The Living Legend that is Ryan Giggs

Yesterday i talked about a player, that quite frankly has been a dissapointment so far IMO, Robinho. You can check out yesterday's post to see my points on this. Today i'd like to pay tribute to someone who's the complete opposite ....Ryan Giggs

A quick check on Wikipedia reveals the following facts on Giggsy:

• Ryan Joseph Giggs was born Ryan Joseph Wilson on 29 November 1973 in Canton, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom (Wilson was his Dad's surname. He took the name Giggs so that everyone knows that he is his mothers son)
  

• Giggs holds a host of football records, including that of being the most decorated player in British football history. On 11 May 2008, he became the first footballer to collect 10 top division English league title medals. (to have won all those things...damn..i'm so jealous!)
  

• Giggs was the first player in history to win the PFA Young Player of the Year award consecutively (1992 and 1993) and as of today has played and scored in every single season of the FA Premier League since its inception, also holding the league's record for most all time goal assists with 289 assists in 535 appearances. (thats almost an assist every other game!)
  

• Giggs is mixed race — his paternal grandfather is from Sierra Leone — and has spoken of the racism he faced as a child. (i wonder how many people actually know this?)

• Giggs had no English grandparents, and was only available to play for Wales and Sierra Leone, the home of his paternal grandfather. (wasn't there some hype about 10 years ago that Giggs should have played for England? How is that possible if neither his parents or grandparents were actually British folk from England!?)
  

• While playing for Deans FC, Giggs would be watched regularly by local newsagent and Old Trafford steward Harold Wood. Wood regularly told the senior staff at Manchester United about Giggs, but they did not send anyone down to watch him until Wood spoke personally to Alex Ferguson. Wood told the United boss "He's with City at the moment, and if you lose him you'll regret it". So Ferguson sent a scout to a Deans match, who was impressed enough that United offered Giggs a trial over the Christmas period in 1986. (Giggs at Man City...what a waste that would have been...no offence City fans, but you guys haven't done squat in the league)
  

• The following November, on Giggs' 14th birthday, Ferguson turned up at Giggs's house with United scout Joe Brown and offered him two years on associate schoolboy forms. They also waived YTS forms, and persuaded Giggs with the opportunity to turn professional in three years. Giggs signed there and then. (Wow...on your 14th birthday, a manager tells you that you can play pro when you're 17, and he actually goes on to become pro at the age of 17..read on!)
  

• Giggs turned professional on 29 November 1990 (his 17th birthday) and made his League debut against Everton at Old Trafford on 2 March 1991 (Giggsy has been playing forever!!!)
  

• Giggs had a very good disciplinary record during his early career receiving relatively few bookings. In fact, he has never been sent off when playing for Manchester United and only once when playing for Wales. His only red card came in 2001 in an international match against Norway, which Wales lost. (and he's such a nice guy too..hahaha)
  

Personally, my forever enduring memory of Giggs will be that famous FA Cup goal, when after Patrick Viera lost the ball well into the Man United half, he picked it up, ran up to the half way line, then proceeded to beat the entire Arsenal backline before slotting in the winner. We will probably never ever see another goal like that in the near future.

I also remember that during his early years, a lot of of the media were saying that the last time they saw a lad this talented, it was a certain George Best. I think they were also expecting Giggs to take the same path down life: Football, Booze, Women.

Thank goodness he did not, and thank goodness for Sir Alex Ferguson, who knew what had happened to Best, and did his best to guide Giggs down the 'right' path, without jeapordizing his footballing skills.

There' a rumours that Giggs might retire this year, if he feels he cannot play anymore, or can't play regular games. Either way, he's had an explicably awesome career, littered with medals and cups. He's won practically everything there is to win, except the World Cup. What a way it would be to end a career, if he could lift the BPL throphy one last time, at the end of the season.

The Dissapointment that is Robinho

Revolution seems to be somewhat of an overused word in footballing terms. It always seems to crop up whenever a new manager gets installed. More recently though, this word seems to follow whenever cash rich philantropist take over ownerships of a club.

The latest club to go through this revolution is Manchester City.

Right now, Man City are occupying the dizzying position of ermm....21st place? Some revolution. Ok, in all fairness to them, the team hasnt changed much from the one which Sven Goran Eriksson was in charge of. Only 2 notable buys since Mark Hughes took over and that was Robinho and Jo. Thus far, i will say that they have been flops, no matter how many goals Robinho has scored. I don't think i need to elaborate on Jo's performance, its pretty self explainatory. When's the last time he made any positive headlines?

Robinho's whole Machester City season (who's betting its going to be his only one with them?) has been littered with goals, but the distinction being that they were not match winning or match changing goals. These goals came primarily against weaker opposition, and not against opposition with much tougher defences. So far, his performances also seem to be akin to a bystander, somewhat who is just flowing with the tide of the match. If the match is going bad for Man City, his game flusters. If Man City are winning, he awakes from his slumber and plays as if he might be enjoying himself

Robinho is not the Fabregas, Rolando or the Gerrard of his team. For the amount of money they paid for him, you'd think he'd be doing more.

Perhaps i'm being a tad harsh, it is after all his first season. I'll be very happy to be proven wrong, but somehow i doubt the bratty moneyloving Brazillian will.

Liverpool 1 - Everton 1

As a hardcore Liverpool fan, i'll try to give as an unbiased report as i possibly can. Ok, here goes.

TIM CAHILL DESERVES TO DIE.

See, that wasn't so hard.

There's nothing i loathe more than the sight of the "Cahill" strutting around the field with such pompus arrogance and sneakyness. He's no Jan Koller, but he is so impossibly good in the air. The countless times he was ahead of Hyypia and Skrtel in getting to the hanging air balls was mathematically improbable. He's also a pretty dastardly figure in winning freekicks, whether legal or illegally.

The game as a whole was largely a dissapointing one, not due to any lack of quality on the pitch. The blame largely goes to both managers, who sent out their teams to try and stiffle each other. Space on the pitch was at a premium, and it was no surpise that both goals didnt result from any great passing moves.

Nevertheless, the quality of the goals one of the few moments of joy for the entire 90 minutes. Gerrard's goal was typical of the man. Striding from midfield, and before he could be hacked and closed down by 3 Everton players, he lets loose a powerful grounder that the Everton keeper could do nothing about.

Everton responded a couple of minutes later. Yossi Benayoun who was just sent on to give the attack more impetus, found himself doing more defending than attacking. By and large, he did a good job against the Everton players who were doing more running and attacking once they went a goal down. However, he failed miserable at a crucial stage. The 86th minute. Victor Anichebe had switched flanks with Steven Piennar, and was desperate to get a corner in from the left side. Benayoun was having none of it and clumsily hacked him down near the corner line.

From such a dangerous angle, you could just see a goal coming. It was inevitable. Perhaps the Anfield crowd sensed it as well. Arteta stepped up to take the freekick. Everton and Liverpool player crowd the area around the goal post, trying to get an advantage. Hyypia marks Anichebe. Skrtel behind them, marks Cahill. Cahill moves in front a little to stand next to Reina. Anichebe exchanges a few words with cahill, and right before the freekick is struck, Cahill manouevers infront of Anichebe, who now blocks both Hyypia and Skrtel!

Arteta's freekick is delivered with pinpoint precision to the head of Cahill........GOAL!

Well worked goal, and its clear that Everton had practised this before, exposing a small weakness in the zonal defense method that Liverpool loves to much.

After that, it doesnt matter who was brought on or off, the game was headed to a draw, which more of less equates to dropped points for Liverpool, and hard earned points for Everton.

Liverpool fans all over the world hang their heads in despair. More dissapointment. More dropped points. We're handing the title to Manchester United. A collective sigh all around the world is enough to tilt the planet slightly off angle.

But is it all lost for Liverpool? Quite frankly, NO. Its hard to be positive, but if you would tell me at the beginning of the season that Liverpool would level on points with Manchester United at the top of the table, albeit having played a game more, i would have told you to go stuff a turkey.

There's still plenty of games to go, and anything can happen. Its a funny game. In Rafa we trust.

Welcome back to fantasy football!

Wow. Its been more than a year since my last post. Piles of virtual dust has settled on my small piece of internet property here, creating a sort of ghost town. Time to bring out the dust busters and whip this place up into a football frenzy fiesta thats fit to host high quality ramblings and manager tantrums!

(If you didnt understand all that, please bare with me. I need to dust off my vocabulary and grammatical skills, which has been in recession due to excessive overdose of the good stuff and mental trauma. I'll leave you to decide what the good stuff is)

Now that i've escaped the initial hysteria of blogging again, lets come back down to earth and talk football shall we. But those damned Manchester City owners are hell bent on letting be believe that fantasy football is possible! Damn you, you Arab Billionaires!

KAKA = 100 MILLION PEANUTS

Kaka is one hell of a player, but no person is worth that much! I'm sorry all your Man City fans out there, i'm sure you'd love to see Kaka in your colours, but this well into the realms of insanity. The transfer market is spiraling out of control with all these billionaires trying to play fantasy football. On top of that, its reported that he has been offered 500,000 pounds a week? Ridiculous!

I thoroughly understand the need for professional sport players to be payed high wages. After all, their careers rarely live past the age of 30. But 500,000 pounds a week? Again, let me say it. Ridiculous!

We need to get a grip on things and protest such absurdity. Do you know how many people can be helped from hunger, famine, war with 100 Million Pounds and a weekly donation of 500,000 pounds a week?

Football is just entertainment. And if we live in a world where our billionaires would rather spend 100 Million pounds and 500,000 pounds a week on entertainment, instead of using all this money to help the poor and the helpless, then i dont know what to say.

On second thought, i do know what to say, fuck these billionaires. You are all single handedly killing football and killing our souls.

A titanic battle at Anfield ends all square

Arsenal and Liverpool had one of those classic titanic battles at Anfield today. It was a pulsating, incident laden game that was great to watch from beginning to end that ended 1-1.

The footballing styles of both sides wildly contrasted, with Liverpool's very direct long ball and getting their players to harass the opponents, and Arsenal's silky free flowing passing game combining to make a very entertaining tactical battle.

Credit to Arsene's young side. They dominated the home side for long periods of time, but found it tough to break through a resilient Liverpool defence, that was well protected by the midfield pairing of Alonso and Mascherano. Mascherano in particular was a beast in the center of the field, and was instrumental in cutting out most Arsenal attacks.

However, playing in his 400th game for Liverpool, Steven Gerrard was showing glimpses of his talent and power, and it was from his harassing and closing down of Flamini that lead to the first goal.

But Arsenal didn't crack under the pressure cauldron of Anfield. They kept the ball for long periods of time and slowly built back their confidence. Liverpool's front 3 pairing were negated as an attacking force, as 90% of their work was being done in their own half, just tracking and defending against Arsenal players!

In the end, Cesc Fabregas, who is having a brilliant goalscoring season, added another one to his tally, courtesy of another brilliant move. It was the least they deserved for all their enterprising play.

For Arsenal, the result is a good one for them. At the start of the game, i'm very sure Arsene would have settled for a point. The result also returns them to the top of the league, and keeps the pressure on defending champions Manchester United, who is trying to retain the crown.

For Liverpool, the result will be accepted, but Rafa really would have preferred a win, and all 3 points. Their home record has been dreadful this season, which is a reverse of their form last season. Last season, Liverpool were virtually unbeatable at home, but dreadful away.

There will be fresh injury worries for Rafa, with Alonso coming off in the second half, Mascherano limping his way to the end of the game and Torres clearly still not fit yet and was taken off at half time. I have to say though, Liverpool played much better when Crouch came on, and he had 3 shots on target and kept the ball for Liverpool very well. Just why he has been so underused this season is quite a mystery.

Liverpool stumble...AGAIN!

What a horrible performance from them. A team like Liverpool should be carving up teams like Besiktas with ease.

Liverpool were unlucky to go behind through another freak goal. And yet again, Sami Hyypia is credited with another own goal. He must be praying he doesn't make it a hattrick on Sunday against Arsenal.

Generally, i think Liverpool played much better than their last 2-3 games. They actually had 55%-60% of possesion, playing away from home. The only thing lacking was a final touch. Gerrard was trying too much, but again, was the only one looking threating. Babel had a good game.

The front 2 pairing of Kuyt and Voronin looked sparkless and unimaginative. There was lots of effort and running, but no real quality. I'm sure a lot will be made of the decision to only bring Crouch on for the last 10 minutes.

The Champions League door is almost slammed shut on Liverpool. And to think, Benitez was boldly claiming a few weeks back that they were aiming for a quick 12 points to get this first phase out of the way. Don't count you eggs before it hatches, eh Rafa?

AC Milan tries to deflect attention away from Dida

The reactions from AC Milan of the sentence handed out to themselves and Celtic is quite embarrasing.

AC Milan lawyer Leandro Cantamessa said: 'The impact of the sentence is disproportionate and illogical. I have no issue with Celtic but I am only trying to establish a sense of proportion - one is the event, the other is only the effect of the event.'

What an imbecile. Why can't these damn people just shut their traps and try to handle the situation with grace? Right now, all these actions just give me the impression that they are backing up their goalkeeper, Dida, and basically just trying to deflect as much media attention away from him.

Thats totally understandable, as being a team means sticking up for everyone of your players, and never criticizing them in public. Being a team means everyone has to fight for each other, through bad and good. Its like a marriage, but a marriage of 11 men and their manager (could be 20-30 if you include the backroom staff and reserves).

However, by defending a 'criminal', they have all therefore been associated as 'criminals'. They might not mind that, but what i do mind is the fact that they are not even trying to accept and apologize for their players pathetic behaviour. No one is trying to do the right thing and say Dida was wrong to cheat and cheating of any kind in a sport, especially football..should be outlawed and offenders seriously punished.

No my friends, all they only want to say is,' Why is my punishment bigger than your punishment? Yours must be bigger!'

AC Milan, Just quit whining, suck it up and say you're sorry damnit! Geez...