Two Match Recap One Match Preview

By: Greg | November 7th, 2007

sprtcrst All the news today is going to be about Liverpool’s 8-0 win over Beşiktaş. Historic? Yes. Shocking achievement? Yes. A big deal in the grand scheme of the group stages of the 07/08 UEFA Champions League? Unless Liverpool win out, no. In the end, an 8-0 win is worth the same in the table as a 1-0 win (don’t come with petty “But the goooalll differential!” crap, you know what I mean). And this being held true, Liverpool are still barely out of the Group A cellar. Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez needs to chill out on the shit talking and read this morning’s paper to remind himself that he’s barely qualified for the UEFA Cup at this point. Saying something like “Porto need to come here to Anfield and they will be worried for sure” is absolute nonsense. While it might be him drumming up confidence in his club through the press and an attempt to get Porto on the back foot, to me it just sounds like someone who has had little success thus far in the CL and needs to hold on to something in order to get positive spin on an overwhelmingly mediocre start.

But I digress…

Porto 2 - 1 Marseille — Damn you, Tarik Sekitoui. I speak your praises and toot your Moroccan horn and put my faith in your ability. You produce in the domestic competition, but seemed to have caught a bit of spotlight shock when on the BIG big stage. So I sit your ass. I take you out of my projected starting XI. How do you respond? With the opening goal of the game and subsequent man of the match honors. Fan frigging tastic.

My Tarik rants aside, the game was actually kind of boring. These two teams have entirely too much respect for each other and are way too aware of their place in the table. Aside from the opening chances created by Porto, this was a relatively cautious match played out between two teams who were acting as if they hadn’t played two weeks ago. While Porto still have Liverpool away to contend with, they also finish up at home against Beşiktaş. This win coupled with the remaining schedule should equal a place in the knock out stages.

Celtic 1 - 0 Benfica – I find it supremely ironic that I was in the throes of writing a few sentences on how I felt Binya could be sacrificed for DiMaria in order to create more offense for Benfica in this tie when a friend called. I told him what I was writing and he said that I was crazy, that Binya was a stalwart holding midfielder. So I scrapped it. In spite of the fact that while watching him in the weekend’s match against Pacos de Ferreira I felt there was something about him that rubbed me the wrong way. What does he go and do? Goes all Chuck Norris on Scott Brown’s leg. Red card, ass on bench, Benfica lose. A pathetic show of frustration and complete lack of class on Binya’s part.

For the rest of the match, Celtic controlled pace and play with a few Benfica chances parried away well by the back four. Benfica looked tired and overwhelmingly frustrated. Celtic, while they won, never looked like they were intent on putting a huge stamp on the match. A kind of “meh” match if you ask me. Celtic deserved the points and got them. 1-0 result, la-te-da.

Roma at Sporting, 2:45 PM – I have a seminar to go to, so print this out and write in your own preview. It’ll be fun! I see a draw here, how about you? Here’s some lines so you can write on them: __________________________________________________________
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How did you do? Did you remember to dot your ‘i’s and cross your ‘t’s? Good work. Now you can be a blogger.

Kisses all around. Força Sporting, Roma Chris smells boooooo, and all that jazz.