Also, because I had plans in the evening and all the games were in the morning, there was no beer to watch the games with...and that makes me sad.
Now I did watch the MLS All-Star Game against Roma on Wednesday, but I'm not going to say much about that other than the fact the Michael Bradley was a boss, you can't just an all-star team full of great players on a poor performance (despite the fact that the Collin-Beslar pairing was weaker than expected considering they play with each other week in and week out), and thanks guys at MLSsoccer.com for answering my questions on the air. Roma won 3-1 in case you were wondering
I started with Emirates Cup match with Galatasaray vs FC Porto. Honestly it looked like Porto was going to have this game from the beginning, they were dominating the game for the entire first half and did a great job of limiting Drogba's looks. The second half was a completely different story. I don't know what happened at halftime but Head Coach Fatih Terim made some excellent adjustments, and his team started finding space (granted that may be on FC Porto for their halftime adjustments particularly at the half). Very rare you see a game with 3 PK's and only 1 is hit. Felipe Melo struck his well enough to give Galatasaray the 1-0 win. I don't know how much you can take away from a Friendly match, but Galatasary is usually in the Champions League picture and they have spent the money to keep up with the bigger European powers to some extent. Porto however may have just lost out on good opportunities that could have developed later in the game if they had stuck with a consistent line-up rather than trying out some players for depth-sake.
I got distracted in-between matches and missed a majority of the Napoli vs Arsenal match, but I do remember turning it on in about the 70th minute, seeing Arsenal down 2-0 and think it was over and I should just turn it off...then Giroud muscled his way into a bicycle kick that (thanks to a deflection off Sagna) found the back of the net. A few minutes later, they had leveled the match. Now Napoli had a great year in Serie A this past season, and I now its preseason, but how can you blow a lead like that. Especially bad for recent loanee Pepe Reina, giving up two late goal will make any fans forget the penalty you saved, cause all that says to them is "dang, we could've lost."
I turned on the Celtic vs Ross County game, but didn't see much as I received a long expected phone call that went on for a while, Celtic won 2-1
I also watch a little of the PSV Eindhoven vs ADO Den Haag game. 2 things, 1) the game was broadcast in Spanish which was a little bit of a culture shock, watching Dutch football in Spanish. 2) It was weird to watch the Dutch League after saying on the podcast last week that I wouldn't. I was glad to see ADO stick with them, and even give them a run for the money at the end, but PSV is a better team and come mid-season, they should dominate this match-up more than they did. PSV won 3-2, giving up a goal in stoppage time to make the score look closer that it was.
I missed all the Guinness International Champions Cup matches and the MLS matches (yes I am primarily an MLS fan). But what was good is my dad watched the Everton vs Real Madrid match. My dad is the one who got me playing and watching soccer as a kid and he hasn't watched it very much lately so it was really cool to talk with him about it. Even better, my girlfriend Jessi, who is currently in Europe (heading towards Barcelona actually) is experience how important the game is there and has stated that she is interested in following it when she gets home. No more feeling guilty for setting the alarm early on Saturdays to watch EPL games!
Looking forward to some more games this week!
Cheers
Andy
P4TP