Category Archives: Football
Inter vs Barca: Pride & Prejudice
Pride & Prejudice Well it’s Messi against the Transalator and this after 1,000 kilometeres by bus from Barcelona to Milan. It’s not difficult to imagine Mourinho devising a simple strategy of suffocation Italian-style which will neutralise Barca’s pivotal player and play on the disorientation of others. He has done it before and thinks he can do it again. Forget about previous games. This is one with the capacity to wreck every cule’s dream-that is, if you don’t believe in miracles. Mourinho has everything to play for, not least the prospect …
Gloves off at the Bernabeu
Real Madrid 0 FC Barcelona 2 It may not have been a classic, but it was nonetheless edge of the seat stuff. Gabi Millito’s collapse towards the end personified the toughness of the battle. (Dear Carlos-it’s not all beautiful football!) Some enduring images: Florentino Perez looking increasingly uncomfortable in his presidential box Cristiano Ronaldo looking increasingy uncomfortable on the pitch Messi’s cheeky smile after scoring another goal Pedro fighting back to win the ball. Pedro scoring the second goal. An emerging talent , one of Pep Guardiola’s young boys. Meanwhile …
Messi The Child
Messi the Child For me there are two enduring images from the Nou Camp last night. Lionel Messi returning from one of his goals, smiling and shaking his head from side to side and Lionel Messi, when the game was over, clutching the ball in his hands, another huge smile on his face, while surrounded by his similarly joyful team mates. Pace, strength, control, vision all contributed to Messi’s four goals, but so did the spirit of this little big man who plays his best football when he enjoys it, …
A noble game
Next to a felled British hero, there is nothing quite like a great British escape. Arsenal was comprehensively outclassed by Barca for the whole of the first half and much of the second, and yet managed to force an equaliser with one penalty that most of Catalonia believed a major miscarriage of justice. Sitting where I was behind the Arsenal goal, it was impossible to tell, and the replays on the giant screen at the Emirates stadium didn’t help. Was it merely coincidental that all they showed was Cesc Fabregas …
Dogs at Play
So poor Diego has been bitten by his dog. Reading this morning’s Sun frontpage headline ‘Hand of God’ brought back memories of the Falklands War and that infamous ‘GOTCHA’, the day when the Argentine battleship Belgrano went down, with hundreds of young conscripts on board, after being torpedoed by a British submarine. Today’s Sun story had an element of cruel jingoistic reprise, but lacked the killer punch. The dog in question was an oriental Shar Pei not an English Bulldog. And yet Sun readers were still given a study in …
Football is a noble game –or isn’t it?
So what do you get in football for £240m? You get a group of individuals playing for themselves rather than each other, who disintegrate when resisted by more humble teams with a basic sense of solidarity, and a stadium abandoned by a mercenary fan base who can only too clearly see when they have a got bad deal. That was the sad story of the Real Madrid players on Wednesday night as they tumbled out of the Champions League at the Bernabeu stadium having fallen to the magnificent Lyon musketeers. …
