yes, man u wasted kagawa by taking him out of his best role.

here's an article that explains it all (it's a bit old):

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/footba...kagawa-1902608

so it was left wing not striker like i said. but yeah.

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funny thing i saw this morning

so bonucci sez juve forced atletico to sit back, michael cox calls him a plonker:

https://twitter.com/Zonal_Marking/st...33293349068801

here's the original story:

http://www.football-italia.net/56696...fensive-atleti

No, I know the circumstances of him being played out of position, what was interesting about the Fergie article was his apologetic tone; admitting he could've done more.

aaaaah! fergie! right… he's barely in my radar ha ha ha. though much respect for his legendary career.

tomorrow dortmund plays hamburg. by all expectations, it should be a thrashing. and yet… who the hell knows.

i might watch bayern / hannover instead. they're simultaneous so i'll have to choose… :(

Fergie fascinates me as much now, after retiring, as when he was at MU. I sometimes wonder if I'm actually more interested in football managers than I am football. I'm invariably more excited by the appointment of a big name manager than I am a big name player. I love the egos and the whole cult of personality surrounding figures like Fergie, Mourinho, Pep, Klopp, Ancelotti, etc even when I know they're over-inflated. They're like football's Cecil B DeMilles.

No football for me tomorrow. Being taken to an outrageously posh restaurant instead. Go moi.

well yes, they're the philosopher kings of these little tribes. that's part of the reason i'm more attracted to dortmund than to bayern these days. klopp > pep for me.

and i might have shared this with you earlier but here it is again anyway

http://www.theguardian.com/football/...ampions-league

enjoy

Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester. Friend's birthday. He's paying. But means I'll miss all the football. And it's 'modern French' so I'll most likely leave still hungry. Probably a quick Maccy Ds after, on the way home, hopefully in time for the highlights.

But yeah, managers, they provide a bit of personality as the players themselves become evermore media trained - unless their name's Suarez, or Balotelli, of course. But it's really only the managers now, who give a bit of a human touch to an otherwise increasingly corporate game.

I agree. I get a football magazine every month and for the most part it's actually pretty interesting*. However, the interviews with players still playing are some of the most dull reads I can imagine.

There was a piece just before the world cup where they interviewed Messi, Falcao (lol) and the like; it really was some of most banal interviews going "yes I'm looking forward to the world cup, and I believe we can win this year" and repeat.


*a friend of mine bought a few old issues for 20p in the market. There was one which had a small profile of John Terry when he was 19. In it there's a quote from then manager Vialli who said "He earned that Young Player of the Year award through his style of play, his demeanour both and off the pitch. He is a credit to his family and his friends" Brilliant.

I hope you're going wearing a west ham team and saying things like "having a bit a banter"

Two words: Stephen; Gerrard. His interviews are so awful they're almost entertaining ... almost. Rooney's too. His post match interviews are brilliantly awful. Like he's reading lines in a school play. But Michael Owen has to hold the trophy for giving the most meaningless interviews ever. Absolute personality bypass.

The only football magazine I read now is When Saturday Comes, which is still pretty good, perhaps because it never bothers to interview players.


Classic. Not sure JT's family's ever been a credit to him either, though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBvyKJjc7PI

It's absolutely cruel but in terms of credit to family, the song West Ham sang to Lampard when he missed a penalty a few games after his mum had died is an all-time gem: "You've let your mum down; you've let your mum down. Frankie Lampard, you've let your mum down."

Thats some cold blooded shit right there.. at least in NFL or NBA when a player has a death in the family even his ugliest rivals tip their cap if he chooses to play and offer him sincere condolences and also respect for playing in such difficult circumstances.. if I watched a game where a player was getting dissed after a tragedy id probably never watch that team who dissed play again. Fuck that. The sports I follow respect real life shit, not acting like middle.school yo

Fans can be brutal and I mean brutal to players. A guy called Lee Hughes ended up killing a guy and leaving a woman and another guy seriously injured cos of drink driving. He (Hughes) ended up in prison for I think it was 4 (checks wiki-it was 3) years and then was allowed to play football again.

I went to see him play against Preston. The crowds response? Every time he got the ball the crowd would go mental and just shout murderer. Every. single. time.

The other (more famous) example is with Stan Collymore who hit his Mrs' Ulrika Jonsson in a bar. That incident alone has dogged him ever since.

This example when he was doing a phone in for talksport radio He hit that like you hit Ulrika Jonsson

And on, and on it goes. Anyhoo I'm rambling.

oh ha ha. what is "modern french"? no confit? no goose liver?




i don't wanna quote everything you wrote but that was some good rambling.

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on german news, bayern CREAMED hannover today, 4-0, in spite (or because of?) some guardiolo experiments like a 4-3-3 with alaba & lahm on the midfield.

but no, the real cause was that robben played and he cut through his wing like the defense was cream cheese.

and this is the first time i think i see them together but xabi and robben teamed up before at real madrid yes? i had forgotten. no!! xabi alonso was at liverpool.

on small sad news, dortmund LOST to hamburg 1-0. i suppose it's the price of beating anderlecht mid-week but come on!

eta: xabi alonso: https://mtc.cdn.vine.co/r/videos_h26...99aef60bda.mp4

No idea what half of it was but it was fucking amazing. Bits I remember are John Dory with green smudges around it and a pigeon thing that was orgasmic. As a foodie yourself you'd have probably been far more receptive to the nuances than I was. Amazing nonetheless.


You'd seriously hate West Ham. I remember when Sol Campbell came out about having mental health problems. The response from West Ham fans was to chant, "Two Sol Campbells, there's only two Sol Campbells." but as H8Kurdt says, football supporters in general are absolutely brutal about stuff like that. They'll say about anything to try and put off a player or silence rival supporters. It's utterly indefensible on any normal moral grounds and does sometimes go too far, as with West Ham in particular appearing on national news because of antisemitic chants towards Spurs (who have a large Jewish fanbase).

My favourite chants are actually the more self deprecating ones, like this, sung to Man City fans as West Ham were getting completely thrashed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbfy05y5Ukw

That's straight up genius. Even the MC fans were applauding it.

When I grow up I want to be Xabi Alonso

Brilliant. And doesn't everyone want to be Xabi? He's one of the few man crushes I have.

Have you noticed how Gerrard's been going all out recently, trying to cultivate the Alonso look?



It's like Rodgers has told him, he's getting on a bit and should play deeper, like Alonso, and he's taken the whole comparison way too far.

Alonso joined Real the year they sold Robben to Bayern so I suppose this is the first time they've played together.

And he's apparently already breaking Bundesliga records.

http://prosoccertalk.nbcsports.com/2...d-for-touches/

It must be fucking brilliant, being Xabi Alonso.

holy shit what a great first half for man u (sorry h8kurdt)

di maria ON FIRE!!! (falcao not so much)

eta: de gea!!!! uauzu!

ps

please don't insult me like that! i'm just a glutton dedicated to his vice ha ha ha.

Yeah I'm not happy. God knows what the fuck is going with Everton so far. You know you've got a bad day in the office when Baines misses a penalty.

Total dude.