The. Perfect. Weekend. No I didn't have my usual dose of yacht parties and celebrity hook-up, and neither did my 3 fav teams register stunning victories.... BUT... I had Neo Sport and Ten Action (and a step son in ESPN for the fillers) on non stop rotation as I raked up Roma-Catania, Madrid-Mallorca, Valencia-Sociedad, Feyenoord-Twente, Atletico-Villarreal, Juve-Cagliari, Fiorentina-Lecce, Arsenal-Swansea, AC-Inter, and Barca-Betis in a grand total of 9 and 3/4 matches (Roma abandoned last 25min) who da man. but obviously in the process I also lost my job, a cornea, two vertebrae, a girlfriend, 11 pieces of chips down the unreachable recesses of the sofa, and 20 hours of my life. The. Perfect. Weekend.
Formations wise, nice to see a MF Diamond in Milan though they were all talentless buffoons who alternately spat on my MF Diamond obsession and peed on its grave after murdering it. A 3-4-3 at Roma that should not have worked but did, and one at Barca that should have worked but didn't. 4-3-3's galore and Rijkaard must be smiling gleefully at the way it has destroyed any other feasible formation trying to play against it. Arsenal show they laugh in the face of formations, and "dignity", while Villarreal form up in the face of laughter. Feyenoord-Twente could have been playing lacrosse for all I understood....except that Steve Mclaren hasn't ruined Twente, and LPool target for Suarez - Luuk De Jong luuks de bomb.
Things to watch out for if you know a few cents more than EPL - Atletico and Diego flying high, best atmosphere I've seen in Calderon all season tells me their fans know it too. Juve fans must be peeved at the way he's turned out so well after leaving. But their MF is no less talented now with Vidal and Marchisio playing around Pirlo nicely but less than effectively. Earlier in the season, I was quite impressed with Vidal's workrate, creative reverse passes and 1 touch play, which hasn't really changed now yet I wonder if his positional indiscipline prevents Juve from seeing the best of Marchisio. Despite all the people calling for his head, I continue to be a staunch fan, as long as he's given freedom to play trequartista. His touches while in the hole behind Matri and Vucinic yesterday were beautiful, and his interplay with Vidal is too, check out the goal build up. But the minute Vidal started bursting into the box consistently, Marchisio dropped back alongside Pirlo (who had a woefully bad game...) and looked quite unspectacular, very reminiscent of Gago in Madrid.
Vucinic on the other hand, despite all the rave reviews, continues to find a staunch foe in me. He would do extremely well in EPL and for some reason reminds me a lot of Berbatov, the very little I've seen of the latter. Watch out for Pirlo getting dumped off the first XI (quite painful for a big Pirlo fan for me to say), and Barzagli stamping his authority on Azzurri at the Euro, though I still think he was at fault for the goal, but he's fast, positionally brilliant, solid and unforgiving (professional foul on Cossu clean through - haha I love it!), and looks really nice... I really need to know what hair gel he uses....
Roma still making me shake my head with Simplicio in central MF a real travesty to the position Aquilani and Pizarro made their own. Just when Osvaldo was starting to look good, he's out and Lamela looks quite lame instead. Krkic fumbled around harmlessly, while Pjanic fought with Rosi and Taddei each wondering where the F*** each was supposed to play. So yet another Roma fail if it wasn't for De Rossi's rescue equalizer. God help them if he leaves.
Speaking of god's help, Villarreal are officially written off. I've finally seen Cani have a genuinely poor game (and not just an invisible one), while Borja had an invisible one. De Guzman useless as ever. But a bright spot in Hernan Perez stepping up on the right flank. Atletico on the other hand are godkissed for sure, not only is Diego looking unstoppable, but even godforsaken duck Tiago looked ominous!! Deadly games for Juanfran and Gabi, on the evidence of this season I'm unthinkably thinking the former should bump Ramos off the Spain RB at the Euro.
I'll leave the Arsenal match to our freshly returned-to-corposluttery P.Henry while I reserve the RM, Barca, and Valencia matches for another post on a day I don't have the prospect of a nice Gangtok moon night-walk hanging on my head like the soft yet well behaved tresses of Barzagli's hair...
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