Metal Reviews

I thought Berbatov was already out of the team, or at the least the team is/was negotiating him.

PSG will win the champions' league this season.

To be fair, they never said winning the CL was a goal this season. If they fail to snatch the Ligue 1 on the other hand... they'll be the joke of the century.

i'm hoping PSG don't win the Ligue 1 this year, but sadly i doubt they'll fuck it up again.

also, Liverpool's off to a flying start to the Premier League....

awesome goals from Fernando Torres (!) and Van Persie! especially Van Persie, i've seen it 10 times and it still looks like an impossible shot.

A Playstation shot. Ridiculous.

the direction could well have been accidental, but damn.

Benfica just beat Vitória de Setúbal 5-0 away. Porto won their match 4-0 last night, so hopefully this will show those corrupt, cheating, referee bribing pieces of shit who's in charge.

Jesus Christ Van Persie O.o

so i caught the penalty shootout in Udinese x Braga (1-1 after extra time, 1-1 in the first leg), and some guy hilariously failed to convert Udinese's third penalty after a failed Panenka kick. always wondered how it would be if someone failed one, now i know.

I have seen similar situations two or three times. It's always fun (except for the taker ).

I've seen many failed Panenka kicks, the most famous one here being goalkeeper Mickäel Landreau attempting one against Sochaux in Cup final (penalty shootouts). He fails, Sochaux wins the Cup.

Being a GK and attempting Panenka's, in final... ballsy.

the guy who missed (Maicosuel) is probably in a ditch somewhere outside Udine by now.

just saw the Spanish Supercup match. awesome goals from Ronaldo (ridiculous technique as he ran past, i think, Piqué) and Messi (curled it around the wall holy shit).

Barça were a man down but they never gave Real any respite and came close to scoring on quite a few occasions. they will be a very tough nut to crack, even though i feel the squad lacks depth. thing is all they need is messi plus 2 of the 4 - xavi, inesta, busquets, pedro - to play their dangerous possession game, and even without that they still have their strong pressing defensive game, which i think is also important to their success and no one ever mentions. it's what keeps other teams from getting too cocky with them or trying to emulate their possession game.

Real should really have signed another centre-back. Sergio Ramos in the middle with Arbeloa as the weakest link on the right can't cut it.

On the subject of penalties...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lXnoQdEunE

It might take you a couple of watches to get it, but holy shit.

Today's match between RM and Barça was epic. Been a long time since I enjoyed a football match so fuckin' much.

nice penalty. fucking spaniards.

'twas a good game.



in Portugal we eat a "Bolo Rei" ("king cake") around christmas/new year's. it used to come with one trinket as a gift (the brinde) and one fava bean, mixed in the dough somewhere. getting the brinde was a sign of good luck, and the fava a sign of bad luck.

what i am trying to say is, plenty of favas in this draw, enough to make two groups of death:
a. barça, man city, juventus, borussia
b. real, valencia/benfica, psg, celtic (always hard when playing at home)

some real brindes as well, though.
- AC Milan and Arsenal are in the toilet compared to their teams just from a few years ago.
- the eastern european teams in pot 2 almost never make it past the group stage
- pot 3 i don't see any real threats besides PSG and Juventus
- pot 4 is easy as expected

hope pots 3 and 4 don't make me swallow my words lol. as for the Portuguese sides, Porto and Benfica are very inconsistent in Europe, some years we go far and eliminate a giant or two, other times we bungle it and settle for the UEFA C-sorry, Europa League.

btw, they stopped putting brindes in the cake because they were a choking hazard.

final groups. winners in bold, runners up underlined.

GROUP A
PORTO
DINAMO KIEV
PARIS SAINT-GERMAIN
DINAMO ZAGREB

hmm, if not for PSG, i'd say a certain famously corrupt club bought the draw . and you can count the Paris game as a home game for Porto

PSG to come second due to lack of european experience for a number of their players.

GROUP B
ARSENAL
SCHALKE
OLYMPIAKOS
MONTPELLIER

group B for "boring"

GROUP C
AC MILAN
ZENIT
ANDERLECHT
MALAGA

group C for "crap"

GROUP D
REAL MADRID
MANCHESTER CITY
AJAX
BORUSSIA DORTMUND

good shit, good shit.

GROUP E
CHELSEA
SHAKHTAR DONETSK
JUVENTUS
NORDSJAELLAND

GROUP F
BAYERN MUNICH
VALENCIA
LILLE
BATE BORISOV

GROUP G
BARCELONA
BENFICA
SPARTAK MOSCOW
CELTIC

so Benfica will likely get the ass fucking of a lifetime upon our visit to Camp Nou, but we can take 2nd place i think. Celtic should be good fun, excellent fans, and they usually lose their away matches. the Glasgow game will be very hard though.

if we make it through, one upside of catching Barça now is that we can't get them in the next stage. one downside is that we can still get Madrid

GROUP H
MANCHESTER UNITED
BRAGA
GALATASARAY
CLUJ

Braga are a very tough team, as their hard-fought games against Udinese will show. dunno how Galatasaray is doing. Man United may well flop again, they don't seem substantially stronger vs. last year.

My picks:

A: Porto, Kyiv. PSG lacks C1 experience (Zlatan and Thiago Silva are only two players), Porto and Kyiv play the C1 every. Fucking. Year.

B: Arsenal, Schalke 04. I want to see Montpellier torn into pieces.

C: Zenit, AC Milan. Hands down.

D: City, Real Madrid. In that order.

E: Shakhtar, Chelsea. In that order. To hell with Juventus, a club belonging to the past.

F: Bayern, Valencia. Lille is going to end up last. They are weaker than last year.

G: Barcelona, Benfica.

H: Man U, Braga.

4 Eng, 3 Spa, 3 Por, 2 Ukr, 2 Ger, 1 Ita, 1 Rus. 0 Fra.

I wouldn't discard PSG so easily. You forgot Lavezzi.

dude. cut down on that pastis or kronenbourg or château margaux or something.

a: Kyiv never makes it past the group stage. PSG have inexperienced players, but very good ones, good enough to get them through, maybe even on top. as i said Porto (and Benfica) are unpredictable.

B: agreed, except i don't especially hate Montpellier, it's more of a general despise for french teams.

C: yeah

D: Real won't exactly clean house, but if both teams play at their best, Real can beat City.

E: have Shakhtar ever gone through to the elimination stages? and Juventus, if anything, are back, and with the current shittiness of the italian league they play cautiously and build up.

F: Lille below BATE? that's pushing it.

G: Messi will be able to play his idol PABLO AIMAR (look it up, they really do have a fan-idol relationship)

H: Man U are the most... volatile team in the group i think. i have no idea how Galatasaray are doing, they may well be contenders just like the other two.

Well of course I hope I'm wrong, Paris is my team. But nah, I can't see them doing anything in Europe this season. It took years to teams built over money like Chelsea and City to win something. Too much expectations, too few great players.