Official Football Thread

Into the last eight despite a sub par performance. I guess we are saving our best performances for when we need them, as opposed to last year when we thrashed Roma and then failed to turn up at the San Siro!!

Well done to Arsenal in beating milan at the San Siro. i believe that is the first time Milan have lost at home to an English club. With Chelsea and Liverpool looking on odds to reach the last eight it is going to be an English dominated draw on the 14th.

Still see Barcelona as favourites though.
 
A fine night for French football. OK, Lyon went out, but lé Arsenal did an impressive performance.  ;) Beating AC Milan at San Siro is never easy. But Milan's attack has not been at its best lately and with a 0-0 from the first match they needed to score.

Satisfied with the fact that United went through, but the performance could've been better. Oh well, the knockout stage in '99 wasn't all that impressive either, except for the comeback from 2-0 against Juventus at Stadio delle Alpi.

Today I see Chelsea as favourites against Olympiakos. This Greek club has rarely been good away from home. Real Madrid vs Roma is a wide open tie - anyone's game really. Schalke, with their 1-0 win at home, are favourites by a small margin against Porto as a one-goal defeat is guaranteed to give them at least extra time. Porto will have to score first.

And for tonight's Premiership match, my best wishes goes to 'Arry's beloved club  :) Is it appropriate to say Up the Irons?  :P
 
Eddies Wingman said:
What would happen if Southend finished 2nd just to see Leeds get the 15 points back and take the 2nd place right before their nose?
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That would be the biggest kick in the teeth for Southend. Any points deduction reversal has to be done very soon (i.e. in the next few weeks) or not at all.
 
If that "YES" is because of what I think it is, I believe Dave Murray disagrees with you  :)

Actually the Spurs-PSV game was shown on Norwegian TV, and I must say PSV did a quite good performance considering that the game was played at WHL. However Tottenham played quite well for much of the game - but crappy finishing and good goalkeeping gave PSV a very good result. Would be surprised if PSV went out now.
 
Very enjoyable and exciting match, also for the neutral spectator I assume.
Gomez I regard as the best goalkeeper of this planet (though perhaps I rate Van der Sar as high).

Perhaps Tottenham had better players, but PSV surely had the better team. It all "stood" well, as we say. Quite defensive but later PSV became more attacking. I remember some chances for both teams, the PSV chances were bigger. It could easily have been 0-2 or more.

The last Dutch survivor in the European tournaments is still going strong, now let's hope nothing goes wrong next week! :)
 
Forostar said:
Very enjoyable and exciting match, also for the neutral spectator I assume.
Gomez I regard as the best goalkeeper of this planet (though perhaps I rate Van der Sar as high).

Perhaps Tottenham had better players, but PSV surely had the better team. It all "stood" well, as we say. Quite defensive but later PSV became more attacking. I remember some chances for both teams, the PSV chances were bigger. It could easily have been 0-2 or more.

The last Dutch survivor in the European tournaments is still going strong, now let's hope nothing goes wrong next week! :)
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I caught the last 60 minutes or so of the PSV match, and yes, it was very enjoyable, even with the mandatory terrible ITV commentary (David Bleat, this means you). Very impressed with PSV - as you say, they were the better "team", which is obviously much more important than skilful individuals, such as Berbatov who won't seem to waggle his litlle toe to help his teammates.

Farfan I was very impressed with; he took his goal very well, despite being gifted the opportunity he still had to finish it, and looked generally dangerous.
Not sure about your claim about Gomez being best keeper in the world, Foro; he flapped quite a bit at crosses. But as that's the first time I've seen him play I'll reserve judgement. ;)
 
The fascinating thing about the FA Cup

Of course I was disappointed to see Manchester United throw a lot of scoring opportunities through the window earlier today. But tonight's show by Barnsley did a good effort to compensate for it. Seeing Chelsea go out to a team from the Championship was soothing to my soul  :) The amount of work laid down by the Barnsley players deserve lots of credit. Muchos respect to them!

Now we are guaranteed that for the first time since 1995, a team other than United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal will win the Cup. That provides some consolation when I have to deal with the fact that United will not win it. And teams from lower divisions doing well is in fact what is fascinating about cup tournaments and especially the FA Cup which is, if I'm not mistaken, the world's oldest club tournament.

How about Barnsley going all the way? I'd say it would be great  :bigsmile:
 
national acrobat said:
Farfan I was very impressed with; he took his goal very well, despite being gifted the opportunity he still had to finish it, and looked generally dangerous.
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The weird thing is that he performed badly the last months, and you could almost say it was his personal revenge towards PSV (who even might get rid of him later!)

national acrobat said:
Not sure about your claim about Gomez being best keeper in the world, Foro; he flapped quite a bit at crosses. But as that's the first time I've seen him play I'll reserve judgement. ;)
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He isn't that great with his feet but the man has reactions like a panther. I'm sure it isn't the last you've seen of him. I think he surely deserves to be the no. 1 of the Brazilian team. If not now, then soon enough.
 
I returned to Europe...and was surprised to find that Bayern Munich had purchased Frank Ribery. I mean, he's a great player no doubt about that (witness the 5:0 against Schalke) but I remember clearly 6 months ago he said in an interview he'd never leave Marseille even though so many teams were interested in him after his dazzling world cup performance. So, he was one of the few soccer players I respected as a person for his great attitude on pitch and for his faithfullness to his home team. I understand that players have to move on, but I'm still disappointed. End of rant.
 
Natalie said:
I returned to Europe...and was surprised to find that Bayern Munich had purchased Frank Ribery. I mean, he's a great player no doubt about that (witness the 5:0 against Schalke) but I remember clearly 6 months ago he said in an interview he'd never leave Marseille even though so many teams were interested in him after his dazzling world cup performance. So, he was one of the few soccer players I respected as a person for his great attitude on pitch and for his faithfullness to his home team. I understand that players have to move on, but I'm still disappointed. End of rant.
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understood, but it's not always up to the player whether he moves or not - if a club like Bayern come in with a huge offer, then Marseilles may think that they can get a few decent players in with that money - Ribery gets a move to a big club, and everyone wins.

Eddies Wingman said:
The fascinating thing about the FA Cup

Of course I was disappointed to see Manchester United throw a lot of scoring opportunities through the window earlier today. But tonight's show by Barnsley did a good effort to compensate for it. Seeing Chelsea go out to a team from the Championship was soothing to my soul  :) The amount of work laid down by the Barnsley players deserve lots of credit. Muchos respect to them!

Now we are guaranteed that for the first time since 1995, a team other than United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal will win the Cup. That provides some consolation when I have to deal with the fact that United will not win it. And teams from lower divisions doing well is in fact what is fascinating about cup tournaments and especially the FA Cup which is, if I'm not mistaken, the world's oldest club tournament.

How about Barnsley going all the way? I'd say it would be great  :bigsmile:
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That Barnsley game was great!! Chelsea players just didn't play with any desire to win, with the exception of Joe Cole. As to who will win the competition, it could be the year for a team outside the Premiership to win it, West Brom maybe.

PS Of course none of this compares to QPR winning the League Cup when they were in Division 3.
 
Imagine a West Brom v Cardiff final? When was the last time no premiership (or top flight) team did not make the FA Cup Final? I think the most likely scenario (assuming they are kept apart in the semi final draw) is a 'Boro Pompey final. And 'Boro to win.
 
Eddies Wingman said:
Well, as I write it is half time at Riverside.  Cardiff are in the lead against Boro with 2-0  :o
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Maybe it really is the genuine year of the underdog. :D
 
Looks like it. Watched the second half - Boro were not very threatening and were really poor. After 80 minutes many fans left, and those who remained until the game ended, gave a really loud boooo.

Now Portsmouth is in fact the only Premiership left in the cup. But looking at the quarter-final results that hardly makes them favourites.
 
Portsmouth Barnsley final. Time for some pointless and trivial FA Cup final facts:

  • The last team to win the cup and get promoted to the top flight in the same season was West Brom (in '31)
  • The last all England final (i.e. all players and subs from both sides where English) was the West Ham Fulham final of '75 (although Man U v Palace came close with only the two Welsh and two Scots in the Man U side and all of Palace being English).
  • And the '75 final was the last one to not have either Man U, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton or Spurs as one of the finalists.
  • The team to have retained the trophy for the longest was Portsmouth who had it for the duration of the Second World War (seven years).
  • And there is a pub in Pompey that will keep the Christmas decorations up while they (Portsmouth) are in the Cup.
  • Sunderland did it in 79 and Villa did it in 81 - that was to score the winning goal in the final (Alan Sunderland and Ricky Villa).
 
Fantastic, Albie. This is almost Arne Scheie-sque knowledge.

(Arne Scheie is a sports commentator in Norwegian TV, his main fields are football and ski jumping - he has actually been a ski jump referee as well. He is known for his nearly autistic interest in football trivia - what he doesn't know about Norwegian, English or international football, isn't worth knowing. He often shares his knowledge with the TV viewers during games. He commented English games from NRK started broadcasting them in 1969 until TV2 bought the rights in 1995. He supports Manchester United but has a reputation of not letting that affect his work as a commentator, making him popular among all Norwegian fans of English football)

A question for you: Who was the first player from outside the British isles to lift the FA Cup?
 
Eddies Wingman said:
A question for you: Who was the first player from outside the British isles to lift the FA Cup?
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I'm guessing this has to be fairly recent. Although the English game has had many foreigners playing here for some time, we have not had that many non British/Irish captains. I'm initially thinking it could have been Eric Cantona when Man U beat Liverpool in '96 (I'm not sure if he was their captain back then, though), but Chelsea won the next year and had a whole host of foreign import.
 
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