Sportsocracy - 6th Edition - Underdog shocking the tennis world and a mixed bag of sports content.

What a week this has been. Kicking off with Tennis of all sports. I am not a massive Tennis fan but when it comes to upsets I cannot refuse but to take note. Rodger Federer, the winning machine, who has won literally everything mens singles Tennis has to offer, went crashing out of yet another tournament.

The Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells was centre stage as un-seeded American, Mardy Fish, shook the Tennis world as he beat the world number one in straight sets with Fish disposing of Federer inside 70 minutes.

Fish who sits 97 places below the world number 1 in the ATP Rankings comfortably won the 22nd of March semi final clash with a 6-2, 6-3 victory. The only thing is Fish went onto face third seed Novak Djokovic in the final, and Djokovic beat the American in 2 sets to 1. (6-2, 5-7, 6-3)

All I can say well done to Mardy Fish. Now thats something to tell the grand children about. The question I ask to you all is the Fed express running out of steam? Is Rodger Federer in the middle of a career crisis? Or is this the calming before the storm, the press said Federer has been suffering with Illness will there be a Federer backlash?.

Well all the best to a Federer recovery, but Mardys win will go down in history as a major upset and just for the record, Mardy Fish faced 5 top seeds and disposed of them before facing Djokovic, now thats impressive.

In other sporting territories, Football, Liverpool got hammered 3-0 by Manchester United which saw Liverpool midfielder, Javier Mascherano sent of for questioning the referee, Steve Bennett. Bennett gave Javier his second yellow and a very angry Mascherano was given his marching orders.

The Man United goals coming from a Wes Brown header, a Ronaldo Header with questionable goalkeeping from Reina but a good finish for the third goal from Nani sealed the 3 points for Fergies side.

The match was not the greatest for Liverpool goalkeeper Jose "Pepe" Reina whos goalkeeping was considerably pinpointed in the match as two of the Man United goals seemed to be via his mistakes. Pepe is a talented goakeeper and i'm sure he will be back with a few clean sheets before the end of the season.

Finally I can congratulate Newcastle United, who served up a Craven Cottage roast with a solid 2-0 victory over Fulham. The goals coming from a text book Viduka turn and right footed shot and the second coming from an even more aspirational finish from Captain Michael Owen, slotting home and wrapping up Kevin Keegans first 3 points in his short reign.

Newcastle now sit at 13th in the premiership table. Come on the Toon and dare I say it they are too good and too big to go down, lets hope this is a fight back from the Magpies. What views do you Toons fans have on this? Do you think relegation is possible for Newcastle?

And finally -

Golf - Australia's Geoff Ogilvy held his nerve to win the WGC-CA Championship in Miami by one stroke, bringing Tiger Woods's remarkable winning streak to an end. (from bbc website)

Olympics - The Olympic torch has been lit at a ceremony in Greece that was briefly disrupted by pro-Tibet activists. Protesters from media rights group Reporters Without Borders broke through the cordon of 1,000 police officers in Olympia as China's envoy spoke. (from bbc website)

Signing off with some USA sport news and the biggest sports story in the USA right now regards Major League Baseball star, Barry Bonds.

The big man who hits a ton under the influence and without? Is struggling to find a team, and with two weeks remaining until the new Major League Baseball season kicks off will a team coming running to the 43 year old for his assistance?

Bonds, who was a record breaker when he beat legendary hitter Hank Aaron's home run record was gradually shouted down by fans and the American sports world, who all claimed foul play that Bonds took performance enhancing drugs and was under the influence throughout his career.

Should this guy even deserve another shot in the Major League? Are drugs ruining all sports not just Baseball?

Your opinion is vital, give up your opinion on anything said in todays edition and I will reply to as many as possible. Voice your views.

Sportsocracy - 4th Edition - Premiership football fixtures going global and other sports issues.

Sportsocracy - 4th Edition - Premiership football fixtures going global and other sports issues.

What money spinning encounter this could be. An extra possible league fixture for all premiership clubs to play, which would be situated on foreign soil, on a continent with the right facilities to accomodate a football match.

This could mean you get a match e.g. Fulham versus Middlesbrough - I hear you echo - what an encounter to see the premiership brand expand to foreign territory, anyways to be honest hardcore fulham and boro fans will be irate and undeniably "pissed off" that they will have to spend astronomical amounts (pending if easyjet is available and where the match is situated), to go abroad to see a match which they could have gladly gone to on home soil for a small price of the fee which they would have to pay to go abroad to watch it. Again its great for the 'bigwigs'the people in charge and its not fair on the real fans who pay week in week out to watch their team play home and away in england.

All premiership clubs eventually agreed it was a good idea, strangely some of them changing their minds and all it took was a bit of a nudge (a wedge of a couple of million each). Other than that is seems preposterous that this could go ahead, again I think its a fairytale story and a total irrational and un-imaginable idea or dispicable proportions.

For once im glad that Sepp Blatter has said something reasonable but brilliantly rash, he promised if this goes ahead it will have effects upon the English FAs bid for any world cups or major footballing events. Go Sepp, what a venemous volley to the idea he gave. All in all he is right for saying this because domestic league football and its fixtures should stay in the country it has always played its domestic football in.

If fixtures start moving around everywhere it would get silly, football would break down, the core society of fans would lose interest and eventually it would look nothing more than a smorgaasboard of premiership fixtures thrown across the globe on a Harlem Globetrotters type tour on a footballing scale of 20 clubs.

Sponsors would also be rubbing their hands together and the media would also think what a great idea lets plug it, mainly because of possible TV rights deals.

I sincerely hope that this idea does not get took seriously because if it does football would start to crumble and go on a downward spiral and lose the trust of the solid, home foundational, support.

On other football levels what a weekend for English FA cup football. The semi-finalists consist of 3 championship sides : - West Bromwich Albion, Barnsley, Cardiff City and the only premiership opposition left, the Harry Redknapp led Portsmouth. Barnsley and Cardiff gave the most shocking results of the weekend with Barnsley dispatching World Class opposition in Chelsea with a single Odejayi goal and Cardiff giving Middlesbrough a 2 nil thumping.

In the weekends SPL ties, Aberdeen nearly upset Celtic fans, when they led Celtic right upto the 91st minute. Celtic looked likely that they could be dumped out of the only cup competition they are left in. With 2 minutes added onto the 90, celtic needed a miracle, possibly one straight from the gods, ironically it was possibly from greek uber-god, Zeus himself.

The miracle came When substitute greek internationalist Giorgios Samaras arrived in the opposing box in the right channel and played a perfectly timed ball into the defensively filled aberdeen 8 yards box. It was then left upto Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink to powerfully slide the ball home to set up the replay at Celtic Park, 1-1 draw. To be a Celtic fan nowadays requires a good healthy heart, and the only team that requires a GP check up before watching a match.

The replay is tuesday 18th of March, roll on, roll on, lets hope its another Celtic masterclass, god we need one.

As for the Kopites, tuesday evening was a special one as they celebrated a 1-0 victory over Inter Milan at the San Siro due to a finely struck long range effort from Fernando Torres, to seal the two legged tie at 3-0 on aggregate to the reds. Four british teams are now in the quarter finals of the champions league. Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool make up the English quartet, with Barcelona, Fenerbache, Roma, and Schalke 04 in the mixing pot as well, the quarter finals are going to be electric.

The champions league this time around will surely see another english team in the final or will it whats your views?