Official Football Thread

Albie said:
OK, so you are unhappy with the feigning of injuries, the shirt pulling, and so on, in the mens game. Well, you're watching the wrong sport if you don't want that (either that or you're too mixed up with la Liga and Seria A). ;)
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I never said I was unhappy, or that women's football was better either. I simply said it was less physical and more open. I'm Mexican, how can I NOT like football? We have the strongest club in the America's After Brazil and Argentina, so we keep a close watch on our teams :D.
 
Albie said:
Off topic: How was the Rhodes trip? I've been there before and enjoyed it. Nice place Greece (for a tourist).
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Really nice, thanks! A bit too crowded (very touristic!) at times but we took 2 full weeks to explore the whole island.

Rhodes-city has magnificent city walls, towers and I believe nine city gates. Sometimes it really felt how it must have been for the Knights of Rhodes (Knights Hospitaller), awaiting the Ottomans. Made a long walk around the old center between the outer old Byzantine wall and the newer 20 meter high 15th/16th century wall built by the knights. The history of Rhodes is very interesting. Also the organization of the knights. The holdings were organized into eight tongues (one each in Aragon, Auvergne, Castile, England, France, Germany, Italy, and Provence).

Other highlights: The three ancient cities Lindos, Ialissos (at Filerimos) & Kamiros. The castleruins of Monolithos, on a rock where the knights must have commanded an excellent view.

The churches & monasteries (one of them being Tsambika, which could be reached after climbing stairs of 300 steps!), but also the calmer "real" Greek villags of which we haven't seen many. Only Embonas (great restaurant!), Archangelos and one other which slips my mind now.

Also there was time for relaxing. E.g. at Anthony Quinn Bay (Quinn bought it because he loved it when he visited Rhodes for the epic The Guns of Navarone. Also we made two boattrips. One to Marmaris (Turkey) which was a bit of a let down. Well, at least I can say I have been in Asia. ;) The other, to the island Simi, was much more interesting.

Hope to post some pictures soon!
 
Sunday, 30 October. Germany is again crowned F.I.F.A. Women's World Cup champions for the 2nd time after beating Brazil 2-0 in the Final in Shanghai, China. Birgit Prinz scored for the defending champions in the 52nd minute while Simone Laudehr added another in the 86th minute. During the trophy presentation several players were awarded; the Golden Ball goes to Marta (Brazil), Birgit Prinz (Germany) and Cristiane (Brazil), the Golden Shoe goes again to Marta, Abby Wambach (U.S.A.) and Ragnhild Gulbrandsen (Norway).  And last, but not least, Norway, which finished 4th in the tournament, wins the F.I.F.A. Fair Play Award.
 

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Always wanted to post here, never got round to it. Anyway I'm an Arsenal fan (Since 2001, started following them because Dennis Bergkamp was playing for them  :yey:). I mainly watch the EPL, I personally find La Liga and Serie A to be quite boring.
 
Now for some football news from Norway. After all teams have completed 23 matches, it is _almost_ clear that SK Brann (from Bergen) are going to be league champions, for the first time since 1963. Yesterday, they beat Lyn (from Oslo) 3-1 at home and are 9 points clear of second place. It is interesting to notice:

- When Brann won the league in 1963, they lost 0-6 to Lyn at home, and beat them 3-1 away.
- This season's first meeting between the two teams ended 6-0, to Lyn ... and now Brann won 3-1.

The people in Bergen are already celebrating, but it is expected that next weekend will see the greatest party in the city for decades - they are playing Aalesunds FK away in Saturday evening and I have read that the match will be shown on big screens in the main square in Bergen ... with one point in that match, Brann will officially be champions.


For my own favourite team, Fredrikstad FK, I can do nothing but realize that we will end up somewhere in the middle. We are out of the race for medals and are way clear of relegation. Unfortunately, the players seem to be well aware of that, so there have been some poor performances lately (among these a 0-4 defeat at home against Brann). Still, we were able to beat the only Norwegian team in the Champions League by 4-3 (which should really have been 4-1, Rosenborg's second goal was a very cheap penalty kick and their third goal should have been disallowed for dangerous play by a Rosenborg striker, he hit one of our players in the face when doing an overhead kick, at least 150 cm above the ground).

Now, we have three games against weaker-positioned teams. The first is at home against Sandefjord who are already relegated ...
 
My alma mater, Stanford, beat the USC Trojans on their home field!!  Some are calling it one of the biggest upsets in college football (American-style) history, which I find a bit insulting as we weren't THAT bad.  Still, I got to take my 3-year-old son to the game (his first) and he got to see me jumping around and acting like a 3-year-old myself when we won. 

Now, back to the form of football for which this thread was truly intended...
 
Forostar said:
Next week, Hiddink will sign with Russia until 2010. So he won't be with Chelsea the next couple years.
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Russia, who have got approval from UEFA to play the qualifier against England on artificial grass. PLASTIC! Ouch.

In Norway, several top flight teams have replaced their green, beautiful grass with this pestilence which is artificial grass. I realize this is a neccessity up north where the climate is really bad for growing a good grass field, not to say maintaining it until medio November. An example:

http://www.tromsoby.no/article.php/sport/20050916113519914.html

This is from a game between Tromsø and Galatasaray in the UEFA cup in 2005 - and as early as September.

But what I don't understand is why several teams in southern Norway have chosen this kind of playing surface.  The climate along the coast south of Trondheim can be compared to the one in Scotland, just a little colder. Still, two top flight teams have chosen artificial grass. I don't understand it, because it is inferior to real grass in most respects as long as the weather is not too extreme.
 
A 2-0 win for Norway against Bosnia-Herzegovina in Sarajevo and the Greeks beat Turkey 1-0 in Istanbul.  Everything went our way this evening. Was about time ...

Let's see what has gone against Norway so far:

- A totally wrong offside call in Athens, denying us 1-1
- Against Turkey, our 2-0 lead was given away by two goalie bloopers where the last one must be the biggest Thomas Myhre has done in his entire career
- Greece with big luck to beat Malta 2-1
- Turkey's win against Hungary, where Hungary got a player sent off with two yellow cards, the latter being for diving. He was nearly assaulted by the Turkish goalkeeper and it should have been a penalty for Hungary ... and the score was 0-0 when it happened.
- For some reason we managed to score only two goals against Greece at home, the 2-2 draw ya know

Well, now everything is finally in our own feet. With a draw or a win against Turkey at home, and a win against Malta, we are there. (If we beat Turkey, we are already ready for Austria and Switzerland  B) )

I also saw the game between Russia and England tonight. Seriously, the ref must have good fantasy to give that penalty, or a rather poor eyesight. Or maybe he had tasted some local specialities before the match? Anyway, England were poor after half time and deserved to lose. Now I guess all the English will be partly "yids" for a couple of hours in November ...
 
Well, at least, now the English tabloids will shut up about Hiddink, not able to win from an English side.
They celebrated to early! ;)

The Scotts f**ked up vs Georgia.  :S
 
Sunday, 25th February. It's Chelsea's day when it won the League or Carling Cup for the 4th time after beating Arsenal 2-1 in the Final held in Cardiff, Wales. That match saw Arsenal down to 9-men after Kolo Touré and Emmanuel Adebayor were sent off for violent conduct with Frank Lampard while the defending English champions had John Obi Mikel sent off for violent conduct, this time with Cesc Fàbregas. John Terry was injured while butting the ball after Abou Diaby accidentally kicked his mouth, knocking him cold.
On Saturday, 19th May, Chelsea also won another trophy, this time the F.A. Cup, for the 4th time after beating the new English champions Manchester United at the new Wembley Stadium thanks to Didier Drogba's only goal in the 116th minute and finally can Chelsea defend both titles next year? We'll have to wait and see.

I am sorry to repost this because there are technical problems while attaching pictures.

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thousand_suns said:
I am sorry to repost this because there are technical problems while attaching pictures.
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Nope. That won't help you this time.

If the mods issue two warning PMs and a two-week ban, they are not kidding. Goodbye.
 
Eddies Wingman said:
Now I guess all the English will be partly "yids" for a couple of hours in November ...
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I've already got my Israel shirt ready. ;)

It is now out of our hands, and that is a little worrying.
 
It looks like it could be the first major competiton England don't qualify for in a while as Russia have a good chance of beating Israel and Andorra.Considering the group we have we really should have been top of the table by a few points by now.On the positive side another british country Scotland are doing suprisingly well considering that they have the two world cup finalists in their group but I don't think they will qualify but if they get an easier group for the next world cup qualification we could see them in the 2010 world cup.
 
SD93 said:
It looks like it could be the first major competiton England don't qualify for in a while...
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First time no European Championships since 1984. Scotland has to beat Italy to qualify. I hope the Scots will succeed (man, I hate the Italian squad)!
 
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