Europa league
Chatter from the sidelines
- Gerard Pique helps the victim of a traffic accident… who admits he always yells abuse at him Pique? Really? Anyway, the guy has promised to stop yelling at him in derbies (he's an Espanyol supporter) say ahhhh
- Liverpool skipper Steven Gerrard slams 'disrespectful' Mario Balotelli after Besiktas penalty incident you know, I get that, but why broadcast that to the whole world, Gerrard? Why throw your teammate under the bus? You could have had a hairdryer moment behind the scenes. SMH, I'm side eyeing everyone this year so far. I thought Henderson had the best idea of it. Smooth it out in the interview then pin his ears to the wall in the locker room
- Manchester United and Arsenal target Benedikt Howedes admits his "goal" is to play in England ugh no.
- Chelsea FC suspends trio in 'racist' Paris Metro probe interesting. It seems one of the lads works for a City firm, went to private school and is a UKIP donor (from other articles, not this one)
- Stan Collymore calls Chelsea and Rangers fans racist, argues against Rangers' chants gets fired Oy, Collymore is like marmite, tbh. He's right about telling Rangers fans to stop singing about the famine (I mean, really?). In addition, as a black player back when the English game was racist, I'm sure he's seen some thangs in his day. But sometimes, a cup of shut the hell up wouldn't go amiss This interview is a good one
- Chaos continues at Parma players haven't been paid for months
- Celtic's Scepovic in dig at Inter decline ooooh trash talk
- Miralem Pjanic ‘will only make Liverpool transfer if they reach Champions League’ Fair enough. That's going to be what will get us marquee players, tbh. Rodgers has the right idea in trying to recruit from within going forward
- Liverpool Transfer News: Rumours on Robert Lewandowski, Mauro Icardi Ugh, no to Lewandowski. Also, he's guaranteed at least a title at Bayern, LFC can't promise that and we shouldn't break the bank for him.
- Liverpool and Tottenham Would Be Wise to Make Europa League a Priority It's going to be interesting to see how Liverpool and Spurs shake it all out, tbh
- Twenty three Feyenoord fans arrested in Rome before Europa League match absolute tw*ts, the lot of 'em. They destroyed a plaza in the middle of Rome by peeing and defacing the statues, ransacked some shops, iirc
- I want to fix FIFA' says Luis Figo as he plans 48-team World Cup come again? It's bad enough that they expanded the places in the UEFA to 24!
- Europa League homepage bookmark this!
Pictures
16 matches were played yesterday for the Europa cup. Thirty two teams, the winner gets a trophy and a Champions League spot. For Spurs and LFC it might be ideal because technically, they could be at sixth place and still see CL action. The ideal scenario would be to get a victory/point away, because of aggregate, iirc. Next best scenario, a clean sheet (nil all draw). The matches had thrills and spills. I won't have all the pictures of the games, because well, some games seem to count for more than others. If I can't find pictures to post, I'll link back to Europa for images and the match report. But I'll try to add more pictures as I get them. This post is sponsored by tea and biscuits in the morning
Aalborg BK 1-3 Club Brugge.
Match report for interviews, pictures and so on
Flares can add a dynamic touch to a fan display if done well. Note how the orange ambient light sets off the blue and black of the brugge flag.
BSC Young Boys Bern 1- 4 Everton
Everton haven't been having a good time of it lately. What with their narrow defeat to Chelsea and Lukaku saying that he wanted to play for a 'big club', well these are scoundrel days
Martinez looking dapper in all black, set off by a plush patterned black scarf and shot with white cuffs. Looks like brioche ribbing. Lovely scarf, if I didn't hate knitting them so much, I'd knit el mister one just like that
Old Boys drew first blood, hustling for the ball and letting on in
Oh no! Old Boys scored in 10 mins. Would this put a wrench in the works of Everton's european adventure?
Lukaku, realising that the toffees supporters are mad at him for his 'I want to go to a big club' comment, worked and got some goals in
Lukaku was working. Good luck to all English teams in the competition
Dnipro 2- 0 Olympiakkos fc
Welp. Olympiakkos find themselves in danger of leaving the Europa league post haste- like Greece with their probable exit from the Euro. Y'all need to let me have this one. I find my jokes where I can get them in the crush of html
Click to viewhigh lights of the match here, because pictures are thin on the ground
PSV Eindhoven 0 - 1 Zenit St Petersburg: Match report here
Home kit. Also, PSV is building a stadium section for its blind/visually impaired fans. Good on them!
PSV in action last night. See more at source indicated in the heading
Roma 1-1 Feyenoord : match report here
Totti, soon to be the last one club man in Europe, gets his warm up on
Feyenoord fans overshadowed the game by acting like straight up arseholes by defacing landmarks of the eternal city
17th century statues damaged, etc. The city just paid €200,000 to have them restored
Shameful!
Torino 2 -2 Athletic Bilbao: match report here
Maxi Lopez second goal
Assistant referee Chrysoula Kourompylia prior to the UEFA Europa League Round of 32 match between Torino FC and Athletic Club on February 19, 2015 in Turin, Italy. She is one of the most experienced female officials in Europe.
Trabzonspor 0- 4 Napoli :match report of this spanking here
Okay Napoli
The Italian job
Focused on the game with the right mentality for 90 minutes, according to Higuain. Nuff said
Wolfsburg 2-0 Sporting Lisbon: match report and more pictures here
Dost hath scored a brace of goals on this eve
Dost was all over it
Ajax 1-0 Legia Warsaw : match report here what? Not many people cared about Ajax and the match? Match report here
Arek Milik scored the only goal in this set up
Arial duel!
Anderlecht 0-0 Dynamo Moscow: match report here it was a match where the keepers shone. The game was 'cagey and uneventful'
The atmosphere before the game
Celtic 3 -3 Inter Milan
Inter Milan supporters rocking up in this ish
Inter and Celtics fans outside the ground
Shaqiri got the ceremonies going by having a goal
No cagey, softly softly football match here! High scoring, dynamic
More like that. Inter had no defence (neither did Celtic). Most observers agree this was the best match of the night
Guidetti of Celtics waving to the supporters. Me gusta, so it's here
Guingamp 2- 1 Dynamo Kiev : match report here Kiev was down to nine men at the end of it all. Mess!
Kiev left the match looking like...
Guingamp was like...
Liverpool 1- 0 Besiktas
I really thought these were the Welsh uniforms. Nope, Besiktas. Adidas makes everything so ugly. I hope they won't be carrying this design into the 2015/16 season
LOL. I'm not going to get into Balotelli and the penalty kerfuffle. But this is funny
I thought Hendo handled it well. Made Balotelli take it, smoothed it over the interview, but I'm sure he'd have had words with Mario in the dressing room
Let's talk about Jordon Ibe instead. JordON, not JordAN. Ibe (as in eeb and not ebay).
On loan to Championship side Derby, then recalled in January to the first team, came back and did the business
Shoutout to Emre Can, for being vocal, and positioning players. Never mind that his english isn't the greatest, he is doing it on the field
Alberto Moreno attempted this kick. BAE.
Sevilla 1-0 Borussia Monchengladbach : match report here read more
Spurs 1- 1 Fiorentina
Soldado giveth and taketh away. Scored one goal, then gave away a penalty for Fiorentina to score. This is why Spurs fans suffer from fatalism, Bobby
I'm happy for you, and I'ma a let you finish but-
You made this happen, Bobby
Damn it, Spurs. Now you have one point deficit whilst they have a point away. TIL: Xabi Alonso's brother, Mikel plays for Fiorentina. He came on as a sub last night, but had a fairly quiet game
Villareal 2-1 Red Bull Salzburg: match report here
The yellow submarine clipped Redbulls' wings.
Kampl used to play for Red Bull Salzburg. Oh, boy.
Villareal is in fine form on all fronts. Good luck to them. Red Bull Salzburg fired their coach- the one who got them into Bundesliga 2, iirc? There was some scandal about it
OP: whew. If you've made it this far, congratulations! I was fading towards the end. Praise the restorative properties of a tea biscuit. Any pushback, broken links, etc. Tell me, and I will get it done. Will come back and try and tag this post! Won't mind if anyone lends a hand and puts in tags that I've missed.