In a weekend full of great soccer both domestically as well as internationally, our extensive staff of dedicated football journalists is celebrating a pair of satisfying victories this weekend by Jedi Soccer favorites FC Barcelona and also DC United. In Spanish league action this weekend, our beloved Barcelona continued its epic season this weekend with a win over Getafe, in which the scoring was provided by Dani Alves and Bojan instead of the usual trio of Messi, Villa or Iniesta.
Before the match, a heartfelt homage was paid to Barcelona defender Eric Abidal, who will miss the rest of the season after undergoing an emergency operation to remove a liver tumour this past Thursday. Best wishes to Abidal for a speedy recovery. Then, in typical fashion, Barca dominated play, but was frustrated by three strong penalty claims that were dissallowed, and one goal wrongly dissallowed for offsides. With Getafe doing a good job impeding both Messi and Villa, it fell to defender Dani Alves to unleash a thunderous shot on goal from outside the penalty area after Getafe failed to clear a corner kick, giving Barca the lead. The second score was in the 50th minute, when Messi wan Kenobi fed a streaking Bojan, whose left-footed shot was deflected in by defender Cata Diaz. And that was all the scoring that was needed, as Barcelona continues its historic march atop the Spanish League standings.
Across the Atlantic, DC United also enjoyed success in its season opener against the Kansas City Wizards. The story of this match is the triumphant return of Charlie Davies, whose near-fatal car accident two years ago was supposed to be the end of his professional athletic career. Instead, the athlete once left for dead rose from the grave and scored twice for DC United before 18,000 home side fans in a 3 - 1 season opening victory. United started the scoring in the second half with a goal from newcomer Josh Wolff in the 51st minute-- welcome aboard Mister Wolff ! Just after this goal, Davies came on in substitution for Joseph Ngwenya, and successfully took the penalty kick ten minutes later for United when Chris Pontius was fouled in the box. Then, in the 77th minute, Davies got loose and streaked in to beat the keeper man-on-man for his second goal of the evening, and United's third. A consolation goal for Kansas City in the 78th minute could not overturn this outcome, and thus United starts its 2011 MLS campaign with a fine win in good form and style, and a heroic strory line from Charlie Davies.
It was a good weekend in the land of Jedi Soccer.
“LIKE A JEDI KNIGHT— no, better than that— A TEMPLAR KNIGHT. This is a FLASH OF PURE INSPIRATION, and let me tip my hat to the genesis of this goal: Ibarra. Lionel only absolutely LIGHTS IT UP here, he LIFTS OFF IT, FLAMETHROWERS IT PAST poor Reny Vega. It’s just as well Reny didn’t get a hand to that because it would have TAKEN IT OFF HIS WRIST. Superlative football and an out of this world BERNINI SCULPTURE of a finish." GOL TV Commentator Ray Hudson
