And Around We Go

Photo by EA Sports FIFA on Flickr

So I’ve been playing this FIFA 12 soccer on Playstation and it’s becoming an addiction.  I usually take Spurs, and while I’m pretty good against the middle and the bottom of the table, I have a tough time against United and Chelsea.  Talk about realism.  As for Barcelona – I’m just not ready yet, but is anyone in the world really?  With that in mind, let’s take a stroll around the Champions League this week and see how are top EPL teams fared:

1.      Damned United!  That’s the name of a great book, as well as a movie made from a great book, but I’m saying it here and now because their latest Champions League Match against Otelul Galati was Damned Unwatchable!  I don’t know if I’ve ever seen United play such uninspired football.  They passed poorly, they didn’t play hard.  They didn’t seem to really care.  Dear Sir Alex, would you please at the very least give us non-fans something exciting to watch?  I did like the Rooney experiment as a central midfielder, but for some reason Mr. New Hair thought he was Charlie Adam and kept booming passes across the field.  But unlike Charlie, most of his passes were to nobody or the other team.  Egads.  Let’s just forget this one ever happened.  Starting now.

2.   Villarreal.  Speaking of not really caring, Villareal pretty much closed shop as soon as Manchester City put in their first goal.  Not a very good team at full strength, Villarreal was missing their best player, American traitor Giuseppe Rossi, as well as a few other critical starters.  City, still flying high off their victory over United, simply crushed them.  Funny how things can change so quickly in football.

3.   Gunk!  Or is it Genk!  Either way, Chelsea seemed to dominate for the first two thirds of the game, but Genk fought back and tied them at 1-1.  Like the other two games, this one was a bit of a sleeper.  Plus, Chelsea stayed on top of their group despite the tie.  That said, as much as City is still flying high, I think Chelsea is still trying to recover from the beating they took at Arsenal.

4.   Did someone say Arsenal?  Yep, it was me.  Surprisingly, this game was the most fun to watch of the group, but even more surprisingly despite numerous close calls, they couldn’t put one past a winless Marseille.  Aaron Ramsey in particular went from a dominant performance at Chelsea to a missed chances and mistakes in this Champions League game.  Plus, Arsene Wenger decided to sit the Gunners' best player, Robin Van Persie.  RVP has been out of his mind with goals regardless of when and where he plays this year.  Obviously, the gamble didn’t pay off.  Plus you’ve got to be concerned by a team that simply can’t score when one guy is out of the lineup.

Oh, and by the way, Messi scored three as Barca totally dominated FC Viktoria Plzen.  Totally. 

This is farlieonfootie for November 5.