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Real Madrid Find Top Gear Against Easy Foe

October 4, 2010 — by Sean

Squeezing the breasts of god himself — CR7

With both media scrutiny and fan grumblings intensifying, Real Madrid needed to snap out of their early-season daze and start hammering opponents. It's not that they haven't been creating chances, they just haven't been finishing. (They haven't looked exactly dominate in their matches so far either, and have been lucky that no team has gone up on a quick counter before throwing up a rigid defense.) That started to turn with the game against Ajax, where Mourinho was heard to remark "One day, some poor team will pay for all these chances that we have missed," and has culminated with Real's 6-1 demolition of Deportivo de La Coruña. Ronaldo was responsible for the first goal, joined by the cast you'd want in support: Ozil (his first for the club), Di maria, Higuain, and Ronaldo again. Yes, Ronaldo in fact

Players of African Origin: Chelsea v Arsenal

October 3, 2010 — by Suman — 2

African power: Drogba spreads his wings

We here at CultFootball have been kicking around the idea of doing a series of post focusing on African football: its players, its nations, its history, its future. For a quick start, note that today's highly anticipated Premier League clash between Arsenal and Chelsea will prominently feature a number of African players: Chelsea Didier Drogba (Ivory Coast) and Michael Essien (Ghana) are among Chelsea's stars, and keys to their success; John Miel Obi (Nigeria) is also starting today, while Salomon Kalou (also Ivory Coast) may come off the bench. Arsenal Arsenal's Bacary Song and Abou Diaby are both of French nationality, but are of Senegalese and Ivorian descent, respectively. Emmanuel Eboué is also Ivorian, while Alex Song is Cameroonian. Both Samir Nasri and Marouane Chamakh were born in France but of North African descent (Algerian and Moroccan, respectively)--Nasri has chosen

Arsenal v Chelsea – probable starting lineups

October 2, 2010 — by Suman — 2

Via the Guardian, see below a diagram with probable starting lineups for tomorrow's big Premier League match, Arsenal visiting Chelsea (11am ET on FSC). We find it's very useful to have this in front of us while watching a match, as well as the Current Squad sections of the Wikipedia entries for Chelsea & Arsenal (in particular since they link through to the Wikipedia entry for each individual player)

Commentary News Schedule

What to Watch This Weekend (Oct 2-3)

October 2, 2010 — by Suman

We're back with our weekly guide to Sat/Sun footy TV action (here in the US). Here's what catches our collective eye--again culled from SoccerInsider's full TV listing, with some notes from various members of the CultFootball team: Saturday Oct 2 England, Sunderland-Manchester United 10 a.m. ESPN2: Another former Man U player now managing and probably hoping to replace Sir Alex one day. Plus Ghanaian striker Asamoah "Baby Jet" Gyan partnering with Darren Bent up front for Sunderland, and a good northeast crowd England, Spurs-Aston Villa 10 a.m. FSC: Uncle ‘Arry brings flair to White Hart Lane--most recently with the big win Wednesday in Champions League action--while Gerard Houllier tries to keep last season’s thriller team in it. Gareth Bale really turning it on this season for Spurs--and Dutch import Rafael van der Vaart playing all over the field, and doing it well England, Birmingham-Everton noon FSC: Everton still looking for

UEFA Europa League – Matchday 2 Fixtures

September 30, 2010 — by Suman

Balon d'Europa

As we admitted a couple weeks ago (here), we don't understand the how or why of the Europa League. And after 16 Champions League games over the past two days, we're not particularly jonesing to watch more pan-European club matches today. But if you are, there are 24 games today (48 teams in the league, recall). The ones we would watch, if we were forced to sit down and do so, are the following (pulled from UEFA's Europa League page, "all times are CET"--you do the math for your timezone) Dortmund 19:00 Sevilla More » Referee: Mike Dean (ENG) Stadium: BVB Stadion Dortmund, Dortmund (GER) Utrecht 19:00 Liverpool More » Referee: Duarte Gomes (POR) Stadium: Stadion Galgenwaard, Utrecht (NED) Atlético 21:05 Leverkusen More » Referee: Paolo Tagliavento (ITA) Stadium: Estadio Vicente Calderón, Madrid (ESP) Man. City 21:05 Juventus More » Referee: Eduardo Iturralde González

Matchday 2.2 — starting in mere minutes!

September 29, 2010 — by Suman

Matchday 2.2 - Wed Sept 29

Yesterday was UEFA Champions League Matchday 2.1, with 8 matches all across the continent. There were games in the west--highly touted Real Madrid going into Auxerre (Burgundy, Franc) and escaping with a 1-0 win--and games in the east--Shaktar Donetsk (eastern Ukraine) hosting and destroying Braga of Portugl (score: 3-0). Matchday 2.2 is today, with 8 more matches featuring the other 16 teams. All of them kick off at 2:45pm ET, except for one: FC Barcelona goes even further east, to play FK Rubin Kazan on their home field (Kazan being the 6th largest city in Russia, and the capital of Tatarstan (see below the fixture list): Wednesday, September 29 Group A Internazionale v Werder Bremen @ Giuseppe Meazza (Milan, ITA) Tottenham Hotspur v Twente Enschede @ White Hart Lane (London, ENG) Group B Hapoel Tel Aviv v Lyon @ Ramat Gan

“Mourinho Finally Gets Mad”…well, un poco (with video)

September 29, 2010 — by Suman

"Estoy loco como el infierno y yo no voy a soportarlo más!"

I must admit, I am falling for the yet-nascent psychodrama that is Mourinho in Madrid ("MiM" from now on). So I eagerly clicked thru when online footy mag fourfourtwo.com's La Liga Loca blog led with the headline "Mourinho Finally Gets Mad", and kicked off the post with some purple prose: For months now, the Spanish press have been performing their solemn duty of trying to make José Mourinho go completely postal, but sadly with little success. However, on Monday evening, it was joy to the world and ding dong merrily on high as, after a trying period of four press conferences a week for the Bernabeu boss, hours and hours of provoking, probing and pressing finally brought some decent results - not only did Mourinho completely lose his rag, he also found it again

Random pregame thoughts on today’s Champions League matches

September 28, 2010 — by Suman

Didier Deschamps - Sporting Hero

Will Real Marid be able to score away from home? Will all the talk and camera time get monopolized by Mourinho, or will Marseilles manager Didier Deschamps also get a bit of attention? Will Arsenal rebound from their debacle Saturday? Will Lukasz Fabianski prove any more capable than the injured Almunia? Will Martin Stekelenburg do as well (or even better) against AC Milan's, compared with his stellar albeit losing performance against Ronaldo, Higauin, Ozil et al two weeks ago? Will he get any help from Luis Suarez if the need arises?

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