January 7th, 2013

Last night’s A-League match of the round lived up to its hype with the Central Coast Mariners seeing off a dogged Western Sydney Wanderers in a fast paced, entertaining match. To be honest though, this blogger didn’t get to watch the match as last night was Orthodox Christmas and I was celebrating with my Ukrainian in-laws. But through my vodka-and-borscht flavoured hangover I have read some reports of the match in the NSW media and apparently it was amazing. One leading Sydney broadsheet called it, “The best game of wog-ball in the world, the only bad bit right was when that prick Daniel McBreen scored a try in each half, which meant Parramatta Wanderers lost, but that McBreen bloke should be really good for us in Origin.”

Over in the UK and it was FA Cup weekend, meaning there were cracking matches all over the country but really people only really want to know which little teams upset Premier League teams. The only Premier League team knocked out by a lower league team were Newcastle, who were knocked out by Brighton & Hove Albion. Although it’s not that exciting considering Brighton are in the Championship, only one tier below Newcastle. The big upset came when Cardiff City were knocked out by non-league team Macclesfield Town. To explain the disparity between the two teams: you could fit the whole population of Macclesfield inside Cardiff’s stadium. As is tradition when one of the big Welsh teams suffer an embarrassing loss, rugby shirt sales have skyrocketed.

It’s transfer season – here are the latest rumours:
Lampard to leave Chelsea, possibly to a USA club
Michael Owen to Perth Glory
Mario Ballotelli to return to Milan
Cristiano Ronaldo to Paris-Saint Germaine
Shinji Ono to Manly Sea-Eagles. [Sorry… damn NSW media again]

In Italy, AC Milan have walked off the field in a friendly match against Pro Patria after the crowd chanted racist taunts at Ghanaian player Kevin Prince-Boateng. Many folk have applauded Milan for the move but not FIFA president Sepp Blatter who called the reaction ‘inappropriate’. Blatter has reminded all players that FIFA’s official stance on dealing with racism is that players ignore the racism and hope really really hard that it will stop.
The Guardian have released their list of top 100 footballers of the moment. Unsurprisingly the top two are Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, but what is surprising is that no Australians or even A League players made the list. To remedy this I have sent the following highlight reel to The Guardian

Goal of the Week – [blink and you’ll miss it]

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January 23rd, 2012

The Manchester clubs continued their dominance of the EPL. United saw off a hapless Arsenal who’s fans are turning on their fearless leader Arsene Wenger. Wenger admitted he made a “tactical error” by substituting Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain with Andrey Arsharvin in the 74th minute. Wenger justified his change by saying that Oxlade-Chamberlain was sick during the week, stopping just short of producing a note from Alex’s mother. Wenger’s excuses are almost as baffling as Robin Van Persie’s goal celebration where he produced a T shirt which seemed to wish Oprah Winfrey a happy 91st birthday.

 

Manchester City continued their home unbeaten run with a last minute penalty to snatch a 3-2 victory against Tottenham Hotspur. There were four goals in ten minutes, all of them brilliant in their own way: A Gareth Bale wondergoal, a Jermain Defoe suckerpunch, a pin point pass by David Silva to Samir Nasri, and Joleon Lescott even scored a try from a corner. As usual the talking point is Mario Ballotelli who attempted to squash Scott Parker’s nose with his heel. However, as he missed this is considered within the rules of the game.

Melbourne Victory continued their nightmare season with a 4-1 defeat by a dominant Perth Glory. New manager Jim Magilton said he was shocked and disappointed by the performance, he blamed a lack of confidence within players. This is contrary to popular belief that the form slump is due to a lack of any defensive talent.

Jim Magilton has been the subject of a major spat between broadcasters Craig Foster and Robbie Slater. Foster condemned the appointment of Magilton in his Sunday newspaper column, saying Australian soccer shouldn’t be reliant on Britons. Slater then accused Foster of racism. Both broadcasters seem to miss the fact that as Magilton is Northern Irish he is not British at all.
[Fact: Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom but not Britain, rather a touchy subject for some people, some of whom are blood relatives of this blogger]

Goal of the week – Miroslav Stoch of Fenerbache: