Going into this week’s Champions League clashes viewers may have been forgiven for flicking between this and Scottish dietician Gillian McKeith suffering the many hardships that a prolonged period in the Australian jungle brings. I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here has grown from a Z-list celebrity show to the best of all the reality shows, but last night it was beaten into second place by a group of “meaningless” Champions League games.
Before kick-off it looked as though the favourite to win would do so and we’d be waving goodbye to also-rans in the shape of Braga, Zilina, and so on. Well one of those two minnows still has a chance. Amsterdam was where all the action was to be had though – and I’m not talking about a Madrid team-bonding session in the red-light district post game.
Now when it comes to cheating some people, me not included, will try to tell you it has no place in the game. That it makes a mockery of the rules etc, but surely iif the cheating is clearly blatant, it suddenly becomes comical. It’s also the case that anything Jose Mourinho touches turns to gold so to find out the “special one” has been at it, again, isn’t surprising.
After going 4-0 up in the Dutch capital Mourinho gave word to his troops that were on a booking to get themselves sent off deliberately. Now they could have made a slightly rash challenge, or even kicked the ball away. But no, Jose obviously wanted to cause uproar. Both Xabi Alonso and Sergio Ramos were both sent off for standing still long enough at a place kick to be booked and miss the last group game. Ramos’ was a goal kick that made it even more ridiculous and he even shook the referee’s hand on the way off.
Luis Suarez looked particularly aggrieved at both decisions. All this came after a weekend in which the Uruguayan bit an opponent and was subsequently fined by his club.
Arsenal also continued to defy everyone by losing, again. This time it was to the Portuguese minnows Braga, a team they beat 6-0 in the earlier reverse fixture. Arsene Wenger was particularly annoyed at the officials, as among the five of them they couldn’t see anything in a challenge on Carlos Vela which was a stonewall penalty. They thought it was a dive and booked the Mexican. Braga scored two goals late on to beat the visitors 2-0 and take the group to the final round of games.
We’re giving the final part of the article to a video of quite possibly the funniest piece of goalkeeping seen in a long while. A link to the video is here, and you can decide what the hell you think he’s doing. So far, suggestions have been that he was waving to some friends and that he “couldn’t catch a cold.” No one mentioned that he may have cheated though – maybe he made it so realistic that it’s an unbelievable assertion.
