Real Football (Soccer to you Yanks) Thread

[Springsteen]

We can't draw Man City, same country.

I just hope we avoid a tie in a far flung third World Country like we did last year with Rangers

 

[Zorak]

Bets on Chelsea getting Valencia? Lol

 

[skyblue]

i'm not sure you'd want to go to st petersburg

 

[porterjack]

Who replaced the turkish team that were withdrawn coz of match fixing

 

[Springsteen]

Trabzonspor

 

[porterjack]

Trabzonspor

they Turkish as well?

 

[Springsteen]

Yeah, they will be in pot 4. Wouldn't be a bad team to draw, there isn't a great deal to Turkish teams other than the atmosphere.

 

[Zorak]

Travelling to Turkey is always difficult, not least because most of your fans don't get to come home.

Are Trabzonspor the team who played Liverpool last year? Because if so, they were not a great team and will have to have massively improved in the meantime.

 

[Springsteen]

A: Bayern Munich, Villareal, Man City, Napoli
B: Inter Milan, CSKA Moscow, Lille, Trabzonspor
C: Manchester United, Benfica, FC Basel, Otelul Galati
D: Real Madrid, Lyon, Ajax, Dinamo Zagreb
E: Chelsea, Valencia, Bayer Leverkusen, Genk
F: Arsenal, Marseille, Olympiakos, Dortmund
G: FC Porto, Shakhtar Donetsk, Zenit St Petersburg, Apoel
H: Barcelona, AC Milan, Bate, Viktoria Plzen

Favorable draw for us, Benfica are tricky but we should manage 4 points, the others are there for the taking. We should win the group with no problems.

EDIT : this is the stadium which our opponents Otelul Galati play in.

They might run out of balls if Darron Gibson plays

 

[Zorak]

Bets on Chelsea getting Valencia? Lol

Wish I had put a cheeky bet on now lol

 

[Zorak]

Considering Man city were a third seed, they did very well out of that draw

 

[Springsteen]

Yeah not a bad draw for them. Tricky but manageable. The other's did.... relatively well, both will fancy qualifying I reckon. Group G looks fucking awful.

 

[skyblue]

i think madrid have a tricky group

 

[Springsteen]

Barcelona beat Porto on the Super Cup 2-0. Good contest but barcelona were always the better side. Messi scored a goal after a dreadful backpass from the defender, took it round the keeper. Rolando was sent off for Porto for a second bookable offence before Fabregas scored his first official Barcelona goal to wrap it up. Guarin was sent off in stoppage time for a shocking tackle.

 

[skyblue]

alex ferguson = cunt

he's made himself look a right twat with his latest outburst about united not getting enough credit for having england players

 

[Springsteen]

He hasn't said a wrong thing, we have provided the most players in the years previous, yet the FA treat us like shit. It's true, they absolutely do. Let's see how shitty England would do without our players. They're awful now, I daren't think.

 

[skyblue]

He hasn't said a wrong thing, we have provided the most players in the years previous, yet the FA treat us like shit. It's true, they absolutely do. Let's see how shitty England would do without our players. They're awful now, I daren't think.

of course united have provided most players in recent years,they're the most succesful club...and saying united get treated badly is a seige mentality way of thinking,everyone gets treated the same.break the rules and you get punished

 

[Springsteen]

But we do. I'm not being funny but Wayne Rooney gets a ban for 'swearing down a TV camera'. 2 weeks later a Man City player does it, nothing happens, it isn't mentioned. Though I don't believe any action should follow with anything, it's a heated game and emotions do go OTT at times, but it's no reason to ban anyone. it's not just that, there was the horrible mismanagement of the Rio affair in 2003, there was a touchline ban for Fergie the same year for daring to question a referee's decision. It happens to other clubs, course it does, but the FA has a hard on for punishing us, it's a fact, especially with the terrible people in charge of it, and they expect any club to be happy with releasing players for International games to the same organisation handing out these punishments. The FA is a badly run organisation.

The biggest problem is this, you can't criticise them, or the referee's. If for instance a referee has a shocking game and a manager comes out and says "he's fucking shit" that manager will get done. It's unfair because that referee probably did have a shocker, but you can't say it.

But yeah, the FA are terrible, England are shit, the manager doesn't have a clue and it's a few players flung together, not a team.

 

[skyblue]

lets not forget,most of the more influential players barring the likes of scholes and beckham etc have been plundered from smaller less well off clubs..i remember ferguson taking 20 goal a season terry gibson off us to let him rot in the reserves

as for rio,and i must say he is class and that he's matured alot.....you can liken that drug test to a driving offence,you stay at the scene and you get punished,you leave then get caught and the punishment is harsher,and dont forget that it effected england too

i agree with capello though....o'neil should get the job

 

[Springsteen]

Fergie didn't sign Terry Gibson, Big Ron did. Plus he also signed Peter Davenport around the same time who turned out to be a very good signing which limited Gibson's appearances. But you can't not play a striker in form, that's just backwards.

My Rio point was this. The FA, after Rio had missed that drugs test, pulled him out of the England squad for that game in Turkey. Now fair enough had he been found guilty of missing it straight away then yeah, pull him out. But not before the trial which was in December. That's guilty until proven innocent, and that's not the way law works (usually) and that's why England players nearly went on strike. They played and drew 0-0 and qualified, but it's beside the point because a player wasn't there who should have been. I also think his ban was very harsh considering another Premier League player did the same thing and got a fine. But he got off on a technicality (struck in traffic) which was a cop out. Though saying this I don't altogether blame the FA. I blame them for the handlnig of the whole affair, but the ban was recommended by FIFA and it was a case of "Jump" "How high?".

I'm not sure who should gte the England job, I don't really care, but I'm not sure who would be best for it. I don't buy the English is best option because you only have to look at some managers of that descent who have failed badly. What's needed is a manager who knows what he's doing and isn't afraid to drop players who don't deserve to play and pull out because of mysterious injuries but miraculously appear for Chelsea the Saturday after in the league.