arsenal win...
...although they really didn't deserve it. manchester united outplayed arsenal from about the 25 minute on, with only a couple of arsenal players really putting in the work to keep man utd off the score sheet.
joy, confusion and indifference
the response of these fans --milos, kalei, and bron-- is easy to understand if you saw arsenal play today.
winning in penalty kicks, a first in f.a. cup final action, was an amazing feat against a man utd team that dominated most of the game, but it was fitting that the hero in penalty kicks should be david hasslehoff...i mean, jens lehmann.
jens might have been bumped earlier this year for his downward spiral after arsenal fell to man utd 4-2 at old trafford, but he has clearly worked his way back to the form that helped arsenal go 49 undefeated -- and he was todays man of the match (even if wayne rooney officially scooped it from him at cardiff). jens made great save after great save, and like all great keepers he had a bit of luck on his side when he couldn't get to a shot.
one bit of luck was the post. wayne rooney took a cheeky little shot from a tough angle, fooled old jens -- not an easy thing to do today -- and banked it off the post. the other bit of luck was freddie ljundberg. freddie was guarding the far post on a corner when ruud van nistelrooy fired a header from point blank range, and freddie had just enough time to react and head the ball up. it hit the crossbar, though, and gave us all a scare before shooting out for a clearance.
but in the end it was lehmann's brilliant save of scholes penalty kick that gave arsenal the one goal difference and allowed patty v. to put it away for the gunners.
so we got our silverware this year, and our second place finish. it wasn't pretty, but it rarely is when henry is on the bench.
still, this season's matt v. brad bet was lost by the gunners. man utd won the season series 3 games to 2. so matt gets dinner and drinks at a restaurant of his choice. and then the hole slate clears and we go again this season.
i don't know how you feel about it matt, but i'd rather have the cup than the dinner, so this is one year i am happy to pay.
posted by bananas @ 12:20 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
The Cup is the only thing my friend. Lets take our girls out for a dinner and talk about next year.
Congratulations, and thanks for the match report!
I'm glad that Arsenal end their season with a prize, sadly i can't say the same for my teams.
Ajax will end second no matter if they win or lose their last game. Van der Vaart will most likely leave the team and sign up for HSV.
HSV... They have a great history and the most beautiful socks in football, but i find it depressing that a player of a calibre like Van der Vaart considers joining a German midtable team a promotion. It just shows how big problems are in Amsterdam.
And Haarlem is Haarlem i guess. Ended thirteenth in the Dutch first division and there is little hope they will do a lot better next year. But who knows, maybe some day another Ruud Gullit or Barry van Galen will take the team to new glory. Yeah, right...
All moaning aside, i'm happy with Arsenals victory. If you have the guts to contract a talented but also problematic kid from Feyenoord and hold on to a 36 year old midfielder who is fantastic as long he isn't in a aeroplane, you have more than money. You have vision. And it are the teams with vision that makes the game a joy to watch.
The best of luck next year!
hey dollev, what do you make of von bommel fleeing psv for barcelona this year?
and how about az in the eredivisie? i can't believe they broke into the top three.
sorry about your ajax, bro. guus seems to have the touch with teams that shouldn't do well, doesn't he?
being an arsenal fan, with van persie (what a great surprise he's been for us), bergkamp and owusu abeyie, has pushed me into following the eredivisie from a distance, almost out of loyalty to the boys on my team.
and thanks for the congrats. it felt really great to see the gunners win against man utd, even if it was in decidedly ugly fashion.
I think that Van Bommel made the right choice with Barcelona. He's just been awarded with the best player of the eredivisie award and rightly so. Maybe one year of experience at the primera division will make him the leader that our national team is lacking right now.
Hiddink is one of the best trainers we have at the moment. It would be great having him in Amsterdam, but i doubt that that will ever happen. Hiddink is happy with PSV Eindhoven.
I just heard that AZ's trainer Co Adriaanse is going to Porto next season. I wonder if that will work. Adriaanse needs a board of directors that will let him do his job without demanding miracles the first season. I have to admit that i was glad when he was fired at Ajax. The irony is that one of the reasons that Ajax' season has been so miserably, was because they missed Galasek for most of the season. Galasak was one of Adriaanses best signings at the time.
Louis van Gaal will be joining AZ next year. It will be interesting to see how that will work out. AZ done great this year. Without the injury spree at the end of the season, they would have made it to the UEFA finals.
And Feyenoord has sacked Gullit! You can say about the lad what you want, but he brought one of the finest surprises of this season on the pitch: Salomon Kalou. If Arsenal has got some money left to spent on a world class talent, i would spent it on him.
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