.

Portugal 3-0 Kazakhstan

The tables have only changed slightly, but here they are.

Much more after the jump.

Barcelona’s Injury Woes:

We’re not talking about something that’s a passing problem anymore. Eto’o out was a blow, but not something such a deep team couldn’t come back from, though their goal differential was always going to drop a little. After Gudjohnsen got injured, Saviola stepped up and was playing pretty well by all accounts and then of course along came the game against Zaragoza. Now Messi, Saviola, Edmilson, Motta, Xavi, and Iniesta are all out (for various reasons – Motta getting a red card, for instance). I won’t act like all is lost, that it’s an excuse to lose, because it’s not. Even if Marquez has to step up into the defensive midfield role, it won’t hurt the defense (in many ways I think it will improve it) because Thuram can step in beside Puyol despite their obvious lack of understanding. Marquez can play ably if Xavi isn’t fit by the weekend. Gudjohnsen is back so the team is just going to have to learn how to score in big games through him. They still have Deco, Ronaldinho, and Giuly for their attack, which I think most teams on the planet would be happy to have. So it’s not crisis time yet, but losing Messi and Eto’o for the next three months is definitely going to add up in terms of fatigue.

In Search of Football made a solid point in the comments section of a previous post about the transfer window possibilities for Barça. Who will want to move to Barcelona if they know they will lose their place the moment Eto’o and Messi recover? No one that I know of who is worth a damn would be willing to put their 1^st team career on hold just to warm the benches of the Nou Camp. Don’t get me wrong, playing for Barcelona would be an honor, but if your choice is impressing the Barça coaching staff with your knowledge of Catalan as you discuss the current formation crushing Gimanstic or actually setting foot on the field for a club such as Sevilla or PSV, it would be silly to choose the former. Therefore I expect little or no action over the transfer window since Barça still have Gudjohnsen and Ezquerro…as well as Riera, Lolo, and Pitu none of whose names I recognize in the least. Giuly can cover Messi’s position adequately and only in the event of a lack of match fitness would it matter that there’s no decent replacement for him at the moment. It’s not often a third-string guy is called up since he’s a third stringer for a reason.

If you’re South American, Real Madrid owns you

London calling? Nope, it’s Madrid.

After scooping up Marcelo from Fluminense, Real Madrid have begun to include some Argentines in their squad: River Plate gave up Fernando Gago and Boca Juniors, Gonzalo Higuian. The total price of all three of these signings is somewhere in the range of $42million USD (12.8million for Higuian, 19.2million for Gago, and between 7.7 and 11.5million for Marcelo). Only Marcelo will be able to play before the January transfer window, but it is likely the Brazilian left back (widely thought to be a replacement for Roberto Carlos) will play in for Segunda Division Real Madrid Castilla until the end of the season. It looks like he could lose some weight, though his obvious enthusiasm for playing in the Bernabeu is quite refreshing.

These signings are an interesting when considering Madrid’s signings in the last few years (Cannavaro, Beckham, van Nistelrooy) where it was obvious experience and fame was more important than building a future squad. Starting with the arrival of Cicinho through that of Jose Antonio Reyes, it was obvious that a “foreign farm system” was being used to develop players. Few players ever rise to great heights at their own clubs anymore (Rooney had to move from Everton to become a superstar) and that won’t change in Madrid anytime soon. Gago and Higuian are supposed to learn from their older teammates and develop in the same manner as Marcelo. It’s a good thought except that they’re already proven players in Argentina’s top flight so it’s only a matter of getting them oriented with the quirks of the Spanish league rather than teaching them how to play. I personally prefer finding a Francesco Totti in your ranks, but in today’s trophy-driven market, it’s too hard to wait on your youth system to find your new Messiah. It’ll be interesting to keep an eye on these players as they develop over the next two years (Marcelo is in Madrid until 2012 barring another sale); the experiment will either work or fail and based on that, other teams will emulate or steer clear.

Champions League:

The big game on November 22 (Matchday 5) is Werder Bremen – Chelsea, a match that could rightly decide a lot about Group A. If Chelsea win or draw, they’re in with 11 or 13 points, regardless of outcome against Levski. If Bremen wins, the Barcelona-Bremen game scheduled for December 5 (Matchday 6) will take on a whole new meaning.

The other big game of Matchday 5 is November 21’s Real Madrid – Lyon game; while it has no qualification implications according to most sources and especially so since Madrid’s remaining game is against 4-loss Dynamo Kiev (minus 11 goal differential) on December 6, there is always electricity in the air when Lyon and Madrid play. This time around Lyon look to be the squad heading into the game with something to prove as Madrid have done well in the past few games.

In terms of qualification implications, the Arsenal – Hamburg and CSKA – Porto matches are certainly the most noteworthy. Only Hamburg has been eliminated from qualification (with o points) while the others are on 8, 7, and 7 points (CSKA ahead). If Arsenal can make it 2 of 2 against Hamburg (they won 1-2 in Germany on Matchday 1) they’ll be in a position where earning a draw in Porto’s wonderfully-named Stadio do Dragao is enough to put them through, regardless of what happens in Moscow on either day. While most of the time it’s nice to know you just have to win, in the case of Arsenal, if they can’t find the back of the net, they’re not going to go through. Losing to Hamburg is almost inconceivable, but in sport everything is possible.

A final noteable game: November 21’s Celtic – ManU game at Celtic Park. If Celtic can beat the Red Devils (they lost 3-2 at Old Trafford on Matchday 1) then they will qualify regardless of Benfica or Copenhagen’s result in Portugal that same day. If Celtic draws and Benfica wins, they’ll be even on points heading into final day away games for both teams. Since they negated each other with 3-0 home victories over the last two matchdays and they’re separated by only one in the goal differential category, this could become a group decided by goals scored. Regardless, the Red Devils are going to try and destroy everyone’s prospects for qualifying by playing hard and actually starting their best eleven.

Domestic encounters:

This weekend in the EPL serves up what would normally be a fun-filled afternoon for the neutral fan, but Arsenal-Newcastle has taken on almost David and Goliath proportions since the teams sit on exact opposite ends of the table (3^rd from top and bottom, respectively). A trip to the Emirates Stadium is probably not what Newcastle was hoping for at this point, but perhaps they can turn in a good result and get something going before the break. I doubt it, but it’s a thought.

Skipping to November 24/25, we have Bolton-Arsenal on Saturday as a top-of-the-table appetizer and then on Sunday everyone is treated to (drum roll, please) ManU – Chelsea! I should be in Siena at that point taking in the Fiorentina game, so I’ll miss it, but that’s quite all right with me. Both teams should enter the game having qualified for the knockout phase of the Champions League (Celtic and Levski Sofia are their respective opponents); but there’s always the off chance that they’ll risk a draw or loss by trying to rest key players during midweek. Not a smart move and I doubt it happens.

Switching to La Liga there is a high-and-mighty clash there as well: on Saturday (November 18) Sevilla takes on Valencia in a battle of 2 and 6 in the table. Valencia deserve to be higher and they might make Sevilla pay for their current “poor” form. On Sunday the 26^th, there’s Barcelona- Villareal and another fantastic fixture: Valencia – Real Madrid.

With Palermo riding high in 1^st place, Serie A is in for a boring fortnight….NOT! While there is relatively little this weekend (Udinese – Siena is perhaps the Italian Game of the Week), on Sunday November 26, the aforementioned Siena – Fiorentina game takes place and then Palermo squares of with Inter Milan in another battle of 1 and 2. When it rains it pours and that’s wonderful for everyone.

With that I take my leave of this country and head for the land of pickled cabbage, brautwurst, and good beer (before hitting pasta and wine country with a vengeance).

While he may look happy because he scored two as Barcelona beat Zaragoza 3-1 to go top of the table, Ronaldinho is no doubt grieving over the fact that Barca’s injury woes have started piling up excessively. Gudjohnsen is back, but it’s Lionel Messi’s turn to sit and watch from the stands. The Lionel Messi Weblog reports that Leo could be out for up to three months with a fifth metatarsal break in his left foot. Alongside Eto’o’s injury, that could spell disaster for Barcelona in the short term. Despite having a talented squadron of backups, there’s really no replacing creative attacking power like that of Eto’o and Messi.

In other action, van Nistelrooy bagged four as Real Madrid swept Osasuna aside 1-4 and Celtic beat St.Mirren 3-1 behind a hat trick by Thomas Gravesen. Here he after scoring a goal against Rangers…or being told Kira Eggers (NSFW) is breaking up with him:

Imagine that times three. Yikes.

As for other parts of Europe:

Arsenal 3 – 1 Liverpool: The Gunners grab third and it looks like it’s back to same-old-same-old in the EPL. Only Aston Villa makes the Champions League spots look different (seperated from Arsenal on goal differential only, though the Gunners have a game in hand).

In Italy, Palermo took top spot from Inter Milan by number of goals scored (26 to 24; both have a +11 goal differential and 27 points), meaning both are 4 points clear of Roma with 11 games played. On a side note, Inter Milan are one of only two 1st division sides in major European domestic league competition with 0 losses. The other is Genk of Belgium’s Juliper League. Of course, I haven’t kept up on all of Europe’s top divisions, but no team in the top flights of England, Scotland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland, Russia, or Portugal have 0 losses except those two teams. I’m sure the 1972 Dolphins are waiting for Inter and Genk to lose.

The BBC has informed me that the MLS has decided big spending on superstars might just be the way to go. I suppose the salary cap rules are in place to prevent the spending wars that basically destroyed the NASL, but certainly some amount of investment in big names that aren’t Carlos Valderamma (or his hair) will help the MLS to rise above its mediocre status.

Just a little gift for visiting: silly goals video.

I’m sure most of you wanted to see pictures of Drogba’s fabulous hattrick, but I had to give it up to the provisional number 3 team in the EPL: Aston Villa. Chris Sutton scored his first goal for Villa away to Everton and it was enough for the Villains to win their first away game of the season. Results:

EPL:

Chelsea 4 – 0 Watford (Drogba 27, 36, 69, Shevchenko 52) They’re still second in the Premiership, but doesn’t it just seem like it’s a matter of time before they oust ManU? I hate the thought.

Everton 0 – 1 Aston Villa (Sutton 42): Cahill was stretchered off after his own teammate tackled him badly. Not the way to go out and Villa are three points up on Arsenal who play on Sunday against Liverpool (Game of the Week!) and also have a game in hand.

Man City 0 – 0 Newcastle: Wow. What bad teams.

Middlesbrough 1 – 0 West Ham (Maccarone 74): So much for the good run by the Hammers.

Portsmouth 1 – 1 Fulham (Cole 74 – Knight 57): Portsmouth is quickly losing ground to the league leaders with this poor run of form, though Fulham has, of late, been the Aston Villa of the first 9 games.

Sheffield 2 – 2 Bolton (Hulse 70, Kazam-Richards 73; Diouf 34, Davies 59): Gotta hold on to your leads because otherwise you get dropped in the standings.

Wigan 3 – 2 Charlton (McCulloch 13, Camara 41, Jackson 78; De Zeeuw og 52, Bent 90): Doesn’t sound as thrilling as the final score would indicate.

Blackburn 0 – 1 ManU (Saha 64): Poor run of form continues for the Rovers, but that’s not so unexpected against the Red Devils.

La Liga:

Atletico Madrid 3 – 1 Villareal (Ze Carlos 27, Torres [pen] 45, Aguero 64; Fuentes 14): Jose Mari got a red card, but it didn’t really matter anyway.

Valencia 1 – 1 Athletic Bilbao (Morientes 44; Llorente 90): Last gasp, is good enough gasp, I guess.

Serie A:

Fiorentina 3 – 1 Atalanta (Mutu 26, Pazzani 90, 90; Migliaccio 25): From the scoreline it looks like 2 minutes of insanity (25th and 90th).

Milan 1 – 2 Roma (Brocchi 56; Totti 7, 83): Milan’s bad run is continuing (1 W, 3 L in last 4), while Roma moves within 1 point of Inter Milan and Palermo at the top of the table.

Lots of action these last two days from all across Europe as the domestic cups kept going.

In England, it was the Carling Cup, where Aston Villa, “the greatest Cleveland-related football team in the universe” was smashed by Chelsea 4-0. Port Vale’s majestic run through the Cup was ended by Tottenham 3-1 and both Arsenal and Liverpool ran out 0-1 winners on the night.

In Spain there were likewise no real surprises in the 2nd leg of Copa del Rey 4th round. The notable games were (aggregate score given):

Barcelona 6-1 Badalona; Real Madrid 6-2 Écija; Osasuna 4 – 0 Peña Sport; Malaga 5-2 Real Sociedad; and Alavés 1-0 Celta de Vigo. Saviola grabbed 2 in Barcelona’s 4-0 home victory over Badalona while van Nistelrooy found the net twice and Ronaldo and Beckham once each in a 5-1 demolition of Écija.

In Italy they played the 1st leg of the round of 16 in the Coppa Italia, with the only surprises being Sampdoria 1-0 over Palermo and Serie B side Arezzo 1-0 over Livorno.

There are always rumors about players switching clubs, moving to big-name places like Manchester United, Real Madrid, the Red Bulls, and no one is the subject of these rumors like Freddy Adu. In the News today reported that despite heavy links to a two-week trial with ManU, Freddy isn’t going anywhere at all.

Is that a surprise? He is overpriced (at $5million, I believe) and underused. His skills are not in question, but his development, you would imagine, would take place like that of DeMarcus Beasley or Bobby Convey in a good team in a smaller European league (Convey, though, plays for Reading in England but the quality of the development remains virtually the same, however). Freddy should play for a Reading or a Watford (as does Jay Demerit) or at PSV/Ajax/Anderlecht to get a good footing in the European style and level and then perhaps move on to the big teams. Otherwise I think there’s a higher risk of a burnout ala Landon Donovan.

[Update: Immediately after posting I found this article from Soccernet that sort of turns the whole thing upside down and suggests Adu really will go to ManU, though the In the News article linked above says he wouldn't be able to make a move to England until June because of age restrictions. Not sure who is right on that one. Regardless, I think it's a bad idea for Adu to go to such a big club without testing the European waters with a team where he has guaranteed minutes.]

[Update 2: ManU is signalling firm interest in the 2-week trial.]

Light posting this week (and probably for the rest of the month), specifically tonight as I watch election results here on the East Coast. Forgive me for not posting, but we all know it happens from time to time.

Sunday EPL results:

Aston Villa 2 – 0: No surprise here, but what a nice win. Agbonlahor played well. Despite Barry scoring a controversial penalty, Angel put the game away in the 50 minute. The win puts them in 6th place on 18 points, even with Arsenal and still 10 points out of 1st.

Tottenham 2 – 1 Chelsea (Aaron Lennon after his game-winning goal, via the BBC; John Terry got a red card and Claude Makele [!!] scored a volley) What a way to respond to transfer rumors!

West Ham 1 – 0 Arsenal: Are the Hammers really back? Let’s hope so. Also, Arsene Wenger is mad again, imagine that. Regardless of whether he’s right or not about the penalty that wasn’t called against West Ham, doesn’t he come off as a tool every time the Gunners lose or tie…or don’t win 7-0? Mourinho, however, is not to be outdone.

Sunday La Liga results:

Sevilla 2 – 0 Osasuna: Sevilla takes 1st in La Liga by 1 point after Barcelona drew.

Real Madrid 1 – 2 Celta Vigo: First home loss for the Merengues this year. They slip to 4th.

Espanyol 1 – 1 Valencia: Los Che fall to 5th with the tie.

Zaragoza 3 – 1 Getafe: With this win, Zaragoza rises to third, which is fantastic from a small-town-boy-makes-it-in-the-big-city point of view, but anything Zaragoza does is marred by racism, it seems. I don’t want to pigeonhole them as a racist club if it’s merely a small part of their fanbase, but I am reminded of Eto’o’s stance last March.

[The Astronomy Picture of the Day for Saturday, November 4, 2006]

A few thoughts from Saturday (and a few results too):

I watched a few minutes of the Fulham-Everton game before switching over to the actually interesting Bremen-Cottbus game where they played the ball through the middle, out on the wings, and towards the forwards on the ground rather than playing a highly-paid version of kickball. As a reader has been pointing out in a previous post’s comments section, the EPL is somewhat boring at times. I can understand the passion if you’re a hometown supporter, but it is hard for myself to create a level of enthusiasm when only a select few teams play anything close to a beautiful style (I can think of three off the top of my head which at one point or another I’ve seen employ something other than 4-4-2 or 5-4-1 defensive-minded tactics: Liverpool, ManU, and Arsenal). I understand why Watford plays somewhat unattractive football since not everyone can afford Cristian Ronaldo or Cesc, just to name two randomly selected players. The continental leagues seem more attuned to better displays by their top teams, though for those of you who wish to bring up catenaccio, remember that Milan, Roma, and most of the time Inter Milan do play forward-minded games based around attacking midfielders (Kaka, Totti, and Figo/Stankovic/Cambiasso).

Back to the EPL, quickly: Aston Villa plays a 4-3-3, several teams play 3-5-2, but few play real attacking formations except Arsenal (Cesc, Helb, Rosicky, Henry, and van Persie as your forward 5 qualifies in my book as attacking, especially if Cesc is the one handling defensive responsibilities half the time when Gilberto runs forward). Even ManU will occassionally start 2 defensive midfielders (Carrick and Fletcher) alongside each other, though that is probably mostly due to injuries.

To today’s results from the EPL:

ManU 3 – 0 Portsmouth: A 20th Anniversary present for Fergie and some quickly declining form on Pompey’s part.

Fulham 1 – 0: drab.

Bolton 0 – 1 Wigan: Surprise by the little ones! Love it.

Newcastle 0 – 1 Sheffield United: Toon is struggling mightily now, I think it’s safe to say, though still not as much as Sheffield.

Charlton 1 – 0 Man City: I’m surprised it wasn’t a draw…

Liverpool 2 – 0 Reading: How many ways can you pronounce Kuyt? I’ve got 6 down.

Watford 2 – 0 Middlesbrough: Woodgate own goal…sigh…but at least he wasn’t the Hearts keeper in the 90th minute. That has to hurt, or feel so good if you’re a Celtic fan.

The Bremen-Cottbus game (1-1) was interesting on several levels, not the least of which was the fact that unlike in the Fulham-Everton game there were only a few goal kicks and not 5 in under two minutes (3 consecutive touches on the ball resulted in goal kicks at one point) without a single offensive touch in the final third. The game oscillated between Bremen dominating and Cottbus counter-attacking well while the British commentator talked about their impressive goal-scoring abilities (27 in 9 games and something like 15 in the last 3, which is almost as many points as my alma mater scores in the *other* football — we’re #5 on the list).

But it wasn’t just that Bremen or Cottbus were playing attractive football (mainly it was Bremen because Cottbus looked outclassed right until that beautiful goal…come to think of it they continued to look outclassed after it as well, but for that brilliant moment they were truly inspired and inspiring), it allows me a better look into the pre-Thanksgiving match between Barcelona and Bremen in Camp Nou. Speaking of Thanksgiving, we have some really wacked-out traditions like this and the six-legged turducken on the annual NFL gluttonyfest with John Madden that go along with common misrepresentations of how Native Americans dressed in the early 15th century. I don’t think they did caveman drawings on their traditional paper bag outfits until the 1700s at the very earliest.

Thoughts on Bremen’s team: they’re going to have a lot of problems dealing with Messi down the right if they start Pierre Wome; Ashley Cole and Roberto Carlos are both better at defense than Wome is and Leo made them both look like talentless hacks so imagine what he could do against Wome. On the other wing, A combo of Gio/Sylvinho and Ronaldinho should be able to create chances against central defender Ronaldo who apparently just goes by Naldo, but a speedy right back in Clemens Fritz. Despite these obvious issues they have a good defense with several international starters, the most notable being Germany’s Per Mertesacker who I believe is almost this tall.

Mertesacker and Klose are strong on set pieces, especially to an aereally-impaired team like Barcelona, but Wiese is not the most talented of keepers so Barcelona might expect a few good second chances on goal off of direct free kicks. Giving up easy corners could be Barcelona’s undoing. On the ground, I’d favor Barcelona in the attacking third, but in the air, it will always be Bremen who is favored.

In the midfield, Edmilson will have to man-mark Diego out of the game, which he may or may not be able to accomplish as Edmilson is currently lacking in form and Diego is on the top of his game. Deco should be able to spring a few runs for Messi down the wings, but the best route of attack looks to be down the center where Mertesacker and Naldo can’t use height to their advantage (Messi, Deco, and Saviola can probably all duck between Mertesacker’s legs).

The midfield is where the real defensive battle will rage, with Frings constantly foraging down the wings and being backed up by Fritz. I never thought Vranjes or Hunt were dangerous against Cottbus and I expect Klasnic to take Hunt’s place, though I don’t see a good substitution option for Vranjes (he was replaced by Klasnic, who scored the equalizer 10 minutes later). If Frings and Fritz are allowed full range down the right side or Wome gets loose on the left, the could cause serious trouble for Barcelona with high, lofted crosses. Repeated instances of this will certainly bring a goal for Bremen. Barcelona’s goal should not be to score on counterattacks like Cottbus, but to play their controlling style of play, keeping the ball out of Diego’s hands and forcing Bremen to make mistakes in coming forward in counter attacks. Wome will not be able to go forward as much because of Messi’s threat on the wing, just as his presence kept Ashley Cole and Roberto Carlos from running forward as often in both games against Chelsea and in El Clasico against Real Madrid.

La Liga results:

Levante 2 – 0 Real Sociedad: That thunk was Sociedad hitting rock bottom.

Mallorca 0 – 0 Atletico Madrid: apparently a lucky game for Atletico.

Deportivo La Coruña 1 – 1 Barcelona: you could sort of just see this draw coming. Saviola won the penalty and Ronaldinho put it away. Edmilson gave away the penalty that was put away after Valdes saved the intial attempt, thus earning Depor what sounds like a deserved draw.

Thanks to The Disappointment Zone for pointing this out. Remember to check in there for all your Cleveland sports-related information.

According to German magazine/tabloid Bild (German; here very roughly translated) Jurgen Klinsman is close to signing a big deal with the US National team. According to DuNord, “Sunil Gulati, President of US Soccer, vehemently denies any of this has happened.” We’ll have to wait and see how this turns out.

EPL:

Manchester United – Portsmouth: There is danger here for the Red Devils, but coming off a lost to Copenhagen, I expect them to be motivated.

West Ham – Arsenal: after finally collecting a win, West Ham is facing a stiff test in Arsenal, but at least it’s at home. (Sunday)
La Liga:

Deportivo – Barcelona: It’ll be interesting to see who starts at forward for Barcelona. I’m personally hoping it’s Saviola and that he scores 2. I’m predicting a draw here, though, 2-2. [Update: Puyol and Xavi will miss, the former because of the death of his father.]

Serie A:

Roma – Fiorentina: With a recently reduced punishment, Fiorentina will be looking to move out of the relegation zone at the expense of 3rd place Roma. Will Roma ever be able to take advantage of their opportunity to grabe a title? I doubt it. (Sunday)

Time: Sunday 9am EST

While Aston Villa is currently hoping to recover form after their 3-1 defeat at Liverpool last weekend, Blackburn are coming off a 3 goal victory in European competition on Thursday. The only benefit this can possibly have for Villa is that Blackburn might be a step slow due to fatigue. Currently Villa sits 10 points behind league leaders Manchester United while Blackburn is 11th on 12 points. Blackburn have a good forward line and a decent backline, so Villa will certainly have to bring some sort of game to get away with a victory.

Recent form:
Aston Villa had, until Saturday’s loss, been the only remaining undefeated team in the Premiership, but sit in 7th on 15 points after 10 games thanks to six draws. While they’ve tied both Arsenal and Chelsea away already this season, but they’ve also drawn at Villa Park to Fulham and a mediocre Tottenham team (all four games finished 1-1). Milan Baros and Juan Pablo Angel have yet to truly mesh in the attacking line (generally they are accompanied by Gabriel Agbonlahor in a 4-3-3 formation) and they need to step up in order to keep up the hopes for a 2007-2008 European adventure. In terms of home advantage, Villa has yet to lose at Villa Park, turning in a record of 3-2-0.

Blackburn has lost their last 3 EPL encounters, but has so far been strong in European competition, going 3-1-0 so far over the course of UEFA Cup qualifying and group stage action. Their 3-0 victory over Basle, a solid if not great Swiss side, is a good step towards recovering their current EPL form, which, away from home is 0-2-2, including last Sunday’s 2-1 loss away to a woeful West Ham squad (it can’t be denied that West Ham should be doing better than they are and perhaps last weekend was a warning that they’re going to begin to turn in good performances, making Blackburn’s loss merely a result of circumstances rather than lack of ability).

Probable lineups:
Barring injury or fatigue, I can’t see why both teams won’t start the same teams they started in their previous matches, with the exception of Gavin McCann returning in midfield in place of Isaiah Osbourne (why you’d replace a player with a name like that, I’ll never know).

Aston Villa: Sorensen, Barry, Bouma, Hughes, Mellberg, McCann, Ridgewell, Petrov, Agbonlahor, Angel Baros. (It is possible that Steven Davis will get a start in the midfield, but according to Soccernet Chris Sutton will not start in place of Baros.)

Blackburn: Friedel, Gray, Khizanishvili, Neill, Ooijer, Bentley, Tugay, Pedersen, Peter, McCarthy, Nonda (Francis Jeffers could get a start)

I’ll try to update the lineups as they come out with injury reports throughout tomorrow and Saturday, but probably won’t have the time to confirm them before 9am on Sunday. As always, you can stream the match here.

Prediction:
Aston Villa 2-1 Blackburn. At home the Lions are just too good for a mediocre-to-bad road team like Blackburn. I expect Martin O’Neill to get the squad back to its old tricks after suffering defeat for the first time and they should come out with guns blazing, hoping to catch Blackburn early to set the tempo of the game.

[Update: lineups have been updated.]

FIFA and FIFPro have signed an “historic agreement” that allows players a voice in FIFA decision making. The full import of this decision is, of course, unclear since nothing has yet been done officially by this new co-operative pairing. There is a lot of good that can come out of it and also a lot of bitter partisanship. We’ll have to wait and see, but the biggest thing I noted in the article was the line “World football’s governing body FIFA and players union FIFPro will propose a limit on the number of foreigners who can play for a club.” The new system would require that “six members of a side must be homegrown.” It’s an interesting thought in any case.

In honor of Lucho Gonzalez’s golaso against Hamburg yesterday, I’d like to find out what people think of as the best goal of all time. I won’t bother posting the rest of this week’s CL goals since 101 Great Goals has already done so (for the most part).

To start off, this is what I consider the greatest goal of all time:

If you’re not sure that’s truly the greatest goal of all time (perhaps merely the greatest freekick), then please rest assured that the nerds at the University of Augsburg (Germany, not the one in Minneapolis which I have had the “honor” of attending for a semester…) disagree with you, as does microfluidity in general.

In a list of great goals, you can’t discount the other goal in the Hand of God game or this gem from Ronaldo’s, um, lighter days. Post links in the comments section to greatest goals you’ve been witness to. Perhaps you’ll change my views.

Here are the full results from Champions League Matchday 4:

Tuesday:

Barcelona 2 – 2 Chelsea

Levski 0 – 3 Werder Bremen

Spartak Moscow 0 – 1 InterMilan

Bayern Munich 0 – 0 Sporting Lisbon

Liverpool 3 – 0 Bordeaux

PSV 2 – 0 Galatasaray

Roma 1 – 1 Olympiakos

Shakhtar Donetsk 2 – 2 Valencia

Wednesday:

Lyon 1 – 0 Dynamo Kiev

Real Madrid 1 – 0 Steaua Bucaresti

Benfica 3 – 0 Celtic

FC Copenhagen 1 – 0 Manchester United

Arsenal 0 – 0 CSKA Moscow

Hamburg 1 – 3 Porto

AEK 1 – 0 Lille

Milan 4 – 1 Anderlecht

[Update: Champions League standings have been updated here.]

[Update 2: According to Soccernet, these are the teams that have qualified for the elimination stage of the CL: Bayern Munich, Lyon, Real Madrid, Liverpool, PSV, and Valenica. Here's a quick quote to bring up my point,

Even if Steaua (3 points) were to match Real's tally of nine with wins in their last two matches, the Spanish giants would finish above them on the head-to-head record after beating the Romanians home and away.

That is, according to section 4.05 of the Regulations of the UEFA Champions League, wrong. 4.05b reads that in the event that total points does not seperate teams in the table, "superior goal difference from the group matches played among the teams in question" will "determine the rankings." So that makes the statement about Real Madrid wrong, though likely to come true since Steaua is very unlikely to overcome a 6 point and 10 goal difference in just 2 games.]

[Update 3: Am I wrong about that previous update? Sports Illustrated also published an article saying Real have advanced, though they give no explanation of how that is true (one uses Reuters, the other AP as sources). If Steaua beats both Lyon and Dynamo Kiev, and Madrid loses to both those teams by enough that the goal differential puts Steaua top, how is it that Steaua won't advance, under the rules listed above?]

I don’t really know what to make of the whole Juventus thing just yet, but it smacks of complete lunacy on the part of the Italian Olympic Committee. I’ll have to update the Juventus Watch to reflect the current moral crisis, but for now here’s a Serie B table (Juventus are in 10th). The Serie A table was shaken up a little as well as Fiorentina are now in the black and Lazio has 8 whole points, pushing Chievo into the relegation zone.

I love how Palermo is in 2nd. Makes me happy.

[Update: Juventus Watch is now back on track]

So here we go again. It starts in half an hour and I’m absurdly excited for it. Let’s hope Barcelona can play a little better and come away with a win. Perhaps they can just count on the refs, though.

Why does Edmilson get to play for Barcelona, much less start? I don’t know his name, but the commentator for today’s Barcelona-Recreativo game put it as well as anyone can, I think, when Edmilson got the ball and stood there staring at it as if he had never seen such a thing before:

“Edmilson not knowing what to do…” and after trailing off there was a good second or two in which Edmilson dribbled slowly backwards looking at Marquez and Puyol before trying a silly flick to Deco that naturally resulted in a turnover. That statement pretty much sums up the last 2 games I’ve seen Edmilson play.
Someone should start a benchedmilson.com

Despite weilding homefield advantage, Liverpool are without a host of players including, but not necessarily limited to: Dirk Kuyt, Craig Bellamy, Fabio Aurelio, Mark Gonzalez, and Harry Kewell. Steven Gerrard will make a return to the starting lineup, as will Robbie Folwer (unless by some miracle Kuyt recovers in time). As for Villa’s injuries, the only ones of note are Gavin McCann and Luke Moore (gone for the season) since Bouma and Sorensen return to the lineup after brief injury layoffs.Naturally Soccernet is calling this one a draw. The only striker on either squad displaying any symblance of form is, regrettably for the sake of soccer-as-art, Peter Crouch. Milan Baros will start for Aston Villa alongside Agbonlahor and Juan Pablo Angel, but it remains to be seen if he can finally get a goal this season. He has three shots on target so far in his four EPL appearances so far (2 stars and two substitutions), which should make most Villa fans a little wary of counting on him for goals.

With the return of Gerrard, Liverpool receive a strong attacking boost that Aston Villa should be very wary of. While leaking 3 goals in their Carling Cup game to Reading on Wednesday, they were able to score 4 to take the win. If Villa can remain the somewhat stingy side they have been all year (allowing only 6 goals in 9 games as compared to Liverpool’s 11 — Villa is sixth in the Premiership in that category), they have a genuine chance to win. That said, they’ve only scored 11 goals (tied sixth in the Premiership in this category, as compared to Liverpool’s nine goals which puts the Reds tied for 10th) and they’ll need to step up to bat, figuratively speaking of course.

Recent results indicate that Liverpool is in a little bit of a slide, having lost 2 of the last 3 EPL games they’ve played, tying the only one played at home. Aston Villa are, of course, on an EPL 1-1 drawing streak that has reached 3 consecutive matches and dates back to their September 30 encounter with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Another draw would be a good result here since the game does take place at Anfield, but as Liverpool are currently not on the top of their game, Villa fans can certainly hope for a win if not expect one. A draw would at least keep Villa in seventh in the League table as Reading and Fulham are on 13 points with 8 goals to make up in differential.

My prediction: 1-1 draw. Liverpool are too solid at home and Villa haven’t shown enough attacking abilities to threaten a veteran defense.

Not recovered from last weekend’s Clasico in Madrid? Well there’s no rest for the beautiful game as Italy keeps up the wonderful pace:

AC Milan – Inter Milan takes place on Saturday at, you guessed it, the San Siro. This is always a tremendous game, regardless of the outcome, just like the R. Madrid – Barcelona game or the countless other sizzling derbies there are throughout the season. This one is special, though, since it’s basically a home game for both sides.

Another good game from the Serie A should be Fiorentina – Palermo (Sunday).

EPL:

Nothing like the Match of the Week is coming out of England, but there should be some good games anyway.

Liverpool – Aston Villa (Saturday)
Bolton – ManU (Saturday)
West Ham – Blackburn (Sunday)

La Liga:

The big boys are taking a rest here too, it seems, with nothing special going on other than Atletico – Real Zaragoza (Sunday).

Today’s action wasn’t as exciting as yesterday’s domestic cup disasters for various big clubs. The only thing really of note from today comes from the Copa del Rey: Real Madrid were held away 1-1 by Ejica and fortunately for the Merengues, it’s a two-legged affair which returns to the Santiago Bernabeu where there will no doubt be a reckoning. According to AS.com (Spanish), Ejica deserved a better outcome for their play. Barcelona won against Badalona 2-1 with two goals from Gudjohnsen. In minor “upsets,” Osasuna drew nil-nil away to Peña Sport, Espanyol drew 1′1 away to Rayo Vallecano, and Real Sociedad drew away 1-1 to the amazingly named Hercules Alicante. My all time favorite Spanish Division Two team, Xerez, lost to Getafe 0-2 and looks set to drop from the cup during the return leg.

In the Carling Cup, all the big boys survived, though it took ManU till the 119th minute to seal a 2-1 victory over Crewe. Charlton beating Bolton 1-0 might be an upset considering their respective positions in the EPL table (3rd and 20th). Liverpool survived a goalfest with Reading 4-3 and Chelsea beat Blackburn 2-0. The only other non-Premiership club besides Crewe was League Two Milton Keynes Dons who got blasted out of their own National Hockey Stadium 0-5 by Tottenham.

As for the German Cup and French League Cup, neither turned in a major upset. St. Ettienne defeated Marseille in a battle of Ligue 1 teams.

Thank you to SoccerGolazo for putting us on to this.

It had to happen sometime, but why via sport I love? How else am I to see the goals that happened in England 4 hours before I was awake on a Saturday? Well, turns out I won’t be buying that Aston Villa jersey after all since I won’t be able to watch actual footage of their games. The poor man’s substitute of Gametracker can go to hell. Half the time it doesn’t even work!

Can we blame Google for this? I don’t want to, but if they’re at fault…

Links:
SoccerGolazo
BBC News, “Goal footage warning for website“

According to Sports illustrated, this is the current shortlist for Mexico’s national team manager:

Juergen Klinsman (Germany), Marcelo Lippi (Italy), Americo Gallego (Argentina), and Hugo Sanchez (Mexico).

That is a pretty impressive lineup of names, I must admit, not to mention very global. Who will win out? Who would want to win out? I mean, coming in second in CONCACAF qualifying can be fun for only so long, I can only assume…

I love domestic cups because there is always some David and Goliath encounter that turns out wonderfully for the little guy. Today’s big win was for Chesterfield in the Carling Cup over, you guessed it, West Ham by a final score of 2-1 (picture above of Chesterfield’s second goal). The Hammers suck. That’s the conclusion I have come to today, but here are some other good results for the little man to go along with that:

Carling Cup:

Notts County 2 – 0 Southhampton

Leeds 1 – 3 Southend (I know, they’re both in the Championship, but it’s Leeds versus Southend! The names alone make this a big result for Southend!)

Port Vale 0 – 0 Norwich (Port Vale 4-3 on penalties)

Wycombe 2 – 2 Doncaster (Wycombe 3-2 on penalties) [I'm not sure a League Two club over a League One club really counts in the category of little boy beats big man, but it'll do for now. Here's to Wycombe winning it all!]

Copa del Rey:

Atletico Madrid 0 – 1 Levante (this is a two-legged affair, so it remains to be seen if Atletico will fall at Levante, but signs point to yes; also there are 14 matches tomorrow including such potential gems as Portuense-Valencia, Écija-R.Madrid, Gimnástica Segoviana-Sevilla, Castellón-Villareal, and Badalona-Barcelona)

French League Cup:

Stade de Reims 0 – 0 Monaco (Stade de Reims 4-3 on penalties)

Beautiful stuff, really. A great site to follow all this action on is Soccerbase, even if they can’t spell Xerez (listed as Jerez).

Just to tack this on to the end, here’s a short review of Aston Villa’s 2-3 away victory against O’Neill’s old club Leicester:

It took a 119th minute goal by Gabriel Agbonlahor to put Leicester away, but Aston Villa have moved on in the Carling Cup. Leicester put up a fight, twice equalizing and they had goalie Paul Henderson to thank for blocking a 90th minute Gareth Barry penalty (the scoring was opened by Barry netting from the spot). What does it take for Villa to put away penalties on a consistent basis? I don’t know if fatigue will be a factor in Saturday’s game at Anfield, but it’s certainly a larger question now that Villa had to go a full 120 minutes rather than the regular 90 if Barry had put the PK away…1/2 on the day is okay for intramurals, but not good enough at this level.

It was nice to see Baros starting alongside Angel again up front and hopefully this parternship will now begin to bring good results, as both are great players and superb finishers. Angel grabbed a goal in the Leicester match, a move which started with Baros, which is better to see. They’ve started alongside each other for the last 3 matches because of Luke Moore’s injury and they might just be starting to gel as a striking unit. They’ll need to be on form against Liverpool.

A “Carling Fact” from Carling.com:
“Carling lovers in the UK happily drink almost 1.7 billion pints every year. That’s over 4.5 million pints per day. We’re a thirsty lot.” Sure, that sounds like a lot of beer, but since there are just over 60 million UK residents, that’s only 0.075 pints per person! That can’t even get you tipsy! Unless you’re 4 or something like some of those 60
million, though as I remember it Pip from Great Expectations was fond of beer with his breakfast…