Cozido à Portuguesa

By: Greg | September 20th, 2007

hua There’s a nice big stew’s worth of news and stuff to get to today, so I’ll just jump right in…

Mourinho’s Gone – Unless this is the first football news site you look at when you wake, you know this already. If this isn’t the first site you see and you still didn’t know this, you need to start going somewhere else for your world football news. I’m a Chelsea fan and a Chop, so this item’s double trouble for me. I don’t know where he ends up, but I know he’ll get an assload of money. He was already being paid 5 million pounds a year at the Chels. I hope this turns into the Perfect Special One Storm and he slides into the Portugal job, as I predicted he would (albeit after the Euro and a Chels Champions League victory). I certainly hope NOT to see him on another club’s sidelines, and would love to have him at least still be a positive and productive force on the side of the Portuguese Convoked Ones so I can continue to root for one of the planet’s biggest badasses around. I’m completely floored by this and hope that it doesn’t create a mass talent exodus out of the club in the coming 12-18 months.

Scolari Suspended Four Games – UEFA suspended National Team boss Big Phil four games for his altercation with Dragutinovic in the 1-1 disappointment against Serbia last week. I personally don’t give a shit about this since I’d love to see how the team perform without him on the sidelines anyways (and with the newly single guy above in the dugout instead). LandPhil plans to appeal.

Sporting 0 – 1 Man United – Sporting looked the better side for about 75% of this match. Nani got a relatively negative response with whistles every time that he touched the ball that dissipated as the match wore on. Cristiano Ronaldo, the goalscorer on a fantastic diving header, got the usual royal wiener cleaning by the crowd. Liedson went close early on but was parried away by an outstretched Van Der Sar who was my Man of the Match. Yannick Djalo, whose start I had lobbied for, was largely ineffective and when he was on the ball, looked overwhelmed. João Moutinho was invisible for the majority of the match and most of the effective service forward was actually sparked by Miguel Veloso. I felt this game contrasted the Porto-Liverpool game in the fact that both teams had an understood respect for one an other and played as such. This game is the epitome of the type of match that is won by champions. Premiership title holders Manchester United were clearly the lesser side on the day but still managed to take a whole three points from the match.

UEFA Cup Matches – Oh stop. Go back a few articles and read what I wrote about the fact that there’s still 14875 teams involved and we can’t really get too excited about this just yet. What I said then is still true. As with all things that I say and write: they become instant gospel.

I have to go buy a few more boxes of tissues for my “Missing You Mourinho” tears and help Abramovich pull his head out of his ass. I also have to find someone else on Chelsea for my wife to have a crush on so that she’ll watch the games with me.