International Week(s)- Round Up

By Shivashankar

Finally, International fixtures are over (for now : P) and the club games resume this weekend. Club football’s two week (mini)exile comes to an end. But what really happened during the past week and a half? Lets find out!

England March ahead

Lets start off with something big. Big? How about a clash between EPL and La Liga?! And of course, Team EPL was being managed by Don Fabio who has struck gold with La Liga and Serie A. Don Fabio even gave a miss to his son’s engagement for the highly anticipated clash! Apparently his presence was instrumental, as England held on to a nervy 1-0 win at the Wembley. Lampard headed (as always, stooped v.low, which I find amusing!) the winner, as the Spaniards were too wasteful.

England once again won 1-0, against Sweden. This was their first victory against the Swedes in 42 years! Another fact, England managed to beat a world Champion team (Spain-2010 WC winner), for the first time since 1980, when they beat Argentina.

Del Bosque’s woes

After failing to score against England, Spain were lucky to escape with a draw against a spirited Costa Rica team, who were cruising for a surprise victory, but for Villa to score the equalizer. Del Bosque needs to rework his attacking options or try on players like Llorente, Soldado and the extremely talented Bojan Krkic.

South American dominance

This might be routine news, as South Amercian teams pose serious threat to any opponent. The ususal suspects, Brazil and Argentian notched up wins in friendly encounters against Egypt (coached by Bob Bradley!) and Columbia respectively. But, both Brazil and Argentina, were pushed into the shadow by yet another South American team! Uruguay. They beat Italy 1-0!

Euro Play-off’s

Cristiano Ronaldo stole the limelight, throughout Europe, not for his play, but for his abusive gestures during the away leg against Bosnia Herzegovina. However, he made up for that in style, by netting a brace in the return leg (which included a trade mark cr7 freekick goal!), that helped Portugal qualify on a 6-2 aggrregate.

Elsewhere, Czech Republic, Replublic of Northern Ireland and Croatia also completed the formalities and qualified for the main draw, which will de decided on 2^nd December.

However, the biggest loser was not any of the teams that failed to qualify, but one man by the name Guus Hiddink! He resigned immediately after his Turkish team was beaten on a 3-0 aggregate by Croatia. Many would remember Guus Hiddink’s Russia that created waves across Europe in the previous edition of Euro.

Media Trash

The best thing during the international breaks is that, off-field gossips become inflated, and that’s definitely a source of entertainment for us!

• Pele and Messi took swipes against each other as the early part of the international break was filled with their banter.
• Don Fabio skipping his son’s engagement was given overhype by the FA, which publicized the ‘event’!
• Neymar and Santos agreed to a new contract extension, through which Neymar is to stay at Santos till 2014 (or was it to inflate his buyout clause?!) Santos President, Luis Ribeiro stated that Real Madrid behaved arrogantly as they tried to sign Neymar. (I’m confused here, who’s the arrogant one, the club who fix a £55 million tag, or a club trying to sign him?!!)
• What’s there in the media, if there’s nothing about Super Mario?! Mario Balotelli was in the news again, but for the good as he scored and assisted in Italy’s friendly against Poland.
• Now for the biggest news of the week: Jose Maria “Guti” Gutierrez has been released by Besitkas. Guti has taken part on only 3 games so far in this season for Besitkas. If rumours are to be believed, Guti will be back in Madrid! Not for Real though, but for Getafe!!

The Big Bash

We had a big news to open the round up, so how about something bigger to conclude?!

The Clash between the teams placed number 2 and 3, in the FIFA WC 2010. Yeah, Germany vs Netherlands! Prior to the match, Joachim Loew’s experiment with a 3 man defense crashed and was widely criticized after Germany drew 3-3 with Ukraine. Loew and his men responded in style as they beat the Dutch, 3-0 with goals from the midfield maestro Mesut Ozil, Klose and Muller. Perhaps, this was the clash of the week. Robben and van Persie were missing for the Dutch, but nothing can be taken off from the excellent German triumph.

Sahil and I are rooting for Germany, what about you?!

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