massive game now for palace tomorow. with sheffield wednesday losing yesterday we can be safe if we win against west brom. They're allready promoted so have nothing relly to play for.
then its the game of the season next week. bricking it to be honest....

thank you very much space.

Yeah, i really want Palace to stay up, especially now Simon Jordan's pretty much gone. Sincere good luck.

sometimes he's really the special one...well i hope he wins the Champions League.

^Awesome.



Fully agree with this, even though I'm not old enough to have watched the 1982 World Cup myself. But their recent World Cup teams were usually a lot more defensive than commentators said they were.

On the other hand, even their defenders can score goals like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwPoqd3t2wE

Fucking hell! I've not seen that one before.

There's a beautiful irony about that 82 Brazil team in that they didn't actually win the world cup, instead going out at the group stages. That actually reminds me a bit of Holland going out of Euro 2000 in the semis(?) despite being the best team there by a long way. It's what makes football what it is, I suppose.

no way was that handball!
still, well done Inter. Didn't think they would do it but they held on well

like all of us, i was well disappointed that Barca went out, I can only hope Bayern Win the Final.

bye bye suckers!!! ah! ah!... ( where's messi now?! )

yeah, gutted about Barcalona last night. The second goal should've stood, although I also think the sending off was a bit much too. I'll definitely be supporting Bayern in the final. I hate the way Mourinho sets his teams out. It's effective but kills games stone dead.

fucking a, that video rules, overly grandiose shit music & all.

the commentators-- they've gotta "exoticize" the brown man no matter what. "magical realist football"! yes?

ha ha @ sócrates vs. "crouch"

i didn't know england had this love for brazil-- what about argentina though?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VXbqA1YRqY :eek:

yeah, we all love Argentina especially diego

I know you mentioned 'magical realism' light heartedly, but in a way that's precisely what it is. As football becomes more corporate it needs to invent some kind of distant romantic ideal and Brazil (admittedly a team with an incredible history) fits perfectly. "They all learned to play on the beach you know. That's why they're so skillful." It's ridiculous. Similarly, Germany always gets cast as the pantomime villain with endless references to their "machine-like efficiency" while England is always "passionate" and "direct". It's taken commentators until quite recenrtly to realise that Italy's national team, rather than reflect its flamboyant national stereotype actually plays far more like Germany 'should' than actually ever have.


Yeah, Argentina are a bit of a hate figure in England, but it stems more from the Falklands war than Maradon's whole 'hand of god' thing, although that definitely compounded it. Personally though, I really like Argentina's national team. Maradona, whatever he did in 'that' match, is still the greatest player I've ever seen and would happily join any church that placed Carlos Tevez as its God.

Also, you'd need to look hard to find a more brilliant goal than this anywhere, ever: a goal that's probably done more to close the art-science debate than any academic ever has:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R_iYLca2gc

Never get bored watching that.

Nice one Fulham!

Not usually a team for which I have much fondness, but I'll make an exception this time. A wonderful fairy story.

Пятхъдесят Шест - Have a great evening (well, lunchtime / afternoon for you, I guess) on May 12th!

Wow. Even as a neutral that was just ridiculously intense. Hope you had your brown trousers on! Definitely glad Palace stayed up but have to feel a bit sorry for SW. I didn't want either to go down really. Still, well done on staying up - especially in the circumstances.

fuck me that was harsh
was never gonna be a pretty game and until their 2nd i was quietly confident, but then when they scored i was in bits

no, that's exactly what i meant.


here i get either mexican or argentinian (or uruguayan?) commentators, and while the often drop stereotypical names like that, i'm happy to report that their descriptions seem to be more accurate than what you are getting.



you mean LAS ISLAS MALVINAS. ha ha hm yeah-- a terribly stupid war with roots in your 1812 re-thievery attempts AND the criminal military dictators of argentina at the time who sent their own youth to the butcher to distract the populace from their own fuckups... there's a much deeper history of involvement between your country an d theirs (and when i say deeper i mean deep political fisting, ha ha), but it's one that's not told often-- involving XIX century immigrants, the cattle indusrty, railroads, espionage, world war 2, etc... the hand of god was a little symbolic revenge--sad but true.

im too hungry to write more or keep reading this thread at the moment (its almost 11am here, still in bed), but thanks for the awesome video.

Is it safe to get up yet?

Re: Brazil Magical Realism

I used to play on pitches that were covered in sand, the difference was it was outside Wandsworth Prison. I also played a game next to the outer wall of the Priory clinic once, i was thinking if i stuffed a match ball with crack and spooned a shot over the fence i could make a fortune.

Nothing magical about that, pure football capitalism

Thanks for reminding me of that, as an England fan, i love to beat Argentina but i bow to the Maradonna goal in 86 and to this one too. Shame theyre gonna collapse in an unorganised heap this summer.

Incidentally, Serbia look a decent team this year from their qualifying. I think theyre just Serbia now but the politics escapes me

enough bullshit...
this is it. this is the big one!!
cmon the spurs

a win would doo nicely and maybe possibly think about grabbing 3rd place off the arse!!!! maybe!!!

Yeah, it's just Serbia now, although I think their 2006 WC squad only had like one Montenegrin, so it's not much of a difference.

Qualifying rounds don't always tell much though... when Holland had to play them at the 2006 World Cup I somewhat feared them because their qualifying run had been very impressive, topping their group ahead of Spain and conceding only one goal during the entire run.

But then at the tournament itself they lost all their games...

Serbia were pretty poor against France (a poor team itself).
They could collapse easily at the back and were shadows in midfield.
Winger Krasic was the only one that could do well.

And in England, Spurs will play at least a couple of games for the Champions League!

Serbia is a powerful team. I wish Slovakia was as good, though our team can surprise as well in the World Cup - positive thing is that nobody expect anything from our team at all.

^^i've seen them play good, but i've also seen them piss poor.
like that 6-0 beating they got against argentina at the 2006 world cup... or at euro 2000 when they lost 6-1 to holland in the quarterfinals.

i can't think of any other team that conceded 6 goals in one game past the first group stage at a major tournament.
















... other than argentina bribing their way into the final at the 1978 world cup in that game against peru.

Speaking of, what do you say about the new dutch champion???

Yeah, good luck to FC Twente, and all that. There's a lot of rumours that West Ham have been trying to get Steve McLaren off them but I think McLaren would be insane to leave a club that's got Champions League football next year for one owned by a cunt and who're likely to be embroiled in another relegation battle next year.

The other rumour is that we're getting Martin Jol - which is a bit more realistic and (for me) a far better option than McLaren. Although whether Jol will be prepared to work under a cunt like Sullivan is another question.

I'm pleased.... although I'm not fully pleased until Feyenoord wins the dutch cup tonight, which admittedly seems highly unlikely.

is that true that West Ham have the most devoted and passionate fanbase among all London teams?

go on the spurs!!!! now time for the yid army to invade europe! c.o.y.s.!!!!!

Probably West Ham and Millwall.

According to the Dutch media Mclaren seems to be heading for Wolfsburg. Leading Twente to the Dutch title is a remarkable achievement. I guess you could compare it to Blackburn Rovers winning the Premier League in 1995.

It's very likely that Mclaren will leave Twente. There's nothing else for him to win and there's much more money abroad. It's also likely that there will be a mass exodus even before the Champions League draw has been made.

From the current team N'Kufo moves to Canada, Perez quits and the rich big foreign clubs will pick out the cherries of the rest of the cake.

Topscorer Ruiz can go to Sevilla
Douglas is linked with Inter Milan, Bayern Munich and Juventus
Stoch is owned by Chelsea and probably moves to London or elsewhere
Janssen is linked with Borussia Dortmund
Tiote is in demand as well and will probably leave after the World Cup


So a small team does remarkably well and wins the Dutch league and then the following season they'll be the laughing stock of the Champions League. It's not unlike AZ last year, the only difference being that their main problem was not so much a mass exodus but their owner/sole sponsor going bankrupt.

I do hope you'll get Martin Jol.


















But please wait until the very start of the season before getting him so that it will screw up the entire season for Ajax.

and which are the ones when speaking of all England/Scotland/Wales? Liverpool FC?

I'd probably say Portsmouth, Newcastle, Cardiff, Celtic and Rangers, West Ham, Millwall and Stoke. I've heard that Anfield is fairly subdued these days.

Haha, yeah. He's the one I'm hoping for too - albeit for very different reasons.

As an aside, I remember a lot of West Ham scarves in the 80s/90s having one half with West Ham written on them and the other half with the name of a Dutch team. I can't remember which Dutch club it was though, and can't find anything about it online. Do you remember anything like that going on?

I know Spurs and Ajax had a bit of an alliance between fans, based on the whole 'yid' thing, so I doubt if it was them:

yeah anfield is supposed to be dead quiet in the premiership these days. Newcastle fans are the most deluded, rangers/celtic fans are the most volitile, portsmouth are a good shout i guess (after palace fans who have the best chants) (j-j-j julian speroni to the tune of c'mon and do the conga)

I think most stadiums are quieter now, because of seating and a shift in the type of people actually going to football.

Totally agree about Newcastle fans though.