'Deadly’ Diego Forlan came back to haunt Liverpool once again last night, as the ex-Manchester United forward scored the decisive away goal that sent Atletico Madrid through to the Europa League final in Hamburg.
Atletico came into the game with a slender 1-0 advantage from the first leg (with the goal in that game also coming from Forlan) and it was clear from Rafa Benitez’s team selection that he was wary of conceding what could, and did, prove to be a crucial away goal. Liverpool ’s injury problems at left-back meant Glen Johnson switching flanks and Javier Mascherano filling in at right-back. Mascherano never looked comfortable and his distribution, which is poor at the best of times, was terrible.
Liverpool played quite well in the first half but became overly cautious after opening the scoring through the improving Alberto Aquilani. The Italian gave his team the lead with a neat first-time finish from the edge of the box, and it looked as if Atletico were ready to collapse. The rest of normal time was played out without too much incident though, with both teams unwilling to open up in search of a winner.
Liverpool started extra-time aggressively and quickly made it 2-0 on the night through Yossi Benayoun, who is far and away their most underrated player. Benayoun held his run on the edge of the box and was picked out with a lovely pass from the otherwise garbage Lucas Leiva, and the Israeli beat 19 year old David De Gea with a calm left-footed finish. It was a nice goal but the goalkeeper really should have done better.
The game then picked up after the introduction of Juarado for Atletico, with the Spaniard picking the ball up from deep and driving at the heart of Liverpool ’s ever-declining defence. Atletico started to look more dangerous going forward and soon scored what would prove to be the decisive goal as Diego Forlan, scorer of a comedy goal at Anfield for Manchester United years ago, got on the end of Jose Antonio Reyes’ pass and absolutely hammered the ball beyond Pepe Reina.
Glen Johnson, who has never looked particularly solid defensively, made a mess of an aerial challenge with Reyes in the build up to the goal, and you have to wonder if Fabio Capello will have much confidence in his defending should England come up against quality teams at the World Cup. It’s hard to imagine Johnson coping with the likes of David Silva or Angel Di Maria.
Liverpool pushed for another goal but with Gerrard struggling to get into the game at that point they never really looked like scoring. The fact that Benitez could only turn to the likes of Nabil El Zhar shows just how poor Liverpool’s squad is beyond the first eleven (which itself isn’t too impressive). If Juventus’ offer is genuine then I’d be shocked if Benitez doesn’t get out of Liverpool now, before his reputation takes any further damage.
Atletico’s opponents in Germany will be Fulham, whose dramatic 2-1 win against Hamburg at Craven Cottage sent them through to their first major final. It really is incredible how far they’ve come under Roy Hodgson, who took the job with Fulham lying bottom of the Premier League in January 2007. Unless Alex Ferguson wins the title for a record fourth time in a row then Hodgson should surely be nailed on for Manager of the Year.
Fulham looked in trouble after falling behind to an incredible free-kick from Mladen Petric. They hit back though, with Simon Davies – quite possibly the most underwhelming player to ever pull on an Everton shirt – making it 1-1 with a superb piece of individual skill. “Cheeky bastard”, thought Evertonians everywhere, after witnessing the Welsh nonentity pull off something we never dreamed of seeing him do at Everton.
Zoltan Gera finished the job, controlling and finishing impressively in a packed penalty area. It’s hard not to be pleased for Fulham, who never seem to give up on their principles of keeping the ball on the ground and playing their own game.
A good night all round.
Friday 30 April 2010
Thursday 29 April 2010
Inter v Bayern set for Champions League Final
Jose Mourinho will face Bayern Munich in the 2010 Champions League final after beating Lionel Messi 3-2 on aggregate. Well, according to the papers that’s what happened anyway. Looking at the media coverage surrounding this game you’d think Inter and Barcelona were a team of misfits and no-hopers before these two came along.
Bayern secured their place in the final with an impressive 3-0 win away at French giants Lyon. The Germans entered the second leg with a one goal advantage after Arjen Robben’s deflected effort gave them a 1-0 win at the Allianz Arena last Wednesday.
Lyon were considered slight favourites to advance to their first Champions League final given their home advantage in the second leg, but they looked dead and buried once Ivica Olic opened the scoring for Bayern in the first-half. The home side were reduced to ten men after two harsh bookings in quick succession saw centre-half and captain Cris dismissed. The Brazilian was initially booked for what looked like an excellent challenge on the half-way line, and then given his marching orders after mockingly applauding the referee’s decision. The tie pretty much ended right there.
Two more goals from Croatia striker Olic emphasised Bayern’s superiority over the two legs as Louis Van Gaal’s team progressed to the final with a 4-0 aggregate win.
The second semi-final was also marred by a controversial sending off, though it’s fair to say that Thiago Motta’s dismissal for ‘violent conduct’ had a far greater impact on the game’s outcome than Cris’ did a night earlier.
It was already clear that Mourinho had set up Inter to frustrate Barcelona from his initial team selection, with Romanian defender Christian Chivu, who looks like a simpleton in his Peter Cech helmet, replacing forward Goran Pandev moments before kick-off. It remains uncertain whether Pandev, who missed Inter’s weekend fixture through injury, was genuinely set to play before breaking down in the warm-up, or if it was an intentional attempt by Mourinho to influence Pep Guardiola’s tactics.
The match was playing out as expected, with Inter prepared to defend the 3-1 advantage they held from the first leg, when Thiago Motta was inexplicably sent off for what was nothing more than obstruction. The former Barcelona midfielder held out his arm to shield the ball from the utterly garbage Sergi Busquets, only for the odd-looking Spaniard to collapse to the ground clutching his face.
Busquets writhed around like a tit and Motta was shown a red card. It looked as if the furious Motta, who looks a bit of a loose cannon anyway, was about to lash out at Busquets for his antics, but quite surprisingly the Brazilian settled for grabbing him by the back of the neck and shouting abuse down his ear.
If there was any justice UEFA would rescind Motta’s sending off and hand Busquets a three game suspension for shaming the sport infront of a global audience. Unfortunately such a thing is very unlikely.
As can sometimes be the case in these situations, Inter were galvanised by being unfairly reduced to ten men and proceeded to defend as resolutely as ever. Barcelona continued to dominate possession, as you’d expect, but with Inter’s world-class defence and goalkeeper in top form the Catalans were largely restricted to shifting the ball sideways in the hope of either Xavi picking out an impossible pass or Messi dribbling through the entire Inter team.
Barcelona look like the football equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters when teams like Arsenal are stupid enough to set up to play a wide open game and try to match Barca’s brand of possession football with inferior players. But when someone like Mourinho shows up with a gang of top-draw arl arses and no any interest in how his tactics will be perceived in the press it can be a different story.
Guardiola can be his own worst enemy at times, and his apparent obsession with making a point to Real Madrid by winning trophies with as many youth academy products in his side as possible looked flawed last night. Thierry Henry should have started. The France striker is still a very high level player and remains vastly superior to youngsters like Bojan Krkic and Jeffren, who both got on the pitch ahead of him, as well as the woeful Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Henry has the turn of pace and direct style that Barca were sorely lacking last night, and it was shocking to see Guardiola overlook him when his team were in desperate need of goals.
I’ll be very surprised if the Barca fans and board don’t take steps towards forcing Ibrahimovic out in the summer, especially if Real pip them to the title, though it’s hard to imagine anyone paying the enormous fee he’d probably command. Usually when Barcelona are faced with a team packing the centre with defenders it’s against jokers like Almeria or Sporting Gijon, whose players inevitably aren’t up to the task, but Inter’s quality defence showed just how badly Barca are missing the pace, work rate and intelligent movement of someone like Samuel Eto’o (who ran himself into the ground whilst playing in a variety of positions for Inter).
Barcelona did eventually force a break through late on when Gerard Pique, arguably the best centre-half in world football at the moment, sold Julio Cesar with a beautiful turn and calmly finished. The home side’s passage to a second consecutive final should have been secured when Bojan almost broke the net from close-range in the dying moments, but the referee gave an incredibly harsh free-kick against Yaya Toure after Lucio’s clearance appeared to strike the Ivorian’s arm before bouncing through to Bojan.
The way Inter defended in the wake of Busquets’ deplorable play-acting, as well the fact that Bojan missed an absolute sitter minutes earlier, makes it difficult to have too much sympathy for last season’s competition winners. It also spares us from a final that would have almost certain been as one-sided as last year’s.
Pazza Inter!
Bayern secured their place in the final with an impressive 3-0 win away at French giants Lyon. The Germans entered the second leg with a one goal advantage after Arjen Robben’s deflected effort gave them a 1-0 win at the Allianz Arena last Wednesday.
Lyon were considered slight favourites to advance to their first Champions League final given their home advantage in the second leg, but they looked dead and buried once Ivica Olic opened the scoring for Bayern in the first-half. The home side were reduced to ten men after two harsh bookings in quick succession saw centre-half and captain Cris dismissed. The Brazilian was initially booked for what looked like an excellent challenge on the half-way line, and then given his marching orders after mockingly applauding the referee’s decision. The tie pretty much ended right there.
Two more goals from Croatia striker Olic emphasised Bayern’s superiority over the two legs as Louis Van Gaal’s team progressed to the final with a 4-0 aggregate win.
The second semi-final was also marred by a controversial sending off, though it’s fair to say that Thiago Motta’s dismissal for ‘violent conduct’ had a far greater impact on the game’s outcome than Cris’ did a night earlier.
It was already clear that Mourinho had set up Inter to frustrate Barcelona from his initial team selection, with Romanian defender Christian Chivu, who looks like a simpleton in his Peter Cech helmet, replacing forward Goran Pandev moments before kick-off. It remains uncertain whether Pandev, who missed Inter’s weekend fixture through injury, was genuinely set to play before breaking down in the warm-up, or if it was an intentional attempt by Mourinho to influence Pep Guardiola’s tactics.
The match was playing out as expected, with Inter prepared to defend the 3-1 advantage they held from the first leg, when Thiago Motta was inexplicably sent off for what was nothing more than obstruction. The former Barcelona midfielder held out his arm to shield the ball from the utterly garbage Sergi Busquets, only for the odd-looking Spaniard to collapse to the ground clutching his face.
Busquets writhed around like a tit and Motta was shown a red card. It looked as if the furious Motta, who looks a bit of a loose cannon anyway, was about to lash out at Busquets for his antics, but quite surprisingly the Brazilian settled for grabbing him by the back of the neck and shouting abuse down his ear.
If there was any justice UEFA would rescind Motta’s sending off and hand Busquets a three game suspension for shaming the sport infront of a global audience. Unfortunately such a thing is very unlikely.
As can sometimes be the case in these situations, Inter were galvanised by being unfairly reduced to ten men and proceeded to defend as resolutely as ever. Barcelona continued to dominate possession, as you’d expect, but with Inter’s world-class defence and goalkeeper in top form the Catalans were largely restricted to shifting the ball sideways in the hope of either Xavi picking out an impossible pass or Messi dribbling through the entire Inter team.
Barcelona look like the football equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters when teams like Arsenal are stupid enough to set up to play a wide open game and try to match Barca’s brand of possession football with inferior players. But when someone like Mourinho shows up with a gang of top-draw arl arses and no any interest in how his tactics will be perceived in the press it can be a different story.
Guardiola can be his own worst enemy at times, and his apparent obsession with making a point to Real Madrid by winning trophies with as many youth academy products in his side as possible looked flawed last night. Thierry Henry should have started. The France striker is still a very high level player and remains vastly superior to youngsters like Bojan Krkic and Jeffren, who both got on the pitch ahead of him, as well as the woeful Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Henry has the turn of pace and direct style that Barca were sorely lacking last night, and it was shocking to see Guardiola overlook him when his team were in desperate need of goals.
I’ll be very surprised if the Barca fans and board don’t take steps towards forcing Ibrahimovic out in the summer, especially if Real pip them to the title, though it’s hard to imagine anyone paying the enormous fee he’d probably command. Usually when Barcelona are faced with a team packing the centre with defenders it’s against jokers like Almeria or Sporting Gijon, whose players inevitably aren’t up to the task, but Inter’s quality defence showed just how badly Barca are missing the pace, work rate and intelligent movement of someone like Samuel Eto’o (who ran himself into the ground whilst playing in a variety of positions for Inter).
Barcelona did eventually force a break through late on when Gerard Pique, arguably the best centre-half in world football at the moment, sold Julio Cesar with a beautiful turn and calmly finished. The home side’s passage to a second consecutive final should have been secured when Bojan almost broke the net from close-range in the dying moments, but the referee gave an incredibly harsh free-kick against Yaya Toure after Lucio’s clearance appeared to strike the Ivorian’s arm before bouncing through to Bojan.
The way Inter defended in the wake of Busquets’ deplorable play-acting, as well the fact that Bojan missed an absolute sitter minutes earlier, makes it difficult to have too much sympathy for last season’s competition winners. It also spares us from a final that would have almost certain been as one-sided as last year’s.
Pazza Inter!
Tuesday 27 April 2010
Everton 2 -1 Fulham
A last-minute penalty from Mikel Arteta spared Everton from what would have been a wholly disappointing home draw against an under-strength Fulham side, as Roy Hodgson made nine changes from the team that picked up a 0-0 draw away to Hamburg last Thursday.
David Moyes rewarded Yakubu Aiyegbeni for his impressive substitute performance at Blackburn last weekend by starting him ahead of top-scorer Louis Saha. Saha hasn’t found the net since his stunning brace against Chelsea a few months ago, so it seems inevitable that people will soon start claiming that he’s stopped trying since signing a lucrative contract back in January.
Really though, Saha has always spent much of his time in a blue shirt strolling around, waiting for a chance to drop. When they do he is capable of scoring absolute screamers, but when they don’t he looks like one idle bastard.
Speaking of idle bastards, Diniyar Bilyaletdinov was dragged off at half-time after failing to impress the manager with his first-half display. He was no worse than usual – and certainly not as bad as at Ewood Park last week – but after Victor Anichebe’s positive performance I wouldn’t expect to see much of the Russian in the remaining two fixtures.
In fairness to Bilyaletdinov he did hit the post with a cracking first-time volley and it probably doesn’t help that half the ground groans before he even has a chance to lose possession. Whether or not you think the excuses about him playing without a summer break are valid, it’s still worth giving him more time to settle in to Europe’s most unforgiving league. I’m just clinging on to the fact that players as good as Robert Pires and Florent Malouda looked as bad as Bilyaletdinov has in their debut seasons.
Fulham took a first-half lead after a woeful back pass from Leighton Baines put Erik Nevland one on one with Tim Howard, leaving the striker with a relatively easy finish. It seems harsh to criticise Baines too much at the end of a season where he’s been forced to play in pretty much every game and has still managed to avoid any real dips in form, but it was still a terrible error. Hopefully, for his sake, Fabio Capello won’t hold it against him when picking his World Cup squad in a few weeks.
Everton started the second-half brightly and the equaliser soon came when Steven Pienaar and Arteta combined beautifully down the left hand side before the Spaniard floated a cross which was met by substitute Anichebe. The striker’s header deflected off the head of Chris Smalling and was quite harshly given as the Fulham defender’s own goal as it crept past Mark Schwarzer into the Park End net.
From there Everton pressed hard for a winner and came close on a few occasions, with Tim Cahill heading straight at Schwarzer from a corner and substitute Saha putting a header of his own in to the side netting when he really should have scored. Fulham created a few chances of their own on the break, the best of which fell to Stefano Okaka (a big grock they’ve loaned from Roma) after a fantastic pass from the impressive Clint Dempsey sent Nevland clear of the perennially wrong-side Sylvan Distin. Luckily Nevland opted to cut the ball back to Carlton Cole clone Okaka, who fired a poor effort straight at Tim Howard.
Just as we were all ready to start grumbling about drawing at home with Fulham reserves, Everton were given a golden opportunity to take all three points as the referee (I can’t remember who it was, they’re all equally shie) awarded the home side a rather dubious penalty.
Our good fortune began when Saha’s poor first touch knocked the ball out of play, only for the linesman to inexplicably give the throw-in Everton’s way. This led to a bit of head tennis in the Fulham area before one of their defenders appeared to kick Cahill in the chest while attempting to clear the ball. Cahill went down like he’d been shot and a spot-kick was given. Arteta sent Schwarzer the wrong way, securing the points in the 94th minute with pretty much the last kick of the game.
So Everton’s superb post-Christmas form continues, which is certainly something to be happy about, even if it was a bit of an underwhelming performance against a weakened side. It seems very unlikely that we’ll manage to qualify for next season’s Europa League, but I suppose that could end up being a blessing as long as the player exodus hinted by Tim Cahill earlier in the week doesn’t take place
David Moyes rewarded Yakubu Aiyegbeni for his impressive substitute performance at Blackburn last weekend by starting him ahead of top-scorer Louis Saha. Saha hasn’t found the net since his stunning brace against Chelsea a few months ago, so it seems inevitable that people will soon start claiming that he’s stopped trying since signing a lucrative contract back in January.
Really though, Saha has always spent much of his time in a blue shirt strolling around, waiting for a chance to drop. When they do he is capable of scoring absolute screamers, but when they don’t he looks like one idle bastard.
Speaking of idle bastards, Diniyar Bilyaletdinov was dragged off at half-time after failing to impress the manager with his first-half display. He was no worse than usual – and certainly not as bad as at Ewood Park last week – but after Victor Anichebe’s positive performance I wouldn’t expect to see much of the Russian in the remaining two fixtures.
In fairness to Bilyaletdinov he did hit the post with a cracking first-time volley and it probably doesn’t help that half the ground groans before he even has a chance to lose possession. Whether or not you think the excuses about him playing without a summer break are valid, it’s still worth giving him more time to settle in to Europe’s most unforgiving league. I’m just clinging on to the fact that players as good as Robert Pires and Florent Malouda looked as bad as Bilyaletdinov has in their debut seasons.
Fulham took a first-half lead after a woeful back pass from Leighton Baines put Erik Nevland one on one with Tim Howard, leaving the striker with a relatively easy finish. It seems harsh to criticise Baines too much at the end of a season where he’s been forced to play in pretty much every game and has still managed to avoid any real dips in form, but it was still a terrible error. Hopefully, for his sake, Fabio Capello won’t hold it against him when picking his World Cup squad in a few weeks.
Everton started the second-half brightly and the equaliser soon came when Steven Pienaar and Arteta combined beautifully down the left hand side before the Spaniard floated a cross which was met by substitute Anichebe. The striker’s header deflected off the head of Chris Smalling and was quite harshly given as the Fulham defender’s own goal as it crept past Mark Schwarzer into the Park End net.
From there Everton pressed hard for a winner and came close on a few occasions, with Tim Cahill heading straight at Schwarzer from a corner and substitute Saha putting a header of his own in to the side netting when he really should have scored. Fulham created a few chances of their own on the break, the best of which fell to Stefano Okaka (a big grock they’ve loaned from Roma) after a fantastic pass from the impressive Clint Dempsey sent Nevland clear of the perennially wrong-side Sylvan Distin. Luckily Nevland opted to cut the ball back to Carlton Cole clone Okaka, who fired a poor effort straight at Tim Howard.
Just as we were all ready to start grumbling about drawing at home with Fulham reserves, Everton were given a golden opportunity to take all three points as the referee (I can’t remember who it was, they’re all equally shie) awarded the home side a rather dubious penalty.
Our good fortune began when Saha’s poor first touch knocked the ball out of play, only for the linesman to inexplicably give the throw-in Everton’s way. This led to a bit of head tennis in the Fulham area before one of their defenders appeared to kick Cahill in the chest while attempting to clear the ball. Cahill went down like he’d been shot and a spot-kick was given. Arteta sent Schwarzer the wrong way, securing the points in the 94th minute with pretty much the last kick of the game.
So Everton’s superb post-Christmas form continues, which is certainly something to be happy about, even if it was a bit of an underwhelming performance against a weakened side. It seems very unlikely that we’ll manage to qualify for next season’s Europa League, but I suppose that could end up being a blessing as long as the player exodus hinted by Tim Cahill earlier in the week doesn’t take place
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
