Champs League Semis and Cheating

Villareal 0 Arsenal 0

Arsenal are doing what Liverpool did last season, going to the final on the back of strong defensive displays and playing games just to get results like goal-less draws. It is boring, but efficient. And credit to them, they played their tactics to perfection.

Arsenal did well to keep the game goal-less and advance through to the final in Paris thanks to a 1-0 aggregate win, thanks to some poor finishing by the opposition and a world-class penalty save by Lehmann. I would have put my money on Riquelme to put that penalty away, but Lehmann did all so well. When you have big games and big moments, it's the big players with stand up, and Lehmann did just that.

One down side of Arsenal's team was Gael Clichy I feel. He was the worse Arsenal player on the pitch. And I was thinking that even before he gave away that clumsy penalty. There is good reason why Wenger plays Flamini - a natural midfielder - in the void left by Ashley Cole instead of a natural left-back in Clichy. But since he is just coming back from injury, I would hold back much of the criticism.

So Arsenal will march into the final and I predict will play Barcelona - as most people would - but AC Milan is no easy time for the Catalans. But home advantage on top of their 1-0 away win should see them through. I wouldn't go as far as trying to predict the score, but I would just say Barcelona should win. Barca-Arsenal in the final would be a real spectacle of class attacking football, though on paper Barcelona look to be the team with the edge thanks to the more experienced players. But talk of a Barca-Arsenal showdown is a bit premature. We shall find out if Barcalona indeed overcome Milan in 24 hrs time.

And thing to address is cheating in soccer. There are many ways to cheat, the one under the microscope recently is diving and whether or not to kick the ball out. Both had a part to play in this morning's game. I feel the Spanish players are too theatric when it comes to falling down. One example is Gilberto's lash out at - was it Arruaberrana? - and true you shouldn't lash out at your opponent, but the Villareal player went down like he had been shot.

If I was the referee, I would have booked half te Villareal players for simulation, if not diving. They roll on the ground for as long as possible, and hope the opposition will kick the ball out and they can regroup. Reyes did that a couple of times too, is it something about Spain and theatre?

To be fair to Arsenal, they had to kick the ball out of play quite a bit because of that even though they were having the run of play. And they should well have done so because of the incidents in the London Derby against Tottenham, when the latter scored whilst two Arsenal players will struggling on the pitch. A soccernet.com poll asked if Tottenham cheated, or did nothing wrong. I didn't know what to vote for, because technically, they didn't cheat, nor did they do anything wrong. They were merely unsportsmanlike.

But given the number of players who roll on the ground due to the slighest touch, it is no surprise that some teams get impatient with these kind of players; and knowing that if they kick the ball out of play, the opposition can regroup sufficiently. So I don't really blame them for playing on sometimes, but it was cruel on Arsenal though, who looked to have players genuinely injured.

It wouldn't matter though if Arsenal win the Champions League and Tottenham finish fourth, because Arsenal will still go to the Champions League next season ahead of Tottenham.

We'll see though how things unfold in the next 4 games for Arsenal. For now, it's well done for making the semis!