MONDAY MORNING CENTERBACK: MANCHESTER DERBY, BARCELONA, AND MADRID
Manchester Derby
Manchester United and Manchester City played an exciting and controversial match on Sunday afternoon. Both teams had their scoring boots on as this one ended 4-3 for United after a late and controversial game winner by Michael Owen in the 5th injury time minute. Man City coach, Hughes, was angered that the ref allowed the game to go on for 6 injury time minutes after the 4th official has signaled only 4 minutes.
Craig Bellamy and Darren Fletcher each got a brace for their respective side. Wayne Rooney, Gareth Barry, and Michael Owen also found the back of the net. Man City was without leading goal scorer Adebayor and Brazilian superstar Robinho. Man City likely feel robbed and that should only make their next meeting this spring more exciting.
Here are the highlights of the match:
La Liga Goal Fest
Both Real Madrid and Barcelona won big this weekend in La Liga play. On Saturday Barcelona thoroughly dismantled Alteltico Madrid 5-2. On Sunday Madrid destroyed Xerex 5-0 to stay top of the table tied with Barcelona but with a better goal differential. Cristiano Ronaldo scored a brace for Madrid leaving him top of the goal scoring table tied with David Villa of Valencia with 4 goals. Lionel Messi and Zlatan Ibrahimovic both have 3 goals.
Barcelona completely out classed Atletico Madrid and were up 4-0 by the half. Ibrahimovic, Messi, Dani Alves, and Keita scored in the first half. Barcelona let the foot off the gas in the second half allowing Diego Forlan and Aguero to pull two goals back for the visiting side. But Messi made sure the match ended in a drubbing by scoring Barcelona’s 5th goal in the 90th minute.
Things looked like they would go smoothly for Real Madrid after Cristiano Ronaldo opened the scoring in just the 1st minute for Madrid. Xerex proved to be resilient and held off the Madrid giants for 74 minutes. Ronaldo scored his second goal of the night and the floodgates opened. Guti, Benzema, and Van Nistelrooy each found a goal in the final 15 minutes to complete the rout.
Before anyone gets too excited about Madrid consider that Xerex is pointless in 3 matches and has yet to score a goal.
Here are the highlights of those matches:
September 24th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
United should have scored 3 more in the second half! We need Berbatov to find his scoring boots, between Berb and Rooney, their is a potential of 60 + goals and with the threat of Owen when he is fully acclimatized, United I think can be more of a lethal force than last season, especially with the best midfielder in Europe at this moment Darren Fletcher! United are not the same team without him!