U90 footie news skim

Posted by juanpecan in Soccer/Futbol on 10 19th, 2009 | no responses

Happy monday. Or not.

To make the least popular day of the week more bearable, allow me to reintroduce myself!

Or my sport…or something. Just read on!

Club play resumed in the big leagues around Europe this weekend, but before we, ahem, DIVE in, a lovingdollop of WORLD CUP news!

With Europe’s regional World Cup Qualification all but settled, 4 bubble teams have to do a 2 game playoff for the final two spots for European teams in the World Cup. The draw pits Portugal against Bosnia-Herzegovina and France vs. Ireland. The matches will be played November 14th and 18th, one game at each side’s home country.

Expect a hilarious fight between Irish and French supporters (I am envisioning baguettes as weapons and unintelligible Irish swearing).

ONTO ZE’ CLUBS!

First up: my online haranguing of Ronaldinho produced immediate results! The bucktoothed patron saint of all johnny-come-lately soccer fans was possibly the best player on the field as AC Milan came from behind to beat AS Roma 2-1. Game played at the oh-so-sweet San Siro, which is on my top 5 list of stadiums to see a game in. Highlights: check ‘Dinho’s midfield assist at 3:45 to Pato for the game winner – sick sick sick! 30 yards on the dot and then Pato controls it off his chest on the run!

Other games: Barcelona had a big game on the road at Valencia. I managed to get to a bar to watch this one, which ended in a 0-0 tie. As I nursed my one beer (for an hour and a half…the bartender thoroughly hating me and another patron chewing off my ear about biking in the city) both teams looked for ways to create offense while lacking some of their stars (Absolut assassin David Villa for Valencia and Thierry Henry and Zlatan Ibrahimovic for Barca).

Barca’s only taking one point from the match, coupled with Ronaldo-less Real Madrid putting it on Valladolid 4-2 shrinks their La Liga lead to one point.

In England: Arsenal romped to beat Birmingham 5-1, Man U beat Bolton, and Aston Villa upset Premier league leader Chelsea 2-1. I’d mention Liverpool’s sad sack loss, but I don’t want to upset a friend.

Ok fuckit! Liverpool lost to lowly Sunderland on one of the funniest freak goals you’ll ever shake a stick at. A fan threw a beach ball onto the field, which landed right in front of the goal. Sure enough, A Sunderland player shot right off the beach ball, which sent the beach ball one way and the soccer ball in another…and right into the goal. Video here…and props to the commenter who said Man. City will be signing the beach ball for 30 million Euros. How this goal was allowed is beyond me and a few others.

So that’s my (paltry) club summary. Hmm…what else?

In other news: Ghana beat Brazil in penalty kicks to win the FIFA Under 20-World Cup! A taste of the future perhaps? Africa is coming for the world cup like Mike Tyson was coming for Holyfield’s ear drum.

Midweek game of the…midweek! Champions League kicks up this week, and the money match is AC Milan at Real Madrid on Wednesday night. Stay tuned for coverage…

Thanks for reading!

Juan P

(ps: after 3 tries to get WordPress to put spaces between my paragraphs I have to give up and just apologize for the hard to read formatting)