OT: soccer thread

[Det the Threat]

where does van der vaar end up now that real has ozil?

There had been talk about him ending up in Bremen as a replacement for Oezil, but that won't happen, as Werder isn't able to pay the kind of salary he's going to ask for.

Wolfsburg could be an option(they're said to sell their playmaker Misimovic and Juve won't let Diego go there), but i doubt it.
So it will probably be either some english club or even one of those turkish or russian teams with some money left.

BTW: The whole Bundesliga(18 clubs) did pay 96.05 million euros for new signings. If you compare that to England or Spain, you'll see why it's one of the healthier leagues, financially.

[fatlever]

looks like jozy played today for villareal in their europa match. he came on as a sub. thats good news.

[Thaliontil]

Yeah,Rossi is not a lock in the team and Garrido has finally trusted Altidore,but I doubt he would get a lot of minutes this year,he is a team from the lower categories and he trusts the players from the B team...Anyway,I hope he has good luck this season.

[fatlever]

i think as long as he is on the bench for most games and gets a run out for 10-15 every now and then, that would be fine for jozy this year. he's still young and has plenty of time to earn more pt at villa.

does villa have a reserves team? hopefully he can get some midweek games with them as well.

[fatlever]

finally catching a replay of the tottenham vs young boys game from earlier in the week. what a fun game. young boys could have easily had 5. ive seem two tottenham games this week and both have been highly entertaining. their offense down the wings is fantastic and their defense is invisible, which makes for some fast paced up and down games.

[Walt Cronkite]

Everton finally get a goal. Way to go Aussie!

[Det the Threat]

The German season started as well. There'll be two more games today, featuring Dortmund vs. Leverkusen and Mainz vs. Stuttgart.

Bayern opened the season against Wolfsburg and you could watch Bayern Dusel(Bayern luck) in the first match, with them scoring their winning goal in the 91st minute by Bastian Schweinsteiger. The other goals had been scored by Thomas Mueller and Edin Dzeko.

The two new teams in the league won their first games away. Kaiserslautern won 3-1 at Cologne while scoring their goals during the last 20 minutes of the game. Cologne did fight hard, having one of their players sent off in the 2nd minute.
The other new team. FC St. Pauli also won 3-1, while playing at Freiburg. They were the better team from the start, but managed to miss all of their chances and Freiburg scored first in the 70th minute. St. Pauli came storming back scoring all of their goals during the last seven minutes of the game.

Werder Bremen got thrashed at Hoffenheim, losing 4-1 with all goals being scored in the first half. They'll need to regroup and focus on Tuesday, when they'll play at Sampdoria.

Gladbach only got a point, playing 1-1 at home against Nuremburg. Bradley did alright, but was nothing special. Hannover beat Frankfurt 2-1 and helped their coach keep his job, which had been in danger after going out of the German Cup in the first round, losing to a 5th division club.

Saturdays top game had been Hamburg vs. Schalke. Hamburg should've scored way more goals and decided the game earlier, but thanks to two goals by Ruud van Nistelrooy, they won 2-1 against Schalke.

BTW: The 2nd round of the German Cup has been drawn. There are three games which feature only Bundesliga sides and those are Bayern vs. Bremen, Frankfurt vs. Hamburg and Gladbach vs. Leverkusen.

[fatlever]

love the bundesliga updates det. keep em coming.

i saw that jermaine jones went 90 for schalke. i'm hoping he can finally debut for the US during our friendly vs poland in october.

man i wish fox soccer channel would switch serie a for bundesliga. i have no desire to watch italian league soccer. the only bright spot is watching sneidjer.

watching fulham vs man u now. fulham just scored to tie it a 1-1. im sure man u will get a miracle goal in the 90th minute to win.

[fatlever]

last 10 mins of fulham v man u game, fantastic.

[Det the Threat]

last 10 mins of fulham v man u game, fantastic.

Yeah, Hangeland scoring twice and Nani missing that penalty was quite some entertainment.

BTW: Those finale two Bundesliga games are up as well.
Mainz showed their strength at home, beating Stuttgart 2-0 and Leverkusen won at Dortmund 2-0 with the goals being scored by Tranquillo Barnetta(Swiss international) and Renato Augusto. Michael Ballack did play for Leverkusen and made it through those 90 minutes.

[fatlever]

det, what do you make of the ballack vs lahm captain controversy? should ballack step aside knowing his days as a starter are probably numbered? or should lahm show some respect for the veteran and hand the armband back and wait his turn? if khedira starts getting regular pt with real its hard to imagine him not starting over ballack in the next round of national games, right?

[Det the Threat]

I honestly don't care about that, but Ballack should be the captain, if he plays.

And Lahm should just shut up and stop crying(like he did there and at Bayern, as far as i know) like a little girl.
He had the captains armband in South Africa, but the real leader was Schweinsteiger.

As far as Ballack vs. Khedira goes.

That's something Loew will have to deal with. But i don't see him calling up Ballack and sitting him on the bench. So he'll either try to work it like he did with Thorsten Frings(was given the boot half a year before the WC) or he'll have to talk Khedira into being quite and accepting sitting on the bench.

[doc.end]

Bet against Sparta Prague in EL. They are pathetic so far and they keep cumulating yellow cards for all players of the same position at once (like today they missed both their starting CD due to cards and next euro cup match they will miss three main ACM). Add well populated injury list and clueless manager/coach - simply they are laughable.

[fatlever]

just watched real salt lake choke a 3-1 lead in mexico with 20 minute to play, blowing the chance to become the first us team to ever win a game in mexico. game was played in a massive rain storm and the field was covered in at least 15 puddles that were 10-20 feet in diameter. insane.

[Det the Threat]

Second game of the season and first loss for Bayern Munich.

They lost 2-0 at Kaiserslautern yesterday.

As far as the NT goes:
Michael Ballack hasen't been called up for the two EC qualifiers next week against Belgium and Aserbaidshan. Still, Loew is said to be keen on ending those captains discussions before the first qualifier against Belgium.

BTW: Wolfsburg did buy Diego from Juventus and are most likely going to move Misimovic to some team outside the Bundesliga. Schalke are said to be close to signing striker Klaas Jan Huntelaar of AC Milan.

[Det the Threat]

Nice weekend so far in the Bundesliga.

After Bayern lost, there've been seven other games.

Schalke lost its second game of the season, being beaten 2-1 at home by Hannover.
Hamburg won 3-1 at Frankfurt, with van Nistelrooy scoring his 3rd goal of the season.
Freiburg won 2-1 at Nuremburg, while Bremen beat Cologne 4-2 at home.
Diego's Bundesliga comeback was a crazy game, with Wolfsburg leading 3-0 against Mainz, just to give away the game and lose it 3-4 at the end.

Today Gladbach has been in action at Leverkusen and it was one of the best games i've seen of my team in years. We've won there 6-3 ending their unbeaten streak against us that lasted since 1994.

Right now Dortmund is leading 2-0 at Stuttgart after 30 minutes of the game.

http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/bund ... eltag.html

[fatlever]

so bradley is coming back for 4 more years. meh, i dont know what to think about this. there is this part of me that wants to bring in an exciting coach who will value tech skills, passing etc... but in reality we dont have those kind of players in our system. maybe it takes an entire overhaul from youth leagues all the way up, but that seems like a pipe dream. i think we all know that we are going to get 4 more years of defensive minding, counter attacking, 2 defensive mids, trying to win with speed, physicality and stamina... i guess that is the best we can hope for... i just hope that bob brings in some new blood as asst coach and tries to adjust his style a little. we really cant afford 4 more years of rico clark, robbie finley and bornstein type players on the squad. he has to find a way to utilize more of his creative guys like holden, torres, benny etc...

[e4Nf6]

I personally was hoping for a new coach, only because I don't believe in having a coach for more than one cycle, It always seems to work out bad for whatever reason. That said, the level of criticism of Bradley on the internet is just ridiculous.

Bradley, by my count, in 4 years, has competed in 4 competitions. (that we took seriously) Let's take a look....

Competition------My expectations------------------------------------------Met/Didn't/Exceeded

Gold Cup2007--------Win it-------------------------------------------------------Won(Met)

Confederations-----Don't lose too badly to Italy/Brazil----------------Finals(Far Exceeded)

WC Qualifying-------Qualify without a playoff-----------------------------1st (Slightly Exceeded)

WC----------------------Get out of the group---------------------------------Won the group (Slightly exceeded)


How can you criticize a coach with that record? I understand the criticism of playing Clark and Findlay, but any coach is going to make some funny line-up choices once and while. And at least in the case of Rico it wasn't completely out of left-field as he was a critical piece of what we accomplished in most of those competitions you see above.

[fatlever]

you're right e4, its hard to argue with his results, even if sometimes its painful to watch.

[SWedd523]

With reports that we were talking to Klinsmann AGAIN, I'd have much preferred we signed him.