Plucky Toffees Come Unstuck Against Chelsea in the FA Cup Final

Chelsea 2 - Everton 1 (FA Cup Final, May 30, 2009) Forget slow-coach Roberto Di Matteo. Twenty-four seconds is all it took for Everton to open the scoring in the FA Cup final, in the Toffees first attack Fellaini showed his aerial threat in the box from a Pienaar (offside?) cross, with Louis Saha profitting with a clinical left-footed strike past Cech. The Merseysiders held the lead for 20 minutes until Malouda swung over a left-wing cross into the box and Didier Drogba beat Lescott to head in the equaliser. The match then settled down into a relatively even contest, but 20 minutes from time a Frank Lampard cracker from 25-yards beat Tim Howard (too easily?) to put the Blues’ noses in front.

Zenit St. Petersburg 2 - Kuban Krasnodar 0 (Russian Premier League, May 30, 2009) Zenit broke the deadlock minutes before the break when Igor Semshov slipped home the opener inside the box. And on the stroke of halftime Zenit struck again, Pavel Pogrebnyak denied a Kuban defender from shielding the ball out of play and picking out Konstantin Zyryanov to fire home number two.

Lokomotiv Moscow 2 - Spartak Moscow 1 (Russian Premier League, May 30, 2009) All the goals arrived in the first half, Rodolfo and Alexandr Minchenkov putting the hosts 2-up before Alex replied for Spartak. The second half was also full of action seeing three dismissals, Dmitri Sychev and Fininho collecting red cards for Lokomtiv while Rafael Carioca was sent off for the visitors.

Tomsk 2 - Dynamo Moscow 3 (Russian Premier League, May 30, 2009) The visitors raced into a 2-goal lead inside 12 minutes, Aleksandr Kerzhakov curled home a free-kick kick and Dmitri Kombarov converted from the spot, Kerzhakov added a third moments before the break. Tomsk rallied after the break as Siarhei Karnilenka claiming a brace, but they couldn’t find an equaliser.

Gaziantepspor 1 - Eskisehirspor 1 (Super Lig, May 29, 2009) Youla opened the scoring with a back post header just before the hour for the visitors (interesting celebration!), Beto levelled matters with a tody side-footed finish in the 70th minute.

Hacettepe 0 - Kocaelispor 4 (Super Lig, May 29, 2009) With both sides already relegated there was nothing but pride at stake but it was visiting Kocaelispor who showed the greater fight, netting four times in the second period through Ramal Huseynov, Emirhan Onder, Ugur Dasdemir (the pick of the goals) and Cem Sinan.

IFK Gothenburg 4 - Brommapojkarna 0 (Allsvenskan, May 30, 2009) Due to join AZ Alkmaar in the summer, 22-year-old IFK striker Pontus Wernbloom continued his fine scoring form by giving the hosts the lead over Brommapojkarna just before the hour mark. IFK then killed the match with three goals in four minutes, Niklas Barkroth (79), Stefan Selakovic (80) and then Barkroth again (82) destroyed Brommapojkarna with a second half blitz.

Urawa Red Diamonds 2 - Albirex Niigata 0 (Nabisco Cup, May 30, 2009) Urawa secured victory with a goal in each half, Yoshiya Nishizawa sriking midway through the first half while Escudero finally killed off the match with a goal on the hour.