Football (Soccer)

[Oriphus]

Most two recogniseable and also the two richest in that order, Man united, Yankees, by way of turnoever. Major League Soccer is starting to pick up a bit htough. Tim Howard was a Major League Soccer player, now he's playing for the biggest soccer club in the world.

It just takes time for the Americans to warm to soccer, every year a larger number of americans buy UNited football jerseys. Keep posting here and you will learn some stuff, we all learn bits and pieces about football on this thread - its being going a long time now

[MPS]

lol on the sausages, inches and other accessories

the biggest soccer club in the world

this is where we can have a little disco ( discussion ). is MU the biggest? what abour real? i'm balancing my opinion on a thin wire. and the 'favoritism' swings to the MU side of course, but there are doubts...

MU & Yankees games for free... wow... in Poland we dont even get Polish League games for free (some of them on occasions yes, but fecking Canal+ owns the rights...)

big game tomorrow for us Poles, Real - Wisla Cracow. 2-0 in Cracow for Madrid, but with Kasperczak as coach there's always a chance & hope

beckham should not return to premiership, if he's not going to MU. on the other hand, imagine Beckham coming to play for FC Liverpool! wonder what fans from Manchester would think about that.... hahahaah

[Oriphus]

No, actually, MU is OFFICIALLY the biggest sports club in the world. The figures are directly correlated from the world wide sale of shirts. I cant remember who is second biggest, didnt pay much attention. Celtic apparently is about 6th biggest. MU is the biggest football club as well as the biggest sports club, the second biggest sports club is the Yankees.

Im not i can see Beckham coming back to the Premiership this season. Owen has just arrived over there.

Looks like Wes Brown is on the Mend, should be back next week

[admin]

Who would have thought that Arsenal vs Boro would become one of the classic matches of all time.

Amazing game, totally emotionally exhausted at the end.

Henry scores the first goal after an amazing pass from the Arsenal penalty area to the Boro penalty area by Reyes. Arsenal are cruising, should already be 4 goals up (and we usually are by this time of the match against Boro). Arsenal have 69% of possesion at this time, 10 shots on target to their 0. Then Boro equalises near the end, after 5 different Arsenal players try to tackles to win the ball - all miss for some reason.

Second half starts, Boro looking more confident as expected. A mis-understanding between Cole and Cygan allows Hasselbaink to slip through and score a rocket of a shot. Then Boro attack again (probably their third proper attack of the entire game), Queudrue scores due to bad positioning by Lehmann, although it was wonderfully hit (ball started to curve to the right when first kicked, and then in mid-air, starts to curve to the left). 3-1 to Boro, and it looked like the unbeaten record is gone.

Then almost immediately, Bergkamp scores thanks to Henry and Ljungberg making runs to confuse the Boro defense. A truly captain's peformance. Pires comes on as a sub, and 4 minutes later scores from a tap in, after an excellent run from Fabregas that takes out 4 Boro defenders (can't believe he's just 17!!) and some muscle work from Henry. 3-3 to the Arsenal, and I would have been happy had the game ended there. The replay was still being shown for the Pires goal when it suddenly cuts to Reyes dummying Reiziger (who falls flat on his bum) and scoring an arrow with his weaker right foot. 4-3, and Wenger is jumping up and down in the technical area like a maniac.

Pires repays Henry's earlier work by providing Henry with a tap in of his own in injury time. 5-3, comeback completed, record matched, blood pressure through the roof. A great game to watch, but not one you want to watch every week.

[MPS]

wish i saw the game.

[MPS]

well.. some interesting results in CL draw:

Group A:
Deportivo La Coruna
FC Liverpool
AS Monaco
Olympiakos Pireus

Group B:
Real Madrid
AS Roma
Bayer Leverkusen
Dynamo Kiev

Group C:
Bayern Munich
Juventus Turin
Ajax Amsterdam
Maccabi Tel Aviv

Group D:
Manchester United
Olympique Lyon
Sparta Prague
Fenerbahce Istambul

Group E:
Arsenal London
Panathinaikos Athens
PSV Eindhoven
Rosenborg Trondheim

Group F:
FC Barcelona
AC Milan
Celtic Glasgow
Shakhtar Doneck

Group G:
Valencia CF
Inter Milan
Anderlecht Brussels
Werder Bremen

Group H:
FC Porto
Chelsea London
Paris St Germain
CSKA Moscow

i think (hope?) these clubs go thru, although some suprises are bound to happen

A: Deportivo & Liverpool
B: Real & Leverkusen
C: Juventus & Ajax
D: MU & Lyon
E: Arsenal & PSV
F: Barcelona & Milan
G: Valencia & Inter
H: Porto & Chelsea

possible "upsets" by Monaco, Roma, Munich, Fenerbahce, Panathinaikos, Celtic, Werder & PSG

what do U think men?

[Oriphus]

Yeah, i watched the highlights - was really excellent performance. However, the latter goals Arsenal scored, would probably have been jept out by a better defensive team. It goes to show that Arsenal are fallable and at 3-1 up (pretty easily scored as well), one of the top 4 teams could have easily held on to a win, in my opinion. I am looking forward to welcoming Arsenal to Old Trafford in November - this is the possible team we should have to pick from:
Howard, Carroll
G.Neville, Brown, Silvestre, Rio, O'Shea, Heinze
Giggs, Keane, Miller, Kleberson, Scholes, Ronaldo, Fletcher
RvN, Saha, Smith, (Rooney?)

Now theres an impressive squad to bring to a match.

[admin]

But you forget that we were without two of our best defensive players, Campbell and Vieira, both also happen to be the best or one of the best players in their positions in the world. Both will be back in about 2 weeks time, so the best defense in the Premiership will resume normal service. We should also be wrapping up the signing of a new defender before the transfer deadline, and there's another wonderkid, who happens to be a central defender, that we haven't used yet (probably not enough experience yet for such a crucial position).

As for our goals being their defensive mistakes, we have also scored against Boro like that many times before (we played them 3 times last season with our first team, scored 12 goals) - the same Boro team that also drew with Chelsea and beat Manchester United. We also scored 13 goals against Leeds last season, who also got a draws out of Chelsea/Man U. I probably don't need to mention Wolves

In fact, you might say all 15 goals we've scored so far this season (including the 3 against Man U in the CS, although the third goal "we scored" against you was entirely your defensive mistake) has been "defensive mistakes" by the other team, but I think that's why we score so many goals, we exploit their mistakes and makes it all look easy, but it's not. We also have lots of movement off the ball, which is hard to spot, but we like to draw opposition defenders into positions that opens up space for other players - so while it looks like the defenders positioning is wrong, they really have no choice, since if they didn't move, then the player making the run will receive the ball and score. We also like to pass our way into goal, and so while it looks like their defense has been struggling, it's actually our superior passing and reaction.

There is also the team spirit factor. We came back from 1-0 down 12 times last season, won 11 and drew 1 if I can remember correctly. We've never had to come from 2 goals behind, but it looks like we are capable of coming back from it as well.

Chances are, we'll lose more than once this season in the league now that the record is ours (although some suggest we should aim for the Milan's all time unbeaten record, 58 games), but luckily, you don't have to go unbeaten to win the league.

As for the Champions League, I think Arsenal have one of the easier groups, although it's Europe, so we'll probably struggle again

Group C, F and G looks tough, and Chelsea's group is just hilarious - would be funny if both Porto and Moscow beat them.

[MPS]

and do not count out PSG just yet admin

[admin]

Do you mean PSV in Arsenal's group or PSG in Chelsea's group?

We beat PSV in Holland 4-0 two season ago, but we usually play better against better sides, and become complacent against easier sides. Hopefully, this season will be different (again).

I think Chelsea will struggle against any team that plays together like a team (like Porto last season), including PSG. I wonder what kind of reaction Chelsea will get at Porto, considering they stole their manager and players. Also, Abramovich apparently has interests in CSKA Moscow, so I wonder if UEFA might do something about this, or people would be saying things if Chelsea win easily (and they probably should).

[DAFT]

I was wondering what you footballers though of our 14yr old Phenom Freddy. The kid makes more in one year than i make in 5. and he can't even get into R movies without his mother. Is he pursued by any of the Euro clubs yet or are they waiting for him to hit puberty?

[admin]

Arsenal won't be keen on signing Adu now because he's too young, and as Wenger and a some of the other coaches (when asked about youth players) say that players change once they get older, and a good player at 15 may not turn out to be a good when he's 21. But until he plays for a major European club or a major international tournament (and succeeds), some may just consider him an over-hyped teenager.

Speaking of over-hyped teenagers, Man U is on the verge of signing Rooney. If it's a fight between Man U and Newcastle, and I don't think Newcastle have got what it takes to win the fight. I think Rooney is a decent players, with some off-field problems (not helped by being labeled the greatest player in the history of football at only 18), but he needs guidance to become a great player. Perhaps Ferguson is the man to do that, he won't learn much by staying at Everton (unless he wants to learn about relegation and playing in the "Championship"). I wonder what Saha and Smith might be thinking about at this moment - regardless of what they're thinking about, they will have plenty of time to think about it on the bench.

Rooney's not an Arsenal player though, just don't see him fitting in to our style of play. And we're over quota on young promising strikers anyway (Reyes, van Persie, Aliadiere, Bentley, Lupoli, Stokes). Anthony Stokes is an interesting player, Irish, only 15, but highly regarded by everyone at Highbury, and scored a ton of goals whenever he plays.

[MPS]

and do not count out PSG just yet admin

...

Do you mean PSV in Arsenal's group or PSG in Chelsea's group?

PSG is PSG i think not only Moscow & Porto can beat chelsea, PSG too. so , yeah its hilarious

[MPS]

Anthony Stokes is an interesting player, Irish, only 15, but highly regarded by everyone at Highbury, and scored a ton of goals whenever he plays.

don't get overexcited about Stokes, cause, quoting you "a good player at 15 may not turn out to be a good when he's 21"

I agree with you with this over-hype situation with Rooney, but I tihnk that Ferguson, plus experienced players like Giggs or Keane will be good teachers (he may well learn to be a more of a bad boy, but that's ok ).

[MPS]

and congrats to Valencia, finally some decent trophy in their hands