The Footie Thread

Congratulations, Caissa, the Huns are deserved Scottish champs. I was in Glasgow today and a lot of shirtless Scottish blokes were very, very happy that their drought was finally over. And probably a domestic double with the SFA Cup in their sights.

Sadly, Newcastle United were relegated today, along with Middlesborough (which recently topped the list of worst towns in Britain, provoking this rant by SkySports pundit and new Countdown presenter Jeff Stelling), both of whom are not sure things to bounce back next season, particularly Gareth Southgate's 'borough.

My eyes, however, are all on this Wednesday's Champion's League final. Come on you Reds.

al-Q, I'm sorry about Nantes's relegation. That is gutting stuff. The Hibernian FC have parted ways with their coach, rumoured to have left because his player budget would be reduced yet again next year. I suppose they want to follow Inverness Caley Thistle into the second division next year.

Oh, and Rangers beat Falkirk 1-0 to win the Scottish Cup and the domestic double.

There are some lists for goal of the year popping up, and here's a pretty good one from the Guardian. The winner, hands down, has got to be young Frenchman Yoann Gourcuff outrageous 'ooh-la-la'-inducing stunner. Other hits from that list are Grafite's goal for Bundesliga winners Wolfsburgh and Simon Cox's neat juggle and volley for Swindon Town in England's Division One. There's also a beaut for Al-Q, a 40-yard smash by FC Nantes's Remi Mareval.

And I'd rather not talk about the Champions League final, in which Man utd played like lions for ten minutes, before forgetting that Samuel Eto'o is actually really, really good at football.

Oh. And Cristiano Ronaldo was finally sold to Franco's Real Madrid for a billion pounds or something.

The season is back up and running. Hibs beat St. Mirren yesterday to put them in with the Old Firm at the top of the table. Chelsea and Arsenal won yesterday and Man U this morning. Liverpool are currently 2-1 down against Spurs. Man City, who also won yesterday, and spent gazillions during the transfer window thanks to new backing from a sickly rich Dubai consortium, have a chance at finishing in the top 4 this year. Everton, Villa and Tottenham Hotspur could put in a challenge too.

In La Liga, Real Madrid are back from the joke they were last season to buying themselves a new team. Ronaldo, Kaka, Karim Benzema, with Frank Ribery in their sights as well. Barca, meanwhile, traded the amazing Samuel Eto'o for the sometimes brilliant, frequently disappointing Swede Zlatan Ibrahimovich. It could be a race this year.

We'll of course all be cheering for Nantes to earn promotion back up into Ligue 1.

al-Qa'bong wrote:

Another thing I liked was how the scoreboard had only the score upon it.  Not only did it not show the time, it did not exhort the fans to "Make some noise," which is something I really hate about going to, say, Saskatoon Blades games.

No kidding. Unlike the 'how-many-doubles-with-runners-in-scoring-position' obsession of baseball, in football there is one stat: goals scored, the only one that matters. Since Sky Sports took over in Britain there has been a slow-growing movement to change that, with odd information occasionally flashing onto the screen like distance covered, and number of touches. Still, the only way to glean a story from the beautiful game is to watch it unfold.

As for the 'make some noise' irritation, by far the worst one I've ever seen is at the Bell Centre in Montreal, in RGB splendor. To the tune of the Ramones' "Blitzkreig Bop," an enthusiastic 'Hey Ho, Lait's Go' on behalf of Big Dairy. That is horrible.

It's hard to find decent clips of supporters, 'cause they're usually made on cell phones and the like, but here's a half-decent one of la hymne Nantais during a cup tie last season.

This clip is a bit closer to my heart, when the Hibs won the league cup in 2007, and the supporters broke into a rousing rendition of the club anthem, 'Sunshine on Leith'. It'll be awhile, I reckon, before we see another cup final. Especially since we just sold my favourite player, Steven Fletcher, to English Premier League fodder Burnley. Well, good luck son.

Oh dear, and Liverpool have crashed out of the Champion's league. They can recoup some (financial, not reputation) losses in the Europa League, but the cost is they will find it extremely difficult in the domestic league with the added fixtures to compete for a top-four spot and next year's CL qualification. With a resurgent Arsenal, Tottenham, Man City and Aston Villa (kind of), Liverpool is no longer a shoe-in.

Chelsea look unstoppable. Are they? They want to sign Frank Ribéry for 65-million pounds plus Malouda. If they get him--with Ancelotti at the helm (and rumours of Guus Hiddink joining them as an assistant!)--look out.

I wasn't needling, Caissa (ok, maybe a little bit). I actually feel bad for Liverpool--on paper, they have a really good side: Gerrard, Pepe Reina (Spain's #2), Mascherano, and the best striker in the world, Torres. But Torres, and Gerrard to some extent, have proven fragile--they can't seem to go through a season without a month (or two) on the sidelines. And without Torres, they can't compete at the top level (despite beating Man Utd twice over the past year without either Gerrard or Torres!) The League is a grind, and Liverpool can't find a way to wear down Stoke City, Fulham, Wigan, etc. for 1-0 or 2-1 wins, and it costs them. They had Robbie Keane last year for a record signing, but because he wasn't scoring hatfuls of goals (well, to be fair, doing much of anything) they let him go--despite the fact that he would come in pretty handy right now (or rather, a couple of weeks ago...) I think Liverpool are a winger and a striker away from a League title--they tried to get the "other" Spainish striker, David Villa (Golden boot at last year's Euro Cup), but the owners wouldn't cough up the cash, and they bought Aquilani on the cheap, because he was injured, who could do well now that he's healthy, but  it might already be too late for Liverpool. Dirk Kuyt (god bless him), Ryan Babel, Lucas, Agger, etc. They're just not good enough, especially when Gerrard and Torres aren't there to boss the game.

Man U, though, they've got problems of their own, and could easily end up winning nothing this season if they don't start scoring some goals. Ben Foster is turning out to be a flop in goal, and Wayne Rooney can't pick up the goalscoring slack of Cristiano Ronaldo. No one can take free kicks anymore! I was hoping we could pick up Frank Ribéry (we tried last summer). And if Calgary's Owen Hargreaves could finally get healthy, we might be able to seal up those holes in the back (Rio Ferdinand has been suspect lately. I think he's on his way out.)

Thierry Henry Faces World Cup Ban

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Thierry Henry could miss the start of next year's World Cup after it was confirmed today that Fifa's disciplinary committee is to investigate his now infamous handball against the Republic of Ireland.

The Guardian's top six footballers of the decade: Messi, C. Ronaldo, Ronaldhino, Iker Casillas, Claude Makélélé and, um, Frank Lampard.

Lampard's inclusion is ludicrous, of course, but an English paper had to put an English player in the list, even one who broke the World Cup record for shots (without a goal) in 2006, coining a new eponymous verb in the process, as in: "He Lampards it over the bar." For an English player, I'd be tempted to pick Steven Gerrard or Wayne Rooney, but I'd prefer to leave them out altogether. Just not good enough.

The shocker, of course, is no Zinedine Zidane. Even though he played his last game in the 2006 World Cup Final, he kicked off the decade with a Euro Cup win for France and never looked back until he buried his foreskull in the chest of Marco Materazzi. And, speaking of the French, whither Thierry "le main" Henry?

I like Makelele's inclusion, and Iker Casillas is the only one of the six who was a world-beater for the whole decade (Messi is only 22 and Ronaldo was horrible until the fall of 2006), but where are the centrebacks? Paolo Maldini was in the twilight of his career throughout the noughties, but he only retired last year and still won two European cups in the decade (but, sadly, retired from international competition in 2002, missing Italy's World Cup win!). Other candidates would be Pavel Nedved and Fabio Cannavaro.

A lot of the comments want to see Kaka, but you know, I never really rated him as much as other teams (i.e. Manchester City) seemed to.

And in the always a bridesmaid dept., Michael Ballack deserves an honorary mention for coming runner-up in both the Champions League (with Bayern Munich) and World Cup (with Germany) in 2002 and losing again in the final of the 2008 Champions League (with Chelsea) and European Cup. Ouch.

Of the bunch, although you'd need an atomic crowbar to pry the ball of Lionel Messi, for my money Cristiano Ronaldo is the complete attacker. He can beat you every way possible with flair, strength and panache (and pouting, natch.)

Well, the football thread has been on hiatus, but football hasn't. Or, to be more to the point, Lionel Messi hasn't:

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It's not big and it's not clever but sometimes swearing is the only thing that will do. Sometimes you've used up every other word and nothing else quite hits the spot. You've rummaged round the back of the sofa, rifled through the drawers, turned out your pockets and still come up empty. Pep Guardiola insisted that he was clean out of adjectives and frankly so was everyone else. Spain was suffering a severe shortage of superlatives last night. The Catalan newspaper Sport invited readers to send in headlines for what they had just witnessed and there were plenty of super, sensational and sublimes, some magic, magnificent and marvellouses, wows and wonderfuls, plus deities by the dozen, and even a Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, but still there was no way to really do it justice. No polite way anyway. Just wide eyes, a wider mouth and a simple: holy shit!

The diminuitive winger is absolutely unstoppable at the moment. Real Zaragoza coach put it this way: "We could have beaten Barcelona--but we could never have beaten Leo Messi."

Check out how he single-handedly dismantled first VfB Stuttgart in the Champions League (with two goals and a beautiful assist), and then, this weekend, Zaragoza with an incredible hattrick and penalty (which he graciously gave to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who couldn't score on an empty pitch).

It's a shame the Argentina national team are so dire right now-but we could still see Messi light it up in South Africa this summer.

It's best not to bring up 'Pool much in conversation at all these days, at least not around halcyons...

But buck up! Cup win for the Gerries over the weekend. Of course, being the thugs and louts they are, they were reduced to nine men, but somehow the forces of darkness found a way to win. And ten points above Celtic in the league! There was a while there when I thought Hibs could have a shot at second--but that's far behind us now, as we lost to our derby rivals the Jam Tarts.

Whoa: French Sex Scandal deepens as two more players named

Yo lo siento, Caissa, pero no es possible.