Into the channels: 30/01/2015

R.I.P. Junior Malanda: Fur immer im unseren Herzen.

VfL Wolfsburg 4 - 1 FC Bayern München

Fussball ist back! The first game of the Rückrunde pitted 2nd against 1st. Luckily for me, I am too sick (read: a bit sick) to hang out with real people this week, so I got to watch this clash instead.

2": Vierinha almost chips Benaglio from a metre away. They both play for the same team, so that would have been embarrassing.

3": Dr Caligiuri finds De Bruyne as the car manufacturers break away. Former Chelsea playmaker Kev shifts the ball to Bas Dost very quickly. Bas Dost is just outside of not-world-footballer-of-the-year Manuel Neuer's goal, and sweeps it into that goal's bottom left hand corner. And makes it 1-0 to not-the-best-team-in-the-world (because that's Bayern) Wolfsburg.

Bayern then proceeded to spend 10 minutes cockily wasting free kicks (Schweinsteiger) and allowing the ball to run away from them (Robben).

Luckily for Bayern, Wolfsburg had decided to match them in the cockiness stakes, by sending Ivica Olic back to Hamburg, reportedly because he wants to spend more time with his grandson Ivan Klasnic. Oh, and also because Hamburg are attempting to break the Bundesliga's goalscoring record this season. That's the 'slowest team to score 10 goals in a season' record, by the way.

Kev continued to terrorise replacement right-back Sebastian Rode; on the other side, Dr Caligiuri made it look as if Ribery wasn't playing at all, such was his energy (which worked in combination with the fact that Ribery is out injured).

David Alabama (thanks autocorrect) could have packed a bit more blam! into his 28th minute shot. He had an entire epoch in which to prepare his strike, as it sat and waited in his path as he sprinted towards the middle of the D, but it still was fairly straightforward for Benaglio to gather.

Benaglio's distribution was a key part of Wolfsburg's first half play. He basically spilt the ball to his nearest team mate before you could retweet Wiley's joke about A$AP Ricky being funnier than A$AP Rocky. The Wolves then tried to play the ball out to their wingers, moving up the pitch as a unit as they did so, trying to prevent themselves from becoming too stretched out in the process. When they lost the ball, the entire green team would then retreat into their own half, and sit deep until Bayern misplaced a pass. And Bayern were misplacing a lot of passes, by their standards. Naldo had Lewandowski in a hidden pocket somewhere.

5 minutes before half time, and a curling, floated pass from Dr Caligiuri on the right put Das Boss in again. Unfortunately, Neuer was rushing out in an off-putting manner, so the first-time shot went wide.

Then there were some handbags, and then there was an amazing second goal from Bas Dost. At the end of a minute of stoppage time, a free kick was headed out of the Bayern area, and Das Boss lashed a half-volley to Neuer's left once again, this time hitting it a lot higher, faster, and off the post for good measure.

Bas Dost exited the field laughing, and came back on laughing too. Fair enough - he'd just doubled his goal tally for the season.

Bayern threw on Mitchell Weiser for Seb Rode. Did it make a difference? Well, Kev was put through by Max Arnold after 52 minutes, and slotted low to Neuer's right after running from his own half to the edge of the Bayern box. So, maybe. Drei zu null!

About a minute later, Bernat did exactly what traditional power structures needed him to do, and ran with the ball into the Wolves' box. Where Naldo intercepted the ball. And kindly passed it right back to him, just as Benaglio was about to land on it. And he tapped the ball into the net. And it was 3:1.

Wolfsburg then very nearly restored their three goal advantage, with a back-post header from Dost finding Arnold, who had close Bayern attention, but who nonetheless should have done something better than smash the ball over the goal. Something like scoring in the goal, for instance.

It was just before the hour mark that Bayern finally stepped up the pace, and camped out just outside Wolfsburg's box. Their passing and movement seemed a lot less clever than usual. I don't know where they'd had their winter conditioning camp, but a lot of Bayern's players looked like they were in different time zones. The Weltmeisters were hapless; the car manufacturers created goalscoring opportunities every time they ventured forward. Wolfsburg weren't penned in, so much as they were sitting deep and picking FCB off on the break.

With 20 minutes left, Götze and Pizarro replaced Müller and Lewandowski, immediately before Robben struck a fierce free kick right at the middle of Benaglio's goal. After Naldo had tripped Lewandowski in an area that you shouldn't really trip people up in. It was tipped over.

Another Wolfsburg attack, and Kev was running away from Dante. The ball bounced in such a way that Kev had to slow down, and do a little shimmy dance. It looked like Dante might be able to cover. There was only a little gap to Neuer's right. Kev slammed it in there. 4-1, 20 minutes left.

After 83 minutes, Wolfsburg were confident enough in the result to bring on Nicklas Bendtner. Who wears the number 3 shirt. This was almost immediately followed by Claudio Pizarro scoring, but he slid in to send a cross from the left way over from all of two metres out, despite the open goal being at his mercy. Arjen Robben had a go at running at the Wolfsburg defence after that, but it was a bit late, and the likes of Luis Gustavo and Diego Benaglio were in exceptionally defiant moods.

It finished 4-1, unless I'm hallucinating, but I don't think I am. Kev De Bruyne was world class - and can look forward to being joined by Andre Schürrle in the very near future. The gap to Die Bayern remains huge, at 8 points, but Wolfsburg will at least be confident of finishing ahead of the rest of the chasing pack after an excellent victory.

Into the channels: 26/01/2015

DR Congo 1 - 1 Tunisia

Welcome back! To the oil-rich dictatorship of Equatorial Guinea, renowned for being a bit unfriendly to workers from neighbouring countries, and for not really having the infrastructure to do things like host the players and staff that come to participate in a major international football tournament at very short notice.

Yannick Bolasie (left) wasn't the only Congo player to go for blonde streaks

Estadio de Bata, in Bata

Bolasie has been enjoying Bata.

From Yala's beard's Facebook page

Fans of the Democratic Republic of Congo will have been enjoying Bolasie, too. Even if they wish he would have a proper shave, and that their team's kit still had a nice red sash across it. Because despite such transgressions, Bolasie's goal in the opening fixture (meaning that heading into the weekend, he was the tournament's joint top scorer, joining 28 others on 1 goal) meant the DRC were in with a good chance of making the next round, and a quarter final fixture against the Republic of Congo. And when I say a good chance, I mean that they had exactly the same chance as Cape Verde. If both teams finished their respective, simultaneously-played fixtures with the same scoreline, progression would be decided by the seventh criteria: the drawing of lots. Which sounded exciting, as much as I'm for the integrity of football and whatever.

Mark Bright pointed out in his commentary for British Eurosport that a lot of the Tunisian players were wearing two pairs of socks: one, the official team sock, provided by their sponsors; the other, a smaller cotton sock worn so that their feet weren't slipping around inside their shoes.

The opening 10 minutes saw two headers from set-pieces by Yassine Chikhaoui: one attacking, one defending. Both of the Tunisian number 9's efforts were harmless.

The former Etoile du Sahel striker is particularly known for being very good at Wikipedia

Chikhaoui was definitely the stand-out player of the first half, though his side probably should have put the game to bed long before Congo started getting into the game. Here's the best chance of the first quarter:

The top shot shows Ferjani Sassi shooting, and being blocked on the goalline by Joel Kimwaki (of the DRC's heavyweights TP Mazembe), after Chikhaoui all-too-easily ran around the DRC left-back and squared the ball to him. Unfortunately his shot was almost as light as the attendance in Bata, or as the chance of the game in Ebebeyin being played had it been an English league game (full disclosure: Cape Verde vs Zambia was basically a waterpolo match, with similar scenes to the ones seen in the World Club Cup game between Cruz Azul and Western Sydney Wanderers in Morocco at the end of last year). Chikhaoui then stabs a second opportunity from the same move wide at the far post, which he should have converted (bottom picture).

DRC looked flat throughout the first 15 minutes, and were far more stretched out than the Carthage Eagles. Their opponents were looking more patient, and better at holding the ball up. Sassi's footwork and Wahbi Khazri's over-lapping runs were early highlights.

Aside from Bolasie, DRC did have a few nifty players. They were bereft of injured captain Youssouf Mulumbu, but had Dynamo Kiev's Dieumerci Mbokani up front, a man who managed to play for both Standard Liege and Anderlecht without any of the grace of Steven Defour. Not that he had an easier time of it:

The start of his spell at Anderlecht was dramatic, first injuring himself during one of his first training sessions, meaning he would be sidelined for at least two months.^[6] Then, about one week later his five month old son, David Mbokani, died of a cardiac arrest in his sleep.^[7]

They also have the oldest player at the tournament, 38 year-old goalkeeper Robert Kidiaba. He wasn't showing off about his age, though. In fact, he was trying to play down his experience as much as possible - especially when it came to dealing with corners. Tunisia got another with 20 minutes on the clock, after Chikhaoui was the last man to receive one of several sharp one-touch passes, running around the right full-back, then cutting back inside and shooting, albeit not far enough away from Kidiaba, who was able to parry, bailing out his right-back in the process.

Chikhaoui cuts inside two flailing Congolese defenders

Up at the other end, a dribble from Bolasie on the right hand side of the area resulted in a blocked cross and a corner, unconverted, but about as close as Congo had come to troubling their opponents' goal in the opening stages. It took the entire first quarter of the game for Congo to find a passing rhythm, Bolasie's movement as a right wing-forward providing them with an outlet, albeit not one they were utilising.

Mazembe's Jean Kasusula struck Congo's sole good set piece of the game

Then, just as Congo were getting into the game, another really good turn from Chikhaoui inside the box resulted in the ball ricocheting off a defender and into the flightpath of Ahmed Akaichi. 1-0 to Tunisia.

Akaichi (top left) heads the ball to the right of Kidiaba, who is falling the other way

Almost immediately after that, things looked like they were about to get a lot worse for Congo:

Chikhaoui (top) strikes a rocket of a shot into the DRC net, but the goal is (rightly) disallowed as he was a bit offside

So, at 1-0, Cape Verde (drawing 0-0 with 2012 champions Zambia) were going through with Tunisia; Congo needed a goal; and Mbokani was very frustrated.

37 minutes in, and Bolasie decides to pass a free-kick from just outside the area, rather than shoot. His ball down the left hand side to Werder Bremen's Cedric Makiadi is too strong, though, and what was a great opportunity is needlessly wasted. Really poor.

More really sloppy passing from DRC allows Chikhaoui (bottom, middle) to slip a ball through to Akaichi (top), but he is offside

This is probably where DR Congo coach Florent Ibenge felt like he was watching the game from

Akaichi scored again straight from the restart, but was very offside. If only offside didn't exist - how many goals would Tunisia have scored? This time Kidiaba allowed the ball to pass straight through him, a la referees in Pro Evolution Soccer games on the PS2 - but I don't think he was counting on the offside flag being raised.

Tunisia sat back and looked comfortable, as Congo's passes fizzed a little too much, as if they were playing with a very slightly open can of Tyskie in a pub car park at 2am.

A 54th minute backheel from Congo's Firmin Ndombe Mubele (middle) let in Mbokani for his first chance of the game, but keeper Aymen Mathlouthi got there first

The first decent cross for Mbokani came from Issama Mpeko (of Angolans Kabuscorp) on 62 minutes, but was headed over.

Akaichi should have passed, rather than shooting from the position he is shown in in this image, and lashing it wide and over

Khazri was also guilty of wasting a good opportunity a few minutes later for Tunisia

The Tunisian chances above came as Congo applied themselves to the task at hand. Khazri's shot specifically was the result of the breakdown of an attack that had culminated in a tantalising low cross from Bolasie, who got a couple of good ones in from the left flank in the second half. The game was starting to open up.

Goal!

Loteteka Bokila! A quarter of the game left. It's a flick from Mbokani, a very gentle touch down - whilst travelling at speed - and then an immediate shot. It's a good goal. And it means Congo are going through with Tunisia.

Hamza Younes has only been on the pitch a minute when his 74th minute shot from Ali Maaloul's cut-back is blocked by Kidiaba

It was time for both sides to decide what they would do: stick or twist? A winner for Congo would knock out Tunisia, whereas a goal for either side in the other game would knock out Congo.

Yannick Bolasie decides to twist

 An outside of the boot nutmeg from Mbemba set up a shooting opportunity, lashed just over from outside the box; another shot from just outside the area was scuppered by a bobble. Congo ended the game in the ascendancy, though they nevertheless were lucky that their opponents didn't finish them off whilst they had the chance. Tunisia looked far more potent.

At the end of the game, both coaches embraced, relieved to progress to the quarter-finals

DR Congo qualify to play Congo in the quarter-finals, by virtue of having scored 1 more goal (that's 2 goals) than Cape Verde (who scored 1 goal). They will hope to improve their set pieces, their play at the beginning of the match, their composure at the back, and what they do with possession in the middle of the field. Nothing major.