“Following on from last week’s First XI goalkeepers, we have our selection of the top World Cup defenders. While Europeans – and particularly Italians – dominate the list, it’s worth remembering the contribution of South Americans to the art of defence, with the likes of Chile’s Elias Figueroa and Uruguayan Jose Santamaria missing out on the list but having made their mark on the world stage.” (ESPN)
The Oaths of the Horatii, Jacques Louis David
“When it comes to surviving in the latter stages of the Champions League, it seems versatility is the key to vitality. One of the most notable things about the four sides that have made it to this season’s semi-finals is that all four have, to a greater or lesser extent, deployed formations and tactical systems that they do not use in domestic competition in order to reach the last four.” (Football Further)
“Nothing in football is so traduced as the offside law. Most seem to regard it as a piece of killjoy legislation, designed almost to prevent football producing too many goals and being too much fun, while for the punditocracy it has become the universal scapegoat, the thing that “nobody understands”. Just because Garth Crooks doesn’t get something, though, doesn’t make it a bad thing. The modern offside law may be the best thing that’s ever happened to football, and it is almost certainly the reason Barcelona have been so successful with a fleet of players whose obvious asset is their technique rather than their physique.” (Guardian)
“When two teams play each other twice in quick succession, the second game is often boring and predictable – so the fact that there were eleven changes between the sides from the weekend’s line-ups was a welcome surprise. That first game was a league game, where the sides drew 2-2. The first leg of this encounter was, ludicrously, as longago as 3rd February, where a Diego Milito goal gave Inter a 1-0 win. Away goals counted after 90 minutes, so a single Inter goal would leave Fiorentina needing three.” (Zonal Marking)
“To the many and storied benefits of the Premier League revolution, chalk up the increasing requirement for committed fans to have a finance qualification. ‘Three years ago,” reflects Everton supporter Dave Kelly, “if you’d have said ‘enabling grant’ to a supporter on the Goodison Road, they’d have thought you were talking about Tony Grant’s brother.’ Tony Grant is a former Everton midfielder, should you be unfamiliar with his work, while his brother Enabling is viewed by some as the saviour of any number of successful football clubs who bafflingly find themselves financially embarrassed.” (Guardian)
Revealed: How Goldman Sachs drew up financial rescue for Liverpool
“One of the world’s greatest football clubs owned by a group of investors put together by the world’s most powerful investment bank. It sounds far fetched doesn’t it? Except, until six weeks ago, it was one of the options being looked at by Liverpool’s beleaguered owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett.” (BBC)
“Laura Wagner, a UNC Anthropology graduate student who was in Haiti during the earthquake (and wrote a searing account of her experience at Salon.com), has recently returned to continue her research there. On Saturday, she took this photograph in Port-au-Prince, in the neighborhood of Delmas 32. The chalk board in front of this damaged building — you can see a broken gate inside the building, and the tarp is a necessary addition now that the rainy season has begun — invited fans to come watch the Real-Barca game, something that is of course not to be missed under any circumstances.” (Soccer Politics)
“I was lucky enough this past Saturday night to see the 2008 film Maradona by Kusturica (it is currently unavailable in the United States). It was the same night that, 30 minutes into the El Clasico matchup with Real Madrid—what was essentially the La Liga championship match—Barcelona’s Argentine striker Lionel Messi catapulted his way into the penalty box, chested an incoming cross in such a way that turned his defender completely around, and then slap-kicked the ball so it bounded past the helpless goalkeeper.” (Vanity Fair) Must Read Soccer
“It rather seems as if every time there is a refereeing decision that costs a team a point or two, the usual suspects in the media start stating the case for all manner of whizzy gizmos to make sure that such a travesty of justice never occurs again. FIFA, however, are against the introduction of such technology and Rob Freeman has similar reservations.” (twohundredpercent)
“Took at this place. Do these look like the living quarters of a criminal mastermind? “A devious architect,” they allege, “who builds his creations for the sole purpose of destroying what is beautiful, what is cherished.” I understand the role I play—that is, the role they have me play. It’s a business, like anything else: of course I know this. It’s just not fair. It isn’t fair that I have to build my own life, my real life, to confirm my existence as I want it to be, not as it has been manufactured by those who disseminate information to the masses.” (Run of Play)
“When the draw for the Scottish Cup semi-finals was made all the talk was of Rangers and Celtic being kept apart for a potential Old Firm final. It hasn’t quite worked out that way. Rangers didn’t even reach the semis in the end, losing to a scruffy but deserved last minute goal in their quarter-final replay at Dundee United; but it’s Celtic’s semi-final humiliation at the hands of Ross County which is the real story.” (twohundredpercent)
Self-interested SPL clubs must push for change
“Motherwell travel to Celtic tonight for the second time this season, but it won’t be the last. Thanks to the Scottish Premier League’s remarkably pointless innovation of splitting the league in two with five games to go, Motherwell have been allocated a third visit to Parkhead on May Day. The SPL rules guarantee ‘so far as reasonably practicable’ that teams will play an equal number of home and away fixtures, but the Lanarkshire club will end up with 18 home games and 20 away, and has announced that it will exhaust ‘all avenues of protest’ to complain about the lopsided allocation. Expect to see manager Craig Brown chained to the gates of Hampden Park any day now.” (WSC)
“This week’s ‘Video Of The Week’ is ‘Hooligan’, a 1985 documentary made by Thames Television about a problem which, at the time, seemed to more or less intractably woven into the very fabric of English football. The film focusses upon the ICF, the West Ham United hooligan firm, but also offers a brief history of the problem within the game as well as a look at how the problem affected the English national team (although the makers chose to use footage of the notorious match between England and Belgium in Turin at the 1980 European Championship finals, although there is no doubt that there would have been more recent footage that they could have used in 1985), the growth of the problem abroad and some analysis of the psyche of the football hooligan, including an interview with John Williams, latterly of the Department of Sociology at Leicester University.” (twohundredpercent)
“Every time I write on this subject, self-doubt creeps in. Barcelona’s possession game has seeped into the soccer inteligentista social network, forever altering its philosophical foundations and how we view the “beautiful” game. Every time a defender passes to a goalie, we don’t roar with cheers, but rather applaud quietly in a Starbucks while sipping on a latte and flipping through the Guardian. And if the goalie passes to a defender?” (Run of Play)
“An enjoyable game that Leverkusen should have won, and ultimately it was a terrific weekend for Bayern – with Schalke suffering a surprise defeat, Bayern are now two points ahead of Schalke and six ahead of Leverkusen, with four games to play.” (Zonal Marking)
Michael Bradley
“It’s another heated U.S.-Mexico match — a World Cup qualifier in Columbus, in February 2009, before a typically crazed crowd — and as usual, there’s a flash point. U.S. keeper Tim Howard rises to grab a ball that floats in front of the six-yard box, and as he does he’s kicked in the leg by Mexico’s Rafael Marquez — a flagrant red card. In a flash, American midfielder Michael Bradley has sprinted to the fallen Marquez to loom over him. Just as suddenly, U.S. captain Carlos Bocanegra arrives to give his younger teammate a quick, hard shove.” (ESPN)
“Last summer, CSKA Sofia, the winningest soccer club in the history of Bulgaria, invited an intriguing prospect to train with the team. The player, a Frenchman named Greg Akcelrod, had been climbing the ranks of European soccer, signing with a top-flight Paris club and training with a team in Argentina. He had an agent and a Web site that showed him scoring a goal for the English club Swindon Town. He’d even been chosen as an ambassador for Lance Armstrong’s charity.” (WSJ)
“In Hunting Grounds, Scottish journalist Gary Sutherland undertakes a season long journey around the grounds of all 42 Scottish League clubs, offering a good introductory overview for those encountering the world of Scottish football beyond the Auld Firm, whilst also presenting the hardcore fan with some heart warming stories powered by Scotrail and Tennents.” (thetwounfortunates)
“The group that drew hosts South Africa, rather than one of the seven other seeded teams, was supposed to be among the easiest in the World Cup. Instead, Group A will be one of the toughest and certainly among the most competitive. Consider that this group could have consisted of South Africa, New Zealand, Slovakia and Paraguay. Instead, the hosts are paired with three teams that place in the Soccer Power Index’s top 17. And South Africa itself will be no pushover, as it’s playing better football of late and is poised to take advantage of its home status.” (ESPN)
“The most eagerly-anticipated league match of the 2009/10 season, and a deserved win for Barcelona, who will now surely go on to win the title. Pep Guardiola sprung a surprise with his initial line-up, deploying Dani Alves as a right winger, with Carles Puyol at right-back, and Gabriel Milito coming into the centre of defence. Messi played centrally but drifted around, Pedro played from the left, and Keita was used more centrally than in previous matches.” (Zonal Marking)
Barcelona Win Deals Blow to Madrid
“Spain’s biggest selling daily – the sports newspaper Marca – billed it as the ‘Game of the Millenium.’ Most other media were somewhat more restrained, simply calling it the ‘final’ of La Liga. And while that may have been a bit premature – there are, after all, 7 games left in the Spanish league – there is little question that Barcelona’s 2-0 win at Real Madrid’s Bernabeu stadium dealt a body blow to the ‘Galacticos, v. 2.0’ as some have called Real’s expensively assembled squad.” (WSJ)
El Clasico
“I spent twelve hours sorting through the clichés and evasions trying to get to the truth, only to realize that the truth was in the cliché. Early in the first half, maybe even before the game started, Phil Schoen said Pellegrini would be fired if Madrid lost, because ‘right or wrong, that’s just how Madrid do business’.” (Run of Play)
Strikers’ Goal: Get Paid on Time
“Another goal from Lionel Messi and another inspired display by Barcelona decided Saturday night’s El Clásico derby against Real Madrid. Football fans are advised to savor the performance: It will be the last we see of La Liga for some time. There will be no football matches in Spain next weekend after the Spanish players union, the AFE, called a strike Friday over unpaid wages, which will halt games in the country’s top four leagues between April 16-19.” (WSJ)
Barcelona Makes Real Look Second Best
“The hour is midnight, but Madrid is not about to sleep anytime soon. Its team, Real, has just been outplayed and outclassed by Barcelona in Madrid’s own cathedral to sport, the Bernabéu. The 2-0 score line does not settle the Spanish league title, because each team has seven games yet to play. But, with goals from Lionel Messi and Pedro Rodríguez on Saturday, each of them created by the master passer, Xavi Hernández, this was indeed a defining night, another one in Barcelona’s omnipotent season.” (NYT)
The best player in the world plays in Spain
“English football has always had an uneasy relationship with all things continental. The absence of any teams from ‘The Best League In The World’ in the semi-finals of the Champions League this season has been greeted as a national disaster but this would not have always been the case. When the tournament was first created in 1955, Chelsea were forbidden from entering it by the Football League chairman, Alan Hardaker, and even the England team did not play in a World Cup until 1950.” (WSC)
“An exciting game that finished with a deserved point for either side, but it is a result that isn’t of much help to either at the moment – Fiorentina’s vague Champions League hopes are almost dead, whilst Inter are off the top of the table for the first time in months.” (Zonal Marking)
“A. A good time to score – Surprisingly, not at any time during the game. Usually just before half-time or just after half-time. Sometimes scoring a goal can be a bad thing most notably when a team scores too early – like the Dutch in the 1974 World Cup Final.” (Left Back In the Changing Room)
Italy
“A century ago when the Velez Sarsfield club was founded in Argentina their shirts were plain white – the cheapest they could find. Then they went with stripes of red, green and white – a tribute to the Italian origins of the club’s founders. Finally they settled on the current strip – which, with a blue V on a white background looks like something out of rugby league. This is no coincidence. The story goes that they were offered a good deal on the shirts, which a rugby club had ordered and not bothered to collect.” (BBC – Tim Vickery)
“British intelligence officials have been alerted after the North African group, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, issued a statement warning that suicide bombers using ‘undetectable’ explosives would target the England versus United States match in Rustenburg in June. The group have been behind a string of kidnaps of Westerners, and last year were condemned for the ‘barbaric’ execution of a British hostage.” (Telegraph)
“Let’s start out with the goods news first – we (1) closed on our lease for an office for our Worthwhile Inspection Tribunal-Court Hearing and (2) had our first such hearing. The bad news? Well, Pusky has not responded to our death threat and I’m starting to feel that people don’t take this project seriously.” (futfanatico)
Francesco Guardi, The Doge of Venice goes to the Salute on 21 November to Commemor
“Barcelona struck a potentially decisive blow in the Primera Division title race by ending Real Madrid’s perfect home record to go three points clear at the summit. Lionel Messi’s 40th goal of the season in all competitions put the reigning Spanish and European champions on the road to victory in ‘El Clasico’, and Pedro Rodriguez completed the scoring 10 minutes after half-time.” (ESPN)
Manuel Pellegrini fears for Real Madrid future after Barcelona defeat
“‘I am not the one responsible for answering that question,’ said the Chilean when asked if he expected to be granted a second season at the Bernabeu by Florentino Perez, the club’s president and the man who appointed the former Villarreal coach. ‘And I am not the one who has to talk about my qualities as a manager.’ After an impressive run of form, Real went in to last night’s clasico – decided by goals either side of half-time from Lionel Messi and Pedro – level on points with the Spanish, European and World champions. Though mathematically they now lie just three points behind, Barcelona’s superior head to head record effectively gives the Catalans a four-point lead.” (Telegraph)
Buoyant Barcelona close in on title
“Deportivo, Espanyol, Xerez, Villarreal, Tenerife, Sevilla, Valladolid – those are the names of the teams that Barcelona have to play in La Liga during the next five weeks. However, to quote the succinct front page of the Spanish sports newspaper As on Sunday: ’21 points remain but the title seems already decided.’ Barcelona’s 2-0 victory at Real Madrid on Saturday returned them to the top of the table and gives them a three-point advantage in their bid to be crowned champions for the second successive season and the 20th time in their history.” (BBC)
Lionel Messi punishes Real Madrid to give Barcelona title lift
“This time Lionel Messi scored only once and it was not a particularly special goal, yet it could prove as significant as the four against Arsenal. The architect of Barcelona’s victory was the peerless Xavi Hernández but it was Messi’s 40th goal of a spectacular season that set Barcelona on the way to victory in the match that was declared the title decider. Real Madrid’s 14-game winning run at the Bernabéu came to an end and the feeling as disappointed fans left early was that so too did their chances of winning the league.” (Guardian)
Ronaldo and Messi duel in El Clasico
“Cristiano Ronaldo has never scored against Barcelona, so tonight would be a good time to start. Having heard the universal acclaim bestowed on Lionel Messi this week, Ronaldo will get the chance to overshadow him and take Real Madrid a giant step closer to winning La Liga in a match that has had the whole of Spain holding its breath and the sport scientists working overtime.” (Independent)
Real Madrid 0-2 FC Barcelona – Recap and Video Highlights
“The El Clasico was renewed once again on Saturday, April 10, 2010 as FC Barcelona traveled to the Bernabeu to face Real Madrid. The two teams were tied on points in La Liga with the result of this match likely to determine who will win the title. A win or draw for Barcelona would give them the advantage if the two points are tied on points. Real Madrid led the table on goal difference heading into the match.” (The 90th Minute)
“Liverpool badly missed Fernando Torres as they dropped two more points in their increasingly forlorn pursuit of fourth place in the Premier League. The Reds had numerous opportunities to beat their fellow Europa League semi-finalists Fulham but, without the cutting edge of the injured Torres, drew a blank at Anfield.” (ESPN)
Liverpool run into a Fulham’s Champions League roadblock
“Liverpool lost ground in their pursuit of the fourth Champions League place this afternoon after being held to a goalless draw at home to Fulham. Rafael Benítez’s team dominated from start to finish against opponents who parked the proverbial bus at Anfield, but the thought that this could be a dress rehearsal for the Europa League final is chilling.” (Guardian)
Liverpool 0 – 0 Fulham
“Liverpool’s hopes of qualifying for the Champions League took another huge blow as they failed to break down resolute Fulham despite dominating possession. Alberto Aquilani’s early overhead kick was easily collected by Mark Schwarzer.” (BBC)
Liverpool 0-0 Fulham – Recap and Video Highlights – 11 April 2010
“Liverpool hosted Fulham needing a win to keep their Champions League hopes alive. They trail Manchester City for 4th place and would likely need to win all their remaining matches to have a realistic shot at overtaking them. Fulham are in the middle of the table and focusing primarily on the Europa League. Liverpool would be the favorites heading into the match but were without striker Fernando Torres.” (The 90th Minute)
“Neil Lennon, when given the chance to cut his managerial teeth at Celtic following Tony Mowbray’s dismissal, cited Pep Guardiola as proof that inexperience was not necessarily an impediment to success. It was an unwise comparison to draw and, in the light of Celtic’s calamitous Scottish Cup exit to Ross County, looks all the more wildly misplaced.” (ESPN)
“Marshalling our nation’s vast soccer resources is complicated and heavily layered stuff. All efforts by the domestic establishment to take the legions of little shin kickers and polish them into world-class talent should be greeted with nods of cautious approval. The trick is not getting carried away. This week, U.S. Soccer announced Claudio Reyna as U.S. Soccer’s youth technical director. A day later, Major League Soccer announced new initiatives aimed essentially at bettering the youth-development endeavors of its teams.” (SI)
“01/06/38. SG612. The only stamp to be issued by any country that commemorates the 1938 World Cup.” (Footysphere Extra)
“What a well crafted win for Rafa Benitez’s men. I mean, take a bow. For all the slagging the manager and the team went through last weekend, this response was very much-needed for some reassurance. And the fact that it has come against a solid Benfica side, who are no pushovers, makes the win very much enjoyable.” (BigFourZa!)
“To listen to the debate and comment over the last week, both here in Spain and elsewhere around the world, you might think that only two players will be on the pitch at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium on Saturday for the latest edition of El Clasico between Real Madrid and Barcelona.” (BBC)
“Sir Geoff Hurst was an unlikely World Cup legend. He had been playing international football for little over five months when he appeared at the 1966 World Cup final. Almost exactly two years earlier, he had been playing cricket for Essex Second XI. It was only a week before the ’66 final that he made his competitive debut for his country.” (ESPN)
“And it was about time, too. I mean, don’t get me wrong. Honduras is an amazing country is I can do footnotes on here now. A person is about to spread his wings. with a proud people who have stood firm through decades of hardship. I am not denying that. And they completely took me in and helped me lay low when that international criminal ring was trying to kill me. That is a given, for real. Much credit for that, Honduras.” (Run of Play)
“Tony Mowbray breezed into Parkhead in the summer of 2009, looking every bit the likely messiah. Nine months later his reign came to an inglorious end – nominally ‘by mutual consent’ but smacking every bit of a forced exit. A popular Celtic player in his day, he had earned his managerial stripes in the SPL helping Hibernian to overachieve while playing eyecatching football – a philosophy further developed while taking West Brom into the Premier League.” (World Soccer)
“Click to enlarge, and debate the strip below the line. Keith Hackett’s official answers appear in Sunday’s Observer and here from Monday.” (Guardian – Paul Trevillion)
“The story of the mighty Brazilian football club Corinthians begins in the fertile mind of N. Lane Jackson, assistant secretary of England’s Football Association in the 1880s. Jackson came up with the idea of putting together a club that could seriously challenge the dominance of Scottish football (yes, incredibly, there was a time when Scotland was THE world power in football).” (Pitch Invasion)
“As the 32 national team managers evaluate players consider injuries and plot strategy ahead of the 2010 World Cup, millions of soccer fans around the world are completing their own plans for the qaudrennial tournament. Most will watch on TV (some in 3-D). Still, organizers expect as many as 450,000 fans to travel to South Africa and join almost a million vuvuzelas-blowing local fans attending the tournament.” (NYT)
“As an academic with an interest in economic analysis, the downfall of the English teams in the Champions League this season did not surprise me, even while it disappointed me as a Manchester United fan. Earlier this season, I was actually expecting that the English teams would “under-perform” in the competition, when set against general expectations, and now that United have followed Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool out of the Champions League, they have done so. Except I would argue they did not actually under-perform; they did what economic analysis suggested might happen.” (Sporting Intelligence)
“I spoke to Chris Bevan of BBC Online yesterday about the prospects for Aston Villa v Chelsea in Saturday’s FA Cup Semi-Final. Context gives the game unusual interest. Only two weeks ago, Chelsea thumped Villa 7-1.” (More Than Mind Games)
Alberto Aquilani
“When Xabi Alonso left Liverpool for Real Madrid last summer, Alberto Aquilani was swiftly brought in from Roma as an ostensible replacement. It was by no means a like-for-like exchange – Aquilani typically played further forward in Italy, poses more of a direct goal threat and cannot quite match Alonso’s superb passing range – but it is worth remembering that Alonso himself was a more attacking player when he arrived at Anfield from Real Sociedad in 2004 and the expectation was that Aquilani would be groomed to succeed him in the deep-lying midfield regista role.” (Football Further)
“Liverpool hosted Benfica in the second leg of the UEFA Europa League Quarterfinals on Thursday, April 8, 2010. The winner would advance to the semifinals and Benfica had a 2-1 lead from the first leg. Benfica have had strong performances on the road in the Europa League but going to Anfield would be their toughest test of the competition.” (The 90th Minute)
“It’s Friday again, and that uneasy feeling rising in your belly is most likely because Friday means it’s Dotmund’s World Cup preview day here on Twohundredpercent. This week, he’s been looking at the fortunes of the host nations of the tournament. Until someone figures out how to astroturf the moon and stop the corner flags floating away, all major sporting events have to take place somewhere. And when you have somewhere, you can rest assured that someone already lives there. The host nation and the home advantage are here to stay.” (twohundredpercent)
“There’s never a low-key game when Barcelona faces Real Madrid. This meeting of Spain’s two biggest and most popular clubs, known around the world as El Clásico, is widely considered the fiercest rivalry in soccer. Decades of history, politics and tradition will be at play Saturday, issues of national identity, cultural independence and years of oppression.” (WSJ)
“There’s little doubt that Thomas Vermalen has been a good signing for Arsenal. Lacking a top-class centre-back last year, Arsene Wenger did brilliantly to dispose of Kolo Toure and bring in the Belgian – and made a profit by doing so. Vermaelen is extremely popular with the Arsenal fans because he’s the type of player they haven’t signed in recent years – a tall, strong defender who enjoys getting tough tackles in and competing in the air. His early-season goalscoring form made him an instant hit, and he’ll probably win ’signing of the season’ in many pundits’ end-of-season awards.” (Zonal Marking)
“It’s hard for an incomer to get used to, but Scotland is just the most extraordinary and spectacular country. One of my favourite drives is the drop down off the M9 into Perth. If you’re passing through the city, you’ll negotiate a series of roundabouts on the city’s edge, and you’ll see signposts pointing, temptingly, to something called ‘The Stadium.’ They make it sound like the Nou Camp, but the signs actually refer to the home of St Johnstone F.C. , McDiarmid Park, and they commemorate a superb gesture by a local farmer, Bruce McDiarmid. Bruce gave St Johnstone £400,000 worth of his land for a new ground “as a gift to the city” when Asda bought up the old ground. He’s not one for the spotlight, and had to be strong-armed into accepting any kind of recognition for his generosity.” (More Than Mind Games)
“Bayern do it again. Their victory in the last round against Fiorentina featured a last-minute goal at home to win the first leg 2-1, and then a 2-3 defeat away from home, with a brilliant Arjen Robben ‘winner’ near the end. It seemed inevitable when Bayern pulled a goal back before half-time that the same would happen here.” (Zonal Marking)
Manchester United 3-2 Bayern Munich – Recap and Video Highlights
“Manchester United hosted Bayern Munich in the second leg of the UEFA Champions League quarterfinals on Wednesday, April 7, 2010. Wayne Rooney, who was injured in the first leg, made a surprise start for the match. The winner of the match would face the winner of Bordeax/Lyon. The match took place at Old Trafford with over 70,000 in attendance.” (The 90th Minute)
“There’s so much talk about Barcelona’s style of play in large part because it’s just that: a style. And styles are not easy to come by in soccer. The term can mislead, because it suggests mere aesthetics, how a team looks. But a genuine style is more than that. Just as a poet’s style is not just a few habits of sound-making but a whole way of organizing experience and language, a coherent strategy for marshaling forces of thought and feeling and then deploying them, a soccer style is a complete approach to the game.” (Run of Play)
“Well, as we celebrate the relaunch of Just-Football.com, we decided to catch up with some of the blogosphere’s leading lights writing about Europe’s top clubs to find out what makes them tick, get their perspectives on the teams they hold dear and their opinions on said team’s prospects for the rest of the season.” (The Blog Files – #1: Just Football interviews Barcelona Football Blog), (#2: Just Football interviews The Republik of Mancunia), (#3 – Just Football interviews Oh You Beauty), ( #4: Just Football interviews Real Madrid Talk), (#5: Just Football interviews AC Milan Blog)
“So it has come to pass. For the first time in seven years, there will be no English clubs in the quarter-finals of the Champions League. The manner of the defeats of Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United were from three different chapters of the book, ‘How To Get Eliminated From A Two-Legged Cup Tie’. Chelsea were edged out by Internazionale over two legs during which they seldom looked a considerably inferior team. Arsenal were thrashed – fortunate to find a way back into the first leg against Barcelona, they were hopelessly outplayed by one single player in the return match. Manchester United can, at least count themselves slightly unlucky – beaten on away goals after two very tight matches.” (twohundredpercent)
“Yesterday, CSKA Sofia reappointed former Bulgarian national team coach Dimitar Penev. While playing at CSKA for 12 years, he won 90 international caps and seven league titles. He won three more championships as CSKA coach and took Bulgaria to the semi-finals of the 1994 World Cup.” (WSC)
“We move on this evening to the final part of the history of the British television coverage of the World Cup finals, which takes us from FIFA’s revolutionary idea to hold the tournament in a non-traditional football environment to the introduction of High Definition broadcasting four years ago. On the pitch, however, the football frequently flattered to deceive and the broadcasters were left to try and make up the slack with more and more desperate marketing gimmicks. The 1990s saw television go from being a sport watched, broadly, by a hardcore into a mass commercial entertainment medium, with predictably mixed results.” (twohundredpercent)
“Barcelona hosted the 2nd leg of the UEFA Champions League quarterfinals against Arsenal with the score 2-2. The winner would advance to the semifinals to face Inter Milan. Arsenal came into the match without several key players (Gallas, Arshavin, and Fabregas) while Barcelona were without two defenders (Puyol and Pique). Arsenal would not be the favorites and have a tough task to get a win at the Camp Nou.” (The 90th Minute)
Barcelona 4 Arsenal 1; agg 6-3: match report
“They don’t need to hold an election to find the right man for No 10 here. Lionel Messi, who wears the Barcelona No 10 shirt with such distinction, scored four goals in a performance of such majesty that comparisons with the great Diego Maradona grow in substance with each stylish showing.” (Telegraph – Henry Winter)
Match Of The Midweek: Barcelona 4-1 Arsenal
“How, then, do Arsenal solve a problem like Lionel Messi? If he isn’t unquestionably the best player in the world at the moment then he is in the top two or three, and if this evening’s Champions League quarter-final proves anything, it proves that one player, in irresistable form, can win a match. Lionel Messi has been in sensational form all season but this evening, with an individual performance so sublime that it feels at times as if he is the only player on the pitch, there is simply no stopping him. Arsenal supporters may wonder aloud what difference the injured Cesc Fabregas, William Gallas and Robin Van Persie might have made to their team, but it is difficult to imagine that anything barring a full, career-threatening assort upon Messi would have made any difference to what happens this evening.” (twohundredpercent)
Messi – the devastating decoy
“Reading Phil McNulty’s blog after the Arsenal-Barcelona game, I was struck by the number of people who went out of their way to criticise the performance of Lionel Messi. It is indicative of the enormous pressure the young Argentine will be under in the World Cup – the same pressure that broke his friend and former Barca team-mate Ronaldinho four years ago. People are expecting circus tricks and something special in every game. It is the dilemma of the big name star in today’s football.” (BBC – Tim Vickery)
Messi Lifts Barcelona With 4 Goals
“Lionel Messi pretty much put Barcelona in the European Champions League semifinals by himself. The reigning world player of the year scored four goals, getting a hat trick in a 22-minute span of the first half, to lift the defending champions over Arsenal 4-1 Tuesday night and advance Barcelona to the semifinals for the third straight year. ‘A player like this only comes along every 25-30 years,’ Barcelona midfielder Xavi Hernandez said.” (NYT)
Barcelona 4-1 Arsenal: Messi produces a stunning performance, but Arsenal gave him the room to do so
“If there was any remaining doubt that Lionel Messi is the greatest football player of his generation, they were erased tonight, as Barcelona got the better of Arsenal in the much-hyped battle of the teams playing football ‘the right way’. Arsenal didn’t lose this match tactically, but they didn’t help themselves.” (Zonal Marking)
Barcelona – Arsenal: A Champion League Live Blog
“We all wish no one had to win. Of course we do. In a just world, these two teams would combine to form a pure white dove made of energy, which would fly across the land, fields greening in its wake. But they can’t (probably, depending on Xavi’s passing). Someone has to win this, and it won’t be Cesc Fabregas’s femur. Savagery is afoot, and if you’re using the word “dilly-dallying,” you’re dilly-dallying already.” (Run of Play)
Barcelona’s celestial No 10 has Nou Camp in raptures
“It is getting increasingly difficult not to resort to hyperbole when describing the feats of Lionel Andrés Messi. Judgement should be withheld until the World Cup, when the 22-year-old will carry the hopes of an Argentina team handicapped by having Diego Maradona as coach. If Messi can still perform then as he does for Barcelona he truly will rank alongside Pele, Alfredo Di Stefano, Johan Cruyff and Maradona himself.” (Independent)
Masterclass from Lionel Messi ends Arsenal’s European dream
“Arsenal were outclassed by a Barcelona side simply to good for them and a masterclass from Lionel Messi in which he scored a breathtaking hat-trick in twenty-one minutes. You could have tried blindfolding him. Handcuffing him even. To a railing. Quick-dried slabs of cement around his feet. Rolled a giant boulder off a cliff like a Wile E. Coyote contraption. In fact, no matter what you tried, nothing was going to stop him. Lionel Messi was that good and comparisons with the best ever are wholly justified.” (Arsenal Column)
‘Mythical, universal, the Lord’s anointed one’ – Spain hails Leo Messi
“Leo Messi did something impossible last night. He got even better. He had scored in the Champions League final, the Copa del Rey final and the World Club Cup final, emulated that goal from Diego Maradona, hit three in the clasico against Real Madrid at the Camp Nou, two at the Santiago Bernabéu, and scored two hat-tricks in a row. But he’d never scored four before. Until last night. Last night, even Marca and AS, the myopic leaders of the Madrid media dropped to their knees; last night, so did the English. They could ignore him no more. Last night, as El PaÌs, put it, “Messi ate Arsenal’.” (Guardian)
Map: Ordnance Survey One-inch “Popular” edition, Scotland, 1921-1930
“It seems appropriate that, in the week after rumours of his departure from the managerial position at Ipswich Town started to do the rounds, our Video Of The Week should be about one of the more complex characters of the last twenty years or so of English football, Roy Keane. Keane’s journey from Cobh Ramblers to Manchester United and the captaince of the Republic of Ireland has been well documented, but this programme tells his story as well as anywhere, including his fractious relationship with Brian Clough at his first club, Nottingham Forest, the inconsistent explanations over that tackle on Alfe-Inge Haaland and his dispute with Mick McCarthy prior to the 2002 World Cup finals, a dispute that ended his international career long before it had run its natural course.” (twohundredpercent)
“In the soccer sporting world, certain assertions are taken as universal truth. A headed goal is ugly. A pass in the air that sales for over 30 yards is “direct.” A team unwilling to pressure for possession, instead waiting to capitalize on mistakes, is cynical. The linear equation of “pass + pass = beauty” can be replicated on an exponential scale. Arsenal & Barcelona, of course, embody this principle in the flesh & blood. But, in anticipation of the Kantian ideal of beauty vs. the slightly-better-looking Kantian ideal of beauty, the rematch, I suggest such statistics fail to account for certain integers that loiter in a gas station parking lot between X and Y.” (futfanatico)
“Inter Milan took a 1-0 lead from the first leg into the second at Moscow against CSKA on Tuesday, April 6, 2010. The winner would advance to the semifinals where they would play the winner of Arsenal/FC Barcelona. Inter Milan were favored to advance but CSKA Moscow have been a surprise team in the competition.” (The 90th Minute)
“It used to be that men were men, thighs were fierce, kits were muddy, fields were gouged, and every match was a wet November night away to Scunthorpe. It wasn’t pretty, but English football knew what it was. If you saw a ball, every fiber of a being that had been handed down to you through generations of hard-kneed public-house titans cried out to kick it as far as it could sail. If you saw the Mona Lisa, well, tosh, you’d knock her over once just to let her know you were there.” (Run of Play)
“Cornish footballers have been notably thin on the ground over the course of the history of the game with Nigel Martyn, Matthew Etherington and Exeter City legend Tony Kellow the most famous of a very rare bunch indeed. Oddly, the case is different across the Channel, where Cornwall’s close cultural brethren in Brittany have produced more than a few well known stars. Amongst these, one finds ex-Rangers boss Paul Le Guen, current Champions League starlet and the latest to be afforded the label, “the new Zidane”, Yoann Gourcuff, ex-Nantes star Yvon le Roux, French league title winner Patrick Colleter and Laurent Viaud, who became a scout for Liverpool.” (thetwounfortunates)
Iran’s National Women’s Football Team, 2007
“FIFA has declared that Iran can’t enter its women’s team into this August’s Youth Olympic Games if its athletes play in headscarves. Iran’s football association is calling for international protest – quite rightly. This decision comes from the International Football Association Board, which is made up of representatives of the four UK Football Associations (England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales) and FIFA, which itself has four votes in these decisions. One can imagine what that boardroom looks like – Sith Lords of Soccer, Imperial Experts in Sexism and Islamophobia.” (From A Left Wing)
“Liverpool’s manager has eschewed qualifying for football’s grand prize by focusing on the Europa League, the realm of also-rans. How the mighty are falling. Finding Liverpool concentrating on the Europa League is akin to discovering The Beatles entering the Eurovision Song Contest. They should be above it. Great fans deserve better. Ambitious players such as Fernando Torres, Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, Javier Mascherano and Pepe Reina deserve better. Even Benitez’s backers struggle to support him now.” (Telegraph – Henry Winter)
“If there is one area of the England team that has divided opinion in recent years, it is the midfield. The perennial problem for the England manager used to be who would play down the left. The main bone of contention then became whether Chelsea’s Frank Lampard and Liverpool skipper Steven Gerrard could play together in the middle, but, thanks to Gareth Barry’s success as a holding midfielder, that is no longer an issue either.” (BBC)
“To say that the chairman of South Africa’s World Cup Organising Committee (OC), Irvin Khoza, and his CEO, Danny Jordaan, do not get along is a bit like saying John Terry and Wayne Bridge aren’t the best of friends. And last week, one of the World Cup’s most enthralling sub-plots – a tale of power, greed, ambition, political connections and long-established rivalry – lit up like an exploding arms depot. The intrigue could give John Le Carre a run for his money.” (BBC)
Scissors Kick 