Away Goals

[iheartchelseafc]

[awaygoals]

Just Mother Guus on a brand spanking new moped. #guus #hiddink #cfc

[whereisfootball]

[footysphere-deactivated20190731]

Louder than words: Brazilian graffiti clashes against the World Cup

While the protests that took place during last summer’s Confederations Cup were overwhelming and affecting, recent news out of Brazil suggests that what we saw last year might have only been a precursor to a larger movement set to convene just as the World Cup looks to kick off in less than two weeks. 

From teachers to doctors, artists to indigenous populations, the Brazilian population is once again uniting against a perceived neglect on the part of the Brazilian government. With taxpayer funds gone missing, local businesses shunned in favor of multinational conglomerates, and many Brazilians left in an unstable position as both housing costs and forceful evictions increase, Brazilians are angry, and rightfully so. 

But while last summer’s protests focused upon mass gatherings as a primary means to garner international attention, organizers and frustrated Brazilians have shifted tactics, utilizing a variety of platforms to spread their message. And what could be more arresting for visitors to Brazil than anti-World Cup graffiti in the cities hosting matches?

Here’s to Brazilians taking a stand and making their voices heard. In any way possible. [Posted by Maxi] (via afootballreport)

[disneystheweekenders]

[awaygoals]

The Weekenders tapping the Breakfast Club?

[whereisfootball]

Keep fighting, Tito

FC Barcelona have confirmed the unbearable news that their manager Tito Vilanova must take a leave of absence and continue his fight against cancer after a relapse. It’s a sad day for football, and as the battle goes on, we’re all behind you, Tito. [Art by Luke. GIFs via. Posted by Eric]

[awaygoals]

Away Goals: Summertime Bloggin', Chelsea Thoughts and FEATURED ON COMMENTS BELOW!!

Hey all, Haven't blogged in a while since university has really been kicking my ass (yes, I have been forced into the horrid display of evil known as 'Summer Semester'), but I've found the time to post a quick footy blog! First of all, let me just say, I love Copa90 and everything they are about. They are without a doubt the best football channel on Youtube, and one of the best channels period. With so many original presenters and spots, if you like football at all (and even if you don't), you're bound to find something worth tuning into every week. I strongly suggest you go here (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFIdU1RkuRd26YDA7lerfEQ) and subscribe! With that being said, I am very pleased that I was picked up not once but TWICE by the lads at Copa90! Specifically David, Poet and the fine folks at Comments Below! First, was a Tweet I sent out regarding the soon to be reality that is DEATH TO MANCHESTER!! Poet has nearly 50K Tweets, and receives Tweets directed to him all the time, but I'm very glad he noticed mine, and even retweeted it to all his followers. I truly feel special inside.

https://twitter.com/Rome_Leader/status/352225355597234180

Next, I left a Comment Below (like you would) on last week's video. In it, I expressed my love for the genuine friendship of Poet and David, but NEVER did I think this would ALSO make it onto the show itself! I can't explain the feeling I got when I tuned in this week like I do every week, and my comment was the first one read out. Thanks for the love, David, and sorry that the length of my comment might've been the reason you didn't crack 24! View the full episode of Comments Below here (My comment at 10:31): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK9KIS1giZE 

Now, wouldn't be much of a football blog if I didn't cut out the self-promoting/cooing for a little bit to give you my thoughts on the recent developments in football! So here they are, in quick and dirty bullet form!

Reports of the death of the Samba Boys have been greatly exaggerated

Goal line technology? Nah, I got this.

I and everyone else who watched should feel very privileged to have caught the clash of two of the most exciting teams in world football today, in one of the most electric venues the world has to offer. Quite simply, Spain did not play poorly, but they failed to take their chances, and Brazil made the most of nearly every one of their own. This is a confident Brazil. This is a Brazil that reeks of togetherness and bonding. Scolari has them playing as a team, and that is a dangerous realization.The fact that they have shown they have the attacking power to put 3 past the world champs, and not concede any, proves they are a complete team that is rounding into form at the perfect time. Be weary of the home side come Rio 2014. Wouldn't be a shock to see them staking a place in the final. Chelsea boy David Luiz had a monster game, perhaps auditioning for Mourinho and proving he can grow into the world class center back and potential future captain that Chelsea require. Mata and Oscar also had strong finals, with Torres struggling to get involved, and Azpilicueta struggling to keep tabs on a sensational Neymar. All in all, a fantastic marquee game that lived up to the billing!

Chelsea add another midfielder to the battery while starving clubs in Africa grasp at straws.

 No midfield spots are guaranteed at Chelsea next year. It's not just a battle - it's an all-out war

Meet Marco Van Ginkel. If you don't know him yet, you soon will. The man who is just a year younger than me already has an impressive resume that had clubs such as Ajax salivating for him and includes such accolades as senior Dutch international and Dutch talent of the year. Chelsea won his signature completing a reported 8 million pound deal for the youngster today. Pundits love to compare him to Lampard/Gerrard, and his talent as a creator and pass finder are well known. He comes from Vitesse, with whom Chelsea have great relations, and have supplied the likes of Gael Kakuta and Patrick Van Aanholt. The bigger picture, though, is that Chelsea's midfield is absolutely STACKED for next year, and has a bench that will be the envy of literally every team in the league. With 4/5 spots available, and a selection from the likes of Lampard, Mata, Hazard, Van Ginkel, KDB, Ramires, Oscar, Moses, Schurrle, etc., we are going to see another year of amazing midfield production. Bank on that. Let's just hope they all share and play nice.

"Just sign me already, Chelsea! I can't wait to win the EPL!"

Battle for Cavani's signature heats up as PSG attempt to hijack the bid with "Une Proposer Blockbuster"

Still no major clue as to the final destination of Edison Cavani, as Chelsea and the rest of the big boys in Europe try to sign him. Chelsea original offer was pegged at around 47 million Euros, short of the 53 million buyout clause Napoli wanted. PSG are the latest arrivals to the race, after rumors that they might sign Cristiano Ronaldo have died down. (Not a bad Plan B, eh?) We might end up seeing a little more than that paid out by whomever wins the race. Napoli's president Aurelio De Laurentiis is reported to be playing some very hard ball with clubs and refusing to budge on that number. Coupled with reports that Chelsea and Man City have offered serious cash + Dzeko and Torres respectively, while De Laurentiis insists on cash ONLY, and we may still have a long way to go.

Until next time, keep playing the full 90 minutes for the full 3 points, everyone! ~ Scott

[awaygoals]

Starting XXVI - An Original Chelsea FC Poem

Starting XXVI A is for Arjen Known for his Robben I know not a man Who was able to stoppem' B is for Ballack Master of the green Opponents suffered Tskaidekaphobia The unnatural fear of number 13 D is for Drogba Champion, century scorer, the piece de resistance

"Resistance is futile." Quipped admirer Deschamps E is for Eiður The young Guðjohnsen Iceland's finest And London's titan F is for Ferreira Consistent and sure For visitors to Stamford "No goals, please" on his guided tour G is for Greaves Legend long past A funny old game It would be, sans goalscoring Gas' H is for Harris A familar face Over 700 games later Chopper could still take his place I is for Ivanovic The destroyer from Serbia Meet him in alley or on pitch He's likely to murder ya J is for Jose The Special One still Someday to return To his throne on the hill

K is for King Which Abramovich is Whose funds detoured Europe Straight through the Bridge

L is for Lampard Of superlative rank Not enough can be said About Super Frank M is for Mata The Spanish magician His first touch like glass Glory and goals, his mission N is for Natural Describing Makelele A position, he defined Opposition, he derail-led O is for Osgood Forever enshrined His fame has no equal In Stamford's long line P is for Petr The spectacular Cech You'd have a better chance as a snowball in Hell Than putting a ball in his net Q is for Quintessential The club in a word You won't find any better In the whole entire world R is for Ruud The fantastic Guillt Player and manager The Dutchman did alluvit S is for Stamford Home of the Blues A modern day fortress Where giants come to lose T is for Terry Captain JT Center third closed to all traffic With John on duty U is for The Fans An incredible group I am pleased to be one of so many That is the truth V is for Vialli Who brought real success First with his feet And then with his head W is for Wilkins The astute Ray Mentor and coach To the lads of today X marks the spot For great Kerry Dixon He found goals with ease If he couldn't, he'd nick'some Y is for yells That echo the stands It's hard to be hushed When your team is so grand Z is for Zola Once called a "square peg" He bored his own hole With his genius and leg C is for Carvalho And Cahill and Cole And also for CHELSEA The best team of all

[altman-shelby]

Frank Lampard :)

[awaygoals]

Super Frank Hits New Heights - Enthroned Forever in Chelsea Lore

Not sure where he's pointing. God wears #8. Today was a momentous day. For much of the game against Aston Villa, it was not clear what the major talking point would be. There were so many. Ramires/Benteke being sent off, Ba's goal not given due to the absence of instance replay, frightening injuries to Terry and Hazard. But, like he has done for much of his career, Frank Lampard Jr. cast aside our doubts and confirmed that he would be getting the well-deserved spotlight. I absolutely adore Frank. Ever since I was a little kid, he was a regular feature on my television, in my heart and in my dreams. A model, modest player for club and country, no midfield is equal to him. I have followed his ongoing transfer saga all season with heart in mouth, hoping to hear a definitive word from a definitive source that Frank is here to stay. Sadly, as time passes and that word remains unspoken, I grow more uneasy. Still, you can't argue that the man has put up one hell of a case.

"Mr. Tambling sir? It's me, Frank. Yes... Yes I'd say it's about damn time too." 203 goals is outstanding as a player. From midfield, it's even more mind boggling. Yes, he takes penalties. Yes, he has had quite the cast around him through the years. But players come and players go, and Frank has always remained. In this, his contract year, he has proved more than capable, notching 19 goals across all competitions, and challenging the league's top strikers for the statistical lead. I was in the stands during Chelsea's 6-1 thrashing of QPR last April. And I must say, I have never felt more overjoyed than when Frank headed over to our side to take a corner kick, and, in response to a Lampard chant I started, clapped over his head in appreciation. It was truly special. Today was that kind of special. Time seemed to stand still at the moment when Hazard broke down the flank, and hit a low ball for Frank to stab in as he has done so many times before. This time, it was different. This time it wasn't just a winning goal, a Champion's League assuring goal. This time it was a goal for the ages, a goal for the codders at West Ham who said he'd never amount to anything, for the "fans" saying he'd hit his peak and was no longer good enough for England. Frank has proved everyone wrong, and I salute him for it. You've shown I and the rest of Chelsea fans so much over the years, Frank. Now... Show us again.

[beardedgeniusofftwitter-blog]

Valuing a player:

TALENT:

Although not essential, it’s an excellent attribute. If a player has talent they’re a keeper (unless they’re not).

FEET:

If they have less than two, that’s far from ideal. If they have two or more and can actually use them all to play football, you’re cooking on...

[awaygoals]

Runaway with Rubin and Life's Mysteries

Back again to the world of amateur electronic sports journalism. Hoping a re-branding will help encourage me to make semi-regular sports ramblings. I do that at every opportunity, but it's always good to keep up appearances wherever you go. Without further ado... Lessons Learned From the Europa Quarter-Final against Rubin Kazan

Batman swoops in for the killer blow. WHERE'S SCARECROW?! WHERE IS HE?! There's a lot to take away from this fixture, most is happily positive.

Torres tries hard, and has quietly amassed some powerful results to back that up I don't know how justify this any more than the following stat shocker. Torres has scored in more competitions (7) than anyone, and has more goals than: Ba, Aguero, Rooney, Hernandez, Dzeko, Giroud, Podolski, Defoe and Cisse. Let that sink in for a minute. Yes, he cost a lot. (Aside: What did Liverpool do with all that money? Oh, right. Carroll.) Yes, he has struggled. But in increasingly limited playing time, he has responded to the competition from Ba and improved greatly since his first disastrous season in blue. The fact remains, that his teammates support him, and he's surrounded by marvelous, motivated and stable talent. The midfield engine that turns his cogs has no rival in the Premier League. It may be too soon to talk about selling him for sure, and simply bring in another piece (maybe none if we can convince Lukaku he will get satisfactory time) and just get back behind him again. As the confidence balloons, he can get back on his horse to 20 goals a season.

Brothers in Arms

The Old Guard. Captains, leaders, legends. To be sure, they have a lot to offer the club still, and any one who would let them go (coughRomancough), is a fool, but we may have to re-evaluate the role the play.

Both have definitely seen their days of starting every game sink fast behind them, whether due to injury or otherwise. Happily, it's no longer a necessity. As long as David Luiz continues to improve his decision making, and Cole develops his leadership as he progresses in years, we have a more than serviceable rearguard sans Terry. It's not that Lampard has no place in the midfield; he still scores goals as good as any. But the emerging success of Mazacar featuring Ramires has shown that a paradigm shift to uptempo play carries with it a lot of positives for the team. So they can't start every game, as much as we know they'd like to. One would hope they'd be comfortable in a reduced capacity for the club that has given so much to them, and they to it. Only time will tell, in that respect. What they can offer is leadership to the plethora of young talent Chelsea possesses, and a model of what one can become if they put practice and the team above all other values. Stick around, JT and FL. I wouldn't know Chelsea without you.

Mazacar - Best in the world?

Young midfield talent is worth its weight in gold Let me stuff another stat down your gaping maw: Just Mata and Hazard ALONE have 30 goals and 43 assists, far more than anyone, EVEN outstripping the likes of Inieista and Xavi in Spain.

It's OK, we're still second best.

The creativity is outstanding. They can open a game up all by themselves, and have frequently been required to. Hazard shows signs of potentially being one of the best of his generation, and Mata already is, almost sure to bag the PL Player of the Year now that Bale is injured. The future is burning bright, lads. Brightly burning. ____________________________________________________ With that being said, there's not much more to add, except that I wish Rubin Kazan good luck in scoring 3 times on Chelsea in what isn't even a home game, played miles away in Moscow. Bo bo, gentlemen. An aside, if I could, to address some personal matters. My work term comes to an end, and the dreaded summer term looms. I am both excited, and deathly nervous. I do hope I can live up to my own expectations. The day I can relax without having to try to outsmart a computer is the day I die.

Been trying to write my first song lately, and I must say, it's going a lot better than I expected. Maybe you really can graft creative bones onto your body in the presence of creative minds!

I've been grappling a bit, unfortunately, with some feelings regarding a certain lady, and no time to devote to an actual resolution. She's marvelous, but seems almost unaware of the fact. When I give advice to others, it's usually that nothing can be gained without venture, so I do expect that, no matter how nervous an exchange, I will have to find an expression for them. I do have positive hopes that things will work out, however, so I lean on them for the present!

Until next time, may all your matches be merry and don't waste your life playing for the draw!

[tokyopoliceclub]

NATURE FACT

A wild Tokyo Police Club can skeletonize a whole box of Chips Ahoy in a scant half hour.

[whereisfootball]

The United States and Canada comprise a land mass that is vaster than any other league tries to cover (if you’re wondering, the combined land mass of the US and Canada is 2,530,031 sq km bigger than Russia’s). Population-wise, it’s only third behind China and India as, well, hardly anyone (relatively) lives in Canada – but still, there are 348,396,819 people in the United States and Canada, and there are 19 Major League Soccer teams. That’s one team per 18,336,675 inhabitants. The population of London, meanwhile, is 8,174,100. There are six Premier League clubs in London, which is one team for every 1,362,350 inhabitants.

(via afootballreport)

[awaygoals]

Credit: Ben Kamens I know exactly what the dude means. I am always in the awe of the elegant solutions you can come up with for minor inconveniences if you just stop to think about them for a second. Also, I love intuitive interfaces. Math-e-magic, man...

[whereisfootball]

[awaygoals]

“Messi” by Daniel Kliger

Oil on canvas. 18x24.

Now THAT'S modernist art.

[sciencesoup]

Mind-Reading Rodents

Neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis has taken the first steps towards turning brain-to-brain communication into reality. In his lab at Duke University, he placed two rats in separate cages and trained them to push a lever in order to get a reward of water. There were two choices of levers, left and right, and only rat A was given a cue—a LED light flashed above the correct lever. Rat B, however, had to rely on rat A, because Nicolelis wired their brains together using microelectrode implants a fraction of the size of a human hair. When rat A was given the flashing cue and stepped on the correct lever, the neurons in its motor cortex fired in a specific way. The implants translated this to binary code and sent it through the wire into rat B’s brain, where it was translated back into neural signals, and since the signals were different for the left or right lever, rat B had to interpret rat A’s thoughts in order to get the water—and results show that rat B pressed the correct lever 85% of the time. It’s a bit crude and simple, but as the research becomes more complex, it may open up a vast array of applications. Nicolelis’s next step is to connect multiple rats to the same network and observe how they adapt to the new form of communication. However, critics point out that Nicolelis is so far only connecting up localised parts of the brain. The human brain is hugely parallel and massively interconnected—so in the long run, the real challenge is to connect entire brain, allowing enormous amounts of data to flow between, or abstract thoughts could never be communicated.

(Image Credit: Gizmag)

[chrromebrutus-deactivated202105]

[awaygoals]

These gifs of the Pittsburgh/Philly goalmouth scramble are INSANE! Credit: thescore

[awaygoals]

Monday Musing: Photography Is the Intersection Between Sports and Art

Sometimes I get flak for breaking "The Tumblr Code". That is to say, it is largely for  the artistically inclined to share their artistic visions. Firstly, I would like to say that I have absolutely no problem with people using tumblr to this end, and my feeble creative mind has been greatly strengthened and cultured in art thanks, in part, to the fabulous tumblrs I have been exposed to. However, I do not agree that that is all there is.

In fact, blogs have always had a sort of partisan politics. Often, ask someone to tell you what a blog is, and they think of a personal website full of music sharing, art display, something of a more elegant, socially acceptable Myspace. 

People have different views about sports, and where they belong. Perhaps one's elation over the World Cup or Super Bowl should be kept to a 140 character Tweet, or fantasy football discussion forums. Sports, to different people, are either a collection of confusing numbers and rules, or a completely alien subculture of uneducated sweaty dudes. But that is not all there is. I contend to you that sports are beautiful. That some of the world's most iconic art, in the form of photography, has come, and will come, from sports. That one doesn't need to understand sports to appreciate them in the same way that one does not need to understand art and composition to be floored by a Michaelangelo or a Picasso. It's tough, at times, to convey a feeling to someone who has no equivalent experience. Art does this. For centuries previous, it connected the uneducated and ignorant (in the sense of the word that simply means 'unaware') with a greater message than words can intimate. Feeling. Emotion. I hope that my message hits home, and that I have not drawn it out too much. To compact and compound it, I have included below some of my favorite photographs in sports. Context is not required to appreciate them for the works of art they are. But I would be very surprised if you did not recognize at least most of them. Pop culture was forged by many hands, and the gloved, worn hand of sports was a leading contributor.