Village Idiot

Disagree

Then no team would deserve to win. We should really stop the clock when the ball's not in play (cut halves to maybe 30+30). If it was made pointless a lot of the timewasting and playacting would go away.

Here comes Kanu. All set for a Babatunde-orgasm.

Need to think of a list of the worst Spanish players to get capped mmmm... Contreras Otero Unai Marcelino Sánchez Jara Paz Celades José Ignacio Cembranos Juanele Javi Moreno Subs: Ricardo, Villarroya, Velasco, Téllez, Tomás, Aldana, Tiko, Chano, Marcos Vales, Ezquerro, Oli, Arizmendi Would be surprised if you know anybody apart from Marcelino (I'm sorry) and maybe Celades and Javi Moreno (played for Bolton... and AC Milan ).

Ok, last one I'm posting, but thought it's quite topical since it's the one they made when they got promoted "We are back"

Atlético always makes the best ones by far... pity there are not English subtitled versions but I'll try to translate "When I was 63 I quit smoking. Wasn't easy, but I did it Then when I was 70 I quit liquor With a lot of willpower I also stopped drinking wine after meals I have also quit coffee, betting and playing cards. But fucking (sic) Aleti... It's killing me."

Depends. Some make it to the regional/local channels, since they are usually done to drum up support before big games. Most clubs have their own channels too. A lot of clubs also run ads for ST renewal. This is the ad for the Valencia-Barça of the last season. A lot of them are intentionally rather silly/fun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5FxkRJ74fE "The rival is powerful, but the night is ours". My favorite one is the one Barça made in the mid-2000s for El Clásico, a parody of Star Wars with Madrid playing the "Galáctico Empire", can't find it on youtube sadly. Nowadays our ads are too serious, like that Inter one.

And this is Sevilla's answer: "Are we going to allow them to copy our dreams? Our dreams are only ours"

Forgot to post Atlético de Madrid's ad for the Europa League and Spanish Cup finals. They are known for making quite cool ads. It's in Spanish, but so you get the gist of it: "These days, we have a big dream, the old dream of touching heaven again. but there is a problem. And it is that thousands of Englishmen and thousands of Sevillians are having the same dream. But there is something they don't know, and it is that we dream stronger."

Ibrahim Ba, now that's a nosediving career. Remember being so pissed off when Milan piped us to his signing, yet a few years later he couldn't even get in the Bolton team.

Real Madrid had to do the same IIRC.

Messi hitting on Cheryl Cole

Their league form has been mediocre, but they have obviously been focusing in the cups, and has paid off.

Funniest thing is that Atlético's and Real's traditional celebration places (the fountains of Neptuno and Cibeles, respectively) are merely 100 metres away from each other, and with the spillover mobs you could hardly tell the different between both teams celebrating if they weren't wearing their colors. Atlético are already branding themselves "Madrid's most successful team", bless them. Not calling it until the league is in the bag for us, though!

I see that happening a f***ing lot lately, refs should be more mindful. That and the stutter step when taking a pen, which I always thought was against the rules. Even if it's not, it's still douchey as hell. The paradinha? It's pretty much up to the referee, which means it's rarely punished. Should be banned outright indeed. Immensely popular in Brazil.

I don't know, maybe my love for 1980s British music carried me away, but I liked it.

Not Seaman's fault that he kept being picked when he was past it. EDIT: Still remember that penalty shootout

How did I miss this? Genius! Is the original song popular at Fulham?

Not sure if I should post this here or in the "Not Worthy" thread, but it gave me a good laugh: http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/everton-fc/everton-fc-news/2010/05/10/new-siamese-stadium-plan-for-liverpool-and-everton-football-clubs-unveiled-92534-26411613/

Maradona is a total idiot. Cambiasso is one of the best in the world at what he does, Zanetti is still the best full back they've got despite his age and Lucho must surely be better than an old Veron and the domestic players he picked. I would have also picked Lisandro ahead of Lavezzi probably. They would have a chance of winning the tournament with a half decent coach. The age excuse also vanishes when he picks up Palermo. All in all, they still have enough quality to make a decent show of themselves (QF or so), which will probably be enough to keep him in charge.

In all honesty, if Colo did make the final squad and did get to play in the World Cup, I'd be more worried about his stock going down after a bad game or two. He's been class for us this year, but there's still this nagging suspicion that higher calibre strikers than the ones we've been facing on a weekly basis in the Championship might not be so forgiving. Eto'o, Raúl, Real Ronaldo, Forlán, Villa, Torres, Van Nistelrooy. well to be fair ,when Colo played for Depor he played against some of those mentioned ,as well as other top class strikers week in week out and didn`t look out of place at all in that time. That's what I meant, these are the forwards he faced while at Deportivo. And it's not like they leaked goals like there was no tomorrow, Deportivo were a solid defensive side. Heck, Real Madrid never won at Riazor during the years Coloccini was there and I'm talking about a side that had more stars than probably most national teams he'd face at the WC and they shut them out often. It's a fair point (to an extent - we know that Depor fans liked him, but you have to take into account the possibility that they've ignored his failings because both he and the team overall had done alright for them, along with other factors like maybe expectation/pressure being lower?). But the last time he was up against those sorts of strikers he just looked very poor by the time the season ended, with certain flaws being established as being part of his game (too easily turned, not able to do anything to make up lost ground, etc etc - which is why so often the £10m price tag or "international centreback" tag were brought up that year) - e.g. Torres who left him for dead at will whenever we played Liverpool. If he was genuinely good for Deportivo, and it's not a case of him being exposed whilst with us in a league where defenders aren't able to "hide" and where possibly expectations/pressures are higher for defenders to be good at certain things than others, then that bodes well for him and for us if we keep him. But from what we've seen in a Newcastle shirt, those aforementioned flaws in some areas of his defensive game were targeted and exposed over the course of a season in the Premiership. Having just had a season in the Championship against mediocre players which has clearly rebuilt his confidence, I'm not sure it'd be wise for Maradona to throw him in in such high stake games where the pressure to perform is going to be intense and any costly mistake will be highlighted. Depor defended deep. That makes up for a lot of his flaws as a defender, and incidentally makes him not the best defender for a PL team, but that's different to saying that he would look out of his depth at the WC. International football in general has a waaaaaaaay slower place than the English game.

Well, that wiki snip you posted also credits the FC Basel story. I have only heard the Merchant Taylors story from English sources, which makes me a bit wary of it (in the same way I have only seen English sources giving credit to London club Corinthians for the Real Madrid kits). The Basel one is the most accepted in Barcelona, and the one that makes the most sense to me since Gamper was who created and organized the team and the first Barça strips were exactly like the Basel one (halved, not stripped, the image I posted was a slight variation in Basel's traditional kit). I'm gonna check something, the colors of the club were established in the fundational charter, and I'm not 100% the Wittys were in it yet. EDIT: Aye, the Witty brothers joined the club later, and we already had those colors. As said, I just think this was originated by some Anglo-centric footie historian, can tell you this story has never had any traction in Spain. This site is awfully designed, but it's the best online source for FC Barcelona history (in Spanish): http://www.webdelcule.com/varios/hiba.html Oh, and not trying to diminish the Wittys involvement in our early history, by the way.

Especially Hugo Sanchez right? And mostly that's due the mexican teams being damn rich. Aye... and also due to their corruption. WHich has historically held them back from actually competing well internationally. Mexico have a very decent record in all the recent world cups.

I miss the relegation/promotion playoffs in La Liga to be honest, cracking games. Also made the relegation dogfight more interesting since there were more threatened places (4 instead of 3).

In all honesty, if Colo did make the final squad and did get to play in the World Cup, I'd be more worried about his stock going down after a bad game or two. He's been class for us this year, but there's still this nagging suspicion that higher calibre strikers than the ones we've been facing on a weekly basis in the Championship might not be so forgiving. Eto'o, Raúl, Real Ronaldo, Forlán, Villa, Torres, Van Nistelrooy. well to be fair ,when Colo played for Depor he played against some of those mentioned ,as well as other top class strikers week in week out and didn`t look out of place at all in that time. That's what I meant, these are the forwards he faced while at Deportivo. And it's not like they leaked goals like there was no tomorrow, Deportivo were a solid defensive side. Heck, Real Madrid never won at Riazor during the years Coloccini was there and I'm talking about a side that had more stars than probably most national teams he'd face at the WC and they shut them out often. How often did he play DM for Depor? Sometimes, but was preferred as centreback. Duscher/De Guzmán were the first choice DMs.