Defensively Preoccupied aka Next Week, Next Week

Football fans largely had their high of the EPL last night when Man City relegated season's rival Man United to runners up by eight goals difference on the same number of points.

And they did it in dramatic, come back from the dead, fashion too. Very Man United like (ahem!) if I may say so.

Anyway, the next big one is the Champions League final next weekend at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany featuring home team Bayern Munich and England’s Chelsea.

A non fan of neither, the match-up holds little interests to me, but I’m sure millions will be glued to the action come Sunday morning   (it’s being played Saturday night over in Germany after all).

Little interest that is until I read “Dortmund Shows Why It's a Champion” at New York Times Online on the Bundesliga champion, Borussia Dortmund's trashing of Bayern, 5-2, in the German Cup final the same Saturday night.

The writer, Rob Hughes, writes with not a hint of sarcasm of Bayern’s seeming inabilities to accept that they were basically outplayed by their rival, period.

He quotes, amongst others:

Bayern’s coach, Jupp Heynckes:  “Congratulations to BVB. Borussia deserved this victory. They ruthlessly exploited our weaknesses. We were very unfocused today in defense and handed out gifts. Borussia created one chance in the first half, but scored three goals. Our defensive display was catastrophic.”

Captain Philipp Lahm: “We were the better team over the 90 minutes. But we made disastrous defensive errors and kept handing it to our opponents. We can’t be making errors like that next week.” 

(And over at The Sun (ours, not the UK's) - Arjen Robben: "Losing 5-2 hurts alot and I can't explain that performance. We're frustrated now, but as of Monday our focus is on the Champions League final.")

(My emphasis, TQVM.) 

 Such a distinct, urm, lack of respect to Dortmund’s win over them, isn’t it?

Implying, of course, that Bayern only lost the match because it was too preoccupied with the BIG one next week.

Hughes went on to quip: “Next week, always next week” right after Lahm’s comments.

Since reading the article, I am now cheering Chelsea to best Bayern in the Champions League final.

Let’s see of Bayern can still be the better team over the 90 minutes and still lose out of what is touted as THE one coveted Cup in football.

Of course, Chelsea has the extra incentive in that the final is their ONLY chance of being in the Champions League next year after a tumultuous (footballing) year that saw them stuck in 6^th place below (gasp) Newcastle.

Their win would drop 4^th placed Spurs from the Champions League, though, and that is not something which would sit well with Spurs fan.

Now THEY will be clamouring for Lahm and Co to be, urm, not the best team over 90 minutes and win the Champions League at the expense of poor, poor Chelsea.

Don’t you just love football?

PS: Condolences to all my "You Never walk Alone"- fan friends? Next year, next year, perhaps? 

Flatfooted Stupor

It’s 3.42pm and I am still feeling lethargic from the late night watching Germany thrash England.

I had a feeling that England would lose, but never imagined the margin to be so disappointing especially at this stage of the World Cup. England was caught flatfooted on all the four goals: the back four dreadfully outpaced by the German youthful players.

At least a penalty shoot-out would have carried the “luck” factor into play, but as it turns out, the Three Lions were bested in a whole lot of departments.

Am I missing something or does England not have an outright striker in the team?

Three goals – one of which by Upson! - in five games says just this and to see Rooney looking so very lost is disconcerting especially if you’re a Man United fan.

(On that count, another MU player is making his presence felt in team Mexico and Ji-Sung carried his South Korean brilliantly despite the loss to Uruguay courtesy of Suarez’s superb second goal.)

The question that would be answer in the Argentina – Germany matchup should thus be this: Was Germany really THAT good, or was England just WOEFUL?

Anyway, I didn’t catch the live telecast for that match; watched Frank Miller’s The Spirit instead.

The story was crappy, but the visuals sank me. Fans of FM would undoubtedly be able to connect with the outlandish way the whole movie was played out.

The rooftop scene was straight out of his collaboration with John Romita Jr. in Daredevil: The Man without Fear.

Empathizing with the characters though is out of the question as I hardly know or ever read The Spirit. Could find his motivation for doing whatever it is his doing. (Aside from smooching and flirting with every woman who appeared on screen, that is.)

The violence level, too, was sanitized by the inanity of the whole storyline.

Then again, if it had been ala his Sin City series, The Spirit might not have gotten through to us Malaysian viewers.

Sin City offers a different kind of brutal after all; something akin to the German’s dissecting of England’s back four, I suppose.

PS: Lampard's non goal - Would it have mattered? I dunno. What matters was that it was not called, and the German went on to score another brace. So there. Que Sera Sera.

Frank Miller's Perspectives