I 'm sad for the lost , yet excited for their renewal

I 'm really not in right mood to write this post but I had to congrate Arsenal for their late game bounce back from 1-0 at the first half. I only want to say that every players on the pitch are equally great and I 'm very looking forward to the 2nd leg  which will be held at Camp Nou on 8 March. I will not say Barca surely can win the match but I believe they can show something different after this lost. Barca has win too much and they started to forget the feeling of losing. Meanwhile , Arsenal had not won any major silverware for 6 years and they showed strong mental and desire to win in this match. That is why I love football. It's always unpredictable and the strongest may not always the winner. The winners belong to those who played with strong mentality , confidence and never-say-die attitude. Thank you ARSENAL as I think this lost may be the turning point of FC Barcelona.

UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

Finally , knockout stage of UCL will begin this week. Round of 16 , 1st leg will start from 15 February to 23 February.

15 February 2011

AC Milan vs Tottenham Hotspur

AC Milan

Tottenham Hotspur

AC Milan will be hosting Tottenham Hotspur at San Siro on this coming Tuesday. Hmm....... Tottenham is running out of luck as most of their core players are injured especially their star winger , Gareth Bale is going to miss the clash with Milan after he sustained a back injury at Newcastle. I 'm impressed with his performance against Internazionale Milano during the group stage. His lightning pace , deathly crossing and skillful dribbling technique made him a dangerous winger. Too bad that he remained unfit but I hope he will be back in time so that the showdown will not be dull and lifeless. Besides , they lost quite a number of midfielders such as Huddlestone , Modric and Jenas while only Palacios and inexperience Sandro are fully fit for the match. Tottenham hust unlucky for this clash. However , AC Milan has more advantages than Tottenham as they 're to start their attacking trio - Pato , Ibrahimovic and Robinho which is too much for Hotspurs.

In the absence of star player Steven Pienaar and Niko Kranjcar are going to play an important role against Milan. Kranjcar had did well in his last two matches to replace injured Bale.

Winning volley against Sunderland by Kranjcar

I wish both tean good luck !!!

I 'm quite lazy to write about Valencia vs Schalke but ....

This time , Raul will go back to Spain to aim to strike more goals to overtake Filippo Inzaghi as the all time top scorer in European competitions. I hope he will succeed to find a net against Valencia while Valencia need to prepare for Schalke incredible goalkeeper - Manuel Neuer.

Wish You Good Luck Raul !!!

FC Barcelona Vs Sporting Gijon

Well ! Barca finally dropped point at El Molinon but they remained the 1st place in La Liga.
This match was epic as Barca almost lost to Sporting Gijon due to the early goal by David Barral. I admitted it was a fantastic goal but Pique and Milito should do something about it and we could not blame Valdes for conceding the goal. Soon , they changed into defensive formation - ten man formed a formidable wall in their territory. Barca tried to pierce through their defence and finally David Villa equalised it with a marvelous chip over the keeper at 80 th minutes. I had great confidence on FC Barcelona that they will eventually win the La Liga and the upcoming UCL match against Arsenal.

After this match , it shows that FC Barcelona is not unbeatable but they are really hard to beat. Even you play defensively such as forming a human wall , they 're still able to find a way to crumble the wall. Today , Afellay didn't do well so as Pique and Milito. Mascherano's performance was not very convincing but I was glad that he began to be able to follow the pace of Barca 's system. However , I think Sergio Busquets as holding midfielder was more reliable because he was the product of  the youth academy of Barca so he fitted well into their system as he linked well with Xavi and Iniesta. He was one of the tallest guy in Barca ( most of Barca players are short ) and his stamina was incredible. Next match , Busquets going to be in the starting lineup.

Barcelona vs Arsenal

           Pedro  Messi  Villa

     Xavi  Busquets  Iniesta

Maxwell  Abidal  Pique  Alves

                   Valdes

Pinto
Keita
Mascherano
Adriano
Milito
Bojan
Afellay

International friendlies

Sorry if you think I was crazy enough to keep awake for whole night to watch these matches. I was beginning to feel amazingly sleepy around 9 p.m. so I decided to sleep much earlier than usual. ( Totally give up my Math )

Zzz... I woke up around 4 a.m. to watch Argentina vs Portugal. This match was really exciting and both team were superb but the difference is their ace player - Messi and Ronaldo. For me , Messi was far more superior than Ronaldo as he not only could set plays for his teammates while he himself was a terrific scorer.

However , Argentina's midfielders struggled a lot tonight and unable to function normally especially Esteban Cambiasso who was dominated by Raul Mereiles ,  Banega was also not his usual self and Mascherano gave away a lot of possession. Messi stepped in the battle of midfield and he able to produce tons of good passes , create more opportunity for attacking and displayed his excellent dribbling skill. I believe Argentina would become even ferocious with the return of Higua'in and Tevez.

Messi converted the crucial penalty which ;ed tp the final victory.

I didn't watch France vs Brazil but the result was very surprising. Benzema scored the only goal in the match which was enough to crush Brazil. 

Hernandes was really admiring Nigel De Jong ...

Anyways , France new kit is very tempting but I lacked of $ ...

Messi HATTRICK !!!

First , I would like to mention that this post is going to be a short one as I could not find a suitable way to describe the supremacy of Lionel Messi. I'm glad to be Barca fan.

Messi suffered a sicken tackle from Ujfalusi who cost Messi a few matches on the sideline

Messi first goal hmm... speechless

Excellent and accurate passing led to Messi 's fantastic finishing

Messi passed to Villa but his shot blocked by David De Gea so he finished the mess

I believed FC Barcelona can achieve treble this year.

Boin ... Boin... Bounce back

Recently , Liverpool had bounced back from their poor form during the early season. Although their biggest star Fernando Torres left to their rival - Chelsea , they bought young and talented forward like Andy Caroll and Luis Suarez. Suarez just scored an amazing goal during his debut against Stoke City.

I think Liverpool may not win the Barclay Premier League this year but they are going to chase after third or forth place for their European dream next year.

Well ! We only care about EPL and Italian team made a great impact on 2011 transfer window especially Milan and Inter Milan. The best transfer signing belonged to Milan as they signed Antonio Cassano for €1.7 mil and Van Bommel on free transfer. 

Another amazing signing is Giampaolo Pazzini from Sampdoria. Inter signed him for €19 mil while he done well in ihs debut and also his second match against Bari.

Inter fall behind Palermo during the first half but Pazzini turned out to be the hero of Inter. He firstly shielded the ball from defender and fired a low shot which past through Sirigu. His second shot was a superb header by a cross by Maicon. He also earned a crucial penalty which coverted by Eto.

Pazzini scored again at injury time.

Who is the biggest winner of this transfer window ? We don't know yet but I wish them all the best because Barca is the best at the moment. Haha.......

Copa del Rey Final - FC Barcelona vs Real Madrid CF

I was quite impressed with FC Barcelona as they managed to win Almeria easily by fielding mostly second string players like Bojan , Afellay , Nolito , Adriano , Thiago , Keita , Mascherano , Milito & Pinto. However , their performance were world class and this already showing the depth of Barca 's bench. Even without relying on their star players , Barca was still a fantastic team. The starting lineup was shown as below.
                
                  Nolito     Bojan     Afellay
            
               Keita     Thiago     Mascherano
        
         Adriano    Busquets     Milito (c)  Alves

                                   Pinto

They managed to control the pace of the game like usual.(Thanks to Thiago , Keita and Mascherano for their work-rate and persistence) At 34 minutes , Adriano went on a nice run and pass through 2 defenders .......  OMG He netted his first goal for Barca !!! This was a vital goal which boasted their confidence to score again. 1-0 was not enough for Barca

The second goal was stunning as well. At 55 or 56 minutes , Thiago firstly passed the ball to unmarked Dani Alves on the right flank and quickly ran into the box to receive a superb crossing from Dani. Then , Thiago sent the ball on the left side of goal area with a header. The ball flew so high till Esteban had no chance to deny it. What a goal !!!

Ibrahim Afellay , the new signing from PSV scored the third goal of Barca which was his first one as Los Blaugrana 's player. Keita passed the ball to Afellay and Afellay immediately drived into the box and blasted a low shot which sleek past Esteban. Barca reached the final with an impressive 8-0 aggregated victory and their opponent was Real Madrid. Let us crush them in the final.

Red Devil

Manchester United still remained unbeaten after they grabbed 3 points easily from Aston Villa despite Darren Bent 's single effort was not enough to save them from losing to the ''invincible'' Man Utd. Although I'm not a big fan of Man Utd , I admit that they 're the top team in EPL and one of the contender to win the UEFA Champion League title.

Edwin had launched a long free kick and the ball led to Rooney 's goal . Well ! I said this was a fantastic goal by Rooney. ( I don;t like him ) What a goal to end his goalless drought. 

The highlight of the match : 

Nani's cross led to Rooney second goal with a simple tap-in.

Darren Bent returned a goal with a nice pass from Downing.

Vidic received a pass from Rooney and his power shot was too much for Brad Friedel.

The January 2011 transfer

Well ! Everyone knew that Fernando Torres a.k.a El Niño had left Anfield  and headed to Stamford Bridge. This is going to be the transfer of year as Chelsea spent € 58.5 m on Torres & another € 23 m on David Luiz. This time , Manchester City spent less than Chelsea. 


Phew ...... by the way , what made me so excited is Chelsea will face Liverpool on 7 Feb. What a coincidence ! Torres 're wearing in Blue uniform to face his former team but what formation will be used by Carlo Ancelotti ? I personally predicted they 're going to use 4-4-2 as shown as below. Why ? The combination of Torres and Drogba are very formiable with the support of Lampard and Malouda which made them a very great attacking team.

4-4-2

Fernando Torres               Didier Drogba

Florent Malouda  Frank Lampard   Essien   Ramires

Ashley Cole    John Terry(c)    David Luiz     Branislav Ivanovic

    Petr Cech

Substituitions :

Henrique Hilario

Nicolas Anelka

Salomon Kalou

John Obi Mikel

Yuri Zhirkov

Jeffrey Bruma

Jose Bosingwa

While for Liverpool FC , I think it should be something like this :

4-3-3

Dirk Kuyt     Andy Carroll    Luis Suarez

Raul Meireles    Steven Gerrald(c)    Lucas

Martin Kelly  Martin Skrtel  Daniel Agger Glen Johnson

Pepe Reina

Substituitions :

Peter Gulacsi

David N'Gog

Joe Cole

Jay Spearing

Maxi Rodriguez

Sotirios Kyrgiakos

Fabio Aurelio

I think both team has equal chance against each other but I just can't imagine Torres will face Liverpool so early. I 'm expecting Luis Suarez & Andy Carroll will going to rock Chelsea during their debut.

Torres most recent performance against Chelsea