We're back once again with our recommendations on when exactly you should plant yourself on your couch or local pub stool this weekend. Again using SoccerInsider's full TV listing as a reference, here we go, with some notes from various members of the CultFootball collective: Saturday Oct 30 Striker, Goal Scorer, Contortionist Manchester United-Spurs 12:30 p.m. FSC: a matchup of the 3rd and 5th place teams in the EPL table, with goal-scoring players in form on both sides (Chicharito and Nani for Man U, Gareth Bale and Rafael van der Vaart for Spurs) Barcelona-Sevilla 4 p.m. ESPN Deportes: One of the more challenging La Liga games for Barca, especially since Sevilla seems to finally coming into form (6th in the table) after a slow start, and their Brazilian WC2010 star Luis Fabiano back in the lineup and finding the back of the net. Those are the two
Continuing on this week's theme of all things Arsenal, we take a very quick look at Johan Djourou, Swiss defender for the Gunners. You may ask, "Isn't he a little dark for a Swiss, and that name, it's so African." Of course he's not Swiss-born. The 23 yr-old was born in the Côte d'Ivoire, then brought by his father's Swiss wife (not his mother) to Geneva before his 2nd birthday. Arsenal held his contract for a number of years, but we're only seeing him now (unless you caught him for one of his very few appearances for the Swiss). You'd think being a Swiss center back would mean he'd be a great defensive player. But having seen him beaten to too many balls during his time covering for injured starters, that's simply not the case. He's got good foot skills, but is surprisingly slow for a young back on Arsenal, who have some speedy
Nasri prances off to celebrate his goal I admit that I was suprised by this game. Surprised by the Arsenal win, by the 0-3 final result, and by City’s reaction to the early red card that left them with ten men for 85 minutes. Everyone at Eastlands will tell you that the result would have been different had Boyata not been ejected. But ejected Boyata was, leaving Roberto Mancini and his millionaires to decide how to fight on. I wonder if they've made their decision yet. My feeling is that City didn’t fold, but they didn’t really fight, either. I’m confused as to the strategy for those 85 minutes. We’ve all seen examples of teams that seem to draw from untapped wells of determination and desperation after losing a player to a red card. But I didn't see City demonstrate that brand of resilience on Sunday.
2009 Balon d'Or Winners Via FIFA.com: The following 23 men (in alphabetical order) are in contention for the FIFA Ballon d’Or 2010: Xabi Alonso (Spain), Daniel Alves (Brazil), Iker Casillas (Spain), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Didier Drogba (Côte d’Ivoire), Samuel Eto’o (Cameroon), Cesc Fabregas (Spain), Diego Forlán (Uruguay), Asamoah Gyan (Ghana), Andrés Iniesta (Spain), Júlio César (Brazil), Miroslav Klose (Germany), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Maicon (Brazil), Lionel Messi (Argentina), Thomas Müller (Germany), Mesut Özil (Germany), Carles Puyol (Spain), Arjen Robben (Netherlands), Bastian Schweinsteiger (Germany), Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands), David Villa (Spain) and Xavi (Spain). The odd man in there seems to Asamoah Gyan. Don't get us wrong, we were impressed by Baby Jet performances this summer in Africa (this one against the USMNT in the World Cup of course--but also this more recent performance)--but he hasn't accomplished what the other players on the list have. (Özil and Müller are two even
A red card 5 minutes into the game would obviously have repercussions sooner or later. Looking at the buildup to Arsenal's first goal (Nasri, 20'), it appears to have been the former. Arsenal made nearly 20 more passes than City over the 10 minutes leading up to the goal, and you can see from the Guardian chalkboards below that they were running the midfield from front to back. Isolated groups of Man City players were trying to maintain the ball while waiting for players to support, but having one less man leaves too may holes to fill and Arsenal plugged them full of attacking movement. by Guardian Chalkboards Video highlights of the match below--the first of which is Boyata's early foul of Chamakh and subsequent red card, and the second of which is Nasri's goal--a great finish off a quick give&go with Andrei Arshavin (as indicated by the white circles in the top chalkboard
Guardian Football has been doing a "World XI" series over the last couple weeks: "To mark Diego Maradona's 50th and Pelé's 70th birthdays, Guardian writers and readers set out to choose the greatest football team of all time." Here is the side chosen by the Guardian readership: Guardian Football's readers' World XI The odd man in is of course Steven Gerrard: Looking at this World XI one name will immediately jump out at you: Steven Gerrard. He's good, but is he really that good? The rest of the World XI is probably, give or take a personal favourite or two, the team most people would eventually choose. But how did Gerrard make it into the middle? Click thru on the image to read all about it.
