OT: soccer thread

[Probst]

Hicks and Gillett need to GTFO, they are sucking the life out of the club. Rafa leaving is a positive step but it will count for nothing unless those thieving gits follow suit.

Not the best start to this friendly.

What are the expectations of the US going into the World Cup? I think that you have a fairly soft group and a QF spot is not out of the question if things fall into place favorably. I am a huge fan of Clint Dempsey, so am hoping he goes well.

[SWedd523]

I think a lot of it depends on Altidore's health. He's our best attacker, and if he can't play due to that ankle then we're going to be scrambling to put guys in place to do well. We'll really see how ready we are to play after the England game. I have a feeling that match will set the tone for the rest of our cup. Play well, get confidence, and make a play in the next stage. Play badly and we might not make it out of group play

[fatlever]

ricardo clark plays 90 minutes and torres and edu dont see the field. i will never understand bob bradley. what has clark done to earn minutes? he is invisible on the field most games. the only time i notice him is when he makes a horrible challenge. speaking of horrible challenges, i think dempsey just got ripped down again by a crap tackle from australia.

sorry my aussie mates, but not impressed at all with your squad today. granted the dude with the long hair, kennedy, should have had a goal or two, but really, i dont see that team making it out of their group.

as for the us making out of their group, i dont know what to expect. i think if we play too safe we will screw ourselves. we have to attack against algeria and slovenia.

findley didnt look so hot today. missed some really easy ones.

[doc.end]

no ballack, no essien, no drogba... not a good world cup for chelsea fans. i was really looking forward to watching those 3 guys lead their respective national teams.

but hey, at least we arent liverpool. ouch. things looking rough at anfield.

No Mikel too. Ex Chelsea Robben questionable.

[fatlever]

crap, what happened to robben? netherlands is the 2nd team i am rooting for behind usa. love robben and sneijder.

teams i am rooting for

usa
netherlands
germany
england
honduras
ivory coast
brazil

teams rooting against

italy
spain
portugal
argentina
mexico

pretty much nuetral on the rest

[BigSlam]

A-hem.........

[fatlever]

fine.... i will root for australia also. go socceroos.

[doc.end]

Robben - something with hamstring. He isn't flying with the team, may miss first games.

Other health problems - Ferdinand (England) is done, Pirlo (Italy) has some problems too and Škrteľ (Slovakia - ankle) has to rest few days btu should be ok for the WC.

[e4Nf6]

Good lord Austalia, you do realize the World Cup is a week away right? Maybe not the time to throw yourself at somebody's knees to break up a counter. If Rico Clark and Bradley Jr. can refrain from diving in recklessly for 90 minutes anybody should be able to do it.

In hindsight having a friendly against a hacky team on a crappy pitch was not the best way to avoid injuries, we should have played Italy like Mexico, not much danger of anyone getting hurt in THAT game.

I wouldn't worry to much about who played and who didn't play. Apparently, there was a close door scrimmage after the game and I imagine Bradley wanted to see somebody like Torres go 90 mins and not just 20 or 30, the same reason that Donovan and Dempsey played as much as they did, even though I was praying that Bradley would take them off at the end.

As for the game, Onyewu is 2 gears better than Goodson and I hope he's good to go for England.I'm not worried about all the missed chances, I think it was just a combination of the crappy field and the screwy new ball. If that game takes place on anything but a tilled farmers field we probably score 5 or 6 goals. (and Australia might have scored 1 or 2 more as well)

I'm so amped! Only a week away!

[WaydownSouth]

That was just freaking embarrassing....... It's a World Cup in 7 days time boys. To make it worse, Cahill got himself injured.

All we did was allow the US to bend us over.... We made it easy by lubing up first by not giving Kewell and Emerton a run.

Schwarzer's save on Dempsey's strike was awesome, and he'll need to do a fair bit of that for Australia to make it to the second round.

Considering if Australia did make the second round, there is every chance that we match up with the US in the cross over, so it would of been nice to make them work a bit harder than a 3-1. I don't really like our 4-4-2 formation. I'd prefer to go with the 4-3-3 or even a Hiddink 3-6-1.

What's the go with all the stars getting injured. Essien, Ballack, Drogba, Robben, Mikel and now Ferdinand. Pirlo is questionable as well now.

[e4Nf6]

Dont mention the 3-6-1 to longtime US fans, we have bad memories of 1998, Steve Sampson and Amy Wynalda.....

[WaydownSouth]

:nonono: Dont mention the 3-6-1 to longtime US fans, we have bad memories of 1998, Steve Sampson and Amy Wynalda.....

Aussies have fond memories of the 3-6-1... Hiddink is Australian royalty...

[Tupik]

Lol @ the French national team losing 1-0 against... China !
We completely suck, it's a shame. It's really horrible watching us play right now, and it's hard to think that we actually were in the finals in the last World Cup. And I doubt that our usual luck that got us to take on South Africa in the first round will prevent us from getting our asses kicked out of the tournament pretty early.

[fatlever]

i cant understand why the french team isnt better. on paper they are fantastic. they should dominate the left side of the field against everyone they play with evra, malouda and ribery. but, i guess thats why they play the games.

all these injuries to key players is making me sick. hopefully at least robben and drogba can recover in time to make an impact.

[e4Nf6]

What's your opinion on why Les Bleus are struggling so much Tupik? I don't think the talent has fallen off much at all since 2006 and 2002 but the results definitely have.

To be honest the only times I've seen the French play recently was the Ireland and China games. Both games looked very similar. France had lots of possession with the other team defending with everybody behind the ball. None of France's crosses looked the least bit dangerous which is probably why they looked hesitant to send crosses in at all. France then struggles to try to dribble the ball into the net á la Arsenal on their worst days. Personally I would blame Domenech, It would also be nice to have a big physical forward that could get on the end of crosses in the box. Anelka, Gouvou, and Henry are all pretty tall but I don't think of any of them as a force in the air.

I really hope you guys get it together at least enough to stop Mexico from going through to the second round....

[fatlever]

i know from chelsea experience that malouda cant cross for **** and anelka never scores on headers.

maybe they will fair better when they are playing against teams they arent trying to park the bus, giving their creative guys some space.

and of course, you can never replace makalele. the master of the holding defensive mid.

[Tupik]

Well I don't follow soccer that much, so I probably won't be able to give any detailed thought on why we suck so much, but every single person in France puts the blame on Domenech. He is extremely stubborn, and is an attention whore. He likes to piss people off, and makes dumb decisions, seemingly just because he wants to. He really seems to enjoy his role as a media scapegoat and doesn't give a ****, never puts the blame on himself, and never admits his own errors.
For example, he hasn't taken Trezeguet in the team for quite some time now, even though everyone knew that he should have been there, and did this for no good apparent reason.

As for how we play on the court, there seems to be no chemistry, at all. No one seems involved, the only player that seems like he's putting the effort is Ribery, but he plays selfish as if he thinks he's alone on the court.
We just seem totally uninspired every time we touch the ball, the only ball movement we have is totally useless, and we very rarely try anything, which of course prevents us from doing anything on offense.

Thank god we have Lloris

As for the fact that we aren't effective in the air, that's always been one of our most important flaws, and we can't blame Domenech for that. I remember that in 2006 we were completely scared at every corner shot by our opponents because of that.

Everyone has lost faith in the team at this point, and it's essentially a joke now for all of us. But hey, we always seem to play better when we're underdogs (see 1998 and 2006, as opposed to 2002 when we were heavy favorites), so we never know
Carrefour, which is a French supermarket, has even started selling TVs and telling they'd reimburse them 100% if the team wins the world cup

Thankfully, this is Domenech's last World Cup, as he's being replaced by Laurent Blanc right after it (current Bordeaux coach, and part of the '98 champion team)

[doc.end]

Cezch newspapers even has an article about "Chelsea curse" stating Bosingwa, Ballack, Drogba, Essien, Mikel are out for at least first game.

May be it is a good thing that Czech republic did not qualifify and Čech has nothing to worry about then

[fatlever]

anyone playing fantasy world cup? i created a team on www.fifa.com today.

[Walt Cronkite]

I'll play. Can we have a group?