האנגליות באירופה

שוב קהאיל מציל את אברטון.
מדהים, זו ממש תופעה השחקן הנפלא הזה.
חזר מפציעה שנייה קשה אחרי כמעט שנה שלמה שלא שיחק באופן סדיר,
ומאז שחזר יש לו אם אני לא טועה ממוצע של שער למשחק.
שוב - הרביעייה ארטטה - קהאיל - ג'ונסון ויעקובו היא מהטובות באנגליה ללא ספק, הייתי לוקח בכיף כל אחד מהם ליונייטד.

 

בולטון נוסעת לקרואטיה עם הרכב סופר חסר,לא מבין את הצעד הזה כשהם עדיין לא הבטיחו עלייה לשלב הבא,כנראה שמגסון מעדיף להתרכז רק בליגה.

 

ארטטה ביונייטד, חלום רטוב http://www.asoccer.co.il/html/emoticons/rolleyes.Xxx

התכוונת לסרביה...
ולגבי ההרכב החסר, אני דווקא חושב שמגסון עושה צעד נכון במהותו. הליגה הרבה יותר חשובה לוונדרס מאירופה,אבל מגסון הגזים - בלי אנלקה ודייויס ההתקפה שלו חלשה.

 

ואלה שמותיהם:
Nicolas Anelka, Kevin Davies, Kevin Nolan, Andy O'Brien, Ricardo Gardner and Jussi Jaaskelainen

סעממק, הימרתי על תיקו.מילא זה, אבל בלי דיוויס?אפילו לא יהיה מעניין להתעדכן.
ועכשיו ברצינות - צעד לא מובן.מילא אתה שומר את אנלקה, אבל קווין נולאן נח ביום ראשון באנפילד בעקבות צבירת צהובים, מה הבעיה שישחק גם היום?דיוויס אני מבין, הוא שיחק גם בשבוע שעבר בריבוק מול לאריסה היוונית.ייסקליינן?שוב פעם?זה כבר טמטום.

 

אז בסוף בולטון אפילו עם ההרכב המאוד חסר שלה ניצחה בבלגרד 1-0 משער של מקאן.
נצחון שמקרב את בולטון צעד ענק אל עבר עלייה לשלב הבא.
הסיפור הגדול היה הבלאגן לפני המשחק והמעצר של מספר אוהדי בולטון.

 

אוסטרלים יודעים לחזור מפציעות קשות אה?

 

מאחד הפורומים של אוהדי יונייטד,יומן מסע למשחק החוץ נגד קייב לפני כמה שבועות,
זה ארוך,מאוד ארוך אבל למי שיש זמן וסבלנות,כדאי לקרוא איך זה לנסוע למשחק חוץ באירופה כמו שאנגלים יודעים:

Dynamo Kyiv away

Saturday 20th

So much to write about, but where do you start? The beginning I suppose.

Without going into detail, I’d like to say it went without a hitch but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. The day had been planned with military precision, however, thanks to some clumsy button pressing by Dave, snooze was missed and so he slept in…

Villa away – one of our favourite away games of the season and aside from not being let into the Cap n’ Gown, all went pretty much to plan. We met Aidan and Derek in the Square Peg in the centre of Birmingham and so the drinking began in earnest…

The journey homeward that evening was highlighted both by Derek, 20 miles out of his way, and the craziest taxi driver you’ve ever had the pleasure of riding with… £43, ouch. This seems to be a our weekend for mental cabbies and interesting taxi journeys, Mark having shared a taxi with The Specials’ own Terry Hall.

So then, the rugby (always going to happen), a curry and a bag-packing session later we left the others to their beds and pulled into Birmingham International at 2.00am tired and a bit worse for wear. Considering check-in wasn’t until 4.10am a quick snooze was in order.

Sunday 21st

The day started fighting our way through the fucking check-in queue (thank God we checked in on-line). To be honest, after our exploits at Villa, Dave looks rough and Liam isn’t far behind. We just kept telling ourselves that this was more down to sleep deprivation than anything else. At that moment, we both couldn’t wait to get to Warsaw and sleep. As if that was ever going to happen.

Flying, when you’re 6’7”, is the most uncomfortable thing you can ever do. So three hours of discomfort and interrupted sleep for Liam, a change in Amsterdam and a solidly sleeping Dave later, we bailed out of the plane and through passport control to baggage reclaim and the next thrilling installment of Big Liam And Dave Go International Taxiing, staring yet another barmy twat – this time he was Polish.

Let us paint you a picture: “Train station please” said we, “Ok” said he, “How much?” said we, “40 zloty (£8 )” said he, “Ok” said we. 120 km/h down inner-city streets with fucking Charles & Eddie blaring out of the stereo. Fucking wonderful.

There in one piece, we returned from lunch having booked our return train tickets to Kyiv at a strikingly cheap £80 return (nearly 2,500 mile round trip). We can heartily recommend Polish food, and even more strongly recommend Polish lager. The plan was for 30 minutes kip to kill the tiredness.

‘Funny’ moment: Dave pointing to a vintage 1920s stereo, only for Liam to exclaim “Christ, that’s about the only thing survived the war…”. Queue lots of laughter from the pair of us.

30 minutes kip turned into another 3 hours for the pair of us, and by the time we were showered and changed the pair of us had a raging thirst on, time for a beer. We were due to meet Shane and Stuey about 4 hours previous – oh well, it was time to play Liam’s favourite game: catch-up.

Monday 22nd

Oh my Good God, a top night on two fronts. When we arrived at the pub, we walked into 30ish Reds singing their bollocks off (no offence Voxra) and obviously fairly well lubricated, and Shane and Stuey had quickly explained that their day started with a kebab and a beer. Brilliant.

However, after the “disco train” passengers had departed, we found 10 or so expats from the USA and also Roman, an expat Red from London. What an absolutely top bloke. He taught Dave and Liam ‘Djinkwia’ (“Thank you”) and ‘Dva Peva Prosher’ (sp.) (“Two beers please”), as well as discussing the gridiron and explaining the finer points of the Polish political system – worthwhile considering we’d arrived on election day.

Note: Big Liam can name 34 of the 36 American Football teams. What a loser.

The fiery, overpowering chilli from the night before still felt fresh. The plan included a re-pack of the rucksack, a bit of sightseeing, some booze and a 19 hour train journey.

Quote of the morning: ‘I’m not in the most steadfast of pro-pint moods this morning… but give me half an hour…’ (Dave)

We did some major sightseeing that day. Warsaw seemed to be a city divided. The old juxtaposes the new, that is, if you can find the old. The city itself is as cosmopolitan as any Western European city, but we found that the city itself yearns for the historical context that it deserves.

We reckon we walked 5 miles and we’d seen some inspiring stuff. The Ogrod Saski Park was built pre-war and features statues and a magnificent fountain built by Marconi. However, the park is also home to ‘The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier’, a consistently army-manned memorial to those who died in Poland’s major conflicts; The Russian Revolution, Fist World War and Second World War. Awe inspiring.

The later part of the afternoon saw us kick up the culture a notch. Several pints in Warsaw’s Business District (the cheapest booze so far) and several more back in Jimmy Bradley’s had us in hysterics about some of the happenings. A friend, being lewd, had explained that small women were more trouble than they were worth, too much time spent dragging them back after “driving them up the headboard”.

Dave took a particular shine to the attractive Polish barmaid, alas; the curse of being attached meant plenty of looking (sorry Laura) and zero touching. This doesn’t apply however, to the aforementioned friend whose antics on Saturday night in the strip club had become legendary by Sunday.

Tuesday 23rd

That has been the most eventful 14 hours of the trip so far. After boarding the train in Warsaw at 21.35 we decided we’d get the playing cards and the vodka out. Nothing overly unusual we hear you say. Wrong. Our cabin is 6’6” by 5’ with three bunks inside. Not very comfortable.

Our room mate was a priest. He ‘introduced’ himself by removing al of his clothes down to a pair of spotty Y-fronts and a vest, not the most pleasant of sights at midnight on a Monday! Oh, and he snored, worse than any man, woman or child we’d ever heard. He sounded like a bunged up and annoyed grizzly bear (nice bloke though).

Anyway, despite the less than perfect circumstances, we soldiered our way through a bottle of vodka, 3 bars of chocolate and a bag of crisps whilst playing Shithead. Apparently this is also the game Rooney, Carrick, Ferdinand & Co. play en route to a match.

“It’s 3.30am and we’ve just hit the first Polish/Ukrainian border control. Dave’s out for the count and Liam has to provide both passports to a highly unamused Ukrainian soldier. Oh well, Que Sera Sera. Little do we know what’s about to happen. Two miles down the track we are boarded again by several soldiers who hand out immigration cards and order us to complete them. Meanwhile the train carriages are being pulled into a vast concrete bunker where they change the wheels (the track is narrower in the Ukraine). The soldiers return to check passports, stamp them and also to collect immigration cards – all goes swimmingly until they ask Dave for his card. In his vodka-induced state he hadn’t completed a card and so we spend the next two hours shitting ourselves and wanting nothing more than to sleep the damn Polish paint strip-, we mean vodka off. By the time all the clattering stops it’s 6.00am and we’re truly exhausted. Time for some sleep.

We finally dragged ourselves out of our bunks at 1.00pm, however, we found that there was nowhere else to go. Our cabin and the corridor was the extent of all our surroundings that was accessible. And for those of you who know Big Liam, it had been 15 hours since his last cigarette and he was getting a little antsy.”

Suffering from a severe case of cabin fever, you’d never seen two blokes disembark from a train so fast, even funnier when you think that one of us had a huge rucksack slung across his back. Kiev looks exactly as you’d expect it and on leaving the train station - we were greeted with the stereotypical, grey former Soviet state you see in films. Oh, and a line of taxis. Superb.

£20 later (we were robbed) we strolled into the Hotel Rus. We grabbed our match tickets, although we could have done a better job with a laser printer and felt-tip pen. After enquiring about a room with no luck we popped across the road to the President Hotel. After being ignored for 20 minutes we were told that there were no rooms at the inn. Considering we’d run out of options, Dave changed tack and pleaded homelessness and desperation. The girl behind the desk must have fancied Liam because 15 minutes later we were standing on our balcony overlooking Kyiv and looking into the NSC Olimpiyskiy. A sense of relief washed over us at that point, as did a red-hot shower which, trust us, we needed. Time for something to eat and a few beers before kick-off.

We found the bar to be full of Reds and we barged in on a table with two free seats. Jaz, Ian and the bloke whose name escaped us became our temporary drinking buddies and we shared some of the funnier moments of the trip so far. It’s times like this when there’s nothing better than being a Red.

Match Report

We strolled the three minutes to the ground – a trying exercise. We walked in without our tickets being checked once, and United kicked off full of hope.

Dave surprised himself by removing his coat. The ‘-15’ figures that had been quoted were far off the mark. Liam, however, continued to wear his ‘Russki’ hat with an LUHG sticker attached to the front. Brilliant.

United’s two early goals (10 and 18 minutes) made the game far from a contest and we were surprised that United conceded twice. We were on top for the whole match save a 20-minute period early in the second half. But the Reds had far too much class for the Ukrainians and an 8-2 scoreline would have probably summed the match up better.

It took us a while from our vantage point to decide that it was indeed John O’Shea at left –back, but when he contrived to blaze his shot over the bar towards the end of the first half, it had to be him. And why did van der Sar get taken off, and where was Evra (you have to remember that we were writing this without the help of western newspapers)?

We were impressed with Anderson. This guy will be a superstar in Dave’s eyes. Appreciated, the jury is still out for some Reds, but the young lad always seems to have time on the ball – a skill that is given to you, not learnt. Rio’s goal was Vidic-esque and to be honest it set us up for the rest of the game. The forwards moved around well up front and Fergie’s pre-season predictions are now starting to bear fruit. The only complaint we had is that we should have scored about fifteen or sixteen goals at Villa Park and the NSC Olimpiyskiy. Instead, we had to ‘make do’ with eight.

We were trying to work out whether it was United’s class or Kyiv’s ineptitude that contributed to the result, but anyone who knows Dave will know that he is less than positive when talking before matches, always concentrating on the opposition’s strengths rather than United’s. But this time we agreed that it was a mint United performance and the lads deserved the credit.

Wes Brown did so well when played through to create Rooney’s goal and Tevez worked like a Trojan up front. Ronaldo, we thought, was extremely effective but not in his usual flash way. He was efficient with everything he did and showed another side to his game – the odd stepover but he did everything to maximise effect for United on the whole. Class.

Liam had to pick himself up after the first and third goals – he actually tripped over his own jaw after seeing two (yes, two) “Giggs beats first man” shockers in one game. We also think that he left his wank book of corners in Manchester too.

We ended up watching the match with Kerry and his mate from high up in our section. We probably had the use of about 50 seats between the four of us and didn’t see any trouble from either the locals or the police – always nice to return home without bruises. A great European result. To go anywhere and score four (it still should have been eight) is immense, but to take a trip behind the former Iron Curtain and do that is the business. Well played lads.

Post match analysis involved being held inside the ground for 30 minutes outside for another 20 minutes. We met up with Vadim (Moscow333 for those that use the forum). When we finally got back to the hotel, the bar quickly filled, and somewhat inevitably, the prostitutes began milling around and several Reds made use of the services being made readily available - $200 for an hour were the prices being touted.

Eventually we drank the bar dry, (no - really) and the only option was to retire. Vadim's flight was at 7.00am so he crashed out on one of the chairs in our room after a half-hour dosage of Ukrainian porn.

Wednesday 24th

9.00am rolled around and there was no sign of Vadim, and even more worryingly neither of us heard his alarm, or him leave. To be fair to both of us, we’ve never been so glad for six hours’ sleep in a proper bed. One night in Birmingham Airport, one night in a cheap hostel and one very ‘priest-disturbed’ night on a train had led to tiredness and a certain degree of irritability, not towards each other but definitely Ukrainian hoteliers with a ‘customer is invisible’ policy.

Breakfast – what a Brucey Bonus. We both ate heavily. Ukrainian women, especially the young ones, are possibly the most beautiful in Europe and this seems to be highlighted by waiting-on staff. Dave’s exclamations have been a focal point of the trip and when he cried out “Sweet Mother of the Lord Jesus Christ on High”, we don’t think either of us knew if it was the food or the waitress…

Seriously, the ‘crazy cabbie’ joke may be getting a little tiresome but we thought we had attracted the biggest lunatic within a 10-mile radius on the way to the railway station. This time he was enjoying the musical noise that was 1930s American easy-listening. The problem lay in the fact that the volume dial was fixed on 11. Furthermore, he seemed to love the sound of his own horn and proceeded to press it as he drove. ‘Nosing’ your way into traffic is a trick perfected by taxi drivers the world over, but this fruit loop took it to new levels screaming across junctions and rising up the curbs just inches from passing pedestrians’ toes.

At the station, alive, just, we decided to get some supplies in. 6 beers each, 2 sausage rolls, 2 Snickers, 2 litres of water and 400 fags: A startling £12.00. Outstanding. And to top it all off, no fucking priest, just the two of us in the cabin.

Having the sleeper cabin to yourself makes the journey far more pleasant. We’d been on the train for nearly eleven hours and had played cards and the naming game for the whole time with a few beers.

“The customs officials are on the train now and once again, we’ve gone through border control at the same time as having our wheels changed to fit the Polish tracks. These customs guys are a very intimidating bunch and, what’s more, our passports have disappeared off the train with them. As Dave keeps reassuring, it’s probably the norm here, but Liam is not comfortable with the situation. Both times through this patrol have proved to be eventful now, let’s just hope we are on our way, passports in hand, at the earliest opportunity.”

While they were changing the wheels, Liam went for a cigarette and a couple of minutes later, Dave joined him. We got chatting to a half-Polish, half-Russian guy about the football. Turned out he was a football agent and ran a football management company. We decided to pry a bit further into his work. Unbelievably, he turned out to be Tomasz Kuzsczak’s former agent along with that of Artur Boruc. Our conversation of 20 or so minutes was cut short by a phone call from a player from Austria Vienna. Seriously, it’s amazing who you meet when you take the scenic route.

We don’t really know what happened at Ukrainian border control but the guard of our train entered our room looking very flustered, agitated and a little scared. We think that Dave’s lack of immigration card caused a bit of a ruckus. Customs stuck their head around the door too but to be honest we could have been smuggling a small hoard of Colombian drug dealers and a Philippine family to make cheap leather goods and we’re fairly certain the clueless customs officials wouldn’t have had a clue.

“Oi – UKRAINE!! Wake up and smell the fucking roses! Three hours at your border with fifteen people checking passports. Three blokes on the Polish border with a computer terminal each – ten minutes…….”

Thursday 25th

After getting off the train at Warszawa Centralna at 6.00am, we were greeted by Shane and Stuey who sounded and looked like they hadn’t slept. After listening to them they hadn’t. Instead, they’d been kept up all night by Polish customs officials noisily and systematically tearing their carriage to pieces! Apparently, some Ukrainian delinquents had tried to smuggle several black bags full of booze, cigarettes and God knows what else in the lining and trap-doors of the train itself. Nutty fuckers, we felt a bit guilty for making the joke about the Colombian drug cartel hiding in Liam’s left Caterpillar boot. Oh well….

Guess what? We finally took a taxi on this epic voyage without nearly dying or being subjected to tinnitus-inducing 80s power ballads, thank fuck.

The airport itself passed without incident really, except for the most welcome full English that two lads had ever eaten and yet more trouble with passport control. Dave had either been black-marked after the immigration card incident in the Ukraine, looked like a well-known (ginger) international terrorist or the huge red Soviet star and communist country on his t-shirt was attracting unwanted attention.

Liam was convinced that it was the first and last of those things. Anyway, whatever the issue, passport control at Warsaw airport had to make a phone call and quadruple check his passport before they stamped it and let him through. Two hours to Amsterdam and the first two legs of our four-legged homeward journey were complete.

Brilliant. Just our luck. KLM offer free drinks on all European flights, so therefore we came off the flight a couple of pints to the good. Shame we didn’t realise earlier – Liam was definitely flagging somewhat so no beer for him at Schipol, especially as he had to drive from Birmingham to Manchester.

The rest of the journey passed without too much incident, and we rolled into Manchester at about 9.00pm. We’d been on four 2-hour plane journeys, four taxi rides, two 18 hour train journeys and travelled almost 4,000 miles to watch a team in Red play 90 minutes of football.

Again? Too fucking right.

 

הגרלה רצחנית ליונייטד, ליברפול וארסנל, אבל כמובן שהתחת של אברם עובד שעות נוספות.שעות נוספות?זה 24 7, כמה מזל יש לבנאדם אחד אני שואל.
עוד מעט גם ההגרלה של אופ"א, שיהיה בהצלחה לאברטון, טוטנהאם וכמובן לוונדררז, חבל שהפועל לא העפילה, רק בשביל הסיכוי הנמוך שג'ונסון וארטטה יגיעו לארץ.

 

אני בטוח שיונייטד,אינטר וארסנל ינצחו במפגשים הנ"ל. לגבי צ'לסי, הכל פתוח.

 

איזה שטויות. ליון זו הגרלה רצחנית?

אולימפיאקוס נתנו בשלב הבתים כמה משחקים או יותר נכון כמה חלקי משחקים אדירים שאם הם יצליחו לתת גם מול צ'לסי - הם יכולים בהחלט לאיים על העלייה של התחת.

 

רצחנית - כי זו ההגרלה הקשה ביותר שעמדה בפנינו קירקי.

 

גם מכבי קריית גת יכולה לאיים על העלייה של "התחת".

 

ליון-מנצ'סטר יונייטד זה חתיכת משחק.
2 קבוצות שמשחקות כדורגל יפה, משוחרר, ומרבות לכבוש. היונייטד קבוצה יותר איכותית מהצרפתים, והחוד שלה יותר קטלני, ולדעתי היא גם תעלה.

 

אני לא כל כך בטוח שאינטר תעבור את ליברפול, אחרי הכל זה מפגש כפול וקשה מאוד לעבור את ליברפול במפגש מהסוג הזה. לגבי מנצ'סטר יונייטד הם אמנם קיבלו את ההגרלה הכי פחות נוחה מהאפשרויות שהיו לה אבל היא אמורה לעבור לשלב הבא ביחד עם צ'לסי. במפגש של מילאן-ארסנל הכל יכול להיות, צפוי להיות מרתק.

 

בולטון קיבלה את ההגרלה הכי קשה לטעמי שיכלה לקבל, אתלטיקו מדריד.
לעומת זאת, אברטון וטוטנהאם עם הגרלות קלות יחסית. לדעתי הראשונה תגיע רחוק מאוד במפעל, ותתפלאו - אפילו זכיה.