May 27th, 2013

And there we go – that’s club football over for another season!
On Saturday night Bayern Munich defeated Borussia Dortmund 2-1 to be crowned champions of Europe. The all German final, which was nicknamed “The Sausagefest” by certain bloggers, was decided by a bit of Frank Ribery and Arjen Robben magic in the dying minutes. Munich has not celebrated this hard since… well, last October.

What to watch during the off season? Well there’s the Socceroos’ final World Cup Qualifiers, against traditional rivals Japan, Jordan and Iraq. We should be okay. Don’t listen to the panic of the mainstream media. For calm analysis just follow me on twitter @dannymcginlay where I also RT funny jokes.

Keeping with international matches, the Confederations Cup will play out in Brazil next month. This is a dress rehearsal for next year’s world cup and is played out by all the great sides – Brazil, Spain, Italy, Nigeria, Mexico, Uruguay, Japan and of course Tahiti. This blogger is completely on Team Tahiti as all of Australia should be! A phrase you will hear a lot over the next month – Tahiti’s On! [Say it aloud… still don’t get it? Neither did my wife. But English isn’t her first language.]

To end the year I leave you with my three favourite moments of the 2012-2013 season.
#3 Celtic 2-1 Barcelona.
The Glasgow club were celebrating their 125th birthday, and they did it by defeating the greatest team in the world! Fairytale stuff. The only thing that ruins the memory of that night is the music in this video – I really tried to get better highlights. Sorry.

#2 Victory 2-1 Heart
For some reason the Victorians always struggled to beat their cross town rivals Heart, and at the Christmas Derby it looked like the boys in red had scored an unlikely draw – but Archie Thompson had other thoughts –

#1 Cute Kid 1-0 Desire to not have kids.
The Chelsea reserve goalkeeper Ross Turnbull’s two year old son takes over the end of season speeches by scoring the cutest goal in the history of everything.

20th May 2013

The English Premier League finished overnight, the final day big winners were Arsenal, who maintained their one point lead over Tottenham Hotspur to keep 4th spot and therefore a place in next year’s Champions League. Poor old Tottenham really are the Washington Generals to the Gunners, or is there something else at stake? Tottenham are the only team in the Premier League to not be awarded a penalty all season long, and were indeed denied seemingly obvious ones yesterday. Rumours that Arsenal’s winning goal was scored via a stepladder have remained unconfirmed.

David Beckham announced his retirement from all forms of Football during the week. Horribly it seems a career in commentating seems inevitable.

Although the Football season is winding up there’s still some interesting matchers to go this weekend – Sunday morning Australian time is the Champions League Final – Borussia Dortmund v Bayern Munich, Monday morning is both the Scottish Cup Final between Celtic and Hibernian, a classic Glasgow v Edinburgh clash, and also the Premier League playoff decider – who will be in the top tier next year? Watford v Crystal Palace. Watford’s most famous fan is Elton John, Palace’s is Eddie Izzard. All that is known is this will be the most fabulously dressed play off ever.

And apart from that….. it’s all a bit quiet…. Anything else? Anderlecht won the Belgiun league. Tim Cahill scored the winner for New York Red Bulls… yeah okay when I’m talking about American soccer thats my cue to leave it there. Oh look below – a great goal!
Goal of the Week –

May 13th, 2013

On Saturday night the FA Cup proved to be magical with underdogs Wigan Athletic upsetting the moneybags of Manchester City 1-0 to claim the trophy. It was dramatic to the end with Ben Watson heading home the winner in injury time. It’s the first time in its 81 year history that Wigan has won some major silverware, not counting the World Pie Eating Contest. ***

You probably already heard but Sir Alex Ferguson has retired as the manager of Manchester United. Fergie won 13 league titles with the Red Devils and the Champions League twice. United have replaced the wee angry Scotsman who never smiles with David Moyes, who is a wee angry Scotsman who never smiles. Apparently after Moyes finishes his time managing the club the next in line is Groundskeeper Willie.
The media have talked about Sir Alex’s achievements but the reason for his retirement is pretty obvious, he was clearly petrified of taking on Ange Postecoglou and the A-League All Stars in July. Understandable.

Staying in England and the Championship play-offs have begun – those vying for a spot in the Premier League next year are Brighton, Crystal Palace, Watford and Leicester. Well Leicester was in the running, but not anymore. They cocked it up royally! In one of the most dramatic ends to a match in recent history, Leicester had a penalty awarded to them in injury time, but it was saved. Watford then ran the ball up the other end and scored the actual winner, all within 20 seconds. Brighton and Crystal Palace play off tomorrow morning Australian time – can they match the drama? Not likely, the first leg ended as a 0-0 snorefest.
***[Not a cheap joke, factually correct, seriously, google it.]

No matter how bad you’re day is going, take a moment to be grateful that you are not this Slovenian goalkeeper –

May 6th, 2013

As I wrote last week, it’s a weird time for football as most of the big leagues’ champions have been decided. What I didn’t realize is, so many English Premier League players must read my blog! My words seemed to have influenced the players from Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Everton. Last night was supposed to be a “Super Sunday”, where the EPL program some juicy grudge matches and derbies for the viewing public, however in both the Merseyside Derby and the Chelsea v Man Utd match all players put in very dull performances. The early match finished Liverpool 0-0 Everton, the later match ended as a 1-0 win to Chelsea, but only because United defender Phil Jones was so bored he kicked an own goal to liven things up. A few minutes later Rafael Da Silva was sent off for allegedly telling David Luiz a joke that was deemed too funny. Well thats the only explanation I have, because David Luiz was on the floor laughing. Surely a Chelsea player wouldn’t take a dive just to get an opponent sent off? No. It must be because of a funny joke. What’s Spanish for “My dog has no nose?” Classic.

Staying in Europe and a few more of the big leagues have crowned their winners. Juventus unsurprisingly taken the Italian title. True to form Juve won the match on a questionable penalty, the fans were elated, the coaches excited and the referee looked like he’d just won the lottery.

The Dutch league has been won by Ajax. Now the Eredivisie is probably the least known of the major European leagues here in Australia. So a bit about Ajax – they’re from Amsterdam, wear red and white, are the most supported club in the Netherlands, and have strong Jewish roots. I couldn’t find any celebrity fans of Ajax [pron. Aye-ax] but going by these parameters we can assume famous diarist Anne Frank was a supporter.

Galatasaray have won the Turkish league over fellow Istanbul teams Fenerbahce and Besiktas. Although the current Galatasaray team boasts Dider Drogba and Wesley Sneijder, according to the Australian media it is all due to the talents of Harry Kewell and Lucas Neill who both played for the club in the last five years. That’s clearly a joke, there’s no media coverage of soccer in Australia right now.

The Champions League final will be, as predicted, an all German affair with Bayern Munich taking on Borussia Dortmund. The two sides met in a league match overnight which ended in fights between players and staff alike. Bayern are the favourites to win the decider which happens on May 25th. Now I know what Aussies are like so I will save you some research – Uter from The Simpsons is from Dusseldorf which is geographically closer to Dortmund so he would be supporting Borussia.

Goal of the Week: