Reuters Soccer Blog
World Soccer views and news
Soccer Break Thursday – Power to Portugal
It was no classic but Porto cemented themselves as one of Europe’s top sides on Wednesday with a 1-0 victory over compatriots Braga in the Europa League final in Dublin, surely the start of better days for the Portuguese game.
Key to this is that Porto’s coach Andre Villas-Boas and figurehead striker Radamel Falcao have agreed to stay at the club, a nice touch in the fast-paced football world where players and coaches come and go all too often.
Predictions for Porto next season? Can they repeat history and win the Champions League the year after winning Europe’s second-tier club competition? Why not.
At the very least, Portugal’s fine showing in Europe this season may bring a much needed economic lift to the country. Manchester is apparently set to profit immensely from having two clubs in the Champions League next term.
On that topic, there could be some big moves this summer. Didier Drogba to leave Chelsea? Brazilian Neymar to fill Drogba’s void? The youngster says compatriots David Luiz and Ramires have told him “London is a beautiful place.”
As the season winds down, it’s time for another Arsenal player to give their analysis on another failed season. Agree with Robin van Persie? And Arsenal fans, are you hopeful of success next year?
Finally, with the FIFA presidential election on June 1 fast approaching, the never-ending corruption allegations seem set to tarnish the whole event. Read here for the latest.
Soccer Break Wednesday – Champions League week special
Got your breath back yet? Perfected the Dejan Stankovic volley in your mirror ready to take out on the pitch? Well Tuesday’s first installment of four Champions League quarter-final evenings was spectacular and there is more to come on Wednesday.
First, a recap of last night. The Real Madrid backlash did kick in, though against the 10 men of Tottenham Hotspur and two extremely well-taken goals that on another night may have gone wide of the post.
Would 11 v 11 have made a difference? Is there any way back for Tottenham? And do you think some players may leave the club in search of Champions League next season if Spurs don’t qualify this time around?
And how about holders Inter Milan? Hopelessly outplayed in their last two games and with a creaking defence, can they score four unanswered goals in Germany to make the semi-finals? The Inter chairman has pledged his support for coach Leonardo but surely his days are numbered on this form.
So, Chelsea fans. Worried that a fired up Wayne Rooney will wreak havoc tonight after he was dropped by Coke? Or will that have taken the fizz out of the frontman? Frank Lampard seems to think his team will have to be on their guard against him. Predictions? Something tells us it’ll be a lot less open than Tuesday’s matches.
Finally, Barcelona v Shakhtar Donetsk just seems about as good as it gets. Two passing teams, easy on the eye, trying to outpass and outthink each other. Only a few more hours to wait so don’t worry.
Read here for a look at strike partnerships in the Champions League this season and of days gone by. Who does Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti pick then? Fernando Torres and Didier Drogba? What about Nicolas Anelka? Or a rejuvenated Salomon Kalou?
Drogba, Ferdinand…who next for the World Cup curse?
A top player seems to get injured on the eve of every major tournament and this year it looks like Didier Drogba and Rio Ferdinand have suffered the World Cup curse.
Ivory Coast captain Drogba is seriously doubtful for the extravaganza after injuring his elbow in a friendly against Japan on Friday.
England captain Ferdinand is out of the tournament after he hobbled out of hospital on crutches following a scan on his injured left knee.
The 31-year-old defender suffered the injury in the final minutes of England’s first major training session in South Africa after he went into a tackle and fell badly.
Italy’s Andrea Pirlo has also suffered a calf strain and could also miss the whole World Cup.
It’s still seven days before the big kick off and there could be yet more injuries in the runup.
Fifa needs to step in and make changes to leagues schedules to insure that this sort of thing doesn’t happen in the future. Accidents in training happen, but people want to see the best of the best in world cup and these injuries diminish the tournament. League schedules need to be curtailed/suspended in the run up to world cup and training should be treated as sparring matches where players are protected to the highest degree from injuries and friendlies need to be limited and closely monitored again treated like sparring matches in boxing where the possibility of injury is greatly reduced.
Predictions league hails the power of Drogba
Didier Drogba’s second goal in Sunday’s 2-0 win over Arsenal was the epitome of the Chelsea striker’s immense power.
It’s hard to know how any defence can stop him, even Inter Milan’s…
Top Premier League strikers are certainly having the best of it at the moment with Manchester United talisman Wayne Rooney scoring another in the 5-0 thrashing of Portsmouth.
Constrast Drogba and Rooney with Barcelona’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who has scored once in his last 10 matches, and misfiring Juventus forward Alessandro Del Piero. His side have slid all the way to seventh in Serie A.
Talking of who is in or out of form, our Premier League predictions competition had one standout performer at the weekend — leader Paul Radford, who was spot on with Chelsea’s 2-0 win. Paul racked up four correct scores in all, bagging a maximum five points for each, while he picked up three singles for guessing the right result in three other games.
A midweek fixtures programme awaits and as many of our panel are away at the Winter Olympics, here is a perfect chance to sneak up on them while their minds are focused on luge and freestyle skiing.
If that doesn’t tempt you, any new entrants get double points for the rest of the season. Oh, and we trust you to total up your own points too.
whats going on bloggers, hows things at work..? just try not to think that around 12pm you’ll be thinking about fifa or walking to sainsburys and i’ll be thinking about which drink to have next : ) haha sorry i couldnt resist, hopes all is alrite and chipking i messaged u on facebook thought id tell u as i know u never go on it, try not to work too hard! speak to u all soon
UPDATE: Predicting the scores — round 12
TUESDAY UPDATE: Whatever you think about the penalty which gave Liverpool a 2-2 draw with Birmingham, it certainly made a difference to our prediction league.
Miles Evans got a full five points for correctly predicting that score while he was even more pleased that John Terry ignored some newspaper headlines and secured a 1-0 win for Chelsea over Manchester United.
That game was our double pointer for the weekend so Miles received 10 points and finished as our top scorer for the weekend with 16 overall to jump into fifth place.
One of our contributors, Sean, did even better because he even specified that Terry would grab the only goal with a header. Where’s your crystal ball, Sean? I desperately need it! Have an extra five points.
Here are the updated scores for the Reuters Soccer Blog panel. Please let us know how you did in the comments.
Reuters Soccer Blog panel: Patrick Johnston 117, Paul Radford 102, Mitch Phillips 93, Mike Collett 88, Miles Evans 86, Simon Evans 85, Kevin Fylan 78, Mark Meadows 77, Julien Pretot 74, Neil Maidment 67, Asia Sports Desk 55, Justin Palmer 38, Martyn Herman 28, Sonia Oxley 26
you win this round sean but im determined not to be overtaken by someone who started 5 weeks after me, if that does happen i might have to turn to cricket.. dont make me do that
Chelsea lose their heads and their dignity
Maybe Norwegian referee Tom Henning Ovrebo was wrong on all the big decisions in Wednesday’s Champions League semi-final second leg — it absolutely does not justify Chelsea’s reaction.
UEFA’s “Respect” campaign was, again, left in tatters as pandemonium erupted after Andres Iniesta’s late equaliser sent Barcelona through on the away goals rule.
Didier Drogba had long been substituted but found enough energy to sprint onto the field at fulltime and harangue the referee, collecting a booking in the process.
Chelsea stewards and his team mates failed to control him as he returned for another bite, before turning his wrath to the cameras.
During the match the Ivorian striker had shown the best and worst sides of his game and should look to himself when considering why referees perhaps do not react kindly to his team’s appeals.
He often showed barnstorming strength to battle through the Barcelona defence but, as so often before, suddenly developed legs of straw when he decided it was time to win a freekick.
To answer Miles on his point on Fletcher’s grace: that red card came long after United had all but sealed their place in the final. The penalty not given to Chelsea would have, in all likelihood, sealed theirs had the taker scored. Two very different situations.
Players will always overreact to bad decisions, especially those that turn a CL semi-final the other way. We know referees make mistakes, but Ovrebo lost control of the game straight from the kick-off because all his big decisions were awful: the penalty, the Abidal red card and most of all, not booking Drogba the first time he went down lack a sack of spuds and appealed for a penalty. I can’t help feeling that the ref kept shooting himself in the foot by making one bad call after another hoping they cancel each other out at the end of the game. In the end, all he got was an inevitable over-reaction from a team robbed of their place in the final. If referees are human, players are not robots either.
The Real Madrid Presidential Candidacy ‘Promisometer’
The campaign to be the next president of Real Madrid Football Club has finally kicked into gear with the claim from the little known Eduardo Garcia that, if elected on June 14, he will bring with him the Chelsea striker Didier Drogba.
Promising big-name signings has long been an easy way for candidates to drum up support for the presidency at Real and Barcelona, the two member-owned Spanish clubs, but ever since Florentino Perez came from nowhere to take the 2000 election what was once an entertaining sideshow has become the key battleground.
Perez, you may remember, outrageously delivered on a promise to sign Luis Figo from Barcelona in 2000 and the grandmaster is set to announce he is standing again, after resigning in 2006.
Garcia, the 29-year-old director of an IT consultancy, is considered a huge outsider for the position but he earned a bit of publicity with his claim that he could land Drogba, as well as Palmeiras attacking midfielder Keirrison and Racing Santander left back Ivan Marcano. (The fact the interview was hidden away on page 6 of sports daily AS shows how seriously his candidacy is being taken in the local media.)
The latest election campaign at Real was ushered in by the resignation of Ramon Calderon, who failed to deliver on his pre-election promises of bringing Kaka and Cesc Fabregas in 2006.
While agents rub their hands, clubs in Europe and South America will bracing themselves for a flurry of interest in their players, as candidates try to outdo each other in the rush to win the votes of club members.
The other candidates will have to work pretty hard to outdo Florentino.
If it comes to a vote on June 14 (it’s possible that Don Florentino will be the only who can get the 53 million euro bank guarantee together) I don’t think he’ll necessarily be a shoe-in. At least two of my Real Madrid-supporting friends are less than enamoured with the former president after the painful end to his first stint in charge. Whatever happens, he’s going to need a lot of cash to persuade any of the big-name stars he wants to bring in to abandon the riches of the Premier League or Serie A for Spain.
Which shock late transfers would you like to see?
The end of the transfer window is fast approaching and so far it has been fairly quiet (if we exclude the Manchester City-Kaka saga as it didn’t go through).
The deadline this year is February 2 given January finishes on a weekend so there is a little extra time for some late deals.
What transfers do you expect to see and which wacky moves would amuse you in an ideal world?
After Jermain Defoe and Pascal Chimbonda came back, will Tottenham Hotspur continue buying up their old players and target Liverpool’s hit-and-miss forward Robbie Keane? If they really want to roll back the clock, what about Sergei Rebrov?
Real Madrid made two hasty signings in Klaas Jan Huntelaar and Lassana Diarra, but could they pull a rabbit out of the hat late on. Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo have committed themselves to Milan and United, haven’t they?
Didier Drogba to Inter Milan is a favourite for the tabloids while where will Andrei Arshavin end up? Arsenal, Hoffenheim, Zenit?
Barcelona probably don’t need reinforcements but I’ve felt for years they needed a really top class goalkeeper, with the greatest respect to Victor Valdes. Juve’s Gianluigi Buffon has said he would leave if a fantasy football bid was made.
Villa to Man City. Veloso to Bolton. Arshavin to Spurs. Wenger to France.
Time for Scolari to unleash Drogba and Anelka together?
Chelsea are struggling to score goals but manager Luiz Felipe Scolari says he can’t accommodate both Nicolas Anelka and Didier Drogba in the same team.
Scolari’s outstanding record as a coach of club and national teams means that us little people should think twice, or more, before questioning his tactics.
But when the team is booed off the pitch, as they were after Sunday’s 1-1 draw with West Ham, it is surely fair to ask if it’s time for a change of approach.
Drogba has hardly played this season due to injury and suspension and the fans were desperate to have him back leading the line.
In last week’s Champions League game against Cluj he came on midway through the second half with the teams level at 1-1 and within six minutes had scored the well-taken winner that guaranteed the club’s progress into the knockout stage.
On Sunday he was introduced at halftime and…six minutes later provided the neat flick to Frank Lampard that opened the way for Anelka’s equaliser.
Asked afterwards if he would consider starting with the “dangerous” pairing up front, Scolari said it was dangerous at both ends, saying the change of balance leaves his midfield too exposed.
I would definitely play them together. There problem is they play 4-4-2. they should take out Mikel and add Joe Cole as the 3 striker and play 4-3-3.
Vlog in the lift – Can Chelsea afford to lose Drogba?
Didier Drogba reminded Chelsea fans of his importance to their cause with a match-winning performance against Cluj in the Champions League this week, but recent reports have suggested that the controversial striker may be on his way to Inter Milan to link up with former manager Jose Mourinho.
Can Chelsea afford to let him go? Click on the video above to see Vlogonthepitch regulars Owen Wyatt and Jon Bramley have an elevated discussion. Let us know your views.
Drogba seems to be a negative influence to the team at a time where he needed to be an inspiration.Rewinding back to the final game of last season and his on the pitch spat with Ballack till his never ending injury problems and over bloated ego it doesnt take a genuis to see that he’s contribution to the team has been below the line-He should go.
