Europe
A contrarian take on France – Ireland
By: Dan |
5 Comments
Sometimes, I just can’t help myself. Against all of my better judgment, I read as much of the self righteous indignation that erupted after the France – Ireland World Cup playoff as I could physically stand. I have to admit to being less than moved by the whole affair.
From a sporting [...]
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You want to live with common people…Some Very Early Thoughts on the Champions League Drop-Ins
By: Dan | 1 Comment
Even though many of the Champions League groups are closely contested, and won’t be decided before match day 6, I think we’re far enough along to make some wild speculations on the clubs that would join the Europa League cast. The major problem with this endeavor is the lack of any established match ups [...]
Group Stage: Match Day 4
By: Dan | No Comments
It’s match day four in the Europa League. While we’re very much in the business end of the group stage at this point, some groups are no closer to being decided than they were on match day one.
Here in the US, the major televised early game was, for some reason, Hamburg v. [...]
Group Stage: Match Day 3
By: Dan | 3 Comments
It’s certainly been a fun week for European football; the Europa League did its part to keep things going. So, let’s get into what happened on match day 3.
There were a couple of notable thrashings in matches that we probably thought would have been closer affairs. Benfica, led by Javier Saviola and [...]
I Don’t Love the 90s: The North Atlantic league is still a terrible idea.
By: Dan | No Comments
As long as the North Atlantic league proposal is back on the table, let me just preemptively mention a few other things from the late 90s that I emphatically hope do not enjoy the same sort of revived popularity. These things are as follows: the phrase ‘is that your final answer,’ Limp Bizkit, [...]
The Joy of Shameful Joy
By: Dan | 1 Comment
In club land, the international breaks are something like an enforced naptime. But, in anticipation of the Uruguay – Argentina match that might send the Argentines crashing out of the 2010 World Cup, I have been thinking a lot about Schadenfreude. If Argentina did fail to qualify, I would have a good laugh, [...]
Group Stage: Match Day 2
By: Dan | 4 Comments
There was a little bit of everything on match day 2 in the group stage: redemption, surprises, and some consolidation of power already.
In the first batch of games, Red Bull Salzburg scored another surprise victory. Unlike their late smash and grab against Lazio, the caffeinated advertisements enjoyed a comfortable 2-0 victory against [...]
A pre-match rant about Rapid Vienna – Celtic
By: Dan | 3 Comments
Does it get more simultaneously pathetic and irritating than the whining we’ve had to put up with from Celtic for the past few weeks? In case you’ve missed Celtic stop just short of accusing Rapid Vienna of war crimes, a recap of the situation can be found in today’s Guardian.
In fairness [...]
Crime committed, celebrities not involved.
By: Dan | 1 Comment
In case you hadn’t already heard, UEFA is investigating a rather significant number of European qualifying round matches from recent seasons for evidence of match fixing. There really isn’t a whole lot to say about match fixing that doesn’t invite a response of ‘duh, really?’. That altering the results of sporting contests for [...]
Group Stage: Match Day 1
By: Dan | 1 Comment
After two days of eminently predictable action in ‘the world’s premier club competition,’ the Europa League group stages kicked off. I have to say, given that it’s only the first match day out of six, and way too early to overreact to results, it was not bad for a day’s work.
I definitely [...]
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