What A Weekend!

Well, that was quite a weekend for top sporting action. The big event was Super Bowl XLV and the game certainly lived up to the hype - so much so, in fact, that I stayed up to gone 3:00 a.m. to see the climax of the whole thing.

The Vince Lombardi Trophy, Uploaded on flickr.com by user "pkeleher" [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Congratulations must go to the Green Bay Packers for a tremendous 31-25 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. But, as with most sports, the result doesn’t even begin to tell the story of the match, which ebbed and flowed throughout. The Packers led 21-3 at one stage early in the game, but a tremendous comeback from the Steelers got them to within 3 points of their opponents, and with the momentum on their side the Championship was definitely there for the taking. But, the Packers regrouped and found the determination to score again and deny the Steelers a third Super Bowl victory in six years. For me, it was an excellent contest and the destination of the Lombardi Trophy was up for grabs right until the dying seconds. Sport at its best.

Elsewhere, the Premiership did their best to try to outshine the showpiece occasion on the other side of the pond. A breathtaking weekend of action, with some amazing scorelines, produced the greatest total of goals on one day – 41 from the 8 games played on Saturday. A stunning comeback by Newcastle Utd saw them recover from 0-4 down after 26 minutes to grab an unlikely 4-4 draw in the last few minutes. That is the first time a team has recovered from a 4 goal deficit in the history of the Premiership. And that was by no means the only sensation of the day, with previously unbeaten Manchester Utd succumbing to bottom of the table Wolves and slipping to a 2-1 defeat.

There were also 8 goals at Everton, in a game that swung one way and then the other, and back again. 7 goals at Wigan, 5 at Stoke and 4 at Aston Villa all managed to push up that record total. The expected titanic clash of Chelsea and Liverpool on Sunday was very mild in comparison and Fernando Torres was kept extremely quiet by his ex-teammates before being substituted in the second half. A 1-0 victory for the visiting side has now realistically ended any hopes that Chelsea may have had of winning the title this year. In fact, they may well be looking over their shoulders at Tottenham and Liverpool themselves in the battle for a Champions League place.

As I mentioned on Saturday, this weekend was also the start of the Six Nations and there were victories for England, Ireland and France. Those latter two teams will meet each other at the Aviva Stadium, Dublin on this coming Saturday, whilst England will play Italy, and Scotland will host Wales.

All in all, it was a very eventful and exciting sporting weekend. May there be many more like it ahead of us.

Deadline Day Drama

The January transfer window slammed shut last night and, in a mad last-minute scramble, several hundred millions of pounds changed hands as players flitted across the country and continent to find homes in pastures new. Whilst it was exciting to watch, is it actually good for the game?

This year saw a lot more business conducted compared to the previous January window, and apparently also saw some clubs completely lose any sense of reality. Huge sums of money were paid for players either without any real pedigree, or who are currently playing way below their best form. The English Premiership alone splashed out over £200million, including £50million for Fernando Torres and £35million for Andy Carroll. That’s the same Andy Carroll who has yet to complete a full Premiership season and who has played just once for England – in a friendly. Yes he may have great potential, but £35million is an awful lot of dosh to dole out in the hope that one day he will become the next Alan Shearer.

The current economic climate doesn’t appear to have filtered through to some football club chairmen, or should I say owners. Since the arrival of Roman Abramovich at Chelsea the gap between the EPL and the rest of English football, and even to some extent the rest of European football, has grown increasingly wide. And, a gap has also developed within the Premiership itself with just a handful of clubs in with any kind of shout of making it into Europe, and in reality just 4 teams with a realistic chance of taking the title. Can it really be good for the wider game to have so much power residing in the hands of so few clubs? And will the money men hang around forever? Only one club can be Premiership champions in a season – everyone else are losers. For how long will the owners put up with pouring millions of pounds into those clubs without any real silverware in return?

The economic bubble burst in 2008 with devastating worldwide effect. I can only hope that the football bubble doesn’t follow the same path. I have my fears.