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.