Discussion The Football/Soccer Thread

[Mendes]

Liverpool needs to win the rest of the qualifying matches in order to (probably) go to the next round.

In other news, Milan did awesome with a 4-1 win. All of their goals comes or started from corner kicks and Gilardino scored two!

Yeah, the most unlikely has happened in this group. Porto is fighting with Marseille for the 1st spot and Liverpool will have to sweat alot to get to the 2nd place. I find this perfect for Porto, that has only need to win our home games against the 'weaker' teams and let liverpool win against Marseille for their and our own good :P (1st spot, here we go)

You enhanced Gilardino, but I'd enhance Seedorf the most in that game. Both Gilardino's goals were greatly assisted by him and Seedorf scored 2 goals of his own. Amazing performance (please open your eyes, mr van Basten!)

Well, in my opinion, without Fernando Torress in the side, Liverpool doesn't look dangerous at all.... Kuyt just doesn't score enough....
Same can be said about Man utd though. I can't imagine what would happen if Rooney or Tevez get injured. So I hope they stay injury free and united must find another striker when the transfer window starts in January. United still has Saha but he gets injured too many times...

I agree, that's why I'd love to see Drogba playin in MU... that'd be unbelievable! Still, I'd like united to reinforce their side backs. Evra is playing fine, but he's the only one they have... O'shea and Wes Brown both play better in the center and even there I prefer Silvestre over them... Daniel Alves in MU would be nice, but Sevilla is making his transfer hard...

Being norwegian myself, it's nice seeing our teams winning out in Europe. And about bloody time too!
This was the first time Rosenborg has won at home in Champions League for 6 years.

It still amazes me, how can a team that most likely won't to qualify to the UEFA-cup (At 6th place at the moment, ) beat Valencia in CL? The wonders of football...

Heh congrats for Rosenborg, that's an amazing result! Still it will be very hard for them to reach even the UEFA. Its probably the stronger group and Rosenborg has still 2 away games to play. Valencia will certainly recover from this result and I still believe they will make it to the next round.


As the upcoming football weekend, we'll have a Schalke x Bremen in germany. In the premiership, Chelsea will play against a very strong Man. City in stamford, Arsenal is visiting Liverpool's anfield on Sunday
In spain, Sevilla plays at home with Valencia, Royal plays with Depor and in Serie A, Milan-Roma is the main match. Inter visits Palermo and Juve visits Napoli. I can predict many title candidates are going to loose points, since all of them have very tough opponents.

As for today, in UEFA cup, I'd like to enhance 3 very nice games: Tottenham is playing with Getafe, Locomotiv is playing with Atletico Madrid and Vilarreal with Fiorentina.

 

[Lohnt]

I watched a lot of good games this week, none of the final scores reflected the match itself though. That's what makes soccer great I guess, you can have possession of the ball all game and still lose the game from one or two seconds worth of game.

 

[Epul]

Man United beat Middlesbrough 4-1!! Rooney, Nani with a goal and Tevez scored two goals. Rooney and Tevez partnership was awesome!!!
But the real shocking result is the Chelsea vs. Man City game. Chelsea beat Man City 6-0!!!! Shocking result..... With Man City recent good form before this game, I definitely did not see this one coming..... another wonders of football....

 

[Ichimaru Gin n Tonic]

Yeah, that game was awesome, Epul!! I was jumping up and down (figuratively), everytime United score!
Yeah, looks like it's good players & unknown manager prevailed over average players & good manager. Man City will be shopping in January.

 

[Mendes]

Yeah who would've believed it, chelsea winning 6-0 against the sensational man city... I guess a great team like theirs is unaffected by internal problems. I'm very surprised many players show such dedication even after manifesting their wish to leave the club, specially Drogba who made that wish of his public.

As for the other games, Arsenal draw in Anfield in an amazing match. Gerrard is definitely back to his best shape, after that injury and overplaying for L'pool and England reduced his shape level.
In Spain, Barça won 'only' 2-0 with a very motivated Almería. Sevilla gave Valencia a justified 3-0. For real, Valencia is going from bad to worse... something's gotta change. Although Sevilla's former coach, Juande Ramos, went to Tottenham, Manolo Jiménez, the assistant manager, had no problems keeping the team's strength the same.
Real Madrid won 3-1 with Depor, but they only got the lead at the final 10 minutes.

In Italy, Milan's doing really bad. I saw them loose against Roma in San Siro, 1-0. Its not like Milan played bad, but they didnt play enough for a team who's at 13th spot, trying to win the league. I think its the end for Milan's title aspirations this year. As for Inter, they got the draw against Palermo, but as Juve lost and Fiorentina drawed(what's the past simple for draw? I think its Not drawed... but who cares :P) Inter remains in the lead. Roma used their win to get to the 2nd place.

One last look at Germany, where Shalke and Bremen tied 1-1 and Dortmund 0-0 wit Bayern. Hamburg is climbing up, with their victory this week. 5 points separate them from Bayern. In portugal there's no TV coverage of Bundesliga, but I'm sure van der Vaart is playing amazing, as ever. I hope to see him in Inter soon, they sure need a number 10 :P

 

[Patoz]

Juventus lost against Napoli (Naples)... I don't know if I have to be surprised or scandalized... the referee gave two penality kicks (2 great mistakes...) and the Juventus lost 3-1...

If you wanna see the match http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=MKoFYxzEQH4

 

[Ichimaru Gin n Tonic]

I heard that the referee for that game is banned from the Serie-A and got his FIFA license revoked. Is that true?

 

[rykarreolacr]

I know for a fact that he will be suspended for about 40 days and will be relegated to Serie B, I don't know about the FIFA license tough.

 

[Mendes]

I didnt knew it was possible for a referee to be suspended and relegated just because of mistakes in a match... if the same happened here in portugal every time a referee did something like that we'd have probably no referees right now. We've seen of everything in here and the referees are always protected instead.

 

[rykarreolacr]

He also did terribly poorly in the last match... He simply lacks personality...

 

[Lohnt]

Referees actually getting punishment for favoring one team and practically GIVING THEM the victory?


HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..... ...HAHHAHAHAAH


surely you jest

---

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_JI9bhBHTy8&eurl=http://sport24.gr/html/ent/412/ent.203412.asp

77 Career goals
6 This season

Wow.. He actually has more skill than many offensive midfielders.

 

[Mendes]

Well, I havent seen the match, neither the previous matches of that referee, but I agree with this kind of punishments to the referees who clearly benefit one team. The thing is, every week in Portugal, the referees do unbelievable 'mistakes' and, unless they're blind, they should be severely punished as well, but the worse 'punishment' they get is not whistling any match in the following week.
Chek this out, for instance... the commentator is saying the assistant referee was in front of them, and the main referee had a direct angle. None of the refs considered any fault... while the player who got trampled by the goal kicker got injured for months. Things like this happen a lot in Portugal, but we dont have football justice, like in Italy.

 

[Epul]

I did not know that refereeing in portugal was that bad.... now that's a serious problem....
I think the best way to handle this is by giving some kind of reward to the referee if they did a good job and not just punish them if they did a bad job.... Maybe, just maybe by doing so, referees will be more motivated to do a good job.... that's what i think anyway..

 

[Mendes]

The referees have support in here. Although we still dont have professional referees, as a part time job, they are really well paid. They get money for each game they whistle in and if they do a bad job, they dont get to whistle as many times as the refs that do better jobs. Still, that doesnt seem to be working and weekly we see unbelievably bad performances from them. I'm not saying every referee in Portugal is bad, but I'm in favor of professionalization of the portuguese refs.

As I watch the english premier league weekly I can see how the refereeing in there helps the show. There's almost no simulating (a true art in portugal), there's much less faults (less than 1/3 in comparison to portugal), keeping the game's useful time much higher and better, and specially, there's no 'blind' referees, who ignore agression and penalties in an intolerable way. I dunno if referee professionalization will help, but its worth a shot. Being a referee isnt just implying the rules, its part of the show. In england you usually see the refs talking casually to the players, explaining them what they did wrong. In Portugal there's no such thing. The refs opt for the easiest way and just show them the card.

Its not like the refs are the only bad thing in portuguese's super league. I'm worried for the recent lack of ambition of many of our clubs. Since the number of teams in the league went down for 18 to 16, and consequently the number of teams who went to the second division lowered from 3 to 2, its very noticeable that many teams are satisfied with the draw, as long as they dont loose, so they dont attack anymore. We've seen teams playing like they were just doing a daily practice if they're tied at the last 20 minutes. No one attacks coz they dont want to risk a loss when they have the draw already and the other team puts no pressure coz they're satisfied as well... its kinda sad

 

[Epul]

Arsenal drew with Man Utd 2-2. It was a great game. I enjoyed it very much. But I would have enjoyed it more if united were able to hold out at 2-1 until the final whistle. Arsenal got lucky and nicked in the equaliser in injury time..... but still I still think it was a good result for man utd. Getting a draw against Arsenal away from home. What makes it frustrating is that united could have won the game if they keep their concentration and just keep the ball near the end of the game........

 

[Mendes]

I saw it too, a great match even tough the game was too tactical in the first minutes with no goal attempts. After that the game became quite emotional and very good. Anyone could have won. People say United deserved to win, but I personally think it was a fair result.

Milan is screwing up in the serie A, with another home draw. Each week they keep getting further from the top and I think they're not title candidates anymore. In this last match (0-0) it was noticeable that they need a stronger reference in the attack. I think they should reinforce the attack in the winter market (drogba maybe?).

Sao Paulo won the Brasileirão 4 weeks before the end of the league, showing their great dominance this year in Brasil.

Right now, Juve is loosing against Inter, 0-1, in the day Figo completes 35 years. Inter seems to be playing better as they're getting the best chances. Julio Cruz scored the goal.

EDIT: Juve got the draw. Camoranesi scored the 1-1. I am suspicious, since I support Inter, but I think Juve got very lucky. I saw a penalty over Zlatan... the referees didnt. I also think Chielini should have been expelled after an elbow attack on Zlatan, but one minute later Burdisso avenged him, punching the italian :P Both evens were unnoticed by the refs.
Figo got a rough birthday present from Nedved, getting him injured.
In the end, nothing changes in the lead, as Roma also drawed against empoli. The exception is Fiorentina. This year's sensation in Italy got the win over Lazio in Rome.

 

[Patoz]

Great Victory of SS Lazio against Werder Bremen! Now we have to kick Olimpiakos ass! (sorry Olimpiacos supporters, but I had to say this )

 

[DGWL]

Main Stand, Row 16.

Liverpool 8 - 0 Besiktas.

New Uefa Champions League record.

Enough said

 

[Mendes]

yeah... insane victory! You also gotta love porto's first goal over marseille last night, scored by tarik sektioui. For a second I thought maradonna was playing for us xD
As for Valencia... their done, and with a little help from chelsea, who beat shalke, rosenborg is actually isolated in the second place! Things are really looking up for them, even tough they are in one of the strongest groups.

Milan seems to be a completely different team when playing in the champions league. 3-0 in shaktior's field was impressive. In their group, Benfica says goodbye to the CL, with another loss against Celtic.
The most balanced group seems to be group C, where real madrid got the victory over olympiakos 4-2. Lazio's victory over bremen makes this group still very open, where even the last can take the 1st spot.

Jiraya I assume you saw Lazio against Bremen, so I got to ask this. Why exactly got Diego expelled? I can tell he scored a penalty at '88, and got a yellow at the same time, (couldnt be celebrating a goal, since bremen was out of time) but at '90 he got his 2nd yellow and was expelled. I've seen Diego play for Porto in 2 years and he never got expelled and rarely got yellows, so I wonder what happened with him to get 2 yellows in 2 minutes

 

[Lohnt]

Does anyone else play fantasy football on Uefa.com?