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Non Euro 2004 Football

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11:46 / 20.04.05

Yes! Hull City got promoted again! Peter Taylor and that team rock.

I was gonna post up a picture of the team celebrating but that would be rubbing it in for Haus too much I think, seeing as they took the automatic spot Tranmere were hoping for.

I hope they get through anyway Haus, it'll be cool to beat your team next season!

Goodness Gracious Meme

02:47 / 21.04.05

Ha ha ha.

Everton 1 - Man U 0

Gary Neville sent off and potentially facing police probe after kicking the ball into the Goodison family enclosure. Paul Scholes sent off for horrendous 'challenge'/kicking Kevin Kilbane.

Everton edging ever closer to a Champs League spot (I have a soft spot for David Moyes) leaving Man U 4 pts adrift of Arsenal

What's not to love?

05:21 / 21.04.05

Particularly great seeing two angry scottish men shout at each other, while Dunken Disorlderly walked about calm as you like, having scored yet again. He also managed to have what looked like the entire Everton team jump on him after that goal, but didn't flinch.

Nice goal from Norwich.

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:40 / 21.04.05

Yeah - Dean Ashton is looking a snip - he will either score a lot of goals in the championship (big fellow _with touch_) or Norwich will make £2-3 million on their investment when they sell him on. At which point he will of course lose it completely in a David Hurst stylee.

I'm particularly enjoying Fergie's slow-burn loss of patience. If you got in at the start of the season, you coudl have shagged a goat on the pitch at Boundary Park using a granny as a prophylactic and he would have limited his response to a complaint about the condition of the grass in the penalty areas. You could visibly see his refusal to criticise hi splayers chipping off as Peter Kenyon and Rio Ferdinand were photographed in nightspot after nightspot, drinking, signing autographs and slow dancing, and now this. At some point in the next week he's going to fine Darren Fletcher six weeks' wages for looking funny and make him apologise for it on MUTV.

Good job Luke Chadwick's left, really.

nedrichards is confused

14:00 / 25.04.05

Senderos is softly spoken. At 6ft 3in and with a broad frame, he hunches over when talking. Get him on to the subject of reading, however, and his piercing blue eyes light up. 'Oh, last year I was very into Paulo Coelho,' he says. 'I read all of his books. And the Malcolm X biography and the Martin Luther King biography and Che Guevara and some French literature. I like to read a bit of everything.' Sounds a bit high-brow for a footballer. Don't his team-mates find it a bit strange? 'No, they all read something at Arsenal. I swapped books with the masseur, told him to get into Paulo Coelho. Everyone else is obsessed with The Da Vinci Code .' He frowns. 'I don't want to read that. I'm really interested in theology, I have a lot of friends in Geneva who are Muslim so I read a lot about Islam - all the monotheistic religions in fact, the similarities and the differences. I don't want to read a book that undermines all of that.'

Phillipe Senderos is now officially my favourite footballer.

14:23 / 25.04.05

Can we have a photo, please? More dishy footballers in this thread! Quite enough mentions of Luke Chadwick, already.

15:30 / 25.04.05

Luke Chadwick?

So, anyway, Forest put off their death until next week. For one brief moment I actually looked at the table and thought, by gum, we might just do this! But we don't deserve it at all.

Never mind footballers, the sexiest man in football right now is Jose Morhino.

With Karen Brady still retaining the sexiest woman prize.

nedrichards is confused

19:52 / 25.04.05

Not a whole lot of pics of Senderos about sadly. But he's been playing well recently.

20:04 / 25.04.05

Oh, sorry. I was hoping you might have a little folder of your favourites. That passage you quoted makes him sound so lovely, what with his piercing blue eyes and broad frame and brooding seriousness and all.

Playing well, hmm, I’m sure he is. Bah, etc

Goodness Gracious Meme

16:27 / 26.04.05

yeah, that edition of the paper was full of non-english footballing professionals demonstrating their abilities to work in football, maintain a varied set of interests, and speak, all at the same time

20:55 / 26.04.05

Admirers in the press and in the stands have already hailed Senderos as the new Tony Adams, but the youngster is cautious. 'That's crazy. He accomplished so much in his career...'

Like 18 pints of Guinness a day. Bet young Phil can't even get past 7.

I'm enjoying this season quite a bit, given my team are in hot contention for a European position under the guidance of the amazingly tanned, 'speaks his mind', no-nonsense tutelage of James 'Jimmy' Calderwood. Quite how he managed NAC Breda in Holland (iirc) with his Fifer's style, and and how that went down, is a constant source of bewilderment to me. Still, another win at Parkhead - this time before Celtic had the title cut and dried, and almost a second, chucking a two-scud lead in what they're calling the 'game of the season', and probably the fulcrum on which they pivoted to go on and effectively win the title last Sunday, with the prospect of a third (post-split fixtures are fucked-up; I think we should have a 14 team league which splits after 26 games and plays a further 12, top and bottom, thus retaining the 38 games a season but the SFA has yet to see it my way) has me smilin'. Of course, the nature of raised expectation will leave me crushed if Hibs exciting young team do beat us to it, and we do still need a (20 goal a season, like cultured museum-goer Arild Stavrum was) proper striker.

I'd like Norwich to stay up. I've always liked them since they were briefly top of the league back when my aunt and uncle lived there, and their strip is so bright. Only English team to win at Bayern. Raith Rovers led there at half-time once. I'd also like Nigel 'Scottish, very nearly scored in Italy' Quashie to play Premiership football next season, but you can't have it all.

22:40 / 30.04.05

So Forest go down. And so we find ourselves looking at a massive debt issue, a huge wage bill and a load of players that have proven themselves to be completely unprofessional. How do I feel? Well, apart from missing my fiance badly, I'm alright. My team I play for won 3-0 today, and I'm alright jack, as I felt as though we were down about three months ago. Just a shame that we have a bad team and no london-based games of note to visit.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

21:50 / 23.05.05

I fear my newly regained interest in football revolves soley around an interest for Thierry Henry, and I am continually dismayed by not having seen him play for so long.

That or boredom.

02:03 / 26.05.05

Tryphena Absent

02:12 / 26.05.05

I wish I'd watched it now!!!

06:17 / 26.05.05

isn't that threadrot - the champions league is kinda 'euro', eh??

go australia! we beat celtic one day to hand rangers the scottish title (mcdonald scoring twice for motherwell on 88 & 90 mins!), then ac milan the [almost] next with the mighty aussie harry-kewell for liver-pewell!! (all right, he was injured and did nearly nothing, but he was there!)

...never walk alone...

but still disgruntled at palace going down

lonely as a cloud...

07:11 / 26.05.05

Cracking Euro final, for once. The first fifteen minutes of the second half was some of the best football I've seen since...well, since Chelsea got three in 15 minutes against Barca. But didn't Dudek come off his line very early for some, if not all, of Milan's penalties?

09:08 / 26.05.05

He certainly did for Pirlo's.

Still, stirring stuff, completed only by the presence of (rubbish) ex-Aberdeen and Hibs manager Alex Miller on the L'Pool bench.

The end of the season has been mental, what with Celtic contriving to throw away the Scottish title in 3 minutes, and now this excitement.

Dundee Utd. are 9-1 to win the Scottish Cup against the Celts, and they're fucking terrible, but I'm seriously contemplating a pop.

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:47 / 26.05.05

next with the mighty aussie harry-kewell for liver-pewell!!

As he has been throughout the season, Kewell was embarrassing. My faith in Benitez' wisdom was sorely tested by the decision to leave Hamman and Biscan out of the starting line-up in favour of Kewell (I might have started with Cisse as well, but that's more of a judgement call), when Kewell has been invisible all season with a succession of mystery injuries and poor form. His injury was probably the only way Smicer was coming on, and once Smicer *did* come on Liverpool made a lot more sense ... but that left L'pool with fewer substitutions available, which in turn delayed the arrival of Cisse and made Carragher and Smicer's cramps far more white-knuckle than they needed to be.

(Ontopic, btw - this thread was for club football rather than the national contest)

nedrichards is confused

10:50 / 26.05.05

Also 2004... ;-)

All I sahll say is that my faith in Djimi Traore has once more been repaid.

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:07 / 26.05.05

In a very specific sense... he was one of the most abject players in an abject first half. Constantly out of position, forcing Hyppia to move into the left-hand channel, and every time he got the ball he either passed it back or booted it aimlessly upfield. Much improved in the second half, but I'm waiting for him to convince still. The fact that he is the only proper, non-wingy left-back at Liverpool is not in itself a good enough reason to keep playing him...

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:07 / 26.05.05

In a very specific sense... he was one of the most abject players in an abject first half. Constantly out of position, forcing Hyppia to move into the left-hand channel, and every time he got the ball he either passed it back or booted it aimlessly upfield. Much improved in the second half, but I'm waiting for him to convince still. The fact that he is the only proper, non-wingy left-back at Liverpool is not in itself a good enough reason to keep playing him...

11:50 / 26.05.05

Yeah, first half, Traore was as dreadful as he's ever been; don't think contrasting him with Maldini does one single favour.

But you know extra time, later, off the line...

Dudek was ropey too, and then pulled off what I think must be a Banks-eclipsing double-save. I mean, how does the ball go straight up like that?

Zeroes to heroes, escape to victory and all that.

12:44 / 26.05.05

Shevchenko, one of the greatest strikers in the game, missing from 2 yards!

I was at work, caught the first goal, was told that they were 3-0 down before someone turned on a television and thought, just watch the first half of the second half. Didn't do any work until that last penalty.

It was supurb, went from being one of the most one sided contests to one of the best comebacks - should know better, Liverpool are famous for their comebacks. It was funny though, the 1st half played by the league Liverpool, the 2nd by the Champions league Liverpool.

Gerrard is officially my favourite non-Forest player.

14:38 / 26.05.05

The game, as it happened. As seen by the charming members of CFC.net - '"the intelligent forum" for fans of the Champions, Chelsea FC.' It sez here.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

14:59 / 26.05.05

Ha ha ha. So many Chelsea fans doing impressions of Darth Vader.

Good.

I'm a wandsworth boy, and the one thing that put me off supporting Chelsea when I was a kid was their god-awful fan-base. Bunch of hooligan-chav wanna-be's.

G-E-R-R-A-R-D!

Goodness Gracious Meme

16:01 / 26.05.05

Fucking astonishing stuff. As pretty much a neutral, can i just say wheeeeeeehhaaaaaahhhhhh to Liverpool.

And I wouldn't get that excited about Traore. He did seem to settle a little as the second half progressed but he still looked pretty fragile to me.

Carragher, on the other hand, was absolutely magnificent. In the final minutes of normal time, he kept them in it with several perfect goalmouth tackles.

I think I <3 him.

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:50 / 26.05.05

I think Carragher was made to look bad in the first hhalf, comparatively, because Traore was stranded upfield, pulling Hyppia to the left and leaving Carragher equally stranded in the centre against £50m of striking talent with Kaka playing them in. If you look at the second half, and the underlying trend, this and his performance against Chelsea make him on current form one of the best defenders in Europe. If Shrek can be a hero...

Which is rather a boot to the head of Houllier, who consistently failed to get the best out of him, just as this win rather pisses on Houllier's year of five meaningless cups. I feel a bit sorry for him.

But yes - Chris and I were playing Guess Who is Playing Their Last Game as First Choice. I think Traore might stick around for a while, but after about 5 years he really hasn't come on the way he ought to. You can't have a defender whose telescopic legs are perfect for tackles when he is out of position one time in three... Dudek I think is probably still on the way out, as is Baros, Kewell if anyone can be found to buy him, Smicer (probably to Portsmouth, bless 'em)... if Benitex gets the finance, he's in a great position to buy.

nedrichards is confused

22:21 / 26.05.05

All I shall say in his defence is that Traore is actually the William Gallas of this situation (ie the centre back playing left back) and that I'd have taken him off rather than Finnan at half time, a player who is constantly underrated at whatever club he plays for.

ONLY NICE THINGS

23:05 / 26.05.05

Odd, isn't it? A consistently hard-working and efficient player who reguarly puts in 30-40 games a season without really getting a mention.

There was a definite intake of breath when Traore came out for the second half. Point taken on the Gallas issue, however - he is played out of position so consistently that one forgets. The answer, perhaps, is to buy a left-back of genuine quality, or two. The current set of options - Traore (centre-back), Riise (wing-back), Finnan (right-footed wing-back), Josemi (right-back) and Carragher (please, God, no) are just not good enough. Except, you know, to win the Champions League.

09:45 / 27.05.05

'S funny. I thought Riise (rudest memeber of the Norway squad, with Carew squeaking in behind, btw. Myhre's v. pleasant though) always used to be first pick there?

I was a little surprised to see him so far up the pitch in the starting line-up. Maybe I've not been paying attention.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:34 / 27.05.05

Liverpool under Houllier often favoured a 5-3-2/3-5-2 formation that played to Riise's strengths on the left...

nedrichards is confused

15:25 / 28.05.05

Also he's got one of the best shots of any 'defender' I've ever seen. Tends to help. Agreed on the need to reinforce with some serious spending over the summer though. How much could you get for Kewell down the market do you reckon? Surely West Brom'll have him.

22:01 / 29.05.05

4 points for an away win mooted.... what d'ya rekkun about that?

personally, i think they should make it 2 points to the away team for a draw, rather than increase the no. of points available for the game. there's a novel idea to make the home team work harder!

22:54 / 29.05.05

It has been done, in the former Yugoslavia and ROI before I think, a 4-3-2-1 pts. system.

I think it'd be more interesting if you just gave a point for a win and nothing for anything else. And only counted goals for.

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