With all the national team play this week, it's left some time to reflect on the upcoming CL against Barca, but then all of that got overshadowed as I watched some of my boys take on the National game. And also checked in others that I don't generally follow too closely. Mark van Bommel headed off with Oranje and played brilliantly while watching his team walk away with a 4-0 win. Everyone had a lot of nice things to say about the Bayern Skipper and surprisingly it wasn't just me this time. ;)
The Red Bulls didn't fair so well and I was disappointed to not see any sign of Daniel van Buyten. Until I learned via Dutch press (and a very good Dutch friend that translated for me) that Daniel is currently excused from National team duties because his father is very ill. This has led to him being home in Belgium with his family. We all wish his father a speedy recovery so that he can cheer on his son in no time flat.
And then you have the cheeky little Lukas Podolski who evidently isn't very pleased with his Captain; Michael Ballack. To prove his point he pimped slapped the Captain who had to take a moment before Per Mertesacker and little Philipp Lahm jumped in. Podolski definitely looked ready to throw down with Ballack. The way Ballack has acted like a spoiled little baby as of late, I wasn't really all that surprised by someone else being mad at him. Just surprised that the usually amicable Podolski was the one to pimp slap the Captain. At any rate, my money would've been on Podolski in this row. I'm curious what will come out of this fight between Ballack and Podolski if anything. Ballack doesn't seem to get punished for much of anything and Podolski seemed to be reacting so would there be punishment there? We shall see won't we? Maybe they should go to counseling. ;)