Village Idiot

I see Pedro kept up his record of scoring in every competition. Quite a fun game. It had the feeling of a preseason friendly to be honest, it wasn't quite intense. Let's see if we don't do like the other two times and lose the final after being firm favorites. I personally don't rate the CWC as a tournament at all (cup you get for winning two games = joke), but I really want to win it since it's one of the few trophies we lack (the other being the UEFA Cup, but let's not make that a priority ). That Messi goal after the Zlatan pass... mouthwatering stuff tbf.

Village Idiot is our Spanish Correspondent, but I'll just say he's done f*** all Jermaine Pennant watch: Games played: 11 Goals: 0 Assists: 0 However the team has been very poor overall.

Manchester United strikers not named Wayne Rooney aren't having the most brilliant seasons, surely Owen will get his chance at some point.

Marcelino really is a very good manager. Won Manager of the year a few seasons ago. He's also seen success at different clubs which I always thought is the proof of a great manager.

Owen in the England squad. Yes please. Start Rio Ferdinand in every game too, while at it.

Henry and Pires wasn't it? Yeah, they tried to replicate Cruyff and Neeskens doing it for Ajax back in the time.

Xisco goal. Header from the penalty spot. First start for Racing, too.

I love the "Choose beating Barcelona and Real Madrid" bit in the Hibs original, since there are probably a hundred teams that can claim to have done that at some point.

Two pretty good games in succession today: the Barcelona derby at 19:00, and then the Valencia - Real Madrid at 21:00 Will go see the Catalan derby with some blokes, hopefully we can avenge last season's defeat! Hate losing to the parakeets.

Hugo Colace ended up at Barnsley? How did that happen? He was class for the Argentinian Youth teams!

I'm totally against it. That was pure cheating. We sadly do that a lot in sports, we have had a number of foreign aces play part in winning World Championships and Olympic medals in athletics, handball, skying, etc... I don't object to people of foreign origin that have lived and started their careers here, or have blood ties with Spain, but the way we seem to headhunt foreigners for our national teams is not very sporting. All within the rules mind, but still cheating. Still, I don't know how did we manage to have Puskas, Kubala and Di Estéfano in the same football team and do fuck all with it.

For some reason, all this reminds me of when we tried to get Dani Alves to play for Spain (not that it's nearly the same thing!) We have a long story of headhunting foreign aces and fast-tracking their citizenship applications to get them Spanish caps (Puskas, Kubala, Donato, Senna, Di Estéfano...)

Rossi and Camoranesi are as Italian as I am French, were there some issues when they were selected for Italy? (honest question)

This has been coming for a good while, but it's still a sad day. As much money as he may have collected, I would be gutted if somebody told me my career was over at the age of 26. When's Dyer retiring?

Tsigalko was awesome the first seasons, but then he faded. Sergey Nikiforenko and Mark Kerr were awesome though. Tó Madeira, too. Which had the best name for a wonderkid if you're Spanish (his name can be read as "All Wood" which is a way to say a player is shit) Tempted to install the goddamn thing again, now.

Should be on BBC Sport shouldn't they? Can't watch it there if you live outside UK Really...why? Can anyone provide me a link to the goal on BBC sport? I'm assuming that is legal since it is on BBC BBC has geographic restrictions in place and if the IP address is not in UK, then you can't watch the clips. blatant discrimination...talk about free flow of finformation! Can't be a copyright issue if some viewers can watch it BBC has a license from the league to broadcast the images to the UK only, I assume. It's pretty standard practice.

To keep this thread vaguely on topic: http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/5984/aaronspear.th.jpg Third season, looking good.

Still remember the times when nobody who didn't play CM would know who Cristiano Ronaldo was. Got him scouted and signed him for the team of the neighborhood I grew in (CF Badalona), spearheading my run towards a CL title. I can forgive the fecker for signing for Real Madrid after that Maxim Tsigalko was a legend too. Got him to score 100 goals per season more than once. That game was silly.

Did he play for Wimbledon? There was a FM (probably CM back then) legend i really couldn't remember their name, same team as Reo-Coker. Lionel Morgan?

He was actually a lot more bloated than that at one point. That's him after getting his act together enough to get back on the pitch. It's more the fact he looks like he's pissed. Yeah looks like his teammates are holding him so he doesn't fall on his arse Poor guy though, these injury problems can kill his career.

Well that didn't last long!

Awesome ad, that!

Zog is one of Wigan's best players this season, in my opinion.

MLS teams actually don't really like loaning their players out though, Donovan and Becks get away with it because they are big. Holden might get away with it with the WC excuse, though, but he has a biographical tidbit that might make things harder... Kaizero beat me to it!

I'd say that the jump in quality between the lower teams in La Liga and the top teams in our second division is far smaller than between EPL and CCC. It's easy for a top second tier side to be competitive when it's promoted (Xerez is struggling, but they were thought as a middling side in Segunda, and they somehow hit form). However, Spanish Second Division is like an extreme version of La Liga. Shitloads of space, slow tempo, more technical than physical... I find it way nicer to watch than the CCC, but not sure it would produce players fit for your league. Although the CCC looks way worse than I thought. Wigan and Swansea, because of Roberto Martínez, have several Spanish players that played in our second and third tiers. How they fare will be a good measuring stick.