An evening in Miami

I was in Florida this weekend and took advantage to go watch some football: Inter Miami against FC Nashville.

It was a strange experience in a Chase stadium, a temporary ground that is situated exactly at the spot where the Ft. Lauderdale strikers used to play. In fact, I find it a bit strange that they do not want to dwell into the history of a club that in the 1970s also had some of the world's best players in a league and club that are now defunct...

But I guess Inter Miami wants to create its own history, and there is no doubt whatsoever that Lionel Messi is central to that history. That may be correct at this time of social media and individual focus in a country where football remains largely unknown, but I think it is also risky, as the vast majority of people were not there to watch football, but to see Lionel Messi, the legend, and in a match that was not very good or well-played, Messi delivered with two goals (one a rebound after an excellent play and one on a penalty) and one assist (a studied situation in a corner kick that Sergio Busquets scored on), but otherwise didn't seem to have to make much of an effort.

In my view it is risky because when Messi is gone, one has to wonder what will be left of a full stadium full of Messi shirt, specially if the rest of the team cannot deliver on the much-sought after entertainment.

That said, I had fun, so no doubt that they delivered on that!

Cheers!

Barcelona and Shakhtar

I think that most people were expecting that Barcelona would be able to defeat Arsenal, which they also did, 3-1 tonight, to qualify for the quartefinals of the Champions League. What less people, including myself, were probably not expecting is that Arsenal would play so bad! In spite of a bad referee, 3-1 was pretty lucky, although Barcelona's attack was also somewhat inefficient; David Villa had a really bad day and Manuel Almunia had a great day in Arsenal's goal after he came in as a substitute. Still, it seems incredible that Arsenal managed to score a goal, when they didn't even have a shot on goal: their goal was an own-goal by Barcelona's Sergio Busquets where he seemed to have had a brain diahrrea, heading it into his own goal.
Arsenal are a great team, and their victory in the first match was well-deserved. However, after tonight's disappointing match, they will not be missed in the quarterfinals.

Shakhtar Donetsk is one of those brilliant but rather unknown teams, that has only become better and better over the last seasons. This season they are undefeated at home, where they have also not lost for more than two years! It was therefore looking good against a lame Roma side whom they had defeated 2-3 in Rome. Although Roma had its possibility with a missed penalty kick, Shakhtar Donetsk was otherwise brilliant and deservedly won 3-0. Roma's players resorted to violent frustration, but a friendly referee forgave them what should have been red cards.
Roma will not be missed, but any team that faces Shakhtar Donetsk in the quarterfinals should not underestimate this strong Ukrainian side!