AEK Athens’ Ultras are anti-Nazi, that is a good thing.

This will be a brief synopsis of what is going on in the world of futbol  and as it is early you won’t read an essay at this hour.

England, in the Premiership Liverpool has this in the bag and hasn’t lost for ever. They are a machine and the only question left is will they finish better than the “invincibles” of BK’s Arsenal.

Only two games today (Thanks Boris!) Hippo’s Everton vs King Woy at Palace is your early tilt. Woy has made this club so much money but management refuses to bring in new players. I predict Woy leaving soon as he is about 97 years old and ain’t got time for this shit. The 11:30 game is Brighton Seagulls hosting the Moose Hornets of Watford who are in the relegation zone. Zzzzzzzzz……

The race for promotion is a white knuckle ride every week. A few matchdays ago it looked like Leeds and West Brom were going to run away with the auto promotion. Well just hold on a second early risers! They have both faltered tremendously and now Mighty Whitey, The Bees (Brentford), Robin Hoods (Nott Forest), Bristol City, are all within 5 pts of auto promotion.
Mighty Whitey travels to Blackburn Rovers, not to be confused with the Irish Rovers. Leeds in their usual tailspin travels to Nottingham Forest. SPLIT THE POINTS! The Bees host Middlesbrough who I do not think is an actual club. (Bristol City got beat on Friday by Birmingham, Huzzah)

France, wine, cheese, and  Hippo gambling on 2nd division Frenchie futbol. In Ligue 1 PSG and their dirty oil money is up by 12 pts right now so nothing to see there of any importance. This week Marseille hosts Toulouse and their proximity gives them a rivalry I suppose. Rennes gets their hands on Brest (heh). Mustard FC (Dijon) hosts Nantes.

Germany’s Bundesliga is fairly tight with Bayern, Red Bull Leipzig, Dortmund, and MunchyGladToBeBack all within 3 pts of each other right now. The only leading club playing tomorrow is Dortmund who heads to Leverkusen. I would recommend watching this game instead of the late English game as Haaland is a beast. He snubbed England to play in Germany for Dortmund (makes Balls happy) due to his love for there fanbase. If you get an opportunity to watch him DO IT.

Spain, White Scum is up by three points on Barca who are having some inner turmoil with Messi fighting Abidal. For the first time that we have heard of Messi leaving even though he has said he wants to be there his whole career.
Neither club plays today after both getting dumped from the Copa Del Rey which now almost assures a Basque derby for the final. Can you hear Balls’ erection from where you are?

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Balls’ La Liga Insight

Messi will win any battle with Abidal.  Please remember that this is the club and directorate that got rid of Abidal the player when he got cancer.  Also, Messi, at the time, told Abidal not to send videos to the players as they were upsetting them seeing him close to death.

These two are not pals.

Abidal got in as part of the front office because the new Board felt guilty about what the previous Board had done to Abidal.  However, they don’t feel so guilty that they will choose Abidal over the greatest Barcelona player ever.

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Italia has a 3 club race with The Old Lady and fancypants Ronaldo up by 3 points on Inter, and 4 pts on Racists United (Lazio). There are 3 good match-ups in Italia today in Purple pasta people (Fiorentina) host Atalanta, The Shrouds (Torino) host Claudio Rainieri and Sampdoria (fuck that guy), the Old Lady (Juve) travels to Hellas Verona who have screwed so many of my bets this season.

To teh Hippo’s delight Stevie G’s Rangers are behind Celtic by 7 pts. If you are Catholic you will enjoy the fact that Celtic is winning while Hibs is in 6th and Hearts are in dead last.
Scottish Cup weekend and nothing jumps out at me however I would like Ayr United to take care of St. Johnstone.

In Bolivia there is a 4 way tie four games in to the season with Bolivar, Always Ready, ROyal Pari and Oriente Petrolero tied with 3 wins and a draw. I expect Jorge Wilstermann, The Storngest to right their respective ships and Blooming to stay near the bottom. I love the name of clubs in Bolivia.

It is/was derby weekend in Melbourne and in Sydney this weekend but the Sydney game was called off due to a waterlogged pitch. What is it with this country, first no water, now too much water. I recently spoke to their Prime Minister and his solution is to burn more coal. He told me this as he was lighting Aussie 100 dollar bills on fire, what made it more concerning is that they are made of plastic so probably toxic.

I have started to watch Liga MX and continue to pester Balls for more knowledge. When I first selected my team Puebla apparently they were overachieving as reality has struck and they are pretty brutal. I still want to visit, eat, drink, and support my Sweet Potato Eaters. They played Friday night and hosted Santos. I will predict a 2-1 loss with a bullshit referee decision ultimately screwing Los Camoteros.

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Balls’ Liga MX Insight

Liga MX, like México itself, is a whirlwind of contradiction, tradition, corruption, passion, and action.  Litre’s chosen club, Puebla, is no different. Naively, he chose it because they featured a Canadian player, Lucas Cavallini, who quickly became a reliable scorer and club favourite.

And then he left.

A little history on Puebla:

• The city of Puebla is located slightly southeast of México City exactly on the other side of the famous volcanoes, the Popocatépetl and the Iztaccihuatl, that loom over the capital.

• In the early 20th century, there was a significant English presence in México due to mining activity.  Through the English, soccer was introduced to the local population.
• In 1904, the first organized football competition took place with Puebla as one of the founding clubs.  Incidentally, Pachuca was also in that league.  Those are the two oldest clubs in Mexican football.
• It wasn’t until 1943 that the Mexican league, as we know it, came into existence.  All official league records start on that year.
• Puebla has won the Mexican league two times and the Mexican Cup two times, all of those coming in the 80s with 1989-90 being the magical year in which they won both competitions.
• The father of Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez, Javier “Chicharo” Hernandez scored a goal in the final the last time Puebla won the championship.
• The rest of the time has been spent up and down, in and out of the first division, and with many controversies, financial difficulties, and periods of good fortune. Litre got on the train as they were going through one of their good periods.

Someday, when I meet Litre in person, I will tell him about what the original Estadio Cuauhtémoc looked like, why Volkswagen is forever linked with the team and the city like Ford is with Geelong, and why Pueblan food is the most delicious in all of México.

LATE NIGHT UPDATE: HOLY SHIT WHAT A FINISH TO THE GAME LAST NIGHT!

True to Litre’s prediction,  Puebla were losing 2-1 deep into the game (the second Santos goal being a Puebla own goal,  of course).  So deep that it was the 3rd minute of 6 stoppage time minutes. Puebla got a free kick and the goalie went up to try to score the tying goal.

No one made contact and the Santos goalie easily got the ball.  As he quickly tried to clear the ball to get an empty netter,  the Puebla goalie hip- checked him.  The ball managed to clear the halfway line and was heading towards the Puebla goal.  A Santos attacker grabbed it and started dribbling towards the empty goal.  As he was ready to kick the empty netter,  a Puebla defender came out of nowhere and stole the ball!

Puebla quickly went back up up the field.  They got the ball on the right side and took a shot that rebounded off the goalie,  off a sliding Puebla forward, past a sliding defender, and into the net.

Game tied. No foul called on the Puebla goalie.

But wait,  there’s more!

Santos attacked to get the win back and failed deep in Puebla’s side of the field. Puebla then mounted a counterattack in the dying seconds.  Somehow,  someway,  they got the ball in the Santos area and got fouled.

Penalty Kick!

And then,  in the last play of the game,  the Puebla forward calmly stepped up and…

MISSED!

He kicked it sky high while leaving a divot behind bigger than the one I created the last time I played golf.

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Wooo boy, we have ourselves an Athens Derby when AEK hosts Panathanaikos. They are 3rd and 4th in the Super League right now so both could use the points. These two are a ways back of PAOK and Olympiakos who will get the European spots.  Greek football is great,it has crazy owners, psychotic fans, dirty tackles, smoking, flares, passion and acceptable game play. Unless I bought the Greek channel there is very little way to see the games. I guess I could ask Scotchy as he has every channel.

I leave you with some more Scottish comedy, and COYW (nawt raycess)

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Balls’ Bourniston Video

Litre got me into watching this show.  It is fookin’ amazing!  This is one of my favourite skits.  So much so that I have a Nae Rolls t-shirt that I wear around LA. I’ve yet to run into someone that recognizes where it’s from.

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FYI, the AFL Women’s season started last night.  Unfortunately,  I couldn’t watch because something is up with my Watch AFL subscription.  If you guys can watch the games,  I highly recommend it. The women do tend to hit harder than the men…