Lack of Writing

Sorry for my lack of writing. I haven't had that push to continue this blog which I should have. I'm going to keep this simple and short by summarizing what has happened so far this season.

In La Liga FC Barcelona have dominated and are the winter champions winning 49 out of the 51 possible points. They are currently number one with a 9 point cushion between second place holders Atletico Madrid. Real Madrid are in THIRD place and lost their recent match against Malaga 3-2 and Iker Casillas was benched for that game. The Premier League is as unpredictable as ever, but Manchester United are on top with a four point lead between second place Manchester City. Chelsea are in third place and won their most recent game 8-0 against Aston Villa. Torres has been more consistent with his goal scoring and it SEEMS he's getting back to form. To soon to say though. Currently in the Bundesliga Bayern Munich sit on top with 9 points too and Juventus sit atop in the Serie A.

To the Champions League! The finally 16 have been drawn and the current match ups are:

Valencia vs. Paris Saint-Germain
Celtic vs. Juventus
Real Madrid vs. Manchester United
Shakhtar Donetsk vs. Borussia Dortmund
Arsenal vs. Bayern Munchen
FC Porto vs. Malaga
AC Milan vs. FC Barcelona
Galatasaray vs. FC Schalke 04

All of these matches are going to good ones to watch and we're going to have to see who can advance to the quarter-finals!

There you go. A summary of the most recent happenings. I mean there is obviously more. I HAVE definitely been keeping up with everything. Don't get me wrong on that. It's just that I haven't been putting it down in blog form.

International Break is Over

The international break or 2014 World Cup Qualifiers are over (for now). Most players are returning back to their club teams getting ready for the league games and even more importantly the Champions League opening matches.

Sometimes I wish they didn't have the international break in between. A lot of players get injured and become fatigued which affects the players (obviously) and their clubs. For example, Iniesta and Alexis are both injured coming back from playing with their national teams.

I really don't have much to say. I just haven't posted in awhile. Once the season goes along and Champions League begins that's when I'll be posting more. The one game I'm looking forward to is Manchester City vs. Real Madrid. That game....that game is going to be a good one!

Updates on Spain

As we all know (and if you didn't know) Real Madrid have won the Supercopa title with a 2-1 win at the Santiago Bernabeu. The aggregate was 4-4, but because the goal difference win of Real Madrid was smaller than Barcelona's they able to claim their first title and win of the season. I couldn't watch the game, but from my twitter updates, Real Madrid were really putting on the pressure and Barcelona were really off their game. Even though Valdes probably caused Barcelona the title due to the last game mistake, he made a lot of saves and good ones too to keep Barcelona in the running. All goals from Higuain, CR7, and Messi.

In other news, lots of stuff happened in Monaco today. First the Champions League groups have finally been draw! CHAMPIONS LEAGUE IS GOING TO START SOON! Below is a picture of the groups that will be played. Group D is considered the the death group or the group to watch. You have Real Madrid, Ajax, Manchester City, and Dortmund all of whom are the current winners of their own league. This is going to be the group to watch.

The other really important news that happened in Monaco today is the UEFA Best Player in Europe award was announced today. The top contestants were Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Andres Iniesta. And guess who won? No, not Messi or Ronaldo, but INIESTA! I'm sooooo happy that he won the award. If I were to choose the second person to get it, it would be Messi, but finally Iniesta won the award! He's being recognized for his AMAZING talent, and it's about time. Now we just have to wait and see who will win the Ballon d'Or this coming January. But then again that's a different story.

Week 2 of 2012/2013 Season

Lovely weekend of football. Lots of rain in England, but still lovely weekend of football.

Let's start with Saturday. Two biggest games going on were Chelsea vs. Newcastle and Manchester United vs. Fulham. For the Chelsea vs. Newcastle game, Chelsea have won their first three games in a row. A 2-0 win against Wigan, a 4-2 win against Reading, and now a 2-0 in against Newcastle. The first goal was a penalty caused by a foul against Torres. Eden Hazard was the one who converted it, making it 1-0. At the end of the first half during stoppage time Torres scored the second goal which was assisted with a toe poke, heel poke, or whatever by Eden Hazard. Eden Hazard has so far had a really good start to the Premier League. I think he's has been involved with almost all 8 of the goals Chelsea has scored so far. To be more exact (not really) I think it's about 6-7 goals he's been involved with. Torres has been showing his old self. He's looking more confident in front of goal which means he's scoring more goals.  He doesn't have the lingering shadow of Drogba on his back this season, so this is a great time for his shine you know after a good ending of last season (winning the FA Cup, Champions League, and Euro 2012).

The second big game on Saturday was Manchester United vs. Fulham. The first to score the goal was Fulham, but at the 10th minute Robin van Persie scored his first goal for the Red Devils. Kagawa scored the second, and Rafael scored the third putting the Reds 3-1 in front. Unfortunately Vidic put in an own goal making it 3-2, but that's how the game ended. Manchester United won their second game of the Premier League. The biggest news out of that game is definitely Wayne Rooney's gash on his thigh. If you haven't seen it's a really big nasty one. It's so bad that it has caused him to be sidelined for about four weeks. I think someone stepped on him on accident and woosh, huge gash. If you are easily disturbed by blood and any type pictures like that, I suggest you NOT go and look it up.


So today, Sunday, there were a lot of big matches played too. Let's begin with the Premier League. games played by Arsenal vs. Stoke and Manchester City vs. Liverpool. The Arsenal game turned out to be another 0-0 draw for the Gunners. I watched a bit of that game, and a lot of them seem to be scared to shoot or something. Arsenal dominated that game, yet they were very hesitant to shoot. Arsenal are playing well, it's just their finishing needs a little work. I guess you could say they are feeling the effects of no Robin van Persie (who scored 40% of their goals). The Manchester City vs. Liverpool game was played at Anfield and that game also game to a 2-2 draw. Goals came from Skrtel, Yaya Toure, Suarez, and then Tevez in that order. There have been lots of surprises this season, and I pretty sure there are more to come.

Moving on to La Liga. Barcelona played an away game at Pamplona again Osasuna. Barcelona was behind 1-0 a majority of the game until Magical Messi came up and got 2 goals in the second half giving the Blaugrana the win for that night. On the other hand of things, Real Madrid LOST their match against Getafe. Like I was really surprised to hear that. Real Madrid were the first to score with a goal from Higuain, but two goals from Getafe put them in front and gave them the win. I'm not really sure why Khedira hasn't been playing which may be a reason why they lost. Another reason could be that Madrid are feeling the effects of not having Pepe as one of their central defenders. When he comes back to play maybe a lot of things will change.

A lot went on this weekend, and a lot of is going to go on next weekend. Stay tune to keep up what's happening in the footballing world!

Nike Chance

Have you ever heard of the Nike Chance? Well if you haven't, this program allows young aspiring footballers to show their skills and have the chance to get noticed which gives them a better chance of signing a professional contract in the future. What happens is on the Nike Chance page on Facebook, and you create a team page. The more noise (or recognition, popular) your team page becomes the larger the chance you have for someone to come and scout you. Once that team has enough noise, someone like Rio Ferdinand or Pep Guardiola come out and watch you play a game. The person that stands out the most in the game gets some type of pamphlet which is their ticket to the Chance Finals in their country.


At the country level there are footballers from all over your area that have been chosen and given the chance to compete for a spot in the final 100. There are 55 countries that participated this year and only 3-4 players are able to represent their country. Those 3-4 players are then sent to the finals location which this year was none other than Barcelona, Spain. From then on you're competing with the best from all over the world. You have 100 players, which is then reduced to 52, 26, and then the final 16. The final 16 are the winners and get an all expense paid tour to play with some of the best teams at some of the best venues in in footballing history. This tour begins in January of 2013 and comes to an end in February of 2013.


The Chance Finals have been played and the final 16 have been chosen! If you want to check out the final match played and you want to see who moved on, you can click on the links below. The one person that I was rooting for and hoping to go on was the American Brian Iloski. He isn't that big (he's actually quite short) but after watching the final match, the boy has skills, I mean true potential. From what I saw he has the stuff to become the next big American soccer player. I think is an attacking midfielder/wing. He created a lot of scoring chances and he scored two goals in the semi-final match. I'm really proud of him because there aren't a lot of American soccer players that get recognized. I think this will give him the chance to represent American soccer (like Clint Dempsey who plays for Fulham and I think making a move to Liverpool or Michael Bradley who plays for AS Roma).

CLICK HERE TO SEE FINAL MATCH 

CLICK HERE TO SEE WHO IS THE FINAL 16

Reflection of Super Copa Leg 1

The first El Clasico of the season hit off with a bang at the Camp Nou. Both Spanish Giants went out onto the field and played a typical and not so typical Real Madrid vs. FC Barcelona game. The went onto a 3-2 in favor of Barcelona with goals from Pedro, Messi, and Xavi and from Ronaldo and Di Maria. Pepe wasn't able to play game due to an injury during the previous they played against Valencia. And we all know he always adds some type of impact to the game. The game did produce a lot of yellow cards, but luckily there were no red cards. In games like these there is usually a lot of tension first because this is probably the greatest rivalry in football and second a lot of the players on each team play together internationally (Higuain, Messi, Di Maria, and Mascherano for Argentina) and then you basically have more than half of the Spanish National Team who either player for Madrid or Barcelona.

One thing I want to point out is that Valdes made a big mistake in that game. A simple pass back from Mascherano was sent to Valdes, but the keeper over thought it to much. Di Maria was coming in on the attack, but he wasn't exactly putting much pressure on Valdes. It's understandable that Valdes is trying to play the Barcelona way, but because he was trying to set himself up (and with a bad touch) Di Maria took the mistake as a opportunity and a opportunity won. Valdes should have cleared the ball because Di Maria was right in front of him, and he should of known any small mistake LIKE a bad touch could be devastating which is what happened

The Super Copa winner is still in limbo. With a score of 3-2 anything can happen during the second leg which will be played at the Santiago Bernabeu. Madrid will have the advantage of the second-leg being a home game and all BUT still nothing is decided yet until next Thursday!

The Season has Begun!

Both seasons that I love to keep up with (EPL and La Liga) have begun finally. Most of the games have been played on Saturday (yesterday) and today some will be played on tomorrow (Monday). Here are the games that I've been able to keep up with so far are first the Arsenal vs. Sunderland game. This was a way for the new transfers, Podolski, Santi Carzola, and Giroud to show what they had. Unfortunately they weren't able to penetrate Sunderland's defense enough and the first game for the Gunners ended in a 0-0 tie. At least they got one point, but it isn't the three that they wanted. 

Chelsea vs. Wigan is another game that was played today. They were able to take the 3 points away with two goals, one from Ivanovic and the other from Lampard in the first half of the game. This was first Premier game for Hazard and he showed great skill that he has because he had a pretty good game. Oscar another young transfer was also able to make his debut and showed a pretty good performance. 

On the other side of things in England, the defending champions of the Premier League had a struggle during their first game. The newly promoted Southampton showed they weren't going to take the game lightly. They were the first to score which means Manchester City had some catching up to do. In the end City were able to take away a win by 3-2 with goals from Tevez, Dzeko, and Nasri. Hopefully this doesn't happen again in the near future for the them because that was one heck of a scary start for City. 

Manchester United will be playing Everton tomorrow. 

In Spanish news, both the Spanish giants, FC Barcelona and Real Madrid had their opening season games today. Real Madrid played Valencia FC and left the game with a 1-1 draw with Higuain scoring their only goal. Not something they wanted of course. On the other side of things FC Barcelona played Real Sociedad at the Camp Nou and beat them 5-1. The first goal came from the club captain Puyol during a corner kick from Xavi and then Sociedad drew the game 1-1 a few minutes later. The Catalan giants were going to take that and two goals from Messi and a goal from Pedro put the Blaugrana up 4-1 by half-time. The greatest thing is at the second half David Villa came onto the field after being sidelined from an injury since the Club World Cup in December 2011. What's even better is that he scored a goal and ended the game 5-1. This gives Tito Vilanova his first win of a La Liga season as the head coach. 

The first game is only the beginning and anything can happen during the season. But it's always good to start off the season with a win. It's a good moral booster and it helps set the tempo for what the season has in store.