A Beautiful Thread for the Beautiful Game

There was only, maybe, one or two occasions where I thought a player went down too easily... and about another two times where I'd figure that most players in the world would have gone down but didn't.

As always though, Messi never dives.

edited 26th Mar '11 6:44:49 PM by SeanMurrayI

As for Messi, you know you've got skill when you're triple then quadruple teamed.

That match was rather painful to watch, I hope Argentina gets its act together soon. Though it was fun to watch Messi go through four players... only to get the play stopped by a fault against him (the referee should've let it go on, but whatcha' gonna do?).

I wasn't able to watch USA-Argentina because I was working on a presentation for uni.

But I did manage to catch a glimpse of Colombia-Ecuador and in all these years, Colombia still has the same problem, they are pretty good at attacking, but the moment the other team starts to attack, it's all left at luck's hand. You'd think they'd already fix that, but...yeah.

I didn't catch much of the Colombia-Ecuador match. I did catch the halftime score, but that was it.

What I'm looking forward to now with great anticipation is the Brazil-Scotland game tomorrow morning, if only for nothing more than the hope of an opportunity to see David Luiz play some more.

I've pretty much fallen in love with him during Chelsea's recent game with Man U (I thought he played a wonderful first half in that game and showed a lot of promise—despite Rooney's goal—and his equalizer in the second half was just icing on an already incredibly delicious cake). It got to a point where I was celebrating his tackles (and even his harsher fouls) as if they were goals, and I've basically been acting that way ever since. I swear, by this time next year we'll all be calling this kid "The Greatest CB in the World."

edited 26th Mar '11 8:24:08 PM by SeanMurrayI

Oh...From the title I thought you were talking about tak.

This story just made my day.

Truly beautiful.

edited 29th Mar '11 1:50:16 PM by SeanMurrayI

Ahaha, what is this I don't even.

I laughed.

Wut.

I like that this thread exists. I considered starting an all-purpose football/soccer thread straight after the World Cup but decided it wasn't worth it. I'm glad someone thought otherwise!

Anyways, as far as Premiership teams go, I'm an Arsenal fan. Hasn't been the best month to be a Gunner, it has to be said. I also support my local team, Exeter City, who won 1-0 against Swindon today in League One and are sitting comfortably in mid-table. Pretty good considering three seasons ago we were in the Conference.

In other news, England 1-1 Ghana. Changing formation to 4-3-3 apparently doesn't solve all of Capello's problems. Why do English football fans and the sporting media continue to believe that we're anything more than a slightly above-average international football team whose players earn about 10 times more than they deserve?

To be perfectly fair, Capello did play more of the stronger players in his hand in the European Cup qualifier against Whales only three days earlier. Perhaps a win still would've been expected by most, but given the quality of the side that Capello put out today, I'd argue that both squads would roughly be about equal strength.

well, it's half time

West Ham United 2-0 Manchester United

MARK NOBLE I WANT YOUR BABIES and now for god's sake hold on

that's awesome I hate Man U...

Too bad we lost 4-2

Absolutely sums West Ham up in a nutshell, really

That match made me sadface. Damn you Rooney! Still, at least Stoke are currently 1-1 with Chelsea! Come on you Potters...

Oh my giddy aunt, that's atrocious

edited 2nd Apr '11 8:13:00 AM by faradayangel

West Ham were up 2-0 and all of Man U's goals came in the span of about 15 minutes after the 70-minute mark. Man, that sucks... though I'm not one to talk, seeing how Chelsea did against Stoke.

It's disappointing, but I'm not that saddened. It wasn't a match I was expecting us to win. I'm a Hammers fan, this sort of stuff comes with the territory.

Man U has always been a tough team for West Ham, even when playing at home. Seeing them go up 2-0 in the first half was more unexpected than the final score. Had they held on, it would've been absolutely amazing, but as Hammers fans always say, "Fortune's always hiding."

I got pretty nervous last season when it started to look like the club was gonna be relegated and Gianfranco Zola would have to be put on suicide watch. Looks like this season is gonna be more of the same, except this time Gianfranco Zola has nothing to do with it.

edited 2nd Apr '11 9:30:45 AM by SeanMurrayI

Well, we've got games we can pick up points from before the end of the season.

Whether we will pick up enough points is an entirely different matter, though, and I would be utterly unsurprised if we did go down this season. We've been pretty terrible for a considerable amount of the season

What I'm about to say would destroy the souls of every football fan ever if I didn't start with this: Football isn't very popular in Finland. It's not even the second most popular sport, and no one likes our national team which, BTW, is about as good as Hungary - in other words, compared to the rest of Europe, it's shit and the only time it's any good is right after Litmanen is inevitably substituted in during the second half. The most viewed and supported national team in Finland is the men's national ice hockey team, which is consistently among the top-5 of the world and considered one of the "big seven", so it's understandable that a small nation like us would love the (pretty much) only (major) sport we're really great at.

I'm telling you all this because I wanted to explain why I only started watching football in 2008. I mostly watch international games only, though I do have a couple of favourite teams in European leagues (FC Barcelona is the best team ever and as for the Premier League, I dig Arsenal and Tottenham).

When the Euro2008 began, I didn't have a favourite team. I like the Netherlands as a country so I initially supported them, but after I saw Spain play for the first time, I was in love. I really do believe that Spain has some of the best players in the world. Casillas is the best goalie I've ever seen and Xavi is my favourite athlete in any sport ever. I also love Fabregas, Xabi Alonso and Navas.

The position I most enjoy watching (and that I'd probably play if I ever played football) is midfield, so most of my favourite players are midfielders. I think Spain's main problem as a team is that it's offense is weak compared to its defence and centre. Villa and Torres are good when they're in the mood for a good game, but sometimes I really wish the national team was even more like Barcelona (referring to Messi here). Oh, and Messi's goal in the game against Arsenal a while back - beautiful. Reminded me of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, though Messi is even better than him.

Other national teams I adore are England (I'm an anglophile), Germany, Uruguay (after the World Cup) and Russia, which was fantastic in EURO2008 (as was Turkey, BTW). I also liked the Netherlands when they played Brazil and Uruguay (though I was rooting for the latter), but I lost all respect for them when they played really goddamn dirty in the final last year. Shame on them! (Iniesta filmed pretty horribly near the end and totally didn't deserve to be the one to get the goal, but those warnings were deserved way earlier for real offenses anyway).

I've been watching Finland's games in the qualifiers for next year's European Championship, and our chances aren't looking good after losing to Moldova and Hungary. In both games, we were better but had no luck, plus our offense sucks sometimes. Against the Netherlands, we pretty much dominated the first half, or at least a large chunk of it, but that was because the Dutch knew that they only had to play for real for the last 20 minutes and they'd win - which they did, doing just that. Now, to qualify, we have to beat San Marino again (which obviously is easy - we won them 8-0 last time) and then we'll have to beat Hungary and Moldova and win or tie with Sweden (which is greatly stronger than us) twice and try not to lose against the Netherlands. In other words, you won't be seeing us in the EURO 2012.

I hope Spain wins again in 2012, though I'd also like it if Germany or England won. I definitely don't want Portugal, France or the Netherlands to win.

edited 2nd Apr '11 10:44:30 AM by BestOf

1-0 at halftime in the Milan derby with Pato scoring for AC Milan in less than 60 seconds. The roughly 44 minutes that followed weren't so bad, either—apart from some doofus in the stands shining a green laser in Wesley Sneijder's eyes during a free kick.

edited 2nd Apr '11 1:54:48 PM by SeanMurrayI

Pointing a laser at Sneijder is what it takes to make him a merely fantastic midfielder. Easily the best player in the Dutch national team as well as Inter.

^ I fancy Arjen Robben a lot myself. Both he and Sneijder practically carried the Dutch team to the last World Cup final all by themselves.

Anyway, Milan went on to beat Inter 3-0, and Antonio Cassano wins the dubious honor of Stupidest Player of the Week.

I don't think Robben is among the top-5 of the Dutch national team. Stekelenburg is amazing. So is Heitinga, though possibly not quite as good as Robben. Van der Vaart is possibly better than Robben. I think van Persie is the best forward in the Dutch team, though the person most likely to score in any given game (haven't seen statistics, but it's the impression I got from seeing their games) is still Sneijder. I think Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Dirk Kuyt are also about as good as if not better than Robben.

I hate van Bommel, though. He's an asshole and he should've been sent off in the middle of the first half in the final when he kicked Xabi Alonso in the chest. I'll never know how the referee didn't even warn him for that.

You're right about Mark van Bommel; I will give you that. The dude tackles with the grace of an elephant performing ballet... or a freight truck in Formula 1. He was the least useful person to the Netherlands squad in the past World Cup.