Among the football headlines in Spain this weekend: “Con perro cazas; con gato cazas, pero menos“–aphoristic words of wisdom gleaned from the Jose Mourinho’s press conference yesterday, which translates roughly to “You hunt with a dog; with a cat you hunt, but less so.” Remarkably, this isn’t the first time the Special One has made the news for canine-related matters.
The comments about hunting with cats vs dogs had something to do with the injury to Higuain (el perro, we presume), which has left Benzema as el gato–Mourinho’s only option at striker.
Real Madrid mouthpiece Marca transcribed some Mourinho’s monologue, which gives the context:
Soy entrenador y entreno a los jugadores que tengo a mi disposición. El tema del fichaje es un tema de la gente de arriba. Yo ya dije que era difícil afrontar la temporada sólo con Benzema e Higuaín, ahora sólo con Benzema será aún más difícil. Si vas a cazar y sólo tienes un gato, tendrás que salir con el gato porque solo no puedes ir. Si vas con un buen perro, cazas más. Si vas con un gato, cazas menos pero cazas.
Watch and listen to some bits of the press conference:
Someday you too could earn a $15M bonus from oil barons
“Little Zidane”, “New Zizou”, “The next Zidane”
Samir Nasri’s nicknames, preposterous and premature, were heaped upon him not just because he possesses raw talent and vision, but because he shares a basic story with Zidane: Algerian parents emigrate to Marseille, build “street cred” while playing ball.
Let’s be clear, there is only one Zidane, and Nasri needs to demonstrate much more than an ill-timed headbutt to enjoy more substantial comparisons. But anything’s possible, right? After all, he’s only 23…
His 2 goals vs. Fulham this weekend were absolutely ridiculous. The second and game-winner will surely stand as one of this season’s best.
Goal 2: “That is why people pay money to watch football.”
I’m reminded of a goal he scored in a Champions League match against Porto last year, as if he was dribbing amongst cardboard cutouts. I quite enjoy the fact that the play-by-play is in Arabic…
(Cautiously detatching myself from Cesc, one game at a time… Love is a fickle thing!)
An exciting weekend as always around world football, and more action to come with Champions League matches tomorrow and Weds. For now, let’s take a quick look at the fantastic goals of Samir Nasri vs Fulham. “The overbite”, as we call him in the Cult Football offices, has hit top form this season, and his composure on the ball and willingness to shoot is sorely needed, especially with Arshavin going missing in the attack of late. Enjoy!
How about dem aquile?
From Italy, Rafa Benitez continues to lose, this time to Lazio. The result puts Lazio in second place and sends Inter dangerously close to losing any invitation to european tournaments next year. Lazio are actually a very entertaining side to watch, and absolutely dominated Inter on the way to a 3-1 victory. Particularly outstanding were the Brazilian midfielder Hernanes and his point man in attack Mauro Zárate. Hernanes has a deft touch and an eye for just the right pass, while Zárate has an excellent sense of space, is a strong runner and classy finisher. We will be paying attention…
Amid all the pre– and post-El Clasico hype, we’d be remiss not to mention that the Quiet Bulgarian, Dimitar Berbatov, scored una manita himself over the weekend, in a 7-1 thrashing of Blackburn.
Teamwork wins matches, but one man’s performance transcended all others Saturday.
Dimitar Berbatov, the Bulgarian in the Manchester United lineup, scored five goals in the 7-1 demolition of Blackburn Rovers.
Five goals, and I swear he spent half the match trying his best to set up a goal for his partner, Wayne Rooney. “It is good to have Wayne back,” Berbatov said after the game. “He knows how I play and I know how he plays, and we understand each other’s game well. We showed it on the field.”
Didn’t they just.
Rooney is returning after he preposterously claimed United did not have the talents to match his ambitions. Berbatov chose Saturday to show Rooney and all the rest who doubt his quality that he is an extraordinarily gifted individual.
He had not scored a goal since mid-September, but on Saturday he scored five, and it could easily have been more. He was a ruthless destroyer with a velvet touch. His goals came in such a variety of ways that poor Blackburn did not know how to stop him, or even where to find him.
See below for two sets of video highlights–a short official version (via Fox Soccer Video) and longer Setanta Sports selection (via footytube)–to watch all five Berbatov goals (plus goals by Korean Park Ji-Sung and Nani).
If you didn’t get to watch, nor haven’t heard the news, the world did not end Monday night in Barcelona–although no doubt there are a good number of people in Madrid who would disagree, as the result was almost as surprising and devastating as the apocalypse itself. 5-0 for Barcelona. Yes, 5-0.
We’ll be back up in here with additional commentary. For now, we give you some video highlights (down below at the bottom), and direct you once again to read Sid Lowe (who provides the best commentary in English on La Liga, at least that we’ve come across). His column this morning in the Guardian is headlined “Barcelona, the ‘Orgasm Team’, win another epoch-defining clásico” (you’ll have to read all the way to the bottom of the column for the orgasm allusion), with subhead: “It was not that they thrashed Madrid 5-0, defeated Mourinho and his unbeaten €292m team. It was that they did it their way.” And his first five paragraphs are devoted to explaining la manita:
Eric Abidal raised his hand. Gerard Piqué raised his. And the crowd that engulfed Jeffren Suárez raised theirs. Víctor Valdés raised his hand, latex glistening in the light. Soon the Camp Nou raised its hands. So did the fans that gathered down the Ramblas – palms open, fingers outstretched as if willing the nails to grow. Not far away, a hand was raised on the front cover of Sport. On the back, their cartoonist was taking the easy way out. “Today, instead of drawing,” he wrote, “I have decided to scan my hand.” So he did.
El Mundo Deportivo: "Super Manita!"
Meanwhile, right about the time Andrés Iniesta was posting pictures in his pants, in a warehouse somewhere they were already rushing off a batch of T-shirts to go with the Barça tupperware, Barça knives and Barça tool set. Blue and yellow and yours for just €9.95. On the back it reads: “great theatre”. On the front it doesn’t read anything much. Just the dateline and the score from last night’s clásico between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid: Camp Nou, 29/11/2010. 5-0. And, above that, a giant yellow hand.
Jeffren’s late goal made little difference, but it made all the difference. Madrid were already being humiliated. José Mourinho, already suffering his worst ever defeat as a coach, felt “impotent”, barely moving as fans chanted for him to “come out the dugout! José, come out the dugout!” It was already 4-0 and into additional time and Almería’s Henok Goitom,thrashed 8-0 by Barcelona last weekend, had long-since noted: “I know how you feel: you just want the game to finish.” But the game had not finished, not yet. The fifth goal had to arrive and when it did, it mattered. It turned a baño – a bath, a drubbing – into a manita, a little hand. A goal for every finger. The most perfect of beatings.
Especially for Barcelona. Because if manitas are symbolic in Spain – and even fans of Racing Santander have their T-shirt – in Barcelona there’s something even more emblematic about them. If Abidal didn’t know exactly what the gesture meant, Piqué, son of a Barça director and asoci from birth, certainly does. Last week, after that win in Almería, Cristiano Ronaldo had shrugged: “I’d like to see them get eight on Monday.” They could have done and eight would have been great, but somehow five, while fewer, feels more fitting today.
When El Mundo Deportivo called it a Super Manita, everyone in Catalunya knew what they were measuring it against. This was the fifth time Barcelona had defeated Real Madrid 5-0. Beyond 1934-35 and 1944-45, two linger in the memory: the 1973 team led by Johan Cruyff the player and the 1994-95 Dream Team led by Cruyff the coach. No one could watch last night and not recall Cruyff. Or Romário. Just in case, television programmes drew on the archive. Last night two epoch-defining victories became three.
See below for the best video clip we’ve found so far on footytube. At least you get to see all five goals, although not much more, and with commentary in German. Hopefully we’ll find some more extensive game film, and break down how exactly Barça was able to tiki-taka it’s way to la manita.
UPDATE: Via footytube, a 26min highlight reel from the French Canal+, hosted by the somewhat sketchy-seeming rutube.ru:
Americans Tim Howard and Brad Friedel–generally considered among the stronger goalkeepers in the Premier League–had weekends to forget, as each gave up four goals Saturday in front of their home fans.
Howard’s Everton side lost at home to West Brom 4-1, while Friedel’s Aston Villa side lost 4-2, also at home, to Arsenal:
A much better performance and result for another American abroad in England: midfielder Clint Dempsey continued his strong play and scoring for Fulham, getting the equalizer for them against Birmingham City. Dempsey is playing aggressively and with confidence–watch the way he wins the header for the goal, and follows that up with a cracker that almost goes in for a 2nd goal, if not for a great save by the Birmingham ‘keeper:
Quite a bit, apparently. First came Arsenal’s shocking 2nd half collapse last Saturday in the North London derby, at home no less–yes, the headlines read “Spurs Triumphant at the Emirates“. Certainly, Arsenal supporters must have thought, they would rebound mid-week in Europe, against a Sporting Braga side that hadn’t accomplished much in Champions League so far this fall–a side that the Gunners had beaten 6-0 back in September on Matchday 1! But alas, all too predictably perhaps, Arsenal went down without much of a fight, losing 2-0 on two fantastic second half finishes by Braga’s Brazilian striker Matheu.
Watch the highlights from Tuesday’s match–or lowlights rather, if you’re an Arsenal fan:
Actually, although Matheu does deserve great credit on both goals, close review of the video reveals that both chances were allowed by a flat-footed Arsenal defence. In fact both came off counterattacks from Arsenal free kicks. In the first goal, Matheu ran right by Denilson to receive a perfect long ball (one that he called for as flew past Denilson); for the 2nd, Matheu kept running full-speed while Squillaci slowed to a jog, allowing him to pick up the loose ball after an Arsenal defender (Denilson again? not sure) got knocked to the ground going for the ball.
Who is this Matheu? He is Matheus Leite Nascimento; age 27, came over to Portugal five years ago, spent one season with a second division side before Braga signed him. He’s been coming on strong over the past few months–he scored against Celtic and against Sevilla in Champions League qualifying matches over the summer. After the latter goal, he produced a pacifier–and hence a celebration worthy of Chad Ochocinco. Take a closer look at the photo above.
Speaking of the Bengals WR and multimedia star, turns out he’s multisport too. Here’s an interview we’ve been meaning to post–Ochocinco does Soccer Talk (compares himself to Drogba; talks about his great friends Ronaldhino, CR, Thierry Henry, Ashley Cole; drops hints about playing futbol during the football offseason; describes how he warms up by juggling):
Romanian side CFR Cluj were bested away to FC Basel in group play today, effectively eliminating them from the knockout phase of the tournament. It was a meeting of minnows, but with great consequences, and while the Cruj players clearly didn’t have the belly fire to mount a proper offensive, their manager, Sorin Cârţu, tried motivating his men with an impromptu act of passion from the sidelines.
Basel is left with a game against Roma for a chance to advance. They’ll need a win to tie on points, and that same win will give them a goal advantage to put them through to the next stage. Unfortunately for the Swiss side, Roma are finding their footing at home, and their win against Munich today suggests they’re clear favorites.
But back to Cârţu and his managerial methods. You won’t often see such a dramatic display outside lucha libre…
Romanian side CFR Cluj were bested away to FC Basel in group play today, effectively eliminating them from the knockout phase of the tournament. It was a meeting of minnows, but with great consequences, and while the Cruj players clearly didn’t have the belly fire to mount a proper offensive, their manager,