A Day In The Sun

So there I was listening to the 3rd day of the 5th Test live from the Oval in my living room on Radio 5 Live. When suddenly my phone rings.

'Hello, it's Si (One of my bosses), what are you doing tomorrow?'

'Nothing?' I respond.

'Okay, meet me at The Oval at 7am tomorrow' he says.

'Cool.' I say.

The next day i'm there at 6-30 am my mistake, bloody London transport, always gets you where you want to go.

Anyway, so it was an amazing day I have to admit although at first I was surpremely confident of England beating the Aussies for most of the day it was only until Freddy Flintoff ran out Ponting for 66, whilst the Aussies Captain was building up a solid partnership with Mike Hussey that I actually thought England would wrap up and win the Ashes before the 5th day.

Anyway, it was quite an achievement, both sides were weaker than in 2005 and as the Series wasn't on terestrial TV and I am no longer at Uni I got to watch alot less of it, which is inevitable.

10 Things We've Learnt This Week About The Champions League

My good friend Ibrahim Mustafa wrote one of these about the Premier League last season, so now i'm nicking his idea. Well done Ibs you've created a winning format...

10 things we learnt from this weeks opening games in 09/10 the Champions League.

1) Qualification from the group stages in the Champions League is now a complete formality for English sides. Missing key players (Chelsea - Drogba), having half your team missing (Arsenal - No keeper etc etc), playing poorly away (Man Utd) and completely lacking in proper form (Liverpool - victories against Burnley and Stoke at home don't count as form) means nothing when you're up against the sides that would struggle to stay up in the Premiership. Harsh??? I think not unfortunately.


2) Most of the sides in this years Champions League are won't be in it next season and for good reason. Wolfsburg, Zenit, CSKA Moscow, Athletico Madrid. One season wonders domestically - or have lost players over the summer.

3) Ibrahimovic is a better signing than Eto'o, yes!!! Eto'o looks slower older and more at odds with his teammates than the Slavic Swede.

4) The 3 of the 4 Italian teams will be lucky to get to the quarter finals and are shockingly short of quality and experience. AC Milan need a proper goalkeeper, not a 32 year old ex Messina and Perugia shot stopper who has never played in the Champions League before, or for that matter dealt with a cross. Juventus have a manager with no Champs League experience, Ciro Ferrara, and this showed in their dismal home display against Bordeaux, which ended 1-1. Fiorentina lost 1-0 Lyon. Nuff said...

5) As much as Jose Mourinho wants to hate Barcelona and win the Champions League he will achieve neither at Inter Milan.

6) Paul Scholes scores goals . Still!!!

7) Barcelona are still the most entertaining and best team in Europe. Real Madrid will push them close as their 5-2 win at Zurich suggests. But Messi is an act in himself.

8) Rangers will battle bravely to compete in their group but will ultimately end up throwing away their chances of qualifying by losing at home to Romanians Unirea Urziceni.

9) The inclusion of more teams from lesser footballing nations will improve the competition in the long term, but at the moment provides a uncompetitive 4th seed in each group.

10) After a long time in the dulldrums Bayern Munich will once again be a force to be reckoned with in Europe.