Reports are out that late last night Andy Carroll was once again caught on video, marauding around an establishment, swilling alcohol from a cup; surrounded by a number of other fellow Liverpool players. Andy Carroll is no stranger to bad publicity, but it seems this time he has led a number of team mates down that same path.
The incident in question happened yesterday, in a well known establishment in London. Video can be seen here:
This time though, there won’t be anybody out there slating him for doing it 😀
Yes after a relatively long wait, Liverpool are finally back to their old winning ways, and they’re doing so at Wembley for the first time since Ian Rush last played for them. There may not have been any white Armani suits this time, but there was definitely a degree of drama. Once again Liverpool fell behind to a “lower team”, and once again Liverpool struggle to break through a well organised defence. They certainly created opportunities but they once again struggled to convert those chances. That meant that after 90 minutes, the scores remained level at 1 all.
Extra time brought some more drama, with Dirk Kuyt coming on and putting Liverpool in the lead. He then cleared off the line, but the following moments saw Cardiff once again pull level, and so it was onto penalties. Liverpool’s 5 penalty takers were to be Stevie G, Charlie Adam, Dirk Kuyt, Stewart Downing, Glenn Johnson; and they would be taken towards the Liverpool fans. This is what happened:
My heart was pounding throughout this, especially when Adam missed his so badly (actually the first thing I did was think Adam you tit), and Cardiff scored, but in the end 3 well taken penalties from Dirk, Downing and Johnson led to this:
It also led to the celebrations above in the Wembley changing room.
That now means that my son has seen Liverpool lift a trophy every 3 and a half months since he was born. Long may that run continue 😀
malteserinhk 
LOL, you had me there. I was about to go off saying what’s the big bloody deal about a scouser drinking before a footy match, my parents had me drinking half pints when I was 10 for Christ’s sake!
Cool beans, glad we won. I don’t understand how the leagues are set up and all these trophies they play for, you’ll have to try and explain it to me one day. I’m used to hockey were it’s a season of games and then they play for Lord Stanley’s Cup. Soccer set up confuses the hell out of me. Even in FIFA 12, I don’t get it. I wish you could just play a regular “season” in FIFA with a team and not just play a tourney for a cup.
Like I said, you’ll have to explain it to me one day.
Funny thing is we think the same of yours, you have all these divisions, and conferences and yet no promotion or relegation, and random fixtures (or so it seems to me – at least in NFL that is).
Basically the way football works (in most countries that is, some have different setups because they have fewer teams) is as follows:
There will be a set number of leagues. In England the professional leagues are the EPL, The Championship, Division 1 and Division 2 (in the past they were just Div 1,2,3,4). Now what happens is, each team plays everybody else in their division twice, once at home and once away (So the EPL teams all play each other twice, the Championship teams play each other twice etc). At the end of the season, the winner is the one with the most points (and if they are tied it goes down to goal difference, and then goals scored). There is no further play offs like you have in American sports.
Now what is interesting is that at the same time, teams will also get relegated and promoted. So at the end of each season the bottom 3 from the EPL will go down to the Championship and three teams from the Championship will replace them. Now to complicate things, it’s not the top 3 teams that go up, its the top 2 teams, plus the winner of a playoff between the 3,4,5 and 6th teams (3rd plays 6th, 4th plays 5th and the winners play each other for the final promotion place).
The cup games are then completely separate, with the draw for each stage being completely random, and with the bigger teams joining the competition later. Cups like the FA Cup actually include a number of other teams way below even division 2. Football is huge in England, and below those 4 main leagues is another league (the Conference) as well as further leagues based to a degree on geographic location. All those teams get entered into the FA Cup, but most are nowhere near by the team teams like Liverpool/Arsenal join. However, that is part of the glory of the cup, when a team from say the Conference gets to play at Anfield, and as a result they not only get a chance for a huge upset, but also a huge pay off that can be the difference between a club staying around of dying a slow financial death.
It sounds more complicated than it really is. It is necessary though because of the number of teams. It also means though that a team can go from relative obscurity to success that it might not have in the US. See for example the old Wimbledon football club. They went from division 4 to division 1 in a row and managed to beat Liverpool in the FA Cup final; similarly there’s a team called Stevenage that has done the same. I went to University in Hull, their team was languishing at the bottom of the 4th division, and they were going bankrupt, but a few years later they were in the premiership, and are currently in the Championship.
Wow… Dude, I’ve read that 5 times now and I still don’t understand it! Not that you’re not explaining it well, it’s just that that has to be the most complicated bloody system ever in the history of sports!
Okay, so each division ranks higher, with the EPL at the top and the teams bounce up and down the 4 league ladder depending on how well or terrible they do… I think I got it. And the FA cup and that one that Liverpool just won are completely separate games that have nothing to do with the regular season? So no playoffs in soccer then? And no cups for winning your division?
American sports is a lot simpler. I really only follow hockey (soccer on ice) but I’m pretty sure it’s basically the same for baseball and football. You have two conferences, East and West and each is subdivided into 3 divisions. All the divisions are arranged geographically with each team in each division relatively close to one another. So New York Rangers and Islanders, New Jersey Devils, Philly Flyers and the Pittsburgh Penguins are all in the Atlantic division. I believe it’s arranged this way to cut down on travel expenses.
During a regular season your team will play mostly the teams in its division and conference and will play every team in the other conference at least once. If you win a game you get 2 points. If you tie a game you get 1 point, if you loose you get zero. At the end of the season the best 8 teams from each conference go to the playoffs and it’s all elimination games, best out of seven. No ties, no shootouts, sudden death overtime. If after 3 periods they are still tied they play till someone scores.
Eventually you get down to one Eastern and one Western conference team who will then play for Lord Stanley’s Cup, the oldest cup in sports.
On a side note I just had the worst BF3 night ever. Didn’t win a single game. Not for lack of trying. Either I came into a game late and lost in 60 seconds, or I was on a team that was doing really well and then half the bleedin’ team disappears! Some nights nothing seems to go right! Sorry, just had to vent.
Yeah, and I haven’t even started to explain about the Champions League, or the UEFA cup played between the top teams of Europe 😀
However, imagine if in the US you had a club for every town, with the bigger places like New York having more than one (Liverpool alone has 3 teams, Manchester has 2, and London has 5 in the EPL alone), you would need a system to sort those teams out.
It does also help keep teams honest… if you give up before the end of the season you could get relegated, and the funds in lower divisions is vastly lower.
Dropping out of the EPL into the Championship is said to cost a team around 12 million pounds (at least it did a few years ago).
When it comes to league play you will get a result after 90 mins in football (3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss). You only get extra time and possibly penalties in cup games.