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Official Football Thread 2007/2008 (Soccer)

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Blablurn said:
germany is always strong at tournaments.
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that's true of course, as much as it pains me to admit it.

Individually there's very few in the current squad that would make it at a European top club though. Ballack and Lehmann obviously have, but for the rest - I dunno. Possibly Lahm and Metzelder, maybe Gomez. Other than that there's a lot of mediocrity in there.

Unfortunately collectively it's a different story. Still shouldn't be anywhere near enough to beat Italy, France, Holland, Spain and Portugal. The problem is you often do.
 
hadareud said:
that's true of course, as much as it pains me to admit it.

Individually there's very few in the current squad that would make it at a European top club though. Ballack and Lehmann obviously have, but for the rest - I dunno. Possibly Lahm and Metzelder, maybe Gomez. Other than that there's a lot of mediocrity in there.

Unfortunately collectively it's a different story. Still shouldn't be anywhere near enough to beat Italy, France, Holland, Spain and Portugal. The problem is you often do.
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It should be enough to beat all of those teams except France.
 
Scum said:
The Spanish side, on paper, is all kinds of awesome! Semi-Finals, surely...?
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I'm not sure about their defence, except Ramos of course. I'm not sure I could put together the midfield...not because there's any lack of talent, certainly not, I just can't find the right balance. Mainly because of the right.
 
I'll write up an idea for the Euros on Thursday after the CL stuff is out of the way, and people can have their say on it and hopefully we'll come up with a set idea by next week.
 
hadareud said:
just ordered two shirts:

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a234/hadareud/AustriaASS0708-1.jpg
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a234/hadareud/HolHSS0809.jpg

the Austrian mainly for the Hammer and Sickle in our crest
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Like the neck flair (especially on the Dutch shirt).

P.S. Osterreich = commie bastards! :O

Cornballer said:
We'll keep it here and leave the other thread to the trolls.
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I'm gonna be in both. Hopefully ForzaItalia's ban is lifted in time for the tournament. I have high hopes for him and Manics tag teaming.

Manager said:
He's been completely invisible in 33% of City's games, and just poor in another 17%, while he doesn't possess any kind of expertise in defensive play. I don't get the hysteria around him, he's been good but even Arsenal fans wanted him earlier in this thread. Crazy times.
On the other hand, I guess he would be even more productive in a team that doesn't play Mpenza in the penalty area.
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While I'll agree he is overblown a bit I think you're being a bit too hard on the guy. Let's wait and see if a real right winger gets bought and if so, then we can truly judge him. (Hopefully another striker is bought to take some of the weight off Benjani too.)

The Friendly Monster said:
Poland 70
Austria 150
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Suck it down, had!!!

Outdoor Miner said:
Losing to the Gals 5-1 will do that to ya.
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Hey this sounds like a subtle swipe here.

woodchuck said:
when are we going to pick teams to root for in euro

i'll jump on the france bandwagon
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Poland baby!
 
Kuyt works hard and Babel's good, but both are as much strikers as wingers...well, more so in Kuyt's case. And Babel's the sort of winger who drives into the box for a shot, not a cross or even going to the line for a pull back, really (he might do that more if he was playing on the right, from the left he just comes inside).

There's no problem with having a winger like that, it's just that if you do, you really want someone who will drive to the line and put a cross in on the other side, especially if you've got someone like Torres in the box, a good header of the ball. Pennant's that sort of player, but clearly Benitez doesn't rate him highly enough to play that role regularly as he prefers a striker out of position to him.

So I don't understand why he's not selling Pennant and using that money to help fund a move for a winger he actually rates. And because Babel can play either side, he has the choice of any winger in the world, doesn't have to be a right footer. Silva immediately comes to mind, Bentley's probably too hard to get but offer Pennant in part exchange and you never know, even the likes of N'Zogbia and Downing would make more sense to me than Barry, if money's tight and Alonso isn't going.

A winger should have been the first position on the list, and once that's sorted if there's anything else left, fine, spend it where you like. Instead, he's going after a left back, a right back, an all round central midfielder, when Liverpool are already conceding the least shots on target by some distance and don't need to strengthen there as a priority.

If I was a Liverpool fan, I'd far prefer to see just two good players brought in for key positions, Silva and Rafinha let's say, than 4 or 5 players, some as back up, some to compete for first team spots for already strong positions.

It's a young squad, on the whole, the only players really at risk of retiring in the next few years are Hyypia and Finnan, and good replacements for them have already been brought in, and by all accounts it's a good youth team coming through, so there's just no need to spread the money so widely. Buy a couple of top players this year and bring a couple of youth through, next summer buy another couple of top players and bring another couple of youth through and it should largely be the same squad that's out there now but with 4 more top quality players.
 
Karakand said:
P.S. Osterreich = commie bastards! :O
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COA-Austria.jpg
 
Karakand said:
I'm gonna be in both. Hopefully ForzaItalia's ban is lifted in time for the tournament. I have high hopes for him and Manics tag teaming.
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the world cup thread was classic with people getting so worked up by Forza. he was owning bitches left and right
 
hadareud said:
Gerrard is there for the sake of his name
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Scored over 20 goals this season, same amount of goals in the league as Rooney and 4th most assists in the league (I can't find all comps)

Gerrard's had a good season but over shadowed by Torres. He didn't get into that team "on name only" but he shouldn't get in that side ahead of a defensive midfielder.

It would be like trying to play Lampard and Gerrard.

Shinobi said:
:lol Frauds...
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I think its BS, do you really think Manchester United can't sell out their tickets for a Champions League final? :lol

Chelsea well its possible they never sold out their allocation in the Carling Cup or Charity Shield and that's for a game in London.

Mama Smurf said:
A winger should have been the first position on the list, and once that's sorted if there's anything else left, fine, spend it where you like. Instead, he's going after a left back, a right back, an all round central midfielder, when Liverpool are already conceding the least shots on target by some distance and don't need to strengthen there as a priority.
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Well, a lot depends on what Rafa has been given. Silva won't be cheap he's a crown jewel at Valencia and will command a heavy price same with Rafinha and we can't afford either to be fair. As far as I know Pennant has been told he can go.

I'd rather put the money that's supposedly earmarked for a striker on a winger though but if Voronin is going as well as Crouch then it would make sense.

Also I know everyone thinks Gillett is mister nice guy, but from what I've heard he's the one hiding in the background instructing Parry to pull out of transfers or telling him to renegotiate for cheaper.

Also, :lol at Haze. IGN gave it a 4/10 the demo was awful.

Tom Chick said this.

Haze + You = out there in the cold
TomChick - News - 05/20/08

Okay, it's after midnight so the embargo is lifted on the review copies of Haze that went out last week.

I've played through the whole thing and as much as it pains me to say this -- I've loved most everything these developers have been doing, and I wish them all the success in the world -- Haze is utter and complete tripe. If I can prevent just one of you from throwing away money on this underdone turd of a shooter, I will be happy.

I'll have a full review online somewhere in about a week, but I care enough about you guys, and I know that enough of you guys are Timesplitters fans like me, that I just had to warn you, before it was too late. Heck, get Dark Sector, or that cool Viking game, or that cool time travel one whose name I can never remember. But trust me: this is not the shooter you're looking for.
 
SupahBlah said:
Well, a lot depends on what Rafa has been given. Silva won't be cheap he's a crown jewel at Valencia and will command a heavy price same with Rafinha and we can't afford either to be fair. As far as I know Pennant has been told he can go.

I'd rather put the money that's supposedly earmarked for a striker on a winger though but if Voronin is going as well as Crouch then it would make sense.
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If you sell Crouch, Pennant, Carson and Riise, put that with the money that's there anyway, and can't afford Rafinha and Silva...well, you're in serious trouble.
 
Karakand said:
I'm gonna be in both. Hopefully ForzaItalia's ban is lifted in time for the tournament. I have high hopes for him and Manics tag teaming.
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Just read through a bit of that thread during lunch - total trainwreck. Sad to see a bunch of American posters backing the USMNT during the WC but not making a peep in this thread. :(
 
Cornballer said:
Just read through a bit of that thread during lunch - total trainwreck. Sad to see a bunch of American posters backing the USMNT during the WC but not making a peep in this thread. :(
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Trust me you don't want Konex in here.
 
Are you happy to see lots of your players off at the Euros? I'm relieved Ooijer's the only one for Blackburn, I neither want them tired next season nor attracting the interest of bigger clubs.
 
When you look at Torres' goals this season, they've mostly been of his own making which is why he's done so well at Liverpool, it'd be scary to think that his goal tally could improve if he got better support from the wings same could be said about all our strikers for that matter.

*sigh*
 
as long as they don't freak out like schweinisteiger, lahm and co after the world cup 2006 everything is okay. even months later they couldn't focus themselves on the bundesliga because they were still so hyped.
 
Mama Smurf said:
Are you happy to see lots of your players off at the Euros? I'm relieved Ooijer's the only one for Blackburn, I neither want them tired next season nor attracting the interest of bigger clubs.
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If any of the teams they were playing for were my team, yes.

But I'm not Croatian, Swedish or Swiss so I'm not.
 
Mama Smurf said:
Are you happy to see lots of your players off at the Euros? I'm relieved Ooijer's the only one for Blackburn, I neither want them tired next season nor attracting the interest of bigger clubs.
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It means that your club has a quality squad. It's true that most clubs don't care at all about the Euro or even the World Club except for scouting purposes. It's just for the fans, something to boast about.
 
my wifi conection signal iiiiiiiiissssssssss foooooooooooooookiiiiiiiiiiing slooooooooooooooow.

I haven't been able to play Everybody's Golf online for a whole hour *cold turkey*

Anyone know any tricks to getting a good stable wifi connection? :'(
 
I dunno, it's pretty easy to judge the quality of your players and whether to boast or not, it's called club level competitions. I don't think anyone's looking at that list thinking that Rapid Wien or Hamburg or Panathinaikos are better than Liverpool, Juve, Milan, Roma, Fiorentina, Man Utd, Inter etc.
 
Kola said:
Another Werder supporter here?

Shouldn't Prödl be listed there too? I think his contract starts in June.
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I think it only matters which club you play for on 28 May when the official squads are registered with the UEFA. We'd lose Borowski and Klasnic if that wasn't the case so it might be better that way.
 
Mama Smurf said:
I dunno, it's pretty easy to judge the quality of your players and whether to boast or not, it's called club level competitions. I don't think anyone's looking at that list thinking that Rapid Wien or Hamburg or Panathinaikos are better than Liverpool, Juve, Milan, Roma, Fiorentina, Man Utd, Inter etc.
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Hamburg is the perfect example. If a fan brings them up and someone says he never heard of them he can always say "Do you remember v. der Vaart, Mathijsen (sp?) or de Jong from Euro 2008? They're all playing for Hamburg".

Maybe on of you players wins the tournament and you can always boast about that (like I'm going to do with Harnik) :D
 
Frenck said:
I think it only matters which club you play for on 28 May when the official squads are registered with the UEFA. We'd lose Borowski and Klasnic if that wasn't the case so it might be better that way.
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Yeah, that's probably true. But it's nice to see that we're actually sending off good players. I hope they are not too tired when the season starts.
 
Kola said:
Yeah, that's probably true. But it's nice to see that we're actually sending off good players. I hope they are not too tired when the season starts.
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I'm not worried at all, except maybe for serious injuries but these could also happen during vacations or pre-season. I'm also reliefed that Diego finally gets some rest. Poor little fella played the majority of two seasons for us with the Copa in between and he carried a (albeit minor) injury around with him most of the time.
 
Quakes trade in the works. Should be an announcement later today.
Centerline Soccer said:
Trade winds blowing
By Jeff Carlisle · May 20, 2008

Apparently the Quakes are set to do a deal with Western Conference team that will net them two players for the price of one. An announcement is expected some time this afternoon. The moment I hear more I’ll pass it along.
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Any guesses?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YbZ9xUF7sY8
 
btw, I had no idea that Henry had 27 goals at Barca this season and was second highest scorer. That isn't bad at all.
 
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