Asia/India Schedule for UEFA Chamion’s League.Barcelona Vs Manchester United.
Venue: Old Trafford, Manchester.
Date: Tuesday, 29-04-08
Time: 23:30 hours. Channel: Ten Sports.
http://www.tensports.com/TVSchedule.php?country=TENI

The UEFA Champion’s League has now progressed to the semi-final stage. Spanish football club, Barcelona FC (short for football club) is pitted against English club Manchester United FC and Chelsea FC take on Liverpool FC. Chelsea, Liverpool and Man U are all English clubs and thus this year, the league has been dominated by the English clubs. Spaniards Barcelona alone stands against the English.

For many, the tie between Man U and Barcelona will be the title decider. The former striker for Arsenal, Theirry Henry has said that many think Man U to be favourites but that is not correct, no one really knows who the favourites are. Argentinean striker Lionel Messi has called the tie as a ‘dream ‘return’ for him to his club. At 20, Messi is young and has the pace to penetrate almost any defence, and he showed ample proof of the same when he took the ball all the way from the centre-line and beating several defenders put it at the back of the nets reviving memories of Maradona. It is not surprising that Maradona calls him his successor. It will be interesting to see how Man U defenders cope with Messi’s swift movements. A swift breakaway by him and a mistimed tackle by a defender inside the D could make the referee point the finger to the penalty spot breaking the hearts of Man U fans.

Ex-Arsenal striker Henry is not unfamiliar with Man U and this should work in Barça’s favour. On the other hand, Man U is in top form and Ronaldo has been scoring a goal in every match he’s played since an eternity or so. He even scored a double and came very close to turning it into a hat-trick. Barca’s defenders will do everything to stop him and one of them should most certainly pick a yellow card. A yellow card is given for a push or a mistimed tackle that comes close to hurting a player. Barca defenders will incessantly fowl against Ronaldo to stop his swift moves and will do it cleverly so they don’t pick up a card. But referees give a yellow for too many of these ‘conservative’ tackles by the same player (or the same set of players), too. This depends on the referee’s wisdom and sense of fair-play. If Barca defenders keep on fowling Ronaldo and thus break his rhythm once too often, do not pick a card, and Man U loses, the referee will be to blame; this is precisely how Man U lost out in the race for the F.A. Cup.

With legendary playmakers Ronaldinho and Ronaldo and legendary strikers Henry, Messi and Rooney playing together on the same pitch, the Barca Vs. Manchester United semi-final matches along with the UEFA League Cup final might well be the matches of the year and for a football fan to miss the same would be nothing short of blasphemy punishable by a hundred years of soccerless hell.

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In the other match, Liverpool meet Chelsea for the third time in four years at the same Champion’s League semi-final stage. Liverpool have beaten Chelsea each time before in these three meetings and they, given their history and upbeat form after the 4-2 win against Arsenal, might just be the favourites to win this one. However, Chelsea are ahead of them in the race for the EPL title and have fared better than them at home in England, and this should give them a boost. Given the history of Liverpool matches in the Champion’s league with their tremendous fan support, this will be another match to savour. The matches will be played in two legs. With each leg being played at the club’s homeground, and the total aggregate will be calculated out of goals scored in both the games and the result decided. Thus, Liverpool will first meet Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea’s home-ground and later Chelsea will meet Liverpool at the historic Anfield stadium.

I personally want it to be an all English final with Man U playing Liverpool. In their last meet in EPL, Man U beat Liverpool by three goals to nill! However, after beating Arsenal 4-2, and they would have beaten Chelsea too to enter the final, Liverpool will be upbeat and ready to face Man U.

With England already having failed to qualify for the Euro championship this year, this is their opportunity to take the UEFA League cup back home, and regain some lost respect. It is a matter of great pride that the top four English clubs reached till the last eight and lost only to their own. Only Barca stands in the way of an all English cup final. The upcoming games will answer many questions such as: In which country there is the best football to play: Spain or England? That is, which is the better league to play in: the Spanish Premier League or the English Premier League? Is Manchester United truly the best club in the world or only the best of England? Is Ronaldo the best player in the world like Fergusson says or only the best player in England? And thus, who is the better playmaker: the 22 yr old Portuguese Ronaldo or the Brazilian Ronaldinho?

Speculation is high on the great Indian Premier League. The question that nobody seems to be asking is: Will the league generate enough interest? Will anyone follow the league through and through till the last match? And thus, finally, will the league generate and recover the money that has been invested?!?! Cricket has so often followed the model of soccer with the possible intent to rope in as much audience and, of course, money as the beautiful game. The latest amendment being the 20-20 format which makes sure that a game of cricket generates a lot of excitement and lasts only a few hours. The IPL is the cricket version of the European football leagues viz. SPL (Spanish Premier League) and EPL (English Premier League), and other lesser known. As in the EPL and SPL, in the IPL too, teams 'belong to' a particular city in the country and players from anywhere can be part of the squad; although in soccer league squads, the whole squad could be from different countries with no national squad player, in the IPL, some players necessarily must be from the national squad. Fan support is strengthened if the skipper is a 'local hero' like in Liverpool whose fans are believed to be bounded with their team like no other fans. In the IPL, thus, we see the local lads Ganguly, Dravid, Tendulkar and others being the skippers even in the presence of the great Ricky Ponting!

In no game other than football do the players celebrate a title win by drinking and singing the special night away with fans. Songs are written and composed and sung by the fans on big nights. Legends are written in graffiti of the winning goals scored in major tournaments. Even in their last will, before dying, some fans leave a fortune for their club. Some even have their ashes strewn on the home-ground of their club. (The ashes of many many Liverpool F.C. fans are strewn at Liverpool”s home-ground, Anfield in Liverpool.) Fans lend so much support to the team they are often called “the 12th man”. Heroes, even when they retire, continue to live in the hearts of the fans. Eric Cantona who played from 92-97 for Man U, and who turned it around for the club, is King Eric for the Manchester United fans. The promise of the IPL, besides making a lot of money, is also to make a lot of space in the hearts of the people for cricket, much like the European football leagues. The IPL, even if somehow successful commercially can most certainly never have the kind of place in the heart of people, and will not be loved by Indians as the way the football leagues, as the football clubs, are loved throughout the world. Of course, we can trust the Indian media to make us believe otherwise.

Football is a world game while cricket is played by only a few nations. I wait for the day when football will come to India in a big way. Football is loved more and is more popular than cricket amongst all school boys I have ever known, and what is true of the micro I believe will also be true of the macro: it surely is more popular amongst the teens and twenties in all the country than cricket. Once football comes to India in a big way, it will be very interesting indeed to see how it affects cricket and cricketers, who till now, have dominated the sports scene. Perhaps cricket will feel what hockey has felt for so long. Consider England where both the games are played. Football surely sells more. Is any Englsih cricketer as iconic as David Beckam?


Actually, the two games can't and shouldn't be compared. Cricket is not football and vice versa. Cricket is a long game that spans a day. Cricket is 50 overs thrown by each team. And cricket is a test match played for five days. Cricket is not twenty overs thrown swiftly and played blindly. They have stretched the limits of the game so that it generates as much money as football, and in the process have killed the spirit of the game. If at all, then cricket can compete with football only if it remains cricket, and is not reduced to some ghoulishly belittled version of itself.


Ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing more beautiful, more pleasurable, nothing that generates as much adrenaline and makes the heart skip as many beats '" not even dating a beautiful girl '" as does running with a round leather ball on wet grass on a noon in the beginning of winter. Here”s hoping that one day football comes to India in a big way.

If there is one game in the world to die for, it is definitely soccer. My passion for the game is as old as my days. I developed a fascination from very early and played in the junior school inter house competition at the age of ten. I still remember my sliding tackles in that game and what a girl, a spectator said to me post the game.

There is nothing more beautiful, more pleasurable ' not even dating a beautiful girl ' that comes close enough to running with the ball on wet grass on a noon in the beginning of winter, on a day when the sun slightly shows from behind the clouds and begins to kiss the day warm. Nothing more beautiful to get a good hold of the ball with the foot and shoot it.

There is something super special to taking a free kick. It is an art. When your studs hug your feet properly, and when you have had a sense of the roughness or the smoothness of the surface, you know that you are ready to have a go. Something magnificently beautiful there is to running at the precise angle, at the correct speed, and sweetly making contact with the ball with your right foot to sky it past the midfield to your forwards. When you do that, your right foot goes right across your body to the left, and you land on your left foot, balancing the act with the left arm outstretched. That is beautiful.

It is nothing less than godly to take defenders on and beat them in a battle of wits and agility. And to shoot the ball in the back of the nets is to taste the fruits of heaven.

It is nothing less than heroic to attempt a cycle kick. The best opportunity for that comes during a corner. It is attempted both while defending and attacking. Your right foot goes right above your body in an attempt to kiss the ball coming flying square (since its coming from the corner), while the left foot, slipping forward because of the swiftly moving body, loses its footing from the ground and you land balancing your body with your left arm and a bit of the right. Mostly a defender heads the ball before it reaches your ground, so the cycle goes in vain, only kicking the air. But that doesn't take away the beauty of the attempt. Sometimes this skins the left elbow. While defending a corner, the player must needs heroically jump in the air when a cross is delivered, and sweetly make contact with the ball, and guide it towards the mid-field to nullify the attack. In between the rush of strikers and defenders, he must quickly find a way to run at the right angle and jump in the air as high as possible. A good jump is often executed so well, and so heroically that no thought goes into where and how one would land, one only cares for the upward flight, not the downward descent. So, a good fall is what results but if one is witty enough, it is almost never accompanied by a bruise. That is beautiful.

When the stage is set for the final of a tournament, with the spectators all on, and one of them your special-someone, few things in your life will come close to the joy of winning the game, and more than that, to help your side win it. The joy turns a thousand fold reverberating in the ground. The youthful winter will haunt you till the end of your days, and leaving all else, you will want to return to the smell of wet grass and beaten leather, so filling your seventeen-year-old lungs with the cool wind, you can die in peace!!!