Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Games & Gameplay >

Football football. Football football.

Page: 1 ... 3 4 5 6 7(8)9 10 11 12

22:26 / 27.07.06

at serious risk of being seen as talking to myself, can't help another gloat

finally, football - soccer - in australia is looking, if not in entirely rude health, then at least it looks like it's not sick anymore, feeling better thank you, might go for a walk...

finally. go matildas!

21:39 / 28.07.06

Likewise, in the worlds of ancillary football, I'm very excited at the prospect of Scotland facing Spain in the final of the U-19 European Championships; given we never get past a group stage, or even into them anymore, this is as good as that time we lost the U-17 was it? final on pens. to Saudi Arabia.

Still, I hope it marks some indication of good things to come; saw the semi against the Czech Rep. and both teams looked excellent. Spain did cuff us 4-0 in the groups, however.

02:04 / 02.08.06

a while back up-thread, was asked about the state of football in australia.... gave a bit of an answer, but to flesh it out, from the horse's mouth: head of football australia's address to national press club.

interesting points about a new asian demographic for australia per se, not just our football

00:19 / 10.08.06

just have to add that crystal palace are leading the championship after two games, so are the highest placed side in english competition at the moment. right where they belong!!

go palace!

12:10 / 10.08.06

Just you wait until Matt Lawrence starts playing, you'll fall down the league quicker than a quick faling thing.

One point from two games, and our first refereeing and injury calamaties, with Tony Craig sent off after three minutes for a nothing challenge against Orient closely followed by Darren Byfield possibly breaking his leg.

I have a feeling it's going to be one of those seasons.

21:43 / 13.08.06

hey ggm - first encounter of the season to palace, 1-0 at selhurst park... what chance us and you get to the premiership next year? looking good so far for one of us!

and 'pool beat chelsea again if they played like every team was chelsea, they'd win everything...

00:08 / 17.08.06

oh it's me again, but watched my socceroos beat kuwait last night in an asia cup qualifier - we won 2-0 with a very inexperienced team (6 uncapped and another ten or so with only a couple each) all from our new domestic league, none of whom played in germany (only two from the squad, no game time either one) and only the old assistant coach to hooray guss hiddink taking the reins in his own right.

a tentative start, a brisk unit at kuwait's back hard to penetrate without an oiled midfield slipping into gear. eventually, the side got some rhythm and, while we won't see this squad on the park again, several young players now have experience and will push for places at the next world cup with half of our germany team likely to retire soon.

david carney and mark milligan impressed me. clint bolton in goals now has four caps, four clean sheets (incl a 22-0 rout of fiji a few years back - can't imagine he saw much of the ball after the warm-ups that day!) and was also pretty solid... on that note, the kuwaiti 'keeper was also responsible for keeping them in the game so long. our goals came from an also impressive debutant, travis dodd [though set up by carney] and petrovski, after dodd's shot was parried into his path, inside the last twenty minutes.

it might have been six or seven with a bit more time for these players to get to know one another. next socceroos hit out is in kuwait for the return leg, with most of our 'senior' [ie european-based] players likely to be back.

but the win makes us the first country to 'qualify' for the finals next year (the four - count 'em, four - host nations exempted) and we only joined the confederation eight months ago, already the highest ranked country.

more football for us, all good! how's your team/s going?

anyone?

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:01 / 17.08.06

Apparently our run of bad luck was all that Swedish guy's fault after all.

22:35 / 21.08.06

but then he [s]vent avay...

australia's under 20 womens team are in st petersburg, losing to brasil 2-0 in their opening group game of their equivalent world cup. play new zealand next, then meet the hosts, russia, who they must beat to qualify for the knock-out phase. i'm none so confident of them doing the=is, but they have had shown some good form recently.

c'mon aussie...

btw for those with an interest in the a-league downunder, season two kicks off this week. site for news reviews and the blues (all right, it doesn't mean anything, but it rhymes!) lookie here.

01:26 / 25.08.06

wondered if anyone is interested - barca and chelsea have been drawn together in the group phase for the next champion's league:

Group A: Barcelona (Spain), Chelsea (England), Werder Bremen (Germany), Levski Sofia (Bulgaria).

Group B: Inter (Italy), Bayern Munich (Germany), Sporting Lisbon (Portugal), Spartak Moscow (Russia)

Group C: Liverpool (England), PSV Eindhoven (Netherlands), Girondins Bordeaux (France), Galatasaray (Turkey)

Group D: Valencia (Spain), AS Roma (Italy), Olympiakos Piraeus (Greece), Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine)

Group E: Real Madrid (Spain), Olympique Lyon (France), Steaua Bucharest (Romania), Dynamo Kiev (Ukraine)

Group F Manchester United (England), Celtic (Scotland), Benfica (Portugal), FC Copenhagen (Denmark)

Group G Arsenal (England), Porto (Portugal), CSKA Moscow (Russia), Hamburg SV (Germany)

Group H AC Milan (Italy), Lille (France), AEK Athens (Greece), Anderlecht (Belgium)

groups b & g look dicey to me, too...

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

09:50 / 31.08.06

I feel strangely excited by the transfer deadline.

16:00 / 31.08.06

Yeah, very exciting if you're a Hammer today in particular, I should imagine - Javier Mascherano and (the absolutely brilliant) Carlos Tevez after being linked with the big three (MU, Chelski, the Arse) opt to go to Upton?!?!

WTF? Coup!

Very exciting. Could see the bubble-boys challenging for a Champs Lg. place on the strength of that, but I still dunno how on earth it's transpired.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

18:11 / 31.08.06

Indeed! It's all a bit baffling (HOW?!), but pretty exciting. Is there some strange agreement between Media Sports Investments and West Ham?

22:42 / 31.08.06

[*note to moderators: i just got an error after hitting 'post reply', so if this is a repeat post, could it be deleted?]

dwight yorke is headed back to the old dart after a successful stint in the colonies, in the great downunda...

rockin' roy keane has filched him with a year to run with a carrot of over half a million aus [twenty or thirty quid in real pounds...], an astute signing for a beleaguered sunderland. rekkun they'll do ok, yorke is a 'winner'; showing a rare bit o' nous, old keaney...

now sydney fc need a replacement but with the window slamming shut they'll be hard pressed to get anyone not out of contract. still, s'only the a-league!

23:20 / 31.08.06

Keane's actually gone daft, picking up Liam Miller, Stan Varga, Lee Wallace and a couple others... 6 in all, I think? Noticed Sund'lund picked up their first win, quite possibly motivated by sheer terror, at the weekend.

01:25 / 01.09.06

and the hammers got their argies! tevez in a front line - what i wouldn't give. he's the business, s'far as i'm concerned. hammers for the title this year?

or at least a place in europe..!

sydney fc boss is in europe these next weeks and is confident of getting a yorke-like replacement. chances? anyone from your club out of contract might fancy a soiree by the harbour?

22:07 / 03.09.06

word in sydney is that dwight yorke's replacement might be alan shearer.

22:44 / 03.09.06

Nahh - Shearer's retired, and getting paid nicely to be a (crap) pundit. Having turned down a cushty position as England asst. coach, I can see no reason for him to go back on his word about retirement, etc. other than, of course, the nice weather & lifestyle. But, seriously, nah.

Butcher's manager now, right? It'll prolly be something like David Clarkson or Scott McDonald from Motherwell, if Sydney can offer the wantaway (ooh, tabloid words) strikers sufficient remuneration and satisfy their ambitions. Which, yeah, if Yorke was happy to make a living they can probably do the finances bit, but I'm not sure about ambition. Although quite where McDonald thinks he'll end up - other than the Championship if he's lucky - I'm not sure. Maybe Rangers, but he's not as good as either Prso or Kris Boyd.

I read with interest Simon Lynch, formerly of Dundee & Celtic, is doing a job for North Queensland Roar(?) anyway.

01:39 / 04.09.06

and doing one quite nicely ta muchly, if you ask him.

which is what les murray did on the world game show yesterday, asking him about the roar, the a-league and life in oz. seemed right chuffed at how it all was going, is banging in goals and his team sits on top of the ladder.

'straylia's great, eh?

yeah, i thought i thought shearer was boots hung up for some reason. was right.

but then, sun, surf, sydney...?

00:04 / 05.09.06

well! now that's a lark you don't see every day. getting so jack of your team you'd score against them!

don' think i'd be happy to be in the showers later with, how many in the really unhappy, ooh even angry, squad??

o, football. what will you come up with next?

01:07 / 05.09.06

This did actually happen with some Asian tournament; I think Thailand were involved, and couldn't afford the travel to the final if they qualified or somesuch, and so conspired to lose the game with one or two o.g.'s. Or maybe it was both teams? I'm a bit hazy on it.

Anyway, it's worth remembering Chelsea are trying to spin this situation and also the (current) evil empire and Gallas has gone to kindly Arsenal, a team so fine they won't ever score an unattractive goal. Seeing some discussion of this, tonight on Sky, also Chelsea's comms. man was unable to state that such vaunted actions - refusal to play, score an owner, etc. - would be in breach of Gallas contract, which presumably given their infinite cash the team, the corporation would then be able to take legal action for. Which seems a bit suspect.

04:16 / 05.09.06

yeah, i do recall this - from wikipedia on 'tiger cup'

1998
The 1998 tournament, held in Vietnam, was marred by an unsportsmanlike match between Thailand and Indonesia during the group stage of the competition. Both teams were already assured of qualification for the semi-finals, but both teams knew that the winners of the game would face hosts Vietnam in the semi-finals, while the losing team would face Singapore who were perceived to be easier opposition. The first half saw little action, with both teams barely making an attempt to score. During the second half both teams managed to score, partly thanks to half-hearted defending, resulting in a 2-2 scoreline after 90 minutes. Then, during injury time, Indonesian defender Mursyid Effendi deliberately kicked the ball into his own goal, depsite the Thai's attempts to stop him doing so, thus handing Thailand a 3-2 victory. Both teams were fined for "violating the spirit of the game" and Mursyid Effendi was banned from football for life. In the semi-finals, Thailand lost to Vietnam, and Indonesia also lost to Singapore. In the final, the title was to elude the hosts as they went down 1-0 to unfancied Singapore in one of the competition's biggest shocks to date.

huh, serves 'em right!

08:35 / 05.09.06

Yeah, I've heard legends about that game. It's wrong on so many levels.

Anyway, changing the subject.

Brazil 3 vs 0 Argentina with a wonderful soundtrack

After the disapointment that was the World Cup for us, it feels good to see Brazil really playing. And against our greatest rivals, no less

12:16 / 05.09.06

WRT the Gallas shambles; football finds another way to disappoint me.

In my Football Utopia (pay-per-view only in my mind) that sort of behaviour should see wantaway players treated as outcast pariahs, shunned by upstanding and reputable clubs. There are some of those, right? Melchester Rovers notwithstanding.

If we take the view that footballers are professional club employees rather than the glorious champions of yore, propelled to achieve by dreams of glory, then they should bloody well act like it. Taking that view; if I threw that sort of strop in my working life, I could fully expect not to be employed my my firm's nearest competitor on the grounds that i'm not a professional person and can't be relied on to do the decent thing.

I predict that after a frustrating season or two for the Gunners, Gallas will become a journeyman boot-for-hire and will end up plying his trade for a succession of the usual suspects; Marseille, Fenerbace, somewhere in Quatar. He'll be Nicholas Anelka - unloved, unwanted, unstable.

Serve him right, too.

22:15 / 05.09.06

great footage, dm. didn't think much of the argentinian 'keeping. or defending. cheers.

australia play in 40+ degree heat of kuwait tonight in the return dead rubber, but with the european-based players returning to the squad, all will be keen to impress. and it is on at the almost civil time of 6am tomorrow for me. breakfast, football, spring sunshine. bliss...

10:39 / 07.09.06

England vs Macedonia last night. Well, a win's a win and other clichés, I suppose. One step closer to qualification and you can only beat the team in front of you etc. I think Alan Hanson probably had it right; England went to the sort of place in Macedonia where you get in, win the match and get out quickly - and that is exactly what they did. but I don't feel we've learnt a huge amount from the experience.

From the positives, we can take reassurance that the centre-back pairing of Terry and Ferdinand continues to look effortlessly and economically capable of threat management, from open play at least. And Defoe is alert and enthusiastic, cementing his position in the England set-up. Thought he was unlucky not to score. Also, while Ashley Cole was understandably rusty, he showed enough to suggest he'll shrug it off in time to face sterner opposition.

On the down-side, the midfield didn't exactly dominate, Neville P looked typically average (but has the long throw-in in his arsenal which was ably demonstrated and can be effective when Crouch is playing) and Stewie Downing still hasn't quite fulfilled his (IMHO) huge potential. As a 'Boro fan, I know what he can do and remain confident that it'll come. He is only a kid, after all.

All in all; 3 points, no injuries, job done.

For excitement, though, I gather the Northern Ireland game was a rare treat. Didn't watch it, unfortunately and haven't seen the highlights either. Anyone catch it? Were they good for the win?

20:27 / 07.09.06

Only saw the highlights of the NI game, two of their three goals were fantastic. Spain's defense looked shaky as, and as such they have no right to feel hard done by.

All in all a good night for ver home nations. With Italy on one point from two games, can Scotland now dare to dream?? Personally I think it's too big of an ask for them, such a shame they've such a tough group cos they look like a team these days, and would stand a real chance of qualifying from any group other than the one they're in (apart from maybe the wales and ireland one)

I thought England were pretty poor once again. Defensively we're World Class but without Rooney there is just no cutting edge. We just can't keep the ball, and against quarter-final standard opposition, and with our now completely ingrained horror of penalties, that is ALWAYS going to kill us.

McClaren should try a 4-5-1 with two defensive midfield players, a creative midfield trio of Rooney, Gerrard and one other and whichever striker proves himself best suited to taking on that role.

22:20 / 07.09.06

[phew, no-one has asked about australia's game. i might get away with it...]

03:18 / 08.09.06

benito carbone.

ring any bells? played with sheffield wednesday, villa, somewhere else. italina international.

sydney fc are looking at him - he's coming out to oz as a guest player (but i guess if he fits in will be offered the marquee player spot)

not dwight yorke. or is he..?

07:21 / 08.09.06

while not sure what he's been up to in recent years, I remember Carbone from his short spell at Middlesbrough where, although clearly not what you'd call a team player, he was brilliant. Played for a lot of clubs in England; Wednesday (scintillating partnership with Paulo diCanio), Boro, Bradford, Villa and was a bit of a mercenary but definitely not short of talent.

If you get him, I wouldn't expect too much badge-kissing or club loyalty but he's still probably capable of injecting some dazzle. From what I hear, the Oz league has enough homegrown talent (and the acclaim that comes from a successful International team) that if Carbone sees it as a rest home for players in the autumn of their careers looking for their last payday like the J-league or MLS league in the '80s - he'll be in for a rude awakening. Might be a shock for him but could be great for you.

07:54 / 08.09.06

And astrojax, if I've got the link formatting right, this is the sort of thing you can expect:

Typical Carbone goal

Great player. Cracking stuff.

07:59 / 08.09.06

hmm. or not. Mod request in and apologies for lack of skillz.

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:19 / 08.09.06

Yeah - his pomp was a while ago, but he is/was a very talented player. Unless he's converted into a holding midfielder like Yorke did, though, he'll provide a very different playing experience - a striker with excellent first touch and ball control, who never really fulfilled his early promise - he was a child prodigy and one of any number of New Maradonnas not actually able to be the New Maradonna at Napoli.

Weirdly, I expected him to be more than 35/6 - he was surprisingly young when he arrived at Sheffield Wednesday in 1996. He has a reputation for moodiness (sendings-off, leaving clubs under poor odour), but on the other hand did write off the money owed to him by Bradford City, helping to save the club from bankruptcy.

Having said which, for a striker he had a pretty low actual strike-rate - at his peak he was scoring about a goal every four games. Oddly, rather than pair him with a goal-poacher, Wednesday instead teamed him with another behaviourally questionable Italian midget, hero-turned-zero Paolo di Canio. What's your main striker like, astro?

Meanwhile, back in the mud and the blood, Tranmere Rovers are doing storming work in Nationwide Division One. It's odd - I feel almost totally divorced from the team emotionally right now - maybe it's because being second in the league is such unfamiliar territory after five years of such incredible underachievement. Or maybe it's just that Ronnie Moore has finished the job of dismantling the Team That Was Going to Restore Us to the Chamionship - our fringe internationals (Roberts, Haworth, Hume, Whitmore) have moved on, MacAteer is winding down, Alan Navarro never really lived up to his first-season promise.... for the first time I can look at the starting teamsheet and not see a single player I've watched from the stands, which is a bit odd.

Hmmm. Still, second place, and Chris Greenacre seems to be maintaining his early form. Robbie Stockdale at right-back is about the closest thing we have to a marquee player (yay! The very poor man's Rob Jones!), but the team seems to be gelling. I'm not totally sure why we didn't go for Ronnie Moore as manager earlier...

13:27 / 08.09.06

Haus, if that's the same Robbie Stockdale who was a product of the Bryan Robson-inspired youth academy at Middlesbrough then you could do a lot worse.

While we can't seem to shake the label of "plucky team who punch above their weight but are inevitably doomed to mediocrity," the youth set-up is an ambitious and successful project that many so-called 'bigger' clubs would do well to emulate. In his final game in charge, McLaren confirmed the club's commitment to the development of young local talent by fielding a squad made up entirely (bar one) of players born within 30 miles of the Riverside and with an average age of 19. A real highlight in a season of them. Downing's the best of the bunch but Riggott, Morrison, Cattermole and others all have success in their futures.

Good luck to Tranmere - there are a lot of parallels between them and the Boro; local clubs, mixed fortunes, entertaining cup runs, forever in the shadow of two league giants (well, perhaps 'giant' is going it some in Sunderland's case but still...), popular with the neutral fan etc. Tranmere surely have to see themselves as, at the least, a Championship club. Here's hoping they get there.

01:52 / 09.09.06

What's your main striker like, astro?

well, mice, in a word: injured.

sydney have lost three strikers, and this week have just eleven fit outfield players in the first squad! with crackers like that (ta, jb, works wonders now!) carbone would be a welcome addition. in fact, being fit enough to run on the park would be a welcome addition right now.

and i've got a five-a-side tournament on tomorrow - should be fun. a 'keeper, me, so even if it's as cold as it is today, i get to wear long pants, warm top and gloves. and i don't do much running. nice.

Page: 1 ... 3 4 5 6 7(8)9 10 11 12