Back in March, when the MLS season was still in its primordial stage, I wrote this about Montreal's
well-attended, spirited opener. It was something to behold, a star being born in the inky darkness
from a spasm of pure energy. It was an incredibly encouraging thing. And, for most MLS fans, it was
more or less a sign that they could stop paying attention to the Impact.
The Portland Timbers came into their match in Denver against the Colorado Rapids with plenty of
positives and a burst of confidence after a big win against Seattle. The positives and confidence,
however, weren't nearly enough to overcome the Rapids at home and the Timbers absorbed one of their
worst defeats in 2012 in losing 3 to 0.
So it's Stoke on a warm Sunday afternoon. Will it be any different? The scenario might not match
the cliche but the football most certainly will. This is a classic battle between two diametrically
opposite philosophies where both sides understand the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition.
It just boils down to the execution on a given day.
Reports are circulating that 6ft 8in Ivory Coast forward Lucina Traore is set to become Brendan
Rodgers' first signing as Liverpool manager. The Reds are said to be close to securing a deal forÂ
ÂŁ6.4 million.
Traore notched up 18 goals in his first season with Russian Premier League side FC Kuban
Krasnodar having burst onto the scene during his time at Romanian side Cluj.
There's apparently a bit of disagreement about whether or not Liverpool performed that poorly
yesterday some maintain that they weren't necessarily that bad, and had they not had the
potential go-ahead goal waved off by Lee Mason, they'd have pushed on to get the win. I'm still of
the opinion that they were an embarrassing calamity for most of the match and gave a poor account
of themselves, tired or unlucky or whatever else.
Tottenham Hotspur tonight moved level on points with second placed Manchester United after a
performance of patience and high quality.
Everton turned up at The Lane as many teams now do, to sit deep and try and frustrate Spurs.
It's to the credit of Harry Redknapp and his team that they didn't get frustrated and saw the
opposition off to seal the points.
In the 2011/12 season we are approximately 35% of the way through the campaign and it is the
same two players who stand out on the world stage as usual. Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.
Since Cristiano Ronaldo joined Real Madrid in the summer of 2009 he has scored 106 goals in 108
matches, an incredible feat that would appear unbeatable in the modern age.
The curtain was well and truly raised by Chelsea and Man City at Villa Park, with the two
megbucks teams playing out a very entertaining clash.
Chelsea, starting with Belgian new-boy Eden Hazard (who did feck all), opened the scoring on 40
minutes courtesy of a rinky-dinky finish from Fernando Torres.
It probably shouldn't be, but everything about this strange and unsettling (especially those
eerie freeze-frame eyes at 0:35)...
"Police burst into the laboratory to find several half-naked bodies floating in the
blood-specked pool, as if someone had thrown a toaster into a pond full of Koi carp.
Valencia's Ever Banega has made a red hot start to the new season so much so that his brand new
Ferrari burst into flames while he was driving. The Argentine midfielder worked away unscathed from
the fire, which was reportedly caused by a short circuit. The video above comically shows Banega
asking for a [.
United Still Chasing RVP: by SV There has recently been a short burst of optimism surrounding RVP's
future, amid reports of a U-turn on the part of Robin van Persie, but we have been soundly brought
back down to Earth again with a statement made by Alex Ferguson. Following United's penalty defeat
to Barcelona, the [.
European Championship takes a break. Well, till tomorrow any ways when the semi finals starts
off with Portugal taking on Spain. Gives us all a little breather and just a little more time think
about Arsenal. Now that most of the squads have left the the championship and head home, the
transfer dealings as well as the rumours will bound to pick up.
The Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger burst everybody's bubble today by saying that no deals are close
to completion at the moment for the Gunners, especially for Yann M'Vila who has been practically
signed and sealed by most websites (but not this one although we got slated for it lol!). Everybody
was kind of hoping to [.
54 years ago in Munich, 8 of Manchester United's brightest stars were killed when the aircraft
that was bringing them back home crashed. Along with them, 3 of the backroom staff, 8 journalists
and 2 other passengers also perished bringing the total casualty count to 21. Nothing could have
prepared the city of Manchester and indeed the whole footballing world for a tragedy of that
scale.
Goals:
FĂ bregas 14'
Alba 41'
Torres 84'
Matas 88'
The score line may flatter Spain, the by-product of Italy playing with 10 men for the last half an
hour, but that's the only thing which flatters Spain. There will be effusive praise, but it's not
exaggerated praise.
The Germans scored a bevvy of beauts to trounce the Greeks last night, with a couple of
scintillating volleys occurring along the way. First Sami Khedira burst past his man, got his
shinpad firmly behind it and wolfed one past Michalis Sifakis...
Then Andre Schurrle one-upped him by planting a corker in off the bar.
The Germans scored a bevvy of beauts to trounce the Greeks last night, with a couple of
scintillating volleys occurring along the way. First Sami Khedira burst past his man, got his
shinpad firmly behind it and wolfed one past Michalis Sifakis...
Then Marco Reus one-upped him by planting a corker in off the bar.
The Germans scored a bevvy of beauts to trounce the Greeks last night, with a couple of
scintillating volleys occurring along the way. First Sami Khedira burst past his man, got his
shinpad firmly behind it and wolfed one past Michalis Sifakis...
Then Andre Schurrle one-upped him by planting a corker in off the bar.
Counter-attacking football beats possession football, despite the latter coming from the "better"
side. And not for the first time. Russia, despite their mostly overwhelming superiority, did
similar yesterday.
This being a Liverpool blog, I'd be tempted to make a tenuous analogy regardless of circumstances,
but Liverpool fans have definitely seen this before.
Brilliant. You know I'm wearing my Chels top at work today. Possession numbers: horridly lopsided.
Chances: the ball was basically colored the shade of the Barca players' boots by game's end. But
thank God for London weather, Messi's 5-second burst of humanity after an ungraceful split at the
tail end of the first half and a cyborg striker named Didier Drogba.
In a world where any publicity is good publicity it's fantastic to see football, yes women's
football on the front page of the SMH.
http://www.smh.com.au/sport/football/spectacular-own-goal-as-star-forced-to-choose-codes-20120529-1zhh2.html#utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=tweetbutton
Not an alcohol fueled article or a wife bashing court case - no a stoush between a Coach Jitka
Klimkova who simply wants her players to train full-on and be available for all games, including
semi-finals and finals and a talented dual international, Ellyse Perry.
We've semi-regularly tried to post a Friday "What to Watch this Weekend" (WtWtW) viewing guide.
Starting today, we'll aim to bookend that with a companion "What We Watched this Weekend" (WWWtW)
summary pulled primarily from weekend email chatter among the CultFootball crew, maybe spiced up
with some video highlights.
After a burst of news last month, the story concerning Houston Rockets' owner Les Alexander
buying the Dynamo went silent, but that doesn't mean the wheels weren't turning behind the
scenes.
According to separate reports from the Sporting News and the Chronicle, the deal is progressing
and couple be wrapped up within the month.
Usually when I find an episode of Inspector Morse on television it's about halfway through. I
don't mind though – I quite like to just see what they're all doing, John Thaw's character being
particularly intriguing to me. Hade doesn't like this – if we've missed the start we won't know
what's happened, will we?
I recently answered some questions on Lucas Moura for the Manchester Evening News. The
article can be seen here, but below are all the questions and my answers.
MEN: First of all for those who haven't seen him, how would you describe Moura
and who has been most likened to in Brazil?
While we were waiting for the van Win had to get something off his chest. "Listen," he said with
gravity, "the money is getting huge now. What I want you to know is that, after every game' we can
decide to quit and take the money. Or we can continue to the next game, thereby risking losing it
all.
A bright first 15-20 minutes in which we probably should have been more clinical. However, without
Lennon we have no shape and the attacks are rare and the match quickly turned sloppy. Chelsea
probably should have won it and we could have nicked it at the end and a draw was probably a fair
result. Did you also notice John Terry was wearing white boots?
We sit and we watch. Sometimes we cheer, we jump, raise our arms, shout, scream, moan, groan,
put our head in our hands, yawn, eat a sandwich, chat about something else, but more or less enjoy
the game.
Not everyone. Some people see football as a chance to 'let off steam', to shout at the referee
over minor infringements, to argue every 50/50 decision even if it probably was made correctly.
