Chelsea & Manchester City lose in the latest round of UEFA Champions League

To the average football fan, there's nothing more enjoyable to witness "trophy Buying" teams fail in major competitions!

Of course this does not happen very often & in most instances money brings better quality players & wins trophies.

nevertheless, in defeats by the highly expensively put together trio of Real Madrid, Manchester City & Chelsea brought lots of smiles to fans around the world, especially in case of the English teams:

Manchester City, simply because they are attempting & o far failing miserably to buy trophies. And Chelsea because they did eventually buy themselves the CL trophy last year with their anti football brand of tactics, for introducing questionable billion dollar amounts into the game, AND for playing awful in their defeat vs a brilliant Shaktar Donetsk.

Amazingly, Chelsea at 2-0 down were so badly under siege by Shaktar that it almost felt as though Shaktar were behind 0-1 & time was running out!

So, for the sake of the beautiful game, let's hope both Chelsea & Manchester City get eliminated in the group stage this year & their expensively assembled squads cost them a fortune with little return!

But half way through the group stage, here are the main points:

This year, the first knockout phase is going to be one of the most difficult in the recent history of the tournament. The likes of Dortmund, Schalke, Malaga, Porto, PSG, Shaktar, Valencia, Bate & even Ajax are all playing very well & would be a real threat to any of the favourites in most bigger teams in the knock out stages.

Here are my thoughts half way through the group stage:

Barcelona & Real Madrid are once again the favourites
Bayern provide the stiffest threat to Real & Barcelona
Malaga, Schalke & Dortmund have been simply superb
Manchester United are having major defensive issues which if not addressed will see them eliminated in the knock out stages by any of the above teams
English teams are once again under performing although both Arsenal & Chelsea should qualify for the knock out stage
Italian Teams & Serie A are in a steep decline & even Juventus won't go to far this year
German & Spanish teams are so far the dominant forces of this year's CL

Nevertheless, as this most exciting competition proves year after year, these are early days, forms can fluctuate AND luck can play its part ! Just ask Chelsea how they won last year's CL!

Bitter? Me? No way! :)

Champions League semi finals: Will Mourinho finally win against Barcelona? Will Schalke surprise Manchester United too?

The quarter finals are over & as it has become a tradition, all encounters produced exciting & high scoring encounters. Whilst in most pundits' view, Barcelona with Messi & co were once again in another class, the humiliation handed down to Inter Milan by Germany's Schalke led by the Champions League legend Raul & possibly currently the best keeper in the world Neuer was undoubtedly the one of the greatest shocks in the CL history. Inter Milan have been a pale shade of the team that won in Madrid in May 2010 & were very lucky to get to the QF anyway. Nevertheless, no one could have ever predicted an aggregate 7-3 double loss elimination by erratic yet potent Schalke, whose players seem to be once again enjoying their football after the sacking of much criticised Magath.

I predicted 3 out of 4 overall results right. I still believe this Manchester United side is not as good as the teams that reached the final in the last few years & expected Chelsea to beat them.

As for the semi final pairings, both are very hard to predict! In case of Real & Barcelona, this is due to multiple matches the clubs will have to play each other in the coming weeks. Barcelona under the magnificent coaching of Guardiola & the irresistible magical displays of Messi, Iniesta, Xavi, Villa & co have beaten Real Madrid 5 times so far including a 5-0 in La Liga earlier this year. Real & Barcelona will however meet twice in CL semi finals as well as in La Liga & the Spanish Cup in the coming weeks. It will be a chess game between two master tacticians & interesting to watch. Both Mourinho & Guardiola would rather win the CL semi final matches & lose the other two.

with regards to the other semi final pairing of Manchester United vs Schalke, as I said in my last post about Schalke, they may be underdogs but on their day have the players & the finesse to beat anyone, and with their coaching issues resolved, they may even dispose of Manchester United, although United are a much more formidable opponent than Inter Milan ever was.

So, here's my prediction for the final: Barcelona vs Schalke

(although my head tells me Manchester United will be there in the final!)

Are other big club Managers jealous of Perez and Real? Will Real's strategy of shuting other big teams out of the transfer market work?

Question: Are the likes of Berlusconi (Milan), Beckenbauer (Bayern), Ferguson (Manchester Utd, Wenger (Arsenal) and Laporta (Barcelona) simply jealous of Perez and Real, or do they have a an important point to make in their criticism of Perez and his outlandish spending this season?

Question: In practical terms, is Perez doing anything different to what Abramovich has attempted to do at Chelsea, or the Arab owners of Manchester City are doing?

Question: Hasn't the practice of assembling the world best players in teh one club been attempted by other clubs as far back as mid 70s (eg Barcelona buying Cruyff and Neeskens in the 70s, and Maradona and many others in the 80s?, or Milan with their Dutch trio and other stars last decade?)

Question: Is all the commotion anything but professional jealousy?

The answer to the above questions is Yes & No!

Yes, this has been attempted many times before, most recently in case of Real in the early 200s with the Galacticos, Chelsea and Manchester City. But whilst professional jealousy certainly plays a part, it is not the only reason many people are worried about the reckless behaviour Perez and Real's Board.

Of course, every coach, and most fans would love to have the likes of Benzema, Kaka and Ronaldo playing for their team. But that is where the extent of the professional jealousy stops.

Perez is guilty of:
- Taking the "working man's game" to its ultimate breaking point
- If unsuccessful in "Buying" trophies, will once again take Real Madrid to the brink of bankruptcy
- Potentially shifting a huge amount of TV/Merchandising money from other leagues to Real, and starving smaller leagues even more than before of essential funds

What is the fun of watching football when a team "buys" its way to glory? How different is is it to match fixing in practical terms? How competitive are things when even Sir Alex Ferguson admits that Perez and his high spending strategy has made it difficult for the likes of Manchester Utd to stay competitive in the transfer market this season?

But football is a funny game, and coaches like Ferguson are clever tacticians! They will get more out of their players and will beat Real with fewer resources but more discipline.

I predict Real's success rate, considering the huge capital outlay, will in relative terms be no more than Abramovich's Chelsea have achieved so far. When/if my prediction comes true, Perez will go down in history as a typical Spanish "Madman" Club President.

The unfortunate thing is however, that he might take the Club and even the beautiful game down with him! Let's hope the game is stronger than money and the mad businessmen wasting it!

Money may win Real Madrid a few trophies, but it won't buy them lasting glory!

Real Madrid and their newly elected President Florentino Perez are once again making a mockery out of the "World game" by attempting to buy themselves glory.

Real under Perez's leadership did the same thing a few years ago with the now famous "Galacticos" policy. Perez went shopping and bought amongst many others, Figo, Zidane, Beckham and Owen at ridiculous fees to bring back the glory days to Madrid. They won the Premiera League a few times and a CL trophy (or perhaps two depending on how the time period of his presidency is looked at.....and then they started to believe Real had actually organically made it all happen and guess what happened next?

They started to fade away after the 2002 CL win, Perez lost his position, and they have been rather ordinary every since, blaming coach after coach for their failure to plan for the future and develop youngsters through the ranks.

Now Perez has once again been elected with the promise to "buy" Real's way back into the history books at any cost and in a totally shameless fashion. And as the nature of Club Presidency in Spain dictates, Perez has to be flashier and more outrageous this time. So, he's paid more than 200m Euros for Ronaldo and Kaka, both of whom will reportedly earn more than 300 thousand euros a week after tax.

In doing so, Perez hopes to get enough time to "buy" a few trophies for Real, before his ego once again clashes with the Board's collective egos, the coach gets blamed, and Ronaldo starts throwing his usual narcissistic tantrums!

You might challenge me by asking the same question about other rich European clubs. Chelsea and their appearing overnight "funny Money divided between so few Putin supporters" Russian money aside, who have as yet failed to buy their European glory (thanks to John Terry slipping on the ball in last year's CL Final), most other big European clubs such as AC Milan, Barcelona, Manchester United, Liverpool, Juventus and Bayern all try to buy the best players in their desperate attempts to get their hands on the CL trophy.

That is a fair comment. However, none go crazy like Perez and Real do, and all try their hands on developing some of their young talent as well. Take Barcelona and its Youth Academy or Manchester United and Sir Alex for instance. Love him or loath him(and I belong to the later group) Sir Alex has an uncanny ability to nurture young talent into his first team (endless list of Neville brothers, Beckham, Giggs, Ronaldo, Butt etc) as well as letting restless players leave. Even the self serving, self promoting Berlusconi at AC Milan never behaved as shamelessly as Perez is at Real.

At the end of it all, Perez is simply taking the Beautiful game further and further towards disaster whilst trying to buy his way into glory of the history books.
In years to come, rest assured Real fans, and football fans worldwide will remember the expensive players who won Real the trophies. But Perez will be judged as one of the architects of "prostituting the passion of the beautiful game in order to buy himself glory"