Futball Round up

After the intense mid-week of Champions League Semi's, the spotlight was later on the UEFA cup semi's between Bayern-Zenit and Florentina-Rangers. The first leg of the both the matches ended in stalemates. Hence, the second legs were expected to intriguing. The first one produced a stunner in which Bayern, to the surprize of everyone, were knocked out 4-0. This was a astonishing result given the buying spree taken up by Bayern during summers of 2007. It was actually a shame for the Germans to go down so meekly. The Second semi was like: Rangers have come to Itlay, parked their bus in front of the goal and put all the bodies behind the ball. It was a dull encounter. In spite of being down to 10 men, they made it through on penalties. Final will be played on 14th may City of Manchester Stadium.

Over the weekend there have been quite a few mouth-watering clashes. Milan vs Inter, Barcelona vs Valencia were the best of the lot. Barcelona hammered Valencia 6-0 while kaka single handeldly made light work of Inter handing them a 2-1 defeat(their first defeat in Serie A ?). This along along with positive results elsewhere for Roma and Florentina losing leads to an interesting situation in Serie A. Milan took an important step towards UCL qualification for next season, while race for Scudetto gets interesting.

Its business as usual for ManU, an encounter which saw Nani seeing Red! Torres was at his flair and was a match winner for the reds. Fulham, Bolton took huge steps to retain Barclays Premier league status! I think Royals (Reading) and Birmingham will go down.

As it turns out, IPL seems to be losing its sheen, many a matches turning out to be one sided and as Dada rightly points it out "Shorter the game, shorter the difference between players!". The most uninteresting aspect of T20 is the fact the a single player can make all the difference in the world, for instance, if Sehwag fires any target is seemingly chasable! Anyways, its good that finally RC and MI have own a game at their homes! Especially impressed by the young players in the Rajasthan team.

Clash of the week: Mumbai Indians vs Rajasthan Royals on 7th (Sachin vs Warne hopefully)

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The Times of Champions League

Over the last one week there have been numerous posts on whether the champions league was not what it used to be and the lack of attacking football on offer from various football plaudits which also includes the likes of Barca coach Rijkaard suggesting its a "pity" that english teams do not playing the kind of attacking football they should given the stardom they possess. I rubbish all these claims. For me, this case clearly resembles the case of "Grapes being sour"! Barca have nothing short of a disaster all season long. Clearly, their form in all competitions have been awful and its only because of their relatively easier draw they have made it this far, at least this season. And especially given the fact that they did not have even one legitimate effort on goal over both the legs (no matter how defensive minded ManU can be) is nothing short of a catastrophe for them given they pretend as though they are the sole representatives of the beautiful game of football adhering to its true principles! Come on Barca, Don't be sore losers. Give due credit to the opponents, especially when you are outplayed both on and off the pitch. By referring to off the pitch I meant the tactics, the ploy to employ Nani and Park behind the full backs of Barca yielded wonders for Sir Alex's side. And of course, on the pitch too they were outplayed by a classy Man United side.

Coming to the second match between chelski and the other Reds. Let me hit it straight on the nail. Benitez(coach of Reds) got the tactics completely wrong! Firstly, when you are dealing with someone like Drogba you have to more than careful! Never assault any great player before the crunch games(remember Carrick firing up Sachin before the 2003 WC clash with england!)
As the opposing manager would you anger and rile the guy so much that he no longer is playing to get into a CL final but to prove you wrong and to rub your nose in it? It is moronic management by Benitez I'm afraid as Grant didn't have to do his job at all with his star striker here other than put a casette into a tape player!! Come on Rafa!

This does not end over here, he picks up two defensive mid-fielders, Alonso and Mash, to start the clash is fine by me, however, even when the side is 2-1 down, you still having both of them is far from understandable.

However, Avram seemed like he could do no wrong! His decisions were spot on. Right from team selection to tactics. Lampard produced a trademark defensive splitting pass to find Kalou and he brought a save from Reina and then collecting the rebound Drogba produced a stunner from a tight angle. Reds equalized through Torres(not a surprize!).

All through the night(if you have watched the match!), StevieG was anonymous, this I think requires a special mention and Makelele, I should say made him invisible! In extra time, Blues turned it on. Ballack forcing a foul from Hypia and lampard for all that he had been through the last week, slotted home the penalty. The blues finally ended up as deserved winners. Nevertheless, kudos to both the teams given the fact that previous 6 CL encounters produced a meager 3 goals. This tie was without any doubt the best so far and a fitting encounter as a Semi-final. Hope to see a special CL final on 21st. ManU start favorites!

ps: RR vs KKR about to start :)

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