Hey football fans, this week NikeFive witnessed some pretty heavy weight encounters, with the top seeds facing off against each other 2 weeks before the playoffs and championship day, dress rehearsal for the final you say? That just might be true, lets see how the big boys fared. Also, a round up of the past week’s UEFA Champions league matches

We have concluded Week 5 here at NikeFive and I can’t help but get excited about the playoffs, which start in 2 weeks. Do you hear that boys? You have 4 games left, 4 games till the real games begin, 4 games to separate the boys from the men. As an administrator, I feel the real joy is in watching teams come together and finding their winning formula, I’m not talking about the Zinks or the Adhaafs I’m talking about the mid table teams, who may not have started off as spectacularly or may not have achieved immediate success. These boys have come in week after week, determined to improve, pushing each others limits, supporting each other, consoling each other. Everyone loves an under-dog story, and we have plenty of such tales at DUPLAYS.

One such team, who are now playoff contenders, after 2 victories this past week, are Team Hilti, from Matchday Tuesday. This ethnic cocktail of Greek, Indian, Arabic and Iranian boys, who should probably consider starting a restaurant together, are the most cohesive, sporting and encouraging bunch I have seen all tournament. They’ve experienced defeat, but they chose to fight on, and after 5 weeks they are in the top 4 to qualify for the playoffs and I truly hope they achieve that milestone.

It doesn’t get any bigger than Adhaaf FC here at DUPLAYS, their unbeaten run now stretches to 10 straight games, will the emarati boys be crowned the Kings of NikeFive? Only the playoffs will tell.

Big Sky Wings vs Royal Crew

Both these teams were leading the Tuesday tables with 21 points – 7 wins and 1 loss. BSW’s main strike force were Ozkan, Rafael and Thiago and RC’s were Hossam, Craig and Tony. What one would imagine to be a close fight between equally gifted opponents quickly turned into a one sided affair. The Royal Crew could not contain Rafaels offensive runs into their goal, he was duly supported by Thiago as they both comdined for 3 goals. BSW set the pace of the game and won 3-0 and now stand at the head of the table with 27 points.

Barca Suffer the Blues

If you’re a fan of free flowing football, brilliant technique and spanish wizardry that is FC Barcelona, then I hope you weren’t tuned in this Tuesday for the Barca Chelsea bout. It was everything you would expect a big semi-final not to be – an exercise in defensive play. As a journalist rightly said, not only did Chelsea park the team bus in front of their goal, but also the plane that flew them to Barcelona. Hiddink’s boy’s did everything in their power to stop Barcelona from playing their natural game, there were dives, fouls, exchange of heated words, play-acting everything but an attempt at achieving a result. Statistics showed that Barcelona had the lion’s share of the possession and shots on goal.

What really got to me was how the media responded to the goalless draw, they were heaping praise on Chelsea for stunting Barca’s game, preventing them from scoring in the Nou Camp for the first time this season. How is that a compliment? Nobody is talking about how Chelsea failed to take advantage of scoring a vital away goal. How long can Chelsea defend? The return leg is in Stamford Bridge this Wednesday, as far as I’m concerned, Chelsea just lived to die another day.

United they stand

In the other fixture, the red devils stamped their authority all over their semi-final encounter with the gunners. Thanks to cool finishing by John O Shea, united return to the Emirates Stadium, this Tuesday, with a slender one goal advantage.

Tags: Dubai, football, leagues, NikeFive, play, soccer

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 3rd, 2009 at 17:27 and is filed under Dubai, league. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.