Into the channels: 28/11/2014

O'Higgins 1 - 1 Audax Italiano

On Wednesday, I watched The Strongest contest the La Paz derby with Bolivar. Crossing the south western border into Chile on Friday evening provided further intriguing football club names for this Anglophone, and another 1-1 draw.

O'Higgins are managed by Facundo Sava.

They are named after Bernardo O'Higgins, who helped lead Chile to independence from Spain in a war beginning in 1810 and culminating in a declaration of independence in 1818.

O'Higgins are known as Il Capo de Provinica - or boss of the province

Audax Italiano was originally a cycling club, founded in 1910, but took up football in 1917. They are not alone amongst Primera Division teams in bearing the name of the immigrant community that founded the club: the origins of Palestino and Unión Española are similarly umambiguous.

It was a nice evening in Racangua, in the middle of Chile

Players like Yerson Opazo realised quite early on that chipping the ball in behind the Audax defence resulted in chances for strikers.

Facundo Sava: no longer in danger of being sued by DC Comics

Diego Chaves almost scores for O'Higgins after a minute

Another Uruguayan, Octavio Rivero, gives the home side the lead shortly afterwards

Rivero's 10th of the season was lifted over the Audax keeper, after a deft turn and pass from Gaston Lezcano

The pace of Chile international winger Bryan Carrasco was Audax's biggest threat early on. But O'Higgins knew this. And so did Carrasco. So when Audax had several men forward on a breakaway mission, it was Carrasco who was closed down quickest in possession, and forced backwards, eventually giving the ball away in the process of beating the entire O'Higgins defence.

To throw a British phrase into this hotpot of cultures, his display was a bit write the theme tune, sing the theme tune.

Bryan Carrasco approves of that cross

The majority of the second half was played out in the 20 yards immediately to the right of the half way line, in O'Higgin's half. They didn't seem to mind much. The Audax attack was based upon the explosive pace of their wingmen, so if O'Higgins could keep play slow and in the middle of the pitch, they had control.

Audax's only hope was to find space along the flanks

Eventually, the strength and persistence of the 5'7", 21 year-old Felipe Mora enabled him to push past the O'Hi O'Hi defence, and find Audax's other quick young forward, Diego Valdes.

Valdes' goal livened things up somewhat, and play became quicker and more open.

O'Higgins played a good pass-and-move game, but created few chances

Once O'Higgins started to commit men to attack, Audax were able to find more space when they went forward.

This foul drew a penalty

Jorge Carranzo saves!

O'Higgins laid siege to the Audax goal, but paid the price for their earlier complacency

Into the channels: 27/11/2014

NorthEast United 3-0 Chennaiyin

Regular readers of this blog (i.e. me) will remember that NorthEast United played on Monday, losing a bottom-of-the-table clash at home to Delhi Dynamos. So it's fair to say that I wasn't expecting them to beat Marco Materazzi's table-topping Chennaiyin on Thursday lunchtime.

NorthEast hadn't scored in the first half hour of any ISL match so far.

So, of course, they scored in the 10th minute of this match, Durga getting their 8th in 11 games. The goal was very fortunate, coming as a headed clearance from a Chennai centre-back ricocheted off a NorthEast player, and bounced right in front of Durga.

NorthEast didn't care about the resolution of the screenshot, they were just happy with the goal

How would Eric Djemba-Djemba and co respond?

Um, they conceded two more goals in quick succession, both from set pieces.

Ricki Lambert can phone home with good news

Bruno Massamba: on a hat-trick from the centre of defence

The intensity of the team from Guwahati led to their impressive support demanding a fourth goal. Two balls over the top dropped nicely for Len: one was struck straight at Chennai's keeper; the other was brilliantly intercepted by Bernard Mendy.

The impressive NorthEast keeper TP Rehenesh deals with a cross, and gets clattered

Lots of Chennai play was aimed at releasing India forward Jeje, who has 8 goals in 22 internationals. Compatriot TP Rehenesh, infringing on the 'sweeper keeper' role trademarked by Manuel Neuer, dealt with him impressively. The 21 year-old Kerala-born player was far more composed at the back than 2010 World Cup winner Joan Capdevila was playing in front of him, the latter wasting a good chance as he had done against Delhi, and giving away a cheap free-kick with a handball as the first half came to a close.

For the second half, Materazzi sent on Jayesh Rane and Cristian Hidalgo. Would former Barcelona youth team player Hidalgo bring some La Masia class to Chennaiyin in the second half?

Joan Capdevila got himself sent off for a second bookable offence with 20 minutes still to play. Perhaps with an Elano-type player on the pitch, Chennai could have used their advantage to get themselves back in the game. As it happened, although the final quarter was definitely more one-sided, the attacking play was disjointed, uninspired, error-prone, and dealt with by what was left of Rehenesh's defence. Former PSG and current Haiti striker Jean-Eudes Maurice was pretty much their only bright spark.

NorthEast United move up into fifth place. Chennaiyin, meanwhile, will be looking over their shoulders, as Luis Garcia and Atletico de Kolkata seek to make up ground at the top of the table.


En Avant Guingamp 1 - 2 Fiorentina

EAG hold a special place in my heart, being the weird Breton football team followed by my childhood French penpal, who once sent me these cards:

Not pictured: Premier League legends Didier Drogba and Stephane Guivarc'h

More European football tat

En Avant Guingamp are in the Europa League despite being a small club struggling in Ligue 1 this season. Their ground holds just over 18,000 people - meaning the entire town of Guingamp could fit in there, twice, and there'd still be space. They are in Europe because they won the French Cup last season, a feat they also managed in the 2008-09 season, which (trusting my memory here) was also the season when they briefly topped the French league, becoming the smallest town in history ever to do so. In recent years, as well as winning two French cups, their squad has boasted France strikers Fabrice Fiorese and Stephane Guivarc'h (famous for not really hitting it off at Newcastle), and Chelsea stars Didier Drogba and Florence Malouda. They've also managed to spend time in the second and third tiers of French football, falling into the latter in 2010 after the Coupe de France win a season earlier.

Their current crop includes a loanee from the Premier League - Newcastle's Sylvain Marveaux. Fiorentina, meanwhile, have borrowed Micah Richards from Manchester City. Both were starting tonight. Fiorentina's side also included the very briefly England-based Marko Marin and Alberto Aquilani. EAG's most prominent charges, meanwhile, were Lionel Mathis, who would attempt to exert an influence in the middle of the park, and Sambou Yatabare, a lively Mali winger who joined on loan from Olympiakos at about the same time as his brother, Mustapha, left Cotes d'Armor for Trabzonspor.

One intriguing (in a nice way) thing about Italian club football this season is the relative dearth of shirt sponsors

Despite Fiorentina sitting 10th of 20 in Serie A and Guingamp lying 19th of 20 in the weaker Ligue 1, both teams have 4 league victories to their names in their domestic divisions this season. In a Europa League group completed by PAOK and Dinamo Minsk, one win separated the teams from Florence (10 points) and France (7 points), with PAOK another win further back, and Minsk winless.

The slight gaps between the two sides were stretched from the kick off. Marin and Senegal youth international Khouma Babacar (pictured above, blurrily) threatened to turn it into a gaping chasm, with two goals in 12 minutes.

Guingamp's fans encouraged their team to get back into the game

The game turned just before half-time, with Basanta sent off and conceding a penalty, which Beauvue converted

Beauvue was the most dangerous - and the most wasteful - man on the pitch

This man turned up at half-time for some reason

Born 28 years later, Michel Platini Mesquita must be ruing his namesake's transition into a bloated bureaucrat

Cuadrado and Savic (another former Manchester City defender) came on for Fiorentina in the second half, to help them re-establish their early dominance. Instead, it was Guingamp who were on the front foot.

The classic combination of a Yatabare cross and a header against the woodwork

Defender Christophe Kerbrat headed onto a Fiorentina arm from a corner, then struck his second chance just past the post; his appeals went unheeded by the referee.

Lionel Mathis works to increase his side's chances of being awarded a second penalty

Guingamp pushed hard for an equaliser, and they were unlucky not to get one. First, Yatabare headed against the bar from about two feet out; then, substitute Ronnie Schwartz was barged over from behind whilst steadying himself up to volley inside the area.

Can you see the hands on Ronnie Schwartz's back there?

Mathis was also still trying to rile the referee, throwing himself to the ground clutching his face after being on the receiving end of a shoulder charge. It was cheeky.

Guingamp looked quite likely to score throughout the second half, especially through inswinging crosses from the flanks. Twice-capped Guadelope striker Beauvue really should have scored; he didn't, though. Diallo did - but he was offside when when receiving Yatabare's cross. Shortly afterwards, Sylvain Marveaux limped off, with what looked like a thigh injury. Guingamp finished the evening still very much in the competition, and have every right to feel a bit hard done by. Had Beauvue and Yatabare been slightly more accurate, and had they had two penalties (and they could have had four), the outcome would have been very different.

Diallo (bottom left) is offside in the 90th minute

River Plate 1 - 0 Boca Juniors

A few days ago, I covered River Plate's rather tame capitulation at the hands of title rivals Racing Club in Avellaneda. That game saw Teo Gutierrez rested, as well as Leonardo Ponzio, Leonel Vangioni, and Gabriel Mercado. Oh, and Leonardo Pisculichi.

I thought that was a bit of a weird decision, given how tight it was at the top, with both sides having two more games to play this year. Marcelo Gallardo seemed pretty much to hand the title over, in a white package with a red ribbon on top.

It was obvious that this was done with an eye on this game, the second leg of a Copa Sudamericana semi-final, and a Superclasico to boot. Played at home, with River having the advantage thanks to holding Boca to a 0-0 draw at the Bombonera, this was clearly the priority, albeit the fecklessness of the team at Racing was still a bit odd, given that Los Millionarios had been on a best-ever run of 31 games unbeaten up until fairly recently.

That limp display would be forgiven if River could beat their biggest rivals at home tonight, and secure a spot in the two-legged final against Colombia's Atletico Nacional (who had beaten Sao Paulo on penalties the night before).

They got off to an awful start, conceding a penalty in the very first minute.

Luckily for the home side, Marcelo Barovero was on hand (literally), using his left to deny Emmanuel Gigliotti.

There were a lot of strong tackles

Barovero spilled this ball at the feet of Gigliotti, but smothered the second shot

El Monumental went crazy shortly afterwards

Pisculichi, left out at the weekend, gave the hosts a deserved early lead

Teo Gutierrez was doing his bit to calm things down, the avowed River fan seen here pushing his marker away

Boca captain, and former Real Madrid player, Fernando Gago was substituted before half-time

Gigliotti headed wide, under little pressure, and this pose and expression of disbelief sums up his first half

By the break, Gigliotti had managed to miss a penalty and have a goal chalked off for being offside. And River were leading.

However Rodolfo Arruabarena and Marcelo Gallardo had tried to convey the importance of a strong second half showing to their players in their changing rooms, both sides began it in an aggressive mood. There was extensive squabbling over where the ball should be before a free-kick, as well as a couple of minutes devoted to the treatment of Barovero after Gigliotti elbowed him in the ribs contesting a high ball, and a lot of other scrappy play. By and large, that play was confined to the Boca half, with Sanchez on the right almost finding Gutierrez in the middle on one occasion, and Daniel Diaz of Boca managing to find him and go through the backs of his legs on another a couple of minutes later. River legs were being hacked constantly, Boca frustrated by the home side's effective interceptions of hopeful and hopeless punts forward from defence. Pisculichi, Ponzio, Rojas and Sanchez were in control.

A common sight in the second half

Both Gigliotti and Gutierrez were snatching at half-chances - but Gutierrez was proving more effective, simply because his runs were stretching the defence, and providing River's midfielders with a constant outlet, whereas Gigliotti was playing with his back to goal, whilst standing, usually, a long way from it.

The running of Andres Chavez, introduced with a quarter of the game to go, lifted Boca a little. But each time a Boca runner broke past one River player, he was subsequently crowded out. The pressure was immense, and the blue shirts rarely threatened the 18 yard box. When River could, they attacked with pace; Sanchez had two excellent chances to seal the win, but blazed wide, and over.

I talked yesterday about Narayan Das, the left-back for FC Goa, and how he was the furthest man forward in the 94th minute, charging the goalkeeper down despite his team's 3-0 lead. In this game, Leonel Vangioni was generally quieter than Das, but in the 80th minute, he raised the temperature a bit by running almost the length of the pitch to try and create a second for River. A confident left-back is one who is still attacking at the end of the game, despite his team being in front.

Gallardo points to another legend of the diagonal stripe, Fernando Cavenaghi, who made a late cameo

Daniel Diaz sees red in the 95th minute for lashing out at Teo Gutierrez

River players celebrate a Monumental victory (whilst Boca players deal with a pitch invasion and riot police)

Into the channels: 26/11/2014

FC Goa 3 - 0 Kerala Blasters

Who will punch Robert Pires today?

Will there be a penalty Orji?

And what does David James have left to sell?

Kerala Blasters' Iain Hume and Penn Orji: Kitchen Treasures

This game began as a 4th against 3rd place clash, but with each of the 8 teams in the Indian Super League now having played 10 games, a better summary would be that Chennaiyin have 19 points, Atletico de Kolkata have 16, Kerala have 15, and everyone else has either 12 or 10. Goa are the only team other than that top three to have a positive goal difference. Chennaiyin overtook Kolkata at the top on Friday, thanks in part to an Eric Djemba-Djemba own goal.

David James was coaching in Iceland last year. It's a good job he's a goalkeeper, because otherwise as a 44 year old, he would probably find the transition to Indian football a bit much. Especially Indian football played at the pace of today's game.

Another Scot in Kerala colours: Jamie McAllister

Iain Hume missed today's game, so there was even more attention from the lively crowd for the shoulders of Australian I-League veteran Tolgay Özbey, starting for Goa tonight. His four Indian clubs prior to the ISL include both Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, rivals in India's biggest football game. The Kolkata derby has been contested for about 90 years, and was seen by 131,000 people in 1997, making it India's best-attended sporting event, ever.

This is how Tolgay fared

Fittingly, Tolgay was substituted by Zico in the 25th minute, for Miroslav Slepicka. With both teams bereft of their best strikers, the game settled into a pattern of heavy challenges, and wasted free kicks. In the first half an hour, there was a foul every two and a bit minutes.

Trajectory of the archetypal Andre Santos free kick, David James advertising a bright pink shirt in the middle

It had threatened to be quite an exciting game, but even the fouls subsided after a little bit.

Part two of a David James double save: good

But then David James completely misses a cross, and is bailed out by a defender on the line: bad

Kerala boss David James used remote control to make a couple of substitutions at half-time, bringing on the nearly-blind Iain Hume, and Milagres Gonsalves, who scored when Kerala won the previous game between these sides 1-0. This swung the game in Kerala's favour for all of five minutes, after which Goa took control again. Occasional Kerala attacks, run largely through Iain Hume on the right or Stephen Pearson in the centre of midfield, were rebuffed by Gregory in the Goa defence, and the impotence of Barisic and Milagres in the Kerala attack.

Happily, I can say that the Goan dominance was largely based upon Indian widemen Narayan Das (on the left) and Romeo Fernandes (on the right).

All it took was one decent delivery from Andre Santos

Santos was let in by the Kerala defence to make it 2-0

David James: miserable

Both sides brought on a striker on 60 minutes. Clifford Miranda came on for Goa, which made sense, as they were creating chances but failing to finish them. Michael Chopra came on for Kerala, which didn't make sense, as they had already made two substitutions, bringing on two attacking players.

Andre Santos perhaps sensed the desperation, managing to find Czech striker Slepicka with a free kick, and then capitalising on poor defending to make it 2-0 himself. It was at this point that David James got injured. But he'd already made all the changes he could.

So when he failed to gather a tame shot along the floor from Slepicka, he was never going to get to the rebound.

David James: frustrated

The game was won and lost in the midfield. The only Kerala player who bothered the control of Das, Gregory, Santos and Romeo across the middle was Stephen Pearson, but he had rather a lot to do to lift the rest of his teammates.

It transpires that the answers to my questions at the start of this post are: noone, no, and not much. Though there was a lot of positivity on display from Goa, particularly from left-back Narayan Das, who spent all game attacking, and whose game was pretty much summed up by the fact that he was the furthest Goan player forward in the 94th minute, trying to charge down David James.

Goa celebrates

Arsenal 2 - 0 Borussia Dortmund

I decided to focus on where Dortmund went wrong against Arsenal, in an attempt to diagnose why they find themselves struggling near the bottom of the Bundesliga this season. They're doing okay in Europe (only Juventus in 1995 have a Champions League group stage record than they do after four games), so I figured that it would be easier to produce a concise list of what they're doing wrong whilst they were away at Arsenal, simply because it would be a shorter list.

1. They don't have Robert Lewandowski in the team.

This is why Robert Lewandowski isn't playing

2. Marco Reus isn't playing, either.

This is why Marco Reus isn't playing

3.  Ginter made a poor clearance in the first minute.

4. Noone tackled Alexis Sanchez when he broke into the box a minute later.

5. Pisczcek and Ginter played Yaya Sanogo onside to receive Sanchez's pass.

6. Gundogan could be stronger in midfield, and shouldn't be bullied in the air by Aaron Ramsey.

7. Neven Subotic tried to retain the ball in the face of onrushing Arsenal strikers using keepy-uppies.

8. Aubameyang's pass, intercepted and turned into another opportunity for Sanogo in the 10th minute, was symptomatic of the nervous, imprecise Dortmund passing early on.

9. Another Dortmund attack broke down, leading to another Arsenal attack and a corner, when Aubameyang was too weak to hold the ball up.

10. Mkhitaryan attempted to turn the resultant Dortmund counter attack into a goalscoring opportunity, but his pass was too slow for Aubameyang.

11. Ciro Immobile had a chance to put in the man on the overlap behind him, but his backheel hit his other leg.

12. Another attacking opportunity broke down when another through ball was intercepted, this time it was a blind ball from Kagawa.

13. Subotic hacked down Sanchez near the corner flag. Should have taken it cleanly.

14. Fifteen minutes in, a Dortmund player couldn't hold off the Arsenal midfield whilst running towards the penalty area: he should have been stronger, whoever it was. He was never going to get that free-kick.

15. And whoever was joining the attack tried to take out the breaking Arsenal player, but was also too weak.

16. Another Dortmund attack broke down when Grosskreutz tried to flick a pass on to the man on his right, but only managed to kick it into touch.

17. After eighteen minutes, still no decent Dortmund attacks. Slow starting counts as a flaw.

18. Mkhitaryan ran right into about five Arsenal players on the edge of their area to give the ball away.

19. Aubameyang could have played Immobile in, but his through-ball wasn't quick or accurate enough.

20. Mkhitaryan could have, had he been slightly more confident/cocky/better, volleyed in a ball from the right, but after chesting it down, Arsenal cleared it from him.

21. Dortmund had the players to dominate the centre of midfield, and to exploit the area in front of Arsenal's defence, but the ball just never came into those areas.

22. After finally managing to direct play into that area in front of the Arsenal backline, Piszczek's cross went straight into Martinez's arms.

21. After half an hour, when an Arsenal corner had been well defended, Weidenfeller instantly gave the ball back to Arteta from a hurried goal kick.

22. Arsenal were able to stand still in position. They were being closed down, but they had far more time on the ball than they were giving Dortmund.

23. When Dortmund did when position, there was no obvious method of relieving the pressure - it just kept going back to Arsenal.

24. 35 minutes in, and Aubameyang wasted a rare Dortmund attack, attempting a casual through ball to Immobile, whereas he should have tried to slow things down.

25. Mkhitaryan was also guilty of a casual, hopeful pass in the general direction of Immobile shortly afterwards, with little movement from the other Dortmund players around him.

Okay, I have to stop tallying Dortmund's mistakes now. It's getting far too repetitive. After 45 minutes of being second-bested by an Arsenal team in which Oxlade-Chamberlain, Cazorla and Sanchez look very impressive, Dortmund are clearly lacking a leadership, physical power, composure, ideas. They didn't need anything from tonight's match, seeing as they'd already qualified for the next round, but they still put out pretty much the strongest team they could have.

The one thing that I did like about this Dortmund outing was that it was preceded by Klopp taking a training session in Regent's Park.

Borussia Dortmund: park footballers

The Strongest 1 - 1 Bolivar

Hoping to show those Dortmund Schwarzgelben how to play in black and yellow, the tigers of The Strongest took on La Paz neighbours Bolivar, in the Clásico Paceño.

Bolivar were founded slightly later, but have won more Bolivian titles, have the advantage in the head-to-head record, and have generally done better in South American club competitions.

The pitch at Estadio Hernando Stiles was slow

Adding to the difficulty level was the Bolivar fan with the green laser pointer

There was quite a bit of light jogging going on

Due in part (of course) to the high altitude football - the highest altitude football in the world pictured above

Also on show was what I'm going to call egregious diving

The Strongest's Marco Paz was sent off for this challenge on the edge of the area a quarter of the way through. I personally don't think he made contact with the forward from La Academia, who I think anticipated the challenge, and threw himself into the penalty area.

Hands on Bolivarian hips

Hands on stronger hips

David Checa was brought on as The Strongest reshuffled.

Checa celebrated standing up

He gave The Strongest the lead on the stroke of half time, sliding a daisy cutting cross from the other side of the area into the unguarded half of the Bolivar net, despite being in the process of falling over as he did so.

The game heated up a bit in the second half, as Bolivar decided to put Las Estronguistas' claim of physical superiority to the test.

The Strongest? Count how many players in yellow shirts are on the floor as Bolivar fail to score from a corner

Sprinting necessitated a recovery break

Bolivia beat Argentina 6-1 and Brazil 2-1 in World Cup Qualifying in 2009, and both of those games were played at this ground. The thinness of breath in La Paz means that games played here take place in a different sporting dimension, in which everything is slightly slowed down, and those who can find a burst of pace at the right moment hold the advantage.

Mud being plucked from boots was an unusually common sight

A Bolivar player falls to the ground clutching his ears after a smoke canister is thrown onto the pitch

It was a glancing header from the lively left-winger Sanchez Capdevila that levelled things up. Tigers keeper Vaca was, well, vacant, as the ball rebounded off him and into the net. Capdevila ran towards the El Tigre fans to rile them up that bit extra. Los Celestes rattled them once again four minutes later, Ecuadorian striker Carlos Tenorio hitting the bar after a mazy run. The Strongest's defence were being dragged left and right by goading blue-shirted Academics; Tenorio hit the post again, with a bit of help from the glove of the now-awake Vaca.

Celebration in reference to the smoke grenade shown above

After very nearly conceding three in ten minutes, The Strongest were desperate to clear their lines. They only had five minutes left to play. They cleared it anywhere, including into the corner of the Bolivar pitch. The clearance turned into an unlikely opportunity.

The Strongest hit the post late on

A few more frustrating Bolivar attacks, and the game finishes 1-1. Bolivar will be the more disappointed, having had a host of chances to win the derby. But at least they didn't lose against ten men, as they so nearly did right at the end.

With this result, Bolivar are top, six points clear of their city rivals in 4th place.