the coolest arsenal fan

do you reckon he'll be at highbury tomorrow? i figure he'll be on the north bank --freshly shaven and ready for trouble.

arsenal v wigan

rogers sportsnet has decided to show the portsmouth/liverpool game live, and run the arsenal/wigan game at 10 pm...

Canadian Television Sucks

So in anticipation of the final day of Premiership action for this season I was just checking the TV listings. I would argue that with the championship and the relegation spots already determined, the most important matches of the day are the fight for 4th (West Ham v. Tottenham; Arsenal v. Wigan). Care to guess what games are being televised? That's right, neither of those is being shown (at least not at a reasonable time).

8:00: Liverpool-Portsmouth (Sportsnet - Live)
8:00: Man U-Charlton (Score - Live)
10:00: Chelsea-Newcastle (FSW - Tape)
21:00: Arsenal-Wigan (Sportsnet Pacific - Tape)
24:00: Arsenal-Wigan (Sportsnet West - Tape)


What possible reason could Sportsnet have for showing Liverpool live and tape delaying Arsenal under late evening? As Gio said earlier: who the hell is in charge of programming?

World Cup Anthem

in case you haven't heard it yet, you can catch a listen to the england world cup song called 'world at your feet' by a group called embrace. you can hear the song here.

The Score Sucks

so all of the final EPL games are played on sunday, may 7th, and what does the score decide to show? manu vs. charlton

is this for real?????

who the hell is in charge of programming?

the lazy bastards!

so we came out on top last sunday with a 6-4 victory against the lazy susans. it should have been 7-4. we should have got full sportsmanship points. i should have let in less goals. lots of should haves, but the point is that we won against a bunch of jerks who tried to take the fun out of the game -- and we played pretty well in spite of their chippiness and mouthiness.

taras, reza and whiffen-peters were their usual potent selves in attack, and it was great to have andrzej persak back with the team after a season long indoor absence. he teamed up really well in midfield with melissa, creating some great plays and getting us flying in the right direction.

gio and i were talking about the rough games both of us had, and we clearly did not play to our potential, although we didn't stink up the joint either which was good. but gio just didn't have the pace and i let myself get too distracted by the other teams bullshit.

brian woychuk and kiki were their usual solid selves in defense (even if the former's giant penis looked like a hand when it hit the ball), and kiki even started to chip in going forward, delivering a particularly killer pass to taras, even though it was offside. and luis navarre had some strong moments on the ball, although he had a little difficulty pushing up.

and shannon, our other teammate playing her first game of the season, had a good showing. she was a little nervous at the start (it was the first game she has EVER played), but she was standing up and playing with confidence by the end. really excellent stuff.

giovanna says she learned some lessons from the game (i'm sure you've all seen them already):

Taking a ball off of your nuts does not constitute a hand ball.
Giovanna can still use her rolling skills she learned in high school volleyball.
That the 1-3-1 formation works way better than the 2-2-1 formation (which left us vulnerable in the back).
We gave the opposing team a ‘0’ spirit rating because they were cry-babies. They gave us a 0 rating in return…for what? Being better than them?
Andrzej has embarked on quitting smoking (so now maybe he can actually pull a long shift next game instead of always calling for subs early) J
For 7 bags of empty bottles, you can earn a whopping $22.25.

i'd like to add one more lesson to that list. we need to teach milos how to kick people in the nuts, and then we can release him onto the field and let him hack down whichever member of the other team is being the biggest asshole. i think he'd do that for us.

see y'all sunday. sorry there's no practise this week.

oh, one thing i almost forgot. we need to stick to 1-3-1 from now on. what happens when we switch to a 2-2-1 is that it turns into a 3-2 with no defense. our experienced sweepers disappear to attack, and our inexperienced midfielders who are called upon to move into defense are unable to handle the job on their own, andthey invariably push up, which leaves us really vunerable in front goal. so 1-3-1 with a sweeper. that's our plan and we're sticking to it.

UEFA backs Milan claim.

Dr. Markus Merk's officiating career is in jeopardy.

UEFA have taken Milan’s side in the debate over Andriy Shevchenko’s disallowed goal against Barcelona on Wednesday. The Ukrainian’s strike was chalked off by referee Markus Merk for an alleged push on Barcelona defender Carles Puyol. However, Milan were adamant that Shevchenko had not made contact and those claims have now been vindicated by video evidence. The decision proved costly for Milan who were eliminated after losing 1-0 on aggregate, and may prove to be equally costly for the German official.

While he has been almost universally recognised as the most reliable official in the game since the retirement of Pierluigi Collina, Merk now will not be allowed to referee any game involving Italy – and possibly Ukraine – in the forthcoming World Cup. The 42-year-old German had been the favourite to be handed the Final of the tournament, but this also now appears unlikely. Despite his impeccable record, this is not the first time that Merk has found himself at the centre of controversy.

In 2001 he awarded a hotly-debated indirect free kick to Bayern Munich in the last minute of the final game of the season against Hamburg. The kick was converted and won the Reds the Bundesliga title at the expense of Schalke. The decision proved to be correct but Merk has never been given a Schalke home match since for fear of violence against him.

Merk was also the one who disallowed Esteban Cambiaso's header last year when Inter hosted AC Milan. What proved to be a clean goal, didn't look clean to Merk. This call was followed by a shower of flares thrown by Inter supporters causing their fans a 4 match ban at home games. UEFA, after reviewing the incident, promised Inter to never have Merk referee their matches again.