Soccerpad

Martin O’Neil, in his 50th premiership game in charge of Aston Villa, saw his side getting the better of local rivals Birmingham City in the 105th Midlands derby at St. Andrew’s. Sunday’s 2-1 win at the backyard of Birmingham City was Villa’s third successive second-city derby victory.

England U-21 striker Gabriel Agbonlahor scored a late headed winner minutes after clearing a Liam Ridgewell header off the line at the other end. Birmingham City went behind after just 11 minutes when former Villa defender Liam Ridgewell scored an own goal after trying to clear a dangerous Stilian Petrov cross.

The first half clearly belonged to the side from Villa Park, but Steve Bruce’s side was unlucky when referee Steve Bennett turned down two confident and clear Birmingham penalty shouts at the start and the end of the half. The second-half saw a fighting Birmingham side and the Blues scored a deserved equalizer when substitute Finnish striker Mikael Forsell headed home a cross from the impressive Dutchman Daniel De Ridder.

Italian football has always been a center of attraction in all Europe. But more often than not it is for all the wrong reasons. It has not yet fully recovered from the match-fixing scandal of last season, and the recent incident of fan’s violence will cast further aspersions on the image of the Italian Football federation.

Sunday saw a Lazio fan shot dead by policeman. Lazio was playing at Inter on Sunday and the incident occurred when a riot broke out between the fans of Juventus and Lazio at a motorway service station in Tuscany. In the aftermath of the fan’s death, several Serie A games were suspended.

Israeli midfielder Yossi Benayoun scored the first hat-trick of this season’s Champions League as five-time European champions Liverpool recorded the competition’s biggest ever win after crushing Turkish side Besiktas 8-0 at home. The victory keeps the last year’s runners up’s hopes of qualifying to the next round firmly on track after FC Porto beat Olympique Marseille 2-1 in Portugal.

Arsenal’s influential French defender William Gallas turned from a potential villain to a hero after he scored a stoppage time equaliser against bitter rivals and reigning English champions Manchester United at the Emirates stadium on Saturday’s lunch time kickoff. The tense 2-2 draw kept the Gunners at the top of the Premiership table by virtue of having scored more goals than second placed United.

Frank Lampard’s future with Chelsea has been under the scanner ever since Italian giants Juventus and Spanish champions Real Madrid approached the influential England midfielder at the fag end of the last season. Now with the influential Jose Mourinho gone, there is every chance that one of the Portuguese manager’s favourite players could head for the Stamford Bridge exit door too.

With Lampard’s current contract expiring in 18 months time, there is no sign of any new contract negotiation between the two parties and the Chelsea fans can certainly fear the worst.

South America might be a football-crazy continent, but most of the countries lack the necessary infrastructure to host the most widely watched single sports event — the FIFA World Cup. The only nation in the continent capable of hosting the mega sports event is Brazil and there were few eyebrows raised when Brazil won the chance to host the 2014 football World Cup when the decision was made in the Swiss capital Zurich.

Brazil must count themselves lucky to have won the bid. Earlier this week, football’s world governing body, FIFA, scrapped its policy of rotating the World Cup among continents but that measure won’t come into effect until after 2014. Entire South America unanimously backed Brazil for hosting the World Cup and the Brazilian football as well as administrative authorities must be thanking them all.

The last time England hosted the FIFA World Cup finals, they won it in style. So there’s little doubt that England is eager to host the mostly widely watched single sports event again as early as 2018. The English FA had hatched the plan to bid for the World Cup 2018 long back and they have been boosted by a recent FIFA decision to drop its policy of rotating the World Cups among continents for good.

England is a sports mad country and the main sport is football. Football is embedded deep inside the English culture and the national team is the main outlet of expression for the nation’s people. Not only are the people in favour of hosting yet another majot sports event, the British government too backs up the proposal.

At the start of the English Premier League season, Tottenham Hotspur were anticipated to launch a challenge for a top four finish but as things stand at the moment, the Londoners are pretty close to finishing the season in the bottom four. With just 1 win from their opening 10 games in the league, Spurs lie just third from bottom and as inevitable in such matters, the manager has been given the axe.

The sacking of Martin Jol as the manager of Spurs has been on the cards for quite some time now. Since Spurs lost the opening day game against newly promoted Sunderland, voices have been raised on whether the Dutchman is indeed the right man for the task to take Spurs to the next level. Thursday’s UEFA Cup 2-1 defeat to Spanish side Getafe was the final nail in Jol’s coffin as the Spurs Board ran out of patience with him.

Liverpool’s early season good form is ebbing as the matches coming thick and fast. This season The English Premiership title might be the most preferred competition for Rafael Benitez’s side but the prospect of another UEFA Champions League success won’t be out of their mind. But if Liverpool’s performance against Besiktas on Wednesday is to taken in account, then the Reds are in serious danger of missing out on the knockout stages this season.

After their 2-1 defeat to the Turkish side in Istanbul on Wednesday in a Group A encounter, the Merseyside club are sitting at the bottom of their group with just 1 point from 3 matches. Liverpool have now lost twice in as many matches in Europe and are 6 points off top spot.

Republic of Ireland is hardly a footballing powerhouse in Europe and Steve Staunton was always facing a huge task in guiding the nation through to Euro 2008. So after almost two years in charge of the national team and failing to fulfill the ambition to take Republic of Ireland through to the European championships, Steve Staunton and the Football Association of Ireland have parted company by mutual consent.

But that hardly tempers the feeling that Staunton with his little expertise in big time football management was never the right man for the job. He did have the vastly experienced Sir Bobby Robson in the unit as International football Consultant but as the coach of the national team, he was responsible for the team’s performances which were miserable at best.