The Champions League Moving To Fox Is The Best Move Ever

I heard the devistating news back in April as I was on my way to the FBI Academy that the bidding for the rights to the Champions League broadcasts here in the US.

I have been watching the Champions League on ESPN2 for the last four years now. It's because of the Champions League that I became a fan of Chelsea.

So to see that the broadcast rights to the premier club competition in the world were going over to Fox Soccer Channel, a station that I don't have, I almost cried.

So imagine my surprise that when I flipped it over to TV Guide Channel to see if Sports Science was coming on, I saw those sacred words, UEFA Champions League.

I have the kettle on, getting ready for my tea and ready to watch Arsenal take on Celtic as they play for their right into the group stages.

So I know have the best of both worlds. I have the EPL on ESPN2 on a weekly basis and now I have Champions League football as well.

Mmmm shrimp

There is nothing I like better than footie and all you can eat shrimp. The Blues won today and took the top of the table after Arsenal lost to Hull, and me and one of the roommates went out to Red Lobster for all you can eat shrimp. Now all I need is to sit around and read the rest of the league recaps from todays games and I can sleep a happy man this evening.

I think this could be the year for Chelsea to come back and really show Europe, and England, that they can survive without Mourinho. Granted, I would like to still have the special one here, but Scolari isn't doing too bad of a job.

Lehmann's Lament

So, now that the young Gunners are effectively out of all competitions for the year, dissension is starting to form among the ranks. This is mainly coming out of the bench hugging goal keeper, Jens Lehmann. Lehmann, who until this year had been Wengers number one, has recently found himself playing second fiddle to the Spanish keeper, Manuel Almunia.

Lehmann is thirty-eight years old compared to Almunia's thirty. Now this is not a major point of contention except that before coming to Arsenal, Almunia did not really see that much playing time with the three clubs he was loaned out to. Wenger is just trying to build a squad to compliment his young Gunners. That is another point to take to heart, the Gunners themselves are a young team. With time and experience the team will get better and there is nothing that a goalkeeper can really do to help the offense, in my opinion.

So Lehmann should give Drogba a call and see what he is doing this summer, maybe they can rub each others back and braid each others hair like the whiny girls they are.

Book Roundup (Yes, footie fans write books and I'll be damned if we don't read as well)

(Provided by Wikipedia and Penguin Books)



So, I am not a huge Arsenal fan but I passed this book in Boarders one day and I decided to give it a go. I think it is unfair to put it in the sports section of the story. Sure, it deals with the authors devotion to the Gunners, but it is more of a life story and therefore deserves a spot in the biography isle.

The book is a wonderful collection of events in the authors life. It covers the time period between 1968 and 1992 and highlights what was a very bleak Arsenal squad in the good ol' days. The author takes each match and compares it to an event in his own life.

Perhaps the most interesting quality of the book is how the author abandons Arsenal over and over again but somehow always makes it back to Highbury. The fan base for an English team is more intense than anything an American football team will ever experience. And to see a fan leave the game on more than one occasion is an amazing thing to read. This couples well with the authors description of his level of ritual before and during a match. Hornsby allows the reader into the mind of someone who abandons what he loves.

A second interesting factor that is brought out in the book is the presentation of the life that the author leads. When you look at the fan who commits such a large portion of their life to a team, one would expect them to have no life, no love, no nothing. Hornsby shows the reader something entirely different. He discusses his school life and proceeds to his college life. Then he shows the black and white world of office work and how football can make a boring day at work interesting. He then moves on to being a teacher. This takes the mask off the average American picture of a European soccer fan.

The third and final point that the author strives to drive home is that all English fans are not hooligans. To look at a work like "Among The Thugs" that stresses that violence is key to the football experience and then look at "Fever Pitch," it is a complete 180.

If you want to see how a true fan lived during twenty plus season of football, read "Fever Pitch." It is extremely well written and is a quick read that any true fan of the game would enjoy.

Memories

(courtesy BBC)


This is a photo of the Croatian international for Arsenal, Eduardo, on the weekend after a challenge gone bad. The bad tackle shattered the strikers left fibula and left an open dislocation of his ankle. Reading this instantly brought back memories of my injury over the summer. I think I suffered almost the same injury as Eduardo and let me tell you, it really is the suck. He has it a bit better though, he won't be doing most of his crutch work in the middle of a Southern Summer like I did. All reports though say that Eduardo will be out for about nine months, which will bring him back around the Christmas window of the 2008/09 season. What impact will this have on the leaders of the Premiership though?

It could have been worse for them, that's for sure. However, from the numbers alone, it could hurt them in European competitions. He trails Fabregas by two goals in that category. All around though, he is the only striker for the Gunners with goals in all competitions. Where he will be missed the most will not be with the north London side but with his national team. Eduardo, a Brazilian native but a Croatian national, has been on fire for his team throughout the qualifiers for Euro 08. In twenty two appearances, he has stretched the back of the net thirteen times. And with an expected return in nine months, he will miss the European Championships this summer.

There is another side to this incident though that should not be downplayed. The role that Martin Taylor played in this. Taylor challenged Eduardo three minutes in and caught the striker with the spikes of his boot on his ankle. Taylor was red carded straight away but it does not stop there. Birmingham's skipper, Alex McLeish, agreed with the decision to card Taylor but has tried to downplay the severity of the action by leaning on the emotional state of his player. Arsene Wenger has called for Taylor to be banned from football, he thinks the attack was intended to take out the Gunner. This, coupled with the personal grief that Taylor must be feeling and the harrasment from fans will compound for some time. It could certainly be worse. Eduardo is expected to make a full recovery and will more than likely go on to play another seven or so years (rough guess). There have been players that have went down and never got up again. That would be a far more traumatic experience for Taylor.

At the end of the day, should Taylor be punished? Sure. Should he be dismissed forever? No. It was a rough challenge but with a strong chance of Eduardo coming back, there is really no need to dismiss Taylor from football forever. Wenger's reaction that everyone is "targeting" Arsenal is rubbish. Birmingham is seventeenth in the league right now with a negative GD. The only team that could catch them right now would be Man U. But that would take two by the Red Devils and at least a loss and a draw by the Gunners. It could happen but it's unlikely. But it is likely that Taylor and Eduardo will continue to play for years to come and that Wenger, like every other Premiership gaffer, will be paranoid when they are at the top.

You Win Some. You Draw Some

That seems to be the story of the start of the round of sixteen for the UEFA Champions League. The best clubs that Europe can offer took to their respective pitches on Tuesday and Wednesday evening and gave their fans something to talk about for the next fortnight.

I dug into the previous posts and found that I called some of the groups right but others I called wonderfully wrong. Valencia did not make it through. And I certainly do not remember picking Olympiacos to make it this round. But if I remember correctly, they are not teaching me to predict the future, here in grad school, they are only teaching me how to make educated guesses off the available information.

The match action itself over the last two nights was descent. I will focus on the two games that I got a chance to watch, since I do not have Deportes. Liverpool and Inter from Anfeild. If you can not play at the San Siro, then by God Anfeild is just as good. The fans were getting their Merseyside pride on for the better part of the match. However, I'm not too sure what they really had to cheer for, apart from the two late goals right before the whistle. Inter went down to ten men at the 30 minute mark off a rather poor call by the ref. Materazzi was cautioned early in the game for a foul against Torres and then he was carded a second time for "fouling" Torres yet again. This would get him sent off and saw Inter go down to ten men.

It is interesting that it would take the Anfeild boys almost an hour to poke a hole through the ten men that were out there. Inter responded well to the hasty send off and really displayed what a minimum amount of effort was needed to hold off a Liverpool squad that has been knocked out of any hope of a domestic cup this season.

The goals in this one came almost at the full time whistle and the first goal by Kuyt, should have been handled better Cesar. The second goal by Stevie G was just poor pick up by the Brazil national teams keeper. All in all, this was a game that Liverpool should have won by a larger amount but the lack of cohesiveness within the squad played a large role in this, I think. Needless to say, it will be an interesting home leg for Milan at the San Siro in three weeks. With a full squad and fresh hit of steam, it is not unlikely that they could pull a three-nil victory and send Liverpool and Rotating Rafa back to England.

Arsenal and AC Milan. I have been excited to see this fixture since the round of sixteen draw was announced. You have a wonderful marriage of Premiership talent mixed with the technical and aged play of AC Milan. Early on, I don't think that AC were expecting Arsenal to come out and play at Premiership speed, but the Gunner surprised the current club champs. On the contrary, I do not think Arene Wengers side expected AC to be able to shut down their offense. Inter did an amazing job of shutting down Eboue, Fabregas, and Adebayor. Even after the start of the second half, when the Gunners seemed to find their boots, the back four of AC turned away attempt after attempt, making it look like child's play.

The chances in this match clearly favored Arsenal. Kalac, in goal for the injured Dida who hurt his back while sitting on a bench at the weekend against Palma, faced an amazing six shots on goal and performed with little strain even though there were concerns over his injured finger. With all these chances and four minutes of stoppage time, one would consider that the Gunners could get at least one goal out of this one and they almost did. However, Adebayor's header would ring off the crossbar and get sent out into touch, effectively ending any hope for a score in this one.

So, who do I favor for the return leg? I would have to put my money on AC. For starters they are playing at home. The San Siro is one of the most intimidating stadia to play at in all of European football. Secondly, Pato. The "Duck" had his first taste of European competition against the Gunners and had he calmed down just a tad, he would have had a goal and gave his team an away advantage. Lastly, it's AC. One of the most successful European club sides ever. It should be renamed the AC Milan League. Yeah, I know that is pushing things but hey, it's my blog. You don't like it, go read 90 Minutes magazine.