It's been a slow week in Europe, with only the snow to blame. From snowed in airports, highways and train tracks to snowed out football pitches, life has almost come to a standstill. Especially for us football fans, an entire weekend with over ten games cancelled is particularly rare. Perhaps it's time that leagues across Europe mimic the Champions League and go on a winter break, instead of postponing games. The world is truly a global village, when snow over 4000 miles away affects my life sitting in India (delayed flights, friends and Christmas care packages apart), almost an entire weekend of matches being postponed makes most fans rather cranky. Perhaps we can all thank global warming and support Al Gore and his 'inconvenient truth'.
Chelsea and Man U were supposed to play each other last weekend, and all plans for Super Sunday football were postponed because of the weather. Most football fans haven't gone this long without football, since last summer when there was no European Championship or World Cup to keep us occupied. I'm jonesing for a football game, so much so that even a Tottenham game would make me happy. Santa, all we want for Christmas is some football and no fresh snow! And a great result on Monday when Arsenal takes on Chelsea.
 | Balotelli's pretty confident for a 20 year old who transferred to Man City from Inter Milan for £24 million pounds and is yet to score more than a brace of goals in the EPL.  |
A young footballer shooting his mouth off is never unusual in football circles, however, when the football player in question is a Golden Boy award winner and has yet to prove his worth in the English Premier League. Welcome to the world of Mario Balotelli. While accepting his award for being the best young talent in the sport, he made sure everyone knew what he thought of his competition. He didn't know who they were, but still offered to show them his award. Neither was he worried about the greats of the game, Wayne Rooney or Cesc Fabregas. The only player he said he paled in comparison to was Lionel Messi. Pretty confident for a 20 year old who transferred to Manchester City from Inter Milan for £24 million pounds and is yet to score more than a brace of goals in the Premier League. As a new arrival in the Premier League, he has shown glimpses of brilliance but failed to make any significant impact on his team. Big budget Manchester City spent a fairly obscene budget on acquiring new talent this summer; however, Roberto Mancini and his team are yet to emerge as a real threat at the top of the Premier League.
The other trend that seems to be picking up pace (unlike the state of English football this week) is players threatening to leave clubs to help themselves land bigger and better contracts, either with their existing clubs or with a new club. A tactic that worked for Rooney, if you remember his public announcement of wanting to leave Manchester United, only to take a complete u-turn and eventually renew his contract with the club. Perhaps he should have patented it, because in the past week, his Manchester City rival Carlos Tevez claimed he wanted to return to his family in South America and leave cold England behind. After nine days of intense speculation and transfer rumours, his club announced that Tevez's contract remained unchanged and he still had over three years with the side. Only till the next transfer window, of course. Fans the world over are unimpressed with these tactics, that test their loyalty to their team and players, and Roberto Mancini was right in expecting an apology from Tevez to their fans.
The only real highlight over the past week, especially for us desperate for some football, was the Real Madrid versus Levante result in the Copa Del Rey. Eight goals separated the two teams, with hatricks from Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema and goals from Mesut Ozil and Pedro Leon. The match only momentarily helped my addiction, now I'm just counting down the days till Monday. Ronaldo's been a good boy this year, twenty-five goals from twenty-four matches. I guess he can expect a very big present this Christmas.
Nice share ! Someone who doesn't follow the game can actually start ;)
ReplyDeleteI just discovered this blog. And this is awesome ! Go Arsenal !
ReplyDeleteP.S. - Where'd you disappear ?