Official Football Thread

Do you know what, I missed most of the game the other night due to a last minute commitment! Well done Barcelona, anyway - from what I hear, deserved as well. Only the second team from a top league to win the treble.
 
I find this a better achievement:

Ajax won the triple (and also the World Cup) in 1995, while having the lowest budget of all Champions League competitors. They won the CL-competition without losing a game, either in the group or the knock-out stage, plus they had an unbeaten run in the national league. (Also In 1996, Ajax reached the CL-final, again with the lowest budget.)

Hard to beat.
 
Forostar said:
Not really, he helped Man U to get as far as the final.
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I disagree and if you ask most Man U fans they'll tell you they admire Park's energy and committment but as was painfully obvious on Wednesday, energy and committment is not enough against the likes of Barcelona. Sure Park may have score one or two goals this season but when you are playing in a side like man Utd you are always going to get chances.

A lot of the papers are echoing my thoughts with SAF set to let Park, Nani and Tevez go to make way for Valencia from Wigan and Benzema from Lyon (i think).



national acrobat said:
Giggs was definitely a weak link in the United team, along with Anderson in the centre - would Hargreaves or Fletcher been any better? Maybe. Ji Sun Park seems to be a specialist (at lest in Ferguson's eyes) in Champions League games, but was totally ineffectual yesterday, as was Man U's whole tactical set-up in the front third.
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Answer: YES. If Hargreaves had been in the centre, Iniesta wouldnt have been allowed to drift twenty yards and lay on a killer ball for Eto'o to score.

Man United have not been as good this season as they were last season in my opinion and a lot of that is due to Hargreaves' absence. Fergie has always built his teams around a dynamic box to box aggressive midfielder (Robson, Ince, Keane) and this season the closest we have had to that has been Fletcher.
 
Back in the Village said:
I disagree and if you ask most Man U fans they'll tell you they admire Park's energy and committment but as was painfully obvious on Wednesday, energy and committment is not enough against the likes of Barcelona. Sure Park may have score one or two goals this season but when you are playing in a side like man Utd you are always going to get chances.
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You disagree that he was important in the semi final?
He scored the important opening goal in the second leg of the semi final, and he helped to build up the third goal. No one scored in the final. Why would he be of less value then?

Anyway, I know where he comes from and know his qualities.
 
Forostar said:
I find this a better achievement:

Ajax won the triple (and also the World Cup) in 1995, while having the lowest budget of all Champions League competitors. They won the CL-competition without losing a game, either in the group or the knock-out stage, plus they had an unbeaten run in the national league. (Also In 1996, Ajax reached the CL-final, again with the lowest budget.)

Hard to beat.
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To a certain degree, yes. Winning the CL on a low budget is a very, very good achievement - but like Celtic, they won the European cup (as it was called back then) with all their players born within a 10 mile radius of Glasgow (the miles may be less or more, but they were all born fairly close to Glasgow).

A Dutch side (or indeed a Scottish side) winning the treble would not be as hard as a Spanish or English side in their respective leagues - but you can't take away anything from any team that wins the CL, it's not an easy trophy to win.
 
Albie said:
but you can't take away anything from any team that wins the CL, it's not an easy trophy to win.
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I guess we disagree here. My point is that it is much more difficult to win the CL, for a smaller club, with a smaller budget.
 
Jey, we passed the Krauts! :)

FIFA worldranking - 3 June:                 

   1. Spanje                  1.761 pnt
   2. NEDERLAND (3)       1.442  "
   3. Duitsland (2)          1.378  "
   4. Italië (5)               1.292  "
   5. Brazilië (4)             1.288  "
   6. Engeland (7)          1.225  "
   7. Argentinië (6)         1.203  "
   8. Kroatië                  1.200  "
   9. Rusland                  1.167  "
  10. Frankrijk                1.067  "
  22. Schotland (24) *       840  "
  47. Noorwegen (46) *     638  "
  64. Macedonië *            515  "
  92. IJsland (93)  *          400  "
 
I must admit, I had to look up what Frankrijk was - France, it turns out to be. Should have been obvious as France should be somewhere in the top ten. And shouldn't Croatia's points be 1199 rather than 1299? 1299 points would put them 4th.
 
Albie said:
And shouldn't Croatia's points be 1199 rather than 1299? 1299 points would put them 4th.
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That's strange! I copied it from Dutch teletext. I'll check it elsewhere now.

edit: It's actually 1200, so they made two dumb typos.
 
Since I don't want to open a cricket topic I lend this topic for another sport:

I can't believe my eyes! Holland beat England in a cricket match! In England!

The victory was the biggest moment in the history of Dutch cricket

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England crashed to their most ignominious cricketing defeat of all time, as the Netherlands won the ICC World Twenty20 curtain-raiser at Lord's by scoring two runs off the final ball amid scenes of scarcely believable drama. ...more


Check here a video of the deciding moments (English commentary)!
 
I don't care about cricket either but this was highly unusual!
Just saw the vid and the reaction is pretty cool to watch!
 
Erm, that result is a big shock. To put it to some sort of perspective - it's a bit like the Dutch playing someone like France in a mini tournament and comprehensively beating them....then to loose to Iceland in Amsterdam in their next game. Where this game was lost for England was by their 3rd and 4th batsmen in - after the openers got over a century partnership, the next two managed a paltry 11 runs between them. Then Collingwood only managed a further 11 on his own - but he should not have been in that position, he should have been there to increase the runs further to get England to a total of something like 185+. Defending 162 is not enough! And not what we need ahead of the Ashes this summer.

That said, well played The Netherlands. Opens this side of the tournament up as England now have to beat Pakistan tomorrow and hope the win margin is enough to send them through. And for all those non-cricket folk, watch some of this Twenty-20 Cricket as it can be pretty exciting!


All I can now hope for is that England beat Kazakhstan today and Andorra on Wednesday to give them a massive foot in the door of South Africa 2010.

And then England wallop Pakistan tomorrow and The Dutch then beat Pakistan as well to let England progress to the Super 8's.
 
Allow me to do this again:

Today Roger Federer wrote history. He won his fourteenth Grand Slam, and what's more important, this fourteenth was his first Roland Garros (The French Open, one of the four Grand Slams)! And why is that important?

After winning Wimbledon and the U.S. Open five times and the Australian Open three times, he now he has won all four Grand Slams. The legendary Peter Sampras was not able to do that. He also won 14 Grand Slams, but never won Roland Garros.

So Federer can officially be seen as the best male tennis player of all time. And I find that cool because he is one of the most natural players ever seen on the circuit.
 
Isn't Federer starting to be eclipsed by Nadal, not in term of lifetime achievements, but as the best tennis player at this very moment?
 
Nadal was the world's number one in the current ranking. I wonder if that changed now. He won this title the last three years but now he went out early. That was quite unexpected.
 
I would think that it would hurt him, especially how early he went out.  But if he recovers and performs well in other tournaments, especially if Federer does poorly in others, he should stay #1.
 
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