The Football Oscars !!

After the Oscars on Sunday, I just kept thinking how it would be if footballers were given Oscars.
[This whole post is an excerpt of Pires Morgan's article in the Dailymail]

Best Picture :
No contest here. Pepe Reina’s dumbstruck face as Darren Bent’s shot ballooned, quite literally off a balloon, into the net at Sunderland was hysterical. Only matched by rumours that Manchester City promptly put in a bid of £40 million for the balloon.

BEST ACTOR : John Terry - For his brilliant performance in the movie " Bridging the gap "

BEST ACTRESS I don’t condone violence, obviously. But that infamous YouTube footage of New Mexico female soccer star Elizabeth Lambert punching, tripping and pulling the hair of her opponents was quite the sexiest thing in world sport all year.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS John Terry flew to Dubai to his betrayed wife Toni’s side, with the world expecting him to receive his marching orders. Instead, Mrs Terry sported a T-shirt saying ‘I love the chaos’ and forgave him in the 20 seconds it took for Terry to hand her his credit card to go ‘comfort shopping’ all afternoon. 

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE Emmanuel Adebayor sprinting 80 yards to taunt Arsenal fans after scoring for Manchester City, screaming his head off and beating his chest. He never showed either that speed or passion when he was with us.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE John Terry with Wayne Bridge’s girlfriend. To outrage even your own greedy, amoral, sex-crazed, selfish Premier League colleagues is really impressive. Well done, JT, you Inglourious B*****d.

BEST FILM EDITING Ashley Cole, for those delightful underpants photos that he sent on his phone to any Page 3 bint who asked for them, while assuming they’d never show anyone. Duh!

BEST COSTUME DESIGN El Hadji Diouf — anytime, anywhere, he is 100 per cent certain to look ridiculous.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM I’ve no idea what Carlos Tevez was saying after he scored for City against United this season because I don’t speak Spanish. But I bet it wasn’t ‘I dedicate this to my mentor and father figure, the great Sir Alex.’

BEST DIRECTOR Sir Alex Ferguson’s response to the new ‘Show respect to referees’ guidelines was to claim, falsely, that referee Alan Wiley was too ‘unfit’ to officiate in a game. Like those other tyrannical directing greats, Tarantino, Coppola, Winner, Fergie will never change and I’m not sure I want him to.

Look who's beck in town !

He first arrived as a 13-year-old , a boy who won a Bobby Charlton competition and spent a summer in Salford on trial. He departed in 2003 as David Beckham, Manchester United superstar, England captain and global icon.
Time has come for Beckham to play against his old club again in an emotional Champions league enocunter tonight ,with a club that has given him a lifeline to his falling career to play in the world cup  this summer.
Its Manchester United Vs AC Milan at the Theatre of dreams, tonight for a place in the quarter finals.
Utd look favourites with a comfortable 3-2 lead from the first leg, which means Milan have to win by 2 goals margin atleast.

Whichever team wins, it wont be a happy night for Beckham. However professional he might sound, dumping out his beloved club with whom he had a love affair for so long will not make him proud. On the other hand, defeat at the hands of Utd virtually ends his final chances of showing his quality on the european stage , which puts his world cup chances into question.

Whatever the result may be, Beckam is sure to get a rising ovation from the fans who will never forget his curling free-kicks and pin point crosses that played a major part in so many trophies they won.

Even Alex Ferguson, who flung a boot at him, which eventually resulted in Becks leaving the club, will be looking to have some wine with him later ,ofcourse after making sure Utd are through to the next round !

A tribute to centurion Scholes !

Paul Scholes scored his 100 th goal for Manchester United yesterday. Here is my little tribute to him, as I thought great players need to be admired, beyond the boundaries of the clubs. Though I am a fan of Arsenal and havent watched him as much as a Utd fan, I will try my best !

I always remember him as a school boy faced player ! Scholesy made his debut with Utd in 94-95 season and 16 years on, is still playing . That speaks volumes of this guy. He was one of the golden generation of Utd,and the midfield of Giggs- Keane -Scholes- Beckham  ruled English football for years.
These are some things that will always be remebered about Scholes :

His fighting spirit: Here is a guy who retired from playing for England to concentrate on his career at Man Utd. He is still an inspiration for the youngsters ,still making those wonderful passes at the age of 36,  when most of the players are well off their peak and cant get into the first team. Even the likes of Pires, Ljunberg, Vieira from Arsenal's solid midfield, who played in the same era , couldnt take the toll of age and had to move out of Arsenal.

Trophies :Scholes won almost every trophy with ManUtd - The Premier League, Champions League, FA cup, Carling cup,World club championship and the most memorable being the treble of 1999.

Poor tackles : Well,we've seen it so often - Scholes is a poor tackler . I myself have had the pleasure of seeing him sent off after making some really stupid tackles and I cant forget his face after that - like that of a shamed school kid sent off the classroom, chin down  and slowly walking off :)

His love for volleyball : Scholesy sometimes confuses football pitch for volleyball. He will always be remembered for the two red cards he has received for stretching his hand and reaching for the ball. Once he scored a goal and the other time he stopped a goal, but got red-carded on both occassions. Its beyond anyone's imagination why he did that !!!

Thunderous volleys : Alex Ferguson once said that Scholes is the best striker of the ball he had ever seen. This is time and again shown by the goals he scores from outside the box.Here is one of them- the volley is so spectacular that even the commentator is stunned !




Scholes, who prefers to stay away from spotlight and rarely gives interviews, once described his ideal day as "Train in the morning, pick up the kids from school, play with them, have tea, get them to bed and then watch a bit of TV."
What a character !

sdc 

P.S: I couldnt resist ending this with an Arsenal touch :) . This is my favourite moment of Paul Scholes. It is the2005 FA cup final ,the game is 0-0 after 120 mins and we get to the penalty shootout. Everyone scores and Scholes misses it. Vieira scores with final kick and wins the FA cup for Arsenal. Thank you Scholesy !!!

Shawcross - He s not that type of player ??!!!

Even before Shawcross left the pitch after making that horror tackle on Ramsey which broke his leg into pieces,  Testimonials  were already being written on the lines of  'How good a person he is' , 'He is not that type of player',' It was an honest tackle'.
As one section of the media, tried to highlight the injury and the graphical pictures/ videos to analyze the tackle frame by frame, a larger section of the media had already started to search for interviews and stories to tell people "How nice a lad Ryan Shawcross is". The media was by large worried about ' What Ryan was going thru, how hard it is for him'  than Ramsey, lying on a hospital bed, having not seen his leg, facing a lengthy and lonely layoff for months if not an year .
I mean, relate it to a real life situation - Is the judge going to spare you by reading 'how good a person u are' testimonials after u recklessly drove and caused a grievious injury to someone ? NO.
This video shows why Ryan " is that type of player".  It just amazes me how the commentators are biased - Ryan makes a clumsy tackle on Ade after the ball had gone out , and instead of telling it is a bad tackle , he is praised saying he doesnt care for big reputations !!!
Well, All i m gonna ask is We are least bothered about how good a person he is or whether it was his mistake or how many matches ban he is gonna get. Because none of it changes the fact that a 19 year old promising teenager is out of the game for an year , and it will take months for him to just start walking, and he has to make a recovery all by himself, going thru a very lengthy , lonely spell. And in the meanwhile atleast please dont irritate us with "Ryan is not that type of player" crap.

Get well soon Aaron ...

Shocking. I still remember the moment Aaron Ramsey broke his leg. He and Shawcross went in hard for the ball, honestly, I felt Ramsey was committing a foul on Shawcross it was Ramsey who fell in a heap crying in pain. Only when the players started getting wild and started gesturing at the medical staff, I realized the magnitude of the injury and I had one look at Ramsey's leg and  I couldnt look at it the second time. Everyone was shell shocked. I just couldnt care about the result of the game, even when it was at 1-1 till 90 th minute, I wasnt much bothered. Anyway, it was great to see the team and esp, the captain showing unbelievable character and winning it so late.
          There has been a wide debate on Ramsey's injury. I dont want to get too deep into it. It is just obvious that teams want to roughen up Arsenal , it s been going since 4-5 years, with lower teams , not being able to compete with Arsenal in football and adopting the physical approach. (Why just the lower teams, even Chelsea and Man Utd 'muscled out' Arsenal and won rather than by playing better football). How else can you explain 3 such incidents in 4 years ? - Diaby, Eduardo and now Ramsey.

I just want to end it saying one thing - Its time Arsene Wenger toughened up the players , teach them to give as good as they get. Its easier  to bully a schoolkid than some guy who would break ur jaws. Why do Utd and Chelsea not get such treatment from other teams ? its only because for every tackle they get, they gonna give one right back from a Fletcher or Essien, Just to remind them they are not there to get bullied.
Its a pity though to see a player , 19 years old, as talented as ramsey in sidelines for months due to one bad tackle.

How was the whipping, shameless Chelsea fans ?!!

It was disgusting. It was shame for football to see a footballer, getting booed with every touch of the ball, for no fault of his. Wayne Bridge, after being betrayed by his ex chelsea  and england teammate John Terry, had already been thru an emotional turmoil. Here he was today,in Manchester city Vs Chelsea game, facing the same Terry, who had no remorse for sleeping with his teammate's wife, and stripped of his England captaincy for the same. Bridge had just announced yesterday that he was not going to take part in the world cup as he couldnt play with Terry in the side. After all this, u couldnt be excused if u didnt feel for this guy, who had just been thru a rough patch, betrayed by his wife, best friend-teammate, pulling out of his dream- playing in world cup for England.

Not the Chelsea fans ! they just booed and booed whenever he touched the ball  and cheered whenever Terry touched the ball. It was disgusting to see the football fans reduced to moral bankruptcy.
But what a response it was from Manchester City ! After going a goal down in the 40th minute, they came back strongly to finish the match 4-2 .
Yes, the same Manchester City, who had not scored at Stamford Bridge since 2000 and not done a DOUBLE against Chelsea since 1958 !!!
What a way to make it memorable day for Wayne Bridge and all the neutrals watching !!!

Ronaldo wishes u a Happy new year !!!