Good morning, buon giorno, buenas dias, guten tag, and bonjour, and welcome to another edition of football rankings as prepared by Tom “Purdue Pete” Nielsen and Blaine “Sachin Tendulkar’s Newest Fan” Curcio. Before going into details about the wild week that was, I feel it necessary to mention that David “Pig-Dog” Beckham’s world cup chances are now over due to an Achilles injury, and I’ve consequently been celebrating ever since. Of course, the biggest event in European football this week was the second leg of the Champions’ League round of 16 matches. Tuesday evening saw Bayern Munich lose to Fiorentina 3-2, but advance on 4-4 aggregate with the away goals rule. Tom seemed to believe this makes Germany look good, [Editor’s (Tom’s) Note: I don’t think this necessarily makes Germany look good, but Blaine likes Italy so much and dislikes the Bundesliga so much that I had to rub it in his face via Facebook post-match.] I think that Fiorentina is a rubbish Italian side [He still has them ranked 21st] and the fact that the Bundesliga’s best needed away goals to beat them is sad, and a reflection on the league’s inferiority. Arsenal decided to shatter the men of F.C. Porto with a 5-0 bloodbath at the Emirates, which saw at least three Portuguese jump in front of London double-decker busses after the match due to manic depression. Porto folded about 45 minutes later, and are no longer in existence (that was a lie). Arsenal’s match saw Nicklas Bendtner and his silent “d” in his last name score a hattrick, and saw Arsene Wenger’s legend grow to the status of hero among men. Wednesday night’s CL fixtures were massively hyped going in, with Manchester United owning a 3-2 lead over AC Milan (with 3 away goals) and Lyon coming in as the shocking favorite, having beaten Real Madrid 1-0 in Lyon. United were originally to be playing without the man who is currently the most electrifying man in sports entertainment (a title bestowed upon him by The Rock), Wayne Rooney, due to an injury sustained while saving orphans from a fire. Rooney had a miraculous death-bed recovery the morning of the match, and went out and scored a double, cementing his reputation as the Greek God of premature balding and making world-class keepers look like Paul Robinson. Lyon-Real Madrid ended in a 1-1 draw, which saw Real Madrid ousted from the CL and Florentino Perez put his foot in his mouth after having spent approximately €1 trillion (or roughly infinity Filipino Pesos) on transfers this past offseason, with the intention of winning the Champions’ League. Liverpool continued their miserable season with a 1-0 loss to Lille in the Europa League, which saw Rafael Benitez punch Liverpool owner Tom Hicks in the mouth for lack of transfer funds. This week in the premiership was a fairly standard one. Manchester United’s fans found themselves doing the “easy! easy! easy!” chant after their 3-0 drubbing of Fulham, while Chelsea continued to roll with a 4-1 win over bottom-dwelling (but still legendary because of the cinematic excellence of Green Street Hooligans) West Ham United. By the way, for the record, Wayne Rooney scored yet another brace in their win over Fulham, and continues to go about doing the business of kicking ass and taking names. Arsenal was able to pull off a respectable away victory at Hull City 2-1, while Everton and Birmingham played to a 2-2 draw in B’Ham. Tottenham Hotspur continues to loiter in 4th place (something that would result in a $1,000 fine in Singapore) with a win over Blackburn Rovers. In La Liga the results were not terribly interesting, with Real Madrid cruising to a 4-1 win over Valladolid. Barcelona played vs. 3rd place Valencia at home, which had some potential to be a decent match given Valencia’s respectability. Lionel Messi would have none of that though, and scored a second-half hattrick, stealing the hearts of a thousand Spanish women in the process. This means that Valencia is now in 3rd with 47 points, while Barca and Real are tied at the top with 65. Yes, you read that correctly, they could both go 6 matches without getting a single point, and still be at least tied at the top of the table with Valencia. That’s called parity, my friends. Vegas now puts Real or Barca as winning La Liga as a 103% chance to happen. That’s not an exaggeration, either (yes it is). One of the more interesting things to happen this week was Serie A’s decision to give up on the traditionally defensive style of Italian football entirely, and just go hog-wild scoring goals! The following scorelines, among others, were observed this week in Serie A: 5-3, 3-3, 3-3, 3-2. The last time there were that many scores in Italy was when Gigi Buffon was seen out picking up women in some tiny provincial town like Cittadella after a match during Juve’s spell in Serie B (ba-dum-cha!). Speaking of Juventus, after a roaring start that saw them go up 3-0 on Siena within 45 seconds (it was really 10 minutes), the Old Lady decided to roll over and die, as Siena came back and scored 3 of their own to cause the match to end 3-3. Newly appointed Juventus head coach Alberto Zaccheroni was seen shortly after the match crying in the fetal position in the dressing room shower while Gianni Agnelli’s ghost beat him over the head with an umbrella saying “vafanculo”. Inter Milan’s travel agent was fired this weekend after he mistakenly booked airfare for their youth squad to go play Catania Calcio (current league position: 15th), which led to Catania beating Inter 3-1. This blows the Serie A title race absolutely wide open, as AC Milan now finds themselves only 1 point out of 1st place after a 90th minute Clarence Seedorf goal gave them the full 3 points over Chievo Verona. AS Roma also continues to lurk in 3rd, only 6 points out of first. Genoa and Cagliari played to an 8 goal thriller that ended Genoa 5-3 Cagliari, and saw 7 goals scored in about 25 minutes. Given the Italian style of play, the scoreboard didn’t have room to fit 8 goal-scorers, so they ended up paying some Italian guy to hold up signs indicating the scorers for goals 2-8 (they’d never seen a multi-goal match before). In Holland, Ajax Amsterdam massively outclassed PSV Eindhoven in a battle of Dutch heavyweights (which is equivalent to a battle of English Welterweights at best), as they won 3-1 in Amsterdam ArenA. Twente won again to go 5 up on PSV at the top of the table. In France 2/3 of this weekend’s matches were cancelled due to fan indifference. The fortunate few matches that did happen included Bordeaux’s 0-0 draw vs. Monaco which saw Lille move to within 2 points of the top. The 2nd and 3rd place teams, Montpelier and AJ Auxerre, respectively, drew to a 1-1 draw, preventing each other from leapfrogging Bordeaux. A very quick Bundesliga roundup: Leverkusen, Bayern Munich, and Schalke 04 all won. Munich’s win involved a brace by Arjen Robben in the last 15 minutes to give them the 2-1 win over 17th place FC Freiburg. The three clubs now sit 1-2-3, with Bayern Munich in 1st with 56, Schalke in 2nd with 54, and Leverkusen in 3rd with 53. In the coming week, watch for the 2nd round of CL round of 16 legs, with the obvious crown-jewel of those matches being the massively hyped Chelsea-Inter Milan match. Inter won round 1 at the San Siro 2-1, but Chelsea has stated their confidence in their abilities to pull off the minor upset. Thanks for reading this far, and if you have, odds are you’re currently questioning my sanity.
I’ve questioned his insanity for a couple years now—this only confirms my suspicions. In any event, here are the rankings:
Rank Team Country Points
1. Barcelona (Esp) 50
2. Chelsea (Eng) 47
3. Manchester United (Eng) 46
4. Real Madrid (Esp) 45
5. Arsenal (Eng) 40
6. Inter Milan (Ita) 39
7. AC Milan (Ita) 36
8. Bayern Munich (Ger) 34
9. Bordeaux (Fra) 32
10. Tottenham Hotspur (Eng) 30
11. Bayer Leverkusen (Ger) 29
T12. Schalke 04 (Ger) 26
T12. Valencia (Esp) 26
14. Manchester City (Eng) 25
T15. Benfica (Por) 21
T15. Twente Enschede (Ned) 21
17. Aston Villa (Eng) 20
18. AS Roma (Ita) 15
19. Ajax Amsterdam (Ned) 13
T20.Braga (Por) 11
T20.Montpellier (Fra) 11
22. Lyon (Fra) 10
T23. Fiorentina (Ita) 5
T23. Marseille (Fra) 5
25. Sevilla (Esp) 4
Also Receiving Votes: Juventus (Ita) 3, Panathinaikos (Gre) 3, Hamburg SV (Ger) 2, FC Porto (Por) 1
And here is how the voters voted:
| Rank | Tom | Blaine |
| 1 | Barcelona | Barcelona |
| 2 | Manchester United | Chelsea |
| 3 | Chelsea | Real Madrid |
| 4 | Real Madrid | Manchester United |
| 5 | Arsenal | Inter Milan |
| 6 | Bayern Munich | Bordeaux |
| 7 | AC Milan | Arsenal |
| 8 | Inter Milan | Valencia |
| 9 | Schalke 04 | AC Milan |
| 10 | Bayer Leverkusen | Tottenham Hotspur |
| 11 | Benfica | Twente Enschede |
| 12 | Tottenham Hotspur | Bayern Munich |
| 13 | Manchester City | Bayer Leverkusen |
| 14 | Bordeaux | Manchester City |
| 15 | Montpellier | Ajax Amsterdam |
| 16 | Aston Villa | Aston Villa |
| 17 | Lyon | Schalke 04 |
| 18 | Valencia | AS Roma |
| 19 | AS Roma | Braga |
| 20 | Twente Enschede | Benfica |
| 21 | Marseille | Fiorentina |
| 22 | Braga | Sevilla |
| 23 | Panathinaikos | Juventus |
| 24 | Ajax Amsterdam | Hamburg SV |
| 25 | FC Porto | Lyon |
Next five in for Tom, in alphabetical order: Anderlecht (Bel), Liverpool (Eng), Mallorca (Esp), PSV Eindhoven (Ned), Sevilla (Esp)
Next five in for Blaine, in alphabetical order: AJ Auxerre (Fra), Hamburg SV (Ger), Lille (Fra), Liverpool (Eng), Montpellier (Fra)
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