Initial Conditions

Ladies and Gentlemen (mostly gentlemen), I am pleased to announced an experimental project, a blog devoted entirely to football!

If you take a quick glance at my category cloud, you’ll notice that “football” is my most popular category, so I thought a separate blog for that would be ideal. The thing about this new blog is that I hope that I can get others to join and contribute. If you want to contribute, please get in touch.

You can find it here.

Fear not, as I will still blog here as often as I feel able about stuff that isn’t football! kthxbai

I’ve been neglecting my blog recently apart from to plug things. Sorry about that.

Anyway, now the football season is over, I thought I’d do my own end-of season awards, some serious, some not. I’m not strictly sticking to England, but I will for the most part.

Player of the season: I imagine Ryan Giggs was picked largely for sentimental reasons and because there was no stand-out candidate in England, and I agree with that to an extent. Frank Lampard had a good season, I suppose. Special mention to Arshavin for helping out Specsavers FC* in the second half of the season, particularly for his goals against Merseyside Red.

Young player of the season: Steven Ireland. Come back and play for your country, you pillock.

Northern Ireland player of the season: While West Brom went down, they would have done so a lot earlier were it not for Brunt. Probably. Honourable mention to Steve Davis at Old Firm Blue.

Match of the season: It’s between the 4-4 between Spurs and Specsavers FC or the 4-4 between Merseyside Red and Specsavers FC. I’ll go for the former because it featured…

Goal of the season: David Bentley’s goal for Spurs against Specsavers FC. Honourable mention to Fernando Torres goal for Merseyside Red against Blackburn on the Hillsborough anniversary. (I resisted the temptation to put Iniesta’s goal for Barcelona against West London Blue, hilarious though it was).

Manager of the season: Tony Pulis of Stoke. Seems they weren’t dead certs for relegation after all, so there’s hope for Burnley next season.

Titus Bramble award for Comedy Moment of the season: Barcode FC owner downing a pint at the Emirates, caught on Match of the Day cameras. When questioned by the police (he wasn’t meant to drink it in the stadium as that’s not allowed) he said that “[he] thought it was non-alcoholic”. Classic. I was slightly spoiled for Newcastle stories….

Darren Anderton award for lameness: Bangor FC. “I know let’s spend lots of money to get into the new Irish Premier League, then decide we can’t be bothered and take voluntary relegation!”. Lame.

Worst punditry: Rafael Honigstein on Guardian Football Weekly suggested that the Champions League final would be “the most one-sided ever”. Well, it was pretty one-sided, but not to Man Utd as he predicted.

6-0-6 phone-in comment of the season: Tim Lovejoy had probably the most uncomfortable conversation of his life when Chelsea lost to Barcelona in the Champions League had some Welsh ring him and tell him he was a disgrace. You can find it here. Also, when England reserves beat Germany reserves in a friendly,he invited his audience to phone in “Is there any team better than England in the world right now?” and his audience immediately rang to tell him that Spain, Holland, Brazil, Italy, Argentina, France (debatable), Germany (though they’d just been beaten), Portugal, Russia (no evidence) and others all satisfied the sketchy criteria. Classic. Apparently he’s off for next season. What a shame.

Best TV coverage: BBC. But of course. Credit to Setanta started for airing a new comedy soap opera that went out on Saturdays and Sundays. I hope “Live SPL” continues next season.

It’s late so I’ll finish now, but if you have any of your own, please let me know!

*specsavers fc= arsenal

Today Greyfriars Bobby Charlton played FC Farcelona in the Round of 16 of the cup. Unfortunately, despite battling back from two goals down to draw 2-2, thanks to goals from James Cant and Ben Beaumont, the Bobby lost 3-2 on penalties. I took the liberty of recording most of them and putting them up here (video isn’t that great, but I did knock it together in about a half hour, and I’d never done one before!).

One positive though. James Whiteford, who is getting married tomorrow, took his penalty very well. This would be a good chance to say something about it not being the only time he’ll score this weekend, but that would be childish.

Quarter Finals

1. Villarreal v Arsenal

2. Man Utd v Porto

3. Liverpool v Chelsea

4. Barcelona v Bayern

Semi-Finals

Winner 2 v Winner 1

Winner 4 v Winner 3

(First team drawn plays first leg at home)

This is very interesting. Thankfully (from a pan-European point of view) the possibility of an all-English semi-final is quashed by Bruno Conti’s magic balls, so Jonny Foreigner is guaranteed a place in the last 4. How very dare they!

Villarreal and Arsenal met each other previously, in the 2006 semi-final, with Arsenal coming through 1-0 on aggregate. Indeed, this tie might be worth missing since Villarreal have played six games against English teams and lost by an aggregate total of 1-0.

I’m going for Arsenal to win this, probably 1-0 after extra time.

The last time Man Utd played Porto resulted in Jose Mourinho doing a jig on the touchline. However, Porto are probably the worst team in the draw now and I think it would be quite monumental for them to beat Man Utd.. if they’re on from.

Man U to win 3-1

There’s not much you can say about Liverpool v Chelsea. It’s become something of a Champions League institution in recent years to have them play each other and for it to be quite dull (last year’s semi excepted). It’s a tough call, but I think having the second leg at home might work in Chelsea’s favour.

My tie of the round is Barcelona v Bayern (but unfortunately we’re not likely to hear much about it in the British press other than a cursory nod). In an ideal world, this would have been my final, but things don’t work like that, sadly. I think if Barca had the second leg at home they would be a dead cert, but with the second leg in Munich, it’s really hard to call. As a fan of the Bundesliga, my heart says Bayern, but as a realist, my head says Barca.

If these happen, I would expect Man U to beat Arsenal (by no means a guarantee though) and Barca to beat Chelsea to set up an anglo-spanish final. But who will win it?

What do you think?

(with apologies to Guardian Football Weekly)

Craig Doyle, on Juninho’s free kick goal for Lyon against Barcelona:

We always talk about Ronaldo being the free kick master, but if [Juninho] keeps going like this, he could have some competition!

Quite right too. 34 year old, 44 caps for Brazil,99 rating for free kicks in PES, considered for some time by many people who aren’t Premier League sycophants as the best free kick taker in the world  Juninho is surely one to watch for the future.

Should have stuck to rugby and double-glazing, Craig.

[of course, there is a chance he was joking, but it certainly didn't seem that way]

1. Belarus v England: England should have a lot of confidence, Belarus are mediocre.

Prediciton: 1-3

2. Northern Ireland v San Marino: Even we won’t mess this one up. San Marino are equal bottom of the world rankings.

Prediciton: 3-0

3. Germany v Wales: Wales improving, but likely to go down fighting against the Germans.

Prediction: 2-0

4. Ireland v Cyprus: Ireland had a good start but should be wary of the improving Cypriots who ran Italy close.

Prediction: 2-1

5. Belgium v Spain: Belgium haven’t impressed in their previous two home games- Spain are much better.

Prediction: 1-3

6. Norway v Holland: Norway got out of jail against Scotland, Holland are purring along nicely.

Prediction: 0-1

7. Chile v Argentina: Difficult to call, as Argentina seem to be spluttering through and Chile are doing reasonably well.

Prediciton: 2-2

8. Brazil v Colombia: Brazil are back in form, Colombia are having problems finding goal

Prediciton: 3-0

9. Canada v Mexico: Canada are out, Mexico will be eager to come back after the loss in Jamaica

Prediciton: 0-3