Hi readers,
Thanks for reading my stupid wee blog every week. However like all great artists I’ve sold out and am now peddling my Round Ball musing over at The Curio http://www.thecurio.org/
I’ve also scored a job working on Fox Sports’ Total Football with Santo, Sam & Ed so please tune in and you might see me pop up.
So please check out The Curio and whilst you’re killing time online why not buy a copy of my new stand up DVD over at dannymcginlay.com
See – I’m a total sell out. Buy this, watch that. Do whatever you want.
As everyone counts down the minutes til first kick of of this year’s World Cup, let’s spare a thought for those who came so close to achieving every footballer’s ultimate dream – representing their country at the World Cup.
Some of them missed out because their countries didn’t qualify like Gareth Bale, others because of old age like Mark Schwarzer, some because they are not professional footballers like me. [I’m still bitter]
Below is a list of the best 11 players who received the ball shattering news that they will not be playing at Brazil 2014.
I swear I wrote a post last week. It just didn’t seem to show up. How odd. Well in case you didn’t know, Manchester City won the EPL. If you didn’t know that but you are reading this I can only assume you are a blood relative of mine. In which case, the baby is doing fine and can you please bring us some soup.
Arsenal defeated Hull City to claim the FA Cup on Saturday night. Coming from 2-0 down was a hell of a feat, and full credit the Arsene Wenger’s men. Last time Arsenal won a trophy was 2005, pre-facebook & twitter. Meaning in order to be insufferable you had to find an Arsenal fan in person. Now they can shit you through the convenience of your smart phone. What an age we live in.
At the same time that Arsenal were lifting the FA Cup, Atletico Madrid were celebrating winning the Spanish title. Next week they play cross town rivals Real Madrid in the Champions League Final. If they win that, then it will mark a perfect year for Atletico. How did they get so good so quick? Well you can go with them having great scouts and development OR their shirt sponsor is ‘Azerbaijan – Land of Fire’ and believe in some sort of dark magical dragon that is controlling them. Depends how into Game of Thrones you are.
Ange Postecoglou has named his 30 man squad for the World Cup. For 8 of these players it will be only temporary joy as the squad will be cut to 22. Many sub-editors are hoping it comes down to a choice between Curtis Good and Josh Brillante.
The Matildas have qualified for the Women’s World Cup next year in Canada. At time of writing they are 2-0 up against Vietnam in the Asian Cup. The qualification process is baffling and I’m on no sleep. So if anyone can explain to me what’s going on I’ll be very grateful.
We will play South Korea or China in the semi final. For more details follow the Matildas @TheMatildas on twitter because the media will give this bugger all coverage.
Video of the Week –
Instead of a goal watch St Johnstone Dave Mackay’s point of view as he lifts the Scottish Cup Trophy!
So, being a new Dad takes up a lot of time! Thankfully there’s only one more week of club football for the season. So I’ll attempt to write an update for you all.
Brisbane Roar defeated Western Sydney Wanderers to win the A-League Grand Final. The Wanderers went 1-0 up in the second half but Besart Berisha equalized with minutes to spare. Then, in injury time, Henrique put the Queenslanders in front 2-1. Berisha is now hated by all clubs, as he is leaving Brisbane to join Melbourne Victory, where he and Kevin Muscat will battle it out for the title of most despised man in Australian soccer. Events include punching kittens, climate change denying and writing more “I bought a Jeep” commercials.
In England it all boils down to the last week. Manchester City and Liverpool are both locked in equal first place with 80 points each with two matches to spare.
If they both win, then City claim the title as they have a superior goal difference [unless of course Liverpool wins one of it’s matches 10-0]. It’s extremely tense: Manchester v Liverpool. Money vs History. Blue vs Red. We hate United vs We hate United more…
Tomorrow Morning 5am EST – Crystal Palace v Liverpool
Wednesday Morning 4.45am EST – Manchester City v Aston Villa
Sunday night midnight [technically Monday morning, don’t be a pedant] – Liverpool v Newcastle, Manchester City v West Ham United.
There’s other matches on as well but trust me, nobody really cares. Sunderland, West Brom & Norwich are trying to avoid relegation… yeah I thought so.
Oh – the Champions League final is Real Madrid v Atletico Madrid. The Aristocrats vs The Rebels! Go Atletico! Even though Real does stuff like this: [Goal of the Week]
My wife popped last Wednesday! It’s a boy. We’ve named him Theodore. I’ll be calling him Ted. You can call him whatever you’d like.
Parenting is hard, but it makes it easier when Football is on! last night Liverpool beat Man City 3-2. Brilliant game. But I do’t have the time nor the energy to tell you anything else.
Head to the Guardian website, they’ll tell you what I tell you, just in a more convoluted and less funny way.
The A-League has one week left of the regular season. In a league of 10 teams it is a bit daft to have 6 finals places but that’s what we have. I’ll do my best explain the best and worst case scenarios for all the clubs.
Brisbane Roar – Guaranteed a week off and a place in the semi finals, no matter what else happens. So their situation is as dull as their defence tactics.
Western Sydney Wanderers – If they beat Melbourne Heart they will secure 2nd place and a week’s rest. If they lose and Victory, Mariners, Adelaide and Sydney all win they could drop down to 6th. Pretty insane, huh?
Central Coast Mariners – Similar to the Wanderers, if they win and the Wanderers don’t that’s 2nd place stitched up for them! If they lose and Victory, Adelaide and Sydney all win they could drop to 6th.
Adelaide United – Could finish second if the results go their way… actually this is getting repetitive. Now that I think about it all the teams could finish 2nd and 6th. Newcastle could sneak into 6th if they slaughter Adelaide and Sydney loses to Perth. But that’s probably unlikely.
This is one of the most exciting season finishes in A-League history. The mainstream media might even report on it, unless of course James Hird gets a haircut then obviously that takes precedence.
Here’s how the A-League Finals work. Week One – Elimination Finals
3rd v 6th, 4th v 5th,
1st and 2nd get a week off. Week Two
1st vs winners of one of the Elimination Finals
2nd vs the other winner Week Three
Grand Final
Good luck to your team! Unless of course your team is Brisbane, Western Sydney, Central Coast, Adelaide or Sydney. Then I hope you lose.
Things in England are equally exciting! Each team has about five matches left and it’s down to a three horse race! Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City. Next Sunday, 10.30pm Eastern Australian time is what could be the title decider – Liverpool v Manchester City. I try to avoid hyperbole [even thought I am better at hyperbole than everyone else in the world!] but this is the biggest match of the year!
Which means it will probably be a disappointing 0-0 draw.
But the greatest 0-0 draw in the history of the universe!
Liverpool are top of the league with eight matches remaining! All the results went the way of the Reds over the weekend with Chelsea losing to Crystal Palace, and Arsenal and Manchester City drawing. Liverpool haven’t won the English league since 1990. After the defeating Tottenham 4-0 last night Reds manager Brendan Rodgers claimed it was an honour to be in charge of such a big club as Liverpool has “an army of 533 million supporters throughout the world”. Meaning 1 in 13 people globally supports the Merseyside team. So if you notice your neighbourhood getting a bit jittery, it’s only because about 8% of the entire planet is so excited about Liverpool. Seems unlikely, maybe he’s banking on anecdotal evidence that all dogs support Liverpool.
There were some big name departures in the A-League this week, notably the retirement of Harry Kewell, but also Marcos Flores and Mile Sterjovski who is retiring to focus on finding a consensus on how to pronounce his surname. Alessandro Del Piero’s future at Sydney FC is still up in the air. When questioned about whether he’d be at the club next year Del Piero merely mumbled something about being to too tired and would give an answer after he had slept on his solid gold futon.
The Asian Cup Finals were drawn on Wednesday night – Australia will be taking on traditional rivals Kuwait, South Korea and Oman. There is one final spot up for grabs remaining in the tournament. The eligible teams are: Maldives, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Palestine, Laos, Kyrgyzstan, Philippines and Turkmenistan. Already Rupert Murdoch is using his influence to ensure Laos get through so News Limited’s sub-editors can have a field day with Laos-sy headlines.
Germany and Scotland have their rather predictable champions!! Bayern Munich and Celtic have won the respective silverware in both countries and both celebrated with their trademark cuisines. In Bayern the beer flowed and schnitzels, sausages and pretzels were enjoyed by all, and in Scotland the Celtic fans got wasted on cheap whisky then deep fried the trophy.
Juventus are about to win the Italian league. A nice man has informed me this is a good thing, he was so happy about it he didn’t have time to tell me in person, just attached it to a brick and threw it through the window of my bedroom.
Goal of the Week from the Superclasico!!! {Boca Juniors v River Plate}
Brisbane are the A-League Premiers! This would be amazing news pretty much anywhere else in the world, but Australia plays by American rules when it comes to soccer, meaning finishing top at the end of the season doesn’t mean you are champions (like it does in almost every other league in the world). It just means you are favourites to win the finals. So the Roar are not Champions, yet. The ones in orange will be tough to beat in the finals. Their three closest challengers are all in the middle of Asian Champions League campaigns so will be exhausted for the rest of the season. So should we just cancel the finals, hand the trophy to Roar and move onto next season where Melbourne City, nee Heart, buy the trophy with their Arab gold? Sadly thats not an option so let’s hope something interesting happens.
Something interesting happened on Saturday in England. Over a month ago this blogger was lamenting how there were no big matches in the EPL until this weekend just gone. Well finally we were to be treated to Chelsea v Arsenal. As my wife is currently ready-to-pop pregnant I am off the grog so the highlight of my weekend was to be watching this match on Saturday night (whilst slamming down glasses of milk). I got home from my gig on Saturday night having missed the first 15 minutes of play and Chelsea were already up 3-0 and Arsenal were a man down. Disappointing. The Gunners have now been thrashed by Liverpool 5-1, by Man City 6-3 and now Chelsea 6-0, meaning the EPL is now a three horse race. (Which is still two more than Australia, Scotland, Italy, Germany and France.) Given the poll results from last week’s poll it seems readers of this blog are Liverpool fans so I will write with a Scouser bias for the rest of the season.
Up next: Why The Beatles could beat Oasis in a fight, followed by a guide to a romantic dinner (clue – have chips!)
This morning the El Clasico was played and it lived up to it’s name. Barcelona went 1-0 up within the first ten minutes, only to see themselves 2-1 behind before half time, then 2-2 at half time. The second half saw more end to end action, with Barcelona finally taking the win 4-3. This rivalry is one of the best as it’s not only two separate cities, but also two different political viewpoints and football philosophies. The best way to describe it is Barcelona is MI6 – they’ve got James Bond, M, Q, all the good guys and they work as a team for good and for right. Real Madrid are SPECTRE – they’re cashed up, only in it for themselves and we should hate them, but they’re just so much fun!!!
The Champions League Quarter Finals were announced. They are:
Barcelona v Atletico Madrid
Real Madrid v Borussia Dortmund
Paris St Germain v Chelsea
Manchester United v Bayern Munich
So poll time: Who do you want to win the Champions League?
Goal of the Week – there were some crackers but let’s go for home grown!
Even though we are coming to the very pointy end of the A-League season, with finals places still up for grabs, the talk is all about one man and one incident – Besart Berisha. The Albanian striker opened up the scoring in Brisbane Roar’s 1-1 draw with Sydney. That’s not the issue, that’s what he’s paid for. The issue came twenty minutes later when he ninja kicked Seb Ryall. Seriously, he jumped with both heels up in a very dangerous tackle, then writhed in agony on the ground in a performance that even Ashton Kutcher would have deemed terrible. Brisbane fans don’t have to worry though, as Berisha is on his way to Melbourne Victory next year, where his dangerous tackles and horrible personality will make him Kevin Muscat’s favourite.
Leo Messi was his usual amazing self, scoring a hat trick for Barcelona in their 7-0 thrashing of Osasuna. Barca are still trailing both the Madrid teams in La Liga but if Messi continues this run of form then Barca will be back on top Osasuna rather than later.
[I’m really sorry]
Last night Liverpool beat Manchester United 3-0. Arsenal beat Tottenham 1-0. For both United and Spurs it was classic nightmare stuff. David Moyes was seen checking if he was wearing clothes. He was. It was all too real – the loss to their rivals, Alex Ferguson scowling from the stands, and of course the fact that he is one of the most hated men in football at the moment. Thankfully he is living in Manchester so he won’t actually meet many United fans.
The Premier League is really a four horse race now. Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City could all claim the title. Who do you want to win? Check the poll below! Personally I have no allegiance in the EPL* [I support Celtic] so I’m curious as to whom the general public wants to win.
*I used to live near West Ham so officially that’s my team, but I’m not that passionate about them. As an Australian with Scottish and Irish parents it’s against my DNA to cheer an English sports team.
Danny's Football Bluff 