As soon as Manchester United boss Alex Ferguson leaked his starting-11 to the press last week, the smart money was placed on Barcelona. The Spanish giants winning the Champions League yesterday (May 27th) was about as predictable as snow in Alaska.

The so-called “greatest manager in Britain” made a brutal rookie mistake by leaving Dimitar Berbatov and Carlos Tevez on the bench at the opening kickoff. Barcelona players must have been tempted to nip down to the bookies and place a bet on themselves upon hearing they’d really have nobody to worry about up front other than Wayne Rooney. And let’s face it, Rooney isn’t an out and out striker anyway.

I don’t really understand the point of splashing out tens of millions of pounds on these players, just to leave them on the bench in the biggest game of the year. In what other sport would you do this? Would the Pittsburgh Penguins of the NHL leave Sidney Crosby on the bench for half the game? How about the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers leaving Le Bron James behind or the New York Yankees doing the same with Alex Rodriguez? The answer is no. You bet your sweet ass these guys would be involved right from the get go. So why do football supporters and owners put up with it?




Why is football such a negative sport, why do the Berbatov’s and Tevez’s of the world sit on the bench, while the John O’ Sheas play a full 90 minutes. Berbatov and Tevez inevitably had to be brought on of course, as United were, to sum it up in one word, rubbish. The reason Barcelona won this game is simple, they started their strongest lineup and didn’t change their tactics. United had gone 25 games in the Champions League without a loss, so why change things in the 26th game, the biggest of them all?

Watching the match, you would never have known this was the same United squad that rips teams apart week in and week out in the Premier League. Where was the pace, the attacking and the passion? Frankly, it was nowhere to be seen. They were completely devoid of any creativity and inspiration, while looking like they were out for a stroll in the park. They didn’t pressure anybody and didn’t cut down space, and worst of all they didn’t attack. This team is built around its offence. But Ferguson chose not to play to his strengths, instead preferring to play right into Barcelona’s hands.

And speaking of O’Shea, and this isn’t a dig at him, but he’s a defender not an attacker. Why in the world is Ferguson sticking with four guys at the back when he’s down 1-0 and then 2-0? What’s the point of leaving O’Shea on the pitch and taking off offensive players such as Park and Giggs. What’s he doing, defending a 2-0 deficit? These are moves you may possibly make when you’re winning the game, not when you’re behind.



Chelsea took it to Barcelona in the semi-final second leg in London, and with any luck at all should have walked off as 3-0 winners, and that should have been the blueprint to use to beat the Spanish team. You’d think that somebody supposedly as smart as Ferguson would have the brains to figure this out. It’s a simple adage of sports. If you play your opponent’s style of game, you’re going to lose nine times out of 10 because they’re inevitably better at it than you are.

And Barcelona wasn’t that good either to tell you the truth. A couple of moments of glory and that was about it. If this game was the showcase of Europe, I can seriously see why most Americans don’t understand the sport and why they’d rather spend their time watching fishing or NASCAR or volleyball or bowling or darts or rodeo or tiddlywinks or…….

I thought that making it to the Champions League final was supposed to be a good thing, but after watching Chelsea and Barcelona take turns in giving it away like a hot potato, I’m starting to wonder.

The match itself was fine and both goals were excellent strikes. In fact, Michael Essien probably won’t be able to reproduce a goal like that again in his life. But both managers seemed intent on blowing it and Guus Hiddink actually managed to do it, however Pep Guardiola came pretty close to handing it back to him in injury time.

When Barcelona scored to win it on aggregate it wasn’t a surprise. In fact you could see it coming as soon as Hiddink took off Didier Drogba in the 72nd minute and brought on Juliano Belletti when Barcelona was down to 10 men. Hiddink gave Barcelona an avenue back into the game with this move and they eventually found it. Taking off a striker when your opposition is down to 10 men isn’t the smartest thing to do, especially when a goal against is going to knock you out of the cup.

If Drogba was injured and you had no choice other than to substitute him that’s fine, I understand, but you have to replace him with another attacker to keep Barcelona on the back foot. By taking Drogba off, it simply meant Barcelona only had Anelka to worry about and let them push up in attack.

Now, Guardiola inexplicably pulled off an even stupider move, and I rate this as stupider because he actually did it not once, but twice. This came after Andres Iniesta tied the game up in the 93rd minute. Instead of letting time run its natural course and waiting for the final whistle, Guardiola gave Chelsea two more chances to snatch a late winner themselves by making two separate substitutions in injury time. It’s a ridiculous move as you’re giving Chelsea all the ammunition they need to come back and bury you.

At this point of the game you want the final whistle to come as quickly as possible, not making substitutions and having the referee tacking on more injury time for you to throw away the game. And throw away the game they nearly did if a last second penalty had been called for handball.

Now, on to the refereeing, and it was pretty pathetic to say the least. And the man to blame here is one Tom Henning Ovrebo of Norway. Drogba and Anelka were manhandled and thrown around the pitch all game long with no calls, but after Anelka tripped over his own feet in the 66th minute, Barca’s Eric Abidal was red carded and sent off. Throw in a couple of blatant handballs and Chelsea probably could have had four legitimate penalties.

It’s no wonder Drogba went nuts and had to be restrained, by Hiddink, teammates and stewards after the game. I can’t really blame him as football refereeing has gotten progressively worse over the years. It’s about time FIFA did something to address this ongoing problem by either using a two-referee and four-linesman system or utilizing video replay.

Manchester United got a good start to retaining their Champions League Title with a 1-0 win over Arsenal at Old Trafford on April 29th.  United came out with guns blazing and should have had a 3-0 lead by halftime, but John O’Shea was the only one who wasn’t firing blanks and scored the winner in the 17th minute.  If it wasn’t for Arsenal keeper Manuel Almunia’s great saves in the first half, especially on Carlos Tevez, Wayne Rooney, and Cristiano Ronaldo, then the second leg of this semi final might just have been a formality.

Thanks to Almunia, Arsenal are still in with a shout in the second leg next Tuesday. Ryan Giggs finally came on in the 67th minute in his 800th appearance for United and then promptly scored a beautiful goal, only to be ruled offside. United may regret not burying the Gunners when they had the chance. Things could be a little trickier down in London at the Emirates Stadium.

Not much else happening on the pitch until the weekend, so of course the biggest topic off the pitch is of course money. It seems the taxman in England is up to his old tricks again and is trying to soak more money out of the top moneymakers, such as footballers.

Chancellor Alistair Darling has recently revealed plans to jack the top rate of income tax up to 50 per cent for those who make over £150,000 a year.

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger believes that any changes to the British tax system might stop foreign players from heading over to the English Premier League. And the fact the value of the English pound is sinking against the euro is also another concern as each club’s spending power has been significantly reduced.

When Wenger was asked if the English football leagues depended too much on foreign players, he said: “Don’t worry, that time will soon be over because with the new taxation system and with the collapse of sterling… the domination of the Premier League will end. The pound was at 1.45 or 1.60 (euros) at one stage…from one day to the next it will be a financial problem for all the English clubs.”

Birmingham City co-owner David Sullivan chirped in and told the Sunday Times he agreed with Wenger and predicted that England may soon suffer in the transfer market because of the low pound and tax situation. Sullivan added that players will likely seek higher salaries than they’re already making if they’re going to be losing more to the taxman.

Over in Spain, Real Madrid defender Pepe was force fed a 10-game suspension on the weekend for going berserk and kicking out at two Getafe players in a league match on April 21st. Pepe pushed Javier Casquero to the deck in the 88th minute and conceded a penalty. He then proceeded to kick him in the back and stamp on him a few times for good measure, just in case the ref missed anything. But he still wasn’t finished. Pepe then decided to drill Juan Angel Albin in the head with his fist and then insulted the fourth official while finally leaving the pitch.

Pepe got one game for the original foul, four for going bananas on Casquero, four more for the shot to the head of Albin and one for hurling insults at the official.

Pepe said he lost the plot because he thought giving away the penalty would cost his team a chance of winning their third straight league championship. Of course, to add a twist to the story, Casquero missed the penalty and Real’s Gonzalo Higuain scored in injury time to pull a 3-2 win. If only Pepe would have known.

The Champions League semi finals kicked off today (April 28th) with Barcelona and Chelsea playing to a rather uneventful 0-0 draw in front of 95,000 fans at the Camp Nou in the Spanish port city. Barcelona had the best chances, especially in the last 10 minutes, but Chelsea held on. It was actually the first time all season that Barcelona failed to score in a home game. Chelsea didn’t really seem interested in trying to score and that shows in the statistics. Barcelona had 71 per cent of possession and had 19 attempts on goal compared to three by the Londoners. For some reason Nicolas Anelka was kept on the Chelsea bench until about the 93rd minute. It’s Man United vs Arsenal up next (April 29th) and let’s hope it’s a much better match than this one was.

Mexican striker Carlos Vela has rejoined Arsenal for the game after being quarantined for a day due to fears over the swine flu outbreak in Mexico. Vela was told to stay away from training after some friends from Mexico came to visit him. Over 150 people have died from the virus so far and some Mexican teams have taken to playing in empty stadiums with no fans to help control the disease. The CONCACAF Under 17 championships and a beach soccer championship have also been scrapped due to the flu.

Newcastle United took a step closer to relegation yesterday (April 27th) with a 0-0 draw at home with equally unimpressive Portsmouth. Newcastle sit in with games to go and it looks like they’re going to end up in the Championship Division next season unless they realize the desperate situation they’re in and start playing like they’re actually trying to win a game.

Thirty-five-year-old Manchester United star Ryan Giggs was voted English Premier League player of the year by his fellow pros. It’s about the only trophy Giggs hadn’t won yet in his career by the way. So far, Giggs has lifted 10 Premier League titles, two Champions League sups, four FA Cups and two League Cups.

Giggs received the award on April 26th and is still waiting to make his 800th appearance for United during Wednesday’s Champions League semifinal first leg against Arsenal. Giggs didn’t play in the win over Spurs on the weekend.

While Giggs is and has been a great player, there’s no way he deserves the award on his play this season though. He has only started 12 games for United and it seems the award is basically being awarded to him to honour his excellent career. But even so, the players voted on it and that’s good enough for me.

The players also voted on the English Premier League team of the year and it looks like this:

Goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar (Man Utd), defenders Rio Ferdinand (Man Utd), Nemanja Vidic (Man Utd), Patrice Evra (Man Utd), Glen Johnson (Portsmouth), winger Cristiano Ronaldo (Man Utd), midfielder Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), striker Fernando Torres (Liverpool), striker Nicolas Anelka (Chelsea) and Aston Villa winger Ashley Young.

Young, 23 was also fittingly named young player of the year.