Fred set to debut for D.C. United

We reported a couple of weeks ago that Fred, of Melbourne Victory... well formerly of Melb. Victory has now signed on with DC United of the MLS, just in time to face CD Guadalajara in the semifinals of the CONCACAF Champions' Cup. Details of the move have been kept private and pretty low key as I haven’t really seen news of this transfer on any other site besides DC’s website.
Read the article here.

This is somewhat concerning for Australia and should be ringing alarm bells. Basically, Fred was the import of the year and arguably the best player of the A-league 2006-07 seasons. The fact that he was plucked straight out of Melbourne at the end of his contract goes to show that developing the league may take a lot longer than expected. Why? Because players that genuinely offer class, excitement and entertainment to the league will most likely be snapped up in the off season. Two reasons why I think this happens:
1. the end of the A-League coincides perfectly with the mid season break or start of all the other seasons around the world, so the players are match fit and ready to go.
2. the clubs here are limited by salary caps and can’t complete with the carrots being dangled in front of the players.

It's a shame that Fred has left the club and won't be around to guide Melbourne through their Asian Champions League matches next year. Anyway, all the best to Fred, without a doubt he'll have a great time over in the USA.

Hard fought win for England.

It took England 54 minutes to score a goal against minnows Andorra in their Group E qualifying match yesterday.
The team was jeered off the park at half time after an uninspiring 45min and then Gerrard gave the crowd something to cheer about. He volleyed the ball into the net from a pass by Rooney on the edge of the box. England then added a second goal to calm the nerves of the visiting side. Gerrard the scorer once more, flicked the ball around Genís García before Jermain Defoe provided a deft touch back into the midfielder's path and he did the rest with style, stroking the ball right-footed past home goalkeeper, Koldo Alvarez. The third was conciliation as Andorra’s keeper spilled Defoe’s shot into the path of debutant David Nugent (Preston North End FC).

Under normal circumstances, a 3-0 win over any team would be welcomed by the fans. Not the English though. There were call’s to bring back Beckham and once again McClaren has come under scrutiny because of England’s lack-luster performance. I think its time for McClaren to go and the FA should be looking to bring in a foreign coach with a sense of playing football... not bosh-ball!

Heads set to role in England.

Steve McClaren has come out of the game against Israel saying that changes will be made to the team because it's not performing. England has now gone five games without a win in which they've only scored one goal.
Just a hunch, but could it be their style of play, or lack there of!?
They're up against Andorra on Thursday(AEST) and its a game they're expected to win... by a big margin for that matter. Last time the two teams met, England won 5-0, so failure to get a result there will probably mean that Steve's head will roll.
Players like Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard should all be expected to score... and by all means i can't believe they haven't bagged more. They're all performing relatively well for their respective clubs, why shouldn't their form be the same for these Qualifying matches?
I reckon that its the style of play that McClaren is enforcing on the team. It seems as though they are dominating possession all around the park, but then they're breaking down as they get to the forward line. They keep pumping balls from deep in the midfield to the strikers and quite frankly, the results speak for themselves.
Maybe its time for a new coach before it gets too late, cause when they come up against the likes of Russia (coached by Gus Hiddink) and Croatia (a strong ball playing team) again, they won't want to be dropping points.

Greek's copin' it Greek style!

After a blistering start, in which Kyrgiakos scored on the 5 min mark, Greece were subdued by a hard working Turkish outfit who came to Athens for three points. And that's exactly what they did! Both teams came into this match without having dropped a point in their first 3 matches, so the stage was set up to deliver a great show.
The Turks humiliated the Greeks in front of their own boisterous fans and made the reigning European Champs look very ordinary. It didn't help that Greece's keeper Nikopolidis, gifted the Turk's 2 goals. His positioning was completely off and the two long range strikes should have easily been saved.
In other temrs, the Greeks were also lucky that Norway slipped up at home to Bosnia, because that still leaves them 3 points ahead of 3rd spot.
On Thursday morning (AEST time) they get a chance to redeem themselves away at Malta, although they've never beaten Malta in Malta... so it should be a interesting never the less.

Paul Robinson Goal From 80 yards

I thought this was fascinating! Need i say more:

Fred to DC United!?

I heard a rumour earlier today, that the flamboyant Brazillian attacking mid-fielder for Melbourne Victory, was bought by DC United (USA). I don't know much more about this as i researched it on various sites and found nothing. Does anyone know anything more about this!? I'd be very interested in knowing the finer details, seeing as he was Melbourne's and possibly the A-League's best player in the 2006-07 season.

Heres one of his many goals this season for Melbourne.

Lionel Messi Saves Barca in Extra Time

Lionel Messi is doing for Barca what Cristiano Ronaldo is doing for Man Utd, can you imagine the prospect of the duo playing together for Barca if Ronaldo rejects Utd’s contract offer and heads over to Spain?

Anyway, it was every bit ‘el-classico’ as Barcelona came back three times to secure a point against Real Madrid with Ruud Van Nistelrooy almost scoring a hattrick himself.

Asian Champions League - Results

Adelaide Utd 0 - 1 Shandong Luneng
Shanghai Shenhua 1 - Sydney FC 2

As expected, Adelaide Utd failed to get a result at home against the Chinese champions. Need I say more!

Sydney FC on the other hand got their campaign off to a great start with a quick goal by Stephen Corica and an absolute cracker by Ufuk Talay 10 minutes later. This gave Sydney the confidence to pressure and frustrate the Chinese team in the first half. In the second half, Shanghai Shenhua showed some character and lifted the tempo of their game and put the pressure back on Sydney. They were able to pull a goal back through substitute Xie Hui in the 78th minute, but it wasn't enough to give them the 3 points.

I can smell a rat!

Benito Carbone, the 35-year-old Italian, who enjoyed spells in England with Sheffield Wednesday, Bradford City, Aston Villa, Derby and Middlesbrough, joined Sydney on a four-game contract last year, is considering a move to A-League club Adelaide United. He claims that he enjoyed his limited time in Adelaide last year and he would like to negotiate something more concrete with the club.

Don't get me wrong, I love hearing stories like this, when former stars want to join a team on the other side of the world, to cash in on their dying success; so maybe it's the cynic in me saying this. Could it be that Benito wants to cash in on some of Adelaide's Asian Champions League success? Could it be that he wants to explore the Asian market?
PTP Insiders have reported that large boxes with the words 'made in china' were delivered to the sweat-shop like production facility he's running out of Italy... and now the only thing missing from the 'sweat-shop' is the word Chinese! Wink, wink!

Champions League - Results

Lyon 0 - 2 AS Roma
Liverpool 0 - 1 Barcelona
Chelsea 2 - 1 FC Porto
Valencia 0 - 0 Inter Milan

AC MIlan 1 - 0 Celtic
Arsenal 1 - 1 PSV
Manchester United 1 - 0 Lille
Bayern Munich 2 - 1 Real Madrid

So there were a few upsets in the second leg of this first elimination round. Probably the most dissapointing, was the elimination of last years finalist and semi-finalists, Barcelona and Arsenal. This now means that Arsenal, who were up for 3 pieces of silverware, will go empty handed and have to wait till next year to raise a trophey of any sort.
Barca's coach and management are at logger-heads and i don't see Rijkaard sticking around too much longer, even though club president Joan Laporta has insisted that Rijkaards position is safe. Barca's fans demand to watch quality football and have a lot of pulling power, which would suggest that if they don't win La Liga this year, it'll be adios amigo to Rijkaard.
My prediction on his replacement; Jose Mourinho. Watch this space!

Teams that were pretty much expected the waltz through to the next round were:
Manchester Utd, although they waited a while in securing their spot, thanks to a text book Henrik Larsson header.

AC Milan, who need extra time and a spot of brilliance by Kaka to get them through, were lucky not have given away two penalties and were also unlucky when Kaka drilled a shot into the crossbar late in the match, which would have pervented the need for extra time.

Chelsea, even though they were up against strong opposition, they were caught sleeping early in the first half. Conceeding the goal woke them up and kick started their midfield to pull 2 goals back.

Asian Champions League

So the Champions and the Minor Premiers of last years A-League face a challenging time ahead as they represent Australia in the Asian Champions League, tonight.
Sydney FC is away to Shanghai Shenhua (of China) and Adelaide Utd are at home against Shandong Luneng (also of China). Both Australian teams have recently had restructures in their coaching staff and just to make things a little bit harder, only have a salary cap of $1.5 million compared to the 'no-cap' unlimited funding of their Asian counter-parts. Also, I heard last night that Shandong Luneng have 6-7 Chinese national team players on their roster, so its quite fair to say, and these could be famous last words, but i don't think Adelaide have the slightest chance in hell of beating this Chinese team. Sydney on the other hand, under the guidence of new coach Branco Culina will probably play a patient game of defensive/counter attacking football and may sneak some sort of result.

My predictions:
Adelaide Utd 0 - 3 Shandong Luneng
Shanghai Shenhua 1 - Sydney FC 1

Champions League - Predictions

Lyon 2 - 1 AS Roma
Liverpool 2 - 2 Barcelona
Chelsea 1 - 0 FC Porto
Valencia 2 - 1 Inter Milan

AC MIlan 3 - 1 Celtic
Arsenal 2 - 0 PSV
Manchester United 2 - 0 Lille
Bayern Munich 1 - 1 Real Madrid

Ozzies over-there!

Tim Cahill
After eight weeks of recovering from a knee injury, Timmy has unfortunately broken the fifth metatarsal in his foot.
Not only will he miss the rest of the Premier League season, but he is now in doubt for the up coming Asian Cup, in which Australia look like they're going to have another depleted roster. There are definately some interesting times ahead as clubs are coming to the end of thier seasons. We can only hope that the players picked for the squad are fully fit and put on a good show.

Speaking of shows, this was the Grandest of them all:



Lucas Neil
I knew it was a dumb-ass move, giving up Merseyside and Liverpool for London and Westham... I guess it was just a matter of time before it was confirmed. Not only are Liverpool in third place, a point above Arsenal, and have almost secured a spot in next seasons Champions League, but Westham are fighting in the leagues trenches holding back the likes of Birmingham, Debry County and the Vending Machines that are the Coca Cola Championship. On top of all that, Blackburn have recently had a late resurgence in form and have climbed back up to 10th on the ladder. Sure, they're not in contention for Europe, but it beats sitting at the foot of the table facing an uphill climb.
Lucas wanted to play first team football and that was his reason for going to Westham, cause the $125Gorilla's in his weekly pay had nothing to do with it. Now it looks like Westham will drop, Liverpool will make the Champions League cut-off and he'll be playing for a new team next year. I guess i should give him some credit; He has a clause in his contract that allows him to walk if the team is relegated.

Sicily, we have a problem!

After little over a week of no comments, updates or posts, I’ve been inundated with emails asking what’s going on.
Well, fan violence in Italy caused the suspension of this blog, in Australia, damn hooligans! Balloons were popped, confetti was thrown and little kids were crying…for God’s sake, somebody think of the children! In the end, three men, caught with 2kg’s of confetti in their pockets were apprehended and charged for possession of an inappropriate substances. For the next time they were told to bring flairs!
Note: no fans were charged, no children cried and absolutely no balloons were popped… oh and by fan violence I mean my computer shit itself and I’ve been out of action. :)
Its good to be back in action!!!