Drumming fingers for some action...

Its been a fairly dull couple of weeks in the world of sport despite a champions league machday and a disciplinary hearing. Chelsea beat crap Eastern European opposition, Madrid beat crap Eastern European opposition, Liverpool and Arsenal might as well have done the same thing... yeah, not much to report.

Inzy showed up at his hearing in another interesting "east meets west in a horrible mismatch" attire and got banned from the champions trophy for his trouble. So did Darrell Hair, come to think of it, with the ICC citing a thinly veiled "security concern".

Hopefully some excitement awaits us with some domestic league action and champions trophy qualifiers coming up in the next few days.

The Maestro returns and gets screwed over by D/L

I woke up up early this morning with a sense of expectant premonition (but I always do that when Sachin comes out to bat, so best not to read too much into it) and opened the cricinfo page to find him not out on 99. Brilliant way for me...er... him to make my...er... his comeback.

Batting on a cabbage patch with basically a ditch at a good length for right handers, our hero braved all the odds and showed his enemies that there is life in those thirty-three year old tennis elbows yet.

Of course, the only enemy he couldn't conquer was the calculus of variations or quite possibly abstract algebra that goes into the Duckworth-Lewis method. For the uninitiated, this is a technique used by umpires to determine an "effective" score in rain interrupted one-day games. It basically involves them futzing around in the umpires room, chatting about the wife and kids and then pulling a random number out of their arses when the match referee shows up and asks them what they're doing.

Complete bollocks as usual. Someone shoot the ICC.

A Beautiful Game

Few would have been ready for a world cup final re-match so soon, but when France and Italy were cast in the same Euro 2008 qualifying group some months ago, the 'big day' was destined to get a replay in less than two months.

And it couldn't have been more different. In terms of intensity, sustained excitement and quality of football, yesterday's France vs. Italy game played at a packed Stade de France was heads and shoulders above the world cup final.

Some argued after the game that the Italian team looked like they hadn't fully returned from vacation and were still basking in world cup glory. Nonsense. The truth is that both teams were practically full strength and Italy was thoroughly outplayed by a France team that was free flowing in attack and barring the glitch on the set-piece that led to Italy's only goal, extremely tight and well organized in defence.

Domenech finally seems to have seen sense and he showed that by playing a much more attractive 4-4-2. The 4-5-1 he played in the world cup was probably more due to Zidane's presence and while that formation was perfect for showcasing the maestro's magical skills and ability to almost singlehandedly win matches, it put a lot of pressure on the other players, especially Henry and Vieira.

Vieira espeically seems to be playing with a lot more freedom and authority than he did during the world cup. Another revelation from the game was Gouvou and not just because he scored two of France's three goals. Playing alongside Henry, he proved to be a slippery as well as powerful striker, as his second goal proved when he shrugged off Cannavaro's challenge to head past Buffon. Gouvou is a man Domenech has not been particularly kind to. He keeps playing him in different positions, usually bringing him on as a substiture for Maluoda which doesn't seem to be his natural position.

More than anything else, the game provided an excellent opportunity to see three goals sneak past Buffon - something I don't remember seeing in a while. I think this is as good a time to say it as any -- Allez Les Bleus!