Author Topic: Official FOOTBALL Thread (Read 246773 times)

redux · « **Reply #720 on:** September 13, 2007, 02:03:52 AM »

After watching Sky Three the other night I think Alessandro Zarelli may be my new hero.

Sev · « **Reply #721 on:** September 13, 2007, 09:40:52 AM »

Yesterdays games were nice. Weren't able to watch that much of Norway - Canada and Ghana - Australia. Did however watch Brazil - New Zealand, wich was ok. Our girl Marta (plays in the club team of my town) scored two goals, but didn't perform at her top level imo. The oceanic ladies didn't have much to put against the well playing brazilians. Entertaining to say the least.

Now the game of the day was most certainly China - Denmark. Lot of pressure on the young Chinese ladies, and it was most certainly a thriller right to the end. How about it, I was stunned. That one event totally blew me away. Xiaoli Song, the 26 year old substitute from Jiangsu Shuntian with no 5 on her back put up an amazing performance between woman and ball, in perfect harmony, which definitly made every guy in the audience drop his jaw. The girls are without doubt used to taking good care of balls, but such technique and feeling.. I'm blown away. It sorta felt like a relief that China pulled it off. Always lots of pressure on the hosting country, and always fun to see them perform well.

Results:
Ghana 1 - 4 Australia
Norway 2 - 1 Canada
New Zealand 0 - 5 Brazil
China 3 - 2 Denmark

No matches today. The girls need to rest from all the ball kickin'.

Tuffty · « **Reply #722 on:** September 13, 2007, 06:01:58 PM »

Either N.Ireland just can't win games away from home (where admittedly, Windsor Park does act as a 12th man, home crowd pride etc) or we've gone backwards 3 years in the space of a week.

The hunger and attitude has been stripped from the players and replaced with putulence and lazyness. We pushed the ball around in the midfield in front of them for about 40 minutes last night. Passes went sideways all evening.

There was no heart and no effort. And now I hear Gillespie and McCartney got into a fight on the plane

Kudos to Scotland for beating France. And as always, 2 wins and the media has very few complaints despite the fact that from what I saw of the 2nd half yesterday, they were playing in the same way they had done for the World Cup i.e making long passes up front where they hope Heskey can take the ball. It's just so one-dimensional, boring and predictable. No wonder some teams find it easy to play against England, they know what's coming everytime. It will be interesting to see how McClaren will handle the return of Lampard, Hargreaves, Rooney and Neville. Will he make some changes to an already winning team? Will he drop the likes of Barry, who reportedly is forming a good partnership with Gerrard, hoping to satisfy a few egos?

boykun · « **Reply #723 on:** September 16, 2007, 02:02:20 AM »

Horay we won the derby. Good chances by Tottenham, but never managed to capitalize. And great last minute tackle save by Toure.

sh15uya · « **Reply #724 on:** September 20, 2007, 07:16:26 AM »

Quote from: AFP

Controversial Mourinho exits Chelsea the only way he knows how
LONDON (AFP) — Jose Mourinho was only ever going to leave Chelsea one way and so it proved on Thursday morning as the Portuguese coach departed in a blaze of controversy.

Mourinho's brash personality ensured he quickly became the Premier League's most talked-about figure after his arrival three years ago.

At the press conference to announce his appointment at Chelsea, Mourinho insisted his impressive achievements at Porto meant he should be seen as 'a special one'.

That tongue in cheek comment set the tone for one of the most dramatic managerial reigns in the history of English football

In the space of three seasons, Mourinho ended Chelsea's 50-year wait for a league title, won it again 12 months later and added two League Cups and an FA Cup to the Stamford Bridge trophy room.

[...]
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5h-xsiidamJi6Ht-NQ5FcQs9ZdfPQ

oO

Tuffty · « **Reply #725 on:** September 21, 2007, 12:53:49 PM »

When push comes to shove I'll admit, as a football fan, I will miss Mourinho. Nobody could deny he was a character, and his arrival practically spurned on Fergie to continue as manager. The decision is absolutely crazy. Just think, there was a poll running at the start of the season on which manager would get the sack. Who would have ever expected Mourinho to be the first name? Regardless of playing styles, 6 trophies in 3 years is something any manager would be pleased to have. But now Abramovich has got what he wanted all along, a management under his control. Avahm Grant isn't the answer though. A personal favourite quote of mine is

"Avahm Grant isn't even a household name in his living room"

Mourinho could stay in the Premiership though. We all know Martin Jol's got several games in which to impress the Spurs board, so perhaps he can move there. But I think it's unlikely.

Which is what makes it so funny as a Utd fan. Let's face it, for Mourinho to leave in such an unexpected fashion is bound to cause rifts between the team, the fans and the board. The fans are already chanting 'Sack the board' and 'Who the fuck is Avahm Grant?' and reportedly, Terry, Lampard, Drogba, Carvaliho, Essien and Makelele are looking to leave. It's hilarious to watch Chelsea go through this exodus and already writing off their season ambitions.

redux · « **Reply #726 on:** September 21, 2007, 01:47:23 PM »

I just wanna watch Chelsea self-implode now, I'd love to see Grant fail miserably which leads to Abramovich getting the hump and packing his backs. There's Chelsea left with a ton of debt and a massive wage bill...step up Ken Bates!

Everton though, my heroes. Andy Johnson; what a legend!

Tuffty · « **Reply #727 on:** September 21, 2007, 01:57:05 PM »

^ haha I watched that match last night. Talk about drama! Now Everton must score in the 2nd leg. And they're away! No chance

Still have to wonder about it all. They could have been 2-0 up and gone to the 2nd leg with ease, but now it's a must win game. Football, bloody hell!

Biggest laugh of this whole Chelsea exodus saga is that someone suggested Dennis Wise and Gus Poyet should be the new managers! And Jamie Redknapp is approached to be Grant's assistant manager!

Tuffty · « **Reply #728 on:** September 23, 2007, 05:55:09 PM »

Manchester Utd 2 - 0 Chelsea

Tevez! Get in you beauty!

About Saha's penalty claim, well, yeh it was pretty theatrical, but there was contact made so it was the right decision. Ref got it wrong quite a few times though. How the hell was Cole not sent off for his two footed tackle on Ronaldo? He had no intention of playing for the ball and was more of a red than Utd reject Mikel's tackle. Will be interesting to see how Chelsea cope now.

I hear that Abramovich has given Avram the funds necessary to buy both Ronaldinho AND Kaka. The sad thing about that is, he could easily buy them. That's loose change for Abramovich. He just thinks he can solve his problems by throwing whatever players he wants in there and expect an all star performance. And after Chelsea's game on Tues, he was supposedly giving Essien advice on how to play the game!

Too funny.

redux · « **Reply #729 on:** September 26, 2007, 09:37:50 PM »

Torres: awesome. Nothing else to say really is there? Not just for the goals but his whole performance, he should have had a pellaty as well! There's been idiots saying we can' win without Gerrard for the past few years now, I'm guessing they may turn their attention to Torres soon.

Other highlights have got to include Leicester and Coventry raping the big boys up the bum, loving it.

Tuffty · « **Reply #730 on:** September 27, 2007, 05:46:18 PM »

^ Now if only your manager can play him in the League, you guys might become more than a cup team

Ah well. What can you say. Fair play to Coventry for beating an admitttedly second rate performance from a second rate squad on the night. And I am sad about going out. Fans would dismiss the Worthless Cup, but I think it gives our young players the experience they need to develop and grow. Just look at the big name players who developed from Cup games. Just means we'll have to focus our attention elsewhere now.

Tuffty · « **Reply #731 on:** September 30, 2007, 12:56:00 PM »

The demise of Chelsea gets funnier:

- They drew 0-0 at home to Fulham yesterday, extending it to 7 hours without a league goal
- Terry gets himself injured and is sure to miss upcoming games, including the England qualifing matches
- Drogba gets himself sent off, so will miss 3 matches
- Shevchenko got booed at by his own fans, and on his 31st birthday
- Peter Kenyon was spat at
- Chelsea fans let it be known to Abramovich that they're not happy (although many did not leave at half time as was largely suggested)

And we won! Coolly taken goal by Ronaldo. But again, still not quite hitting the perfect form. I don't know how we will fare playing Roma tbh. Totti has made it clear that he wants revenge.

See Portsmouth v Reading?! 7-4?!?!

redux · « **Reply #732 on:** October 01, 2007, 12:26:30 PM »

I can't believe I'm going to say this but I was actually disappointed with an 11 goal match...If I'd watched it in real time then I'm sure ti would have been awesome but seeing as I watched the extended highlights and already knew the score it seemed quite dull. I was shocked too...

Tuffty · « **Reply #733 on:** October 03, 2007, 09:32:19 PM »

Some surprises in the Champions League! Utd won (no surprise there), but Rangers won 2-0 against Lyon away, and Celtic won 2-1 against AC Milan. Kaka acted like a sore loser though. And a Celtic fan ran onto the pitch and touched Dida around the face laughing at him, Dida gave chase then 3 secs later, dived to the floor and had to be substituted

Quite funny to see, but the fan made contact with Dida, and that's always a big no-no. And Liverpool played, judging from these match stats at least, awful against a Marseille side who sit fourth place from bottom in the French league resulting in a 1-0 loss. And this was with Torres starting.

sh15uya · « **Reply #734 on:** October 03, 2007, 10:10:12 PM »

Quote from: Tuffty on October 03, 2007, 09:32:19 PM

[...] but Rangers won 2-0 against Lyon away,

0 - 3!
Lyon: GS = 0 , GA = 6 xD

Quote from: Tuffty on October 03, 2007, 09:32:19 PM

And Liverpool played, judging from these match stats at least, awful against a Marseille side who sit fourth place from bottom in the French league resulting in a 1-0 loss. And this was with Torres starting.

the match was nice, and Valbuena's goal is ... wow.

fourth place from bottom in the French league as you said, and Lyon is first from the top :X

redux · « **Reply #735 on:** October 03, 2007, 10:18:58 PM »

Well that's the worst I've seen Liverpool play in a long time, I don't want to take anything away from Marseille ebcause they kicked our ass but if Liverpool had been on form they would have blown them away. This ebcame apprant after Marseille and Liverpool completely dominated, which annoys me much more because it shows that we could have won this game so easily. Sissoko was v.poor and his mistake led to the goal...which was unsaveable, but I'm not sure it was such a great goal. Simply because Valbuena (something like that) fell over as he took it, though maybe I'm being a little harsh. Overall I'm not annoyed at Marseille for winning as they took an oppourtunity that was presented to them (even if they should have scored earlier than they did...wow I've sued a lot of brackets here), I'm more annoyed at the fact that Liverpool even proved at the end of the game that they should have had no problems with this tie whatsoever. Oh well, it'll still be us and AC in the final...speaking of which I wanna see the highlights of AC's game, sounds interesting from what I've heard.

ew0923 · « **Reply #736 on:** October 07, 2007, 04:48:17 AM »

We finally managed to post more than one goal on the board!

I was particularly pleased in the peformance of our youngsters.
Anderson was very impressive on his debut - creative, strong and what a pass to Tevez.
Looks to struggle a bit while people run at him, but his ball distribution is absolutely superb, and absolutely inch-perfect pass to Rooney to setup Ronaldo.
Simpkin wasn't really tested because not for the first time this year, Wigan played ten men behind ball for 60 minutes of the match.

Tuffty · « **Reply #737 on:** October 07, 2007, 12:37:05 PM »

^ The youngsters showed quite a bit of promise indeed. People were expecting the next Ronaldinho with Anderson, but instead we got a Brazilian Paul Scholes

Pique played well and finally we get a RB who can make decent crosses, in Danny Simpson. Man of the match was certainly Tevez. Never stopped running the whole match, and was so glad to see him score. I bet guest of honour, Maradona was ecstatic.

redux · « **Reply #738 on:** October 07, 2007, 12:58:52 PM »

Anderson really looks like a good buy and yesterday confirmed that, I'm still on the fence about Nano though. He just seems to be lacking in the brains department of the game and that seems to drag him down. It'll be interesting to see Tevez in games now, he's played well in the last couple of games now but his early form wasn't so great. It's likely he was just settling in but I am interested to see whether the can keep some consistency; something he sturggled to do at West Ham until the end of the season.

Tuffty · « **Reply #739 on:** October 17, 2007, 05:47:33 PM »

Russia 2 - 1 England

So who's going to get the blame this time? The pitch? The dodgy penalty decision (which evened out Rooney's allowed goal despite the fact he was offside)? McClaren? All 3? Regardless, with the group that Englands in, there's really no excuses.

England are virtually not qualifying. They have to depend on Israel beating Russia, so it's out of their hands. At any rate, McClaren's gone. I mean, how could he stay on?