TOP 100 SOCCER SITES
| |||
|
| |||
| |||
|
| |||
| Manchester United defensive boost with return of Rio Ferdinand and Jonny Evans Sir Alex Ferguson expects Rio Ferdinand and Jonny Evans to return to action early in the new year. telegraph.co.uk |
Southampton 1 Luton 0: match report Rickie Lambert secured Southampton's safe passage into the Fourth Round with an exquisite free kick. telegraph.co.uk |
Football Weekly Extra: Rock bottom for Rafa In this week's Football Weekly ... Extra James is joined by Sean Ingle, Barry Glendenning and Rob Smyth to discuss the week's football news.Liverpool's train-wreck of a season took yet another turn for the worse when the hapless Merseysiders werere dumped out of the FA Cup by managerless Reading. They were out-thought as well as out-fought by the Royals and the pod wonder when Rafa will finally be shown the door.Further afield, Jonathan Wilson is on the phone from Angola with an Africa Cup of Nations round-up, as he looks forward to the tomorrow's big Ghana v Ivory Coast game.The pod also reveal the true horror behind the Glazer's dealings at Man Utd with a little help from proper journalist David Conn, who explains where the Ronaldo money has gone and why Sir Alex Ferguson won't be getting his hands on it.There's a preview of the weekend's games and a run through the rest of the recent Premier League stories: Sol Campell's return to Arsenal, Brian Laws shock appointment at Burnley and John Terry's latest trumpet solo.Leave messages for us below or find us on Facebook and Twitter.James RichardsonPeter Sale guardian.co.uk |
Eintracht Frankfurt enter 'taboo zone' By achieving results much better than the quality of his squad warrants, Michael Skibbe's ambitious outlook has been validatedOn one side there was one of the Bundesliga's most reliably boring clubs, a perennial mid-table side with a perennially middling squad. Never good enough to be really good, mostly not bad enough to be really bad, not even grey enough to belong to the pack of "grey mice" (unfashionable teams) in the league, they are German football middle-class incarnate. They used to be known as "the Diva" once upon a time. They had some success, swagger and style. But eventually, they tired of all the ups and downs. All the thrills were traded in for financial stability and a life more ordinary.They haven't won anything since 1988. They haven't employed a truly exciting player since 1996 (Oliver Kahn knows his name). They have hardly mattered at all in the last decade.This winter, while most clubs were busy recruiting new players and recharging their batteries in the sun, they came close to falling apart because of internal strife. "This club can't develop. With this team, progress is not possible," said their frustrated manager after a training camp in Turkey last week. Once again, the board had refused to buy the players he wanted. The chairman said he was annoyed by the coach's repeated public outbursts and threatened consequences. As a couple, their prospects looked more Elizabeth Taylor and husband No3 than Ernie and Bert.To make matters worse, they met one of the best and best-loved teams of the Bundesliga on Saturday. Packed with some incredibly gifted players and internationals, unbeaten throughout most of the season so far, most of the time spectacular going forward, real title contenders.Lo and behold, the messy, hard-fought match in the Commerzbank-Arena finished 1-0 to the less than illustrious hosts, thanks to a deflected shot. These surprises do happen, of course, especially at the beginning of the season. After all, Frankfurt also somehow managed to beat Werder on Matchday 1, after which the northerners didn't lose for 23 games. What did come as a total shock to most observers, however, was a look at the table afterwards. After 18 matches played, Frankfurt are in seventh, only one point behind Werder Bremen. The position is so incredulous, it really belongs in the Kama Sutra."How does the saying go? The table doesn't lie, does it?" said a very satisfied Michael Skibbe. Rudi Völler's former assistant at the national team used to be one of the league's most demure and unobtrusive coaches. But since taking the Eintracht job, he's reinvented himself as a success-hungry man who simply won't settle for mediocrity. For months, the Frankfurt newspapers wondered about his aggressive stance, some even accused him of an inflated ego and delusions. "His statements made Frankfurt appear very small and himself very big. The man is an enigma," wrote Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The consensus was that taking on Heribert Bruchhagen, the conservatively-minded man in charge, was foolhardy going on bonkers.Bruchhagen, true to himself, was immediately very offended when reporters asked him about making it into the Europa League in the wake of the Bremen win. "You can't ask me this question, this question is out of order," the chairman barked. "This is madness." "Frankfurt are glancing at the taboo zone," joked Frankfurter Rundschau.It really isn't easy to explain their fantastic set of results, especially in the light of bad injury problems. Main striker Ioannis Amanatidis and Czech attacker Martin Fenin have missed most of the season. On Saturday, Skibbe singled out his two central defenders, the Brazilian Chris ("he was the rook in the battle") and the goalscorer Marco Russ ("one of the best technical players"), but it was really another excellent team effort. "We worked hard on closing down space in Turkey and did that every well today," explained Christoph Spycher.Frankfurt will be hard pressed to continue their fantastic run, Skibbe knows as much. But by achieving results that are much better than the quality of the squad should warrant, his ambitious outlook has been validated. Dismissed as an uncharismatic underachiever when he succeeded Friedhelm Funkel in June, the 44-year-old has turned up with a point to proof and upset the Ebbelwoi-cart. Bruchhagen, a man who was perfectly comfortable with Eintracht going nowhere silently, got much more than he bargained for. Eventually, he might come to see that as a good thing.Talking points• Leverkusen were quite brilliant and beat Mainz 05 much more comfortably than the 4-2 result suggested. Bayer remain top of the league and unbeaten. On-loan midfield maestro Toni Kroos seems more and more reluctant to come back to Bayern in the summer. Is he now nailed on for the World Cup? We'll know more by Easter (thanks to spargelhorz).• Kroos' old club beat Hoffenheim 2-0 on Friday night, thanks to goals from MartĂn Demichelis and Miroslav Klose. It wasn't quite the horror show the Bavarians envisaged – "We want to make our rivals a little fearful," Louis van Gaal had said before the match – but scary enough in terms of efficiency. "A few months ago, we would have lost that match," said Mario GĂłmez after a forgettable first-half performance and decent second part. Bayern, incidentally, agreed to pay €1,000 (ÂŁ880) to a woman who offers very specific services online. Anette Pfeiffer-Klärle, who posts what can loosely described as poems on the internet, saw one of her – frankly terrible – rhymes ripped off by MC Karl-Heinz Rummenigge at the club's annual meeting a few weeks ago and has now successfully claimed compensation.• The Ruhrpott renaissance continues unabated with victories for Schalke (1-0 over NĂĽrnberg) and Dortmund's last-minute roller-coaster 3-2 away win at Cologne – Borussia conceded two late goals to lose their 2-0 half-time lead (a brace from Mats Hummels) before hitting back in injury-time. Kevin Grosskreutz's shot took a wicked deflection. A propos bad haircuts, Felix Magath revealed that he had been happy to sell Schalke's Kevin Kurányi to Sunderland; the deal fell through because the former Germany striker refused to go. The Borussia coach JĂĽrgen Klopp, meanwhile, is in trouble with the authorities. After being sent to the stand by the referee, Klopp celebrated his side's winner with a manic run along and over the barrier. Imagine JosĂ© Mourinho's 2-1 win with Porto, crossed with Arsène Wenger at Old Trafford in December 2008, and you're halfway there.• Finally, any ideas why this little effort from Christian Tiffert in Duisburg's 5-0 demolition of FSV Frankfurt in Bundesliga 2 should be considered "the new Wembley goal" (Bild) in Germany? If anything, 1966 was surely more clear-cut.Results: Bayern 2–0 Hoffenheim, Hamburg 2–0 Freiburg, Hannover 0–3 Hertha, Frankfurt 1–0 Bremen, Gladbach 1–2 Bochum, Leverkusen 4-2 Mainz, Stuttgart 3–1 Wolfsburg, Schalke 1–0 NĂĽrnberg, Köln 2–3 Dortmund.Latest Bundesliga tableBundesligaEintracht FrankfurtEuropean footballRaphael Honigsteinguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
U.S. Soccer Player Is National Hero (in Honduras) With Jonathan Bornstein’s goal, the U.S. tied Costa Rica and set off celebrations in Honduras. feeds.nytimes.com |