Phil Ball Is A God Amongst Men

I was as ecstatic as any other La Furia fan on Sunday when we out played, out classed and beat the Italians in a less then aesthetically pleasing but still interesting game. As it was our first progression into the semifinals in some years, it seems that all the celebration is about ending the self inflicted curse then in making it into the latter stages of a major tournament. And while I feel that the game was there for the winning and the celebrations should be kept at a minimum to focus on a dangerous Russia, here are Phil Ball’s thoughts on the match.

And the highlight of the column was this little excerpt about the Italians extra man, Mr. Herbet Fandel, who was absolutely atrocious and should have been fired right there on the field for such a mockery.

But the Spanish are romantics, and prefer to indulge in beauty (or something approaching it) on the football pitch, given the relative messiness of their urban aesthetic. They would probably have imposed this philosophy before the penalty shoot-out if the appalling referee, Herbert Fandel, had possessed even the slightest notion of what constitutes a foul.

Seemingly obsessed by the notion that the Spanish are cheats, Fandel’s assumption that the blatant fouls on Villa and Silva in the first half were anything but made no sense, particularly since if he really thought as much surely he should have booked both of them.

Spain were trying to win. It was Italy who were cheating – constantly interrupting the Spanish flow; whenever a player went down, he looked up carefully to see if an attack was forming, then rolled back over again to force the Spaniards to kick the ball out of play.

It was a a very accurate assessment of the game in my opinion. The Italians offered little, but getting into the details of that is not my place, I could care less about Italian football so I am not a subject matter expert. Phil breaks down how they played, how bad the officiating was and the implications of the game and it seems silly to re-state him, but take the article as it is, a master piece if I have ever seen one.

As for some Real Madrid related news, I had a very good formation breakdown in the works that Wordpress decided not to autosave and then when I went to publish the damn thing it timed out on me. To say I was pissed is an under-statement, but I now have to try and replicate that piece that took me a few days to write. I am hoping to have it out by Thursday, but considering the Spain game is on Thursday, I may just hold off on that.

As for transfer gossip, there was the “revelation” today that Ramon Calderon will not pay 100 million for Cristiano Ronaldo! Wow, what a wise business decision Ramon, how many hours of number crunching with the boys and girls from the finance department did it take for you to figure that out? Considering our debt is somewhere around 2-300 million right now, it doesn’t seem a wise move, even though we are the richest club in the world, which is in part do to your good work. But its not rocket science to see that a. He is not better then Zidane, hence the price does not make sense and b. Is the juice worth the squeeze? Always remember that kids.

As I have said before, this Ronaldo saga will get old fast, and it already has. We still have two months before the window closes, so I dont forsee the issue being resolved unless Ronaldo says he wants to stay with ManU. Hopefully he says something concrete in the next few days so we can be done with this, because it is very tiresome. Thats all for today folks, not much goin on other then CRon, will try to have something constructive up by the end of the week. Hala Madrid!

Category: Team News

Tags: C-Ron, Phil Ball, Real Madrid, Team News

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