Village Idiot

I'm a Barça fan, I felt proud enough of knowing about Milburn to begin with So it's Shearer afterall. Should have guessed with you qualifying for European competitions regularly.

Our all-time record is 357 goals since the 1920s. That one is ways off, but César's league record of 195 is certainly within reach if he keeps that level and he sticks with us for a few years (Messi's on 101 league goals). That would be momentous since it's an ancient record too. Who's NUFC's all-time goalscorer? Milburn?

Their bid just doesn't make any sense. They have the population of a medium sized city, of course they can't support permanent stadiums. If a bid ever screamed "joint bid" is this one and not all the other gimmicky ones.

Isn't that list made up of 50+ players? Not that big of a stretch, have seen way worse.

That's my take too. I mean, I want it to be over here but I won't cry foul if you get it. But I really don't want it to go to Russia.

I'm not that sure we'll get it, for some reason I keep dreading it's gonna be Russia. Heck, you still have CONCACAF's votes sewn up, and it's almost as strong as CONMEBOL inside the committee. I will, however, tell my Portuguese friends that they are the Wales of Spain.

And it's voted by the FIFA Executive committe that has 24 members from different federations, not by every member nation.

That's 36 years when 2018 comes, hardly yesterday. Mind, I think it's getting to the point where England should host one, but I obviously want this one in Spain

Honestly though, I don't think there's much between England and Spain's bids regarding infrastructure, stadia, etc...

It sucks, but that's the good part of having a corrupt kleptocrat as head of the Spanish FA

http://www.goal.com/en/news/10/italy/2010/11/25/2231265/fifa-plan-reforms-to-abolish-player-agents-by-2011-report I'll dance if this comes to pass. Players will still retain a single "intermediary" for all their business but it surely will thin the ranks of the cancerous leeches.

The SA votes were already sewn up when we supported CONMEBOL in the Rio bid. Dunno why it is news all of a sudden. Our press aren't even reporting it.

Van Der Saar was hardly a hidden gem either.

Again, like when it happened with the Eduardo dive, I don't mind UEFA getting involved in this kind of stuff if it gets done across the board. Which it won't.

Man, I just love American sports and their stupidly complex draft rules

Loved the guy in the comments asking what's wrong with long ball football. Stockholm Syndrome

Spanish atmosphere is certainly duller than the PL. That's something that has always attracted me from the English game. There are some standout teams though. Sporting Gijón, some of the Andalusians... have great fans.

Rangers are capable of nicking goals. If they bombed forward they would get raped. So no, no it is not ridiculous. They barely got a sniff of nicking a goal. They should have atleast gone for it with 20 minutes left, they might have got 'raped' 0-1. Oh wait, that happened anyway. Kenny Miller had more than a sniff of goal. Should have scored imo. If he did then you would be saying the complete opposite. Never been Rangers biggest fans but I was really impressed tonight. Very unlucky, Walter Smith as he has shown time and time again is a tactical mastermind. In todays football climate you can only do so much. Keeping your shape and defending for your lives whilst relying on your keeper to make save after save is being a tactical mastermind? Rangers could of knicked the game tonight, they drew at old trafford(both against one of the most succesful managers in history), held barcelona on top of their game, he got to the final of the uefa cup and scotland results etc. For me that is a tactical mastermind. We were fantastically shit that season. Many, many sides achieved this momentous feat of making us drop points that year

Blatantly Ebaying those

Did that guy just show the middle finger to Messi?

Small fact, we have yet to score in Athens' stadium (which hosted *that* final we lost)

No discussion about that. Damn, I'm not denying we are f***ed, just not totally fubared as people treats us as. And we aren't a banana republic masquerading as a developed country dammit.

Spain the 12th biggest manufacturing nation in the world btw. Heck, our manufacturing output is (or at least was) close to UK's on a per capita level. Also, most Spanish private debt is held by foreign banks. Spanish banking regulations are pretty tight (something banks have always complained about), and barred them from taking risky loans (excepting the regional savings banks - who have a different legislation that's currently being amended - our banks are actually pretty sound). So it's actually foreign capital which has caused our housing bubble (we took it happily, mind). Our labor market is f***ed. Too inflexible. Needs higher overhaul but also a mentality change from the population (for example, mobility is low, people want to work in the place they currently live)

Look at the figures on our debt, and we aren't nearly in the same boat as Ireland or Greece. But we are Spain! Lazy party-going southerners! Market racism, imho.

No idea. But Spain as a whole will fail eventually. The debt markets are running berserk. Man, I hate speculators.