My Sporting Weekend: Benzema Strikes Again

My Sporting Weekend 18-20 March:

Warm-Up's:

Npower League 2 (Football):

Chesterfield V Rotherham, This was Rotherham's first visit to Chesterfield's new ground, the B2net Stadium, and was played in front of Chesterfield's largest attendance for 20 years, a full house of 10,089 the match started off with an extremely fast pace, that hardly let up during the first half, 2 defensive errors led to Chesterfield's first 2 goals, for the first Callum Kennedy mis-kicked in the box, giving the ball away, and Dean Holden scored from the following cross, and for the second Ryan Cresswell played an awful back pass straight past the Millers keeper Any Warrington, and Craig Davis scored from the following corner, after some sloppy defending and a good flick on from Deane Smalley. Jack Lester then got the Spireites third, just before half time, with a fantastic solo effort, after a good through from Whitaker, Lester went round 2 players before curling the ball in to the top left corner. During the first half Chesterfield had most of the possession and created some really good chances, but Rotherham did create a few of their own chances, with Chesterfied's keeper, Tommy Lee, making a couple of good saves.

The second half started a bit slower with Rotherham having more possession, but they could not get the breakthrough, and Lester got Chesterfields 4th and 5th on 80 and 82 minutes, to complete his hat-trick and seal the victory. It now looks as if promotion is now virtually guaranteed for Chesterfield, and they also should easily win the championship if they carry on playing as well as they did. Rotherham are now struggling a bit, after being 2nd at Christmas they have steadily dropped down the league and are now 6^th and could easily fall out of the play-offs come the end of the season, they responded to this on Monday by sacking their manager, Ronnie Moore.

Evo-Stik League South (Football):

Sheffield FC V Leek Town, Leek opened the scoring on 14 minutes after a Dan Cope volley from the edge of the area that just sneaked inside the post, Sheffield then replied straight away with Ant Lynam scoring before they then took the lead 2 minutes later with James Gregory getting the goal.

During the second half after looking as if the game would finish 2-1 to Sheffield Leek got 2 quick goals of their own with Anthony Malbon and Dan Cope scoring on 76 and 80 minutes respectably. And the game wasn't finished their with Sheffield's Andrew Gascoigne equalising with a header from a corner on 89 minutes, Sheffield then pushed forward and as Leek defence panicked they conceded another corner and Gascoigne popped to get his second, with a volley, for Sheffield to take the lead in injury time.

The match was pretty dire to watch, with neither team really being able to hold the ball, move it round and create very much pressure, although the 7 goals did turn the game into a bit of a thriller with the lead quickly changing 4 times.

But the main incident of the day was the crowd trouble that stemmed from a couple of quite young Leek fans (if you can call them that) that had had far too much to drink, the slightest comment wound them up to a point of frenzy where they couldn't control themselves, and they surely made fools of themselves and the club they were representing.

Npower League 1 (Football):

Southampton V Sheffield Wednesday, During the first half the match was end to end but neither team really created anything, Wednesday loanee Isaiah Osbourne did have a good run but shot wide. Both teams found it hard to keep hold of the ball and Wednesday were playing ok in defence until they went to sleep and Fonte scored, on 60 minutes, from a Chamberlain corner, after this Southampton dominated the game. They then got their second on 66 minutes, with Lee Barnard doing well to shield the ball in the box from before crossing for Nicky Lambert to put the ball into the net, from that point Wednesday couldn't get hold of the ball in Southampton's half and never had any real urgency to get the ball forward to create any sort of goal scoring opportunity. Wednesday's best player was their débutante keeper, Richard O'Donnell, who made some good saves and kept the score down to only 2 goals.

La Liga (Football):

Barcelona V Getafe, I only saw bits of this match, and just after I turned on Danni Alves opened the scoring on 16 minutes with a fantastic volley from outside the area, after a poor clearance. Normally he would find it hard to hit the target but this was a fantastic finish, and the keeper had no chance. On 22 minutes the Barcelona fans showed their great appreciation, by clapping for a minute, for Eric Abidal, who on Thursday had successful surgery, to remove a tumor from his liver.

Towards the end of the match Getafe created a but of pressure by forcing 2 corners in a row, but nothing came of them and by this time with Barcelona winning 2-0 they didn't really look like getting back into the game. But on 87 minutes Getafe's Manu De Moral got on the end of a good cross and volleyed past Victor Valdes. After the goal Getafe put pressure on Barcelona forcing them defend deep and hang on to their lead, but they could not get the equaliser and the game finished 2-1.

WBC Heavyweight Title (Boxing):

Vitali Klitschko V Odlanier Solis, Klitschko got the victory at the end of the first round when he knocked Solis down with a short right jab. On his way down Solis twisted his knee, potentially tearing a ligament, and couldn't get up without the help of the ropes, and the referee stopped the fight straight away. Klitschko had taken control of the centre of the ring, and Solis had matched him up to that point, but made the mistake of walking onto Klitschko's powerful right jab. This was an extremely disappointing fight after the build up that it had being given in the commentary, leaving the capacity Cologne crowd jeering and Klitschko looking on as if he couldn't believe that the fight had ended.

Qatar Grand Prix (Moto GP):

The opening round of the Moto GP season was a visit to Doha for the night race at the Losail International Circuit. Cal Crutchlow made his debut in Moto GP for the Yamaha satellite team Monster Yamaha Tech 3, and became the first Brit to race in the series since James Toseland in 2009, Valentino Rossi was also making a debut, for his new team Ducati, and Casey Stoner has moved to Repsol Honda. Stoner had the pole but last seasons champion Jorge Lorenzo had a good start and was leading by the end of the first lap. After a few laps the 2 Repsol Honda riders got themselves into the first 2 places and pulled away from the rest of the field before battling between each other for the lead, but Dani Pedrosa had a bad lap and dropped away, leaving Stoner to win the race. Pedrosa was then overtook by Lorenzo, and he was lucky not to drop back any further and finished 3rd. Further back in the field Rossi and Ben Spies had a good battle for 6^th place and Crutchlow finished in 11^th, after overtaking Hector Barbera on the last lap.

The Honda's look as if they will dominate this season, and it also looks as if it will take some time before Rossi has his Ducati up to scratch

Main Event:

La Liga (Football):

Athletico Madrid V Real Madrid, Real started the game using 3 more defensive minded midfielders, instead of the usual 2, leaving Di Maria out of the starting line up, and playing with more of a 4-5-1 formation instead of the usual 4-2-3-1. Real got the first goal of the match on 10 minutes, after a good through ball from Laasana Diarra and a nice flick off Sami Khedira, Karim Benzema slotted the ball into the back of the net. Athletico then had most of the ball and were unlucky not too score, but Real did score, on 31 minutes after Marcelo pulled the ball back for Mesut Ozil and Athletico keeper David De Gea couldn't get his hand behind the ball. In the build up Cristiano Ronaldo was fouled by Tomas Ujfalusi in the box and a certain penalty was waved play on, but Real got what they deserved and straight after the kick off Sergio Aguereo was booked for Athletico for diving in the box, trying to win a penalty.

During the first half both teams had lots of good attacking chances, with each keeper having to make some good saves, but Athletico were not that good in defence, allowing Real to get 2 goals, but the attacking nature of their game kept them in the game.

During the second half Real took their foot off the pedal and didn't create as many chances as they did in the first half, but they still defended well, keeping their shape and making it hard for Athletico. As Real were looking to play the game out by keeping possession Aguero eventually scored for Athletico on 85 minutes after a good one-two with Koke Merodio, but they couldn't get the equaliser and Real extended their unbeaten league record against Athletico to 19 games.

This was a very enjoyable game of football to watch with both teams making some good opportunities as well as playing good football. Benzema had another good game and extended his tally to 10 goals in his last 8 games and 21 for the season. Also Ronaldo went off injured again, with his hamstring, and may miss the Champions League game against Tottenham.

Cool-Down's:

England had another dramatic win midweek in the Cricket World Cup, but two matches this weekend decided their future in this years tournament, the first South Africa beating Bangladesh, meant that England went through to the quarter-finals stage, and the second India beating the West Indies meant that England will play Sri Lanka in the next stage of the competition. The only issue with this is that it to be played on Saturday and clashes with the Wales v England football match in Cardiff.

My Sporting Weekend

Tuesday, 22 March 2011

Benzema Strikes Again

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