OT: soccer thread

[fatlever]

our coach loves playing two defensive minded central defenders. as of now, bradley usually gets paired with ricardo clark, also in germany, but i'm not a big fan of his. a lot of us on this board have been screaming for jose torres to get a start in midfield next to bradley. torres is great and holding, passing and creating, something our team lacks, but when torres plays it forces bradley into more defensive responsibilities. we dont really have a clue what our team looks like w/out bradley. he's pretty much played 90 mins in every meaningful game in the past 2 years, usually deservingly so, but sometimes it would be nice to see a different mix of central guys, especially when we are struggling.

just read yesterday that ballack is definitely not coming back to chelsea. probably headed back to germany i would guess.

[fatlever]

Spent an hour at least trying to fill a balanced team. Pretty happy with how things turned out.

im about to go make some changes to my squad. hopefully it will be minor tweaks and not an entire overhaul.

[Det the Threat]

our coach loves playing two defensive minded central defenders. as of now, bradley usually gets paired with ricardo clark, also in germany, but i'm not a big fan of his. a lot of us on this board have been screaming for jose torres to get a start in midfield next to bradley. torres is great and holding, passing and creating, something our team lacks, but when torres plays it forces bradley into more defensive responsibilities. we dont really have a clue what our team looks like w/out bradley. he's pretty much played 90 mins in every meaningful game in the past 2 years, usually deservingly so, but sometimes it would be nice to see a different mix of central guys, especially when we are struggling.

just read yesterday that ballack is definitely not coming back to chelsea. probably headed back to germany i would guess.

You can't play Bradley at the more defensive spot of those two, cause he's more a #8(mix between defensive and offensive midfielder) instead of a #6(defensive midfielder).
He would struggle a lot and the biggest problem he had this season was the first pass after he gained posession.
Those were quite crappy at times and led to easy chances for opponents.

Bradley also got benched quite a bit thanks to all those minutes he played for the national team, cause he was pretty much burned out at the start of the season and didn't wanted to admit it.

Also, two defensive central midfielders is pretty much what everyone plays with nowadays, as the real number ten(playmaker) is not really existent anymore and sometimes being placed behind the central attacker(like Oezil for us).
That's why teams like to play two more defensive midfielders and two more offensive guys(Donovan and Dempsey for you guys, i'd expect) on the wings.


Ballack wasn't retained at Chelsea because he wanted a two year deal, but Chelsea only offered a one year contract.
He's being linked with a couple German clubs(Leverkusen, Schalke), Real Madrid(Murinho also signed him for Chelsea back in the day) and some teams in Katar(won't happen cause he still wants to play for Germany).

[e4Nf6]

I agree 100% that Bradley is a good defensive player but not a pure DM. His real best attribute is that he runs all day and is able to sneak up into the box and score goals while still being able to get back and cover defensively. It was only a few years ago that the guy put up 20some goals in a season out of midfield. This is kind of wasted in the US system where both CMs are expected to hang back and clog the middle while Donovan and Dempsey fly forward. (Which is exactly why we play this way, Donovan and Dempsey flying forward is not a bad thing.)

This is why I've always felt the nepotism charges were a little silly. If Bradley was really only looking out for his son, he would play an English style 4-4-2 with box-to-box CMs. That would suit his son much more than what they actually do, which suits Donovan/Dempsey more.

I wouldn't worry about Torres, I think he's gonna play a lot. He might even start against Algeria or Slovenia, especially if we have to win.

[SWedd523]

Torres is my favorite US Soccer player not named Altidore. I hope he plays so well that Bob can't help but give the kid the PT he deserves

[fatlever]

if i were to buy a USA jersey this summer it would be a torres one. i did buy a grateful dead USA soccer shirt today, with the steal your face, replaced with the soccer ball. fantastic.

bradley would be ideal placed next to a true defensive holding mid, someone who can hold possession, make deep passes and still defend and break up tackles, allowing bradley the freedom to run wild in the midfield, using his energy to the fullest. unfortunately that player doesnt seem to exist in USA. clark cant pass and his first touch is crap, edu a little better passer, torres has the passing and holding but not the defense.

any guesses on what bob will do at forward vs england? dempsey up top (beasley or holden on the other wing), buddle next to jozy, findley next to jozy? should be an interesting call.

gotta say i am a fan of chile's formation, assuming they play a 3-4-3. i love the attacking mindset. it wont win anything but could be fun to watch.

[Tupik]

Gotta admit that so far Walt takes home the best team name award, by a landslide.

[doc.end]

I'm in. I don't know much about soccer of these days but it is a realgm bopbcats baord game and I can't make myself pass on a fantasy game realted to sport copetition which has a pretty good chance not to be finished.

[Benjamin Linus]

After these games, I'm going to be hearing vuvuzelas in my sleep.

[Tupik]

This evening is France's first game, and honestly, seeing how bad Mexico and South Africa are, it'd be a shame for us not to pass the first round.

[doc.end]

As my team is concerned I only want to see Ribery getting directly to the goal scoring hattrick at least and other 21 playing poorly including some surprising early substitutes. Ribery is officially a midfielder so France can have cleansheet too, no problem.

And they should do something with that swarmes of african bees, they could sting someone. Did you hear them too?


Uhm, I was considering Marquez but decided to concentrate on wingbacks more. Well it's just a first day.

[Tupik]

I have Ribery on my team as well, but I also want the other players to play well

[fatlever]

i dont have ribery, but did go with wing backs also: maicon, lahm etc...

shame malouda isnt playing for france today. he deserves it. he was fantastic this year with chelsea. i read he and the coach had some words and the coach benched him.

[Det the Threat]

Those first two games have been pretty weak, with that Uruguy vs. France match being the worse of those two.

BTW: Here's my team.
I thought you could go with different formations and i wanted to play 3-4-3, but it seems like 4-4-2 is the only formation you can let your team play in. That's why i've got four pretty good strikers and will hardly need all of them...

Goalkeepers:
Manuel Neuer(Germany)
Diego Benaglio(Switzerland)
Lounes Gaouaoui(Algeria)

Defenders:
Juan(Brasil)
Gerard Piqué(Spain)
Nemanja Vidic(Serbia)
Giorgio Chiellini(Italy)
Reto Ziegler(Switzerland)
Sotirios Kyrgiakos(Greece)
James Lochhead(New Zeeland)

Midfielders:
Elano Blumer(Brasil)
Frank Lampard(England)
Mesut Oezil(Germany)
Ibrahim Affelay(Netherlands)
Milos Krasic(Serbia)
Michael Bradley(USA)
Matias Fernandez(Chile)
Karim Matmour(Algeria)

Attackers:
Wayne Rooney(England)
David Villa(Spain)
Diego Forlan(Uruguay)
Robin van Persie(Netherlands)
Edson Buddle(USA)

[doc.end]

Lahm - checked
Maicon - checked
I got Zambrotta and Daniel Alves too

In fact Buffon and Zambrotta were first players I picked.

Good for you fat that you don't have Ribery. He managed to score 1 point... I should have picked Deco or someone like that instead I guess. BTW Malouda in his limited time had 1 point too so go figure.

[fatlever]

det - we have 3 similar players - villa, vidic and lampard.

i'm pretty sure you can change your formation. just drag one of your defenders over one of your bench midfielders. although, i dont think you can change formation in the middle of a round. you can make subs in a round, that much i know, but if you sub out a player who has already played, you lose his points and they will be replaced by the pts scored from the player you subbed in.

[Det the Threat]

I can't change anything anymore and i really hope that i can change formations the way you've described it.

Also, i've got zero points right now, cause i've had no one in action so far...

[doc.end]

Yup. I think we can change (transfer) 1 player for free before the start of a new round (and more for 3 points per each). Not saying I would get rid of Ribery right away like that but he is 8.5 so he should do something in the next round to save his spot.

He will be surely substitute over this round.

Where you can see rosters of other teams?

[doc.end]

After reading the rules, scoring especially I was thinking I would go for 5-4-1 or something going for those cleansheet bonuses. Then I realized that the top players aren't really expensive and it would be a shame not have some of them, so i decided to try how those attackign and defending bonuses works (and that's actually why I went with wingbacks and wingers cause i thought that on sides they will get more clearance and more crosses to the penalty area). I will have to keep a closer eye what really counts.

Here we are:

Buffon (Italy)
Paston (New Zealand)
Canales (Honduras)
because you can't score more than one goalie...

Maicon
Alves
Lahm
Vidic
Zambrotta
and tow random guys Smith from N.Zealand and Garcia from Honduras

Sneijder
Xavi
Dempsey
Lampard
Dos Santos
Ribery
Pienaar (South Africa; speculating that he was picked by many and his value would rise because of that, maybe I'm fooling myself; and he played already so it is hit or miss gamble with no risk)
Weiss (Slovakia)

Messi
Cristiano Ronaldo
Van Persie
Vela
and random guy from North Korea (i would go with that popular pick - Welcome but I couldn't have more than 2 players from Honduras lol)

[fatlever]

i tried to see the rosters of the other teams and i couldnt. maybe it wont let you so that you cant see what your comp is doing.

my team:

keepers: romero (arg), howard (usa), canales (hon)
defenders: lahm (ger), maicon (brz), vidic (ser), ivanovic (ser) agger (den), nelson (nzl), figueroa (hon)
midfielders: lampard (eng), cahill (aus), dempsey (usa), sneijder (ned), schweinsteiger (ger), honda (jap), dos santos (mex), piennar (sa)
forwards: villa (esp), fabiano (bra), bendtner (den), cardoza (par), sanchez (chi)