In less than 5 hours, Chelsea will take on Bayern Munich in one of the most awaited Champions League finals. Both teams are trying to make up for finals past. Bayern Munich lost the 2010 final to Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan and will want to avoid the heartbreak of losing the final on their home ground. Chelsea, on the other hand, lost the 2008 Final to English rivals Manchester United after their captain John Terry slipped and missed a penalty. It is the Chelsea owner, Roman Abramovich’s dream to win the Champions League – a competition Chelsea have never won.
The Blues are finishing sixth in the English Premier League and the only way they can qualify to play in the Champions League year is by winning the Final today. Their road to Munich has been anything but smooth. Here is a look at their remarkable Champions League campaign.
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Bayern Munich would want to avoid the embarrassment of losing a final they are hosting
While Manchester City are basking in the glory of a historic title win. Their arch rivals Manchester United are trophyless unless you count the Community Shield. The English Premier League has been turned upside down. While in Italy an Old Lady is back on the throne. In Spain, Barcelona are hurting and Atletico Madrid are the new UEFA Europa League champions.
Here’s how it all adds up on the European Power Index.
Sergio Ramos, the man whose exploits alone could provide life long fodder for the meme community, has yet again proven that he is a man of many talents. It turns out the golden locked wonder, who likes throwing trophies off the top of high buses, can sing.
In a recent video published on the official La Liga YouTube channel, the Real Madrid defender successfully crooned alongside Flamenco singer Canelita.
On the other hand, Swindon Town manager, Paolo Di Canio, restored the football-musical talent balance when he went onstage to sing the chorus to British band Toploader’s hit song ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’.
The band were doing a concert at The Country Ground as a part of the the celebrations for Swindon Town winning the League Two title.
The Robins’ manager could probably blame all the shouting at the referees for his performance.
Although Blackburn lost 1-0 to Wigan and are now certain to be relegated this season. They won big points on the creative protests scale.
In November, they showed their arts and crafts abilities by rendering a protest ban completely useless.
Then their weapon of choice was an airplane which had been instructed to fly over the stadium during the game with the fans’ current mantra ‘Kean Out’ attached to it.
Yesterday, a live chicken was their weapon of choice. Wearing the Blackburn flag as a cape, the proud fowl invaded the pitch early in the first half of Blackburn’s relegation battle again Wigan.
He succeeded to stop the game until he was caught in the Wigan goal net by the Wigan goalkeeper Ali Al Habsi and Blackburn’s Yakubu.
The chicken was released as a protest against Blackburn’s unpopular owners, the Indian poultry giants, Venkys. Thus answering the age old question of ‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’
Move over Anfield cat, there is a new animal hero in the premier league — The Blackburn chicken.
Swansea City lost to Manchester United 2-0 last night but this hasn’t deterred the Swansea manager, Brendon Rodgers, from making a strange request to the club’s fans.
Swansea, who were promoted to the premier league this season, have had a good year. They have played good football and have stayed clear of the relegation zone.
In celebration of this and perhaps wanting not be outdone by Hartlepool, the Swansea manager has requested the club’s fans to wear a specific something for their final match of the season at home against Liverpool.
“Next week is going to be brilliant. I will be asking all the fans if they can wear as many Elvis Presley costumes as we can because when we got promoted the bookies said there was a greater chance of seeing Elvis Presley than us staying at this level. As a show of our achievement and a bit of fun we’ll ask for our supporters for that and we’ll see what their reaction is.”
Rogers didn’t specify which Elvis he wanted his club’s fans to impersonate – the young sexy Elvis or the bloated Rhinestone wearing version. It will be interesting to see how many start off as the young Elvis and take the one-too-many-pies route into the Rhinestone suit.
When Roger Federer hit an amazing between the legs shot against Novak Djokovic to set up a match point at the 2009 U.S. Open, we thought we’d seen the trickiest of the trick shots.
Not if German/Jamaican tennis player Dustin Brown has anything to say about it. Take a look at his impressive return against Marco Baghdatis at the Munich ATP.
The season is coming to an end and soon it will be that time of the year when clubs will be on the lookout for fresh talent. And much too often the fans are left wondering why we hadn’t heard of these ‘phenomenal’ talents earlier. You may already know some of them but it’s time to get to know the others — before they are wearing rival colours.
Here’s a heads up on young strikers to watch out for this transfer window.
The teams are preparing, the clock is ticking and on the 19th of May, all eyes will be on Bayern Munich as they take on Chelsea in the Champions League final.
The Bavarians with the in form Manuel Neuer face a relatively weakened Chelsea side at their home ground. The chances of them beating Chelsea are huge. However, the chances of them pocketing any of the €9 million prize are nil. The prize money will go into the coffers of their Bundesliga rivals Schalke and Hoffenheim.
UEFA will pay Bayern Munich a €9 million prize if they win the title. Unfortunately for the German club, this is exactly the amount they will owe to Schalke and Hoffenheim as a part of “success” clauses in the deals to bring Luiz Gustavoto and star goalkeeper Manuel Neuer to the club.
Schalke are already due €2 million for Bayern having reached the semi-finals, but they will be due a further €4 million from the Bavarian giants if they lift the trophy in two weeks’ time.
And it doesn’t stop there. Hoffenheim struck a smaller but otherwise almost identical deal with Bayern after they sold Luiz Gustavo for €17 million in January 2011.
Hoffenheim have already picked up a €1 million bonus for the Munich side making the semi-finals, and they’ll be due another €2 million if their rivals win the trophy.
That means that Bayern’s entire €9 million prize money would be wiped out at a stroke – and also means that, financially speaking, they’d be better off pocketing the €5.6 million offered to the runner-up.
But fear not Bayern fans, €9 million is only the prize money for winning the final. Last year’s finalists, Barcelona and Manchester United, got a significant boost from being in the Champions League. They earned about €50 million each from performance payments and TV revenue. And there is also the money made from merchandising and other indirect revenue streams. Phew! Not all is lost financially if they win.
In a record breaking season, Real Madrid claimed their 32nd La Liga title with two games to spare. The Spanish giants, who have lost only two games this season, still have a chance to surpass Barcelona’s record of highest points scored in a season. They have already broken the previous La Liga record of goals scored in a season and are sitting pretty with a 115 goals.
For Jose Mourinho too, this has been a milestone season. He was hired with the specific brief of defeating Barcelona. A job he has done exceptionally well. This is Madrid’s first title under the ‘special one’ and with it he has won league titles in four different countries. A feat accomplished by only three other managers – Ernst Happel, Giovanni Trapattoni and Tomislav Ivic.
While Real Madrid made history, Cristiano Ronaldo made a fool of himself.
Ronaldo, who has scored 44 of the 115 Madrid goals this season, also scored in their win 3-0 win over Athletic Bilbao which sealed the title for them. But in true Ronaldo style, being just a hero was too much for the Portuguese who couldn’t let bygones be bygones.
It happened when Javi Martinez, who was sent off in the 72nd minute for his second handball, dared to come up to Ronaldo just as Madrid were starting to celebrate after the final whistle blew.
Ronaldo, celebrating his first title in Spain and the fourth of his career, shouted at Martinez and gave him the “shove it” gesture and then continued celebrating with his teammates.
Just three weeks after the Wimbledon, tennis stars will be returning to the grass on the Centre Court in the hope of being crowned Olympic champion. Wimbledon, the home to one of the most famous tennis tournaments in the world, has a rich Olympic heritage. The venue staged the Tennis competition when London first hosted the Olympic Games in 1908, with Great Britain winning all six gold medals. Then it was the star pairing of George Hillyard and Reginald Doherty. Here are the star pairs to watch out for at this year’s Olympics in London.
