Transfer news: Mario Balotelli joins Manchester City

After weeks of rumors and news, Inter Milan's Mario Balotelli has finally officially joined Manchester City.

In case you've forgotten the details of Balotelli's career in Italy, we have provided this helpful link.

Mid-week soccer update

In addition to fighting to win this year's Scudetto, Inter and Roma also faced each other in the finals of this year's Coppa Italia. Inter won 1-0, on a goal by Diego Milito. (See video below)

Apparently, at the end of the match, things got pretty vicious.


In other news, Tottenham Hotspur (pictured celebrating below) beat Manchester City 1-0 to claim fourth place in the Premier League. Spurs will be in next year's Champions League. Manchester City will not.

Togo football team's bus attacked

According to news reports, the team bus of Togo's national football team was attacked on Friday as it drove into Angola for the African Cup of Nations. The bus driver is reported to have died, and at least nine others have been hurt. Manchester City striker Emmanuel Adebayor was not hurt in the attack, which is believed to have been carried out by separatist rebels. To hear his description of the event, click here.

Update (January 9, 2010): Togo have withdrawn from the tournament.

FA Cup Update - 3rd round: Middlesbrough 0 - Manchester City 1

Manchester City defeated Middlesbrough today in FA Cup third round play. The match was played in a snow storm. Man City had several players missing due to the African Cup of Nations, and manager Roberto Mancini chose to field a team that did not include many of the regular starters. The match was basically boring from beginning to end.

One interesting note, however-- for each of the last five years, the team* which eliminated Middlesbrough from the FA Cup went on to lose in the FA Cup final. (*Manchester United, West Ham, Manchester United, Cardiff City, and Everton)

Below: Benjani receives congratulations from his teammates for scoring the game's only goal.

The Premier League season has begun: Everton 1 - Arsenal 6 (Eduardo scores!)

This season, there are three English clubs that are thought to have a chance of breaking the Premier League stranglehold held by the top four teams (Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Arsenal): Everton (because they try hard and make do with less), Aston Villa (I'm not actually sure why), and Manchester City (because they are owned by members of the Abu Dhabi royal family and have a lot of money to spend.)

Unfortunately, Everton had their first match of the season today, and things did not look good. They were annihilated 6-1 at home by Arsenal, and, obviously, looked terrible in the process. One happy note, however (at least for Arsenal) -- Arsenal's final goal was scored by Eduardo. Eduardo has not scored a Premier League goal since February of 2008 due to a hideous leg injury he suffered later that month in a match against Birmingham City.

Photos-- Above: Everton goalie Tim Howard fails to stop Arsenal's first goal by Denilson. There would be more.

Below: Eduardo scores an otherwise-meaningless goal in the 88th minute.

Now they say Kaka will be going to Real Madrid (or Chelsea)

Below: A young Kaka

Below: Back in January 2009, Milan fans had to live with rumors of Kaka going to Manchester City.

Above: Spanish dictator and long-time Real Madrid fan Francisco Franco

What I have been reading lately #27

I just finished reading Dave Roberts' book The Bromley Boys: The True Story of Supporting the Worst Football Team in Britain.  This book is a fine example of a genre that they don't really publish here in the United States-- fan memoirs.  Roberts writes all about the 1969-70 season for Bromley, a time when he was 14 years old and completely obsessed with the local amateur squad.  

Checking back through my records, I count five separate books that I have read that fall into the category of football fan memoirs.  Here is my ranking of these five books.

1.  Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby.  I know that this book is quite well-known (even here in the USA), is all about Arsenal, and was even made into a movie about the Red Sox!  But it's still a fantastic book-- any fan of any sport could relate to Hornby's account of the completely ridiculous interconnection between his own personal life and the success (or not) of his team.

2.  My Favourite Year, edited by Nick Hornby.  This collection was published by When Saturday Comes a number of years ago and consists of short essays by a number of writers about their favorite seasons of their favorite teams.  I picked this up for a few dollars in a remainder bin at the University of Washington bookstore a few years back, and it has gone on to be one of my favorite books.  Because of this, I now spend way to much time scouring through remainder bins at bookstores hoping that lightning will strike twice.

3.  The Bromley Boys by Dave Roberts.  He makes my sports obsessions seem mild in comparison.

4.  Manchester United Ruined My Life by Colin Shindler.  A great title, obviously, but it was hard to have a lot of empathy for a Manchester City fan (and a whiny one, at that).

5.  Believe in the Sign by Mark Hodkinson.  This book is about a young man obsessed with Rochdale, his local, hapless Division 4 team.  I actually really liked this book when I first read it.  In fact, I liked it so much I contacted the author via email.  But when I pointed out an inconsistency involving the television mini-series Roots, Mr. Hodkinson claimed that it was part of a "fantasy sequence."  I'm not really interested in reading fantasy sequences in fan memoirs.

Why would Kaka want to leave AC Milan to go to Manchester City?

AC Milan is one of the world's greatest football clubs.  They are owned by a maniacal singing billionaire politician.  They have won multiple Scudettos, European Cups, and various other honors.  They play football in one of the great European cities (so I've heard).  Manchester City, on the other hand, are the second best team in their city, and are just a bunch of overly pushy striving jealous whiny babyheads.  You make the call - where would you want to play?

No goals today

(Above- Nicky Butt, #22 for Newcastle, holds off Chelsea's Deco)

Today's results in the English Premier League:
Liverpool 0 - Fulham 0
Chelsea 0 - Newcastle 0
Aston Villa 0 - Manchester United 0
Manchester City 3 - Arsenal 0

So the top five in the Premiership tables scored a grand total of zero goals today. (And, yes, I did spend three-plus hours of my life watching. But, honestly, it was entertaining seeing Newcastle play defense for 90-plus minutes at Stamford Bridge while the petulant Chelsea fans got annoyed with their team. And it was also exciting to watch Man Utd. held without a goal.)

What I have been reading lately #7

I decided to read this book because a) I liked the title, b) I liked the cover photo, and c) I wanted to read another football fan memoir along the lines of Fever Pitch, My Favourite Year, or Believe in the Sign. The book turned out to be one-third cricket, one-third football, and one-third stories about growing up as a Jewish kid in Manchester in the fifties and sixties. I found the cricket sections to be pretty much incomprehensible (I am an American); the football parts were rather dull; the autobiographical sections were by far the best (and funniest) parts. I'd recommend this book, but if you have a better understanding of cricket than I do, you'll probably get more out of it. (As it was, I spent alot of time consulting my copy of Webster's Sports Dictionary - 1976 edition.)

What I have been reading lately #1 (4-26-08)

I've been reading Mark Hodkinson's Blue Moon: Down Among the Dead Men with Manchester City. Hodkinson spent the 1998-99 season covering Manchester City for the The Times (London). In case you don't remember, this was the year after City had been relegated to English football's third flight - not a happy time, obviously. The book collects all Hodkinson's columns and he adds in a few notes and reports to round everything out. Not the best book I've ever read, (it's actually a bit disjointed reading a series of columns) but certainly it ought to be required reading for anyone who thinks football in Manchester starts and ends with Ronaldo, Rooney, and Sir Alex Ferguson. For more about Mr. Hodkinson:

http://markhodkinson.com/

And one more thing- Manchester City is known as the Blues. Go figure.