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Football Thread |OT22| His true nature avoided

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C

Ce-Lin

Member
those 30 million Euros for Isco are gonna keep Málaga alive, oil-football saved.

apart from that any predictions for Spain - Italy today ? my guess is Italy playing 3-5-1-1 to stop Spain passing around the ball comfortably and had them resort to more vertical play, I reckon this would be the toughest match for Spain, Brazil' been looking rather average.
 
U

Ushojax

Should probably not trust the 7-11 security cameras quite so much
Vivalaraza said:
So who's game time is getting cut for Isco?

Di Maria? Suppose Özil should also think about getting fit now.
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I imagine this will be the line-up next season:

Casillas
Carvajal Ramos Varane Marcelo
Modric Alonso
Isco Ozil Ronaldo
Benzema

Di Maria is just too inconsistent and a stupid player.

Ce-Lin said:
apart from that any predictions for Spain - Italy today ? my guess is Italy playing 3-5-1-1 to stop Spain passing around the ball comfortably and had them resort to more vertical play, I reckon this would be the toughest match for Spain, Brazil' been looking rather average.
Click to expand...

Italy are fucked without Mario. Their other striking options are laughable and will be easily dealt with by Ramos and Pique.
 
F

Frank the Great

Banned
Yurt said:
Awesome gif :lol

Maybe there's something wrong with him? (Knee injury)
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That's what some are saying . . . It would make sense, but it's still nothing to be happy about. Especially because that money is not going to be reinvested into the squad, even though our financial situation is essentially fixed.

Ce-Lin said:
those 30 million Euros for Isco are gonna keep Málaga alive, oil-football saved.

apart from that any predictions for Spain - Italy today ? my guess is Italy playing 3-5-1-1 to stop Spain passing around the ball comfortably and had them resort to more vertical play, I reckon this would be the toughest match for Spain, Brazil' been looking rather average.
Click to expand...

It's going to be a boring game, Spain will do tiki-taka and Italy will have nothing going forward without Balo or SES there. Spain will probably put in a couple towards the end after Italy is tired out, or they will score an early penalty and then force Italy forward, which will allow them to score more.

Prediction is Spain 2 - 0 Italy.
 
Y

Yurt

il capo silenzioso
Ce-Lin said:
those 30 million Euros for Isco are gonna keep Málaga alive, oil-football saved.

apart from that any predictions for Spain - Italy today ? my guess is Italy playing 3-5-1-1 to stop Spain passing around the ball comfortably and had them resort to more vertical play, I reckon this would be the toughest match for Spain, Brazil' been looking rather average.
Click to expand...

Nah, most of our good players are either injured or not match fit. It will be a comfortable win for Spain. 3-0, at the very least.
 
B

Broder Salsa

Banned
It's an important day for me, after all that happened. I haven't been able to sleep for three days. Things came out that I absolutely don't think [believe] and that I've demonstrated with facts. I even demonstrated it at the charity match for Falcone and against the mafia. I'm here to take responsibility and apologize to the city of Palermo and my family that raised me with valor & respect

For 20 years, I've done this work, what I've always wanted. I'm a family man, I would like to raise my kids with the highest law. I'm a football player, not a mafioso. I'm against everything the mafia thinks. I didn't come here to ask forgiveness, I hope that you can forgive me in the future, when I am given the possibility. I'll be a witness to the law if given the possibility to demonstrate it with facts. I hope that Ms. Falcone can give me the chance to do so. I've already contacted her and she told me that it's enough to ask forgiveness from the entire city and the Palermitani. I came here above all for this.

I can't say what I said [to the prosecutor yesterday]. It was 5 important hours and I left very serenel, A different Fabrizio emerged. A person who only takes the positive side. At 34, I have to put aside my childhood naivety and the various nonsense I've carried around. I must try to be more selfish & think about real life, or my wife & kids and the people who are close to me.

First things first, I'd like to thank Buffon who has known me for ages. He's a person I know & has been close to me. Buffon knows what kind of person I am and I thank him for having expressed important judgment. For my career, I fear nothing. I'll take whatever comes with utmost seriousness and then I'll decide calmly. The important thing is that this story ends as quickly as possible. All the rest comes afterward. I want to become a positive testimony. Sadly, I messed up and I realize that today.

In these years, I've sought to be not the captain of Palermo, but Fabrizio. I hoped to find 'clean' people who'd be true friends, I met many w/out even knowing who they were. While at home with my wife, people would ring me asking for money to pay the lights & I was always willing to help. I sacrificed my family to be this way, more than everything to be at peace with my conscience. Today I feel I'll be even more so at peace when the facts show I'm not a mafioso. One day I hope to be given the chance
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viotpWA.jpg
 
A

Arnie

Member
LabouredSubterfuge said:
Oh Arnie won't be pleased.
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On the contrary, now that I've been proven right I watch avidly as they swallow up more French mercenaries with as much care for Newcastle United as Hixx. And I'll watch as the Newcastle fans become increasingly frustrated. And then we'll wonder, ask ourselves the question: should they have signed Jay Spearing?

A good read of the current Newcastle situation from Caulkin of The Times:

Sometimes, all that is left is a howl of rage. Like when you’ve been on hold to a utility company or your bank for 23 minutes too long and just at that precious moment when the Muzak stops and you get through to a real-life human being, albeit one in a call centre several thousand miles away, the line goes dead. You howl and rage and bawl into the deafening silence of a phone receiver because it’s all you can do.

Like when you’re puttering along quite nicely in traffic and some idiot pulls out in front of you without indicating; you slam on the brakes and reach for the horn and scream “FOR F***’S SAKE! WHAT THE F*** ARE YOU F***ING PLAYING AT YOU F***ING C***? IT’S MY F***ING RIGHT OF F***ING WAY!” because there’s nothing else to be done (unless, of course, you go down the route of following said idiot to work, sitting in your car all day, not eating, urinating into an old cola bottle you found underneath the passenger seat, finally following the idiot home, sitting outside his house for the entire night feeling increasingly paranoid because you haven’t eaten and because that’s how late-night call radio makes you feel, waiting until he leaves for work again and then breaking in and doing something unmentionable on his hall carpet. But I can’t really recommend that, and my bloody injunction is still in force anyway).

You don’t shout into the telephone because it’s going to persuade the ombudsman to change the regulations about out-sourced customer relations solutions, just as you don’t swear at your fellow road-user thinking it will lead to a wide-ranging review of the Highway Code. You do it because it’s the sound that comes out of you at the time and, for all that it isn’t particularly constructive and you might feel a bit daft afterwards, satisfaction can be taken from the release. So we howl.

Football makes us howl constantly. When a striker goes down like a sniper’s victim outside the area and a penalty is awarded against our team and we can all see it was outside the flaming area, even a blind man could see that, well OK, maybe not a blind man, but a man with a poor eyesight and anyway that’s not the point it was outside the bloody area and it wasn’t even a foul and we get to our feet and shout “HEW MAN REF!” and we gesticulate and our eyes bulge and veins pop.

We don’t do that because the referee is going to reverse his decision.

We don’t do it because we think Sepp Blatter will intervene on our behalf.

We do it because that’s what football is — illogical and passionate and standing up for your town or city and just being there and bearing witness and shouting.

That’s certainly what football is like in the North East. This isn’t a region where we’re defined by what we win. The things we won — past tense — is a proud part of our history and heritage, but Newcastle United last lifted a meaningful domestic trophy in 1955, the FA Cup in 1973 is the only thing Sunderland have won since before the Second World War and, while Middlesbrough’s League Cup win in 2004 is relatively recent, it is also their sole piece of silverware.

So winning, by and large, is not what we do. What we do is turn up and howl.

There are spells and eras and individual occasions when we have fun and feel a surge of momentum, but there is a lot of humiliation and dismay in there, too. Football is an extension of who we are and where we live.

We want a bit of effort and pride, something to believe in and belong to. And even when things go wrong, which they do quite often, we still turn up.

On Monday night, a few hundred Newcastle supporters turned up to the Labour Club on Leazes Park Road, a wayward free kick away (and we’ve seen plenty of those) from St James’ Park. Some came to speak, others to listen, but all were there out of frustration or concern at recent events. Some were there simply because of love. And it is fair to say that some howling was involved.

The meeting was organised by Newcastle Fans United, an umbrella group that has opened dialogue with the club while trying to collect, collate and reflect the diverse opinions of supporters. That is not a straightforward task and, as always with these things, there have been questions about agendas, motivation, why some people are involved and others aren’t, and what the point of it is. Those politics aren’t my business or interest, except to say that I know a couple of the individuals involved and would vouch for their integrity and sincerity (you can find out more here). Good people, trying to make a difference.

You cannot claim that they did not attempt to do things properly. There was a short statement about who they were and what they were doing. There was an open microphone for fans to make their points and ask questions, two representatives of the club were in the audience (Wendy Taylor, the head of media, and Lee Marshall, the PR and supporter liaison manager), as was an associate of Joe Kinnear, whose contentious appointment as director of football was one of the main reasons everybody was present.

There were frustrations, of course there were. Newcastle’s representatives could not answer the questions being asked of them, in part because they do not yet know what the new reality at the club actually is.

But they got there early and stayed there late and they listened and they engaged and they chatted. It was ballsy of Kinnear’s ally to turn up and speak, although he did not add much to the clarity of proceedings and, in the end, was effectively drowned out. A motion was called and carried requesting that Mike Ashley, Newcastle’s owner, withdraws.

If you were searching for a theme, it was fairly evident: anger. Anger that Kinnear, a man indelibly associated with the most toxic season in Newcastle’s recent history, was back at the club; anger that his interviews brought the tang of farce to Gallowgate; anger at last season; anger at Ashley’s compendium of bizarre decisions.



There was anger at their own impotence, that the club might be here but that nothing would come of it. For the record, there were a few opposing views, and there a bit of anger in them, too.

Walking away, my initial reaction was conflicted. I loved some of the eloquence and the passion, the thought that had gone into planning the event (Kinnear had been invited), the push for fairness, but I was also a bit troubled by the absence of fanzines and other people I like and respect. I’d seen the chaos of democracy and wondered what the message was and how you evaluate the worth.

It has taken me a few days to realise that I was wrong. Ungenerous and wrong. In spite of the motion, dialogue with the club will continue, and if that dialogue proves utterly irrelevant when it comes to Ashley’s mindset and redundant when it comes to influencing him, then it shouldn’t negate the fact that there are decent people at Newcastle who want to do the right thing and who have some small power to do it.

Communication is a huge issue, but talking, even in a limited fashion, is better than not talking.

I read comments about the meeting on Twitter and elsewhere. I read about a lack of dignity. I read about the Ashley motion and people wanting to know what the alternative was, and then, for a moment, I wondered at my own hypocrisy. Because I remembered a piece I had written for The Times when, in the aftermath of relegation, Ashley took Newcastle off the market and announced his intention to sell the naming rights of St James’.

I’d forgotten how angry I felt about that; angry for my friends, for the city I live in and one of its most iconic buildings, for the region I care about, angry at more words written on corrosion. I’d forgotten how important venting can be.

Amid Kinnear, Dennis Wise, Kevin Keegan, Alan Shearer, Chris Hughton, demotion, St James’, Sports Direct, Wonga and everything else, perhaps I had become numbed. (And yes, yes, yes, I know it’s not a one-way street.

There has been a plan and a structure recently, fifth place, good players and self-sufficiency, although where all that stands now we can only guess at.)

So I looked up that article. Time has elapsed and the world has turned and I’ve probably changed, but it was how I felt back then. I can understand the people who have given up on Newcastle or are close to it and I can also understand those who grit their teeth, wipe their feet on their way into the stadium and carry on.

Equally, I have a fresh understanding of those who howl. Well played to those at the Labour Club. Well played and thank you.

From The Times, October 2009:
“We may as well begin as we mean to continue: Ashley out. We may as well shed any notion of journalistic impartiality, because certain circumstances demand it: Ashley out. Just as no man is bigger than a football club — in spite of what those same men might think — some issues rise above work and professionalism and straddling a fence in the name of politics and this is one of them: Ashley out.
Now that he is staying, it warrants repetition: Ashley out. There is nothing to be gained by not speaking minds, even if Mike Ashley’s tattered regime at Newcastle United is limping on regardless and even if supporters know damn well their battered old club has not been listening. Over the past two years, they have been stripped of their pride, dignity, status and reputation; take away the howl of rage and what are you left with?”
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A

Arnie

Member
Carbonox said:
I thought you're playing online regularly or are you done with it now?
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Moving house on Monday so don't suspect I'll have enough time to play it regularly, and I'm kind of done with it. Love the singleplayer, but I find the multiplayer kind of forgettable. It's fun with everyone here, like, but I'm not desperate to keep playing it.
 
M

Meier

Member
dc89 said:
https://twitter.com/RafaelH117/status/350229802441113600

Glad to see we won't have the piss taken out of us.
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Well, I posted yesterday that I expected Isco's father got a fat compensation package but I'm not sure I'd believe it was that big. Once it came out that his dad was his agent and not the rumor that he shared one with Pellegrini, I knew we were in trouble with Madrid knocking. Family members as agents are never a good thing.

If United get Baines and Thiago.. sigh. City should throw a lot at Baines.. he would be a terror for our team. He's basically the best of Clichy and Kolarov together. Him rampaging up the left with Navas sending in balls from the right? It'd be a nightmare to defend against.
 
U

Ushojax

Should probably not trust the 7-11 security cameras quite so much
Mutterings in Brazil that Tottenham are close to signing Bernard. I'm fighting my muppet boner but there's only so much I can do. He's looked top class in the Confed Cup.
 
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