Who Ate All The Pies

Ahead of this month’s Champions League final, Milan dynamo Rino Gattuso has taken a pop at Liverpool’s long-ball dinosaurs: ‘All Liverpool try to do is defend together, with everybody behind the ball and just one striker… All they do is play long balls — every ball is a long ball. It is very different to Manchester, who are a real footballing team.’

The end is nigh, folks. Welcome to the penultimate Fantasy Friday review of the season. It’s all happening in the Pies Fantasy League! Long-term champion elect Tommy has unwittingly maxed out his transfers for the season and Matt M is closing the gap. But is there enough time to catch him?

We continue on a theme of YouTube videos featuring Italian footballers, specifically Rino Gattuso. I assume this is a video taken from a flight around the time of the last summer’s World Cup. Anyway, Italy’s captain Fabio Cannavaro gives Gattuso and Daniele De Rossi a close shave mid-flight. As you do.

It’s a week since we unearthed a clip of the Chelsea squad looking very sheepish when asked to name their best-looking team-mate. In that week every man and his blog has covered the video, culminating in an appearance on Radio One the other day (they overlooked the fact that they are perhaps not best-placed to share videos with their audience!).

Ouch! Precious goalkeepers might be fond of protecting their personal space, but when you kick a player in the head that is a red card whether you wear gloves or not. Take the case of Velez Sarsfield keeper Gaston Sessa. Incensed by the presence of Boca Juniors’ Rodrigo Palacio within his five metre safety perimeter, […]

One for our Italian readers, ’cause I’ve got no idea what the bloody hell is going on…

Pies favourite Ian Holloway has thrown a spanner in the works of any Plymouth players hoping to have a lazy summer break. Argyle players will be hauled before Ollie and his coaching team three weeks before pre-season starts to have their post-holiday beer bellies judged (and do some fitness tests).

‘Dundee United have the orange t-shirt, you know…’ What a lovely twinkle in his eye Rino has. He’s our new favourite player in the world… ever.

Wigan chairman Dave Whelan says he may sue West Ham United in the wake of the Tevezcherano incident. The Hammers were fined £5.5m but not deducted points after being accused of acting improperly over the transfers.

An England B side will face Albania at Burnley’s Turf Moor ground on May 25, the FA has confirmed. The B team was last in action for the pre-World Cup game against Belarus last May. Before that there had been no B matches since 1998.

With a number of clubs now circling around Preston North End and England striker David Nugent like thieves around a Liverpool goalie’s house, it is time for the people who really matter – that’s you lot – to decide where the man with a 100 per cent international strike rate should play his footballl next season. We’ve given you the choice of the main clubs the tabloids are linking him with at the moment, or staying at Deepdale.

Many thanks to regular Pies reader Cole for this tremendous spot. They could be brothers, albeit brothers where Hercules got all the looks and Dirk got the, er, ability to run around enthusiastically for 90 minutes without actually offering much of a goal threat.

All the passion of a soggy vegetable.

Man Utd winger Cristiano Ronaldo is hounded by Massimo Oddo and Gennaro Gattuso of AC Milan during the Champions League semi final, second leg match between AC Milan and Man Utd at the San Siro last night. Milan nullified Ronaldo’s threat and ran out comfortable 3-0 winners. [Photo: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images]

I think this AZ fans has learned a valuable life lesson – never presume your team will win the league just because they have to beat a crappy team on the last day of the season. If you didn’t read our post on the amazing conclusion to the Dutch Eredivisie, that will illuminate this guy’s stupidity perfectly.

Having had to eat a fair portion of humble pie when Ronaldo played out of his socks for Man Utd against Roma in the Champions League qaurter final, Messrs Dunphy, Brady and Giles lapped up the Portuguese winger’s ‘vain’ performance last night:

AC Milan
Dida Did he touch the ball in the first half? Hardly. Looked sound enough when called upon in the second half though. 6
Kakha Kaladze An underrated defender. Tenacious, unruffled, never lost control. 7

Eamon Dunphy, RTE’s most outspoken pundit (that takes some doing), demonstrates once again why he is worth 1,000 Hansens and Shearers. I have to get a t-shirt printed up with ‘Reality is Kaka’ printed on it.

Well that was a let-down for all Man U fans and fans of English football in general. Milan stormed out of the blocks and never let the visitors settle – fair play to them, they played the perfect match.

The 2007 Champions League final is to be almost a carbon copy of the 2005 final: AC Milan v Liverpool in a eastern Europe capital city. Here is a reminder of what happened last time round (in case you were in a coma at the time or something).

We haven’t had any freestyle tricksters on Pies for a little while, so here is walking T-Mobile advert Mr Woo doing his routine.

While Liverpool keeper Pepe Reina was successfully defending his goal against Chelsea last night there was sadly nobody to guard his house. The Spaniard returned from celebrating his match-winning shoot-out saves at 12.45am to find that his home in Woolton, Liverpool, had been raided.

The excellent Toffs is – unsurprisingly – today showcasing their retro Manchester United and AC Milan shirts. This one is a replica of Milan’s shirt from the 1963 European Cup final in which they beat Benfica 2-1 at Wembley. You can click here to buy it for £34.99.

Yesterday we brought you the shocking news that Jose Mourinho is ungenerous courtesy of RTE Sport’s Bill O’Herlihy, but did any Pies readers notice that he was also described as generous yesterday.

Most Arsenal fans are not happy with Nike’s away kit for the 2007/08 season (and can’t manufacturers wait until this season is over?). As far as I’m aware, it’s only a third kit anyway (like Spurs’ yummy chocolate and gold kit, which I hated at first but now love) and so they’ll wear it only two or three times in the season.