Voakes: Pub Atmosphere Encapsulates Inter’s Changing Attitude

8 11 2009
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Photo courtesy Kris Voakes

UEFA Champions League nights in Milan can be enjoyed in very different ways, and Matchday 4 threw up polar opposite experiences for the city’s football fans.

Tuesday’s trip to the San Siro to witness AC Milan’s entertaining 1-1 draw with the Galácticos of Real Madrid provided the glamorous side of calcio, but it was Wednesday night’s nail-biter between Dynamo Kiev and Inter which provided all of the drama, and where better to experience this drama than with lifelong Interista Alessandro Polenghi, owner of Milan’s 442 sports pub, known locally as the first-choice place to watch football from all over the world. Read the rest of this entry »


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Champions League Preview: Win Or Go Home? It’s Not That Simple

4 11 2009

Photo courtesy Bornaz Sebastian's Flickr account

Rangers striker Kenny Miller told reporters this week that it’s win-or-bust time for the Scottish champion as it faces Romanian upstart Unirea Urziceni in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday evening.

He wasn’t wrong in his assessment, of course, but the following would’ve been not only more forthcoming but also more honest: Anything but a win in Bucharest, and it becomes damage-control time for the Scots.

Rangers currently sits bottom of Group G with one point from a possible nine going into the club’s rematch against Unirea, a team that hammered Miller and his teammates, 4-1, at Rangers’s Ibrox ground a fortnight ago.  On top of that, the Teddy Bears’ only point in this season’s Champions League campaign came all the way back on Sept. 16 – a 1-1 stalemate away to VfB Stuttgart – so a loss in Romania on Wednesday would likely kill any remaining hope the Scots might have of advancing into the knockout phase of the competition. Read the rest of this entry »


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Voakes: Milan Wins At The Bernabéu – One For The Downtrodden?

22 10 2009
Photo courtesy ArchiMs Flickr account

Photo courtesy ArchiM's Flickr account

Football fans are often questioned for their unstinting loyalty – The blind belief that, ‘on their day’, their team could beat Barcelona in the Camp Nou (even if they support Crewe Alexandra) and their sheep-like ability to keep going back even after 10 successive years of threatening not to renew their season ticket ‘to watch that shower’.

Wednesday night at the Santiago Bernabéu summed up why they bother.

In any normal year, an A.C. Milan victory against Real Madrid might have been rightly passed off as one European giant succumbing to another, but this has not been any old year at Via Turati. The Rossoneri have lost their star player – to Madrid – spent little of the proceeds, had their former World Player of the Year bouncing from nightclub to nightclub on multiple continents, been pilloried in the press and, worst of all, they have played like Ipswich Town on an off-day.

So, then, where on Earth did Milan’s 3-2 victory in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday over the Galacticos – a team worth a quarter of a billion Euros – come from? Read the rest of this entry »


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Champions League: Rangers Gets Smoked At Home – Is The European Dream Deferred Once Again?

21 10 2009
Photo courtesy Sarah Quinn Armitts Flickr account

Photo courtesy Sarah Quinn Armitt's Flickr account

When Scottish champion Rangers learned of its UEFA Champions League group fate at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco on Aug. 27, many pundits concluded that the Teddy Bears would finish third in their group, at worst.

Romanian debutant – and general no-name in the eyes of most fans of Western European clubs – Unirea Urziceni would surely come bottom of Group G, the talking heads said, as they were seen as the sacrificial lamb to groupmates Rangers, VfB Stuttgart and Sevilla.

On Tuesday night in Glasgow, however, Unirea looked less like a lamb and more like the lion on its club crest, wiping the floor with the homestanding Rangers, 4-1, thus leaving the Scots’ hopes of progressing into the knockout rounds of the Champions League on life support. Read the rest of this entry »


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Champions League Preview: Unirea Presents A Do-Or-Die Challenge For Rangers

20 10 2009
Photo courtesy Archibald99 (via Wikimedia Commons)

Photo courtesy Archibald99 (via Wikimedia Commons)

The phrase ‘however temporary’ can be used to describe a lot of clubs in the UEFA Champions League at the moment, but the term may fit none of those sides better than it currently does for Rangers.

The blue half of the Old Firm finds itself back atop the Clydesdale Bank Premier League after a hard-fought 2-1 win away to St. Johnstone over the weekend, but even though manager Walter Smith’s Rangers leap-frogged intra-city rival Celtic last weekend to go top in Scotland’s domestic top flight, Rangers has struggled so far in its ninth UEFA Champions League campaign.

Worse yet, the Scottish champion’s struggles in Europe may continue over the next few weeks if the club fails to take points from Romanian side Unirea Urziceni, starting with Tuesday night’s meeting between the two sides at Ibrox in Glasgow. Read the rest of this entry »


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Voakes: Tihinen Finally Embraces Spotlight, Helps David Sink Goliath

6 10 2009
Photo courtesy Reto (via Wikimedia Commons)

Photo courtesy Reto (via Wikimedia Commons)

As Paolo Di Canio bore down on goal, he was met with an unusual sight.

Instead of being faced with a goalkeeper spreading himself full-length to prevent the game’s opening goal being scored, Di Canio found Fabien Barthez standing bolt upright with one arm in the air. Was Di Canio offside? The striker didn’t wait to find out, instead simply side-footing home to put West Ham United into the last 16 of the FA Cup, and gave Manchester United’s administration team the task of canceling their block-booking at the Vale of Glamorgan Hotel for Cup Final weekend.

One man out of the cameraman’s line of sight but very much in the thick of it that day was Hannu Tihinen, a Finnish centre half loaned from Norwegian club Viking FK to West Ham and the Hammers’ equally East End manager, Harry Redknapp. It wasn’t an altogether successful loan spell, and after only eight appearances, Tihinen returned to Norway before moving on a year later to Anderlecht, where he won two Belgian Championships.

In 2006, at the age of 30, he was on the move again, this time becoming club captain of FC Zürich of Switzerland, where he has since added a further brace of championship winner’s medals to his cabinet. Despite the honours and local hero status in the Swiss capital, though, the most internationally recognisable moment he had any link to remained that bizarre goal at Old Trafford eight years ago.

Until Wednesday. Read the rest of this entry »


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Champions League Preview: ‘Gers Plan To Break Ibrox’s Spanish Hex

29 09 2009
Photo courtesy Sarah Quinn Armitts Flickr account

Photo courtesy Sarah Quinn Armitt's Flickr account

Winning at home is always vital for Scottish club sides playing in Europe, but Rangers will be particularly keen to pick up a win in Tuesday’s UEFA Champions League clash with Sevilla.

Last season’s Clydesdale Bank Premier League champion has struggled heretofore to find its form in the current domestic campaign, as the ‘Gers currently sit four points behind Celtic at the top of the SPL table, but a solid home win on Tuesday would exercise a lot of manager Walter Smith’s side’s demons, both on the domestic and European fronts. Read the rest of this entry »


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Voakes: Inter Clash Proves Barça Have Work To Do

17 09 2009
Photo courtesy salvofiguccias Flickr account

Photo courtesy salvofiguccia's Flickr account

FC Barcelona’s 2009-10 Champions League campaign started in the country where the last one ended so triumphantly, but whilst the sexy football was still very much on display for the Italian public on Wednesday, the reigning champions’ 0-0 draw with Inter proved that there is much work to be done in the quest to become the modern era’s first back-to-back winners.

There were many similarities between that balmy summer’s evening in Rome and this altogether damper occasion at San Siro, least of all the complete authority with which Barça controlled the game throughout. But there’s something missing from the Catalan giants’ game this season…and he was in Nerazzurro on Wednesday night. Read the rest of this entry »


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LMSL Podcast Special: 2009-10 UEFA Champions League Group Stage

15 09 2009
Photo courtesy cogocogos Flickr account

Photo courtesy cogocogo's Flickr account

Last Minute, Second Leg is breaking from tradition slightly to give you two new episodes of the LMSL Podcast this week, with Matthew and Ross being joined by a panel of European football experts to preview the group stages of the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League.

The panel of guests includes: Kevin Walker, head of the Own Goal Network and also host of both La Liga Weekly and Serie A Weekly as well as the Minute+10 Podcast; Johnathan Starling, OGN blogger and host of The Third Half; and Dov Schiavone, football blogger and co-host of the Italian Football and Manchester United Football Fancast podcasts.

Enjoy our preview of the UEFA Champions League group stage, and keep your eyes peeled for the second part of our podcast special this week, which will preview the UEFA Europa League group stage, and will be ready for download by Thursday morning.

To listen to our UEFA Champions League group preview, check us out on iTunes – search: ‘Last Minute, Second Leg’ – or subscribe via our RSS feed.


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Kaká To Face Former Club In Champions League Group Stage

27 08 2009
Photo courtesy Mickaël Roure (via Wikimedia Commons)

Photo courtesy Mickaël Roure (via Wikimedia Commons)

Despite UEFA’s arduous efforts this time of year and the typically overblown hype surrounding the event, the UEFA Champions League group draw often fails to draw many rabbits out of the hat.

This time around, however, football’s European governing body seems to have hit paydirt in a very big way.

Thursday’s draw in Monaco ended up bringing together many interesting bedfellows for the group stage of the competition, with perhaps the biggest story being Kaká and Real Madrid falling into the same group as AC Milan, from whom the Spanish juggernaut bought the Brazilian midfielder for ₤68.5m on June 8.

Milan and Real Madrid were drawn into a competitive Group C with Marseille and Swiss champion FC Zürich, but the so-called ‘group of death’ lies elsewhere.  Spare a thought for Israeli champ Maccabi Haifa, as the The Green Demons have been rewarded for their impressive play-off victory over FC Salzburg with a Group A slate against Bayern München, Juventus and Bordeaux.

In fact, only one of this season’s eight newcomers to the Champions League group stage appears to have much of a chance of advancing to the knockout rounds.  German champion VfL Wolfsburg is in relatively good shape with its Group B draw, getting Beşiktaş from Turkey, CKSA Moskva and a Manchester United side that finished runner-up last season but is now without Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez and – for a few weeks – Rio Ferdinand.

With Die Wölfe retaining the core of its squad after winning the German Bundesliga last season, then, manager Armin Veh’s squad ought to find safe passage through the group if it can take care of business at home and nick a good result or two when it travels east.

The easiest draw by far resulted in a Group H featuring Arsenal (which finished fourth in the Barclays Premier League last season), AZ Alkmaar from Holland, Olympiacos and Belgian side Standard de Liège.  In truth, though, none of the four English sides in the competition should have much trouble in the group stage, and Scottish champion Rangers should be competitive in Group G with Sevilla, VfB Stuttgart and Romanian debutant Unirea Urziceni.

The full draw:

Group A: FC Bayern München (GER), Juventus (ITA), FC Girondins de Bordeaux (FRA), Maccabi Haifa FC (ISR)

Group B: Manchester United FC (ENG), PFC CSKA Moskva (RUS), Beşiktaş JK (TUR), VfL Wolfsburg (GER)

Group C: AC Milan (ITA), Real Madrid CF (ESP), Olympique de Marseille (FRA), FC Zürich (SUI)

Group D: Chelsea FC (ENG), FC Porto (POR), Club Atlético de Madrid (ESP), APOEL FC (CYP)

Group E: Liverpool FC (ENG), Olympique Lyonnais (FRA), ACF Fiorentina (ITA), Debreceni VSC (HUN)

Group F: FC Barcelona (ESP), FC Internazionale Milano (ITA), FC Dynamo Kyiv (UKR), FC Rubin Kazan (RUS)

Group G: Sevilla FC (ESP), Rangers FC (SCO), VfB Stuttgart (GER), AFC Unirea Urziceni (ROU)

Group H: Arsenal FC (ENG), AZ Alkmaar (NED), Olympiacos FC (GRE), R. Standard de Liège (BEL)

Matthew Semisch


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