Lionel Messi claims Ballon d’Or

As expected by many football fans, Lionel Messi has won the prestigious Ballon d’Or trophy, mostly due to the  fabulous 2008-2009 season he has had with Barcelona, as they won the treble, which includes the Champions League trophy, and Messi ending up top-scorer in the competition with 9 goals.

Messi won largely ahead of Ronaldo, 477 points to 233 points for Ronaldo, who this time ends runner-up.

The list of the top 10 players is as follows:

1. Lionel Messi (Barcelona)

2. Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid)

3. Xavi (Barcelona)

4. Andres Iniesta (Barcelona)

5. Samuel Eto’o (Inter Milan)

6. Kaka (Real Madrid)

7. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Barcelona)

8. Wayne Rooney (Manchester United)

9. Didier Drogba (Chelsea)

10. Steven Gerrard (Liverpool)

In an interview with France Football magazine, he stated:

Honestly, I knew that I was among the favourites because Barcelona had a fruitful year in 2009. But I didn’t expect to win with such a margin. The Golden Ball is very important to me. All the players who won it were great players, and some great players never won it

Giggs scores 100th Premier League goal as United see off Portsmouth

Wayne Rooney and Ryan Giggs were the main men for United as the former scored a hat-trick (although 2 of them from penalties), while the latter scored his 100th Premier League goal to cap a pulsating encounter against Portsmouth at Fratton Park, 1-4 the final score in the Red Devils’ favor, but it was a hard fought win, don’t be influenced by the scoreline

United 3 Everton 0

Last night, in a late kickoff, Manchester United won rather easily against Everton, 3-0, to keep up with Chelsea (won 4-0 against Wolves) and to regain the second place off Arsenal (lost 1-0 against Sunderland).

United were the better side as they had complete control over the game, but yet they do have some problems with the finishing touch from the strikers, namely Owen and Rooney, as all 3 goals were scored by midfielders, Fletcher on 34th minute, Carrick on 67th and Valencia on 75th.

Next stop will be in midweek for the Champions League match against Besiktas at Old Trafford, where may be we’ll see a changed line-up for the Red Devils who have already qualified for the next stage.

Detailed report on WDKF.

 

Chelsea 1 Man Utd 0: Latest downfall for the Red Devils

John Terry was United’s ‘executioner’ as Chelsea denied United from taking one point home, but in rather controversial circumstances it has to be said.

United started well but could not find a way to get past Cech, with Rooney the only striker as United missed Berbatov, Ferdinand and Vidic for this game, while Owen was as usual on the bench. The only goal was scored by Terry for Chelsea on 76th minute from a freekick by Lampard, but Drogba, at the same time, fouled a United defender, and while being offside tried to poke the ball goalwards, an action which the linesman should have immediately signalled as a correct offside decision as Drogba was interfering with play as well as had committed a foul, but instead the goal stood, and Chelsea maintained their 100% home record, with only 1 goal conceded at home so far, and now they are 5 points ahead of United and Arsenal, with Arsenal in second place with same points as United but a better goal difference, and a game in hand as well which could see them secure the second place and move closer to Chelsea if they win.

Detailed report on WDKF

 

Champions League Week 4 round-up

The CL group stage return legs were played on Tuesday and Wednesday night, and yet again some surprises awaited the fans across Europe.

Liverpool back in business as United slumps

Liverpool were worthy winners some hours earlier in an encounter against Manchester United at Anfield today, as the Kops ended a nightmarish 4 consecutive defeats in all competitions to grab a vital win against arch enemy United, a win which will surely bring fresh air to the scousers fans and team staff alike, while the Red Devils will have to think again about tactics and formation to use to finally succeed in winning against the former, as this is a 3rd defeat in a row against Liverpool following the 2 games lost last season to Rafa Benitez’s side, a man who only a few days ago was on the hot seat, now celebrating what may be a turn around in his team’s season.

EPL Gameweek 9 & CL Gameweek 3 highlights

Beach ball (right) helps Bent score

ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE (WEEK 9)

Life’s a BEACH!!! That must have been the first reaction of the travelling Liverpool supporters as a beach ball helped Sunderland’s Bent to score the vital goal in the opening 5 minutes to see off the Kops in Saturday’s Premier League match. The beach ball (in red in pic), was cleared off the ground before that incident, but somehow a Liverpool fan punched it back in front of his team’s own net, and Bent fired a shot into that beach ball (bearing Liverpool’s badge on it), and while both Reina and Johnson were distracted by that, Sunderland took the 3 points. But this goal should not have stood according to rules, but the ref gave it and Liverpool were unable to make a comback, 1-0 the game ended in Sunderland’s favor.

Happy Diwali 2009

My best wishes to all readers and Hindus around the world. May the divine light guide you through your journey of life.

Studs-Up: A website/blog by Chris Toy

Studs-Up is a website + blog which I recommend to all football(soccer) fans. Chris Toy is the man behind this wonderful site, which contains a comic section to add humor, his blog and a forum for people like us to discuss football issues as well as his comic creations.

His latest comic strip for today as follows:

And my most fav ones up to now, which I ‘entitled’ as “Adebayor’s revenge” is in 3 parts, which you can view on these links:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

More can be found in his Comic Archive on his website.

WordPress.com launches Publicize for Yahoo! and Twitter

A new service which WordPress.com has launched for bloggers, the Publicize service, which allows users to send their posts to third party services, for the time being these 2: Yahoo! and Twitter, so no need to login to Twitter or Yahoo to add the link of any new posts written on your wordpress blog.

To know more about this service and to activate it on your respective blogs, follow this link: Publicize