16th December, 2013

As the majority of teams in the A-League go about the business of confusing the shite out of punters by losing games they should win and vice-versa. Brisbane Roar has been grinding out solid wins over the past month and suddenly have a five point gap on second place Western Sydney Wanderers. The majority of these matches have been won by a solitary goal. Positive football fans would say that Roar is implementing inspired Mourinho style tactics to achieve victory, but most of us would agree they’re boring the other teams to sleep.

The big match overnight was Liverpool thumping Tottenham Hotspur 5-0, putting the Reds in second place on the EPL ladder and placing Spurs manager Andres Villas-Boas under intense pressure to resign. Tottenham fans took to social media demanding @AVB leave the club immediately. Sadly @AVB is the twitter handle of Ashley Van Buren, a musical theatre fan from New York City. Ashley responded to angry Spurs fans with musical lyrics. Including a certain song from Carousel that Liverpool fans know quite well.

Andres Villas Boas could go for the job of manager of West Bromwich Albion after they sacked Steve Clarke after four straight losses. Australia’s West Brom fans were shocked until they remembered they were actually West Ham fans and went back to checking facebook.

Saturday night saw one of the matches of the season when Manchester City defeated Arsenal 6-3. Gunners fans are claiming that the referee got several offside decisions wrong. This blogger has watched several replays using slow motion and a protractor and I can honestly say they have a case and should have lost 6-4. Maintain the rage!

Goal of the Week – Gary Hooper from Norwich

December 9th, 2013

All talk this weekend has been about how Australia has been drawn in the World Cup’s “Group of Death”. Lazy journalists say this every tournament so they’ll be relieved that this time it’s actually true. Australia will have to play Champions Spain, runners up Netherlands and the technically gifted Chile. Are we effed? Yeah pretty much, but if you want some optimism here you go –
1. Everyone will underestimate us. This is ideal for the Socceroos, we play our best football when we’ve been written off. See the entire 2006 World Cup campaign, plus our defeat of Serbia in the 2010 tournament. For more examples of underdogs prevailing, see any Disney film ever made.
2. Ange Postecoglou is a properly brilliant coach. He can make mediocre players do amazing things. The bigger the stage, the better his troops perform.
3. Alphabetically we win the group. Sadly not the whole tournament [stupid Algeria] but coming runners up is great for the game in this country.
4. Actually now that I think about it. We have two Disney style storylines happening in our squad. We have the young kids who nobody really believes in [Rogic, Kruse etc] who are like The Mighty Ducks, but also the old guard [Neill, Cahill, Bresciano] coming together for one last heist – like The Wild Bunch or Space Cowboys if you’re young. If we can just find some sort of talking animal, this World Cup is ours!

In other brief news – Manchester United lost at home again! This time to Newcastle. It’s looking like a very real possibility that the Red Devils may not even qualify for the Champions League. They’re 13 points adrift of league leaders Arsenal and three games behind rivals Liverpool & Man City. Coach David Moyes has remained on cliché, pleading with fans to “Keep the Faith” and that “There’s light at the end of the tunnel”. Sadly for Moyes the only cliché he’ll be saying at his next job might be “Big Issue”

In Major League Soccer – two of the most optimistically named American teams played off for the MLS Cup last night. Sporting Kansas City thrilled fans of Portuguese-Midwest sports franchises by defeating Real Salt Lake City in a penalty shoot out. Although this result has devastated Morman Spaniards worldwide, there’s always next year, or as they say in Salt Lake City – tomorrow is a latter day.

Goal of the Week comes from Groundskeeper Willie’s team – Aberdeen!

2nd December 2013

It’s going to be an odd Football Bluff this week. Normally I like to watch my team [Celtic] before I start reporting on all the other matches. However since we’re already up 5-0 at half time I figure I can safely assume we’ve got this won. It’s always awkward searching through match reports whilst trying to avoid a specific one… but I digress…

The best A-League match this weekend was the battle of the cellar dwellers. Melbourne Heart v Adelaide United. Although the quality of football wasn’t that high, both these teams have defence like a broken foosball table. Adelaide went 2-0 up within twenty minutes. Heart tried to respond but their strange tactic of kicking the ball anywhere but into the goal limited their scoring chances. Dead Manager Walking John Aloisi changed that tactic in the second half and with fifteen minutes left, Heart lead 3-2. Although the final goal was thanks to a hand ball penalty against Tarek Elrich, which was impressive considering he touched the ball with his chest. Adelaide equalised five minutes later and the match ended 3-3.

Ooh Celtic scored again, 6-0 now.

Martin Jol has been sacked as Fulham manager after a poor start to the year. Providing football fans worldwide a timely reminder that Fulham exist.

Liverpool have returned to their choking ways, losing 3-1 to Hull. Arguably it should have been a 3-1 win to the Reds but that pesky rule of you have to put the ball in the other teams goal in order for you to score meant the own goals went against Liverpool.

7-0 to Celtic now. I feel sorry for Hearts… but I’m sure that will pass.

Juventus are back on top of the Serie A table. Which will no doubt please certain members of the Italian “waste management” industry.

Goal of the Week – I’m gonna put in one from the match I watched whilst I wrote this – Mikael Lustig’s brilliant shot that put us 5-0 up! The match finished 7-0 by the way.