Real Zaragoza again?

What are the chances of my blogging about Real Zaragoza two posts in a row? Totally unrelated posts too.

They have a chance to kick me in the bollocks once again.  And once again it's me going looking for it.

I have a routine in the morning.  I "get up" at about 8:00am.  I have a shot of morphine to take the edge of the day (why wait until the day's actually over?) make a cup of tea and I sit down at my computron to find out what's happened in the parts of world I'm interested in; Arsenal blogs and boards, Blonde Poker betting thread, the Twitters and the fucking hilarious Clients from Hell website.

I then absorb what I've been taken in - the knowledge and tea - during a nice nap.

Some time later I get back up again and re-read what I read earlier, just to make sure it wasn't a dream.  Only this time I have a sammich with me instead of tea.  I know, I know..you already wish you were me.

Anyway, three of these websites interconnected today.  Real Zaragoza was the common denominator.  They are priced at 1.64 to beat Getafe who are priced at 6.0 to win the game. The draw is trading at 4.5.

Now if you didn't know anything about the teams or the game, you'd assume Zaragoza were the home side or the form side at least or both, no?

As with the Premier League, this Sunday is the final weekend of La Liga's Primera Division. But it's Getafe who are safe.  Real Zaragoza need to win (and we here at the blog of course hope the are relegated because of the Nayim thing in 1995).

So how is a team second from bottom priced at 1.64 against a mid-table team with nothing to play for?  An equivalent fixture in the Premier League is Stoke's game against Bolton.  Stoke are the hoe team, they're safe in the league and favourite's to win the game at 2.4.  Bolton are 3.1 and must win.  The draw is 3.7.

Real Zaragoza has won 7 of the previous ten games, but is that all that's justifying the price? If they're second from bottom still after winning so many games how shit must they have been when they were losing?  They must have lost almost every week.

I don't see how a team who can still be second from bottom after winning seven of their previous ten games can be such a favourite against a team with an average record for the division.

In all games in Spain where this circumstance exists, where a team fighting for relegation is playing a "safe" team - the team that need the win always seem to be favourites.  But the results from previous season don't seem to warrant this cultural bias.  It's very mix and mash as to who wins.  There is no undeniable history of the safe team just giving the points away.

I'm assuming I'm missing something here. I'll back Getafe and then find out their striker for the game will be a fan who's won a competition run in the Club's match day programme to win a place in the starting line-up in the last home game.

I'm sure I'm missing some huge piece of information everyone else but me is aware of.  But until I find it I'm investing in Getafe.  I'm also backing Stoke to beat Bolton.  Stoke I think are the kind of team who never give anything away without a fight.

We will discuss Arsenal's plight tomorrow if we can bear ourselves to think about it.  I might just argue the cases for the Championship winning contenders.  I'm not so sure it's done and dusted just yet.

Nayim from the half-way line

May 10th. Paris Day.  The seventeenth anniversary of the crappest day of my life.  My friend and I travel to Paris to watch the Cup Winners Cup final.

When you read the ingredients of a Pot Noodle you know it's going to be bad for you, but you eat it anyway....despite us being college age, football loving, British lads on the piss on European soil, French soil no less,  we genuinely thought this was going to end well.

My Dad told me not to go.  Pleaded actually.  He knew me better than I did.  He also knew the world better than I did.  I'll be fine I thought.  What could possibly go wrong? It's me. Of course I thought that, I was 19 and my actions as far as I was concerned, held no consequences.

So off we set on Tuesday, arrival in Paris about 8pm, and arrested and locked up, at about 2am.  Oops.  Don't you hate it when your parents are right?

As it happens, they lets us out the next day roughly an hour before kick-off.  But with a mix-up with our tickets..(we didn't have any), we found ourselves at the ground needing some fast thinking to get inside.

Fortunately the French have very little scruples and health and safety regulations to them are adhered to up to a point where they become inconvenient so we were able to offer one of the guys at the gate a few Francs to let us in.

Hooray.  It'll be OK now we thought.  The luck is going our way.  As it happened the luck was not going our way.  I did see Arsenal's goal.  It was our end too.  But I also saw their second goal as it was almost hit from our end.  Nayim, from the half way line.

Why did it have to be him? Ex-Tottenham player, from about 50 yards, the 119th minute.  All we had to do was make it to penalties.  David Seaman was the penalty saving king.  Disaster.  And when the final whistle went, and we were pepper sprayed and beaten (again) by the French Gendarmerie, and cajoled down endless cobble stoned Parisian streets in silence, in the dark, whiteout a hotel room to go, to be so far from England, I couldn't help but wonder was it all worth it.

Course it was.  Fucking brilliant.

Target men

When the fans demand Arsenal buy a target man to ease the pressure off Robin van Persie I'm not sure this what they're talking about.  I think putting the team out in a shirt that looks like a big target is probably going to be counter productive.

Why don\t kit designers sod off?  These things aren't fashion gah damn you.  It's tradition.  Anyone who wears a football shirt out on a Saturday night is not going to have a job and he will almost certainly live with his mother.

There's no point targeting this demographic for their disposable income is spent entirely on computrons.  Leave fashion for people who go out.  And just protect football shirt traditions.  Arsenal play in red and White with white sleeves.  No blue.  And they wear yellow shirts away.

I know there have been Greens, whites and what nots but just do what I tell you Nike.  I know you read my blog. You're making us look like Man Utd nearly.

Mr and Mrs

Guess we know who the husband is. 

There was an article once in the current bun about Solomon Kalou and Obi-Wan Mikel behaving like a couple when they're together.  You can read it here in fact.  Apparently they're inseparable, and that was literally the case as the two began humping each other after the FA Cup final this afternoon. 

It was disgusting actually.  Really it was a fucking disgrace.

There were kids in that stadium and Catholics.  This is not some homophobic rant.  I would be saying the same if it was John Terry with a team mates wife.  There's a time and a place is all I'm saying.  Public displays of affection are just inappropriate.  Rabid humping like this was not that long ago illegal.

Hair

What is going on in Snooker with the hair-dos the players are sporting?  What..what are they trying to say with these arrangements?  In some cases they must really take a lot of time.  In all cases they look fucking ridiculous.

I know it's the 21st century and I'm not suggesting everyone should sport a short back and sides, but also, not everyone is David Beckham.  There's a limit to what you can really do with your hair before you just look like a twat.

David Beckham can do anything.  He can do anything to his hair, wear what he wants, he will always look cool.  Just because you do a game as a profession, don't think you can get away with Beckham's fashion statements.

Try to bare in mind snooker players, you are snooker players.  You are some of the most unhealthy looking people on telly..probably worse than darts players.  Don't flatter yourself,..whatever you think your hair will do for  your appearance, it won't. Would you put parmesan cheese on spaghetti hoops?

Mark Allen and Judd Trump especially...I've marked your card.  I suggest you make some changes.