Thursday, April 06, 2006

and then there were four

Well well well… Arsenal added an entry into their history books this morning when they advanced to their first-ever Champions League semi-finals.

Being a Man U fan, I have a love-hate relationship with this result. Hate it, due to obvious reasons—dengki lah, what else ;Þ On a more serious note, love it because I have a soft spot for English teams to do well at Europe.

Now, what I love-love is the fact that my favourite Spanish team, Barcelona, also booked a spot in the other semis. And great as they are, it wasn’t all cookies and cream for Barça, no way José (more apt if to sub this for “no way, Frank”, no?). Their opponent's a strong side, this season’s dark horse which bulldozed over Manchester United as well as Liverpool.

In fact, Benfica seemed a threatening force, which resulted in Barça kicking off looking somewhat nervous and shaky. And it totally did not help that in the fourth minute, Ronaldinho’s penalty kick was saved by Benfica’s keeper, Moretto de Souza who was as marvellous as he was yummy ;)

But Ronnie refused to dwell on this little slip-up. He started doing what he did best—terrorising his markers with his "macam tipu" skills—and eventually made amends by sending one home 15 minutes later. And just two minutes before full time was over, his fellow “Terrible Twin” sealed their victory with the final goal of the match.

Soooo... next up: Arsenal vs Villareal. And Barça vs Milan.

BARCELONA vs AC MILAN! It’ll be tough, as I’m sure AC Milan is all fired up to not carelessly let the title slip so easily through their fingers a la last season. But, hey, you can bet your ass that Barça ain't gonna go down without a tough fight, either.

People, we're in for some pretty explosive stuff here!

Anywho, my dream Champions League’06 Finals = Barça vs Arsenal. Of course, I’d want my boys Eto’o, Ronaldinho, Gio and Valdes to lift the cup. Heck, for such a great team, Barça’s record at Europe has been less than satisfactory—they’ve only emerged champs just once, way back in 1992.

But then again, Arsenal has never even gone beyond CL quarter-finals before this. So the sentimental part of me wouldn’t mind them being the successful side of 2006.

Wouldn’t mind that much, that is. After all, I am a Red Devil, you know!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

oooo u ada soft sport kat english team ya? arsenal english team?hellooooo?

*CaTWoMaN* said...

erm, they ARE a team from London... so, like, HELL YEAH they're an English team.

I know, I know, you're gonna say they're more French than English, but the fact of the matter is, the club's homegrown is still in the English capital, innit ;)