Can Middlesbrough make history? (Football)

Name: leomo

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Product:	Football
Date:	27.02.04 (53 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Boro has a good defense, playing against Bolton, Hunger for silverware

Disadvantages: do not score much, under immense pressure, have being unlucky so far

The last time I watched Middlesbrough in a cup final, they ended in the losing side. That was in the FA Cup back in 1997. They lose 2 ? 0 to Chelsea with Roberto Di Matteo opening the scoring inside the first minute of play. This Sunday Middlesbrough faces Bolton Wanderers in the Carling Cup final at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. Middlesbrough was founded back in 1875 and for more that 125 years this club has not won any major silverware. Today Middlesbrough enjoys Premiership status and this is a quite outstanding feature for this club. This Sunday the Boro players have yet another chance to bring the club first piece of silverware home. Back in 1997 they not only lost the FA Cup final, they also managed to lose this Cup final against Leicester City and were as well relegated in that particular season. I did watch both games that year and it was heartbreaking seeing Boro ending the season with a prize known as relegation instead of silverware. Juninho, the little Brazilian, played in those 2 games back in 1997. Tomorrow he will be one of the players who will try his absolute best to win this Cup final.

Steve Mclaren leads the Middlesbrough current team. He is a decent manager but by no means an outstanding one. He is too defensive minded and he never succeeded in buying a quality striker and these are reasons why Middlesbrough do not score much. However they did surprise me a few weeks ago by beating Manchester United 3-2 at Old Trafford. Juninho scored twice in that game and Job did the job eventually by scoring the winner in the 80th minutes. They do have a solid defence with Southgate, Riggott, Queudrue and Ehiogu. Zenden, Juninho, Doriva, Greening, Mendieta will be fighting for a place in midfield. Job and Nemeth could be leading the attack tomorrow ahead of Maccrone, Christie and Ricketts. My star player for Boro will be captain Southgate as he is a very consistent at the back and he can also score from corners and set pieces.

The t
eam Middlesbrough faces tomorrow is Bolton Wanderers. Big Sam is manager of the wanderers. His main aim is to avoid relegation and at this moment he seems not far away from his goal. Winning this Cup will give Bolton wanderers a massive lift, as they will get the chance of playing in Europe next year. Bolton has a good number of players in their squad. Djorkaeff and Okocha are terrific midfield players. Bolton possesses a hardworking defence and a few players like Nolan, Davies, Pedersen and Stelios who can all contribute tomorrow by scoring goals. My star player for Cup Final will be keeper Jaaskelainen. He does essentially what a keeper should do and he may be the reason for Boro?s failure tomorrow.

Cup Finals are always exciting and although I will like to see Boro winning the silverware tomorrow, I know Bolton Wanderers is well capable of winning it as well tomorrow. However I expect Boro to be 2 - 1 winners. One set of fans will be going to go home with a badly broken heart on Sunday 29th of February 2004.

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