General Football Discussion

aveslacker · Bericht door **aveslacker** » ma jun 18, 2007 7:59 pm

There's no doubt that Beckham carries a lot of hype and image with him. And as I'm married to a Brit and spend some time there every year, I'm somewhat familiar with the English media (The Times is my favorite newspaper of all, fwiw).

To be quite frank, I think the English media overrate most of the England players (or English teams).

But if you take Beckham out of the equation, what would England have done in the last WC? They might not have scored a single goal in the group stage. Agree that he's not fast and a bit of a one trick pony, but England are much better with him on the pitch. It's kind of a mystery how he manages, actually. Also, I don't seem to recall him giving anything other than 100% effort, which is nice to see.

In any event, I prefer Barcelona over Real, but congrats to Real for winning this year.

Bericht door **Kowalczyk** » ma jun 18, 2007 11:04 pm

aveslacker schreef:There's no doubt that Beckham carries a lot of hype and image with him. And as I'm married to a Brit and spend some time there every year, I'm somewhat familiar with the English media (The Times is my favorite newspaper of all, fwiw).

English media... Fascinating. There are some extremely, extremely good newspapers in that country (The Times, The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent), but they also have some of the sleaziest, dirtiest and most shameless tabloids in the world (including The Sun and The Daily Mirror). The difference in quality is enormous and there is not much in between, it seems.

In Holland it doesn't get worse than De Telegraaf and the shitty free newspapers (Metro and Spits). Crap newspapers, but nowhere near as sleazy as The Sun. We simply have no equivalents for those tabloids in this country.

K.

SE6Ajacied · Bericht door **SE6Ajacied** » ma jun 18, 2007 11:21 pm

They've been showing this series on Bravo (Cable/Satelite) TV in the UK about football hooliganism around the world - "The Real Football Factories - International" presented by Danny Dyer who starred in the film The Football Factory.

They went to Holland tonight, it was all a wee bit cliched, talked about the F-Side and showed the "Ingang F" sign at the Arena but without giving any of the history about the old De Meer ground and that. He goes around interviewing the different groups but the ADO mob refused to meet him and threatened violence as he'd already spoken to the F Side - madness.

Despite basically being a series about headcases, there's a sort of morbid fascination to this series. The one thing I didn't know before is about the NL Police/Governement trying to ban membership of the F Side as a criminal organisation, like a terrorist group or something.

They went to Utrecht as well, their (hooligans) supporters home is right inside the stadium, with a grandstand view of the pitch.....

There's some stuff about the series here if anyone's interested

http://www.bravo.co.uk/factories/

mkkid · Bericht door **mkkid** » di jun 19, 2007 2:35 pm

Last night show was pretty poor.If you go on you tube you should watch the one on Turkey.They are truly mad.

Daniel · Bericht door **Daniel** » di jun 19, 2007 3:07 pm

When is the full show about Holland? And can someone put it online then?

Manneken Pis · Bericht door **Manneken Pis** » do jun 21, 2007 2:14 pm

Fascinating stats in the "Knowledge" section of FootballUnlimited.com about summer transfer spending by the premiership winning clubs (the summer before they won the title):

1995-96 Manchester United, n/a
1992-93 Manchester United, £1.1m (Pat McGibbon and Dion Dublin)
1999-2000 Manchester United, £1.5m (Quinton Fortune)
2003-04 Arsenal, £2.5m (Cesc Fábregas, Phillipe Senderos, Jens Lehmann and Gaël Clichy)
1993-94 Manchester United, £3.75m (Roy Keane)
1994-95 Blackburn, £5.3m (Chris Sutton and Robbie Slater)
1996-97 Manchester United, £7.5m (Raimond van der Gouw, Ronny Johnsen, Ole Solskjaer, Karel Poborsky and Jordi Cruyff)
2000-01 Manchester United, £7.8m (Fabien Barthez)
1997-98 Arsenal, £14.55m (Alex Manninger, Manu Petit, Giles Grimandi, Luis Boa Morte, Alberto Mendez, Marc Overmars, Lee Canoville and Christopher Wreh)
2006-07 Manchester United, £18.6m (Michael Carrick)
2001-02 Arsenal, £22.25m (Francis Jeffers, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Sol Campbell and Richard Wright)
1998-99 Manchester United, £27.75m (Jaap Stam, Jesper Blomqvist and Dwight Yorke)
2002-03 Manchester United, £30m (Rio Ferdinand)
2005-06 Chelsea, £53,4m (Asier del Horno, Scott Sinclair, Lassana Diarra, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Michael Essien)
2004-05 Chelsea, £89.05m (Petr Cech, Arjen Robben, Paulo Ferreira, Mateja Kezman, Didier Drogba, Tiago, Ricardo Carvalho)

NB: The figures are not exact, because some clubs - Arsenal in particular - often do not disclose transfer fees, so all data has been taken from Soccerbase.

Graph it and you can see the "cost" of being champions goes up consistently every year....who says you can't "buy the title".....[/i][/b]

Sevag · Bericht door **Sevag** » za jun 23, 2007 12:08 am

But Manchester United showed with buying one midfielder (Carrick £14m+future fees) and selling their star striker (RVN) without spending as much as Chelsea have claimed the title. So it is partly due to money, not entirely, just look at the amout of money Chelsea have spent on players who hardly play, it does not contribute towards winning the title.

On another note, reports suggest Henry is leaving Arsenal to joing Barca for £16m.

carcajou · Bericht door **carcajou** » za jun 23, 2007 12:15 pm

Sevag schreef:On another note, reports suggest Henry is leaving Arsenal to joing Barca for £16m.

He's indeed leaving, hope this event won't coincidentally make room for Babel or Huntelaar.

kraz11 · Bericht door **kraz11** » za jun 23, 2007 12:24 pm

carcajou schreef:
Sevag schreef:On another note, reports suggest Henry is leaving Arsenal to joing Barca for £16m.
He's indeed leaving, hope this event won't coincidentally make room for Babel or Huntelaar.

I think that Babel is a big option for arsenal and not huntelaar
Besides Babel there are another big names like Jimy Briand , Anelka and Fernando Torres . The problem is that Babel is the cheapest i think so hes a good option 4 them.
I hope hell stay another year or 2

SPL · Bericht door **SPL** » za jun 23, 2007 1:10 pm

Arsenal have no money for big names so Henry is going. Wenger's future is up in the air and reports that he will leave at the end of his contract next summer if not before. Fabregas has stated that he will leave when Wenger goes.

Not the best time for someone like Babel to go there.

Sevag · Bericht door **Sevag** » za jun 23, 2007 5:30 pm

It's not all about Arsenal's financial status, realistically the club has a long way to go to ever compete for the title. Arsenal has a young team, they will need time to develop, whilst Henry is at his peak, so I can understand why he doesn't want to waste his time at Arsenal fighting for 3rd/4th place in league.

I'd like to see how Arsenal cope with this. It goes to show how strong Arsene Wenger's era was, now even that will come to end at one point.

ZoefdeHaas · Bericht door **ZoefdeHaas** » za jun 23, 2007 5:54 pm

Henry's reason for leaving is that Wenger may leave the club as well. babel has made it clear that he'd join Arsenal to work with Wenger, but if Wenger leaves then babel probably won't join.

SE6Ajacied · Bericht door **SE6Ajacied** » di jun 26, 2007 10:41 pm

Since the football season ended I've been watching a strange mix of live games on TV. I wasn't terribly impressed with Bohemians v Waterford United live on Monday night - very poor standard to be honest and disapointing as I've been following the Eircom league since I went to Dublin at Christmas.

I was more impressed though with Houston Dynamo's v Chivas USA from last week, 4-0 win for Houston, a pitty as I was 'supporting' Chivas USA. Chivas look a nice solid passing team though and even my fiance said they were the best passing team she'd seen (we don't generally watch Ajax together).

Channel 5 had imported the footage straight from ESPN US TV, complete with scribbled out (literally) advert on the screen at one stage. I think the American commentator was getting confused with tennis though as at one stage it was "3 love" to Houston.....

aveslacker · Bericht door **aveslacker** » wo jun 27, 2007 3:19 pm

SE6Ajacied schreef:Since the football season ended I've been watching a strange mix of live games on TV. I wasn't terribly impressed with Bohemians v Waterford United live on Monday night - very poor standard to be honest and disapointing as I've been following the Eircom league since I went to Dublin at Christmas.

I was more impressed though with Houston Dynamo's v Chivas USA from last week, 4-0 win for Houston, a pitty as I was 'supporting' Chivas USA. Chivas look a nice solid passing team though and even my fiance said they were the best passing team she'd seen (we don't generally watch Ajax together).

Channel 5 had imported the footage straight from ESPN US TV, complete with scribbled out (literally) advert on the screen at one stage. I think the American commentator was getting confused with tennis though as at one stage it was "3 love" to Houston.....

Glad to hear that you found some enjoyment from MLS. Truth be told, the league is improving every year, and there are moments of nice soccer. Dynamo happens to be my home team as I'm a Houston native.

That Brad Davis had a good match against Chivas. One of those goals he scored as a cracker.

SE6Ajacied · Bericht door **SE6Ajacied** » wo jun 27, 2007 6:45 pm

aveslacker schreef: Glad to hear that you found some enjoyment from MLS. Truth be told, the league is improving every year, and there are moments of nice soccer. Dynamo happens to be my home team as I'm a Houston native.

That Brad Davis had a good match against Chivas. One of those goals he scored as a cracker.

BH they've ben showing MLS games for years on Channel 5 in the middle of the night but I've not watched up till now (some of the commentary has been woeful which has always put me of a bit apart from anything else).

I watched the NY Red Bulls last week too - not bad, they won 3-0.

The Dynamo's seem to play in a Blackpool kit anyway so I suppose I should follow them too.......

aveslacker · Bericht door **aveslacker** » wo jun 27, 2007 7:19 pm

Yes, the commentators are woeful. Absolutely woeful. There is usually one match a week on the Spanish language channel. Even though I don't speak much Spanish, the commentary is much better. You can just tell.

But the standard of play is better than many outside observers realize. Probably about the middle/top of the Coca-Cola Championship, imo. Not too bad for a league that is only about 12 years old.

jamcocteau · Bericht door **jamcocteau** » do jun 28, 2007 2:46 pm

Got my application form in this morning from the Scottish Football Association to apply for a ticket for the France v Scotland game in Paris in September. The Scots are being given 3,500 tickets with at least 20,000 traveling for the game.

Ticket prices for Scotland end tickets as set by the FFF is Eur 60 and Eur 120. Feck me, I know the French public are being given the chance to see the greatest footballing nation on earth

but these prices are fuckin scandalous. This is more than the FFF charged for the France v Italy game in Paris last September and double the price for the recent France v Ukraine game. Annoys the crap out of me when the football authorities basically rob fans blind especially those who are taking large away supports. The Scottish authorities charged French supporters Eur 40 for the game in Glasgow last year.

Oh well still going to be there no matter the price. Just wondering what our French lads think about this and do you think french supporters will pay these prices to watch a game against Scotland.

Philippe · Bericht door **Philippe** » do jun 28, 2007 3:10 pm

Capello sacked from Real Mad

possible successors according to the press : Bernd Schuster, Arsène Wenger, Michael Laudrup or Ronald Koeman

.

aveslacker · Bericht door **aveslacker** » do jun 28, 2007 5:18 pm

philippe schreef:Capello sacked from Real Mad

possible successors according to the press : Bernd Schuster, Arsène Wenger, Michael Laudrup or Ronald Koeman .

Strange - he wins a title and gets the boot. I sure hope they don't sign Koeman. He is a national treasure and needs to stay in Holland.

ofey · Bericht door **ofey** » vr jun 29, 2007 5:39 am

aveslacker schreef:
philippe schreef:Capello sacked from Real Mad

possible successors according to the press : Bernd Schuster, Arsène Wenger, Michael Laudrup or Ronald Koeman .
Strange - he wins a title and gets the boot. I sure hope they don't sign Koeman. He is a national treasure and needs to stay in Holland.

Madrid has always been abit strange. Remeber Vincente Del Bosque? He won the ECL and got sacked... .

Ayman · Bericht door **Ayman** » vr jun 29, 2007 7:15 am

Ofey said:

Madrid has always been abit strange. Remeber Vincente Del Bosque? He won the ECL and got sacked... .

They also sacked Juup Heynckes, after he won the CL in 1998.

Philippe · Bericht door **Philippe** » vr jul 06, 2007 1:43 pm

Boudewijn Zenden will play with Marseille for the next two seasons. I feel sorry for him. He once was a great player.

FlaFlu · Bericht door **FlaFlu** » za jul 07, 2007 5:19 pm

Greetings fellow Ajax-supporters,

I've organised an election to decide who will be Ajaxtalk's best football player in Europe of the past season. Over the past months the Dutchies have nominated close to a 100 players and now it's time for the knockout rounds. I've drawn all the names out of a hat and now have numerous players facing each other head to head. You can select your favorite player of the two during the past season by making his name bold. Because the point is to have only one player remaining, I've had to let numerous players get through the first round with a bye. According to my calculations however, every player will face another head to head in the next round. Here's the link to the tournament.

I hope you'll participate and enjoy.

PS I have to admit that I had shamefully forgotten all about you lot when we started nominating, but maybe next year you can all take part in that as well.

Philippe · Bericht door **Philippe** » ma jul 09, 2007 3:24 pm

Real picks Bernd Schuster. Too bad for Koeman

FlaFlu · Bericht door **FlaFlu** » di jul 10, 2007 1:53 pm

Thomas schreef:Greetings fellow Ajax-supporters,

I've organised an election to decide who will be Ajaxtalk's best football player in Europe of the past season. Over the past months the Dutchies have nominated close to a 100 players and now it's time for the knockout rounds. I've drawn all the names out of a hat and now have numerous players facing each other head to head. You can select your favorite player of the two during the past season by making his name bold. Because the point is to have only one player remaining, I've had to let numerous players get through the first round with a bye. According to my calculations however, every player will face another head to head in the next round. Here's the link to the tournament.

I hope you'll participate and enjoy.

PS I have to admit that I had shamefully forgotten all about you lot when we started nominating, but maybe next year you can all take part in that as well.

No one else dares to join the Dutch side temporarily? I promise we won't bite.