Get ready Bundesliga, because you are in for a treat, and his name is Carlos Alberto, but I'll just call him Crapberto. Be prepared to witness some of the worse cheating and diving you'll ever see, because it looks like that's all he's good for. He has dived no less than three times (and possibly four), the first being when Pennant chased him down and stole the ball from him. Crapberto immediately fell to the ground and grabbed his leg. I don't know what was more pathetic, him or the ref giving him a free kick. After staying down for about a minute he got right up as if nothing was wrong and started playing again. Crazy.
If that wasn't bad enough, then he and Gerrard got into a little confrontation which was instigated from Crapberto falling down while trying to keep the ball from Stevie-G. The latter didn't take to kindly to it and made a motion to kick the former, and though he stopped himself, Crapberto was so incensed he threw the ball at Gerrard. How no one got a card there, I'll never know. The other time(s) he dived was/were less controversial, but he did somehow get away with grabbing Pennant's jersey at one point, after JP had him beat. Apparently, the ref didn't see it. :rolls eyes:
Speaking of Pennant, he's having a solid match and is probably our top candidate for Man of the Match. Early on it seemed as if he was the only player on defense for us, which is basically how Bremen scored. I won't get into detail, but let's just say we were caught standing around. Once that happened though, our defense tightened up considerably, though Paletta has been wholly inconsistent.
Our first goal came from an errant pass by a Bremen player that was stolen by Voronin and left him with really only the keeper to beat. It was nice to see him get a goal. The second was a stunning free kick by John Arne Riise from about 40 yards out. You'll just have to see it and hopefully I'll have the video soon.
Other than Pennant, our only real standouts have been Hyypia and Carson. I'll get into more detail following the match, but Carson made a couple of nice saves including one on Crapberto. Karma's a bitch, ain't it?