Roundup of the latest gameweek.

TGIS!!
Nah, the last word doesn't stand for Saturday, nor Sunday. Thank God It's Spain - that's what it is. The ruckus created around the scheduling harakiri of the Osasuna Barca match could have ended up with Barcelona forfeiting their match to Osasuna. The RFEF (Real Federación Española de Fútbol) had happily assured Barcelona that their match is postponed (due to the air strike) to Sunday without consulting Osasuna on this matter, and when they got back to Barcelona at 1500GMT saying that the schedule is unchanged, they were left with less than 4 hours to assemble their squad and make the 480 km journey. The impeccable professionals as they are, the Barca squad assembled quickly on short notice and they left on the 1600GMT scheduled AVE train which goes to Madrid from Barcelona, with Pedro Rodriguez missing out on performing the famous DDLJ scene by unfortunately arriving at the station only a few seconds before its departure. The team got down at Zaragoza and made the remaining 180 km journey by bus, thus arriving at Pamplona at 1902GMT, 2 minutes after the scheduled kickoff. A 480 km journey in only 3 hours!! An unimaginable feat in India even if one is travelling by Kingfisher's Deccan Airlines. Heck, I take more than 3 hours to travel even 30 km in Bangalore. Thank God It's Spain! The Osasuna Barcelona match, which was postponed by 45 minutes, ended with the score reading 0-3, and no prizes for guessing who won.

By the way, I feel it was some Madridista who set this all up. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone if it turns out to be true, after all Real Madrid has cronies everywhere, who are on their toes to help the club, like the Madrid City Council which financially helped Real Madrid to wipe out their old debts by buying their training ground for an exorbitant amount in 2001. Shame on you Yeddy. Forget A Raja, you couldn't even beat Real Madrid? No donuts for you next time.

I expected better from Valencia against Madrid, they had the perfect opportunity to earn my eternal appreciation by winning their two matches this week - against Madrid & Manchester United. They did pretty well, but the red card to Albelda turned the match in Madrid's favour & Ronaldo found his shooting boots at the appropriate time to dispatch Valencia to a 2-0 defeat. I hope Valencia doesn't bottle up against United. Meanwhile, Villareal continued to stay afloat in the higher, ethereal levels of La Liga reserved only for Madrid & Barca with a 1-0 win against last year's title pretenders at this stage - Sevilla. I think nobody has told them yet that SUBMARINES ARE SUPPOSED TO FREAKING SINK!!

The Basque derby between Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao was won by the former (yippeee!!). A former Liverpool lad - the 19 year old Mikel San Jose had a hand in both goals, literally in the first which resulted in a penalty which Xabi Prieto coolly finished, and a failed clearance for the second, which ended up on the back of his own net - Xabi Prieto again providing the cross. In between, the exciting youngster Antoine Griezmann managed to hit the bar from 2 yards out with an open goal begging to be hit to, when a little bit of composure would have done the trick. Probably, he thinks he can live up to the billing of being an "exciting youngster" by being permanently excited. Real Sociedad are now sitting at a fanciful 6th place, and I'm going to enjoy that while it lasts.

EPL:
Monday night (or Tuesday morning - whichever way you want to call it) I sat down to watch Liverpool - Aston Villa match with former Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier returning to Anfield, but representing the visiting team. I switched on the TV, armed with 2 hours of sleep gained at office, and discovered something eerie. The Cablewallah was probably testing a new sort of pendulum which swings to one side for around 12 seconds, and to the other for around 5, and tied the wire connecting the switch giving cable signals to our locality to that pendulum. It was quite amusing watching the TV screen come alive for exactly 12.3095 seconds, and go blip (when I was young - probably around 3-4 years old, whenever I used to see this screen on TV I used to think that it were little insects who had gone inside it) for exactly 4.9978 seconds, and seeing this cycle repeat over and over and over again. Yup, I timed it, it was helluva more fun than watching Long Ball Roy's team play, which actually won 3-0 without either Gerrard or Torres on the pitch!!

Needless to say, all the goals arrived during one of those 5 second intervals. For the first one, I recollect seeing Meireles thumping the ball from a corner into the box, Skrtel heading it back into the penalty area, Ngog diving, and at that precise moment, the insects invaded my TV screen. I was screaming "Penalty" in my head, wondering who pushed Ngog. When the insects left, I saw Pool players celebrating and hugging Ngog, and I started wondering how on earth can a penalty be awarded, argued upon, referee abused, penalty taken and scored all in a matter of 5 seconds. Then the replay was aired - I saw the punt from the corner, Skrtel heading, and Ngog, oh I see, diving to head the ball coming his way, and, insects again.

With what I could make out from the match, I believe Babel played well, Maxi Rodriguez learnt to shoot, and Stephen Ireland was woeful. The player of the season for Manchester City seems to have lost his fire somewhere on his way to Villa Park from Eastlands. He probably needs to start playing for his country to rediscover his lost desire. Ireland and Ireland are looking so made for each other right now!!

Elsewhere, Nasri's double, Beckford's head, and frozen Blackpool pitch ensured Arsenal went on top of the standings, followed by United who are a point behind not having played this weekend because of the unplayable pitch conditions of Blackpool, and the ever declining Chelsea who are a further point behind.

By the way, it was a loooong time since the notorious, tragically humurous board of Newcastle United played a joke. Christening their 118 year old stadium with a beautiful name - "SportsDirect.com @ St. James' Park Stadium" was 1 year ago. They pulled off one this week - The manager Chris Hughton was sacked. I hope they are not done yet and pull off another one by hiring me in his place.

Serie A:
Serie A is not EPL. Chievo is not Blackpool. Their match against Roma went ahead despite the pitch being worse than a haphazardly dug up Bannerghatta Road. But, after taking a 2-0 lead, Roma have only themselves to blame for allowing Chievo back into the match and drop 2 valuable points. That is particularly hard to digest for Giallorossi given the fact that bitter rivals Lazio are sitting pretty at 2nd position, a cool 7 points ahead, after defeating last year's champions Inter Milan. I don't know why Inter coach Rafa Benitez sets up his defensive line further up the pitch, and expects his 35 year old defenders and 34.9 year old defensive midfielders to hare back like Usain Bolt every time the opposition counter-attacks, and still stay absolutely fresh for 90 minutes and not concede a goal, scoring some themselves at the opposite end. I suspect Bryan Adams' "18 till I die" is his favourite song, and the source of inspiration for his tactics.

Brescia's board thinks that their team, which just got promoted to top flight this year , is mighty enough to sweep away the table toppers AC Milan with just their little fingers. So when they were shockingly defeated 3-0 by Milan, they were terribly upset and promptly sacked their coach. Juventus, coming after an unglamorous exit from Europa Cup in the group stages itself, kept themselves alive in the title race defeating Catania 3-1 away.

The Monday night match between 4th placed Napoli and 6th placed Palermo was won by Napoli, courtesy a Maggio goal assisted by former Palermo man, and my star of the Serie A season so far, Edinson Cavani. When he was bought for 16 million Euros by Napoli from Palermo, I scratched my head trying to figure out why Napoli stupidly spent so much for this non-starter for Uruguayan national team. It turns out I was the idiot. He has been a revelation this season, dovetailing extremely well with Ezequiel Lavezzi & Marek Hamsik, forming a lethal attacking triumvirate for Napoli. As of now, Cavani is the joint highest scorer in Serie A and is looking every cent worthy of his 16 million Euros price tag.