On a weekend when Lyon, Celtic and Inter sew up their respective league championships, PSV and Barcelona decide to make what looked to be straight forward tasks much more difficult.
A late equalizer by Utrecht against PSV means that a win for AZ Alkmaar next week against Excelsior will give AZ their first title since 1981. It could be the first time in 26 seasons that the big three of Ajax, PSV and Feyenoord have failed to lift the title. Quite the triumph for Louis Van Gaal.
Robert Pires gains a measure of revenge for being substituted in last season’s Champions League Final against Barcelona after Jens (short for Jennifer I understand) Lehmann was sent off. Pires scores the first goal and Barcelona’s miserable away form continues. They still lead Seville by a point and Real Madrid by two (and Sevilla and Real Madrid have still to play each other) but you have to think that Barca’s inability to kill off the chasing pack only gives the likes of Sevilla and Real Madrid more hope and confidence.
Cristaino Ronaldo and Shunsuke Nakamura pick up player of the year awards in England and Scotland.
And finally the last word goes to Nigel Winterburn the former Arsenal full back and colour commentator for Saturday's Manchester United vs. Boro match. "Rio touches his groin and shakes his head."
Sepp Blatter has indicated that FIFA will consider taking the Golden Ball away from Zidane.
I am not defending Zidane' s actions but at least when he got the red card he accepted it without any claim of innocence. Other players might have spent 10 minutes claiming to be the victim.
FIFA would setting a precident if they decided to revoke Zidane's award - would all awards in the future be dependant on not being sent off or a no head-butt rule by sufficient!
Diego Maradona was the recipient in 1986 - the same year as the Hand of God. I guess FIFA could argue that the incident happened earlier in the tournament and the journalists were aware when they voted. (Zidane could have claimed the Head of God I suppose).
Zidane wouldn't have been my pick but I cannot see how you can justify taking the award away without setting a very difficult precident.
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