Exciting Match Ups in Wednesday's Champion League Ties

There is some exciting soccer to watch this Wednesday, September 29th. The two games I'm most interested in are Rubin Kazan vs. Barcelona and Valencia vs. Manchester United.

Rubin Kazan are champions of the Russian League and a notorious thorn in the side for Barcelona. During last year's league phase (of the Champions League), Rubin beat Barca at home and played to a draw in Russia. The Russians play tough defense, face jet-lagged opponents and are more comfortable in the cold weather of Kazan. It was snowing in Tuesday's photos of practice.

I see Rubin giving Barcelona trouble only to go down 1-2. The blaugrana will get there act together despite starting with Messi on the bench.

Perhaps more exciting, or at least more high scoring should be the match between Valencia and Man U. This should be a fun display of attacking soccer. Valencia currently lead the Spanish league and are playing incredibly well despite selling stars Villa, Silva and Marchena. They're currently undefeated with 4 wins and a draw.

Manchester United is a perennial performer in the Champions League. They've struggled a bit in English League play but are still running second. Look for them to step it up on Wednesday, especially if Rooney is healthy.

Prediction: Valencia 2 - Man U 3

Here are highlights from a preseason match from last year between Valencia and Man U.

Auxerre 0 - Real Madrid 1, Quick Impressions

I have yet to get a chance to watch the all of Tuesday's Auxerre - Madrid game. What I did see, showed an interesting line-up change.

Mourinho, had Xabi Alonso playing as a single pivot or defensive midfielder while Khedira and Lass Diarra were pushed farther forward on the left and right respectively.

That's interesting because Mourinho usually prefers to play with 2 defensive midfielders. So far this year that's been Xabi Alonso and Khedira. Usually, they are accompanied by a media punta, or attacking midfielder in the Schneider mold - this year usually Ozil and occasionally Canales.

Given Khedira and Lass Diarra's defensive bent, I was curious to see how their connection to the front line was. The verdict: not awesome. Madrid was clearly winning the battle in the midfield in the first half but they were not creating a lot of clear scoring opportunities.

I saw that Ozil came in for Benzema in the second half. I hope to see how that worked out later tonight.

Who do you think Mourinho should line up in the midfield?

Sevilla Fires Antonio Alvarez

Sevilla president, José María del Nido has fired Sevilla's coach Antonio Alvarez. The dismissal took place following Sevilla's 0-2 loss to lowly Hercules.

Alvarez took over last year after serving as assistant coach Manolo Jimenez, who was fired for lack of results late last year.

Alvarez guided Sevilla to victory in the Copa del Rey last year (King's Cup) but failed in the early-season Spanish Supercopa, the classification phase of the Champion's League and the early games of the league.

Sevilla has a superb roster, let's hope the newest coach can guide them to greener pastures - and more goals.

Levante 0 - Real Madrid 0: Yawn. Snore. Do You Miss Pellegrini Yet?

After 5 League games, mighty Real Madrid has scored a measly 6 goals. Despite spending over 300 million Euro in transfer fees the last two years, despite having "The Special One" as a coach, the Merengues are providing a very unappealing image this year.

In Madrid's favor, they have created numerous scoring chances this year. Ball possession is much higher than it was last year and San Iker (goalkeeper Iker Casillas) has done so little work that he could sit in goal and eat churros y chocolate if he wanted to.Madrid defense has been stellar. They've allowed 1 goal in their 5 games and haven't looked in serious danger all season.

Real's defensive success can't seem to get rid of the poor taste left by their resultadista play in the league. This is not the Champion's League. Fans don't want a series of 1-0 victories so that the team can move on to the next round of play. The Madridistas want breathless, end-to-end action that showcases the speed and skill of their playmakers - and results in lots of goals.

Those fans that remember last year's team will remember that Madrid had already scored 16 goals in their first 5 games. A goal per game average of 3.2 instead of the sad 1.2 gpg/avg. Last year's Pellegrini team didn't look like they were dominating the majority of games they played but they scored a shocking 102 goals. Everything went in. No matter how much you bring up traditional referee favoritism of Madrid (find Rafa Van der Vaart's volleyball goal and you'll know what I mean), this was a potent offense that was a lot of fun to watch.

I'm beginning to wonder if Mourinho is capable of guiding a team to play successful offense. Thus far this year, Real have taken 105 shots on goal with only 5 going in. They lead the league in that regard with superstar CR7/9 taking the individual honors for futility in front of goal with 41 shots and two goals. Higuain has taken 15 shots with 1 finding the back of the net.

I hope that los Merengues can figure things out quickly because I watch the Spain's La Liga to see exciting, attacking football. If I wanted to watch a scoreless draw that is only broken by a debatable penalty, I'd watch the Italian league. Mourinho is an indisputably hard worker - hopefully his work will pay off soon. Until then: there are still Mou goals needed.

See the poll at the bottom of the page. Until then, here's a clip from last year's Real fun.

Athletic Bilbao 1 - Barcelona 3: A Hard Fought Victory In the Cathedral

Athletic de Bilbao is known to have one of the most impassioned fan bases in the world. The Bilbaino faithful regularly fill their home stadium, known as La Catedral (The Cathedral), to its 39, 670 capacity; so it was no surprise to see a see of red and white, replete with flags, banners and probably their fair share of kalimotxo when Catalan giant F.C. Barcelona came to town. Rain and inclement weather does not stop these fans.

Unlike many teams in the Spanish league, Athletic (under Joaquín Caparrós) does not assume an ultra-defensive position in the face of Barcelona's imposing attack. The Lions of Bilbao contest the game from start to finish and Saturday's match was no exception.

The red-and-whites attempted to win the battle in the midfield, pressuring Barcelona and not giving their team time to pass at will. Barcelona may have had more chances early on in the game, but they did not show their usual dominance.

In the 34th minute Athletic's Amorebieta was shown a red card for a nasty challenge on Iniesta. Despite going down a man, the rojiblanco's kept fighting the good fight and looked good at the beginning of the second half.


Just when the Athletic looked best, Barcelona broke the scoreless draw. A beautifully quick touch by David Villa left Seydou Keita alone in front of goal. The Mali international scored easily. 


Then in 71st minute Xavi looked to have sealed the game with an oddly bouncing shot from outside the area. With a 2-0 lead, and a man up, Barcelona was sure to win right?


There was still plenty of excitement left. David Villa was shown a red card in the 83rd minute, Athletic scored to cut the difference to 1 and then, just when Athletic looked to have the last-minute momentum, Barcelona's Sergio Busquets finished the game off with a pretty strike into the upper-left corner.


So far this season, Barcelona's front line has been dominant - with Messi, Villa and Pedro (or Bojan) each making the score sheet by the end of the game. With Messi out, it was Barca's midfield that made the difference with Keita, Xavi and Busquets animating the game and putting the ball in the back of the net.


This was a true battle between two great sides with even better fan bases. If any conclusion can be drawn from this game, it's that I want to see a game in San Mames before it's abandoned for a newer, bigger stadium in 2013 or 2014. Enjoy the goals.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic: Ballers Over Thinkers

In educated circles of Europe, Soccer players aren't held in very high regard. The stereotype is much the same that American football players enjoy: they're thought of as strong, unintelligent, louts. I have no desire to debate the accuracy of these opinions. However, their is one player who is doing an excellent job of embodying these stereotypes. His name is Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Zlatan was born in Sweden to a Bosnian father and Croatian mother. His football career has taken him to Ajax, Juventus, Inter, Barcelona and now Milan. When on form, he's capable of some of the most amazing, acrobatic goals you've ever seen. Few players are as good at breaking scoreless ties as Ibra - as he lunges past defenders with a long, flexible stride.

Yet lately, he's been making headlines as often for his actions off the field as on. In Barcelona, he seemingly couldn't adjust to coach Josep Guardiola's scheme.

His agent, Mino Raiola, painted European sports journals with one bombastic statement after another, assuring the Guardiola wasn't as perfect as people thought, that coach had problems with himself and that it was more likely Guardiola would leave Barca than Ibra.

As Ibra left Barcelona at a firesale price, he made numerous statements to the media calling Guardiola such hurtful names as "Philosopher." Apparently, thought is not valued in Zlatan's camp. 

Now on Milan, Ibra continues to make headlines. Check out the first video below, where Ibra kicks his teammate. He's yet to release a good explanation for his actions. His teammate, Rodney Strasser, didn't seem happy about it either. If it was a joke, it went over poorly.

On Wednesday, Ibra el Ogro began to endear himself to his new fans. He scored 2 goals to lead Milan to a 2-0 victory over French squad, Auxerre.

Then just in case you were beginning to like this guy, he got into it with Champion's League winning coach and current commentator Arrigo Sacchi. Sacchi said that on Ibra's first goal, he wouldn't have scored if he didn't have size 47 feet. It sounds like he intended it as a compliment, "Hey Ibra, you're really big, perfectly adapted to delantero" or something like that.

Ibra took it as an opportunity to rip into Sacchi, saying that some people talk too much and Sacchi is one of those people. When the lead commentator said Sacchi was trying to give him a compliment, Ibra let him know that he didn't appreciate him saying that Ibra wouldn't fit in at Barcelona. The exchange goes on for a while. It wasn't comfortable television.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is an awesome soccer player - but I wouldn't want him on my team. The fact that he's left every squad he ever played for with an argument leads me to believe that he's incapable of getting along with people - morale poison for any team that signs him. That he's the Terrell Owens of European soccer. But hey, what do I know. Judge for yourself, watching the awesome videos below.

Wednesday's Champion's League Match Predictions

There are some exciting matches coming up today. I think Real Madrid vs. Ajax and Bayern vs. Roma should be two of the most fun.

Real Madrid vs. Ajax prediction: Madrid 3 - Ajax 1. Mourinho's squad hasn't played pretty football yet this year. Most of the time they seem to be lost on the pitch: what do we do, who should we pass to, how do we create offensive football? Despite the questions, they simply have too many players of exceptional quality.

Higuain leads the line with German star Mesut Ozil playing the role of 10 or attacking midfielder. CR7/9 is off to the right and the slashing Di Maria takes the left wing. Khedira and Xabi Alonso will function as a double pivot, bringing the ball out from the defense, giving order to the team and supplying the speedy forwards. And the defense is talented too, with Marcelo making attacking runs on the left, Pepe and Carvalho at center back and Arbeloa filling in nicely on the right. Madrid has too much quality to lose.

Add in the fact that they're playing at home in front of fans eager to see their "Galacticos" win and I have to believe they'll be motivated.

Ajax won't even have their biggest star: Luis Suarez (yes, he of Uruguay-Ghana handball fame) is out.

Ajax will score the early splash-of-cold-water goal only to fall to Madrid's comeback.

Bayern vs. Roma should be a fun match too. Bayern played in last year's Champion's League final and won everything they could win in Germany. They were dominant in the Bundesliga.

Roma had an impressive season, too. After replacing coach Luciano Spalletti with Claudio Ranieri they won an impressive 24 straight league matches. They pushed eventual Italian league leader Inter all the way to the final week and almost pulled off the upset. They were also strong in the Italian Cup, finishing as runners up to Inter yet again. 

I haven't followed these teams to much, so I won't hazard a guess on how they'll play. Just watch (if you can) and enjoy.

Here's some eye candy to keep you busy until game time.

Does Greek Soccer Suck?

Friends and readers I'm not saying that Greek soccer does suck - but the question needs to be asked.

I say "suck" not because I've seen Greek teams lose but because I've rarely seen anyone play catenaccio more than the Greeks.

The national selection that I saw at Euro 2006 and the Hellenic squads that I've seen most recently in the Champion's League seem to love to park the bus in front of goal defensively and pray for a free kick or corner. And, they're praying hard, because they barely seem capable of moving the ball past midfield on a counter. Lame!

Maybe I've got it all wrong. Maybe I've seen too few Greek teams to judge. Please feel free to call me on this. Until then, I'll put Greek football down as having two strikes against it.

Barcelona 5 - Panathinaikos 1: The Best Soccer Club In Europe Gets Serious

On Saturday, Barcelona paid for fielding a "B" lineup against a weak team. In Tuesday's match against Panathinaikos, the Blaugranas got serious and completely wiped a weaker foe off the pitch.

Futbol Club Barcelona fielded its best lineup, Valdes, Alves, Piqué, Puyol, Abidal (as left back, not a center back), Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Pedro and Villa. Sick! Guardiola clearly wanted to start the Champion's League campaign on a good note.

Barcelona's opening salvo was as beautiful as could be. FCB came out, gained possession of the ball and created chances from minute 2. You could tell they were playing loose: Iniesta had a pretty stepover (about minute 4) to avoid a defender and loosing the ball, several minutes later Busquets stunned me with a pretty backheel pass. Barca easily created 5 legitimate opportunities in the first 20 minutes.

Surprisingly, Panathinaikos scored first. In one of the luckiest or most impressive goals I've seen in a while, Cisse quickly passed on a goal kick to a streaking Gouvou. Gouvou easily beat a surprise Valdes and the score was 0-1.

Messi turned the score around before the team of green clovers had a chance to enjoy it. Xavi, 40 yards out, saw Messi make a run on the right and served him a pass so perfect that there was no way he wouldn't beat the goal keeper. His one-touch lifted the ball effortlessly over the goal keepers head to be buried in the back of the net.

10 minutes later it was Villa who found himself alone in front of goal. A corner was headed beautifully across goal and "El Guaje" finished easily at the far post. The route was on.

Messi's goal in the 44th minute was a work of art. A give-and-go from Messi to Xavi to Messi to Pedro and back to Messi, the Argentine made 3 surrounding defenders miss at one point. Awesome!

It wasn't until the 40th minute of the first half that Panathinaikos was even capable of staging a concerted attack. They finally moved 5 players into Barcelona's half of the field in about minute 40 or 41. Their attacked petered out harmlessly.

O Messi devia ser proibido de jogar à bola. Não é um jogador deste mundo.

Deve ser um E.T. tem de ser analisado....

The Messi should be prohibited from playing football. He's not a player from this world.

He must be an E.T. and has to be analysed.

-quote from Zerikardus on YouTube

The second half showed more of the same. Barca had chance after chance and the Green Greeks played Catenaccio with 8 (or 10!) men back at all times.

Shockingly Messi missed a penalty shot. Low, slow and slightly to the right, Tzorvas stopped it easily. Messi made up for it in the 75th minute. A beautiful run toward the left of the goal, he almost put the ball in the back of the net from almost zero angle. Pedro pounced on the loose rebound to make it 4-1.

Messi had served up a football feast and he put the icing on the cake with a beautiful pass to Dani Alves just seconds before the final whistle.

The game was a thing of beauty for any fan of Barca and of football in general. The team from the count's city completely dominated Panathinaikos to the point that the latter looked like a 3rd division team. This after the Greek coach announced that he knew how to beat Barcelona. If I was an opposing coach, I'd keep my mouth shut.

Barcelona 0 - Hercules 2, Barca pays for overlooking the team from Alicante

With the first Champion's League game looming just a few days away, FC Barcelona faced off against newly ascended Hercules.

Barca's coach Josep Guardiola seemed to think that his squad would roll over Hercules much as they did to Racing Santander in their first match. The weekday match against Panathinaikos was clearly more important. To that end, Guardiola fielded a line up without key midfielders Xavi Hernandez and Sergio Busquets - replaced by Seydou Keita and Javier Mascherano. Also missing was right back Dani Alves, with Adriano taking his place in the line up. The injured Carles Puyol was replaced by Eric Abidal in the center of the defense.

The interesting line up didn't seem to cause any issues at the start. Barcelona began as they do so often with overwhelming ball control. But as time went on, Barca was unable to create significant scoring chances. Shockingly, in the 26th minute, it was Hercules that scored first.

Royston Drenthe took a failed Barca corner and raced upfield, only to draw a foul after contact with Mascherano 40 yards from goal. The following free kick led to an ugly scrum in the box where Victor Valdes blocked the first shot but couldn't stop Nelson Valdez's rebound from trickling in.

Barcelona regained possession and looked to be ready to make up the deficit. At least until a sloppy pass from right back Adriano almost gifted Hercules a goal in minute 45 of the first half. But Barcelona had a shocking lead in possession, they'd come back to win, right?

Guardiola corrected his line-up error in the second half, putting in Alves for Adriano, Xavi for Mascherano, and Pedro for Bojan. The changes made, the Blaugrana immediately went onto autopilot, taking possession and pushing towards the opposing goal as customary.

Their efforts were for naught. A Hercules counterattack led to a perfect opportunity for Valdez, who netted the second. This was no sloppy effort, but rather a perfectly executed counter with the finishing punch from the bull-like Paraguayan.

The second goal seemed to knock the wind out of the azulgrana. They pushed possession up to nearly 80% but couldn't make the chances that Hercules was seeming to create every two minutes.

In fact, Hercules almost netted the third on several occassions. Victor Valdes had at least 2 impressive double saves in the last 10 minutes, many more saves over the course of the game. This could have easily been 5 or 6 -0 in favor of Hercules.

Normally, when Barcelona lose, the other team gets a significant dose of luck. Today, the little team from Alicante played like the legendary strongman whose name they bear. Hercules outplayed Barcelona and earned an impressive victory. I doubt Guardiola will overlook them again.

Barcelona's Home Opener: Some Lineup Surprises

Barcelona plays their first home game of the season today. The Nou Camp is packed! Looks like a sellout on t.v.. FCB is playing Hercules, the newly promoted team from Alicante (whose bumble-bee jerseys do not match the beauty of their home town's beach).

Interesting line up for Guardiola: he's starting the recently signed Mascherano as a pivot, defensive midfielder and he's got Adriano in at right back. Both plays are extremely new to the team so it will be interesting to see how they play.

Of course, Villa and Messi are up front and Iniesta is in the midfield. The team is world-class even if Xavi, Alves and Pedro are on the bench.

I assume Pep is resting those three for Barcelona's Champion's League match on Tuesday.

Argentina 4 - Spain 1: Argentina not so friendly to Spain, will they be to coach Sergio Batista?

Argentina vs. Spain in an international friendly played in el Estadio Monumental de Buenos Aires? It was a mouth-watering prospect from its announcement and the game did not disappoint.

Spain is my favorite international team (although I could never root for them against the U.S.) and Argentina, until they hired Maradona, were my second favorite team. So I was excited to see how my favorites would match up post Maradona-mess-up.

I never expected Argentina to dominate Spain the way they did! In the first half it looked like Argentina had recovered every bit of the genius that propelled them to the gold-medal match in the Copa América and were able to truly emulate Futbol Club Barcelona's support of superstar Lionel Messi.

The headlines from Spain and Argentina have repeatedly mentioned how Argentina's new coach, Sergio Batista is looking to allow Messi to play like he plays in Barcelona. According to Batista,

"We have to understand that Messi alone will not win a game, and that he has to play like he does in Barcelona, which is a team. It's possible that at times he might put the team on his shoulders, but he has to play football more than anything. "

"Nosotros tenemos que entender que Messi solo no va a ganar un partido, y que tiene que jugar como lo hace en el Barça, que es un equipo. Es posible que en algún momento se ponga el equipo en el hombro, pero jugando al fútbol, más que nada",

In the first half, Argentina supported Messi perfectly. They took possession from the masters of possession, kept the ball on the ground and set up some beautiful chances. Tevez barely missed the far post in the 8th minute after a beautifully timed run. When Messi took the ball at midfield, made a run on the 4 Spanish defenders, passed back to Carlos Tevez, made a perfectly timed run left of the defenders and lifted the ball easily over Pique and Reina, it looked like he was playing for Barcelona. Argentina had found the magic.

Tevez was crucial in the next two goals as well: serving Higuain a perfectly placed ball for an easy second goal and pouncing on Reina's slip-up for Argentina's 3rd goal in the 34th minute. 

With Argentina closing the field down to the size of a tissue and pressing towards goal every time they had the ball the game looked to be over.

Spain regained their pretty style of play in the second half. The entrance of Xavi, Cazorla, Navas and Pedro helped them maintain possession and Llorente finally put the ball in the back of the net. In truth, Spain was close to scoring many more goals. With a little more luck the Spanish side could have easily brought the game back to 3-2, or even tied the game. 

Unfortunately for the Spanish, El Kun Aguero put the icing on the cake for Argentina and scored a fourth goal after a beautifully placed cross from Heinze put the ball right on his forehead.

So how "Monumental" was this game? It wasn't huge. It's a friendly. It didn't count for any points toward World Cup, Euro Championship or Copa America qualification. What it did do was give the Argentines the pride they were lacking under Maradonna.

Batista's win over Ireland and win here have assured that he'll keep the job as Argentine coach until the end of the year. The coach that guided Argentina to gold in the 2008 Olympics deserves more. Let's hope this friendly gets him more friendly treatment from management at the AFA.