Newcastle: The Odyssey continues

By Sulla
March 10 2005

When Odysseus first leaves the Shores of Troy to travel home to his beloved Ithaka, he angered Zeus with his failure to make sufficient sacrifice to thank the God for Agamemnon’s victory against the noble, if slightly gullible Trojans.

And they were gullible, I mean hands up all those that would have fell for that wooden horse thing? It is from that moment in history, we get the phrase beware Greeks bearing gifts, you might as well have the phrase beware Trojans they are complete bloody idiots, but there we have it.

Well as things stand at the moment Souness seems to making the right sacrifices to the right Gods, unbeaten in the last eight, Newcastle can stride forward like veritable Titans, storm the Parthenon as easily as if it were Penshaw monument.

No doubt it will be the most difficult game in Europe we have faced so far this season, but Souness is stopping the doubters, the vultures have had to retire for a while and go back to reading back copies of ‘What Carcass’. An unexpected yet welcome defeat of Chelsea, followed by a victory against Liverpool, it has all the makings of a good run.

And is there any reason it can’t continue tonight? Well there is the Rivaldo word, a word I personally am sick of hearing, yes he WAS a great player, he WAS one of the world’s best, and he WAS a player that once claimed he was too big to join us.
But let’s have a look at what he is know. A failure in Italy, not wanted in any of the four real leagues of Europe, a cast away on the shores of a footballing wilderness. Yes we have to watch him, especially from free kicks, but fear him? Never.

Our own ex-titan (and soon to be again I hope) Patrick Kluivert is hoping to get a run of games together and hopefully show us all of what he is capable of. Jean-Alain Boumsong is ineligible, but Bramble has been on fine form of late and long may it continue.

But its not going to be easy Olympiakos have a fine record at home in Europe and frankly saying some of the players names is a challenge in itself, take Mavrogenidis, reputedly not only a fine player, but a 550 point word in scrabble.

My prediction: It won’t be easy but I think we will sneak a 2-1.