Sports roundup: VILLAREAL makes history!!!
With a dramatic 1-0 defeat, VILLARREAL went through to the Champions League 2005-06 Semi-Finals in its first ever competition in the tournament!! The goal, scored by Arruabarrena in the second half of the game, puts the first Spanish team in the Last 4 of the tournament with Barça hopefully to follow on Wednesday. This a team built around guy who absolutely controls the tempo of the game: Riquelme. He´s not the quickest, nor does he play defense or dribble around defenders, what he does best is being the leader of the team, getting his teammates great chances to score with his very precise passes, scoring some himself through free kicks and rarely loosing posession. Typical guy who makes life much easier for his the players around him. He´s joined by:- A pair of good keepers (Viera and Barbosa). Both of them solid, whish is the least you´d expect these days.
- Some solid defense, with much coveted Argentinian central defender G. Rodríguez leading the group
- A guy who SHOULD make Spain´s squad in the next World Cup: Central Midfielder Marcos Senna (I´ll make a case for it later this month) who´s all about work and taking preassure of the rest of the guys up front with his his teammates and real physical presence in the midfield.
- The crazy warrior of the bunch, "Kamikaze" Sorín. A guy who will either start as a left back or a left midfielder but will play every position from central back to striker during the game. He just plays wild and puts a valuable effort on the pitch, although some times loosing composure a little.
- And finally Diego Forlán. The striker who found his place in football when he joined the Spanish competition in the 2004-05 La Liga edition, where he earned "Pichichi" honours (top scorer) edging Camerunese superstar Eto´o by one goal.
All that being said, they are far from spectacular but their biggest asset is they are a TEAM and they really play like one. If just Guayre was part of the show more often instead of José Mari and they had one more striker to take some preassure of Forlán... But hey, awesome job anyway!!!Coming from a town with a population of only 45.000 the greatness of Villarreal´s achievement in European competition this season only gets magnified, putting the club and the city on every football map!
If Arsenal follows, we´ll try to be there!! Congratulations to the team, the players, managment, who did an incredible job for the last years recruiting young talent and luring good players who didn´t get enough recognition elsewhere, the coach and everyone involved. Well deserved guys!!!
P.S. Additional "feel good" note of the game: You know what team Luis Figo plays for these days? Yep, exactly: Inter!! Just aweeeeeeeeesome! :)
Euroleague Basketball: Barça 1 - Real Madrid 0
In the Quarter Final of the basketball Euroleague Barcelona dstroyed Real Madrid (72-58) clinching victory number 1 in the best of three series, behind 23 points by ex North Crolina star Shammond Williams. Not that European basketball is very interesting anymore thsese days but beating Real Madrid is always biiiiiiig fun and making a run to the European Final Four is always sort of entertaining.
I´m glad for Shammond, a good player for European standards who seems to have been unfairly criticised far too often, considering Barça´s lack of an interior game and its overcrowded backcourt, where the team recently acquired former Tar Heel teammate of Williams, Ed Cota. Shammond shoots the three well, rarely misses a free throw, is a top passer in Europe and he even plays some D when he puts his mind into it. Good player, I hope the team resigns him and focuses on bringing a more balanced squad into next season.
I´m just thinking I should possibly write a report on this matter soon as well. We might have not just a problem of "roster infrastructure" here but also a problem with our coach, Ivanovic, who doesn´t seem capable of figuring out the rotation, with 50 games into the season... and he gets paid for that!!!
More to come soon, let´s not ruin the moment, now! :P
(Nice game Shammond!!!)Labels: Sports
