Discussion The Football/Soccer Thread

[◆ T.D.A ◆]

Fletcher rubbish? He was the best player on the pitch yesterday, he's been the most consistent for us for a while now.

 

[thsv]

The united-arsenal game. Complete and utter piss take from both sides. We outplay them, get denied a clear penalty,

Yeah you scored almost immediately from the ball leaving the area so it didn't really affect the result that much. Hell you might have missed the penalty. And the Rooney incident was ruined by the fact Almunia came out for the ball. Because you're right he was going down before Almunia clattered into him.

Besides the fact that we outplayed them, they were also damn lucky which brings me to my point that on paper and on the pitch...united are average.

Well we've got them after the international break. It'll be interesting to see how far we've really come considering we almost reverted to traditional against Birmingham on Saturday.

 

[Koen]

There's no reason for any slip ups in the group stages for the English sides, except for Chelsea maybe... I'm hoping to go see the Standard Liege vs Arsenal game when they play in Belgium...

Watch out with standard de liege... they are a dirty team

Check this out -> it's french but images are quite horrible if you look the player's leg (in the 21th sec you can see he can touch his knee with the end of his foot of the same leg). Kinda reminds me of nillis' awfull collision in his short aston villa period

This weekend's game was really dirty and very agressive

btw, how did vermaelen play against man u. The match summary of match of the day didn't tell me anything

 

[goldb]

Yeah it's all good I speak french, my family lives there. there's always a party when Standard win the league.

JESUS CHRIST!!!!! he went haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaardd on that player boi! i left so sick. I kept pausing it after every second to get a better view.

I didn't watch the Man U vs Arsenal game so I don't know how Vermaelen played, question passed...

Apparently Arsene Wenger is gonna get an apology from the ref for getting sent to the stands, Can someone explain what exactly happened??

 

[◆ T.D.A ◆]

Gallas played the best out out of the defenders IMO, I don't think Vermaelen did much apart from what you'd expect from a central defender, it was Gallas who made the important tackles.

 

[thsv]

Yeah it's all good I speak french, my family lives there. there's always a party when Standard win the league.

JESUS CHRIST!!!!! he went haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaardd on that player boi! i left so sick. I kept pausing it after every second to get a better view.

I didn't watch the Man U vs Arsenal game so I don't know how Vermaelen played, question passed...

Apparently Arsene Wenger is gonna get an apology from the ref for getting sent to the stands, Can someone explain what exactly happened??

Apparently the managers union got the referee's union to admit that although it was a 'correct' decision to send Wenger to the stands it was an overreaction and distracted from the game since nobody told him exactly where he had to go.

With support like that from your bosses, is it any wonder no one wants to be a referee these days?

 

[Lohnt]

The Ch league draws were definitely interesting, Porto is in one of the groups of death for sure, group C and E are definitely tough as well. Honestly though I thought the draws were set up. Inter vs Barca? Milan vs Real? A little too convenient, TV viewership will be through the roof. Europa league draws were tougher in my opinion, some of those groups are like suicide groups, one bad match and at least 2 others will pass right ahead of you.

 

[◆ T.D.A ◆]

I don't see how it was a set-up when the chances of big matches were great as Real, Juve, Inter were all in Pot 2.

 

[Imperium]

I think he means set up as in the Inter-Barca connection with Ibra and etoo, and kaka madrid vs milan. Many people would want to watch that.

Fletcher rubbish? He was the best player on the pitch yesterday, he's been the most consistent for us for a while now.

Its my opinion. Other than the fact that he runs around all day, i cannot think of one redeeming feature. He has average technique, his passing is average while his tackling borders is good its also a yellow card waiting to happen. The media though, seem to love painting him as some sort of big game messiah.

btw, how did vermaelen play against man u. The match summary of match of the day didn't tell me anything

A standard 7/10. He wasnt amazingly impressive but he was solid. What you'd expect from a CB i suppose.

Well we've got them after the international break. It'll be interesting to see how far we've really come considering we almost reverted to traditional against Birmingham on Saturday.

I would have said it would be harder without modric, but you seem to have got the next best Croatian option (in fact north london is becoming a french-croat haven). Btw, is it at old trafford? Because even if you were 2-0 up...

 

[thsv]

I think he means set up as in the Inter-Barca connection with Ibra and etoo, and kaka madrid vs milan. Many people would want to watch that.

Yeah, but its still a major coincidence.

Its my opinion. Other than the fact that he runs around all day, i cannot think of one redeeming feature. He has average technique, his passing is average while his tackling borders is good its also a yellow card waiting to happen. The media though, seem to love painting him as some sort of big game messiah.

Well since Claude Makalele strolled up in West London there's been an media obsession with teams playing a central midfielder dedicated to playing the holding role. Which I find funny for two reasons.

1) What the hell did a defensive midfielder do for all those years then?
2) Two ordinary midfielders could share responsibility for the role by making sure that if one went forward the other held back.

I would have said it would be harder without modric, but you seem to have got the next best Croatian option (in fact north london is becoming a french-croat haven).

We're at home next week. Considering that two seasons ago they grabbed an injury time equalizer and last season the way we were playing we still managed to hold them 0-0 I'd expect better of us this year. That being said when has logic ever played a role in Tottenham's results.

Btw, is it at old trafford? Because even if you were 2-0 up...

Pah! We've lost bigger leads to ManU. Hell we've lost bigger leads to lesser teams. AT HOME!

mutters something about Man City, 3-0 up at half-time, 10 men, 2 hour bus journey home and having to face the humiliation of going into work the next day.

 

[◆ T.D.A ◆]

This season is shaping great I hope tottenham sustain their form to make things interesting.

 

[L0ki]

Well since Claude Makalele strolled up in West London there's been an media obsession with teams playing a central midfielder dedicated to playing the holding role. Which I find funny for two reasons.

1) What the hell did a defensive midfielder do for all those years then?
2) Two ordinary midfielders could share responsibility for the role by making sure that if one went forward the other held back.

That's cause Makelele was really good at it, so he allowed the midfielders of his team (I'm talking about Real Madrid mostly here) to play more offensively, or should I say more specifically that he allowed the other central midfielder to play on a much more offensive role. So after Makelele left Real Madrid became an unbalanced team because they couldn't find another player on the same level and the rest of the midfieldiers couldn't really be taken out of the first eleven because of their big names (Beckham, Zidane, Figo, etc.). So Los Galácticos went to the crapper.
Actually, here in South America most teams used to play with only one central midfielder until recently. The other central midfielder position was replaced by the playmaker, someone who moved around the entire field (in theory at least, most of the time he'd be between the midfield and attacking line). But the lack of really good players in that position lately (due to the coaches' "lack of disposition towards offensive tactics (aka cowardice)" and the speed increase of the game, which conspires against the traditional role of the playmaker) has resulted in a decline on the use of the 4-3-1-2 formation in favor of the 4-4-2.

[/rant]

 

[Lelo]

im tied for first in a football fantasy league. Its my first time in a fantasy league and its pretty fun. This weekend I'm gambling on Ben Foster as my goalie and hes facing Tottenham who always score against us. I know you guys remember the comback last year with 5 goals in the 2nd half.

 

[Saintz0r]

Don't cry for me Argentina...

ps: Poor Portugal, will be hard now to classify, almost a miracle. On the bright side, Liédson made what could be your salvation goal and I certanly think he's better than Hugo Almeida, so you should improve a little.
*goes back to tv*

 

[KnuckleheadedNinja]

Man, it a do or die match for us tomorrow. I'm so nervous. If lose we probably going to miss the world cup again, that is not accept for Nigeria.

 

[Pirulito]

Well, Brazil is qualified for the World Cup. Best of all, we got our qualify against Argentina.

But Argentina is now on a bad situation. They have risks to be out of the Cup and a World Cup without Argentina isn't a World Cup.

 

[thsv]

Man, it a do or die match for us tomorrow. I'm so nervous. If lose we probably going to miss the world cup again, that is not accept for Nigeria.

Ghana are the first Africans to qualify (after South Africa) without conceding a goal yet in the second round with 2 games to go. Ivory Coast just need a draw. It's just bad luck Nigeria ended up in a group with Tunisia.

 

[Lelo]

Well, Brazil is qualified for the World Cup. Best of all, we got our qualify against Argentina.

But Argentina is now on a bad situation. They have risks to be out of the Cup and a World Cup without Argentina isn't a World Cup.

Im with u on that, and Portugal my not make it too. Thats the 2 best players in the world, Ronaldo and Messi, and they might not even be in it. Portugal should qualify easy with the players they have. I hate Portugal cause of what happen against England but I still like to watch them play. They should have played Nani the whole game. And sucks for argentina but shit happens

And Spain looked awesome again, and they didnt even start Riera, Fabregas and Ramos, who's injured. Great team and fun to watch. i still wish we could have seen Brasil vs Espanyol in the confederations cup

 

[Mendes]

Portugal... We keep digging our own grave. Now the team is changing their tactic from our typical 4-3-3 to a 4-4-2, in order to play Liedson (who's used to play with another forward) and Ronaldo on a position where he's closest to the goal. The problem is: we have many talented wingers, like Nani and Ronaldo even if Quaresma and Simao are in bad shape... also Ronaldo doesnt score since Euro 2008 and Portugal's been using the 4-3-3 for 50 years.

I guess we can count ourselves unlucky. We lost 2 games with Denmark where we should have won for 4/5 goals with the amount of chances we missed. Sweden won their last 2 games with a single goal at the last minute... own goal today

Our chances to go through are complicated:

1-We must win every match
2-Sweden must loose points once
3-If Sweden draws a match, we are tied in the 2nd spot and the goal difference is the deciding factor. Actually Sweden has 1 goal ahead in their goal difference.
4-Even if we can clear steps 1 to 3, we risk being the worst 2nd classified in the qualifying groups...

Argentina must go to the WC, with the south american qualifiers its almost impossible not to... but Maradona is doing bad. Even if Portugal doesnt go trough, I'm excited to see a WC with the super Euro Champs, Spain, the reborn England, the powerful Brazil, the mechanical orange Holland and don't forget Italy's defending the title.

 

[Lelo]

why wont they play Nani?