the enemies of football

following the lead of moaninho, the thuggish chelsea fans have done it again -- more death threats leveled at the ref after a defeat. any sympathy neutrals and adversaries had is going to be stretched. terje hauge had the guts to stand by his red card yesterday and all it got him was abusive and threatening postings on the chelsea website message board. chelsea promises to punish the culprates. big deal.

what was the punishment doaled out to the assholes who did this to anders frisk last year? which was another incident sparked by jose's conviction that the world is out to get chelsea. what a joke.

Chelsea got cheated!

So it is midnight and I just finished watching Chelsea - Barcelona. A few thoughts. It is way too late to organize my impressions of the game so I might be all over the place.

First of all, good game. Despite the expected fast pace, first half was a little dull. No shots on goal, keepers weren't very busy and not many chances from either team. Everything was going fine for Chelsea until Terje Hauge (from Norway) decided to give Del Horno a red card for nothing! What the hell was that? How do you send someone off in a game of this magnitude for that challange?! That should have been a warning. Shit, a yellow card at best, but a red?! And Lionel Messi rolling around in that pool of mud like someone damn near shot him didn't show his class, neither. From there, Chelsea's whole game plan went to hell. Everything Mourinho prepared them for, gone. Joe Cole gets subbed-off for Geremi and the Blues are stuck playing defence for the remainder of this circus act.

2nd half kicks off and Chelsea manage to get a goal. Frank Lampard sends a free kick into the penalty box, chaos ensues, Motta and Valdes collide, ball rolls into the net. 1-0. Barca starting to create more and more chances. Any tackle at midfield went Barca's way, any push or shove, Barca's ball. Very unfair. I'm starting to get angry and I'm not even a fan of neither team, I just want to see a clean and fair game. I thought to myself, clearly Chelsea are going to slow down the pace of the match and not allow Barcelona play their game. No. With 10 men, it seemed they still wanted to get a 2nd goal off a counter attack. Arjen Robben was magnificent, and his substitution was puzzling to me. It was evident he was one of the best players on the field tonight.

However, as good as Chelsea have been, Barca's duo of Messi and Ronaldinho was too much to handle and with 18 minutes left, the Spaniards score 2 huge away goals giving them all the advantage they need.

In conclusion, I have never been a Chelsea fan (especially after that oligarch came there) and I have never been a Barcelona fan. In fact, I've seen Barca get thrashed by my favorite teams on many occasions (4-0 loss to Milan early 90's and 7-0 agg. loss to Dynamo in the late 90's). I was indifferent prior to this game, but now I will be cheering against Barcelona in the return leg. Whether or not it matters is irrelevant.

Can Chelsea come back and win? Yes. Do I want Chelsea to come back and win? Yes. Will they do it? No.

Oh and memo to Hauge: stop sucking at refereeing.

joy mixed with anger

the joy: arsenal are the first english team to beat real madrid in the santiago bernebeu stadium. and we did it with a weak but inspired back line. it was a hell of a game, and arsenal well deserved the win. henry had a great game, freddie, my fave, was fantastic in the middle of the park. hleb was strong, reyes was good, eboue was a tank on the right, toure was...well, toure. if not for iker casillas madrid would have been beaten by about four goals. the job's not over, but the tie is now arsenals to lose.

the anger: fucking tsn! not only do they premept the match with no notice for a fucking meaningless olympic hockey game, thereby thwarting tapers and folks who skipped work to watch the beautiful game, they then arbitrarily cut 13 minutes from the first half. yep...if you were able to sit through the hockey game, you were able to watch up to the 25 minute when all of a sudden: BLACK. then a strange smattering of mid-half commercials. then the game suddenly reappears and it's the 38 minute. the only time i've ever been so mad watching canadian coverage of football was last year when fucking tsn cut the extra periods from the ac milan v. psv eindhoven semi final tie so they could skip straight to the penalties.

still, a great game for the gunners. it's nice to see we are still capable of playing a great game from time to time. if we can hold the team together and keep everyone healthy we'll be a force in every league next year.

Cole Saves Chelsea

i hate 'watching' match report games. when colchester scored first at the 28th minute, i thought for sure that chelsea's losing streak was going to continue, and didn't think they could take on Barca with another loss under thier belt.

but thank god for joe cole, subbing in at the half and delivering two excellent goals (well, i imagine them as excellent anyway). now let's hope the momentum takes on Barca...

speaking of Barca, i hear that they are already complaining about the pitch at chelsea...perhaps they are preparing an excuse when the lose?

This is a very important week for us - this game has put us in the last eight of the FA Cup and we have a chance on Wednesday night to take a step towards the last eight of the Champions League. We also want to get back on track in the League before we go away on international duty so we want to get a good week behind us. Now we will go into the Barcelona game full of confidence. We have got the Middlesbrough defeat out of our system and rested some key players - we are ready for the big one.

go joe go

ouch!

the looks on ruud's and rooney's faces say it all. poor smithy. i hate man utd, but i wouldn't wish that pain on anyone. and what a way for it to happen. all smith was doing was trying block a shot. there was not crazy attack, no two foot tackle, nothing but a normal lateral shift. a shift and then a crumple. nasty.