Tag: Pachuca

Match Of The Week: Al Ahly 2-4 Pachuca

Posted by | Dec 14, 2008 | |

The FIFA World Club Cup got under way last week, and it’s time to bring you all up to speed with the latest events from Japan. Three matches have already been played, and there’s now break until Wednesday, when the first semi-final match is to be played. Then, on Thursday morning (GMT), Manchester United enter the fray with their semi-final, with play-off matches preceding a double-header of the third and fourth place play-off match and the final next Sunday in Yokohama. The tournament opened with a poor match between Adelaide United and Waitekere United from New Zealand. One might have expected this to be a comfortable win for the A-League professionals, but they made hard work of winning this match. They fell behind eleven minutes from half-time when goalkeeper Eugene Galekovic fumbled a fairly straightforward catch from a cross to allow Paul Seaman to stab the ball into the unguarded goal. Waitekere’s lead, however, lasted for just five minutes before Adelaide levelled things up, with Daniel Mullen being left unmarked in the penalty area to head the ball past the impressive Richard Gillespie. With seven minutes left to play, captain Travis Dodd headed in a free-kick from Paul Reid to win the match for Adelaide, and set up  quarter-final match against Gamba Osaka. Adelaide weren’t impressive in their opening match in the slightest, but they were considerably improved in...

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The FIFA World Club Cup 2008

Posted by | Dec 11, 2008 | |

Is it that time of year again already? Long time readers will remember this site’s visit to the FIFA World Club Cup in 2006, and we have continued what is now becoming the tradition of lavishing attention on this tournament, which is surely the most peculiar in the football calendar. This year’s World Club Cup will be the last to be held in Japan for a couple of years – for the next couple of years, the competition will be played in the United Arab Emirates – and, as ever, there is an eclectic selection of clubs taking part, from Manchester United down to Waitakere United from New Zealand. This year’s tournament has an even more lop-sided look to it than usual. The surprise of the year in world football was Liga Deportiva Universitaria de Quito’s win in the South American Copa Libertadores, which made them the first ever Ecuadorian winners of a competition which features some of the giants of world football. That said, however, what many might assume to be’s assumption that Manchester United might just be a touch premature. Before we go on to look at why that might be, let’s start off with a quick look at this year’s runners and riders. UEFA Representatives: Manchester United (England) Who Are They, Then? Well, they’re probably the most famous club side in the world. Three times champions...

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As Good As It Gets?

Posted by | Dec 9, 2007 | |

Other commitments meant that I was unable to bring you the low-down on Pachuca and Etoile Sportive De Sahel ahead of their World Club Cup match. Somehow, it still registers as a surprise that the African champions should be able to see off the champions of Central and North America, but it happened when the Tunisians beat the Mexican club 1-0. This result didn’t surprise me in the slightest. Etoile beat the Egyptian giants Al Ahly over two legs in the final of the CAF Champions League earlier this year (there’s a tremendous article on this in this month’s “When Saturday Comes” – if you’re not already a subscriber to it, you should be), and that would be a massively difficult tie for any club in the world. That they should beat the champions of a region that largely consists of MLS and Mexico doesn’t strike me as a massive surprise. I touched on this before, but it is something that I wished to return to, and now seems as good a time as any. For all their talk of wanting to “reform” world football, the big European clubs actually want nothing of the sort. The last thing that G14 would actually want would be to be shown up by the CAF champions in the quarter finals of the World Club Cup. Football is now driven by the interests...

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