General Football Discussion

[Van basten]

Dutch referee is killin Milan so far. Terrible officiating so far..

[Orange14]

Dutch referee is killin Milan so far. Terrible officiating so far..

Totally disagree. I think Kuipers called a good match and the penalty on the Busquets pull down was deserved. Milan began to play pretty nasty football in the last 20 minutes and Ambrosini was lucking not to have received his second yellow on a couple of occasions. Milan just don't have enough talent at this level.

[Van basten]

Dutch referee is killin Milan so far. Terrible officiating so far..

Totally disagree. I think Kuipers called a good match.

Well it seems we saw not the same match.

[souras84]

Is Kuipers a good ref in the Eredivisie matches?

[aveslacker]

Is Kuipers a good ref in the Eredivisie matches?

Is there such a thing?

[rjf1]

I agree with Orange14 on this -- the 'all I did was pull his shirt' excuse to blame the referee is total crap -- what he actually did was put a two arm bear hug on Busquets and wrestle him to the ground. It's about time a referee had the guts to call them on that Italian style of constant fouling to try to stifle the better team. I suppose bad refereeing was the reason they only managed 3 shots at goal for the whole game.

[paladinby]

Nesta pulls down some Barcelona playes while being held by Pujol. Nesta started to grab that players shirt before the ball was kicked in. Ref should have stopped the game and instruct Nesta to stop this. But advancing Platini's favourite team is more important goal. And yes, once again, Nesta was held by Pujol's both arms at the time the foul was whistled.

[Philippe]

I don't think Platini prefers Barcelona over AC Milan. He always favored Italian clubs.

Now we at last enter in the competition with only top clubs of the money league. That's what the UEFA likes.

Don't watch these games, you would give them money.

[aveslacker]

I agree with Orange14 on this -- the 'all I did was pull his shirt' excuse to blame the referee is total crap -- what he actually did was put a two arm bear hug on Busquets and wrestle him to the ground. It's about time a referee had the guts to call them on that Italian style of constant fouling to try to stifle the better team. I suppose bad refereeing was the reason they only managed 3 shots at goal for the whole game.

Thing is, it was Busquets. Anytime that guy draws a foul it's suspect.

[Orange14]

Sour grapes from Benfica about the match officials in yesterday's Chelsea/Benfica match. They are asking the Portuguese FA to intervene. Well, if I remember correctly we had a set of Portuguese match officials for the return match with Madrid and they were nothing to write home about disqualifying two legitimate goals. I didn't see FdB complaining to the Dutch FA! http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story ... ea?cc=5901

[souras84]

Az is living a nightmare tonight in Valencia

[Kowalczyk]

So, Celtic clinched the Scottish league title on April 7th, which is extremely early no matter how you look at it (I know about Rangers and their ten points' dedecution and all that, but still).

Nice little footie fact.... Never was the Dutch eredivisie title won as early in the year as in 1978: PSV, on April 8th.

This is not very relevant, of course. It would be more interesting to look at the match day (number of games played), but oh well.

K.

[666]

Portugal: 30 games. Spain & England: 38 games (over 25% more than the portuguese). It would make more sense to look at the fraction of match days.

[Manneken Pis]

FYI...

The excellent 11Tegen11 tactical analysis site has move to:

http://11tegen11.net/?p=1690

[Amol]

Great analysis. Talks about how moving Anita back into midfield has revitalized our midfield and defense.

http://jouracule.blogspot.com/2012/04/f ... n-and.html

[SE6Ajacied]

Isn't modern football great! Fan gets reported to the Police after he found a picture of the new shirt online (through a link on the clubs official website!!) and leaked it online ahead of the official launch.

[Orange14]

Good piece by The Swiss Ramble on the debt carried by Barcelona and Madrid. Comparisons are drawn with ManU and Arsenal.

http://swissramble.blogspot.com/2012/04 ... -real.html

Amazing thing though is the general insolvency of the Spanish League as they don't share television revenues. If the league really enforced things seven teams would be suspended.

[Jojo]

A well taken goal in a first appearance in Slovenia's national team for Jasmin Kurtic (Varese, on loan from Palermo):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZoW_66-MHk

We celebrated all night with his father, as he is my neighbor after all...

[souras84]

We're talking about a criminal's choice by Santos in our GK trio. Not implying anything about the beauty of the goal, but this guy under the goalposts is kind of a liability

[Jojo]

I know what you mean. Even i was surprised by the choice, was expecting Tzorvas, he had a good season in SerieA

[saddlerian]

I know that this isn't the right place....but Eredivisie fixtures...
http://bin617-03.website-voetbal.nl/sit ... 2-2013.pdf

[afcajax73]

you would not believe it!!!!!

Me and the mrs got together properly on holiday in Leiden, on the 20th january... were planning on going back in 2013 for a week either side of that date.. it was mentioned going ajax while there.. oh damn.. look at that.. Ajax Feyenoord on the 20th.

[Ayman]

Nice one Afcajax ;)

[SE6Ajacied]

van Marwijk has gone - oh what a terrible shame (not) http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18620504

[ofey]

Good RIDDANCE!