Sporting de Braga moved back to the top of the pile in Portugal after a 1-0 home win over Rio Ave last night. The win puts Braga level on points with Benfica, but ahead on goal difference, although the Lisbon side play their game in hand against Nacional today. The sides have been neck and neck for most of the current campaign and are locked on 55 points as they come into the business end of the season. Andres Madrid struck the only goal of the game after 16 minutes as Braga maintained their unbeaten home record this season. If Braga can win the title it will be the first ever league honours in the club’s history. Their only other trophy of note was the 1966 Portuguese Cup, though they were one of the Intertoto Cup winners in 2008.... Similar posts

Wednesday morning and it’s AC Milan time, you just got to love these days. Today will be a long one. I leave the house about 11 in the morning and head for Rathmines to collect tickets for a friend who is already over there. The demand for this game is huge and for some reason, I have found myself in the situation where I will have to meet 12 different people today with tickets. Be it swaps for this game or bringing the season cards back for Sunday’s Fulham game, it is going to be a busy day too. My travel companions are Eoin (I know it is getting boring now, but I have to repeat, we still have a 100% winning rate!) and Simon. We are flying via a 2.00pm flight to Birmingham from Dublin. The normally reliable Air Coach is running 40 minutes late, but we arrive in enough time... Similar posts

Manchester United marched on to the Champions League quarter finals in style tonight as they decimated a poor AC Milan side in Old Trafford tonight. Man of the moment Wayne Rooney continued his incredible run of goals with another two before being taken off as a precaution just past the hour mark. Ji Sun Park (pictured below) and Darren Fletcher completed the scoring. Elsewhere in Europe, Lyon struck late to knock out Real Madrid. The world’s most expensive team went ahead through Cristiano Ronaldo before Miralem Pjanic levelled the scoreline on the night and sealed a 2-1 victory overall thus securing the French side’s passage to the next round. For the fifth year in a row, madrid have been knocked out before the quarter final stage, meaning that the dream of lifting the... Similar posts

Last night’s action saw no shortage of goals as Arsenal and Bayern Munich became the first two sides to get their names in the pot for this year’s quarter finals. Tonight, Manchester United and Lyon will be hoping to hold on the advantages they have over AC Milan and Real Madrid respectively as they try to do the same. We take a closer look at these games below….. Manchester United vs AC Milan (agg 3:2) Much of the spotlight ahead of this clash once again falls on David Beckham (pictured, left) as the ex-United no.7 and current Milan no. 32 makes his way to Old Trafford as an opposing player for the first time  since leaving United seven years ago to join Real Madrid. Whether or not Becks will feature in his return remains to be seen, his influence in the first leg was... Similar posts

The first batch of this years Champions League quarter finalists gets decided tonight as Europe’s premier club competition continues. Arsenal must look to overturn a 2-1 deficit against Porto, while Fiorentina face a similar task as they welcome Bayern Munich to the Stadio Artemio Franchi. Below, we take a closer look at these ties……. Arsenal vs FC Porto (agg 1:2) A few weeks ago it seemed that European success may be the main priority for the remainder of Arsenal’s season following their  tame elimination from the FA cup and their distant position behind Manchester United and Chelsea in the Premier League. Since then however things have changed at the Emirates and whilst the Champions League remains a trophy that the Gunners would still like to get their hands... Similar posts

A cross-post from Back Page Football where I cranked out this opinion piece last night. Actual blogging resumes shortly… As a Manchester United fan it’s been difficult of late to read any kind of club news without encountering inevitable bumf about the Glazers, the Red Knights, green and gold scarves, potential boycotts, Wayne Rooney’s forehead, blah blah blah… the list goes on. (OK, I realise that last one isn’t that terrible, but it’s been the saving grace of late.) When the Glazer family launched their formal takeover bid of Manchester United in the summer of 2005, I was probably in the small minority (or, if in the majority, the silent one – but then again, it’s always been difficult to publicly express one’s support for a status quo) who thought the takeover... Similar posts

In a long overdue return to BPF, Gav Reilly ponders whether the Red Knights model of ownership can really work in England… As a Manchester United fan it’s been difficult of late to read any kind of club news without encountering inevitable bumf about the Glazers, the Red Knights, green and gold scarves, potential boycotts, Wayne Rooney’s forehead, blah blah blah… the list goes on. (OK, I realise that last one isn’t that terrible, but it’s been the saving grace of late.) When the Glazer family launched their formal takeover bid of Manchester United in the summer of 2005, I was probably in the small minority (or, if in the majority, the silent one – but then again, it’s always been difficult to publicly express one’s support for a status quo) who thought the takeover... Similar posts

Welcome to Sunny Crete. Don't Not Forget Your Beach Towels!!Did my title get your attention? Si! Are you like it? Of course! Is my entry suggestion for the new competition Your Lovely Pissing Country, Your Call, which have been set up by the husband of the president of lovely pissing Ireland, Michael MacIntyre, in the hope that the country's devout, downtrodden peasants can come up with free ideas to get the place out of another fine mess they've gotten us into, all because the government just haven't got a clue what to do. They are like a man who have sat in a bucket and lowered himself down a well and then when he get to the bottom remembers he cannot swim, and also is allergic to water and buckets. He is at the bottom shouting up, "Hello!! Is there anybody out there? Peasants!... Similar posts

One sleepless night in Madrid (thank you dude who banged on all the rubbish bins for 15 minutes) I dragged my ass to the sitting room in hopes that watching television would help me to drift back to durmiendo. James Woods' legal show "Shark" was on, although I can't remember if they were calling him Senor Tiburon, but let's assume so. Joan Holloway's rapist husband Greg is in the cast as well. I've caught maybe four episodes of this show and now realize that they use a fixed plotline just like they do on "House," a narrative device that we will no doubt see much more of now that the crabby doctor draws so many viewers around the globe.Shark's plot goes like this:The maneater gets a case. He fucks it up somehow with questionable ethics that could potentially lead to a jail term or getting... Similar posts

Image via Wikipedia You say Gerona, I say Girona.  Ok, so nobody quite knows how this Catalonian city should be spelt, but how could they? It doesn’t grab all the headlines like funky little Barcelona or sophisticated Madrid.  What Girona (from here on in I’ll stick with this spelling) does have is charm. Yep. In big... Similar posts

We were not shy about walking out of several places after being seated with menus in both Madrid and Barcelona. Sometimes it was because there was a shortage of dishes sin carne. A few places were just too smoky to stay. I'm such a hypocrite smoker and a traitor to my people because I don't want to have smoking options indoors. Other times we left when it looked as though the service was going to be too slow or too snotty.Then there was the restaurant on a balcony overlooking a plaza in Barcelona.A lovely spot on a warm evening.We were seated next to four students from the UK who could not have been more than 20 years old. The charmer at the table, one of those douche bag dudes who thinks he's worldly beyond his years and fascinating the table with his sparkling wit began telling a... Similar posts

It sounds like a missing scene from the Da Vinci Code. On Monday night, reports leaked to the press that a group known as “The Red Knights” had come together and attended a secret meeting, presumably held in an underground lair by candlelight, to discuss their plans to wrestle control of Manchester United from the evil forces known as “The Glazers”. The group is a veritable who’s who of global legal and financial powerhouses, with representatives of some of the world’s most influential organizations holding exclusive membership. Despite the early stages at which their epic quest lies, their intentions must be looked upon as being very, very serious. There has been a strong air of revolt circulating around Old Trafford in recent months. A campaign begun by the Manchester... Similar posts

This interpretation of vegetarian ravioli served at Gastronomica Iberica on Calle Campomanes was a resembled Asian pot stickers more than the traditional Italian fare. This was such an interesting dish with minced veggies, goat cheese and a frothy spinach sauce. Perfect. The King's palace was right behind our hotel. I wonder if he gets woken every hour after midnight by folks walking down the street screaming. At first I thought the shouty antics were a trickster element employed in our touristy district until one of Mr. M's colleagues said it was a city-wide trend. It was the only downside to the city. Otherwise it was safe, clean and cosmopolitan. Love this picture! He'll probably yell at me to take it down.I bought a cheapy pair of sunglasses when caught out without my own... Similar posts

In our ongoing quest to enter the best art museums in Europe, we took the glass-enclosed elevator up to the top of the Reina Sofia in Madrid last week, to work our way down to Guernica, Picasso's masterpiece of the modernist school. From the moment we entered the first gallery my eyes were instantly drawn to this sculpture in the corner, so with lip twitching, I made a beeline for what turned out to be Leon Ferrari's "Mujer," pictured above. The artist has conceived a pregnant woman as a series of holes on top for what one guesses must be the empty apertures of her soul, a pair of girlishly small breasts and then a hole at the bottom of the vessel which you cannot see here. The kicker, oh reader, was the placard describing the work in terms of Ferrari's significance in... Similar posts

Nama has five-star silver lining – Analysis, Opinion – Independent.ie Our fellow property boomers, the Spanish, in a nod to their glorious past and their less glorious socialist past, have a network of ‘paradores’ throughout the country The boom years for the creation of paradores were during Franco’s dictatorship. It is doubtful that this was in a nod to Spain’s socialist past, since Franco had put in a large amout of effort trying to cleanse the country of reds by all sorts of brutal eliminationist means. However, we do not expect droolingly ignorant ballbags to know these things. I am reading a superb but gruesome book called Los Psiquiatras de Franco: Los Rojos No Estaban Locos (Franco’s Psychiatrists: The Reds Were Not Mad) by a psychiatrist... Similar posts

In an upmarket London club on a Saturday night a group of professional footballers are out on the lash. They are surrounded by a flurry of attention, which years ago would have only been reserved for the most prolific musicians and film stars. Parading in front of them, walking up and down five or six times, looking them in the eye seductively each time, is a group of attractive women. One breaks away from the group and sits down beside a married footballer and begins to flirt.  This scene may sound far fetched but it is closer to reality then it is to fantasy. And the past few weeks have cast an ugly light on what it is like to live in the world of celebrity ‘WAG-ville’. John Terry was recently given the yellow card by a judge who allowed the footballers affair go public. Terry had... Similar posts

My hardworking husband has scored an expenses paid trip to Spain (woot-woot) so we're off tomorrow until next week for Madrid and Barcelona. I need to find a dress for the Irish Blog Awards.And shoes.A good life; I... Similar posts

Just one English club in action this time around due to Liverpool’s failure to progress from the group stages. Much like David Beckham’s appearance against Manchester United last week, as Inter Milan face Chelsea this week all eyes will be on former Chelsea manager, current Inter boss and all-time “special one” Jose Mourinho as he bids to prolong his past employers desperate search for European success. Below we take a preview each of the four remaining first leg ties taking place this week. Tuesday February 23rd Stuttgart – Barcelona Christian Gross (ex-spurs laughing stock) takes charge of Stuttgart in the Champions league for the first time in this encounter following the removal of Markus Babbel hours before their last group game in a 3-1 victory over... Similar posts