PinoyPS Fifa 11 League

Did you know that the first ever Asian footballer to play for a European club was a Filipino? Paulino Alcántara y Riestrá (7 October 1896—13 February 1964) was a Spanish-Filipino football player and manager who spent most of his life playing for Barcelona. He also played for Catalonia, the Philippines, and Spain.

Born in the Philippines to a Spanish military officer and an Ilongga mother, Alcántara moved to Spain to play for FC Galeno before he was discovered by Joan Gamper and signed up for Barcelona. At the tender age of 15, he made his debut against Catalá SC in the Campionat de Catalunya (Catalan Football Championship), in which Barcelona won 9–0, with Alcántara scoring the first three goals of the game. He remains the youngest player to play or score for the club and the club's highest goalscorer, with 357 goals in 357 matches.



His nickname was ‘El Romperedes’, which can be translated as “The Netbreaker.” Paulino Alcántara is the all-time leading scorer of FC Barcelona, but he is perhaps best known for a legendary moment he created with his right foot while playing for the Spanish national team. It was April 30, 1922. The opponent was France. Alcántara struck the ball from 30 yards away from goal. For a man who scored 357 goals in 357 appearances for Barca, the fact that the ball made it past the French keeper should come as no shock. What made the moment so transcendent was that Alcántara struck the ball so hard it broke through the back of the net. It was a display of power that children in Spain would attempt for years to replicate while playing with their friends.

Maybe even more remarkable than that made-for-cinema moment against France is where Alcántara came from. The Philippines is a country that today has a sporting landscape dominated by the NBA and boxing, owing to Filipino living legend Manny Pacquiao. The national team is ranked 169th in the world by FIFA and football has simply never been on the radar of most Filipinos. But this is the country that gave the world Paulino Alcántara, the first player to ever come from Asia and find a place on a European football club’s roster. Despite being largely unknown in his home country, he is well remembered by the football-loving minority there, as he is in Spain. A statue of him stands outside the Philippine Football Federation offices. Having a Spanish father stationed in the Philippines allowed him to come to Catalunya in 1910 to further his education. Soon after, he was discovered by Barca’s founder, Joan Gamper, while playing for FC Galeno. Making his debut for Barca in 1912, he scored the first three goals in a 9-0 win. Amazingly, he was just 15 years old at the time. Regardless of the difference in eras, that is an absolutely astounding feat. A year after his debut, the club won the Chapionat de Catalunya and the Copa del Rey, which was considered the Spanish championship at that time.



After hanging up his boots in 1927 at the age of 31, Alcántara became a doctor. And on 5 July 1927, Barcelona played against Spain in a testimonial match in his honour. Although already retired from playing, Alcántara later returned to the stadium as a club director between 1931 and 1934. In 1951, Alcántara became a selector and managed Spain for three games. Alcántara died in Barcelona in 1964 at age 67.

* I like to apologize for the late post, I Had some things to do yesterday and wasn't able to blog, anyway back to the post

takussa ; Fairly Biassed

The Champion's League quarter-finals draws are here!!

Manchester City is out of the competition with a disappointing score of 1-2 on aggregate. Manchester City was much better compared to their first leg showing, and they created a lot of great chances but unfortunately they missed majority of it. Even though Dynamo lost this game, the boys from Kiev was a factor in this game, as they caused problems for City’s defense but was stopped by an inspiration performance by England’s no.1, Joe Hart.

by takussa ; Farely Biassed

Lyon needed to score tonight to progress to the next round. First 30 mins of the game and Lloris was a very busy keeper. His acrobatic saves helped inspire Lyon on the attack. Constantly coming from the left side, Cissokho and Lopez were the ones conducting the play. Cissokho threw a few quality crosses that were easily handled by Real.

On the other side you could sense Real scoring a goal soon. Marcelo made the break on the 38 minute with an excellent 1-2 with CR9. Their suave partnership created a cool scoring finish for Marcelo.

It was close match but in the end, Inter pulled a come from behind victory with a last minute strike to tie the aggregate score and pass though the next stage via away goals rule. Both of the clubs went to the offensive and both of them had great chances. Inter dominated the match early on scoring on the 3rd minute with a nice run by Eto’o. Bayern took possesion of the game when they scored a goal via Mario Gomez.  They applied the pressure constantly and found the back of the net 10 minutes after via a Thomas Muller strike. Inter went broke after the half, and that is where the defensive wall of Bayern crumbled, conceding two goals after halftime and losing the match.

The Red Devils played a nice match, as they scored all the goals in the match (Brown with an own goal). On the other hand, it was a night to forget for Marseille as they weren’t able to finish any of their good quality chances. Missing the tandem of Vidic and Ferdinard, the center back duo of Smalling and Brown were shaky the whole night as they had a hard time containing Marseille's offense. Lucky for them, as Marseille had a hard time finding the net missing open chances and frustrating their fans in the process.

*CAN’T FIND SOME PICTURES..OH WELL

The Philippine National Team lost to Mongolia with a score of 2-1 but got to the next group stage by winning through aggregate. The Philippine team look uncoordinated in their attack in the first half but was able to surprise the host on the 3rd minute with a scrappy goal. But with different factors and also some defensive lapse, the Azkals found themselves trailing after halftime to the Blue Wolves and eventually losing the game.

The Azkals fielded a (4-4-1-1) formation with Araneta on top and supported by J. Younghusband. During the first half, the Azkals tried going to the offensive by using wing play and filling up the penalty box with bodies. Instead of using wingers, the offense was dependent with the runs of the wing back, and having no holding midfielders, the team was prone for counter attacks. Even though they were in the offensive, they only produced 1 goal and a few chances and also gave the Mongolians more quality chances at their goal. The Azkals players look lost with their offense as their were tons of players running and seem to be out of position.

Considered by many as the best derby in the world because of the events on and off the field. It was another eventful Rome Derby,as Roma beats Lazio 2-0 and winning all the derby this season.Roma dominated the whole match with their pace and strenght. Francesco Totti again showed that his age is just a number as he was instrumental for the Lupi and scoring with 2 goals. Il Capitano’s sheer presence really inspired the Lupi as they looked like a different team from their performance against Shaktar during the mid-week. Lazio finished the game with 9 men as 2 players were sent off in the closing stages of the match. Lazio had two chances to score but with poor finishing, they failed to find the back of the net. The  Biancocelesti grew frustrated after conceding the opener and being an emotional derby, Ledesma was shown the red for excessive arguing with the ref and Radu was sent off after head-butting Simplicio.

One of my favorite fixtures of La Liga would be Sevilla vs. Barcelona as both clubs never fails to entertain their fan with a high scoring barrage game. It was suppose to be a high scoring affair but with poor refereeing and poor finishes, it finished with an entertaining 1-1 draw. As usual, Barcelona entertained the crowd with their short passes and bursting runs, but credit to Sevilla for staying on par with the Catalan’s prolific midfield.  With this result, Barcelona shrunk their lead from Real Madrid with just 5 points seperating the side.

--WRITEN BY: TAKUSSA
 
 
The players are in the tunnel. I feel like RVP is going to do a tear (tare) tonight. Also, I nominate RVP as team captain of Arsenal. Manu will be starting Hernandez, while Arsenal have Denilson as their bet. Lets see who plays their cards better tonight. I Feel these two will be factors for tonight.
Crack, pop, fizz, gotta get buzzed for this for two reasons. If it is boring I get to doze off in style, if it’s a ‘KRAKER’ we have a reason to shout on a Saturday night.
3/13/2011 1:27:11 AM
What happened was, my first match to blog and I fell asleep. Yes on the 28^th minute, I was on the couch watching and ended up dozing off. Woke up to commercials hoping it was halftime, sadly, highlights came with a score line of 2-0. Reached for the remote and turned off the T.V. Saw that the laptop was on and had to stretch again to shut it down.
Anyway I decided to finish what I started, even if it is incomplete etc, even if I did not get to finish it, even if I am an Arsenal fan. Does better late than never apply this time?
Is this trying your best??

The Japan National team has been considered Asia’s best since 1998 when Japan first qualified for the World Cup, that was led by Hidetoshi Nakata and Gon Nakayama. Now, they have featured such talent as Cska Moscow’s Keisuke Honda, VFL Wolfsburg’ Makoto Hasebe, Borussia Dortmund’s Shinji Kagawa and Inter Milan’s Yuto Nagatomo. As great as they are, the Japanese national team has always been considered a midfield team as most of the talent plays in that position, it has never produced a center-forward that can changes the tide of a match by just his sheer presence.


The closest thing that the national team ever produced in the striker spot would be Kazuyoshi Miura, as he had 55 goals in 89 appearances but as great as it seems, it was considered a padded record as most of the countries he faced were never first class competition. As a matter of fact, his scoring rate outside Japan is a huge disappointment as is less than 0.30 which is way below the world average for a forward.

Enter, Takayuki Morimoto.

It was a barn burner last night as 5 goals were scored in this match. Nilmar again showed the world why he is the next big thing in the world of football with 2 goals to help his side beat a strong Leverkusen side. Leverkusen’s midfield performed great  and Villarreal midfield played abysmal but both of them were responsible with the high scoring game. Leverkusen’s forwards never find their bearing as they were never a factor in the game.

In my opinion in terms of match quality, the Uefa Europa League (a.k.a. Uefa Cup) is match better than its counterpart the Champion’s league because teams are not afraid to commit mistake and the flow of the game is always fast. This is was the case with Kiev and Man City. It was a duel between a team with the money to buy the best players in the world and a team full of home grown players.  And yet again, it was proven that money can’t buy victory.

This match was both exciting and frustrating. It was exciting because Milan created some great chances to score and yet it was frustrating at the same time, as the spurs decided to show up to the match by just defending. Leading 1 goal up going to the match, I was expecting the spurs to extend their lead and bring it to the Milan defense instead they decided to just defend their goal at all costs. The Rossoneri threw everything including the kitchen sink to the Spurs defense but they failed to find the goal even once. Milan defended the Spurs’ counterattack by double teaming Aaron Lennon immidietly at the midfield, the one responsible in setting up the Peter Crouch’ first leg strike, and forcing him to give up the ball instantly. With the defensive partnership of Nesta and Thiago Silva containing Peter Crouch and Rafael van Der Vaart, Milan was able to send Abate and Jankulovski to help with the offense.

This might be the best game of the knockout stages so far. Not taking away with Schalke’s victory but I felt that Valencia was the better side in this match. The Los Che dominated the match in terms of possession and shots on goal but one thing that they didn’t expect is that how a select few can easily change the flow of the game. These individuals are Germany no.1 Manuel Neuer, the hard working Mario Gavranovic and Jefferson Agustin “Little Dynamite” Farfan. Gavranovic caused problems to the Valencia defense the whole match resulting to a hard earned goal, that made the match 2-1, and 2 shots that hit the woodwork, more importantly, he was responsible in winning the free kick that led to Farfan’s equaliser. Manuel Neuer was at the top of his game that night, performing countless of saves time and time again, and he bailed Schalke’s shaky defensive partnership of Metzelder and Howedes with a point blank save from an Aduriz shot.  The man of the match was Jefferson Farfan, dubbed as “Little Dynamite!!” by me, was all over the pitch and was involved in all of Schalke’s goals (scoring 2). Little Dynamite was the spark that Schalke needed with his suicide runs into the box. Schalke’s goal chances the whole game were far and few but almost all were finished clinically.

Watching the 2nd leg late last night, it seems that the gunners were just waiting for the inevitable which was a Barcelona victory. Arsenal spend the whole game backpedelling and never had a clear cut chance the whole game. The only good thing that came from the match for Arsenal was the corner kick that led to Busquets own goal, but It will be remember as a Barcelona mistake rather than a decisive play by Arsenal.

Arsenal played with their tradional (4-3-2-1) formation but with all the constant Barcelona pressure the formation began to look like a (4-4-2) and sometimes (4-5-1). As a result, Robin Van Persie never had a chance to run the break as he was left to battle virtually alone and loosing the ball countless of times. The weakest links for the match was Cesc Fabregas and Laurent Koscielny. The only contribution Fabregas was the good backheel assist to Iniesta that led to Messi’s first goal, he shouldn’t have played in this game as he was just a liability. Koscielny  look out of position the whole game, letting his mark past him countless of times and leading to countless Barcelona Chances. He made tons of reckless fouls and gave away the penalty, a pitiful performance.

Barcelona played with their famous (4-3-3) formation,and just destroyed the Arsenal midfield with slick 1-2 passing. Besides Messi ,Xavi and Iniesta, two players caught my attention and that would be Pedro and Adriano. Both of them caused trouble to the right flank of Arsenal and really made Sagna work. Adriano runs were explosives that almost resulted to a goal but the ball just hit the woodwork. Pedro run Sagna to the ground and fully supported David Villa and Messi, his work led to the third goal for Barcelona as he was pull down by Koscielny. The Barcelona defense had no trouble stopping Arsenal , not including the own goal, both Abidal and Busquets (Played for Puyol and Pique) were solid the whole night.


Post match – Arsene Wegner said that the had the chance to win the game but the referee blew it by sending of Robin Van Persie because of kicking the ball away seconds after he was caught offside. In my opinion, that was the right call as this was really a card booking offense. Fifa already sent a memoramdum about this play way before the season started. In fact , the same thing happened to Ibrahimovic during the match against Roma this season.

Frustrating night for Roma as they were manhandled by the fast Shakhtar offense in both legs. Roma was a goal down prior to this game but needed a 2 goal lead in this game if they are hoping to advance (away goal rule). After the sending off of Philippe Mexes in the 41st Minute, the Lupi just gave up and played half-heartedly as they were thrashed with 3 goals by the miners.


Roma used a (4-2-3-1) formation, and was on fire early on with 6 quick shots on goal in the first 17 minutes before being caught with a Shakhtar counter attack that led to the first goal of the game. The problem with the counter attack offense of Shakhtar is that the wingbacks can't committ to the offense for fear of being caught with their pants down. This was the case in this game, Missing Cassetti, Riise was the only wingback for Roma and he was being cautious in joining the offense. Mexes has been a hit or miss the whole season, as he is either the best defender for Roma or the worst. In this night, it proved to be the later, as he had a hard time containing Luiz Adriano and resulting to him being sent off for tripping the brazilian to stop the counter attack. Taddei didn't do anything in the game and was a dissapointment, Borriello was in his typical self which is folding up in big pressure games as he miss a penalty with a weak-ass shot.

Not playing Totti on this game and missing Jeremy Menez really hunted Roma but the main problem was Shaktar's formation and tactics. Like in the group stages, the miners are capitalizing against teams that builds plays on the midfield and teams that uses attacking wing backs. With their quick attacking trio, they are catching these teams disorganized and leading to some easy goals.