Not sure if anybody has been following the premier league this year but it has been one crazy season.Today the season ended in one of the most dramatic finishes that the league has ever seen with Manchester City finishing first over rivals Manchester United on goal differential. This is the first time this has happened in the Premier League era and if that wasn't enough the way that Man City won their last game was nothing short of a miracle.
Despite all the twists and turns during the season the championship would come down to the final day. Going into today both Manchesters were tied with 86 points and Man U had a goal differential of 55 and Man City with one of 63 so all Man City had to do was win and they would win their first title in 44 years, finishing above their hated rivals across town Man U nonetheless. Many people expected them to win but not in the way they did it. I believe this short video of highlights will show you what i mean.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB9DRmV41X0&feature=relmfu
and here's one with the winning goal with a bit more emotion... http://www.youtube.com/watchfeature=iv&src_vid=fzoZwp69cn4&annotation_id=annotation_976419&v=aVxw_e4BFYA
and if this doesn't give you chills i don't know what will http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8b8RNCwbhY&feature=relmfu
I think showing the fans is the best because it really is ecstasy to agony to ecstasy and of course they have to storm the field afterwards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFyy9pF6KCI
I was lucky enough to watch this game at 10am this morning with an Australian exchange student and i will probably never forget the finish, with the stakes as high as they were it was nothing short of incredible. It reminded me why i fell in love with this game in the first place, you think you've seen it all and then something like this happens, it just goes to show why its the most popular sport in the world. Also this game sets it up nicely for the Euros which start in mid-June in Ukraine and Poland which should be fantastic as well. Watch them if you can find time
9 comments:
Shouldn't you be studying for finals?
At 10am, shouldn't you be praying in church, especially if you haven't been studying?
Haha this was just a break, one of the great things about soccer is that games are always under 2 hours with no commercial breaks. So the game was over by 12, with more than enough time to make noon mass... Plus if i hadn't watched the game at 10 i doubt i would've woken up before noon anyway
Good point.
yeah, great game, except for the Barton incident. Haven't seen any footage other than the far view for the elbowing but a red card, so quickly?! They stink at instant reply here, couldn't find a better look on youtube. I guess checking upstairs is not allowed in soccer. This happened in the leinster clermont rugby match 2 weeks ago where the captain of leinster punch a guy, the refs had both people explain themselves then they checked upstairs and while the captain did punch the clermont because the player was offsides, the clermont player took a drive so the ref only gave a warning. But then again the rangers did blow it at the end, I just wish more scrutiny was spent on leaving a team a man down.
Yes this is very true, the calls for technology in soccer have grown louder and louder especially due to goals counting/not counting in important games like last years world cup. I guess the thing people are worried about is that technology is a slippery slope, people enjoy the game running along without interruption and going to the replay box would take a lot of time. I can see them just having replays for goals because this wouldn't take much time each game. It would be hard to implement it for fouls just because it would be hard to judge when to go to the reply box or not and choosing when to or not could leave some people upset anyway as well as disrupting the flow of the game. But i see your point, going a man down is a huge deal but also as shown in many games played with ten men it does not necessarily spell doom for the team, in some cases it makes it even harder for the other team to score.
Yeah, definitely agree on all points and see the slippery slope argument, such as the NFL challenges are bad and slow for an already slow sport. However, soccer and baseball (pirates losing in 19 innings on the worst call) are a bit archaic. Both sports should look at hockey and rugby as implementations done correctly, if a ref is unsure, especially in playoffs, look to the booth for confirmation, it adds about 30 seconds of extra time (at least shorter than the time to get Barton off the field). Also, I understand the traditional historical aspect of the game argument but at the end of the day the game evolves to best benefit the viewers' enjoyment, nhl added shootouts during the regular season so no draws, and less grabbing the skilled players, more skill seen and even soccer used to end right at 90 minutes, which would have ruined one of the greatest comeback soccer matches for a team 44 years in the making. On a sidenote your mention of euro cup- Ireland is finally in it. Though they are better at rugby, this nation is secretly a soccer country and Dublin is going to go nuts this summer regardless of their teams performance- so much bottled up excitement. My Irish colleagues are counting down the days. Unfortunately I leave on the day of Ireland's first match.
I assume Ireland would love to meet France in the knock out phase and avenge "la main de dieu" (or Henry's). There's that technology issue again.
Haha, trying to avoid the internet during my finals but yes the Ireland would love to see France again. I went up to a small fishing village north of Dublin. In a pub a few older gentlemen were talking politics with a few choice words that were not P-13 (Irish can say the f-word while sounding endearing). Anyhoo, they mentioned Henry with the non P-13 vernacular and now I understand with your comment.
Post a Comment