Monday, April 23, 2007

Celtic Better Than Drugs?

After much ado, and surrendering much of their lead over Rangers, Celtic finally tied up a second successive Premiership title with a last-gasp win over Kilmarnock. There is a mitigated joy in all this, given the awfulness of their performances since their Champions' League exit to Milan over a month ago. But it's another title, number 41 and Gordon Strachan is keen to emphasise his own excitement - the Herald Tribune reports him as saying: "I can't explain to anyone what this is like. I would love to but I can't. I've never taken drugs but I wonder if it's a bit like this." The drugs don't work if you're thinking on those lines, Gordon.

Lyon also wrapped up their sixth successive French title, aided by the manifest mediocrity of the rest of the division. Things are so desperately bad these days that Toulouse, a French equivalent of Coventry City, have moved themselves into contention for a Champion's League spot. The fact that Toulouse might be represented in Europe next year in football and not in rugby, due to the French clubs' boycott of the Heineken Cup, is so surreal as to be mind-boggling. The last team to win the championship before Lyon, Nantes, are in danger of facing the drop for the first time ever (they are also the only team in French football never to have tasted life outside the top flight) following a 4-0 thrashing by Paris Saint-Germain (a team Seanachie was hoping would go down, but it's looking unlikely now). Lyon's controversial Czech semaphorist Milan Baroš, meanwhile, has found little sympathy in his native land, where at least two newspapers have deplored his racist gesture towards Stéphane M'Bia. Still a lot of explaining to do.

1 comments:

Brian Damage said...

And PSG, once one of France's most glorified teams, are also doing ridiculously badly.

Must suck to be a French football fan when Lyon are just hoovering up titles a la Chelsea.