India, Porto and Djokavic are champions, San Antonio Spurs ended a 6 game losing streak, Manchester United fooled West Ham in style whilst Arsenal,Chelsea and Tottenham dropped valuable points as Manchester City thrashed Sunderland. It may new month and new week...but it is business as usual as the end of the European Football season is now upon us....as Sir Alex would say, "its squeaky clean bum time".... the business end where all is on the line!!
Lethario's Take would like to say, everyone has a right to disagree with my views and I don not expect everyone to agree with them which is why comments from the readers are published however harsh or critical they may be. Formalities done, business it is................
Congratulations to the India cricket team who won the ICC 2011 Cricket World Cup by beating Sri Lanka by six wickets in a pulsating final to deliver World Cup glory to their cricket-mad population for the first time since 1983.
Sri Lanka had batted first at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai posting a good 274-6 before India's opening order including master batsman Sachin " Little Master" Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag fell early on before Gautam Gambhir and Mahendra " Mr Cool" Dhoni rebuilt the innings.Dhoni's stylish match winning 6 meant that Tendulkar finally got his hands on the World Cup trophy after missing out in 1992, 1996, 1999, 2003 and 2007. The team of the tournament can be viewed on the BBC Sport website
There was despair for another legend of the game,Muttiah Muralitharan, who was playing his last one-day international, and deserved a much better farewell. The 38 year old embodied the magic and mystery of Sri Lankan cricket with his prodigious powers of spin since his debut against Australia in 1992 which took him to heights unlikely to ever be exceeded finishing his test career with exactly 800 wickets. Goodbye Murali...cricket will miss you, all the best in whatever he will pursue now.
April Fool's Day may have been on Friday but Manchester United and Wayne Rooney saved the best April Fool's joke for West Ham and their fans on Saturday. United came back form 2-0 down at half time to leave Upton Park 2-4 winners and with a steady grip on the title in a match being remembered for Rooney's foul-mouthed celebration RATHER than his excellent performance. Sir Alex would have been proud to once again witness, from the stands, the "NEVER SAY DIE" attitude that has become a trademark of Manchester United. I must say Vidic, back from injury and clearly rusty, was lucky to stay on and that the United defence is still looking shaky to say the least.
With the Wayne Rooney incident, I really did not care as I was too engulfed in foul-mouthed celebrations of my own but I personally do not condoning the swearing. However I feel for the lad who has been through a horrific last 12 months since injuring his ankle against Bayern Munich last year. I feel the swearing was a release of tension, anger and frustration that has accumulated since that night. He was simply exercising his demons with a master class performance capped off by an excellent hat-trick including a brilliantly taken free kick and calmly disposed penalty. The swearing was inexcusable but i feel leniency should be applied when punishing him as he was quick to apologise noting his misdemeanor .
Credit to Chicharito who is now at 11 goals in the Barclay's Premier league in a debut season.
The noisy neighbours not wanting to be outdone as usual hammered Sunderaland 5-0 in a great team performance displaying the attacking football possible with City's huge bank balance. Tevez returned from injury with a goal while Toure, Adam Johnson, Viera and Silva added to the impressive scoreline. The win leaves City back in 3rd place above Chelsea.
Over in London, Chelsea's rekindled title hopes are all but snuffed out after a battling draw away at Stoke. The match saw Drogba return to the score sheet, his 1st goal in 10 weeks, before he tainted the good performance with a post-match row with a fan having to be restrained by Paulo Ferreira.Torres STILL has not scored!! Arsenal drew at home against Blackburn to leave them 7 points behind United. I will not talk about how Arsenal crumble when the pressure is on, how they will continue to go on for years without a trophy if they carry on with their weak mentality, how they need to buy marque players and good defenders to strengthen their trophy hunt or how Wenger may have gotten too comfortable with trophy-less seasons!!
Newcastle over the weekend. A certain Newcastle fan was seen donning his team's colours for the first time since they sold Andy Carroll to Liverpool.Speaking of Liverpool, Roy Hodgson was able to pull one over his former employees as West Brom defeated Liverpool to hand Hodgson a priceless 3 points in the fight against relegation. The win guaranteed he had the last laugh on the team who abandoned him 6 months into his contract!! Revenge truly is sweet.
Over in Portugal, Porto clinched the Portuguese league title with a 2-1 "classico" win over rivals Benfica in Lisbon to protect their unbeaten run this season. In Italy the Milan derby saw a rampant AC Milan beat Inter Milan 3-0 to go 5 points clear at the top of the Serie A whilst over in Germany, Borussia Dortmund swatted Hannover 96 away easily with a 4-1 scoreline to go 7 points clear at the top of the Bundesliga and strengthen their title hopes.
The unthinkable happened in the La Liga in Spain this weekend. Sporting Gijon's 1-0 win over Real at the Bernabeu courtesty of Miguel de las Cuevas' 79th-minute goal inflicted a first home defeat on Mourinho in 151 league games. Mourinho had last lost a home game when managing Porto on 23 February, 2002, when Porto were beaten 3-2 by Beira Mar. The loss left Madrid 8 points behind league leaders Barcelona who beat Villareal 1-0. Well done Sporting Gijon!!!
Over in the NBA, the Boston Celtics erratic form continued as they beat the San Antonio Spurs, lost to the Atlanta Hawks and regained winning form by defeating the Nets. The unsteady form of Doc River's men has seen the Celtics slip once again in the Eastern Conference standing as they now lie 3rd at 53-23 whilst the Miami Heat have jumped to 2nd at 54-23. The Chicago Bulls lead with their record at 56-20 after weekend where they beat the Pistons before losing to the Raptors. The L.A Lakers lost in Denver to the Nuggets as the Spurs FINALLY ended their 6 game losing streak with a convincing victory over the Phoenix Suns to keep them in pole position in the Western conference standings. There is no change there with Spurs top and Lakers still 2nd ahead of the Mavericks, their records being 58-19, 55-21 and 53-24 respectively.
Novak " The Djoker" Djokovic extended his unbeaten start to 2011 with a magnificent victory over world number one Rafael Nadal in the Sony Ericsson Open final. The world number 2 last suffered a singles defeat against Roger Federer in the ATP World Tour semi-finals in London last November, and has now won 26 matches in a row, including 24 this year which is best start to a year in men's tennis since Ivan Lendl began with 25 consecutive victories in 1986.
Hong Kong Sevens champions New Zealand extended their World Series lead by beating two-time Adelaide winners South Africa 28-20 in the final of the Adelaide Sevens at the Adelaide Oval.
New Zealand's victory increased their World Series lead to 13 points over England with two legs to play in London on May 21-22 and Edinburgh a week later.Man-of-the-tournament Tomasi Cama scored two tries and kicked four conversions to propel New Zealand to their third victory of the season.
Finally for those who may not be aware...Barry Bonds, the baseball legend who holds the record as
Bring on the Champions League football....Good luck to Manchester United
Lethario's Take as usual
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