Soccer thread 08/09 (will have spoilers!)

RobVarak · Post by **RobVarak** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 11:36 pm

Macca00 wrote:
EDIT: And Rafa needs to have those retards practice corners even my indoor team does a better job.

This has been my absolute No. 1 beef with Rafa for years. Going back at least as far as the World Club Championship loss to Sao Paolo in '06. No excuse for a team to be so consistently poor at corners. None.

macsomjrr · Post by **macsomjrr** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 2:20 am

fsquid wrote:Klinnsman might not stay around for long after that.

Just saw that score. Ouch

davet010 · Post by **davet010** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 4:38 am

Just watched the highlights - apparently Werder were without 4 first teamers. Rensing had a bit of a shocker as well...

davet010 · Post by **davet010** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 12:13 pm

Someone call 999 - I've just witnessed a murder

RobVarak · Post by **RobVarak** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 10:24 am

Hello,

My name is Mafungu Motloboanoa. Most pleasant to make your friendship. My cousin and I would like to assist you in asking us for help with an important financial matter. We have 30mm pounds in a bank account in Nigieria that we would like to use to buy Newcastle United Football Club. In order to access this money, we will require a fee of $15,000.00. If you could please send money to us, we can pay you back at 10 times your investment....

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story ... al&cc=5901

Nigerian consortium shows interest in Newcastle

davet010 · Post by **davet010** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 10:30 am

Do yourselves a favour - catch the highlights of City v Portsmouth and watch the samba beat come to Manchester.

Apparently David James said in the week that he'd yet to see much of Robinho....bet you've seen enough now, fella

davet010 · Post by **davet010** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 8:07 am

Here we go Squid, living proof that comedy does exist in Germany..

The ideal concept of a club – where young players are developed, encouraged and brought into the first team once they are good enough – definitely no longer exists.

“Nowadays, you get a club like Manchester City buying Robinho off Real Madrid just like that.

The speaker ? A Mr M Ballack, of Chelsea.

======================================

A sprinkling of facts is always useful....

- Number of players to emerge from youth team to first team regular in the last 10 years..

MCFC 18 Chelsea 1 (the ever obnoxious Terry)

- Number of youth team players to play in full or u-21 internationals in the same time

MCFC 11 Chelsea 2

- Amount of transfers of £10m plus in the same period

MCFC 4 Chelsea 15 (I think)

Translation - "The Big 4 have enjoyed the power of bullying round the rest of the Premiership for years. It would be a disgrace if that were to change, even if that was done by clubs who not only have now acquired loads of money themselves, but also have a far better track record in developing their own players...like City and Aston Villa."

Oh, and a quick message to Arsene Wenger, who's been bleating again. It's a bit rich of you to go criticising City's new owners (basically "why are they there?") unless you would have us believe that Usmanov and Stan Kroenke were born in Islington and have been life-long Gooners..

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 9:13 am

RobVarak wrote:Hello,

My name is Mafungu Motloboanoa. Most pleasant to make your friendship. My cousin and I would like to assist you in asking us for help with an important financial matter. We have 30mm pounds in a bank account in Nigieria that we would like to use to buy Newcastle United Football Club. In order to access this money, we will require a fee of $15,000.00. If you could please send money to us, we can pay you back at 10 times your investment....

Ha-ha-ha! I'm laughing, but I'm also crying ...

Take care,
PK

davet010 · Post by **davet010** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 9:59 am

The consortium is real...they are just £50-100m short of the price that Ashley has instructed the investment bank to sell the club for. That does not really seem to bode well for having a lot of money for future investments.

They are also talking about getting Keegan back on board.

In other footy news, Sheff Utd have apparently been victorious in their tribunal claim again West Ham having illegally played Carlos Tevez against Premier League regulations. They won't be moved back to the Prem, but compensation figures of £30m have been mentioned...final details next year.

Macca00 · Post by **Macca00** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 1:31 pm

What I love about the Sheffield United saga is that those retards could have stayed up by just DRAWING AT HOME on the last day of the season against Wigan - that's all they needed to do, instead they f*** up blame everyone else. Funnily enough the one of the players who scored against them that day was a player THEY let go!

Macca
(huuuge fan of Sheffield United and the amazing talking excrement that is Neil Warnock - though he's now at Palace)

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 2:36 pm

Why are all these English clubs "United"? (or is it only English, are there Irish, Welsh, Scottish "United" clubs?)

Were there a number of other clubs in these cities and they were combined to form "United" clubs?

Maybe some of these clubs which aren't backed by Russian or Arab money should unite to challenge the top 4 clubs.

RobVarak · Post by **RobVarak** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 3:39 pm

wco81 wrote:
Were there a number of other clubs in these cities and they were combined to form "United" clubs?

Yep. Which makes "D.C. United" almost as stupid as "Real" Salt Lake.

davet010 · Post by **davet010** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 4:44 pm

wco81 wrote:Why are all these English clubs "United"? (or is it only English, are there Irish, Welsh, Scottish "United" clubs?)

Were there a number of other clubs in these cities and they were combined to form "United" clubs?

Maybe some of these clubs which aren't backed by Russian or Arab money should unite to challenge the top 4 clubs.

The clubs might unite, the fans never would...fans of neighbouring clubs hate each other more than anyone.

Some have been mooted recently - legendary corporate crook Robert Maxwell tried to merge Oxford and Reading to become Thames Valley Royals, fans went mental, called off (though Oxford are now out of the league, so I bet that they'd take it now). Also there was a plan to merge some of the smaller Greater manchester teams (Stockport, Bury and Rochdale) to become Manchester North End and play at City's old Maine Road ground once it was empty....fans found out about that one, once they traced the Director of Stockport County to a series of registered internet domain names.

fsquid · Post by **fsquid** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 11:31 pm

I'm more surprised that Ballack has learned English

macsomjrr · Post by **macsomjrr** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 2:03 am

RobVarak wrote:
wco81 wrote:
Were there a number of other clubs in these cities and they were combined to form "United" clubs?
Yep. Which makes "D.C. United" almost as stupid as "Real" Salt Lake.

It is pretty ridiculous. Obviously MLS were trying to appeal to the history of the game in Europe but it just adds to the comical reputation that the MLS has garnered over there. I always thought they should should just have called the teams "Los Angeles" and/or "New York" without any silly sounding mascot at the end which would've been far more effective. Each team could've had a badge designed for it representing the club and city. I guess that just isn't "American" enough though:)

davet010 · Post by **davet010** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 3:31 am

macsomjrr wrote:
RobVarak wrote:
wco81 wrote:
Were there a number of other clubs in these cities and they were combined to form "United" clubs?
Yep. Which makes "D.C. United" almost as stupid as "Real" Salt Lake.
It is pretty ridiculous. Obviously MLS were trying to appeal to the history of the game in Europe but it just adds to the comical reputation that the MLS has garnered over there. I always thought they should should just have called the teams "Los Angeles" and/or "New York" without any silly sounding mascot at the end which would've been far more effective. Each team could've had a badge designed for it representing the club and city. I guess that just isn't "American" enough though:)

Well, our rugby teams over here (both RU and RL), and cricket teams went the opposite direction, tacking stupid meaningless nicknames onto the end of the town or city. I mean,

Sale Sharks (well, there's Sale Water Park near by, but I've not seen any Great Whites in there)

Keighley Cougars (obviously some hidden mountains near this W Yorkshire mill town)

Leeds Rhinos (well, Leeds is a dump, but I wasn't expecting African wildlife).

Pointless - and laughable if it wasn't so sad.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 12:11 pm

Funny fan-submitted photos about Newcastle fiasco:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/gall ... =337933464

My favorite is Wise and Ashley dressed as Tattoo and Mr. Roarke from "Fantasy Island."

Take care,
PK

MACTEPsporta · Post by **MACTEPsporta** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 4:33 pm

RobVarak wrote:Hello,

My name is Mafungu Motloboanoa. Most pleasant to make your friendship. My cousin and I would like to assist you in asking us for help with an important financial matter. We have 30mm pounds in a bank account in Nigieria that we would like to use to buy Newcastle United Football Club. In order to access this money, we will require a fee of $15,000.00. If you could please send money to us, we can pay you back at 10 times your investment....

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story ... al&cc=5901

Nigerian consortium shows interest in Newcastle

LMAO. Love it, I see faxes like this at work on daily bases.

10spro · Post by **10spro** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 7:02 pm

Z. Zola must be wondering why the hell he took the job at West Ham. In lieu of the mess surrounding the transfer of Carlitos Tevez, now C. Cole is arrested for driving under the influence.

davet010 · Post by **davet010** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 3:26 am

Carlton Cole's always been a waster. Zola's possibly got more of a problem with Dean Ashton being injured again and out for a month.

I still think he'll do a good job at West Ham...but he'll have limited funds to play with, and there is always the suspicion that the fact that he played for Chelsea will mean that he does not have the grassroots support if things go a bit wrong.

MACTEPsporta · Post by **MACTEPsporta** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 5:40 pm

Huntelaar has scored his 100th goal for Ajax. It took him only 126 matches to get there. Pretty impressive. If it was any other league it would have been viewed as a major achievement, in Holland he will be lucky to get a pat on the back and a coffee mug.

davet010 · Post by **davet010** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 5:43 pm

He's no doubt studying English as we speak

MACTEPsporta · Post by **MACTEPsporta** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 5:44 pm

davet010 wrote:He's no doubt studying English as we speak

He is Dutch.

RobVarak · Post by **RobVarak** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 5:53 pm

MACTEPsporta wrote:Huntelaar has scored his 100th goal for Ajax. It took him only 126 matches to get there. Pretty impressive. If it was any other league it would have been viewed as a major achievement, in Holland he will be lucky to get a pat on the back and a coffee mug.

Running that through the Dirk Kuyt regulatory equation yields 32 goals in a real league

MACTEPsporta · Post by **MACTEPsporta** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 6:02 pm

RobVarak wrote:
MACTEPsporta wrote:Huntelaar has scored his 100th goal for Ajax. It took him only 126 matches to get there. Pretty impressive. If it was any other league it would have been viewed as a major achievement, in Holland he will be lucky to get a pat on the back and a coffee mug.
Running that through the Dirk Kuyt regulatory equation yields 32 goals in a real league

28, actually. Kuyt's words after coming over to Liverpool are now famous.

-- You mean defenders will actually try to stop me from scoring? Why? And who the f*** is that dude doing in goal? Goalkeeper? Who the f*** is that?