A Few Highlights from This Weekend’s International Matches

March 29th, 2009 | by: Laurie |

I’ve been sitting here waiting for motivation to strike and give me the energy to write up a comprehensive rundown of this weekend’s World Cup qualifiers.

And waiting, and waiting, and…

Oh, screw it. Here are a few highlights instead.

First (just because you knew I would put France first and I don’t want to disappoint you) is Franck Ribery’s wonderstrike (after some sweet moves by Yoann Gourcuff) against Lithuania — the only really brilliant moment in an otherwise kind of lackluster game. (Jeff has a great match summary here.)

Next, we have Portugal-Sweden, a tantalizing rematch of Cristiano Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic! What a scorefest this must have been! True excitement! Goals galore! And…um…

Wait. Ibra suspended…Ronaldo misses late chance… Nil-nil. Never mind.

When does a draw feel like a win? When you’re the US and go down 2-0 playing away. Jozy Altidore and Frankie Hejduk managed to get the US an important road point. (USA World Cup blogger Marlon’s post-game thoughts here.)

And for sheer prettiness (unless you’re a Venezuela fan), you definitely want to check out the highlights of Argentina 4-0 Venezuala. Goals by Lionel Messi, Carlos Tevez, Maxi Rodriguez and Kun Aguero. What do you think? Is Maradona actually a decent coach, or does he just have too much talent under him to screw it up?

For more game highlights, check out TVGolo.com and/or 101 Great Goals.

International Football News – World Cup Blog RSS Feed

http://italy.worldcupblog.org/ Julian

Wow lets just ignore Italy huh? :P
martin

And England…

Ribery’s goal was pretty good, nowhere near as good as the somewhat biased commentator made it out to be though.
http://france.worldcupblog.org Laurie

I thought about doing both England and Italy, but England was a friendly, and Italy was against Montenegro and thus not exactly unexpected. What this meant is that neither game pushed me over the inertia fence.

Or: I was too damn lazy.

Or: Yeesh, I’m just the weekend person! Make Daryl and Chris do it!

:-D
Thomas

At 2:16 of the Argentina v. Venezuela highlights the announcer says something about the Columbus Crew. Anyone know who or what he was talking about?
Guillermo

Alejandro Moreno plays for the Crew and Venezuela. The Crew definitely could have used him more this weekend.
Dave

Personally, I found the Ribery goal astounding, though it was fairly put as the only highlight of the match. I had the pleasure of seeing Gourcuff play at the Stade de France last autumn, and that kid is a bit special.

And as for whether Maradona contributes actively to the success of the Argentina squad, it really doesn’t matter because *holy shit* that team is incredible. If Messi’s final attempt shown in the video had gone in, it may have been the greatest goal I’ve ever seen. Although it was just a missed chance, it stands as a breathtakingly brilliant testament to Messi as the world’s top player.
nzuu

anyone knows where I can find mediafire or megaupload full match higlights of the Argentina-Venezuela game. I’ve been looking everywhere.