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Manchester United win the Club World Cup - Source: Reuters -
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We may be just midway through the 08/09 football season but that
doesn't mean there hasn't been plenty of high drama along the way,
tvnz.co.nz's football writer Sarah Williams reviews just a few of
the biggest football stories to hit the headlines in 2008.
May - United's year
In May 2008 Manchester United became English Premier
League and European Champions - nicking both prizes from under the
nose of local rivals Chelsea. The Champions League win came in a
game that will not so much be remembered for United holding aloft
the shiny trophy for the third time, but for Chelsea skipper John
Terry missing the penultimate penalty that would have handed the
London side their first ever Champions League trophy.
What the game will be remembered for - apart from the rain,
the punch and the sending off - are pictures of; banana skin feet
Terry, tiny tears Terry and an endless list of crying John Terry
pictures circulating all over the globe within minutes of the final
whistle being blown.
And in December, while sitting third on the 08/09 season Premier
League table, Manchester United also added the FIFA Club World Cup
to their list of trophies after Wayne Rooney's 73rd minute strike
gave Alex Ferguson's side a 1-nil win over Ecuador's Liga de
Quito.
United became the first English club to win the trophy - making it
a hat-trick of triumphs for the Red Devils in 2008.
July -Viva España
After floundering in the under-achieving footballing
wilderness for longer than anyone cared to remember, there were
hopes that Euro 2008 would belong to Spain.
With ease, flair and downright sass Spain took Italy on penalties
in the quarter-finals; picked apart Russia with a 4 -1 win that
included a hat-trick from Valencia's David Villa (the first in the
competition since 2002) and a goal from super-sub Cesc
Fabregas.
Reaching the final for the first time since 1984, Spain then went
on to beat old foes Germany 1-0 in the final thanks to the only
goal in the game from Liverpool's star striker Fernando
Torres.
In Euro 2008 Spain maintained a 100 percent record, while their
skill and pleasing-on-the-eye football went someway to reaffirming
just why we love the beautiful game.
June to August - Summer transfer madness
If May was the month of Man U then June was most
definitely the month of Ronaldo as the greasy one made his
intentions of leaving the club (whose 42 goals in all competitions
in the 07/08 season had helped the side win both the Premier League
and the Champions League) clear to everyone - apart from his
boss. Apparently he wanted to swap the grey skies of
Manchester for the sunny beaches of Spain.
For months the will he, wont he, saga of Ronaldo and his 'dream
move' to Spanish giants Real Madrid became the no.1 topic in
football - while Ronaldo enjoyed an extended holiday after yet
another international footballing let-down.
Ultimately it was an injured ankle and the wrath of Sir Alex
Ferguson that kept the Golden Boot winner at United - for
now.
But as the summer transfer season whirled to an end it was former
Real Madrid player Robinho who made the biggest impact when he
signed for Manchester City for a record 32.5 million pounds in the
dying minutes of the transfer window.
Robinho had been courted by Chelsea all summer long, and had been
certain to move to the London club, but the fact that Chelsea
advertised the Brazilian's name on the back of a Chelsea shirt
while negotiations with Real were still in process, put an end to
Scolari getting his man.
Robinho himself was quoted in an interview with the Guardian after
the signing saying that he was happy he had moved to a 'big club'
who, even after becoming the richest football club in the world,
are currently sitting just inside the relegation zone.
The 24-year-old also said in that interview that "in football
nothing is impossible."
Apart from beating bottom of the table West Brom apparently.
September - the Tigers pounce
Despite being one of the major contenders for relegation
before the new season even begun, Hull City - making their first
ever appearance in top-flight football in the club's 104-year
history - have had what can only be described as a miraculous start
to the season.
With just one defeat in their first nine games Phil Brown's Tigers
made their winning intentions clear from the start, finding
themselves at the top of the Premier League table with wins over
Tottenham,
West Ham, Newcastle and an incredible 2-1 win over Arsenal at the
Emirates.
Hull have since held top-of-the table Liverpool to a 2-2 draw at
Anfield and just before Christmas sit at sixth place on the Premier
League table - meaning they are just a few points off a
Champions League place and proving that for Hull fans, dreams
really are made of these.
October - the Redknapp revival begins
After copious amounts of Titanic jokes surrounding Tottenham (and
their worst start to a season since the sinking of said boat), the
bosses at White Hart Lane decided that enough was enough.
On the 26th of October 2008 the club announced the shock
appointment of former Portsmouth boss (x2) Harry Redknapp as the
new manager of Tottenham Hotspurs.
In just his first week in charge, Harry "Houdini" Redknapp worked
his magic by getting the previously down and out boys of
Tottenham Hotspurs to do the unthinkable, and actually score!
Seven days later Redknapp had taken the club off the bottom of
the table and grabbed seven out of nine available points with
wins over Bolton, Liverpool and a tantalising 4-4 draw with
Arsenal.
After the match with Liverpool - where Redknapp's revived
Tottenham were the first (and so far only) side to beat the
Merseysiders - Redknapp was asked what his secret was to kick
starting his Russian striker Pavlyuchenko who scored the winner for
the London side. Redknapp replied " I said to the Russian
interpreter, 'Just tell him to f*&ing run."
December - Ronaldo wins the Ballon d'Or
Not content with winning everything going in the 2007/08
season, including; the Barclays Premier League player of the
season, the Barclays Golden Boot, the European Golden Shoe, UEFA
Club Forward of the Year, UEFA Club footballer of the Year, and the
FIFPro World Player of the Year, the world's self-confessed "first,
second and third'" best footballer in the world beat competition
from the likes of Lionel Messi and Fernando Torres to win the
coveted Ballon d'Or.
When the going gets tough
It's a hard job being a top-flight Premier League manager and no
one now knows this more than former Manchester United hard man Roy
Keane, who, after two-years in charge of Sunderland FC decided that
when the going gets tough, the tough really do get going.
After leading the Black Cats back into the Premier League in the
07/08 season Roy Keane looked like the man who could transform the
inconsistent club, who finished a respectable 15th on the table
that season.
And even though Keane was involved in 100 transfers in and out of
the club - spending an incredible 70 million pounds - he still
couldn't make his side win this season.
In the 08/09 season Sunderland lost nine out of eighteen games, and
had won just one out of their previous six games.
But it was their 4-1 thrashing at the hands of Bolton - not his new
sasquatch like beard as some predicted - that saw Keane question
his role at the club.
Just a few days before his side was set to take on Manchester
United at his old stomping ground, Keane gave up on Sunderland and
quit the club, allegedy informing his bosses of his shock decision
by text message. You don't get much harder than that.
Big Sam is back
Just a week later, another Premier League manager found
top-flight football too much, but instead of jumping Blackburn
manager Paul Ince was pushed.
After just six months in charge of the club Rovers' chairman John
Williams decided enough was enough when a winless run of 11 matches
(including a seven match beaten run) left the Lancashire side
sitting at 19th on the Premier League table, and sealed the fate of
football's first black manager, who had signed a
three-year-contract with the club earlier in the year.
The sacking of Ince saw the return of former Newcastle and Bolton
boss Sam Allardyce, who was sacked from Newcastle in January 2008
after the club's poor run of form leading up to last year's
Christmas period.
In just his first match in charge 'Big Sam's' Blackburn enjoyed
their first win - a 3-0 thrashing of Stoke - since beating Everton
1-0 in September.
Liverpool top the lot
It has been a long and winding road since Liverpool last won the
League title 19-years-ago.
The Spice Girls split up, Lady Diana died, iPods were invented, the
internet has changed the world, and a young Reds defender Jamie
Carragher was an Evertonian.
But after their best start to a Premier League season since
topping the Xmas table in 1996, there is a real and merited
believe that this season could see a return to the glory that has
eluded the fans of this most passionate of clubs for far too
long.
In a period where Liverpool have been missing their star striker
Fernando Torres for much of the season, and if we're honest,
haven't been playing particularly well, they have beaten Manchester
United at Anfield, Everton at Goodison, and put an end to Chelsea's
ludicrous four-year, 86-match, unbeaten stranglehold at the ground
formerly known as fortress Stamford Bridge.
The Merseyside club, beaten just once this season by a revived
Tottenham, also managed to top their Champions League qualifying
group, while maintaining a title challenge, something they have
failed to do in previous seasons as Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez
was accused of caring more about ole 'big ears' than English
football's most coveted prize.
Liverpool gave Chelsea the chance to push them off
the top of the table going into Christmas week, but an early
present from their local rivals Everton, who held Chelsea to a
goalless draw at Goodison, saw the side keep their slim one point
lead at the top.
As the Premier League reaches the halfway mark, the most
notoriously arduous time for Liverpool, two wins from Liverpool's
next two games (Bolton at home, Newcastle away) would give the side
their best points total in a season for 19-years - which was the
last time they won the title.
