United Rounds Up Tour With A Loss

Chivas de Guadalajara 3 - Manchester United 2

Am down with a pretty bad flu, so will try to make this as brief as humanly possible. If the last game's atmosphere was good, this one blew it out of the water. The atmosphere was simply superb. There was a parade before the game to open the new stadium and the fans were all given either a red or white t-shirt in Chivas' home colours. It resulted in an explosion of red and white in the stadium, a feast for the eyes.

As for the game itself, Chivas was clearly the better team. Chicharito played in their colours in the first half and he scored a brilliant volley to open the scoring. Smalling levelled the scores almost immediately thru a corner, but Chivas closed the stronger team in the half and went into the lead with a well-deserved goal, albeit miles offside.

In the second half, Hernandez switched jerseys but was no where near as effective. We were hardly able to find him the ball. In truth we were pretty woeful at creating chances throughout the game. It wasn't a surprise that Chivas found the net again, before Nani pulled one back to make the scoreline respectable.

The results in this preseason tour is no where near what or how we would perform when the season starts proper. A whole host of players will be returning from their World Cup exertions, and preseason is going to start proper back in England.

However from this tour, we get a good gauge of the youngsters in the team. While most of them are as we expected, some probably have exceeded our expectation, there are a couple that have me worried. Players like Diouf and Rafael seemed to have played themselves out of the team. Ok, Rafael isn't that bad, but I can't possibly see how Diouf is going to fight for a place in the team. With the addition of Hernandez, and the upcoming talents of Welbeck and Macheda, I simply cannot see Diouf breaking into the team. Berbatov, Rooney and Owen are far too established, while the 3 young ones are just more talented. Diouf definitely has to be the first casualty of this tour.

United Thrashes MLS Allstars

MLS Allstars 2 - Manchester United 5

As expected, there was a carnival atmosphere with the crowds packing in. And in the first minute, the MLS allstars gave Macheda a gift he gleefully accepted. The opener was well taken. Before the Allstars could get into gear, Macheda struck again with a centre forward's header from a corner. Fletcher could have made it 3 before half time, but his effort shook the crossbar.

A slew of substitutions in the second half galvanized the Allstars and after a few close brushes, pulled one back with Brian Ching's header. It didn't look good for United. Fergie sent on Chicharito for his debut. Hernandez got fouled in a dangerous position and Gibson hammered home the jambulani, slamming the door firmly shut in the faces of the Allstars.

Cleverley cleverly danced his way into the box and added the fourth (always wanted to write that). And Chicharito lobbed the keeper for United's fifth. The Allstars were outplayed by our kids most of the game and only in the dying minutes managed to take hold of the game but it was too little too late. They did however get another goal.

All in all, I was pleased with the way we played today. Especially pleased for Macheda and Rafael. In all honesty, both had a terrible preseason todate, but they managed to redeem themselves in a huge huge way with their performances.

Cleverley was fantastic too. He came on for Obertan who left the field injured in the middle of the first half. He was mainly anonymous until his absolutely brilliant goal. But after the goal, he just grew in stature and was probably the best player on the pitch by a far margin in the last 20 or so minutes. I think his problem in the initial preseason games is confidence. But once that goal went in, he just began to feel at ease and let his feet do the talking, the walking and the dancing. If he can keep that level of confidence, my word, he's going to be a player. To think I was almost writing him off. I supposed the problem with all these young players, as I've mentioned before, is consistency.

Lastly, Chicharito is brilliant. I'm really excited to see him play when the season starts. He's speedy Gonzalez wrapped in taco-flavoured kissed. The only foreseeable problem is how he's going to cope with the physical nature of the EPL.

Watching the youngsters play to their potential and more importantly, in the right spirit, albeit for one game, lifts my spirits for the upcoming season.

These MLS Teams Are Good!

Kansas City Wizards 2 - Manchester United 1

The title says it all. The result is a little bit disappointing, but take nothing away from the Wizards. It's a huge victory for them, especially having to deal with 10 men for the entire second half.

As with the previous couple of games, we started with a youthful backline and they were given a torrid time against a very physical and fit Wizards team. Rafael and De Laet were given the run around the entire first half. Evans and Smalling did better but couldn't prevent both the Wizards goals.

Wizards opened the scoring early after beating the offside trap. They then got into abit of a bother when defender Conrad got his marching orders for a foul on Berbatov in the box. Berbatov equalized from the spot but Wizards went back into the lead before our celebrations were over.

We couldn't prise open the Wizards defense in the second half despite having the lion's share of the possession. All in all, we didn't have a good game, but once again Wizards impressed me, and we're not even talking about a top MLS team.

Our next game is on Thursday against the MLS Allstars. I expect a much easier game. These last two games had a very competitive feel to them, with both teams in mid-season form and playing for pride. Thursday game will have an exhibition feel towards it, and it may work to our favour with so many youngsters in the team.

Personally, I can't wait for all the remaining players return. From what I've seen so far, this is not the 95-96 season. This current crop of youngster are good, but not that good, partly due to the fact that most of the teams in the EPL have improved by leaps and bounds since then. Secondly, most of our play so far involving our youngsters has been rather immature. That group of Scholes, Butt, Becks and the Neville brothers had veteran heads on their then young shoulders.

And on a ending note, Carrick would look sweet on the Kansas City Wizards. Plenty of opportunities to don his superman costume. Wonder if they can afford him....

United Takes Second Tour Win

Philadelphia Union 0 - Manchester United 1

This was definitely a better workout than the Celtic game. Union is a team in mid-season and their fitness levels certainly gave us a larger challenge than the Scots. Although they hardly troubled us, they certainly made things difficult for our very youthful strike partnership of Welbeck and Macheda.

Ultimately, Obertan broke the deadlock when Union's backline made a mistake and gifted Welbeck the ball. Welbeck's thru ball found Obertan and he gleefully slotted home for the narrow victory. It really should've been more but our very young team was selfish. I suppose that's the problem with youth. The only consistent thing about their game is the level of inconsistency. With that in mind, it was still disappointing to see the kids make a mess of good possession. I'm not too sure we can rely on a large number of them when the real games begin. There is still a whole lot to learn.

United Opens Preseason With A Win

Manchester United 3 - Celtics 1

Good to have some real football action at last. This was our first game in pre-season and I was expecting alot of broken plays and players getting back to fitness. But what transpired was pleasantly surprising. I'll not go into detail since it's the friendlies, instead I'll go into little snips on what I observed.

Scholes - Outstanding. England missed him terribly. He was spraying passes all over the pitch and when he left at half time, the quality of United's play dropped significantly.

Berbatov - Scored the opener and created the other 2. He started like the way he played last season, but as the game wore one, he just got better and better. Maybe, just maybe, this could be his breakout season with us. I'm not holding my hopes too high....

Fabio - Outstanding on the left. Great energy going forward and, unlike his brother on the other side of the pitch, showed great patience in defense, not committing into rash challengers.

Smalling - Had a credible first half. Nothing could get past him. He was comfortable on the ball, and would be compared to Rio with his reading of the game. Unfortunately, just like Rio, he was caught in no-man's land and gave away a penalty that allowed Celtic to equalize. Withered like a flower after that.

Obertan - Looks great going down the right flank. Plenty of speed and trickery. Contributed to the opener. However, very similar to what he showed last season. Not enough footballing brains to pick out teammates. I suppose that will eventually come with more experience and maturity. Actually the same can be said for all the youngsters on display today....Cleverly, Diouf, Macheda. At times it's just painful to see them squander good chances when they go for personal glory.

Without the players who played in the World Cup, this was a really good display for the first game after a long layoff. Hopefully I'm able to catch the rest of the friendlies played in North America. The timing's just awful over here in Singapore.

Thank God It's Fucking Over

Plenty has happened since the last time I post anything useful, partly due to being really busy and partly due to me forgetting, yet again, my password. But this post isn't about me. I'm just going to use this post to rave and rant over, what I feel, is one of the worst World Cups I've ever witness in my short life span on this earth.

The first round was a wash. Utterly unwatchable. The games to goals ratio was utterly pathetic and every team was simply just boring. There were times it seemed like no one knew how to play attacking football. There were times it seemed like no one cared. All the big guns were clueless on how to breakdown the stubborn defenses thrown at them resulting in some abysmal scorelines. Of course me losing money in the process just reinforced my point....ahem.

The second round onwards were only marginally better. But the end result of Spain winning it with their brand of putting everyone to sleep with a million passes sideways would bore everyone to sleep. They ended up the winners with the least goals scored on route. It's a travesty that such a team even deserved to win. Not to mention all the whining, imaginary card waving to the referee and the fake injuries just leaves a bitter taste in everyone's mouth. Deserved champions? My ass. If anything, it only reinforces my utter disdain for the Spanish brand of football and teams that hold out for 1-0 scorelines. World Cups in the past were so much better with the Spaniards going home in the second round. So much better.

The other finalists, the Dutch were no better. Their brand of football in the finals was only good for Mortal Kombat. If I wanted to watch some good fighting, I'd watch Ultimate Fighter or the good'o WWE. Instead I spend the night watching a bunch of unskilled kickers chasing a bunch of pansies around a football pitch. As bad as the last finals were, at least it had Zidane actually hurting someone. As much as I hate Zidane, he suddenly went up considerably in my book. Horrible conclusion to a horrible tournament.

Just to make my experience even worse, the vuvuzelas ringing in every game is a buzz kill. It's gotta be one of the most irritating sounds on the face of the earth, next to my singing. It's akin to entering a swamp and being attacked by a million mosquitoes. Reminds me too much of my days when I was serving in the army. Too many bad memories.

Then there was THAT ball called the jambulani. With the exception of Forlan, not a single player seems to know how to use it. Everyone had trouble reading its bounce and more trouble trying to strike it. It made for awful viewing and as a result, awful games with strikers ballooning their shots.

And once again video technology would have cleared up so much of the controversial decisions made. At least after all the boo-boos made by the men in black, Sepp Blatter finally took time off to take his enlarged head out of his ass and admitted that it could be reviewed. All that's lacking is video evidence that he's managed to remove it completely.

Not to mention that the world media agrees with me completely that this is the most boring World Cup ever. Instead of covering the games, midway thru the tournament, most print and internet media focused their attention on an octopus.....seriously an octopus! Paul was the most interesting piece of news that's come out of this World Cup. Our local propaganda print media even tried to make things more interesting with our own version of a psychic parrot. That's just how bad the World Cup was, or how utterly devoid of journalistic integrity our local reporters have. The least anyone could have done was to tell how bad it was and not spin it completely out of whack.

To round off the rant, the only unbeaten team from this tournament is.....New Zealand. That's right....NEW ZEALAND. Eat your fucking heart out, I rest my case.