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Football Thread 2012/13 |OT6| Mumei almost banned EVERYBODY (but just Wilbury)

U

Ushojax

Should probably not trust the 7-11 security cameras quite so much
Carrick please go away. Parker is nothing special but he doesn't give the ball away like that. This zombie passing isn't good enough at international level.
 
F

fadetoblack

Member
I bet on England to win this game. Don't let me down, fuckers. (Or at least score a bunch of goals so I get my overs....)

I do like this Poland team, however. Has plenty of talent. But, you know, money.
 
U

Ushojax

Should probably not trust the 7-11 security cameras quite so much
So bad. I will never accept any argument that has Milner starting over Chamberlain and Lennon.
 
C

Clegg

Member
Cleverley is better with United than he is is with England.

But you can say the same about every English player re: club and international form.
 
H

Hieberrr

Member
Toronto Star on Canada's loss & program said:
Away from the microphones, the men who control Canadian soccer like to whine that this country does not care enough about its own national team.

They won’t feel that way this morning.

If people really cared, there would be a mob on their front lawns just now. If we cared the way Honduras or a hundred-odd other countries on Earth care, heads would be rolling. Literally.

You shrink from the idea of making any one performance emblematic of an entire program. But after the way Canada shamefully ducked their heads as Honduras stood waiting for them to fight back in the international soccer lunchroom on Tuesday, we can put to bed the question of whether Canadian soccer is broken.

It isn’t. We now know that it was not properly assembled in the first place.

Here was definitive proof that this is not a soccer nation. It’s a nation with a soccer program. It also has a men’s team.

Given a chance to push the game forward, they dragged it back at least a decade. The real problem was not losing 8-1. It was how they did it.

There were too many moments to pick out, too many careless (in that word’s true sense — “without care”) errors, too many men standing around wishing for it to end.

If you didn’t watch it, the scoreline cannot begin to encapsulate how ugly it was. If you did, my commiserations. Let’s get together later and talk sports-inflicted PTSD.

Of the eight Honduran goals, shambolic defending was to blame for seven. It was loud in San Pedro Sula, but that cannot explain away defenders who made no effort to run, rise with or otherwise challenge their markers. It cannot explain a midfield that simply stopped moving and forwards who made no effort to add their own buckets to the bailing crew.

Here’s just one example — captain Kevin McKenna speaking to Sportsnet’s Arash Madani at halftime. Canada was down by four goals at that point. That’s a mountain, but it’s been climbed before. Sweden did it to Germany on Tuesday.

“It’s all about damage limitation now,” McKenna said. “It’s pretty sad.”

I don’t care if you’re the captain of a damned rowboat, captains can’t talk that way. They most certainly can’t talk that way in games they must pull a result from and ones that aren’t yet over.

If there’s a problem with Canadian men’s soccer, it’s not just talent. It must at least partly have something to do with being led by veterans who throw in the towel while they’re still standing with a puncher’s chance.

Manager Stephen Hart resisted taking the Roman route — sacrificing himself at the final whistle. He’s got something to do with this failure, but you can’t diagram pride.

“All we can do is ask the fans’ forgiveness,” Hart said afterward. “They probably won’t forgive me, but forgive the players.”

Sorry, but no. That should work the other way round. The manager puts the team together. He doesn’t perform heart transplants.

With the exception of goalkeeper Lars Hirschfeld, none of the 11 men on the field deserve the benefit of the doubt Hart would have us give them.

Again, it’s not about losing. We’re from Toronto. We can love a loser.

But this game is so fragile at the domestic level, it cannot afford so meek a surrender on so large a stage. That’s what happened in Honduras. Canada scuffed a couple of early chances. Honduras jumped on them. And they gave up. Twenty minutes in and down by a couple, they’d already given up. You could see it in the way they began dragging themselves round the pitch: “What time’s the flight out of here?”

So what now? Honestly? Nothing.

There’s nothing and no one to look forward to.

Dwayne De Rosario, Julian de Guzman and Atiba Hutchinson are as close as this country gets to a golden generation. None of them will still feature in four years’ time. We wasted them.

After a small burst of attention and hope, it’s the open trap door back into purgatory.

That must mean it’s time to begin our dreary conversation about change at the top and reimagining the way we develop our players. It’s that sort of jabber that keeps the technocrats who run the game in jobs. It gives them a sense of purpose, though their busywork never accomplishes anything.

Better that we just stop trying to build this thing for a while. Like an overplanted field, let it lie fallow.

If the team and the men who assemble it want us to care, first let them prove they care as well in the only place where that can be done — on the field.

When they can manage that — whether they’re winning or losing — that’s when I’ll be back.
Click to expand...

Harsh words, but true words. Fuck the current vets on this team (except De Ro).
 
U

Ushojax

Should probably not trust the 7-11 security cameras quite so much
Lennon and Ox on for Clev and Milner at half time, change to 4231. This is wank.
 
U

Ushojax

Should probably not trust the 7-11 security cameras quite so much
lol

We are doing a Chelsea. A dogshit goal and a dogshit display.
 
S

ShogunX

Member
Lot of credit to Steven Gerrard for that England goal. Won the corner with some excellent play and then put in a very good ball.

Actually fuck that

WAYNE ROOOOONEY!!! I love his hair.
 
C

Clegg

Member
If you're going to play with two wide men then surely it would be better to play with wingers rather than shoehorning two CM's into the formation.

Clev isn't playing well but he's out of position.
 
3

3Sixty

Member
Clegg said:
If you're going to play with two wide men then surely it would be better to play with wingers rather than shoehorning two CM's into the formation.

Clev isn't playing well but he's out of position.
Click to expand...

Clev's position is and always will be on the bench waiting for Scholes to retire.


Edit: ClevGod'd
 
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