cosmicway

The Turks caught everyone's eye in 2008-Switzerland. Then they came here and gave Greek national team a 4-1 thrashing. But after that silence ! We qualified to South Africa from the group after the 4-1, with a lot of ease as well.

Arsenal are boring. I used to live next door to Highbury -Roseleigh avenue was the name of the street- and I went to a match only two times. The one match was against Chelsea (CFC won 1-0), in the other they beat weak Boro 3-0. We used to call them woodcutters. On the positive side the fish and chips restaurants at Finsborough road are imho better than Fulham. In Europe they were fall guys as far back as anyone remembers, when every other championship side from England have managed to tank their way through at one time or another. I believe this year we saw an ever so slightly better Arsenal in Europe, despite what happened with Bayern.

MU concedes draw against (truly) amateur Greek team. Cup winners cup - vintage video:

I turned on tv and was in mood for away bet (8.00), but from the first passes Oly looked so disoriented that it was a question of where United were going to stop. Oly picture was that of 50s Greek amateurs. Yet for some reason United's left side was a gaping hole, for all of the 90 minutes. Oly created some chances from the right as a result.

Shame for utd. Placed bet on 5-0 at hafl time, 3-0 ahead after 52 minutes - they play catenazzio for the remainder against Olympiakos. Oly were visibly disoriented in the pitch up to the 3-0. The two weakies among the eight are United and Dortmundt.

I placed a bet on Arsenal last week, following Spurs dismal performence against Benfica and Arsenal's signs of partial revival. They went ahead in the first minute, before I had time to connect to firstrow and stayed that way. For Spurs it looked like ovidian transformation, for Arsenal it was Alfred Hitchcock night. I 'm cautiously optimistic. My bookie says 1.88, for Spurs-Arsenal the away win was 2.30 and for United-Liverpool 2.50 (I 'm told).

Campaign to Gala fans: Tomorrow join the Greeks and head north for UTD v. Olympiakos.

My first match as foreign supporter was QPR v. AEK Athens, 1976. We were more in the stadium. Lost 3-0 but went on to qualify in the replay in Athens (3-0 agains + pens). I recall QPR fans expressed admiration for Mimi Papaioannou -legend of a player sought by Real Madrid one time. They did n't know he was 36 and they were saying "look at that speedy young lad !". I went to Nottingham for Forest v. AEK (5-1 the score). On that occasion the newspapers wrote falsely there was going to be a joint Anglo-Greek expo in the municipal building of Nottingham. So I walk into it and say "where is the expo" and they were baffled. But I went to Robin Hood museum on the hill.

Ramires was sent off 3 seconds before final whistle - it matters only for next match. The defense cannot be blamed, but the system. We abandoned all manner of defense, chasing the winner and we were one man short as well after Willian was redded. You do that when you are losing in a cup final and four minutes of play are left. In the case of the Villa match it was just stupid because the 1 pt counts. In attack we are below City-Liverpool but slightly the betters of Arsenal. Something is not quite right & certainly the Drogba force of old is missing. Czech was the man of the match.

dedication song

Genoa v. Juventus 0-0 after 88 minutes. Price 8.00 If you have korazon back. Juve wins free kick - Genoa wall is made up of ... Juventus players - Pirlo shoots - balls goes in like bullet. Only difference is he aimed over the heads of his men instead of them moving sideways.

If this match ends 0-0 are the world's bookmakers going to resign ? From a short list of bookmakers, average home win price is 1.39 and average 0-0 price is 12.20 In the similarly weighted match of Salzburg v. Basel on Thursday the average home win price is 1.39 and the average 0-0 price is 14.5. By the looks of it we are preparing to take the money to mother Russia.

A 1453 in England ? Can it happen ?

I was impressed the way Barcelona kicked City out of the pitch even though Barcelona are as we know struggling in the primera and they seem to have lost the title. Arsenal v. Bayern we had exactly the same type of incident but Arsenal was putting up a fight. I don't consider any a 100% loss probability, but certainly with a performence like Albion or Basel it's going to be 0-6, 0-6.

You prefer City for economic reasons ? Are they not capable of big signings too ? On football grounds besides CFC I like Liverpool but I know they are not quite there and Arsenal are not the usual euro-fall guys, even though they were unlucky against Munich (to go down so easily). MU reminds me of Frank O' Farrel days. They even named a race horse Frank O' Farrel those days, which rather surprised me because the horse racing authority frowns on mickey type names given to the horses.

Neither City nor Arsenal were that great. Pool ok, but against Moyes poor house. What worries me is we play s*it. The 1-0 against City for the PRL was a good performence, then the 3-0 against Newcastle but that seems due to Newcastle being too weak imho. The rest since were if not fails, certainly unglorious affairs.

Arsenal's Alfred Hitchcock night at WH Lane - luck of the Irish.

We did n't want the one point so the defense was exposed (while we were ten as well !). What happened here is our forwards got blocked. Torres was useless like broken tank. How do you score against a packed defense ? I believe some Terry-Everton tactices were needed and the first goal in such situations always comes from a scramble, not method. We staged a comeback after West Ham debacle. Let's hope. In the remaining matches City's opponents are on the average somewhat stronger than ours. I make it 1711 is the rating of the average Chelsea opponent and 1727 is the rating of the average City opponent, This statistical scale is used to calibrate the national teams that go to Brazil in the summer, but also the clubs of the countries. If you are 100 pts under your opponent it means you need everything to drop right to win. If you are 200 pts under, it means you need a small miracle. So it's a nudge more difficult for City but they have the theoretical point advantage now. Villa are not featured but Stoke who are at the same points in the league are given then number 1605. We are at 1928. You have to give +100 to Villa because they were playing at home (so they say) so it was the 1705 versus the 1928 (the small miracle !).

We have seen so far: - League expadition in the doledrums. - League cup - too boring - abandon. - FA cup - too boring - abandon. - CL qualifications against various reserve sides. Some glimpses of quality football. If (this) City win the 2014 championship it's a disgrace for the English premier. If Arsenal win, they at least try and are a notch better than their previous lumberjack incarnations. I expect some fighting at least.

Torres is respect. But he came to CFC as slightly second hand. Also he is not so young. He is 30 (birthday 20 March) - that's about as much as strikers go. His partner of early days in Atletico, Nikolaidis, was much the better player -if we look at the entire carreers of both- but Nikolaidis who was also a striker was 31 and Torres was 20. So the power man was Torres and Nikolaidis the assist player. Nikolaidis retired soon after.

The referees female relations do this: If spouses they use maiden name. If daughters-sisters they use husband's name. In this way the family is on the take from rival clubs and no one notices. I don't know to what extent this trickery takes place in UK.

Villa had only one good chance in the 1st half, "raverse" shot skimmed Czech's post. In the second half it was through give away balls, as the defense had departed. Apart of the refereeing issue it was a failure of the front men plus of course we would n't settle for the one point. I 've seen this many times. West Ham, the capital cup match against Sunderland, WBA and others. I won't count Everton because they played well.

Chelsea 0.5 - Drogba Saray 0

It was the night of the long knives. City given two points at Hull (Hart's penalty). CFC robbed three.

Torres was one of the great strikers of the last ten years. His presence in CFC now is justified only on budget cosiderations. Schurrle is good for Salonika-Patras when he plays like that. Germans are known to,maintain their cool in the penalty box and score goals - he does n't, Mou took Torres off and sent Schurle in. What else to do ?