Ajaxtalk

Dubbel schreef:Is Drogba still in England?

Drogba is still at Chelski yes. England actually finished their game on a high...Crouch and then Cole scored (in the last minute of stoppage time!) to win 2-1.

Uraguay's goal was a real cracker though!

The Ajax player in spe, Kenneth Perez played a solid game for Denmark at the No 10 position in a 4-3-3. He scored the first goal on a freekick in the 2-0 win over Israel.

Interestingly for all the talk there is of Grønny, he played some 75 above average minutes at right wing including some dashes down the line and accurate crosses. He seemed very inspired and, unlike previous games, wasn't anonymous but wanted to take part. Danish media speculates that the arrival of a new coach and a more attack-oriented playing-style in Stuttgart means that Grønny will get more comfortable and play better. This could mean that he would be more likely to stay in Stuttgart, but also that his price tag would go up, if he were to be traded over the summer and has had a good spring in the Bundesliga. A well-playing but prizy Grønny at right wing? Added fuel to both sides of the debate I suppose.

On a totally different topic: Odds on over-critical Germans concluding that the WC was a success: 1:1000. IMO: Short of the title, they're gonna hammer each other for a year and only come up for air to hammer Klinsmann.

Nice win for the US over Poland in a snowstorm. I'd be a lot more optimistic about the US' chances if it weren't for: Italy 4 - Germany 1. Not so good, if your team is in Italy's group. :nooo:

Ireland 3-0 Sweden.... thats odd the swedish dont concede a lot of goals per game, its been a while since i've seen them get beat by this type of margin. Strange.

Venezuelan Ajacied schreef:Ireland 3-0 Sweden.... thats odd the swedish dont concede a lot of goals per game, its been a while since i've seen them get beat by this type of margin. Strange.

I watched the game; it was probably the worst one the Swedes have played for years. As long as Zlatan was on the pitch, Sweden had some chances and some attacks, but after he was injured they had nothing. Ireland was better in all parts, and showed a speed that Sweden wasn't even close to. Damien Duff made a fool of former Feyenoord right back Östlund time after time.

Rosenberg (replacing Zlatan after some 30 minutes) didn't have any of his best matches either, hopefully he'll do better as he returns to Ajax.

The last time Sweden received a route was against Spain in a friendly back in 1998, they lost 4-0

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Anfield-Turf-For- ... dZViewItem

:D :D :D

The Spain v. Ivory Coast match was a corker. Drogba and Kone` was a nice first choice striker pair. Kone` put the Spanish right side under pressure a number of times. Drogba is still a handful, if not an accurate shooting one.Bonaventure Kalou, ht sub, was only on 70 seconds before he scored .

Blind3 schreef:The Spain v. Ivory Coast match was a corker. Drogba and Kone` was a nice first choice striker pair. Kone` put the Spanish right side under pressure a number of times. Drogba is still a handful, if not an accurate shooting one.Bonaventure Kalou, ht sub, was only on 70 seconds before he scored .

That's funny. SE6Ajacied said Drogba remained at Chelsea for this internationalgame.

Good to hear that Perez played a good game for Denmark. :xyxthumbs:

Thomas schreef:

Blind3 schreef:The Spain v. Ivory Coast match was a corker. Drogba and Kone` was a nice first choice striker pair. Kone` put the Spanish right side under pressure a number of times. Drogba is still a handful, if not an accurate shooting one.Bonaventure Kalou, ht sub, was only on 70 seconds before he scored .

That's funny. SE6Ajacied said Drogba remained at Chelsea for this internationalgame.

Good to hear that Perez played a good game for Denmark. :xyxthumbs:

Oh, I think I mis-understood the question, I couldn't understand why you would think Drogba had moved on from Chelsea but thought I would answer anyway Must have been sleeping I think, it was late.

SE6Ajacied schreef:

Thomas schreef:

Blind3 schreef:The Spain v. Ivory Coast match was a corker. Drogba and Kone` was a nice first choice striker pair. Kone` put the Spanish right side under pressure a number of times. Drogba is still a handful, if not an accurate shooting one.Bonaventure Kalou, ht sub, was only on 70 seconds before he scored .

That's funny. SE6Ajacied said Drogba remained at Chelsea for this internationalgame.

Good to hear that Perez played a good game for Denmark. :xyxthumbs:

Oh, I think I mis-understood the question, I couldn't understand why you would think Drogba had moved on from Chelsea but thought I would answer anyway Must have been sleeping I think, it was late.

I wasn't the one who asked you a question about Drogba. It was Dubbel. But that's alright, SE6A. :xyxthumbs:

jakobg schreef:

Venezuelan Ajacied schreef:Ireland 3-0 Sweden.... thats odd the swedish dont concede a lot of goals per game, its been a while since i've seen them get beat by this type of margin. Strange.

I watched the game; it was probably the worst one the Swedes have played for years...

Probably best to get these out of the way BEFORE the WC starts. Nice wake up call.

Blatter wants 16-team leagues
Reuters from www.theworldgame.com.au

FIFA president Sepp Blatter believes top national leagues should be cut to 16 teams to give players more rest.

"Having 16 teams in every national league would be ideal," said Blatter in an interview with German daily Bild.

"The market and the players cannot sustain so much football in the long run."

The Bundesliga has 18 teams while 20 teams play in the English Premier League and France's Ligue 1.

Blatter said FIFA should force leagues to cut the number of teams and the issue should be discussed in 2007.

"We have to cut down on league games to get a better balance between club football and internationals as well as more recovery time for the players," Blatter said.

"A lot of clubs are also in favour of such a move. But they say FIFA has to order it - otherwise it will never happen. They can have it if they want."
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This is an interesting call. I think there are a number of leagues that are about 3 or 4 teams to big (and of to poor a quality)...for the first time ever I think I agree with Mr Blatter on this.

Yes, miracles happen.

DanK schreef:Blatter wants 16-team leagues
Reuters from www.theworldgame.com.au

FIFA president Sepp Blatter believes top national leagues should be cut to 16 teams to give players more rest.

UEFA and KNVB have been talking about this for years: an Eredivisie of 16 teams. Everyone seemed to more or less agree on that for the not-so-distant future. That's why those f**king play-offs came as such an unpleasant surprise.

For years they've been talking about the fact that there are too many games and that there is too much physical pressure on the players. And what do those daft Clogs do...? They come up with a system that means four extra games for almost every team in the league...

K.

It could even mean 6 for some.

I think it is a great idea. I'm not a huge fan of American football, but you have to give the NFL credit. The regular season is 16 games long, and the team that wins the Super Bowl will play an additional 3-4 games. All told, the season runs about 22 weeks. That's not particularly long, yet the NFL is the most profitable sports league in the world.

Of course it isn't realistic for the world's soccer leagues to have such a short season, nor would they need to, since the risk of physical injury is much less. The lesson is that more games doesn't necessarily mean more $$ in the end. Less can be more, particularly if the players are healthier and still have gas left in their tanks for the major summer tournaments.

Note, however, that something approximating an NFL-type season, coordinated among all of Europe (or at least the Six Nations), would be ideal for rugby, imo. Former Wales RFA executive David Moffet said as much on his way out the door. I think Wales could use him right now... X'C

In any event, I think it is a good idea. But good luck getting the Premiership to go along.

I do think it would be a good idea to bring down the number of teams in a league to 16, that would mean in the long run besides everything you guy's have already said, good and better football all around ;). Question is what would Uefa think of this and what would happen to the champions league spots ??? would they keep it the same ???

Blatter is prone to this kind of spew now and again.

Advertisers own the game. Reducing the schedules worldwide would create some powerful enemies.

Less ad revenue for clubs means less money for player development. It won't improve the standard of football (how do you measure that, anyway?) because, last time I checked, the professional football player pool is deep as a mofo.

From FootballUnlimited.com.
B.T.W. I'm against all this crap.....


Let's scrap 0 - 0 draws say 'bored' French

Daren Tulett and Denis Campbell
Sunday March 5, 2006
The Observer


Penalty shootouts instead of draws? Two points for a score draw? A bonus point for a team winning by more than two goals? These are not the latest madcap ideas from 'soccer' Stateside, but radical proposals the French League are taking very seriously in an effort to tackle the dearth of goals. Spectators and television viewers of matches in Ligue 1, France's top division, are witnessing fewer than two goals per fixture so far this season.

There are fears, particularly among TV executives, that French football is becoming dangerously dull, and the league have responded by commissioning Michel Hidalgo, the attack-minded coach who led the Michel Platini-inspired France to victory in the 1984 European Championship, to draw up a list of proposals to beat the boredom. 'There are not enough goals to satisfy the broadcasters or the fans,' said Hidalgo. After widespread consultation he reported back last week, just after the 37th 0-0 draw of the season, and suggested six ways of promoting attacking football. Broadcaster Canal Plus, Ligue 1's equivalent of BSkyB, backed the move. They are concerned that after paying a record €600million (about £412m) to show live games during this and the next two seasons, they are serving up some of the dullest games on the continent. Their three televised matches last weekend yielded two goals. France's biggest pay-TV company fear that if the negative football continues, viewers will start turning off. Hidalgo's six suggested options are: 1 Keep three points for a win but award two points, rather than one, for a score draw. 'The idea is to get rid of the 0-0,' said Hidalgo. 'Coaches and players are too negative and this is one way to encourage them to be more attackminded.' 2 Give the team scoring first in a draw two points. 'That would discourage all those teams who go away from home thinking a 0-0 would be a good result,' said Hidalgo. 3Ban draws by bringing in penalty shootouts, with the winners receiving two points and the losers one point. 'With a penalty shootout you add suspense, a sort of magic.' 4 Award extra points for teams winning by two or three goals - winning by two goals would earn four points, not three. But also give one point to a losing team that scores. 5Award only two points for winning by one goal and make gaining three points dependent on winning by at least two goals. 6The points system to remain unchanged but award an extra point to the team who 'win' on aggregate in home and away fixtures against the same team during the season, with away goals counting double in the event of a draw.
Reaction in France has been mixed. Frederic Thiriez, president of the French league, is keen on rewarding goalscoring as well as results, and said: 'We're going to consult clubs, coaches and players and try to see if we can experiment in Ligue 2 next season.' But PSG defender Sylvain Armand dismissed the idea of bonus points as 'too complicated. It would take two or three years for everyone to understand,' he said. Peter Varney, the Charlton chief executive, praised the French league for reexamining such a fundamental part of its game. But he doubted that introducing such changes in the Premiership would reduce the number of games that are either irrelevant to a team's title chances or are dominated by very defensive football. 'There's no magic answer to what to do about the fact that the majority of Premiership clubs know they have no chance of winning it, such as changing the points structure,' Varney said. 'It comes down to the way money is distributed in the game and the gap between the top few clubs and the rest. 'We need a wide-ranging debate on our future direction to ensure we remain among the best leagues in the world.' A director of another Premiership club said fans would oppose any move to banish draws or 'mess around' with the points structure. 'The change from two to three points for a win provided all the incentive teams need to play attacking football,' he said. 'We mess with the game's traditions at out peril.'

Manneken Pis schreef:From FootballUnlimited.com.
B.T.W. I'm against all this crap.....
Let's scrap 0 - 0 draws say 'bored' French

Can you say "Stupidest Idea Ever?"

This was trialled a few years back in the now defunked National Soccer League. It was trialled for 1 season, then quickly never spoken of again.

This doesn't (IMO) solve issues around boring games. All that happened was the shit teams decided to defend for 90min anyway, then try and win on penalties. I lost count how many times the team who dominated for 90min, hit the post, had goals disallowed that were good etc, then only to lose on penalties.

The interesting thing was, it didn't increase TV ratings one bit.

Got this from theage.com.au (2004)
=========================
In the NSL in 1994-95, the rule was seen to encourage defensive soccer, with inferior teams stacking their defence and playing for a tie, hoping to snatch victory in the shootout.

The 1991 European Cup final was a clear example where Red Star Belgrade relied on its defence to keep a clean sheet and then defeated the heavily favoured Marseille on penalties.

Andrew Marth, who captained the Melbourne Knights to the 1994-95 NSL title, believes the suggestion is "a bad idea".

"I can see that it might look like it would encourage more attractive soccer, but definitely teams play more defensively to make sure they don't lose."
=====================================================
It's the mentality of the coaches that needs to change, not the game itself.

They had this going for a while in the NZ league as well. Teams winning a shootout after a draw got 2 points, and the losers got 1. Then again, teams who won a game straight up got 4 points.

Bonus points rewarding attacking play have worked to improve the spectacle in rugby. And on the evidence of results, have improved the play too, with the southern hemisphere (errrr, maybe just New Zealand) very dominant on the international scene.

Of course, in the long run, the problem will solve itself. Football is entertainment. If it is no longer entertaining, people will no longer support it. Then it will have to sort itself out.

Crap ideas. I am a hater of penalty shootouts and would rather toss a coin.
( Ajax, Holland and England have not benefited from shootouts )

I have to say that I do not find many English premiership games entertaining.

When they are on song, like at Fulham, Arsenal are superb and as much as I hate them Moan U always play attacking footy .The rest of the clubs do not excite me one bit. Chelsea and Liverpool are boring in my eyes.( The only live premiership games I watch on Sky are Arsenal's and even some of their games have been crap)

If I want great and beautiful footy I can just watch Barcalona' magic.as Sky show every game of theirs.

It's an idea but I think there are better ways to make the game more attractive. Marco van Basten has interesting ideas on it. Ofcourse for the very traditional footballwatchers, they're not at all interesting.

Have EE and OPH seen this?

From The Observer - Six years after losing £40miliion in 12 months as Crystal Palace chairman, Mark Goldberg is the new manager of Bromley FC (Ryman Premier League, 3 divisions off of Football League).

More "inovations" from UEFA......

from bbc.co.uk

"Uefa ponders use of two referees

Olsson believes players faking injury is a problem in Britain
Uefa is to investigate the use of two referees in matches as it tries to stop players faking injury in an attempt to get opposition players sent off.
On Saturday West Brom boss Bryan Robson accused Chelsea's Didier Drogba of diving in the league leaders' 2-1 win.

Uefa chief executive Lars-Christer Olsson told BBC Five Live's Sportsweek programme: "The use of two referees will be discussed in the summer.

Olsson added: "We haven't foreseen any tests in the near future but it is one of the matters that has come up in discussion with clubs in terms of dealing with this behaviour."

The Uefa chief also believes that diving has become a real problem for English football.

"It seems it has been significantly more in Britain than in the other parts of Europe, although there have been reports from international games as well."

Olsson also warned that racist fans may cost their clubs points after the verbal abuse Barcelona striker Samuel Eto'o received at the hands of some Real Zaragoza supporters on 25 February.

Olsson said: "We have been discussing also within Uefa whether we should have other measures, such as taking points away from a club, for example, or changing a result.

"But this is a very tricky one because you cannot have the matches decided in the boardroom or by the disciplinary bodies.

"It should be decided on the pitch, so our first objective has to be to get everybody involved around the match to create the correct atmosphere"

:au: (I've not got any problem with punishing clubs with rascist fan's but 2 referee's just sounds daft....................)