Lampard will be kissing the crest of Chelsea for a few more seasons after he signed a new five year deal. Lampard had wanted the fifth year, but Chelsea had only been willing to give him a four year deal originally. It was expected he would join former coach Jose Mourinho at Inter Milan, but Chelsea rejected Inter's one £7.95 million bid and decided to sign him to a new contract. Chelsea now have an embarassment of riches in midfield, and it will be interesting to see how Scolari deals with it. With Essien, Ballack, Lampard and Deco he has players who star for their national team, but they won't all be able to start for Chelsea. The Brazilian will have a bit of nannying in addition to tactics to work on.The group stage of the Olympics finished today, and things went mostly according to plans. One of the major disappointments was America's loss to Nigeria. Michael Orozco was red carded in the third minute for an elbow, and the United States was forced to play the rest of the match with 10 men. The Nigerians used their pace to run the Americans ragged, and ended up winning 2-1. Sacha Kljestan converted a penalty for the Americans. The US team had to play without Adu or Bradley because of suspension due to yellow cards, and it makes the last few minutes of the Netherlands game that much more painful. Nigeria's win sees them top the group, meaning they face Ivory Coast in the next round. Finishing second, Holland will face Argentina. The rest of the groups finished according to my predictions. Cameroon secured a draw against Italy, even though they played with ten men for the final hour, and will face Brazil. The Italians will face Belgium.
One Liners
- Reina earns Liverpool a draw with penalty save, Rafa "Mr. Europe" Benitez not off to a good start
- Arsenal win 2-0, Steve McLaren's dreams for stealing Rafa's nickname put on hold
- Chelsea still interested in Robinho, I am not interested in this story
- Finnan back to playing for Ireland, at least they haven't tried to swap him for Barry
- Stoke reveal their failure in signing Cuellar, you mean he didn't want to be in the Prem one season and then relegated?
