Though you'll notice that Gallas stayed clear of the circle of love that sprang up around Robin after the game. My feelings for Arsenal are pulling against each other at the moment. They're a fascinating collection of something, they play in a style I love, and I've reached the point where I'm so annoyed by the [. Click to continue reading...

I don't think they show matches like tonight's game between Bordeaux and Chelsea to the choir of absolutely self-assured angels who sing "The Chommmm-pyons!!" at the end of every Heineken commercial, because it takes unquestioning faith in the established order to sing "The Chommmm-pyons! Click to continue reading...

I've seen more intense derbies in my life, and so, I'm prepared to concede, has John Arne Riise. Who did, however, get a good view of this one from his seat on the bench. And it could be that watching Max Tonetto take over your spot is more intense than I realize. Still, this was a [...] Related posts:

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The addition of a tiny talismanic braided rat-tail to the back of Nicklas Bendtner's hair successfully made him look like a minor forest hobbit but had no effect on Arsenal's inability to stop the repeated pillaging of their ground by an Aston Villa side that played like they wanted someone to compare them to Arsenal. Click to continue reading...

Darren Bent got two. Three players were sent off. The reality-warping aura of Harry Redknapp enjoyed a breezy Sunday drive. Richard Dunne committed a Paul-Robinson-in-Croatia-class error to surrender Bent's tying goal, then drew a straight red card to complete a performance that will severely challenge the resolve of professional player-raters never to acknowledge the existence of [. Click to continue reading...

The goals were scored by Samir Nasri and Rafael da Silva, the one an 11-year-old with a pet frog in a shoebox, the other a four-month-old who will only get better when he starts eating solid foods. In the intervals between scoring, the pitch was on a seesaw, and everyone rolled downhill. It was a probing, [. Click to continue reading...

Here's the Nani match report from today's Celtic-Manchester United game (dazzling but slightly confused): Scott McDonald did the Nakamura in the 13th minute with a precarious lob that was deeply skeptical of Ben Foster's future career as an England international. Manchester United then transformed into Themselves At Parkhead, which is to say, glowing with the [. Click to continue reading...

Here's the Ryan Babel match report from today's Liverpool-Atlético game (superfast and not analytical): Maxi Rodríguez scored a "cracking" ( B. Glendenning) goal 37 minutes in. Atlético then turned into a bathtub drain and Liverpool sort of overflowed to no effect. Fernando Torres sat wrapped in feminine shadows and a pullover in the stands, looking limpid [. Click to continue reading...

Not since the squirming, slippery ancestors of the creatures who would one day be football agents first hauled themselves out of the sea have Chelsea lost a match at Stamford Bridge. Not until today, when Liverpool took advantage of a random deflection in the box to sneak out of London with a 1-0 win. Click to continue reading...

Probably one of the top five differences between being in jail and not being in jail is that when you are in jail no one ever calls you on your cell phone with a complicated speech about mythological Japanese tsunami heroes and picking you up at the airport. And yet, when you are not in [...] Click to continue reading...

I woke up Friday morning with two thoughts already in my mind. First, Vandal-prone was supposed to cover the Crew-Revolution game that night. Second, Tropical Storm Kyle was expected to reach hurricane strength that afternoon and was bearing down on the New England coast. All morning I was haunted by the image of my MLS [. Click to continue reading...

Put the outcome to one side. The astonishing thing about this match was that Turkey set the tone from the beginning, and with the exception of a few bad stretches in the second half, controlled it till the end. Germany's moments of success came from exploiting lapses in Turkey's execution of their gameplan, lapses that [. Click to continue reading...

It's hard to take for Petr Čech's sake: one of my favorite players, and one who's already dealt with a heartbreaking loss this summer. Also in a game that took place under driving rain, and that somehow became more than it was supposed to even as the sales pitch surrounding it told us it was [...] Click to continue reading...

It's over between me and Poland. I would like to state that more graphically. The cold hard bluish toes of my enthusiasm for Poland are poking indecently out of the autopsy blanket that's covering the rest of the corpse. You know you've picked the wrong team to follow in Euro 2008 when your hard drive [. Click to continue reading...

Wait...what? Where am I? How long has the match been over? I watched the whole thing...I think; I know I turned it on in time for the national anthems at Wembley; only just now I sort of came back to myself and noticed that the TV was showing a commercial for discount mufflers. How long [...] Click to continue reading...