Barring some unimaginable catastrophe, Spurs and Swansea will be joining Wigan in the group stage of the Europa League.
Dinamo Tblisi 0-5 Tottenahm
Swansea 5-1 Petrolul Ploiesti
Watching UEFA Dinamo Zagreb v. Austria Vienna. Brutally ugly.
Barring some unimaginable catastrophe, Spurs and Swansea will be joining Wigan in the group stage of the Europa League.
Dinamo Tblisi 0-5 Tottenahm
Swansea 5-1 Petrolul Ploiesti
Arsenal starting now. Fenerbache is an unknown to me.
Fener is one of the largest clubs in Turkey and maintains a heated rivalry with Galatasaray...and to a lesser extent with Besiktas. I have a friend from Istanbul that is as passionately Yellow Canary as anyone for any team I've ever met. Because of him and Dirk (AND because I'm beyond sick of Arsenal) I was definitely hoping they would get a result, but unfortunately it was pretty ugly. Fener looked terrible. Raul Meireles in particular disappointed and Kuyt looked his age. Too bad.
As an aside, Fenerbahce organized an interesting anti-hooliganism move a couple years ago by banning all men from the stadium. Only women/children were allowed in:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/14998237
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1norC4txlTc
Not criticizing, but why the animosity towards my Gunners? Anything in particular? (I think you follow the Reds if I remember previous posts...) I'm sick of them too, but only over their transfer inactivity under Wenger. Enough of throwing the proverbial spaghetti against the transfer "wall" and seeing what sticks.
I'm just a little sick of the press...which isn't overly fair to you all, I know. The stagnation surrounding the club is a little annoying to me (as a Liverpool fan) because you all have such a tremendous advantage over us and Spurs in terms of matchday revenue...and for whatever reason Wenger has decided that he's above spending real money to try and turn Arsenal into a genuine league title contender. I refuse to believe that he would take all the abuse he is if the owners were being dishonest about their willingness to free up funds. He had to know that 40.000001 million pounds was going to be thrown aside by Liverpool and the half-attempts at Higuain and Rooney were nothing but just that...half attempts. Excuses for inactivity.
There used to be a saying "1-0 to the Arsenal" that poked fun at how boring Arsenal was to watch because of their ultra-defensive, reactive tactics. Well, Wenger changed that but has now replaced it with an entirely new and altogether worse sort of boring.
Your analysis is spot on. You sound like a Gooner! . We're tired of inactivity, or worse, being a farm team for the teams willing to spend for our players...RVP, Cesc, Nasri (still a jerk though)... And when we spend on established players (not babies), they don't work out...geesh.
Arsenal seem to have bounced back nicely. Up 2-0 on Fulham at half.
As far as "proper" soccer derbies go...meaning true soccer derbies where both clubs actually play in the same city (i.e. NOT Barca/Madrid, Liverpool/United, etc) I think you'd have to say in no particular order it's:
Celtic/Rangers
Boca/River
Fenerbahce/Galatasaray
I admittedly don't know as much about Fla-Flu, anything in Sao Paolo, or Nacional/Peņarol, but I imagine some devoted fans of those clubs would take exception with my list above. My perception of Inter/Milan is that because (a) they both use the same stadium and (b) the existence of Juve in North Italy (thus creating more of a North Italian derby) that il Derby della Madonnina is not quite all that it could be. But, again, I imagine some Milanese would disagree vehemently.
Benfica/Sporting, Ajax/Feyenoord...Cases can be made for many which is why the sport so great!
YNWA,
...JG
Tough day for Altidore, I thought Sunderland was going to hang on for the win. Entertaining finish though.
I'd say Spurs/Arsenal, United/City, and Liverpool/Everton all belong on that list.
Nottingham Forest/Notts County has never blossomed into a proper rivalry, because the clubs haven't been in the same division in at least 50 years.
Someday (although probably not in any of our lifetimes) the Goats will be good enough to give the Galaxy a game on a regular basis. When that happens, the LA derby will get interesting. Until then, Sounders/Timbers will remain the best that MLS has to offer. Sounders have a shot at breaking the league's single-game attendance record on Sunday night. The current record of over 69K was set by NY and LA on the league's very first weekend in 1996. I think I still have the t-shirt around somewhere.
Deadline day. Things could get interesting.
Way beyond interesting. After the dust settles, the story of the day is going to be the unauthorized impostors who showed up in Bilbao and tried to negotiate the transfer of Ander Herrera from Athletic to Man United. Just too bizarre for words.
In other news:
The Bale deal finally goes through, but Real seem to feel they have to lie about the price in order not to hurt CR7's feelings. News flash: the dude can read English, and the London papers will get the facts right.
Mesut Ozil is a Gunner. Gooners, go wild. You're going to love this guy.
The best hair in European football now calls Old Trafford home. Toffs also offload Victor Anichebe, but they get Romelu Lukaku, James McCarthy, and Gareth Barry as reinforcements. Net-net, that looks like an improvement, even though I love The Best Hair's game. (aside: now we know why MLS worked so hard to get the Donovan deal done last week; if he had remained unsigned, Everton probably would have come after him, and he might have gone).
Liverpool and QPR spend like a busload of Japanese tourists on Rodeo Drive. We'll see whether they spent wisely. QPR's haul includes the second-best hair in England, Benoit Assou-Ekotto from Spurs.