UNITED KEEP UP PACE, SCOUSERS LOSE IN WORLD FINAL

 

(Images taken from Manutd.com and Liverpoolfctv.com)

 

So onward went United. The next place we needed to get three points out of was Villa Park.

And it wasn't long till the Red Devils showed David O'Leary's Aston Villa that we meant business, Rooney setting up Park early doors only for the Korean to hit the post. In the 10th minute we weren't so merciful. A Fletcher ball found the Ruud boy in Villa's box. 1-0 United! To be honest it should have been anything up to 5-0 at half time, the United defence able to soak up anything that Villa could throw at it while attacking wise pretty much everyone hammered Villa's goal to no avail.

In the 51st minute, Rooney made it 2-0 after getting set up by Park for a run into the Villa box. From there on in it was pretty much a similar story to the first half, though Milan Baros and Gareth Barry did give Van de Saar a work out. The last word went to United though with Ruud nearly heading in a late second for him.

The only thing that put a dampener on that display was Chelsea managing to get three points out of Highbury. The Sunk Guns never looked like they were in the business of beating the Blues and Ajen Robben and Joe Cole combined for a 2-0 win(despite a dodgy offside decision going against Arsenal and Robben's goal supposedly being offside)which re-extended Jose Mourinho's crew's lead to nine points. United have overhauled bigger deficits though.

One side that will be back in the picture from here on in though is Liverpool. The Scousers were taking care of business in Japan - aka trying to win the World Club Championship in Yokohama against a Sao Paulo side who were certainly taking the match more seriously than most people in Europe. An early order of business turned out to be getting a mad 'Paulista' out of one of the nets - however with that out of the way, it was soon obvious that while the Brazilian side had struggled against Al Ittiad in their semi, they'd brought their A game to this match and were ripping Pool to bits with it - culminating in Carlos Minero hitting the net in the 27th minute. Liverpool fired in a load of chances after that with no succsess.

Given Sao Paulo's lack of aerial ability and pace in defence, you'd have thought Rafael Benitez would have thrown on Crouch at half time...no. The Scousers continued to hammer the Paulista goal and hit the net three times only the goal to be ruled offside on each occassion, though the linesman's intellligence should be questioned in that department. Bottom line, the Brazilians went all out defence in the last few minutes and went of to clinch the world club title.

Earlier on, Deportivo Saprissa had taken on Al Itihad in the third place playoff. Saborio opened the scoring for Saprissa only for Mohamed Kallon to equalise for the Saudis, and Joseph Desire-Job, on load from Midllesborough to complete what looked like a turnaround with a 53rd minute penalty. The Costa Ricans replied with a turnaround of their own however, Saborio hitting a penalty before Ronald Gomez hit the winner.

Overall, one thing is for certain. There will be much gloating from Brazilian football fans but unlike the disaster in Brazil in 2000, it will at least be justified this time. That time out the tournament was played in the heat of the Brazilian summer and only the two Brazilian sides(neither of whom were Copa Libatadores champions) and Mexican side Necaxa could handle that. The refereeing turned out to be an improvement as well. If we're going to have an Intercontinental club championship of any kind(and that could be a big if) then in fairness to everyone, this is the way to do it, on neutral territory and in place of the old Intercontinental championship.

One thing that non-Europeans need to realise though, the tournament as things stand is slap bang in the middle of the European season, there's no way European sides can take that big a timeout in December for acclimatisation and the logistics of such a tournament against sides that most Europeans haven't heard of or know little about is probably the main reason why it gets filed down as 'Mickey Mouse' in this part of the world and I don't know a way round that side of things. Personally however, I'll admit that if we're going to do this on a regular basis, this is as good as it's going to get.

Heading back nearer to home, Aberdeen rose up to seventh place despite a 0-0 draw at the Almondvale stadium. The first half was a case of 'nae goals nae fitba' and the home side ran the show in the second half.

Elsewhere, Rangers finally started looking like they might get their act together by beating Hearts 1-0 at home while Celtic(without Roy Keane who can't start playing for them till January)could only draw 1-1 in Inverness. That increases Celtic's lead at the top to four points.

Next comes the Xmas rush

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