I have been amiss for not thanking those of you who regularly visit the blog and post your comments. The last few weeks have been a challenge in terms of technical issues but things seem to have been fixed. Without you there would be no blog. A special thanks to those of you who nominated the blog for a 2008 award over on Soccerlens.

 

In the media blog category the other nominees are Tim Vickery (BBC Sport), Steve Goff (Washington Post), Russell Brand (Guardian), Marcela Mora y Araujo (Guardian) and Guillem Balague (Sky Sports). Some heavyweight names amongst these nominees and an honor to be mentioned in the same company. 

 

Soccerlens has a number of awards that you can vote on so take a gander and cast your vote for whoever regularly tickles you fancy.

 

The Best.....

La Liga was the place for goals, thrills and spills this past weekend. Forty-four goals in ten matches, with three stand out games at the Nou Camp, El Madrigal and the Bernabeu. Even without Spain's leading scorer Samuel Eto'o Barcelona ripped Valencia apart and the score could have been a lot worse than 4-0.

 

Thierry Henry celebrated the writing of an extremely large cheque to the former Mrs. Henry by scoring a hat trick. Instead on playing Henry through the centre Coach Pepe Guardiola had Eidur Gudjohnsen play a withdrawn role and Henry drifted in from the left side. It was far too much for Valencia to handle.

 

Getafe looked set to follow up a draw against Barcelona and a win last week against Real Madrid with a comprehensive win away to Villarreal. Getafe was three up after thirty minutes and with less than ten minutes to go they still led 3-1.

 

Uruguayan Sebastian Eguren pulled Villarreal to within one and a couple of minutes later Giuseppe Rossi had tied the game. Rossi even missed a great chance to win the game before the referee blew full time. Fantastic stuff and Jozy Altidore played the full ninety minutes.

 

Finally on Sunday there was a seven goal thriller in Madrid. Dodgy defending often makes for memorable games and that was the case with Real Madrid and Sevilla. Remarkable goalkeeping - errors and brilliant stops - clinical finishing, end to end action, a Madrid fight back from 3-1 down, a red card for Arjen Robben and a late winner for Sevilla as the Real defence went missing. Apart from that not much happened.

 

On Saturday Kris Boyd scored his seventh hat trick since joining Rangers nearly three years ago. Hamilton was Boyd's latest victim and it means that he has now scored 11 goals in the eight appearances he has made since falling out with Scotland national boss George Burley. Boyd scored 39 goals in 2005/06 (with Kilmarnock and Rangers) and his target is to exceed that tally by next May.

 

There were three moments of individual magic that stood out for me this weekend. Just after the half way point in the first half of the Lazio - Inter match Zlatan Ibrahimovic was fed a pass from Maicon that was, to say the least, at a difficult height. Follow this link to see how he dealt with it if you haven't seen it already. 

Just after half time in the Villa - Everton match Brad Friedel made a magnificent stop from a Marouane Fellaini header. The distance was tantamount to point blank and the initial reaction was how could the big Everton midfielder have missed such a chance? Only on the replay was Friedel's brilliance clearly evident as he swatted the goal bound header onto the crossbar and to safety.

 

Any similarity between the "beautiful game" and the Genoa derby was purely a coincidence. For much of the ninety minutes Sampdoria and Genoa kicked lumps out of each other. However, the one goal was a piece of pure magic. As a Genoa free kick was fed in from the right side Diego Milito pulled away from his marker and executed a wonderful little hook run to create space and he then fired home a powerful header from about 12 yards out.

Best forgotten.....

Soccer can often be a game of inches and that was the case when Middlesbrough went down 2-1 at Hull on Saturday. After Tuncay gave Boro the lead with a little more than 10 minutes to go, Hull hit back.

 

A Bernard Mendy squeezed past keeper Ross Turnbull at the near post then rebounded off the back of the keeper and into the goal to square the match. Just three minutes later David Wheater was adjudged to have fouled Geovanni in the penalty box. Marlon King managed to drive the resulting penalty under the diving Boro keeper.

 

Boro has now conceded nine goals in the final ten minutes of Premiership games this season and that has cost them ten points. 

 

Everton started slowly against Villa on Sunday and were a goal down inside the first minute. Steve Sidwell struck his shot well but given where it finished in the Everton net it could hardly be classified as unstoppable. Everton then clawed their way back into the game and by the half way mark the game was tied and Everton were dominating.

 

Early in the second half the normally reliable Phil Jagielka passed to Ashley Young as he made a complete balls-up of a pass back to Tim Howard. The pass back mistake was obvious but it was poor first touch that started his troubles. By misplaying the ball Jagielka finished up facing his own net and then the suicidal back pass.

 

A storming last quarter of an hour from Everton and a last gasp goal from Lescott seemed to have guaranteed the home side a point. But another defensive blunder allowed Young in once again and he scored the winner.

 

David Moyes had shifted the team around as they chased the equalizer and it looked as if Everton switched off after Lescott scored. Leon Osman had been asked to cover the right back position after Phil Neville had been substituted late in the match. But Osman was caught too far forward as the ball found a way to Young as he sneaked in behind the Everton defence.

 

Stat facts.....

Chelsea set a new record for consecutive away wins in the English top when they beat Bolton on Saturday. Chelsea's run of 11 straight wins beats the old mark set by Tottenham Hotspur back in 1960.

There are some interesting coincidences in the two runs separated by nearly half a century.

Spurs run of ten successive away wins started with a 3-1 win against Chelsea on April 15, 1960 - Bobby Smith scored a hat trick.

 

Tottenham then won their remaining away games in the 1959/60 season and finished two points behind league champions Burnley. Over the ten game winning run Spurs scored 32 goals and conceded 10. They rang up two 2-1 wins, three wins by a score of 3-1, two 4-0 wins, one win by a score of 3-2 and another 4-1. Their final win was a 4-3 win at St. James' Park against Newcastle before Sheffield Wednesday ended the streak with a 2-1 win on November 12, 1960.

 

However, Wednesday had to make do with a runners-up place as they finished 8 points behind Spurs at the end of the 1960/61 season - Spurs also won the FA Cup in the same season. They were the first team to complete the double in the century.

 

Chelsea started their run after a 4-4 draw with Spurs at White Hart Lane. They beat Manchester City 2-0 on their next trip but finished last season two points behind league champions Manchester United. So far in their eleven away matches Chelsea has scored 24 goals and conceded only one. The one goal against came in the game at Eastlands earlier this season when Robinho scored.

 

Jimmy Bullard went into the match against Manchester City with the dubious record of having thirty attempts at goal without scoring - the most in the Premiership this season. His well worked first half goal ended that streak and earned Fulham a deserving point.

 

Newcastle have now scored two goals in each of their last five Premier League games at St James Park and they have drawn their last four matches.

 

Aston Villa's Martin O'Neill has never lost in 11 visits to Goodison Park as a player and a manager.

 

What was said....
An interesting choice for parents who harbor dreams of having high-achieving sport kids.

 

The Independent looks at the debt situation in the Premiership.

 

Matt Dickinson on Roy Keane and Brian Clough.

 

A number of allegations concerning match fixing in La Liga have surfaced over the last couple of weeks.

 

Pat Nevin looks at how Martin O'Neill went about building teams earlier in his career and his approach with Aston Villa. 

 

A realistic assessment of the need and the chance of Scotland co-hosting Euro 2016.

 

No one seems to be immune from the world financial crisis - even everyone's favourite Russian owner.

 

A look at the homeless World Cup that kicked off last week in Melbourne, Australia.

 

Rob Hughes looks at what awaits Ivan Gazidis as he swaps MLS for Arsenal.

 

What was read....

Over the next three Mondays I will be reviewing what soccer books I have been reading this past fall. "Soccer in a Football World - The Story of America's Game" - by David Wangerin and published by Temple University Press.

Back in August 2008 when I posted my last reading review I had just started this book and was finding it difficult to put it down. This volume is not something that was knocked off quickly to take advantage of David Beckham's arrival in MLS in 2007.

It was first published in the UK by WSC Books Ltd. in 2006 and stands as an outstanding chronicle of how the game developed in the United States and the many wrong turns taken and poor choices made - the comical, the criminal and the bone-headed.

Wangerin's research is impressive and will be an eye-opener for anyone who has long considered soccer to be a game without roots in North America. But it is much more than a dry historical account - it is filled with stories of players and games long gone, of events that any follower of the sport in North America should know about and should celebrate. 

While many accounts of soccer in the USA start in the 60s with the precursor to the NASL Wangerin takes us back to a time in the mid-19th century when cricket was the most popular team sport in the United States. He tracks how the various ball sport codes evolved through the major universities and how gridiron football came to dominate.

But even though the opportunity to become the pre-eminent ball game in the US was squandered and soccer essentially became a media pariah, the game did not disappear. Down the years many great players - and characters - have graced pitches across the continent.

A player moving to play in Europe is no new trend but one that started many decades ago as European teams would discover players on their annual summer tours to the USA and Canada. And it was not one-way-traffic either.

Many will be surprised to find that in the early part of the last century many players sought more money and greater job security by moving to the US rather than being tied to contracts that capped their wages and did not allow them to sell their skills on the open market.

The temptation to devote too much of the book to the NASL, Pele and MLS was thankfully avoided and there is a fair and reasoned assessment of where the sport might be heading in the US. If you have an interest in the game in North America then you should read this book.   

"The Fix - Soccer and Organized Crime" - by Declan Hill and published by McClelland and Stewart.

 Throughout this book I wanted to dismiss the allegations. However, simultaneously my head was telling me that where there is a chance to make millions there is going to be a criminal element working out a way to work the system. What is more there is enough of a history of match-fixing (both inside the game and from external elements) to lend credence to the "charges."

Whether you choose to believe Hill's contentions or not, as fans we should be comforted that the bodies in charge of maintaining the integrity of the game (FIFA, UEFA etc) are in a state of constant vigilance.

However, reading Mr. Hill's account leaves you with the definite impression that rather than vigilance burying their collective heads in the sand has been the preferred course of action - see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Well at least the first two.

Hill is a Canadian investigative journalist and received his doctorate from Oxford University for his study of match-fixing in soccer. In his book Hill focuses on the influencing of results and the part played by massive and well funded illegal betting operations based mainly in the Far East.

The author claims that the fixing of games has been prevalent, and continues to be so, at all levels of the professional game. He puts forward a case that the corruption has permeated some of the biggest tournaments in the world - Champions League, Olympic and World Cup tournaments.

How games are fixed, who needs to be in on the fix and who ultimately benefits are all covered in detail. Ultimately this book does not make for pleasant reading. But if it does in any small way alert both the civil and footballing authorities to dangers facing the sport them it will have done some good. 

(UEFA have in the last little while announced a beefing up of their internal investigation unit.  However, given the magnitude of the dollars involved and the opportunity for substantial profits to be made the initiative seems too small and more than a little late.)

 

Coming up this week.....

There is the last round of UEFA Champions League group play this week with the following games deciding who moves onto the knock out stage next February - Chelsea v CFR 1907 Cluj-Napoca; Panathinaikos v Anorthosis Famagusta; Roma v Bordeaux.

On Thursday the FIFA Club World Championship starts in Japan with Waitakere United FC playing Adelaide United. CONCAF representatives Pachuca plays Al Ahly Cairo on Friday and Manchester United plays their first game on December 18. TV times can be found here.