Official Football Thread

Albie said:
Oh the controversy at Old Trafford last night. Gomes, from the first time you learn to kick a ball you follow the simple unwritten rule - PLAY TO THE F'ING WHISTLE. It's as simple as that. The Spurs 'keeper was at fault for that, not Nani. Nani perhaps should have been a little bit more sporting, but that's football these days.
Click to expand...

Nani and sportsmanship are not the best of friends. He has annoyed me and other United fans with his antics several times. But this one is not really that bad from him. However, the mistakes were abundant in this situation.

First: Should Nani perhaps have had a penalty? If I take of my red glasses I'm inclined to say no.
Second: Nani grabs the ball (probably because he thinks he will get a penalty). An obvious free kick, of course, and Gomes must have thought so.
Third: Poor communication between linesman and Clattenburg. The referee probably never saw that Nani handballed.
Fourth: Poor communication between Gomes and Clattenburg. It's evident that Gomes believed that he had got a free kick for the handball.

Gomes did the worst mistake, by not playing until hearing the whistle.

Anyway (surprise surprise): I'd like to focus on Nemanja Vidic's fine 1-0 goal  :D For those who give any significance to the change in name from First Division to Premier League - that goal was the 1000th goal by Man Utd at home since the start of the 1992-1993 season.
 
After the controversy on Saturday, I guess both United fans and Spurs fans were happy last night. At least those who were in my local pub were ...  in fact, the Spurs fans were more than happy, they were ecstatic. With good reason, since they really got their revenge for the humiliation at the Guiseppe Meazza.

Advancement to the next round is pretty much wrapped up for United now. Draws against Rangers and Valencia in the last two games will be sufficient to secure 1st in the group. I am curious as to whether Rangers will try to attack United more at Ibrox than they did at Old Trafford, where they parked the bus.
 
All I can say is well done Spurs. I do hope they progress to the last 16.
 
AC Milan vs Real Madrid turned out to be a very entertaining affair. Both teams showed lots of attacking desire, RM the most, and both the RM goals came after some quality passes through Milan's defense. And I guess no one is surprised to find Filippo Inzaghi the man behind both Milan's goals ... he now holds the record for goals scored in European club tournaments, with 70.  (If one looks at the UEFA Champions League alone, Raúl still holds the record). The match was one of high pace and a lot of temperament from both sides. Howard Webb did well to handle some situations.

On a side note: It annoys me to see that C. Ronaldo has returned to some of the bad habits I thought Sir Alex had been able to pick off him. I'm thinking of a duel where he gets elbowed in the upper chest (or possibly throat), but theatrically clutches his face as if his nose was broken ... Why do such great players have to behave so stupidly?
 
National Acrobat: It seems QPR will bring in a Norseman in the next transfer window. Petter Vaagan Moen, who scored 14 for SK Brann this season, is more or less ready for contract negotiations. I think he has potential to do well in the Championship, and I'm curious as to whether he will manage to break into the first XI on a regular basis if you actually are promoted to the Premiership.
 
Eddies Wingman said:
National Acrobat: It seems QPR will bring in a Norseman in the next transfer window. Petter Vaagan Moen, who scored 14 for SK Brann this season, is more or less ready for contract negotiations. I think he has potential to do well in the Championship, and I'm curious as to whether he will manage to break into the first XI on a regular basis if you actually are promoted to the Premiership.
Click to expand...

I did read something about a Norwegian who had been linked with us recently. Is he a left winger? Sounds like he'd weigh in with a few goals which would be good as we don't have an out-and-out goalscorer. Promotion is a hell of a way off yet, but we did maintain our unbeaten start last night away at Portsmouth.

Incidentally, there was an article in the latest edition of the QPR fanzine about the Norwegian QPR fan club (about 20 men strong it seems ;)) becuase they were over for last weekend's match - although I'm sure I've seen some quite regularly, because they have a fantastic custom-made shirt with the Norwegian flag on the sleeves which I've noticed. There are some great photos in the magazine from a summer tournament in Oslo featuring supported British clubs - looked a lot of fun.
 
Left winger all right. I'm a bit surprised he has stayed in Norway for so long.

And for the Norwegian QPR fan club - almost every club that has been in the English top flight at some time since 1969 (when they started airing British football on TV over here) has at least a few fans. All the fan clubs are organized under an umbrella organization called "The Supporter Union for British Football", and I think they are the ones who organize this supporter tournament in Oslo.

On a side note: It's not often that the Manchester derby sees so few scoring chances, and so few bookings. (There were two yellow cards, to the only two players on the pitch who are born in Greater Manchester!) Both teams were quite disciplined and did few mistakes at the back - but took few chances forwards as well.
 
Run-in of Norwegian football season

Both the Norwegian Premier League (Tippeligaen) and Norwegian Div. 1finished last Sunday. Rosenborg BK became champions for the 22nd time, and for the first time in the club's history they went unbeaten in the league. However, it is in division 1 the really interesting stuff goes on.

First off: This year's winners, Sogndal IL, come from a place with only a little more than 6000 inhabitants. Still their team has been in the top division many times the last 30 years, and now they're back once more. Since there are two direct promotion spots, any Norwegian would pay extra attention, as the two teams fighting for 2nd place were Fredrikstad FK (yes, my local club) and Sarpsborg 08, which represents our neighbour city. In a relegation/promotion play-off last year, that particular team sent us down, but lost against another team to lose promotion. This year they snubbed us of direct promotion ...  :censored:

This leaves us in the play-off, which is played the following way:

Number 14 in the premier division play one match at home against number 5 in Division 1. (Last year, we were 14 in the premier division, Sarpsborg 08 were 5th in Div 1)
Number 3 in Div 1 (Fredrikstad FK this season) play one match at home against number 4 in Div. 1.

Then the winners of these two matches play each other in a two-legged tie for one spot in the 2011 Norwegian Premier League.

Tonight, the first hurdle was passed by Fredrikstad FK - we beat Løv-Ham 2-0 at home and will play a two-legged tie against either Hønefoss BK or Ranheim IL.

Now to the match everyone looks forward to: The 2010 Norwegian Cup Final. This year's finalists are Strømsgodset FK, from Drammen, with one league title and four cup titles, and Follo, who have never played in the top flight in Norway. The funny thing is that Follo have got to the final after beating no lesser opposition than Rosenborg BK in the semi-final! This season, Follo played in Division 1, and they actually managed to climb out of the relegation zone on the last matchday. Still, they will be going down to Division 2 next season, as their professional club license was withdrawn for failing to comply with the economy regulations of the Norwegian Football Association.

This means that for the first time, we will have a team playing in the Cup Final while at the same time being ready for next years 2nd Division ...
 
Damn my Galatasaray sucking this season. We're at the tenth place in our league. We just fired Frank Rijkaard, our new manager is Gheorghe Hagi now. Milan Baros is injured, Elano is unhappy, Zvjezdan Misimovic is out of discipline and concentration. Our central midfielder positions sucks, we're playing with three douches (Mustafa Sarp, Ayhan Akman, Barış Özbek). Harry Kewell and Lucas Neill works hard but that's not enough.

I hope we will be good we have a lot of youngsters but we don't use them sadly.
 
maidenhead1996 said:
Damn my Galatasaray sucking this season. We're at the tenth place in our league. We just fired Frank Rijkaard, our new manager is Gheorghe Hagi now. Milan Baros is injured, Elano is unhappy, Zvjezdan Misimovic is out of discipline and concentration. Our central midfielder positions sucks, we're playing with three douches (Mustafa Sarp, Ayhan Akman, Barış Özbek). Harry Kewell and Lucas Neill works hard but that's not enough.

I hope we will be good we have a lot of youngsters but we don't use them sadly.
Click to expand...

I don't think you can have that many players who are probably just playing for a big pay-day as their careers wind down.
 
national acrobat said:
I don't think you can have that many players who are probably just playing for a big pay-day as their careers wind down.
Click to expand...

We have. Actually Milan Baros, Harry Kewell and Lucas Neill are the best performers in the squad, I think they're much more Galatasaray fans than the Turkish players in the team. We (fans) love these three really much, because they play with heart.

I can't say same thing for Elano unfortunately.
 
The big story from yesterday was actually that Dundee United grabbed a late equalizer away to Celtic. :)

And that my fantasy Premiear League team scored a lot of points yesterday.
 
This isn't worth much since we didn't win the World Cup, but still:

Dutch football squad best in the world, statistically

The Dutch national football team had the best statistical record in 2010, news agency ANP reports on Thursday.

Oranje won 15 of 17 matches and lost just one – the World Cup final. The Netherlands is currently second in the Fifa world rankings.

Top ranked Spain won 13 out of 17 matches and lost three.
 
Hønefoss BK - Fredrikstad FK 1-4

I'm a very optimistic man tonight. Today, the first leg of the play-off finals for the last spot in the 2011 Norwegian Premier Division was played at Hønefoss, and what a pleasant surprise it was. A free kick after five minutes gave us the lead, then we scored on two breakaways to make it 0-3 before 18 minutes had passed. The rest of the match saw Hønefoss trying desperately to put us under pressure, only partially succeeding - and their one goal was countered by another breakaway goal for us in the 2nd half.

In addition, the home fans were outnumbered - out of the approximately 2900 who showed up, about 1500 came from Fredrikstad. Now I expect a sold-out Fredrikstad Stadium (12 800 capacity) for the return leg on Thursday ... and we really, really have to fuck up now to lose promotion!

It also didn't hurt that Man Utd won yesterday while both Chelsea and Arsenal lost their matches. Great weekend for football!  :D
 
Olympiakos - PAOK 3-0


Another crushing victory for the reds with Mirallas being on fire again(scored 2 amazing goals).This player MUST be bought NOW!!!Dennis Rommedahl scored the 3rd one and the team lost many chances for an even greater victory.
 
Eddies Wingman said:
Great weekend for football!  :D
Click to expand...

Hm hm.  :S

  1. PSV          15 10  4  1  34  43-12
  2. FC Twente    15  9  4  2  31  27-13
  3. FC Groningen 15  9  3  3  30  29-20
  4. Ajax        15  8  4  3  28  33-16
  5. AZ          15  8  4  3  28  21-14
  6. ADO Den Haag 15  7  4  4  25  27-24
  7. Roda JC      14  6  6  2  24  24-19
  8. Heerenveen  15  6  5  4  23  27-20
  9. FC Utrecht  14  7  1  6  22  25-19
10. NEC          15  5  4  6  19  25-27
11. NAC Breda  15  6  2  7  19  18-23
12. Graafschap  14  4  4  6  16  19-30
13. Vitesse      15  4  4  7  16  18-26
14. Heracles Al. 15  4  3  8  15  24-26
15. Excelsior    15  4  2  9  14  18-29
16. Feyenoord    15  3  4  8  13  19-31
17. VVV-Venlo    15  3  0 12  9  15-32
18. Willem II    14  0  2 12  2  12-43
 
So, the host nation for the 2018 World Cup is going to be announced on the 2nd December. Two questions:

If you could try to second guess where the vote is going to go, where do you think it will be?

And, where would you like it to be held (obviously, only from the countries that have a bid)?

Source:
  • ENGLAND BID
    Good points: Transport, stadia, IT, security, marketing, legacy
    Bad points: Too few venue-specific training sites or venue-specific team hotels, too few training base camp hotels
  • SPAIN/PORTUGAL BID
    Good points: Stadia, transport, hotels, legacy
    Bad points: Lack of clear security plan, co-hosting "a challenge"
  • RUSSIA BID
    Good points: 13 planned new stadia, hotels, legacy
    Bad points: Huge transport challenge and major building programme needed
  • NETHERLANDS/BELGIUM BID
    Good points: Stadia, legacy
    Bad points: Too few hotel rooms, co-hosting "a challenge", lack of government guarantees

Personally, I think it is now likely to be between Spain/Portugal and England. I can't guess where the vote will go, but if you asked a few months ago, I would have said Russia.

Of course, I would want it to be in England - goes without saying really.
 
There's one more problem for Russia: The paper mill for every travelling fan. A World Cup attracts more people than any other football tournament, and the visa requirement is quite strict in Russia. You have to document that you have a reason to get the visa - typically in the form of an invitation. Sure, hotels issue those on a routine basis - but the embassies and consulates are going to be busy as hell issuing the actual visas.

Personally, I'd hope for England. It's the country it would be easiest for me to visit. Netherlands/Belgium is also fairly easy, several Norwegian airports have direct flights to Amsterdam and the Dutch&Belgians speak English well.

Albie - which stadia do England plan on using? Some are quite obvious because of their capacity (Wembley, Old Trafford, Emirates, St. James's Park), but which others? Villa Park, Anfield, Stamford Bridge, COMS?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top