Reuters Soccer Blog

Soccer Break Friday – Time to say goodbye

Blackburn Rovers. Wolverhampton Wanderers. Wigan Athletic. Blackpool. Birmingham City. Five teams, two must go. Who will it be?

Nervy times ahead then for these five Premier League strugglers. Sunday will be traumatic and full of twists.

Blackpool striker DJ Campbell has been relegated before, and is apparently scaring the living daylights out of his teammates with his tales of the dreaded drop.

More Blackpool now, and manager Ian Holloway’s take on things. They are a colourful bunch the Tangerines, and they’ve given all the top teams a run for their money this season. Do you want to see them relegated?

Over to the FIFA scandal latest, and do you agree with this blog? Are you in favour of the FA’s abstaining from the voting on the FIFA presidency?

Sensationally, read on for news that Qatar could be stripped of the right to host the 2022 World Cup. Now that would shake the game up.

Finally, remember Paolo Di Canio, he of the ultimate bit of sportsmanship but who also pushed a referee? Well, he could be back in the English game.

Soccer Break Wednesday – Real v Barca. Take three.

Growing tired of Real Madrid and Barcelona playing each other? Not here we aren’t. And nor is an octopus named Iker (see picture).

The Champions League is the biggest club competition in the world and generally where players peak, so Wednesday’s semi-final first leg should be the best of the recent encounters between the Spanish rivals.

A place in the final, most probably against Manchester United after their barnstorming performance on Tuesday albeit against a lacklustre Schalke 04, will be at stake. Will the third ‘clasico’ in 12 days be an all-out attack fest or a nervy 0-0?

Who is your favourite of the two sides? Barcelona for their slick-passing panache or Real for their watchability factor, in which coach Jose Mourinho plays a large role.

A player in form in the Champions League is Schalke keeper Manuel Neuer. Alex Ferguson heavily praised the German but it seems he is set for Bayern Munich as Neuer himself has ruled out a move to the Premier League.

Finally, in England Stoke City edged further away from the relegation zone with a 3-0 defeat of Wolverhampton Wanderers on Tuesday and Wolves find themselves deep in trouble. Can they stay up? But at what cost to the FA Cup finalists Stoke after influential midfielder Matthew Etherington went off with a hamstring problem?

Discuss all these topics and other stories in world soccer on the Reuters Soccer Facebook page. And please feel free to send us recommendations for your pick of the day’s stories.

Soccer Break Monday

Welcome back to a new week of football stories but not before we’ve taken you through our roundup of the weekend’s action around Europe.

What was your highlight? Milan’s loss in Italy which breathed new life into the Serie A title chase, or the ability of the leaders in England, Spain, France and Germany to win no matter what?

Dimitar Berbatov’s late strike for Manchester United certainly produced a large sigh of relief from the red half of Manchester as well as several of my colleagues.

The Bulgarian is an interesting character. Read here for a look at a player who could well be a shoe in for the player of the year award but who remains a little difficult to work out.

There were few if any highlights from the last few days as far as Manchester City striker Mario Balotelli is concerned. Hit by luggage, dropped from the Italy squad, when will it ever go right for the gifted yet temperamental youngster?

Would you like him at your club? Which manager do you think would have the best chance of taming him? Surely Roberto Mancini has as good a chance as anyone with his Italian.

Now this week is a first for Soccer Break with internationals on the horizon. Any Wolves fans out there? proud to see Matt Jarvis in the squad? Well deserved we say, there’s not been a harder worker in the Premier League over the last 12 months and Jarvis will be hoping he can help Wolves avoid the drop.

Was McCarthy taking the mick at Old Trafford?

Did Wolverhampton Wanderers manager Mick McCarthy damage the integrity of the Premier League or did he make a valid, pragmatic choice to help keep his side safe by playing a virtual reserve team that lost 3-0 at Manchester United on Tuesday?

Most Wolves fans felt cheated when they saw that the team he fielded at Old Trafford showed 10 outfield changes from the side that beat Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday with only goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann keeping his place.

They paid 42 pounds for a ticket as well as making the long trip from Wolverhampton to Manchester on a freezing night and most did not appreciate what they perceived to be a totally defeatist act by the manager.

The message the fans got was: “We’ve no real chance of beating United, so I’m keeping the first choice players for the important game with Burnley at the weekend — one we CAN win.”

McCarthy defended his action by saying: “They were all first-team squad players who played tonight, not reserves and I have to say there were some really good performances. That team did as well as we did against Arsenal and Chelsea.

“It was my decision and I took it and the responsibility lies with me. Burnley are having a good season and we have to be fully at it…I’m not prepared to get injuries before Sunday because then we have Liverpool, Manchester City and West Ham.

Midweek Premier League special. Can you beat the panel?

Never let it be said that we at Reuters Soccer Blog shirk a challenge. Our attempts at score prediction on the opening weekend produced results that were modest at best but never fear, we’re straight back in for another shot (that’ll doubtless be blasted over the bar).

Once again, please send in your own predictions … they can scarcely be any worse than ours, and if you do especially well, we’ll gladly let you lord it over us here on the blog.

The six matches this week are as follows:

Sunderland v Chelsea: After Chelsea’s scare in the opening game of the season, and Sunderland’s positive start, the predictions for this are a little more circumspect. Mitch Phillips: 1-1; Owen Wyatt: 0-2; Patrick Johnston: 1-1; Mike Collett: 0-2; Paul Radford: 0-2; Kevin Fylan: 1-0. Late entries: Miles Evans: 0-2; Martyn Herman: 0-2.

Wigan Athletic v Wolverhampton Wanderers: What a result from Wigan on Saturday, eh? Hardly anyone expected them to beat Aston Villa, but I suppose when you consider how badly Villa finished last season it wasn’t such a shocking result. Wigan to make it maximum points from two? Mitch Phillips: 2-0; Owen Wyatt: 4-4; Patrick Johnston: 3-0; Mike Collett: 1-1; Paul Radford: 1-0; Kevin Fylan: 1-0. Late entries: Miles Evans: 0-1; Martyn Herman: 2-1.

Wednesday:

Birmingham City v Portsmouth: Birmingham came close to getting something from Old Trafford on Sunday so that should have done something for their self-belief. Maybe. Another bad day for Portsmouth? Mitch Phillips: 1-0; Owen Wyatt: 2-0; Patrick Johnston: 2-1; Mike Collett: 2-1; Paul Radford: 0-0; Kevin Fylan: 0-0. Late entries: Miles Evans: 2-2; Martyn Herman: 4-1.

Wheel comes full circle from Molineux to Moscow

I was standing by the side of the M1 in front of my broken-down Morris 1100 on a hot afternoon in May 1972 with only one thought in my mind. And it wasn’t how to get my car fixed.

It was how was I going to get to Molineux, still 75 miles away, for the first leg of the UEFA Cup final between Wolves and Spurs.

Luckily my companion knew a lot more about cars than I did and after a nervous wait, we were on our way again to an historic first — the first European club cup final between two English teams.

For in all the hype surrounding this week’s all-English Champions League final between Manchester United and Chelsea, that first all-English European final has largely been over-looked.

That is no real surprise in today’s world of mega-Champions League hype, but what IS more of a surprise is that there has been no all-English final in any other European club competition since then.

Eventually we made it to Molineux in good time for the first leg of the very first UEFA Cup final which Spurs went on to win 3-2 on aggregate.