Ras' Football World

The curtains for European club football 2020-21 came down this morning. Kudos to Chelsea Football Club for securing their second Champions League title. Manchester City continues a curious statistic whereby debutants in Champions League finals have not been champions for twenty-one years dating back to when Valencia lost 3-0 to Real Madrid. Ruthless Abramovich I remember when Chelsea legend, Frank Lampard was surprisingly sacked mid-season. My Chelsea-supporting friend was perplexed and was complimentary of Manchester United keeping faith in Ole Gunnar Solksjaer. With hindsight now, that decision to sack Lampard and replace him with Thomas Tuchel seems very wise indeed. It reflects the ruthless European style nature of management at Chelsea under Roman Abramovich. There is no room for patience and no time for a manager to patiently build a team. The pro of this approach is that it will guarantee the club continued success and they will not go long without winning silverware. The la...

  Europe Over in the Champions League, we were drawn in the same group as last season’s finalists, Paris-Saint Germain (PSG) and semi-finalists, RB Leipzig. We got off to a great start in the Champions League. Two wins out of two, both we played well from start to end, getting our tactics spot on. We looked odds on favourites to qualify as we faced tournament debutants Istanbul Basaksehir in our next two matches. We proceeded to produce one of our worst performances of the season against the Turkish side in Istanbul. We made up for it in a convincing manner at Old Trafford and had to get one point from our last two matches against PSG and Leipzig to qualify. We should have beaten PSG at Old Trafford but didn’t take our chances and were punished by the Parisians. All was not lost, one point away to Leipzig would do it but we failed to turn up and lost. From a promising position, we crashed out of the Champions League signalling our mental fragility and lack of winning mentality. I f...

It has been a disappointing end to the season for Manchester United. United have limped over the line, winning just one match in our last five, securing second place in the league standings. I will now break down our season separated into three parts; Domestic, European football and Players & Tactics.   Domestic United entered the season in a gloomy state with dark clouds around the club after another underwhelming transfer window. We were told we had no money to spent while we watched our rivals strengthen. The only signing we made then was that of Donny van de Beek. Later on deadline day, we panicked and squeezed in 4 signings, Alex Telles, Edinson Cavani, Facundo Pellistri and Amad Traore. The air of gloominess stretched to matters on the pitch as well. We started the season with a defeat to Crystal Palace at home and were struggling from the lack of proper pre-season due to a delayed start after having gone far in European competition the previous season. We suffered a ...

After all the party and celebrations have died down, some serious and hard work awaits Inter’s owner and directors. There have been concerning and grave news emerging from Inter for some time now leading to what could be worrisome and gloomy summer. Uncertain Future There was some drama at the end of last season after some discontented comments made publicly by Antonio Conte. More drama awaits us this season. So much for trying to remove the tag of “Pazza Inter” from the club. The future of Conte, his staff and the players is uncertain. We are not sure who will be our manager next season and which players will remain and which would go. The celebrations for the Scudetto have merely papered over these uncertain times. It was nice, sweet and joyful to be crowned champions of Italy but we don’t want to wait for another decade before we become champions again. Right Age Of The Present Squad Unlike in the Treble winning season, you feel the team that we have now is at the start of i...

 I will be sharing the video highlights of some of my favourite matches of 2020–21 for Inter.   

Inter ended the 2020-21 season with a party. The Scudetto was confirmed on my birthday on 2 nd May after Atalanta failed to beat Sassuolo and Inter had beaten Crotone. We won our 19 th Scudetto to surpass Milan who was tied on 18 with Inter. Only for the second Scudetto-winning season have Inter surpassed a total of more than 90 points. We ended the season with the best defensive record and second-best attack. The season ended with a 5-1 thrashing of Udinese in what was our 3000 th Serie A game. We became the first Serie A club to achieve that milestone. Pessimism Going Into The Season Let me look back at the season. At the start, the mood among Inter fans was not optimistic because of the signings we made. Since the takeover by the Suning Group, we have progressively made shrewd signings of quality players young enough to develop. The previous summer began with a showdown between Antonio Conte and the club’s management with some doubts about the coach’s future. The conclusion was...

Manchester United losing to Liverpool is never nice. We can brush it off if it was a pre-season friendly but never in a competitive match. Almost NEVER EVER. It leaves me in a bad mood the day after. To top it off, it’s two league defeats in a row and six defeats at home, an abysmal record. With a schedule that required United to play every 2 days, I wouldn’t mind losing to Leicester City if it meant we beat Liverpool in the next match. Ole Gunnar Solksjaer planned it as such as well with his team selection in both games. Lack Of Quality The defeat to Leicester showed us that we lacked quality squad depth but the defeat early this morning to Liverpool showed us that even the quality in the first team can be inadequate against big teams. The difference between us and the champions, Manchester City is like heaven and earth. We can beat them in one-off matches but in the long haul of the league and in playing at the highest level in Europe, we are short. The league table doesn’t lie whi...

A place in next season’s Champions League has been secured. There is nothing left to play for except pride and the final standings. I was motivated to watch United play against Leicester City to see how we respond to the challenge of playing every 2 days. I had also wanted United to win to further delay City’s coronation as league champions and close the gap to them. When the starting line-up was announced, I was curious to see how these players do. I wanted to see how strong our reserve team was. The Team Performance We lost the game and I thought it would bother me less than it has. We looked afraid at the start, the players on the pitch were rusty and as a result, we saw a disjointed performance. Our defence was all over the shop for the first goal we conceded. We scored an equaliser out of the blue but the response to scoring the equaliser was impressive. We got pinned back in the second half and conceded another goal from a set-piece. There is a famous adage in football and that...

Manchester United gained yet another comeback win at Villa Park yesterday. That is 31 points gained from a losing position, the most in the league. To digress, Villa Park is known to be United’s home away from home due to the support they receive there from fans as well as the good record. Even losing there in 1995 became a good omen as we ended that season Double winners. Sucker Punched Manchester United started the game brightly. They came close with some chances and had some shots on goal. What was missing was a presence in the box to put away any loose balls or crosses coming into the box. Marcus Rashford and Mason Greenwood were more likely to be found out on the wings rather than being in the box. The goal we conceded was a bolt out of the blue. It was a great strike by Bertrand Traore, nothing any goalkeeper in the world could do to keep it out. But the goal could have been prevented. Our weakness was exposed again. Fred and Scott McTominay made a mess of dealing with the ball...

It was a party in the black and blue half of Milan, a party that has lasted a week. Fans greeted the Inter team bus with trademark chants, flares and flags, nothing out of place in the world of Italian football. On the pitch, Claudio Ranieri was a gentleman to introduce a concept that was seen mostly in English football previously, a guard of honour for the newly crowned champions. Celebrations & Rotation The Inter team has been partying since they beat Crotone last Saturday/Sunday early morning here. There were more celebrations when they were together for the first time since being crowned champions at the training ground in La Pinetina. Looking at the joyful scenes, you wonder if there was any training done leading to the match on Saturday against Sampdoria. Antonio Conte rotated the team significantly for this match. In came, Danilo D’Ambrosio, Andrea Ranocchia, Roberto Gagliardini, Matias Vecino, Ashley Young and Alexis Sanchez with the regulars cooling their heels on the be...

Ole Gunnar Solksjaer’s Manchester United finally got past their hoodoo of the semi-finals by beating AS Roma in the Europa League semi-final. In truth, the job was done after the first leg itself. The second leg was a mere formality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EQnsebSVhM Not Built To See Out A Game In his pre-match press conference, Solksjaer mentioned the team’s inability to see out the game to navigate a problem-free passage to the final. He wasn’t far from the truth. David De Gea had to turn back the clock to the days when he won the Player Of The Year award consecutively. He repeatedly repelled Roma’s shots on target and was the Man Of The Match. If it wasn’t for him, we could be sitting here talking of a narrow escape or worse yet, elimination. While De Gea, was busy keeping out Roma, we also had chances to score ourselves. Edinson Cavani missed twice before finally giving us the lead. Commendable Spirit Of Roma You got to commend the spirit of Roma. They were facing a...

Inter clinched their 19 th Scudetto on Sunday after they got the result they wanted from Sassuolo vs Atalanta. I guess you could say the writing was on the wall after Inter were efficiently picking up wins and the chasing pack were dropping points. Inter’s Pazza Inter reputation, meant we were not taking the title for granted until it was mathematically confirmed. Not Heavy Favourites At One Point Inter fans all over the world exploded with joy after the title was confirmed. I felt glad but the joy was tempered from either not having fans in the stadium or not clinching it on the day of the match. Looking back, after Inter’s untimely Champions League exit, Antonio Conte was obliged to win the Scudetto. It was either Scudetto or burst for him. I didn’t feel we were heavy favourites to win going back to the 2-2 draw against Roma at Stadio Olimpico in January of this year. Samir Handanovic was conceding goals from half of the shots on target while we looked like a team who couldn’t win...