As I posted earlier, Manchester United were able to seal another 1-0 result at home against Roma. A Wayne Rooney effort made the difference.
Dynamo Kyiv faced off against Sporting Lisbon with a score that ending 2-1 in favour of Lisbon. The Kyiv goal was quite spectacular with a backheal assist. This left Group F with Manchester United comfortably on top, Roma and Sporting equal on points in 2nd and 3rd respectively (goal difference helping Roma). While Kyiv sit on the bottom with no points at all and a very difficult campaign ahead of them.
Rangers played a spectacular match against Lyon and were able to brush them aside 3-0 in France for some valuable points. Very strange indeed to see Lyon so overwhelmed. Puyol scored the first goal for Barca against Stuttgart after the keeper couldn’t hold on to a Ronaldinho header. The match ended 2-0 when the man of the moment, Messi, slammed home a Henry cut-back.
Robin van Persie slotted a nice goal after Adebayor performed a cut-back of his own to show he’s learnt a few things from the departed Henry. The final score was 1-0 to Arsenal over Steaua Bucuresti. Sevilla defeated Slavia Praha 4-2 with Fabiano scoring some nice goals (one leaving the keeper for dead). CSKA Moscow and Fenerbahce had to settle for a 2-2 draw.
Inter were able to carry on their good form from earlier in the week where they destroyed Roma in a 4-1 drubbing. More importantly it was the form of Ibrahimovic which continues to win games for Inter, a brace from him sealed the score at 2-0. Check out the highlights for a truly spectacular finish on the second goal.
I still find it hard to believe that Ricardo Quaresma isn’t playing for one of the big clubs in Europe (not to say Porto isn’t a good club but it isn’t thought of as a Madrid or Liverpool or Milan, etc.). I guess he did have a good chance to really take the world by storm when he was younger and Barcelona purchased him but he never really made an impact there. Maybe it was too much expectation, maybe the style of play was difficult to adapt to, Maybe Rijkard and him had some real issues or perhaps any number of the common reasons that players can struggle when changing clubs and leagues.
It’s not that he’s that old (24) but it does seem like he’s been around a while now. Recently he’s regained the form that attracted such interest in the first place. He is a powerful, fast winger with incredible technique and vision and in my opinion, very much the same player as Christiano Ronaldo. Both share almost all the same qualities and with these wingers on the Portuguese national squad, any defence would be nervous. Portugal just needs a striker that can keep up with these guys! Interestingly they both used to play at Sporting Lisbon at the same time for a brief period.
I can’t quite understand why the last couple of transfer seasons haven’t attracted a great number of suitors… Perhaps Porto have him on quite a contract or he is happy to remain there for now. There have been rumors that his personality is hard to deal with but this is the case for many players and he seems to be doing just fine at Porto. I read that Chelsea tried to sign him with little luck but also that Inter are after him as Figo’s successor… I sure hope so! Anyways, check out the clip, he’s definitely one of my fav players.
It seems that Milan have finally got their Duck. The duck I mean is Alexandre Pato from Inter (Inter of Brazil). Pato means Duck in Portuguese and Alexandre was given this nickname as he is from a place near Pato Branco (white duck) in Brazil. It’s funny that he played for a team named after Inter Milan but ended up with AC Milan, oh well, all the best to him! He has many Brazilians there to help him accustom.
He’s probably got a little coverage over the last year as he was involved in Inter’s Intercontinental Cup. They defeated Barcelona in the competition that used to be the Toyota Cup that puts the Champions League winners up against the Copa Libertadores winner. Brazil has had a good run over the last couple years actually (Sao Paulo defeating Liverpool the year before).
Alexandre definitely has much potential and AC Milan can probably thank Leonardo for bagging them another Brazilian talent (who also signed up Kaka’ from Sao Paulo some time ago). In my opinion, I think they’ll probably loan him so he can get some European experience before they start using him but he could already make an impact for them. Problem is he can’t start playing for them until January 2008 anyways, after paying out a fair bit for his buy-out clause they must be betting on him for the future. He definitely will be one to watch out for very soon! Check out his current abilities below…
An unlikely heroe of late sealed a 1-0 victory for Inter Milan against arch rivals AC Milan in the final of the TIM cup (A small preseason tournament). See the goal below, pure Recoba of old, so good to see again.
I’ve always admired Recoba, he’s been at Inter for such a long time, it’s always been said that he could(’ve) been the worlds best. What happened to all that immense potential? I guess some of it was realised from time to time but he has always been plagued with injuries. It’s pretty tragic and I know what it’s like to have long term niggling injuries that don’t seem to go away.
It seems like he’ll move away from Inter finally which is probably a good choice for him as he’s now on the wrong side of 30 and probably doesn’t have much playing time left. He finds world-class competition for a starting spot with Ibrahimovic, Crespo, Adriano, Cruz and now Suazo.
Check out below why he was always highly rated and the moments that etched him into the hearts of many an Inter fan…
PS: The music is pretty dodgy but you forget about it pretty quick after seeing that lethal left foot!
2007 - Sept - 15; Update: Recoba is now on loan to Torino. Good luck El Chino! He has been at Inter since 1997, made 261 appearances and scored 72 goals.
An amazing young talent has signed up with Manchester United after his grandfather sent their youth staff a DVD of his skills. Rhain Davis is British born but was playing in Brisbane, Australia. It’s hard to say who will be the next big thing at this age but you can certainly see he has an amazing amount of skill and talent!
Okay, first off, I’ve got nothing against Christiano Ronaldo (I’m half-Portuguese, half-Brazilian so I have loyalties in both camps but I got into football during R9’s time, when he was unquestionably the best player in the world. He inspired me to start playing soccer (I started quite late) and really got my interested in the world game.
Christiano has got so much going for him, his pace, technique, strength and height. The only thing is the ugly side of his game, that is, the diving, etc. (which he seems to be cutting down on thankfully). But while he was still in primary school, Ronaldo Luis Nazário de Lima was already making a name for himself.
He began his professional career with Cruzeiro as soon as he was old enough to sign up. He didn’t last long there before he was snapped up to play at PSV Eindhoven in Holland where he scored 55 goals in 57 appearances, a truly phenomenal statistic a testament to his alias “O Phenomeno”. A good striker is one with about 1 goal per 2 games so 1:1 is amazing!
Barca could smell his pure talent and snapped him up for the 96-97 season where he maintained his amazing strike rate with 47 goals in 49 appearances! Moratti was soon pulling money out of his pockets to bring him to Inter where he spent about 5 years before going to Real Madrid where his talent was mostly wasted (at the very least, badly managed). Many Inter fans are sour about how he left the club but to me the problem was Hector Cuper, the worst Inter coach ever. He left him on the bench for the last game of the season which they lost and handed the Scudetto over Juve (I think it was Juve).
Around 1999-2000 he had an injury to his right knee that was almost career ending. He injured it, did rehab for about 3 months before re-injuring it badly almost straight away in his first game back. A dark period indeed for soccer and Inter! Luckily he came back and proved everyone wrong with an amazing performance in the 2002 world cup (after almost two years out!). In WC2006 he became the highest scorer in all the world cups, I sure hope they consider him for WC2010!
He turns 30 in a month (Sept 18th) and so is starting to approach his last remaining years in the game. Personally I feel he still has plenty to give and I think he will make his mark at AC Milan. Even though they are my bitter rivals as an Inter supporter, I do hope he gets the chance to win a champions league medal as it’s probably the only thing he hasn’t won yet!!!
So this is obviously my first post for this soccer blog. I guess I hope to bring you the latest soccer news and add some insightful comments based on my opinions about what’s going on in the football world at the moment. I’m probably going to post my favorite youtube clips with commentary cause they’re a lot of good ones out there to watch!
Anyways, I hope you find this blog interesting and informative, it’s sure to grow as I’ll try to post as often as I can!
but I got into football during R9’s time, when he was unquestionably the best player in the world. He inspired me to start playing soccer (I started quite late) and really got my interested in the world game.