27th February, 2012

Liverpool claimed its first piece of silverware in six years overnight when they defeated Cardiff City to claim the Carling Cup, sometimes called the League Cup, more accurately called the least-important cup. The match started well, with the Reds’ Glen Johnson firing a cracking shot off the crossbar in the third minute and then Joe Mason, with a nifty run beating the offside trap, gave Cardiff City the lead after eighteen minutes. From that moment on it became a titanic arm wrestle to see who could make the most howling errors. Shots sprayed wide, players passed directly to their opponents, this was slapstick football. Dirk Kuyt accidentally gave Liverpool the lead when he tripped on a deceptively flat piece of grass and the ball bounced from his foot into the net. With seconds remaining though Cardiff City equalized by falling for a classic nobody-touch-the-ball-when-defending-a-corner manoeuvre executed brilliantly by the Reds. In the deciding penalty shoot out, Cardiff proved they were more committed to their trophy drought, and duly aimed for the crowd, giving the Scousers the win.

This next story is not for the romantics. For years Arsenal have dominated the North London Derby and their arch rivals Tottenham have played second fiddle for the best part of forever. Last night though, a change was in the air. Hotspur are having a fantastic season under Harry Redknapp and Arsenal are going from crisis to crisis. The match was running to script with Tottenham taking a 2-0 lead in the first half. Then, depending on your allegiances, the worst capitulation in the history of the game occurred or the most groin grabbingly delicious comeback happened. Arsenal piled on five unanswered goals and broke the hearts and souls of the Spurs. Wenger completely out-coached Redknapp, and as an Australian with Irish heritage I proclaim – HARRY FOR ENGLAND!

The Gold Coast United owner Clive Palmer vs the FFA saga continued this week with both parties mudslinging through the media. United broke A-League rules when they covered their sponsors logo with the words FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Presumably Palmer feels he is being stifled. The richest man in Queensland who is a life member and former spokesman for the Liberal-National Party, who capped attendances at GCU matches at 2,000 to save money is being hard done by and apparently having his human rights violated. As we said last week – Weapons Grade Dickhead.

NB – If next week GCU play with their shirt sponsor covered with the phrase RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS then all is forgiven Clive you comedy genius.

In Italy the battle for the Serie A has heated right up with the top two sides AC Milan & Juventus playing out a controversial 1-1 draw at the San Siro. Both sides had perfectly legal goals disallowed and the gap at the top of the table is only one point. Tensions may rise between the two sets of fans, and somewhere in Milan or Turin, we would be set for the most well-dressed fan brawl the world has ever seen.

This Wednesday Australia takes on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in a World Cup Qualifier. The Socceroos have already progressed to the next round so this blogger is expecting a light hearted atmosphere at Melbourne’s AAMI Park. Am already working on some chants about how women can vote and drive cars.

Goal of the Week – Cristiano Ronaldo

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Feb 20th, 2012

You read it here first! [Provided you didn’t read any other football media] Glasgow Rangers Football Club are in administration! The penniless club owe, amongst others, Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs over 9 million pounds in unpaid VAT and other taxes. Not to mention another possible 75 million pounds depending on the outcome of a court case due to be ruled on in the coming weeks. This has caused celebrations for supporters of rival clubs and a variety of emotions for the Rangers fans, from stoic resolve to blatant rage. On Saturday the Glasgow club played their first match since going into administration at home against Kilmarnock. The rallying cry from manager Ally McCoist was “We don’t do walking way”. This was proven false as the majority of fans left when Kilmarnock took a 1-0 lead in the first half.

Although not quite as bad as it was for Rangers, it was a pretty awful week for Arsenal. The North London giants were thrashed in the Champions League 4-0 by AC Milan, and then the Gunners were bundled out of the FA Cup by Sunderland. Manager Arsene Wenger has been told he will ‘never be sacked’ as coach, but since Arsenal’s most famous fan, Queen Elizabeth, is celebrating her diamond jubilee this year, she may wish to celebrate by the traditional way – by executing a few Frenchies. Stay tuned…

Keeping with royal football fans – Prince Charles this week revealed himself as a Burnley fan. This didn’t help the Championship side as they lost 1-0 to Reading, a team ironically nicknamed ‘The Royals’. Prince William is an Aston Villa fan, and Harry is an Arsenal fan, although he prefers rugby, like his father James Hewitt. It was a bad week for almost all the celeb owned teams in England. Delia Smith’s Norwich were defeated by Leicester; Elton John’s Watford lost on the weekend to Crystal Palace but Robbie Williams’ Port Vale enjoyed a 2-1 win over Gillingham.

Gold Coast United are seemingly at death’s door after their chairman Clive Palmer admitted he doesn’t even like soccer. Coach Miron Bleiberg has quit the club following internal turmoil. The high turnover rate of players is blamed mostly on Palmer who is a weapons grade dickhead, offering only one year contracts, timeshares and Dreamworld tickets as payment.

This happened a few weeks back but due to technological incompetence I can only publish it now – Chelsea misspelling their own website.

Goal of the week –

February 13th, 2012

The biggest story to come out of the UK this week was the grudge match between Manchester United and Liverpool, but more importantly Luis Suarez and Patrice Evra. This was the first time the two players had faced off since Suarez was banned for eight matches for racially abusing the Senegal born Evra. In the moments before the match Suarez refused to shake hands with his rival, despite Evra grabbing the Uruguayan’s arm in an attempt to force some decency into the Liverpool striker. Karma smiled on the Red Devils and they prevailed 2-1. However their fortune with the football gods may be short lived after Evra gloated openly in front of Suarez and a United fan was quoted on a post match radio phone in as saying “Suarez is a filthy racist, like all Uruguayans”.

The other big news in England was the shock resignation of Fabio Capello. The national team manager walked away from his post after John Terry was stripped of captaincy. The English now have no coach or captain going into the Euro 2012 finals in a few months. Bookmakers have Tottenham’s Harry Redknapp as favourite to replace Capello as England manager. Redknapp last week was acquitted of offshore tax evasion by the Crown Court. The contract, rumoured to be worth millions, will of course be paid in unmarked bills to Redknapp’s dog’s deposit box in the Cayman islands.

Capello will go back to his old job of playing Postman Pat.

Zambia took out the African Cup of Nations early this morning with a dramatic 8-7 penalty shoot out against Ivory Coast. The good thing for sports journalists is every team in the tournament is a Cinderella story with a real heart breaking background. Except for that odd year where the Gaddafi family won it. We don’t talk about that.

In the A-league there was a return to more nostalgic days when all the former Champions recorded wins – Melbourne Victory, Sydney FC, Newcastle and Brisbane all took maximum points. To keep with the feel, Sun Herald columnist Craig Foster moved away from his controversial articles and returned to simply stating the bleeding obvious. Foster’s point this week was that choosing a football manager is a tough decision. Dizzy stuff.

The most exciting title race in Europe is happening in the Bundesliga. The top four teams, Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich, Schalke 04 and Borussia Monchengladbach are all separated by a mere five points. It’s anyone’s guess as to who will be crowned German champions. This blog is hoping not Monchengladbech after they progressed to the semi finals of the Cup with one of the most comical dives this blogger has ever seen…

http://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/xogguw_hertha-bsc-0-2-monchengladbach-dfb-pokal_sport
Hertha BSC 0-2 Monchengladbach (DFB Pokal) by goalsarena2012-2

Goal of the Week:

February 6th 2012

Manchester United and Chelsea played out a classic 3-3 draw at Stamford bridge overnight. The Blues took a 3-0 lead just after half time, with Fernando Torres playing the unlikely role of competent footballer. However United were awarded two penalties, one fair, one harsh, and it seemed inevitable when they equalised with five minutes to go.

There are some relieved members of the London Police Force today after traditional rivals West Ham United and Millwall played out a relatively peaceful match. In 2009 fans clashed outside the stadium injuring 20 people. These fiery scenes were successfully avoided by only allowing a small number of Millwall fans to attend the match. Those lucky enough to get tickets had to stay inside a special cardboard fort and could only make noise when they were holding the ‘talking stick’.

Melbourne Victory and Heart played the final derby of the season to finally decide whose season was the bigger disappointment. Somehow they both lost.

Australia’s chances of playing football at this year’s Olympics took a dive with a 2-0 qualifying loss to Uzbekistan. The Olyroos struggled in the -12 degree conditions despite manager Aurelio Vidmar doing everything he could for the squad including hiring a personal chef for the trip. The downfall of this strategy was the that chef had been told to prepare the team for London cuisine so every meal was prawn sandwiches, curry chips and a side order of deep fried sadness.

Scottish Football could be about to be turned on its head with Glasgow Rangers on the brink of liquidation. In a nutshell – Rangers owner Craig Whyte has borrowed against the income of the next four years worth of seasons tickets meaning the club will have very limited income in the next few years. Combine this with a court case regarding an alleged tax scam which could cost the club over 50 million pounds, and things are bleak for the blue half of Glasgow. To add to their woes, Rangers were knocked out of the Scottish Cup by Dundee United last night. [There’s no joke here, I’m a Celtic fan so this is just a bit of schadenfreude I’m afraid.]

Goals of the week –
You may have seen this one on Fox Sports FC but reader Jeremy Dooley spotted it first!

here’s another one in case you already saw the previous one