Lakenheath Old Boys

We are all former students at Lakenheath High School and other public schools in East Anglia. We were in school in the 70s and 80s and drank deeply from the well of British culture of those decades - the pints, the telly, and of course the footie!

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Footie Moments of 2008

Another thrilling year of footie comes to an end tonight, so it's time to take stock of all of it. Here are my highlights:

Team of the Year: Spain; it was fitting to finally see the best side win a major tournament pulling away.

Player of the Year: Lionel Messi; he frightens every defender in the world and adds a frisson of excitement every time he touches the ball.

Goal of the Year: Ronaldo's free kick against Pompey; every once in a while a player does something that confounds my understanding of the physics of the game.

Game of the Year: Turkey's incredible 3-2 comeback against the aging Czechs in Euro 2008.

Disappointments: The Football League upholding LUFC's 2007/8 15 point deduction; England's absence from 2008.

Hopes for 2009: Fairly obvious; promotion for the Whites and WC 2010 qualification for Fabio Capello's England.

So how about the rest of you lads?

posted by The Blue Devil @ 10:07 AM 

1 Comments:

Blogger gooner71 said...

I have to agree with you on your picks for team and player of the year. Spain were worthy winners and Messi is just a devastating talent.

My goal of the year has to be Wesley Sneijder's goal for Holland against Italy. I think those games where Turkey just refused to die were great too, but Holland versus Italy in 2008 will live long in my memory.

Biggest disappointment, (you know what's coming...) was the completely deflating loss to Liverpool in the CL semis. One minute it's exhilaration after a thrilling run by Walcott finished off by Adebayor, and the next, it's completely ruined by Babel's cynical dive for a penalty after Kolo got too close to him. The refereeing in both legs was tragic too. My Christmas present for both Pieter Vink and Peter Forjdfeldt were blankets infected with smallpox.

My hopes for this new year are two-fold. For Arsenal, I hope that we can use the transfer window to bring in a world class appropriately sized central defender, a world class holding midfielder, and Mikel Arteta to spell us through until we get Cesc back from injury.

My second hope is that FIFA and UEFA do away with the rule that players get booked for taking off their shirts during a goal celebration. If the football organizations paid as much attention to racist chanting and applying the fit-and-proper-person's clause to prospective club owners as they do b-s like over-celebrations, football would be better for it.

10:55 AM  

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