General Football Discussion

[Philippe]

No, no problem with Russia :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/de ... leptocracy

[Orange14]

Russia and Qatar : this a triumph for democracy (the FIFA way).
Anyways, maybe the Dutch and Belgian tax payers should celebrate ?

But our poor Rotterdam cousins will not get the new stadium they have been pining for (maybe a good thing).

[Cedric]

Maybe Het Kasteel and Woudestein will be enough by that time.

[souras84]

Havent you seen the stadiums Qatar is about to build??? They are beyond imagination, money rules. I have the links in Greek so I cant post them. But, listen to this. Solar panels, ok they have sun, which will power up a/c under the stadium that will provide a standard temprature of around 19-22 degrees celsious on and off the pitch. What about that!!!

[souras84]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-z2jtUS ... r_embedded#!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcb5_J07 ... r_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2CELDHr ... r_embedded

[aveslacker]

Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022. Money ruled the day!!! Can't wait for the slow motion football in Qatar when the mean temperature is 41 C during June. Doesn't Ronald de Boer live there?

Ronald de Boer does live here. I've chatted with him at one of the local shopping malls, and our kids go to the same school (although his are older than mine). And it gets a lot hotter than 41. Last summer we had temperatures up to 55.

I'm sure that the governments of Nepal and India are glad, though. There's going to be a demand for workers to build all the new stadia and hotels Qatar is going to need. Since the Qataris don't do manual labor, they're going to have to import all the workers to build these things - and the going wage is about US$140 per month.

The tricky thing for the Qataris is to be ready to accept all that the World Cup means culturally. Even though you can buy alcohol here (but no pork) this is at heart a very conservative society. I'm not sure they really understand what they're up against here.

[Kowalczyk]

Wow, I didn't even know you live in Qatar these days...

You like it?

K.

[aveslacker]

Wow, I didn't even know you live in Qatar these days...

You like it?

K.

I do. It's a very complex and - culturally - fascinating place. I would hate to be a single man here, but for those with a family, it's a nice place.

But I can't honestly say they deserved to win the rights to host the 2022 WC.

[Manneken Pis]

But I can't honestly say they deserved to win the rights to host the 2022 WC.

No clearly, giving the WC to Qatar was FIFA's way of raising their collective middle finger to the football community.

It was a case of "Yeah, they had the worst technical report, they don't represent a significant growth market for the sport, the weather conditions are not good for footballers, they have no tradition in the football, they have a questionable human rights record, the fans that do have the money to come won't have a festive atmosphere, but frankly we don't give a toss, they have lots of money." The choice of Russia is more discussable, but not that much.

It's almost as if they wanted to tell us that FIFA may be stained by a series of corruption scandals but "what are you going to do about it ... mister?"

They're a a bunch of old men who (perhaps) saw the opportunity for one last big pay day, hence the bidding for the next two WCs, with twice the "incentives".

I'm so disgusted I've got stomach cramps....

Having said that, there's definitely a trend in selections for World Cups and Olympics .... the world is changing, and Europe's place in the world order is changing; Russia, Brazil, China and the Middle East now call all the shots.



We better get used to it.....

[Orange14]

The interesting thing about the Qatar bid is that they intend to provide air conditioning for the stadiums! Can you imagine what the energy cost will be to do this? I know they are sitting on a sea of oil and natural gas but who knows what the price of these two commodities will be in 2022. This will certainly not be an ecologically friendly WC, not that this matters FIFA at all. I wonder what the ticket prices will be? If they intend to recoup all the construction and energy costs for hosting, I doubt that many will be able to afford the prices (this doesn't even include building hotels and restaurants, etc. to deal with the influx of tourists). I won't be surprised at all if this venue ends up getting changed as we get closer to the date (remember the 1986 cup was supposed to be held in Columbia but the country said it could not financially support it and it was moved to Mexico).

[Philippe]

Here we can vote for some good friends of ours :
http://en.uefa.com/community/teamoftheyear/index.html

[Orange14]

Here we can vote for some good friends of ours :
http://en.uefa.com/community/teamoftheyear/index.html

The only problem is that it would not let me vote for Martin Jol as manager for my team!!!

[bryan]

The interesting thing about the Qatar bid is that they intend to provide air conditioning for the stadiums! Can you imagine what the energy cost will be to do this? I know they are sitting on a sea of oil and natural gas but who knows what the price of these two commodities will be in 2022. This will certainly not be an ecologically friendly WC, not that this matters FIFA at all. I wonder what the ticket prices will be? If they intend to recoup all the construction and energy costs for hosting, I doubt that many will be able to afford the prices (this doesn't even include building hotels and restaurants, etc. to deal with the influx of tourists). I won't be surprised at all if this venue ends up getting changed as we get closer to the date (remember the 1986 cup was supposed to be held in Columbia but the country said it could not financially support it and it was moved to Mexico).

It's country of 1.6 million and they will build 12 world class stadia, or 1 per 130,000 residents. It's a complete and total waste.... it's disgusting.

[The Purple Cow Again]

They intend to dismantle all but one of the stadiums after the world cup is over Bryan. So they'll be left with just the one, which they will never fill.

[Orange14]

Beenhakker has no good words for Chelsea as they have poached another underage footballer: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story ... 49?cc=5901

[SPL]

Fword are unhappy because they are the main sufferer in Holland ie Bruma,Ebecilio(at Arsenal)and now Ake have gone to EPL .Ake joined them from ADO aged 12 and his best mate at ADO was Kishna, so lets hope he does not get picked up by EPL .

You get the feeling there are dozens of dutch kids in England but as I posted last week there are only about 10 and the only 2 clubs who really poach are Chelsea and Arsenal. Ironically the only dutch kid poached by ManU is Van Velzen from ourselves. Liverpool, Man City and Spurs do not have any dutch kids.Ok Liverpool have Babel but he joined aged 20 for a big fee and has gone backwards imo.

I have made a big deal about this in the past but one of you pointed out that we took Eriksen aged 16 and Boilesen aged 17 but we did not buy their parents.

I still maintain all transfers abroad should be banned until the player is 18 . At least that would give their home clubs a chance to offer them a contract and thus the club would get a proper transfer fee
if the player left at 18 . A good example is Castaignos of Fword . They were lucky and put him on a contract aged 16, when Arsenal wanted him , now aged 18 and playing in ther first team he is likely to be sold abroad for 7m euros.

By waiting until 18 it would stop parents of 15 and 16 year olds being bought .

[Over Pasanens Head]

Today (weather permitting) is the day for the biggest "classic" in the world if not the universe - namely Braintree Town versus Bishop Stortford in the Bet Square South League. The importance of the match is highlighted by Braintree asking for supporters to clear the pitch of snow - with the supporters being offered a free pint of beer for their trouble.
BTW the push for Europe is back on with Braintree being top !!!!!!!!!

[SE6Ajacied]

Today (weather permitting) is the day for the biggest "classic" in the world if not the universe - namely Braintree Town versus Bishop Stortford in the Bet Square South League. The importance of the match is highlighted by Braintree asking for supporters to clear the pitch of snow - with the supporters being offered a free pint of beer for their trouble.
BTW the push for Europe is back on with Braintree being top !!!!!!!!!

lol. I saw that on the internet. Hope the game's on for you but would be very surprised. Most of the Premier League let alone non league seems to be off today. Just one beer btw, are they that skint/tight? Fleetwood Town I think let helpers in for free when their game with Newport went ahead the other week in the snow.

[aveslacker]

Today (weather permitting) is the day for the biggest "classic" in the world if not the universe - namely Braintree Town versus Bishop Stortford in the Bet Square South League. The importance of the match is highlighted by Braintree asking for supporters to clear the pitch of snow - with the supporters being offered a free pint of beer for their trouble.
BTW the push for Europe is back on with Braintree being top !!!!!!!!!

Sounds like my kind of club. I'd be there in a heartbeat, beer or no!

[SE6Ajacied]

Just in case anyone's in Scotland and fancies a game on Sunday....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... 331394.stm

[SE6Ajacied]

Very proud of Blackpool tonight. Watched the whole game - How much would I have got for betting on doing the double over Liverpool at the start of the season. Makes up for Saturday when I was there (who needs the FA Cup anyway when you've got the Premier League to survive in) and the fact that I am officially unemployed in 5 days time.

[ajaxcolombia]

Just heard that a compatriot of mine, Nelson "Tyson" Rivas, is a about to join F-word. He's a central back who has been "playing" (more like benchwarming) for Inter the last couple of years. He has a very imposing figure, hence the nickname Tyson. However, its a running joke here in Colombia that Nelson Rivas probably has the greatest sport's agent in the world because of his limited talent and yet somehow ended up playing for the Italian giants.

[Manneken Pis]

I see Ruud Gullit is going to take over Terek Grozny from Chechnia in the Russian league.



Anybody want to take a bet on how long this will last before it ends in tears....

My vote is 4 months...

[SPL]

That long !!!

[Manneken Pis]

War! Honour killings! Sex scandals!
10 things you need to know about Ruud Gullit's new club FC Terek Grozny

By Mirror Football in Mirror Football Blog

Published 06:00 20/01/11

Former LA Galaxy boss Ruud Gullit has swapped the sunny shores of California for the war-torn pastures new of Chechnya by signing up to be the new manager of FC Terek Grozny , "This is a beautiful, great opportunity for me," said the Dutchman. MirrorFootball's Chris Bloor begs to differ...

1) Based in the capital city of the Chechen Republic, Terek Grozny falls under the sphere of the Russian Federation and thus competes in the Soviet, sorry Russian , league. Given that Ruud Gullit once famously opined that "to play Holland, you have to play the Dutch", now would definitely be the time to get his facts straight. Chechnya is definitely not a place where one wants to cause offence.

2) They were founded under the name Dynamo in 1946, became Neftyanik in 1948, and finally settled on Terek in 1958. None of these names were responsible for characters in either Star Trek or the Mummy. Maybe.

3) Without wanting to get too bogged down in politics, there's been a whole load of recent rumblings in the area. Two wars, in fact. Presumably Ruud's been flown in so that his brand of 'Shexy Football' can unite the region, rather than as a result of his somewhat patchy managerial record.

4) The political situation saw Grozny tactfully disband in 1995. After reforming in 2001, they were forced to rejoin the lowest professional league available, '3rd South', and were banned from playing their home games at their own ground for security reasons, relocating to the neighbouring city of Pyatigorsk instead. They were only able to return to their 10,200 seater ground in Grozny as recently as 2008.

5) Undeterred, Grozny not only overcame their handicap but also rose to the very top, winning promotion to the Premier League in 2004. Even better, they achieved immortality by also winning the Russian Cup that year; Andrei Fedkov scored in the 93rd minute as they beat FC Krylia Sovetov Samara 1-0 and also qualified for the UEFA Cup. Sadly this remarkable achievement went largely unnoticed by the wider world, what with that pesky Putin also putting himself about at the time.

6) Grozny came down to earth with a bone shuddering bump in 2005 after they were knocked out of Europe in the first round by FC Basel, and then relegated after finishing bottom of the league. They were promoted again two seasons later, so Ruud can look forward to big dates with the likes of Saturn Moscow, Spartak Nalchik and FK Rostov-Na-Donu. Fortunately, what with his Chelski connection, he's already well connected with obscure Russians.

7) And Ruud also has experience of powerful Russians too, which is handy as Grozny chairman Ramzan Kadyrov also happens to be the Chechen President.

8) Ramzan took over the club from his father Akhmad following his assassination back in May 2004. To say he's had a colourful past would do him a disservice. Ramzan's been accused of being involved in a series of of sex scandals, tortures, mutilations, disappearances, and murders, and for his efforts has been awarded the Hero of Russia medal (their highest honorary title). And there were we thinking that English chairmen were trigger happy...

9) In 2009 Kadyrov, a devout Muslim, defended the use of honour killings (ie the murder of an individual perceived to have brought shame upon a family or community). After leaving his last post at LA Galaxy, Gullit cited his family's inability to settle in California. And where would be a better place to move to than Grozny? If the sea, sand and sun didn't work out so well, then immersing them in a world of paranoia, fear and terror is surely the next logical choice.

10) Gullit's supposedly been set a target of finishing eighth by his new employer - a position the club have never been in before. God bless and good luck, Ruud - you're going to need it...