2007-08 EPL Thread

[WayAbvPar]

I think more people bitch about CR is because more people actually SEE him play.

This.

I had never seen him play (that I remembered) until his hat trick day, and I was working with the TV on in the background and so didn't see much actual run of play stuff.

Wow at CRO v Ger. I loathe the Germans too, so this makes me happy. 

[sigil]

Picked today  as my day to do lots of actual work to cover for my Euro 2008 viewing, so I'll just have to wait until tonight to read that :)

[WayAbvPar]

Yeah, I am back in the office today and tomorrow so I can't watch live. This sucks!

[Hoax]

Spain and Portugal have lapses on defense, Portugal's will probably get them kicked out first.

Spain's defense just looked bad, the worst defensive peformance top to bottom of any of the "favorites" so far, except Italy, I guess. Hehe.

Their left back just doesn't seem to be a good player, Capavilla or whatever, not familiar with him.  Puyol is starting to ride name recognition, he's like a less annoying version of John Terry at this point.  The back line was just so damn suspect, if that black holding midfielder hadn't played a damn good game they would have been in all sorts of trouble.  Petit looked shakey a bunch in Portugal's second game but overall I thought they did a better job if you ignore the corners.  God they need to fix that.

Good point about the whole Catalan thing, I have a friend who is Basque, sometimes I think he's made me block that shit from my mind after hearing too many drunken rants.

I'm glad you all can admit that your fucking idiots who buy into the OMG! Stiff upper lip or else!  Nonsense of the English media..  Except Haemish who pretends that somehow Portugal and CR in particular are the diviest fucks that ever dived.   

[sigil]

I admit nothing.

and Ronaldo tried his share of dives against the Czechs, but the were all further out and of less consequence.

I think the spat about the corner kick, the one  that had Simao lining it into the wall shows some further seeds of unhappiness with Iberian diving team A 

[lamaros]

He also played a big part in all three Portugal goals.

I'm a big fan of CR, Deco and Carvahlo, so I'm going for Portugal this Euro (despite having much closer ties to Italy and The Netherlands by blood). I enjoy watching the team play though the diving does of course annoy me (but not UEFA's head Platini, it seems)

The only thing worse than Spain's defence was Russia's. But Russia has a good coach and should at least improve. Spain is forced to rely on the brilliance of some of their players. I love watching Torres play though, so hopefully they get it together this year and do ok.

WUP is there any country you don't loathe? 

I think the spat about the corner kick, the one  that had Simao lining it into the wall shows some further seeds of unhappiness with Iberian diving team A 

But what does that have to do with them winning the tournament? Drogba and Ballack did worse and came within 1 match of the premier league title and only the woodwork stopped them (three times) from winning the champions league.

[HaemishM]

Their left back just doesn't seem to be a good player, Capavilla or whatever, not familiar with him.  Puyol is starting to ride name recognition, he's like a less annoying version of John Terry at this point.  The back line was just so damn suspect, if that black holding midfielder hadn't played a damn good game they would have been in all sorts of trouble. 

Spain's other center back, Marchena, plays on Valencia. He's as much of a holding midfielder as he is a center back. For some reason, Aayla (who used to be on Valencia) isn't being used and should be. He's good.

I'm glad you all can admit that your fucking idiots who buy into the OMG! Stiff upper lip or else!  Nonsense of the English media..  Except Haemish who pretends that somehow Portugal and CR in particular are the diviest fucks that ever dived.   

No, that would be ITALY. Those are the divingest divers you've ever seen. Portugal is just full of shitheads. That game in World Cup 2006 against one of the Nordic teams is where they get that rep from for me, the game where there were like 3 red cards and tons of almost fights. Also, Portugal isn't playing Miguel in defense, and I think he would help.

[WayAbvPar]

I had forgotten about that game...that was a brawl. No wonder I don't like Portugal. I do hate Italy more, however, mostly do to their gold-medal diving performance against the US in the last WC.

[lamaros]

No, that would be ITALY. Those are the divingest divers you've ever seen. Portugal is just full of shitheads. That game in World Cup 2006 against one of the Nordic teams is where they get that rep from for me, the game where there were like 3 red cards and tons of almost fights. Also, Portugal isn't playing Miguel in defense, and I think he would help.

Err, you're not getting confused with the Portugal v Netherlands match are you?

The Netherlands is not Nordic.
Netherlands had as many players in trouble.
A large portion of the blame goes to the ref, not either side. (The game was a Farce of the worst kind).

Kinda lose credibility as an observer when you base opinons off something you can't remember properly.

[Mr_PeaCH]

Glad I didn't spoil myself yesterday for the Germany-Croatia match I DVRed.  Holy awesome, that was great fun to watch!  The final 10 minutes were gripping.  The Tablecloths are my new favorite team.

Looking forward to France-Holland today; I had France as my team originally but after watching the Dutch punk the Italians I have to admit I'm kind of hoping they'll roar out of this group now.

[WayAbvPar]

FUCK!!! I forgot to set my TiVo for France/Holland. That is going to be a great game. DAMMIT.

[sigil]

that's why I can access my tivo via yahoo and fix things like that.

[WayAbvPar]

I really need to get my home network set up. One of these years...

[HaemishM]

No, that would be ITALY. Those are the divingest divers you've ever seen. Portugal is just full of shitheads. That game in World Cup 2006 against one of the Nordic teams is where they get that rep from for me, the game where there were like 3 red cards and tons of almost fights. Also, Portugal isn't playing Miguel in defense, and I think he would help.

Err, you're not getting confused with the Portugal v Netherlands match are you?

The Netherlands is not Nordic.
Netherlands had as many players in trouble.
A large portion of the blame goes to the ref, not either side. (The game was a Farce of the worst kind).

Kinda lose credibility as an observer when you base opinons off something you can't remember properly.

That's the one. I couldn't remember the other side. World Cup 2006 was my first soccer watching. That game was badly reffed, yes, as was most of the World Cup. But the players also have to take some serious blame for being complete cockholsters, on both sides. The only reason I don't hate the Netherlands team as much as Portgual is because I don't get to see them as much as Ronaldo or Deco.

[Jobu]

Err, you're not getting confused with the Portugal v Netherlands match are you?

That's the one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKXq7xcnkis

I'm suspecting a Dutch v. Portugal final, so maybe we'll get a sequel!

Portugal's defense won't be their undoing if they keep scoring goals. It's like how Real Madrid played in the early 00's. Go ahead, get a few past our shoddy backline. We don't care. We're just gonna turn around and score more.

[WayAbvPar]

I'm suspecting a Dutch v. Portugal final, so maybe we'll get a sequel!

That would be very entertaining. Might be 10 goals scored!

[HaemishM]

Err, you're not getting confused with the Portugal v Netherlands match are you?

That's the one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKXq7xcnkis

I'm suspecting a Dutch v. Portugal final, so maybe we'll get a sequel!

Yeah, that's the stuff. See, you watch that video and yes, the ref was abysmal and totally lost control of that match. BUT... a shitton of those fouls were either mean, deliberate fouls or the result of complete loss of personal control by the players. That game was a huge shit sandwich.

[rk47]

Italy v Romania was a keeper's game. I didn't understand why the gave Man of the match to Pirlo when it's supposed to be Buffon or that Romanian keeper. They both kept their side in the game. A loss would've meant the end in this grp. Credit to Buffon for that awesome penalty save Mutu would've been crushed.

Holland was simply amazing. France had no chance. They're not the same side anymore. Nistlerooy and Dirk Kuyt was already enough to scare any defense but add in Persie and Robben on 2nd half = Massacre. I was stunned when French scored a goal, but Robben's reaction was awesome.

[Mosesandstick]

You know a goal is awesome when ROBBEN can't believe he actually scored  .

[Mr_PeaCH]

The Dutch are in dreamland.  The whole exchange leading to the second goal with Van Nistlerooy flicking the ball back in to Robben's cross to Van Persie's goal was sublime and then Robben's goal mere seconds after Henry netted one was absurd.  I thought the quality of the announcers really added to the match as well.

This makes Italy v France very interesting indeed.  (The final group play matches go off simultaneously, correct... so they will be playing at the same time as Netherlands - Romania?)

[sigil]

I think a gritty Romania combined with a Dutch team  mentally looking ahead to the quarters equals  France and Italy saying  bye bye.

[rk47]

Yeah, I dunno, Dutch reserve still look strong. If Adrian Mutu can't sore, I doubt anyone else can in the Romanian squad.

[HaemishM]

Did anyone else think the Romanians shouldn't even have been given that penalty? Seemed like a shitty call to me. Good game otherwise, and the Italians didn't do as much diving as I've seen them do in the past. Mutu looked like he'd been castrated when he missed that penalty.

[Hoax]

Romania stands some chance, they showed impressive quality in midfield and enough creativity up front to deserve to score, I can't figure out what is wrong with Italy though.  I mean they have so much talent yet suddenly NOBODY on the entire team knows how to put a header on frame?  Wtf was that.

Spain spain spain...

That game illustrated exactly why they will not win this competition.

Sweden is dangerous if they get past Russia, not to win it all but they could have a 1-0 or 1-1 pk upset in them.  That defense really maintains their positions with such patience and discipline, too bad Freddie Ljungberg just isn't that good any more, they really need two wingers since their central midfield really doesn't create anything.  They deserved to get a point out of that.

Russia will be a dark horse to get out of their group come WC2010, depends on what their group is but they honestly are solid for such a young squad.  Good riddance to Greece even if they didnt' play too poorly.  The Sweden versus Russia game will be quite fun as a result.

re:  The Dutch.   

I've seen this before, they usually stop playing this well as time wears on, but damn if they aren't in rare form atm.  Scary stuff.  Portugal still wont make it to the finals, in fact being matched against Germany (likely) is pretty cruel.  They'll need to score early because Germany will put at least one if not 2 past their woeful fucking set piece and/or aerial defence.

[lamaros]

Sweeden. Fuck. Me. So boring. BS Sweeded deserved a point. At least Spain gave it a shot.

The Dutch will probably do an Argentina.

[HaemishM]

Villa finally showed up after 90 minutes of anonymity. That game got real boring in the mid-parts, as Spain farted about with lots of passing that went nowwhere through much of the game. But be fair, Spain deserved a penalty kick at the death of the first half. Silva just got flattened. Other than that, Sweden played pretty well, but without any real threat except on set pieces. If Puyol is out for any length of time, I'm not sure how well Spain will do. Albiol is decent, but he and Marchena are not what I'd call solid.