Village Idiot

Who's retired from that list? Giggs, Koumas, Gabbidon, Davies...?

Most people associate "technique" with "trickery". That's what I think confused people since you can't really have trickery without a good first touch (and consequently close control).

Nah, some good players but some abysmal depth. Do they even have a keeper that's first choice at a decent level?

Aduriz is a very good buy too, got him for next to nothing from Mallorca and will be more useful than Zigic (who was decent but for some reason* never got a decent crack of the whip). *well, he's a bit of a mentalist.

Cesc's brand new official twitter, apparently Arbeloa introduced him to it during the current Spanish NT meetup. The triple translation of every tweet amuses me. Also Messi doesn't speak English so that twitter account is obviously fake.

Fat Sam used to use it. Beats Man City's "Elite squad", which still is one of the daftest things I have seen lately.

Aye, because they don't have anything behind it.

We had Mata, Javi Martínez, Capel and Bojan in our U21 lineup this week - all of them with senior caps already and some of them present at the 2010 WC. Even Busquets was rumored (and volunteered) to play for them since these are important games with European/Olympic qualification at stake. EDIT: Although I just checked and Slovenia have already lost any chance of qualification, so ignore me.

0-3 Torres Villa just one goal away from equalizing Raúl's all time goalscoring record.

Doesn't reach Zlatan/Piqué status but... http://www.sport.es/vivo/recursos/fotos/foto_448/foto_448821_CAS.jpg

To make up the quota of '4 trained by club' players That's for CL squads, though.

You registered Forster but he is on loan at Celtic? Is that in case of a recall?

Dunga's Brazil would have had him, in my opinion. Of course I don't watch him as often as a Spurs supporter but he impressed me in the midfield destroyer role last season.

I'm not saying they are "small", just not great in terms of achievement at the highest possible stage. And the 1950s Hungary team is one of the most influential of all time.

I don't know to be frank. Reach a WC final? Gives us: Uruguay Argentina Italy Brazil Czechoslovakia Germany Hungary Sweden Netherlands England France Spain which looks like a decent list.

I only remember Pelé from his Torino days (where he indeed impressed me). Was he that good?

Makes me wonder who is the best player that never played for a "big" country? Puskas? Although Hungary was big back then.

One could argue Uruguay are better than both though. I don't think so. The WC was an outlier. If we want another example, that George Best fella was shite.

Diego Forlán must be crap like, only getting callups for Uruguay instead of Brazil or Argentina.

The Spanish version of the rule has more checks and balances to avoid stuff like this. Like you can't have more than 4 non listed on the pitch at the same time. There are some contractual provisions that limit "demoting" players once you put them in the squad, but that's part of the collective agreement of the Spanish players union. Also people in the main squad MUST wear 1-25 which I like (ludicrous squad numbers being a pet peeve of mine), and people not in the squad must wear 26+

It just smacks of when they put all that cheap s*** near the cash register at supermarkets and you end up buying some crap you don't need just because it's cheap. VdV shone for Madrid last season on the left of a diamond formation, fwiw. But I guess Bale owns that side.

random rant: wish zonalmarking.net put out more La Liga's games. They barely cover it.

So, with Spurs having 43346543 central midfielders, where is Van der Vaart going to fit? Is it true that they will go 451?

Hleb at 5.0... mmmmm...

We were rumored to be in for Suárez after Zlatan left but dropped our interest since he's cup-tied.