Posts Tagged ‘Malawi’

A bad week for the bleeding soul of football

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

What’s that? Sorry I must have nodded off some time ago.

I now awake to find that the international break has passed off so far pretty much exactly as anybody with half a brain could have predicted. You can’t leave football alone without the Arsenal. Boring things happen.

A turgid defeat for already-qualified England in Ukraine shown only on the internet and in cinemas.

England getting duffed by Ukraine in a cinema. Truly the most soulless, shamelessly capitalist way of consuming football since ‘Goal 2′. Has the beautiful game really come to this?

Watching a slow-motion replay of Maradona launching himself skywards into the torrential Buenos Aires rain (and then turning himself into an amusing kind of blubbery man-sledge) I had to wonder how long it will be before the soul of the game in this country dries up completely.

Most predictable of all was the behaviour of Cheeky Burgerstain, now employed full-time by Barcelona to make bald statements of interest in Cesc Fabregas every single time Spain have a game, has shown himself to be a real professional.

He’s shown his job means much more to him than his credibility, trotting out the same old crap just 3 days after Cesc’s rapturous badge-snogathon, and any lingering sense of decency by continuing to publicly harass our captain while the young star is dealing with personal issues.

This guy is meant to be director of football at a club admired around the world, but he has turned himself into the executive equivalent of a fluffer.

It’s all very depressing.

The only bright spot is that my favourite international team, the Malawi Flames, look set to reach the African Cup of Nations for the first time in bloody ages. They need to make sure they match Guinea’s result in the Ivory Coast when they travel to Burkina Faso.

Do you see what happens to me when there’s no Arsenal?

Juicy Gobbets

Monday, December 29th, 2008

While trawling the net tirelessly in search of the sharpest Arsenal-related news, rumours and analysis, we occasionally come across other stuff that we want to share with our readers.

Here’s a selection of stuff that caught our eye:

Manu Chao sings about Diego Maradona in his new song ‘La Vida Tombola’.

You know when you suddenly remember how much you enjoyed watching an old football star? Well that just happened to me with Juan Sebastian Veron. It’s a shame he played for United, but by gum the lad could play. Wouldn’t mind us making a cheeky loan move for him in January. Just in case he’s still got it.

Tiny Malawi’s national team, The Flames, sensationally beat African Champions Egypt and DR Congo on their way to reaching the next phase of qualifying for the 2010 World Cup and African Cup of Nations (it’s a combined qualification system). Here are some grainy highlights of their crunch winner-takes-all game against DRC (Malawi are in Red). That’s the biggest attendance in Malawian football history right there and the place goes absolutely berserk as Chiukepo Msowoya (no. 4) bags the winner right at the death after Malawi had replied to Lomana Lua-Lua’s stunning strike early on. For me Msowoya’s cheeky victory dance is the joy of football in its purest form.