It's not working, Nando

Liverpool’s season seems to get worse by the day – every misplaced back pass, every scuffed shot, every yellow card borne out of a frustrated tackle – it all contributes to what is turning out to be a spectacularly average year for the Red half of Merseyside.

A 1-0 defeat at the DW Stadium last night left Rafa Benitez’s team struggling to cement 6th place, leave alone 4th, as their hopes of getting into the Champions League were dealt a huge blow by Hugo Rodellega’s first half goal. The strike itself was fairly scrappy, with the Wigan front man somehow contriving to squeeze a cross in after Dirk Kuyt managed to pass the ball straight to the opposition 18 yards from his own goal. Without resorting to panic, it’s safe to say that the consequences of this result could unhinge everything Benitez has been striving to build at Anfield for the past six years.

Not qualifying for the Europe’s top competition would result in, apart from significantly less revenue, Javier Mascherano packing his bags and upping sticks for Barcelona. The Argentina captain has been one of the few bright points of the season so far – his long passing has improved immeasurably, and his drive and work rate carry the team a lot of the time. Frankly speaking, he deserves to play in the Champions League, and with contract talks dragging on, there’s a very real possibility of him leaving. Alberto Aquilani, who has struggled to make an impact in part due to Rafa’s unwillingness to play him, would also probably be on a flight back to Serie A, with the old lady of Juventus showing a bit of leg to tempt the former Roma player.

Apart from this, there’s always a worry that the owners might, in their frantic need to pay off the ever growing debt, sell Fernando Torres. Anathema to any Liverpool supporter, but the possibility must be considered. I know I have. Of course, the debt itself could turn into an uncontrollable monster – no 4th place -> no CL TV revenue -> minimal investment in new players -> probability of selling off one or two big names to help balance the books. Tom Hicks and George Gillett – take a bow. An almost complete lack of investment in players has led to stagnation and apathy setting in at all levels of the club. Apart from the unfulfilled promise of a new stadium, which my grandchildren would probably be lucky to see built.

Before you accuse of me of leaving Benitez out of this, I’d like to say that a lot of blame lies with him as well. Regardless of all the talent in the squad, the players (Mascherano and Lucas aside) have appeared to lack motivation and direction, particularly against the so-called smaller teams in the league. The players always seem to be up for the marquee matches against Chelsea, United and Everton, but just can’t seem to bother showing up for games like the one at the Dave Whelan stadium last night. Yeah, the Wigan chairman did name it after himself. Yes, it does sound a little ridiculous and self-aggrandizing. Poor sod.

The fact of the matter is, things are out of Liverpool’s hands now. They need Tottenham and City to self destruct, and at the same time win most, if not all their remaining games – two of which are against United and Chelsea. I’m very, very worried as I write this. And if you’re a Liverpool fan, you should be too.

Murray is a player more suited to the hard courts but his grass game seems to have come on a lot over the past year. He pulled out an outstanding array of shots in the Queen’s final against James Blake and made victory look relatively easy. I have great admiration for Blake as a player and the way Murray dealt with him was impressive to say the least, the American seemed to have no response to Murray’s high-tempo game.

Where the Scot has come unstuck in previous Wimbledon Championships has perhaps been his failure to kill a game off, often making sloppy mistakes meaning he has to play a full five sets before he beats his opponent. This has a big effect on his fitness for the following matches and you can often see Murray feeling the effects of fatigue later on in competitions. His displays at Queens demonstrate Murray seems to have overcome this particular problem and he should see off the lesser known players with greater ease meaning he is fresher when he faces the greats such as Roger Federer. Obviously, Rafael Nadal’s absence will make things easier for him (ever so slightly).

A problem that seems to haunt British players at Wimbledon is the expectations of the British media who always put the pressure on the best British representitive to lift the trophy. For some players this helps them, Tim Henman, for example, arguably overachieved by reaching the semi-final stage of the competition four times. Henman never won a Grand Slam and in all fairness never really looked as if he was going to, yet the British media continued to talk up his chances. Similarly Greg Rusedski’s chances were always talked up but in reality it would have been highly unlikely for the big-serve specialist to have gotten much further than the quarter finals in a Grand Slam.

Without a doubt Murray is the best British tennis player in a long time and if anyone is going to end the 73-year wait winner it surely has to be him. However, the player himself remained cautious on his chances of upsetting the tennis odds and lifting the trophy at the end of the tournament.

Speaking after his Queen’s victory Murray said: “I’m a long way from winning Wimbledon.

“I feel confident but I try not to get too far ahead of myself before I’ve played my first match there.”

If Federer does indeed lift the French Open title he will finally have matched that 14 Grand Slam record that is currently held by Pete Sampras. The 27-year-old has made the last three finals in France but has been bettered each time by Nadal, who usurped him as World Number One around this time last year. He faced a tricky semi-final tie against World number five Juan Martín del Potro, getting past him in a very grueling five setter. Federer is now the tennis betting favourite to get past Soderling.

It would be a massive milestone for him to match Sampras’ record and one he thoroughly deserves after such an impressive career. If he does indeed match the record set by Sampras you wonder how long it will be before Nadal betters it anyway, at 23 he already has six Grand Slams under his belt and a blip at this year’s French won’t put him off his hunt for silverware during 2009. If you’re betting on the French Open final I would without a doubt go for Federer.

In the end, it was Lionel Messi who put the finishing touch on Barcelona’s incredible season by heading in Xavi’s pin point cross into the goal – a goal that would effectively finish off Manchester United’s own hopes of winning the Champions League. And as Barcelona passed the ball around in their usual unparalleled style leaving United players chasing shadows – it just seemed like the team from Catalunya was playing football from a different planet. The fact that Barcelona were missing their first choice wing backs, had two 35 year olds as their replacements and had a central defender who had played in midfield all season absolutely didn’t matter because quite simply their midfield didn’t give United the ball. And let’s not forget that the team they were outclassing had just won the league title and had the best defensive record in the Champions league.

 It had all started so differently for Manchester United – with a flurry of chances and almost 80% complete posession in the first ten minutes of the game. Things started to go awry when Samuel Etoo scored in what was Barcelona’s first shot on goal in the tenth minute. United almost certainly never recovered from that shock and if it wasn’t for Van der Saar’s heroics and the goal post, they could have very well ended up losing the match 4-0.

Following Etoo’s goal, Barcelona just seemed to find the same composure and rhythm that has seen them score over 150 goals this season and with every passing minute a United comeback seemed less likely. On a night when Barcelona had atleast six players stepping up to the big ocassion, it was a sad indictment of United’s performance that the images that will be most remembered were there of Ronaldo losing his composure repeatedly on the left flank towards the end of the game. United quite simply missed both Darren Fletcher and Owen Hargreaves – Anderson and Carrick simply not having enough quality to put brakes on Iniesta and Xavi’s relentless passing. 

  There is no doubt that Barcelona absolutely deserved this victory, their third in European history and their first since that famous victory in Paris in 2005. Pep Guardiola’s amazing transformation of this team which had previously gone three years without winning a title will become the stuff of legend.

Clipping of the wings:

The bad news doesn’t end there for the Spanish champions elect – French left-back Eric Abidal received what was perhaps a harsh red-card for a foul on fellow Frenchman Nicolas Anelka in the second leg and he too will miss the final. The loss of Abidal will be another bitter blow for Barca with the former Lyon man one of their most experienced defenders.  If losing Marquez and Abidal wasn’t enough Barca are also going to have to line-up without the influential and brilliant right-back Dani Alves. The Brazilian schemer is one of Barca’s best players causing all kinds of problems for defenders down the right-flank. Interestingly, losing the two wing backs will also mean that United manager Alex Ferguson will not have to deploy Rooney or Park down the wings in order to negate the full backs going forward.

A makeshift defence

So Barca’s defence is going to be somewhat of a makeshift one with  Puyol and Gerard Pique in the middle with maybe midfielders filling in the left and right-back positions.  Sylvinho might probably slot in for Abidal at left back- but he has hardly featured in a big game for a long time. For a Champions League final this is not an ideal situation by any stretch of the imagination and it will be a huge task for coach Josep Guardiola to form a decent defensive unit out of what he has available.  I’m still fairly confident of a Barca victory myself, though I wouldn’t use my Champions League bet to back them with mega-money given the defensive crisis. They will probably spend most of the game attacking but midfielders like Xavi and Iniesta will have to track back more than usual to help out the defence.

With a seven point lead at the top of the table Guardiola may risk putting out the defence that will line-up against Manchester United in one of their three La Liga fixtures before the final. If he does that it should give us some indication of how they’ll cope against United. Whatever the circumstances leading up to the game I can’t wait for the final. Both teams play exciting football – Barcelona love to hog all the possession and United are probably the best in Europe at counter- attacking and we should be in for a high-tempo game full of quality, let’s hope so anyway.

Raul,Uno,Dos,Tres

Madrid took on the Andalusians Sevilla at the Sanchez Pizjuan looking to score a win and cut down Barca’s lead to 4 points. Sevilla started using their wings pretty well and with a packed up 4-5-1 with Kanoute leading the attack. Perotti constantly troubled Sergio Ramos and Sevilla took the lead in the 16th minute through a fine header by Renato. Real Madrid sat back allowing Sevilla to attack and looking for the elusive counter attack. They managed to equalise just before HT through Raul who latched onto a Metzelder pass into the box with a characteristic poacher’s finish. Raul continued to show his maturity and talent and scored twice and thrice in the 2nd half to give Real Madrid an unassailable 3-1 lead within 65 minutes. Sevilla kept attacking and managed to pull one goal back through 2nd half substitute Diego Capel but that wasn’t enough to win them any points as Marcelo scored a late 4th goal to seal a win for Madrid.

This makes next week’s El Clasico a great match up with Real Madrid looking to win to cut Barca’s lead down to one point. Barca on the other hand will have one eye on the midweek CL semis against Chelsea in what seems to be a heart attack week for the Catalans and a mouth watering one for the neutrals.

First of, let us get to the game at the Santiago Bernabaeu, a heated encounter between the bourgeouis darling Real Madrid CF and the blue collar suburbs,Getafe. Getafe being almost a feeder club of Real as Valladolid used to be in the past played with all the valour and physical effort. Higuain opened the scoring for the Merengues just before half time. Getafe played with a lot of heart after the break and managed to put two goals and take the lead in the Tie. Then started the great show.

In the 84th minute Pepe the tall Madrid defender of Brazilian roots lashed out at Getafe Skipper Casquero after the latter won a penalty after a push by Pepe. Pepe lost his head big time and started a fight with the players which included kicking Casquero twice and punching Albin in the face and also swearing at the assistant referee while being sent off.Then amidst all the chaos Iker Casillas stopped the penalty which was a stupid lob and Real Madrid scored twice in 10 mins to take home a great win which put them -3 with the league leaders Barcelona. Pepe meanwhile lost his head again after being sent off by running back onto the pitch to celebrate Higuain’s winner.In one of the biggest abuse of professional standards, Pepe Le Phew landed himself in hot soup and got himself a 10 match ban,which i find to be very minimal considering the history of punishments accorded for such violent incidents in the past. Even that fight between Diogo and Fabiano got a 6 match ban. Real Madrid get to pull some strings as always and get away with it.

Barcelona hammer Sevilla

Then Barcelona took on Sevilla at the Nou Camp and what followed was a total demolishment of a very good Sevilla side missing Palop and left winger Adriano.INiesta was the star of the show as he opened the scoring for Barca with a neat long range shot and followed it up with assists for the other three goals.The little man from Albacete ran the show running circles around the Sevilla defence and Barca quelled the Sevilla challenge running winners with a 4-0. Etoo,Xavi and Henry being the other scorers.

What this means for the teams

In this edition, the teams that will succeed will be the ones whose seamers can bowl tight in the initial overs – and garner wickets for the spinners bowling later. More importantly, the teams in the final four will be the ones that have their batsmen scoring the most singles and twos in the process of getting set. While we will see the occasional 100 from 40 balls knock, we will more likely see the 60 from 40 balls with 30 runs in boundary hits. And as this becomes the key, the teams that can save the singles and cut down the twos will be more successful. We will see a twenty20 tournament that will be a throwback to the era of one day cricket before WC96. Where the ‘Dean Jones’ kind of batsman is preferred to the ‘Kris Srikkanth’ kind. Finally, as most people point out, the performance of the senior cricketers in the teams will be critical especially in the first half of the tournament. Based on all this and the way the next few matches go, where do the teams stand? Who do we think are the favourites ? Watch this space for more…