August 31, 2010
“A low-key game with few goalscoring opportunities – the result was celebrated by managerless Bologna like a win. The home side included new signings Andrea Esposito, Matteo Rubin, Gyorgy Garics and Albin Ekdal in a 4-1-4-1 system that saw Belgian midfielder Gaby Mudingayi sitting very deep in front of his defence, with Marco di Vaio isolated upfront. Rafael Benitez used the 4-2-3-1 formation that Inter played towards the end of last season, and the system Benitez favoured at Liverpool. Maicon was unavailable so Javier Zanetti started at right-back.” (Zonal Marking)
Aston Villa 1-0 Everton: Villa strike early, then hold on
“A bizarre game that Everton dominated from start to finish, and yet still managed to lose. Stephen Ireland suffered an injury in the warm up, so Nigel Reo-Coker replaced him in the centre of midfield. James Collins returned at the back, and Gabriel Agbonlahor wasn’t fit enough to start, so John Carew continued upfront.” (Zonal Marking)
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Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
August 31, 2010
“As per usual action in Germany’s top-flight commenced on the Friday, and for the second week in succession Bayern Munich got things under way. Unfortunately for Louis van Gaal, they didn’t quite gets things all their own way. Much to the delight of a rapturous home-crowd in Kaiserslautern, the 2009/10 2. Bundesliga champions defeated the illustrious treble-winners by a comfortable two-goal margin.” (Tactics, analysis, opinion, & scouting)
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Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
August 31, 2010
Rivaldo
“So, why do I love Rivaldo? A player who I’ve hardly had the opportunity to see live, whose peak coincided with my milk teeth falling out, and whose reputation was tarnished by play-acting? Rivaldo’s own audacious brand of football is what endeared him to me. His fondness for the outrageous; stepovers, heel flicks, volleys, pannas, bicycle kicks, the list goes on – he tried, and executed, them all to perfection.” (The Equaliser)
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Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
August 31, 2010
“In a league of Abramoviches and Glazers, and mid-ranking clubs dreaming of oligarchs and oil barons to bail them out, Arsenal’s owners have always stood out as somewhat of a curiosity. Yes, they may have both a Russian tycoon in Alisher Usmanov and an American billionaire investor in Stan Kroenke, but the club has been run by the Hill-Wood family since 1929 and takes pride in their plurality of ownership. What’s more, unlike several of England’s bigger clubs, the relationship between the board and the fans has always been generally good.” (Pitch Invasion)
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Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
August 30, 2010
“David Villa scored his first league goal for Barcelona, as the Spanish champions opened their La Liga campaign with a comfortable win at Racing Santander.” (FC Barcelona Web)
Racing Santander 0-3 FC Barcelona – Video Highlights, Recap, and Match Stats – La Liga
“FC Barcelona kicked off the 2010-11 Spanish Primera Division (aka La Liga) season with an away match against Racing Santander. The match highlights can be found here at Free Soccer Highlights.” (The 90th Minute)
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August 30, 2010
“The football World Cup today lost one of its final links with its origins, when Francisco Varallo, the former Boca Juniors forward, died in the early hours in La Plata, aged 100 years and six months. He had been the last living player to take part in the final of the inaugural tournament in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1930, when Argentina lost to the host nation 4-2. When Martín Palermo finally, in 2008, became Boca Juniors’ highest goalscorer of the professional era, it was Varallo’s record he’d surpassed.” (Hasta El Gol Siempre)
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August 29, 2010
“The competition’s anthem is a stirring call to arms, a signature tune for excellence and, as Spurs fans will soon appreciate, the opening bars to an extraordinary symphony conducted with a baton of iron by Uefa. Briefly deemed under the sway of greedy clubs, the Champions League is now utterly ruled by Michel Platini, the Uefa president.” (Telegraph – Henry Winter)
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August 28, 2010
“The Premier League season is less than two weeks old, but a look at how the top sides lined up in their opening matches provides an interesting indication of how they plan to approach the season from a tactical perspective. The diagrams below, screenshots from the ESPN Soccernet website, show the average positions adopted by the players from Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester City and Liverpool in their teams’ opening home games of the season. (Data is taken only from home games because ESPN’s average position diagrams inexplicably go a bit haywire for away teams.) Average position diagrams do not give a water-tight representation of a team’s formation – which is necessarily in a constant state of flux – but they do offer useful insights into basic shape.” (Football Further)
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August 28, 2010
“Arsenal emerge with the points after a professional display in a decent match. Sam Allardyce chose to use the two Dioufs either side of Nikola Kalinic upfront, and continued to use Phil Jones ahead of the back four, in a very defensive midfield role. Vince Grella also came into midfield – Allardyce seems to see him as a ‘big game player’, since his three starts in 2010 have come against Arsenal (twice) and Manchester United, and the two before that were against Tottenham and Liverpool.” (Zonal Marking)
Blackburn Rovers 1-2 Arsenal – Video Highlights, Recap, and Match Stats – EPL – 28 August 2010
(The 90th Minute)
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August 26, 2010
“A routine victory for a Tottenham side that always looked in control, and are now into the Champions League for the first time in the club’s history. Harry Redknapp made a few changes to last week’s side – Peter Crouch replaced Roman Pavlyuchenko (who, despite his late wondergoal, was awful in the first leg), whilst Tom Huddlestone came into the midfield alongside Wilson Palacios, Aaron Lennon was selected instead of Giovani dos Santos, and Ledley King got a start too.” (Zonal Marking)
Tottenham Hotspur 4-0 Young Boys – Video Highlights, Recap, and Match Stats – Champions League
“Tottenham Hotspur hosted Young Boys in the second leg of the playoff round in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday, August 25, 2010. The score was 3-2 in favor of Young Boys after the first leg but Spurs would only need a 1-0 win to advance because of away goals.” (The 90th Minute)
Auxerre 2-0 Zenit: Two goals from corners and two red cards
“Auxerre progress thanks to two goals from corner-kicks, against a frustrating nine-man Zenit side. Jean Fernandez made one change from the first leg, surprisingly dropping Walter Birsa and bringing in Roy Contout in the left-wing position. Otherwise, they played the same conservative 4-4-1-1 system, with Anthony Le Tallec trying to combine with Ireneusz Jelen upfront.” (Zonal Marking)
Ajax 2-1 Kiev: midfield changes win the game for Ajax
“Ajax beat Kiev 2-1 to advance to the group stages of the Champions League. In a match that, in the end, brought both relief and confidence, Ajax’ common 4-2-3-1 had a tough time against Kiev’s defensive 4-4-2. Jol’s essential midfield adjustments turned the game around, and in a climatic closing ten minutes, Ajax managed to get away with a 2-1 victory.” (11 tegen 11)
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August 25, 2010
Messi
“Ah, summer, when the breezes blow and the international soccer media lose all contact with reality. If you thought the World Cup was the only highlight of the season, or that soccer fans should concern themselves only with events that happen in the real world, then you have been missing one of the game’s distinctive pleasures. I refer, of course, to transfer gossip, a popular but critically underappreciated genre of soccer writing comprising frothy speculation about players shifting teams, usually in exchange for massive sums of money. In most European leagues, the summer transfer window—one of two periods during which teams are allowed to buy and sell players—runs from the first day of July to the last day of August, meaning that the peak of the summer transfer-gossip season is now upon us.” (Slate)
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August 25, 2010
Wassily Kandinsky, Project for Yellow, Red, Blue
“The beauty of football is that it is essentially a subjective pastime, it can be as simple or as complex as the individual wishes it to be. There is no one way to watch football, no template for interpretation, no defined set of behaviours to adhere to. Football can be mathematical, it can be scientific, it can be poetic and it can be abstract. The same simple action can be delineated in a multitude of ways, each as improbable as the last.” (The Equaliser)
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Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
August 24, 2010
Joseph Parrocel, Combat de Leuze, 18 September 1691
“A dominant performance from City, who weren’t flattered by the 3-0 scoreline. Roberto Mancini made changes on his wings, bringing in James Milner and Adam Johnson for Shaun Wright-Phillips and David Silva. Mario Balotelli wasn’t fit, and Emmanuel Adebayor was omitted. Joleon Lescott played at left-back in the absence of Aleksandar Kolarov.” (Zonal Marking)
The Monday Night Match: Manchester City 3-0 Liverpool
“Well, that’s one question answered, at least. Those that had been wondering how long it would take Manchester City’s diamond-encrusted team to gel this season have their answer, and it is quite a specific one – give or take a few seconds, it took one match and twelve minutes before the team clicked into place and from then on the result of this evening’s match was never in a great deal of doubt. While City gelled, Liverpool were oil and water.” (twohundredpercent)
City smash sorry Reds
“Manchester City flexed their enormous muscles at Eastlands tonight to delight the man who made it all possible and deliver their biggest beating of Liverpool since 1937. Sheikh Mansour could not have picked a better night to watch the team he has spent £1 billion on in a league game for the first time.” (ESPN)
City slickers hit their stride
“Once deemed the final piece in the jigsaw, then a cause of controversy, now the architect of their downfall, Gareth Barry has become a byword for bad tidings for Liverpool. This is the player for whom Rafa Benitez was willing to sacrifice Xabi Alonso, the one he really wanted when the club bought Robbie Keane and the man who became the reason for escalating tensions.” (ESPN)
Manchester City roll back the years as Mancini’s mentality takes hold
“The first thing to say about Manchester City is that for a team of fractious individuals, mercenaries and strangers, only there for the money – and, please, can someone explain how they are possibly going to keep them all happy? – and led by an unpopular manager who doesn’t speak to the players (and will probably be gone by Christmas anyway), they didn’t do too badly, did they?” (Guardian)
Manchester City 3-0 Liverpool – Video Highlights, Recap, and Match Stats – EPL
“Manchester City played their first home match of the 2010-11 EPL season with a match against Liverpool on Monday, August 23, 2010. The match highlights can be found here at Free Soccer Highlights.” (The 90th Minute)
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Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
August 24, 2010
“Soccer analysis focuses on particular moments of the game, usually highlights or events preceding a goal. Goals are nice to watch and few events preceding the goal keep it comprehensible. Advanced chess players might be able to do better, but in general we memorize around seven to nine events. In the short term, judging player performance is based on seven to nine actions. Let alone putting those actions back in to team perspective.” (Sport Analysis)
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Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
August 24, 2010
Wesley Sneijder
“There’s no doubt that the 2009/10 season was a triumphant one for FC Internazionale, better known as Inter, as they became the first Italian team to complete the treble by winning the scudetto, the Coppa Italia and the Champions League in a single year. In fact, Inter have been the dominant force in Italian football ever since the Calciopoli scandal in 2006, winning five league titles in a row, the first time this has been done since Juventus achieved the feat in the 30s.” (The Swiss Ramble)
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Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
August 23, 2010
“There is a saying – familiarity breeds contempt. However, for the attacking trident of Chelsea, a keen understanding and movement has led to a whopping 12-0 goal differential and two wins. Granted, neither West Brom nor Wigan will be fighting for titles this season, but…but…but…six goals is six goals is six goals. Malouda was at his thoughtful best, anticipating a Lampard shot and pouncing on the rebound. Anelka followed a classy far-post finish with a right-place-at-the-right-time header (read: offside).” (futfanatico)
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Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
August 22, 2010
“Lionel Messi scored a hat-trick as Barcelona turned around a 3-1 first-leg deficit to claim the Supercopa with an impressive win over an under-par Sevilla side at the Nou Camp on Saturday.” (ESPN)
FC Barcelona 4-0 Sevilla – Video Highlights, Recap, and Match Stats – Super Cup
“The Spanish Super Cup wrapped up on Saturday, August 21, 2010 with FC Barcelona hosting Sevilla in the second leg. Sevilla had a 3-1 lead from the first leg which was played last weekend. The match highlights can be found here at Free Soccer Highlights.” (The 90th Minute)
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Posted by 1960s: Days of Rage
August 21, 2010
Andrés D’Alessandro
“In the end, it was a bit too much to hope for. Guadalajara – a.k.a. Chivas – had a first-leg deficit to overturn and were playing away from home in Wednesday night’s second leg of the Copa Libertadores final. The first leg defeat in their brand new Omnilife Stadium was only by two goals to one, and with away goals not counting in the final there was always going to be hope, but in the end Internacional outclassed their opponents just as much as they had in the first leg a week before.” (ESPN)
Classy Internationalists 3-2 Fiery Nationalists – Internacional win Copa Libertadores 2010
“There was anger, acrimony, a brawl, some lovely football, the announcement of a potentially truly top class player and Pele. There was also heartbreak, tears, good goals and goodbyes. All in all, pretty much what you can come to expect from South American football’s biggest club game, the Copa Libertadores final.” (Just Football)
2010 Copa Libertadores Winner is Internacional, So Mexico’s Wait Continues
“Brazil’s Internacional are your Copa Libertadores 2010 winners after beating Mexico’s Guadalajara 3-2 in Brazil last night, and 5-3 on aggregate over two legs. Seems 2010 is the year for clubs named Inter to win continental titles.” (The Offside)
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Scissors Kick 