what's that jerking? oh, it's my knee!

So, this just happened. Here's how (between hearty gulps of MGD) Tha Captain reacted.

• How on earth did the English teams avoid all three of Real Madrid, Internazionale, and Juventus? Chicanery.
• Speaking of the English teams, Manchester United and Arsenal should sashay to the knockout stages. Liverpool and Chelsea have a eurotrash discoteque fight on their hands.
  
• Group G: baby soft.
• Most interesting games: Milan v Real Madrid and Barcelona v Inter because they're all huge teams. Bayern v Maccabi Haifa because it's always a cracker when Germans and Jews get together.
  
• I don't know how else they would do it, but going by UEFA coefficients makes for an uneven draw. Sevilla is a 1 seed but Real Madrid is a 2 and Wolfsburg is a 4? Nonsense. Alkmaar is a 2 but Fiorentina and Atletico are 3's? Infuriating!
  
• In depth prevues, coming soon, blogfans!

I allò és com es fan criatures!

Guanyadors de Lliga de Campions: Barcelona!

Fins ara pròxima estació, admiradors d'esports!*

*Learn Catalan.

It had to be. It just had to.

5.27.09

clever title

I don't have much time so I'ma spin it for ya quick.

Barcelona v Chelsea: All you need to know, Barca outshoots the Blues 20 - 3, outcorners them 10 - 2, Chelsea hacks the Blaugrana 20 times, yet the only pair of numbers that matters is nothin/nothin.

Manchester United v Arsenal: All you need to know, if Manu scores in London next week, the Gunners need three(3) goals to get their advance on. It's 1-0 to the Red Devils.

Get the fuck on with your life!

Anglophiliacs Rejoice

Your final four, as per usual, coated in the stench of England.

Semifinal A:

In which the saucy Catalan lads of Barcelona will travail to do gentlemanly battle with the high-society Old Etonians of Chelsea.




For the Spaniards, scoring goals comes as easily as the flamenco, brutalizing bulls, or shocking racism. Bad news for the posh boys from West London who've conceded a rather unsettling seven in their last two games.






Semifinal B:

Wherein neighbour shall be turned against neighbour and brother against brother as Albion sees two of her favorite sons take arms against one another.





Shall the natural order of things be retained? Or will fair Londontown see one of its own inch tantalizingly closer to the ultimate prize?




Two weeks. You would be wise to make ready.

UPDATE: It didn't pan out.

...but if every soccer game were as much fun as that one, soccer wouldn't just be the most popular sport in the US, it would be our football that would have the gerrymandered, goofy name.

...and Edward Norton in goal.

So, whether or not Tha Pool's comeback pans out today, there's a natural (and constantly referenced) connection to the 2005 final in the artist formerly known as Constantinople. So, here's the shortest and most non-footy-fan-palatable video I could find. Or it's the first one I clicked on, nobody cares.

The only difference in how I watched that game and how I'm watching this one? I now have enough money to run my air conditioner. Stay cool, bitches.

You've got to be solid in the kicking game!

Halfway through the quarterfinals. You know you're interested. To keep things fresh, I'll describe the games through nothing but soccer/sports cliches.

Villareal 1 - 1 Arsenal
Appropriate Cliches: Anything you can do I can do better! Brilliant goal by Villareal answered by brillianter goal by Arsenal. Slight advantage to the Gunners heading back to London. But anything can happen!

Manchester United 2 - 2 Porto
Appropriate Cliches: Against all odds, the scrappy underdogs looked like the more motivated team against the overwhelming favorites. Mistakes will cost you! Three of the four goals came from egregious defensive errors! You can't hurt yourself!

Liverpool 1 - 3 Chelsea
Appropriate Cliches: The Comstock Lode of cliches. These two teams seem to play each other every year in the Champions League! It's so crazy! The games in question haven't always been the most entertaining affairs but today's game was up and down the field. BASKETBALL ON GRASS! Also too: krazy komeback! Liverpool scored first then Chelsea went bonkers! Also too: Who is this guy?!?!?!? Fringe player and only occasional starter scores two for Chelsea. And if that wasn't enough of a heartwarming story, he's Serbian! It doesn't get any better! Liverpool faces an uphill climb!

Barcelona 4 - 0 Bayern Munich
Appropriate Cliches: The best team in the history of sports? Indubitably. Barcelona are putting up video game numbers. They took their foot off the gas in the second half. You can't stop them, you can only hope that they don't plow your wife after they're done scoring lots and lots of goals.
BONUS CLICHE: Garbled internet text comment from uefa.com regarding game! "Barca players they are not human I thinking there are ufo man ;) playing great!" Nice.

The best news you've heard all day: Only one week to wait for the second legs. Pencil Chelsea and Barcelona into the more interesting of the two semifinals. Admit it, you're erect.

Fill out a bracket that matters.

...or at least the half of it that isn't underneath the sidebar on the right. Formatting FAIL.

I've been working tirelessly on this. Not really! I do like the very straightforward instructions. When you get done you can go place an illicit overseas bet. That's about all it's good for. I'm sorry, the pressure to produce posts is crushing me like a cat on a hot tin roof.

A love/eight relationship.

Good news, everyone! Champions League quarterfinal pairings announced this morning. Erection-level: dangahrous!

Villareal v Arsenal
seeds by pre-draw odds: 7 v 5
interestingness level:




Tha Captainz Choice: Villareal


Manchester United v Porto
seeds by pre-draw odds: 1 v 8
interestingness level:










Tha Captainz Choice: Manchester United


Liverpool v Chelsea
seeds by pre-draw odds: 3 v 4
interestingness level:



















Tha Captainz Choice: Chelsea


Barcelona v Bayern Munich
seeds by pre-draw odds: 2 v 6
interestingness level:












Tha Captainz Choice: Barcelona

Crest for Success: the SKEET sixteen day two

And that's how babies are made. Round of sixteen: OUT.

Atletico 2 - 2 Porto
Madrid Leg: 2 - 2
Porto Leg: 0 - 0
Porto wins on away goals.


Two teams that don't really belong here. Welcome to the world of unseeded draws.




Lyon 3 - 6 Barcelona
Lyon Leg: 1 - 1
Barcelona Leg: 2 - 5

Barca's ridiculously handsome front line brought the ruckus. Nobody is going to beat them.




Internazionale 0 - 2 Manchester United
Milan Leg: 0 - 0
Manchester Leg: 0 - 2


"Profligate" would actually begin to describe Manchester United in front of goal in this series. They still won. They're pretty good.




Arsenal 1 - 1 Roma
London Leg: 1 - 0
Rome Leg: 0 - 1
Arsenal wins 7 - 6 on penalties


The one English I would have liked to have seen shit a brick almost did.




You want your final eight? I'VE GOT YOUR FINAL EIGHT RIGHT HERE! Also too, they're in a scientifically computed order of likelihood of winning it all:
Barcelona
Manchester United
Liverpool
Bayern
Chelsea
Villareal
Arsenal
Porto

Later, losers.

Crest for Success: the SKEET sixteen day one.

Four in, four to go. Just walking around Auburn, I can feel the excitement as a thick film on my neck.


Real Madrid 0 - 5 Liverpool
Madrid Leg: 0 - 1
Liverpool Leg: 0 - 4
There's only one word for the way Liverpool came out tonight: Gangbusters. Or maybe Murderdome. Either way, they deservedly pummeled the Spanish champions and gave Scousers more reason to wonder why this team hasn't won the English title in almost twenty years.


Villareal 3 - 2 Panathinaikos
Villareal Leg: 1 - 1
Athens Leg: 2 - 1


The luck of the Greeks runs out. I would describe it as 'win sausage,' but this isn't the sausage you want.




Chelsea 3 - 2 Juventus
London Leg: 1 - 0
Turin Leg: 2 - 2


No team from London has ever won the Champions League. The pride of London? The Monarchs, 1991 World Bowl Champions. Which leads me to the BIRMINGHAM FIRE. But let's focus.



Sporting 1 - 12 Bayern
Lisbon Leg: 0 - 5
Munich Leg: 1 - 7



Thump.

Let's see how things have progressed.

In 2 weeks, we'll confirm how wrong Tha Captain was. Keep in mind at all times that these are two-legged aggregate score match-em-ups where number of goals scored in the away match act as a tiebreaker. Also, never, never forget that in soccer, the home team is listed first.

Atletico Madrid 2 - 2 Porto
Advantage: Porto. Two away goals and heading back to the Estadio de Dragao. (Dragons!)

Lyon 1 - 1 Barcelona
Advantage: Barca. Lyon's goal was fluky. Barcelona will dominate at home.

Arsenal 1 - 0 Roma
Advantage: Gunners. The one English team I wouldn't really mind getting booted.

Internazionale 0 - 0 Manchester United
Advantage: Inter. Manchester United does get the second leg in the friendly confines, but there's no margin for error after not taking advantage of their dominance for much of the game.

Chelsea 1 - 0 Juventus
Advantage: Chelsea. Although Juventus could easily Turin it around!

Villareal 1 - 1 Panathinaikos
Advantage: Panathinaikos, I guess. I'm not really drinking the tzatziki-aid yet, though.

Sporting 0 - 5 Bayern
Advantage: Sporting. Soccer is a very complicated sport. You couldn't possibly understand.

Real Madrid 0 - 1 Liverpool
Advantage: Liverpool. In the safest position of the four English clubs.

I'm in a picking mood, I guess.

A lot can happen between now and February 24th. While the January transfer window probably won't change the overall look of any of these teams too much, who knows what injuries God may cruelly unleash upon them. Still, the draw for the UEFA Champions League round of 16 happened this morning and I HAVE TO PICK WINNARS.

Atletico Madrid vs FC Porto
If there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that fashionable dark horses never lose.
Atletico

Lyon vs Barcelona
Further proof that La Liga is miles ahead of La Ligue.
Barca

Arsenal vs Roma
As recently as the pre-season, Roma was considered the likely filler of the power vacuum in Serie A left by Juventus due to lingering weakness after the match-fixing scandal. Instead, that void has been filled by, well, Juventus. Still, Arsenal is hit or miss.
Roma

Inter vs Manchester United
This is the stage where a highly touted Inter side has flopped out over the last few years. Man U still hasn't lost a CL game in a long, long time. They're due.
Inter

Real Madrid vs Liverpool
Classic underachiever vs overachiever. I just think the English clubs are going to have a bad year.
Real

Chelsea vs Juventus
Is Juventus really back? Maybe. Chelsea gets their act together and saves a little face for England.
Chelsea

Villareal vs Panathinaikos
Spain goes 4/4 equalling England of last year filling half of the final eight. Panathinaikos is only here because the drew an easy group...and then won it.
Villareal

Sporting vs Bayern Munich
I'm not sold on Bayern, but Sporting wouldn't have made it out of many groups.
Bayern

Soccer!