Weekend Football

by Jerrad Peters

20 March 2009

Reds and Blues to tangle again

Liverpool and Chelsea will meet for the fifth time in five seasons after being paired together at Friday's Champions' League draw in Nyon, Switzerland. In the other quarterfinal ties, Barcelona drew Bayern Munich while Arsenal and Manchester United were kept apart and will face Villarreal and Porto, respectively.

The first legs will be played on 07 and 08 April with the return fixtures scheduled the following Tuesday and Wednesday. Liverpool have already been assured that they will not have to contest their second leg with Chelsea on 15 April, the anniversary of the Hillsborough Disaster.

The draw also determined the semifinal matchups. Either Liverpool or Chelsea will face the winner of Barcelona-Bayern Munich in the first leg on 28 April, while Manchester United and Arsenal are on a collision course for a final-four showdown the following day. Semifinal second-legs will be played on 05 and 06 May, and the final will be contested in Rome on 27 May.

Iraqi player murdered during match

Haider Kadhim was shot dead, Sunday, as he broke in alone on the opposing goalkeeper. Kadhim, a striker with Buhairat, was hoping to tie the match with Sinjar at one goal apiece when he was shot in the head by a Sinjar supporter in he 89^th minute.

"As soon as Haider Khadim was alone in front of the goalkeeper and close to equalizing, a fan in the crowd fired a pistol at him," an Iraqi policeman told Reuters, refusing to be identified. "We arrested this fan immediately, but unfortunately the player died."

The gradual improvement of security in Iraq has encouraged many people to return to sporting events in recent months. Unfortunately, the match in Hillah—a city about 60 miles south of Baghdad—was not as well secured as similar matches in the capital, where police personnel are concentrated.

This is not the first football-related death in Iraq. After the national team beat Vietnam in the quarterfinal round of the 2007 Asian Cup, two Iraqi fans were killed as revelers fired gunshots to celebrate the victory.

More Argentinean fan violence

Two people were shot in the run-up to a Clausura match between Boca Juniors and Argentinos Juniors on Sunday. More than 100 Boca supporters were involved the skirmish that left a 55-year-old man in critical condition after sustaining a gunshot wound to the head. An 85-year-old woman was shot in the leg.

The fighting began when enemy sections of a Boca firm known as The 12 clashed in the Parque Lezama neighborhood of Buenos Aires, near the Bonbonera stadium. Four or five gunshots were heart by witnesses and at least one man brandished a firearm. Six people were arrested.

Earlier in the day, supporters of Argentinos Juniors and Racing fought in the streets after their convoys came together near the city centre. Sets of fans from both sides immediately began throwing stones at one another.

The violence comes just one week after Buenos Aires police arrested dozens of The 12 members ahead of a match at Independiente.

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