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Barcelona v Atletico: Is there a more entertaining fixture?
You are guaranteed goals when Barcelona take on Atletico Madrid each season, and Saturday’s encounter at the Nou Camp was no exception as the European champions romped to a 5-2 victory.
Barca were 4-0 up within 41 minutes after goals from Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Lionel Messi, Daniel Alves and Seydou Keita, before Atletico pulled one back through Sergio Aguero.
Diego Forlan made it 4-2 late on but any thoughts of a late rally disappeared when an inspired Messi grabbed his second at the end.
Whereas most managers think Rorke’s Drift or the Alamo when they go the Nou Camp, Atletico coach Abel Resino went to trade blows with Barca, lining up five attacking players ahead of one holding midfielder.
Their goal was guarded by reserve keeper Roberto, who was making only his second first-team appearance – the first having been four years ago.
Xavi has described Pep Guardiola as a football romantic for his attacking ideals, and perhaps Resino falls into the same category. But his ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ perhaps owed more to history than good sense.
Shamrock prepare for Real visit
Click the video above for a look at how Shamrock Rovers are preparing for the visit of Real Madrid — a match the entire soccer word will be keeping an eye on, with Cristiano Ronaldo set to make his debut for the Spanish club.
Interesting line about Real’s continued interest in Franck Ribery. Do they really need him still. Raul seems to suggest they’d still like him…
MEXICO BEATS USA IN GOLD CUP 2009,BY KNOCKOUT.
Mexico 5 USA 0
Let it be a lesson for the USA national team coach, when you play a final for the Gold cup, you better bring your best players or face destroying with your feet what you created with your hands. Reaching the final of the Confederations cup against Brazil was a great accomplishment and even loosing the final was not a negative for their reputation or soccer world rankings, in fact that game alone created a great deal of respect and interest for American players among the great European teams.
The loss against Mexico, for the Gold cup final was by knockout. Mexico played a lot better, had better coaching more hearth, infinitely more desire and vastly superior talent on the field. The USA team had the biggest players in physical stature with a dwarf soccer IQ, no creativity and one dimensional. Highly defensive, highly inoffensive ,to win titles you need creative minds who create offensive plays that culminate in goals, against Mexico coach Bradley planted a team of robots with no programming for free creative flow, when Mexico took the lead their computer crashed.!Rage against the machine!
http://www.soccermind.webs.com
Kaka deal highlights Serie A decline
The departure of Kaka from AC Milan to Real Madrid marks the end of the Italian era in European football. Not only can Italian clubs not attract the best players in the world to play in Serie A but now, when they unearth a talent like Kaka, they can’t stop them from leaving.
Italians used to describe their Serie A as ‘il campionato piu bello del mondo’ , the most beautiful championship in the world. It was not just because Italians love nothing more than talking themselves up — Serie A was the first league in the world to sign up top foreign stars, bringing in international talent at a time when the English league, for example, stretched no further than Scotland in search of players.
Beginning in the late 1950′s when the likes of Brazilian Jose Altafini (AC Milan) and Welshman John Charles (Juventus) were among the top performers, Serie A prided itself on being the league that had the money to bring in the best in the world.
After the 1966 World Cup, where Italy was humiliated by North Korea, foreigners were banned as part of an attempt to strengthen the domestic talent base and the national team, but when the rule was relaxed in 1980, the top clubs began importing talent again and before long Italy had become the first league to truly take on global status.
Frenchman Michel Platini at Juventus led the new wave and then the biggest name of all, Diego Maradona almost single-handedly led Napoli to titles in 1987 and 1990. The great Milan sides of Arrigo Sacchi and Fabio Capello were built around foreign stars — the Dutch trio of Frank Rijkaard, Ruud Gullit and Marco van Basten helped transform Serie A from a league dominated by cautious and defensive teams into a showcase for the world’s best talent.
Germany’s Lothar Matthaeus and Andreas Brehme helped Inter to the title in 1989, and by the nineties, any player in the world who could be considered a match-winner was being snapped up by an Italian team.
Just ten years ago, the top teams in Serie A included players such as Ronaldo at Inter, George Weah and a young Andriy Shevchenko at Milan, Gabriel Batistuta at Fiorentina, Hernan Crespo, Pavel Nedved and Juan Sebastian Veron (all at their peak) at Lazio and the best of his generation, Zinedine Zidane at Juventus. It was the departure of the latter to Real Madrid in 2001 that suggested Spain was beginning to replace Italy as the place where the world’s best could get paid best.
pure garbage, ronaldo has now left the premir league, as for gerrad and co, serie a has its equivelents; de rossi, cambiasso, sissoko.
Oh and I suppose Diego signing for Juve is just totally ignored right ?
Vlog on the Pitch: Florentino’s new era at Real Madrid
Florentino Perez began his second spell as Real Madrid president on Monday and immediately signed up Zinedine Zidane and Jorge Valdano for the project.
Those appointments are all very well, but the question we all want answering is which players Florentino is going to bring in. Will he content himself with one major signing, a la Zidane, or will he, as some have speculated, sign basically a whole new team.
Click the video above to see Owen and myself discussing Real, and considering briefly what went wrong at Real Betis.
And remember, comments are always welcome…
with Manuel Pellegrini now definitely in charge, I can see player wanted to play for an old school guy like that.
Game, set and match: Real 2 Barça 6
If Chelsea were cautious in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final against Barcelona, what will they do after seeing this display?
Spain’s sports journalists will be doing their best to outdo one another in superlatives after a performance that ranks right up there with the 5-0 Barça managed at the Bernabeu with Johan Cruyff in their team in 1974.
If that Barça team was largely about one man, the current vintage has quite extraordinary talent running all the way through it. From Puyol and Piqué at the back, to Xavi and Iniesta in central midfield to the attacking trio of Henry, Messi and Eto’o this is quite some collective.
We’ll have more on this tomorrow, but for now let’s take a quick look at the early reaction from Spain:
Marca: A humiliation to decide the league. In the big games, the big names should show up. In the Barça team today virtually all of them did: Henry, Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Piqué, Puyol… Samuel Etoo was the only one missing.
As: They say you have to learn to walk before you can run. While Barcelona go sprinting towards their date with history, Madrid have barely taken their first steps.
Sport: Madrid came down like a house of cards… What you saw today in the Bernabeu was a true reflection of the enormous gulf that today separates one of these teams from the other. There was no comparison.
Do you know in which London hotel FC Barcelona is going to be to play vs Chelsea for UEFA Champions League semifinals?
Metzelder may make it in Madrid after all
I nearly fell out of my chair on Sunday night when I realised the identity of the Real Madrid player who had surged into the box and sent across a perfectly-weighted centre for Raul to score the equaliser against Sevilla.
Christoph Metzelder? What on earth is he doing up there?
The 28-year-old defender is trying to win back his place in the German national side but has only played in eight of the Spanish champions’ 33 league matches this season and has said he is considering moving on if he doesn’t get more time on the pitch.
The 10-match ban handed to Pepe last week is his chance to impress. And judging by his performance in Sunday’s 4-2 comeback win he is determined to take it.
As well as creating the first goal, he looked to have rediscovered something close to the form that made him such an effective central defensive partner for Per Mertesacker at the 2006 World Cup.
He had looked nervous and clumsy when used by Real this season, but Germany coach Joachim Loew is sure to have noticed his impressive showing alongside Fabio Cannavaro on Sunday, with the pair comfortably keeping Sevilla strikers Frederic Kanoute and Luis Fabiano at bay.
Despite, or perhaps because of, his lack of first-team action, Metzelder has settled well into the Spanish capital and has learned very good Castellano that wins him praise at press conferences and for his appearances on radio and television.
Aguero magic could pose problem for Atletico
The sort of performance Sergio Aguero turned in to inspire victory over Barcelona could be a curse as well as a blessing for Atletico Madrid, who are only going to find themselves under more pressure to sell him to one of Europe’s powerhouse clubs come the end of the season.
The gifted 20-year-old, nicknamed “Kun” after a Japanese comic book hero, scored two superb goals, including a dramatic 89th minute winner, as Atletico twice came from behind to stun the visiting Primera Liga leaders 4-3.
The match was a near carbon copy of the same fixture exactly a year earlier, when Aguero grabbed a brace and created one goal in the Madrid club’s 4-2 comeback win, and the quality of his performance was underscored by the fact that he outshone his more famous compatriot Lionel Messi.
However, he has looked unsettled at times this season and was unhappy with coach Abel Resino’s decision to replace him in the 56th minute of last week’s Champions League draw with Porto.
Argentina coach Diego Maradona, the father of Aguero’s partner Gianinna, has publicly advised him to seek a move to Inter Milan and the Serie A leaders have confirmed they are monitoring him.
“We’ll be hearing again today how the big boys of Europe want to buy him,” F. Javier Diaz wrote in Monday’s edition of Spanish sports newspaper As. “For now he’s playing in the red and white stripes of Atletico, not at Inter, Manchester United, Real Madrid or Barcelona, and it’s a matter of pride for the Atletico fans to hold on to him.”
Kun has a contract until 2012 and a buy-out clause of 60 million euros, in as much as they are worth the paper they’re written on.
I don’t believe the club will want to cash in on him. Even before Fernando Torres left he was selling more shirts than him.
It will be down to whether Aguero wants to move on, and the club will expect him to come out and say so if he does, so they don’t carry the can for selling a fan favourite….the same as happened with Torres.
It all depends on Champions League qualification and the plans the club have for reinforcing the side next season, on the pitch and on the bench.
So are we set for another all-English Champions League final?
There’s still a long way to go to the final in Rome but from what we saw over the first legs of the opening knock-out round of the Champions League a lot of people will be expecting another all-English affair at the Olympic Stadium.
If you take Mark’s dad as an authority, and I’m sure he knows as much as anyone, serie A sides are unlikely still to be challenging but is there anyone else capable of preventing another Premier League tour match?
Manchester United are actually the most precariously placed of the four English sides. A goalless draw away from home is not a great result, as United will doubtless remember from their trip to the Bernabeu in 2000.
Arsenal and Chelsea had better results at home to Italian sides, winning their home legs 1-0 against, respectively, Roma and Juventus, while Liverpool nicked a great result, 1-0 away to Real Madrid thanks to a late Yossi Benayoun header.
Barcelona should probably go through after salvaging a 1-1 draw away to Lyon but their performance in France will have given rise to more doubts from their fans.
Have Pep Guardiola’s team peaked too early?
Let’s be fair to the rest of Europe – it will be two English clubs in the final, but not an all-English final.
When we see Wembley host the Champions League final, then we’ll call it an all-English final.
Real Madrid v Liverpool — what a difference two months make
Back in December, when the draw for the first knock-out round of the Champions League was made, Liverpool could be forgiven for feeling pretty pleased with the prospect of renewing their acquaintance with Real Madrid. How different things look now.
Back then, Liverpool were top of the Premier League, six points ahead of a Manchester United side facing a fixture pile-up and struggling for form. Real Madrid, in apparent disarray after sacking coach Bernd Schuster, were 12 points behind Barcelona, having just lost 2-0 to their arch-rivals.
Now, Liverpool have all but conceded the title to United, while Real Madrid, inspired by Juande Ramos, have won nine league games in a row to give Barcelona plenty to think about. True, Real remain seven points behind Barca, exactly the same margin by which Liverpool trail United, but Ramos’s side will go into the tie bristling with confidence, while their opponents fight just to keep their season alive.
There are at least a couple of other uncomfortable facts for Liverpool to consider as they prepare for a first European Cup meeting with Real since the final in Paris in 1981.
Firstly, coach Rafa Benitez will know that Fernando Torres has a terrible record against Real Madrid. As an Atletico player, Torres could be relied upon to score against Barcelona and to come up short against Real. There was no real explanation for it. That’s just the way it was.
Secondly, it will not have escaped Liverpool’s notice that Raul has gradually played his way back into the sort of form that convinced Sir Alex Ferguson that he was the world’s best player.
The real madrid played a very nice game last week wednesday @ santiago bernabeu. unfortunately they lost and i hope they will win @ amfield by 2-0
Can new Atletico coach do a Guardiola?
Atletico Madrid’s decision to appoint Abel Resino as coach in place of the mild-mannered Javier Aguirre should help placate disgruntled fans and unsettled players.
Whether it will help them fulfil their aspirations of European success is a trickier question.
The 49-year-old Resino played at Atletico for most of his career, but has no track record coaching a major club.
He may well make light of that disadvantage, but banking on Resino to do a Guardiola and immediately set the world to rights is a gamble indeed.
Atletico are a difficult club to manage after all.
Mexican Aguirre’s two-and-a-half year term brought a measure of stability after the arrival and departure of a stream of coaches since they last won the title in the 1995/96 season under Radomir Antic. (more…)
messi hasn’t proved anything on the international level nor has ronaldo. plz peeps comparissons with pele maradona best way to premature. players today are no where near as good as the all time greats.