Its been a few weeks since Suarez was banned for 8 matches. I originally planned to blog about it right after he was banned but decided to wait for the FA Report.

Past “cases” involving Evra

Before I talk about the actual Evra v Suarez case, I just wanted to mention what lots of people were saying about how Evra is an “unreliable” witness. They bring up that he has claimed racism against him previously and they were unfounded. Even in the official LFC statement it mentions it – (HOWEVER, that statement is an embarrassment).

The 2 previous cases were involving that Chelsea ground man and the other was against Steve Finnan. The Chelsea case was not Evra who claimed racism.  The Steven Finnan case was actually a member of the public. I believe is was a fan who was hard of hearing so lip-read what Finnan apparently said.

Suarez v Evra

I think we will never know 100% exactly what was said because it was kind of Suarez’s word against Evra’s.  Suarez actually admitted using the word “negro”. Suarez said he only said it once but Evra claimed he said it several times. Either way, the word may be acceptable in his home country but is not here in the UK. He should know this since he’s actually been playing in Europe for a few years. He said he never used it on a derogatory way. Why bother saying it to Evra?? Personally, I think he knew what he was doing and was trying to wind up Evra.
An apology – kind of
Suarez has kind of apologised for it. He said “I never, ever used this word in a derogatory way and if it offends anyone then I want to apologise for that.” So he’s not apologised for saying that word but just saying if someone was offended . Maybe if Suarez, right at the start of all this and just after the match, admitted that he used racist language. Said that although the language he used was acceptable in his home country, understands that it is not accepted here in the UK and that in the heat of the moment, acted like an idiot and used the racist language and was sorry for doing so. Maybe then it would have been OK and not all drawn out like it has been.
FA Report
I admit I have not read all of the FA Report but have read the key bits and read articles on people who have read it. Its not nice reading some of the things which are alleged to have been said and done. Of course, there are 2 sides to every story and there are discrepancies between what Evra and Suarez said. Reading the report and the points it makes, it makes the laughable statement which Liverpool FC released even more embarrassing.  One of the most laughable points from the LFC report was about the fact that Suarez’s granddad is black. Its like that automatically means he can’t be racist and its not possible he used racist language???

Some points :

• Suarez said he “pinched Mr Evra’s skin in an attempt to defuse the situation”. WTF??! How does pinching someones skin defuse a situation.
• The FA’s case, according to the report, was that Evra asked Suarez why he had kicked him, to which the forward replied: “Because you are black.”
• When Evra challenged him to repeat the answer and said he would “punch him”, Suarez said: “I don’t speak to blacks.”
• According the the report, Evra then told Suarez he was going to hit him, to which the Uruguay international replied in Spanish: “Dale, negro, negro, negro.” That translates to “okay, blackie, blackie, blackie”.
• Suarez denied the charge. The report stated that Suarez said he “used the word ‘negro’ in a way with which he was familiar from his upbringing in Uruguay”.
• Suarez has said he said “Por que, negro?” to Evra, which was intended to be in a friendly way.

If these things are true, its shocking terrible behaviour from Suarez. In fact, he could be lucky its just an 8 match ban!

It will be interesting to see what happens when he comes back especially if when playing United – which could be his first game back! Also, United play Liverpool in FA Cup next week so will be interesting what LFC fans reaction is to Evra.

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Barcelona v Real Madrid

First was the match between Barcelona and Real Madrid. This time Real Madrid at least give it a go and didn’t play negative football. They were also unlucky with a disallowed goal when the ref (for some reason) thinking Ronaldo had fouled Mascherano in the build up to the goal. Ronaldo was fouled himself and then when he fell and rolled, he rolled in Masherano. Masherano then rolled over about 3 times as if he had been shot.  When a cheat!

The game overall was much better than last week which had all the playacting. We did of course have some playacting but a lot less than last week. In between some dives, some actual football broke out. However, Barcelona were too good and Messi was brilliant – the speed, the control and the passing is amazing. And this is all between him being kicked about all over the pitch!

The game ended 1-1 with Barcelona going through, 3-1 on aggregate.

Manchester United v Schalke 04

This was a much closer match than last week. It wasn’t hard as Schalke were awful. However, United were very comfortable and didn’t threaten much. Raul was once again pretty anonymous. Neuer had a mixed game making some excellent saves but he was at fault for the 2nd goal.  It was a bad mistake – an almost Gomes type error.

For tonights match, Fergie decided to rest several players. He had the weekends game against Chelsea in mind and the strong position of being 2 goals up on aggregate. 3 of the back 4 were not the first XI. He rested Rooney, Carrick, Rio and Park completely. The bench was very strong though with Chicharito, Vidic, Giggs and Fletcher.

In the end, United won 4-1 (6-1 on aggregate) with a brace from Anderson. That doubles his goals hes scored in his United career. Anderson played well but really should score more goals. Gibson played well too with an excellent pass for the 1st goal (and a bit of a lucky 2nd). Once again Valencia was excellent. Since coming back from injury hes been in great form.

It will be interesting to see how plays against Chelsea on Sunday and also who plays against Barcelona in the Champions League final. A lot of the players tonight were, in a way, playing and performing to try and get in the team. Anderson now has a chance. Valencia already had a good chance to play but it all depends who Fergie plays. He usually likes to play Park in big games and that would normally leave it between Nani and Valencia on the right wing. However, he may play Park more centrally so Nani and Valencia could both play. That would mean in the middle would be Park and space for 2 more midfielders (I think he will play with just Rooney upfront). Fletcher has just come back from injury so if he plays and plays well in the remaining 3 games he has a chance too.

I think it will 3 out of Fletcher, Park, Carrick, Giggs and Anderson. Will be interesting to see how Fergie will set the team up to stop Messi!!

Only a few games left in the Premier League and there were more twists and turns this weekend. United played Arsenal and lost 1-0. It now means that if Chelsea beat United this coming weekend, they will be level on points. I was at a wedding during the match so couldn’t watch but was getting score updates. Whenever I go to a wedding this year, United lose!!! Two weeks ago I was at a wedding when United played City in the FA Cup final. On both occasions as well, we apparently played rubbish and didn’t deserve win anyway.

I have since read reports and seen highlights of the match v Arsenal and we were lucky with Vidic and the handball. If ref had spotted it, it would have been a penalty and Vidic probably would have been sent off and then would have missed the game against Chelsea. At the end, Owen was tripped and should have had a penalty but considering the Vidic incident we can’t really complain. United just lost the game in midfield and it was 2 v 3. Rooney was dropping into midfield but it was more of a 4-4-1-1 rather than a 4-5-1. I think Fergie decided to play with 2 forwards since Chicharito and Rooney had played so well recently. However, it just didn’t happen and Arsenal bossed the midfield even without Fabragas. I am happy for Ramsey to score after his horrible injury last year (or the year before??).

It is still in United’s hands and if we win the rest of our games we have won the league. At the moment, the goal difference is exactly the same. It could all be decided on the last day of the season! Its so close!! COME ON UNITED!

Chelsea v Spurs

On Saturday, Spurs lost to Chelsea 2-1. It was a very fortunate win for Chelsea with the ball not crossing the line for one goal (although it was a huge mess up by Gomes – again!) and another which was offside – after a few mishits and deflections!!

That loss for Spurs pretty much ends there chance of getting that vital 4th spot. It unfortunately does mean that City are likely to get 4th!

After the United Arsenal result, that win for Chelsea gives them 2 or 3 points than they should have. Those points could be vital at the end with things so tight.

Saying that, Chelsea were favourites to beat Spurs and in my predictions I thought we would lose to Arsenal (and I think it will be a draw v Chelsea) – we have only won 5 times away from home so a game against an Arsenal team with nothing really to lose was always going to be tough.

It was the Champions League semi-final (1st leg) this week. First on Tuesday was Schalke 04 v Manchester United. Being a United fan I was of course excited about this match but a bit nervous with Schalke doing so well so far including there thrashing of Inter Milan – I didn’t watch the matches but based on the scoreline, it appears to be a thrashing.

Anyway, I had no reason to be nervous as Schalke were rubbish against United. United were excellent and the arguably the best I have seen them play all season – although you could argue the finishing was not as good. We were all over Schalke and could have (and maybe should have) been at least 4 goals up. I think I read we can 13 shots in the 1st half alone.

At half time, the score was amazingly 0-0. United should have taken their chances better but their keeper Neuer was brilliant. He was stopping everything!

United finally managed to break the deadlock with Giggs – who had previous missed a glorious chance but sliced it wide with his right foot – after a great through ball from Rooney. It was a perfect ball from Rooney who was amazing all night. The 2nd goal keeper just minutes after. Good work by Valencia and then a lovely touch from Hernandez to Rooney who slotted the ball home.

Overall an excellent game and the referee was great. He really let the game flow and wasn’t fooled by any play-acting.

The only negative about the game is that its “only” 2 goals. If Schalke get an early goal next week then who knows!! However, if they play anything like on Tuesday, we have nothing to worry about!!

Real Madrid v Barcelona

This was the 3rd El Clasico in recent weeks and had plenty of talking points. The match ended 2-0 to Barcelona with 2 goals from (who else) Messi but that doesn’t tell half the story.

Real Madrid had 3 players sent off, there was diving and play-acting all over the place, it wasn’t a great advert for football.

Starting with the sendings off. Pepe was sent off for a challenge on Alves. Pepe went into a challenge and had his foot a little high. However he was going for the ball and you could argue Alves had his foot his as high – otherwise they would not have connected “foot to foot”. Alves may have been kicked but it did not warrant the rolling over on the ground about 5 times. I have seen the replay of the red card since and he may not even have been kicked and they both just kicked the ball at the same time.

Alves is one of those players who is well known for play-acting AKA cheating. Another one in the Barcelona team is Sergio Busquets. His sole purpose seems to be to try and get opposition players sent off.  There was one moment he grabbed his face as if he had been punched by Mike Tyson. He wasn’t even touched!! It was embarrassing but he got a freekick out of it. They are not alone with the play-acting and lots of their team-mates do the same.

However, it was not just Barcelona play-acting but Real Madrid too. There biggest culprit probably being Di Maria. Its just something that is part of football in particular on the continent but its so annoying. I am sure some players are just like that with the play-acting but I wonder how much of it is their managers telling them to do it and make the most of the slightest touch. Its a shame that there wasn’t a better referee – like in the United game – and someone strong enough to punish the cheating. I think the referee from Tuesday was Spanish so unfortunately that probably means hes got no chance to refereeing the final.

The other 2 sendings off was one for Jose for basically what he was saying to the 4th referee (and I am sure in part to use his usual Jose smirk/smile) – he was sent to the stands – which were about 5 metres away from the bench!! The other red card was for Pinto who was not even on the pitch!! He was the sub goal-keeper. It was given after the half time whistle and there was a bit of a “ruck” between players and coaching staff. It could easily have been any player getting the red card but he seemed to be the instigator.

Bored of Barcelona??

As well as the red cards and the play-acting, I am beginning to get bored of Barcelona and how they play. They are a brilliant team and one of the best teams ever. If you were to make a list of top 10 players in the world, they would have about 4 and they can destroy teams. However, there tiki taka style of football and passing it to one another can be boring. Some people may say its clever, some say its patient and its keeping possession but passing it to one another sideways from 5 yards away constantly isn’t that impressive. (Saying that, the England football team couldn’t do that in the World Cup!).

It seems to be they pass it around for a bit, messing about and then let Messi do something amazing – which he usually does. I think hes scored 51 goals this season!!

Having a look online, I don’t appear to be the only one and John Nicholson from Football 365 pretty much thinks the same .

It was a shame that this match, between 2 great teams turned so ugly. The newspapers had a bit of a field day commenting on the match.

After the game Mourinho had a go official and all sorts of people. It was everyone elses fault for him play “anti-football” and playing so negatively. It will be interesting to see what happens in the 2nd leg. Will Mourinho really have a go at Barcelona or will he get players to by cynical again?? We know from games recently with Barca playing Chelsea and Arsenal that they can be beaten if you have a go at them. However, like United they are in a strong position with 2 away goals – and they have Messi.

There is a good article hear from Jamie Redknapp about the match.  He says that both teams were good in the way they played the game but Mourinho has been cast as the villain of the piece. Read the rest here.

My word

The match was on Sky Sports on Ray Wilkins was co-commentating. His commentating was awful!!! I wasn’t the only one as he was actually trending on Twitter worldwide with everyone complaining. Rio Ferdinand had to mute his TV.
He came out with some great quotes. He also kept saying “my word” and “stay on your feet”. In fact, #stayonyourfeet was also trending on Twitter last night. It seemed that the secret to succeeding in European football is to stay on your feet and thats it.

Stay on your feet

One great bit near the start of the match, he had already said “stay on your feet” about 5 times and Spurs were defending and blocking the ball and diving to block shot etc. Wilkins did said Spurs did well and all stayed on their feet. This was then followed by an action reply of  Corluka clattering into Di Maria. LOL!

Then there was Dawson’s handball. First he said the “referee done brilliant there, got a great view and its not a handball”. Then literally 10 seconds later, “thats a penalty”. He then said a few mins later that the ref was having a great match and not made a bad call???! (And after that the ref missed a few more things including obvious obstructions on Bale).

He also kept saying “we” when talking about Spurs. He later clarified himself when he said “we” he meant because they were English team etc.

Ronaldo is a tricky customer

One thing I didn’t know about Ronaldo was that he is a “tricky customer”. Thanks for letting me know Ray, didn’t know that!

The final 2 points are to do with Spurs performance and defending. It seems that Sky Sports team were trying to make excuses about them losing and they were “unlucky” and if Crouch wasn’t sent off or Lennon didn’t have a sore throat then they may have won.

Prove of this Sky Sports “delusion” was when Ray said they didn’t deserve to lose 4-0. Yes they did!! They did nothing all match especially the 2nd half. Real Madrid had 35 shots , 11 on target. Spurs had 4 shots, 1 on target.

A final point was about corners. Apparently Spurs had defended well from them according to Wilkins. Thats forgetting that first 2 goals were conceded from corners!! LOL

He was being interviewed about his new role as Director of Football for the New York Cosmo – the famous football team – the team which signed Pele (couple years after he retired).

Just seen on the BBC Sport site that they have the full length interview – about 25 minutes.

Check it out!!

Also worth a look is Dan Walker’s blog post about his interview with Eric Cantona – http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/danwalker/2011/03/i_received_the_following_tweet.html

Anyway, going back to Capello’s decision to name John Terry as the new permanent England captain … again. I can understand why he may have been captain for a match or 2 but why permanent captain?? Terry is still an idiot and the reasons he lost the captaincy are still valid. If Capello felt Rio was no longer good enough for whatever reason, why not pick the England vice captain – Gerrard??

Rio may have been injured for a load of games recently so I can understand him wanting someone else but John Terry has played less games for England I think in the last 12-18 months?? I am sure I read that somewhere.

Also, his decision not the speak to Rio about the decision and before announcing it to the world. Disappointing.

England v Ghana

It was an England friendly match last night against Ghana. It was a really good match and not really like a friendly match. I am a big fan of Ghana. They really go for it in a match and their fans are amazing. The atmosphere and the noise from the fans was great! Very happy that they equalised at the end. Great goal from Gyan.

Last night Gareth Barry was the captain. He wasnt even in the squad for the Wales match at the weekend?? To be fair he had a very good game. England played very well overall especially in the first half. Ashley Young continued his good form and even Downing was half decent in 1st half. However, ITV Football’s decision to name Downing as Man of the Match is strange to say the least. Shouldn’t be surprised though as the ITV Football studio team are rubbish. Adrian Chiles just stumbles his way through and says “ehhhh” after every other word, then they had Marcel “for sure” Desailly and then Gareth Southgate!!! Oh dear. Its saying something when Danny Murphy was the beset person in the studio!

Anyway, to the actual match. The match finished 2-1 and had plenty of incidents. Before the match there was talk about whether Rooney should have even been on the pitch for his elbowing incident in the Wigan game.

Full of incident

The incidents in the game included:

• Terry’s hand ball near the start. To be fair it was hit at him very hard and looked like he was trying to move arm away
• Torres disallowed goal – didn’t see much before the goal which was wrong. Got away with it there.
• Vidic 2nd yellow card I thought was harsh. He was holding him off but he went down very easily. Maybe justified to go down with Vidic holding him off like that?? Disappointing to see some photos afterwards with some players surrounding the ref (even if he had a crap game) and also Vidic going head to head with the ref.

However, the main talking point post-match is all about the penalty – which was really soft – and also for Luiz and how he wasn’t sent off. He was given 1 yellow card but had a late challenge on Chicharito which went un-punished but also a cynical tackle on Rooney.

Karma??

I suppose its karma. United are still in a strong position and will be a point clear of Arsenal if they win their game in hand. It will be interesting to see how Arsenal react after their Carling Cup final and also without Van Persie for 6 weeks and Fabragas and Walcott for a week or so.

Karma I guess??

• Kaka
• Ronaldo
• Drogba
• Rooney
• Van Persie
• Torres
• Messi (ish. He did play well in many games but didnt score)

The team of the tournament for me is:

Casillas; Ramos, Lucio, Puyol, Contreao, Schweinsteiger, Xavi, Sneijder, Ozil, Forlan, Villa

Honorable mentions to: Maicon (did he mean that goal??), Lahm, Pique, Sanchez, Villa, Eduardo, Ozil, Klose, Robben, Iniesta (tough to leave him out but other players better and points taken off for his diving), Muller (tough to leave him out too especially since hes top scorer). Also the Uruguay team who did very well considering their population is about 3million. (Properly several others I forgot).

Personally I agree with the people who voted for the Golden Ball (best player) as Forlan. He seems to be the only one who knew how to kick the Jubalani football.

British Grand Prix

First I will talk about the Grand Prix. It was a great grand prix with lots of overtaking, the new section seems to have create more “action”. It always helps when there is a safety car I think. I think it helped the race when Vettel had the problems and it forced him to make his way from last place all the way up to 7th. Just showed what performance the Red Bull had. However, what it also showed was that although Vettel a lot of the cars quite easily, once he got up to Sutil he struggled.

Problems

The race weekend didnt start very good for McLaren who had a new upgrade to car which didnt work. Hamilton did really well to qualify 4th but Button was in 14th. They decided to take off the upgrade for the race as it ruined the balance of the car. The other main talking point was Red Bull. They really should be miles ahead in the championship but always seem to have problems/issues. This weekend was about the front wing. They had a new wing which was on Webber’s car. However, Vettel damaged his in practice and Red Bull decided to take the wing off Webber’s car and put it on Vettels. Webber of course wasnt pleased. Christian Horner said it was a Championship decision as Vettel had more points – ages to go in season and only 10 points between them before this weekend. He also said the different wings made very little difference (then will bother changing!?!).  When Webber won at the end he said “not bad for a no.2 driver”. Horner said something like “now you can smile”. Red Bull have the best car but seem to have so many internal issues. I am not sure if its even Christian Horner who made the decisions this week – I think it was the one of the “big bosses” e.g. Helmut Marko.

BBC

It was another great race weekend for the BBC whos F1 coverage continues to show how crap ITV’s was. Of course its now helped for ITV that they have adverts but BBC has a lot longer to show the race and the pre and post race stuff. They manage to talk to great guests including this weekend Sir Stirling Moss. The online stuff is excellent too and of course its good to have the iPlayer when you miss things. I think the F1 Forum after the race on the red button is BRILLIANT. They get to talk more about the race, drivers and whats happens. They always get to talk to the drivers straight after the race and get their thoughts. This week it was great to see Rubens and Jenson in the interview together! Another excellent thing this week was the pub quiz. Nice bit from Jenson when trying to give a clue to Lewis to guess Alonso in the “name guessing game”. He said something like “you dont get on and he can’t pass safety cars” LOL. Bring on the Germany GP!

World Cup Final

So it was the world cup final also on Sunday. A couple friends popped round and we had a few beers, pizza and nachos which was all very nice.

This world cup has been an odd one. It started slow with not many goals and poor matches. (I have already blogged about this). The final itself was pretty poor especially the first half. It wasnt helped that Netherland’s gameplay seemed to just to foul Spain. Lots of fouls and just breaking up play. The worst culprits being Van Bommel and De Jong. The worst (although not 100% intentional) was a “karate kick” by De Jong on Alonso into the chest. There was a record number of cards with I think 14 yellow cards and a red. Howard Webb had a tough game – overall did well for a tough match but made a couple bad decisions. Most notably the corner near the end which he gave as a goal kick. The other was what seemed like a foul on Elia which led up to the goal – although Netherland had 2 (ish) chances to get rid of ball.

The game went into extra time and in a way I was hoping for penalties for some excitement. However, I didnt want Netherlands to win because of the way the played.

Spain over-rated??

Thats not to say Spain play the most exciting football. When Torres plays well and they have Silva on the wing its more exciting but they just pass the ball to death. A stat which proves it that they are the lowest scoring World Cup winner with just 8 goals. I think all but 3 goals was scored by Villa. Everyone seems to salivate over Spain and they are a very good time but just that exciting. Also, another bad thing about Spain is (like many other teams) the amount they dive and playact. They have so many great players and don’t need to do it. Iniesta dives about and when Heitinga got his 2nd card, I don’t think Iniesta was pulled back much at all.

Anyway…. thats the world cup over. The premier league starts in about a month so looking forward to that.