It's A 90's Thing

Dec 13, 2021

Penalties here, Penalties there, Penalties freakin everywhere

The Week In Ball

It happened so long ago now but I feel like I should make a nod to the Champions League matches that happened last week in both the men's and women's game.

To start with, on Tuesday, there wasn't that much at stake but Atleti managed to pull it out of the bag in one of the games where the result did matter, forcing Porto into the Europa League and Milan out altogether. As others have alluded to, with Milan's league campaign currently going all guns blazing, maybe this is OK?

Dortmund went out with a bang, beating Besiktas 5-0, my hope is that they can do something in the Europa League but again, as with Milan, maybe being able to concentrate on the league and protect the health of their players (a running theme this season) might be better.

On Wednesday Barcelona limped through a crowdless game in Germany, eventually losing 3-0 to Bayern. This also leaves them seedless in the draw for the Europa League, along with a number of other big ticket teams which could make the knockouts quite exciting this year.

As for the Women's Champions League, the usual suspects (Barcelona, Madrid, Paris) are through, however in Group A, the actual Group Of Death (unlike Liverpool Men's easy breezy GoD), there is still extreme peril with any number of permutations that could lead to any one of Wolfsburg, Chelsea or Juventus not qualifying.

So to the Premier League, or should we call it the Penalty League? After the games on Friday and Saturday all but one (by the pure, honest, Arsenal) had been won after the award of a penalty.

Brentford's came in the last minute of the game and sent Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville absolutely giddy

Gary Neville @GNev2

🕺 🕺 @Carra23 @KellyCates

Chelsea had two awarded to them (and despite losing,g one of Leeds goals was also a penalty) and Liverpool, City and United all won 1-0 from the penalty spot.

For me, City's was perhaps the most controversial. I just don't accept that the ball hit Moutinho anywhere other than his ribs/armpit; there was also an argument that one was missed prior to that so on balance, being awarded one was correct. I'm not sure how I feel about that way of looking at it though, yes we all know about things 'evening out' but when it comes to implementing the laws of the game, the more soft and incorrect decisions are made the more soft and incorrect decisions are made... Refs should be getting these right in the first place, to the best of their ability, and if not VAR should intervene to correct them.

On Sunday we saw three games which conspired to make very little difference to the table. West Ham let me down in the battle of the claret and blues after I put my faith in three of their midfielders in FPL, drawing with Burnley. Leicester put four past Newcastle bumping them into the top half and up to eighth and Palace beat Everton 2-1 with a banger from Conor Gallagher, meaning they parted ways on the table and are now sandwiching Villa. It was all pretty much as-is though. All we need to worry about now is Spurs' two postponed games being played and potentially allowing them to enter the Top 4. Sorry to be biased but no thank you!

On the continent I managed to take in Udinese v Milan, which, at 1-0 and 87 minutes I very nearly turned off but didn't and was treated to a Zlatan goal and some Scenes, which culminated in Isaac Success being dismissed but sadly wasn't enough for Milan to keep their top spot.

Because after their 4-0 win over Cagliari, Inter leapfrogged them into top spot with a mere point between them. Napoli are suffering something of a drop off and are now fourth behind Atalanta. Big up to Venezia at the bottom half however, just above the relegation zone and drawing with Juve on Saturday.

In La Liga Barcelona yet again conceded early on, mere moments after taking the lead and then again in the dying minutes of the game after having retaken the lead just after the second half kicked off. They now languish in eighth.

Real are cantering ahead after Sociedad and Atleti dropped the ball, leaving Sevilla in second and perhaps more excitingly, Hector Bellerin's Betis in third. Just to bring the Thirst Trap up here for a moment it's a thing of joy seeing Hector and Marc Bartra playing in the same team.

In France there was a stand off between two of the big hitters from last season, Lille and Lyon, with the game ending 0-0. I only caught the second half but there was some truly calamitous football being played. I don't subscribe to Ligue 1 being a "farmers' league" but the inability of either team to finish didn't do much to help my cause.

The only other news to mention from France is that PSG are cruising, despite being weirdly rubbish. I suppose when you have Mbappe, Messi, Di Maria, Neymar etc. etc. in your team that's gonna happen.

Finally, the Bundesliga remains wild. Poor Gladbach got battered again, this time 4-1 by RB Leipzig, less of surprise perhaps than being beaten 6-0 by Freiburg but still a little bit soul destroying. Then on Sunday, Eintracht, who finished fifth last year and are currently in ninth, came back from a Patrik Schick brace to beat Leverkusen 5-2. There are two gameweeks left for the Bundesliga, including an Englischewoche this Tuesday and Wednesday, before it shuts up shop until January 7th.

Serie A does likewise, playing up until the 22nd and then coming back on the 6th Jan as does Ligue 1, with just the Premier League and La Liga playing consistently throughout the holiday period.

Of course, there's always something in football isn't there? That was meant to be the end of this section and I wasn't going to mention the UCL draw, but UEFA are never happy unless they're causing chaos which predictably also involved United.

So yes, the initial Champions League draw was declared null and void after United were missed out of the pot to play Atleti so it's been redrawn and now we have the following fixtures to look forward to in February:

Salzburg vs Bayern Munich
Sporting CP vs Manchester City
Benfica vs Ajax
Chelsea vs Lille
Atletico Madrid vs Manchester United
Villarreal vs Juventus
Inter Milan vs Liverpool
Paris Saint-Germain vs Real Madrid

And while we're at it, the qualifiers for the Europa League were also drawn and my picks are as follows:

Dortmund v Rangers
Barcelona v Napoli
Porto v Lazio

{Due to time constraints and tbh completely lacking any inspiration, I'm skipping the Kick Off section this week and probably next week, who wants to learn during the festive period?!}

The {Offside} Thirst Trap

This week has a 90s theme so today we're going back in time for one of my og football crushes, Manchester United's Lee Sharpe. It was, and still is, the eyes for me: so blue, so dreamy. Also he had a bit of a Britpop swagger and was a bit of a dick, everything a teenage girl could want. He was probably at his peak in 93/94 so he's a fitting inclusion this week

Football 'eritage

As this is the 93/94 edition so we're going to dip our toe briefly into the biggest tournament of that period: World Cup '94.

Having reached the semi-finals of Italia '90 under the management of the late great Bobby Robson, England failed to qualify for USA '94 under the late and much maligned Graham Taylor. The sorry saga was captured by a documentary team, and if you haven't ever seen it, I can highly recommend a watch of the resulting film, "Graham Taylor: The Impossible Job". Of course I remember it for spawning the phrase heard everywhere 'do I not like that' and 'can we not knock it' (a syntax I came to know and love a couple of years later when I moved to Preston for university and picked up saying 'do you not?' and 'have I not?') but I also remember it for showing Taylor as staunchly anti-racist and I felt fondly towards him from then on.

So without England, what was there to do for a group of 15 year old girls madly into football and boys? Well, the answer was obvious: support the Republic of Ireland. Irishness was having something of a moment in 93/94. There was Boyzone - I first saw them on the Big Breakfast and pretty much ran to school to see if my friends had also seen it (yes, I was a pre-mobile phone teen) - there was Sean Maguire playing Irish tearaway, and apprentice footballer, Aidan in Eastenders, we had the Cranberries, Sinead O'Connor, U2 all riding high in the charts, Zig and Zag on the aforementioned Big Breakfast and then there was the Republic of Ireland football team.

Managed by the bluffly charismatic Jack Charlton it was a team of characters. John Aldridge, Paul McGrath, Dennis Irwin and Ray Houghton to name a few. And of course Roy Keane. Pretty boy Jason McAteer was also in the squad, a man whose legend mainly revolves around him refusing to have his pizza cut into eight slices instead of four because he'd never be able to eat all that. A fact he confirmed to the Guardian many years later.

They made it to the round of 16, a game which me and my friends watched, crammed into the 'toy room' in my house and did themselves proud; fighting and overheating to the end.

The other most notable moment was of course the opening ceremony, which included one of the most notorious incidents of football lore. Now, in 1994 the USA wasn't really a football nation, it felt like they weren't suited to it and the opening ceremony kind of cemented that, especially when the decent idea of someone kicking a ball into a giant net to open the tournament fell to...Diana Ross. Well, if you don't already know I'm sure you can tell what happened next:

Finally, as I mentioned the other week, it was the last tournament at which Maradona played, scored, then celebrated iconically

Kit Bag

I mean do I even need to do this this week? We all know what it's going to be...

Yes, Drip FC have done it again. This time with their retro 93/94 Adidas Classics collection that has inspired the whole theme of this newsletter. The launch video is amazing as always. The set is brilliant, the music is wonderful. I squealed at Bukayo with the puppy, Mana, Leah and Nikita look great (Nikita's cheeky face is ::chef's kiss::), Aaron is great, Kieran is cool as ever and I love ESR as the chatty teen on the phone. That's before we mention Uncle Ian, looking resplendent in his gear.

I honestly love it so much, I would kill for the cannon sweater in my size and I desperately want to live in a house painted that beautiful lilac.

Extra Time

Last Wednesday was Rainbow Laces Day and as part of this England put out this wonderful chat with Jordan Henderson, Ben Hunte and the always fabulous Joe White. As I said on Twitter, Jordan is an exemplary ally. He speaks up, he wears his rainbow laces always, he's sincere and open with his support. A true role model.