WEEKEND'S SOCCER REPORT IN 749 WORDS.

This weekend’s football fixtures were enough to make a man reconsider his decision of jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge (or in the Ghanaian case, drink rat poison). Things didn’t go on well for both Arsenal (who were humbled to a three – two defeat to Greek giants Olympiakos) and Chelsea whose joy of beating Arsenal earlier was short-lived after they lost to FC Porto in the Champions League earlier this week. Liverpool was held to a disappointing one all draw in the EUROPA league, making a lot of football fans wonder what was delaying the club’s typist to finish typing Brendan Rodgers’ dismissal letter. The Manchester teams sailed smoothly to restore some pride which would be enough to make the Queen smile. 

According to reports, Neymar was a flop, and had it not been for the magic and dexterity of former Liverpool messiah (and manager) Luis Suarez, a ‘Messiless’ Barcelona would’ve been held to a frustrating one all draw, or perhaps, one nil defeat. Cristiano Ronaldo’s Real Madrid bullied Malmo in a game where the winger scored a brace. His goals made him the all-time Real Madrid top scorer.

PSG and Bayern Munich activated rape-mode, destroying Shakhtar Donetsk and Dinamo Zagreb to a three nil and five nil score line respectively. Atletico Madrid suffered their first defeat, while Juventus continued to excel in the UCL despite a poor campaign in Seria A. These exciting score lines made us wonder if those who won earlier during the week could repeat their accomplishments, and if Arsenal and Chelsea who were to take on Manchester United and Southampton respectively over the weekend could save themselves some redemption. Many people had already prophesied that Barcelona would suffer, especially considering how they narrowly escaped with three points in their Champions’ League group stages game against Bayer Leverkusen. Dortmund was to face Bayern, who would still play like they were a goal down even if they were five up (with Lewandowski scoring goals like Cristiano Ronaldo had nominated him to take up the score-five-goals-in-a-match challenge).

Though Swansea, Newcastle, Crystal Palace, Leicester, Southampton, Everton among others didn’t feature in any of the Champions’ League games, we still had a special place in our hearts for them as we expected them to pull a couple of surprises on the big teams. On Saturday, Manchester City completed a simple mission of coming behind from a goal down to thrash Newcastle to a six-one demolition (with Aguero scoring five, after having taken a challenge thrown at him by Robert Lewandowski). Reports from the Barcelona versus Seville game made all Real Madrid fans go to bed with broad grins, little did we know that, in our game the next day, Arbeloa could be generous enough to give Jackson Martinez a pass that led to Atletico’s equalizer. If Arbeloa was a Ghanaian, we would have invoked series of curses on him and his generation.  However, the game was more of a WWE match than a football match, with Atletico players performing a couple of DDTs, 619s and RKOs on the Madrid boys. Ronaldo was poor, and Benitez has a very long way to go as memories of our beloved Carlo Ancelloti are still fresh like the morning dew.

Bayern Munich neither showed Dortmund any respect nor mercy as they mauled them to an embarrassing five-one defeat. That was Dortmund’s first defeat in the season, and their season still looks promising.

Chelsea, just a few places above relegation zone kept going down. At first, it used to be funny to see Chelsea sink, but now, one can’t help but wonder which of the Fodome deities Eva Caneiro had cursed Mourinho with. Without the faintest of sympathy, Southampton decided to worsen their woes. Three-one, it ended. The dream to finish top four may only remain a dream, as they keep sinking game after game. The way Chelsea is going down, they may soon discover Mourinho’s dismissal letter. Everton fans may not have been pleased after their team could only pick a point from their game against a deviated Liverpool. However, Liverpool fans had the last laugh following the dismissal of Brendan Rodgers!

TV3’s Manchester United lost terribly to Arsenal. Anthony Martial couldn’t martial a ball into Cech’s net. Memphis and Rooney didn’t live up to expectation. I wonder the type of grass people smoke before they said Memphis is the next Ronaldo. Arsenal is full of gratitude to Chelsea for Petr Cech, to Real Madrid for M. Ozil and to Barcelona for Sanchez.