Messi ain't messy

My last blog post was mainly about football and although there will be a fair amount of football in this one as well, I am going to look into the World Snooker Championships, which begins on the 17th April with some tantalising first round clashes.

Now, first things first, I think we should look at tonight's Champions League games and the semi-final that we know will be taking place. In the early kick-off at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, CSKA faced off against Inter Milan hoping to overturn a 1-0 deficit established by Diego Milito at the San Siro last Wednesday. Somewhat predictably and in an overly drab game with little incident except for the singular Wesley Sneijder goal that gave Inter a 1-0 win on the night, and a 2-0 aggregate win over their Russian rivals, Inter progressed to the Champions League semi-final. I was quite disappointed by the match as I had heard murmurs over the past 4 or 5 years that CSKA were the Russian equivalent to Chelsea in the English Premier League. If these murmurs were related to the fact that neither of these team's look like they'll ever win the Champions League, then I will whole-heartedly agree with the claims, but that, for me, was the only comparison I could draw between the 2. CSKA were dreadful tonight, and believe me, as a Swansea fan, I have seen some dreadfully boring performances from my team this season, but CSKA's performance tonight was by far the worst performance I have ever seen from a team in Europe and to be honest, not just in Europe.

Then we come to the main showpiece of tonight. After the thrilling encounter at the Emirates last Wednesday, ending in a 2-2 draw between Arsenal and Barcelona, all eyes were on the Camp Nou to see if these 2 brilliant footballing sides could put on another fantastic feast of football, and for me especially, the match didn't disappoint. The end result? Barcelona 4-1 Arsenal. Or should that be Messi 4-1 Arsenal? Messi absolutely destroyed Arsenal today and despite all the injuries I don't think anyone would've said it was a terrible Arsenal side that Arsene Wenger put out. The pick of Messi's 4 goals was undoubtedly his 3rd, a cute, delicate little lob over the advancing Manuel Almunia having been put through from a Seydou Keita header. At 22, this man's potential clearly can't be measured. I personally was mightily impressed and would be scared if I was Jose Mourinho and was going to have to stop that man in a Champions League final. However, it is a very intruiging semi-final for many reasons, which I am going to go into here. Firstly, Mourinho is the first man to get to a Champions League semi-final with 3 different teams, those being FC Porto (who went on to win the tournament), Chelsea and now Inter Milan. For me, I think it's a very realistic possibility that Mourinho could take another heavily unfancied side to the final and win it with them, because after all, who predicted we'd see Inter Milan in the Champions League semi-finals? Certainly not me. Secondly, its a replay of the 2 group meetings earlier on this season. Thirdly, theres the returning players and the obvious receptions both will get (the players being Samuel Eto'o, the man who moved from Barcelona to Inter, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the man who moved in the opposite direction). Fourthly, a reason that is really making me smile at the moment, and that reason is the battle of the Milito brothers. Gabriel, is a defender who plays for Barcelona, while his brother Diego has scored against Chelsea and CSKA in the knockout stages already so far. Undoubtedly though, all eyes will once again be on Messi when the two teams meet and whether he can do anything better than what we have already seen.

With the World Cup coming up, England fans could also have their eyes on Messi, and probably will be hoping he comes a cropper before the World Cup starts. However, the eyes of all England fans will switch to Old Trafford tomorrow and whether the name of Wayne Rooney will be on Sir Alex Ferguson's teamsheet for the crucial 2nd leg visit of Bayern Munich, which United NEED to win if they want another chance at Barcelona in the Champions League final this year. Rumours are that the England and Manchester United striker, who supposedly injured ankle ligaments in the first leg defeat in Munich, has been training with the squad and could be included tomorrow night for United's must-win game. Here I wish to analyse the effects that playing Rooney could have on the rest of United's season and also on England's World Cup bid. If Rooney starts tomorrow, or plays and gets injured, what then?? So United will have a Champions League semi-final, but they will also be without a man who has scored 33 goals this season for what is bound to be a tough run-in as United vy to win the title yet again, but would it be worth it?? Without Rooney, United looked very ordinary against Chelsea on Saturday, and although Drogba's winning goal was clearly offside, I felt that it was a deserved result as United did nothing to warrant a point from the match and would have been very lucky to come away with a result. Many critics are looking to Rooney as a big player for England in this Summer's World Cup in South Africa and so it would be a huge loss for them to lose him to injury before or during the World Cup. For this reason I would start Berbatov tomorrow night against Munich at Old Trafford, but obviously this is Sir Alex's decision and who am I to question him if he decides to play Rooney. I'm not the one with countless winner's medals.

Briefly, I'd like to say that I believe, despite the away goal conceded last week, that Fulham will beat Wolfsburg in the Europa League quarter final and progress to a semi in this European competition. I also believe Liverpool can overturn the 2-1 deficit conceded in Benfica last week to make it 2 British teams into the Europa League semi-finals on Thursday.

Now, as I said, I'd like to talk a little at the end of this particular blog post examining the first-round draw for the World Snooker Championships starting on the 17th April. I never realised before that if you're outside the top 16 in the official rankings, you have to qualify to be in the tounrament's first round. I was particularly keen on the qualifying rounds this year as 2 of the top players from when I was a bit younger were vying to get into the tournament via this route, John Parrot and Jimmy White. Both however, were victims of brillaint comebacks by youngsters in their respective qualifying round matches and hence neither made it to the first round, which is particularly sad seeing as how John Parrot is now considering retiring from the game altogether as he doesn't want to be embarassed like this again. Jimmy was a little bit more optimistic, but my heart goes out to JP who was always such a professional at the table and a lovely guy to all his opponents and eveyrone he met within the game. I know that sounds like an obituary but it kind of is when you consider that this man's fantastic career could now be over with the qualifying round defeat this year.

Now onto the actual first-round draw which has thrown up some inredibly interesting match-ups such as Mark King v Steve Davis. Anyone who has ever seen a Snooker match will know who Steve Davis is, and people a little bit older than me will remember the epic Davis v Dennis Taylor final of 1985 in which Taylor triumphed 18-17 on the final black. Lesser known maybe is Mark King, but he has been a consistently good player since he came onto the professional tour and has spent most of his professional career being a top 16 player so it's a very mouth-watering clash that one. Then there is a 2006 final rematch between Peter Ebdon and Greame Dott which is another intruiging first round match. When you consider the fact that that final was only 4 years ago, both player's are very talented and are very capable of runs very deep into the tournament so that's another one I will be watching very keenly. Whichever man wins it, will have huge momentum for the rest of the tournament and so it is a very big first round match. Stephen Maguire v Stephen Lee is the battle of the Stephen's in the first round and another battle between two players who have certainly excelled since being on the professional circuit and players who have consistently been at the top of the game season after season. As with the Ebdon v Dott match, you feel that both players could go far in the tournament and whichever player wins could again gain momentum and go on to win this tournament. Match of the round for me and many commentators though will be world number one Ronnie O'Sullivan's battle with the young Chinese star Liang Wenbo, who has shown he has genuine talent and is a rising star within the game, as with most of the Chinese players that will be at the Crucible this year. This is a hugely tough opener for O'Sullivan, but many feel that if he can get past this he will win the tournament, but, as is so often the case with Ronnie, his temprament will be under the spotlight much as it has been all season and the ease with which he can cope with the pressure of his first-round match against Liang, will undoubtedly impact upon his chances at winning the World title.