CL Semi-Finals 1st legs round-up

Last night John O’Shea scored the only goal for the 2nd match of the 1st leg semi-finals against Arsenal  to give Man Utd a slender lead to take with them to the Emirates Stadium for the return leg.

United started the match brightly, with the crowd roaring them on. Rooney had a header tipped away by Almunia, while Tevez and Ronaldo as well found the inspired Almunia on their way. It could have easily been 3-0 in United’s favor at half-time. The second half was less interesting however, except with some counter-attacks led by Ronaldo (who found the bar with a superb strike) and Rooney, but to no consequences whatsoever in the end. Special mentions to Gibbs, Arsenal’s young wing back, who gave Ronaldo a pretty tough time in the game, and Almunia for saving so many clear chances, while for United Rooney and Tevez were their usual self, running after every ball/pass and giving Arsenal defenders a bad time, while Ronaldo as well had a good game. Next week, United will have to try  defend this lead or even try to win to get through.

The other semi-final match, played on Tuesday night, saw a very defensive Chelsea draw 0-0 at the Nou Camp against Barcelona. To be fair to Barcelona, despite having the magician Messi, Eto’o and Henry upfront, it is really difficult to score when you have 9 Chelsea players ‘parked’ at the back defending, with only Drogba upfront. Cech made several saves to keep his team in the match for the 90minutes, as Henry proved to be more dangerous on that occassion rather than Messi, who had a subdued night. Barcelona’s players and staff are still very angry about the way the match was played, mostly due to that defensive approach by Chelsea, and also for some of the ref’s decisions.

So all still to play for in both semi-final matches, as next week will see these 4 teams battle again for only 2 to reach the finals. Arsenal can still beat United and qualify, while the Red Devils only need a draw to get through (easier said than done thou). Chelsea will have to score if they want to reach the finals, as a draw greater than 0-0 will mean qualification for Barcelona, or even if the Catalans manage a win.

Ryan Giggs wins PFA Player of the Year Award

Last night, Ryan Giggs was named Professional Footballers’ Association Player of the Year, the first time in his brilliant career he has been attributed this award. He had picked two young player awards in his early days at the club, and has now been awarded this top accolade by fellow players.

Ashley Young has been awarded the Young Player of the Year (got nothing to do with his name here ) the same night. Young won this award ahead of another favorite, Stephen Ireland.

Giggs has thanked Sir Alex for the confidence placed in him, and also all the players who voted for him. It was quite a surprise thou that he won the trophy, as he had started only 12 league games this season but made regular appearances in the squad for all competitions. He will be making his 800th appearance for the club if he plays on Wednesday for the CL semi-final. If he prolongs his contract for another year it will be just too great to see this legend in action.

So Giggs is the winner for this year, ahead of hot favorites Vidic and Gerrard, and he even made it to the Premier League Team of The Year which is as follows: Edwin Van der Sar, Glen Johnson, Rio ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Patrice Evra, Ashley Young, Steven Gerrard, Ryan Giggs, Cristiano Ronaldo, Nicolas Anelka, Fernando Torres.

Some may say that this trophy was won by sympathy or whatever, but I say that this trophy rewards the great career of one of the greatest legend the Premier League and Manchester United have known.

Photo from DailyMail.co.uk

The top 10 Man Utd players

Here is the list of the top 10 (in descending order)  greatest United players according to the DailyMail. Of course some of you may not totally agree with this list but I’ve taken it same as from the website, except for some details which you can read by clicking on the link above.

10: Cristiano Ronaldo

9. Bryan Robson

8. Peter Schmeichel

7: Duncan Edwards

6. Roy Keane

5: Ryan Giggs

4: Denis Law

3: Eric ‘King’ Cantona

2: Bobby Charlton

1: George Best

Twitter, Facebook and Youtube at work??

According to a survey conducted by the University of Melbourne, employees who use the internet for personal reasons at work are 9% more productive than whose who do not, and among these personal uses include Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, along with others, like playing games, reading online news sites etc.

+  +  = BETTER EMPLOYEE!!!

This survey has been carried out on people who are average internet users while working in the office (less than 20% time spent on internet for total hours in the office), it has been pointed out however that internet addicts will perform less well than those who don’t use internet at all while working.

So next time your boss is after your life for browsing or viewing a video at work or twittering, just point him/her to this article.

In some offices however it can be noted that the employers have installed proxies and configured them to deny access to these sites .

FA Cup: Final of the Blues

Everton wins on penalties Drogba scores the 2nd vs Arsenal

So finally the dreams of Manchester United to win 5 trophies this season has been reduced to 4, and they will have to battle hard to win the remaining 2, which are the champions league and the premier league.

Tonight a young Man Utd squad faced the blues from merseyside, Everton, for the second semi-finals of the weekend and the match ended 0-0 for the 90 minutes, as well as in extra-time, before Everton eventually won 4-2 on penaty shootout, with 2 fine saves from Howard to send them to face the blues from London, Chelsea.

Even if the match ended on a sour note for both the team and fans, the United youngsters have shown a positive approach to the game, with the likes of Rafael and Fabio (injured in the 2nd half) defending really well, Gibson and Anderson doing a rather good job in midfield, and Macheda and Welbeck combining quite well in front even if they did not score. However, Berbatov has failed to impress again, and even missed an easy penalty during the shootout, along with Ferdinand. Cahill for Everton missed his, but Foster was helpless on the other Evertonian shots. Howard, ex-united keeper, has shown his former team he is still a good keeper, and made 2 fine saves in the shootout from the above mentioned players.

Last night Arsenal and Chelsea fought out another hard match, with Chelsea eventually going to the finals. Walcott scored the opener for Arsenal, with Malouda equalising for Chelsea, before Drogba scored the winner in the last 5 minutes. This match was far more interesting than the one tonight, as both teams really did well and gave a brilliant performance. Arsenal missed some chances to wrap up the game, and Chelsea as well hit a post thru Anelka and had some trouble to cope with Arsenal’s pace throughout, but somehow managed a win.

So BLUE will be the color for the finals to be held on 30th of May at the same stadium which hosted the 2 semi-finals, Wembley, and may the best team win.

It seems however that United have been too confident of winning on penalties, as the last 2 finals which they played, CL finals won vs Chelsea in 2008, and Carling Cup finals won vs Tottenham in 2009, had been decided on penalties. But this time they were just not confident enough, and may be Foster did not get the videos of the Everton shooters on his I-Pod . Berbatov is proving to be a confirmed flop, even if he came only from the first half of extra time and played around 3omins, he missed a penalty, and was hardly the target man in the area during extra-time, may be time he’s sold back to Tottenham, where he’ll meet his mate Robbie Keane. Another disappointment is Tevez, just ran around needlessly, and did not play the striker role which was expected from him, may be will not be signed permanently in the end, and rightly so.

Britain’s got talent: Susan Boyle

This video has been recorded on 13th of this month, and features Susan Boyle, a contestant at TV show Britain’s Got Talent.

She’s performing ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ from the movie ‘Les Misérables’. According to a survey, around 12 million people have already watched this performance from the web.

Susan Boyle – Singer – Britains Got Talent 2009

This performace really blows away even the top singers who sing pop, rap etc. nowadays. People were crying after hearing her performance, and TV reporters in the US qualified her as the ‘voice of an angel’.

However, it’s very bad that some people sometimes jump to conclusions too easily, and this is what happened to Susan before she shut up everyone who was ridiculising her with that wonderful performance…way to go lady, all the best for the future!

CL Quarter Finals 2nd leg round-up

The 2nd legs of the QF for the Champions League have ended tonight (Wednesday), and the two days on which the 4 matches took place saw a lot of action.

Tuesday Night: GOAL MADNESS!!

Tuesday night involved 4 great teams playing for a place to the semis, Liverpool, Chelsea, Bayern Munich and Barcelona:

1. Chelsea vs Liverpool

May be the classic match for this season, a 4-4 draw in the end, but with the blues of Chelsea qualifying with an aggregate score 7-5. Liverpool however, started brilliantly, and were 2-0 up at half-time, with goals from Aurelio and Alonso. But in the second half, a mistake by Liverpool keeper, Reina, allowed Chelsea back, when he spilled Drogba’s deflected shot into his net. Alex equalized with a superb freekick, and eventually Lampard gave the blues the lead, 3-2 and most thought that Liverpool were already gone. But it was without counting on the ‘warrior attitude’ of the Kops, they were levelled when Lucas saw his shot deflected in, and Kuyt gave them the lead 2 minutes later, 3-4 in favor of Liverpool. More drama unfolded, as Lampard equalized once again on the 89th minute, and Liverpool were clearly out this time.

So Chelsea progress, while the Kops today (Wednesday) mourn those 96 people who died in the Hillsborough disaster.

2. Bayern Munchen vs Barcelona

Having lost 4-0 to the Catalans in the 1st leg, Bayern needed to score 5 goals without conceding to qualify, but Barcelona are not champions of spain for anything. Even if they did not play as in the 1st leg, they were not troubled really by the Bayern tactics. Ribery scored on 47 minutes for Bayern, but Barcelona came to play for their pride, and Keita equalized eventually on 73minutes. A 1-1 draw for the night, with Barcelona being easy winners on aggregate: 5-1.

Wednesday Night : ENGLISH TEAMS ARE THRU’

2 matches as well today, and two very important matches for both English clubs which were involved, but not against each other as on tuesday night.

1. Porto vs Manchester United

Man Utd needed to win in Portugal vs Porto to qualify for the semis, and the 2-2 result from the 1st leg was definitely against them. But never write off Man utd, they can rise to the challenge when provoked. Although it was not a brilliant game, Man Utd kept the match in control most of the time, and a terrific strike from 40 yards (approx. 35 meters), by Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid next season??) on 6 minutes, was enough to secure the win, and also to make United become the first English team to win on Porto’s home ground.

Although Porto tried to push for an equalizer, they could not produce the football they played last week, and with Ferdinand back for the Red Devils, the defence seemed more stabilized. United eventually are qualified, with a 3-2 aggregate.

2. Arsenal vs Villareal

The game ended 1-1 in Spain last week, and Arsenal would have been through even with a 0-0 scoreline. But Arsene’s kids had more than one trick under their sleeves as they gave Villareal a complete beating for this return match, Walcott scoring in the 10th minute, followed by Adebayor and Van Persie in the second half (60th and 69th minutes resp.), thus winning 3-0 on the night, and a 4-1 aggregate.

So the semi finals will see Arsenal face Manchester United, while Barcelona will face Chelsea, and both matches will be played on the 1st and 2nd leg rules as for the quarter finals.

Detailed reports for all the matches can be found at Football365

Hand of God

This is an article which I found today while browsing the online newspaper DailyMail.

We’ve already seen pictures of his eye… now we have the first image of the hand of God.

The ghostly blue cloud seems to form an outstretched thumb and fingers grasping a burning lump of coal.

This astonishing image was taken by Nasa’s Chandra X-ray observatory, which is orbiting 360 miles above the Earth’s surface.

Pic 1: The Hand of God

It recalls those of the Helix planetary nebula, whose blue centre surrounded by white clouds earned it the nickname ‘the eye of God’.

The hand was created when a star exploded in a supernova, creating a rapidly-spinning 12-mile-wide star called a pulsar, which is deep inside the white blob at the hand’s wrist.

The pulsar is spewing out enormous amounts of electromagnetic energy, creating a dust and gas cloud so wide that it would take a light beam 150 years to cross from side to side.

Pic 2: The Eye of God

The red disc is a separate cloud of gas. The fingers are thought to have been created as the energy passed from the pulsar to this gas cloud.

Nasa scientists estimate the moment depicted here actually happened 17,000 years ago.

It has taken since then for the X-rays, travelling at 670million mph, to reach Earth.

Note: The above texts have been quoted directly from the newspaper article.

CL Quarter Finals 1st leg round-up

8 teams left, 4 matches played in 2 days. The Champions League is slowly drawing to an end, although there are still the return legs to play as well as the 2 legs for the semis + the final in Rome.

4 English, 1 Portugese, 1 German, and 2 Spanish teams are still present.

TUESDAY NIGHT: THE MATCHES OF DRAWS

Two matches played on Tuesday:

1. Villareal vs Arsenal:

A promising game indeed, with both teams giving their best. Senna scored in the early minutes of the game with a terrific strike from outside the box to give Villareal the lead, and in the second half, a superbly executed scissors kick by Adebayor gave Arsenal a well deserved equalizer and an advantage for the return leg next week as well.

2. Manchester United vs Porto:

Seems that Man Utd’s woes are ongoing. Led 1-0 from a 2nd minute strike by Rodriguez, United were left stranded as it could have been 2-0 on the 5 minute mark. However, a costly mistake by Alves gifted a goal to Rooney on 15 minutes. United were still slack though, and it was Porto who controlled the game. Tevez thought he had grabbed an important goal in the dying minutes, making it 2-1 in united’s favor, but Marino capitalized on another awful defending by the red devils and equalized, giving Porto an advantage for the return leg.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT: THE MATCHES OF GOALS & WINNERS

Again 2 matches played:

1. Barcelona vs Bayern München

Barcelona seems to be on fire in front of goals! A wonderful first half show led by Messi, Eto’o and Henry made sure the Catalans have a definite advantage for the return leg, as well as a foot in the semi-finals. Messi scored 2, and Eto’o and Henry one a-piece to beat Bayern 4-0.

2. Liverpool vs Chelsea

A surprise awaited many of us in this match. Liverpool have been winning their games lately by scoring many goals, an exception being at Fulham (1-0 only), but when Torres scored on 6 minutes, I was hoping for a complete rout like they did against Real Madrid in the previous stages, but Chelsea did not allow themselves to be bullied. Ivanovic equalized from a corner, and Liverpool seemed to be running out of ideas. The second half was more in favor of Chelsea, and again Ivanovic from a corner made it 2-1, and Drogba eventually sunk the Kops by sliding in Malouda’s cross. 3-1 the final score for Chelsea, and the return leg seems more in their favor as well.

So Chelsea & Barcelona are nearly qualified, and surprise surprise, both these teams may face each other in the semis if things remain in their advantage. Man Utd will have to battle hard in Portugal and become the first English team to win there if they want to retain their trophy and progress to the semis, while Arsenal also have to get at least a 0-0 at home to qualify, a defeat would however eliminate them, as well as a draw of 2-2 onwards.

Rusty defending or over-rated players?

Manchester United has been crumbling for weeks, the defeats versus liverpool and fulham, a hard battled win versus aston villa (thrashed 5-0 versus liverpool a week before they played man utd), and now a draw at home versus porto in the champions league, although the portugese team deserved a win for the way they outplayed united.

Ferguson may take the blame on himself for playing villa on sunday instead of saturday and leaving only 48hours for most of his players to be fit again, but still the players themselves are not free from blame.

Since the liverpool match it was seen that there was a problem somewhere, and till today they are still suffering. Led by Porto last night with only 2 minutes played, and nearly conceding a 2nd goal on 5 minutes…not even one pass or cross going the right way, as O’Shea showed with a nearly missed back pass to Van Der Sar, or Carrick just walking around the pitch without succeeding to pass accurately. Porto were just playing freely, with pace and no pressing being done at all by the united players. Ronaldo seemed disinterested, he lost the ball which led to the 1st Porto goal (like on Sunday against Villa when Agbonlahor scored), and he does not even try to come back to correct his mistake…Evans as well not inspired as the ball came to him in the end but he shot directly to Rodriguez, who collected  and scored. As for the second goal by Porto, all United players were marking only one side, and left Marino free on the right, who didnt need a second invitation to score. Hulk gave the United defenders a very tough night, he may resemble the ‘Hulk’ character in the comics, but he is very quick and turned players like Vidic and Evra inside-out (may be a player for United to get in the next transfer window, along with Lisandro).

Overall, the midfield was inexistent, the defence was worst than inexistent, and only rooney in attack for most of the game means that the attack also was not there, he may have scored, but it was a gift really by alves, and he did make an assist for tevez. Ronaldo is rated as the best player in the world (MY FOOT!!!)…for the amount of money he is paid, he does 1/100th of the effort…The squad may be needs to be rejuvenated, and the youngsters should be given a run, likewise for the goalkeeper, Foster is ideally placed to takeover from van der sar.  As for scholes I would say better leave him on the bench for the second half!

Altough many think that United still have a chance to progress, but it will be an altogether different game in Portugal next week, and if they managed to score 2 on Old Trafford, on their home ground Porto will be much better, unless Ferguson manages to find a way to block the attack led by Hulk, Lisandro and Rodriguez.