BBC BLOGS - Phil Minshull

Archives for February 2010

Sevilla getting serious

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Phil Minshull | 08:20 UK time, Tuesday, 23 February 2010

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Last year, Barcelona notched up an unprecedented treble for a Spanish club by winning the domestic league and cup double as well as the Champions League and this season Sevilla are determined to repeat the Catalan club's feat.

Well, to be honest, my tongue was probing the inside of my cheek as I wrote that opening paragraph, but they are deadly serious down in Andalucia.

"As long as we still have chances in all three competitions, we are not going to give up that dream," said Sevilla's Jesus Navas on Sunday, in the wake of their impressive if rather bizarre 3-1 win at Mallorca with nine men which ended the Balearic side's 100% home record.

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Porto aim to confound the pundits

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Phil Minshull | 22:14 UK time, Monday, 15 February 2010

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With most of the Champions League attention seemingly focused on Beckham facing Manchester United, Jose Mourinho's Inter coming up against Chelsea and Barcelona's ambitions of retaining their title, one team seems to have been overlooked in my humble estimation, namely Portuguese champions Porto.

Even Uefa seems to have almost forgotten they have made it through to the last 16.
Before writing this blog, I looked at their website and had to scroll down to the middle of January before I found any news on the team.

It's not as though Porto haven't any Champions League credentials - remember their impressive victory in 2004 which propelled Mourinho into the arms of Roman Abramovich.

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Why do Brits wilt abroad?

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Phil Minshull | 07:00 UK time, Wednesday, 10 February 2010

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Why do so few British footballers succeed on foreign fields?

About a decade ago, Johan Cruyff said that he thought it was one of the biggest questions in European football. "Why are there, over the last 40 years, only about five English players who have done well abroad. There's something going on here, something strange," mused the Dutch genius.

Johan was perhaps being unkind. I can think of a few more than five. He also came out with his statement before Beckham-mania took over Real Madrid for a few years, to bump up the number by one.

Nevertheless, he had a point, and his later admission that he meant British players rather just English made his analysis even grimmer. British players still, to this day, seem to wilt abroad, for whatever reason.

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Now is the time for The Neverkusen

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Phil Minshull | 18:45 UK time, Monday, 1 February 2010

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Who saw Bayer Leverkusen's 3-1 win over Freiburg on Sunday night? I did.

From questions and comments in recent weeks, I knew that there is considerable interest in what's happening in the Bundesliga so instead of shivering at the Vicente Calderon and watching Atletico Madrid's latest exercise in self-destruction, I decided to cajole a reluctant local bar owner into the slightly unusual act of putting German football on one of his TV screens.

What I saw confirmed what I had seen watching Bayer earlier this season, that the Werkself might just, finally, be about to put their reputation of being the Bundesliga bottlers behind them.

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