The Europa League referees for the Round of 16 first tie are announced, and it’s quite the impressive list. Three of the eight – Cuneyt Cakir of Turkey, Bjorn Kuipers of the Netherlands (above) and Jonas Eriksson of Sweden – will referee in Brazil. Of the remaining, Czech Pavel Kralovec is Elite, and Daniele Orsato of Italy is Elite Development.
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As you may recall, Manuel Pellegrini blamed his team’s loss to Barcelona in their Champions League tie on the referee, Jonas Eriksson of Sweden (who happens to be very highly-rated). Look, a lot of managers do that. I don’t like it and I don’t respect managers who do it. But it happens. But this was a whole different level. It wasn’t just
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There were two huge red card decisions in this past week’s Champions League first leg ties. Each of the cards had massive impact not only on the matches, but on the overall ties. In both cases, English teams were facing formidable opponents (Barcelona and Bayern Munich, respectively) and found themselves giving up vital away goals after losing a man. So,
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Well… Sort of. But not really. The good news: Manchester City’s Manuel Pellegrini, under threat of sanctions from UEFA, apologized to Swedish referee Jonas Eriksson for – among other things – calling him a Swede. The bad news is that it’s pretty clear that Pellegrini isn’t apologizing at all. He starts out by reiterating that Eriksson’s penalty call (which came
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Well, well… Just when I was readying the torches and pitchforks after Manuel Pellegrini blamed Manchester City’s loss on Sweden, Martin Demichelis comes out with this: I think Demichelis was put in an impossible position, and he’s just not strong enough to cover Lionel Messi. But I do admire him for accepting responsibility and not taking the child’s way out
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Manuel Pellegrini’s Manchester City side lost their Champions League tie to Barcelona today, 0-2, in case you were hiding under a rock all day. One of the key factors (though certainly not the only one) was the penalty awarded to Barcelona just after halftime when Martin Demichelis took down Lionel Messi at the edge of the area. Replays showed it
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Here are the referees for the first two matches of the Last 16 round of Champions League. These matches will be played Tuesday, February 18. So Jonas Eriksson (above) takes Manchester City v. Barcelona. Eriksson is actually one of my favorites. The Big Swede is always very calm and in command at the same time…the kind of guy you want on your side
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