The Offside Trap S01E03 : Serie A Episode 03

Phantasmagoric Serie A Saturday with Juve-Inter and AC-Roma. Strictly going by the sides involved, a Juve win and Roma loss should technically tilt my evening towards the "disappointing" end of the see-saw but throw in The Usual Reject Ranieri staring down the barrel of his fastest ever firing and giving his bang-on-cue insipidly mediocre interview of "I'm happy with the way we played"... and suddenly the evening was blissfully unaware of the painful Giallorossi Lossi.. Plus Valencia punked Getafe, and Messi did the business thrice again on the Nou Camp lawns.

Meanwhile RM squeezed out yet another bitterly ascorbic victory at the San Sebastian. A really nice effect of the ManU thrashing is people can finally rethink the whole "perfectly sub-standard unknown gits end up being more effective than footballers with actual talent", although Diarra's continued presence mystifies this supposed effect. Of course his unknown sub-standardness is loads more tolerable than over rated sub-standardness of Khedira, but this season was supposed to be Alonso + Sahin in MF. Now I'm a little suspicious if actually playing was ever part of the transfer deal - he's been fit for a few weeks reportedly but still not even in the squad... Not sure how you fall foul of Mourinho without even playing or practicing, but I'm hoping Nuri Sahin is not "New Resign" soon, coz he's really pretty...

Arsenal beat Chelsea and are apparently title contenders again. Good for them. After all, delusion isn't too bad, once you sit down and get to know it... Though anyone making positive comments about their defence midweek must be feeling pretty stupid now, wait let me rephrase, anyone making positive comments about their defence must be feeling stupid 0.2 seconds after making said comment. Granted, 0.2 is quite a flattering assumption given the average brain of people who make positive Arsenal comments.

Liga-Desk (aka "The Blog") of the blog signing off now for a whole month of sinnage.

The Offside Trap S01E02 : Cups and Cones

Lot of heated journalism out there about the callous treatment of yet another African Coach, yet another Nigerian underachievement. I don't get it...He's alive... Since when did the primary worry stop being bloodlusty warlords, ethnic cleansing, football maniac assassins, Aids, and just about a million other clouds of shit the least of which are particularly bellicose wildebeest...., and instead become whether you can manage to get a good letter of recommendation for your next gig???? "mmm..chopped off my hands and burnt my village, but at least this looks good on my resume".

Meanwhile Nagatomo hints at something the whole world has been wondering for 3 years now... Will Del Piero's career EVER end... Parallels with Totti are quite laughable, Del Piero is more the Raul of Juve, would be fitting to send him to Wolfsburg and ask him to purposely play like crap after they sent the Trojan Diego to us. On the topic of Juve Trojans, Ranieri (who's seen more job-layoffs than the entire Lehmann Bros) is fiiinally coaching a team that I won't feel sad about after he completely ruins and obliterates its dignity.

I haven't ruled out the possibility that Moratti looks at Juve's spectacular bounce back from Serie B, and wants the same kind of fairytale storyline for Inter - but losing constantly and getting demoted while teams like Cesena and Lecce continue to exist in Serie A is a lot harder to accomplish than Stankovic and Ranocchia make it seem... You need real talent for that - enter Ranieri. Inter in 16th place, Juve in 1st. Narzi in heaven.

Of Valencia Bonds and Hybrid Orbitals

Valencia fans used to be those white elephant fans (the sleek sexy kind) who wouldn't blow hot and cold with each toggle of the switch. For all the resentment behind even that disastrous Ronald Koeman era, I still remember the matches themselves had the fans quite unequivocal in their adoration of a series of performances that were in all fairness quite stunning in their intricacy and corresponding ineffectiveness. Especially ironic since at the same time neighboring fans at the Madrigal were berating their team for slipping to 7th in the table... yes the same team that was playing in the 3rd division just a few years prior... We were a hybrid cosmic body that orbited Valencia neither with the frothy-mouthed ruthlessness of Madrid fans, nor the stony silent monocled opera watchers of Barcelona, nor of course the happy go lucky "woohoo we're 17th..." low standard penurious optimism of Racing, Betis, Levante etc (more on Levante later...I mean WATHEFFFF are they shooting up this season???) - instead the strange resonance of a club that was big, successful, and talented enough to have the highest of expectations, and a fan base that was curiously forgiving of players who eventually realized mid-leap about the impossibility of the expectation-ledge and then air-cycled, blow-jet-propelled, and furiously grappled their way to a ledge only 2km away from the original.

This season should for all counts be the same, in fact a few dollops more leniency wouldn't be completely out of place considering the departures, formation changes, and debt (not to mention the mental trauma of having to watch hordes of Indians swarm out of airports like locusts from the book of Revelations, holding notes taken from that gay Hrithik movie). But ever since they socked it to Barca (which frankly they do every year...only this time they took a point), there suddenly seems to be an unrest in the Mestalla - like Grimm and his fisherman's wife I unwittingly associated with Barca... The Bilbao game at Mestalla had jeers in the first half, not monkey chants at Miguel hopelessly panicking on the ball...but jeers!!! You know the locusts aren't the only portents of apocalypse when fans would rather jeer central midfielders for a backpass than talentless Rightbacks who take my "Hybrid-Orbital" a little too literally. Granted they should have won the game 4-0 by halftime, and instead were facing a 0-1 defeat till Banega released Soldado at the death with a pass that should get physically manifested and cryogenically preserved for future generations (but instead will get pipped by Silva's last pass...because he plays in the EPL...).

Also granted it comes on the back of losing to Sevilla after threatening to win 5-0, a 1-1 draw with Mallorca, and a narrow 1-0 against Granada that should have been won by a basketball score.... Did I mention we're pretty much out of the Champions League, and still without a stable Midfield formation while our pennyless beggar city rivals sit atop thhe league....but still we remain loyal and HOLY SHIT WTF are Che upto, Booooooooo!! ... Maybe we isn't so hybrid after all...best get used to it, it feels like yet another one of "those seasons"... where we contemplatively swirl the dust at our feet, yearning for golden days past and building castles of possession-directed pass-completion-derived intricacy-ratio-functional metrics of League-victory in the clouds of power-slam clothesline eye-poking last minute goal driven Madrid championships... yes you heard it here first... Madrid to win Liga. {{shoots self}}

First set Man City..6-1. New balls please.....

Unfortunately this isn't the Manchester Derby post my racy seductive title promised. Partly because my soul is still cleansing from the EPL-defilement of having to write about the ManU-Arsenal game (in case you were counting, testament no.24 to the UTTER USELESSNESS of the 2-man EPL Desk this blog was supposed to have), but mainly because no glee can possibly stay glee for us glee-ers if the glee-ees get to just stand up and walk away from decimation that caused said glee. How can I possibly be happy about a game which was supposed to have an extended aftermath of ManU fan suicides, rampant turncoatism, and effigy burning, but instead ended up being a chorus of "Oh yea??oh yea???? We'll see who's laughing at the end of the season!!"... What dark twisted regressive times we live in, where valiant fighters decapitate their opponents, and then have to watch headless bodies walk away (and bodyless heads roll away) while recovering strewn limbs, muttering curses and promising vengeance!! That cud chewing clown should be in some sarcophagus carefully embalmed and organs harvested, not giving a smug press conference!!! How much heart would Maximus have put into his performances if he thought "win or lose.. I'll just go and have fun. If I do lose, I'll just take responsibility for my actions and hope for a better tomorrow"

How are 40,000 crazed fans supposed to work up the bloodlust to return for next week's games knowing there exists no bone chilling finality to any slaughter?? Sepp Blatter needs to seriously rethink this whole "tomorrow is another day" bullshit Football is in danger of being mired in. With his tenure soon ending, I'm sure he wouldn't want to live with the infamous legacy of being in charge of the complete emasculation of football, ushering in an era of sport totally devoid of blood soaked grass, externally distributed entrails, and well fed lions. ManU and Liverpool have the most number of "followers" because its most fun to see their players die, a phenomenon that has been denied us for more than 20 years now... We grow impatient.. The few deaths that have been accorded us recently have all been bloodless, goreless and quite dishonorably bereft of blades, clubs, or sharp teeth... How are we supposed to cheer a heart attack???? At least rip it out their chest and hold it up for all to see the actual attack in progress... Now I'm not a violent savage, I'm not saying every game has to end in a blood shower, nor even the obvious rejoinder of "every EPL game", but at least massive scorelines or underdog upsets...or if not the entire team maybe a "dead man of the match" award for the worst player. Something...Anything... otherwise I'm shifting my allegiance over to Motorsport. What's that you say? I'm an asshole?? well excccuuuusse me for being the onllly person to react to the newspaper Simoncelli article by rushing to youtube for the crash video.....

The Offside Trap : Reading between the Lines

In this section of the blog, we bring you news stories that are hot in the footballing world, and expose the truth behind the stories that the writers were too blind to see, too yellow to reveal, or too well paid off to confess. By "this section", I of course mean something that promises of future entries but fizzles out and dies before people even know what it is (kinda like Antonio Puerta.......too soon? yea too soon....) In the rich history of reading between the lines, the 3 main vices that propagate said between-reading are :

The Understatement : Modesty and Political correctness usually cause dialled down versions.
Pep Guardiola : We expect a tight competition tomorrow against ManU, between two evenly matched teams, but I hope our quality will shine through in a closely fought encounter.
He meant : We are going to bumrape ManU, and their families, and anyone remotely connected to them. Even their Facebook friends are going to wake up in the morning with a sore rectum.

The Brutal Truth : Everyone knows the truth, but its best for everyone if we kept up appearances..
Pep Guardiola : We would love to have Cesc in our team
He meant : We don't want him, we don't need him, we don't like him. But we don't want those English bastards to have him either.

The BillClinton : Bare faced lies, named after our example
Bill Clinton : I did not have sex with Monica Lewinsky
He meant : I did not have sex with Hillary Clinton. No one has.

In this edition of the Offside Trap, we focus on three people who cared enough to keep up appearances, but were laughable enough personalities for us to heartlessly expose.. the Brutal Truth.

Sunday Breakfasts and David Baconham

Every now and then, there is born a man destined for greatness. A man whose force of personality binds a nation, a race, a species, despite all their differences and petty squabbles. A man who unites a diverse set of people who previously hated each other and assorted guts by forming a common ground for them to meet. A man whom everyone can unanimously and amicably agree upon to hate till their islets of langerhans hurt (I'm insinuating that is the gland responsible for chemical secretions that we recognize as hate, and you don't know enough to dispute it so piss off). Humanity is so embroiled in hate that is so insignificant and quite frankly, unrewarding, that it needs a sufficiently horrible and despicable public figure who makes for a wholly satisfying bout of hate and vitriol. That's why we had the Genghiz's, Atilla's, Jesus's, Hitlers, and John Lennons of this world - to unite us and teach us that despite our vast differences in taste, intellect, and penis size (by that I mean vastly inferior to me in all), we can find common ground and hate a common person after all. Enter David Beckham.

Why is this guy still alive?? The cruelty of whoever dreamt up this planet is no more evident than in the fact that Chris Benoit killed his family and himself, but Beckham still hasn't.... Can you imagine the collective Karma points we would gladly sacrifice if it meant the Beckhams' timely demise? (of course it was "timely" 10 years back... now it's just way f****ng overdue). Imagine my dismay when I wake up on a lazy Sunday morning to find that not only has England sealed their qualification for Euro2012, but also that Capello still hasn't closed the doors on a certain David Bakehead. Having played for ManU, Real, and a US team, I can safely say he's done all that he can do to ensure I will always pray for his death and eternal damnation (with a particularly relishing prospect of the circle with Cerebrus tearing through the sinners), although theoretically he could still further better his hate record by singing in his wife's albums, clubbing baby seals, and joining Arsenal. With Tottenham, Milan and Capello still flirting with him, I will now go on record to say he'd sooner become California Governor than rejoin actual football. If US doesn't release a Kill-on-sight order on Dave and Posh soon, they're going to become Land of the Fruit and Home of the Bolemic

Los Che draw Che-Lsea, lob an explosive Granada, but "Kanoute" get past Sevilla

Taking a leaf of Practical Henry's record book was easier than I thought (I even got a well desiccated cockroach in the process, did you know they are a good source of Amino Acids..Park Ji Sung told me). 3 Matches, 3 Goals, 3 outcomes. and nothing really to say... except that I was watching the Spain Czech game last night cheering Silva and Mata shamelessly ignoring the fact that they were no longer from Valencia... It isn't often (read : Never) the two best players on show in a match play in the EPL. But back to the post subject, which unfortunately has been comprehensively covered by the title and anything further would just be needless literary masturbation covering themes mainly of nihilism, racial fascism, and social Darwinism, not necessarily mutually exclusive either (eg: That black Miguel asshole and his next 2 generations must be gassed...sigh but what's the point?).

Valencia played the better football against Chelsea and still could/should have lost by 3-4 goals, they absolutely pummeled Sevilla (do refrain from the 10-man hypothesis, Sevilla always play better with 10-men... I'm quite sure their training sessions involve some healthy bull-running) and ended up losing, and blew Granada to smithereens...1-0..... (as you can imagine, them smithereens were quite large and wholesome, and still breathing...). Meanwhile Madrid played like shit against Rayo who overran them in the 1st half, but still ended up winning 6-2 on a stupendous Ronaldo performance (2 penalties and a tap-in. Did I say stupendous, I meant stupidous or other similarly obvious plays around the word "stupid"). So unless the Liga changes its victory system to possession, chances, number of passes, or gameplay, I'm quite confident this season will end in another Barca 1, RM 2, ......................Valencia 3 and............................... rest. Those portuguese scum must be shot and genetically experimented upon..but sigh..what's the point?

Adventures of Jose Moronho

This isn't an angst post, although I AM kind of peeved I'm no longer legally old enough to display angst (which has been true for the past 6 years, but seeing as how I started angsting a little late in life, I had some leeway till my 25th..). Neither is this a post about Jose's eye-poking angst, nor about why Steve Jobs didn't invent an iCancerpill before they pulled the plug (what....I don't have Facebook, I need to get on the bandwagon somehow!). Rather about the increasing concentration of Jose Mourinho articles across footballing media (to which, ironically enough, I have just added....) as the only representative of Real Madrid. From ex-players, coaches, and society for ethical treatment of translators, comments about how Mourinho is the man to end Barca's dominance are asphyxiating the already pencil-necked football sites. What's worse, RM players have been reduced to puppets/zombies (depending on whether you found Chucky or NOLD scarier... although now I'm thinking undead re-animated brain-eating Chucky is the idea that'll finally kick off my Hollywood writer career...did I mention he got bitten by a radioactive spider too?) mindlessly chiming the glories of their coach and attributing anything from injury recovery, brilliant solo goals, tireless play in the middle, white shiny teeth, or nobel peace prize all to Jose Mourinho. From Ramos, to Khedira, to Angel, Ronaldo and Kaka - any article vaguely resembling a RealMadrid player seems solely focused on their coach.

Only Casillas (strangely enough, I was convinced he had suddenly changed from a nice guy to a Real asshole after Mourinho came in, with his anti-Barca comments and fight-stirring.. maybe not), Alonso and recently a brilliantly refreshing tirade by Pedro Leon, keep any kind of non sycophantic dignity intact in this team. I don't buy any of this "Galacticos need some humility" and the jazz about coaches needing to be big personalities who can keep egos in check bullshit. If their point is that no one man is bigger than the team so egoistic players harm the dressing room, why are coaches bigger than the team and why don't egoistic coaches harm the dressing room!! Coaches are intrinsically in a position of power, egoistic players like Zlatan can be booted at any moment regardless of the hardness of a coach! Obviously you are going to now name all the hard coaches who consistently did way better than the soft ones, but I only have 2 names - Del Bosque and Pep, no reason for me to look for more.. For those saying 2000s Madrid is a team which revolves around highly paid egomaniac players requiring iron-whip coaches - Schuster, Capello, Camacho, Juande Ramos were all hard coaches, all failures.

But for what it's worth, I do wonder if maybe ex-players, coaches and the SETT are right about him being the coach to topple Barca. After an irritatingly defensive 6-7yrs, Pellegrini finally turned Madrid into a semblance of the attack minded side they used to be, with Granero and Alonso in more creative roles ahead of Diarra, and Kaka playing in the hole behind 2 forwards (Ronaldo, Higuain). Enter Mourinho - back to double pivot and single forward. Means their transitions are much smoother, even easy on the eye when Ozil is playing well, but always counter-attacking rather than really attacking. That being said, can't deny it's worked. Madrid's biggest problem was dropping points away from home, strange for Pellegrini since back at Villarreal he used to be one of the few coaches in Liga with a comparatively better away record. Much less adventurous play away from home was one of the biggest reasons they ran away with second place ahead of all the rest of Liga. The table gives % win-draw-loss on total games, Home stats and Away wins are almost identical for Pellegrini-Madrid and Mourinho-Madrid, the only difference being Away losses and draws.














So why might ex-players, coaches and SETT be right about Jose this year? Because teams playing away at Barca are exactly what's going wrong with Barca in recent years - teams who set up shop in the Nou Camp and lay eggs for 90 minutes (metaphorical eggs of course, although I have my doubts about Pepe...). While Barca's away stats have improved from 2009 to 10, their home stats have suffered from teams who come to the Nou Camp with a draw in mind. Obviously a 95% home win record was not going to be sustained, and last season was only 3 points less than 2009, so it isn't enough to start calling the CIA in (or SHIELD, considering Messi and Iniesta aren't really made of anything human), but less teams are going to look at the Valencias, Atleticos, and Sociedads attacking Barca and taking points, and more teams are going to look at the Madrids and Sevillas trying to shut Barca out and maybe strike on the counter. In hindsight, I guess this explains all the bizarre formations Pep has been trying out, teams aren't going to let Barca be Barca for too much longer.

Arsenal get their fingers Blackburnt, tame the Shrewsbury, screw the Bolton and run (five) rings around Olympiakos

Haha I think I will deliberately start delaying my game reviews just to get an opportunity to come up with post titles like the one above and cram as many bad puns as possible into one. That was a four in one! (Is that too dirty to be a STWSS?) 

Now, if you want to read a blog post about the above games replete with sentences that inform the reader how a structured diamond became a fluid allotrope 4-4-2 graphite, or how a false nine is actually a made-up 11 and a slightly duplicitous 10 playing in front of a fictitious 8, or how the treqeuesteras requested to be sequestered after equestrian or how good the Vasquez and Rodrigues combination used to be in the glory days of Franco, Salvador and <insert Spanish name here>... then sorry you have come to the blog at the wrong time of the week when it is the turn of the other reader author to post about Arsenal. If you are into  knee-jerk reactions than the rude knights who say nee oru jerk, welcome.

1. Blackburn-Arsenal: Zonal Marking might be a good website but clearly it is not a good system of defence for the clueless bunch at Arsenal. Anything more than a see-man-follow-man instruction goes well over their heads, just like all those incoming balls from set-pieces. That we contrived to lose a game 4-3 in which the opposition had only two shots on goal smacks of carelessness. All that Blackburn had to do to score was send the ball somewhere vaguely in the direction of our six yard box and wait for one of our defenders to score for them. ZM without any clear leadership and individual responsibility seems to me to be a very bad idea only headed for doom. Per has just joined this back four. Kos is cutting his teeth at the top level and Gibbs is inexperienced. Sagna is the only dependable guy in the lineup but ZM is a system that calls for complete coordination and that cannot be achieved with just one person learning how to. It is encouraging that we are trying to work on our defensive frailties but at the same time is is disappointing that we are mending the car by setting fire to it. As the Blackburn result showed, ZM doesn't seem to be the way ahead, at least with these defenders.

2. Arsenal-Shrewsbury: Our squad depth is a bit of illusion. On paper we have about 89 players. About 76 of them are also made of it. At any given time they are in the hospital getting glued. That we struggled to beat Shrewsbury (who?) is a reflection of the lack of quality of our second string players. Ju Young Park seemed overwhelmed by the occasion and kept running away from the ball as if it were a Korean military service personnel trying to draft him into the army. Fabianski is back to his usual form that earned him the moniker of Flappyhandski from the clearly very witty British press. Djourou, the rock-solid defender of the second half of last season who deputised for the original defensive rock Vermaelen has been reduced to a pebble-solid defender, a pebble made of clay. On the positive side, Benayoun was good. Oxladen is an immense talent and it was his cracker of a goal that saved us the blushes that night. He will provide good and much needed competition to Walcott. Coquelin was also excellent. His positional discipline in midfield and clever distribution made his performance a stark contrast to the performance of Frimpong, whose gameplay is usually built around robust play and strong tackles. The youth do inspire confidence but they have been doing so for the past six years.

3. Arsenal-Bolton: I did not see the match as I was cycling around an island with breathtaking views like most of us are wont to on weekends (what is that...you don't?), but having seen the highlights I can speak with impunity about how glorious the goals were. Very glorious. 

4. Arsenal-Olympiakos: Zonal Marking might be a good website but it CLEARLY isn't a good system of defence as far as this bunch is considered. Arsenal started off with a 4-3-3 with Arteta Frimp Rosicky in the centre and Arshavin RVP Ox playing top. It comes as a surprise to me that over the past few games Wenger has been experimenting with his formation and changing it almost every other game, something he has never done at this frequency in the past. Anyway, Oxladen scored his debut CL goal after chesting down a brilliant over the top ball from Song and drilling into the right corner. Santosh also scored his debut CL goal that night. A flurry of give-and-go's on the left flank ended up in Rosicky releasing Santosh who crossed the ball on the ground for Chamakh, collected the clearance and shot past a goalkeeper who should have done much better. Arsenal then being Arsenal decided to let their Greek guests score one. Surprise surprise it came from a corner. Olympiakos took a short corner and floated it into the box. There was so much space and time in the danger area that the Olympiakos scorer could have driven inside in a tank, parallel parked it and then  scored.  He comfortably took a 50 yard run up, jumped up and thumped the ball into the net with a forceful header. It was almost like a handball goal (the sport not the illegal action). The problem was there was no communication between our defenders. No one knew what their roles were and they ended up marking whichever zone they felt like defending leaving loads of space free. Second half there were some improvements when it came to defending and I felt it was largely due to the imposing presence of Mertesacker and his long leg. It just kept cropping up in places you never thought it would. You would think there is no way his foot can reach such a great distance and he would lazily dangle a foot at the right place and time to deftly rob the player of the ball even before they realised what was it that hit them. As a result we were much tighter and calm in our defending in the second half and did not let any more goals.Quite a feet. But ZM continues to bother me a bit and I cannot help but feel that it was one of the main reasons why we were pushed to the wall by an outfit whose attack is not by any means as potent as, say, even Wolves. This could be a potential pitfall when trying to zone mark the thugs of EPL. There were some signs that it could be made to work, as Szczesny and Merte have said in their interviews but it would require that slightly daft players like Santosh and Djourou learn quickly.

These wins give us much needed momentum in the build up to the first North London Derby of the season which has always been a fixture of great drama and excitement even before kick off leading to nervous breakdowns, despondency and suicidal depression post final whistle. 2-0 to 2-3 last minute losses, 4-2 to 4-4 draws, 2-0 to 2-2 draws where anonymous twits score once in a lifetime volleys. Tomorrow there is the added bonus of Adebayor too. Ugh.

All set for a pleasant Sunday evening then.