u90 footie watching

ooooWASSSSSSSaaaaaabe,

Ronaldinho/Italy Serie A watch: The Dinho continues to look better and better, serving up two sicknasty assists and *le gasp!* running at people! in Milan’s 2-0 win at home over Parma. A mere run of good form, or is He really coming back to magically break ankles, drop dimes on any muthafucka he pleases, and sweep up the race’s believers in a rapture?

My dressing up as Dinho for Jalloween was my offering to the soccer gods for it to be the latter.

And my mom was a nun, so my family already has worse sacrilege on the record than the last sentence of that last paragraph. Besides, I’m confident that if there is a god, It likes It some sports, and few athletes can conjure the mind-boggling, rewind-button-wearing-down brilliance that rrrrrrrrrRONALDINHO does when He’s on His Game. Plus he’s funny looking and his name is fun to say and i like to overstate things.

Anyway! ROLL (condensed) HIGHLIGHTS!

Such skill! Keeps the ball right at his feet then drops it perfectly in place for a teammate to take a clean shot. I watched that second goal about 5 times in a row. Great dribbling and aggression to set up both goals, and two classy finishes from Marco Boriello (nothing like a good Italian name).

With the win Milan jumps Fiorentina (Florence) to move into 4 place, behind Sampdoria, Juventus, and Internazionale of Milan.

Barcelona /La Liga watch: Madrid came into the weekend in absolute poop-storm crisis mode, being in second place and losing 4-0 to a THIRD DIVISION TEAM in their midweek Spanish Copa Del Rey match, which is the equivalent of the Yankees losing to the Milwaukee Brewers’ AA team. Badly.

Coming into the weekend, Barca was 3 points ahead of Madrid in the La Liga standings. On Saturday Real Madrid won 2-0 over Getafe so the pressure was on Barca to win on the road at Ossasuna (of Pamplona) and maintain 1st place.

It was a chippy, rough match, but Barca looked to have it in the bag after last weekend’s hat-trickster and an official My Kind Of Player (trademark, me, right now) Seydou Keita scored in the 72 minute. Big BUTT: late pressure by Ossasuna (of Pamplona) lead to, dread upon dread, an OWN GOAL by Gerard Pique! Send him back to Manchester! The highlights…i can’t watch….

So Madrid’s win, coupled with Barcelona’s 1-1 draw with Ossasuna, means that Barcelona holds a uneasy 1 point lead over Madrid for the Spanish championship with 29 games to play and 3 weeks till their first of two “EL CLASSICO” matches of the year…

Hmmm, what angle to put on the English Premier League? I dont follow a team but have one friend who likes Arsenal and another who rides or dies with Liverpool. So my EPL coverage will be Red-centric, till reader requests make me change ze game.

DERBY ALERT! “A derby” is another way of saying “when two teams from the same area play each other. Expect extra intensity.”

This weekend Arsenal had a London derby match vs. Tottenham. Arsenal rolled em 3-nil. Goal by Fabregas at 2:30 on the video is eye-bugging. Can’t wait till Barcelona snatches their former youth product back.

And last. And least. Is Liverpool. Sorry Cupcake-tress but the mighty reds dropped to a shameful 6th! place in the EPL following their 3-1 loss to Fulham. USA national team starter Clint Dempsey added his 2nd goal of the year in the win, so at least theres that?

Rest of the standings here. Man U in 2nd, behind Chelsea.

So that’s it for now…if you’re reading let a guy know what kind of other info you wanna see! More on the rules of the game, what to look for when you watch a game, tactics/formations, great games, My Kind of Players?

This week: CHAMPIONS LEAGUE RETURNS. I will be eagerly watching Barcelona-Rubin Kazan and Milan-Madrid. Barca needs to recover from their shock 2-1 loss to the Russians , and Madrid will be eager to get revenge on their 3-2 loss at home to the Italians. CANT WAIT!

bonus: me as dinho, cuz i know you were dying to see…

peace out, cub scout(s)!

JuanPeeCan (of Pamplona)

ps:

I have a confession to make.

(deep breath)

I don’t follow soccer consistently.

I’m sorry.

Shocking, I know cuz I always seem so wise and balanced and knowledgeable!

My soccer stalkage goes in fits and spurts. Sometimes I’m up to date on 5 leagues (england, spain, italy, MLS, assorted cups and leagues), and other times my info is a little stale. Now that I’m writing on soccer I gotta be more consistently in the know, and I’m working at it, but sometimes I slip. Case in point: the past ~3 weeks after all that World Cup Qualifying madness.

So here, in writing, is juanpecan’s promise to write at least 2 soccer columns a week. It may be a little news scoop, maybe some clips, photo silliness, maybe some old random training drill or history, or culture around the game, but there will be ploural weekly opportunities to add wrinkles to the soccer region of your brain.

I figure that if you want all the breaking-minute scores and highlights and expert analysis, there are a bevy sites to go to. A few i use are goal.com, ESPN soccernet, Soccer by Ives, footytube for highlights,youtube for player reels (94% of the time set to euro bounce house beatzzzz)

So instead of a resource for soccer information, I consider myself a resource for soccer love. I’ll bring you what’s interesting to me that i think you would might find interesting as a non/semi-soccer fan but an appreciator of athletic action and drama.

And if nobody reads it, this will at least be a means of sharing soccer news with my crew (FOOTIE TUESDAY!).

ok forreal this time…treat yourself to extra halloween candy for making it through!