May 21st, 2012

Chelsea are the champions of Europe. The Blues became the first ever London team to claim the Champions League trophy on Sunday morning Australian time. Pundits and fans alike are praising Chelsea’s amazing game plan which was to bore Bayern Munich to sleep then hope that they win on penalties. It worked beautifully! West London erupted with joy once they were roused from their slumber and told the good news.

East London is just as happy with West Ham United claiming their place in the Premier League next season by defeating Blackpool in the promotion decider. Will the Hammers have a disappointing season and be in constant fear of relegation? Or are the dreamers correct and could West Ham maybe, just maybe, finish better than ever before – in ninth place.

They’re not as happy in Turin, with Juventus finally losing their first match of the whole campaign. Sadly for them it was the final of the Coppa Italia. Napoli’s triumph is their first silverware in twenty two years. This rare loss to Juve means of course the referee has “disappeared”.

The newest A-League team has a coach, Tony Popovic will manage the Western Sydney franchise in its debut season. It has also been revealed that the team will wear red, black and white. What the club doesn’t have is a name. According to public forums the front running names for the new team are: Western Sydney Athletic, Western Sydney Wanderers, Western Sydney Strikers, Western Sydney Wolves and Western Sydney Rangers. Proving that Football in Australia still lacks even the slightest imagination.

Mind you, it’s very easy to tease people for not having come up with good names, but much harder to actually come up with a name yourself. So this blogger has done some research to see if he can help out. According to Wikipedia there are nineteen different ways to name a club – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_football_club_names
The way I like best is to name a club after a landmark or geographical feature. For example Nottingham Forest is named after the towns proximity to a forest, Ukrainian club Karpaty Lviv is named after the Carpathian Mountains or the Baltimore Americans are named after which country they live in. According to Wikipedia, there are many landmarks and features worthy of note in Western Sydney, so based on their evidence I present to you – The Western Sydney Westfield Shoppingtowns. You’re welcome.

This will be the last football bluff for a while due to the season being over in most nations. Thanks for reading – I will give some updates during the Euro Finals next month so keep an eye on twitter – @dannymcginlay

Goal of the week –

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March 12th 2012

For the first time in almost five months, Manchester City is not on top of the English Premier League. The blue half of Manchester is very much in panic stations as the familiar story of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory seems to be playing out. Their cross town rivals United are more than happy to play the role of pantomime villain and take the top spot. In footballing terms City fans are right to panic, the team are lacking fluency and seem out of sorts; however the Sky Blue fans can take solace in the fact that they are playing to perfection the role of the Mighty Ducks. It’s the classic tale – Multi Millionaire Arab Sheik collects ragtag group of misfit top-rated footballers. At first they don’t get along but then things finally begin to gel… things go bad before the end of the season to set up a plucky heart warming victory at the end. Trust me City fans, it’ll all be okay when Carlos Tevez and Mario Ballotelli learn the true meaning of friendship…

Unless of course the rumours that City are about to snatch Robin Van Persie from Arsenal are true. Then the overly rich bastards can keep losing, serves them right. Stop trying to buy trophies and try and bring a positive culture to the club.

On a less ranty note – for the first time ever in European club competition it seems there will be no English teams in the Quarter Finals of the Champions League or Europa League. Chelsea are England’s last hope but they trail Napoli 3-1 going into the second leg. Danny’s Football Bluff favourites Apoel from Cyprus continued their fairytale run by defeating French giants Lyon. They have joined Barcelona, Benfica and AC Milan. For those unfamiliar with Apoel their last trophy was the 2010 Cypriot Supercup – a basketball trophy.

Closer to home and the Socceroos’ road to Brazil was revealed as the final round of World Cup Qualifiers was announced on Friday night. Our lads will play Oman, Japan, Jordan and Iraq. Australia is the favourite to progress to the finals, however we might not be guaranteed of that until June 2013. In the meantime we have friendlies lined up against Denmark for the Frederick-Mary Cup and Scotland for the Liver Cirrhosis Shield.

Yesterday I watched Brisbane Roar play Adelaide United with a friend from England who had not watched A-league. After reassuring him that the Australian competition was not as bad as he imagined, we were then treated to the most inept finishing in the history of sport. A team of blind amputee donkeys would have had better finishing. Even after they’d been shot.

To distract from this horror show – here is proof that other competitions have shockers too:

Goal of the Week – [Forgive the music]