Galaxy still alive

At my office we are doing a small pot on the League Cup. Eight of us drew a random team of the eight left in the quarterfinals and in the end the winner get the pot if your draw wins the tournament. Happy to say that I am still in the competition as I drew LA Galaxy, who defeated the current Mexican champions of Toluca 2-1, with the new signing Marco Reus scoring his first goal for the Californians. 

It was all in all a dreadful day for the Mexican sides, who were all eliminated. I watched Inter Miami eliminate Tigres of UANL 2-1. Luis Suarez´s scored both Miami goals on penalty kicks, both called for handball. I personally think they were both very weak calls, specially the second penalty, which came at the end of the match when Tigres were dominating following Angel Correa´s equaliser for the Monterrey side. Not that it was undeserved that Miami won; they had a good first half, but with Tigres´strong second half the match could have gone to either side, and it is a pity it is decided on a penalty kick that should not have been given as it was not a danger situation and the ball hit the player´s arm in a random situation. But in VAR times any handball is defensible, no matter the intention or situation. 

I guess now to support LA Galaxy, who will face Seattle Sounders!

Results in a strange tournament

The 2025 League Cup is happening, and I have been watching some of the matches in a strange tournament that officially is a "friendly" tournament, but the winner qualifies for the CONCACAF Champions Cup, also despite the fact that the tournament is not sponsored by CONCACAF.

The tournament started in 2019 as a confrontation between the MLS and the Liga MX. 18 teams from each league participate and only play teams from the other league, three matches, with three points for a win, two points for a win on penalty kicks (it goes straight to penalty kicks if it ends in a tie), and one point for a tie (so you keep it if you lose on penalty kicks). The top eight teams, four from each league, then progress to play-off quarterfinals.

Yesterday the league stage ended with two top teams, firstly the Mexican champions from Toluca, and secondly Seattle Sounders, who won three straight matches, one a 7-0 destruction of the CONCACAF Champions Cup winners Cruz Azul. Besides Toluca, Pachuca and Tigres the Mexican sides have appeared very weak indeed; mighty America only managed three ties against Real Salt Lake, Minnesota United and Portland Timbers, while other sides than Cruz Azul also suffered big defeats to MLS sides such as Necaxa, Atlas and Santo Laguna. Regarding the latter I watched their 0-4 defeat against an LA Galaxy side with the German veteran star Marco Reus in midfield, and frankly 0-4 was too little in a match where Santos Laguna looked more like a Danish 3rd division side, and on top of that got two well-deserved red cards.

What Santos Laguna showed was perhaps the worst side of Mexican football.

While MLS sides did well overall, there was not much difference between the top four teams, amongst which Messi's Inter Miami ended on second place. In their last match they also proved better than the Mexico City side Pumas UNAM, who may have gone ahead, but then were vastly outplayed by a Miami side with Luis Suarez and Rodrigo de Paul as goalscorers and architects of the goals. I must admit that I have had reserves against Miami, but this was one of the best matches I have seen them play, and are really worth following.

The quarterfinals are in a couple of weeks, and fully replace the league matches in both leagues. All this said, it is more a comparative tournament between two leagues, perhaps more valuable for MLS to show the significant advances that the league is going through. 

Di Maria the saviour?

On the same day that Manchester United got destroyed in the League Cup 4-0 by a team called MK Dons (from the third tier English league) they announced that they have paid 84 Million Euros for the Real Madrid player Angel di Maria.
84 Million is a lot of money, and is in fact the most that an English club has ever paid for a footballer. Considering the fantastic players that have passed through the English league and not least through Manchester United, the amount seems completely out of proportion with who Di Maria is.
Granted, Di Maria is a good player, but he is not the player that can lift Manchester United out of the bad period they are in. Only one man can do that: Louis Van Gaal. The Dutchman has not had a good start, and perhaps Di Maria is part of a long-terms plan in Manchester United. But most of all it seems like a desperate gamble on a player that will have a pressure on him that he will not be able to take.

Swansea-Bradford in the League Cup final

Michael Laudrup is one of my favourite players and football gentlemen of all time, and therefore I wish he has success as coach of Swansea, so that one day he may take some great club, like Brondby, back to glory.
So it was with delight that one saw that Swansea eliminated Chelsea (the Champions League winners of last year!) from the League Cup, making it to their first final ever. The match, which ended 0-0 after Swansea had won 0-2 at Stamford Bridge, was overshadowed by a strange incident where the Chelsea defender totally overreacted when a ball-boy totally held on to the ball for too long, and attacked the boy.
Still, this does not take away Swansea's achievement and shot at their first title!
But Swansea is not the greatest surprise in the final. Bradford City, from the English League II, defeated Premier League giants Arsenal, as well as Aston Villa and Wigan to become a sensation in the final. So in spite of Swansea being huge favourites, Laudrup & Co. should not underestimate little Bradford, who will have nothing to lose and everything to fight for!