* First up, from ESPN: Are Europe's Football Teams Going Broke? Long but insightful article looking at the shambolic state of team finances among the Spanish and English giants. Only the Bundesliga -- with some tickets prices as (Joachim) Löw as $15 -- appears to be escaping the tidal wave of red ink.
* Again from ESPN, a recap of this past weekend's action in the EPL. Reviewing a Wild Weekend in the Premier League. Humorous look at City's title challenge, and the "Top 4's" weekend to forget. Any writer clever enough to tag Arsena's Manuel Almunia as a "Poor Man's Robert Green" is worth reading.
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| photo by IvanG | via PhotoRee |
* And here's one more for yesterday's column: Manchester United Plan Sensational Return for Atletico Madrid Star Diego Forlan. Do I need to say anymore?!
* Give a listen to this: The EPL Podcast. It's from our friends at http://www.epltalk.com/, who consistently put out excellent news and commentary on the Premier League. I listened to the podcast yesterday, recapping the past week's games and looking forward to this week's European matches in both Champions Leage and Europa League, and really enjoyed it. It singelhandedly curbed my desire to endlessly scan the South Florida radio scene for something worth listening to (for some inexplicable reason, South Florida is one of the worst radio wastelands in the US; don't just take my word for it; ask anyone who lives here). Goodbye to the morning commute spent listening to NPR's Cokie Roberts with an update on Washington politics, and hello to wall-to-wall footie commentary. Of note, I've been listening to the podcast on my smartphone through an RSS subscription to the epltalk website. Easy enough to figure out and well worth your time.
* One of the topics on this week's podcast was how improved the new format of the Europa League is over the former UEFA Cup. I agree. From having rarely followed the UEFA Cup, to now having must-see tv on Thursday's that are part of the Europa League schedule, I've had great fun the past year following the cup exploits (for regular readers of this blog -- all 5 of you -- it obviously helped that Atleti won the whole thing last year!). Some great matchups this week, probably topped by Juve visiting City in Manchester. I hope they roll over the Citizens...
And that's farlieonfootie for September 28.
Two other sterling quotes from that the review article by David Hirshey:
ReplyDeleteYou can't tell me that any Premier League team with title aspirations would consciously choose to employ a blind bottle-blond mole rat for a goalkeeper.
I'm not sure what inspired Wenger to field an all-French defense; then again, I'm not sure why anybody, anywhere, would use the words "French" and "defense" in the same sentence. But the Arsenal back four of Bacary Sagna, Sebastien Squillaci, Laurent Koscielny and Gael Clichy made West Brom's attack look like the fabled Brazilian juggernaut of the 1970 World Cup.