The whole off-season narrative about Cardiff City has been one of its placement in the animal kingdom. Are they bluebirds? Are they dragons? After last week's performance against West Ham United, I thought maybe they were deer in headlights. Well it's time to put this discussion to rest, so let me settle the debate once and for all.
Cardiff City are wolverines.
Not just any wolverines. They are a pack of eleven man-sized wolverines that have not eaten or seen lady wolverines for a very long time. And on Sunday, Manchester City were a pack of eleven hot lady wolverines wearing low-cut dresses made out of raw steak.
Cardiff City 3 - Manchester City 2
- Dzeko (MCI) 52'
- Gunnarson (CAR) 59'
- Campbell (CAR) 78'
- Campbell (CAR) 86'
- Negredo (MCI) 90'+1'
Please excuse my earlier graphic bestial hyperbole, I'm saving the "Rocky single-handedly defeats the Soviet Union" analogy for the even more unlikely event that Cardiff City bests Manchester United.
Come on, Mark. Winning 3-2 is hardly anything to go nuts over, right? Wrong! Cardiff City were supposed to get obliterated by Manchester City. In Week 1, the Citizens spanked Newcastle United 4-0. And after the Bluebirds lost to the Hammers 0-2, there was no reason to think that Manchester City would win by anything less than 7-0.
So after 86 minutes, when the Bluebirds..excuse me...the Wolverines found themselves up 3-1 you'd be in your rights to think you weren't tuned into the correct channel. But it was all very real.
The Cardiff City that showed up on Sunday were awake and scrappy. I saw for the first time the great defense that I had read helped them win the Tier 2 championship last season. The announcers said Cardiff looked "compact and organized". I thought they looked like men possessed.
I noticed a few things this match. First, while I found out afterwards that Manchester City won the possession battle, I never once felt like that was the case during the match. Yes, I saw that Manchester City had the ball and were largely living in Cardiff City's 1/3 of the field, but at the same time Cardiff City's defense seemed to have everything under control and left Manchester City's offense dazed and confused.
Second, instead of clearing the ball from their side to the complete opposite side, I saw Cardiff City's defense execute controlled passing of the ball up the field. They didn't attack as often as Manchester City, but it felt like they were methodically testing Manchester City's defense. To be fair, the three goals Cardiff City scored weren't ESPN highlight reel material, but they were definitely well-earned cases of capitalizing on Manchester City mistakes.
Third, I noticed how awesome the Cardiff City fans were. There was a point where Manchester City was in the lead by one goal, but the fans never dropped their energy. With every goal they absolutely lost their minds and I loved when they taunted Manchester City with the "poznan", Manchester City's own goal celebration. It would be sort of like the Red Sox having "Sweet Caroline" sung at them after some supposed D-list team just hit their third grand slam of the evening over the Monster. Gracious winners, the Bluebirds' fans are not. But they are funny bastards.
Lastly, I noticed the managers for the first time. Cardiff City's manager, Malky Mackay, was in his seat for a total of two minutes. For the other ninety-whatever minutes he was on the sideline, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, sweating, and screaming his brains out. Mackay took every break in the action as an opportunity to actually, you know, manage his team. In contrast, Manchester City's manager, Manuel Pellegrini, was seated right up until his team was losing 3-1. I don't recall him talking to any of his team. He looked like a smug and somewhat bored professor. Honestly, I couldn't even tell if he cared when he found out his team had lost.
So how did Cardiff City achieve this mammoth upset? I think there were three reasons:
- They played hard every single minute of that match and did not even blink when they were down 1-0 to far superior (on paper at least) opponents.
- They fought for the ball every second, and were ready to capitalize on Manchester City's mistakes.
- They had forward Fraizer Campbell in fear of his position on the team. One of Cardiff City's star signings in the Transfer Window was forward Andreas Cornelius. The only reason Cornelius wasn't in Campbell's role against West Ham United and this week against Manchester City was due to an ankle injury received during a friendly off-season match. Campbell played like a man with something to prove, and he did so. The picture below is Campbell flying through the air and scoring the second of his two goals.
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| (Image Credit: www.theague.com.au) |
Amazing win for Cardiff City, and they have officially given notice to the rest of the Premier League that they will not be pushovers. The Bluebirds are now at 1 win, 0 draws, 1 loss. The table below captures the full Premier League standings as of 08/27/13. The table columns are: Club Name, Matches Played (Pld), and Match Points (Pts).
Speaking of standings, my Fantasy Premier League squad, the Cardiff'rent Strokes have just finished their second gameweek as well. How have they fared? Pretty terribly, to be honest. We're currently ranked 2,088,815th out of about 2,770,000. Here are the Bad News Bears themselves (as of end of gameweek 2):
- Goalkeepers - Hart (MCI), Davis (SOU)
- Defenders - Baines (EVE), Reid (WHU), Evra (MUN), Turner (CAR), Baker (AVL)
- Midfielders - Santi Cazorla (ARS), Bellamy (CAR), Colback (SUN), Mata (CHE), Kagawa (MUN)
- Forwards - Berbatov (FUL), Lambert (SOU), Benteke (AVL)
And here they are in my starting 11 for gameweek 2:
The numbers beneath each player's name is how many fantasy points they've earned this past week. To put things in perspective, after two weeks I have amassed a total of 88 points. The guy in first place has 191 points. Yeah I stink at this, but I'm learning. Lesson one...purchase players that actually play. I'm looking at you Mata and Kagawa!
I won't bore you all with too much Fantasy Sports nonsense. But I do have one goal of which I'll keep you updated. At the end of gameweek 17, the top 2,097,152 players (of which I am narrowly a member) enter the official knockout tournament phase. Beginning in gameweek 18, those players will be randomly paired in head-to-head competition for points that week. Winners move on, losers are knocked out. If you win the whole thing, there's a free trip to England and several Premier League tickets in it for you. I don't have any illusion that I can win the tournament, but my goal is to do well enough to be entered and win my first round. Stay tuned!
Cardiff City's next game is a non-Premier League match against Accrington Stanley on August 28th (don't ask, it's another side tournament that the biggest Premier League teams only sort of try to win). The next Premier League match is again at home against Everton on August 31st.
Thank you as always for reading Dragon and Bluebird! You can find me on Twitter as well, @dragon_bluebird.
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