Mouth Watering!!

As you might know last year's most interesting clash in the Champions League saw Chelsea face Catalans Barcelona in what was expected to be a thriller... And it didnt leave any of the football fans disappointed... Chelsea ultimately won the 2 legged clash 5-4 on aggregate... The West Londoners went down 2-1 in the 1st leg in the majestic Camp Nou... But were on top in the 2nd leg at Stamford Bridge when they raced to a 3-0 lead within the 1st 20 mins.. Barca were clueless and looked upto their talismanic Brazilian Ronaldinho who brought them right back into the game with a well executed penalty and a sublime goal that could be watched over and over again... A toe poke as pundits would put it left Petr Cech rooted to the ground as he made the scoreline 3-2 Barca though would have won if the score had stood that way because of the 2 away goals that they managed to score.. However that was not to be as Chelsea captain John Terry headed home to lead Chelsea to a famous victory over their opponents... Chelsea though were ultimately dumped out in the semis by eventual champions Liverpool...

This year's Champions League draw has made people jump with excitement... Chelsea face Barca again... Deja Vu!! And there are a lot of other mouth watering ties... For the 1st time in European football history we will see Arsenal facing Real Madrid... And AC Milan facing Bayern Munich... Liverpool though i must say have a rather straight forward tie against Portuguese side Benfica who dumped Man UTd unceremoniously from the competition... French Champions Lyon will be looking for revenge against Dutch Champs PSV Eindhoven as Lyon were thrown out last year by PSV in a penalty shoot out if i am not mistaken... And we will see 1st timers Rangers facing another first timer Villareal.... A bit tough to predict but i hope Rangers go on cause i love 'em... And then we have Italian Champions Juventus facing German stronghouse Werder Bremen though the Bianconeri will be expected to move on especially after Bremen's drubbing last year at the hands(legs rather!!) of Lyon... Lyon won 10-2 on aggregate last year... Bremen will be hoping to put up a much improved performance though... And last but not the least Italian powerhouse Inter will face former champs Ajax Amsterdam... Ajax though are a young team and will be hoping to thwart Inter...

OK keep watching this space for more info..Thats it for now..

The Monopoly!!

Football as i had written earlier is not just a sport but an industry... PLayers at their peak are worth million of dollars to their respective teams.... For example Zinedine Zidane cost Real Madrid a fortune... In fact his transfer cost Real an approximate 72 million US dollars... I can cite many such players involved in huge transfers like Rio Ferdinand, David Beckham, Luis Figo etc etc... We often see during the summer a lot of names being involved in these transfer rumors... A whole lot of players are talked about but actually only a few of these rumors actually materialise..

But the changes that we have seen seem to be rather drastic... Only a few clubs have the financial might to hold on to their stars as well as sign other new stars... We can literally count the no. of such clubs... Real Madrid, Man Utd, Arsenal, Barcelona, Newcastle United, AC Milan and a few other clubs based in either Spain, England or Italy... Even Italian Clubs are fast losing out on the transfers as they are not able to compete with the likes of the Spanish or English clubs.. As u all might have noticed i "missed" a very important club in terms of money and financial clout and that club is called Chelsea... Chelsea after their takeover the England based Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has quickly turned into a class of its own... Mr.Abramovich has spent a fortune on Chelsea... He spent a staggering 140 mn pounds just to buy Chelsea Football Club... And he has spent a near equal amount on signing new players and increasing wages of star players like Frank Lampard etc to prevent them from moving onto other clubs...

Chelsea's financial clout has taken them to near invincibility in terms of the squad that they possess... They have got at least 2 estabilshed players for each position that you can think of in the field... They have the largest squad in the Premier League and obviously the strongest squad as well... Under their manager Jose Mourinho they have reached new heights... They made it to the Semifinals of the UEFA Champions league last season and they are favourites to win it this season... They won the EPL last season and lead the 2nd placed team this year by a healthy 11 points... They are on course for a treble this season and none of the teams looks like they will be able to quench their thirst for victory... The reason behind this recent revival of a long underperforming team like Chelsea has been the sudden spurt in the money that has been invested in them...

In the past few seasons only 2 or 3 teams in a league have been dominating the leagues that they play in though the Spanish League has been a bit of an exception... They have seen different champions like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Deportivo La coruna in recent times... But even that adds upto only 4 teams... England has seen just 3 different champions including Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea... Italy has been dominated by the likes of Juventus and AC Milan only in recent times... France on the other hand has been under a monopoly for 5 years now... Olymique Lyon have won their league for 5 seasons now and they look well placed to win a 6th title this season.. Germany has been dominated by Bayern Munich for years now with the only exception being the title won in 2004 by Werder Bremen... And remember Scotland as well... Celtic and Rangers have been winning the championship from time immemorial and the last time at least 1 of the teams finished outside the Top 2 was in the early 70's..

So as statistics show football has become a rather one-team show... With the other teams just playing the catch-up game... Spending money on transfers is a requisite for most managers to bring in some fresh faces and invigorate their respective teams... But spending big money on it without thinking about the consequences have led to some of the teams reduced to shambles.. Leeds United for eg spent huge sums of money on players and they did get decent results... They were challenging for a lot of titles though they won none... But the directors didn't keep an eye on the money being involved and soon they were bankrupt... PLayers started leaving the club for petty cash as they couldnt even receive the salaries... Leeds Utd kept losing their matches thereafter and got relegated a couple of seasons back to the Football League Championship... They have lost a lot on their TV income also because of this relegation...

Anyways will be back to write more on football soon!! Keep waiting for more info!!

A Round up of recent events!!

Most of Europe's elite footballing clubs made it through to the knock out phase of the prestigious UEFA Champions League.. The likes of Real Madrid, Barca, Juventus, AC Milan, Arsenal, Chelsea and other strong teams alongwith defending champions Liverpool cruised through into the knockout phase... But surprisingly 2 time winner and 1999 champions, English giants Manchester United crashed out of the competition after a 2-1 loss to Portuguese club Benfica... Man U had to win their last game if they had to progress but their European exploits for this season has come to a premature end...

The knockout phase promises to provide viewers with an exciting line up of matches... The knock out phase though will begin only in the month of Feb.. The rules of the knockout phase are basically like this... The winner of a particular Grp say GRP A in the 1st round will meet the runner up of another grp say GRP C.. The draw for these matches is made by drawing lots... So a lot of things depend on luck... Last year's favourites Chelsea and Barca were expected to reach the finals but Barca were dumped by Chelsea in the knockout phase... So we can expect some fireworks once the draw has been made...

In the EPL former West Ham manager Harry Redknapp has created a controversy by returning to manage his former club Portsmouth just an year after leaving them in unceremonious circumstances.. Redknapp left Pompey last season to join arch rivals Southampton but he could not prevent Southampton's relegation... REdknapp has now returned to Pompey who sacked their manager Alain Perrin after a string of disappointing results which sees them just 2 places above bottom club Sunderland...

In another important development REal Madrid have sacked their Brazilian coach Wanderley Luxembourgo.. Real have been going through an indifferent spell which sees them 6 points off the pace from league leaders Barca... Luxembourgo is thought to have been in danger ever since Real's humiliating 3-0 loss at the Bernabeu to arch rivals Barca... Real have appointed Jose Ramirez Caro is the interim coach... The likes of Arsene Wenger, Jose Mourinho, Sven Goran Eriksson, Fabio Capello etc have been mentioned as possible replacements though they have all rejected Real's advances so far...

And finally tribute must be paid to Scottish champions Rangers who have become the 1st Scottish team ever to reach the knockout phase of the Champions League.. Rangers achieved this feat after holding Italian giants Inter Milan to a creditable 1-1 draw at home... Rangers manager Alex McLeish has been in a spot after his side's poor run in the domestic league where they find themselves 17 points behind leaders and Old Firm rivals Celtic... McLeish's job had been on the line but the club's directors have given him the green light...

Anyways thats it for now... Hope you enjoyed it...

The ball is in my court... or is it field??

Since this is my first footblog i would like to make it a short but sweet one... The 1st thing that a non footballer would notice is the name of the page... Bafana Bafana!! Sounds like one of the words that 1 would hear in the opening sequence of a Harris Jayaraj song( The man behind scores of Tamil songs and RHTDM of course!!) Well i was searching for a cool name( Deja Vu!) and i thought Bafana... would make a weird but cool name... Well now coming to what Bafana is all about... The South African soccer team's nickname is Bafana Bafana for reasons that i am unable to find till this minute... One of the reasons i don't the reasons is that i have never tried finding it out... Anywayz...

1 thing i will make clear is that i won't be using the word soccer though i have noticed that i have used it in the previous para... After all one cant go behind the Americans for anything and everything... So wherever i use football it means SOCCER and not American Football or something like that...


As you all must be knowing football is the most popular sport in the world and the FIFA Football World Cup is the 2nd most watched sporting event after the Olympics... Football's popularity among the masses has virtually made it an industry... The likes of Beckham, Zidane etc are known throughout the world not just for their football but the no. of ads that they appear in...

Though the World Cup is regarded the "baap" of all football events club football is fast overshadowing international football... Actually the use of the present tense in the above statement is an understatement... Club football has overshadowed intl football is a better way of putting it... rather its the best way of putting it... Club football has reached dizzying heights... In terms of money, clubs dont deal in thousands or hundreds... they deal in millions...( Dollars... Pounds!!)... Club football rules the roost... The World Cup is fast becoming an event that just breaks the monotony of club football...

Anyway i will be back to update this blog... Sorry for ending this 1 so very abruptly... When i think of football there are just too many issues that i can think of, and i am not able to place my brains on the ones that matter the most... Anyway keep waiting.. At least for a few more days...