Village Idiot

He should have taken the offer of one of those small clubs that went after him, now he would have been starting in the Premiership every week. But nooooooo... he was blinded by ManU.

Oooh 20. (again just hammered all the names of Newcastle players I remember and that looked likey to shoot on goal) Try entering "Ginola" btw

108, happy to break 50% since I'm a foreigner. At one point I was just randomly entering players that I recalled playing for several seasons. I missed notables like LuaLua, Bowyer, Wanchope, Dickov, Jenas, Zola, Di Canio, Campbell...

You'll love Rubin Kazan then http://www.futbolred.com/contenido/champions/noticias/primeraronda0910/IMAGEN/IMAGEN-6399610-2.jpg

Rocky V is better than III or IV. Those last two are probably more fun due to their 80's cheessiness, though.

i lost 60£ on my bet because of you lot Pay up, Niel.

Bernabéu crowd booing Kaká, jesus christ

Marca reporting that apparently the Swiss away fans have rehearsed and are using Portuguese insults for Cronaldo

Cronaldo coming in for Real, 20 minutes to go and they are up 1-0.

He made a number of stupid comments which got everyone's back up when he left, we had no doubt he would leave at some point for bigger things but not so soon, not when his comments included he loved the club, he had a 5 year plan to get us into the Prem, he would have to be pushed out, etc. He also made very public comments against players who left for clubs seen as bigger or in a higher division, talking about money not being everything, they should have some loyalty etc.. So when he went, it was like your girlfriend leaving you for some ugly tosser down the road who has a bit more dosh than you. Fair enough, then.

Are Swansea fans angry at Roberto Martínez? He served you extremely well both as player and as manager.

Just realized that even with this defeat, Everton would only be 5 points adrift of 7th place. EDIT: Just watched and saw that Atlético are 1 down against Nicosia already. Not even Europa League for them.

I guess Everton are back to the old "European qualification one year, relegation scrap the next" yoyo paradigm.

Leighton Baines still on my FF team

Pellegrini has been struggling to fit everybody who's expected to play (and that's a lot of whos at Real Madrid) in a tactic that works. Kaká on the wing is a bit wasting him, particularly when you stick Raúl in the middle instead. Higuaín is also not a good sole striker, he's great as a support striker or even drifting to a wing. However this is just Zürich. I think Pellegrini is starting Raúl to keep him and his media posse happy, and then will drop him for the Barcelona game and play a saner formation instead. That's the garbage Real Madrid managers have to put up with though, the politics.

The Real Madrid - Zürich game is starting shortly, with Cronaldo being expected to play off the bench after spending almost two months injuried. As a bit of trivia, FC Zürich and FC Barcelona were founded by the same individual, Hans Gamper.

Get your facts straight, you have given Orlandi to the wrong Barcelona team... http://english.people.com.cn/200605/22/images/0521_A52.jpg He was good, too lightweight though.

Having Steven Taylor, Coloccini, Kilgallon plus the odd showing of Kadar would have you sorted for centrebacks as a promoted club.

Aye, for the first years I would only worry about the Fagans, Beatties and Fullers of the world. I think Colo can deal with those and in my opinion Newcastle would do well in retaining him. You are running low on players with experience at the top level, and you will need those if/when you get promoted.

I love all the Benítez bashing, when he's the only manager in the last 20 years that has gotten them performing consistently in Europe. I expect many years of Europa League fun if they sack him. I don't know why Newcastle fans always get the "deluded" brand on them, there are no more deluded football fans in Europe than Liverpool's and their divine right to do well, when they have been crap for two decades.

Pot 4 South Korea Japan Australia North Korea Mexico USA Honduras New Zealand We are f***ed. Damn, my hopes of the US being drawn in a group together with France and North Korea have been trashed.

Greedy twats the lot of them, screwing the people that put football and their clubs in the place they are in our society. No sympathy from me. Spain isn't England, people don't have the same disposable income and stuff like PPV and Satellite/Cable don't have the same expansion, this would black out a lot of people from being able to follow the league.

What's in the pot together with the US? The problem is that every time they get paired with a UEFA, Conmebol and CAF team, which makes for lots of potential "groups of death".

La Liga has threatened with a stoppage in the weekend of December 13th if the Spanish Government doesn't approve some of its demands for the new TV law. Mostly, they want: - That the current mandatory free Liga game every week is removed, so everything can eventually be moved to more lucrative paid solutions - That televisions that don't purchase the rights to do so, are banned from showing clips from games until the end of the gameweek (currently media outlets are allowed 3 minutes of free clips from every game, for informative purposes) - That radios have to pay for broadcasting La Liga games (that's an insane dick move, small local and regional stations can't afford to do that, and it's still the preferred way for most Spaniards to follow games that aren't broadcast free).

... what? So - for every game, we get 12% of the respective seats in that stadium, whilst the other team gets 88%? I imagine the other team would also get a similar amount. As for the other 76%... Reserved for FIFA and local fans, I assume. Still a bit too much.