The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Barcelona World Champs, Sevilla in trouble and Italian match-fixing

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In this week’s review of the footballing action, we congratulate Barcelona on becoming champions of the world and feature two financial scandals: one from Spain and one from Italy. You can listen to these and other stories on our weekly podcast and can find explanations of key vocabulary in bold below.

Good

Congratulations to Barcelona as they were crowned World Club champions after demolishing Brazilian side Santos 4-0 in Yokohama, Japan. Lionel Messi netted twice with Xavi and Fabregas completing the scoring as Barcelona strolled to their second world title in three years. Brazilian side Santos were poor while their teenage sensation Neymar failed to make any impression at all. Well done Barca – again.

Bad

A bad week for Sevilla, not only were they thrashed 2-6 at home by La Liga leaders Real Madrid in a tempestuous game to leave them in 6th place in the table, but this was then followed by the news that their president Jose Maria Del Nido has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for his part in embezzling public fundsDel Nido has also been ordered to pay back more than $3 million to the local Marbella council. The Sevilla president is appealing the sentence while the current coach Marcelino insists that this will not affect his side’s performances. Tough times ahead for the Andalusian club.

 

Ugly

Italian football has been rockedby stories reported in sports newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport that 17 players have been arrested after allegations of match-fixing. Most of the games allegedly involved in the scandal were from the second division: Napoli-Sampdoria is one such match under investigation, while former Italian international and Italian scandal “>Atalanta captain Doni was one of those arrested. Ugly times for Italian football.

Vocabulary

they were crowned: They became champions; they won

demolishing: thrashing; heavily defeating

netted: Scored

strolled to : Easily won

were they thrashed: Easily beaten

tempestuous: Fiery, a bad-tempered game

has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison: He has been sent to jail

embezzling public funds: Stealing public money

has been rocked: Surprised, shocked

match-fixing: Sporting crime when players arrange the result of the game before the match starts

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The Good, The Bad, The UglyEpisode 203