Killing Me Softly, and…

Today we watched the trailer for Killing Me Softly, starring Brad Pitt. The Japanese title is Jackie Cogan. It's about an assassin who doesn't believe in anything but money and his own skill. I'm interested in this movie mainly for the actors. I think Brad Pitt is a good actor—his best role was in Moneyball—but the movie also stars Ray Liotta—famous mainly for Goodfellas—and Richard Jenkins. My impression is that this movie hasn't had as much publicity as movies like Lincoln and Iron Man 3, so probably it won't play for long at the theaters, so I want to try to get to see it soon.

In the Premier League, Arsenal played Manchester United yesterday. Manchester United have already been confirmed as champions so the result didn't matter so much to them, but Arsenal needed a win to have the best chance of qualifying for next year's Champions League. The match ended in a draw, 1–1.   My prediction is that Tottenham and Chelsea will qualify, but not Arsenal.

Euro 2012

As I have mentioned a few times recently, the Euro 2012 football tournament is starting soon. England has a new manager, Roy Hodgson, who has not had time to work with the players. England has had two friendly matches and has won each one. Unfortunately, both in training and in the two matches, players have been injured and Hodgson has had to get permission to call up extra players. In Saturday's match, England lost Cahill, a defender, when he fractured his jaw. England's first match is against France, and everyone is worried that, with all the new players, teamwork will be very difficult.

In club football, Chelsea has signed two expensive new players, Eden Hazard from Belgium and Hulk from Brazil, even though Chelsea has no manager appointed for next season. Maybe next season will be a close fight between Chelsea, Manchester City, and Manchester United.

Champions League

On Saturday night, the Champions league final was held. It was a surprising match-up, between Chelsea (England) and Bayern Munchen (Germany), surprising because the teams had met Real Madrid and Barcelona in the semifinals, and most people had expected the Spanish teams to win their semifinals and meet in the final. Chelsea, especially, was a big surprise, because they had defended through nearly all the semifinal and won by not allowing Barcelona to take shots in the final quarter of the pitch. The final was the same, with Chelsea getting only about two shots in 90 minutes. Unfortunately for Bayern, one of those shots, in the 88th minute, became a goal for Chelsea.

Neither team was able to get a winner in the 90 minutes or in the extra 30 minutes, so finally there was a penalty shootout. Chelsea's goalkeeper, Cech, saved a couple of kicks very well, and Chelsea were champions, for the first time ever!

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Last day of the season

The last day of the Premier League season was yesterday. Like much of the season, it was very tense and up and down. Manchester United and Manchester City were level on points at the start of the day, but Manchester City were ahead on goal difference, so Manchester City would win the league if they won the match. If they didn't win the match, then they would have to hope that Manchester United didn't win theirs.

Most of the matches started at the same time, and I followed them on the Guardian web site. It looked as if City were going to lose the match until extra time, when City scored two goals in the 92nd and 94th minutes, to win City's first league title in 44 years!

Premier League & F.A. Cup in early May

The Premier League season is almost over. Most teams finished their 37th (out of 38) match yesterday. Both Manchester United and Manchester City won their matches, so now both are equal on points going into the last week of the season, with Manchester City ahead on goal difference. That means that Manchester City will win the league if they win their last match. Their opponent will be Queens Park Rangers, who nearly always lose away from home. But this match is likely to be rather special, because QPR are at risk of being relegated if they don't get some points from the game. In addition, their manager, Mark Hughes, used to be the manager of Manchester City, but was sacked a couple of years ago; and Joey Barton, QPR captain, also used to be a Manchester City player. (138 words)

Premier League and Champions League…and more!

The end of the Premier League season is getting ever closer. Everyone had assumed that Manchester United were safe at the top of the table, but, after leading 4-2 against Everton, they drew 4-4 yesterday. Manchester City won, so now Manchester City is exactly 3 points behind Manchester United. Manchester United will win the championship if they win their remaining games, but one of those games is against Manchester City. If Manchester City win that game, the two teams will be level on points, but Manchester  City's goal difference is better than Manchester United's. So if Manchester City win their remaining games including the match against Manchester City, they will be champions…for the first time in many, many years.

As you probably heard, Barcelona lost their Champions league semi-final first leg against Chelsea, and then they lost their La Liga match against Real Madrid. It is unusual for Barcelona to lose two matches in succession, so many people are wondering whether they are too tired to do well in the Champions League. Anyway, we'll find out soon!

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More on the Premier League and F.A. Cup

As I mentioned earlier, the FA Cup is also reaching its climax in England now. The semi-finals were held yesterday and the day before. In those semi-finals, Chelsea beat Tottenham, and Liverpool beat Everton. The matches were especially interesting because they were both local derbies (Chelsea and Tottenham are in London, and Liverpool and Everton are both in Liverpool). The final between Chelsea and Liverpool will be held at Wembley on May 5th.

As I mentioned earlier, the Champions league semi-finals are also fast approaching!

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Premier League and Champions League

These days, the Premier League is rather exciting. Although it seems fairly clear that Manchester United will win the championship, the difference between them and Manchester City is not so big now. The fight for 3rd and 4th place is also quite intense. Although now Arsenal is in 3rd place, Tottenham and Chelsea are close behind. And Chelsea appear to be in good form now, so probably it won't be decided until the last week of matches. 3rd and 4th places are very important because 3rd place means automatic qualification for the Champions League, while 4th place means qualification via playoffs.

The Champions League is also exciting this year. The semi-finals feature Chelsea against Barcelona, and Real Madrid against Bayern Munich (Munchen). Both should be exciting matches, because the opposing teams have a history of rivalry. The Chelsea semi-final is made even more interesting by the fact that Chelsea yesterday won another semi-final, the FA Cup match against Tottenham.

Premier League again

In the last post, I said that many people believe that the top 3 places will be taken by Manchester United, Manchester City, and Chelsea, and that that order seems most likely. I actually think that Chelsea will overtake Manchester City once the new manager gets used to his team and possibly brings in a new player or two in the January transfer window. So my prediction for the top 3 is:

1. Manchester United
2. Chelsea
3. Manchester City

The 4th spot is very interesting and important because the 4th team also gets a chance to play in the Champions League, which as I mentioned before brings in a quite a lot of money. For the last 14 years, Arsenal has always been one of the teams qualifying for the Champions league places but that looks unlikely this year. Most people think either Liverpool or Tottenham will get that 4th spot. I think it will probably be Tottenham, because many of Liverpool's players are not so strong (I believe), although Liverpool's manager is probably a little better than Tottenham's.

Premier League

The 2010-11 Premier League season has finished, as you probably know. The 2011-12 season will begin in late August, I think, but some teams will be back in action as soon as June 30th. Those teams include Fulham, who have qualified for Europa League qualifiers through fair play over the 2010-11 season.

As happens every season, some managers have been sacked, and others have quit their jobs. Fulham manager Mark Hughes resigned last week, and Fulham announced just a few days later that they had hired Martin Jol, a former Spurs and Ajax manager, to take over. Aston Villa's Gerard Houllier, who was hospitalized for heart problems during the season, left his post, and Aston Villa are still looking for a replacement. Wigan's Roberto Martinez was invited to take over the job, but he chose to remain with Wigan.  The biggest vacancy is at Chelsea, where Carlo Ancelotti was fired after coming second in the league and being knocked out in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

Soccer, continued

In my last post, I talked about soccer, so I'd like to continue with that topic. I mentioned that Manchester United lost to Barcelona in the Champions League final, and that Manchester United hadn't really found a way to fight against Barcelona convincingly. One interesting aspect of the match is that Manchester United kept Barcelona pegged back for a short time at the beginning of the match, and that at one point the manager, Alex Ferguson, got angry with Wayne Rooney. One theory is that Rooney's main job was to mark Busquets and thus to stop Barcelona's attacks from the beginning, but that he was more interested in attacking so Busquets had too much freedom to play. Thus, the manager was angry with him for neglecting his defensive duties. Interestingly, Manchester's play seemed to get worse after the altercation, so some think that Rooney became angry with the manager and ignored his instructions.

Another recent match was England against Switzerland. England conceded 2 early goals but came back to draw.

Soccer

Although the soccer season in Europe is over, there have been some matches to watch on TV. The first of these was the UEFA Champions League final, featuring Manchester United from the U.K. against Barcelona from Spain. Barcelona was the favorite, but in the days before the match many people were saying that Barcelona's travel plans and their lack of matches before the big match would make them less sharp.

The final two years before had featured the same two teams, and in that match Barcelona won. Many people said that Manchester United's tactics had been at fault, so everyone was looking forward to seeing Manchester's tactical plan this time.

For the first ten minutes, Manchester looked impressive, but after that Barcelona dominated possession, and my impression was that Barcelona had improved a lot since two years ago, while Manchester had failed to learn any tactical lessons. The match ended 3-1 to Barcelona.

In Japan, the Kirin Cup is taking place now. Japan's first match against Peru was not a good one, but it will be intereresting to see how they play against the Czech Republic tomorrow.

Champions League

Both Champions League semi-final matches last week ended with the away team winning the first leg convincingly, which means that it will be quite difficult for the losing team to come back to victory. So it looks like Manchester United will play Barcelona in the final, although of course we can never know whether there will be a comeback.

Manchester United's semi-final opponent is Schalke from Germany, while Barcelona's is Real Madrid. The final will be played in Real Madrid's stadium called the Bernabeu, so Real Madrid would badly like to come back in the second leg and appear in the final.