ponsaelius

Apparently he's been out for 16 months with an injury.

Might be the reason he looked so poor at the Euros.

WRONG 73.68421052631579%

Not sure what he's cracking on about like. He has looked poor every time I've seen him. Hardly have to be rainman to remember a player, especially when he's actually stood out as looking a bit shit.

I would love to have this power. To see a random, unknown player a few times and have him sussed. I saw him play for Germany at the U21s and Poland at the Euros as well as a few times for Bremen. That's a fair sample and every time he's looked slow, cumbersome and uncomfortable on the ball as if he was a centre back trying to play at fullback.

He's a proper slow clogger. No ta.

This is quite good too, from their catch-all Arsenal thread. After the 8-2 defeat to Man U: Somebody posts: which is met with: somebody says Arsenal's starting XI is better:

One of them puts him top, ahead of Zidane and Xavi.

http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=294794.0 The bias in some of these posts.

Yes. In his name K sounds like Sh. But with the letters Ä and Ö it doesn't sounds like Shallstrom with an A and O... add the sounds of Ä and Ö and it sounds good - Shällström - [kɪm ˈɕɛl.ˈstrœm]

Czechs should be ahead of Portugal too. World Cup Runner-Up 1934 World Cup Runner-Up 1962 European Champions 1976 Czech Republic- European Championships Runner-Up 1996 Decent list: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/377036-top-10-soccerfootball-nations-of-all-time

France have got to 2 WC finals winning one of them, as well as 3 semi appearances. They've also won two Euros and another semi-final place. Defo ahead of us.

Aye it's rubbish really. Shows how well Roy will have done relatively if he gets us past Italy.

By the way England's final and semi-final record really counts against us in these arguments. One final ever on home soil, and 2 solitary semi appearances.

Wonder where you'd fit Uruguay into this? 2 World Cups, Olympic champions before WC started, could have won 2 more WCs that they didn't bother going to. They have never been close to as good since but surely those achievements put them ahead of Portugal?

66 and their recent team with Figo/Rui Costa. Other than that no.

That's the problem with such a statement. You'll have to go back to every tournament and see who was a major player at the time if you really want to be sure of it. Aye good point. Even the likes of Soviet Union, Hungary, Czechs, Yugoslavia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Sweden, Denmark etc have had tournaments where they were either considered potential winners beforehand or performed at a top level during individual tournaments. Similarly top teams have had times where they were at an extremely low ebb (Germany in 04 for example).

Dong Won obviously turned into a proper mackem since he went there then.

Spain's WC and Euros wins obviously makes them major now - but if you're talking past records you can't really say they were.

Holland are a major nation over Spain. Spain hadn't done shit until the last 4 years. I know the Dutch were late to the party in terms of only turning up in the 70s, but they've been good generally since.

Non-major footballing nation having unfavourable record against major nations shocker.

Personally I hate it when the commentators make no attempt at researching the correct pronunciation of the players' names. I don't always know what is the correct one myself, but other times they get it so drastically wrong. It's their job to get it right, do a bit of research and get practice in beforehand.

It's massive for a Czech side but peanuts for Werder so good deal all round you'd say. Apart from the fact it sums up the economic disparity in European football at the moment.

Would you rather they didn't try to use the correct pronunciation?