The Champions League referees for the second leg of the Round of 16 have been announced. The rather anti-climactic tie between Paris Saint-Germain and Bayer Leverkusen (PSG leads about a billion to nil on aggregate) will be refereed by Croatia’s top official, Ivan Bebek (above). Stephane Lannoy of France, whose year has included being the first French official in forever
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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 upcoming fifth round of the FA Cup, held Saturday through Monday, February 15-17. Several big matches, including Manchester City and Chelsea, where Phil Dowd will once again have the joy of dealing with Manuel Pelligrini and Jose Mourinho in the same stadium. (He should get some form of hazard pay.) Sunday will see current
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A couple of caveats to today’s edition of ‘Red Card or Not?’ First, I’m a Tottenham supporter. Second, I’m an Andre Marriner supporter. So, these two sides of my particular coin clash badly when reviewing Marriner’s red card to Danny Rose against Manchester City at White Hart Lane. The setup: Rose, who was playing brilliantly to this point, slid across
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The big game this week is Manchester City v. Chelsea. Mike Dean will officiate that one. He’s near the top of the charts on yellow cards, and only Andre Marriner and Martin Atkinson have handed out more red cards. It’ll be interesting to see how he handles these two teams of prima donnas footballers. Elsewhere, Phil Dowd is managing the Anti-Mark
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Mike Jones seems like a nice enough guy. But boy has luck not been on his side lately. First, he got punched in the face accidentally while mediating a “debate”. (Which was totally not funny, and yet totally was. Cause getting punched in the nose is just comedy gold.) But he might have wished someone would punch him in the nose
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PLAY THE ADVANTAGE 