Lets Talk Football

I sense some kind of sexual tension in your anger, Dave.... I think you're in love with the boy.

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

Lets talk who slaughtered the Irish?

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Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha

You think? Sheesh that's embarrassing, I mean, how am I gonna explain falling in love with someone who plays for Man Ewe?

It's kinda like West Side Story...

As half our team is made up of 30-something Aussie rejects, I'd call it more a case of friendly fire than a slaughter.

I think your coach must be feeling relieved, though - look at what happened when we last won a match...

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Is it

I'm sure he is

I heard a few of them interviewed after we beat Pakistan and a lot of the accents were more Harold from Neighbours than Colin Farrell.

Then again, Bouncer from Neighbours would probably get a spot in our team.

I never what Neighbours so i don't know who Harold and Bouncer are

It's funny how Milan and Liverpool are in the Champions League final despite the fact that neither is the best or even the second best team in their respective countries. So one of these teams, whose domestic seasons both effectively ended at least three months ago will be crowned in about three weeks time as the best team in Europe... precisely because they were such lame ducks in their own countries that they've been able to rest up and concentrate solely on Europe! This is just ridiculous. It just shows what a farce the 'Champions League' is. Milan shouldn't even be in European competition in the first place. Even as my own team seemingly cruises towards a league title, I'm pretty disillusioned by the entire sport right now.

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Mr M Rides Again

MoFo Survivor - r3port3r66 wins!!!!!!

The grapes are sour in your part of Madchester then?

Seeing as how Barcelona won their league and the Champions League last season I can't agree with your assertion.

That non-champions are allowed into the competition at all is a moot point, however, but when have UEFA (and G14) cared about anything other than money?

^ 1) Copa Del Rey is meaningless, our first stringers always played in the FA Cup especially the replays which we've had far too many of. 2) The talent gap between 1st and 20th in the EPL is a lot smaller than the gap between 1st and 20th in La Liga 3) Barcelona had about 700 different players who could step straight into the first team though. That's another thing. Right at the start of the season, I was extremely concerned by the fact that we added no depth anywhere on the team and it ended coming back to bite us towards the end of the season. So it's equal parts poor management and fixture congestion.
Re: Milan don't know if you got my point, but it was that Milan shouldn't be in the CL in the first place, when juve and Fiorentina got thrown out, why did they stick? They should've gone too. It's only because they have all those ex-presidents and stuff on their board. The FIGC and UEFA completely bottled it.

Are you talking about this season or in general? Seeing as Man Ewe practically invented the practice of playing reserves in cup matches you must mean this campaign.

Nonsense. In fact the 1st and 7th team in La Liga are separated by just 16 points wheras it's 34 in England.

I'll agree with you there - Barca have a strong squad and you have Kieron Richardson - which makes your season all the more outstanding. Luckily the injuries started to pile up when the league was practically won but I can't see Ferguson trusting to luck next year. The Milan result was a mixture of poor tactics (it's fine telling Ronaldo, Giggs & Rooney not to track back and harry opposition midfielders when you're playing Fulham or Watford but not to expect them to do this when you're playing a top side in their backyard with 2 away goals smacks of lunacy or arrogance) and squad shortcomings (a midfielder who can tackle and break up play is paramount for next season and seeing how Hargreaves has been whoring himself around, that's practically a done deal).

Yup, Milan shouldn't have been there but you've got to beat who's put in front of you. I've got no bias one way or t'other towards the teams in this season's competition and can honestly say that I think Liverpool or Chelski would have done much the same to you as Milan. It would have been a different story if you could have put out a full strength team but that's a luxury afforded to few at this stage of the season.

I love Champions League.... It's a tournament that all teams want to win which ensures great entertainment.

Some wonderful quotes from Jorge Valdano:


"Football is made up of subjective feeling, of suggestion - and, in that, Anfield is unbeatable. Put a s*** hanging from a stick in the middle of this passionate, crazy stadium and there are people who will tell you it's a work of art. It's not: it's a s*** hanging from a stick,"

"Chelsea and Liverpool are the clearest, most exaggerated example of the way football is going: very intense, very collective, very tactical, very physical, and very direct."

"But, a short pass? No. A feint? No. A change of pace? No. A one-two? A nutmeg? A backheel? Don't be ridiculous. None of that. The extreme control and seriousness with which both teams played the semi-final neutralised any creative licence, any moments of exquisite skill."

"The lives of Mourinho and Benitez have crossed in a world that is ever more scrutinised and exposed by the media, which is why they look at each other with such distrust."

"But they have two things in common: a previously denied, hitherto unsatisfied hunger for glory, and a desire to have everything under control."

"Both of those things stem from one key factor: neither Mourinho nor Benitez made it as a player. That has made them channel all their vanity into coaching."

"Those who did not have the talent to make it as players do not believe in the talent of players, they do not believe in the ability to improvise in order to win football matches. In short, Benitez and Mourinho are exactly the kind of coaches that Benitez and Mourinho would have needed to have made it as players."

Quite what he thinks about the playing styles of the teams managed by less-than-great ex-players Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger is anyone's guess...

According to a filthy, disreputable newspaper:



For the love of God. Nooooooooo!!!

Poor Tatty I think he is about to bust a Poopall valve

So.... Champions League final....

Milan should win this. But then again... They should have won in 2005 as well....

How right you were...

Milan were awful and Liverpool's failure to capitalise is testament to Benitez's approach.

How the hell he expected to win the biggest trophy in club football with Zenden and Pennant, one a has-been and the other a never-will-be, on the wings pumping in crosses so high that even Crazy Legs Crouch would have had trouble coping with.


Not as dull as the simply shameful FA Cup Final but when you have a team not playing well enough to win it verses a team never looking like they believed they could win it, a classic isn't gonna emerge...

I totally agree. Milan were really disappointing. Only thing is Liverpool were incapable of taking advantage of that. But it is in that kind of game where individual competence becomes deciding and Inzaghi does what he's paid to do - be on side at one time during the game and deciding the game. Pretty impressive.

I can't understand though why Crouch didn't start.

Yup, totally agree. It's one thing to have a striker bounding around the pitch for 90 minutes like a giant, football-shirted Golden Retriever but surely his job is to put the ball in the back of the net?

Kuyt's late goal was his first in the competition.

I was surprised, given that Benitez decided to play two wingers and give the ball to them at every opportunity, that Crouch didn't start, or at least get brought on earlier than the 78th minute. Dropping Alonso and moving Gerrard back to where he does the most damage (running forward from midfield) seems, with hindsight anyway, to be a better solution. Even keeping Alonso and playing Gerrard on the right would have provided more balance - I've seen a lot of praise for Pennant but can't quite understand it. The guy has been 'promising' since Arsenal signed him as a 15 year old nearly a decade ago and he still can't deliver on a regular basis.

Mascherano seems a fantastic player, by the way. I can't believe that this was the same guy who couldn't get a game for West ham earlier in the season - if ever there was a case of a player being too good for a team this is it.

It's one thing to sit in front of the back four when you know you have 4 or 5 men ahead of you but quite another when you're continually getting swamped due to the ineptitude/lack of heart of your teammates.

Still, there must be something special in the Liverpudlian spirit which brings them to their second final in three years. When you watch the names in the squad and even the way they play you would think that a quarter final, or semi final at best, would be a reasonable result for the team. Benitez must be doing something right and there appears to be some kind of harmony within the team. It's pretty hard to dislike Liverpool, even if I thought that Milan had been a better team during the cup and deserved to win the final as well in spite of playing like 41 year olds. Wait! They are 41 years old!

Aye, someone said yesterday that Maldini was like one of those players from the old Championship Manager games who just wouldn't retire.

Don't get me wrong, Benitez is a fine manager and Liverpool a fine team. He's not had the money until the recent takeover to spend that Chelski or Man Ewe have, hence the less than stellar purchases of Zenden, Pennant, Bellend-mey, Fowler etc...

...Actually I doubt very much if a manager with a similar budget (for instance, Wenger) would have bought two has-beens and two jailbirds but it will be interesting to see who Liverpool end up with next season now that they've turned into a US Sports Franchise.

L'Arse would have probably bought three 17 year old Ivorians, plucked from their parent's arms, for 50p and turned them into half-decent players to sell them in a few years time in order to fund the new stadium's massive debt.

Vive la différence!