This game was expected to be a thrilling one, with both teams winning their first matches. Confusingly, the Czech Republic players were wearing all red, where as the Portuguese played in all white.
The game got off to a flying start, with both teams trying to take the initiative. It didn’t take long for Portugal to get a grip of the game, and it was after just eight minutes that Portugal scored their first goal. After Ronaldo had been blocked by Petr Cech, the ball rolled to Deco, who was also blocked by Cech, but the Chelsea goal keeper couldn’t keep out the third shot, which again fell to Deco, who just about got it through the defender’s legs and into the Czech goal.
Just nine minutes later, Czech Republic got a corner, and a superb cross, sloppy defending and a great header allowed Libor Sionko to equalize for the Czech team, pulling away from his marker and heading beyond Portugal goal keeper Ricardo.
After that, Czech Republic pretty much dominated the first half, with Portugal getting an occasional break, but Czech Republic seemed well in control, passing around fluently and creating one or two opportunities. Just before half time, though, Ronaldo got a free kick thirty three meters from the goal, and everyone’s heads were turned. The ball swerved violently through the air, but the strong hands of Petr Cech kept the ball out.
As Czech Republic kicked off for the second half, it was soon apparent Portugal were going to get the third goal of the game, playing fluent football and creating some good opportunities. Then, inevitably, on the sixty third minute Deco played ‘that man’ Cristiano Ronaldo in to smash the ball under a helpless Petr Cech from just outside the penalty area.
Portugal knew they were not safe yet though, and kept on playing brilliant football. Czech Republic looked increasingly beaten as the game progressed, and then in stoppage time for the end of the game a counter attack and a long ball led to Ronaldo selfishly passing to Quaresma who passed the ball calmly into open goal.
Overall a good performance from Portugal, who are almost definitely through to the knock out stage, all they have to do is get a point against Switzerland and they are guaranteed a place in the last eight.
I always hated Manchester United and I will always do, but no one can deny that Cristiano Ronaldo is a great player, actually I see that he played THE main role in this year’s Manchester United winnings. So any club in the world would want him to be part of their squad.
During the past few days he Cristiano Ronaldo was just giving hints on his wish to move to Real Madrid, but that is not the case anymore, yesterday he talked to the Brazilian website Terra.com.br and he said “ Yes, I would like to play for Real Madrid, That’s the truth, depending on what they are willing to spend on me and what Manchester United ask. But that’s not up to me.”
Then he added “I think I’ve put across an important message, As of today, I will speak no more about this with absolutely anyone. I’ll only talk about it after the Euros. Nobody is to ask me anymore, as I will not answer.”
Manchester United and Sir Alex Ferguson was not happy with what have been said, actually they were not happy even earlier since Real Madrid approached Cristiano Ronaldo, Ferguson slammed Real Madrid and the Spanish media for unsettling the player.
Today another news came out, Marca announced that Cristiano Ronaldo have agreed terms with Real Madrid, and now all what needs to be done is setting the price with Manchester United. Calderon told Marca “It’s an honour that Ronaldo wants to play for us”. But it is a known fact that Manchester United summer transfer plans will be hugely affected if Cristiano Ronaldo leaves, and the player is very important that Alex Ferguson will try to convince him to stay.
But it looks like Cristiano Ronaldo have set his mind, he actually refused meeting Alex Ferguson as it was announced in the British media few hours ago that a meeting was set as Alex Ferguson decided to cut short his holiday in France to meet Cristiano Ronaldo in Portugal’s Euro 2008 training camp.
It is believed that Cristiano Ronaldo’s salary if he moves to Real Madrid will be around $200,000 if not higher. There were shouts from many players and managers in the game urging Cristiano Ronaldo to stay in Manchester United and not to go to Real Madrid for the money, but it seems those shouts were not heard by Cristiano Ronaldo.
Am I happy that he might be with Real Madrid, YES!!, but really worried that another talented player already in Real Madrid will be sold, lets say someone like Robinho.
When the transfer window opened Real Madrid offered Manchester United 60 millions euros for Cristiano Ronaldo, but Manchester told Real not to bother by making any offers below 100 million euros which is around £73.9 million. And even then they still might not sell the player.
Personally I think Real Madrid will eventually cave and pay whatever Manchester requests, the player is talented and Real Madrid want his badly, and it will be one of the most additions to the squad in Calderon’s history. But the real question now is who will Real Madrid sell and will this sale disrupt the harmony of the squad.
I wont be surprised if Real Madrid was successful in buying Berbatov from Tottenham and Ronaldo from Manchester United by the end of the transfer window. But at the same time, I expect the sale of at least 2 to 3 players, one of those will be a critical player who played well in the first half of this season. Lets see what happens, but I will be surprised if Real Madrid made no purchases this January.
The latest reports state that Ronaldo who moved from Real Madrid in January of this year to AC Milan will be leaving in June. The player made a good show by the end of last season. But in this season he was injured until 25th of November where he played a nice game against Cagliari. We all thought the player is finally back and will feature heavily in the next games, but unfortunately he injured his calf while warming up for the Benfica game in the Champions League.
AC Milan most likely wont renew his contact by next summer, but the player is wanted, he has some offers from USA, United Arab Emirates and Japan!! Beckham is trying to convince him to join him in LA Galaxy and the Red Bull New York is also interested. I believe that the real money is in a deal with a club in UAE, those clubs will splash loads of cash just to get him to play here. I expect Al-Ain might be the one who would offer such a deal. Japan clubs also interested although I really doubt him going there.
Ofcourse going to any of those places simply means his career is simply over and he is only going to those countries to retire. Me myself as a Real Madrid fan would love to see him play here in UAE, but it is more likely he will join his buddy in LA Galaxy.
I know that the match was a friendly, but last couple years it was nice to watch the match, seeing all these talents playing together. Not this time, this time it was boring, oh sorry, no actually it was, booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooring. Again, I know its just a friendly, but come on play for God’s sake, by the first few minutes of the second half it was like a challenge between me and myself to sit and continue watching, promising myself that it will get better, sadly it didn’t.
Even while watching the highlights i was bored, here have a look and tell me am wrong.
Don’t miss this friendly, today Ronaldo and his friends and Zidane and his friends will play each other at 18:00 pm GMT. The match is the 5th of its kind created by the UN called “Match against Poverty”, to help end poverty in the world, it will be aired on Abu Dhabi Sport’s Channel, Dubai Sports Channel 1, Kuwait Sports Channel, Saudi Arabia Sports Channel and ART Sports 5.
It has been said that around 40 players will be in this event, such as Beckham, Robinho and Schumacher. I would recommend watching it on Abu Dhabi Sports Channel because the commentator will be Ali Sa3eed Al-Ka3by.
Confirmed players: Robert Pires (Villarreal), Víctor Valdéz and Eidur Gidjohnsen (FC Barcelona), Michel Salgádo and Roberto Soldado (Real Madrid), Carlos Diogo and Ricardo Oliveira (Real Zaragoza), Aitor Ocio (Athletic Bilbao), Idriss Kameni (Espanyol Barcelona), Renato (Sevilla), Antonio López and Mista (Atlético Madrid), Marta (Umea IK), Nuno and Pedro Emanuel (FC Porto), Peter Jehle (Boavista), Roque Junior (Duisburg), Lua-Lua (Olympiakos), Juliano Belletti (Chelsea), Pavel Nedved (Juventus) and Sami AL Jaber (Saudi Arabia).
Well, first of all a nice goal from Fabregas with the help of Eboue, Adebayor and Sagna. Arsenal returned to the fired up mode in the start of the second half, they played well, but to be honest Almunia was not so confident but he did save us from some nice shots but still shakey performance.
The second Manchester United goal scored by Ronaldo was a result of a really nice Saha pass to Evra and a really bad defending job by Arsenal’s defence line. In the end gallas saved us in an amazing crazy goal.
I expected a 2-1 victory for Arsenal and they could’ve got that result, am not happy withh all arsene wenger’s substitutes I mean if they work with other teams that doesn’t mean it should always work.
Ok, so we all saw that Arsenal was denied a penalty, thats not my problem my problem is that we started all fired up but eventually we just couldn’t keep the ball with us, and couldn’t handle is well enough to keep building up attacks and scoring a goal. Although we saw Gallas had a nice try and some shot here and there. Ofcourse Manchester played well but the goal is clearly a lucky goal its not because Rooney was clever or in control.
Nobody wants to see the goal again ofcourse but, here is the goal anyway, CLICK HERE.
Arsenal Substitutes:
1 Lehmann
8 Diarra
19 Silva
32 Walcott
9 Da Silva
Manchester United Starting Line-ups:
1 Van der Sar
3 Evra
6 Brown
5 Ferdinand
15 Vidic
7 Ronaldo
8 Anderson
11 Giggs
4 Hargreaves
32 Tevez
10 Rooney
Manchester United Substitutes:
29 Kuszczak
22 O’Shea
17 Nani
16 Carrick
9 Saha
Arsenal will be playing their 11th match in the league, being top of the table with 26 points, while Manchester United will be playing their 12th match second in the table with 26 points. Well, this is the awaited match since the start of the season, everybody says this is the real deal, this is the true test that will show how fragile those teams are, yes its a test for both teams because to be honest they are the only two teams that has a chance in winning the league, those not only my words its fergie’s too. Well although i don’t really care what he usually says but this time he is right, only in this point, it true those teams are the only ones who can actually do it.
Statistically speaking, Premier League’s best attack (Arsenal: 22 goals scored) is playing against the best defence (Man Utd: 4 goals conceded), Arsenal averages 2.20 goals per game while Man Utd avergaes 1.73 goals.
We shouldn’t forget also that last season Arsenal won both games against Manchester United in the league. There are no new injuries reported for both teams, evra is fit and expected to feature in the match.
This game was expected to be a thrilling one, with both teams winning their first matches. Confusingly, the Czech Republic players were wearing all red, where as the Portuguese played in all white.
Today another news came out, Marca announced that Cristiano Ronaldo have agreed terms with Real Madrid, and now all what needs to be done is setting the price with Manchester United. Calderon told Marca “It’s an honour that Ronaldo wants to play for us”. But it is a known fact that Manchester United summer transfer plans will be hugely affected if Cristiano Ronaldo leaves, and the player is very important that Alex Ferguson will try to convince him to stay.
When the transfer window opened Real Madrid offered Manchester United 60 millions euros for Cristiano Ronaldo, but Manchester told Real not to bother by making any offers below 100 million euros which is around £73.9 million. And even then they still might not sell the player.
The latest reports state that Ronaldo who moved from Real Madrid in January of this year to AC Milan will be leaving in June. The player made a good show by the end of last season. But in this season he was injured until 25th of November where he played a nice game against Cagliari. We all thought the player is finally back and will feature heavily in the next games, but unfortunately he injured his calf while warming up for the Benfica game in the Champions League.
Don’t miss this friendly, today Ronaldo and his friends and Zidane and his friends will play each other at 18:00 pm GMT. The match is the 5th of its kind created by the UN called “Match against Poverty”, to help end poverty in the world, it will be aired on Abu Dhabi Sport’s Channel, Dubai Sports Channel 1, Kuwait Sports Channel, Saudi Arabia Sports Channel and ART Sports 5.
Arsenal will be playing their 11th match in the league, being top of the table with 26 points, while Manchester United will be playing their 12th match second in the table with 26 points. Well, this is the awaited match since the start of the season, everybody says this is the real deal, this is the true test that will show how fragile those teams are, yes its a test for both teams because to be honest they are the only two teams that has a chance in winning the league, those not only my words its fergie’s too. Well although i don’t really care what he usually says but this time he is right, only in this point, it true those teams are the only ones who can actually do it.