What sports teams do you support?

[Heid the Ba]

Follow, follow, we will follow Rangers . . .

Stop me if you've heard this before but we blank them at the 'Brox, keep the first half of the away leg close and turn it into a 20 minute game.

Rangers -v- Zenit final?

[Arneb]

I am still placing my bets on Bayern. Zenit are a competent bunch, but Bayern will have Luca Toni back for the away match, and I think Bayern are still stronger in substance.

If it's Bayern v Rangers, shall we watch it together at the local pub?

By the way, wasn't Barcelona - ManU just a very, very sad match? Imagine, a ManU vs Chelsea final. What could be worse? OK, yes Milan vs any of the two, but still.

[Heid the Ba]

I am still placing my bets on Bayern. Zenit are a competent bunch, but Bayern will have Luca Toni back for the away match, and I think Bayern are still stronger in substance.

I think you are right, but it would be good if we faced Dick Advocaat's team. We have a history with him.

If it's Bayern v Rangers, shall we watch it together at the local pub?

Sounds like a plan. Local to who? Or do you mean Manchester?

By the way, wasn't Barcelona - ManU just a very, very sad match? Imagine, a ManU vs Chelsea final. What could be worse? OK, yes Milan vs any of the two, but still.

I find it hard to watch games where I want both teams to lose.

It is also weird to have a week where the last Old Firm game of the season isn't the most important game.

[Arneb]

If I find myself in this situation (Netherlands vs Italy, England, Argentina, or any combination of the four; Milan against Juventus, ManU, Chelsea, that sort of thing), I always place my hopes on a goalless draw and a good number of sendoffs and broken legs, Ibrox style. Netherlands vs Portugal and Portugal vs England during the last World Cup were absolute revelations in this regard. :D

Pubwise, I'll prefer Aachen, due to some minor adverse events of mine during the last three weeks. Although I'd prefer the Glaswegian pubs to the local Kölsch iced yellow water by a wide margin :(

[Heid the Ba]

Dodgy bloody offside goals. Bastards. I can't see us winning the league now, too many injuries and suspensions.

La Viola will probably be too good for us on Thursday so it is likely a moot point where we go drinking.

[Arneb]

No, please keep evil out of the Final. Don't give up just yet.

OK, I had a look at the Premiership table, and, yes, it looks bleak. Tell me, how many matches are there for each team. 44 (=each team plays every other four times in all)? Well, even with nine matches to go, 5 points is a lot if your opponent is a side of any ability...

Over here, Bayern have all but clinched it: Four rounds to go, 12 pt ahead and 20 goals. Thursday will be much more interesting.

[Heid the Ba]

We have six games to go, they have three. To keep the number of game sreasonable, eveyone plays three times, then the table splits top six/bottom six and you play that half once so 38 games. They try to juggle it so the top half play each other four times in total two home two away, and the bottom half play either Rangers twice at home and once away and Celtic once at home and twice away or vice versa.

Confusing eh?

[Arneb]

ManU 1 - 0 Barcelona. ManU advance to the Final on a 1 - 0 aggregate.

As predictable as it is sad. Now get Chelsea to hold Liverpool to a lifeless, goalless draw, and we have the CL Final from hell...

Money scores goals, as we say here.

[Arneb]

Chelsea 3 - 2 Liverpool; Chelsea advance to the final on a 4- 3 aggregate.

OK, everything as expected. At least it was match worth watching.

[Heid the Ba]

Ah but tonight you will have a great game to watch, and then the Rangers' one after that. :D

Bayern to scrape a lucky away win, followed by

a) a tight game they win 1 - 0
b) we score early, they chase the game, we get another on the break, they panic, we score a third.
c) a tight game, they are leading 1 - 0 with ten minutes to play and score two more as we chase the game.

I am actually weirdly confident about this.

[Arneb]

I admit I can't confidently disagree with you... :D
Except maybe that Bayern are telling everyone who wants to listen or doesn't that they'll roll up their sleeves and make this a certain win for our European, cough cough, top team.

[Arneb]

Zenit St. Petersburg 4 - 0 Bayern Munich; Zenit advance 5 - 1 on aggregate.

This was a shocking, shocking match. It is an inescapable conclusion that German club football is just not able to compete at international level, afterBayern spent 70 million Euro on international transfers.

The way the German players were unable and unwilling to put up a fight in a tough situation is ill foreboding for the European Chamopionship.

Oh, I so much hope Rangers do better.

[Arneb]

Fiorentina 0 - 0 Glasgow; after a 0 - 0 aggregate, Glasgow win 4 - 2 by penalties!

Congrats, Heid. I have to say, we could have got this result with a lot less tedium had they resigned themselves to the shootout only... :wink:

[Heid the Ba]

Tedious? Tedious? An enthralling game enlivened by north european work rate defeating cheating diving latins. We'll ignore for the moment the fact that our best defender is Spanish, our hardest working forwards are French and Spanish and stick with the sweeping generalisation. We did have six Scots and Davis from Norn Iron in the team.

They turned up expecting to win and weren't ready for a dour attritional game. They should have been since they know how we play but they appeared to just assume it would all turn out well for them.

Even when Ferguson missed the first penalty I knew that as long as we kept scoring if they missed they would keep missing. How off the pace did Vieri look? He was never going to score.

What can I say about Bayern? I didn't see the game but it didn't sound close. Looking back through the rounds they seem to have struggled every time.

Zenit are interesting, Advocaat as coach and their midfield enforcer is Ricksen who used to play for us as well. Could be wild early on. :D Nothing to fear from them though, we've put out Bremen, Sporting and La Viola so why not them in a one off game?

[Arneb]

OK, OK, I'll give you "enthralling" :wink: . I admit I didn't see the game either, but what came across in following the live "ticker" report was basically "Fiorentina trying, and missing; trying again, missing; nothing new; oh, that was close on the other side" etc. etc. It didn't sound like epic drama, but then, what is epic in text lines appearing on a computer screen.

You are right about Bayern. It wasn't close at all. It was a humiliation, a total, utter wipeout. As I said, Bayern are the top of German club football, they have 70 million worth of new acquisitions in the field (Toni, Ribéry, Klose, plus two Brasilian internationals and about four German ones). But they weren't up to task against a team which is, at best, upper middle class in Europe. After seeing the side that extinguished the likes of Bayern, Leverkusen, Villareal and Marseille, I wouldn't put too much hope in Rangers winning (if you are still convinced their main competence is dragging other teams down to their level). This is a side that never steps off their opponents' toes, and they can play some decent football, too. IIRC, two of the goals resulted from swift counterattacks, and this was highly skilled one-touch football. OTOH, keeping their nerve is what Rangers did yesterday, and Bayern didn't. And you are practically playing a home match, aren't you?

I'll be a total Rangers supporter for the final, of course;

[Enzo]

Yep, a thrall a minute.

[Arneb]

Good news from Hertha, meanwhile: They scored a measly win against Karlsruhe, and are now safe from relegation: Ten points ahead of place 16, with three games to go.

Phew!

[Heid the Ba]

Glad Hertha are safe, mid table mediocrity is better than scrapping at the bottom.

Rangers are now mired in a spell of weekend and midweek games with no breaks until the end of the season. Motherwell in the league tonight, a league game on saturday and the Uefa cup next wednesday. As Scottish clubs rarely get this far in europe there is no leeway built in for postponed games so there were a couple of games postponed in Jan/Feb which would normally be played on european nights. Tonight's game was postponed because the Motherwell captain collapsed and died during a game early this year. I think we end the season with games on a saturday, tuesday, thursday and sunday.

[Arneb]

Yeah, it's a tough life for a football fan, isn't it? So much to see, so muh beer to drink, so much time to spend... one doesn't have any time left for the personal life like family, the car, work etc.

[Heid the Ba]

Ack nothing each at half time. And we lost in the U17 World Cup.

ETA: Get in there! One - Nil

[Heid the Ba]

U17 World Cup should have been U17 European Championship, but y'all knew that.

Arneb, you don't have to be sporting and score a late goal for them, just take the 2 - 0 win. :D

[Arneb]

You know, that's what I'm telling all the time, but these blockheads just won't listen :x

10 points away from international qualification, 10 from relegation... I call that "scrapping in the middle".

Day after tomorrow, we entertain Nuremberg - 1. Fußballclub Nürnberg, officially, in local Franconian dialect just "der Glubb", where the u is pronounced as in "would", not as in "club". You know, I hate the Glubb. Oh, you mean I shouldn't, because I lived there once? Nooo. This is how I became a Glubb-hater: Before the last match day of the 97/98 season, they were 12th in the table, with the best goal difference and only a theoretical danger of relegation (3 points ahead of No. 16). They were playing a direct competitor at home, before a packed and enthusiastic stadium; they lost high, and every one of their competitors scored fantastically high away victories (of course, including the one they were playing ); I was working one of those ridiculous 13 hour shifts on the Medical Intensive care that Saturday, but I was glued to the radio during those final minutes (no one died). I recall the commentator hysterically shouting, "Club players, where is your honour"? They were relegated on 1 goal in the goal difference in the end. Glubb fans (the most loyal in the League; they have to be, otherwise they would long since have given up) still listen to this recording when they are in a masochistic mood. I like to play it for them, actually.

I decided I was never going to give my heart to such a bunch of heartless losers. They managed to become champions in '68 and be relegated in '69; this season they'll manage to have become Cup winners in '07 and be relegated this season. Need I say more about this travesty of a football club? In Nuremberg, they call the Glubb "the glorious". Yeah, right.

A few years later, I moved 5 km to the north, to Fürth. That settles it SpVgg Greuther Fürth is the little brother, continuously producing players that later make good careers in the Bundesliga but never being promoted. You may not like to hear that their colours are green and white, but they are tied to the Glubb in a Rangers/Celtic-like relationship. I never looked back.

And on Saturday, my Hertha is going to blast the Glubb into the Second Division, Muahahahahahahaha... :

[Heid the Ba]

And so it came to pass, one - nil to Hertha . . .

I didn't know any of this stuff about Nurnberg. wow.

[Arneb]

Well, it almost worked. Bielefeld, the sole contender for non-relegation left, scored 2 - 2 against Dortmund. So if the Glubb should win against Schalke next Saturday, Bielefeld, two points away from Nuremberg and worse off on goal difference, would have to win, too - away at outgoing Champions Stuttgart... No easy task ahead, this one. Schalke are still struggling for direct CL qualification, so I do hope they will put up some fighting spirit.

It would be so much fun to have a Fürth- Nürnberg derby next season. Fürth, as always, squandered their promotion chances on the final stretch, so we are looking very much forward to welcoming the Glubb in our little stadium...

[Heid the Ba]

It is all building up nicely for this evening, all our players are fit, 13,000 fans with tickets in Manchester, about 100,000 fans without tickets in Manchester, drink flowing, nerves jangling, can't wait for 7.45 BST. :D