It’s a question for the ages. Anyway…
My predictions of late have, like a recovering alcoholic in winter time, been a little on the shaky side. Therefore I approach tonight’s Champions League fixtures with a fair amount of trepidation. There are teams deemed to be in crisis, teams with little to play for and, of course, there’s Celtic, whose continued redefinition of being pants on the road has to end at some stage… or does it?
Go through this season’s Champions League and there’s been a fair few surprises (Villareal getting the draw in Manchester, Cluj winning in Rome, Madrid losing twice to Juve, Chelsea coming unstuck in Italy, everything that’s happened involving Anorthosis Famagusta), yet when it comes down to it, the top seeds from each group will most likely end up in the last sixteen. But that doesn’t make the odds of me calling any of the below correctly any better. Fuck it though, here goes…
AaB v Celtic: Celtic’s general inability to score in the Champions League has been pretty painful to watch this season. All in all, they just aren’t a very good side and they tend to play woeful football once they leave the confines of that Sunday league they play in each week. They might sneak a draw though. 0-0 or 1-1.
Arsenal v Dynamo Kiev: Prepare for another round of articles on the genius of Wenger after a 2-0 or 3-0 win here. Really the press are so bloody up and down when it comes to Arsenal this season. They lose to Stoke and they’re in a state of crisis not seen since the mid-nineties, all of a sudden they beat Wigan reserves at home and they’re a collection of Peles. Throw in a win over Man United, followed by two comprehensive defeats and column writers are once again going from deifying them one day to writing them off the next (I’m looking at you Kevin McCarra). They may well pull of ‘a Liverpool’ and be brutal in the league and go far in the CL this season. Like I said, two or three nil here.
BATE Borisov v Real Madrid: Madrid, so says Sid, have been absolutely woeful of late but my poor man’s cable package has meant I’ve only seen CL highlights of them for the most part. They have to beat these guys though surely? Surely? 0-1.
Bayern Munich v Steaua Bucuresti: Ah, a meeting of the old guard in Europe, lovely. Bayern shoudl win this and march towards the next round. Oh, and if you haven’t seen this vid of Frank Ribery by now, feast your eyes. Genius. 2-0.
Fenerbahce v FC Porto: So bad I forgot to put a score in here in my first edit of this blog. We’ll go with 1-3.
Fiorentina v Lyon: Could be a good one here, Fiorentina have to win to have any chance of progressing but may bee missing Mutu and are also hampered by having Gilardino up front who, in the finest tradition of Andy Cole and Robbie Keane, takes ten chances to score one goal. Much like the Bayern game last time out, I’d say they may take the lead and try to hang on, but they won’t though. 1-2.
Villarreal v Man Utd: I hate this – a tasty looking fixture that has its balls ripped off by being a pointless game at the end of the group stages. It happens every year in the Champions League and at any major tournament as well – as anyone who watched Holland and Argentina at the 2006 World Cup will no doubt agree with… wait a minute, did I say Holland and Argentina? That gives me an excuse to show this…. Where was I? Oh yeah, 1-1.
Zenit St Petersburg v Juventus: Home win this time out with Juve licking their wounds after the weekend. No one wants to see an old lady licking her wounds. 1-0.
And on that note…
Later, JJ
My predictions of late have, like a recovering alcoholic in winter time, been a little on the shaky side. Therefore I approach tonight’s Champions League fixtures with a fair amount of trepidation. There are teams deemed to be in crisis, teams with little to play for and, of course, there’s Celtic, whose continued redefinition of being pants on the road has to end at some stage… or does it?
Go through this season’s Champions League and there’s been a fair few surprises (Villareal getting the draw in Manchester, Cluj winning in Rome, Madrid losing twice to Juve, Chelsea coming unstuck in Italy, everything that’s happened involving Anorthosis Famagusta), yet when it comes down to it, the top seeds from each group will most likely end up in the last sixteen. But that doesn’t make the odds of me calling any of the below correctly any better. Fuck it though, here goes…
AaB v Celtic: Celtic’s general inability to score in the Champions League has been pretty painful to watch this season. All in all, they just aren’t a very good side and they tend to play woeful football once they leave the confines of that Sunday league they play in each week. They might sneak a draw though. 0-0 or 1-1.
Arsenal v Dynamo Kiev: Prepare for another round of articles on the genius of Wenger after a 2-0 or 3-0 win here. Really the press are so bloody up and down when it comes to Arsenal this season. They lose to Stoke and they’re in a state of crisis not seen since the mid-nineties, all of a sudden they beat Wigan reserves at home and they’re a collection of Peles. Throw in a win over Man United, followed by two comprehensive defeats and column writers are once again going from deifying them one day to writing them off the next (I’m looking at you Kevin McCarra). They may well pull of ‘a Liverpool’ and be brutal in the league and go far in the CL this season. Like I said, two or three nil here.
BATE Borisov v Real Madrid: Madrid, so says Sid, have been absolutely woeful of late but my poor man’s cable package has meant I’ve only seen CL highlights of them for the most part. They have to beat these guys though surely? Surely? 0-1.
Bayern Munich v Steaua Bucuresti: Ah, a meeting of the old guard in Europe, lovely. Bayern shoudl win this and march towards the next round. Oh, and if you haven’t seen this vid of Frank Ribery by now, feast your eyes. Genius. 2-0.
Fenerbahce v FC Porto: So bad I forgot to put a score in here in my first edit of this blog. We’ll go with 1-3.
Fiorentina v Lyon: Could be a good one here, Fiorentina have to win to have any chance of progressing but may bee missing Mutu and are also hampered by having Gilardino up front who, in the finest tradition of Andy Cole and Robbie Keane, takes ten chances to score one goal. Much like the Bayern game last time out, I’d say they may take the lead and try to hang on, but they won’t though. 1-2.
Villarreal v Man Utd: I hate this – a tasty looking fixture that has its balls ripped off by being a pointless game at the end of the group stages. It happens every year in the Champions League and at any major tournament as well – as anyone who watched Holland and Argentina at the 2006 World Cup will no doubt agree with… wait a minute, did I say Holland and Argentina? That gives me an excuse to show this…. Where was I? Oh yeah, 1-1.
Zenit St Petersburg v Juventus: Home win this time out with Juve licking their wounds after the weekend. No one wants to see an old lady licking her wounds. 1-0.
And on that note…
Later, JJ
6 comments:
holland vs argies 06 - ruined by the hapless van basten as manager. a defensive dutch team?! shame on you
George definitely the king of the baby and scary possesive about it, Eamo expect a visit. Christopher Walken(Bruce Dickinson)don't fear the reaper skit on SNL had a few good babies but youtube only seems to have pathetic edited remixes. Xmas pod lads?
Xmas pod will no doubt be on the way, possibly more than one as well. Costanza is indeed Lord of Babytown - I've only ever seen the 'gotta get more cowbell' skit with Walken on SNL though. The man is a legend, his speech about the tooth fairy in Welcome to the Jungle yet more evidence of this.
What a sorry night of football. 90 mins flicking between the arsenal and united games sapped any hope of staying up to watch other highlights.With Ribery and Bendtner are Nike trying to say pink is the new...ugly? Old scarface can play though. Great news about the pod lads "you'll all be wearing gold plated diapers"!
Same old rubbish from Giles and Dunphy last night.All they ever talk about after a Man Utd game is Ronaldo is a disgrace.All Dunphy has to do to get Giles to agree with him is to say Johnny Giles was a world class player Giles.
i just can't listen to dunp and giles any more, the rubbish they come out with, over & over again
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