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Thursday, May 28, 2009

Chaaaaaampionnnnns!

Hard to call Barcelona anything but a worthy champion after yesterday's performance. Manchester United came out a house of fire in the opening 10 minutes and easily could've scored on three occasions, but against the run of play, Samuel Eto'o turned the Man U defence inside out to open the scoring and from there, it was an impressive show of midfield dominance from Barca. What I cannot for the life of me figure out is how Man U manager Sir Alex Ferguson sends out his team for 60 games or so playing a 4-4-2 formation and then in the biggest one of all goes 4-3-3. The lack of midfield depth was exposed badly on many occasions. Kudos to Cristiano Ronaldo, about the only Man U player who had a good game. The rest were largely passengers and ineffective. How good was Lionel Messi's goal to put it away? Incredible. Iniesta was the man of the match for my money. Sir Alex Ferguson, among other United members, said Barca was a worthy winner, though I'm guessing Chelsea supporters wouldn't agree after they were robbed in the semis...it took overtime, but by knocking off the Chicago Black Hawks 2-1, the Detroit Red Wings are going to put NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman to work to not have the Stanley Cup Finals start next weekend...the Chicago Cubs are taking on manager Lou Piniella's personality. First Milton Bradley had another of his trademark meltdown's and of course, then talk of how umpires are conspiring against him, as though that'll smooth things over, and yesterday, Carlos Zambrano went wild after a disputed call and whipped the ball into left field, threw his glove, and went Paul O'Neill on a water cooler on the way out. The Friendly Confines? Not so much...New York Yankee Mark Teixera went yard again for the now first place Yanks to continue a smoking hot few weeks. He's now hitting .275 with 15 homers and 39 RBI...so what is worse this week, blowing a 10-0 lead like the Tampa Rays did Monday or blowing an 8-2 lead and then blowing a 10-8 extra inning lead like the Blue Jays did yesterday in dropping their 9th straight? That's your new poll question...the LA Lakers may have won game 5 to take a 3-2 series lead, but one unnamed Denver Nugget isn't sure all was on the up and up, claiming the Lakeshow "paid" for the game. Somewhere, NBA Commissioner David Stern just went Carlos Zambrano...rather annoying that "OTA" has become a part of everyday discussion when it comes to the NFL. Why not call it "Spring camp" or something? The world needs no more acronyms...have a great Thursday.

2 comments:

norway said...

Even though I Can't stand Berbatov, in retrospect I think Man U would be better off playing a 4-5-1 with Berbatov alone one top. Carrick is about the only midfielder that deserves a pass, the rest were horrid.

And don't feel Chelsea got too much to say, even though they certainly think so themselves. Neither of those penalty situations were unarguable, and the ref shouldn't just give a penalty in one 50-50 situation because he didn't in the one before. If he is not sure, he should wave the play on. They also did a remarkable job in relieving the ref of the pressure after the game with all their antics...

My vote for Ballon d'Or next fall goes to Iniesta, though, Messi will probably get it instead. fantastic player.

norway said...

(Not counting Ronaldo as midfielder obviously, he played well too) Vidic looked incredibly shaky.

Pique with CL trophy two years in a row with different teams.