Fernando Torres Milestone

In Spain national team, Fernando Torres is still in the shadow of his striking-partnership, David Villa. Villa has found the back of the net 35 times in just 54 outings, meanwhile Fernando Torres has just managed 23 goals in 71 appearances. Anyway I have to admit that Torres is really a monster at Liverpool. He is obviously the Anfield hero.

29th December 2009 was an important date for both Liverpool and their talismanic striker, Fernando Torres. Liverpool snatched a hard-fought 0-1 victory at Aston Villa's expense. The Reds defeated the host team, thanks to the last-minute goal by the Liverpool number 9. Stephen Warnock failed to clear and the ball fortuitously fell into the path of Torres, who raced clear and clinically found the far corner to seal victory.

With this goal, Torres had just scored his 50th Premier League goals. And he's broken another record. Torres became the fastest Liverpool player to reach 50 English Premier League goals. He needed only 72 games to complete this first milestone of 50 goals. Incredible, it's almost like he's gonna score twice every three games.

He has beaten the Liverpool's legends for this award. The likes of Ian Rush, Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen needed longer time to reach 50 Premier League goals. They needed 84, 88 and 98 games respectively. Moreover, Torres is second best only to Andy Cole (65), Alan Shearer (66) and Ruud van Nistelrooy (68) in the overall Premier League record-breakers.

This is truly a remarkable achievement. Congratulations for Fernando Torres.

Barca Conquered the World

2009 was the year of Barcelona. Yes, I'm not going to argue.

The football capital city is now in Barcelona, Spain.

Why? It's because they have taken all the trophies in all competitions they had played in year 2009. And the last trophy made it official that Barcelona is the best team in the world.

They won the Club World Cup 2009, after their presupposed hero, brilliant number 10, Lionel Messi, scored in extra-time, during the 2-1 victory against South American champion, Estudiantes. The glory is all theirs now. Spain, Europe and the world have all been conquered. El Barca have truly subdued the earth.

Perhaps now El Tricampeon is not a proper nickname for Barcelona, it should be El Seiscampeon.

As a bonus, Pedro Rodriguez, another Barcelona forward, became the only player in history to score in six different club competitions in a single season, after scoring for Barcelona against Atlante in the Club World Cup (16th December 2009).

The Backheel Boys

Lionel Messi was the winner of Ballon d'Or 2009. He outscored each of his competitors, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, and his own Barca's mate like Xavi and Andres Iniesta.

Messi beat last year's winner, Cristiano Ronaldo, into second place by a record margin and becomes the sixth Barcelona player to take the award and the first since Brazil's Ronaldinho in 2005.

The Argentinian Little Wizard, 22, was the top scorer in last season's Champions League with nine goals, including his header he thumped in during the 2-0 victory against bitter rival, Cristiano's Manchester United. He also scored six times in Copa del Rey and found the net on 23 occasions in the Spanish league.

Messi won the Ballon d'Or, which is voted by journalists across the world and organised by France Football magazine, by a 240-point margin. The award's 96 voters gave Messi 473 points out of a possible 480, a near unanimous verdict.

It is common for a key player for a team that won six titles in a year to get such award. Later on, Messi won another award, the FIFA World Player of the Year, hosted by FIFA. This award is voted by all nations' coaches and captains, which Messi once again outscored everybody, including CR9.

The full result for Ballon d'Or is as followed:

Individual standings

1 Lionel Messi (Argentina, Barcelona), 473 points

2 Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal, Real Madrid), 233

3 Xavi (Spain, Barcelona), 170

4 Andres Iniesta (Spain, Barcelona), 149

5 Samuel Eto'o (Cameroon, Internazionale), 75

6 Kaká (Brazil, Real Madrid), 58

7 Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Sweden, Barcelona), 50

8 Wayne Rooney (England, Manchester United), 35

9 Didier Drogba (Ivory Coast, Chelsea), 33

10 Steven Gerrard (England, Liverpool), 32

11 Fernando Torres (Spain, Liverpool), 22

12 Cesc Fábregas (Spain, Arsenal), 13

13 Edin Dzeko (Bosnia, Wolfsburg), 12

14 Ryan Giggs (Wales, Manchester United), 11

15 Thierry Henry (France, Barcelona), 9

16= Luis Fabiano (Brazil, Sevilla) 8

16= Nemanja Vidic (Serbia, Manchester United), 8

16= Iker Casillas (Spain, Real Madrid), 8

19 Diego Forlan (Uruguay, Atlético Madrid), 7

20 Yoann Gourcuff (France, Bordeaux), 6

21= Andrey Arshavin (Russia, Arsenal), 5

21= Júlio César (Brazil, Inter), 5

21= Frank Lampard (England, Chelsea), 5

24 Maicon (Brazil, Inter), 4

25 Diego (Brazil, Juventus), 3

26= David Villa (Spain, Valencia), 2

26= John Terry (England, Chelsea), 2

28 Franck Ribéry (France, Bayern Munich), 1

28= Yaya Touré (Ivory Coast, Barcelona), 1

30 Karim Benzema (France, Real Madrid), 0

At the end, we would like to congratulate Lionel Messi for all the awards and accolades he has won in 2009. Hopefully, he'll stay humble and keep entertaining football lovers with his style.

World Cup 2010 Drawing

World Cup 2010 drawing took place in Cape Town, South Africa, on 4th December 2009.





And the result was as followed:

It is very interesting, that there are a few groups of death here.

Group G is described as the toughest group, especially for Portugal. They have to fight against 5 times world champions, Brazil, and Didier Drogba's Ivory Coast. Then if they manage to qualify, "the-soon-reigning world champion", SPAIN, are waiting. So, it is not a great World Cup draw for Portugal by any means.

Meanwhile Argentina are facing a tough group, considering their own form lately. In Group B, it's very hard to predict who's gonna qualify and who's not. Assuming the Argies doesn't deliver, all teams there have an equal opportunity to qualify.

The host though is dragged into a somehow complicated group, having Mexico, Uruguay and the France's "volleyball" national team with their captain, Thierry, plays up front.

Group D and Group E are quite intriguing. Two best European countries (apart from Spain) at this moment, Netherlands and Germany, have to find their way out against both Asian giants (Japan and Australia), and African giants (Cameroon and Ghana), not to mention the potentially black-horse candidates like Denmark and Serbia.

The rest of them, Group C, Group F, and Group H, on paper should be just a piece of cake for the defending champion, Gli Azzurri, The Three Lions, and La Furia Roja. But it is not impossible that surprises will happen.

Let's just wait until 11th June and 11th July 2010 to find out how this tournament is going to start and end.

Arshavin Is About to be Robbed

I guess Steven Gerrard and Daniel Agger wanted Andrei's lunch money.

ROFL

This photograph was taken during Liverpool's 1-2 loss from Arsenal.

A treasure from Dirty Tackle Island.

Can You Guess?

Can you guess who did this?

I guess I know.

It must be Cristiano Ronaldo who jumped on his gay partner, Kaka.

Interesting stuff. I wonder what would happen if he landed right on his head. I guess Kaka would happily announce that Cristiano Ronaldo had officially retired from football.

Tottenham Completely Crushed Wigan

Tottenham 9-1 Wigan Athletic! English Premier League - 22nd November 2009

Jermain Defoe scored 5 goals in this match alone, put himself level with Andy Cole and Alan Shearer as players with most goals in one Premier League match.

This is one of the biggest win ever in a English Premier League match.

Thierry Henry's Hand Sent France Into World Cup 2010

18th November 2009

FRANCE 1-1 IRELAND

Gallas goal during extra time.

Henry set Gallas up after first controlling the flying ball by HIS HAND, yes, by HIS HAND, deliberately. Yet it seemed to be overlooked by the referee. So, France equalized and Republic of Ireland had to be eliminated. This has stirred up a lot of controversies, e.g. ban Henry from World Cup or play a rematch. But it is now assured that France are going to World Cup.

You can take a look at this video: Thierry Henry handball against Ireland.

A few days after that incident, a friend of mine broke me into laughter when he sent me a link to this completely hilarious game about that handball. This game was created by T-Enterprise. Take a look at this:

That's hilarious, but now it's not worth any space of the papers because the World Cup drawing has already been done.

What did I miss?

Hello everybody! This is Uncle Salabam. Long time no see, huh?

It's been 2 months and 11 days since I made my last post here, so let's just get started.

Well, there were a lot of actions while I was away in this football world.

So, I'm gonna review some of them.

First of all, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2010 everybody!

In the next few posts, you'll see some of the news that I missed while I was gone.

Mr. Football Club

Name changes and football don’t usually mix well -see “MK Dons”, “Assistant Referee” and “Andrew Cole” - but a 20-year-old student from North Lanarkshire has slain the dragon named Common Sense, choosing to change his name by Deed Poll to Motherwell Football Club.

Mr Football Club, formerly known as Frazer Boyle, paid just £33 to legally change his name and has already applied for a new driving licence and passport. Of his decision, Motherwell says:

“I am the only Motherwell fan in the house so I don’t think anyone understands why I did it.

“My girlfriend isn’t too bothered but I’m not sure if she’d be happy maybe being known as Mrs Motherwell Football Club eventually.”

Unsurprisingly, a spokesperson from the UK Deed Poll service said they thought the change was a “good idea”, and that Football Club is one of 50,000 Brits who have changed their name this year.

This is one of Uncle Salabam's treasure that he got from The Spoiler Island.

Wenger Won Quote of the Week

Do you still remember the incident of Emmanuel Adebayor's stamping on Robin van Persie's face during Manchester City's 4-2 win over Arsenal earlier this season? Yeah, you must have remembered it. However, despite Manchester City's win, Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger also won another award, that is quote of the week.

Soon after the match, he watched the replay of this incident (shown in the video below), and then he officially crossed Manchester City manager, Mark Hughes, off from Christmas card list, for trying to defend Adebayor, who was punished by FA for that stamping on van Persie.

This is what Wenger said, the quote of the week:

"You ask 100 people, 99 will say it's very bad and the hundredth will be Mark Hughes."

This is one of Uncle Salabam's treasure that he got from Goal.com Island.

EPL Conclusion 3-4 October 2009

1. Manchester United really don’t help Sir Alex Ferguson’s case with these injury time goals. Another get of of jail card in time added on, this time to grab a draw against Sunderland.

2. Rafa Benitez hasn’t got the injury time touch yet. He moaned about the lack of stoppage time to the fourth official only for his team to concede again.

3. Arsene Wenger has finally got a true replacement for Thierry Henry, and he plays centre-half!

4. Portsmouth should not pay their players more often. It seemed to work wonders.

5. Early morning walks along popular suicide spots also appear to focus the mind. Well done, master tactician Phil Brown.

6. It is a day of celebration for anyone who has Cesc Fabregas in a fantasy football team. One goal, four assists, one badge-kiss (don’t think there’s points for that though).

7. The best and worst of Didier Drogba were on display yesterday. Diving and theatrics which even his team-mates found embarrassing, but quality centre-forward play and vital assists.

8. Peter Walton obviously decided that the Arsenal-Blackburn was going to have enough goals and enforced a penalty embargo.

9. Kagisho Dikgacoi learnt the hard way on his Fulham debut that slapping is largely prohibited in the Premier League

10. Congratulations to Vedran Corluka for grabbing Spurs’ equaliser without any practice. The Croatian revealed he doesn’t like heading the ball, but conquered his fear to grab a point.

This is one of Uncle Salabam's treasure that he got from Off The Post Island.