2012/13 Soccer Thread

Maq wrote:

Jaysus why is Willems still on the pitch?

Actually played OK in second half, more so than van der Wiel who has been mediocre all game.

I've never seen a Dutch side so gutless against the Germans. A few players put in a fair shift (Sneijder, RVP, NDJ), but too many of the others were lightweight, and of course Robben was a total disgrace, a total me-first performance as ever. I did like his walk round the pitch though, made him look like the tw*t he so obviously is.

Can't wait to see Cruyff's critique of this

City target watch

RVP - no,no, a thousand times no. Did play well, great player, but last season strikes me as a one off.
Hummels - yes please.
Pig-climber - yes, yes, yes.

Really awful performance from Holland. What were van Bommel and de Jong in the team for if not for stopping Schweinsteiger from stepping up and passing to Gomez like he did for both of goals? What was Robben for if not... Actually, no, what was Robben for, period.
Offensively they did nothing as a team, only few half-chances they've created were down to individual talents. Compare and contrast with Germans - very much like against Portugal most of their offensive players were individually average, but as a team they were brilliant and with every move forward you felt it was going to be dangerous.
On evidence of their first two games they are the best *team* so far.

Whos the Pig climber?

anyways not really surprised at either of the games today.

Portugal scored 3 goals that defined what kind of talent the team has. They also went on to try and throw the whole thing away like they are also good at.

/rant BTW the sooner we can just go back to the old offside rule the better. This nonsense of offensive players standing off and 'not being part of the play' and then suddenly being part of the play again is just silly. Bendtner pretty much scored his first because hes too f*cking daft to stay onside in the first place and then was rewarded for being so average by being yards ahead of everyone when the ball came back in. /rant

As for Netherlands I love how people were blindly getting sucked into them. Average defense with average defensive midfielders to stand infront of them and thats being kind. Tactics were all wrong also. Portugal were doing a great job pushing Germany wide and forcing them to cross it in as we fancied our chances of Alves/Pepe vs Gomez with the only decent cross of the game coming off a deflection.

Ronaldo with a brace vs Netherlands to get the monkey off his back and I honestly like Portugals chances to go very deep. Pepe/Alves is arguably one of the better pairings in the tournament and the coach is willing to sit two guys right infront of them on top of it.

Pig climber = Schweinsteiger. My German may not be totally accurate...

Not going overboard on Germany yet - despite how poor Holland were as a team, there was a spell just after the goal where they could have turned the screws, but they couldn't keep the ball. Huntelaar looked like he'd never played football in his life, very disappointed in him at this tourney - I think that in typical Dutch fashion he's spending more time moaning in his mind about why he's not starting than he is thinking about what he will do when actually on the pitch.

With regard to the DM's, it was noticeable how much better NDJ played when van Bommel wasn't on the pitch - thought he had a good second half, some key tackles but the Dutch would really be better sticking with 4-1-4-1.

EDIT - Twitcher gone from Spurs, guess we know what option Levy chose when Redknapp started giving it the 'back me or sack me' routine. Just a shame that he went before bankrupting Spurs, just like he did with Bournemouth, West Ham, Southampton and Portsmouth. Smart money at the moment seems to be on David Moyes.

jowner wrote:

As for Netherlands I love how people were blindly getting sucked into them.

SHUT UP. THEY'RE JUST SO CHARMING!

/runs away crying

Prederick wrote:
jowner wrote:

As for Netherlands I love how people were blindly getting sucked into them.

SHUT UP. THEY'RE JUST SO CHARMING!

/runs away crying

In Belgium, we catch a whiff of the 'Oranjegekte' (Orange Madness) here and there, and we've been joking how the severe intensity this tournament must be the first sign of the pending Apocalypse.

The Dutch really have forgotten that luck was on their side at the last WC. Not only against Brasil, I remember them winning their first game against Denmark with a very unconvincing/lucky 2-0. But try telling that to a Dutchman in an orange-stickered car with an orange-dressed dog wearing orange make-up while singing 'Oranje KAMPIOEN!'...

I'm predicting an orange plume visible from space after Holland - Portugal, from all the orange merchandising crap thrown in orange bonfires. Yup, the second sign of the Apocalypse!

Portugese defenders were at fault for Bendtner's goal. You just follow the man. Three of them had plenty of time to come back and intercept after the pass was made, instead of gazing intensely.

I'm a Germany fan (unusual I know). I think yesterday they broke the average goals per day record with the 3-2 Portugal-Denmark and 2-1 Germany-Netherlands . Both games were pretty good .

The Dutch could have won because of their strong offense . The Germans are very disciplined so they played well in the first half but they were a less successful in the second half. At 81:00 when Toni Kroos subed Ozil and Roben also got substituted the Dutch offense lost its teeth. The Dutch defense also made a big mistake and was lucky Klose failed to score .

Today I can't watch the games (none to stay with my daughter) but they are not too interesting . In Israel you have to have Cable/Sat TV to watch the games and half of the games are shown in a payed channel. I'm watching the games at my parents in law's apartment (100 meter walk) because they have a TV service and I don't and we payed for the special HD channel which shows all the game (12$~ per month no long term contracts in Israel ).

UCRC wrote:

Portugese defenders were at fault for Bendtner's goal. You just follow the man. Three of them had plenty of time to come back and intercept after the pass was made, instead of gazing intensely.

Just love the idea of anyone relying on Pepe and Alves. Niklas Bendtner scored twice against them...TWICE !!

And Pepe is always one micrometer away from some ludicrous piece of defending or attempting to kick someone to death - makes nitroglycerine look stable.

In non-Euro news, Chelsea have given di Matteo a two year (aka 1 year and a 1 year payoff when Guardiola becomes available, in the money-laundering peasant's dreams) contract.

Twitcher apparently went into a meeting with Daniel Levy wanting to talk about another contract - they apparently cut him short by saying 'you're binned' and off he went. Media already on their 'it's a disgrace' spin, after he apparently saved Spurs from the disaster that was Juande Ramos...obviously they've never bothered comparing the achievements of the respective managers.

In case you've never seen a real-life troll face...

IMAGE(http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/2007/hollandb.jpg)

Sums up yesterday's match perfectly.

Where can I find high-res version so I can wallpaper it?

edit

Say what you want about the Dutch, but they can take a joke. We've been taking the piss of our Holland colleagues all day, and they've been cool about it. So far

Best Twitter jab imo:

Queen Beatrix wrote:

Last time we defended this poorly against the Germans, We had to live abroad for five years.

Not entirely sure that's in good taste, given that over 200,000 Dutch civilians died during the war, including 70% of the country's Jewish population.

davet010 wrote:

Not entirely sure that's in good taste, given that over 200,000 Dutch civilians died during the war, including 70% of the country's Jewish population.

Of course it's not in good taste, it's a Dutch joke. But yeah, I agree is a 'going to hell for laughing' kind of joke. At least I'll descend laughing...

I'm also not sure you're the best judge on which jokes are tasteful, seeing your track record of wishing physical hurt on anyone not affiliated with Man City.

dejanzie wrote:
davet010 wrote:

Not entirely sure that's in good taste, given that over 200,000 Dutch civilians died during the war, including 70% of the country's Jewish population.

Of course it's not in good taste, it's a Dutch joke. But yeah, I agree is a 'going to hell for laughing' kind of joke. At least I'll descend laughing...

I'm also not sure you're the best judge on which jokes are tasteful, seeing your track record of wishing physical hurt on anyone not affiliated with Man City.

I wouldn't say "physical harm", more like "unending misfortune, sadness and pain".

Prederick wrote:
dejanzie wrote:
davet010 wrote:

Not entirely sure that's in good taste, given that over 200,000 Dutch civilians died during the war, including 70% of the country's Jewish population.

Of course it's not in good taste, it's a Dutch joke. But yeah, I agree is a 'going to hell for laughing' kind of joke. At least I'll descend laughing...

I'm also not sure you're the best judge on which jokes are tasteful, seeing your track record of wishing physical hurt on anyone not affiliated with Man City.

I wouldn't say "physical harm", more like "unending misfortune, sadness and pain".

Also known as 'what I had to put up with for 35 years'.

UCRC wrote:

Portugese defenders were at fault for Bendtner's goal. You just follow the man. Three of them had plenty of time to come back and intercept after the pass was made, instead of gazing intensely.

http://www.101greatgoals.com/gvideos...

the point is even if they follow the man he has a 2 yard lead on them because hes apparently not offside. Is he not part of the initial play in the cross? Sure if you want to be technical about it but when the next touch comes from a guy that was offside its a tad ridiculous.

davet010 wrote:
UCRC wrote:

Portugese defenders were at fault for Bendtner's goal. You just follow the man. Three of them had plenty of time to come back and intercept after the pass was made, instead of gazing intensely.

Just love the idea of anyone relying on Pepe and Alves. Niklas Bendtner scored twice against them...TWICE !!

And Pepe is always one micrometer away from some ludicrous piece of defending or attempting to kick someone to death - makes nitroglycerine look stable.

and thats why this tournament is wide open. Name a team with back 4 + goalie that your trusting? Portugal know what they have and are playing with 2 holding midfielders right infront plus a third running around pressing further up the pitch. I have 0 fear coming 2nd in the group and playing the Russians.

Defences that I trust ?

Germany, Italy, England, Russia (not convinced by the keeper though), Croatia. I was about to say France but then I thought about Mexes, so no.

And let's just say that Pepe has previous for being a complete c*ck regardless of the consequences for his team, as any RM fan will tell you.

EDIT - And that's Chiellini off the list...very poor timing.

Speaking of crap defences... Ireland are the class of their own.

UCRC wrote:

Speaking of crap defences... Ireland are the class of their own.

Watching Ireland v Spain is like watching a League one team play a Prem team in the cup...lots of closing down and scurrying about, but can't keep the ball and every trip in the box has the alarm bells ringing.

David Silva...how good was that ?

Jesus, Jim Beglin (one of ITV's vast roster of blithering idiot commentators) has just used the term 'EPL'. Death's too good for him.

EDIT - goal 3...the oft-seen sight (by me at least) of Richard Dunne chasing forlornly after a striker like a drunk chasing the night bus. At least this time I'm not remotely arsed about it

POST-MATCH EDIT - Roy Keane laying into them now - "lot of players think they are better than they are". Now it is fair to say that Ireland got a good slapping, but I don't think any of the current lot have been in the press giving it loads. It's also somewhat bemusing to hear talk about 'pride' and 'playing for the shirt' from someone who took his bat and ball away and ran off home at WC 2002.

I'm so many games behind...

The Dutch fullbacks rarely got forward in their match against Germany which was surprising to me since they played the two holders in the first half. I agree with Dave that they would have been better off with one of de Jong or van Bommel... or just let one or both of the fullbacks bomb forward more

It will be a real shame if Croatia dont make it out of the group stage. I really want to see them play in a knockout game.

Btw, in case you missed it: The award for "most awesome coach of the tournament" has already been booked by Jogi Löw.

Ireland is indeed the worst team in the tournament. But kudos to the Irish supporters: singing Fields of Athenry when 4-0 behind... You couldn't even hear the Spanish supporters!

Roke wrote:

I'm so many games behind...

The Dutch fullbacks rarely got forward in their match against Germany which was surprising to me since they played the two holders in the first half. I agree with Dave that they would have been better off with one of de Jong or van Bommel... or just let one or both of the fullbacks bomb forward more

Think that would have been a suicidal tactic, Roke. Neither Van der Wiel or Willems are great defenders, and it's not like Robben or Afellay would be tracking back to support them. I think they are going to have to go 4-1-3-2 to beat Portugal, with RVP and Huntelaar upfront - might even stop the latter from sulking, for an hour or two.

davet010 wrote:
Roke wrote:

I'm so many games behind...

The Dutch fullbacks rarely got forward in their match against Germany which was surprising to me since they played the two holders in the first half. I agree with Dave that they would have been better off with one of de Jong or van Bommel... or just let one or both of the fullbacks bomb forward more

Think that would have been a suicidal tactic, Roke. Neither Van der Wiel or Willems are great defenders, and it's not like Robben or Afellay would be tracking back to support them. I think they are going to have to go 4-1-3-2 to beat Portugal, with RVP and Huntelaar upfront - might even stop the latter from sulking, for an hour or two.

They will need 2 options in the box if they want to have a chance. Portugal will line up the same way clogging the midfield and forcing the play down the wings. Its going to take a very special cross for RVP to beat two CBS in the air.
Short of a wonder goal or piece of Sneijder brilliance right through the middle they honestly dont have much of a shot if they come in playing their same old style.

https://twitter.com/fmcarvBMW5/statu...

just how fun and crazy the euro is. 9 possible combinations of results and theres still one where Portugal wins the group and Germany is eliminated and one where Holland advance.

The Portugal winning the group and Denmark beating out Germany for 2nd would be bonkers.

Christ, that is some horrendous weather.

That lightning was proper scary - seen a film of a game in South Africa where the lightning hit the pitch, about 7 players hit the ground.

That pitch had better be the best draining pitch ever, because there is standing water already.

Other issue is about how safe the stadium steps etc are going to be for the spectators, given the amount of water cascading around.

Carrol on the board with a beauty.

goddamn lightning has probably screwed up all my pvr recording. Was the start of the second game delayed?