European football updates from our perspective(s)

Historic game. Too bad you missed it. Ronaldinho at its best. Simply a genius.

 

A return to normality

Wigan look set to lose their third game in a row after losing to Arsenal and Tottenham and now 2-0 down against Liverpool. Last week saw them fall to fourth with them likely to drop further after a third defeat. They can probably win games later in the season but it does damage their chances of getting a European qualification spot.

The biggest news from the game has to be Crouch scoring twice though.

 

Belgian First Division

KSK Beveren - KRC Genk 0-2

Beveren, with 10 Ivorians on the pitch played technically perfect football but they really have no defensive qualities or no insight, so they don't create chances despite controlling the match at an extreme pace and they easily get defeated by counters. The moment of the match though, was when Thomas Chatelle, Belgian -21 international, scored the 0-2 in the extra time... he'd been injured for 7 months after having his leg broken Larsson-style and made his comeback with a draw (after scoring the 2 goals in the reserves squad match friday)

Genk now moves up to the 4th spot, only 3 points behind the leaders Standard (who had drawed 0-0) and Anderlecht (who won 3-0)

 

Porto and Sporting drew each other this weekend, 1-1.
After day 13, the table is like this:

1. FC Porto 28
2. Nacional 27
3. V. Setúbal 26
4. Sp. Braga 26
5. Sporting 24
6. Benfica 22
7. Boavista 22
8. P. Ferreira 18
9. Académica 17
10. Rio Ave 16
11. Marítimo 15
12. Belenenses 14
13. E. Amadora 13
14. U. Leiria 12
15. Naval 11
16. Gil Vicente 11
17. V. Guimarães 10
18. Penafiel 7

On another note, Luxemburgo got the sack at Madrid this afternoon. The saga continues...

 

Werder Bremen 2 - 0 MSV Duisburg

With Duisburg being one of the candidates for relegation anything but a win at home would have been a severe loss of points. But with almost a whole team missing there were some doubts, still in the end a clear match without much shining. Except for Borowski's 2-0, a nice goal.

We are still 3rd in the league as the HSV has also won their match at home against Cologne. We'll play in Cologne next week and will face the HSV at home the week after in the last match of the first half of the season.

Current standings:

1. Bayern (38 points)
2. HSV (34)
3. Werder (32)
4. Schalke (28)
5. Hertha BSC (25)
.
.
16. Cologne (11)
17. Duisburg (9)
18. Kaiserslautern (9)

Sidenote from this matchday:

- Kaiserslautern's home match against Frankfurt had to be postponed due to construction problems at their World Cup arena

- Hamburg's Laas was hit and injured by a drumstick thrown by a Cologne fan, he suffered a bleeding wound and had to be treated off the pitch for minutes
Later in the match Cologne's Alpay, already infamous for his involvement in the Turkey vs. Switzerland scandal, elbowed a Hamburg player and now faces possible expulsion

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/spain_results/default.stm

67 bookings and 7 sendings off in one weekend.

 

The 'Gers blew a 2 goal lead at home to Falkirk on saturday, ending up with a 2-2 draw. Now 9 competitive games in a row without a win....

I think they'll let McLeish stay as long as they're in the Champions League - I'm not sure progress in the UEFA Cup will be sufficient.

 

Werder Bremen 5 - 1 Panathinaikos

A day most Werder fans probably will never forget. Our match itself was clear but without much spectacle, it was nice to see Valdez score twice and Klose's comeback with a fantastic performance. But the clear climax of the evening was in about the 85th minute when Barca scored in Udine and in the 90th when they sealed it with the 2-0. The rest of their match was broadcasted live in the stadium.
So the last 16 again. After the 2-10 on aggregate last year we don't exactly have much to lose.

Next up is a league match against Cologne, but today nobody cares.

 

1. FC Köln 1 - 4 Werder Bremen

Well played match in which we for the first time managed to actually control play without either conceding a goal or having to start one attack after another. In all fairness though a Cologne team with a number of players missing can be beaten at home. Nice free kick goal by Naldo and Klose scored two, making it 16 in the 16th match. And he has missed a couple of matches...

 

Leiria 1-3 Porto

Good win, especially after the débacle in the muddy battle field of the Somme, I mean Bratislava, in mid week. After a game where a couple of players even fainted after the match, Adriaanse used the exact same team and after a slow start that saw a Leiria goal coming from nowhere, the team completely dominated the match, showing that at least the physical condition is a department where Adriaanse works well. The good news was that Diego looked as if rising in form, and was much more like the Diego of Brazil and some games of last season. The bad news is that Lucho Gonzalez confirms that he isn't that well. Not surprisingly imo: with the argentinian competitions, the Libertadores, the argentinian NT, and then coming to Porto with no rest at all and being used in every matches... The man needs a rest!

The standings on the top of the table after Matchday 14 are:

Porto-31
Nacional-30
Setúbal-26
Braga-26
Benfica-25
Sporting-24
Boavista-22

Next week Benfica plays Nacional, while Porto plays bottom of the table Penafiel (with just 7 points so far), so it's a good oportunity for us to get some more distance on one of the rivals in pursuit.

 

Inter 3 - 2 AC Milan

Best way to win a derby: Goal by our most important player, Adriano (covered by Vieri), @ the 91' minute. The whole stadium went down. Delirium is the correct word to express my emotions. Even if I wasn't there.. I was screming like I never have. I'm surprised none of my neighboors called to complaint. Amazing, simply AMAZING.

The referee, Messina, invented a penalty kick for each side. First he invented that Nesta had interfered with the ball in the area after Martins had clearly pushed him. The he invented a penalty kick for Milan where Stankovic touched the bal involuntarily during a free kick by Pirlo.

Oba Martins then did a simple tap in adter one of Adriano's bomb free kicks. Stam scored his second goal with AC Milan and second goal against Inter.

I thought it was prettu much over, but then Adriano proved me wrong .

Posession: Inter 51% - 49% AC Milan.

Like the past recent derbies, this was also very balanced. All in all a very enjoyale match from a neutral point of view and a FANTASTIC match for us Interisti.

This ended a 3 year drought of Inter victories over AC Milan.. but then again.. when AC beat us in '99 (the game where ROanldo was sent off unfairly) Milan hadn't beaten us in 6 years..

Vids originally posted by the TuttoInter.com admin in an inter forum.

 

Dutchies ... if you want to laugh with Belgians again, here you can have another go.
This 10 sec Quicktime video shows a freekick from Lierse, the worst team in the Belgian first division at the moment. If you thought RBC was bad, look at this one.

http://users.skynet.be/fa330631/blijventrainen.mov (in Dutch, but you don't need to listen, just watch)

 

Congrats Inter4. A great result. It is always good to score a last minute winner in a derby.

BTW the goals reminded me the goal thread which was active a few years ago. Keep them coming.

 

The comment actually DOES add something to it!

 

Chelsea eye Genk prodigy
http://home.skysports.com/list.asp?hlid=344820&CPID=112&clid=&lid=2&title=Chelsea+eye+Genk+prodigy

Damned. He's only a first squad player since 4 months now, only 17 years old and initially just a replacement for an injured player, now both Chelsea and Ajax are already throwing cash at him ... Defour's value would already be 5 million euro, which is a bit exhuberant for a player that only played about 12 matches in the first team.
Give it a rest

He was decisive in last week's 2-2 draw against Club Brugge though, where Genk controlled the whole match thanks to Defour and Engelaar, and the two fast wingers Beslija and Soetaers. It shouldn't been 2-0 though, but Sunday Oliseh managed to screw up again.

 

And let another great talent rot away in the Blegium competition ?

Orlando?

Tom?

Former Ajax Oliseh?

Amazing to see where these players end up .

 

Rot away ... no, he can leave when he's 20 years old and when he's worth 15 million or something. Not now. The biggest Belgian transfer in history was only worth 9 million euro (Koller from Anderlecht to Dortmund), while the Dutchies have 9 million euro transfers from Roda to PSV ...
It's a bit frustrating to see players in this league leave to cheap

And yes, Orlando Engelaar, Tom Soetaers and former Ajax Sunday Oliseh. They're great players when they're in form, except Oliseh, we should never have bought him, worst player of the team.

 

FC BASEL:
It's getting boring again here in Switzerland, as we beat number 3/4 (the young boys) on their field 6-1 and now are in a lead of 8 points to number 2 (who we will receive this sunday for Swiss cup 1/8-finals). This leads logically to a focus on international games, meaning tonight's showdown at the Olimpico against the AS Roma. We need at minimum one point or a victory of Strasbourg against Red Star Belgrade to get through. The best situation would be if Strasbourg does not win, but we beat the AS Roma, which should be doable looking at their situation right now, and they struggle heavily to get at least 10'000 people to watch (the Olimpico has places for about 80'000 people!).
An interesting trivia here would be that this is the 100th international match for the FCB, counting forward from 1950 to 1980 and 1999 upwards...

ON another case, here's an interesting video I found, showing fouls, quite "funny":

http://www.youtube.com/watch.php?v=4aF8Gq4-iiw

mitsho

 

Standard - Anderlecht 2-0 (postponed may of day 15, snow)
Earlier Club Brugge and Genk won their match.

Halfway through, this is the top 6 in Belgium
1. Standard 35
2. Anderlecht 35
3. Club Brugge 32
4. Westerlo 31
5. Genk 30
6. Zulte Waregem 30

It's gonna be a nice 2nd round here, it's so close

 

I hope Standard are champions since they have Onyewu.

On another note, my two favorite E. European teams (Red Star and CSKA Moscow) were eliminated from the UEFA Cup today.