Heartbreak for Jens Lehmann as Germany crashed out of the World Cup after two late, late Italian goals. The Arsenal goalkeeper had an excellent match, he’s had an excellent tournament, but naive defending late on saw Grosso curl a left footed shot to win it as Michael Ballack bravely turned his back on the ball.
Alessandro del Piero’s second goal was very nice as well but Germany had never really looked like scoring at 0-0. There was no way they’d have got one back with just a minute to go. Sad for Jens but on the balance of it the Italians deserved to go through and in Fabio Cannavaro they have the best centre-half in the world right now. He was just awesome all night long like he has been since the first game. If Juventus go down, as looks likely, I hope our interest isn’t confined to Buffon and we think very strongly about bringing him in as well. No doubt he’d have his choice of club all over the world but the idea of Kolo, Phil and Djourou learning from him for a couple of seasons is mouthwatering.
Tonight sees France take on Portugal and Arsenal interest centres around Thierry Henry. There’s lots of talk of France being ‘reborn’. Vieira and Zidane in particular after a couple of good performances but I’m always wary of too much hype too soon. Portugal are a pretty horrible side to watch, they offer little of an attacking threat, but they’re well organised, disciplined and very hard to beat.
Should be a good one. Now, leaving the World Cup aside, here’s a quote supposedly from Cesc’s agent in Marca:
We had meetings before the elections and there would be no problems on our side, but now they have to speak to Arsenal and see what they say. We have always said we are very thankful to Arsenal. We would never try a dirty trick on Arsenal and whatever has to happen will happen. I don’t think Arsenal would want to let the player go for all the gold in the world and we’ll have to wait and see now.
Quite honestly agents give me a fucking pain in my arse. At no stage do they ever think about the best thing for their client it is always, always about how to make more money from their client. Look at how Jonathan Barnett came close to destroying Ashley Cole’s Arsenal career as he expected the club Cole supported as a boy to pay him a massive sum of money when the only one who should have been paying him was Cole himself. Cole could still leave and it is entirely the fault of a greedy agent.
In Cesc’s case he does not want to leave Arsenal and Arsenal will not sell him. Fabregas to Henry is the next 3 or 4 seasons of this football club and after fighting to keep Henry there is no way the manager will sanction his sale. Could it mean a new contract for Cesc? That way he gets to keep playing football where he wants to play football and his agent gets the extra money he wants. He won’t be going anywhere near Madrid though.
I won’t be going to Madrid either as a protest. I am going to Valencia on Saturday though. So is the Pope which means the city will be really busy. Stupid Pope, he should have rung to check with me first.
