wacko

Delima: Here's the clip. Gave me goosebumps. <Snip. No football clips thanks.>

This one's great! It's a shame Bayern came back and got a draw, though. Aye, that was cracking. It gets helluva loud in the Nordkurve.

Basically not be injured and not be Mark Gonzalez.

Venners? The bloke before him to manage a England team for a international competition on home soil won the trophy. Have a look http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_European_Football_Championship for the history, if you can be arsed & you will what El Tel achieved was more a par score than greatness. SBR? As for Venables, at least he had us playing some decent football. When you look at the players we have available today, there's no reason why England should be so crap.

don't know about that, there was that minor incident with the German fans in Stuttgart (400 of ours arrested and banned) with a few other run ins I think a lot of it was down to clever German organisation. For all England games, they had set up England-only Fanzones. This was not the case for other matches. For example, at the Portugal game in Gelsenkirchen, all the England fans were directed to the racecourse Fanzone, whereas during the other games I spent at the Fanzones there, fans from both sides mixed at both the racecourse and the Glückauf Kampfbahn Fanzone. I know a lot of the bar owners round here, and many of them said that the English fans were the worst. They were drunk and lairy. Most other fans were drunk and friendly.

All very valid points, but "worst in Europe" is still a very broad brushstroke. Especially when all British clubs take a huge number of fans with them and Celtic had, by all accounts, nearly double the number in Seville. It's beginning to look as if Gaillard was just shooting off his mouth again. The actual report is looking to be very mild in comparison. He did the same thing in 2005, telling Liverpool they should sod off and had no right to be in the CL after finishing fifth while his bosses were livid with the English FA and trying desperately to get Liverpool back in without treading on anyone's toes.

But where do you draw the line? We're owned by a personal friend of George Bush

They're not trying to blame UEFA for the fact that a bunch of arseholes and criminals followed Liverpool to Athens, but for the fact that 2000 fans with genuine tickets were locked out. I think it's fair criticism when it's apparently easier to sneak into a Champions League final than most nightclubs. That Gaillard is absolutely full of shit. I don't understand how he can still have a job as a press spokesman when everything he says is incendiary, offensive, and, very often, completely wrong. Certainly every comment of his I've heard on an English side. From here: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/05/31/i_bet_the_great_shankly_would.html

Codswallop. We're crap because our managers are crap. When we've had a manager who knew what he was doing we've got to semis. The competent ones got us to competitions, the complete idiots failed to even qualify.

I thought it was effing brilliant. That's because I live near Gelsenkirchen, though.

Agree with that totally. It's the 'holier-than-thou' attitude that gets me. They genuinely believe that it's always someone else's fault. They're never to blame. They can do no wrong and because they can knock YNWA out at the end of every game, they're the best fans in the world. Complete and utter wankers. Ban the pricks. Aye, there are far too many who defend the blaggers for being smarter than UEFA. They should be found and barred from all games for life. Nevertheless, there are two separate groups of fans here. The utter w*nkers who stole from their own and those left standing outside with valid tickets. UEFA do have a responsibility to them and were at fault for being naive. If I walk into your bank, lay my Tesco ClubCard on the counter, and empty your account with it, you'd be after the bank, too. Bearing in mind that this group of, basically, utter shits who follow Liverpool are scum, thieves and muggers, how do you expect normal, decent folk to stick up to gangs of them? They'd kick your head in. We as supporters have no influence over or say in who else follows the same club. I'd hope the club would take efforts to find and ban the culprits, but given Parry's ill-advised pre-match comments, that seems unlikely. There was no trouble in Istanbul, either. The fact that that was also Liverpool vs Milan would indicate other factors were involved, would it not? On one side there are loads of Liverpool fans pointing at UEFA and on the other UEFA pointing back at us. In reality, both must accept part of the blame for what happened.

Hope we don't sell him, to be honest, unless Rafa has someone incredibly good lined up. Crouch is a great footballer.

Spot on. I'd be shitting myself if the new owner said the manager'll be out at the end of the season if he doesn't cut the mustard. That attitude rarely accompanies on-field success. Aye.But if there'll be 54m to spend per year ,its excited. Not a chance in hell.

The English media can't let it go, more like. Gullit does have a remarkably high opinion of himself, though.

Which prevents a player from being registered, as it's against the rules. The rules are quite clear (look what happened to AFC Wimbledon). If you field a player who hasn't been registered correctly, you shall be docked the points gained in any games in which the affected players played. While it's true that the new owners of West Ham are hardly responsible for the sins of the previous ones, why the hell should Sheffield Utd. pay the price? West Ham should have been deducted points, and they would have gone down.

There have been great managers who were great players. That probably has more to do with the huge ratio of mediocre to great players than being an actual factor.

Will anything make any difference except the firing of McClaren? We're doomed.

Say that to all the young lads, do you?

I reckon about 50m net. Which is either a hell of a lot or some shrewd business when he insisted on replacing the whole bloody squad. By my reckoning, he's already signed 5 strikers and 5 wingers and we're still looking for new ones.

Carragher is still very ordinary as a full-back. You're right that he's a bit iffy in the transfer market. He spunked piles of cash on rubbish, and then refused to accept that they were rubbish. Good manager, though, with a canny knack of beating ManU.

I think Rafa got the tactics more or less spot on. As has been noted, we essentially lost to a lucky goal. I agree that he made the wrong substitutions, though. I actually thought Pennant had a good game. He won a lot of challenges, got into great positions, but was let down by his final ball. Frankly, I don't think Gerrard played any better, and you can't tell me that had he been on the wing, his touch would have been much better. As for Zenden, well of course he shouldn't have been on the pitch. Same as Traore two years ago. But what are we supposed to do, when there's no other realistic option? Kewell wasn't fit enough to play for 90 minutes and Gonzalez has been even worse than Zenden. None of our wingers or strikers are "good enough" to be in a CL final. In the face of that fact, it's a fantastic achievement that we got anywhere near it. Why is it that whenever we neutralise a side with our formation and tactics (Barcelona, Chelsea, Milan, Juve), they just played shit? I don't "feel sorry" for the pathetic, shoe-waving desperadoes who make up part of your audience when another season comes crashing down in despair, as they all have since the 1950s. But I don't let what joy you may scrape consume me. I think a lot of you do though, and I don't think such bitterness towards superior teams has helped your cause through the years. It can't all be down to poor managers and bad luck, not with the raw materials consistently at your disposal. Need I remind you that a signing you made in 1996 is still more costly than our biggest of all time (though that will likely change this summer)? who is bitter tonight? I'm not bitter. I am simply suggesting that certain people would be better off channeling their energy towards what is potentially a very fine club of their own rather than making hideous comments about teams & - worse - people from other cities. Mourinho has won the CL with Porto btw with a side that cost less than half what you had out tonight. With arguably a much better side, while he has since repeatedly failed to even get to the final with hundreds of millions to spend.

Simply cannot agree with that comment - the team we had on the pitch, irrespective of whether or not it should have been strengthened, should certainly have been sufficient to beat Partizan Belgrade. One theory is that Shepherd waited for the result of that match before committing funds to the strengthening of the squad, and it is a position with some merit. It's the only sensible way to operate. You can't spend 15m you don't have and expect to get away with it. We bought Alonso and Kuyt with the CL money, once we'd qualified for the group stage.

I don't think Chelsea will spend big this summer. Abramovich quibbled over a couple of mil in Jan when they desperately needed cover at centre back, so I can't see him being overly keen on splashing out loads now when they don't really have any weaknesses. They'll buy to replace the players who leave, but that's it. God knows what Rafa will do. He has so far shown a slightly annoying tendancy to pull out of deals because the price is a million or so too high and go for second choice players. Liverpool forums are awash with names like Eto'o, Torres, Henry (yes, I know), but I'd be very surprised if we get such high-profile players. We still need a top-class winger and striker, despite Rafa having already signed at least 5 of each. That and a decent start to the season this time around, and we might have a shout. Personally, I reckon Newcastle will be much improved next season, even if you don't make that many signings. Allardyce is a man who knows what he wants and how to get there.

I'm gutted he's leaving (obviously). He lost what pace he had long ago and is not particularly fit, but he's still the smartest, most skillful, cultured and deadly striker we have. Despite never having had a run in the side under Rafa, nor playing that often, he's still scored an average of a goal every two starts. I can't see how you would not want him on a free, to be honest. Allardyce has a knack of getting the best out of players, and God's best is very, very good.

Income it generated totally different in German football. Sponsorship, especially shirt deals contribute far more to the general income than ticket sales (e.g. the mentioned deal with Gazprom). The article is a bit very rose tinted. Schalke have suffered a lot from the way the club is run in the past, e.g. voted absolute nutters and simpletons for president in AGMs. Their recent success is to a certain extent down to in fact reducing fan power. To call them the most popular fans in Germany is also stretching it a bit (a huge bit tbh). Is exactly right. The club has been run by eejits for yonks now, and they chop and change managers almost every year, preferring a series of mediocre managers (trainers, as the Germans call them) to having the sense to chase and hire a really good manager and let him get on with the job for a few seasons. I also wouldn't say they're the *best* fans in Germany, given that a large proportion are "Asis" (the German equivalent of chav/scally etc.), but they do really worship the club (there's nothing else to live for in Gelsenkirchen), and there is always a fantastic atmosphere in the Veltins Arena. EVERY game is a complete sellout, be it Bayern, a pre-season friendly or InterToto. The Freundschaftsspiele against Nuremberg are incredible. 65,000 fans mingling in complete safety and about 10 policemen. The atmosphere is totally boss when Nuremberg are in town. In theory, I like the sports club idea, whereby the club essentially belongs to no-one and is run by the members' (i.e. fans') votes. It provides some kind of recourse against your club being taken over by the likes of Peter Risdale or, dare I say it, Freddie Shepherd. In practice, the fans often elect exactly these kind of tools (like at Real Madrid). Again and again and again. As an aside, Schalke has the rather dubious honour of being Hitler's favourite club. As the "workers' club", they were heavily supported by the Nazi regime, and six of their seven Bundesliga titles came during the Third Reich. Finally, here's a pic I took in (and of) the Nordkurve. Those are the Ultras where all the flags are. There's a guy who stands on a little platform at the front with a megaphone, co-ordinating the sining. I swear, he doesn't see a second of the match. http://momama.net/images/Auf-Schalke.jpg