football: the beautiful game

[swisloc]

well, the bigger clubs have got chairmen and shareholders and need to be at the forefront of everything.

well that's it right there, then. in the states, the LEAGUES are publicly traded, but not the clubs. big difference.

[Tisswat]

The nice thing about the French league is that there is no "traditional" top three (...)

That's what I was saying.

[superdupersang]

on a slightly different tangent, a clip from the BBC

hDkUr4p3ctY

[RobbertJan]

FUCK VALENCIA,

2 ugly counters and only 30% possesion but beating barca 2-1, fucking ref. was on valencia's side:S ronni got tackled like 5 times near the box but only got a free kick once and i hope albelda dies a painful and slow death, whole match all he did was kick at barca players and gave deco the red card ...

on a more positive note, ajax drawing against excelsior haha while psv won and az drawed as well, so things looking up again for psv.

hsv with a brilliant raffa vd. vaart defeating bayers 2-0, great result, and the vd. vaart move taking the ball with his heel past 2 stupefied defenders and nearly scoring it, pure genius.

also saw a fantastic fa cup match, preston north end vs. man. city, great match, brilliant ambiance in the stadium and a very fast paced match, not very good, but real english sunday afternoon soccer, love it.

but to close this weekend: FUCK VALENCIA

[superdupersang]

predictions for lille vs manu utd?

im saying 1-3 to united.

come on the reds!!

[Superstar]

Nah, 0-2 will be okay for the reds..

Rooney and Ronaldo..

[Tisswat]

on a more positive note, ajax drawing against excelsior haha while psv won and az drawed as well, so things looking up again for psv.

I was under the impression that there were no worries there for a second

[deedotceedot]

PSV over Arsenal!

[polishmike]

DJ Flame, I'm also a fanatic LFC supporter. I'm not going to get any sleep tonight and to make it worse my mates have an extra ticket in the home section for tomorrow. Unfortunately I have work arrangements that won't let me leave nyc tomorrow so if you live close to an airport and want to see the game shoot me a PM.

I don't think we'll see Mascherano tomorrow (maybe on the bench). I would like to see Gerrard on the right with Alonso and Momo in the middle. I hope Bellamy plays after the crazy shit he just pulled in Portugal.

[superdupersang]

did anyone see lille man u?

a dissallowed goal

a contreversial goal

lille players abadoning the match with 7 minutes ot go

missiles thrown on the pitch

hee hee at least we won

[polishmike]

As much as I hate Man Urine, Giggs' goal was good (but it's a stupid rule). I think the Lille goal should stand.

[superdupersang]

http://football.guardian.co.uk/championsleague200607/story/0,,2018011,00.html

that is not good

[RobbertJan]

haha yeah good luck to you liverpool fans, you'll need all the luck in the world to prevent barca from scoring more then 3 goals. a 3-nothing victory for barca i predict. ronni, saviola and messi against those 4 planks of wood in l'pools defence, that's not even a challenge:p

oh and great job by psv(H)

[mis]

Gomez was brilliant for PSV(hes abit inconsistent though?)

[RobbertJan]

he used to be,

i now consider him to be the best goalkeeper in the world along with cech

[ordo]

did anyone see lille man u?

a dissallowed goal

a contreversial goal

lille players abadoning the match with 7 minutes ot go

missiles thrown on the pitch

hee hee at least we won

Glory Glory Man United!

[Superstar]

^

and tear gas used against the united supporters..

[swisloc]

oooh shit... where's the barca bandwagon now??? where's your boy ronaldinho when you need him?

[polishmike]

haha yeah good luck to you liverpool fans, you'll need all the luck in the world to prevent barca from scoring more then 3 goals. a 3-nothing victory for barca i predict. ronni, saviola and messi against those 4 planks of wood in l'pools defence, that's not even a challenge:p

oh and great job by psv(H)

Looks like your football smarts were off. Barca are a team of diving cunts and if the ref would know that football is a men's game this would be an entertaining match. Now lets see the second leg at Anfield, Barca will need all the luck they can get.

Lets go Reds! YNWA!!!

[swisloc]

Looks like your football smarts were off. Barca are a team of diving cunts and if the ref would know that football is a men's game this would be an entertaining match. Now lets see the second leg at Anfield, Barca will need all the luck they can get.

Lets go Reds! YNWA!!!

hell yeah! i've been saying it since the begining of this thread. BARCA IS OVERATED! great individual play wins you nothing!

glad to see LFC show barca how to play with heart.

[aitsuka]

can't believe barca lost....game was rigged, fuck.

[polishmike]

can't believe barca lost....game was rigged, fuck.

Yes, it was. The ref whistled every contact as a foul and Barca still couldn't win.

[Chs_soccerGoalie]

ok, i am looking for a good pair of soccer gloves, i found some adidas fingersavers, around the world glovs, i think they might be good. i have looked the stats up, the reviews are all good on them. but has anybody ever had a pair of these glvoes. and also if their are any goalies looking at this, what is the best pair of goves that you have used?

[RobbertJan]

hell yeah! i've been saying it since the begining of this thread. BARCA IS OVERATED! great individual play wins you nothing!

glad to see LFC show barca how to play with heart.

ok then explain the primera division wins and champions league last year....

liverpool are a bunch of fucking fighters who have 0 technique, they play the perfect form of anti-football. all they did whole match was kick barcelona players and try to injure every barca player cause they were to fast and to good to play football against. they won by two personal mistakes by barca defenders, and that's pure luck. barca was the better team, though absolutely not in a good period, but still. rijkaard made some stupid tactical errors to like letting motta play and later putting andres iniesta in front of the defence in stead of behind the strikers, and eto'o wasn't there, messi has no rhytm. next match that will all be different. and again liverpool, it hurts the eyes to look at those players, bellamy,pennant and gerrard excluded. all the other players can't even control a ball normally, especially sissoko, how did he get to be a professional players....... it's all fysical strength and a lot of fouls. but hey, that's a strategy as well, but know one can possibly enjoy watching a bunch of buzz headed fighters that don't have any form of technique over a barca, where all players have extraordinary skills and creativity.

so i hope next match eto'o will be back and when messi and ronni are on form, there's no stopping barca. and liverpool only scored because of personal mistakes, that's 100% luck, they couldn't create even 1 chance with playing football.

oh and deco's freekick should've gone in, woow what a great one that was.

other matches, queresma was genius with porto:) and all other teams a bit dissapointing, no one really played great.

[swisloc]

ok then explain the primera division wins and champions league last year....

Eto'o. he's an ass, but also an ASSASSIN.

liverpool are a bunch of fucking fighters who have 0 technique, they play the perfect form of anti-football. all they did whole match was kick barcelona players and try to injure every barca player cause they were to fast and to good to play football against. they won by two personal mistakes by barca defenders, and that's pure luck. barca was the better team, though absolutely not in a good period, but still. rijkaard made some stupid tactical errors to like letting motta play and later putting andres iniesta in front of the defence in stead of behind the strikers, and eto'o wasn't there, messi has no rhytm. next match that will all be different. and again liverpool, it hurts the eyes to look at those players, bellamy,pennant and gerrard excluded. all the other players can't even control a ball normally, especially sissoko, how did he get to be a professional players....... it's all fysical strength and a lot of fouls. but hey, that's a strategy as well, but know one can possibly enjoy watching a bunch of buzz headed fighters that don't have any form of technique over a barca, where all players have extraordinary skills and creativity.

this is totally off base, and only sounds like someone whining cause their team lost. you DON'T get points for creativity, liverpool WON THE GAME, period. in the 85th minute ronaldihno is still trying to dribble circles around people like he's got all the time in the world. this is not competitive killer instinct, and for my money not something that would be done by "the best player in the world", perhaps the most skilled, but not the best.

so i hope next match eto'o will be back and when messi and ronni are on form, there's no stopping barca. and liverpool only scored because of personal mistakes, that's 100% luck, they couldn't create even 1 chance with playing football.

they won the game, it doesn't matter how. no excuses, barca played like crap in the second half, and no they didn't deserve to win. and "playing football" is every part of the game, not just how many passes you can string together, but also how you tackle, how you defend, how you control midfield play...liverpool BEAT barca at these things in the 2nd half.

oh and deco's freekick should've gone in, woow what a great one that was.

but it didn't go in.

[polishmike]

Sissoko might not be a great passer but took Xavi and Motta out of this game. He is a box to box player who is there to disrupt the opposition's midfield. Alonso and Gerrard are the creators, Momo is a destroyer. I don't know if you saw the game but Sissoko got carried off after being fouled by Ronaldinho. So I guess he was too fast and too good for him that he had to injure him?

It's funny when you say that personal mistakes are just pure luck. That way Barca goal was alo pure luck, because Liverpool defenders made personal mistakes.

Barca was a better team most of the first half and the end of the second. So what? They can't put the ball in the net and that's what counts. The team is not made out of individual plays. Barca's defense was pathetic at times. They can't clear the ball and some players just don't play defense at all. During the first Liverpool goal you can see Ronaldinho just standing in the middle of the field minding his own business.

I can't wait for them to come to Anfield. In the league Liverpool lost only 3 goals at home this season and it will be a very hard game for Barca. Let's hope that the referee will allow contact this time and not stop every other play because players were breathing on each other.

[polishmike]

he used to be,

i now consider him to be the best goalkeeper in the world along with cech

You must be a fan boy cause I can name at least 5 goalkeepers (excluding Cech) that are better than Gomes.

[swisloc]

^^polish mike, absolutely. repped you for that. how come so many football fans think you should get points for playing with "more style" and think good defense is merely optional?

example for all, take it or leave it: Zidane was never at any point in his career the most skilled player in the world. not even the most skilled passer or dribbler. but he was the best because he played every game more competitvely on defense AND offense than anyone else and took the game in his hands at crunch time and did whatever needed to be done (which isn't always dribbling around people).

great point on Sissoko too.

[RobbertJan]

ronaldinho doesn't defend because he's that good, he's useless at defending anyway and this way he can use all his energy to create something and decide a match.

all this discussion i think is because of a different view on the game, i love skilled players and i enjoy soccer when players have amazing control of the ball, for me that's the beauty of it. that's no doubt because i'm dutch, this stuff is in our blood, this is just the way we think about soccer. i think skill and technique are the things soccer is all about. i don't care about fysical strength or whatever, because anyone can do that, if you put a bunch of strong men in a team and teach them how to mark, you have a defence. it's a sad trend these days that many teams only try to not concede a goal. this is easy. but for a team to be able to dominate a match for most of the 90 minutes, that's where the true challenge lies. i love barca because they were the first team after ajax in '95 who won the champions league with truely genius technical ability and creativity. real came close the years they won, but not as good as ajax back then and barca last year.

there's just different ways of playing soccer, i think if you look back, the liverpool way is the most effective way no doubt. look at us in holland, in '74 and '78 we were the best team in the world, by a long stretch, but we didn't win the world cup, because of our own arrogance.

i don't care about the result, i love this way of playing soccer and for me that's the thing that i enjoy about soccer.

( i do know btw that in holland i support psv, but that's because i was born in that region, they do play ugly:P)

this is what soccer is all about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-bWsOK-h98

[polishmike]

ronaldinho doesn't defend because he's that good, he's useless at defending anyway and this way he can use all his energy to create something and decide a match.

That's as stupid statement as they get. If you can't mark a player or stand in the wall there is something wrong with you. Every player has to defend and attack, some do more of the first and some more of the second.

You're a PSV fan so you should still remember two of the most boring games in the group stage between Liverpool and PSV. Both times your team parked the bus in front of the goal and played only on counter attack. That's the most unattractive football there is but that was their only chance to hold off Liverpool. I'm sure it's not how they play against Excelsior where they can score for fun but the strategy has to change depending on who you're playing.

i don't care about the result, i love this way of playing soccer and for me that's the thing that i enjoy about soccer.

This says it all. I'm a supporter, you're watching it only for fun. Some people watch NBA for the same reason, just to see the dunks and not for the final score.

this is what soccer is all about:

For me it's all for this: