Why this Goalaveri di? S01E02: Song of praise

This week's Goal Maal Why this Goalaveri di? (Vernacular puns FTW) features a goal which was basic in finish, had little by way of number of players or passes involved in build up and was even almost saved by the goalkeeper before it went it. Bbbbut. But it came as the result of some glorious individual skill and excellent feet and deserves to be the goal maal of the mid-week. Also, it was the only goal of three goals that I saw that was worth writing about. Arsenal 2, Dortmund 1.

Click here before you come to the conclusion that what follows is one hell of a discontinuity.

Song collected the ball in midfield and pondered his options. He could either run into a maze of Dortmund defenders dressed up as bananas waiting to be peeled or pass the ball to Ramse... nah, he decided to go peel 'em. He beat the first defender with pace, taking the ball past him with remarkable ease. Showed the ball to the second and waltzed his way around him with some exceptionally quick feet. By then the first slow coach banana had teamed up with another fruit of the same order and had blocked his path. Here is where Song went all Songinho on us. With  a dribble that looked a bit like he had prematurely begun his samba dance routine Song controlled the ball past the flummoxed Dortmund duo, went into open space and placed a peach of a cross onto the head of Robin Van Perise who dutifully nodded it in ensuring it fell wider off Weidenfeller, their goalkeeper. I mean if you have a name like that..

Song was excellent throughout the game and was very effective in breaking up play in the midfield. Sitting in front of the back four, he struggled a bit initially when the quick 1-2s of Mario Gotze and the other chappie caught him a bit off his pace, but he gradually improved and asserted himself. Of course, the removal of Gotze due to injury helped Song dominate the midfield more comfortable but this does not take away anything from his overall performance against an opposition who were constantly hassling and pressing in midfield. With the absence of Wilshere and the not quite the finished productness of Frimpong, it is indeed a relief that Cameroon didn't qualify for the ACN in January.

Goal Mall S01E01

Prescript : This isn't really a series, I just wanted to be the first one to parody our sudden overuse of the SxEx format before someone else does (thus also giving me full reign to overuse and abuse its usage on pretext of said parody...)

Liga Desk returns... back from holiday and back on the job...lessness... good to see the prolific blog output churned out in the meantime...the kind of productivity that makes Enid Blyton look like Harper Lee (the kind of analogy that makes me look like I'm literate...unless of course it actually turns out Harper wrote more than just Mockingbird....). No this isn't because that Goal Maal article didn't include a Valencia goal that featured a blinding pass by our currently Fourth choice Central Midfielder.. a selection that is going to show eventually, despite another dominant (yet unsuccessful) performance against horribly defensive Madrid who at one point played with 4 defensive anchors across midfield to stem rampant Valencia possession play... neither is it because I think Bollywood puns are a slippery slope to intellectual decay, which I don't...unless you replace slippery slope with vertical water slide of death. But more because I'm sitting with an awesome Grand Snacks Adrisham which I can't eat since then I won't have it any more..... I've considered extremely high pixel photos, organic cloning, and regurgitation, ultimately dismissing them as stupid ideas (or as Villas-Boas might say... good ideas but "stupid approach to ideas").

The story is quite amusing, but the only "stupid approach to opinions" I can see is Boas' approach to giving a bucktoothed f*** about Neville's opinions of all people! Retired footballers come in 3 sizes...the good ones can join academies and coaching, the bad ones write autobiographies, and the ugly ones become pundits. They should really have an annual Mister-Pundit ugliness contest so I can finally rest with the resolved suspense of whether Neville's patent grotesqueness beats John Burridge's up and coming "I'm trying to excrete a porcupine" expression. Although it is unfair to pick on the ugly ones for becoming pundits more than the bad ones who write books, just because the former are more exposed, I find it more unfair that these morons are picked on only when they deride somebody and not when they spend hours spewing more bullshit than 10 generations of IIMA GDs (except the one I was in of course...). Neville sits on air and says stuff like "He scored, since he was in the right place at the right time" (as opposed to all the other inferior strikers who sat sipping Latte at the Eiffel tower but extended a humongous elastic foot to tap in at Wembley) but instead gets criticized for calling Luiz a child. I'd be a lot more inclined to support coaches' rants if they said in the press conference "Why does that ugly twat get paid so much to say teams need to score more than they concede if they want to win...even the 6 month old brother of the 12 year old controlling David Luiz knows that".

That being said, its even scarier that assholes like Ibra can take a word processor and infiltrate the world of literature (like this blog..). Beckham is up for retirement, and being neither good nor ugly, I cringe at the prospekt of he releecing a ottobiografi.... especially since I can't see an editor allowing an entire chapter to be "all the cows in the meadow go moo....all the cows in the meadow go moo...", which would be hugely more thought provoking than anything he would mutilate the English language with. How incredible it would be to go to "Beckham's Autobiography book reading" and watch the audience instead prompt for Beckham as he struggles to get past any word with more than 2 syllables. Assuming of course that a section of society that actually attends a "book reading" rather than just reading the friggin book is literate enough in the first place to prompt him, I keep waiting for the news story that says the author berated his audience for coming to a book reading and then told them the ending to teach them a lesson. How's that for the "Author's insights" - the butler did it now f*** off you jobless hobos.

But Adrisham beckons...and we all know Adrisham na milegi dubara....

Goal Maal S01E01

The unexamined goal is not worth scoring, said Socrates - the footballer, not the namesake philosopher who has said something similar about some far more unimportant thing called 'life'. Meh, life. I agree with Socrates theerfore this post (or as Descartes said, cogito ergo blogposto) which will hopefully be the first post in a series which has been titled Goal Maal sticking to the tradition of coming up with bonkers bad titles on this blog. Each post will look at one goal every week (too ambitious I know, make it every 50 days) and pretend to analyse the socks off it by using pseud words and giving section headings such as "A critique of the false nine". The goal will hopefully be the best one that week, and will mostly be from La Liga given that they score the world's most beautifullest bestest amazingest goals NOT. It will be anything I choose to write about, it might even be my mid-term goals from my company's 360 degree feedback process.

This week we take a look at Arteta's goal against West Brom last week. I have to admit Valencia's goal was cough...better..cough.. but I didn't watch the entire game and it could be that Valencia belted crosses all day before that random flukey one touch move clicked. I would be praising the goal falsely then, much like  modern football's number 9 and that is one thing I avoid. Commenting without watching the entire game, the pre game punditry, the post game punditry, the half time ads, the kasabian faaaair riiff - unthinkable to me!

You can watch the goal here so that you know what is it that I am talking about.

Verm to RVP: This is what we missed. A centre back who is not merely a huge chunk of flesh resembling a small bus made of flesh but also someone who can get forward and put intelligent passes. Vermaelen gets the ball, sees that  RVP has dropped back into midfield and makes a quick pass past a bewildered West Brom guy.

RVP's touch: Fack. This, for me, is the moment that brought about the goal. With one brilliant first touch RVP renders the West Brom defender pointless, who sulks for a while and leaves for the Himalayas to ponder the point of it all. Not only has RVP freed himself from his marker but now also has acres of space on the right . The clueless defender jogs back half-heartedly letting Arteta make a run forward.

RVP to Ros to RVP: RVP takes it on his left and slides it Rosicky who has asked for it on the right wing. Immediately RVP darts into the box and asks for the return pass. Pass. And move. Rosicky, graceful at his best, slides it back to RVP who has now turned his back to the goal and is ready to lay it off to any onrushing midfielders who might a fancy a goal or two. Note Theo's run taking two defenders away from the right of the goalmouth creating space for RVP to run into.

RVP to Arteta to Goal: RVP lays it up for Arteta who has jogged his way from midfield (spotting a disillusioned-with-life defender on the way) and places it perfectly into the goal. Arteta then celebrates by pinching some imaginary nipples. Perfect finishing to a flowing move. A bit like the Arsenal of the old. Could improve on the celebrations though.