If You Can't Beat Them, Beat Them Up
There's a scene in "Shaolin Soccer" (which, by the way parting with general opinion I hated) where an opposing manager (of a corrupt team) has a wrench fall out of his shorts. He plays it off that he's a mechanic and it would be perfectly normal for this to happen but he swears his team will play clean.
I think that manager has about as much credibility as Mark Hughes of Blackburn when he promises that there will be reprocussions against Rovers players who play dirty.
Already fined by the league for last years shenanigans, the Northwest England Penitentiary All-Stars could be in trouble again for events that happened in their match against Tottenham yesterday.
Thusfar in the league through three games Blackburn has three goals to contrast with five yellow cards and two red cards (one of which was a double yellow, so statimatic that one however you choose) - three of which have gone to Robbie Savage.
But the strategy seems to work. I was talking to my friend Todd (the other big EPL fan in my office) today who's a Spurs fan and we got to talking about Tottenham's one shot on goal. He said, "they benches everyone important so of course they only got one shot." I said, "if you have the chance to get three points from Blackburn, which most teams will get, why wouldn't you take it?" His logic was flawless responding, "they've got Chelsea on the weekend and they want their side healthy - and Blackburn injures people."
The more I thought about it, the more I realized how true the words were. Other teams don't fear Blackburn's offensive fire power, they fear Blackburn's elbows and spikes (and even teeth). If it means that other teams will bench some of their stars and Blackburn can steal points then Hughes isn't going to do anything.
The only thing that will prevent Blackburn from being Blackburn is to take away points. Unless they get fined 500,000 pounds it doesn't mean more than one place's worth of money in the Premiership.
So Hughes can tell the media, "I don't go out and tell my players to get thrown out of games and get carded, that would be crazy," all he wants. But, it doesn't mean that he tells them straight away not to do it either.
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UEFA hates Real Madrid. Sure Liverpool fans are whining about drawing Chelsea in the group stage of the Champions League but Real Madrid has a much harder group as a whole.
The second fiddles to their one seed are Lyon - four time defending French champions Olympique Lyon. Knockout round survivors Lyon (though they eventually, thankfully, fell to PSV in the round of eight if memory serves). And the third seed are Olympiakos and what a pain in the posterior Greek sides can be. And that's just spelling their names. :) They even drew one of the strongest fourth seeds in Rosenborg.
The second toughest group stage seems to belong to AC Milan. They draw PSV (though this year's side is a shadow of its former self), dangerous German contender Schalke 04, and Turkish champion Fenerbache (and a trip to visit them is actually dangerous in a different way than footcer).
Dates for the Champions League group stage matches are preliminary but the first games out of the six are scheduled to begin on September 12 and 13.
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Much closer to home, congratulations Minnesota Thunder! The USL-1 side defeated the holders Kansas City in their quarterfinal match of the U.S. Open Cup. du nord has a great writeup of the match and an incident that happened afterwards (among the 5,000 fans that showed up). Just another reason why Kansas City needs to be the team moved and not San Jose.
The loss by the Wizards (and D.C. United losing to FC Dallas) means that the Chicago Fire are the only ones left with a chance at the domestic treble. Not that they'll do it, but I'm just sayin'. ;)
I think that manager has about as much credibility as Mark Hughes of Blackburn when he promises that there will be reprocussions against Rovers players who play dirty.
Already fined by the league for last years shenanigans, the Northwest England Penitentiary All-Stars could be in trouble again for events that happened in their match against Tottenham yesterday.
Thusfar in the league through three games Blackburn has three goals to contrast with five yellow cards and two red cards (one of which was a double yellow, so statimatic that one however you choose) - three of which have gone to Robbie Savage.
But the strategy seems to work. I was talking to my friend Todd (the other big EPL fan in my office) today who's a Spurs fan and we got to talking about Tottenham's one shot on goal. He said, "they benches everyone important so of course they only got one shot." I said, "if you have the chance to get three points from Blackburn, which most teams will get, why wouldn't you take it?" His logic was flawless responding, "they've got Chelsea on the weekend and they want their side healthy - and Blackburn injures people."
The more I thought about it, the more I realized how true the words were. Other teams don't fear Blackburn's offensive fire power, they fear Blackburn's elbows and spikes (and even teeth). If it means that other teams will bench some of their stars and Blackburn can steal points then Hughes isn't going to do anything.
The only thing that will prevent Blackburn from being Blackburn is to take away points. Unless they get fined 500,000 pounds it doesn't mean more than one place's worth of money in the Premiership.
So Hughes can tell the media, "I don't go out and tell my players to get thrown out of games and get carded, that would be crazy," all he wants. But, it doesn't mean that he tells them straight away not to do it either.
---
UEFA hates Real Madrid. Sure Liverpool fans are whining about drawing Chelsea in the group stage of the Champions League but Real Madrid has a much harder group as a whole.
The second fiddles to their one seed are Lyon - four time defending French champions Olympique Lyon. Knockout round survivors Lyon (though they eventually, thankfully, fell to PSV in the round of eight if memory serves). And the third seed are Olympiakos and what a pain in the posterior Greek sides can be. And that's just spelling their names. :) They even drew one of the strongest fourth seeds in Rosenborg.
The second toughest group stage seems to belong to AC Milan. They draw PSV (though this year's side is a shadow of its former self), dangerous German contender Schalke 04, and Turkish champion Fenerbache (and a trip to visit them is actually dangerous in a different way than footcer).
Dates for the Champions League group stage matches are preliminary but the first games out of the six are scheduled to begin on September 12 and 13.
---
Much closer to home, congratulations Minnesota Thunder! The USL-1 side defeated the holders Kansas City in their quarterfinal match of the U.S. Open Cup. du nord has a great writeup of the match and an incident that happened afterwards (among the 5,000 fans that showed up). Just another reason why Kansas City needs to be the team moved and not San Jose.
The loss by the Wizards (and D.C. United losing to FC Dallas) means that the Chicago Fire are the only ones left with a chance at the domestic treble. Not that they'll do it, but I'm just sayin'. ;)
posted by incendiarymind at 3:51 PM
2 Comments:
Nunez is an American citizen, but in soccer he's Honduran.
Ah, make it six for six for non-U.S. CONCACAF goal scorers against Chivas USA then.
Thanks.
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