All-Purpose, Never-Ending Soccer Thread

My Red Devils better not crap out of the Big Cup again.

 

Good news Webster, they're at home this time. That should be enough for them to hold on. How they got themselves into this circumstance after winning the first three is troubleing though.

 

ManYoo doesn't swash its buckle like it used to.

They have a terriffic front-running trio in Rooney, Saha and Ronaldo. Problem is, who's getting them the ball? Scholes is showing his age, Carrick is a pure holding mid, Park is still injured and the Fletcher/O'Shea combo inspires exactly no confidence.

Moreover, if/when Saha gets hurt, what forward options do they have on the bench? Rusty Gunnar Solskjaer and Alan Smith, who hasn't played forward in two seasons. SAF probably misses van Nistelrooy a lot more than he lets on.

It was nice to see ManYoo get back to some of the attacking play that got the club to the pinnacle of Europe. Too bad they don't have an in-form forward to take advantage of all that positive play. If SAF sticks with that attacking strategy and shuns the continental coyness (read: slow tempo, one up front) he's lapsed into in recent years, ManYoo could still make a lot of noise in the Champions League.

 

england shouldn't be that high but should be in the top 10

 

Seriously, did you see either the Macedonia or Croatia game. They were abysmal.

England is a team that has the reputation of it's league to thank for people's impression of it's national team. I'm sorry to say this as a native, but right now England is not good, and I could probably name ten countries better.

Here goes: Brazil, Argentina, Italy, France, Portugal, Germany, Croatia, Czech Republic, Spain and Ukraine.

There you go.

 

i don't know about Ukraine everyone else yeah i guess

 

Andrei Shevchenko (or Shivchenko depending on who you ask) and the gang are definitely better at this point. The only team they've lost to this year is Italy.

 

yeah, but you can't just rely on Cheschenko (?), you need more than one person, and yes their win against Italy was quite impressive.

 

Well, I think that they get Rossi back in January. I'm guessing that they will overpay for a forward during the transfer period. I liked RVN a lot. He was excellent and holding up the ball and laying it off to a winger. Saha often displays a shaky touch.

 

yeah, saha has no touches but has speed like no other. i also heard from my friends in France, that Cise might play for France this year

 

The latest scuttlebutt is 25 million quid for Atletico Madrid's Fernando Torres in the January window. I can't imagine Glenn Roeder will be happy to see Rossi go, considering they were already thin at forward before Ameobi went down for the season.

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Ukraine better than England? I'm not so sure about that. Hell, I'd probably take England over Italy with the way the Azurri are playing right now.

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Good day for Israeli clubs in the Euro Vase. Maccabi Haifa with a 1-0 home win over Partizan Belgrade and Hapoel Tel Aviv winning 4-2 in Paris. YA Brad Friedel helped Blackburn qualify for the knockout rounds with a 0-0 draw at Feyenoord ... no word if Michael Bradley played in Heerenveen's 2-1 loss at Parma.

 

yeah