February 2009 Archives

A free kick to warm the heart of any diehard billiards fan.Taken from 35 yards out the ball hit both goalposts before going in.Hatem Ben Arfa was the scorer.(Marseille against FC Twente)

A goal by Sabri Sarioglu in the last minute gave Galatasaray victory after the Turkish team had appeared to be heading out of the UEFA CUP when Bordeaux scored twice in a minute midway through the second-half. The reputation of Turkey as the Euro 2008 comeback kings with last-gasp wins over Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Croatia in the summer just got another boost.

....belonging to Sejad Salihovic.He didn't keep it though.He just chucked it backwards over his goal.Explanation

Drogba flashed fire for Chelsea again.This is the Hiddink Effect. Drogba looked more like the battering ram of old rather than the disinterested feather duster of recent times.Very poetically put.More such descriptions of Chelsea's 1 - 0 victory over Juventus here..

Here's another case of butterfingers...Porto goalie Helton makes a complete hash of stopping a ball that an optically challenged five year old would have gathered with ease.

The reason some other butterfingered goalkeepers are waking up screaming can be viewed here,here and also here .

If there ever was a goalkeeper calling himself an absolute idjit for letting a donkey drop of a free kick go sailing over his head into the goal it is Victor Valdez.Horrible misjudgement from the Barca goalie saw them going down by a goal...

It took some heroics from Henry to salvage a draw [video]

Sid Lowe writing in the guardian says that Barcelona's loss to Espanyol was the kind of divine intervention that,by comparision, made the David and Goliath story look like an even contest.He says that at least David had 'a catapult and a stone' .Espanyol didn't have any equivalent equipment in their armoury of soccer offensive weaponry.And yet they won.
Yohan Cruyff says it's a good thing it happened and losing 2 games in a round of 24 is not as big a disaster as it is being made out to be.

Vasas Budapest scored a three-one victory over Budapest Honved in the Hungarian league recently and that didn't exactly make world headlines.But this goal from Zoltan Hercegfalvi for the losing team is the surefire Oscar winner in the "most fabulous goal scored in a long time" category .It's not a backheel,or a scissor kick or a free kick or any thing like that.It's just instinct,sheer genius,great timing and a goalie left wondering what happened.Watch....

And since he hasn't won any oscars before there's not much on Zoltan on wikipedia.It's slumdog millionaire all over again......

Not exactly...
This is Martin Hansen for the Liverpool reserves wishing the ground would open and swallow him up.Watch

What else can you say when 7 goals are scored in the first half and none in the second.Real Madrid beat Real Betis 6-1 and are closer to Barcelona than expected because Barcelona went and lost 2 -1 to Espanyol of all people.The race to the spanish title is looks like it might be a close thing after all.

Apart from that there were the usual histrionics from Ronaldo,some petulance and a dive in the box that the ref managed not to see.You might think that the insurance claims from the airport for the bits of the tunnel that he damaged with his Ferrari are getting to him.But he acts like that on most days anyway.It was also 1,334 minutes since Man U had last allowed their defence to be breached and breached it was when Roque Santa Cruz scored.More on all this and the holes in the Man U defence here..

What's the record for maximum number of red cards in a game ?Here's a contender.7 red cards had to be dished out before order could be restored between Brasil and Ulbra in the Rio Grande do Sul championship, one of the regional tournaments which kick off the Brazilian season.
The trouble ensured when Rogerio Pereira scored the final goal in Ulbra's 5-2 away win and went to celebrate in front of the Brasil supporters. He apparently made a gesture imitating Claudio Millar - one of three Brasil players killed in January when the team bus was involved in an accident. Danrlei suggested after the match that Pereira had deliberately provoked the home fans. All hell broke loose and the riot police had to be called in.When reports last came in they were still trying to kick each other.[The players - not the riot police]

And while on the subject of red card records here's one that we missed out on soccerblog- one that's going to be really really hard to beat.David Pratt has the dubious honour of receiving the world's fastest red card .He managed the feat in THREE seconds.That was in December last year.

Manchester City got a gift wrapped goal from the FC Copenhagen goalie.They only managed a draw even so.

The defender's blooper of the week goes to Werder Bremen for getting themselves tied in knots as they allowed AC Milan to score this goal.

0:1-Werder Bremen vs. AC Milan - MyVideo

The gap at the top widens...

Madin Mohammed is 6 years old:

Warning: The audio track could be considered disturbing,disgusting,ignorant etc....

To make it absolutely clear - "A bigot is a person who, without thought, is intolerant of opinions, lifestyles or identities differing from his or her own, and bigotry is the corresponding attitude or mindset. Bigot is often used as a pejorative term to describe a person who is obstinately devoted to prejudices, especially when these views are either challenged, or proven to be false or not universally applicable or acceptable."

The other 6 being Pele,Maradona,Cruyff,Michel Platini, Zinedine Zidane and maybe Ronaldo in that order.A good comparision between Raul and the legendary Alfredo di Stefano in terms of the different eras and conditions etc that they played in can be read here..

Rooney's wife Coleen Mcloughlin asked Oasis star Noel Gallagher to autograph a guitar for Rooney as a birthday surprise - way back in October last year.
Noel being a Manchester City fan painted the guitar blue and sent it back looking like this.

Here's Rooney's revenge...

Something to celebrate amidst the gloom- The triumph of one man's determination.When Eduardo's name was called out before kick-off he received a standing ovation. The cheer would have been even greater had his flicked header from Nicklas Bendtner's cross after 13 minutes beaten Cardiff goalie Tom Heaton at his far post.
Seven minutes later Eduardo gave Carlos Vela a pass and then headed a returned cross past Heaton. The emotion and pain of the last 12 months were obvious on his face, as he stayed on his knees while being mobbed by his team-mates. Eduardo went on to score another goal - a penalty.Arsenal went on to win the game 4 - 0

Inter defeated Milan 2-1 and that's as close to heaven as they have ever been in a while.Beckham drew attention to himself by injuring his hamstring and apart from giving a few good crosses didn't contribute very much else to the game.

Raul broke Alfredo di Stefano’s record of 307 goals for the club when he scored twice yesterday.Rapid mental calculations tell me that his tally is now 309 goals and Real Madrid are closing in a bit on Barcelona - within 10 points now.

The top brass of the FA have asked Steve Bennett to retire.This comes after the embarrassing revelations revealed in a tabloid newspaper sting.He mainly said that some players would deliberately get yellow carded so that they would get a break from playing and use the time off to catch up with the family or whatever.Gory details of sting here..
Kent FA boss backing Bennett here..

Of course such a thing would never happen in Italy.They have ways there of dealing with referees who tell on players. Take a look at what happened to one referee who talked.

This was the equaliser against Watford that came off an overhead kick.

The other goals from their 3 -1 laboured win are here..
Guus Hiddink ponders...

Fernando Torres is giving the people at Nike fierce competition with regard to advertisements.Here are 10 Torres ads in response to their latest ad.
1. Torres playing tennis
2. Torres again
3. The Torres dog ad
4. Torres Pringles ad
5.The Torres Frosties ad
6.The Torres Pepsi ad
7. Torres, the german team and pepsi.
8.The Torres Nike ad [ whoops ...!]
9. The Torres Pizza ad.
10 .And the grand finale ...Yet another Fernando Torres ad.

Reports coming in from Chicago suggest that Nike, one of the world's biggest sports marketers, could send shock waves through the industry this year by cutting its marketing budget as part of a push to reduce expenses.In the meantime they have come up with another great ad starring C Ronaldo,Tevez and Fabregas - using up whatever money was left at the bottom of the barrel....

To Norway.The last time Norway beat them was at the 1936 Berlin Olympics - with you know who watching.Norway celebrates while the german press is asking some hard questions ..For Norway Egil "Drillo" Olsen is the miracle worker.

Deutschland 0:1 Norwegen-Freundschaftsspiel - MyVideo

At the end of the game Frankie Hejduk was heading toward the locker room when a Mexican team staff member slapped him in the face in the tunnel. Univision identified the assailant as assistant coach Paco Ramirez.When reports last came in the situation was tense but under control.No fresh incidents of violence have been reported (from that tunnel anyway).More details..

The sun continues to set on the British empire as they crashed to a humiliating 2 - 0 defeat.Fabio Capello's strategies need to be reworked.The new skinnier David Beckham reached a personal milestone, picked up a yellow card but didn't score any goals.The European champs gave the Three Lions a good hiding.

France lose their international friendly vs Argentina by 2 goals to nothing.Lionel Messi steals the show.

The goals were brilliant.The Azurri were denied two goals by ref Howard Webb so he should be careful about going to Italian restaurants for a while.Some great saves from the Brazil goalie- it's all there in the highlights.

Sunil Chettri, the brightest talent in Indian football, was probably hoping for a slumdog millionaire kind of success story( that's not meant to be disrespectful in any way).However his call up from Coventry city has ended in disappointment.Bhaichung Bhutia is of the opinion that it wasn't such a great idea in the first place.
And Chettri will just have to keep on being dogged..

Mourinho raised Chelsea's expectations - to unimaginable, and now perhaps unattainable levels and his successors are suffering.Abramovich has said the dreaded words" Off with his head"
How much longer will the Mourinho comparisons last? If Scolari's abrupt sacking is any indicator it's going to be awhile before they get over their "Special One" hangover.In the meantime a decent coach who also managed to look like Gene Hackman is out of a job in a recession year.

"Something amazing is going on in Barcelona. Josep Guardiola’s crew are scoring goals at a rate not seen in a big (or even small) European league in years. On Saturday, they had 65 in 21 league matches: roughly 3.1 a game. Contrast this with the rest of Europe’s league leaders: Hoffenheim, 45 in 19 matches (2.37) in Germany, Inter Milan in Italy and Manchester United, both 40 in 23 (1.74), and Lyons, a paltry 27 in 22 (1.23) in France." More..
The video is of their latest 3 -1 victory over Sporting Gijon

From Times Online - "At the venerable age of 35, in the autumn of his football life,he came up with a brilliant goal that took Man U back to the top of the Premier League." Couldn't have put that better myself...

Unbelievable. Fernando Torres and Dirk Kuyt came on as substitutes and scored two goals in the last eight minutes.The 3-2 win over a completely baffled Portsmouth wondering what on earth hit them takes Liverpool back to the top of the table.

Julius Caesar had this thing about having men about him who were fat.Fabio Capello,though also an italian general of sorts, has an entirely different perspective on this issue.He prefers the lean and hungry type.So Beckham has gone and reduced his body fat from 13.7 to 8.5 per cent and is evidently hoping that Capello will have noticed.
Prof Paul Gately [ an expert in matters corpulent] said the following about Beckham's fat loss efforts: "For someone in his midfield position, and what he does on the field, 8.5 per cent body fat is just right. He will have lost it so that he does not overheat in the warmer climate. Extra body fat is dead weight, which makes the fluid levels diminish quickly, and in turn makes the body expend energy more quickly."
More on the shape of David Beckham here..

Thierry Henry is going to be in the shop window soon and 12 million pounds is the going price.He scored his 16th goal for Barcelona in their 2 - 0 walk in the park win over Mallorca. The second goal by Marquez made better viewing- neat free kick. [ video ]

ITV's executive chairman had to make a personal apology live on the lunchtime news for an "inexcusable" advert break which caused millions of viewers to miss Everton's 118th-minute winning goal from Dan Gosling that knocked Liverpool out of the FA cup.Here it is...

'El Siete' scored his 307th goal for Real Madrid in all competitions, equalling the record set by club legend Alfredo di Stefano.

Okay mad Lehmann was in goal.And he wasn't having a particularly good game.He let in five goals eventually.But he didn't oblige this time.Ribery was evidently hoping that he would dive madly in some direction leaving his gentle scoop an open path to the goal.But Lehmann must have something on Ribery in his collection of cheat sheets and so he just stayed put for the penalty.

Fabio Quagliarella had his back to the goal.His team was down 2 -1 against Napoli.It was also his birthday.The combination of these three factors produced a most stunning piece of skill.He scissor-kicked a pass from Isla sending the ball flying into the net from outside 25 yards or so away. The Napoli goalie Navarro couldn't move ( didn't have enough time - he moves otherwise ).The goal was so good that the whole stadium applauded.Maybe they should have sung happy birthday also.It was brilliant.A birthday goal for the record books.

Two assists in their 3 - 0 win over Lazio.http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5iqbAQzwPlBfiNAOD-AEhCOc_0WqA

Liverpool's title pursuit seems to be back on track after Torres both of the two goals that Chelsea got beat by.

More than half of South Africans surveyed last year feared that the stadiums etc would not be ready in time.Blatter has stopped talking about plans B , C and D and his latest Blatterism is "We trust Africa"
On the ground the problems pile up..