oldtype

Like Disco says, Carr knows people in France and that's probably the extent of his ability as a scout. I don't think that's a useless ability though. Unless you're hunting down 15 year olds kicking pigskins in South America or something, the vast majority of modern scouting is networking, not spotting hidden gems with your own eyes.

132:26 passes completed Why are you so shit Greece.

What on Earth possessed him to take that

Why would you do this. Because I want them to win?

Ah well, it's been fun England.

Very exciting slate of matches tomorrow. I'll be rooting for the Greeks for once.

I'd rather forfeit a slot in 2018.

I've said this before, but the continental distribution is not meant to be based purely on skill. If that was the case we'd give one slot to Mexico, one slot for Asia and Africa to fight over, and everything else to Europe and South America. While skill does play apart, the idea is to make the competition representative of all of the world's football cultures and to increase the quality of football in places like Asia and Africa by giving them more exposure on the big stage. This seems to be working pretty well for Asia at least. I think the distribution is fine as it is.

So bad should have won

Ugh. This is going to be a miserable two hours isn't it

Belgium will struggle mightily against Russia if they can't break down this lot

He's actually quite good and has been ripping the Korean league to shreds for 2~3 years now. It's unfortunate that the FA/coach seem to basically ignore domestic-league performances for selection purposes. I'm currently living with a Korean guy in Singapore oldtype, we are waking up at 6am to watch the game. Hes very pessimistic after the Ghana friendly last week. As he rightfully should be. I don't think we're a worse team than Russia but they are clearly better prepared. I read somewhere Russia lost four of their best players to injury in the last few weeks. Not sure how that counts as good preparation. Four wins in their last five friendlies isn't bad. Shirokov (who's a massive loss) is their only real injury. I'm pretty sure the rest is just smoke and mirrors from Capello.

He's actually quite good and has been ripping the Korean league to shreds for 2~3 years now. It's unfortunate that the FA/coach seem to basically ignore domestic-league performances for selection purposes. I'm currently living with a Korean guy in Singapore oldtype, we are waking up at 6am to watch the game. Hes very pessimistic after the Ghana friendly last week. As he rightfully should be. I don't think we're a worse team than Russia but they are clearly better prepared.

He's actually quite good and has been ripping the Korean league to shreds for 2~3 years now. It's unfortunate that the FA/coach seem to basically ignore domestic-league performances for selection purposes.

If we're not going to buy good player we may as well take a systematic approach to youth development to save us more money. It's flabbergasting how the club somehow manages to do neither.

Probably not, he's not favored by the coach and only shows up for 5~10 minute spells at the end of games. It's a shame because he'd be a very useful option by now if he was given more international experience.

Think it might be a good game. Korea always do quite well (relatively) in the WC tournament. Plus they are my 4th seed. Germany, Holland & Spain have all won so far, want a clean sweep first round. We're pretty shit this year. Well, shit is a bit unfair but it is a transitional year. We have a very young team (basically just the 2012 London Bronze Medal team with a few more youngster stapled on) and a new coach. These aren't bad players but most are completely inexperienced at this level and it will take time for them to get used to the quality and shake off the jitters. There's a very prevalent tendency to make stupid mistakes and I think we'll see at least once defensive shocker between the three games. The fullbacks are the critical weakness. The "Korean style" requires very good overlapping fullbacks to function and all of our fullbacks this year are coming off injury or in terrible form. They have very poor positional sense in general and either leave the wingers isolated up front or fail to track back and leave massive gaping holes in the defense. The performance against Ghana a week ago wasn't pretty at all and I don't think things could have improved all that much in such a short time. By all accounts Russia and Algeria are pretty shit as well but our biggest enemy is ourselves.

US were pretty shit and more than a little lucky, but a win is a win.

I apologize in advance for the shitshow between us and Russia tomorrow that will put this to shame.

Well, that was a painful and oddly familiar 90 minutes of shit.

The comments on this match have been exactly like our comments for every league match this season. Only replace Hatem with Shola

That "I fucked up but it's okay I still got this" thumbs up. Classic Shola

I want this to happen so badly. All would be forgiven

Fans in a country where they probably see a higher standard of football in the third division? It's not Iran or Nigeria's fault they're poor I could understand their own fans booing but not a bunch of no marks with no affiliation to either side. This is a pretty bad performance even by their standards though. I know Iran is better than this. I hope Nigeria is for KaKa's sake.

Wouldn't be surprised if Iran nick one on the counter in the closing minutes. That's what the jammy bastards always seem to do to us.