I've been meaning to start this blog for a while. A bad case of hip-knack has kept me indoors for long enough to do it.
Being unable to move on a Sunday gave me the perfect opportunity to watch 4 games from around the world, each of which promised to be substantially better than Arsenal versus Manchester United and Deportivo La Coruña against Real Sociedad had been the day before.
For those of you repelled by Gary Lineker's facial hair, jarred by Vines recorded through a Richer Sounds shop window whilst someone was jumping up and down, and finished with the free trial of the Goals app that came with a Cornish pasty, here is my pick of the weekend's football action.
Sunday, 23/11/2014
Crystal Palace 3-1 Liverpool
Rickie Lambert ran round the back of the gangly, gormless Martin Kelly after only one minute and thirty seconds to give Liverpool an early lead. Palace had already repeated their best result from last season (forget the 3-3 draw in this fixture, that was the 3-2 comeback win at Everton, when Palace were singing about Jason Puncheon going to Brazil), and only Liverpool's ineptness prevented another 3-3 here. Dwight Gayle scored his fourth in three games against Liverpool, after which the game meandered for a little while, the formerly-lauded quintet of Gerrard, Allen, Lallana, Coutinho and Sterling doing nothing much other than bleed and kick footballs to their opponents. Until about 70 minutes in, when the fated late Crystal Palace rally decided to happen. Each Palace player's match rating went up by about 10% during the final 20 minutes, with Joe Ledley and Mile Jedinak - a midfield partnership that generally makes James McArthur and Adlene Guedioura look like dangerously attack-minded midfielders - getting the goals. Jedinak's free-kick is something like his fourth goal of a season that isn't halfway finished yet, and risks seeing him classified as a Lampard-esque 'goal-scoring midfielder' in the 2016 iterations of all your favourite video games. It's unclear where wet Brendan Rodgers and sleepy Brad Jones will be come the release dates.
VfB Stuttgart 0-1 FC Augsburg
In South Germany, there seems to be no Veh out of the footballing ditch that VfB Stuttgart have dug themselves into. Armin Veh looks good as buried, after the team with the most Gothic lettering on its crest in global football caved in at home to Augsburg. Adam Hloušek's trailing hand gave Paul Verhaegh the opportunity to convert from the spot in the second half, after Daniel Schwaab got a gelb-rote for a second unnecessary challenge, clattering into Halil Altintop. Altintop, Werner and co weren't exactly in a lethal frame of mind, but at the moment they are looking significantly more adept when it comes to not being in relegation trouble than Stuttgart. The visitors are now up into 6th, their hosts bottom with 19, one less than Werder, two less than Dortmund, and three less than Hamburg. I tried to pick an XI from the squads of the clubs currently occupying the bottom four Bundesliga places, and you can see the results below. It would be a decent side (it would basically be the Dortmund side), so long as it had a decent physio. And shovels. After all, you can't be too big to go down if you don't have shovels. After Hamburg managed to scrape themselves out of trouble at the last minute, who will find the shovels needed to escape this time around?
AC Milan 1-1 Internazionale
Icardi blazed over 9 minutes into the second half, as the second half began in scrappier style (see Mancini's reaction above). Just as he was working out the international prefix he would need to call Liverpool from Italy, however, all thoughts of Balotelli were temporarily shunted out of his hippocampus by Joel Obi, who held off Michael Essien on the edge of the area and tucked Cristian Zapata's rebellious clearance past Diego Lopez. 1-1. Now, could Milan make enough mistakes to allow Inter to win it? And which of Mexes, Muntari and Essien would be sent off for pulling Palacio's hair out?
The answer was a mixture of neither, although former N-Dubz striker El-Shaarawy managed to strike the ball at the bar with a quarter of the game left. Icardi tried to copy Ménez's cute goal a couple of minutes later, but ended up with the same result as El-Shaarawy. Who then got another opportunity to mess things up, and duly took it, getting himself tackled in the company of two other Milan attackers, both about a Palacio's ponytail away from the goal. There are rare occasions when you might be able to excuse a striker's miss on account of him having had 'too much time'. Tonight, though, at least one of the strikers should have scored. Milan end the evening 4 points behind 3rd placed Napoli, with Inter a point further back.
Racing Club 1 - 0 River Plate
This game will have a huge bearing upon the outcome of the 2014 Argentine Primera Division, with Racing a point behind River and Lanús, but with Lanús having played one game more than the other two, who both have slightly easier fixtures between now and the end of the season. The league starts again in February, in a rejigged 30-team format, which Wikipedia is referring to as a 'single league' system, though I confess I don't really have much of an idea as to how everything is being jiggled. River won the last tournament, and held Boca to a 0-0 draw away from home in the first leg of their Copa Sudamericana (SA's Europa League) semi-final last week, plus have a great record against Boca generally in recent encounters. With Colombian striker Teo Gutierrez up front and intimidating opponents, especially his former teammates at Racing, now is a good time to be a millionaire.
Having said all that, the aforementioned 'Crystanbul' game (up until today, I'd never heard it called that, either) between Palace and Liverpool last season proved that the only game truly deserving the 'title decider' tag is the very last game of the season.
It took 15 minutes and about five deflections for the ball to trickle off a River defender and across his own goal-line. Gutierrez isn't playing, but another star is, in former Inter striker Diego Milito, who has made over 150 appearances for Racing in two spells. Gutierrez was watched by Spurs last week, but he failed to score; River's record-breaking 31-game unbeaten run ended a week and a half ago, and they will be desperate to win at least one of the tournaments they are still in the running for. Gutierrez may be on his way out soon, and the same could be true for Eder Alvarez Balanta. Other recent hot prospects Carlos Carbonero and Manuel Lanzini are now at Cesena and Al-Ahli (UAE), but these two will probably find themselves somewhere a bit more high-profile. Or at Tottenham. River goalkeeper Barovero will probably end up as a teacher - he's the archetypal football-who-looks-like-a-teacher. Although he and Ramiro Funes Mori (scorer of the unfortunate own goal, but also the scorer of River's last goal in a draw against Olimpo a week ago) played, Ponzio and Pisculichi were other casualties of this game being sandwiched in the middle of the two against Boca, with Vangioni and Mercado relegated to the bench. They sat alongside the veteran (aged 31) Fernando Cavenaghi.
Before I could ask 'How long until Cavenaghi comes on?', we have two former Argentina number nines on. Cavenaghi can boast 3 spells at River, so he is giving Diego Milito good competition in the loyalty stakes. As well as providing Racing's Ezequiel Videla with a healthy rivalry in the looking-like-a-bloated-rockstar department. Cavenaghi and 22 year-old right midfielder Augusto Solari (about half his size) attempt to spark a River comeback; at the other end, Milito shanks a really good chance from the periphery of the visitors' penalty area, showing us why Icardi is leading the line at Inter Milan at the moment.
In terms of actual football, this game will be remembered for a never-ending series of poor free-kicks from 40 yards out, and Racing Club staking a strong claim for the 2014 Primera Division title. The game, and my weekend, finishes with Racing two points clear of River and Lanús at the top.
Being unable to move on a Sunday gave me the perfect opportunity to watch 4 games from around the world, each of which promised to be substantially better than Arsenal versus Manchester United and Deportivo La Coruña against Real Sociedad had been the day before.
For those of you repelled by Gary Lineker's facial hair, jarred by Vines recorded through a Richer Sounds shop window whilst someone was jumping up and down, and finished with the free trial of the Goals app that came with a Cornish pasty, here is my pick of the weekend's football action.
Sunday, 23/11/2014
Crystal Palace 3-1 Liverpool
Rickie Lambert ran round the back of the gangly, gormless Martin Kelly after only one minute and thirty seconds to give Liverpool an early lead. Palace had already repeated their best result from last season (forget the 3-3 draw in this fixture, that was the 3-2 comeback win at Everton, when Palace were singing about Jason Puncheon going to Brazil), and only Liverpool's ineptness prevented another 3-3 here. Dwight Gayle scored his fourth in three games against Liverpool, after which the game meandered for a little while, the formerly-lauded quintet of Gerrard, Allen, Lallana, Coutinho and Sterling doing nothing much other than bleed and kick footballs to their opponents. Until about 70 minutes in, when the fated late Crystal Palace rally decided to happen. Each Palace player's match rating went up by about 10% during the final 20 minutes, with Joe Ledley and Mile Jedinak - a midfield partnership that generally makes James McArthur and Adlene Guedioura look like dangerously attack-minded midfielders - getting the goals. Jedinak's free-kick is something like his fourth goal of a season that isn't halfway finished yet, and risks seeing him classified as a Lampard-esque 'goal-scoring midfielder' in the 2016 iterations of all your favourite video games. It's unclear where wet Brendan Rodgers and sleepy Brad Jones will be come the release dates.
VfB Stuttgart 0-1 FC Augsburg
In South Germany, there seems to be no Veh out of the footballing ditch that VfB Stuttgart have dug themselves into. Armin Veh looks good as buried, after the team with the most Gothic lettering on its crest in global football caved in at home to Augsburg. Adam Hloušek's trailing hand gave Paul Verhaegh the opportunity to convert from the spot in the second half, after Daniel Schwaab got a gelb-rote for a second unnecessary challenge, clattering into Halil Altintop. Altintop, Werner and co weren't exactly in a lethal frame of mind, but at the moment they are looking significantly more adept when it comes to not being in relegation trouble than Stuttgart. The visitors are now up into 6th, their hosts bottom with 19, one less than Werder, two less than Dortmund, and three less than Hamburg. I tried to pick an XI from the squads of the clubs currently occupying the bottom four Bundesliga places, and you can see the results below. It would be a decent side (it would basically be the Dortmund side), so long as it had a decent physio. And shovels. After all, you can't be too big to go down if you don't have shovels. After Hamburg managed to scrape themselves out of trouble at the last minute, who will find the shovels needed to escape this time around?
 |
| Perhaps Adam Hloušek was confused by Stuttgart's Wikipedia entry? |
 |
| An Underachieving Bundesliga XI, built with the help of a website that doesn't like umlauts |
AC Milan 1-1 Internazionale
Icardi should have scored (for Inter) after 7 minutes. Torres should have scored (for Milan) in the last 7 games, but hasn't either. So Icardi, coming into this game with 4 in 4, can be forgiven. Inter's top scorer from last season, Rodrigo Palacio (he of the shaven head and ponytail), has scored none (0 goals) this season. Stephen El-Shaarawy completes a quartet of misfiring forwards. With Inter favourite Roberto Mancini returning to the club, and Milan on a poor run, Jérémy Ménez did the predictably unpredictable thing and gave Milan the lead with an actually-classy side-footed volley from an El-Shaarawy cross, whilst Inter were busy trying to pass along the ground, and generally look slick and impressive. Maybe Icardi was going to end up ruing his miss.
 |
| Mancini is irked by BBC Sport's disregard for relativity (red lines his own) |
The answer was a mixture of neither, although former N-Dubz striker El-Shaarawy managed to strike the ball at the bar with a quarter of the game left. Icardi tried to copy Ménez's cute goal a couple of minutes later, but ended up with the same result as El-Shaarawy. Who then got another opportunity to mess things up, and duly took it, getting himself tackled in the company of two other Milan attackers, both about a Palacio's ponytail away from the goal. There are rare occasions when you might be able to excuse a striker's miss on account of him having had 'too much time'. Tonight, though, at least one of the strikers should have scored. Milan end the evening 4 points behind 3rd placed Napoli, with Inter a point further back.
Racing Club 1 - 0 River Plate
This game will have a huge bearing upon the outcome of the 2014 Argentine Primera Division, with Racing a point behind River and Lanús, but with Lanús having played one game more than the other two, who both have slightly easier fixtures between now and the end of the season. The league starts again in February, in a rejigged 30-team format, which Wikipedia is referring to as a 'single league' system, though I confess I don't really have much of an idea as to how everything is being jiggled. River won the last tournament, and held Boca to a 0-0 draw away from home in the first leg of their Copa Sudamericana (SA's Europa League) semi-final last week, plus have a great record against Boca generally in recent encounters. With Colombian striker Teo Gutierrez up front and intimidating opponents, especially his former teammates at Racing, now is a good time to be a millionaire.
 |
| Marcelo Gallardo blue himself just before the title decider |
It took 15 minutes and about five deflections for the ball to trickle off a River defender and across his own goal-line. Gutierrez isn't playing, but another star is, in former Inter striker Diego Milito, who has made over 150 appearances for Racing in two spells. Gutierrez was watched by Spurs last week, but he failed to score; River's record-breaking 31-game unbeaten run ended a week and a half ago, and they will be desperate to win at least one of the tournaments they are still in the running for. Gutierrez may be on his way out soon, and the same could be true for Eder Alvarez Balanta. Other recent hot prospects Carlos Carbonero and Manuel Lanzini are now at Cesena and Al-Ahli (UAE), but these two will probably find themselves somewhere a bit more high-profile. Or at Tottenham. River goalkeeper Barovero will probably end up as a teacher - he's the archetypal football-who-looks-like-a-teacher. Although he and Ramiro Funes Mori (scorer of the unfortunate own goal, but also the scorer of River's last goal in a draw against Olimpo a week ago) played, Ponzio and Pisculichi were other casualties of this game being sandwiched in the middle of the two against Boca, with Vangioni and Mercado relegated to the bench. They sat alongside the veteran (aged 31) Fernando Cavenaghi.
Before I could ask 'How long until Cavenaghi comes on?', we have two former Argentina number nines on. Cavenaghi can boast 3 spells at River, so he is giving Diego Milito good competition in the loyalty stakes. As well as providing Racing's Ezequiel Videla with a healthy rivalry in the looking-like-a-bloated-rockstar department. Cavenaghi and 22 year-old right midfielder Augusto Solari (about half his size) attempt to spark a River comeback; at the other end, Milito shanks a really good chance from the periphery of the visitors' penalty area, showing us why Icardi is leading the line at Inter Milan at the moment.
 |
| Racing fans salute Diego Milito, and going two points clear with two games to go |
No comments:
Post a Comment