Moved to WordPress

Hey all,
I've decided to move my blog to wordpress for a number of reasons. Anyways, you can now find it at www.18yards.com

The move will probably take a little while in terms of getting everything set up again but I think it will be worthwhile in the end.

Adriano - The Emperor

Just a quick post with a good Adriano compilation.

He's been out of form for quite a while now and is probably 5th in line at the Inter striker pecking order but this wasn't the case a couple of seasons ago. The tank was one of the top few players in the world for a brief period and I'm sure a lot of Inter and Brazil fans would be ecstatic to see him find that form again! What happened to him, who knows but for now, sit back and enjoy his best!


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UEFA Champions League Oct 3 wrap

Apart from Liverpool's lackluster match against Marseille, the rest of the fixtures for groups A,B,C and D played out as follows...

Real Madrid and Lazio battled their way to equal points and a 2-2 draw. A brace from Van Nistelrooy took the prolific striker to 56 champions league goals but Pandev had a brace of his own for Madrid. The defensive ability of the great club was brought into question yet again as they were left exposed on various occasions. They were lucky to take any points away from this trip to Italy.

AC Milan traveled to meet Celtic in Glasgow and weren't up to the task of defeating the "hoops" at home. The club with few wins in serie A of late can't even turn to their usually good performances in Europe at the moment as Celtic took all points with a 2-1 win. McManus headed in from a corner to make the score 1-0 and Milan leveled after Kaka' put away a penalty awarded for a foul on Ambrosini. Celtic made it 2-1 at the death after another Dida blunder that allowed the Aussie striker, McDonald, to slot away the rebound.

Olympiacos beat Werder Bremen, 3-1 after an amazing second-half come back to leave the German hosts with a sour taste in their mouths. Almeida was able to put away at least one of his many chances during the night to put Bremen in the lead, 1-0 but it wasn't to last as Olympiacos came back to put 3 goals away in the second half. An amazing second goal from Patsatzoglu found the back of the net with a little help from a deflection.

Schalke defeated Rosenburg 2-0 with goals from Jones and Kuranyi making a successful roadtrip. Shakhtar were also able to upset their hosts, beating Benfica 1-0 in Lisbon. Continuing the tradition of wins on the road, this time it was Benfica's league rivals, Porto, that were able to take 3 points from Besiktas in Turkey. The brilliant Quaresma waited until the 92nd minute to put the only goal of the match away.

Finally it was Chelsea that were also able to defeat their Spanish hosts proving that they're not in crisis just yet after Mourinho's departure. But it was David Villa that opened the scoring for the home side with a bit of luck allowing the ball to fall in a good position for him. Drogba combined well with Malouda, allowing the later to play the ball across the 6-yard line for Joe Cole to tap in and level the scores. Finally Drogba calmly placed a shot towards the far post and allowed Chelsea to go home 2-1 winners over Valencia.


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Liverpool vs Marseille (UEFA CL)

Liverpool hosted Marseille in a game where the former failed to deliver. Liverpool seemed to be lacking inspiration and motivation but the same was not true for Marseille. The visitors controlled the match right up until they scored in the 77th minute and it was only then that Liverpool seemed to wake up and tried to pull a goal back and at least grab a point. The goal was scored by Valbuena and was perhaps the goal of the matchday. A perfectly driven strike from outside the area into the top-right corner which bounced off the cross-bar into the net and left Reina as a mere spectator.


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UEFA Champions League Oct 2 wrap

As I posted earlier, Manchester United were able to seal another 1-0 result at home against Roma. A Wayne Rooney effort made the difference.

Dynamo Kyiv faced off against Sporting Lisbon with a score that ending 2-1 in favour of Lisbon. The Kyiv goal was quite spectacular with a backheal assist. This left Group F with Manchester United comfortably on top, Roma and Sporting equal on points in 2nd and 3rd respectively (goal difference helping Roma). While Kyiv sit on the bottom with no points at all and a very difficult campaign ahead of them.

Rangers played a spectacular match against Lyon and were able to brush them aside 3-0 in France for some valuable points. Very strange indeed to see Lyon so overwhelmed. Puyol scored the first goal for Barca against Stuttgart after the keeper couldn't hold on to a Ronaldinho header. The match ended 2-0 when the man of the moment, Messi, slammed home a Henry cut-back.

Robin van Persie slotted a nice goal after Adebayor performed a cut-back of his own to show he's learnt a few things from the departed Henry. The final score was 1-0 to Arsenal over Steaua Bucuresti. Sevilla defeated Slavia Praha 4-2 with Fabiano scoring some nice goals (one leaving the keeper for dead). CSKA Moscow and Fenerbahce had to settle for a 2-2 draw.

Inter were able to carry on their good form from earlier in the week where they destroyed Roma in a 4-1 drubbing. More importantly it was the form of Ibrahimovic which continues to win games for Inter, a brace from him sealed the score at 2-0. Check out the highlights for a truly spectacular finish on the second goal.

Most of the highlights through ESPN.

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Extended Inter vs PSV Eindhoven goal replays.

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Extended Barca vs Stuttgart highlights.

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Extended Sevilla vs Slavia Praha highlights.

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Manchester United vs Roma (UEFA CL)

Manchester united have managed yet another 1-0 victory at home, this time over Roma in matchday 2 of the UEFA champions league competition.

Proving their defensive dominance, Roma was left with few chances to score and they wasted most of these chances anyway. The man of the match was Nani who was popping up everywhere, causing many headaches for Roma and created many opportunities. In fact it was Nani's pass that enabled Rooney to quickly fire a shot into the far post, just outside outside the keeper's reach. Tevez also added a real spark after coming on for Saha who had a less than memorable match.

It wasn't until the goal that Roma woke up and Spaletti started making the right changes (such as bring on Pizzaro). The best chance of the night went to Esposito who blasted what was basically a sitter out wide. A fair result that Roma shouldn't be too disappointed with (especially considering their recent record at old trafford!).

Christiano Ronaldo almost scored one of the goals of the tournament with a cheeky backheel into the back of the net, but was found just offside. He was also the victim of an unintentional elbow that caused his face to spurt out a considerable amount of blood just above his left eye and probably caused thousands of teenage girls (and a few men inclined in a certain way) to faint.