Village Idiot

:( Like he would ever come here. I know, I know, but it still makes me sad He seems a bit wasted in the French league to me :/

That probably rules him out of the Barça job too. Damn. Good on him though. Would be easy to leave Dortmund at this point.

Hasn't been like that for years anymore. Look at Real Madrid last season, blame was on the players (like Casillas) the whole season and Mourinho did nothing to stop that. Aye, he doesn't deflect blame off the players; he simply deflects blame off himself.

The Argie side still looks too unbalanced to me, although they have improved under Savella. It would be fun if they won it, but sides like Spain/Germany/Brazil and even Italy look more solid throughout.

He deserves it for what he's done for the club and the fact that despite not being at his best he's still close to the amount of goals as CRonaldo. I just don't think anyone will ever be worth that kind of money. He signed a new contract two years ago, when he was arguably at his best. Messi or not, I just dislike footballers asking constantly for new contracts without too much justification - besides the fact that Cronaldo now earns more than him under the one he got last summer.

He wants a new contract, that for sure. And he doesn't deserve it going of this season's performance. But 100m? Nah.

Find that hard to believe, to be frank. There's been loads of nasty rumours around Messi these weeks. While some may be true and he's certainly lost himself a bit, a lot of it smecks of character assassination.

Is there a chance of him being fit?

Him being useless for Barça is the only memory I have of him.

Argentina winning the WC at the soil of its biggest rival? Would make for some great scenes. It's still Argentina...Hand Of God/Falklands/....ahhhhh it's VI, dm! Yeah, I suppose for a brit it's like us wishing Italy won

Argentina winning the WC in its biggest rival's soil? Would make for some great scenes.

TBF the thing I'm looking forward the most is Costa going mental in some game. Against Italy would be preferred.

I think it's pretty clear to everyone that Spain are enormous favourites. Or Argentina. Sorry flip, no amount of preemptive reverse-jinxing is going to change the fact you're big favorites.

Brazil are gonna win this, no discussions.

Rodrigo. Brazil want him. Trying to do a Costa with him. Another Brazilian. Spain are bunch of pigs. Both the Alcántaras and Rodrigo have lived in Spain since they were bairns. Not the same as Costa. I don't rate him much anyway.

Nobody around here considers us favorites for the WC or anything, I hope for a decent showing at least. Truth is that we'll take a lot of old legs to Brazil and the next generation hasn't been bedded in yet. As I said, Del Bosque gives a big bonus to creating a "club squad" mentality around the NT, which imho is the reason behind a lot of our success but at this point in time it will probably hurt us a bit.

Spain's U25 best XI could be something like... De Gea Carvajal Moreno Bartra Alba J. Martínez Thiago Isco Jesé Costa Mata Plus Busquets, Koke, Morata, Illarra, Muniain, García, Deulofeu... That's a great base.

Nice thing is that we have decent bunch of young fellas coming through: De Gea, Thiago, Isco, Deulofeu, Illarra, Costa... so we should be able to do decently in tournaments after the current generation rides into the sunset after Brazil.

Definitely missed, he's only making the side lately on account of Cristiano being injured. He'll probably be called up to the initial squad, though, but Del Bosque is very big on squad blending and he hasn't featured enough in Spain callups due to not starting for Madrid. He's a very talented lad, though, his main problem is a) sharing squad with Cristiano and Bale, who are automatic starters b) Thus trying too hard to impress when he gets a chance Regarding Illarramendi, he is not ready for big ticket games. He has the ability, but not the character. He was completely overrun by Dortmund, for example.

Alonso's legs have given up. They have abused him in a similar way we abused Xavi.

Well, I'm back from pill-induced sopor. We were terrible yet somehow managed to stay in the final somehow until the end. Maybe Real Madrid are terrible too, but if we manage to at least postpone the ban and get a decent manager and the players we need in, we should be able to be back there next season. Also the WC will be over and Messi will maybe start running again...

Pill time!

Fortunately if we lose I can just OD with the painkillers the doctor's given me

Cup final starting in 15. I'm bedridden and thus I'm going to watch it all alone... :'( Plus my neighbour is a Real Madrid fan and every time Barça loses he celebrates with wild sex with the missus.

Pretty sure I read somewhere that UEFA is forcing to change domestic cups in order to avoid this kind of issue; the losing finalist would never play in the EL from now on.