Footie Girl

World Cup Preview: Group D

2010-06-11T11:36:00.001-04:00

Australia
Nickname: The Socceroos
FIFA ranking: 20
How they got here: Cruised through, after switching from Oceania to the Asian confederation -- which meant that they no longer had to win a play-off against a South American team to qualify.
Record in previous tournaments: Knocked out at the round of 16 in 2006 -- their best-ever finish -- after a controversial game against Italy.
Manager: Pim Verbeek, previously the assistant to Magical Guus Hiddink^TM and manager of South Korea.
Players to watch: Everton's Tim Cahill, an attacking midfielder with an uncanny ability to be in the right place to thump in a header, is the team's talisman. Apart from that, players like Lucas Neill and Brett Emerton are solid but not spectacular. Harry Kewell could provide some surprises from the wing, if he doesn't fall apart halfway through the tournament.

Germany
Nickname: They're called the Fußballnationalmannschaft, which isn't really a nickname (it means "the national men's football team") but is kind of awesomely homoerotic.
FIFA ranking: 6
How they got here: A stereotypically efficient campaing, as they topped their group in Europe.
Record in previous tournaments: Have won three times (1954, 1974 and 1990). Runners-up to Brazil in 2002, and finished third in 2006 after an extra-time loss to Italy in the semi-finals.
Manager: Joachim Löw, who was Jürgen Klinsmann's right-hand man in 2006.
Players to watch: Veteran striker Miroslav Klose has 48 goals in 93 international caps; he'll probably be partnered with Cologne's Lukas Podolski. Erstwhile captain Michael Ballack is out of the tournament with a knee injury, which is a big loss. Philipp Lahm is a talented (albeit pocket-sized) defender, but he doesn't have quite the same presence. Bastian Schweinsteiger will step into Ballack's place in the centre; also keep an eye on midfielder Mesut Ozil, just 21 years old.

Ghana
Nickname: The Black Stars
FIFA ranking: 32
How they got here: Struggled in the first round of qualifying but eased through their final group.
Record in previous tournaments: Lost to Germany at the round of 16 in 2006, their first appearance at the tournament.
Manager: Milovan Rajevac, who was previously a coach in Serbia.
Players to watch: Asamoah Gyan will probably be the lone striker, supported by Sulley Muntari and captain Stephen Appiah in midfield. But the absence of Chelsea's Michael Essien due to a knee injury
is a massive blow (notably, he was suspended for that loss against Germany in 2006).

Serbia
Nickname: The White Eagles
FIFA ranking: 15
How they got here: Top of a qualifying group that included France and Romania.
Record in previous tournaments: This is Serbia's first World Cup as a fully independent nation. But they had a number of quarter-final appearances and one fourth-place finish (in 1962) as part of Yugoslavia.
Manager: Radomir Antic, who took over in 2008 after a variety of coaching gigs in Spain.
Players to watch: Manchester United's Nemanja Vidic, who has the killer robot look that you expect from a world-class centre-back. Captain Dejan Stankovic, who's fresh from winning the Champions League with Inter, will be pulling the strings in midfield, while Milan Jovanovic is a threat on the wing.

Verdict on the group
This is a tough one to call -- especially after the injuries to Ballack and Essien, the teams could be quite evenly matched. I do expect Germany to go through, because the Germans just don't get knodked out at the group stage. They just don't. As for the second team, I was going to pick Australia, but looking at the order of their matches (starting against Germany is never a good thing), I'm going to vote for Serbia instead.

World Cup Preview: Group C

2010-06-11T10:44:00.001-04:00

Algeria
Nickname: Les Fennecs (the desert foxes)
FIFA ranking: 30
How they got here: Won a tiebreaker with Egypt after the two teams ended qualification tied at the top of their group.
Record in previous tournaments: Have appeared at the World Cup twice, in 1982 and 1986, and went out at the group stage both times.
Manager: Rabah Saadane, who's been coaching the national side off and on for years.
Players to watch: They don't have anyone that I've ever heard of, but apparently midfielder Karim Ziani is a Zidane-style playmaker.

England
Nickname: The Three Lions
FIFA ranking: 8
How they got here: Cruised through qualification with nine wins -- including two cathartic wallopings of Croatia -- and only one loss.
Record in previous tournaments: Won it all in 1966 but haven't been able to repeat away from home. Knocked out in the quarter-finals in both 2002 and 2006.
Manager: Fabio Capello, who won just about everything in Europe before coming to England to give the team the discipline they sorely lacked.
Players to watch: Wayne Rooney. Wayne Rooney. Wayne Rooney. Beyond him, they have lots of other top-class players, like Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard in midfield. The question right now is who will be fit (captain Rio Ferdinand has already been knocked out with a knee injury) and what formation Capello will use to get them to work together effectively as a team.

Slovenia
Nickname: Zmajceki (the Dragons)
FIFA ranking: 25
How they got here: Finished second to Slovakia in their qualifying group, then -- somewhat surprisingly -- beat Russia in a playoff.
Record in previous tournaments: Have only been to the World Cup once before, in 2002 (which isn't all that bad, considering they weren't even a country) until 1991); didn't win a single game that time.
Manager: Matjaz Kek, who took over as senior coach in 2007 after managing the U15 and U16 teams.
Players to watch: Cologne striker Milivoje Novakovic leads the attack, supported by captain Robert Koren in midfield.

USA
Nickname: They don't seem to have one, and I think somebody (*eyes Amanda and Sarah*) should get on that. "USMNT" doesn't count: it's not a nickname, just a jumble of letters.
FIFA ranking: 14
How they got here: Came through all three stages easily, finishing ahead of arch-rivals Mexico in the final group.
Record in previous tournaments: Their best-ever finish was third place way back in 1930. They made it to the quarter-finals in 2002 but then flopped at the group stage in 2006.
Manager: Bob Bradley, who some of us suspect is actually a robot.
Players to watch: Attacking midfielder Landon Donovan usually gets all the press, although I don't think he's ever really lived up to his own hype. More interesting, to me, are players like Clint Dempsey, Jozy Altidore, and Michael Bradley (nepotism FTW!).

Verdict on the group
England's chances looked more robust a few months ago, before the squad --particularly the back line -- began getting hit with injuries. But I still have confidence in their ability to top the group, especially with Capello's steadying influence to overcome their usual combination of pre-tournament hubris + group-stage mediocrity + agonizing quarter-final penalty defeat. The USA look like a pretty solid bet for second; their opening group match with England on Saturday should be interesting.

World Cup Preview: Group B

2010-06-07T18:33:00.001-04:00

Argentina
Nickname: The Albicelestes, after their white and sky-blue shirts
FIFA ranking: 7
How they got here: Made hard work of things, including a humiliating 6-1 loss to Bolivia, but eventually qualified thanks to narrow wins in their last two games.
Record in previous tournaments: Have won twice before, in 1978 and 1986. Lost to Germany on penalties in the quarter-finals in 2006.
Manager: Diego Maradona, formerly known for being the Best Player in the World^TM and scoring against England with his hand. Now known for having gastric bypass surgery and running over reporters with his car.
Players to watch: Leo Messi, aka the new Maradona and the reigning Best Player in the World^TM, who can do absolutely ridiculous things with the ball at his feet. They've got plenty of other talent, too, with players like Carlos Tevez, Gonzalo Higuain, and Diego Milito all fighting for a place in the lineup. Somewhat inexplicably, Juan Sebastian Veron is back in the quad, while Juan Roman Riquelme has been left at home, along with Champions League winners Esteban Cambiasso and Javier Zanetti. Captain Javier Mascherano will be spending the tournament trying not to get sent off for cursing at the referee.

Greece
Nickname: Traditionally known as the Galanoleyki (the blue and whites); they also picked up the nickname of "The Pirate Ship" in 2004, which is baffling, considering that their style is hardly what you'd call swashbuckling.
FIFA ranking: 13
How they got here: Finished second in their qualifying group and then beat Ukraine in the playoffs.
Record in previous tournaments: Have made it to the World Cup only once before, in 1994, when they lost all three group matches and failed to score a single goal. They did win the Euros in 2004, although it wasn't pretty.
Manager: Otto Rehhagel, who led them to their European title and coached in the Bundesliga before that.
Players to watch: Bayer Leverkusen striker Theo Gekas, the top scorer in UEFA qualifying.

Korea Republic (aka South Korea)
Nickname: The Taeguk Warriors. (The taeguk is apparently that yin-yang symbol in the middle of the Korean flag.)
FIFA ranking: 47
How they got here: Were undefeated in qualifying from their group in Asia.
Record in previous tournaments: Made it to the semi-finals at home in 2002, but were knocked out at the group stage in 2006.
Manager: Huh Jung-Moo. Who? Yeah, me neither.
Players to watch: Midfielder Park Ji-Sung, nicknamed "Three-Lung" by Manchester United fans for his indefatigable workrate.

Nigeria
Nickname: The Super Eagles
FIFA ranking: 21
How they got here: Squeaked into the tournament with a 3-2 win over Kenya in their final game of the qualification rounds.
Record in previous tournaments: Failed to qualify in 2006. Their best-ever finish was the round of 16, in 1994 and 1998.
Manager: Lars Lagerback, who previously managed Sweden but took over with Nigeria after the Swedes failed to qualify for this tournament.
Players to watch: Plenty of pace up front with Obafemi Martins and Aiyegbeni Yakubu. But they'll miss the strong presence of Chelsea's Jon Obi Mikel in midfield.

Verdict on the group
Maradona is constantly changing his tactics, has made some bizarre choices for the squad, and doesn't seem to know how to get the best from Messi.
The team is like a Ferrari being driven by a retarded, drug-addled monkey.
Despite that, I'd still expect them to top the group, because they've just got too many good players. How far they get beyond that depends on how well they can rise above Maradona's limitations as a manager and really play as a team.

As for the second team to come out of this group, I don't think South Korea will be able to reproduce their dark-horse form of 2002, which leaves Greece or Nigeria. I'm voting for Nigeria, partly because of their quasi-home field advantage and partly because watching Greece makes me want to poke my eyes out with a shish kebab.

World Cup Preview: Group A

2010-06-07T17:31:00.003-04:00

France
Nickname: Les Bleus. They wear blue. Nobody said that they were imaginative.
FIFA ranking: 9
How they got here: Finished second in their qualifying group, and then won a playoff against Ireland thanks to Thierry Henry's hand.
Record in previous tournaments: Won the whole shebang for the first and only time in 1998. Lost to Italy on penalties in 2006.
Manager: Raymond Domenech and his magic astrological charts
Players to watch: Despite the World Cup-winning generation of Zidane et al having retired, France have plenty of talent, from captain Thierry Henry up front to goalkeeper Hugo Lloris. Franck Ribery and Yoann Gourcuff will be providing the midfield trickery.

Mexico
Nickname: El Tri, for the three colours on the Mexican flag
FIFA ranking: 17
How they got here: Finished second to the USA in CONCACAF, after an erratic qualifying campaign that saw Sven-Goran Eriksson sacked as manager.
Record in previous tournaments: Best-ever performance was reaching the quarter-finals in 1970 and 1986. They've been knocked out at the Round of 16 in the last four tournaments.
Manager: Javier Aguirre, who took Atletico Madrid into the Champions League in 2008.
Players to watch: Playmaker Cuauhtemoc Blanco, the man that MLS fans love to hate, who's been lured out of retirement. Barcelona defender Rafa Marquez captains the side. Also keep an eye on Tottenham starlet Giovani Dos Santos.

South Africa
Nickname: Bafana Bafana = "the boys, the boys"
FIFA ranking: 83
How they got here: Qualified automatically as hosts.
Record in previous tournaments: Have only qualified twice before, in 1998 and 2002, and failed to get out of their group both times.
Manager: Carlos Alberto Parreira, who coached Brazil to the World Cup trophy in 1994.
Players to watch: Everton midfielder Steven Pienaar. A notable absentee is West Ham striker Benni McCarthy, the team's leading scorer, who's been left at home after a mediocre season.

Uruguay
Nickname: Los Charrúas
FIFA ranking: 16
How they got here: Finished fifth in the South American qualifying pool, and then won a two-leg playoff against Costa Rica.
Record in previous tournaments: Won the first ever World Cup, in 1930, and repeated the feat in 1950, but have had less success in recent years. Didn't qualify in 2006, and went out in the first round in 2002.
Manager: Oscar Tabárez, who's previously managed all over South America as well as in Europe.
Players to watch: Strikers Diego Forlan (of Atletico Madrid) and Luis Suarez (Ajax), with captain Diego Lugano anchoring the team from centre-half.

Verdict on the group
France struggled in qualification, and despite the talented players in the team, they're hampered by the wackadoodle tactics of coach Raymond Domenech, who is currently eclipsed only by Diego Maradona in the managerial nutbar stakes. Still, they should have enough quality to top the group, and I'd expect Mexico to put in a solid showing behind them. The home fans will be hoping that South Africa can pull off an upset, but realistically they'll just be hoping not to embarrass themselves.

Well, I'm back

2010-06-07T17:22:00.002-04:00

Um. Hi there, to the four people who are actually still reading this after an extremely lengthy hiatus. As an explanation, I went back to school and it sucked up pretty much any free time that I might have had in which to watch soccer, let alone write about it. But I have now graduated (yay!), and the World Cup is about to start (double yay!). Which means that I have deeply significant things to share with the internets about who should play in midfield for England, which teams are most likely to win it all, and which players have the dodgiest haircuts and/or tattoos.

Coming up shortly: Overviews of all eight groups, largely for my own benefit so I can get my head around who all these teams are (and can somebody tell me which is North Korea and which is South?).

Premiership Weekend Roundup: October 4-5

2008-10-06T14:19:00.001-04:00

Manchester City 2-3 Liverpool
Oh, that was just gorgeous. Ok, not Liverpool going behind 2-0 by halftime, or Xabi Alonso practically having his ankle taken off by Zabaleta. (And seriously, what is it about him that encourages people into dangerous tackles?) But everything after that was great. And even before City were reduced to 10 men, Liverpool's second-half performance was light-years removed from the way they'd played before the break. It wasn't quite an Istanbul-style comeback, but a win like this is a hyge psychological boost. If they keep pulling off stuff like this, they just might have a chance at the title -- assuming, that is, that being considered favourites doesn't make them immediately collapse.

Blackburn 0-2 Manchester United
I said when United were trying to sign Dimitar Berbatov that I didn't think it was a good idea, because he's a lazy player. And he may indeed be lazy, but I don't care anymore, because he's turned out to be a fantastic addition to the team, not only scoring goals but creating opportunities for his teammates. The score was only 2-0 but it could've been more, even if Wes Brown hadn't scored the opening goal with the help of a foul on the keeper by Nemanja Vidic.

Sunderland 1-1 Arsenal
Sunderland held Arsenal off for 85 minutes before Grant Leadbitter gave them the lead, coming on as a substitute and scoring a beautiful goal with practically his first touch of the game. It wasn't enough to give them the victory, though, as Cesc Fabregas equalized in added time -- with a header, of all things. This is especially noteworthy since (a) Cesc is roughly as tall as I am, which is to say, not very, and (b) he doesn't even have poofy hair giving him a couple of extra inches anymore.

Chelsea 2-0 Aston Villa
With Drogba injured and Anelka not 100%, apparently Chelsea are copying the "who needs strikers" strategy that Man United pioneered last season. That's nice for them. I was attempting to study for an economics quiz, so I wasn't paying much attention, apart from noting that John Terry doesn't really need to hike his shorts up that much. I'm just saying.

Other results
West Brom 1-0 Fulham
Wigan 0-1 Middlesbrough
West Ham 1-3 Bolton
Tottenham 0-1 Hull
Portsmouth 2-1 Stoke
Everton 2-2 Newcastle

Holy crap, I just realized that Hull are in third place. Hull.

Champions League Matchday 2: September 30-October 1

2008-10-02T13:48:00.000-04:00

Aalborg 0-3 Manchester United
A goal for Wayne Rooney, two for Dimitar Berbatov, thank you very much. Let's all just forget about that weak draw with Villareal, shall we? I think it's safe to assume that Celtic are going to be eliminated at the group stage, as per usual, and based on this performance Aalborg really aren't much of a threat, so no worries until the knockout rounds start. Now United just need to get things sorted out in the Premiership.

Liverpool 3-1 PSV Eindhoven
Well, Robbie Keane scored his first goal for Liverpool. And his goal celebration looks just as stupid as it did when he was at Spurs. I think Jamie Carragher needs to sit him down and have a word with him. Or, you know, just take a look at Steven Gerrard, celebrating his 100th goal in a Liverpool shirt. The knee-slide is always a classic. (Thank god he's stopped that back-patting thing he was doing for a while.)

Arsenal 4-0 Porto
Blah blah beautiful football blabbity blah talented youngsters blah blah blee. Y'all know it's only a matter of time before Van Persie is broken again.

Cluj 0-0 Chelsea
Is it bad for me to be disappointed that Didier Drogba isn't more seriously injured? Probably, yes. Anyway, yay Cluj! Long may you inspire bad vampire-related puns in the sports media.

Group A
Cluj 0-0 Chelsea
Bordeaux 1-3 Roma

Group B
Anorthosis Famagusta 3-1 Panathinaikos
Inter 1-1 Werder Bremen

Group C

Sporting Lisbon 2-0 Basel
Shakhtar Donetsk 1-2 Barcelona

Group D
Liverpool 3-1 PSV Eindhoven
Atletico Madrid 2-1 Marseille

Group E
Aalborg 0-3 Manchester United
Villareal 1-0 Celtic

Group F
Fiorentina 0-0 Steaua Bucharest
Bayern Munich 1-1 Lyon

Group G
Arsenal 4-0 Porto
Fenerbahce 0-0 Dynamo Kyiv

Group H
Zenit St. Petersburg 1-2 Real Madrid
Bate Borisov 2-2 Juventus

Premiership Weekend Roundup: September 27-28

2008-09-29T12:06:00.000-04:00

On the one hand, I am insanely busy right now. Booo. On the other hand, I finally have Setanta set up at my new apartment so I can watch the games properly. Yaaaay. So here we go...

Manchester United 2–0 Bolton
Yes, okay, that penalty was ridiculous. I'm not even going to try to defend that. I'm more interested in seeing Wayne Rooney come on as a substitute and link up with Cristiano Ronaldo to score a beautiful goal. And now, in seeing whether he's actually going to get to start their Champions League game this week.

Everton 0–2 Liverpool
Fernando Torres did basically nothing for an hour, and then won the game in the space of two minutes. (Should have had a hat trick, actually.) And it was an excellent performance from the whole team; they thoroughly deserve their spot at the top of the table.

Arsenal 1–2 Hull
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Other results
Stoke City 0–2 Chelsea
Newcastle 1–2 Blackburn
Middlesbrough 0–1 West Brom
Fulham 1–2 West Ham
Aston Villa 2–1 Sunderland
Portsmouth 2-0 Tottenham
Wigan 2-1 Manchester City

A recap

2008-09-23T10:26:00.001-04:00

Manchester United: Drew with those Chelsea bastards.

Liverpool: Drew with Stoke. Stoke.

My team: Made it to the playoff final and lost on penalties.

I: Do not want to talk about it.

Premiership Weekend Roundup: September 13-14

2008-09-15T19:01:00.001-04:00

Liverpool 2-1 Manchester United
Ok, see, this is why it's not such a great idea to like both Liverpool and Manchester United. Because yeah, I wanted United to win, and Berbatov to be amazing on his debut, and Wayne Rooney to score a hat-trick or something. And instead I got Rooney marooned out on the wing, an own-goal for Wes Brown, and the Edwin van der Sar Comedy Experience. And yet I can't really be upset, because just look at Jamie Carragher's face.

Other results
Arsenal 4-0 Blackburn
Chelsea 3-1 Manchester City
Fulham 2-1 Bolton
Hull 2-1 Newcastle
Portsmouth 2-1 Middlesbrough
West Brom 3-2 West Ham
Wigan 1-1 Sunderland

world. gone. mad.

2008-09-12T17:56:00.002-04:00

Not that long ago, I think I was complaining about this summer having been boring in the footballing world. Apparently things were just building up quietly, though, because all in the past week everybody appears to have lost their damn minds. Managers are being sacked right and left (or not being sacked; nobody is really sure), and even more bizarrely, England are winning games!

I was debating on Wednesday if I should even bother watching the game against Croatia. In the end I decided not to, because I didn't really have the time -- or the whatever exorbitant price Setanta was charging. And I figured that the best attitude to adopt towards England games was a sort of weary bemusement. You know, like, "Oh god, what new ways to be mediocre are they going to find now?"

And instead they go out and beat those pesky Croatians 4-1. I don't know what to think about all this. I still haven't had a chance to watch the game, but I'm wondering now if maybe it would be better if I just didn't watch them again, ever, and then they can go on winning games and I can go on being pleased about it, without the unpleasantness of actually having to watch Frank Lampard stroll around in midfield and all that.

I am grumpy today.

2008-08-31T23:35:00.003-04:00

Oh Liverpool. It is too early in the season for you to suck this badly. First the fiasco of Champions League qualification, then Gerrard and Torres both get hurt, and then an anemic draw against Villa, just to finish things off.

Meanwhile, United didn't have a Premiership game this week, because they were too busy losing to Zenit St. Petersburg in the Super Cup.

Oh, and Toronto lost yesterday too, in stoppage time. Excellent. I think maybe I'll just pretend that this week didn't happen.

Premiership Weekend Roundup: August 23-24

2008-08-25T19:06:00.000-04:00

Manchester United 1-0 Portsmouth
Ok, now I feel like the season has started properly. I was quite happy to have missed last weekend's games and particularly United starting off by drawing at home to Newcastle. I know that they drew against Reading to start things off last year, and still won the league, but come on. In other news, Darren Fletcher is currently United's leading -- and only -- scorer. My brain is still having trouble processing that.

But I am becoming more reconciled to the idea of their signing Dimitar Berbatov. It's been blatantly obvious that they need a striker, and I didn't have a really good reason for not wanting it to be him. So what the hell. He can sulk around all he wants up front if it means that they score a few more goals. Because you can't expect Fletcher to do it all on his own, after all.

(This also match reminded me of one of the things I missed this summer, namely Nemanja Vidic flinging himself into headers and coming away all bloody. I do like that.)

Liverpool 2-1 Middlesbrough
Liverpool were not exactly convincing this week or last (a narrow 1-0 victory over Sunderland). But I don't really care. Two games, two wins, six points, thank you very much. Last time it was Fernando Torres popping up with a late winner, this time it was the man himself, Steven Gerrard, with a screamer in stoppage time. Plus the bonus of a goal from Jamie Carragher of all people. I can recognize that Carra isn't quite the player that he was a couple years ago, but I still hate to think of him not being in the team week in, week out. Even with the attraction of Daniel Agger coming in to replace him.

You know what Liverpool could really use, though? Wingers. I have been saying this for ages now, and maybe eventually Rafa will listen to me. I live in hope. Buying Robbie Keane is fine and all, but it would be nice to have more than two players that Xabi Alonso can pass to. (Unless Rafa decides to play Gerrard on the left, a la Fabio Capello. You never know.) And speaking of midfielders, apparently the Gareth Barry deal is dead, and I for one couldn't be happier about it.

Other results

Chelsea 1-0 Wigan - Deco is certainly off to a great start in a Chelsea start, pulling the strings in their 4-0 stomping of Portsmouth and picking up another goal here. I do have a bizarre affection for him, though; must remind myself that he's evil now.
Fulham 1-0 Arsenal - The Gunners beat West Brom last week thanks to a goal from Samir Nasri, but apparently Fulham were just too much of a challenge. This is what happens when half your midfield leaves, Arsene.
Sunderland 2-1 Tottenham - Spurs are still without a point, after they lost their game against Boro last week.
Newcastle 1-0 Bolton - Newcastle are apparently scoring all their goals this year via headers from diminutive strikers.
Manchester City 3-0 West Ham - City had a terrible time of it last week, losing to Villa and getting thumped in the UEFA Cup. Fortunately, they had West Ham waiting to beat up on.
Stoke 3-2 Aston Villa - Stoke recovered from their first-week defeat to Bolton in a back-and-forth game against Villa, who are not defending any better this season than last.
Blackburn 1-1 Hull - Blackburn are off to a decent start, with four points from their first two games -- but so, somewhat surprisingly, are Hull.
Everton 2-1 West Brom - You wouldn't have picked West Brom to be the one promoted team without a win, would you? Me neither.

Things that are good

2008-08-12T22:09:00.000-04:00

1. Toronto FC finally won a game -- not only that, but it was an away win! And a game they really shouldn't have won at all. They were missing a bunch of players, and they had a grand total of two shots on target -- but one of those was the only goal of the game, a gorgeous free kick by Chad Barrett. Picking up three points means that TFC have pulled themselves up into playoff contention again, although it's all looking very tight at the bottom of the Eastern division.

2. The Canadian women's team has made it to the Olympic quarter-finals, despite losing 2-1 to Sweden this morning. They finished as one of the two best third-place teams in the group stage, and as a reward, they'll face the USA on Friday. Oh goody.

3. Manchester United beat Portsmouth in the Community Shield. Although it seems that I don't care so much about the Community Shield if it doesn't involve somebody beating Chelsea. Still, it was nice to see Gary Neville and his dubious moustache again.

4. Cristiano Ronaldo is staying at Old Trafford. This is mostly good in the "oh, thank god that's over" sense. (As an aside, I have a confession to make: I don't really get the hoopla about tapping up players. You can't really stop people from talking to each other. What you can do is have contracts with steep penalties for breaking them. Yes?)

5. I am off on vacation for the next week. Not that you'd really notice, with the level of posting around here recently, but anyway.

Time to break out the oxygen masks

2008-08-06T13:40:00.001-04:00

Yeah, I know it's been quiet around here lately. But frankly, there hasn't been much that I've felt like writing about. I'm choosing to ignore Toronto FC's terrible run of form, and the transfer window is no more exciting than it was a month ago, which is to say, not at all.

But finally, we have some games that actually matter. The Olympic football tournament has kicked off, with the first round of women's games being played this morning (or this evening, if you're in Beijing, which I sadly am not). Yes, the opening ceremony isn't until Friday, but the football has started already for some unknown reason.

The Canadian women won their first game, beating Argentina 2-1 with goals from Candace Chapman and Kara Lang, so they're off to a good start. They're still not one of the favourites for the tournament -- Germany, Norway, the USA and Brazil are the big names, just like they were at the World Cup last year -- but I'd say they have an outside chance. At the very least, they should be looking to improve on their World Cup showing, when they narrowly failed to get out of their group.

Other than Argentina, Canada is up against Sweden and hosts China in Group E (the men's side is Groups A to D). Sweden also won their opening game 2-1 against China. In Group F, Brazil and Germany played out a scoreless draw, while North Korea beat Nigeria 1-0. And in Group G, the Abby Wambach-less USA went down 1-0 to Norway, and Japan drew 2-2 with New Zealand. The top two teams from each group will move on to the quarter-finals starting August 15, along with the two best third-place finishers; the final is on August 21.

I don't know how much of the tournament I'll actually be able to watch, seeing as most of the games seem to be scheduled at some ungodly hour in the morning. Plus most of them aren't even being shown on TV. But the CBC is streaming everything live on their website; there's a full schedule here. Also, Kickster is doing profiles of all the women's teams.

As for the men's side, things have been complicated by the Court of Arbitration for Sport's ruling that clubs are not legally obliged to release their players for the Olympics, since it's not part of the official FIFA calendar. This means that players like Lionel Messi, for example, could end up being dragged back to Europe -- although I kind of expect the clubs to back down this time, just because it's going to make them look bad if they don't. Wouldn't play too well with Barca's goody-goody image.

Anyway, the first round of men's games is tomorrow, with 16 teams competing for medals:

Group A: Ivory Coast, Argentina, Australia, Serbia
Group B: Netherlands, Nigeria, Japan, USA
Group C: China, New Zealand, Brazil, Belgium
Group D: South Korea, Cameron, Honduras, Italy

And the summer drags on

2008-07-23T15:48:00.001-04:00

Yawn. I think the most exciting soccer-related thing I've come across recently was the head wound I picked up at my game on Monday. Seriously, y'all.

Anyway, I figured it was time for another periodic update from the Great White North...

Toronto FC's extended streak of mediocrity continues, as they drew 1-1 with the Montreal Impact yesterday in the Nutrilite Canadian Championship (god, what a stupid name). Toronto took an early lead with a goal from Rohan Ricketts, but Roberto Brown equalized for Montreal just 10 minutes later. Once Montreal had that goal, they could just sit back and defend, because a draw was enough for them to win the mini-tournament. They'll move on to face Real Esteli of Nicaragua at the end of August in an attempt to qualify for the group stage of the CONCACAF Champions League.

I suspect there was a bit of complacency from TFC and their fans going into this competition, since they were the only MLS team. But after starting out by beating Montreal, they took just one point from their two games against Vancouver, losing 1-0 at home and drawing 2-2 on the West Coast. That meant they needed a win in their final game, and they didn't get it. The Impact and the Whitecaps help their own against the supposed big boys from MLS, and I think that's not such a bad thing. A close, hard-fought competition like this -- and the rivalry, particularly between Toronto and Montreal that it should inspire -- can only help the state of professional soccer in Canada.

Meanwhile, in the domestic league, Toronto played out a scoreless draw with San Jose on Saturday. They had an early goal incorrectly called back for offside, and then Amado Guevara missed a penalty in the second half. But even so, not being able to score a single goal against the last-place team in the league is kind of embarrassing.

The week before, Toronto lost to Chicago 2-1, pushing their abysmal away record to one win and six losses. Chicago scored in stoppage time to take away Toronto's chance of picking up at least a point. The real robbery, though, came earlier in the game when Maurice Edu was taken out by the Chicago keeper and instead of being awarded a penalty, he was booked for diving. That yellow card also meant that he was suspended for the game against San Jose. Way to go, ref.

And in their two friendlies -- you know, because they really needed another couple of games to cram into the schedule -- Toronto drew 1-1 with Pachuca back on July 5, with Pachuca winning the ensuing penalty shootout 4-3. And last week, Toronto lost 1-0 to Independiente, as the Argentinean team scored off a free kick in the second half.

I think I said in my last post about TFC that they just hadn't been playing well enough. And it probably didn't help having all these extra games on top of the MLS matches -- as one of the commentators pointed out on Saturday, it means they have less time on the training field, which could explain some of their defensive sloppiness. The problem right now is that they don't have enough firepower up front -- Danny Dichio is struggling with concussion, and Jeff Cunningham is struggling, period -- which means that they can't afford to give up even a single goal.

Looking on the bright side, Toronto did look better in the last couple of games I saw, against Independiente and San Jose. No, they didn't win, but they were at least trying to pass the ball around again, rather than just hoofing it forward to Dichio -- which doesn't work all that well even when he's playing, let alone when he's in the treatment room. And they can take hope from the good form shown so far by 16-year-old Abdus "Ibby" Ibrahim, who made his debut for TFC against Pachuca and followed that up by scoring his first league goal against Chicago. They do still need a reliable finisher, though.

Just to add to the fun for Toronto, Maurice Edu and Marvell Wynne have been named to the U.S. Olympic team. They'll join up with the squad after the TFC game against Real Salt Lake on July 28. The team will miss them, but it's nice to see a couple Toronto players being recognized for their good performances this season.

Which is more than I can say for the All-Star team. When the results from the fan voting came out, TFC had six players in the top 15 vote-getters. But when the "First XI" was announced (taking into account the votes from coaches and the media)? A big fat zero. Thanks a lot, MLS. They did get a token with the addition of Jim Brennan to the roster, after seven more players were picked by all-star team coach Steve Nicol and the league commissioner. But still: bah.

Hey look, actual news!

2008-07-16T12:01:00.000-04:00

Ronaldinho has joined Milan for €21 million. OH MEELAHN. WHY. Haven't they learned their lesson about overweight Brazilian former superstars? I mean, if they Milan medical team can keep Paolo Maldini's geriatric knees ticking along, then theoretically they can do anything, but still. And it's not like they needed another midfielder anyway. They really should've been spending their money on defenders who are under the age of 30. And maybe a striker who's not 18. Or Pippo Inzaghi.

Actually, most of the transfer news this summer is making me kind of angry because it just makes no sense. Like this unending Gareth Barry to Liverpool, Xabi Alonso to Juventus saga. Except that Juventus don't want Xabi anymore because they went and bought themselves another midfielder instead. But maybe Arsenal want to buy him now. Or Barry. Either one will do, apparently.

So...basically, they are totally interchangeable. Which raises the question, then: WHY WOULD YOU SELL ONE JUST SO YOU COULD BUY THE OTHER? ESPECIALLY IF YOU'RE GOING TO LOSE MONEY IN THE PROCESS. I've been trying to wrap my head around this thing for ages, because I like to believe that Rafa Benitez is not insane. But I don't really get it. I mean, I can kind of understand why you'd prefer to have Barry in the squad, because he's more versatile. But as a straight-up central midfielder? Barry is a good player, sure, but Xabi is very good.

The problem at Liverpool isn't with him, it's with the players around him. I said last summer that they needed to buy a striker and a decent winger or two, and the same thing is true this year. They've got Torres now, which is great, but with Crouch gone they need a second striker, and the fact that Dirk Kuyt spent most of last season playing right wing should tell you that they still need wingers too. The other role that needed filling was the fullbacks, but that's hopefully been sorted with the addition of Dossena and Degen. You know where they didn't need any more players then, and still don't? CENTRE MIDFIELD. *sigh*

Also in the WTF files: Berbatov to Man Utd. They do need a striker, absolutely, but Berbatov just isn't the one I'd pick. He's not as old as I thought (for some reason, I was convinced that he was 30 already), and he's a very good player, but he's still lazy and sulky. I don't get why Sir Alex would want that in the team. Especially not for the kind of crazy money that Spurs are asking. Spend that on a replacement or two for Ronaldo once he and his hair gel waltz off to Madrid.

Enough already

2008-07-11T15:54:00.002-04:00

I keep meaning to post something here, but I am just so bored by the transfer window, y'all. Was it this bad last year? I don't remember, or maybe I am just conveniently blocking it out of my memory. Because this summer's version is apparently an endless stream of stories about things that HAVE NOT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

Ronaldo to Real Madrid. Lampard to Inter. Barry to Liverpool. My forehead to desk.

Oh wait, that last one is real.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

2008-07-04T16:31:00.001-04:00

Now that the Euro fun and games are over, I'm trying to catch up on all of the stuff I've missed in the past few weeks.

Toronto FC
Toronto continued their quest for a spot in the CONCACAF Champions League with a 1-0 loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps at BMO Field on Tuesday. Vancouver's goal came on a 36th-minute penalty after Jim Brennan was called for holding Vancouver's Jim Clarke in the 18-yard box. It was a very lackluster first half from TFC, and John Carver made three changes at halftime in an attempt to recharge the attack. Toronto dominated the second half, and Jeff Cunningham appeared to score in the 80th minute, but it was ruled out for offside.

All in all, a disappointing result for Toronto -- their first home loss of the season. But they should be a bit encouraged by the fan support, as the stadium was almost full despite the fact that the game wasn't included in the season ticket package.

The rematch between TFC and the Whitecaps will be July 9th in Vancouver. Before that, they play a friendly against Pachuca at BMO Field on July 5, followed by an away game against the Chicago Fire on July 12 and another friendly against Independiente on July 15.

Toronto may have lost to the Whitecaps, but their MLS home record is still without a defeat. They beat the Colorado Rapids 3-1 back on June 14, despite missing several key players due to international duty. That was followed by a scoreless draw with Kansas City on June 21.

I was at that game, and although Toronto didn't lose, I thought it was a mediocre performance -- it kind of reminded me of a lot of their games last year. Maybe it was because they were still fielding a lot of second-string players, despite having everyone back from internationals. Maybe they're all just tired; I don't know. But their awful road form continued -- Toronto is now 1-5-0 away from BMO Field this season -- with a 2-1 defeat to the New England Revolution on June 28. They really have to sort that out if they want to be genuine playoff contenders this year.

A few other odds and ends

Toronto have signed 16-year-old striker Abdus Ibee Ibrahim from FC Dallas, in exchange for a conditional draft pick in the 2010 MLS SuperDraft.
Mo Johnston is in talks with Paul Dickov (just released by Manchester City) and Darren Huckerby (most recently of Norwich City). Both players apparently watched the Toronto-Vancouver game this week, and Dickov trained with the team yesterday. I don't know much about Huckerby, but I can tell you that Dickov has a very punchable face.
Amado Guevara, Greg Sutton and Maurice Edu have made it into the list of the top 10 players in fan voting for the All-Star Game, which makes up 25% of the total vote for the all-star team (the rest comes from coaches, players and the media). The team will be revealed next Thursday, July 10.
The All-Star Game is apparently going to be part of a three-day Soccer Jam, whatever the hell that is. According to their press release, it will involve "plenty of fun, interactive soccer and music and activities that will appeal to soccer fans of all ages." It all sounds kind of horrifying, frankly, but then again I've never been much of a keener for stuff like that. Anyway, the whole shebang will be bookended by Toronto v. Montreal on July 22 and the All-Star Game against West Ham on July 24.
The draw for the preliminary round and group stage has been done. Assuming that Toronto beats out Vancouver and Montreal for the one Canadian spot, they'd face the Nicaraguan champions in the preliminary round. If they win that, they'll be put into Group C along with Atlante (Mexico), Olímpia or Marathon (Honduras), and Joe Public (Trinidad & Tobago) or New England Revolution (USA).
Ottawa has joined the list of potential sites for an MLS expansion team, as Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk is reportedly exploring bringing a soccer team to the city. Vancouver is another possibility -- and a more likely one, in my opinion -- with NBA star Steve Nash interested in helping to get an MLS team in his hometown. The league has already granted franchises to Seattle for 2009 and 2010, bringing the total to 16 teams, and is likely to cap expansion at 18 teams a couple years after that, so the competition could be intense.
In other expansion news, MLSE is looking into the possibility of expanding BMO Field from its current capacity of 20,000 to about 30,000 seats. The club has sold out every league game this year, including 16,000 season ticket holders, which suggests that the demand is there. The sticking point, though, is likely to be who'll pay for the project, with the City of Toronto insisting that it won't contribute any more than the $9.8 million it put into the initial construction.
On a related note, take a look at BMO Field's financial results for the first quarter of 2008. They reportedly lost money in the quarter -- more than they'd hoped -- but expect to be able to make it up over the rest of the year.

Canada men's national team
Canada opened their 2010 World Cup qualifying campaign with a 3-0 away victory over St. Vincent & the Grenadines, and then followed that up with a 4-1 win in the return leg in Montreal. In the next round, Canada will be facing Jamaica, Honduras and Mexico in Stage III of the CONCACAF qualifiers, which run from August to November. Canada’s three home matches are August 20 against Jamaica in Toronto, September 6 against Honduras in Montreal and October 15 against Mexico in Edmonton. Canada needs to finish as one of the top two teams in the group to advance to the next stage.

It's not all smooth sailing for the team, though: as usual, they're not happy with the CSA, and this time it's about which stadium should be their home field. The CSA wants to spread their games around the country -- and on top of that, they have a deal with the City of Toronto and MLSE to play at least six national team-related games at BMO Field each year. (These don't necessarily have to be senior men's team games, though.) The players, on the other hand, much prefer the natural surface at Montreal's Saputo Stadium.

I wonder, too, how much of their preference for Montreal is due to the crowd support they get there. Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton is a natural grass surface, but it's a huge venue to fill (60,000+ seats); Toronto is the right size, but it's a turf field and the away teams tend to get as much support as the Canadians do -- or more. Saputo Stadium is maybe too small -- only about 13,000 seats, but in addition to a much better playing surface, I suspect there's also less chance that the fans will be cheering for the other guys. But I'm with the Globe and Mail's Ben Knight in hoping that this will change in Toronto in the future.

Actually, combining this issue with the possibility of expanding BMO Field, you know what I'd really like to see? A whole soccer complex on the CNE grounds. A main pitch with a natural grass surface and expanded stands, for Toronto FC and (the majority of) national team games. Plus a couple of turf fields -- with a bubble over them in the winter -- for use in training and by community soccer leagues. I know it'd take a fairly significant injection of cash, but how awesome would that be?

Canada women's national team
The Canadian women's team finished second overall in the eight-team Peace Queen Cup in South Korea from June 14 to June 21. Canada opened the tournament with a 5-0 win over Argentina, followed by a 3-1 victory over their Korean hosts. A 2-0 win over New Zealand meant that they finished top of their group. Unfortunately, they lost 1-0 to the USA in the final, after Angela Hucles scored off a free kick in the 90th minute.

The team is now in a residency camp in Vancouver to prepare for the Olympics in August. They'll warm up for the Olympics with a friendly against Brazil at BMO Field on July 10. (Which reminds me that I should try to round up some people from my women's team to go and watch them. Or any of my teams, really; I shouldn't be assuming that only the women would want to go.)

The womens' U20 team, meanwhile, has just won the 2008 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship in Mexico. Canada won all three of its group games, beating Nicaragua, Jamaica and Costa Rica, and beating Mexico 2-1 in the semi-final. The Canadian team went on to defeat the USA 1-0 in the final, with a goal from Karla Schacher just before halftime. The result means that Canada, along with the USA and Mexico, has booked a spot at the Under-20 World Cup in Chile this November.

Phew. My typing fingers hurt now.

Euro 2008 Final: Spain 1-0 Germany

2008-07-02T16:32:00.001-04:00

I wanted to get this post up sooner, but I've been blog-less for the past few days as a result of a beer-filled long weekend out of town. I did watch the final on Sunday, though, and although I was cheering for Germany, I can't say I'm disappointed that Spain won -- they were the best team both over the course of the tournament and in the final itself.

Germany started the stronger team in this game, with Miroslav Klose spurning a good chance to score as early as the third minute. They looked particularly dangerous as they attacked Sergio Ramos down Spain's right wing. But Spain were on top soon enough, with Jens Lehmann called on to make a great save in the 14th minute when Christoph Metzelder and his awful playoff beard almost deflected Andres Iniesta's shot into the net for an own-goal.

In the absence of injured Golden Boot winner David Villa, Fernando Torres was playing as a lone striker -- a familiar role from his time at Liverpool -- and causing lots of trouble for the lumbering German defence. He'd already sent a header off the post with Jens Lehmann well beaten, when he scored the game's only goal in the 32nd minute. Xavi's through ball split the defenders, Torres outmuscled Philipp Lahm and then, with Lehmann coming out to claim the ball, clipped it perfectly over the keeper and into the net.

If Torres was the pivotal figure for Spain, so too was Michael Ballack for Germany. Ballack has had horrible luck in major finals, and it didn't get any better for him here. He was already hampered by a calf injury -- although I think you'd have had to chain him down to stop him playing -- and then he got a cut over the eye toward the end of the first half, after a collision with Marcos Senna.

I think that just added to his sense of frustration, because a few minutes later he got booked for an altercation with Carles Puyol, and he seemed to spend the second half getting increasingly pissed off at the entire world. He did have a couple decent shots on goal over the course of the game -- one deflected by Ramos, another one going just barely wide -- but mostly he was cro-magnon-ing around and fouling people.

And with Ballack not at 100%, the rest of the team was also malfunctioning. Philipp Lahm was hauled off at halftime and replaced by Marcell Jansen -- supposedly due to injury, but come on. (Poor Lahm -- I swear I remember him being a good defender; I don't know what went wrong.) Klose got kicked in the balls early in the second half. And then later in the game had the indignity of being replaced by Mario Gomez. It just wasn't a good day for them, really.

Germany did have a good spell of pressure partway through the second half, but Iker Casillas and his defence held firm. Luis Aragones sent on Xabi Alonso for Cesc Fabregas -- who'd been much less effective than in the semi-final -- to shore up the midfield, and shortly thereafter brought on more fresh legs in the form of Santi Cazorla -- to replace David Silva, who'd come dangerously close to getting sent off after going nose-to-nose with Lukas Podolski. (I think Silva must have been on his tippy-toes at the time.)

There was a chance that things could've gotten out of hand, with the Germans trying to muscle their way back into the game, but the referee did a good job of calming things down -- although I still don't understand why he'd booked Casillas in the first half. Anyway, Spain reasserted themselves, passing their way through Germany as they'd been doing all game. Lehmann had to make another good save from Ramos' diving header in the 66th minute, and then from the corner, Iniesta's shot was cleared off the line by Torsten Frings.

The clock ticked inexorably down, and Germany had still only managed one shot on goal all game. Spain, meanwhile, continued to threaten, with Dani Guiza coming on for Fernando Torres -- who'd worked his ass off -- and almost immediately setting up Senna for what should have been their second goal. Spain might have liked to pad their one-goal lead, as there was always a chance that Germany could surprise them with an equalizer, but the Germans were mostly just lumping the ball forward in the late stages of the game, and Spain were always able to regain possession.

And so it finished 1-0 -- albeit a pretty action-packed one-goal game -- with Spain becoming European champions for only the second time. They'd already overcome their reputation as chokers with that penalty shootout victory over Italy, but they've now killed it off completely with such a comprehensive win. As for Germany, I said before the game that they had been more than the sum of their parts, but they showed their limitations here against a Spanish team that was undoubtedly superior.

I'm not going to pick a team of the tournament, because I'd probably end up like the TSN/Sportsnet crew, who went with an unorthodox sort of 2-5-3 formation. But a few awards to round things up...

Game of the tournament: Turkey 3-2 Czech Republic
It's hard to narrow this down, because there were so many great games, and Turkey in particular were involved in several incredible results. But this was the epitome of their tournament: a comeback from 2-0 down with 15 minutes to go that was highlighted by brain farts on the part of both goalkeepers, with Petr Cech dropping a cross to gift Turkey an equalizer in the 87th minute, and then Volkan Demirel getting sent off in stoppage time for flattening Jan Koller -- no mean feat.

Runner-up: Russia 3-0 Holland
Holland had disposed of Italy and France with ease in the supposed group of death, but an Andriy Arshavin-inspired Russia were brilliant in the quarterfinal and essentially beat them at their own whirlwind attacking game.

Goal of the tournament: Wesley Sneijder vs. Italy
A textbook-perfect counter-attacking move, with Gio van Bronckhorst clearing the ball off the line at a corner, and then pelting downfield to get involved again with a crossfield pass to Dirk Kuyt. Kuyt then headed the ball down for Sneijder to hook it past Gigi Buffon from an almost impossible angle. A fantastic team goal and a fantastic finish from Sneijder.

Runner-up: Bastian Schweinsteiger vs. Turkey
Schweinsteiger and Lukas Podolski sometimes seem to have a telepathic connection -- see also Schweinsteiger's goal against Portugal in the preceding game; here, Podolski broke down the left and crossed to Schweinsteiger coming in from the other flank, who flicked the ball brilliantly across the keeper with the outside of his right boot.

Player of the tournament: Marcos Senna
UEFA's technical panel may disagree with me -- they gave the Golden Ball to another Spanish midfielder, Xavi. But Xavi had periods where he was brilliant and periods where he was invisible. Senna was also often invisible, but for the right reasons: you want your defensive midfielder to go unnoticed, because that means he's doing his job. He was the solid base for Spain's tiki-taka attacking play, and a shield for their not always convincing defence. Consistently good throughout the tournament.

Hotass of the tournament: Iker Casillas
Captained his team to the title. Possibly the only keeper in Swisstria who actually knew how to deal with crosses. A big part of the reason why Spain gave up only three goals, and none of those in the knockout rounds. Went mano-a-mano with world champion Gianluigi Buffon in a penalty shootout and emerged victorious. And celebrated winning the whole shebang by stripping down and spraying his teammates with champagne. Well done.

Euro 2008 Final Preview

2008-06-28T13:05:00.001-04:00

My two favourite teams in the tournament are also the last ones standing, which makes this simultaneously my dream final and a nightmare. I'll be cheering for Germany tomorrow -- I'm half German, and my ancestors would probably rise up to beat me about the head with a beer stein if I didn't -- but I'm sure that Spain will do their best to test my loyalties with their pretty pretty football.

The prevailing opinion seems to be that Spain should win, but I really don't know what to predict. This German team seem to be more than the sum of their parts; Spain, in the past, have been less, but this time they may finally be living up to their talent. Spain have certainly been the best team overall, but let's not forget that You Can Never Count Out The Germans.

Goalkeepers
Iker Casillas versus Jens Lehmann: It's no contest, really. Saint Iker burnished his halo even more in the quarter-final penalty shootout against Italy, whereas Lehmann looked pretty shaky against Turkey and was arguably at fault for both their goals. I'd expect lots of shots from the Spanish team.

Defence
Spain's back four is supposedly their weakness, but they've only given up three goals all tournament. Carles Puyol has been excellent and Sergio Ramos seems to have remembered that he's a defender, not a striker, while Carlos Marchena and Joan Capdevilla have done their jobs well. But they could be vulnerable to set-pieces and crosses, which have led to a lot of Germany's goals. Germany, on the other hand, have been rather porous at the back, with only Philipp Lahm really standing out -- and that not always for the right reasons. Spain should be looking to run at their fullbacks, as Turkey did so effectively.

Midfield
Two contrasting styles in midfield: Spain's short, fluid tiki-taka passing, versus German's more direct, robust style. Spain has a similarly mobile midfield to the other teams that have caused Germany trouble (like Croatia), with players interchanging positions and attacking from all angles. Germany will have to be disciplined to contain them. The Germans will also try to use their physical advantage, as they did against Portugal, to win the ball and then break quickly. Spain prefer to hold onto possession and pass the ball around in their opponents' half, but their slow buildup means that they're not necessarily going to commit people forward too hastily. It should be a very interesting battle.

Strikers
Top scorer David Villa will almost certainly miss the final with an injury, which means Fernando Torres will play up front on his own. Torres hasn't had the greatest tournament, unfortunately. I think he's played well, but the goals just aren't coming, possibly because he's been adjusting to the Spanish style after a year in the Premier League. But he's still the kind of player who can change a game in a moment. Miroslav Klose isn't a world-class striker the way Torres is, but he's got a good track record of scoring in big games for his country.

Predicted lineups
Germany: Lehmann; Friedrich, Metzelder, Mertesacker, Lahm; Schweinsteiger, Frings, Ballack, Hitzlsperger, Podolski; Klose

Spain: Casillas; Ramos, Puyol, Marchena, Capdevilla; Iniesta, Fabregas, Senna, Xavi, Silva; Torres

Euro 2008 Semi-final: Spain 3-0 Russia

2008-06-27T16:04:00.001-04:00

These two teams met in their opening match of the tournament, with Spain convincing 4-1 winners. Since then, Russia had surprised everybody by not just recovering but improving enough to demolish the Netherlands in the quarter-finals, while Spain had been winning withut exactly bowling people over.

And yet this game finished with an almost identical three-goal victory for Spain. Russia apparently peaked in the previous round, while Spain have taken the confidence from their penalty win over Italy and are cruising into the final. (Not only have they vanquished their nemesis Italy, but now they've overcome the bad luck that was supposedly attached to their yellow away kits. Although those are still fugly. Whatever happened to the white away kits? I liked those. Especially in the rain. Um.)

The possession stats may show that it was pretty even, but they don't tell even close to the whole story, because it seemed like Spain spend two-thirds of the game in the Russian half. Maybe the more important statistic is shots on goal -- 11 for Spain versus just one for Russia. Iker Casillas had so little to do, he could've spent the game bedazzling the uneven hem of his self-tailored jersey and making fun of Sergio Ramos hair. Both of which are worthwhile ways to spend your time, really.

Spain were on top from the start, although Russia had a few good spells too. But Andrei Arshavin, who had supposedly become the player of the tournament over the past couple games, was a non-factor here, and because of that, Roman Pavlyuchenko was starved of service. It also helped Spain that, defensively, Sergio Ramos was having a much better game than their first match-up, winning the battle with Yuri Zhirkov on that wing.

Despite their dominance, Spain weren't able to break down the Russians at first. And they suffered a blow when David Villa pulled a muscle in his calf and had to be substituted after just half an hour. Cesc Fabregas came on for Villa, to play in the whole behind Fernando Torres, somewhat surprisingly as it meant a change of formation. But ironically, replacing a midfielder with a striker enabled Spain to find holes in the Russian defence and open up the play.

They were rewarded for their excellent play early in the second half, as Xavi opened the scoring in the 50th minute after Andres Iniesta played him into the box. Iniesta and Xavi haven't had the greatest of tournaments, in my opinion -- not awful, but not always scintillating -- but they were both pivotal in this game, not just in the buildup play but creating goals too.

Russia made a couple of substitutions almost immediately, bringing on first Diniyar Bilyaletdinov for Igor Semshov and then Dmitry Sychev for Ivan Saenko, as Guus Hiddink attempted to get his team back into the game. But it didn't help them much, as Spain continued to attack. Fernando Torres, in particular, had a couple of good chances but failed to score. I don't know if it was because of the wet pitch or what, but all game he seemed to keep slightly miscontrolling the ball as he turned to shoot.

Still, I was a bit surprised to see Torres taken off for Daniel Guiza in the 69th minute -- along with Xabi Alonso in place of Xavi -- because Guiza hasn't impressed me so far. And I say that despite the fact that he scored his second goal of the tournament just a few minutes later. Fabregas dinked the ball over the defence to him, and he took it down well on his chest before putting it past Igor Akinfeev with ease.

That second goal gave Spain a bit of a cushion, and they were able to just play keep-ball and sit a bit deeper. Still, they added to their lead further in the 82nd minute, after yet another lovely passing move, Iniesta out to Fabregas on the left, who slotted it into the centre for a nice finish David Silva. That was nice to see, because Silva deserved a goal for his good play all tournament, while Cesc has certainly done enough to guarantee himself a starting spot in the final -- unless, of course, Luis Aragones has another spell of insanity.

Russia's heads were already down after Spain's second goal and they were really out of it after the third, just waiting for the final whistle. I think they were worn down from 90 minutes of chasing Spain around trying to get the ball back. Still, they deserve credit for getting themselves this far, and with style -- while Spain, for once, have lived up to their pre-tournament hype. But they do have one game left in which to choke.

Euro 2008 Semi-final: Germany 3-2 Turkey

2008-06-26T09:59:00.000-04:00

I don't know what it is, but this tournament keeps throwing up dramatic results. Once again Turkey were involved in a game featuring a stunning late victory -- although this time they were on the wrong end of the scoreline. It's just too bad we couldn't see the whole thing, thanks to the broadcasting problems from Vienna.

Turkey were massive underdogs coming into this game, seeing as they had so many players either injured or suspended -- or both -- whereas Germany were able to field the same lineup that had disposed of Portugal so emphatically. But, maybe because their backs were against the wall, Turkey produced an excellent performance, with Germany struggling to match them. Both teams were playing five men across midfield, but Germany were giving up possession too easily, while Turkey were spreading the play well and threatening on both wings.

And the first goal came from one their two wingers, Colin "Kazim Kazim" Kazim-Richards smashing a shot off the crossbar in the 23rd minute, for Ugur Boral to put the rebound in through Jens Lehmann's legs. Turkey were dominating the play, but they couldn't hold their lead for very long. Germany equalized three minutes later with virtually their first chance of the game, Lukas Podolski breaking down the left and crossing to Bastian Schweinsteiger, who flicked the ball across the keeper and into the net.

That was probably Germany's best move of the game, too; despite losing their one-goal advantage, Turkey were still the better team as the match went on. ...As far as I could tell, that is, because the feed went out for long stretches of the second half, apparently because of lightning hitting the broadcast centre in Austria.

Turkey must have been hoping that lightning would strike again for them, but instead it was Germany who took the lead in the 78th minute. Miroslav Klose scored with a header into an empty net after Rustu Recber (sporting a fetching double ponytail in a valiant attempt to win the Bad Hair Award two games running) came out to punch Philipp Lahm's cross and got nowhere near the ball.

But Turkey have been the comeback kings throughout the tournament, and they tied this game up again in the 85th minute. Sabri Sarioglu beat Lahm -- having a rare bad game defensively -- on the left and squared the ball to the near post, where Semih Senturk was able to beat his marker and flick it in past Lehmann. I think Lehmann was partially at fault on Turkey's first goal, and I really don't know what he was doing here -- crouched down, basically waiting for the ball to come to him, as if there wasn't a striker charging at his net.

Lahm redeemed himself, though, with what was ultimately the winning goal just four minutes later. He picked up the ball near midfield, exchanged passes with Thomas Hitzlsperger and burst into the box -- helped by the fact that his marker, Kazim, had gone down injured at the beginning of the move -- where he finished sweetly with a great strike that sent the keeper the wrong way. Turkey still had three minutes of stoppage time to attempt another improbably comeback, but this time Germany were able to hold on to their lead and run the clock down.

It was an excellent performance by Turkey -- in terms of both the quality of their play and the grit they showed -- but Germany have an equally effective never-say-die attitude, and they'll be the team in the finals. They'll have to do better than this, though, if they want to win it all. Maybe Michael Ballack needs to crack some heads together in the dressing room.

Euro 2008: Quarter-final 4

2008-06-24T12:23:00.000-04:00

Spain 0-0 Italy (Spain win 4-2 on penalties)
This was the only one of the quarter-finals where the team that had won their group didn't get knocked out -- but in its own way, the result was just as much of a surprise as the other games, because it was classic choke-monkeys Spain. Beating world champions Italy. On penalties. Shocking, really.

It's just too bad that it wasn't a better game. Spain at least were trying, but I think Italy were playing for penalties from about the 60th minute on -- if not before. And it didn't help the flow of the game that the referee was calling absolutely everything -- right up until they got into the box, when he would just decide that the Spanish player had dived.

But still, Spain kept coming forward, looking for a way through the Italians. I think at one point in the first half they were up to more than 70% of possession, with Xavi patiently pulling the strings in midfield. The problem was that as soon as they got to the edge of the 18-yard box, they'd be closed down by three or four defenders, making it almost impossible to get a clean shot off.

I do think that Italy's defence played well -- unlike some of their earlier games in the tournament -- but this match mostly just reminded me why people dislike them. They were so focussed on smothering Spain's attack that they couldn't be bothered to mount an attack of their own. In other circumstances they probably would've relied on a free kick from Andrea Pirlo to nick a 1-0 win, but with Pirlo suspended, they had to look elsewhere for goals.

And unfortuately for them, Luca Toni, should've been their main goalscoring threat, couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. The best moment was when he attempted an overhead kick and only connected with the ball enough to divert it out of the path of Fabio Grosso, who would've had a clear header on goal. Combined with Mario Gomez's awful performances for Germany, I have to wonder just what they do to strikers in the Bundesliga. And I'm a bit surprised that Roberto Donadoni didn't drop Toni and replace him with, say, Marco Boriello -- but on the other hand, Donadoni hasn't seemed to have a clue who he should be picking in his team.

I was almost pleasantly surprised, though, to see the substitutions that Luis Aragones made for Spain, bringing Cesc Fabregas and Santi Cazorla on for Xavi and Andres Iniesta partway through the second half, in an attempt to change things up and make them play more direct football. I'm still disappointed that Xabi Alonso didn't get to play instead of one of their tiny interchangeable midfielders. But I can understand why they wouldn't want to drop Marcos Senna, because he had a very good game and even almost scored when Gianluigi Buffon fumbled his shot.

Spain continued to press throughout the second half and extra time, but they still couldn't find a goal. (They did get a whole bunch of corners, but that doesn't do much good when the other team are all about a foot taller than you.) And so we had a second quarter-final match being decided by a penalty shootout.

I can completely understand why Italy would feel that penalties were their best shot at winning, with the track record they've got -- plus supposedly the best goalkeeper in the world. But it backfired on them here. Iker Casillas -- who'd made a great reflex save on Mauro Camoranesi's shot late in the second half to keep his team in the game -- was absofuckinglutely awesome in the shootout, saving penalties from Daniele De Rossi and Antonio Di Natale before Cesc Fabregas stepped up to score the decisive spot-kick.

As an aside, I think Iker is now cutting off not only the bottoms of his jerseys but also the sleeves. I am amused by the idea of him hacking at his uniform with a pair of scissors in the locker room before a game. I swear next week he's going to be out there in a crop top. (I'm not saying I would entirely disapprove. Um.)

Anyway, Spain have (hopefully) vanquished some of their demons, and now they face a rematch with Russia in the semi-finals. I know they beat them 4-1 in the opening match, but I can't help being worried because (1) although Spain forestalled the choking this time, that doesn't mean it won't happen down the road and (2) Russia have all of a sudden become good. They'll probably give Spain more space to play than Italy did, but on the other hand Russia could pick apart the Spanish defence like they did the Netherlands. Sergio Ramos will probably slip in a puddle of hair gel and gift them a goal.

Bad hair of the day award: Not Ramos but Luca Toni. Purely for the pornstache. I don't know, maybe he thought it would help him score, but no. Not in any sense of the word.

Euro 2008: Quarter-final 3

2008-06-23T19:49:00.001-04:00

Russia 3-1 Netherlands (aet)
Another semi-final, another surprise result. The Netherlands, who had been the team of the tournament up until now, are out, and Russia have been upgraded from dark horses to genuine contenders. Guus Hiddink has further enhanced his reputation as someone who can produce the improbable, but a lot of the credit also has to go to Andrei Arshavin, who was once again pulling the strings for Russia and befuddling their opponents.

It wasn't all about Arshavin, though; the whole team has improved remarkably since the defeat against Spain in their opening game, picking up steam with a their comprehensive victory over Sweden. And they came out to win this one from the outset, forcing the Netherlands back by simply outplaying them. The Dutch team were supposed to be the favourites, but there was none of the caution from Russia that you might have expected. Although the Netherlands did manage to work themselves into the game more as the first half went on, they were still second best heading into half-time.

Marco van Basten attempted to invigorate his team by bringing on Robin van Persie for Dirk Kuyt, and the substitution did have an impact, as he created a couple of good chances. But it was Russia who scored in the 55th minute, as Sergei Semak's cross was volleyed into the net by Roman Pavlyuchenko, giving Edwin van der Sar no time to react.

That meant that the Netherlands had to really go all out in the search for a goal, but I think they don't react well to being allowed lots of possession rather than counter-attacking. They were mostly reduced to long-range shots as the Russian defence held firm, while it was Russia pulling them apart on the counter. Finally, in the 86th minute, Ruud van Nistelrooy found the equalizer, heading the ball in from Wesley Sneijder's free kick to send the game into extra-time.

That extra-time could have gone much differently had it not been for an unusual refereeing decision: Denis Kolodin was initially shown a second yellow card for a foul on Sneijder, but the referee then consulted with the linesman and decided that the ball had gone out of play first -- it hadn't -- and took the card back. Probably the wrong decision; but on the other hand, with the way Russia were playing, they might well have won even with only 10 men.

They were certainly the better team throughout extra time as it was. The Netherlands needed to build on the momentum of that late equalizer, but Russia just kept attacking, and the longer it went on, the more they were likely to win. And in the 112th minute, Dmitriy Torbinskiy popped up with the winning goal, a cross from -- who else? -- Arshavin that went over van der Sar and was tipped in at the far post. Arshavin killed the game off with a third goal a few minutes later, running onto a throw-in, getting behind the defenders and sending the ball through van der Sar's legs. (I feel a bit bad for Van der Sar; he'd kept his team in the game up till then and his defenders were pretty much useless.)

Anyway, it's nice to see an underdog team winning games like this -- rather than, you know, pulling a Greece -- but at the same time I'm a bit disappointed that the Netherlands are out. Partly because I'm wondering who will take up the mantle of wearing the tightest shirts at the tournament, now that both they and Portugal have been eliminated.

Bad hair of the day award: Another prize for man-of-the-match Andrei Arshavin. 27 years old and he still looks like his mother cuts his hair with a bowl and a pair of kitchen shears.

Euro 2008: Quarter-final 2

2008-06-21T13:37:00.001-04:00

Turkey 1-1 Croatia (3-1 on penalties)
Well, that was one hell of a game. It was relatively uneventful for almost two hours, before a stunning conclusion that saw two goals in the last two minutes of stoppage time, before Turkey beat Croatia on penalties. The fact that it was scoreless through regular time was surprising enough, if you'd seen these two teams play earlier, but Turkey were set up to stifle the Croatian playmakers through midfield, and they did their job pretty effectively.

Croatia's best chance of the game came in the 18th minute, as Luka Modric crossed the ball for Ivica Olic, who hit the crossbar from about two yards out -- followed by Niko Kranjcar heading the rebound wide with the goalmouth open. Croatia were undoubtedly missing Eduardo; although Olic ran himself into the ground, he doesn't have the same killer instinct in front of goal. He had another couple of chances in the second half, but the only time he put the ball in the net, he was flagged offside.

Turkey, on the other hand, had very few shots on goal, although they worked themselves into the game more as time went on -- and they certainly picked the right time to peak in extra time. They needed a great save from Rustu Recber to get them that far, though, with a flying stop in the 84th minute on a shot from Dario Srna that was curling into the top corner.

The game was balanced on a knife-edge through extra time, and looked to be going to penalties, before Croatia struck with about a minute left. The ball was crossed from the left and was heading out of play, but Rustu inexplicably decided to chase it down; he was beaten to the ball by Modric, who clipped it back across onto substitute Ivan Klasnic's head for a simple goal. Let's hope that fibreglass kidney shield is sturdy, because I think the entire Croatian team plus their coaching staff all piled on top of Klasnic in their delirium.

They got just a teensy bit ahead of themselves, though, and Turkey didn't give up, taking heart from their late comebacks against both Switzerland and the Czech Republic. Slaven Bilic was ranting at the officials because he wanted to make a substitution, but he should've been shouting at his own team instead, because rather than just holding onto possession and running down the clock, Croatia tried to play the ball over the Turkish defence and were called offside. Rustu sent the free kick into the box, where it fell to Semih Senturk to score the equalizer.

Once it went to penalties, you had to give Turkey the psychological edge, and that was only strengthened when Modric stepped up to take the first spot-kick and sent it wide. (It's a bit harsh on him, because he'd been their best player by far; but we'll give him credit for not bursting into tears like John Terry, at least.) Ivan Rakitic also missed for Croatia, making it 3-1 to Turkey after Rustu saved Mladen Petric's shot -- and redeemed himself somewhat for letting them score in the first place.

So Turkey are, against all the odds, into the semi-finals. They'll have to produce something even more miraculous to get past Germany, considering that they have a slew of injuries and suspensions which will severely limit their options. But after this, you can't entirely count them out.

Bad hair of the day award: Turkish goalkeeper Rustu Recber. It's not so much a hairstyle as it's just sort of there -- an amazing combination of frizzy and lank. Add that to the sketchy goatee, and he's not somebody that you'd want to meet in a dark alley.

Euro 2008: Quarter-final 1

2008-06-20T14:19:00.000-04:00

Germany 3-2 Portugal
So, the quarter-finals are off to an excellent start, both from my own perspective (DEUTSCHLAND!) and for those of us who just want to watch good football. The only downside was that we didn't get to see Cristiano Ronaldo cry. (Nor did he take his shirt off, as far as I can tell. Perhaps he's been replaced by an imposter.)

Germany were supposedly the underdogs coming into this match, and perhaps because of that, Joachim Low decided to switch to a 4-5-1 formation to match Portugal's, with Mario Gomez mercifully dropped to the bench and Simon Rolfes replacing the injured Torsten Frings in midfield. Low was banished to the director's box for this match after being sent off against Austria, but he'd done an excellent job of getting his team prepared both tactically and in terms of the effort they put in.

The first 15 minutes or so of the game were pretty open; although Portugal had a couple of early chances, their shots usually went straight at Jens Lehmann, and Germany were doing a good job of closing them down quickly and using their physical advantage to win possession and counter-attack. That's just what they did in the 22nd minute, with a fantastic opening goal: Lukas Podolski played a couple of one-twos with Michael Ballack and Miroslav Klose as he surged down the left wing, and then crossed the ball for Bastian Schweinsteiger, bursting into the box from the opposite flank, to slide the ball in past the keeper at the near post.

Germany added a second goal just a few minutes later, after a run forward by Christoph Metzelder, of all people, who was tripped by Petit about 30 yards out. Schweinsteiger curled the free kick into the box, and Klose shook off his marker for a free header, his first goal of the tournament (maybe he's been liberated by not having Gomez beside him any more?). Portugal looked a bit shell-shocked after that; initially they were still trying to walk the ball into the net, but soon enough they started to press Germany more. And they were rewarded in the 40th minute, as Cristiano Ronaldo's shot was blocked by Jens Lehmann but the rebound fell to Nuno Gomes for an easy finish.

At 2-1, Portugal were right back in it, and the game started to get a bit chippy -- I think my favourite bit was Arne Friedrich fouling Ronaldo and then "accidentally" stepping on his foot for good measure. (Our commentator, incidentally, seemed to think his name was "Arnie," as if he was off governing California in his spare time or something.) Both teams had their share of chances as the second half went on -- Hitzlsperger with a shot over the bar, Deco scoring but being flagged offside, a header over the bar from Pepe -- and it could have gone either way.

But Ballack restored Germany's two-goal lead in the 61st minute, with a header from a free kick that was almost identical to Klose's goal in the first half. I've seen quite a few people commenting that he pushed Paulo Ferreira in the back in the process, but it wasn't much of a push; if you ask me, the bigger problem for Portugal was that Ricardo came haring out of his net for the ball and never got close to it. Plus, you know, how bad is Portugal's marking on set pieces? It surprised me a bit, actually, because I would've thought they were one of the better defences left in the tournament. But you can't leave players like Ballack and Klose open like that. It was all very reminiscent of the 2002 World Cup, when I swear that every single Germany goal was a header from one or the other of them.

With half an hour to go, Portugal were throwing everything forward, with Germany defending deeper and deeper in their own half. On the bench, Phil Scolari looked as if he was in agony every time his team fluffed a chance. He sent on first Nani and then Helder Postiga in the search for another goal, and the two substitutes combined in the 87th mnute, as Nani, with three Germany defenders around him, still found space to clip the ball in to Postiga, who split the two centre-backs and headed it home. That gave them a bit of hope, but in the end they just ran out of time, and it was Germany who are through to the semi-finals, while Portugal have come up short yet again.

A few other things:

What is with the happy celebratory Euro-pop music every time somebody scores a goal? It keeps getting stuck in my head, which is annoying, although at least it displaces "Maniac" from those awful Kia commercials that we get here OVER AND OVER AND OVER.
Hans-Dieter Flick, Germany's assistant manager, seems to have copied Jogi Low's trademark tailored shirt + trousers combination. Or maybe it's a uniform of some kind.
Did anybody else catch Ballack cuddling first Carvalho and then Ferreira in the tunnel before the game? I wonder if he used some kind of voodoo on them that made them forget how to defend set-pieces.
Something else I'm curious about: Now that Austria and Switzerland are out, are their fans cheering for Germany? Because if Canada were hosting a tournament and in a similar situation, we certainly wouldn't be supporting the USA.

Bad hair of the day award: I was all set to give it to Cristiano Ronaldo for his stupid quasi-mullet. (He has clearly had it cut recently, and yet he still has those little bits of hair on the nape of his neck. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHY?) But then I saw Torsten Frings in a backwards baseball cap over his flowing locks. I don't really know what he's going for here, but to me he looks like somebody who should be featured in the German version of Crap Email from a Dude. Anyway, sorry, Ronniecakes. Better luck next time. Maybe you can console yourself by going home and rolling around in your piles of money.

Euro 2008: Day 12

2008-06-19T14:18:00.000-04:00

Spain 2-1 Greece
Ok, I realize that this was an essentially meaningless game, with Greece already eliminated and Spain having won the group. But I still thought it was great, for one simple reason: Xabi Alonso wearing the captain's armband for Spain. That is awesome. (Yes, I am easily pleased. Shut up.)

Anyway, Spain made a whopping 10 changes to the lineup from their last game, which could have been dangerous -- remember the last World Cup, when Luis Aragones sent out the reserves to scrape a win against Saudi Arabia, draining all their momentum before meeting France in the round of 16. And it's possible that something similar could happed when Spain go up against Italy this time, but I think they should be encouraged by the fact that they came back to win the game after going behind. Also, I am clinging blindly to optimism.

You could kind of see, though, why none of these guys (aside from Andres Iniesta) are in the starting lineup regularly. Xabi was the only one who really made a strong case for his inclusion; he bossed the game from a position deep in midfield, and nearly scored three or four times, including a shot from his own half that was just barely wide and had the Greek keeper slamming into the post as he scrambled to backtrack.

Although they weren't as incisive as in their first two games -- they really missed David Villa and/or Fernando Torres up front -- Spain still dominated for most of the game, and Greece only took the lead against the run of play. It was a stereotypical Greek goal -- a header from Angelos Charisteas -- and some stereotypical Spanish defending, as they basically stood there and watched him. Oops.

Ruben de la Red equalized for Spain in the second half, from a knock-down by Dani Guiza, and Guiza scored himself with a header in the 87th minute to make it three wins in a row for Spain. And then he did some sort of stupid archer celebration -- apparently he is the La Liga equivalent of Robbie Keane. Now that's something to aspire to.

A final note: I have no idea why anybody would think that Gareth Barry is worth more money than Xabi Alonso. That makes less than zero sense to me. It's just a shame that more people would have watched this game so they could see for themselves.

Russia 2-0 Sweden
Has the real Russia finally shown up? After a pitiful loss to Spain and a so-so win against Greece, Russia claimed the last quarter-final spot with an impressive performance that partially explains why they're here instead of England. They got a huge boost from the return of Andrei Arshavin, who had been suspended for the first two games; he orchestrated most of Russia's best moves and just seemed to make the whole team look better around him. Plus, of course, you can't discount the Guus Hiddink factor. He has a great track record of getting his teams through to the knock-out rounds of international tournaments, and he's done it again in what was a must-win game for Russia (Sweden could have settled for a draw).

Russia were in control right from the beginning of the game, and they took the lead after less than half an hour, as Aleksandr Anyukov set up Roman Pavlyuchenko to sweep the ball in at the far post. Sweden had a couple chances to equalize, but Arshavin made it 2-0 for Russia in the 50th minute, finishing off a great counter-attack from Yuri Zhirkov's pass from the left wing (Zhirkov, incidentally, has looked pretty good in all three games so far). The Swedish defence, which had previously been so solid, fell apart under the whirlwind Russian attack.

Sweden briefly and half-heartedly attempted a comeback, but it was already too late. They never really looked like scoring one goal, let alone two. Zlatan Ibrahimovic was hobbling around despite painkilling injections in his dodgy knee at half-time -- his best moment was probably the attempt at a back-heeled flick over his head in the first minute of the game. And Henrik Larsson was showing the effects of being approximately 136 years old and already having played almost the full 90 minutes in their first two games. I lost track of the number of times the commentators referred to how "experienced" the Swedish team was -- which, as far as I can tell, just means "old."

(I am pleased to point out that I picked Russia to go through from this group along with Spain. Go me.)

So, all of the quarter-final slots are now filled, and it looks very promishing for the remainder of the tournament, because all eight of the remaining teams are more focussed on attacking than defending -- even Italy's traditional catennaccio has kind of gone out the window, considering that they're playing four fullbacks across the back line. I'm not even going to try to predict what will happen. But if I were to wish for anything, it would be for (1) Spain not to collapse for a change and (2) Cristiano Ronaldo to cry like a leetle baby. I live in hope.

Next up: Russia are rewarded by facing the Netherlands on Saturday, while Spain play Italy on Sunday.

Bad hair of the day award: Spain's Sergio Garcia, who was sporting a silly razor-thin beard and a ponytail that was roughly as big as he is.

Euro 2008: Day 11

2008-06-18T11:19:00.000-04:00

Italy 2-0 France
Au revoir, mes enfants. You got the feeling it wasn't going to be France's day when Franck Ribery had to go off injured after just 8 minutes, having messed up his ankle in by getting tangled up with Gianluca Zambrotta. Ribery has been one of the few bright spots for France in this tournament, although I do think that Samir Nasri, who came on as his replacement, deserved more playing time as well.

And the poor kid was hauled off again 15 minutes later, after Eric Abidal was sent off for bringing down Luca Toni in the box. I've seen a few people arguing that Toni dived, and I think he may have gone down deliberately, judging from the way he trailed his leg back, but I also think that Abidal fouled him, because he was grappling with Toni from behind. So it was the right call by the referee. Andrea Pirlo buried the penalty for Italy, Jean-Alain Boumsong came on to replace Abidal for France (oh dear), and the game was virtually decided.

You really have to question Raymond Domenech's decision not to call up Philippe Mexes for France. Well, you have to question Domenech's decision-making for a lot of things, but especially that. Lilian Thuram and Willy Sagnol apparently asked to be dropped for this match based on their performance in previous games, which mean that Abidal had to be shifted to centre-back, where he looked distinctly out of place -- but when your only other option is Boumsong, what else can you do?

France have looked shaky defensively all along, and it was the same in this game -- which is particularly galling considering that they're playing with two defensive midfielders to shield the back line. Italy could have been up by two or three goals by halftime, if it hadn't been for some abysmal finishing by Luca Toni. What the hell have they done to him in Germany? It's bizarre.

The other big problem for France is that they've failed to rejuvenate the team after making it to the World Cup final in 2006. There are a lot of players for whom this was one tournament too far, but Domenech apparently doesn't have enough faith in the youngsters to bring them in yet. Italy have a lot of the same issues -- a weak defence and a manager who doesn't seem to know what his best team is -- but this was a classic Italian performance in that they did enough to win regardless.

It helps that they've got the best goalkeeper in the tournament by a mile. Gianluigi Buffon saved their ass against Romania and made one especially good save again here in the 73rd minute, tipping Karim Benzema's shot just wide. But it was already 2-0 to Italy by that point, after Daniel de Rossi's free kick was deflected into the net by Thierry Henry on the end of the wall, sending Gregory Coupet diving the wrong way. I feel a bit bad for Titi for that, but not that much, considering he spent most of the game flailing in disappointment at his teammates. Way to be captainly there.

After that save by Buffon, the game sort of petered out, with France subsiding into existential crisis and the Italians trying to ensure that nobody else would get booked -- Pirlo and (surprise, surprise) Gennaro Gattuso picked up second yellow cards and will be on the bench for the quarter-final. They do have a variety of options in midfield, but I think their main concern will be getting Toni's mojo working again so he can properly threaten the Spanish defence. Oh, and, you know, figuring out how the hell they're going to cope with Villa + Torres. Should be a hell of a game.

Netherlands 2-0 Romania
The Netherlands second string cruised into the quarter-finals with a win over a Romanian team that may be limited and yet had previously managed to foil both the World Cup finalists. I think this makes the Dutch B-team slightly better than the Croatian B-team, for those of you who care about such things. Then again, when your B-team has players like Arjen Robben and Robin van Persie, that's kind of a misnomer.

The Netherlands dominated from the outset, but I don't think they were trying particularly hard. At least, it took them a while to find a way to cut through the Romanian defence, wasting several chances in the first half. They didn't take the lead until the 54th minute, from a right-wing cross that was flicked on by Orlando Engelaar for Klaas-Jan Huntelaar to finish.

As for Romania, they just didn't look like they really wanted to win the game. Even after they went behind -- and knowing that Italy were leading against France -- they were still too defensively focussed, with not enough players pushing up to support Adrian Mutu in attack. (Poor Mutu, incidentally, must still be kicking himself for that penalty piss against Italy.) And their fate was sealed with a second goal for the Netherlands late on, Robin van Persie controlling a great diagonal ball from Demy de Zeeuw and slicing his shot past Bogdan Lobont at the near post.

This performance doesn't really tell us anything new about the Netherlands squad -- we already knew that they had an obscene number of gifted attacking players. But what I find interesting is that their supposedly shaky defence hasn't really put a foot wrong so far. I'm very curious to see what would happen if they come up against, say, Portugal, further along the line.

Next up: The Netherlands play the Group D runners-up (Russia or Sweden) on Saturday, and on Sunday, Italy will see if Spain choke yet again at the quarter-final stage

Bad hair of the day award: Fabio Grosso, for his white-boy fro. Fabio, Andrea Pirlo would like to teach you a few things about the proper use of conditioner.

Euro 2008: Day 10

2008-06-17T13:52:00.000-04:00

Germany 1-0 Austria
It wasn't exactly an inspiring victory, but Germany have booked their place in the quarter-finals with this win. They've made hard work of what should have been an easy group, but now it's time for them to really get their act together for the knock-out stages. They did at least look much more solid defensively here, although that's kind of hard to judge against a team as goal-shy as Austria. Joachim Low juggled the back four a bit, bringing in Arne Friedrich at right-back and moving Philipp Lahm to the left in place of Marcell Jansen (supposedly injured, but I wouldn't be so sure).

The German midfield still looks a bit out of sorts, though, and their strikers are also having problems. Particularly Mario Gomez, who wasted three good chances in the first 10 minutes -- including an absolute sitter that he ballooned over the bar from about a yard out. Unbelievable. I'm not really sure how he keeps getting picked, because he's been equally useless in all three games so far. I think they might want to move Lukas Podolski up front with Miroslav Klose for the next game, and bring in Bastian Schweinsteiger on the left of midfield. At least Podolski has proved that he knows how to find the net.

Oh, right, I'm supposed to be talking about this game. Not a whole lot to say about the first half, really. Austria tried hard, but they just don't know what to do once they get into the penalty box. The closest they came was an extremely weak penalty shout, when Erwin Hoffer backed into Christoph Metzelder. But generally the Germans looked in control without creating much themselves either.

The main incident of the first half wasn't even on the pitch but on the sidelines, when both managers were rather bizarrely banished to the stands just before halftime for a bit of nothing. I don't know if they got into it with the fourth official, or each other, or what, but it seemed like an overly harsh reaction from the ref -- Phil Scolari would be very disappointed; nobody even took a swing at anybody. Actually, if anyone was going to be sent off, it should have been Rene Aufhauser earlier in the half, for pushing Podolski in the face. But he was luckier than Schweinsteiger was against Croatia, because the referee didn't see it and didn't even book him.

The key moment of the game was right at the beginning of the second half, when Germany were awarded a free kick just outside the box for Andreas Ivanschitz's foul on Lahm. Michael Ballack stepped up to take it and smashed the ball past the wall and into the net. Best free kick of the tournament. He's been admitted that he's been underperforming so far, but he redeemed himself with that goal. The rest of his team seemed to take confidence from the goal, although they weren't able to extend their lead over Austria. They'll have to do better than that against Portugal.

Croatia 1-0 Poland
I swear I watched this, but none of it really registered with me. It wasn't an entirely meaningless game, since Poland still had a chance to go through depending on what happened in the other match, but Michael Ballack's goal for Germany put an end to that.

The game got off to a fairly even start, but Croatia became more dominant as the first half went on. That continued after half-tim, with Ivan Klasnic scoring the only goal in the 52nd minute, from Daniel Pranjic's cutback. (Klasnic, incidentally, has made an amazing comeback after not one but two kidney transplants -- he apparently wears a fibreglass shield to protect himself on the pitch.)

That goal basically killed off any remaining hope for Poland, and Croatia were happy to just pass the ball around and wait for the clock to tick down the remaining half an hour. Anyway, Slaven Bilic should be happy with his team, as he made a slew of changes to the lineup but still won pretty easily, making Croatia the first team into the quarter-finals with a perfect 3-0 record.

Next up: Germany play Portugal on Thursday, in a replay of their bronze medal match from the last World Cup, while group winners Croatia face Turkey on Friday

Bad hair of the day award: Vedran Runje, Croatia's backup keeper, who made his first -- and probably only -- appearance at the tournament with a half-ponytail and lime-green scrunchie. (Sadly I cannot find a good picture of said scrunchie.)

Euro 2008: Day 9

2008-06-16T13:05:00.000-04:00

Turkey 3-2 Czech Republic
What a way to kick off the final round of group games. Turkey were on the verge of elimination, down 2-0 with 15 minutes to go, but they put together an amazing comeback to beat the Czechs, including two goal in the last three minutes.

It was a nervy opening to the game, with a couple Turkish players booked in the first 10 minutes. There were a few chances for both sides, but the Czechs had the better of the first half. And they took the lead after about half an hour through Jan Koller -- picked instead of Milan Baros for this match -- who opened the scoring with a characteristic header from Zdenek Grygera's cross.

Turkey started the second half more strongly -- an acrobatic scissor kick by Nihat Kahveci that went wide of the target, a good save by Petr Cech to snatch the ball off Nihat's forehead -- but the Czechs extended their lead. Jaroslav Plasil slid in to connect with Libor Sionko's ball in from the right wing, with Turkey indignant because they had been attempting to substitute an injured player.

But Turkey were given a boost in the 75th minute, as Arda Turan made it 2-1 with a shot from the top of the box that just snuck past Petr Cech at the near post. They really went for it after that and were rewarded with just three minutes left, as Cech fumbled a routine cross (yes, it was raining, but you expect better from somebody who's supposed to be one of the best keepers in the world) and Nihat Kahveci pounced. It looked like the game was heading to penalties to decide who would qualify for the quarter-finals, but instead Nihat scored again, through on goal -- I'm not sure if he was offside or if the Czech defence just switched off -- to curl his shot over Cech into the far corner. (Poor Petr. He deserves better, really.)

And then, as if that wasn't enough craziness: Volkan Demirel, the Turkish keeper, got himself sent off. Yes, really. On the verge of stoppage time, knowing there'll be a penalty shootout if your opponents equalize, and he decides that shoving Jan Koller is a good idea. The really excellent part is that Turkey had already used all their subs, so Tuncay ended up in goal, just to add the perfect touch of comedy to a brilliantly insane game.

Switzerland 2-0 Portugal
A thoroughly meaningless match, with Portugal already having clinched top spot in the group and Switzerland the wooden spoon. And it was as uneventful as you'd expect. I actually missed 20 minutes of the first half because my recording cut out, but I don't think I missed that much at all.

Mostly it was a lot of pointless prancing around in midfield by Portugal's B-team -- including one of those Ronaldo-esque wrapping-one-leg-behind-the-other crosses by his doppelganger Ricardo Quaresma. Portugal also had a couple of decent penalty shouts, but they were both waved off by the referee, and nobody seemed too bothered -- I think the Portuguese players were more worried about not getting their pretty white kits all dirty. The exception to this was Paulo Ferreira, one of only three regulars to retain his place, who had to be hauled off before halftime to stop him being sent off, after a nasty tackle on Valon Behrami. Actually, there were quite a few yellow cards for what should have been a relatively peaceful game.

Switzerland did start to push forward more in the second half, once they'd figured out that (a) Portugal was too busy faffing around to actually score goals and (b) Ricardo was having a shaky game in goal. They were rewarded for their effort when Hakan Yakin scored in the 70th minute, a good finish through the keeper's legs after a long ball forward that was flicked on by Eren Derdiyok. Yakin added a second goal 80 minutes later with a penalty after Tranquillo Barnetta was fouled by Fernando Meira. The Swiss fans were delirious, as their team was able to finish the tournament with a tiny smidgen of dignity.

As for Portugal, it's possible that they'll be unsettled by the loss -- not to mention all the foofaraw about Phil Scolari moving to Chelsea -- and lose momentum, but I think they have enough natural arrogance to carry them through regardless.

Next up: Portugal will play whoever finishes second in Group B in the first quarter-final on Thursday, while Turkey face Croatia on Friday

Bad hair of the day award: Miguel Veloso, who looks remarkably like a rooster

Euro 2008: Day 8

2008-06-15T14:49:00.001-04:00

Spain 2-1 Sweden
I expected this to be a tougher game for Spain, because Sweden are more disciplined team and weren't likely to push forward and leave space for them the way Russia did in the opening match. Although Spain had the vast majority of both the possession and shots on goal, it was more difficult for them to get in behind the defenders and create clear chances (plus, all the Swedish players were about a foot taller than the Spanish ones). But they took the lead after just 15 minutes -- from a corner rather than open play -- with Fernando Torres sticking a boot out to turn it into the net. Let's hope nobody broke anything celebrating this time, although from the way they all piled on top of each other, you never know.

Sweden almost equalized immediately, but Johan Elmander's shot went into the side netting; a few minutes later, Henrik Larsson attempted to chip the keeper but it went just over the crossbar. And then Carles Puyol went off with a thigh strain, which is a bit worrisome because he's often the only Spanish player who remembers that he's actually supposed to defend. Sweden took advantage of Spain's defensive frailty to equalize after half an hour, as Zlatan Ibrahimovic held off Sergio Ramos in the box to turn and shoot low past Iker Casillas. (Saint Iker, for once, looked as if he maybe could have done better, but Ramos was certainly useless.)

Spain, I think, were a bit shocked by the goal, and Sweden looked like the stronger team as the first half wound down. Spain did have a good shout for a penalty ignored just before halftime, when David Silva was absolutely flattened in the box by Elmander, but really they were doing well just to have held out at 1-1. They could also count themselves fortunate that Ibrahimovic had to be substituted at halftime, presumably because his knee was playing up again.

Spain started the second half much better, although still not well enough. Luis Aragones gambled by using up his two remaining subs and sending on Cesc Fabregas and Santi Cazorla (dear commentator: NOT CAZOLRA) for Xavi and Andres Iniesta in an attempt to force a breakthrough. The changes did have an impact, as Spain had a series of chances, but they were all foiled through a combination of good defending by Sweden and Spanish players trying to take one touch too many. Learn from Arsenal, boys: Pretty passes are nice, but they're no good if you don't score. Just ask Cesc.

The longer the second half went on, the more opportunities Spain had and the more they got frustrated by their inability to score. (What they really should have been frustrated about was that they left themselves exposed at the back more than once.) But finally, in the second minute of stoppage time, David Villa scored the winner. He ran onto a rare long ball forward from Joan Capdevilla, beating two defenders to the ball, and sidefooted it past the keeper into the far corner with a great finish. Spain deserved the win, overall -- they could have crumpled after Sweden scored -- but I think there are still some question marks about their ability to beat the really tough teams in this tournament.

Russia 1-0 Greece
Time for those of us who aren't fans of anti-football -- or of excessive honking on the Danforth -- to celebrate: Greece are out of Euro 2004. The only team to be eliminated without scoring a goal, although they could get themselves a consolation prize in their meaningless final game against Spain.

Actually, I should give the Greeks credit for their contribution to a game that I thought was going to be absolutely horrible but turned out to be pretty good. Not always the best quality football on display, but entertaining nonetheless. It probably helped that Russia took the lead after half an hour, as Antonis Nikopolidis ended his international career with a goalkeeping howler, charging out of his net and then just standing and watching as Sergei Semak hooked the ball back across the net for Konstantin Zyrianov to tap in.

That forced the Greeks to come out and attack more, although at the expense of their defensive solidity. Roman Pavlyuchenko had a series of chances to extend Russia's lead, but wasted them all, mostly through wayward finishing plus the odd offside flag. Angelos Charisteas did manage to put the ball in the net for Greece in the 86th minute, but it was ruled out for offside -- a very close call, I think.

Russia will have playmaker Andrei Arshavin back for their decisive final match against Sweden, which should help them up front. The question is whether their defence is as competent as it looked against Greece, or as hopeless as it was against Spain.

Next up in Group D: Spain v. Greece and Russia v. Sweden, both at 2:30 pm (ET) on Wednesday

Bad hair of the day award: I had a tough time choosing between Sotiris Kyrgiakos and Giannis Amanatidis for Greece, but I have to go with Amanitidis (he's the one on the right) because it looks like he hasn't been near a barber since Euro 2004, whereas Kyrgiakos may have actually shaved recently.

Euro 2008: Day 7

2008-06-15T13:07:00.000-04:00

Italy 1-1 Romania
I know there were some people out there who picked Romania as the dark horse candidates for this tournament -- not me, sadly, but it looks like those people were pretty smart.

After the embarrassment of their defeat against the Netherlands, Roberto Donadoni made a number of changes to the Italian lineup, bringing Daniele de Rossi and Simone Perrotta into midfield alongside Andrea Pirlo, giving Alessandro del Piero a start and rejigging the back line with Fabio Grosso and Giorgio Chiellini. Another loss would have eliminated them from the tournament, so they desperately needed to pick up at least a point here.

It was a good open game in the early stages, with Romania not playing quite as ultra-defensively as they did against France. Italy looked better than they did in their first game and had a few decent chances, but they seemed to be lacking the belief that they could win -- that attitude from 2006 that said "We're going to win this thing, and everyone else can go fuck themselves." Romania had a few chances of their own, but I think they were a bit shaken up when Mirel Radoi had to go off partway through the first half with a broken nose and fractured cheekbone after a collision with a teammate.

Just before halftime, after a good spell of pressure from Italy, the first controversial incident: A corner for Italy, sent out to the edge of the box and chipped back in, where Luca Toni scored only to have it ruled out for offside. It was a very close call, but I'm pretty sure the linesman got that one wrong, and the Italians were justifiably aggrieved (cue much impassioned gesturing).

Things got worse for Italy early in the second half, when Romania took the lead. From a long free kick, Gianluca Zambrotta attempted to head the ball back to the goalkeeper, only for Adrian Mutu to pounce and slice his shot over Gianluigi Buffon and into the net. But the Italians responded almost immediately, with a corner that was headed back across the goal and turned in at the post by Christian Panucci.

Italy made a series of changes in the final half-hour of the game, trying to get that valuable winning goal, but were unable to break down the Romanian defence. Instead it was Romania with the chance to win the game, after they were awarded a penalty for a foul by Panucci on Daniel Niculae. (The Italians whined about this one too, but the referee got it right.) Adrian Mutu stepped up, but his shot was miraculously saved by Buffon -- although it was hit fairly close to the keeper, he still had to react brilliantly to stop it with first his trailing arm and then his leg. Mutu looked like he was about to cry, and had to be subbed off soon after to stop him having a tantrum on the pitch.

So it ended 1-1, which means both teams are still clinging to life. Romania, actually, are in a slightly better position, because they have one point more, although they'll have a few players suspended for their final game against an already-qualified Netherlands. Italy will survive if they can beat France, but they're going to need a much better performance from Toni -- it really wasn't his day -- and, of course, to sort out that defence.

Netherlands 4-1 France
The Netherlands, unlike Romania, don't get to be a dark horse team. When you've played two games and handily defeated both World Cup finalists in the process, I think you have to be labelled as one of the favourites. They've clinched top spot in the group with this win, which means they could rest some players and take it easy against Romania in the final game; my only concern would be that if they do lose, it could mess with their usually fragile mental balance.

Anyway, Marco van Basten stuck with his winning lineup for this game, while Raymond Domenech changed things up in an attempt to inject some attacking flair into his team, moving Franck Ribery to a more central position and demoting Nicolas Anelka and Karim Benzema to the bench in favour of Thierry Henry as the lone striker (that, right there, would be the flaw in the plan, yes?).

So, yeah, that didn't work too well for France. The Netherlands scored first in the 10th minute, with Dirk Kuyt's header from a corner. And even after taking the lead, rather than sitting back to defend, they were brave -- or wise -- enough to continue pressing forward. France were struggling to hold onto possession, or at least to do much with it, with the Dutch players hustling to close them down. The French got better after the first half-hour or so, with Ribery -- as expected -- the source of just about everything good, but the Netherlands just kept playing their pretty triangles. In fact, they got even more offensively focusses, bringing on both Arjen Robben and Robin van Persie.

It was Van Persie who scored what turned out to be the winning goal in the 59th minute, after a fantastic bit of team play. From a throw-in deep in the Dutch half, Ruud van Nistelrooy did a sort of Zidane turn around the defender (I swear, I don't remember him doing that sort of thing for United) and set Robben free down the left wing. He crossed the ball to Van Persie, who hit a great first-time volley. Beautiful football.

Thierry Henry scored for France 10 minutes later to bring it back to 2-1, connecting with a right-wing cross from Willy Sagnol. But Robben restored the Netherlands' two-goal lead almost immediately from the kickoff, finishing off another mesmerizing passing move with an amazing finish from an almost impossible angle. That was pretty much game over for France, and I think the players might have just given up. And the Dutch rubbed their noses in it, Wesley Sneijder adding a fourth goal in stoppage time with a fine shot from the edge of the box.

So, France versus Italy in their final group game is not only a World Cup final rematch but also a battle for survival. That result won't matter at all if Romania beat the Netherlands, but both teams have to go for the win (if Romania lose and the other two draw, then I think it's decided on goal difference). If I had to pick a winner in that game, I'd say Italy, because France looked apathetic once again, while Italy were mostly just unfortunate.

Next up in Group C: France v. Italy and Netherlands v. Romania, both at 2:30 pm on Tuesday. Set your VCRs, y'all.

Bad hair of the day award: Sebastien Frey, France's back-up keeper. No, he didn't actually play, but his double-decker sideburns are bad enough to deserve a mention.

Hup Oranje!

2008-06-14T09:09:00.003-04:00

I'm heading out for the weekend and haven't had a chance to watch any of yesterday's games yet, so let me just say this: The Group of Death is now, officially, the Group of AWESOME.

Euro 2008 odds and ends

2008-06-13T14:43:00.000-04:00

One of the Globe and Mail columnists has criticized the TSN/Sportsnet coverage of the tournament because the in-studio team don't explain their comments thoroughly enough. But I have to agree with the guys at the Globe's soccer blog who pointed out that it's intended for viewers who actually know a little bit about the game, rather than treating them like idiots. Actually, I'd like a little more in-depth analysis, because most of their commentary is pretty banal. Still, it's better than the garbage that ESPN usually throws up; mostly I'm just grateful that they're using the English feed from UEFA and therefore I don't have to listen to Tommy Smyth this month.
The way the draw for the knockout stages is set up is kind of bizarre: The winners and runners-up from Groups A and B go into one side of the draw, while remaining teams go into the other side. This means that two teams from the same group, assuming they win their quarter-final matches, could then meet again at the semi-final stage. Any idea why they did it that way? I guess maybe they didn't want two teams from the same group meeting in the final -- like Portugal and Spain in 2004 -- but why is a semi-final any better? Actually, any two teams that can make it that far, there'd probably be more drama with a rematch in the final.
I am kind of slow, but I realized yesterday that there was a reason why the last round of group games kick off at the same time: To prevent matches being fixed like (supposedly) Denmark v. Sweden at Euro 2004. Duh. And here I thought they were just doing it to fuck with my TV viewing schedule.
If you haven't yet, you should check out the official UEFA Euro 2008 site, which has a whackload of information -- including pictures, videos, and more statistics than you would ever need in your entire life.

And a few other bits and bobs, seeing as we're halfway through the group stage now:

Best goal celebration:
1. Slaven Bilic, jumping on one of his coaching staff like an over-enthusiastic koala after Croatia's opening goal against Germany.
2. David Villa, who fractured his finger after getting it caught in Fernando Torres's jersey. Maybe they need to start practicing their hugging on the training ground. Wait, that's supposed to be "best," not "klutziest," right? Oh.

Best singing of the national anthem:
1. Gennaro Gattuso, belting his heart out for Italy. Bless him
2. Any member of the Spanish team, trying not to look awkward about the fact that their anthem doesn't actually have any words.

Best socks:
1. Croatia -- I haven't seen their home kits yet, but the blue away socks have that red-and-white checkerboard pattern on them, which is a nice touch.
2. Netherlands -- I wasn't sure about the baby-blue socks, but I've decided now that I like them. It's sort of "We are too cool to bother about our uniforms matching."

Most likely to be wearing eyeliner:
1. Nuno Gomes -- He is really rocking that smoky eye look.
2. David Villa -- It goes with the carefully sculpted little soul patch. Cheer up, emo striker!

Euro 2008: Day 6

2008-06-13T11:14:00.001-04:00

Croatia 2-1 Germany
So much for Germany's status as tournament favourites. I don't know if they just collapsed under the weight of expectations after their first game or what, but if so, Dear boys: You are not Spain. Stop being all neurotic. Love, me.

The first sign that maybe it wasn't going to be Germany's day came about 20 minutes in, after a relatively quiet start by both teams, as Mario Gomez put the ball into the net only for it to be (correctly) ruled out for offside. A few minutes later, it was Croatia who took the lead with a cross from the left wing that was poked into the net by Dario Srna, who'd got in behind Marcell Jansen. The Germans had several chances to equalize before halftime, but nothing came of it: a miss by Gomez, Michael Ballack's free kick parried by the keeper, a header over the bar by Christoph Metzelder, another goal ruled out for a spurious foul by Gomez...

Croatia also had chances to extend their lead -- Niko Kranjcar wasted a couple of shots -- with the German defence looking decidedly shaky and Jens Lehmann being his usual nutty self. (I think I actually saw him biting the ball at one point. The hell?) Slaven Bilic had changed things after the game against Austria, putting an extra man in midfield, and he had his team fired up, passing well, pressing forward to support their lone striker, and closing Germany down quickly to deny them opportunities.

Joachim Low reshuffled his lineup at halftime, bringing David Odonkor on in place of the hapless Jansen, but they all just looked out of sorts -- as if the entire team was cranky from missing their afternoon nap. And the changes didn't have much impact, as Croatia scored again in the 62nd minute, a long shot from Ivan Rakitic on the right wing deflecting off Lukas Podolski and rebounding off the post for Ivica Olic to bury the rebound, with Jens Lehmann scrambling (and incidentally, I think he reacted late to the first goal too).

Bastien Schweinsteiger came on a bit later for Gomez (who's been mediocre in both games so far and needs to be benched), and although he had a shot tipped just wide, his main impact on the game was getting sent off in stoppage time for a brainless shove on Jerko Leko. Podolski finally scored for Germany in the 78th minute, volleying home his shot after Ballack had knocked down Philipp Lahm's cross from the left wing. Podolski and Lahm, by the way, are probably the only two German players who came out of this game with much credit. Ballack, who's supposed to lead by example, mostly just stormed around and pouted -- plus of course he got booked for a petulant tackle late on. Anyway, you would've expected Germany to really go for it after they made it 2-1, but Croatia still had way too much of the ball. They all just looked stunned when the final whistle blew, while the Croatians -- especially Bilic -- were going crazy celebrating an excellent win.

Austria 1-1 Poland
Austria, in constrast to their German cousins, played spirited attacking football, as if they were completely free of expectations of any kind. The only thing they were missing, sadly, was the ability to put the ball in the back of the net. Three times in the first 15 minutes they had clear chances on net, only to be stymied by a combination of terrible finishing and excellent goalkeeping by Artur Boruc. Possibly they were jinxed, or possibly Boruc had put high-powered magnets in both his socks and the ball. You never know.

Poland hadn't played very well to start, but they got the opening goal against the run of play after half an hour: A cross from Ebi Smolarek, a shot by Marek Saganowski, and Roger Guerreiro scoring the rebound. But they couldn't capitalize on that and extend their lead in the second half, with Jurgen Macho making a series of good saves. Instead, Austria were gifted a lifeline in stoppage time, with a penalty awarded after Mariusz Lewandowski dragged Sebastian Prodl down in the box while defending a free kick. Ivica Vastic stepped up to take it and took it well -- he apparently won himself free beer for life in the process, by the way -- to keep his team in the tournament for now.

What this all means is that Croatia are into the quarter-finals as group winners, while all three of the other teams are still alive depending on various permutations. If Austria beat Germany in their final game -- which is not so out of the realm of probability as it once seemed -- then the hosts will go through. You have to expect that Germany will get the win they need, but then they'll have to face Portugal in the quarters; they likely would've had to meet them at some point anyway, but it's still not a pleasant prospect for the Germans.

Next up in Group B: Austria v. Germany and Croatia v. Poland, both at 2:30 pm (ET) on Monday

Bad hair of the day award: Bastian Schweinsteiger and his platinum blonde monstrosity. Annie Lennox wants her hair back, Schweini. (I am also dubious about Lukas Podolski's patchy hair colour, but I'll give him a pass because at least he was useful, whereas Schweinsteiger gets points deducted for being sent off.)

Euro 2008: Day 5

2008-06-12T09:50:00.002-04:00

Portugal 3-1 Czech Republic
Cristiano Ronaldo and co. have made easy work of the group stages so far. They got off to a good start in this game as well, with an early goal. Ronaldo was played into the box via a one-two with Nuno Gomes; Petr Cech did well to just barely tip the ball away from him, but it fell to Deco and he scrambled it across the goal line. Libor Sionko equalized for the Czech Republic less than 10 minutes later, getting up well to power in a header from a corner.

The Czechs certainly looked more lively than they did against Switzerland in their opening game, but they weren't effective enough up front. Apparently we got the Premiership Milan Baros (i.e., lots of headless chicken running) rather than the Euro 2004 version that actually knows how to put the ball in the net. I suppose it didn't help that he was pretty isolated up front. Anyway, in the absence of goals, much of the middle section of the game involved niggly fouls, people randomly falling over and whining at the ref, and Portuguese players preening in their skintight white kits. I have to admit, they kind of looked nice with Ronniecakes' shiny green boots.

Speaking of preening: Ronaldo, after 63 minutes, scoring the winning goal for Portugal. They were awarded yet another free kick, and this one was sent wide to Deco, who set up Ronaldo at the top of the box, and he slotted it through a crowd of defenders and past the keeper. And then followed that up a little while later by squabbling with Simao over who'd get to take a free kick. Silly boy, doesn't he know that it's always Ronaldo's turn to shank it into the wall? The Czechs had a few more chances to pull themselves back into the game, but couldn't take advantage. Instead Portugal added a third goal in stoppage time, after a quick free kick that set Ronaldo free behind the defence. He drew Petr Cech out and then squared it to Ricardo Quaresma for an easy finish. It wasn't all about Ronaldo in this game -- Deco, for one, played very well too -- but it is hard to look past the gel-monkey right now.

Turkey 2-1 Switzerland
This could have been a very dull match (I didn't watch the whole thing, actually), but it was enlivened by the torrential rain that turned the pitch into a gigantic slip-and-slide. Switzerland opened the scoring after half an hour with a long ball to Eren Derdiyok, who rounded the keeper and then squared it to Hakan Yakin -- only for the ball to stop in a puddle along the way before he could poke it over the line.

They weren't able to hold on to their lead, though. Substitute Senturk Semih equalized for Turkey partway through the second half, attacking a cross from the left and getting up ahead of the defender for the header. Switzerland still had hopes of hanging on for a draw, but they were sucker-punched by a Turkish counter-attack in stoppage time, as Turan Arda's shot from the edge of the box was deflected past Diego Benaglio in goal. It was a devastating result for the Swiss, who have had absolutely no luck in this tournament. Unfortunately, they lacked the firepower up front to take advantage of Turkey's periodic defensive lapses -- Yakin, for example, missed a great chance just after the first goal. I am a bit disappointed by the lack of post-game fighting, but I guess they were all just too waterlogged.

Anyway, Switzerland have been eliminated, while Portugal have guaranteed their spot in the quarter-finals as group winners. The Czech Republic and Turkey face each other in their final group game to decide which of them will move on. They both have identical records so far, which means that the winner goes through; if there's a tie, it will be decided by penalty kicks, according to UEFA:

Should two teams or more from the same group finish with an equal number of points, they will be ranked based on the following criteria:

- Number of points earned in matches between the teams in question;
- Goal difference in matches between the teams in question;
- Goals scored in matches between the teams in question;
- Goal difference in all group matches;
- Goals scored in all group matches;
- * In cases where exactly two teams are equal in all previously listed criteria and play one another to a draw in their final group match, kicks from the penalty mark will be conducted in lieu of the remaining criteria;
- UEFA coefficient;
- Fair play conduct of the teams in the group stage;
- Drawing of lots.

Next up in Group A: Turkey v. Czech Republic and Portugal v. Switzerland, both kicking off at 2:30 pm on Sunday

Bad hair of the day award: The Czech's Tomas Ujfalusi, for a combination of long, lank hair and a sketchy goatee that makes him look like he belongs in a biker bar

Euro 2008: Day 4

2008-06-11T11:46:00.000-04:00

Spain 4-1 Russia
Oh, Spain. This is why I both love you and hate you: the brilliant attacking play, the significantly less than brilliant defending... It was all sort of reminiscent of the World Cup in 2006, when they beat Ukraine 4-0 in their opening match, won their group easily, and then proceeded to get beaten by France at the first knockout stage. (Which is exactly what could happen here, depending on the results over in Group C. Oh joy.)

Luis Aragones made the bold decision to start with a 4-4-2 formation rather than the variations on 4-3-3 they'd been playing up until now, with Fernando Torres and David Villa partnered up front and Marcos Senna doing the dirty work behind the trio of pint-sized midfielders. And the combination of Villa and Torres worked beautifully, exemplified by Spain's first goal: Torres broke through the defence and squared the ball to Villa for a simple finish. Villa added a second goal for Spain just before halftime, with a perfectly timed run onto a pass from Andres Iniesta (possibly the world's palest Spaniard), leaving the keeper helpless as he slotted the ball through Igor Akinfeev's legs. Spain still like to ping the ball around midfield maybe a little too much, but they also seem to have learned about the effectiveness of letting their strikers run at the defence.

Fernando Torres didn't get as many chances to do that as he might have liked, but he had a good game nonetheless before he was hauled off early in the second half (still carrying a bit of a knock on his ankle). Aragones, meanwhile, got to show off the array of talent he'd left on the bench to start with, bringing on first Cesc Fabregas and then Santi Cazorla and Xabi Alonso. And it was Fabregas who set up the third goal in Villa's hat-trick with a great diagonal ball, Villa cutting inside the defender and then wrong-footing the keeper. God knows that Villa can have his off days too, but based on this game, he's an utterly lethal finisher when he wants to be.

Spain's problems, as you might've expected, were at the back. Russia was the technically inferior team -- taking two touches or more to do what the Spaniards would have done in one touch or two -- but when they did get forward as far as the 18-yard box, the Spanish defence looked pretty shaky. A lot of times it seemed like they were all just waiting for someone else to step in and clear the ball, and they were saved by the post at least once. How Carles Puyol wasn't out there cracking heads together I don't know. (Although I should point out that I don't think Iker Casillas had to make any really spectacular saves.) Sergio Ramos, in particular, seemed to have forgotten that being a defender means, you know, tackling and stuff like that. Maybe he was worried about messing up his hair.

Anyway, they finally paid for it with five minutes to go: A Russian corner, flicked on and then headed home by Roman Pavlyuchenko at the back post, with Joan Capdevilla caught flat-footed. Their consolation goal was cancelled out in the 90th minute, though, by Cesc Fabregas's first international goal as he headed in the rebound from Xavi's volley.

So much for my prediction that Russia could surprise people in this tournament. They may still be good enough to beat either Sweden or Greece, but that's hardly a ringing endorsement. As for Spain: learn to defend, please. I beg you. Because David Villa and his idiotic soul-patch are not going to pop up and score a hat-trick in every game. The happiest people after this result, actually, might be in Valencia, because now they can add a few million more pounds on to his valuation. Gentlemen, start your chequebooks.

Sweden 2-0 Greece
Okay, I still don't understand how Greece won this back in 2004. Because they have basically the same team, the same coach, the same tactics, and yet they were essentially useless against Sweden, who are not exactly one of the giants of the footballing world. I realize that last time, Greece scored most of their goals from set pieces, but those were pretty mediocre here, and their main strategy seemed to be passing the ball sluggishly back and forth across their defence.

Sweden, on the other hand, were okay but hardly stellar for the first hour or so -- the highlight was probably a header off the crossbar by Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the first half. Finally, though, in the 65th minute, Ibrahimovic produced a moment of brilliance, collecting a throw-in and exchanging passes with Henrik Larsson before slicing his shot past Antonis Nikopolidis into the top corner of the net. It was his first international goal for more than two years, and also probably the goal of the tournament so far. (And maybe a bit of payback after a Greek player kicked him in the nuts earlier in the game.)

The Swedes put the game away with a second goal five minutes later, scrambled into the net by Petter Hansson -- who'd almost headed the ball into his own goal not long before that -- after a couple attempted shots by Freddie Ljungberg and Johan Elmander. Certainly not the prettiest goal, but it still counts. Greece were never likely to get back into the game after that; they did push forward more, but it was hard to see them scoring one goal, let alone two.

Next up in Group D: sweden v. Spain and Greece v. Russia, both on Saturday

Bad hair of the day award: Joint honours go to Carles Puyol and Sergio Ramos. Puyol's hair was less insane than usual thanks to the rain, but Ramos' just bugs me. You're not starring in a Pantene commercial, Sergio; just cut it already.

Euro 2008: Day 3

2008-06-10T14:37:00.003-04:00

Netherlands 3-0 Italy
And the answer to the question of how Italy would cope without Fabio Cannavaro is: Not well at all. I can't remember the last time they lost this badly. Maybe they should have just put Cannavaro out there anyway, crutches and all.

The game turned to shit for Italy in the 25th minute, with Ruud van Nistelrooy scoring a goal that at first appeared to be blatantly offside. The problem is that Cristian Panucci had gone down in a heap on the far side of the goal line after a collision with Gianluigi Buffon, and apparently if you read the fine print of the offside rule, he counted as the second defender playing van Nistelrooy onside. Now, if the referee and linesman knew this at the time and that's why they let the goal stand, then well done to them, but I kind of suspect that they didn't see that Van Nistelrooy was behind the rest of the defenders and therefore blew the call -- although it ultimately turned out to be right.

Anyway, if you're going to be nit-picky, the Netherlands maybe should have scored earlier in the first half, when van Nistelrooy was played through on goal only to be caught by Buffon and ultimately lose possession. The contact was minor, but if he'd gone down rather than staying on his feet and trying to score, he probably would've got the penalty.

The controversy over van Nistelrooy's goal aside, the Dutch thoroughly deserved the win. I realize you can't completely discount that opening goal, since it meant that Italy had to push forward more and try for an equalizer, leaving openings at the back. But even so, they were being picked apart far too easily on the counter-attack.

The second Netherlands goal was the best one of the game. It started with an Italy corner that was cleared off the line by Gio van Bronckhorst, who was involved again later in the move with a great cross-field pass to Dirk Kuyt as the Dutch counter-attacked. Kuyt headed the ball down for Wesley Sneijder, who somehow managed to hook the ball past Buffon at the near post at a near-impossible angle. Van Nistelrooy could've made it three before halftime, after a through ball from Rafael van der Vaart that split the defence, but this time Buffon managed to block his shot. (Despite giving up three goals -- he even apologized to the fans after the game -- Buffon really did play well, as did Edwin van der Sar at the other end.)

Roberto Donadoni made a series of substitutions in the second half, attempting to get his team back into the game, but it was ultimately futile. First Fabio Grosso came on for Marco Materazzi to re-jig the defence, and then Alessandro del Piero and Antonio Cassano. The offensive changes did have an effect, although not enough to actually score, while the defenders still managed to give up another goal. The Netherlands had also brought on some fresh legs, and van Bronckhorst added a third goal after yet another counter-attack in the 80th minute -- Buffon blocked Kuyt's shot but not Van Bronckhorst's follow-up header.

Italy's most obvious problem was the lapses at the back -- I think they missed Cannavaro not only for his defensive talents but also for his ability to organize the rest of the back line. In his absence, Andreas Barzagli was mostly invisible, while Materazzi was notable mostly for being crap. But they also needed more protection from midfield. I think the Milan-based trio of Gattuso, Pirlo and Ambrosini were just too worn out after a draining season; maybe they could've used Daniel de Rossi in there to shore things up instead. And up front, Luca Toni did his best but should have taken a lesson in goal poaching from Ruud van Nistelrooy.

As for the Netherlands, it was a bit of redemption for Marco van Basten and his tactics. Despite their supposedly suspect defence, they did a good job of snuffing out the Italian attacks, and held on to possession well as they looked for opportunities. The bottom line for them is that cliche about attack being the best form of defence.

So, what next? The Netherlands will be boosted by picking up not only three points, but also their first win over Italy in 30 years. The Italians, meanwhile, need to use this defeat to fire themselves up for their next two games. Back in 1994, they lost their first game and still went on to reach the final, so it could happen again. But the Dutch are definitely the favourites to get out of the group right now.

Romania 0-0 France
Ok, I was dead tired yesterday to start with, but that game just about put me into a coma. I think the spectators were as bored as I was, because it was pretty quiet in the stadium. Hardly surprising, when you see stats like there being a grand total of one shot on goal in the entire game (that dubious honour goes to France, by the way).

Romania, I think, may turn out to be the Greece of 2008. They're well organized defensively -- they actually had six defenders on the pitch, with two of them nominally playing in midfield -- but there's not a whole lot else going on. Adrian Mutu had some flashes where he looked good, but I suspect he's a bit distracted by the issues in his personal life right now. And anyway, this whole approach worked for Greece last time, so who knows.

France, on the other hand, seemed to be trying to turn this from the group of death into the group of soul-crushing ennui. They're desperately missing the kind of creativity they used to get from Zinedine Zidane. I'm not sure that playing two defensively minded midfielders was really necessary against a team like Romania -- not that starting Patrick Vieira instead would have helped that much, but Samir Nasri probably should have come on much earlier. Franck Ribery just can't do it all on his own. Nicolas Anelka was even more useless than Thierry Henry usually is in big games, and next to him up front, Karim Benzema was mostly shooting over the bar from 30 yards out. At least he was trying. The defenders didn't have a whole lot to do, but I think the fullbacks could've gotten forward more to beef up the attack.

Still, this could turn out to be like the last World Cup, when France limped through their group but made it all the way to the final -- or it could be like 2002, when they went out at the group stage without scoring a single goal.

Next up in Group C: Italy v. Romania and France v. Netherlands, both on Friday

Bad hair of the day award: Italy's Gianluigi Buffon, for that bizarre headband thing and the ensuing mushroom 'do. (Poor Gigi, it just wasn't his day.)

Taking a brief break from the Euros

2008-06-10T09:12:00.000-04:00

Toronto FC were thumped 3-1 by the Houston Dynamo on Sunday, continuing their awful form on the road. Toronto seemed to be struggling without Amado Guevara and Maurice Edu -- both away with their national teams -- and spent most of the game pinned back in their own half. Still, they managed to hold off their opponents until stoppage time in the first half, when Brian Ching set up Dwayne De Rosario for the opening goal. Ching added two more goals for Houston in the second half, and they seemed to be picking holes in the Toronto defence at will. Jeff Cunningham pulled a goal back for TFC in the 71st minute, but apart from that they rarely threatened the Houston goal. They'll be glad to get back to BMO Field for their home game against the Colorado rapids this Saturday.

On a fashion note, I have a feeling I've said this before, but it bears repeating: Those grey away jerseys are awful. Especially with the red shorts. Maybe if they had black shorts it'd look better. (What, are they too cheap to spring for a full away kit?) As it is, it just looks like they forgot to change out of their warmup jerseys before the game.

Also annoying: The local Houston commentators who were calling the game. It's not American football, so please stop talking about turnovers, kthx.

Other red-and-white-related news:

Canada drew 2-2 with Panama last week in a closed-doors friendly ahead of their World Cup qualifying matches later this month. Canada took a 1-0 lead through Jamie Peters in the first half, before giving up a goal on either side of halftime to go behind 2-1. Ante Jazic scored a late goal for Canada to tie things up.
Canada have moved up to 60th place in the latest FIFA rankings, tied with Panama. St. Vincent and the Grenadines, their opponents in the first round of World Cup qualifying this Sunday, are down in 147th.
The Canadian women's team is still in 9th place, between France and Japan. The Canadian women's next game is this Saturday versus Argentina, who are also one of the teams that they'll be facing in their group at the Olympics in Beijing.
Even Pellerud has announced that he'll be stepping down as the head coach of the women's team after the Olympics in August.
And finally, the Footie Fool posted this link to an interview with Julian de Guzman on the FAN 590.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging, i.e., ITALY WTF.

Euro 2008: Day 2

2008-06-09T11:09:00.001-04:00

Croatia 1-0 Austria
It was the worst possible start for Austria: conceding a penalty in the first five minutes, after Ivica Olic was brought down in the box by Rene Aufhauser. A ballsy call by the referee, awarding a penalty against the hosts so early on, but I think it was the right one, and Luka Modric put it away easily. Austria looked stunned, and Croatia dominated for most of the first half, holding on to possession well. But the Austrians did start to try a bit more as halftime approached, rather than just hoofing the ball clear and hoping that Pogatetz wouldn't get sent off.

Austria got better as the game went on and were pushing the Croatians especially hard for the last 20 minutes or so, looking for an equalizer. Umit Korkmaz, in particular, looked lively when he came on as a substitute in the second half. Their main problem was that their final ball into the box was useless, and any shots they had were from too far out to really trouble the Croatian keeper, even with how much the ball supposedly moves. As for Croatia, it seemed like they were really missing Eduardo to score some goals for them. Either that or they just didn't care much -- aside from Olic, who was causing trouble for the Austrian defenders with his determined running all game. A bit surprising, really, because you'd think Slaven Bilic would tear a strip off them for a performance like this.

I do wonder if the game would've gone differently if it hadn't been for that early penalty. Croatia certainly would have had to push harder for a goal, while I suspect that Austria would have been content to play for the draw. I still think that Austria will have problems getting out of the group -- unless their finishing improves rapidly -- but they certainly didn't embarrass themselves here. Croatia, on the other hand, should be considered the very darkest of dark horses unless they get their act together pretty damn quick.

Germany 2-0 Poland
Today's drinking game: Take a sip every time the commentators refer to the German team as "efficient." Although, to be fair, it is a pretty accurate description. Germany set the tone for the game with a great early chance, as Michael Ballack played Miroslav Klose into the box. Klose could have shot himself but instead passed it to Mario Gomez, who slid in and just barely missed the ball. It was a sign of things to come; in the 20th minute, Klose broke through the Polish defence once again, this time squaring the ball to Lukas Podolski to finish cleanly -- the two Polish-born players combining against their birth country.

Podolski added a second goal in the second half, again set up (sort of) by Klose -- he whiffed at the ball in the box, it fell to Podolski and he hammered it into the net with his left foot. Podolski's had a so-so couple of years at Bayern Munich, but judging by this game -- where he was played out of position, nominally on the left of midfield -- he's set to reproduce the good international form that led to him being named young player of the tournament at the 2006 World Cup, ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo.

All in all, I thought it was a good performance by Germany. They like to play quick, direct football, but they can also hold onto possession and move the ball around nicely. Michael Ballack wasn't exactly outstanding but still had a good game, including a great shot in the second half that Artur Boruc just barely tipped over the ball, and it's nice to see him and Torsten Frings playing together in midfield again. Germany's weakness, as expected, might be Jens Lehmann, who did keep a clean sheet but looked kind of erratic nonetheless. As for Poland, they still have not managed to beat Germany...ever. They pressed hard -- Brazilian-born Guerrero, especially, looked good when he came on as a sub -- but the Germans were fit and well organized. I do think that Poland could get out of the group ahead of Croatia, based on these two games, but they're going to need more help for Ebi Smolarek up front.

Next up in Group B: Germany v. Croatia, Austria v. Poland, both on Thursday

Bad hair of the day award: Austria's Ronald Gercaliu, for his skunk-stripe pseudo-mohawk. At least they've won something.

Euro 2008: Day 1

2008-06-08T23:05:00.001-04:00

Czech Republic 1-0 Switzerland
So, not a bad game to kick off the tournament. The Swiss may not be one of the favoured teams, but they gave a good account of themselves overall, despite the loss. The Czechs took a while to get going, and although they had more quality than their opponents, I'd say they were lucky to come away with a win, and they needed a few good saves from Petr Cech to keep them in the game.

Switzerland, meanwhile, had a terrible bit of luck when captain Alexander Frei went down with a knee injury just before halftime. He had to leave the game, and -- as you could probably guess from his devastated reaction -- his tournament is over as well. That's a huge blow, because you have to wonder who's going to score their goals now, with only two proper strikers left in the squad. And that proved to be the problem in the second half, as despite a strong performance from the Swiss, it was the Czechs who eventually took the lead after 70 minutes. The ball was headed back in past the Swiss defence and Vaclav Sverkos, who'd come on earlier for Jan Koller -- ran on to it to score.

More bad luck for Switzerland: they probably should have had a penalty for a handball by Tomas Ujfalusi late in the second half, but instead the referee played on, and first Tranquillo Barnetta had his shot brilliantly saved by Cech, and then Johan Vonlanthen whacked the rebound off the crossbar. Anyway, the result doesn't bode well for their chances of progressing from the group. The Czech Republic, meanwhile, will have to step up their game a bit -- i.e., come up with something other than lumping the ball up to Koller -- if they want to get past Turkey and/or Portugal.

Portugal 2-0 Turkey
Apparently this is what you do if you're suffering from a lack of strikers: get your goals from your central defenders. Pepe opened the scoring against Turkey in the 60th minute after a rampaging run up the middle of the pitch, playing a one-two with Nuno Gomes to get into the box and finishing well under pressure from the Turkish defender. And it was fitting that he was the one to score, after seeing an earlier header ruled out for a (correct but very close) offside call. Substitute Raul Meireles added a second goal for Portugal in stoppage time after a well-worked move, fed by Joao Moutinho on the edge of the box.

It was a pretty open, entertaining game to watch, with both teams more interested in attacking -- or, in Turkey's case, pressing forward and then throwing themselves to the ground instead of shooting -- than defending. As for you-know-who, Turkey seemed to be double- and triple-teaming him, but he still showed a few flashes of brilliance, and was involved in the buildup to both goal. His most notable contribution was probably a dangerous free kick in the first half that was just barely tipped onto the post by Volkan. That, and possibly pouting when he realized that Simao's jersey was even more skin-tight than his own.

Anyway, a much better start to the tournament for Portugal than last time around, when they lost to eventual champions Greece in the opening game. Turkey will feel that they have a decent shot at surviving the group, but they have to learn to take their chances -- they had only one shot on target -- rather than just falling over.

Next up in Group A: Turkey v. Switzerland and Portugal v. Czech Republic, both on Wednesday

Bad hair of the day award: Valon Behrami of Switzerland, who seems to have been a bit too enthusiastic with the Lady Clairol highlighting kit.

A slightly different kind of Euro 2008 preview

2008-06-08T18:20:00.000-04:00

Last week, Spangly Princess had an interesting post about how, as female football bloggers, we're sometimes reluctant to mention the attractiveness of the players, because we're afraid that readers will then discount our opinions about the game itself. It's something I worry about myself -- I may talk about players' hair, for example, but I try to keep the gushing about how lovely Xabi Alonso is to a minimum, for example.

Anyway, I mention all this as an aside to a bit of self-pimping: I recently participated in a Euro 2008 roundtable discussion organized by Dame of Extra Time over at Ladies..., in which we cover such essential topics as who's most likely to win it all, which players are going to have a breakout tournament, the rapidly dwindling number of hotass Italian defenders, and why Spain are so pretty and yet so frustrating. Part I and Part II.

Oh Ronniecakes

2008-06-07T10:34:00.003-04:00

So now the walking, talking gel-monkey that is Cristiano Ronaldo has said publicly that he wants to move to Real Madrid. Let me tell you, this is about two things: money and ego. And the money, I think, is secondary to the ego.

Because despite whatever he may have said about it always having been his dream to play for Real, he's certainly not going there for footballing reasons. Real may be champions of Spain, but that's sort of by default, and they haven't got near the Champions League final in ages. You'll notice he's said absolutely nothing about wanting to move in order fulfill his ambitions and win trophies. No.

What he has said is that he wants to move provided that Real are willing to pay both him and Manchester United obscene amounts of money to make it happen. And I'm sure that Ronaldo would like very much to be paid twice as much as he is now, so he can go out and buy himself more black satin sheets and mirrors and whatnot. But what he'd like even more is to be the most expensive player in the world. Because if he's the most expensive, then he has to be the best, right? It's all about feeding that enormous ego.

So fine, whatever. If he wants to go that badly, then it's not worth trying to keep him. Ronaldo may not have learned this yet, but no player -- including him -- is irreplacable. Take Real Madrid for every penny of that 100 million pounds, and you can buy half a dozen young hotshots.

And then I hope that Manchester United meet Real Madrid in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, and the Galacticos get knocked out as usual. And then Ronniecakes can go home and cry on his mommy's shoulder.

Euro 2008 Preview: Group D

2008-06-04T21:46:00.002-04:00

Greece, Russia, Spain, Sweden

Spain ought to win the group easily, but every time you make a prediction like that about Spain, they tend to collapse like an overly intricate passing move, so who knows. Originally I would've picked Sweden to be the second team to go through, but after thinking about it a bit more I'm not so sure. I think Russia could be a real surprise this time, and I'm not just saying that because they knocked England off in qualifying. And, you know, Greece *are* the defending champions, even if they do play like the Bolton of Europe. Spain and Russia, though, if I had to call it.

GREECE
FIFA rank: 8
Odds of winning: 22-1
Coach: Otto Rehhagel
How they got here: Finished first in their qualifying group, ahead of Turkey
Past record: Beat Portugal to become Euro 2004 champions, but didn't qualify for the World Cup in 2006
Questions to ask:

Will their obdurate style work for them again this time, or will the other teams have come up with a strategy to break them down?
Can midfielder Giorgios Karagounis and striker Fanis Gekas provide the spark to complement that defensive strength?
How *did* they manage to win in 2004? Really now.

Why to cheer for them: You've had one too many shots of ouzo. Opa!

RUSSIA
FIFA rank: 25
Odds of winning: 28-1
Coach: Guus Hiddink
How they got here: Finished second in their qualifying group, thanks to England's incompetence
Past record: Bottom of their group at Euro 2004; didn't qualify for the 2006 World Cup
Questions to ask:

How much will they miss playmaker Andrei Arshavin, who's suspended for the first two games thanks to an idiotic yellow card against Andorra?
Will Igor Akinfeev's quality in goal make up for the fact that the defence in front of him isn't all that good?
Could the magical Guus Hiddink effect come into play here? First South Korea, then Australia, now Russia…

Why to cheer for them: Out of gratitude for bringing an end to the misbegotten reign of Steve McClaren.

SPAIN
FIFA rank: 4
Odds of winning: 5-1
Coach: Luis Aragones
How they got here: A few stutters along the way, but ended up top of their qualifying group
Past record: A disappointing third in their group at Euro 2004; lost to France in the Round of 16 at the World Cup in 2006
Questions to ask:

With the massive amounts of talent in the team (Fernando Torres, Cesc Fabregas, Sergio Ramos, Xavi, David Villa, Andres Iniesta – really, I could just run through their whole lineup), is this finally the year that they shake off their reputation as the world's biggest chokers?
How will mad-as-a-hatter Luis Aragones manage to fit all that talent onto the pitch at once? (He's already made one possibly dubious decision by axing Raul from the squad.)
Will Iker Casillas finally have an aneurysm when faced with a defence even more dodgy than the one in front of him at Real Madrid?

Why to cheer for them: You're a Liverpool fan who'd like to see your players actually win something this year

SWEDEN
FIFA rank: 23
Odds of winning: 33-1
Coach: Lars Lagerback
How they got here: Qualified second in their group, behind Spain
Past record: Lost in the quarter-finals to Holland at Euro 2004; lost to Germany in the Round of 16 at the 2006 World Cup
Questions to ask:

What kind of a boost will they get from the return of veteran Henrik Larsson?
Will Zlatan Ibrahimovic produce the brilliance necessary to drag his team out of their usual so-so performance, or will he be infuriatingly crap as he so often is for Inter?
Will Freddie Ljungberg and Olof Mellberg get into a training-ground fight yet again? And if so, can they sell tickets?

Why to cheer for them: They probably have the best-looking female fans, if you're into that sort of thing. I'm just saying.

Euro 2008 Preview: Group C

2008-06-04T21:22:00.003-04:00

France, Italy, Netherlands, Romania

Ah yes, the infamous group of death. Italy and France – the World Cup champions and runners-up, respectively – also met in the qualifying stages, and they've been matched up yet again here. Both teams are packed with talent from front to back, and they'll probably be the ones to get out of the group stage, but you can't discount the other two teams either. Romania did very well in qualifying, while the Dutch would be one of the favourites in any other group and just happen to be one of the top four seeds, thanks to the vagaries of UEFA coefficients.

FRANCE
FIFA rank: 7
Odds of winning: 15-2
Coach: Raymond Domenech
How they got here: Finished second in their qualifying group, just edging out Scotland – despite losing to the Scots twice
Past record: Lost to Greece in the quarter-finals at Euro 2004; finished second at the 2006 World Cup
Questions to ask:

Can they find the right balance between youth and experience? (Karim Benzema vs. Thierry Henry; Patrick Vieira vs. Jeremy Toulalan, etc., etc.)
Will Raymond Domenech regret leaving behind players like David Trezeguet or Philippe Mexes?
Is Franck Ribery really the new Zidane?

Why to cheer for them: You like to pick players based on their astrological signs. (No Scorpios, please!)

ITALY
FIFA rank: 3
Odds of winning: 7-1
Coach: Roberto Donadoni
How they got here: Struggled initially in qualifying, but ended up topping their group, ahead of France
Past record: Finished third in their group at Euro 2004; 2006 World Cup champions
Questions to ask:

How much will the loss of captain Fabio Cannavaro hurt them? And isn't it dangerous to rely on Marco Materazzi to hold your defence together?
What kind of formation will they go with, and will it mean too many square pegs in round holes? (Alex del Piero, I'm looking at you.)
Will they rue bringing nutcase Antonio Cassano when he throws a wobbly in the middle of a game and gets sent off?

Why to cheer for them: Love them or hate them, they do know how to win. Plus, it would piss off the French.

NETHERLANDS
FIFA rank: 10
Odds of winning: 12-1
Coach: Marco van Basten
How they got here: Qualified easily, but ended up second in their group behind Romania
Past record: Lost to Portugal in the semi-finals at Euro 2004, and again in the Round of 16 at the 2006 World Cup
Questions to ask:

Can they get through the whole tournament without fighting with each other?
Will the move away from their traditional 4-3-3 to a set-up with two defensive midfielders work? Especially since they have no real defense to speak of?
Why does Ruud van Nistelrooy look so much like a horse? (Van Persie, too, come to think of it.)

Why to cheer for them: Despite supposedly being so good, they've never really won anything, so they're due.

ROMANIA
FIFA Rank: 12
Odds of winning: 40-1
Coach: Victor Piturca
How they got here: Finished top of their qualifying group
Past record: Didn't qualify for Euro 2004 or the 2006 World Cup – this is their first major tournament since 2000
Questions to ask:

They beat the Netherlands head-to-head in qualifying; can they do it again?
Can former cokehead Adrian Mutu keep up the good form he's shown with Fiorentina this season?
Really, do they have a hope in hell of getting out of the group?

Why to cheer for them: You're hoping for someone to play the spoiler and knock one of the so-called big teams out.

Euro 2008 Preview: Group B

2008-06-03T22:35:00.002-04:00

Austria, Croatia, Germany, Poland

Germany couldn't have asked for a better group, really. They should go through easily –possibly all the way to the final, what with having the easier side of the draw and (practically) home field advantage. I expect Croatia to be the team to join them in the quarter-finals. Poland did very well in qualifying, but I don't think they can keep it up in the tournament. Australia will just be hoping that they can manage to pick up a point or two.

AUSTRIA
FIFA rank: 101
Odds of winning: 100-1
Coach: Josef Hickersberger
How they got here: Qualified automatically as co-hosts
Past record: This is their first ever appearance in at a European championship, and their last World Cup was 1998, when they were eliminated at the group stage
Questions to ask:

Will their own fans get behind them, seeing as they were circulating a petition before the tournament trying to get the team to drop out?
Captain Andreas Ivanschitz is supposedly known as the Austrian David Beckham: is that a good thing or not?
How bad is it when the only name on the roster I recognize is Middlesbrough's Emanuel Pogatetz?

Why to cheer for them: You feel like the home team ought to win at least one game.

CROATIA
FIFA rank: 13
Odds of winning: 12-1
Coach: Slaven Bilic
How they got here: Qualified top of their group, ahead of Russia and England
Past record: Finished third in their group at Euro 2004; also eliminated at the group stage in the 2006 World Cup
Questions to ask:

How will they cope without Eduardo up front?
Will playmaker Luka Modric prove that he was worth all the money Tottenham just paid for him?
Just how cool is Slaven Bilic?

Why to cheer for them: They're the official dark horse candidates of the tournament.

GERMANY
FIFA rank: 5
Odds of winning: 4-1
Coach: Joachim Low
How they got here: Qualified easily, but – perhaps intentionally – slipped to second in their group behind the Czech Republic
Past record: Finished third in their group at Euro 2004 (they haven't won a game at the Euros since 1996!); third place in the 2006 World Cup
Questions to ask:

How will Jens Lehmann perform, after spending most of the year on the Arsenal bench? And will he start a fight with anyone?
Michael Ballack, now in form for Chelsea, will be running the midfield, but which of their plethora of strikers will be providing the goals up front?
Will Jogi Low (and his natty scarf) prove that he was really the brains behind their 2006 World Cup campaign?

Why to cheer for them: They actually know how to win on penalties.

POLAND
FIFA rank: 27
Odds of winning: 50-1
Coach: Leo Beenhakker
How they got here: Somewhat surprisingly, finished first in their group ahead of Portugal and Serbia
Past record: They've never qualified for a European championship before; went out at the group stage at the 2006 World Cup
Questions to ask:

How *did* they manage to do so well in qualifying?
Why does Poland seem to produce lots of good goalkeepers and not much else?
They're defensively disciplined, but do they have anybody who can grab a goal for them when they counter-attack?

Why to cheer for them: You like watching Artur Boruc taunt opposing fans.

Euro 2008 Preview: Group A

2008-06-03T12:08:00.002-04:00

Ah yes, it's that time again, when I decide to make predictions about the outcome of a major tournament and invariably turn out to be completely wrong. Woo.

The Euros are interesting because you don't get too many small teams who are just there to make up the numbers, like you do in a World Cup – indeed, the weakest team here are probably co-hosts Austria. That makes it more likely that some of the big teams could be knocked out in the group stages, while an underdog goes on to win it all, like Greece did in 2004. (Although I don't think that's likely this time.)

One other point to note is the bizarre way that the teams have been seeded in the groups: The four seeds are Switzerland and Austria, the two co-hosts; defending champions Greece; and the Netherlands, based on the unfathomable UEFA coefficients. With Switzerland, Austria and Greece all guaranteed a top seed, it was actually better to finish second rather than first in your qualifying group, because it gave you a chance of drawing them in the group stages. Anyway, on to those groups:

GROUP A: Czech Republic, Portugal, Switzerland, Turkey

Portugal should be able to win the group without too much trouble, and will probably make it as far as the semi-finals. On paper you'd expect the Czech Republic to finish second, but Switzerland could ride their home support into the knockout stages. Not that it matters much anyway, because whoever comes second will probably just lose to Germany in the quarter-finals.

CZECH REPUBLIC
FIFA rank: 6
Odds of winning: 18-1
Coach: Karel Bruckner
How they got here: Qualified first in their group, surprisingly ahead of Germany
Past record: Lost to Greece in the semi-finals at Euro 2004; eliminated in the group stage at the 2006 World Cup
Questions to ask:

Who will step up to replace injured captain Tomas Rosicky?
How important will Petr Cech's performance be? And will he make it through the tournament without being kicked in the head?
Will we get the Euro 2004 Milan Baros – the tournament's top scorer – or the more familiar Premiership Baros, who tends to run around like a headless chicken and miss easy goals?

Why to cheer for them: You have a soft spot for big Jan Koller, an old-fashioned target man who is basically the Czech version of Danny Dichio

PORTUGAL
FIFA rank: 9
Odds of winning: 7-1
Coach: Big Phil Scolari
How they got here: Qualified second in their group, behind Poland
Past record: Lost to Greece in the final of Euro 2004 and to France in the semi-final at the 2006 World Cup
Questions to ask:

Can Cristiano Ronaldo carry the team, or will he collapse under the weight of his own ego?
With Pauleta's retirement, do they have anyone who can lead the line effectively?
Will Deco pull himself away from partying for long enough to pull the strings for them in midfield?

Why to cheer for them: You have fond memories of their game against Holland at the last World Cup and are hoping for similar fireworks this time. Maybe Phil Scolari can punch somebody again.

SWITZERLAND
FIFA rank: 48
Odds of winning: 25-1
Coach: Kobi Kuhn
How they got here: Qualified automatically as co-hosts
Past record: Bottom of their group at Euro 2004; went out in the round of 16 at the 2006 World Cup
Questions to ask:

Can they reproduce their defensive form from the World Cup, when they didn't concede a goal in open play?
Have they gotten any better at penalties since then? Because that penalty shootout against Ukraine was the worst I've ever seen, and I say that as an England fan.
Actually, do they have anyone who can score goals, period?

Why to cheer for them: You want to see Philippe Senderos smile for once.

Turkey
FIFA rank: 25
Odds of winning: 40-1
Coach: Fatih Terim
How they got here: Qualified second in their group, just ahead of Norway
Past record: Didn't qualify for Euro 2004, and lost to Switzerland in a playoff to qualify for the 2006 World Cup
Questions to ask:

They shocked everybody by finishing third at the 2002 World Cup; could they do that again?
Do they have enough quality in midfield and up front to compensate for their dodgy back line and erratic goalkeeping?
Will they start another post-game rumble with the Swiss, like they did after that 2006 playoff game?

Why to support them: They probably have the most insane fans, so that's always fun.

I should just give up my Setanta subscription for the summer, shouldn't I?

2008-06-01T20:44:00.001-04:00

Because I'm paying $15 a month, and Greece v Armenia is the best they can do? Really?

They are showing England's game against Trinidad & Tobago, but not until tomorrow -- and even then I'm not sure it's worth watching, seeing as it's basically an exercise in sucking up to that odious little toad Jack Warner.

I do kind of want to see Spain v Peru, mostly because Xabi actually got to play for once (please don't go to Juve!). Spain won 2-1, incidentally. Also, Fernando Torres did his best to get naked without actually taking any clothes off -- which, you know, I applaud the effort.

Does anybody care about international friendlies, really? Even the people who are playing in them? I mean, look at the results over the past few days, and the virtually only thing that stands out in the mass of one- or two-goal games is Switzerland and Austria beating up on Malta and Liechtenstein. And a fat lot of good that's going to do them once Euro 2008 starts and they crash and burn.

Soccer Day in Canada

2008-06-01T17:10:00.001-04:00

Okay, I'm a day late according to the CBC, but whatever. If you really want to watch the Red Deer U14 girls, it's all on up on the CBC website anyway.

The marquee game of the day was Toronto FC versus the LA Galaxy, and Toronto came away with a 2-0 win. LA were without David Beckham -- away on with England -- and Landon Donovan was only fit enough for the bench, but Toronto were missing a few regular starters too, through a combination of injuries, suspension and international duty. But their replacements coped admirably, notably rookie defender Julius James, who scored the opening goal on his MLS debut. Jeff Cunningham, given a chance to start with Danny Dichio out, added the second goal in the 65th minute. Overall, a satisfying game, as Toronto dominated throughout and only held the Galaxy to just one shot on target, despite their depleted roster.

Also, earlier in the week, Toronto kicked off their qualifying campaign for the CONCACAF Champions League with a 1-0 victory over the Impact in Montreal. Marco Velez scored the only goal, off a free kick from Laurent Robert.

One game that was missing from the CBC's soccer coverage yesterday was the friendly between Canada and Brazil in Seattle. Sportsnet apparently showed the match this morning, but they did a shitty job of publicizing it, and I missed it. Anyway, Brazil won 3-2, after Canada had fought back twice to tie the game up. Julian de Guzman, who had equalized to make it 2-2 for Canada, played a sloppy back-pass that Robinho pounced on in the 63rd minute, winning it for Brazil with his second goal of the game. Still, it's a decent result for Canada, even considering that Brazil were missing a few of their stars like Kaka and Ronaldinho.

Speaking of the Canadian men's national team, a couple of the players have (finally) come out with their thoughts on the ongoing incompetence of the CSA. No surprise that they're not happy, although you might not have expected them to say so publicly. It'll be interesting to see if this gets the CSA off their collective asses, or if it'll be just more of the same. One interesting point in that article, though, is that they seem to be suggesting that the women's team gets a bigger share of the budget than the men's team does. Anybody know if that's true? Because it doesn't sound right to me. Not that I'm saying the men's team should automatically get more; I would expect it to be split evenly. I suppose the problem with that, though, is that it would mean the men's team is underfunded relative to other countries -- whereas that would be less of an issue for the Canadian women's team, since the women's teams tend to get shafted everywhere.

Somebody asked me the other day what the process is for Canada (and the rest of CONCACAF) in World Cup qualification, and I had no idea, so I thought I'd look it up. (Thank you, Wikipedia.) No wonder I didn't know how it worked, because it's kind of complicated. Basically, there are four stages:

The lowest-ranked countries (ranked #14 through #35) play each other in the first round, with the 11 winners moving on; the top 13 teams get a bye.
In the second round, which takes place this month, the top 13 teams play the 11 winners from the first round, with the winners of these games again moving on. Canada will be playing St. Vincent and the Grenadines, on June 15 and 20.
The third stage is a round-robin, with three groups of four teams. The top two teams in each group advance. Assuming that Canada makes it to this stage, along with the other top-seeded teams, it'll face Mexico, Jamaica and Honduras.
In the final round, the six remaining teams all play each other, and the top three teams from that qualify for the World Cup. The fourth-place team gets a play-off against the fifth-place team from South America. Canada should have a decent chance; assuming that the USA and Mexico get the first two spots, then Canada will be scrapping it out with teams like Costa Rica and Panama for third or fourth place.

The Canadian women's team, meanwhile, is busy tuning up for the Olympics. Their last match was a 2-1 loss to Australia in a friendly last weekend. This month they travel to Korea for the Peace Queen Cup, and then July 10 will be their debut at BMO Field, against Brazil. I'm just hoping that they get a decent turnout, because the stands at the men's U20 game against Argentina a few weeks ago were embarassingly empty.

Like sands through the hour-glass

2008-05-29T21:13:00.001-04:00

Chelsea have become quite the soap opera, haven't they? First they sack Avram Grant, about 10 minutes after he came within a few inches of winning the Champions League. They promise -- cross our hearts and hope to die -- not to sack his assistant Henk Ten Cate, and then, less than a week later, they go ahead and do it anyway. So much for those rumours about Frank Rijkaard coming to Stamford Bride, eh?

Actually, what with the possibility that it'll be the recently fired Roberto Mancini taking over, while Jose Mourinho replaces him at Inter, it's a turning into a love quadrangle worthy of Days of Our Lives. I can just picture Roman Abramovich in the role of Stefano DiMera.

All we need now is for Zlatan Ibrahimovic to be possessed by the devil, Shawn Wright-Phillips to go off to a magical Swiss boarding school and come back 5 years older and 6 inches taller, and Marco Materazzi to be revealed as John Terry's long-lost evil twin.

I guess it was too good to last

2008-05-26T19:06:00.000-04:00

Toronto FC's six-game unbeaten streak is at an end, with their 3-2 loss to DC United on Saturday. TFC had beaten DC 1-0 at home on Wednesday -- Danny Dichio pounced on a sloppy back-pass and just managed to get the ball over the line to give Toronto an early lead, and they held on for the win -- but they couldn't replicate that in the rematch at RFK Stadium.

Toronto took an early lead again in Washington, as Dichio headed home a cross from Jim Brennan, but DC pressured them throughout the first half and Gonzalo Peralta equalized a few minutes before halftime after a scramble from a corner. TFC, surprisingly, took the lead again just before the break with another goal from Dichio, beating the goalkeeper with a low, hard shot into the corner. But there was still more DC pressure in the second half, backs-to-the-wall defending from Toronto, and Jaime Moreno finally tied things up again with a penalty kick in the 70th minute. DC then took the lead a few minutes later, Luciano Emilio pouncing on the rebound when Greg Sutton couldn't hold on to Santino Quaranta's shot. Toronto attempted to fight back but to no avail, and they just got increasingly frustrated -- especially Laurent Robert, who was sent off late in the game for a second yellow card.

So Toronto still haven't managed to win at RFK, while DC have picked up their first win of the season with this come-from-behind win. Still, it's a better result for Toronto than their previous 4-1 thumping in Washington. Their next league game is this Saturday, when the LA Galaxy -- who, incidentally, have an identical record to Toronto right now -- come to town.

Before that, though, Toronto play their first game of the Canadian qualifying tournament for the CONCACAF Champions League, travelling to Montreal to face the Impact. It's apparently being shown on CBC Bold, but I don't even know what that is; you can also watch online on the CBC website. Toronto will play the Vancouver Whitecaps at home on July 1 and away on July 9, wrapping up with a home game versus Montreal on July 22. Incidentally, if you're one of those people who's been trying and failing to get tickets for a TFC game, you can buy a two-game package for the games in Toronto.

Toronto have also announced their opponents for the two international friendlies this summer: They play Mexican team Pachuca on July 5, and Independiente of Argentina on July 15. Tickets for these two games are supposed to go on sale to the public beginning June 4, but I'd say they're going to be much harder to get because -- unlike the CONCACAF qualifiers -- they're also included in the season ticket package.

And finally: Maurice Edu has been called up to the US national team for their friendly against England at Wembley Stadium on Wednesday, so he'll miss the Montreal match, but he should be back to face LA on Saturday.

I'm in withdrawal

2008-05-25T11:59:00.004-04:00

And the Football League playoffs are not really doing much to help with that. Although I see that Doncaster have just won, which is nice, because we're all supposed to hate Leeds, right?

Anyway, for those of you who, like me, are desperate for some football to watch between now and the kick-off of Euro 2008 in a couple weeks, TSN is showing classic games from previous tournaments (thanks to The Footie Fool for the tip-off). These seem to be condensed versions of the games, though -- my DVR shows them as being only an hour each, rather than the full 90 minutes.

Also, if you get TLN, they're showing recaps of some previous World Cups, starting with the 1982 tournament in Spain this afternoon at 2:30 pm.

As for Euro 2008 itself, here in Canada, TSN and CBC are splitting the broadcast rights. Neither of them has a complete broadcast schedule up on their website, at least not that I can find (bad form, guys), but they're all listed here. I'm just hoping that they'll be using the international commentary instead of whatever horrors ESPN puts together.

Champions League Final

2008-05-22T19:26:00.000-04:00

Manchester United 1-1 Chelsea (United win 6-5 on penalties)

That was awesome. It had a little something for everyone: good football, bad football, great shots, great saves, near misses, injuries, diving, whining, handbags, a red card, tears, drama, controversy, penalties... and in the end, the right team won.

I think the two teams were pretty well matched over the 120 minutes. Normally I hate penalty shootouts (and my stomach was tied up in knots watching this one), but they could have played for another three days and still not had a winner. This wasn't a case of one team desperately hanging on through extra team and hoping for some good luck; both sides were really going for it.

United definitely had the better of the first half, although it was even at 1-1 by halftime. Sir Alex surprised just about everybody by starting with an old-school 4-4-2, with Owen Hargreaves on the right of midfield (I was yelling at the TV, convinced that ESPN had fucked up their graphics once again). It turned out to be a good decision, as Hargreaves was involved in most of United's best chances, and I think Ashley Cole may have underestimated him and was giving him too much space. On the other wing, Cristiano Ronaldo was terrorizing Michael Essien and demonstrating that he's not really supposed to be a defender. And it was Ronaldo who scored the opening goal, after good work from Paul Scholes and a pinpoint cross from Wes Brown, with a solid header that left Essien flat-footd.

Chelsea almost equalized a few minutes later, with some equally bad defending from United as Rio Ferdinand was bullied by Michael Ballack and almost headed the ball into his own net only for Edwin van der Sar to tip it over. But United were generally dominating the play, and they had another great chance to score, Wayne Rooney winning the ball after a Chelsea corner and sending a cross-field pass to Ronaldo, who picked out Carlos Tevez in the box. Petr Cech made a great save from Tevez's header, and another immediately after on a hard shot from Michael Carrick, who'd picked up the rebound. Tevez missed another chance shortly after, sliding in and just failing to connect with Rooney's cross. (Maybe next year Fergie will buy a striker who's more than 5'6".)

United were hoping to go into halftime with their lead intact (and, in fact, should have been up by two or three goals), but couldn't hold out. Chelsea came close with a free kick from Ballack, after Ferdinand had fouled Frank Lampard right on the edge of the box. And then they equalized just before the break, as Essien picked up the ball about 30 yards out; his shot deflected off a couple players and fell right to Frank Lampard, with van der Sar slipping on the shitty turf and Ferdinand scrambling to make up group. Damn it.

You'd think the goal would've made the Chelsea players a bit happier, but they followed up the goal with a terrible tackle on Ronaldo by Ricardo Carvalho -- and then half the team bitching about it when he was rightly booked. Claude Makelele was still arguing with the referee as they left the field, which was particularly stupid since he'd already been booked for a clash with Paul Scholes earlier in the first half. They're a charming bunch of players, really. I suppose their captain leads by example.

With the boost from their goal, Chelsea took more control in the second half. The game got increasingly niggly, with lots of fouls from both teams, and whining about just about every call (mostly from Chelsea, and especially from Joe Cole, who didn't make any other notable contributions to the match). Chelsea's fullbacks were pushing forward more, neutralizing United's tactics from the first half, and I think Ferguson should've reacted more quickly to change things up. Scholes was dropping deeper and seemed to be fading a bit (possibly because he still had a bloody nose from colliding with Makelele in the first half), and players were going down with cramp all over the place. But it wasn't until the 85th minute that United made their first substitution, replacing Scholes with Ryan Giggs for his record 759th appearance.

Anyway, into extra time we go, with Salomon Kalou coming on for Florent Malouda. (You notice how I haven't mentioned Malouda yet? Yeah. That's because he was kind of mediocre, Tommy Smyth's idiotic commentary on ESPN to the contrary.) Both teams had chances to win it in the first half of extra-time: First Lampard's shot careened off the crossbar, and Joe Cole fired over from the rebound. Then Giggs had a great chance for United, as Patrice Evra squirmed through the defence and set him up perfectly only for John Terry to head the shot clear. Nicolas Anelka came on for big sucky baby Joe Cole (and, it turns out, outdid him in being petulant), while Nani replaced a not-very-happy-about-it Wayne Rooney.

In the second half of extra time, the main incident, aside from still more players collapsing with cramp thanks to playing almost two hours of football on a pitch that kept shifting around on them, was a ridiculous bout of handbags between just about every player from both teams. It all started when Carlos Tevez -- who worked his tail off all game but to very little ultimate effect -- didn't play the ball back to Petr Cech after it had been put out of play for an injury. (This was, I think, when Ashley Cole was sitting on the ground flapping his thighs like some kind of demented butterfly.) It ended with Tevez and Ballack booked, Drogba red-carded for smacking Vidic in the face, and John Terry possibly spitting on Tevez as the rumble broke up. For the record, I don't think Terry spit on Tevez, I do think he's an asshole, but Drogba is an even bigger one for losing it, being sent off, and leaving his team in the lurch in a massive game. (Zinedine Zidane is a role model in many ways, but this is not one of them.)

There were only a few minutes left at that point, and United weren't able to take advantage of their extra man to score, so penalties it was. I was too afraid to make an official prediction before the game, just in case I jinxed it, but if I had, it would've been this: 1-1 after extra time, United to win on penalties. I probably wouldn't have predicted the way the penalties went, though. After all the penalties Ronaldo's scored this season, you wouldn't have expected him to miss, would you? I mean, yeah, there was that one against Barcelona, but he couldn't be stupid enough to do that twice, could he? Oh. See, THIS is why you don't mess around with the way you take penalties. Get Hargreaves to show you sometime; those Germans taught him properly. Ronaldo looked wrecked after Cech saved his shot -- and so he should have; waiting for the keeper to dive one way is useless work when the keeper knows you do that and won't move. Just hit it hard and put it in the corner.

All the other players had scored theirs, so Ronaldo's miss meant that John Terry could win the whole shebang when he stepped up to take the fifth penalty. (Apparently, if Drogba had still been on the field, he was supposed to take it, but I wonder if Terry would've taken one anyway, instead of, say Ashley Cole.) So here he is: Mr. Chelsea, England's Brave John Terry, scores a lot for a defender, blah blah blah, and he...misses. Doesn't get his foot planted properly, slips over on his arse and sends the ball wide. And I laughed. Oh, how I laughed. I did feel a teensy bit bad for him later on, seeing how devastated he was, but at the time, seeing him blubbering like a little baby, it was all schadenfreude.

After that you just knew that United were going to win it. And indeed, van der Sar saved Anelka's shot -- not particularly well struck; you could almost tell that he didn't really care -- and United were champions of Europe. Meaning, incidentally, that Ryan Giggs had scored the winning penalty. It was almost poetic.

I still can't believe they really did it. But they did, and I think they deserved it, too. Not just for the memories of 1958, or 1968 -- although that just makes it even better -- but for the way they played all season. Fearlessly dominant when they were on their game, and stubbornly determined when they weren't, they have been the class of the field. Glory, glory Man United.

Champions League Final Preview

2008-05-20T14:09:00.000-04:00

And so it has come to this. Two behemoths, bashing at each other for 90 (or, more likely, 120) minutes in a struggle for dominance. I saw Iron Man over the weekend, and I think it's going to be sort of like that, except without Robert Downey Jr.'s leaven of sarcasm. Unfortunately.

Key clashes

Cristiano Ronaldo vs. Ashley Cole: Claude Makelele did his best to help United by taking out Cole in practice today, but I'm sure he's still going to play tomorrow. And although Cashley is a jackhole of the first order, he's generally done a good job of shackling Ronaldo. For Ronniecakes, this is his chance to shake off that "big-game bottler" tag once and for all and justify the hype. Well, it's not hype exactly, because he is a staggeringly good player, but if he wants to be named the best player in the world, winning the Champions League is a good way to do it. Take a lesson from Jesus-boy over in Milan.
Didier Drogba vs. Vidic, Ferdinand and the power of gravity: Vidic is only recently back from injury, after Drogba (accidentally) kneed him in the face, which could be a weakness, but I think United has the best pair of centre-backs anywhere right now. Drogba is also one of the toughest strikers to defend against, when he's on his game -- as Rafa Benitez learned to his peril a couple weeks ago -- so it could depend on just how focused he is on winning, rather than falling over, bitching at the ref, and handing in a transfer request.
United's midfield brains vs. Chelsea's midfield brawn: Okay, that's a bit simplistic. But it's an easy way to summarize: Scholes and Carrick versus Lampard and Ballack. I suspect both teams will be playing a 4-3-3/4-5-1, so it could be pretty congested in midfield, and gaining control there will be essential. United will be hoping that Scholes has one of his good days (fortunately, he'll have Owen Hargreaves there to do the tackling) and justifies Sir Alex's faith in him. For Chelsea, I think Michael Ballack could be the key player; he's stepped up for them a lot recently, and he just strikes me as being a big-game player, somehow.
United's fluid attack vs. Chelsea's patched-up defence: I really wish that people would stop eulogizing John Terry for how tough he supposedly is. For a Champions League final, okay, I can understand wanting to play no matter what, dislocated be damned, but in general, if you're not 100% fit, you just risk hurting yourself more and could be a liability to your team. Let's see what happens when he takes the first hit tomorrow. And he doesn't have much pace to begin with -- whereas one of United's greatest assets this season has been their mobility; not just speed, but the way that their attackers almost never stand still. This kind of makes it sound like I think United have the edge here, and maybe they do, but I've also seen far too many games where they cannot seem to buy a goal, so who knows.

Selection dilemmas

United: Rooney, Ronaldo and...who else? I expect that Sir Alex will go with their usual European formation and just one up front, rather than two out-and-out strikers. In that case, he could move Rooney over to the left wing and have Tevez lead the line, but I feel like that waste's Rooney's talents. And whoever plays there is probably going to be tracking back a lot to cover Michael Essien's runs from right-back. For that reason, I think it'll be Rooney up front and Ji-Sung Park on the left, with Ryan Giggs on the bench to act as a super-sub.

Predicted team: Van der Sar; Brown, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra; Ronaldo, Carrick, Scholes, Hargreaves, Park; Rooney
Chelsea: Will it be Essien at right-back? It's not really a dilemma, actually, because playing Essien there solves two problems: (1) Fitting him in the team along with Lampard, Ballack and Makelele; and (2) Covering the fact that their supposed right-backs are kind of crap. I suppose Avram Grant also has to decide who to play on the opposite wing from Joe Cole -- presumably either Malouda or Kalou -- but I don't think it matters all that much. (Whereas for United, choosing between Rooney, Tevez, Giggs and Park could make a big difference in the way they play.)

Predicted team: Cech; Essien, Carvalho, Terry, A. Cole; Lampard, Makelele, Ballack; J. Cole, Drogba, Kalou

The psychological battle
Both managers have a lot of pressure on them to win, but for Ferguson it's largely self-imposed, whereas for Avram Grant, it's external pressure -- lose this game and you lose your job. The ironic bit is that he'll get the blame if they lose, but likely not the credit if they win. Chelsea's starting XI does basically pick itself, but Grant still has to lay out the strategy (and hope the players listen to him) and decide on the substitutions. I still haven't figured out if he's a good manager or not.

Sir Alex, on the other hand, already has a pretty good CV, but this is his chance to make it look even better. He's not satisfied with just the one Champions League win -- and he knows that he got his tactics wrong and got lucky in 1999, and he'll want to make for that here (and yet avoid second-guessing himself). On top of that, there's the sentimental impetus of this being the 50th anniversary of the Munich disaster and the 40th anniversary of United's first European Cup.

How will all this translate to the players? Although the United players may be feeling the weight of history, I think they'll forget that as soon as they step out on the pitch. They've already won the league, which probably means a bit less pressure, but that could actually work to their advantage by freeing them up to play their game. Chelsea will be looking for revenge after finishing behind United in the Premiership two years in a row, but they'll be playing for themselves -- not for the manager, or, for the most part, the club.

And finally, a question for the neutrals: Who are you cheering for tomorrow? Is one side slightly less evil than the other? Or are you just hoping for a sinkhole to engulf the Luzhniki?

The magic of the FA Cup...or not.

2008-05-19T17:31:00.001-04:00

I would like to tell you that this year's FA Cup Final was a riveting match that encapsulated all that's best about the game, but that would be a big fat lie. I watched with a few of my teammates, and we were all more interested in rehashing our own game from the night before than watching Portsmouth and Cardiff swat ineffectually at each other. I suppose it was still better than the Manchester United-Chelsea bore-off the year before, but that's not really saying much.

Portsmouth obviously had more quality in the their lineup than Cardiff did, and they were largely controlling the play through midfield. Cardiff did a decent job of containing them, but it didn't seem like they particularly cared about winning the game themselves. And it still came down to just one goal for Portsmouth -- through a goalkeeping blunder, but not even a really good one like the keeper accidentally throwing the ball into his own net.

I don't know, it was all just a bit flat, and it certainly didn't help that Fox kept cutting away to commercials instead of showing any of the pre-match stuff or more than about 15 seconds of the trophy being handed over. So much for match atmosphere. (Well, we did get plenty of shots of that fugly shirtless fan with the braids, but I for one could have done without that.)

More enjoyable, at least in my opinion: Toronto FC versus Columbus on Saturday afternoon. Yes, even though it ended scoreless. And even though Guillermo Schelotto is a diving, whiny asshole who embodies every negative stereotype of Latin players. It's a bit disappointing that Toronto couldn't win, but a nil-nil draw is a decent result against the top team in the league. And I didn't get rained on; what more can you ask for, really?

Seriously, though, having been to BMO Field a few times in the past month, it's starting to feel much more homey to me. It's a nice, friendly little stadium to watch a game in. (And my own team gets to play there this weekend, which is going to be kind of cool.)

Three more months of this...

2008-05-16T10:08:00.000-04:00

And so the transfer season is upon us once again. Oh frabjous day, calloo, callay.

The two big rumours this week are (1) Real Madrid continuing their attempt to lure Cristiano Ronaldo to the Bernabeu with a stream of hot and cold running hookers, and an unlimited supply of hair gel, and (2) Kaka being traded to Barcelona in exchange for Ronaldinho, Deco, and half a dozen bottles of rioja. But let's be honest: neither of those is really going to happen, no matter how ambiguous Ronaldo's latest quotes may be.

Even with those transfers that have actually happened, I'm still kind of befuddled. Like the whole Mathieu Flamini to Milan thing. I don't quite get why he'd want to leave Arsenal -- well, I'm sure it has something to do with Milan's willingness to fling oodles of money at him. But Arsenal did well this year (yes, even though they didn't win anything, they did better than most of us expected) and should only get better with a little more experience, whereas Milan have reverted to sucking and are heading for the UEFA Cup next season. Not to mention that Milan already have a surfeit of midfielders, including Gattuso in the vital running-around-and-kicking-people role. Of course, there are also rumours about Rino leaving Milan, since he's said he'd like to play in England sometime, but the club that seems to come up most is Bayern Munich. Which is, as far as I know, not in England.

Anyway, the whole thing doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And now Hleb wants to leave too, because London is apparently too noisy? As if Milan is going to be so much quieter. Maybe he should look for a little club in Switzerland or something like that instead. Seriously, what the hell has Arsene Wenger done to his players in the last month, that they've all started losing their minds like this? Next he's going to have to get one of those electronic ankle bracelets for Cesc Fabregas to keep him confined at the Emirates.

Also perplexing me: Gareth Barry to Liverpool. Yeah, this one hasn't actually gone through yet, but since Rafa Benitez says he wants to buy him, I'd say it's more than just a rumour. And again, don't Liverpool already have more central midfielders than they know what to do with? Even playing with just one up front, they can only shoehorn so many of them into the team at once. Now, Barry is versatile, and god knows Liverpool could use somebody solid at left-back, but would he really want to play out of his favoured position just to move to a Champions League team? By the way, if you think I'm just worried about this because I'm afraid it'll make Xabi Alonso more likely to leave, you are mostly right. Especally with Pep Guardiola -- who just happens to be Xabi's idol -- just having taken over at Barcelona.

It's the managerial merry-go-round that's going to be really interesting this summer, I think, with Sven-Goran Eriksson on his way out at Man City, Avram Grant still on a knife-edge at Chelsea, and Jose Mourinho angling for the best spot possible. And not just because of the managerial changes, but the effect it could have on where some of the players (Didier Drogba, this means you) end up. My vote would be for Mourinho to Inter, because then I can conveniently keep hating him.

Premiership Weekend Roundup: May 11

2008-05-12T13:17:00.001-04:00

CAMPIONE, CAMPIONE, OLE OLE OLE...

Wigan 0-2 Manchester United
You couldn't have scripted it any better, in the end. Cristiano Ronaldo, the player of the year by about a gazillion miles, scores the first and ultimately winning goal, and then Ryan Giggs -- making his 758th appearance for United and matching Bobby Charlton's record -- makes the win secure with a late second goal. And goes on to lift the Premiership trophy for the second year in a row (not to mention the 10th time in his career).

There were, alas, some rather questionable refereeing decisions along the way: a penalty not given to Wigan for a possible handball by Rio Ferdinand, Paul Scholes staying on the pitch when he could -- and probably should -- have been sent off for cross-checking Wilson Palacios. But the bad decisions weren't all in favour of United, as they could have had a second penalty awarded after Scholes was tripped in the box. So, yeah, Steve Bennett is incompetent, but somehow I think that United would have contrived to win the game regardless.

They certainly didn't make it easy on themselves; or rather, Wigan didn't make it easy for them. The Latics can be proud of the fight they put up, and Chris Kirkland pulled off several good saves to keep the score down. United took the lead after half an hour, a clear-cut penalty for a foul on Wayne Rooney, which Ronaldo coolly dispatched. But it got more and more nerve-wracking as the game went on and they still had only a one-goal advantage. It wasn't until the 80th minute that they could relax, as Rooney split the defence with a simple through ball to Giggs -- I think it was the hapless Titus Bramble playing Giggs onside, actually -- and he slotted it past Kirkland. (I did a little dance in my living room. This is why it's better that I watch the games by myself.)

Chelsea, meanwhile, ended up with a draw at Bolton and finished two points behind United, which means that their goal difference was a moot point, and we can forget Avram Grant's suggestion the title should be decided with a play-off instead (although just for the record, United beat them 3-2 on aggregate this season). Of course I'm going to say this because I'm a United fan, but it seems to me like goal difference is a pretty good way to decide between two teams. It sums up their season -- and in United's case, they both scored the highest number of goals and conceded the least. No question that they deserved the title. Chelsea will have their chance for revenge in Moscow next week, but in the meantime: SUCK IT.

Also: No love for The Score, who had some kind of fuck-up with the satellite feed from Wigan that meant we missed almost the whole first half. They claimed that whatever the problem was, it wasn't their fault, but I'm not really inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. Nobody should have to listen to Brian Budd blather on for an extra 40 minutes; it's just cruel.

Other results
Birmingham 4-1 Blackburn
Chelsea 1-1 Bolton
Derby 0-4 Reading
Everton 3-1 Newcastle
Middlesbrough 8-1 Manchester City
Portsmouth 0-1 Fulham
Sunderland 0-1 Arsenal
Tottenham 0-2 Liverpool
West Ham 2-2 Aston Villa

Chelsea started their game against Bolton with a makeshift back line, and it got worse when John Terry was injured after just 10 minutes, dislocating his elbow in a collision with Petr Cech (you'd think he would have seen Cech coming, in that retina-scalding orange kit; it makes him look like a giant traffic cone). And their day got worse when news filtered through from Wigan that Manchester United were winning. A goal from substitute Andriy Shevchenko in the second half gave them some hope, but they were deflated by United's second goal against Wigan, and Bolton's stoppage-time equalizer finished them off.
All three teams caught in the relegation battle won (I'm discounting Derby, since they were already doomed), and Birmingham and Reading scored four goals apiece. But it was a futile effort, as Fulham capped an amazing recovery with a late winner from Danny Murphy against Portsmouth to earn their survival. That means Reading were relegated based on goal difference, while Birmingham finished just one point behind and were also sent down.
Everton guaranteed their spot in the UEFA Cup next year with a win over Newcastle, while Aston Villa will have to settle for the Intertoto Cup after drawing with West Ham.
Liverpool cruised to a comfortable win against Tottenham in a game that was notable only for Fernando Torres's 24th league goal, which is a record for a foreign player in his first Premiership season.
In another meaningless game, Theo Walcott scored Arsenal's only goal in their victory over Sunderland, as a season that started with so much promise ends without a trophy for the Gunners.
Middlesbrough versus Man City should have been forgettable as well, but that changed when Richard Dunne was sent off after 15 minutes. Stewart Downing scored the resulting penalty (his first of two goals), and City totally fell apart. Boro scored a mind-boggling eight goals, which I think it would take them about three months to do normally, including a hat-trick for Afonso Alves. I think the City players may have decided to go on strike early rather than waiting for that trip to Thailand.

In which I actually pay attention to teams outside the Premiership*

2008-05-10T17:04:00.000-04:00

So, the Premiership wraps up tomorrow, with Manchester United and Chelsea level on points after Chelsea's 2-0 win over Newcastle on Monday (damn you, Michael Ballack!). Fulham, Reading and Birmingham are fighting for their Premiership survival, and Everton and Aston Villa are going for a UEFA Cup spot. Everybody else is planning their summer holidays already. I'm just grateful that my family decided to do dinner rather than brunch for Mother's Day, so I can actually watch the games live.

One game I won't be able to watch is Milan versus Napoli, because I can't seem to find it on TV here anywhere. Bah. At least I got to see the derby last week, which was awesome, because Milan not only won, they killed them; the 2-1 scoreline really doesn't tell you how much better they were than Inter. (I don't know why they can't play like that every week; but I have a theory that they're sadistic bastards who like to torture their supporters.) Anyway, the win, combined with Fiorentina losing, meant that Milan have moved up into fourth place, which is nice, seeing as the Champions League is the only competition they really care about. Roma are now only three points behind Inter, but the nerazzurri can wrap up the scudetto if they beat Siena tomorrow. (Booo, hisss.) Parma, Empoli and Livorno are in the relegation places, but I don't think anything's been wrapped up there yet.

Real Madrid clinched the La Liga title last weekend with a come-from-behind win over Osasuna, despite having Fabio Cannavaro sent off early in the second half (didn't he use to be good? What happened?). I don't really love Real, but I'm still happy that they won, just because I do like an excited yelly Iker Casillas. Anyway, their win meant that Barcelona had to applaud them onto the pitch with a guard of honour during their match on Wednesday, which must have hurt. After which, Real thumped them 4-1, just to rub salt in the wound. Barcelona have slipped down to third place behind Villareal, while Atletico Madrid are three points ahead of Sevilla in the race for the final champions League spot, with two games to go. Murcia and Levante are going down, along with one more out of a whole bunch of teams.

In Germany, there's one week left to play in the Bundesliga, but Bayern Munich wrapped up the title last weekend and celebrated by pouring gigantic glasses of beer on each other, which is a tradition that I think more teams (including my own) should adopt. Werder Bremen and Schalke are the other two teams in the Champions League places. I would tell you about the teams being relegated, but frankly I don't know who any of them are so I don't much care.

* I'll bet you thought I meant the other leagues in England or something like that, right? Yeah, no. Setanta had the various league playoffs on all day today, but I skipped them all. It was too nice not to be outside on a patio with a couple ~~several~~ pints of beer.

Pardon this interruption

2008-05-08T19:44:00.000-04:00

I was at BMO Field last week for the Toronto FC game against New York Red Bulls (a 1-1 draw; it was a cold, rainy evening, and I drank a lot of overpriced beer to keep warm). During the game, as usual, the fans in the south stand were throwing streamers at the New York players whenever they went to take a corner kick. One of them, in fact, ended up running around the field for a couple minutes afterwards without realizing that he still had a streamer wrapped around his waist. I thought it was funny, but then I don't claim to have a sophisticated sense of humour.

And then I came across this, in which some tool on ESPN rants about how fans shouldn't be throwing things on the field, because it makes the league look unprofessional, and it made me think. Do I agree with him? (Well, obviously not, since I'm referring to him as a tool, but let's look at his argument anyway.)

First of all, he's got an unexplained hate-on for soccer, describing it as a "junk product." And I don't think what he means is that MLS less good compared to the big European leagues; he just hates soccer, period. So he's biased, but whatever. His main argument is that you don't see anything like the streamers in the major American sports leagues (baseball, basketball, football); therefore, it makes the MLS look bad. It's a pretty insular point of view. He's obviously never seen a South American football game, where things get thrown on the pitch all the time -- and not just streamers, but everything up to and possibly even including the kitchen sink. And that sort of interaction from the fans is part of the atmosphere at the games. Reproducing that, even in a small way, makes Toronto FC games better, not worse, as anyone who knows anything about the sport will tell you. Next this douchewad is going to claim that the fans shouldn't sing, or bring flags to the stadium, because that's not how they do things in the good ol' U. S. of A.

But what about the argument that it's interfering with the game? I can't find the link now, but I did come across someone who said that they'd never let the fans get away with throwing streamers at someone who was about to take a penalty kick, for example. Maybe not, and I don't think they should. But fans will yell at penalty-takers to put them off, and that's fine. It's just trying to mess with their head. And that's really what the streamers are about too. They're not actually expecting that someone's going to trip over a streamer and fuck up the corner kick (although, if that did happen, damn right I would laugh). All the players have to do is wait for the streamers to be thrown, clear them away, and then take the kick. And the game goes on, and it's all the better for the fans not just sitting there like lumps.

Premiership Weekend Roundup: May 3-4

2008-05-05T10:15:00.000-04:00

Manchester United 4-1 West Ham
Remember how I said last week that West Ham's defence really sucks? Yeah. United were up 3-0 after 25 minutes, including two goals for Cristiano Ronaldo, bringing him up to 40 for the season, which is kind of a staggering total. And those two were both down to horrible defending from the Hammers: for the first, Lucas Neill fell over trying to make a tackle, and then the remaining defenders just backed off while Ronaldo waltzed into the box. For the second, Ronaldo drifted in at the back post and deflected the ball into the net off his thigh, after none of the defenders bothered to cut out the cross. We'll give them a bit of credit for the third goal, which was a 30-yard rocket from Carlos Tevez. But not much.

Dean Ashton pulled one back for West Ham just a couple minutes after Tevez's goal, holding off Rio Ferdinand and finishing with a bicycle kick (kind of impressive, considering the effort it must take to get off the ground when you're that big). They got a further lifeline at the end of the first half when Nani made the idiotic decision to headbutt Neill -- and then roll around on the ground in purported agony, as if that was going to make the referee overlook the fact that he's a brainless twit -- and was sent off. But West Ham completely failed to take advantage of their extra man, letting United stroll through the second half and even add another goal -- with the defenders once again backing away and practically inviting Michael Carrick to shoot. So, thank you very much, one more game to go and United could be lifting the Premiership trophy once again. COME ON NEWCASTLE.

Liverpool 1-0 Manchester City
This was an essentially meaningless game, with Liverpool having already guaranteed Champions League football next year and Sve-Goran Eriksson probably doomed no matter what Manchester City did. But at least Liverpool won their final game of the season at Anfield. It was Fernando Torres, naturally, with the only goal, scoring in front of the Kop.

The high point, really, was the lap of honour, because footballers + babies in leetle tiny jerseys = awwwww. Two players who weren't out there to salute the fans, though, were Peter Crouch and John Arne Riise -- both of whom will more than likely be leaving in the summer. I don't know what's up with that.

Other results
Arsenal 1-0 Everton
Aston Villa 0-2 Wigan
Blackburn 3-1 Derby
Bolton 2-0 Sunderland
Fulham 2-0 Birmingham
Middlesbrough 2-0 Portsmouth
Reading 0-1 Tottenham

Fulham, Reading and Birmingham are all within a point of each other; two out of the three of them will be going down next week. Fulham, shockingly enough, might be the ones to survive after beating Birmingham. And they're the only ones with their fate in their own hands, because a win will mean their survival, whereas the other two will have to hope that results in the other games fall their way. (Fulham play a pre-FA Cup Portsmouth next week, while Birmingham host Blackburn and Reading are away to Derby.)
Wins for Middlesbrough and Wigan have guaranteed that they'll stay up for another season. Bolton aren't officially safe yet but it seems pretty certain, thanks to their goal differential over the teams below them. I still can't muster up any interest in any of these three.
Villa will regret not taking the opportunity to pull level with Everton in the race for a UEFA Cup spot, but they, along with Portsmouth, seemed to be suffering from the end-of-season blahs.
And Derby are officially the worst team ever in the history of the Premiership. It's nice that they've managed to distinguish themselves like that.

Champions League Semi-Final: Chelsea 3-2 Liverpool (aet; 4-3 agg)

2008-05-01T18:39:00.001-04:00

I feel compelled to point out that if it hadn't been for John Arne Riise's own-goal in the first leg, Liverpool would have gone through on away goals after this result. But on the other hand, I do realize that if it hadn't been for that goal, Chelsea would have reacted more strongly after Liverpool scored here, and it would have been a totally different game.

Liverpool-Chelsea matches tend to be brain-meltingly dull, but this one was the exception. The first 90 minutes were nothing out of the ordinary, but extra time more than made up for it. Chelsea started out better, although it was Liverpool with the first real chance on goal, Steven Gerrard sliding the ball through to Fernando Torres, who took an extra touch that gave Petr Cech time to come out and smother the shot. Chelsea also had a couple early shots, sent just wide of the Liverpool goal, with the ball skidding on the wet turf -- not an easy night to be a goalkeeper.

I think Rafa's pre-game comments about Drogba and his propensity for falling over may have backfired, because he was obviously determined to prove Benitez wrong, and -- although you might not give up as many free kicks -- he's much more dangerous when he stays on his feet and fights for the ball. Drogba went shoulder to shoulder with Skrtel early on and injured him in the process. He had to be replaced by Sami Hyypia not long after, and although Sami's not a bad replacement, it meant Liverpool had to play a deeper line and give Chelsea more space in midfield. (I think it may be a sekrit Chelsea strategy, actually: Get Drogba to take out one of the opposing centre-backs early on, like with Nemanja Vidic last weekend.)

And of course it was Drogba who scored the opening goal for Chelsea. Frank Lampard fed the ball through the defenders to Salomon Kalou -- as Arbeloa slipped on the wet pitch -- and his shot was saved by Pepe Reina, but only parried right to Drogba, who beat Reina at the near post as he scrambled to recover. And then Drogba ran over to celebrate right in front of the Liverpool bench, because he's klassy like that.

The goal was a blow, but it didn't really change much for Liverpool, because they still needed to score just to survive to extra time. They got more into the game as the first half went on, and they came out strongly after halftime. Steven Gerrard still wasn't seeing as much of the ball as I would've liked -- as in the first leg, Makelele was sticking to him like glue -- but he started dropping deeper and having more of an impact on the game. Then, after just over an hour, it was Yossi Benayoun -- a surprise inclusion in place of Ryan Babel -- who set up the equalizer for Liverpool, deking out a couple of defenders and playing Torres in on goal. Torres didn't hesitate this time, finishing beautifully to tie the game.

So then of course you figure it's going to go to extra time and then the inevitable penalties, right? Liverpool were still pushing forward, looking for a second goal that would send them through, but I think they would've been quite content to win it in a penalty shoot-out. Chelsea put a bit more pressure on Liverpool in the last 15 minutes, but for whatever reason they didn't really look like they cared about winning in regular time.

Anyway, into extra time we go. Hold your breath. Almost immediately, Michael Essien scored for Chelsea from a corner, but it was disallowed because Drogba was offside (along with a handful of other players) and standing right in front of Reina, blocking his view, which apparently counts as interfering with play this week even though it didn't when Birmingham did the exact same thing a little while back. Anyway, it might've been a controversial decision, if not for the fact that Chelsea was awarded a penalty just a couple minutes later, after Hyypia tripped Michael Ballack in the box. Frank Lampard stepped up to take it, and scored, sending Reina the wrong way -- and I can't even make fun of his über-emotional goal celebration today because his mum's just died. (Actually, I will be magnanimous and admit that he had a pretty good game. Bah.)

I was still clinging to hope at this point, because Liverpool had almost 25 minutes to score again, and that would send them through on away goals. Some of that hope died, though, when I saw that Rafa had taken off Torres and replaced him with Ryan Babel. Not that I have anything against Babel, but why would you take off your top scorer when you desperately need a goal? (Apparently he was injured, but I don't know. Take the risk for 20 minutes; it's not like you'll need him for your last two league games.) Also, how shafted must Peter Crouch have felt? I think the early substitution of Skrtel kind of forced Rafa's hand, but I can't help questioning his decisions a bit.

Anyway, Babel made an immediate impact, as he was taken down in the Chelsea box, Essien just barely got a touch on the ball and there was no penalty. Instead it was Chelsea who scored again, just before the end of the first half of extra-time. Nicolas Anelka dinked into the six-yard box -- with Riise stood there appealing for offside, like, PLAY THE WHISTLE, YOU MORON -- and squared the ball for Drogba, who put it away despite being surrounded by Liverpool defenders at the time.

With 15 minutes left, there was time for Liverpool to produce another miraculous comeback, and they probably should have had a penalty of their own, when Hyypia was tripped in the box by Drogba -- no touch on the ball this time, but no penalty either. Ryan Babel did score, just a minute later, with a well-struck shot from all of 35 yards out -- which Cech probably should've saved, especially since he got his hands to it, but we'll take that, thank you very much. In the end they just ran out of time, and despite throwing everything they had at Chelsea, they couldn't find another goal. They did manage to score -- not once but twice -- at Stamford Bridge, which is more than they'd previously done under Rafa, but nevertheless it wasn't enough. I could barely watch the post-game stuff because all the Liverpool players just looked so gutted. Football sucks sometimes.

By the way, I don't give a shit about the debate over whether Avram Grant is getting the credit he deserves as a manager, or whether Roman Abramovich is bored with his toy and likely to sell the club. I just fucking hate Chelsea. That's all.

Champions League Semi-Final: Manchester United 1-0 Barcelona (1-0 agg)

2008-04-30T11:38:00.000-04:00

PAUL SCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOLES, HE SCORES GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOALS...

And so Manchester United are through to the final in Moscow. But what a nerve-wracking way to get there, riding a slim one-goal advantage for most of the game. Considering these two teams' attacking pedigree, you might have expected more of a goal-fest, but United were more focused on not making a mistake at the back, while Barcelona seemed to be allergic to scoring. Nevertheless, it was a riveting game even if you were a neutral; I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see if United would scrape through.

With Nemanja Vidic out (I assume he was concussed on Saturday, because he's too much of a bad-ass for a mere busted lip to keep him on the sidelines), United had a jury-rigged back line: Wes Brown alongside Rio Ferdinand in the centre and Owen Hargreaves deputising at right-back. Wayne Rooney was also still injured, so it was Carlos Tevez up front, supported by Cristiano Ronaldo, with Nani and Ji-Sung Park on the wings.

Barcelona had the better of the early play, including a free kick for Messi conceded by Paul Scholes just outside the box. But even from the outset, United weren't playing quite the same over-cautious game as they had in Barcelona; yes, defending was still the top priority, but they were pressing higher up the field rather than sitting back too much and watching Barça pass the ball around in front of them.

The key moment came in the 14th minute, as Cristiano Ronaldo ran at the Barcelona defence. Gianluca Zambrotta's attempted clearance went straight to Scholes about 30 yards out, and he hit a glorious shot that arrowed past Victor Valdes into the top corner. It was only his second goal of the season, but what a time to score. (And by the way, I'd say that he's virtually guaranteed to start in Moscow now, to make up for his suspension in 1999.)

The goal seemed knock the stuffing out of Barcelona while it boosted United's confidence, and they controlled more of the play as the first half went on. Messi still looked dangerous every time he got on the ball, but Patrice Evra dealt with him well enough, and Brown and Ferdinand kept Samuel Eto'o pretty quiet.

The second half was more of the same, but with the tension ratcheted up. United had a decent spell of pressure, with Tevez and Park (who I think is the South Korean version of Dirk Kuyt) working their socks off to hold the ball up and close down defenders, while Nani caused Barcelona problems with his pace -- although he kept choosing the wrong option with his final ball once again. As for Ronaldo, I think he lost out in terms of an individual competition with Messi, who was skipping past players at will (if only his teammates had bothered to help him out!) but he didn't vanish like he's supposed to do in big games either. There may not have been any outstanding moments of brilliance, and yes he did his share of falling down and whining to the ref, but he put in a disciplined performance to match the rest of his team, and was always willing to get on the ball and try to create something.

Barça continued to have more possession (it ended up 58% in their favour), but just like in the first leg, they couldn't translate that into too many real chances on goal. Rio Ferdinand kept his back line well marshalled, with Wes Brown in particular stepping up his game (apart from whacking his goalkeeper in the head a couple of times; oops) and Michael Carrick making a few crucial interceptions in front of the defence. Barcelona did have a few shots that fizzed just wide -- including a couple from Deco -- but Edwin van der Sar was equal to anything that came at him.

As they moved into the last quarter of the game, Barcelona started to turn the screw while United dropped deeper -- realizing that every minute meant United got closer to winning, but also the more dangerous it would be if Barça were to score. Thierry Henry came on for Andres Iniesta, but he's clearly not the player he was at Arsenal, as his best chance was a header that went straight into Van der Sar's arms. Then it was Bojan Krkic for Eto'o, while United responded by replacing Nani and Scholes with Ryan Giggs and Darren Fletcher as they tried to hold onto the ball and slow the game down.

Barcelona were throwing everyone forward as the clocked ticked towards the 90th minute -- I think at one point Carles Puyol, of all people, was the farthest player forward -- and into the three minutes of stoppage time. That was extended after Evra took a boot to the face in a collision with Deco and Ronaldo and had to be stretchered off, just to increase the tension even more (cue Sir Alex looking pointedly at his watch). It was the 96th minute when Barcelona won a free kick outside the box on the right, with Valdes even coming up for the kick, but United had every single player back defending and managed to clear their lines just before the referee blew for full time.

And then we all tried to catch our breath again.

(Incidentally, don't ask me what I'm going to do if Liverpool win today too. I have absolutely no idea. Other than just flailing a lot, probably.)

Monday Randomness

2008-04-28T20:30:00.000-04:00

In news that surprised absolutely nobody, Cristiano Ronaldo won PFA Player of the Year for the second year in a row. Cesc Fabregas won Young Player of the Year, although Ronaldo was also nominated in that category. (Also, Cesc wants to eat your brains.)

The team of the year, in full: David James, Bacary Sagna, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Gael Clichy, Steven Gerrard, Cesc Fabregas, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ashley Young , Emmanuel Adebayor, Fernando Torres. It's an Arsenal-heavy lineup, which probably reflects the fact that they voted back in February -- i.e., before the Gunners' season went to shit. Still there aren't a lot of selections that I'd disagree with. I'm not sure about Sagna, but I can't think of anybody else who's really stood out at right-back. Also, Steven Gerrard apparently is going to get nominated every year, regardless of whether he's really in form, because he runs around and goes "RAAAAAAAR" a lot. I'm okay with that.
Toronto FC have now won three games in a row, after a pretty convincing 2-0 victory over league leaders Kansas City on Saturday. Amado Guevara scored both goals -- the first one from a possibly offside position after a scramble in the box, the second a gorgeous free kick curled over the wall and into the corner. Incidentally, my sister and I decided that Guevara looks like a porcupine with his spiky hair -- although that was nothing compared to the amazing range of egregious hair-don'ts displayed by Kansas City.
There's a rumour going around that MLSE, the company that owns Toronto FC, is looking into buying an English club. Tottenham is supposedly the most likely possibility, and I've also heard West Ham mentioned -- although this is all pure speculation. Just one word of advice, if they do decide to go through with it: Study what Hicks and Gillett have done with Liverpool, and then do the exact opposite of that.
I think I've probably mentioned before how I have a soft spot for teams that play in red. Well, one of those teams happen to be Milan. (Meeeeeeeelan. I have to say it that way in my head every time.) Anyway, after kind of a shitty season, they have managed to drag themselves up the table and are now just two points back of Fiorentina in the race for fourth place and a spot in the Champions League next year. Pippo Inzaghi took a break from being continually offside to score a hat-trick against Livorno on Sunday, while Fiorentina almost pulled out a win against Sampdoria and then threw it away again. Ha.

I don't want to get too optimistic, because the Milan derby is this weekend, and I'm sure Inter (boooo, hissss) are going to be out for blood. But still, I'm hoping that they'll pull this off somehow, and then they can convince Paolo Maldini to come back for another season. Come on boys, you can do it. You know Paolo's not going to hang around for the fucking UEFA Cup.

Premiership Weekend Roundup: March 26-27

2008-04-28T11:28:00.000-04:00

Chelsea 2-1 Manchester United
So, it looks like the title race is going to go down to the wire. Chelsea are now level with Manchester United on points, after beating them on Saturday. But United's destiny is still in their own hands, thanks to their stupendous goal difference; as long as they win their last two games, against West Ham and Wigan, they'll win the Premiership. I don't really like that it's still so close, but think that United will do it now that they know there's no margin for error.

Actually, I think that was part of the problem with this game: Chelsea knew they had to win, whereas United were just playing for the draw, and it backfired on them. You'd think Sir Alex would have learned by now that United are much better when they play to win, but apparently not. How else do you explain a midfield of Nani, Park, Giggs, Carrick and Fletcher? Sure, let's leave the team's top goal-scorer and the PFA player of the year on the bench, why not? It's not as if this was an important game or anything. Oh, wait.

Anyway, Chelsea were definitely the stronger team in the first half. It didn't help that United lost Vidic to injury in the first 15 minutes, after he got kneed in the face by Drogba and busted up his lip. Hargreaves came on at right-back and Wes Brown moved into the centre, and I don't know if it was because of the defensive shake-up or not, but there was absolutely nobody marking Ballack when he drifted into the box to score from a header just before halftime. Seriously, y'all, he's a big guy, he's hard to miss.

United equalized early in the second half, as Wayne Rooney latched onto a boneheaded back-pass from Carvalho and slotted it past Petr Cech (despite the fact that he'd been limping around clutching his hip just a moment before), and it looked like they were starting to get into the game a bit more. But the lineup wasn't quite clicking -- it didn't help that Nani made the exact wrong decision every single time he got the ball -- and it was Chelsea who ended up with the winning goal, when they were awarded a penalty in the 84th minute for a supposed handball.

Now, I've only seen one version of the replay -- maybe from another angle it would be more obvious -- but from what I saw, it was really hard to tell if the ball actually hit Carrick's arm or not. From his reaction -- he looked totally stunned when they gave the penalty -- I didn't think it was handball, and even if the ball did hit his arm, it was down at his side at the time, certainly not being moved deliberately to block the shot. So I think it was a questionable call at best. Regardless, Ballack stepped up to coolly take the penalty, and thus destroyed any goodwill I might have had for him after his little spat with Drogba.

United had a couple of chances to equalize again late in the game, but they were both cleared off the line, the first by Ashley Cole, the second by Andriy Shevchenko -- possibly the most useful thing he's done all year, unless you count batting his eyelashes at Milan as useful, which I do not. So it was all to no avail, and the United players apparently took out their frustration by screaming at the officials and getting booked (Hargreaves), kicking a steward (Ferdinand; way to go on demonstrating your maturity to Capello, Rio), and getting into a fight with the Chelsea groundskeepers (Evra & co.).

Who says Chelsea v United is always a boring game?

Birmingham 2-2 Liverpool
Just like against Fulham last week, Liverpool fielded an understrength team ahead of their Champions League semi-final. You would have expected some of these fringe players to step up their game and try to prove that they deserve a spot in the starting lineup against Chelsea -- or not to be shipped out in the summer. And yet most of them played as if they just couldn't be arsed, as Birmingham took a 2-0 lead with one goal in each half. Jermaine Pennant was one of the few Liverpool players who came away with much credit, sparking their comeback in the last half-hour with a great run past three defenders to set up Peter Crouch for their first goal. Yossi Benayoun tied things up with a deflected header, as Birmingham threw away their lead and remain in the relegation zone, while the point for Liverpool guarantees them fourth place. So, job done, I guess.

Other results
Everton 2-2 Aston Villa
Manchester City 2-3 Fulham
Portsmouth 0-1 Blackburn
Sunderland 3-2 Middlesbrough
Tottenham 1-1 Bolton
West Ham 2-2 Newcastle
Wigan 0-0 Reading

Fighting for a spot in the UEFA Cup, Everton and Villa played out a scoreless first half, before Everton took the lead through Phil Neville's deflected goal in the 56th minute. And then the game exploded late in the second half, with three goals in six minutes as Villa equalized twice -- but they still trail Everton by three points in the table.
Fulham came back from 2-0 down in the last half-hour of their game, squeezing out a victory in extra time to give them a tiny glimmer of hope that they'll survive this season.
Sunderland also scored an injury-time winner, which guarantees their spot in the Premiership for next year. Roy Keane may even have cracked a smile.
West Ham and Newcastle played out an entirely meaningless game that showcased both teams' attacking talent and simultaneous defensive ineptitude -- which bodes well for their meetings with Man Utd and Chelsea next weekend.

Champions League Semi-Finals - First Leg

2008-04-24T13:12:00.000-04:00

Liverpool 1-1 Chelsea
Gah. Liverpool were so close. Agonizingly close. Maybe 10 seconds away from winning the game when John Arne Riise had a massive brain-fart and put the ball into his own net (I believe in technical terms this is known as "pulling a Djimi Traore"), gifting Chelsea a thoroughly undeserved equalizer.

What makes it worse is that things had been going pretty well up to that point. Chelsea started the game more strongly, but Liverpool stayed organized at the back and got into the match gradually. They were the better team from about the 30-minute mark onward, starting with a great chance for Fernando Torres when Steven Gerrard played him in on goal, only to take one touch too many and scuff his shot.

The increased Liverpool pressure paid off just before halftime, as Xabi Alonso took a quick free kick, releasing Dirk Kuyt down the wing with the Chelsea defenders switched off. The ball pinged around and eventually fell to Javier Mascherano, whose attempted shot ballooned up over Claude Makelele's attempted interception and fell to Kuyt, who slotted it past Petr Cech.

The goal also highlighted the main difference between the teams, which is that Liverpool's midfield was bossing the play; I thought that Xabi was especially good, whereas on the other side, Frank Lampard was clearly off his game (understandably so, since his mother was deathly ill, and in fact has just died). That continued in the second half, too, with Chelsea reduced to just hoofing the ball up to Didier Drogba and waiting for him to fall down. The annoying thing was that Drogba got most of the calls in his favour, whereas Torres was fouled constantly and got nothing.

The key moment may have been with half an hour left, when Fabio Aurelio went down with a groin injury and had to be substituted. Meanwhile, Chelsea brought on Salomon Kalou in place of Joe Cole, and it was Kalou who provided the cross that led to their goal. They started to put more pressure on Liverpool from about 75 minutes on, although Liverpool still had chances to put the game away, including a great shot from Gerrard in the 84th minute, which Petr Cech just tipped over the top corner, and a point-blank shot from Torres in stoppage time. (Cech made some good saves, but Torres wasn't quite on; 90% of the time he'd have put at least one of those away.)

And then, in the fifth minute of extra time, disaster: A cross from the left wing, Nicolas Anelka coming in at the back post, a misguided attempt at a clearance, and the ball is headed into the Liverpool net. RIISE, YOU BRAINLESS GINGER BUFFOON. THIS IS WHY FOOTBALLERS ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE TWO FEET. I mean, he practically had to get down on his knees to reach the ball; just use your right leg, for fuck's sake. It was an absolutely devastating way to end the game: a massive boost for Chelsea, and demoralizing for Liverpool.

They went from a one-goal lead and a vital clean sheet to a draw, which means that now they need to score (possibly more than once) at Stamford Bridge, which is something they've never done before under Rafa Benitez. But looking on the bright side, Liverpool were certainly the better team here, and there's no reason why they can't reproduce that next week. (Riise's undoubtedly going to be the scapegoat if they do get eliminated, but to be fair I should point out that Liverpool also really should've scored more than just the one goal.) Plus, Chelsea are now the favourites, and Liverpool do seem to like being the underdogs. They tend to pull out their best performances when they've got their backs up against the wall.

Barcelona 0-0 Manchester United
CRISTIANO RONALDO, YOU OVER-GELLED GOOBER. YOU DON'T CHANGE YOUR PENALTY TECHNIQUE IN A CHAMPIONS LEAGUE SEMI-FINAL. HAVE ALL THE HAIR PRODUCTS ROTTED YOUR BRAIN?

Ahem. Sorry, I am yelly this week. But it's incredibly frustrating to see a chance like that thrown away. Manchester United get awarded a penalty right at the beginning of the game, after a handball in the box, and rather than firing the ball low and hard into the side netting like he's been doing all season, Ronaldo decides to try and chip it into the top corner -- and instead sends it wide. I believe this is a lesson in the dangers of over-confidence (not that I really expect it to have much impact on Ronniecakes' phenomenal arrogance, but anyway).

And that ended up being one of the few goal-scoring chances that United had all game. Barcelona pulled their heads out of their asses for this game and decided to actually play like they cared. They thoroughly dominated the game -- it was almost like they were playing keep-away with United -- but despite all their possession and shots on goal, Barca lacked much of a cutting edge; Edwin van der Sar barely had any real saves to make.

United played like...well, like Liverpool, actually, with just about everybody back behind the ball defending. You'd think a lineup that included all three of Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez would have been more attacking, but Rooney was basically playing as a midfielder, and in fact I think Ronaldo and Tevez were too. I wonder what difference it would have made if Ronaldo had scored that penalty: if United would have been even more paranoid and defensive, or if they would have taken confidence from that and gone forward more. (Of course, this would depend on them actually being able to get the ball away from Leo Messi & co.)

I think Nemanja Vidic's absence also had an impact on their strategy, because it meant Wes Brown shifting to centre-back and Owen Hargreaves to right-back, which both weakened the defence a bit and also deprived them of a real ball-winner in midfield. Anyway, this one is finely balanced going into the second leg, although United just about have the edge, thanks to that clean sheet, although Ronaldo should still be kicking himself over that penalty miss. (Actually, United should've had a second penalty, for a foul on Ronaldo by Rafa Marquez, but they were never going to get it. And Barcelona could have had one as well, after Rio Ferdinand brought down Samuel Eto'o.) Anyway, I am just hoping that next week's game is a bit more interesting, because really, who would have thought that Liverpool v. Chelsea would be the more exciting match-up?

Finally: Thumbs down to the ESPN half-time and post-game analysis. Which is basically four guys in a studio, with not enough time to really say anything, and nothing insightful to say even if they did have time. (Shaka Hyslop is just as bland as his Guardian columns. And Tommy Smyth? Bothers me even more when I have to look at his smarmy little face.)

Premiership Weekend Roundup: April 19-20

2008-04-21T14:03:00.000-04:00

Blackburn 1-1 Manchester United
As I said last week, Blackburn are usually a tough team to play, but still I was hoping for more from United after Liverpool beat them the week before. I don't know if they were too keyed up, with the Premier League title almost within their grasp if they won here, but whatever the reason, they didn't start the game very well. Roque Santa Cruz put Blackburn ahead in the first half, getting between Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic, and United had to fight hard to get themselves back into the match. (Wayne Rooney, actually, took the fighting part a little too seriously, spending most of the match shouting at the referee for his perceived deficiencies.) Finally, in the 88th minute, Carlos Tevez popped up with another crucial goal, heading home from a corner. The draw at least means that even if United lose at Stamford Bridge this weekend, they can still win the title as long as they beat both Wigan and West Ham, thanks to their massively superior goal difference. But I'm nervous.

Fulham 0-2 Liverpool
Much like this fixture last year, Rafa Benitez put out a weakened lineup ahead of a crucial Champions League game, but it didn't help Fulham as they were comprehensively outplayed. I'd say that only about four of the Liverpool players are guaranteed to start tomorrow, but they all played as if they were trying to prove that they deserved a spot. Jermaine Pennant certainly might feel that he's earned a chance in place of Dirk Kuyt, as he scored the first goal and set up the second one -- although in both cases I think Kasey Keller could have done better to save them. Anyway, Liverpool have opened up an eight-point gap over Everton in the fight for fourth place, so they can relax a bit in the league, while Fulham are on the verge of relegation now.

Arsenal 2-0 Reading
With nothing much left to play for, Arsenal had an easy time of it against a lacklustre Reading side who are just hoping to survive in the Premiership. The Gunners were two goals up by halftime and could have easily had more in the second half, but were denied by the crossbar more than once. Highlight was probably the excellent performance from Theo Walcott, given a start for a change instead of coming on for a substitute. Lowlight was Alexander Hleb inexplicably smacking Graeme Murty in the face -- although the ref didn't see it. It'll be interesting to see if there's any retrospective punishment for that.

Aston Villa 5-1 Birmingham
It must really suck to be a Birmingham supporter today. Ouch. They were utterly taken apart by Villa, sparked by Ashley Young, who picked a good day to perform (um, not like that), with Fabio Capello watching. Young scored two goals, set up another for John Carew (who also bagged two), and along with Gabriel Agbonlahor, his pace was giving the Birmingham defenders fits. They did get a consolation goal in the second half, but it was cancelled out not much later as Agbonlahor scored Villa's fifth. Gareth Barry had a good game in the middle of the park, too. I can sort of understand why there are rumours floating around that Liverpool want to buy him, but don't they have a surfeit of central midfielders already?

Newcastle 2-0 Sunderland
Okay, Newcastle somehow are undefeated in the past six games. And -- even more astonishing -- they've kept a clean sheet in the last three of those. What the hell? Has Kevin Keegan given all their defenders brain transplants or something? (Maybe stem cells from Paolo Maldini?) They're doing pretty well at the other end of the pitch, too, with Michael Owen scoring six times in six games, and seeming to revel in his new role linking the midfielders and strikers. He looks revitalized -- even without the stimulus of the Euros this summer -- and I'm curious to see what Fabio Capello will do with him now.

Other results
Manchester City 3-1 Portsmouth
Middlesbrough 0-1 Bolton
West Ham 2-1 Derby
Wigan 1-1 Tottenham

Toronto FC 1-0 Real Salt Lake

2008-04-21T09:32:00.000-04:00

To steal from Sven Goran Eriksson: First half good, second half not so good.

On a perfect sunny afternoon, the rowdy fans at BMO Field probably wouldn't have cared that much about the final score. But a victory for Toronto -- bringing their record up to two wins and two losses this season -- just made it even better.

Toronto already look better than they did last season, because they're actually trying to play -- passing the ball around neatly, keeping possession -- rather than just hoofing it up to Danny Dichio. (Dichio, by the way, still has the turning radius of your average oil tanker.) They were creating a lot of good chances on goal, and got a break after half an hour when Laurent Robert scored from a free kick. It was just outside the box, which is a tough position to get the ball up over the wall and back down, so Robert's solution was to put it under the wall as they jumped instead. The keeper had no chance, and between that goal and his otherwise excellent play, Robert is off to a good start in Toronto.

I didn't see a whole lot from Amado Guevara, the other big name that TFC have brought in recently, but he did win the free kick from which Robert scored. (Also, it's possible that I kept forgetting which one he was. I blame the beer.) The other player I noticed was winger Rohan Ricketts, making his debut for the team: He's got lots of pace, and he's certainly not afraid to take on defenders and beat his man, but he desperately needs to work on his final ball into the box. Too often he was selfish and tried to do it all himself, or his crosses were just weak. But he's young, and that'll improve as he gets more experience. (Remember what Cristiano Ronaldo was like when he first joined Manchester United? Sort of like that, except the MLS version.)

Anyway, it's nice to see players who want the ball and will try to do something with it. I just wish there'd been more of that in the second half. Instead, Toronto dropped too deep, trying to protect their lead -- which is always dangerous when you're only up by one goal. I still don't think their back line is as strong as it could be, and they looked much better organized when they were keeping the play in Real's half, but they did manage to keep a clean sheet after all.

Next up: Another home game this Saturday, against the Kansas City Wizards. And a chance to get above .500 for the first time in their history.

Random Friday news

2008-04-18T14:35:00.002-04:00

I'm off to the home opener for Toronto FC tomorrow afternoon. Toronto are coming off a somewhat surprising 3-2 victory over the LA Galaxy, thanks to a late goal from Jeff Cunningham. (Which reminds me, I really ought to track down the highlights from that game, just so that I can laugh at Landon Donovan.) They face Real Salt Lake, whose last game was a 4-0 win again last year's champions DC United. I have no idea what their chances are, really, but it's supposed to be a warm, sunny afternoon down by the lake, so I don't much care.
The Canadian women's team is going to the Olympics for the first time ever, after finishing second in the CONCACAF qualifying tournament last weekend. Canada beat Mexico 1-0 in the semi-finals to guarantee their spot in China this summer, and followed that up with a relatively meaningless 1-1 draw against the USA in the final, eventually losing 6-5 on penalties. The two teams will have a rematch next month in a friendly at RFK Stadium in Washington, DC.
I suppose the title race in the Premiership is back on again -- they seem to change their minds on this every few days -- after Chelsea beat Everton 1-0 yesterday, leaving them just two points behind Manchester United. But they've also played one game more, and the draw with Wigan on Monday kind of took their legs out from under them (I have never liked Emile Heskey as much as I did then). Also, Avram Grant appears to be having some sort of meltdown.
I continue to be irritated and slightly befuddled by the soap opera at Liverpool, but as far as I can tell it's boiled down to Hicks + Rafa versus Gillett + Parry. And I think what they should do to settle this whole thing is some WWF-style tag team wrestling. They could sell tickets, and the TV rights, and maybe even earn enough money to buy Fernando Torres for real.
Finally, there's an interesting discussion over on Pitch Invasion about football fandom and gender. I half wanted to get involved, but I think first I have to brush up on my notes from my anthropological theory class. Anyway, check go it out.

Premiership Weekend Roundup: April 12-13

2008-04-14T14:13:00.000-04:00

Manchester United 2-1 Arsenal
After a physically and emotionally draining game against Liverpool on Tuesday, Arsenal did well to reproduce that intensity against United yesterday -- but once again it was ultimately futile, as they were undone by a couple of defensive blunders.

The first half was scoreless but still had you on the edge of your seat; Arsenal probably could have opened the scoring before halftime but wasted a few chances, with Emmanuel Adebayor the most guilty. But it was Adebayor who gave Arsenal the lead, taking advantage of a laughable mix-up between Rio Ferdinand and Edwin van der Sar with a free header -- that might have actually come off his arm. United's defense continued to look shaky, with both Ferdinand and Wes Brown nearly scoring own-goals, but it didn't take long before they were back in the game, as William Gallas conceded a penalty for hand-ball.

The penalty was taken perfectly by Cristiano Ronaldo -- not once but twice, after the first one was called back for encroachment. This is where being unfathomably arrogant can come in handy, as he had the nerveless confidence to put it in the same place both times -- but it was so well struck that Jens Lehmann couldn't get to it. So much for Lehmann's claims that he's a better keeper than Manuel Almunia. (Oh, and Mad Jens also got himself booked in the middle of that, just for being an ass.) Lehmann might also have done better with United's game-winning goal, a free kick just outside the box for a foul on Patrice Evra by Gilberto -- a poor replacement for Mathieu Flamini's bite in midfield. Owen Hargreaves looped the kick up over the wall and into the net, with Lehmann rooted to the spot -- and yelling at his wall for not moving either. Oops.

A draw might have been a fair result, but despite all of Arsenal's effort and skill, United had the resolve -- and a little bit of luck -- necessary to come away with the win. And you also have to look at the impact of their substitutes: as Arsenal chased the game, Arsene Wenger turned to Nicklas Bendtner to replace Robin van Persie -- whereas United were able to bring on Anderson and Carlos Tevez for Paul Scholes and Ji-Sung Park. It's hard not to conclude that the difference in the two squads' depth is also the difference in their season.

Liverpool 3-1 Blackburn
This was a potentially tricky match for Liverpool, especially after the Champions League game in midweek, but they came through it relatively easily, in the end. Liverpool were dominant from the outset, but it stayed goalless for 60 minutes before Steven Gerrard broke through for the opening goal. He'd spent most of the game up until that point falling down whenever he got a chance and throwing tantrums when he didn't get the free kick; the first incident was probably the most blatant, as Brad Friedel slid in to clear the ball and Gerrard deliberately dragged his leg over the keeper to make it look like he'd been fouled. Steven, honey, I like you, but I like you much better when you're not cheating.

It just backfired anyway, because even if he was legitimately fouled after that, he was never going to get the call because he'd become the boy who cried "penalty." And look how much more effective it was when Gerrard actually stayed on his feet: storming into the box to score. He was also involved in the second goal -- Fernando Torres heading Gerrard's cross back over the keeper for his 30th goal of the season, which is not too shabby for a Premiership debutant. Substitute Andriy Voronin added a third in the 90th minute, sliding in to meet John Arne Riise's cross. The goal of the game was probably Roque Santa Cruz's fabulous volley in stoppage time -- but it was already game over at that point, and he didn't even bother to celebrate.

Also: I cannot keep track of who's stabbing who in the back in the Anfield boardroom, so I've decided to just continue my strategy of willful ignorance.

Other results
Birmingham 1-1 Everton
Bolton 1-0 West Ham
Derby 0-6 Aston Villa
Portsmouth 0-0 Newcastle
Reading 0-2 Fulham
Sunderland 1-2 Manchester City
Tottenham 1-1 Middlesbrough

Champions League Quarter-finals

2008-04-10T19:36:00.000-04:00

Liverpool 4-2 Arsenal (5-3 agg)
Wow. That was a hell of a game.

Rafa surprised everyone by switching things up and giving Peter Crouch a start alongside Fernando Torres, with Ryan Babel left on the bench. Crouch certainly deserved a chance after his performance against Arsenal last weekend, and he combined with Torres for Liverpool's second goal, but even so I wonder if it was a mistake to change from the formation that they were used to and that had been working so well. With Steven Gerrard nominally on the left, it meant that they had one fewer player in centre midfield, which is always dangerous against a team like Arsenal that can pass around you, and certainly for the first half-hour Liverpool were being overrun.

Emmanuel Adebayor was giving the defence problems from the start -- although fortunately he kept being flagged offside -- but it was Abou Diaby who scored the opening goal, beating Pepe Reina at the near post. Up front for Liverpool, Torres wasn't seeing much of the ball, and it took a set piece for them to equalize, as Sami Hyypia broke away from Philippe Senderos at a corner to power in a header. The goal seemed to give Liverpool confidence, and they started to get more of a grip on the game -- helped by Mathieu Flamini being forced off with an injury just before halftime.

They were much stronger at the start of the second half than they were in the first, and eventually went ahead with an utterly fantastic goal from Torres -- a long ball forward from Reina, flicked on by Crouch to Torres, who spun around and fired it into the far corner as the hapless Senderos strugged to keep up. With 20 minutes left, Arsenal brought on Theo Walcott and Robin van Persie, flinging everything at Liverpool in an attempt to survive. It was Walcott who created their second goal, bringing the ball forward from deep in his own half and dodging four Liverpool players before setting up Adebayor in the 84th minute.

But they barely had time to savour the goal when Liverpool scored again. Ryan Babel, who'd looked lively since he came on as a substitute for Crouch, was pulled down in the box by Kolo Toure for a penalty, and Gerrard coolly stepped up to smash it past Manuel Almunia. The tie may have come down to a tale of two penalties -- the one given to Liverpool here, and the one not given to Arsenal last week -- and I have to admit that both incidents looked pretty similar to me. But Babel made it all moot with a fourth goal in stoppage time, racing onto a clearance from Dirk Kuyt and outmuscling Cesc Fabregas (who was carefully stubbled, just to remind everybody that he's a big boy now) to put the game away.

So-called football purists will lament the fact that Arsenal and their beautiful football are out of the competition now, but ultimately I do not give a damn. Beautiful football is meaningless if you don't have the balls to win games, and I will take Steven Gerrard and his magnificent hairy thighs over Arsene's boy-toys any day. And now we get yet another Liverpool-Chelsea semi-final, which even I am not going to pretend is likely to be a scintillating match-up. Although there is always the opportunity to make John Terry cry.

United 1-0 Roma (3-0 agg)
Sir Alex might have claimed not to be taking anything for granted ahead of this game, but the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney started on the bench tells you everything you need to know about the relative importance of Roma versus Arsenal this weekend. Even without those two players, United still had enough to win, with Carlos Tevez scoring the only goal. But there were some nervy moments, particularly when Wes Brown brought down Mancini for a debatable penalty -- it's hard to tell, but I think he might have got the ball first -- which Daniel de Rossi blasted over the bar. (And I laughed, because I dislike de Rossi for no apparent reason.) The clean sheet was encouraging, with Mikael Silvestre making his first start in ages (I'd almost forgotten about him), Rio Ferdinand making it through the game despite a foot injury, and Gary Neville finally returning from injury as a substitute. Player of the game, though, was Owen Hargreaves, who worked his socks off for 90 minutes and even set up Tevez's goal with a perfect cross.

Chelsea 2-0 Fenerbahce (3-2 agg)
Okay, somebody out there has a voodoo doll with a Chelsea goalkeeper kit, right? Because they are totally cursed. First Petr Cech gets his face all cut up in training (50 STITCHES! That is ridiculous.), and then Carlo Cudicini takes over from him and pulls a hamstring. And didn't this happen last year too? Voodoo doll, I'm telling you. Anyway, third-choice keeper Hilario made a few good saves to see Chelsea through to the next round. But they made things a bit tougher for themselves than they needed to. Michael Ballack's header gave them an early advantage, but they waited until the 87th minute to put the tie away with a second goal from Frank Lampard. Michael Essien, who set up that goal, however, will be missing the first semi-final game at Anfield through suspension, which is a boost to Liverpool.

Barcelona 1-0 Schalke (2-0 agg)
Barcelona did enough to get themselves into the semi-finals with another 1-0 victory over Schalke, but they didn't exactly look convincing in the process. There's been a constant stream of dressing-room drama, with Ronaldinho and Deco supposedly being dropped for partying too much, and Thierry Henry being generally mediocre now that he's left his Arsenal harem. Leo Messi will probably be back from injury for Barca when they face United later this month, but the bad news is that Carles Puyol will be suspended for the first leg after picking up another yellow card here.

Why do I always seem to be away during Champions League weeks?

2008-04-08T09:10:00.000-04:00

Apologies for the lack of posts around here, but I've been on vacation all week. I meant to put something up before I left, but an insufficient amount of time and an oversufficient amount of alcohol conspired against it. Probably just as well, because all my Champions League predictions would have been woefully inaccurate.

The resort did have ESPN, but even I wasn't about to give up valuable beach time in favour of watching football. So I'm just catching up now.

I did see the second half of United's game against Roma, as they took a 2-0 lead home to Old Trafford. It looked like a solid performance, not as over-cautious as they too often are when playing away in Europe. And Cristiano Ronaldo will have shut a few more people up with his goal here. The bad news is the injury to Nemanja Vidic; combined with Rio Ferdinand limping out of their game on the weekend, it leaves the back line looking rather shaky. Reminds me of last season, actually, when I think seem to recall them being forced into playing Darren Fletcher at right-back.
Liverpool drew 1-1 with Arsenal at the Emirates, which gives them a slight advantage going into the second leg. But it's a very slight advantage. It's quite possible that Fernando Torres will score a brilliant goal and they'll put together another magnificent defensive performance and stymie Arsenal for 90 minutes, but it's equally possible that Pepe Reina will have a brain fart and then Dirk Kuyt will fall over his own feet when presented with an open net. I am ~~expecting~~ dreading that it's going to be another 1-1 followed by penalties.
Chelsea took the lead against Fenerbahce through an own-goal, but then gave up two goals in the second half; it was the reverse of many of their games this season, as they played well but still lost. Ha. And Barcelona beat Schalke, as expected, albeit by only one goal -- the first Champions League goal for wunderkind Bojan Krkic.
Meanwhile, in the league, United started the week by destroying Villa 4-0, demonstrating what they can do if you are foolish enough to go to Old Trafford and attempt to play rather than stringing 11 men across the goalmouth. They followed that up with a snowy 2-2 draw at Middlesbrough, who have been surprisingly tough against the so-called big teams this year. Uh-oh.
Liverpool faced a couple of tricky games but have done pretty well, beating Everton 1-0 in the derby and then drawing against Arsenal with their second-string team in the league game sandwiched between their two Champions League matches. They still have only a narrow lead over Everton in the table, but it should be enough to preserve their spot in the top four. The boardroom drama continues; I continue to stick my fingers in my ears and chant "La la la I can't hear you."
Chelsea are still steadily winning games, beating Middlesbrough and then Man City. They're now only three points behind Manchester United and I'm starting to get a bit worried. But I refuse to believe that United can be caught by a team managed by one of the Gorgs from Fraggle Rock.
Arsenal staged an amazing comeback last weekend, beating a doomed Bolton 3-2 after going down 2-0 and then having a man sent off. I was laughing at them when I left for the airport at halftime, and then they had to go and win after all, the bastards.
Also, Newcastle apparently don't suck anymore...when did that happen?
In the FA Cup, Portsmouth beat West Brom and Cardiff beat Barnsley, both one-nil, to reach the finals. I am trying to care and failing miserably, especially now that designated minnows Barnsley are out.
And here at home, Toronto FC are off to another dismal start to the season, losing their first two games on the road, against Columbus and DC United. I think this could be a chronic problem for them, because they're probably going to start every season away from home while they wait for the snow to melt. Makes it hard to build any sort of momentum when you've already dropped points in your first few games. A bit of good news (I guess?) is that they've signed Laurent Robert from Derby. Yeah, only in MLS is picking up a player from the worst team in the Premiership seen as an asset.

All For One

2008-03-28T14:49:00.000-04:00

I have to admit that -- despite having season tickets -- I am not a very good Toronto FC fan. I've just realized that the MLS season starts this Saturday and I have no idea what's been happening with the team all winter. (Toronto's home opener isn't until April 19th, which is fortunate because there's still snow on the ground here.) Anyway, this seemed like a good time for a little recap -- or a long recap, as the case may be -- of where things stand.

Let’s start with a look back at last year. On the field, it certainly wasn’t the most auspicious debut season. Toronto finished dead last in the league, with a record goalscoring drought along the way. The team had two main problems last year: injuries and their terrible away form. They had an overall record of six wins, seven draws and 17 losses, but only one of those wins came on the road. Basically, away from BMO Field, they were useless, and even when they were at home, they just weren’t consistent enough.

Injuries were a big part of that; I don’t think Mo Johnston got to field his first-choice XI for more than maybe one game all season. They’ve reportedly hired a full-time strength and conditioning coach, which should help this year, and will also be hoping not to have to deal with some of the freak injuries they had last season (like the concussion for goalkeeper Greg Sutton). But there are still questions about the effect of playing on turf at BMO – I’ve heard it suggested that a big part of Ronnie O’Brien’s chronic knee problems were because of training on the turf day in, day out – and that’s not something that’s just going to go away.

Things on the field may not have been great, but off the pitch the club – and the league – should be pretty happy. There isn’t a lot of financial information publicly available, but the Toronto Star did feature an article about allegedly leaked financial statements for MLSE, the club’s owners. It doesn’t break out the details for TFC, but the fact that they sold an average of 5,500 more tickets per game than they'd forecast suggests the team should be making a profit. And BMO Field itself reportedly realized a profit of $900,000 during its eight months of operations in 2007, to be split 50/50 between MLSE and the City of Toronto.

Most of that is from season ticket sales, which are up again for next season. In 2007, the club capped season tickets at 14,000; they’ve upped that to 16,000 for this year, and sold them all, including about 13,000 renewals – despite prices going up an average of 13% – and the waiting list is still as long as your arm. The stadium only holds about 20,000, so it looks like most of the games are going to be sell-outs.

That’s caused a bit of controversy, actually, related to the number of seats that the club allocates for away supporters. It’s a tough call: obviously the owners would prefer to have guaranteed seat sales rather than potential ones, and with only 4,000 seats available for single-game sales (probably not even that much, because I think they were also selling partial season packages), there's not a lot of wiggle room. On the other hand, it probably wouldn’t hurt them to set aside a larger block for away supporters and then release the unsold tickets for walk-up sales on game day. There’s enough demand that chances are they’d still sell out if it was publicized enough. And developing rivalries with other teams is an important part of the atmosphere at the games.

I also think the club will be looking into expanding the stadium in the not-too-distant future. The timing is going to depend on how long it takes them to earn enough to finance that, and to develop enough of a guaranteed fan base to fill the expanded space. There’s been no evidence so far of a drop-off in support, but who knows how long that will last if the team doesn’t improve.

But the fans are unquestionably the main factor that made last season a success overall. A number of supporters’ groups had been established even before the team took the field – the Red Patch Boys, U-Sector, Tribal Rhythm Nation, the Northend Elite. I’m not a part of any of those groups, but it seems to me that the club did a pretty decent job of connecting with and encouraging those fans, while also still appealing to more casual supporters. It’s not always an easy balance – is that family going to be upset, say, if there’s a rowdy group swearing at the ref right behind them? I’m interested to see how things will develop this year. But there are already more than 2,500 TFC fans planning to make the trip down to Columbus tomorrow, so that’s a good sign.

The off-season has been kind of frustrating for the fans, with not a whole lot happening. Occasionally you’d get a bit of news about players being invited for trials or whatever, but nothing ever seemed to come of it. Most of the news, in fact, seemed to be about players leaving the club. The biggest blow was probably playmaker Ronnie O’Brien moving to the San Jose Earthquakes in exchange for a 2009 draft pick, and Chris Pozniak was also picked up by the Earthquakes in the expansion draft. Goalkeeper Kenny Stamatopoulos has returned to Tromso in Norway after his loan term ended, and the team has released a whole list of players: Adam Braz, Miguel Canizalez, Srdjan Djekanovic, Jeffrey Gonsalves, David Guzman, Stephen Lumley, Christian Nunez and Marco Reda.

Meanwhile, Mo Johnston picked up a handful of players in the MLS draft: defenders Julius James and Mike Zaher, defender/midfielder Pat Phelan, goalkeeper Brian Edwards and striker Joseph Lapira. Toronto also acquired midfielder Kevin Harmse from the LA Galaxy in exchange for a draft pick and defender Marco Velez on a free transfer from the USL’s Puerto Rico Islanders. Finally, they’ve signed midfielder Tyler Rosenlund and striker Jarrod Smith as free agents. And that’s it.

The club is clearly trying to fill in some of the gaps that became obvious last season – strengthening the back line, bringing in some backup in net. The problem is that there were just so many places where they needed better players, or more depth. One area that I still think is a problem is the lack of firepower up front, especially considering how hard it sometimes was for Toronto to score goals last year. They have to consider the salary cap, of course, but as far as I know they’ve still got room to manouevre there. They should also be helped by the changes to the roster requirements, which allows Toronto a couple more international players to compensate for the relatively smaller pool of talent in Canada.

The other issue is a designated player – or the lack thereof. And I don’t think this is a big deal, actually. The team could probably afford one, but they clearly don’t need a big name just to get people through the turnstiles. What they do need is a talented player who can add the missing spark to the team. But that’s not much use if you don’t have a solid enough squad built around him. My point is that there’s no point having a DP just for the sake of having one. Better to wait until the right player – and the right fit for the team – comes along. I couldn’t begin to tell you who that might be, but when he does, they’d better grab him.

And TFC does need some good news, because their pre-season has been kind of up and down. They started back in February with a training camp in Florida, where they faced off against a few other MLS teams (DC United, Kansas City Wizards, Chicago Fire), plus Danish club Odense and the U.S. U-17s, and finished with a record of two wins, three draws and one loss. Then it was off to Texas at the beginning of March for a four-team mini-tournament with Chivas USA, DC United and the Houston Dynamo, where Toronto finished third overall, winning one game and losing two. They finished up with the Carolina Challenge Cup in South Carolina, drawing with New York Red Bulls and losing to both the San Jose Earthquakes and the Charleston Battery. It’s not a great record; you can excuse some of that due to the problems of testing out players on trial and integrating new signings, but it still would’ve been nice to see more concrete signs of improvement before the season starts.

Still, the club continues to look towards the future. There’s been a change to the managerial structure, with Mo Honston moving upstairs to become Director of Soccer, while John Carver, formerly the caretaker manager at Leeds United and assistant manager at Newcastle and Luton Town, has joined as the new head coach. They’ve started an academy program to develop young players, which will include U-18 and U-16 teams for its first season. The club should also get a boost from the opportunity to participate in the CONCACAF Champions League, with TFC competing with the USL’s Vancouver Whitecaps and Montreal Impact for a chance to represent Canada in the tournament.

Meanwhile, the rest of the league will be looking at Toronto as a barometer for how other expansion teams might fare. The San Jose Earthquakes will be returning to MLS for the 2008 season, bringing the league up to 14 teams, and there are plans to expand to 18 teams by 2012. MLS has already announced that Seattle will join in 2009 and Philadelphia in 2010. There’s been no word yet about the 17th and 18th spots, but St. Louis is reportedly a frontrunner, and George Gillett (owner of Liverpool and the Montreal Canadiens) has teamed up with the Montreal Impact to bid for a franchise. Other possibilities include Atlanta, Detroit, Portland, Vancouver, a return to Miami, and a second team in New York.

Wow, that was a lot longer than I meant it to be. Kudos if you made it this far; as a reward, you get a commemorative seat cushion thrown at your head.

Premiership Weekend Roundup: March 22-23

2008-03-24T09:49:00.000-04:00

Manchester United 3-0 Liverpool
A lot of people are blaming Javier Mascherano for Liverpool losing. A few people are blaming the referee. I'm going to do something a bit different and blame both of them.

Let's start with Mascherano. He's booked early on for a late tackle on Paul Scholes, although he's deliberately put his feet flat on the ground -- no high foot, no studs showing -- so it's maybe a bit harsh. Somewhat aggrieved by that, he spends a good portion of the first half yammering away at Steve Bennett. Then, just before halftime, Fernando Torres is booked for what I presume was dissent -- it wasn't particularly clear -- Mascherano makes the unnecessary and foolhardy decision to question this, and he's booked a second time, again for dissent. Now, I'm not going to argue that he isn't an idiot for getting involved. (And he didn't help his case by the way he reacted.) But I think the referee has to share some of the responsibility.

Leaving aside the first yellow card for Mascherano -- because I do think that could have gone either way -- let's look at the way Bennett handled the situation. There's been a lot of discussion this week about whether referees deserve more respect from the players, and I think generally they do. But the other side of that is that the players are also entitled to respect from the referees. I don't mean turning a blind eye when players whine about every call. I mean simply responding to players instead of stonewalling them.

Let's say the referee awards a free kick and a player asks, "What was that for?" There are two ways you can take that. One is that they're disputing the referee's decision. The other is that they're just not sure what the infringement is, and they want to know. Most of the time it's probably the first, but not always -- and when referees assume that it's always the player trying to argue, and as a result they get all defensive and refuse to answer, it just causes more problems.

Look at this game, specifically: Torres is booked for whatever comment he made. Then Mascherano comes over to ask what happened, and he's booked as well. As I said, it's a foolish thing for him to do, but I think it's reasonable to expect that you should be able to ask a question without getting sent off for it. There's certainly too many instances of dissent in the game today, and not enough of them are being punished, but there is also a difference between dissent and simply making a comment -- or at least there should be.

The FA is probably going to come down hard on Mascherano for not leaving the field immediately after being sent off. And I think that's harsh -- I can't really blame him for reacting incredulously to the second booking -- but I'm sure they're determined to make an example of him. Which is going to cripple Liverpool's midfield for the next few games, incidentally.

The real shame, though, is that the sending off pretty much ended this as a game. And regardless of whether I wanted United to win, I didn't want them to win like this. Unitd had already taken the lead in the 34th minute with an unlikely goalscorer, Wes Brown heading home from a corner, and were looking like the better team even before their opponents were reduced to 10 men. Liverpool did put a decent spell together in the second half, but they never really tested Edwin van der Sar, and it was only a matter of time before United scored again.

Wayne Rooney had been breaking through the defence too easily all game, and really should have scored at least once. Instead it was Cristiano Ronaldo with the second goal -- another header that Pepe Reina came to punch and missed, negating the good saves he'd made earlier in the game. Nani added a third just a couple minutes later, cutting inside and unleashing a scorching shot. By that point Liverpool looked like they just wanted it all to be over, while United were relishing the thought of moving six points clear of Arsenal at the top of the table.

Chelsea 2-1 Arsenal
The two teams were evenly matched for almost an hour (including the two least likeably players in the Premiership facing up against each other, with Emmanuel Eboue versus Ashley Cole) before Arsenal took the lead. As with United v. Liverpool, it was another unlikely goal from a right back, Bacary Sagna scoring from a corner when he probably shouldn't have been anywhere near the box. But unfortunately for Arsenal, the game proved to be a microcosm of their season, as they then surrendered the lead to a resurgent Chelsea -- who have now leapfrogged them into second place in the league.

Avram Grant's substitutions -- Juliano Belletti and Nicolas Anelka for Claude Makelele and Michael Ballack -- were criticized by the Chelsea fans but appeared to have an effect, as both players they were involved in the winning goal. (Neither of the players who were taken off looked particularly happy about it, by the way, with a scowling Ballack heading straight down the tunnel.) But the changes were hardly revolutionary, and in any case it was Didier Drogba who was really the difference between the teams here. He'd been hobbling earlier in the game and looked like he might come off, but shook it off and led his team brilliantly, ultimately scoring both their goals. I still don't like him, but he is a very good striker when he wants to be.

Other results
Aston Villa 0-1 Sunderland
Blackburn 3-1 Wigan
Bolton 0-0 Manchester City
Everton 1-1 West Ham
Middlesbrough 1-0 Derby
Newcastle 2-0 Fulham
Reading 2-1 Birmingham
Tottenham 2-0 Portsmouth

Premiership Weekend Roundup: March 15-16

2008-03-17T15:20:00.000-04:00

Liverpool 2-1 Reading
Liverpool started slowly, and Reading took an early lead with a well-worked free kick, squared to Marek Matejovsky for a beautiful strike from the edge of the box. But Javier Mascherano cancelled that out with an equally well struck goal, his first for the club. You could see how much it meant to him -- not to mention how happy his teammates were on his behalf -- and he fully deserves the recognition, because this was another in a series of excellent games from him. Then it was a header from Fernando Torres -- who else -- to give them all three points. That makes Torres the first Liverpool striker since Robbie Fowler to score 20 league goals in a season, and he's well on his way to becoming a legend at Anfield. The rest of the team were average this weekend; although they dominated possession they could've capitalized on that more and saved themselves a slightly nerve-wracking end to the game. Still, this is their fifth Premier League win in a row, and they're in good shape going into the crucial series of upcoming games against United, Everton and Arsenal.

Derby 0-1 Manchester United
Everyone was predicting that this game was going to be a massacre. An embarrassment. And it was embarrassing, but mostly for United. This is Derby, after all -- probably the worst team in Premiership history. Coming away with anything less than four or five goals is kind of disappointing. But I think United were (unsurprisingly) overconfident coming into this game, and that translated into them not being quite as sharp as they needed to be. They wasted an incredible number of chances, and Roy Carroll also made a number of very good saves to keep them out. Cristiano Ronaldo was getting poutier and poutier with every miss, but he finally scored the one goal they needed in the 75th minute. And it wasn't all defence from Derby: at the other end of the field, Ben Foster had to make a couple of crucial saves as well. He was only starting because of the injury to Edwin van der Sar and Tomasz Kuszczak's suspension, but he certainly looks good enough to give you confidence for the future -- for both United and England.

Arsenal 1-1 Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough seem to be Arsenal's nemesis this year, beating them at the Riverside in September and earning a draw here with their hard work. Arsenal had a bit of bit of bad luck early on when Emmanuel Adebayor's goal was bizarrely ruled out out for offside. And it only got worse as former Arsenal player Jeremie Aliadiere scored for Boro with their one and only shot on target. Arsenal threw everything they had at the opposition goal but nothing seemed to work, with Middlesbrough hanging on by the skin of their teeth. It took a late goal by Kolo Toure to save a point for Arsenal, but that was all they got, as they couldn't take advantage of their extra man after Mido was sent off for (accidentally) kicking Gael Clichy in the face. So, their five-point lead has evaporated and they've ceded the top of the table to United. And now they also have to worry about Chelsea, who won again and are now just three points behind with a game in hand.

Other results
Fulham 1-0 Everton
Manchester City 2-1 Tottenham
Portsmouth 2-0 Aston Villa
Sunderland 0-1 Chelsea
West Ham 2-1 Blackburn

Champions League Round of 16

2008-03-12T15:17:00.000-04:00

Inter Milan 0-1 Liverpool (0-3 agg)
So, job done.

Liverpool have usually been very good at strangling the life out of their opponents in European games. But now they've combined that with the threat of Fernando Torres up front, they're practically lethal.

This was a strong, disciplined performance, as they withstood all of Inter's pressure in the first half -- and for all their effort, Inter didn't produce all that many shots on target. Pepe Reina did have to make two very good saves -- diving to stop a snap shot from the edge of the box by Julio Cruz in the opening period, and a reflexive save from Cruz's backheel just before halftime -- but other than that they were wasteful in front of goal. Cruz had a couple of near misses, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic was also guilty, although he had an excellent game otherwise in terms of creating chances for his teammates.

Liverpool were creating a few chances of their own, but just like in the first leg, it was a refereeing decision that determined the course of the game, as Nicolas Burdisso was sent off for a second yellow card just after half-time. The second booking, for a lunge on Lucas Leiva may have been a bit harsh, but I thought it was certainly a foul, and there was no question about the first one, when he twisted his leg around Dirk Kuyt to bring him down. In any case, maybe it was a bit of karma in return for that 1965 semi-final that Liverpool lost.

They took advantage of their extra man and cranked up the pressure, with Torres eventually striking in the 63rd minute. Fabio Aurelio won the ball on the left wing and crossed it to Torres, who took one touch, spun and hit a beautiful shot past the keeper at the near post. That left Inter needing to score four goals to survive -- an almost impossible task, and you could see it in their players' defeated body language as Liverpool passed the ball around easily to run down the clock.

And now we've got four English teams in the quarter-finals, along with Barcelona, Roma, Schalke and Fenerbahce. I don't care much about all the hype about this proving that the Premiership is the best league in the world. But I think the draw on Friday will be very very interesting.

FA Cup Quarter-finals

2008-03-10T14:12:00.000-04:00

Manchester United 0-1 Portsmouth
Well, bugger. Somehow you could just tell that this wasn't meant to go United's way. From that early penalty shout to the endless missed chances to their keeper being sent off, it was like they were jinxed.

The shove by Distin on Ronaldo was one of those incidents where, as everyone says, if it had been outside the box it would've been a free kick. In which case it should have been a penalty. I think, also, that if it had happened a bit later in the game, the referee might have given it, but because it was so early, he just didn't have the balls to make that call.

Getting that penalty and a goal might have helped United by forcing Portsmouth to come out and opening up the game, but regardless they still had more than enough chances to score and just couldn't put the ball in the net. Portsmouth had a few decent chances too, before their penalty, but overall United were thoroughly dominant and only denied by a combination of unfortunate finishing and some mind-boggling goal-line clearances.

The decisive moment came in the 77th minute, when Tomasz Kuszczak -- who'd replaced Edwin Van der Sar at half-time -- rushed off his line to take down Milan Baros. The red card may have been harsh, since there were two men back defending and they got the penalty anyway, but more than that I'd say it was a foolish challenge. I mean, come on, it's Baros: the odds are in your favour if you just let him take the shot.

Anyway, Rio Ferdinand went in goal to face the penalty, and he did guess the right direction but didn't get close to making the save. It was all over after that, try as United might. The FA Cup was admittedly their third priority this season, but it's still disappointing not to have a chance at that trophy -- or the treble -- anymore.

But at least they're in good company. Barnsley, this year's official giant-killers, followed up their defeat of Liverpool in the last round by knocking out Chelsea. Last year's winners, like United, put out a pretty solid team, but unlike United they simply didn't play well, and Barnsley outworked them to earn the win. In the other two matches, Cardiff eliminated the only other Premiership team, beating a thoroughly mediocre Middlesbrough, and West Brom defeated Bristol Rovers in the only game that wasn't an upset.

Actually, I think that United getting knocked out here wasn't such a bad thing, because if they'd lost to one of these other teams later on, everybody would have mocked them, and if they'd won the whole thing, everybody would have despised them (despised them more, I suppose). Getting rid of the big teams may be bad news for the clubs like Aston Villa that had been chasing the UEFA Cup spots -- because it's not spots, plural, anymore, it's just one spot -- but I think it's brilliant for the FA Cup as a competition. I will be cheering for Barnsley from this point on, if you're interested.

Other results
Barnsley 1-0 Chelsea
Bristol Rovers 1-5 West Brom
Middlesbrough 0-2 Cardiff

Semi-finals
Portsmouth v West Brom
Cardiff v Barnsley

Premiership Weekend Roundup: March 8-9

2008-03-09T22:15:00.000-04:00

Liverpool 3-0 Newcastle
Rafa resisted the urge to rotate too much ahead of Liverpool's Champions League rematch with Inter, just choosing to bring in Pennant and Benayoun and rest Kuyt and Babel on the wings, and forced to replace the injured Mascherano with Lucas. But he left Gerrard and Torres in the starting lineup, and with the terrific form they're both in right now, you wouldn't want to see them left out anyway.

Not only are they playing well individually, but they've developed a fantastic understanding between the two of them. Gerrard set up Torres for one goal, and he returned the favour for another. (Meanwhile, Michael Owen, who in an alternate universe would have come to Anfield this summer instead of Torres, was wandering around looking sad and lonely up front for Newcastle.)

It took a while for Liverpool to find the opening goal, as Newcastle's defence were slightly less hopeless than usual -- and they did need a bit of luck, with Luis Enrique's clearance shanked off Pennant and looping into the net. But Torres's goal came just a couple minutes later, and then Gerrard finished things off early in the second half. That gave Liverpool a comfortable three-goal lead and let Rafa substitute his star players and wrap them up in cotton wool for a couple days.

So that was enjoyable. The only thing that bugged me was the way the commentators kept going on about how Liverpool's play had deteriorated once Gerrard and Torres came off, as if the rest of the team was just shit. Sure, they were less threatening after that, but you don't suppose it might have had something to do with the fact that they were three goals up and didn't really need to push themselves? Bah.

Wigan 0-0 Arsenal
Arsenal were held to a draw once again, frustrated by a combination of hard work by Wigan and a few good saves by Chris Kirkland. Even Robin van Persie's return from injury as a substitute here wasn't enough to bring them a goal. Wigan were constantly hustling to close Arsenal down and stop them getting into their passing rhythm, although didn't ever look likely to score in their own right. And Arsenal were also hampered by the terrible pitch, which was reminiscent of some of the mudslikes that my rec league plays on. Anyway, they've dropped more points, which is great news for United snapping at their heels.

Tottenham 4-0 West Ham
West Ham really do need to shore up their defence; they conceded two goals in the first 10 minutes here, both from Tom Huddlestone free kicks that were headed home by Berbatov. And they didn't help themselves when Boa Morte was sent off before halftime for a second late tackle -- and he was lucky to have lasted as long as he did. The Hammers have now lost 4-0 for the past three games in a row, which is abysmal -- although the results don't seem to have made much difference, because they're still marooned alone in mid-table no man's land. As for Tottenham, it looks like they've finally shaken off their hangover, although it may not help them with the UEFA Cup.

Other results
Blackburn 1-1 Fulham
Reading 2-0 Manchester City
Sunderland 0-1 Everton

When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high...

2008-03-07T10:28:00.001-05:00

Liverpool 4-0 West Ham
Seriously, y'all, I am running out of superlatives for Fernando Torres. That was his third hat-trick of the season. That's as many goals in three games as Dirk Kuyt has scored all season. Not that I mean to slag off Kuyt, actually (for a change), because he set up Torres's first two goals and had another decent game.

It was nice to see Liverpool running up the score like this, but I do wish it hadn't taken them so long to get the second goal. After Torres opened the scoring early in the first half, they seemed content to just sit back on their lead and pass the ball around rather than really going for it. I don't know if that was a deliberate strategy or if they were just trying to conserve their energy for the upcoming games. But it's frustrating to watch when you know how much better they are capable of being.

Also frustrating: the ongoing ownership tug-of-war. First the owners want to sell. Then they don't want to sell. Then Gillett wants to sell but Hicks doesn't. Or maybe Hicks wants to sell but Gillett wants a monkey and a sparkly tiara and a pony. I can't keep up, and any attempt to do so is making my forehead as wrinkly as Steven Gerrard's.

Champions League Round of 16: March 5

2008-03-06T21:11:00.000-05:00

Champions League Round of 16: March 5

Real Madrid 1-2 Roma (2-4 agg)
That sound you hear is Iker Casillas weeping into his gloves as the defence in front of him imploded once again and Real Madrid crashed out of the Champions League at this stage for the fourth year in a row. Pepe was sent off for a second yellow card in the 71st minute, and just a couple minutes later Taddei scored the opening goal for Roma. Raul equalized shortly thereafter, but his team would have still needed another goal to bring them level over two legs. Instead it was Roma who scored again, Vucinic guaranteeing their place in the next round with a goal in stoppage time.

Chelsea 3-0 Olympiakos
Fucking Chelsea. I guess it was too much to hope that they would choke. Instead they've cruised through, helped by the fact that Olympiakos were essentially useless. They've also demonstrated that Michael Ballack and Frank Lampard can play together after all: the opening goal was a Ballack header from Lampard's cross, the second Ballack's shot and Lampard scoring the rebound. (Kalou added the third goal in the second half.) So, I don't know; maybe we need to start teaching Steven Gerrard some German.

Porto - Schalke (1-1 agg; 1-4 pen)
Porto were down to 10 men when Lisandro Lopez scored in the 86th minute to cancel out Schalke's 1-0 lead from the first leg and force extra time. But after that ended with no more goals, Schalke keeper Manuel Neuer made two penalty saves to send his team into the quarter-finals for the first time.

Liverpool travel to Italy next week for the second leg against Inter. I will be wearing my lucky red shirt and attempting not to bite my fingernails.

Champions League Round of 16: March 4

2008-03-05T13:32:00.000-05:00

Manchester United 1-0 Lyon (2-1 agg)
This was hardly a dominant display from United, but they've done enough to see themselves through to the next round. Sir Alex fielded a slightly odd lineup, with Nani and Ronaldo flanking Rooney in a 4-3-3 -- although I suppose it could've been just a cunningly disguised version of United's usual European 4-5-1 -- and the team didn't quite seem to gel. The only goal came from Ronaldo just before half-time, after Lyon's defense (still their weakest point) failed to clear their lines after Wes Brown's cross. But apart from hat, United were guilty of some sloppy play and failed to really kill off the game, which could've come back to bite them in the ass if Kader Keita's shot had gone in instead of rebounding off the post. For Lyon, Benzema was once again their most dangerous player by a mile; it will definitely be interesting to see if United pursue him in the summer. I think he'd be a fantastic addition to the squad, even though I also expect him to cost a ridiculous amount of money.

Milan 0-2 Arsenal (0-2 agg)
You know, I'm not sure why everyone was so convince Milan were going to win this one. Based on their historical record, sure, but on current form? Of course it's easy to say in hindsight, but I expected it to be very finely balanced indeed. Milan were the stronger team for the first 20 minutes or so -- I wonder if Arsenal's youngsters were overawed by the San Siro -- but Arsenal worked themselves into the game and only got better as it went on, with Milan looking a bit worn down. Midfield is usually Milan's strength, but Fabregas, Flamini and Hleb were superior to the Italian trio of Pirlo, Gattuso and Ambrosini, with Kaka reduced to running down blind alleys and petulantly throwing the ball away (what would Jesus say, Ricky?). Fabregas finally broke the deadlock in the 84th minute with a long-range shot. It was well struck, but I think Kalac could've done, because he had plently of time to get down and cover it. It didn't matter, though, because Milan had very little time to equalize, and instead Arsenal scored again, as Theo Walcott set up Adebayor in stoppage time, and last year's champions are out. Mostly I feel sad for Paolo Maldini, because this was his last Champions League game ever, and as a total class act -- not to mention, um, a total hotass -- he deserves infinitely better than for it to end this way.

Barcelona 1-0 Celtic (4-2 agg)
A pretty predictable Barcelona win, as Celtic's dreadful away form in Europe continues. Barcelona's goal came in the third minute, Xavi scoring, with Celtic barely having touched the ball up to that point. Barca could have easily run up the score after that, but they didn't really need to bother, coming into the game with a 3-2 lead from the first leg. Although they've easily made it into the quarter-finals, unfortunately the Catalan team has lost Lionel Messi to a recurrence of the hamstring injury that sidelined him earlier this year, as he went down injured in the first half and left the field in tears. Poor kid has had some rotten luck.

Sevilla 3-2 Fenerbahce (5-5 agg; 2-3 pen)
Sevilla and Fenerbahce produced another five-goal thriller after the 3-2 result in Turkey a couple of weeks ago. Sevilla took an early lead with goals from Daniel Alves and Seydou Keita. Deivid then pulled one back for Fenerbahce but Sevilla widened their lead again before halftime through Freddie Kanoute. In the 79th minute, though, Deivid scored again to force extra time. That ended goalless before Fenerbahce finally squeaked through on penalties, as goalkeeper Volkan Demirel, who had flapped at Sevilla's first two goals, saved three penalty kicks to put his team through.

Premiership Weekend Roundup: March 1-2

2008-03-02T19:52:00.001-05:00

Bolton 1-3 Liverpool
When you are looking for your first win at Bolton in...um, a long time (I'm too lazy to look it up, sorry), it really helps if they hand you the first goal on a silver plate. Which is what happened here: a low, long-range shot from Steven Gerrard that was headed just wide until Jussi Jaaskelainen attempted to block it but somehow deflected the ball back into his own net. Having that goal gave Liverpool confidence and enabled them to pass the ball around calmly, and opened up the game as Bolton had to go looking for an equalizer. The problem is that with Nicolas Anelka gone to Stamford Bridge, they don't have much of a goal-scoring threat up front.

For Liverpool, Fernando Torres has been the main threat this season, but he had a relatively quiet game here. Ryan Babel was probably their most dangerous player; he still needs to add some variety to his repertoire, rather than cutting inside onto his right foot all the time, but he did score and terrorized the Bolton defence throughout. I'm still not convinced that Dirk Kuyt should be playing on the other wing, but he did look better today. (Maybe Rafa figures that he's not much of a goal-scorer, so you might as well play him out wide?)

One thing Liverpool need to do is work on their defending at set-pieces. People have been criticizing their zonal marking system for ages, but whereas before they were keeping plenty of clean sheets, this season they seem to be giving up a goal just about every game, and most of them are from set plays. Like the late goal they conceded here -- although at least Fabio Aurelio had given them a bit of insurance just a few minutes before, a beautiful volley for his first-ever Liverpool goal. Anyway, another three points in the bag, and now they have to do the same against West Ham on Wednesday to move back ahead of Everton into fourth place.

Fulham 0-3 Manchester United
When United start with Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo on the bench, is that reassuring for their opponents or just insulting? It should be the latter, but I suspect Fulham were just happy that it wasn't any worse for them -- especially Paul Stalteri at right-back, who was roasted more thoroughly than any hooker at one of Ronaldo's parties (and also reminded us of why the Canadian national team is so mediocre).

United never really got out of first gear, but they didn't need to. Owen Hargreaves scored his first goal for the club with an excellent free kick. And Fulham continued their hospitality by allowing Park Ji-Sung his first goal in almost a year, followed by an own-goal to top things off. Oh, but Fulham did finally bring on two strikers in stoppage time -- a futile use of substitutions that sent the commentators I was listening to into a sort of bemused apoplexy.

Arsenal 1-1 Aston Villa
Ohh, so close! So close to a great victory for Villa -- and so close to Manchester United going top of the table on goal difference. I managed to catch the last five minutes of the game yesterday, just in time to see Nicklas Bendtner equalize for Arsenal at the very end of stoppage time. Argh. The fight-back may be a boost to them, but from my perspective, at least they only got one point from this game. And one point is also all that separates them from United in second place.

Also encouraging for rest of the league is that Villa proved that you don't have to kick to death Arsenal to beat them; you just have to out-hustle and out-think them. Arsenal looked disjointed from the outset, and although they threatened more as the game went on, they still weren't producing enough shots that really tested the keeper. (Exception: The hapless Phil Senderos, who I can't even laugh at for that own-goal, because his droopy face makes me want to pat him on the head and bake him cookies.)

West Ham 0-4 Chelsea
Hmm. At least I got to see Frank Lampard sent off. I'm still not entirely sure what the red card was for -- kicking at Luis Boa Morte as he got up from a tackle, shoving him down again afterwards, or what -- or why Boa Morte also didn't get carded for kicking out at Lampard in return. But it means three games with no chance of having to watch that obnoxious ring-kissing celebration, so whatever.

The sending-off might have been controversial, but it didn't really change the game. It was all over by that point, with three Chelsea goals in five first-half minutes: a Lampard penalty plus two sweet finishes by JOe Cole and Michael Ballack. The Chelsea team was dramatically changed from the lineup that they fielded in the Carling Cup, and looked much more effective. Makes you wonder why they left Joe Cole, for example, on the bench for so long last weekend. But then, I'm not a control-freak Russian billionaire, so what do I know about football?

Birmingham 4-1 Tottenham
I suspect that the Tottenham players are still hung over after last weekend. I mean, credit to Birmingham for a solid performance, and Spurs were admittedly fielding a weakened lineup ahead of their UEFA Cup game on Thursday, but come on. When you are giving up hat-tricks to Mikael Forssell, that is not good. Maybe we can blame the yellow kits.

Other results
Everton 3-1 Portsmouth
Derby 0-0 Sunderland
Manchester City 0-0 Wigan
Middlesbrough 0-1 Reading
Newcastle 0-1 Blackburn

Carling Cup Final

2008-02-25T15:11:00.001-05:00

Tottenham 2-1 Chelsea
I was kind of ambivalent about this game; much as I detest Chelsea, I can't really warm to Spurs either. I'm not sure exactly what it is about them. But for some reason I often want to smack Robbie Keane in the face. Despite all that, it was a decent enough game to watch, in my vaguely hungover state on Sunday morning. Plus I find that John Terry crying always makes me feel better.

Spurs were marginally the better team in the first half, but it was Chelsea who went into halftime with the lead from a Didier Drogba free kick that Paul Robinson just stood and watched. (Actually, that's not true: Robinson did move, but in the opposite direction from where the ball was going.) In the second half, Tottenham came out strongly and pulled a goal back with Dimitar Berbatov's penalty after a handball in the box by Wayne Bridge -- plus, of course, the obligatory John Terry ranting at the referee in process.

Into extra time, then, and Spurs earned the win with a bit of luck, as Petr Cech's attempted punch at a free kick ricocheted off Jonathan Woodgate's head and into the net. They still had to make it through almost half an hour of play, and Chelsea threw everything they had at Tottenham for the last 10 minutes or so, but that was really the first time in the game that they'd looked like they cared about winning, and Spurs managed to hold on.

Juande Ramos definitely won the tactical battle over Avram Grant. Chelsea's 4-3-3 formation was ill-thought-out, with Nicolas Anelka awkwardly shoehorned in on the left wing (it should've been Joe Cole there instead, or Anelka up front with Drogba in a 4-4-2), and Grant's substitutions were ineffective. Ramos, in contrast, used his substitutes to change the shape of the team and take control of the game, switching from 4-4-2 to 3-5-2 as Spurs chased the winning goal, and then changing to five at the back as they desperately clung to their lead.

Chelsea, unsurprisingly, were very sore losers, bitching about the penalty decision, when the referee chose to blow the final whistle and, for all I know, the fact that they had to wear blue socks instead of white. I would just like to thank Tottenham for making sure that there's no chance of Chelsea claiming the quadruple this year. And did I mention John Terry crying?

Premiership Weekend Roundup: February 23-24

2008-02-25T09:45:00.000-05:00

Liverpool 3-2 Middlesbrough
Just in case you needed reminding: Fernando Torres was worth every penny that Rafa Benitez paid for him this summer. His hat-trick here -- which was his second of the season, by the way -- was pretty much the only good thing about Liverpool in this game. Plus an honorable mention to Sami Hyypia, who's having a much better season than anyone expected and had to shepherd Alvaro Arbeloa through the match at centre-half.

Liverpool's back line is carrying a few injuries right now, and Jamie Carragher was suspended on Saturday, so maybe that's why their defending was so awful all game. Tuncay scored Middlesborough's first goal with an unmarked header, and could have had a second goal if he hadn't decided to put the ball in the net with his arm rather than his head. All because of sloppy play by Liverpool, who seem to be making things way harder for themselves than they need to be.

But back to Torres: He's got strength, speed, skill on the ball and, at least at the moment, lethal finishing. (I've also seen him guilty of some shocking misses, but right now, wow, is he on form.) He pounced on a brainless back-header from Julio Arca for the first goal, rounding the keeper and avoiding a couple of tackles before slotting the ball home. For his second, just a couple minutes later, he made himself a yard of space and smashed the ball past the keeper into the corner of the net with a combination of power and precision that Steven Gerrard would have been proud of. The third goal I didn't see, no thanks to Setanta, but we'll assume it was just as good.

As for the rest of the team, the less said, the better. I thought that Lucas in particular was useless, and I'm not just saying that because of my thing about Xabi Alonso. I do like the 4-2-3-1 formation that they were playing, but I think it works better if you've got two proper wingers (i.e., not Dirk Kuyt). It also can leave you playing very narrow if the fullbacks don't get forward -- or, alternatively, vulnerable on the flanks to crosses like the ones Boro were putting in all game.

I feel like I also should say something about the red card for Aliadiere at the end of the game, but did it really make a difference? Maybe Mascherano was lucky not to be sent off as well; maybe the ref didn't see it; maybe he figured it was less serious since Mascherano didn't actually take a swing at another player. Who knows.

Newcastle 1-5 Manchester United
Newcastle really are a farce, aren't they? There were points during the game on Saturday where Manchester United just looked like they were playing with them.

The most glaring problem is their defence, or lack thereof. (I kind of wondered when Shay Given went off at halftime if it was not because of an injury but because he just couldn't cope with the incompetence in front of him anymore.) It was obvious from United's first goal, when Cristiano Ronaldo's cross found Wayne Rooney in acres of space in the box, after N'Zogbia had decided that marking him was optional. The second goal was more about a great ball from Michael Carrick -- who had an excellent game, and I feel compelled to point this out because I've criticized him a lot in the past, but he's getting quite good at those perfectly weighted passes through the defence for the strikers to feed on.

The third: well, more hopeless defending; I think some Newcastle player tried to make a tackle, but failed utterly and let Ronaldo in on goal for his second of the game. Newcastle did pull a goal back off a corner late in the second half, but it was too little, too late. And United responded by scoring again almost immediately: Newcastle didn't clear their lines and Rooney looped the ball into the top corner. Plus another one in stoppage time, as Rooney, despite being on a hat-trick, unselfishly set up Louis Saha, who was in a better position to score and did. United haven't had many easier games this season -- aside from maybe the last time they played Newcastle. And with Arsenal dropping points earlier in the day, they've cut the gap at the top of the table to a very slim three points.

Arsenal 2-2 Birmingham
No schadenfreude from me today. I can't really take pleasure in any game with an injury as horrific as the one to Eduardo, even if it does end up with Arsenal dropping points. I haven't seen any graphic pictures of the tackle, but based on what I've read, I don't want to see them either. (I'd prefer to be able to play tonight and not be paranoid about getting hurt.) I don't think Martin Taylor intended to hurt Eduardo -- it didn't look like a malicious tackle, from what I saw -- but it was late and high, and he thoroughly deserved to be sent off.

Birminham, surprisingly, took a first-half lead with a free kick by James McFadden, as the Arsenal players looked a bit shell-shocked by what had happened. But Arsenal came back strongly after halftime with two goals from Theo Walcott -- his first and second Premiership goals ever. Arsenal dominated for the remainder of the game but didn't convert that dominance into another goal. And they paid for it when Birmingham were awarded a penalty deep into stoppage time, with Gael Clichy switching off for a moment instead of clearing the ball and then committing a foul trying to win it back.

Finally: I was thoroughly unimpressed by William Gallas's behaviour at the end of the match. I've come across other commentators saying that he was upset because he'd wanted to win the game for Eduardo, but to me it looked more like he was pissed off at his teammates for fucking up. Not very captainly.

Other results
Blackburn 4-1 Bolton
Fulham 0-1 West Ham
Portsmouth 1-0 Sunderland
Reading 1-2 Aston Villa
Wigan 2-0 Derby

Champions League Round of 16: February 20

2008-02-21T16:33:00.001-05:00

Lyon 1-1 Manchester United
United lined up in the same 4-5-1 that they always seem to use in Europe, but the cautious formation, with Wayne Rooney alone up front, really didn't test the rickety Lyon defence enough. In fact, Lyon started stronger and had a good spell at the beginning of the game before United settled down and got themselves into it. Sir Alex also opted for experience over youth in the starting lineup, with Scholes and Giggs brought back into the team after being left out for the FA Cup win over Arsenal. But although the veterans were enjoying an Indian summer last year, they just don't seem to be up to it this season. Cristiano Ronaldo had a quiet game too, and although United were edging the possession stats, they hadn't created many clear shot -- aside from a good chance that Wayne Rooney missed when clean through on goal in the first half.

Lyon took the lead early in the second half, against the run of play, with Karim Benzema grabbing a goal out of nothing -- three defenders around him, he found space for a powerful shot that was well placed in the corner past Van der Sar. You can certainly see why United might be interested in buying him -- provided he's a bit less fragile than Louis Saha. Sir Alex responded to going behind by replacing Giggs and Scholes with Nani and Tevez, and that made the difference in the end, as Tevez snatched a late equalizer. Overall it was a fairly even game, but United were the better team, and the scoreline should position them well for the return leg at Old Trafford.

Arsenal 0-0 Milan
This was the perfect example of why a scoreless game doesn't have to be boring. It was fascinating to watch, with Arsenal's energy and flair neutralized by Milan's guile. Arsenal's best chance came in stoppage time, when Adebayor headed a cross from Theo Walcott onto the crossbar. Adebayor was the focal point of their attack throughout, with perhaps more long balls forward than we're used to seeing from Arsenal, in hopes of catching the Milan defence off-guard. Milan, meanwhile, started with Pato on his own up front, somewhat surprisingly -- I would've thought that Pippo Inzaghi was made for nights like this, but maybe he's not quite fit? -- and although the duckling showed flashes of his potential, ultimately it was a frustrating night for him.

Both teams lost key defenders to injury -- Toure in the 7th minute, Nesta in the 50th -- but although Toure's absence could be a bigger blow to Arsenal in the long run, they coped better here than Milan did. Milan's strength, as usual, was their midfield, but Flamini nullified Kaka & co. quite effectively. Arsenal should be happy to have kept a clean sheet but regret not winning the game outright. Now they have to go to Italy and get something from the San Siro. In other seasons you might say that's a tall order, but it's less daunting when you consider Milan's home form this year.

In any case, it will give me another opportunity to partake in the Milan Drinking Game, the most important part of which involves taking a drink every time the commentators mention Maldini's age. Guaranteed to get you drunk by halftime.

Celtic 2-3 Barcelona
Barcelona went behind to Celtic twice before finally coming back to win with two goals from Lionel Messi and another from Thierry Henry. It was a very back-and-forth game but Barcelona had the majority of the possession and shots and thoroughly deserved the win. So much for Celtic's excellent home record in European games -- and now they have to hope to win in Spain which is, shall we say, not bloody likely.

Fenerbahce 3-2 Sevilla
Another five-goal game, this one decided by a goal from substitute Semih Senturk in the 87th minute to give Fenerbahce the win. The Turkish team took the lead initially, with Sevilla equalizing a few minutes later through an own-goal, and Fenerbahce going ahead again in the second half before Sevilla levelled things up once more. I'm still deciding whether to bother watching this later.

Champions League Round of 16: February 19

2008-02-20T11:49:00.001-05:00

Liverpool 2-0 Inter
For 85 minutes, I thought that this was going to be one of those nights. One of those games where, no matter how much Liverpool dominated, they just weren't going to score.

Liverpool started strongly, pushing Inter back and forcing the defenders into errors, like those two fouls by Materazzi on Torres. That may have added up to a harsh red card -- although, come on, if you were going to bet on a player being sent off, it would totally have been Matrix. But even with a one-man advantage and almost 70% of possession, they still couldn't find a way through. You could see the same problems that have plagued them all season with their inability to kill games off; they really didn't create enough clear chances to test the keeper. In fact, I was starting to worry that it would be Inter who'd manage to steal a goal.

But finally, it was the much-maligned Dirk Kuyt who scored the crucial goal for Liverpool, with a lot of help from a deflection. I still don't understand Rafa's penchant for playing him as a winger (considering that he has neither speed nor a great deal of skill on the ball), but at least he was in the right place at the right time for once. By that point, Inter's defence had been weakened further as their other centre half, Ivan Cordoba, had already been taken off injured. And substitute Patrick Vieira, who looks to be about half the player he once was, had been very lucky not to concede a penalty after a blatant handball in the box.

Gerrard added a bit of gloss to the scoreline with a 90th-minute goal that found its way through a crowd of players and arrowed in off the far post. That leaves Liverpool with a two-goal advantage heading into the second leg in Milan, with the bonus of not having given up an away goal. How come they can do it against the best teams in Europe but not against fucking Barnsley? Gah.

Also: Shut up, Tommy Smyth. I should know better than to expect anything insightful from the ESPN commentators, but really. Whatever strategy Liverpool tried yesterday, he criticized. First he didn't like that they were playing the ball back and forth across the pitch -- despite the fact that that's a pretty good way to pull the other team out of position, especially when they're a man down. Then he said that they needed to keep possession more. (More than 70%? Whatever.) Then he said that rather than holding on to the ball, they should be running at defenders instead. Eedjit.

Roma 2-1 Real
Real will be disappointed not to have come away with at least a draw, after taking an early lead with a goal from Raul and dominating much of the play. But Roma got over their intra-team squabbling and came back to win the game, helped by a deflected goal and then a defensive lapse by Gabriel Heinze. Poor Iker Casillas. He deserves better.

Olympiakos 0-0 Chelsea
"Do I want to watch Chelsea grind out another stultifying scoreless draw?" I asked myself. And the answer was, emphatically, no. Instead, I will give you this statistic: Five shots on target in the whole game. For both teams combined. That's the excitement of European competition, right there.

Schalke 1-0 Porto
Kevin Kuranyi gave his team a narrow lead with an early goal. I strongly disapprove of Kevin Kuranyi's facial hair.