Buzzin Football

Chelsea took a real battering at Stamford Bridge last Wednesday in the first leg of the Champions League against Barcelona – the best club side of all-time.  They not only survived the ordeal but with one shot in the whole match, scored completely against the run of play; leaving Barca to misfire and hit the woodwork on several occasions.  But for the second leg, surely Chelsea needed more than a one goal lead to take on the mighty swell of the Nou Camp stadium.

The only thing in Chelsea’s favour was they had been here a few times before and unlike other European clubs were ready for the challenge; and would possibly not be phased by the occassion.

Chelsea started well and occasionally played their way into Barcelona’s half.  But as with the first leg, the Catalan side had the majority of possession; and just as there was talk that it would be a great achievement if Chelsea could get to half-time at 0-0, it all started to go wrong.

Sloppy defending allowed Busquets to open the scoring on 35mins which was followed by John Terry rightfully being shown a red card for a needless and sly act of aggression as he pushed his knee into the back of Alexis Sanchez. And when Iniesta made it 2-0 on 43mins it looked likely that Chelsea were going to be shown more red cards and be completely battered.  But as in the first leg, Chelsea scored a goal before half-time out of nothing.  A through-ball by Frank Lampard found Ramires who scored with a delightful chip over goalkeeper Valdes which turned the tie in Chelsea’s favour once again.

But there was still more excitement to come in one of the most truly amazing Champions League matches of all-time.  Lionel Messi, who has never scored against Chelsea had the chance from the penalty spot and against all the odds hit the bar! Chelsea played a strict game of lockout. ‘Parking the bus’ in front of Petr Cech was their only hope.  Wave after wave of Barcelona attack was thwarted by Chelsea; and then, to top it all Fernando Torres, a second half substitute who had tormented Barcelona so many times when playing for Athletico Madrid was given the chance to score the winning goal in injury time that secured Chelsea’s place in the final of the Champions League.  Amazing comic book stuff that doesn’t happen in real life; a real-life Hot Shot Hamish moment!

Against all the odds Chelsea drew 2-2 on the night and won 3-2 over two legs.  They will now face either Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid or Bayern Munich, who would have home advantage, in the final. Chelsea will be without John Terry for his straight red and Ramires, Meireles and Ivanovic for picking up second yellow cards.  Gary Cahill, who limped off with an injury in the first half is expected to be fit.

This was an amazing game of football.  But I think without key players, lifting the Champions League trophy for the first time is going to be a bridge too far for Chelsea.

The 2012 English FA Cup will be between Chelsea & Liverpool on Saturday 5th May after two exciting semi-finals at Wembley Stadium over the weekend. See the latest in FA Cup betting.

On Saturday Liverpool went behind in the Merseyside derby to a first-half goal by one of the signings of the season, Nikica Jelavic. But Everton appeared to get it tactically wrong when they appeared to play deeper in the second half and invite Liverpool to attack.  In doing so, the inevitable happened when Luis Suarez pounced on a weak back pass from Sylvan Distin to goalkeeper Tim Howard.

From there on, Everton looked shell shocked while Liverpool was in the ascendency and deserved to go on and win the game. By scoring the winning goal in a semi-final against Everton, Andy Carroll has gone some way to repaying his over-inflated £35 million price tag.

Television played its part in a bizarre kick off time for the second semi-final between Chelsea and Tottenham at 6pm on Sunday.

The game was finely balanced in the first half with both teams having chances to take the lead.  Chelsea were playing good free-flowing football, and though Spurs appeared to be a little less relaxed, the speed and ability of both Gareth Bale & Aaron Lennon continued to torment Chelsea and threaten them on the break.

Didier Drogba continued his great FA Cup Semi-Final goal scoring record when he was allowed to turn and blast the ball into the top corner passed former Chelsea keeper Carlos Cudicini.  William Gallas (another ex-Chelsea player) could hardly be blamed as he appeared to do everything right, apart from give Drogba the time to shoot.  Half-time analysis had Roy Keane & Gareth Southgate arguing the point.  Southgate stated, as a centre half, Gallas had done everything right in steering Drogba away from goal & leaving him only six inches or so.  But as Roy Keane rightly said in true Brian Clough style: “You can do a lot with six inches!”

Chelsea continued to push forward in the second half.  But it was referee Martin Atkinson’s decision to award a controversial second goal as early as the 49th minute that really turned the match in Chelsea’s favour.  There was a goal line clearance that ended with Cudicini, Ledley King, Assou-Ekotto and John Terry in a pile when Juan Mata followed up with a shot that appeared to be stopped from crossing the line by Assou-Ekotto’s leg.  The truth is that even after several replays from various angles, it was still unclear if the ball had crossed the line.  Though the most telling point was that John Terry didn’t appeal for the goal, and he was the closest Chelsea player to the ball.

You win some – you lose some; and that decision not only put Chelsea two up but also meant that Tottenham had to chase the game.  For a while they did just that, and when Gareth Bale scored just seven minutes later it looked like Spurs were back in the race.  But the Spurs goal wasn’t without its own controversy.  As Adebayor was put clear through he was brought down by an on-rushing Petr Cech as he managed to pass the ball to Gareth Bale.  Bale scored as Martin Atkinson played the advantage, and Petr Cech escaped being shown the red card retrospectively.

As time pushed on, Harry Redknapp had no choice but to change the Spurs formation.  As soon as he went to a 4-4-2 there was more room in the midfield for Frank Lampard and Juan Mata to take control of the game.  Redknapp had little choice but his decision backfired and when Juan Mata put Ramires through to score Chelsea’s third goal, the game appeared to be over.  Two further goals, a fantastic free-kick from Frank Lampard (81 mins) and a fifth by substitute Florent Malouda (90 mins) flattered a Chelsea side who will now go into Wednesday’s Champions League semi-final 1st leg against Barcelona brimming with confidence.

Since Fabio Capello resigned from his England post in early February, the media has gone into overdrive at the prospect of Harry Redknapp succeeding him.

However, while the current Spurs manager is the red-hot bookmaker’s favourite to lead his country into the Euro 2012 finals, punters looking for a bigger return on a free bet may want to back a candidate at longer odds.

Step forward Glenn Hoddle.

This past week, former England boss Hoddle has been touting himself for a return to the post he was sacked from back in 1999 after making controversial remarks about people with disabilities.

He has even gone as far to say his life would be “incomplete” if he were to die and not have the chance to manage England again.

In terms of England “success”, he did OK. He won 17 of his 28 matches in charge, drew six and lost five, a win percentage of almost 61 percent.

Not as high as Capello’s 66.7% win rate, statistically positioning him as the most “successful” England manager of all time although the Italian of course did not take change of as many games as the likes of Sven Goran Eriksson, Bobby Robson or World Cup winning boss Alf Ramsey.

But, going on win percentages alone, Hoddle is the second most successful. He took England to the second round of the 1998 World Cup, as well as Capello did in 2010 and has more experience at international level than Redknapp.

After the circumstances surrounding his dismissal more than a decade ago, he would not be the politically correct choice but compared to other former managers like Steve McLaren (50%), Graham Taylor (47.4%) or Kevin Keegan (38.9%) appointing Hoddle is unlikely to be a disaster.

The alternative to Redknapp as far as the betting goes is current West Bromwich Albion manager Roy Hodgson who is a vastly experienced manager on the international stage.

Prior to spells in charge of the United Arab Emirates and Finland, Hodgson guided Switzerland to third in the FIFA rankings, taking them to the World Cup in 1994 and Euro 1996.

But, I quite like the idea of recalling an England “old boy” to the post and my choice would be Terry Venables.

His win percentage is not the highest at 47.8 percent, but he is arguably England’s most “successful” manager in recent years after taking his country to the semi-finals of Euro 96 – losing on penalties to eventual tournament winners Germany.

Venables has already parked up at “Wembley” too – in an technical advisor role at non league Wembley FC who play in the Combined Counties League Premier Division.

Perfect!

Who would you like to see in charge of England? Let us know in the comments below!

Newcastle managed to maintain pace for a possible European spot for next season with a relatively comfortable win over a strong West Brom team in the Premier League last Sunday. With each team going into the game full of confidence after recent results, the game was set up to be a tight affair from the off.

Newcastle on the other hand had other ideas and raced into the lead after just 6 minutes from a flowing moving down the left. Their new talisman Papa Cisse managed to bag his 4th goal in just 7 games for the magpies after a sublime cross from Ben Arfa.

It was Ben Arfa who doubled Newcastle’s lead just 6 minutes later causing havoc in the West Brom defence. After jinking past a couple of players he cut back inside on his left foot before powering past Ben Foster to double Newcastle’s advantage.

The second goal seemed to spur West Brom into life a little but they were unable to capitalise from a string of attacking opportunities mainly from corners.

The game was as good as over after 34 minutes when the Toon scored their second and Cisse completed a brace. It was once again Hatem Ben Arfa who proved to be the undoing as he linked up neatly with Demba Ba before cutting the ball back across the face of goal for Cisse to power home. Ben Arfa proved once and for all what a fine talent this young Frenchman really is.

At half time Cisse was as much as 10/1 on the Mobile Betting markets to score the next goal and he nearly put the game out of reach when he was one on one with Foster early in the second half. Foster managed to pull off a smart save however which gave his team a little hope.

With the second half starting West Brom knew they had little to lose and even managed to get them right back into the game with a goal from substitute Shane Long. Eye brows were eased prior to the game with the Irishman starting on the bench and he proved his worth taking advantage of a mix up at the back between centre half Mike Williamson and goalkeeper Tim Krul.

This was as close as West Brom were to get however and as the game fizzled out they were unable to provide any real quality in front of goal to cause Newcastle a threat.

It wasn’t all good news for the Magpies as at half time captain Collocini was taken off and is thought to be out for 2 weeks (hamstring) meaning he misses the next game at home to Liverpool. Papa Cisse was also taken off which what is now believed to have just been cramp, a relief to Alan Pardew no doubt.

As far as the two team’s seasons are going Newcastle find themselves level on points with Chelsea in fifth and just 8 games remaining. West Brom are 14th but will have too much to fall into a relegation scrap this season. Roy Hodgson will no doubt be looking for a strong finish and a chance to improve his squad for the coming campaign.

Teddy Sheringham began his professional football career with the unfashionable south London club, Millwall.  Together with striking partner Tony Cascarino they won promotion to the top flight of English football and scored a phenomenal 99 goals for Millwall in just three seasons; and though Millwall were relegated the following season, both went onto to celebrate illustrious careers.

In 1991 Brian Clough bought Edward Paul Sheringham for £2 million to play for Nottm Forest alongside his son, Nigel Clough.  But this proved only to be a stepping stone.  The next season Sheringham was sold to Tottenham where he scored 76 goals in 166 appearances.

Jürgen Klinsmann, a strike partner with Sheringham during the 1994–95 season, has claimed that Sheringham was the most intelligent strike partner he had ever played with. But it wasn’t to be the pinnacle of Teddy’s football career.

In 1993 Teddy Sheringham won his first England cap at the age of 27.  But it was under the management of Terry Venables, who had brought him to Spurs, that Sheringham was the first choice partner for Alan Shearer.  Together they helped England to the semi-finals of Euro 96 – their best performance coming in a 4-1 drubbing of a shell shocked Holland.

In 1997 Sheringham joined Manchester United for £3.5 million as a replacement for Eric Cantona. But Sheringham’s strained relationship with Andy Cole was one of the factors why United finished the season trophy-less and Alex Ferguson bought Dwight Yorke the following season.  Yorke and Cole was a successful strike force that meant Sheringham had few first-team starts and instead was used generally used as a second-half impact player.  No greater than when he was brought on in injury time in the 1999 Champions League Final where United had scored a very late equaliser.  As Sheringham ran onto the pitch he told David Beckham, who was waiting to take a free-kick, to find his head.  Beckham duly delivered an inch perfect cross and Teddy Sheringham scored the winning goal that won Manchester United the treble of Premier League, FA Cup & Champions League.  Along with his 51 England caps, this was probably the pinnacle of Teddy’s playing career.

In 2001 he returned to Spurs as a free transfer before playing for Portsmouth and West Ham, before finishing his professional playing career making 19 appearances for Colchester United in the 2007-08 season.

Sheringham was an intelligent player and this coupled with his experience playing for the likes of Clough, Venables, Ferguson and Hoddle, I assumed he would step effortlessly into coaching or football management.  But instead he turned to football analysis for television before following his old striking partner Tony Cascarino into making money playing poker online.

Sheringham now plays poker professionally and apparently is as sharp and quick thinking around the card table, as he was around the penalty area.