Champions League Final: United have done it again

The fourth final since 2001 which was decided in a penalty shootout and the funnny thing for the Germans is that those were two english clubs going at it after extra time. England always has the image of failing in a penalty shootout as they had done so very often in the past, especially on the national team level. But let's start from the beginning.
You can break down the match in to different intervalls. The first half was completely dominated by Manchester United who controlled Chelsea for most of the time and went ahead 1-0 on a header by Christiano Ronaldo (26') who scored following a very nice combination on the left side which led to a beautiful cross by Wes Brown. They should have gone up 2-0 only minutes later when Tevez (with a header) and Carrick (with a shot from 12 m) found their master in Chelase goalkeeper Petr Cech (35').
There really was nothing to see of Chelsea. The attack was taken out of the game by Manchester, Drogba, Joe Cole and Malouda didn't create any chances, the midfield wasn't in charge at all, although the german TV commentary always praised Michael Ballack for his efforts. The equalizer came as a bit of a surprise only seconds from half time. Lampard scored on a deflected ball (45').

But this all turned around as soon as the teams came out for the 2nd half. Now Chelsea was dominating the game, pressing Manchester back into their half and even striker Wayne Rooney had to help out in the defense. Chelase created a lot of chances and while the german TV commentary was all praise for Ballack one should not forget the efforts of the lone striker Drogba, who got close to scoring when he hit the post (78'). But there weren't any goals in the 2nd half so the game went into extra time. from there on the game got a little ugly, mainly because there were a little too many breaks in the action. A lot of players went down with cramps causing the referee Lubos Michel to stop the game very often. Still both teams were looking for their chances with Chelsea having the better ones, the biggest coming from Lampard who hit the crossbar (94'). There was turmoil in the 2nd half of extra time after some fighting on the field following an argument between Vidic and Drogba which saw the Ivory Coast international sent off with a red card (116'). But that was it, they were going to penalties.

Ronaldo was the first to miss and he did so with his very own arrogant style. When you shoot a penalty the run up to the shoot has to be one fluent motion, you are not allowed to stop in between. Now what do you think is Ronaldo doing? He stops half way to irritated Cech who the blocks the ball. I simply get annoyed when Ronaldo does something like that. He is such a talented player but I simply hate his arrogance. Chelsea should have won this had only John Terry scored. He was the last of the five Chelsea players to shoot the penalty and he only hit the post. Anelka then missed his chance and by doing so he was giving the tile to Manchester who once again are champions of Europe. Congratulations.

An exciting match which lost a bit of steam in the closing minutes and in extra time, but the will power of the players and the intensity was always there. The most annoying thing to me was the german commentary. It is a real nuisance to listen to those idiots talking about stuff they don't know anything about. Most of what they say is about sthings which are not taking place on the pitch. Hey, let's be honest, I want to hear a comment about the game, not about something which happened last evening in the players' lounge or whereever. German TV will never get this.
The other big story was Michael Ballack who is still waiting for his first win in a big final match. He lost with Leverkusen in 2002, he wasn't in the World Cup final that year because he was booked in the semi against Korea and now he lost with Chelsea. A friend of mine is really worried that this might affect his performance during the Euro 2008. I guess we'll just have to wait and see...

Champions League - Last 16 (Leg 2)

FC Porto - FC Schalke 04 1:4 (a.p.)
Real Madrid - AS Roma 1:2
FC Chelsea - Olympiakos Piraeus 3:0
Internazionale - Liverpool FC (11.3.) -:-
FC Barcelona - Celtic Glasgow 1:0
Manchester United - Olympique Lyonnais 1:0
FC Sevilla - Fenerbahce Istanbul 2:3 (a.p.)
AC Milan - Arsenal 0:2

Some upsets in this round, Arsenal being the first English team to beat Milan at San Siro, Fenerbahce coming back after losing the first leg 2-3 to become the first turkish team to move to the quarterfinals, I believe. And Roma throwing Real Madrid out of the competition by winning at the Estadio Bernabeu.
In Germany Schalke was the talk of the town. German TV stations always like to promote matches with German teams as an occasion during which the whole nation sits in front of the television set to keep their fingers crossed for that particular team. By doing this the completely ignore the fact that there is a lot of dispise for certain teams and with the Schalke-Dortmund rivalry being one of the fiercest there was no way I was going to cheer for Schalke in their match against FC Porto. They won the first leg at home 1:0 and needed a draw to advance to the quarterfinals. That being said it became the match everyone expected. Boring, boring, boring. But the most frustrating thing was the commentary.
Now, in Germany Champions League matches are broadcasted by the pay-per-view station premiere and every once in a while they show off their skills on free tv as well. The station takes a lot of pride in their competent and in depth reporting, but to me their are just a bunch of idiots. Their announcers have no idea whatsoever of how to play and "read" a football match, they are simply there to sell the product. Their experts might be ex-football players like Beckenbauer or Sammer, but they have no television presence at all. And their commentators always talk like they are more interested in the private lives of the players and coaches than in the game taking place. A prime example was last night's commentator Fritz von Thurn und Taxis. That guy was simply hilarious. As far as I saw it Schalke had one chance in the first half and he was saying that they were in complete control of the match. He than blabbers on about the origin of certain players, calling Porto midfielder Lucho Gonzalez "a gipsy" (a word which in Germany sometimes is used in a rather insulting way) and tells Schalke and Germany striker Kevin Kuranyi to go back to Brazil because he refused to shake hands with coach Mirko Slomka. This is pure racism. That guy was way off. It sounded like he only liked to listen to himself talk. There was no information whatsoever on the match. I happened to switch to the coverage of Real vs Roma on an Austrian station and this was completely different. The commentator there was very laid back and only talked when needed. And he was trictly referring to what was happening on the pitch. The same goes for English commentators who I really like. They seem to have the ability to be "into" the action and at the same time the keep enough distance to give an unbiased look onto the match. Something which rarely happens in German television.
So thumbs down to premiere and I sincerly hope that Schalke gets eliminated in the next round so I don't have to listen to such crap again this season.

Champions League - Last 16 (Leg 1)

Arsenal London - AC Milan 0:0
Celtic Glasgow - FC Barcelona 2:3
Fenerbahce Istanbul - FC Sevilla 3:2
Olympique Lyonnais - Manchester United 1:1
FC Schalke 04 - FC Porto 1:0
Liverpool FC - Internazionale 2:0
AS Roma - Real Madrid 2:1
Olympiakos Piraeus - Chelsea FC 0:0

The knock out stages in the European Champions League started this week and while Tuesday's matches were rather boring Wednesday saw somthing completely different. Arsenal vs Milan was labeled as the clash between the young and the old. The high speed one-touch machine of Arsenal with their exciting youngsters against the routine and the experience of Milan. Perhaps the embodiment of Milan, Paolo Maldini, played his 1.000th professional match for Milan last weekend and he again showed all his class in this one. It was a draw, yes, but the 2nd half was very exciting with an everflowing stream of Arsenal attacks and a very firm Milan defense.
Elsewhere Celtic lost to Barcelona after leading twice, both goals scored wonderfully. But Barca is a great team and one was able to see this when they scored. Messi did it twice and his 2nd one was brilliant. That match was also very intensive and exciting although Barcelona was in control most of the time. Still Celtic was fighting back with all they had. And their goalkeeper Artur Boruc made some great saves. If I remember it correctly he was in the goal for Poland when they played Germany in the group stages of the 2006 World Cup. In that match he was extraordinary as well.
That said I think the only team which will go through safely will be Barcelona. All the other ties are way too close.

How crazy can you get - Bayern suspends Oliver Kahn for one match

Just as the Champions League matches get into the final minutes - and it looks as if Schalke will advance and Bremen will end up in the UEFA Cup - there is a special program on the German Sports Station DSF (German Sports Television) about the suspension of Oliver Kahn. These are the facts: the clubs suspended the player because of displinary reasons for one game and he will have to pay another 25.000 Euros. That's it. Of course it's a journalists duty to dig for further reasons which might have had an influence on the decision of the club. But the way those blokes of DSF do it it just gets way too hilarious. First up they show a report about the morining practice session of Bayern Munich in which goalkeeping coach Sepp Maier gives a rather enigmatic interview in which he tries to indicate that there was something going on which he knows what it is but he won't tell the media. You get the picture. He's saying no comment in a rather polite way.. Then there's pictures of Kahn running around the pitch, all alone, the team running around elsewhere. The whole report ends with a shot of Oliver Kahn entering his car and driving away.

Think that's it? Think again.

Another report follows which covers the afternoon session and here we get an intrerview with Kahn (nickname "The Titan") himself. The interviewer is humbled and very very poltie towards the man and by the time the questions are done we know ... nothing new. Just some bunch of phrases and excuses and that's it.

So this is what the media is trying to squeeze out of this whole story. First up Kahn gave an interview to German football magazine "kicker" in which he accused the new signings Ribery and Toni to slack off during the past few weeks. He is reported to have said that Bayern is not like "Marseille or Fiorentina", it's more like "Real, Barca or Milan". This is thought to hjave provoked the supension. What the media are after though is that he left the christmas party too early to have dinner with his girlfriend. And this is when we enter the dirty hell of tabloid journalism. I mean, honestly, how stupid can you get thinking that this is a reason to suspend a player who has played for the club for more than 10 years and is still one of the top goalkeepers in Germany (which automatically makes him one of the best in the world, if you might excuse my arrogance there, my dear British readers). There must have been something else, not just some damn christmas party. This is ridiculous. But the DSF jerks still try to go on with that tabloid bullshit and they will drag this through the whole, you bet! Another masterpice of German sports journalism. Just when you thought it can't get any lower...

(Alright, it's Schalke to the next round and Bremen to the Uefa Cup now definetely, closing minutes)

Uefa Cup: All German teams go through to the group stages

Although I didn't really have a chance to watch any of the matches of the first round of the Uefa Cup I still read an interesting comment by German sports writer Christoph Biermann who said that it is nice to see that the smaller teams of the German Bundesliga all made it through to the group stage this year. Keeping in mind that the almighty Bayern Munich are in there for Germany as well compared to other European superpowers the result doesn't look that bad for Germany. England lost a team (Blackburn), there's one Spanish team out (Saragossa) as well and Italy even lost 3 (Palermo, Empoli, Sampdoria) in the first round of play. Although the Spanish Primera Division seems to be a little more balanced England and Italy just have the same top teams playing in the Champions League and the rest of the pack just has to fight for what's left on the table. And while German teams are struggling in the Champions League (3 teams, 6 games, 5 losses up until today) it seems they have more chances in the Uefa Cup. Hamburger SV went through against Litex Lovetch (BUL), 1.FC Nuremburg got past Rapid Bukarest (ROM), Bayer Leverkusen managed to beat Uniao Leiria (POR) and Bayern Munich expectedly threw Belenenses Lisboa (POR) out of the competition. With the group stages now coming up it'll be interesting to see what the German teams can do there.