Tops and flops

Published : Oct 18, 2008 00:00 IST

In La Liga the much-hyped showdown between the two Argentine superstars, Lionel Messi and Sergio ‘Kun’ Aguero, never materialised, while in the Bundesliga, the top clubs continued to hobble. Karthik Krishnaswamy follows the action in the European leagues.

Two of European football’s Brobdingnagians — Bayern Munich and Juventus — lumber in 11th place in their respective leagues, going into the break for the 2010 World Cup qualifiers.

“The small clubs have become cheeky and have lost all respect,” said Bayern legend Franz Beckenbauer in an interview to German newspaper Bild after his club let slip a two-goal lead, with just 10 minutes left, to draw 3-3 against VfL Bochu m, amidst boos from the Bayern fans.

With this draw and two defeats in its three most recent games, Bayern trails Bundesliga leader Hamburger SV by seven points.

Vital for Hamburg’s showing thus far has been its Croatian strike partnership of Ivica Olic and Mladen Petric, who have scored three goals each.

Petric, who signed from Borussia Dortmund at the beginning of the season for an undisclosed fee, netted a 90th minute winner against Energie Cottbus to move Hamburg three points clear of Hoffenhein and Stuttgart at the top of the table.

In Serie A, Juventus, down to 10 men after midfielder Momo Sissoko was sent off in the first half, folded 2-1 at home to Palermo, a result that followed draws to Catania and Sampdoria in its two previous league games. Amid mounting pressure on manager Claudio Ranieri, former AC Milan and Italy coach Arrigo Sacchi and the 1982 World Cup hero Paolo Rossi have questioned director Alessio Secco’s summer window transfer activity, both suggesting that no match-winners have been brought into the squad.

Rossi said that Juventus was suffering a lack of quality in midfield and that capturing either of two players strongly linked with a summer move to Turin — Liverpool’s Xabi Alonso or Hamburg’s Rafael Van der Vaart (who moved to Real Madrid) — would have helped.

Despite the string of poor results, Juventus is only four points behind Serie A leaders, Inter Milan, Udinese and Lazio, who each have 13 points from six games.

Inter dusted itself from defeat in the Milan derby with a 2-0 win over Bologna, which included a smoke-and-mirrors backheel-volleyed goal from Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who snaked his right leg backwards, around near post defender Claudio Terzi’s diving header, to connect with Adriano’s cross from the left.

On to La Liga, where the much-hyped showdown between two Argentine superstars — Lionel Messi and Sergio ‘Kun’ Aguero — never materialised: Messi’s Barcelona thumped Atletico Madrid 6-1, with a brace from Samuel Eto’o, and one each from Rafael Marquez, Eidur Gudjohnsen, Thierry Henry and Messi. Out of a plethora of moments for repeated YouTube gazing, the most gaze-able wasn’t a goal.

Messi’s magnetic boots took the ball from inside his own half into Atletico’s penalty area; velocity accounted for the first bemused defender, and two rapid, lateral touches defeated the second’s centre of gravity, before a dink over the diving goalkeeper with the outside of his left foot went just wide.

With that loss, Atletico dropped to seventh in the table, seven points behind leaders Villareal and Valencia, who each have 16 points. Valencia’s star has undoubtedly been David Villa, who, somewhere between the spiky hairdo and the soul patch on his chin, has the path to goal mapped indelibly. He leads the Spanish league’s scoring charts with seven from seven games.

Between the top two sides and sixth-placed Almeria is a gap of only five points, with Sevilla, Barcelona and Real Madrid jostling for space in between.

In French top-tier action, Florent Balmont endured a traumatic build-up to Lille’s clash against Valenciennes. Armed, shrouded-in-black burglars inflicted a blow upon his head before leaving his home on the outskirts of Lille with his Audi A5. As if displaying his hard-man credentials, the 28-year-old midfielder turned in a man-of-the-match performance in his side’s derby win the next day, sporting a bandaged head. In recent years, Patrick Vieira and Fabien Barthez have also been high-profile French victims of the burgeoning crime of ‘home-jacking’ — breaking into houses or garages to steal car keys and thereby the cars themselves. Lille’s 1-0 win, courtesy an own goal by Jacques Abardonado, puts the northern club in sixth with 14 points, with fourth and fifth-placed Le Mans and Bordeaux ahead only on goal difference.

Table topper Lyon’s unbeaten start to the Ligue 1 campaign was ended at Rennes with a hat-trick from veteran striker Mickael Pagis. His third was a stunner: a right-footed volley struck from well outside the penalty area into the top left corner, taken on the bounce after cushioning a headed clearance on the chest.

Toulouse cut its deficit to Lyon to just two points, with its second 1-0 win in a row, against Auxerre. As against Valenciennes, it was Andre-Pierre Gignac who scored the solitary goal, his fifth of the campaign. The 22-year-old is second overall in the league behind Lyon’s Karim Benzema, who has six.

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