The World Cup, the FA Cup, La Liga superstars, Chelsea and some tasty tackles all feature in this week’s good, the bad and the ugly – the review of the football week on languagecaster’s football podcast. Click on the links below to find out more on all of these stories.
Good
Good for Derby County as they overcome their East-Midland rivals Nottingham Forest 3-2 in a fantastic FA cup tie. Coming form 2-0 behind, Cris Commons, a former Forest player and a confessed Forest fan scored the winner to see manager Clougha€™s side through to a last 16 game against Manchester United.
Meanwhile, it was good for South Africa as they have completed their first stadium in Pretoria in preparation for the Wold Cup in 2010. Good news. Just a nine more to go!
Raul equalled the Real Madrid all-time goalscoring record with his goal last weekend against Numancia. This was the 31 year old’s 307th goal for his club and means he draws level with former great Alfredo di Stefano. Video link.
Staying in La Liga, it was also good for Argentinian superstar Lionel Messi who came off the bench to score two late goals against Racing Santander last weekend which maintains Barcelona’s 12-point lead at the top of the Spanish table.
Bad
British television channel ITV made a howler as they cut to commercials during a passionate FA Cup derby replay between Everton and Liverpool. The game had gone into extra time when the TV station stopped transmitting the game just as Everton scored the crucial goal to win the game. Now, as a Liverpool fan I smell a rat. Was it really a goal? How many people saw it? Only those fans at Everton’s Goodison Park. All the Liverpool fans that went swear there was no goal. We were robbed!
What has happened to Chelsea? Where is the team that was demolishing opponents at the start of the season? Beaten 0-2 at Liverpool past weekend means that the Blues have a really poor record against the top sidess in the Premier League this season, played 5, won none, drawn one and lost four times. Pretty bad for Scolari’s men.
Ugly
Stoke’s Rory Delap received a straight red card for lashing out at Manchester City’s Shaun Wright Phillips last week, though the City forward will also face a suspension after kicking back at the Irish international. An ugly little spat between the two players.
Not as ugly as Chelsea defender Bosingwa’s ‘challenge’ on Liverpool’s Benayoun in last week’s 0-2 defeat at Anfield. At least he had the good grace to apologise for the rather ugly challenge. Video link.