FA Cup shocks galore, the start of the Asian Club Championship and turmoil at Inter all feature on this week’s good, the bad and the ugly.A
The Good
Who said the FA Cup has lost its romance? Certainly not fans of Manchester United, Chelsea and Middlesbrough who were all dumped out of the quarter finals of the FA Cup by lower-placed teams. Chelsea’s defeat at the hands of Barnsley was particularly special and the pressure is now on Blues coach Avram Grant.The AFC Championship has started and Japanese champions demolish Thai side Krug Bank 9-1 while Australian sides also perform well. But not as well as Fernando Torres who continues his amazing scoring run to send Liverpool through to the Champions League quarter finals.The Bad
Everton and Tottenham continue the unwanted tradition of English teams poor record in penalty shoot-outs by losing in the UEFA Cup last 16. But at least they both won the game in regular time something which Manchester City, West Ham and Newcastle are all struggling to do at the moment as they are in free fall and cannot buy a goal.What is going on at Inter? Stuttering in the Italian League, out of the Champions League and then Roberto Mancini their manager resigns but then decides to stay after all. It was also bad for another high-profile manager in Sir Alex Ferguson as he was charged by the FA for his rant against the referee’s boss Keith Hackett after their home defeat to Portsmouth. However, things are really bad for Scottish Premier league side Gretna as they face going out of existence if they cannot find A£30.000 by Thursday.The Ugly
Joey Barton was in court this week after the affray charge at Christmas but he has a long way to go before reaching the ‘heights’ of the game in Colombia between America and Deportivo Cali which turned into a full scale riot, with fans, players and managersA all fighting each other.
Welcome to the website that helps students interested in football improve their English language skills. Football fans can practise with lots of free language resources, including football-language podcasts and our huge football-language glossary.
Roma-Fenerbahce final anyone?
As a Liverpool fan, I’m not over the moon about drawing another English team – Chelsea would have been OK, but Arsenal will be difficult. But to be Champions of Europe you have to beat the best and after the leaders of Serie A it’s the leaders of the Premier league for Liverpool.
Final – Liverpool vs Barcelona
So what do we make of the CL draw then? I’m going for a Barca-Chelsea final…