Footballs Are Round!

Can we all try to avoid the Christmas rush and start hating Chelsea now?

They have all the money in the world, they get every player they want, they’ve won the Premier League twice running, but, somehow, everybody is against them.

What am I on about? Just “The Special One”, complaining about the dark conspiratorial forces at UEFA trying to cheat him out of his rightful place as 06-07 Champion:

Jose Mourinho has hinted that Chelsea were being targeted by European football’s governing body UEFA after they earned four yellow cards in their 2-0 Champions League victory over Werder Bremen.

Mourinho said he was at a loss to explain why so many of his players find their way into the referee’s notebook when they play in Europe. John Terry, Frank Lampard, Joe Cole and Didier Drogba were booked against Werder in Tuesday night’s Champions League opener, and the key quartet are now one booking away from a ban.

The Chelsea boss suspects UEFA have a hidden agenda against him but chose his words carefully as he checked the statistics from the first round of matches. Mourinho said: “I don’t want to speak about this, because I spoke lots over the last three years. But the reality, when you look, is Barcelona have no yellow cards, Bayern Munich one yellow card, Liverpool no yellow cards, Valencia one yellow card, Roma one yellow card, Chelsea four yellow cards.”

Valencia actually had two players booked – Edu and Roberto Ayala – and Mourinho overlooked the fact that Inter Milan had four booked away to Sporting Lisbon.

 

Oh, puh-leeze. It’s like Steinbrenner wanting the Yankees to get four strikes or something. Is the man mad? Or is he just preparing the excuses beforehand, knowing he still may not have what it takes to win in Athens this May?

On the other hand, maybe he’s just trying to make trouble and have a little fun, while providing geeks like me fodder for blog posts.

In which case, sir, I salute you.

But I doubt it.