November 28th, 2011

This week’s Football Bluff comes to you with a bit of a sore head. In the interests of transparency I should admit I am a Melbourne Victory fan, and in Europe my team is Celtic. This weekend I saw Victory win their first home match of the year (including Harry Kewell score his first goal), and combined with Celtic’s 5-0 demolition of St Mirren and Kilmarnock upsetting Rangers, there were a few beers had last night! However – onto the Bluff!

Interesting weekend in the EPL with six of the top eight teams dropping points. Alex Ferguson took his 1-1 draw with Newcastle in typical good grace, “It was an absolute travesty! I don’t think anyone in the ground apart from the assistant thought it was a penalty, but he then let the linesman overrule him! The problem is assistant referees are not full time, even if referees are. I could not understand the decision at all. It was a terrible decision, two years ago a decision like that cost us the league…” At this point the media backed away slowly and avoided eye contact. It is presumed that Ferguson is still on this tirade, Manchester United hopes he will have stopped in time for Wednesday’s Carling Cup clash with Crystal Palace.

American Samoa, the lowest ranked of the 204 members of FIFA, have won their first ever match defeating Tonga 2-1. This brings the Polynesian team’s goal difference in all matches to a much more respectable minus 272.

The Olyroos hopes of qualifying for London 2012 took a hit when they were held to a scoreless draw by Uzbekistan. Manager Aurelio Vidmar blamed a lack of finesse in front of goal, however the fact that the players were constantly stopping play to ask “No really, is soccer actually part of the Olympics now?” was more of a factor.

English/Nigerian winger Sone Aluko has broken new ground in the world of transfers. Aluko completed his transfer from Aberdeen to Rangers by paying his own transfer fee! The 22 year old forked out 150,000 pounds from his own pocket to help him make his dream move. In light of this cash-strapped Portsmouth have signed Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and the Sultan of Brunei on the off chance they will make similar moves.

Goal of the week goes to Real Sociedad defender Inigo Martinez. Who has scored an amazing injury time winner from the half way line!

This is even more incredible due to the fact that this is the second time he’s done it this season! Martinez is famous in Spain for these sort of arsey goals, sadly the only time he’s done it at international level, he did it into his own goal!

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November 21st 2011

Brisbane beat Newcastle Jets to equal the Australian record for an unbeaten streak by a club. Sound familiar? It should; apparently this was happening three weeks ago, for some reason they are breaking this record every bloody week. Who is this statistician who keeps stuffing up week after week? Regardless, let’s talk about some other records they’ve equalled – throughout their dominant streak they still only average attendances of 12,000 – matching the Melbourne Storm’s record of dominating a sport that their home town does not give a shit about.

 
A good weekend for Australians overseas, Scott McDonald scored both goals for Middlesbrough against Blackpool and Mark Schwarzer saved Fulham from defeat at Sunderland with an amazing injury time stoppage. Matt McKay started for Rangers in their nil all draw with St Johnstone but was substituted in the 64th minute when the Glasgow side’s fans realized that he had worn a green shirt whilst training with the Socceroos. Security has been placed outside his house.

 
A real Jekyll & Hyde week for Manchester City. They announced a record breaking loss of $309 million AUD for the last financial year, but then they set a new club record of fifteen wins in a row in the top flight. They had a record attendance at their match against Newcastle United, but there was a near riot when the stadium ran out of chips before half time. Yes this really happened.

 
Once again, Sepp Blatter proved himself to be the Prince Phillip of the football world when he stated that racism wasn’t an issue in football. This followed Bulgaria being fined 40,000 euro for racist chanting during a qualifier against England. The Bulgarian fans directed vile chants at England’s dark skinned players Ashley Cole, Ashley Young and Theo Walcott. Why they would chant racist things at these players when you can so easily bag Young for being inconsistent, Walcott for being lazy and Cole for his ex-wife’s horrible singing is beyond me.

 
In other football racism news, Bundesliga 2 side Rostock threw bananas at their opponents St Pauli’s dark skinned players, which leads to the question: WHO CAN AFFORD SO MANY BANANAS THEY CAN THROW THEM AWAY?? Not even Manchester City would be so lax with cash!

 
UEFA Champions League magazine held a poll with all their readers on which is the greatest moment in the history of the league. Despite the obvious blunder in omitting Scott McDonald’s 2007 injury time winner for Celtic against AC Milan, fans have chosen some great moments. The winner was this double save from Liverpool’s Jerzy Dudek in the 2005 final.

First save is amazing but I think the second is more a stuff up from Shevchenko than anything else. You can see all the other moments and vote for your fav here:
http://www.101greatgoals.com/uefa-announce-the-greatest-20-champions-league-moments/115470/
The highlights were limited to Champions League, otherwise this would have got 100% of the votes [NSFW]

November 14th, 2011

Australia suffered a major setback on the road to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, with a shock 1-0 defeat to Oman. The only thing more embarrassing for Australia’s football community was the pathetic effort by the nation’s sub-editors, not one major paper ran the headline O-MAN WE LOST! Tuesday presents a chance for redemption when the Socceroos take on Thailand, with fans expecting a “Thai-tanic Victory”.

In Europe the places for the 2012 Euro are close to being filled. Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Ukraine having already qualified, with Ireland, Croatia, Portugal and the Czech Republic looking most likely to make up the remaining spots. For the record the teams that have come dead last are Andorra and San Marino, or if you want to know which real country came last it was Malta. Stick that in your falcons!*

Reigning European and World Champions Spain were defeated by England in a friendly match at Wembley on Saturday night. Frank Lampard scored the winning goal with his face in the 49th minute. The English press have gone into meltdown, declaring that England are now favourites to win Euro 2012, the World Cup in 2014 and the next five Gold Logies.

In the A-League, the majority of clubs have suffered disappointing seasons so far. Adelaide, Perth, both Melbourne teams… pretty much everyone except Brisbane have frustrated their fans so far, leading to much bemoaning of the quality of the A-League. For a bit of perspective, please enjoy this comedy of errors from the Romanian league.

And at least our players are not as stupid as this – Aberdeen’s Darren Mackie was selected as a “Reading Champion” by a local school, only to admit in his opening statement that he doesn’t read books…
http://www.meldrum-pri.aberdeenshire.sch.uk/page47.html

Thanks to Stobes from Adelaide United’s red Army for the find. By the way he’s in a band called ‘Aaagh Cobras!’ their website is here:
http://www.reverbnation.com/aaaghcobras

Goal of the week – Kenny Miller

*Danny apologizes to any Maltese people offended by this comment and promises to donate money to a Maltese charity. Or buy a packet of Maltesers.

Monday 7th November

A League – Melbourne Victory had two men sent off in the first half hour in their epic clash with Brisbane Roar, including their fill-in keeper Ante Covic, meaning the home side had to use their third choice keeper Lawrence Thomas, who up until that moment most fans had assumed was a visiting Dandenong High School student on work experience. With two extra players on the pitch, Brisbane dominated possession but were polite enough to keep actual shooting to a minimum. The match ended 2-2, Thomas earning his daily $5 paycheck

EPL – Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson celebrated 25 years in charge of the Red Devils on Saturday with a 1-0 win over Sunderland. Before the match, in a suprise to Ferguson, it was revealed that the North Stand at Old Trafford has been renamed the Sir Alex Ferguson stand. Fergie was clearly overwhelmed by the adulation, and stopped chewing gum for a record three seconds.

Champions League – With Barcelona, AC Milan and Real Madrid already qualified for the next round and Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United not far behind them, the Champions League is taking on a very predictable shape this year, with the exception of Group G where recent Europa winners Porto and Zenit St Petersburg are being led by Cypriot minnow Apoel FC.  This is a team whose most recent silverware was winning the 2010 Cypriot Supercup, which sounds logical until you realise that the Cypriot Supercup is actually a basketball competition.

Iran – Two footballers may face 74 lashes each after one’s  hand touched the other’s arse during goal celebrations. The two Persepolis FC players are accused of “Violating Public Chastity”. Adelaide United fans have petitioned heavily for Kevin Muscat to be  drafted to the Tehran side.

English Championship – Roy Keane is replacing Sven-Goran Erikkson the manager of Leicester City continuing the club’s heroic policy of signing managers who have not tasted any success in over a decade, Goran-Erikkson narrowly beat out Kim Beazley and the cast of The Renovators.

Goal of the Week –