Village Idiot

Wat.

Yeah we're done with midfielders at the moment. Luiz Gustavo is much better than he gets recognition for but that's all. Fernandinho is declining lately (still like him though). Glad that the U-20 seemed to have two players that I thought looked very good in midfield, Danilo and Jaja. Here's to hoping Casemiro or Lucas Silva develop at Real Madrid to great midfielders, because we're seriously in need of them. As for strikers, Spain stole our only one. Finders keepers! I really don't rate Casemiro - I guess he can go on to become a good holding mid with a great engine but that's it. Haven't seen enough from Lucas Silva since he was pretty much pulled out after a couple of bad games - which was understandable since he'd just arrived at the club.

Elias starting for Brazil He was beyond useless for Atlético. Really, what is happening with all the flair midfielders and strikers in Brazil?

Wrong thread. Had great highlights but still dwells a bit too much on the ball when he should be taking on players. Matured heck of a lot this season though, seems to only get better and better. Dani was absolutely fantastic as well, thought he was done 6 months ago, but he has really turned it around. Willian is such a great boring mourinho type of player as well. The guy should be a defensive midfielder, he can spray passes left and right and is so great in possession, but just doesn't ever try to create. He'll open up spaces and all, but won't ever make that deadly last pass or so despite being able to. Think he would've been a great signing for a Guardiola team trying to hold onto a win I remember watching Willian in Europe when he was at Donetsk, and thinking that he was such an entertaining player. Mourinho is a big time Pardew sometimes

Seen the highlights of Brazil-Perú yesterday. Ney

Early July, IIRC. It's usually a month before the ball is kicked off.

How much of Spain's success in the past 7 years would you attribute to his management? I think he gave us that extra mile. The job of a manager is to get the best out of his players, and I would say that he did so. He implemented a system that played to our strengths and suited to the nature of international football. He's also a great man manager, and a respected leader. Given the usually fractious nature of the Spain national team, he's got everybody rowing in the same direction.

Tomorrow, Del Bosque will become the first Spanish national coach to reach 100 games with the national team. Class, and deserved.

The Welsh team is the best they had in a while; yeah, they have Bale but they also had Giggs, Bellamy or Rush in the past, and didn't make much of a difference. The fact is that their spine is made out of premier league footballers and even most of the supporting cast plays at the very least in the Championship. In past times you had embarrassing drops in quality within the starting XI, but they have developed a decent depth, given how small they are.

Why hasn't he gotten games over Masch? because Masch is better maybe? Then why all the hype about Bartra? I've seen loads of fans say that he's a future starter but if he's 24 and he can't beat out Mascherano, who isn't that good, then there doesn't seem much hope of him ever becoming good enough to start for a team like Barca Is there hype about Bartra? He's been under 4 different managers and none has deemed him a starter. Nobody around here considers him nothing but a decent backup. Certainly not gonna get better than Mascherano, who's really great.

Aye, definitely less than the sum of its parts.

Good signing for Milan, imho. Even if he's already 28.6 years old.

Aye, Mascherano is first (well second) in the team sheet for Luís Enrique.

A good box player wouldn't be bad for you, in my humble opinion. Most of the squad seem terrified of the box.

Sterling on Benítez's list for Real Madrid, according to As, alongside Kondogbia, Reus, Vidal. They want a right winger and a holding mid.

You're one year of age when you are born in Korea. IIRC they also don't add one year of age at their birthday but at the beginning of their year. So you can be 2 years older in Korean years than in "Western" count.

Bartra hinted that he might leave B'lona yesterday. It's not like we have a treasure throve of CBs...

It happens all the time, to be honest; it would be silly to enter a protracted transfer fee negotiation only for the player to tell you to fuck off at the end of it.

I think he's a decent player with a good upside. He's been steadily improving these past two years and he's still quite young.

Get out

Yeah, I didn't actually read the article until after posting He's nippy, for certain. Wouldn't say searing pace... he's small, so he's usually played on the wing whenever I have seen Málaga play. He's scored 8 goals for them, which is pretty good given how stupidly goal-shy Málaga are, plus he's not a centreforward. He's pretty good off the ball, always seems to make good runs and getting into positions.

Was a hot prospect when he first broke through; I think he was La Liga's youngest ever goalscorer at some point. He stalled a bit after that, but he's slowly been making strides. He's still young so he can still develop further. Small, quick, good feet... not a box player; usually deployed as secondary striker or on the wing. Sometimes plays with the blinders on, but he's young.

It would be so, so wrong if he ends up at Stoke instead

There's got to be a better Brazilian forward than a 30 year old hasneverbeen plying his trade in the Chinese league.

Funnily, the scout that pushed for his signing (Carles Reixach) would later manage Barça and is universally considered our worst manager ever. All is forgiven now. He tells that during the trial, he put Messi to play against boys two years older than him, and when he ran circles around them he saw that we had to get that little Argie lad.