January 2009 Archives

You have to see this to believe it.The game is between Mazara and Villabate in the Sicilian League of Excellence [This wonderfully exalted title for the league adds even more drama to the story].Mario Erbini scores for Mazara - brillantly connecting with a free kick and guiding the ball in.Erbini's goal celebration involved running towards the halfway line, with the majority of his teammates chasing after him wanting to show their appreciation for his effort.The next part is the the tragi - comic bit.The referee,quietly,and for no apparent reason - disallowed the goal and allowed Villabate allowed to restart play immediately.
The Mazara team were still celebrating when Villabate striker Tummarello beat the the Mazara goalie from 35-yards out.Goal allowed this time.
The excellent Sicilian tempers boiled over and the ref got chased around the field and needed police protection to avoid being lynched.This needs to go into the record books as the maddest two minutes in the history of soccer..

For those who also appreciate the musical side of the noble game here are a few anthems to listen to...
FIFA Anthem,Champion's League anthem,UEFA Cup Theme,MLS Anthem
And more of the same here..

Barcelona may have well advanced to the semifinals of Spain's Copa del Rey by beating Epanyol 3 -2 but the goal of the game goes to Jose Maria Callejon for scoring this screamer from 30 yards out.

Kalou scored both goals in Chelsea's 2-0 victory over Middlesbrough and celebrated them along with Drogba by making a crossed fist, 'handcuffs' type gesture.A reference to activist Antoine Assale Tiemoko, recently freed from a year-long jail term in the Ivory Coast...?
He denies it .The FA are going to look at the video and then make up their minds whether it was a handcuff or just crossed fists.If they decide its the former then censure is inevitable.Kalou and Drogba must have their fingers crossed and hoping that that gesture is not "misinterpreted" as well.

Watch Chelsea v Middlesbrough in Sports Online  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

It's time to crack those move over Harry Potter jokes.Van Persie conjured up this bit of wizardry to gain a point for Arsenal when there were just 30 seconds left on the clock and the lads from Everton were already planning the post match party.

And here's an even more wizard goal.Yossi Benayoun scoring the opening goal for Liverpool v/s Wigan from what is surely an impossibly acute angle.

...can be found here.

David Beckham's score in front of Fabio Capello will surely help him say goodbye to that dismal excuse of a team - the L.A. Galaxy.

I don't blame him at all.

The surprise is that Beckham, even though he is definitely a step or two slower, can make such a significant contribution to a team like Milan. The answer I believe is Beckham's work ethic.

Just look at that slacker, fat-boy Ronaldinho. Now he's going to have to get in shape! And Beckham may just inspire all the Milan superstar slackers to lift their games. That's the added value, the "Beckham-dividend" if you want to call it, for Milan - if they can get him to stay.

Kaka's "unselfish" example may have helped Beckham make up his mind as well. It's not about money in the end.

The records here..

Watch Manchester United vs West Brom Goals 27.01.09 in Sports Online  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Gaston Aguirre said sorry when he whacked a pigeon with a football the other day - causing it grievous injury.Michael Ballack is the latest player to join this growing band of soccer players who are taking pot shots at pigeons that dare to cross their path.The video shows a pigeon flying away - so it probably lived to tell the tale.The video evidence is inconclusive because the picture - like the pigeon after the incident - is a bit unsteady.

PS: If you like to watch videos of people hitting pigeons with footballs here's another one.This one is an effort by aussie player Lucas Neill.The bird in question may or may not have been a pigeon.It is also not known whether Lucas apologised.So far the only chap who said sorry was Gaston - though it is debatable whether saying sorry to a dead pigeon helps..!

French keeper Julien Lachuer demonstrated in the Coupe de France this week the correct technique to use if you wanted a player from the opposition to score a freak goal. He raced out of his goal and somehow managed to get his clearance to bounce of Guingamp’s Badara Sene into the goal.Wonderful technique.He will remember the goal for a long time saying to himself [ in french obviously ] "How did I manage to do that?"

Users of FIFA.com have voted for Portugal's Belchior as having scored the best goal of the year 2008.His goal of the year is being described as "a gravity-defying overhead kick in their 8-2 win over El Salvador." [ Beach Soccer World Cup ] Take a look and see if it lives up to the description.

Two goals from women's competitions made it into the first five and there were five goals from women's soccer in the first eight Surprise surpise....
USA striker Alex Morgan's 42nd-minute winner against Korea in the final of the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup Chile 2008 was the second best goal of the year. She took the Adidas Silver Ball and Bronze Shoe awards for her four goals at that tournament.More..

Becks finally got off the mark.He scored the 4th goal in AC Milan's 4 -1 win over Bologna.

A late equaliser against Everton keeps Liverpool in the hunt.

Messi scored twice and set up Thierry Henry for another.Samuel Eto'o also got his name on the score card which read 4 -1 at full time.Jose Barkero's scored a great freekick for Numancia in reply.

Redknapp’s hopes of becoming the first manager to ever eliminate United with four different clubs came to an end after Man U knocked Tottenham out of the competiton .The score was 2 -1 - Berbatov scoring the winner against his former club.Et tu Brute etc..

FA CUP-ManU 2:1 Tottenham - MyVideo

Created by ESPN.Manchester City's dream team.

Referee, Gary Bailey was forced to make the extraordinary decision recently. He had to give a parrot a red card...! A parrot called 'Me-Tu' - who often watches matches from the confines of his cage - insisted on making an ass of itself during a tense cup tie between Hatfield Town and Hertford Heath.The ill mannered bird refused to stop imitating his whistle.!
The bird's whistling continually forced players from both sides to stop play.The red card was inevitable.
"I’ve never known anything like it in my career," Bailey said. "It was a big game and there were quiet a lot of people there. "Every time I blew my whistle, the bird made the same sound. The players all stopped so I had to ask to move the parrot to the stands. I’ve sent a few people off in my time but never a parrot.".......................!!!
More on that story here..

Apparently you can.Burnley achieved this unlikely feat by managing to concede two goals in extra time. The extra time in this case was 30 minutes more of play.This being due to a bizarre away goals rule that only applies to the League Cup.And even then Tottenham only got their goals in the last 3 minutes of that added time.No wonder the Burnley fans are left wondering about things like justice and fairness..................

Zlatan Ibramovich pulled off an acrobatic goal off a rebound to knock Roma out of the competition by two goals to one.The goal was controversial because Walter Samuel was offside.

Inter's first goal (video) looks highly offside as well - but no one is saying anything about it so I suppose it must be the camera angle or some new interpretation of the offside rule that I haven't caught up with yet.

It's actually painted on to a building in Johannesburg - a very neat promotional advertisement by MTN for the World Cup 2010 - but it also looks like something Rory might be capable of..! ( Of course we are talking about a slightly larger Rory Delap here because it is a slightly larger football)

Because he can do this.[ I hope this video works this time...]

Liverpool seemed to be on the road to victory after this beaut from Steven Gerrard.But with three minutes to go for the final whistle Tim Cahill equalised for Everton and suddenly the road to the title became what the Beatles called it - long and winding.

A major accident in the church in which he got married.

They found themselves 3-0 down inside 33 minutes and could only score one goal in reply.Mourinho is taking the loss on the chin.Some major criticism of his strategy in the game here..

Barcelona beat,hammered,thrashed (etc) Deportivo La Coruna 5 - 0 and are in record breaking form.The 50 points from the first half of the season gives them the most points ever for a team at this stage.This is from the time that the league has consisted of 20 teams and awarded three points for a win.The previous holder was last season's Real Madrid squad, who had 47 points.Barca have also scored an impressive 59 goals, at a awe inspiring average of 3.1 per game. It they keep beating teams by 5 goal margins and Messi keeps scoring hat tricks then in the second half of the season, they should finish with 118 goals.
The current record is 107, which was scored by John Toshack's 1989-90 Real Madrid team.

Samir Nasri and substitute Nicklas Bendtner left it to the last 8 minutes before they scored the goals that gave Arsenal the much needed win.

It started off as a continuation of Chelsea's bad dream.John Terry and Joe Cole on the injured list and Drogba playing as if he were on the list and was being forced to play.
Stoke were within three minutes of their most famous victory against Chelsea since the 1971-72 Football League Cup Final.
Then Juliano Belletti scored the equaliser to Rory Delap's 60th-minute goal and Frank Lampard won the game for the blues with 3 minutes to go.The Stoke fans who till then had been taunting Scolari with chants of “You’re getting sacked in the morning” were stunned by the improbable comeback.Even Drogba who was warming the bench and pondering his future at Chelsea dropped his customary scowl.Lampard had bought some time...

Former Uruguay international Dario Silva lost his lower right leg in a car crash in September 2006.The accident occurred as Silva when lost control of his pick-up truck.He was thrown from the vehicle, colliding with a street light post. In the impact Silva fractured his skull, was knocked unconscious and suffered a compound fracture on his right leg .The leg had to be amputated.Not many people would make a comeback to football after having suffered the loss of a leg.Silva amazingly recently took part in a charity match for the 'Fundación Niños con Alas' (Children with Wings Foundation) to raise money for needy youngsters in his country.He also scored a goal.

The secret weapon that worked so well against Chelsea....namely Maradona - lurking at dead of night in the shadows of the hotel - ready to set off the fire alarm with his havana cigar.Rooney did the job for them scoring the winning goal about 57 seconds into the game.However a hamstring injury is going to keep Rooney out of the remaining games this season and so they may have to go back to the secret weapon again.

....at taking free kicks.He says this last free kick that Del Piero scored the other day was really because the footballs these days almost go in to the goal on their own.
With these footballs, it's as if you are playing at a high altitude and they are difficult to control in the air." Platini told La Gazzetta Dello Sport."In my days, those footballs didn't exist and all those fouls were never committed around the penalty area."
Here's the story about Platini reminiscing about the good old days when footballs were real footballs ..........!
Del Piero scored another pretty good goal against Catania yesterday.Take a look.

...but of course it's easy to do this.These new footballs are like sour grapes..!

If, like me,you are still in denial about Cristiano Ronaldo being named player of the year here is a video that might make you feel better.

While still pondering over how on earth Cristiano Ronaldo could have been adjudged FIFA player of the year here's another video to look at.Bordeaux scored a fabulous 4 - 0 victory over PSG to come within one point of leaders Lyon in the French league.They have a better goal average and look to give Lyon a serious run for their money as they attempt their 8th consecutive ligue title.

While you ponder on how on earth Cristiano Ronaldo managed to get the FIFA player of the year here's a video to look at.Dead-eye Del Piero at the ripe old age of 34 pulling a stunning free kick out of his well worn hat - giving Juventus a 1 - 0 victory over Siena.

Wearing No. 32, Beckham played alongside Andrea Pirlo and Clarence Seedorf in midfield with Kaka as he made a fairly low key debut for AC Milan.Didn't bend in any goals or anything.Just played a workmanlike part in the 2 - 2 draw against Roma.

Well if Chelsea are looking for excuses here's a good one.Maradona - staying in the same hotel as the team was staying - managed to set off the fire alarm at some ungodly hour of the night because he was smoking a cigar.The team had to come outside into the bitter cold and stand around and freeze for around 40 minutes before the all clear could be given.Hence they played like as if they were half asleep.And that's how Chelsea's title hopes went up in smoke......

When is the last time Ronaldo scored a match winner like this ? Here's Lionel Messi vs Osasuna when Barcelona had their backs to the wall after an unexpected fightback left the scores at 2 goals each with less than 10 minutes to go.

Messi has been fabulous in skill,grace and goal scoring in the recent past.So how come C Ron gets to be the favourite for FIFA player of the year ? [Forget a football,he can't even curve a Ferrari around a wall these days]

Mourinho's brooding presence in the director's box failed to inspire any fire from Chelsea.They went down tamely by 3 goals to nothing.Scolari needs to head off and take some notes from the great one on how to get Chelsea to play the way they were playing just a season ago.

A clanger by Carson evidently.Watch closely(because the video is poor) the clanger that gifted the game to Aston Villa.

The Mirror.uk has made a collection of the ten best clangers of all time.Carson features as number one on that list.And that was not this one but the clanger against Croatia.In fact the first three on the list are all english goalkeepers - Scott Carson is followed by Paul Robinson for that kick that missed the ball completely which is almost as famous as Maradona's hand of god goal.Then they have David Seaman missing the Ronaldinho free kick in World Cup 2002 coming in at number three.You can see all those video clips here..

Wenger is probably heaving sighs of relief. Nicklas Bendtner scored a crucial goal to help Arsenal beat Bolton.Liverpool were held to a draw by Stoke.Man U and Chelsea are still in their woollen underwear.[Refer previous post] All of which surely merit a few well earned sighs of relief.

As Europe freezes some are trying to figure out why it's gone so cold in the middle of global warming.Al Gore bashers are having a field day while the non bashers are saying wait and see.In the middle of all this two premier league matches were not played because the fields were frozen over. With the weather not getting any better Chelsea and Manchester United need to keep their warm woolies on till the big game starts and hopefully there won't be "Danger - Thin Ice" signs up on the playing field when they come there to play.

You know the book " The monk who sold his Ferrari " ?
Well Ronaldo wants to sell his Ferrari too.....!
More jokes...

Maybe that's why Cristiano Ronaldo crashed his Ferrari.He suddenly imagined Messi getting the award and didn't see the wall in front of him.Some stats etc on the nominees here...

This was the unfortunate title to an article about his chances of scoring a goal against Chelsea on sunday - something he has not ever managed to do yet.It was an unfortunate title because Ronaldo did manage to crash - not against the Blues (yet) but managed instead to crash his Ferrari enroute to practice.His red Ferrari was badly damaged in the crash, with the front edge of the vehicle completely demolished. One of the wheels came off, ending up about 200 yards behind where the vehicle came to rest. An onlooker reported..
"The Ferrari went straight into the wall, his front left-hand wheel came off and then Ronaldo got out of the car," he said.You can get a youtube look at what's left of the car here..
Ronaldo himself was thankfully intact after the incident and reported for practice as usual.He must have had to hitch a ride however.That ferarri isn't going anywhere in a while.

his first for 2009....and Barcelona are on top of the world.Messi scored in the 12th, 58th (from a penalty which led to the dismissal of defender John Heitinga) and in the 80th minutes.How does he keep doing this ?

Kris Commons scored from 25-yards in the 30th and Manchester United did not have anything to say in reply.The Clough Factor.

The beatles said money can't buy you love.Manchester City found that money couldn't buy them out of the embarrassment of a 3 - 0 home defeat by Nottingham Forest.

Watch mancity nottingham in Sports Online  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

The Saints marched in and found themselves no match for the Red Devils.So they had to march right out again - after getting beat by 3 goals to nothing.

Arsene Wenger must be quite relieved to get 2009 off to a decent start.Arsenal haven’t won a trophy for three and half years he's surely hoping that this is the year that all that is going to change.For the moment it looks like he's not going to be able to afford Arshavin.

This is from Times Online.It's a compiliation of 50 british footballers who did very well in 2008.The big names have been left out so you won't find any Rio Ferdinands, Frank Lampards or John Terrys among them.
Steven Gerrard is not there because he's in jail.
Ha Ha..! ( For more such Steven Gerrard jail jokes look here..)
Anyway many of the players have video clips attached to their write ups so you can see them doing their stuff..Take a look...

If you saw reindeer in the sky this Christmas that were doing stepovers and diving all over the place - now you know why.Ronaldo was spreading Christmas cheer by going around disguised as Santa Claus.

Here are the best goals of 2008 according to the people who made this compilation.