Champions League surprises, Brazilian brawls and the troubles at Tottenham feature in this week’s good, the bad and the ugly. Click on the links after each story below to find out more.
Good
Yet again Romanian side Cluj and Cypriot team Famagusta feature as their Champions League dreams stay alive. Cluj drew at home to fancied Chelsea while Famagusta beat Greek side Panathinaikos 3-1 to top the table with Inter.
While some big teams were being brought down to earth no such hiccups for Liverpool in the Champions League as they overcome Dutch champions PSV 3-1 to head their group along with Atletico Madrid. But a victory wasn’t the only story as Robbie Keane was on target and broke his duck as he claimed his first goal for the Reds, while Gerrard scored his 100 goal with a piledriver of a free kick in front of the Kop (relive all the goals here). It doesn’t get much better.
Bad
Pretty bad for Polish football as FIFA threatens to suspend Poland’s FA after interference from the government after claims of corruption. This may mean that Poland are kicked out of the 2010 World Cup qualifiers and may be forced to step down as co-hosts of the 2012 European Championships
Bad for the big two in the Premier League as their star players start dropping like flies. Scholes picked up ligament damage in the mid-week European tie, and was joined on the injury list by Wayne Rooney – both of whom follow Michael Carrick to the treatment table. Meanwhile Chelsea, who suffered the huge blow of losing Essien for a large slice of the season, now look set to lose their star forward, Drogba, again in a European tie. The big striker has suffered ligament damage again, this time to his right knee.
Really bad for my team Tottenham as they lose again – this time to Portsmouth – which means that it is the worst start to a season for 53 years for Spurs. Manager Juande Ramos is under fire and there are rumours that he has only four more games to turn the situation around. It cannot get any worse can it?
Ugly
Actually it can. For my ugly this week I have to hang my head in shame at the behaviour of some of the Spurs fans’ towards former player Sol Campbell in the Portsmouth defeat. The nasty homophobic and racist chanting is being investigated by the police and there may be repercussions for the club. Portsmouth manager Harry Rednapp called it filthy and it is hard to disagree.
Ugly brawls in the Brazilian league last week with the derby game between Internacional and Gremio being held up as players from both sides getting involved in a punch up after a bad tackle by Edinho. Internacional won 4-1.
