I'm going to lay that one solely at the feet of the Russians. I think I'll just stop there. If anyone wants to discuss it more I suggest we do that in one of the Politics fora.
Poland/Russia was a cracking game. Neither side were particularly brilliant in defence and both blew themselves out by the 75th minute but everything up till then was great to watch. Both teams played with pace and attacking intent and it made for a great spectacle.
The thing with Robben's thing is, the defenders usually keep falling for it. And the reason why they don't start Huntelaar is a mystery to most people here. Van Persie is an excellent striker, but not while wearing an orange shirt. His performance in the World championship was equally shitty.
Annoying match. Granted, losing Zimling is a blow (the Danish midfield is just a huge deal weaker without Zimling to duo with Kvist), but there were just too many Danish players who did not play up to their best in this match. Simon Poulsen having huge troubles with Nani (though he worked himself back into the game), Rommedahl was awful today (Mikkelsen, on the other hand, was a top-notch replacement), and Christian Eriksen... sadly ... is just not in the right place at this tournament. Can't fault his work effort, but he is almost completely harmless and again today he gives away the ball in some fatally dangerous situations. Unfortunately the injuries meant that he couldn't be replaced by Schøne or Kahlenberg. Apropos my earlier comment on Zlatan as a captain, compare with Daniel Agger today - when things hit the fan, he mashals the troops and leads the line, both defensively with many vital actions and offensively. But you win some, lose some. The chance to advance is still there, and the team kept fighting well (even though the quality did not always match the intent). Just have to hope for Holland - Germany to turn out in a favorable way, and good luck in the final match.
Leaving Willems on is practically a human rights violation at this point. He's getting fucking caned.
Jesus we were bad. Awful selection - no idea why de Jong and Van Bommel are considered an acceptable midfield at this level - and Dutch football really lacks depth right now. The defence is poor, and beyond Robben/RVP/Schneider there's little real talent coming through. Huntelaar might score a lot of goals at a lower level but he's basically a shorter less prolific Peter Crouch. Germans looked good but really took their foot off the gas and could've coughed up an equaliser. Nasty habit to get into.
Overall I thought Willems didn't do so bad. It won't surprise me if he becomes a regular in the national team. But this is pretty much it for the Netherlands. Portugal has historically kicked our asses.
He's got potential, he's very young and he probably will. But he looked completely out of his depth in this game - which is hardly surprising given his age and inexperience. He improved in the second half, but to be fair the only way was up and he was still pretty poor.
Paul Lambert spotted kicking himself in the ass repeatedly. "WHY DIDNT I JUST WAIT" No offense, Brandon Clements
None taken ;) EDIT: Although, thinking about it, I doubt that Lambert (or Rodgers) were going to be in the running for the hotseat at Spurs. Looks like Moyes is the frontrunner at this point, and though it somewhat pains me to say this, I hope he does really well there. God knows he needs to go to someplace with a budget that isn't the change from the couch in the lobby.
New bid for Rangers FC from former manager Walter Smith, with backing from many others. The supporters seem generally pleased by this, so I gather this is possibly a legitimate bid from a legitimate bidder rather than another asset stripper? I am unclear on two things: - Do they plan to just straight up pay off Rangers' debts? I don't see how this is any better, otherwise. If that's the plan, well, they'll have paid their debts and that's fair enough, although their distorting effect on Scottish football in past seasons is a done deal. - Has Green's bid been accepted already? Would he have to agree to stand aside for this deal to happen? He doesn't exactly seem like a standup fellow. Wouldn't shock me if he demanded a payday to do it if so. EDIT: They would still be a newco and should still have to fuck off to the third division. Can they survive such a thing? (I would expect so.)
The sale to Green went through. Smith's bid seems weird in that context, a last-minute attempt to 'save the club's history' by using a newco plan? That's... wait... what... As for the debts, that's what liquidation is for. The club's assets (Ibrox, Murray Park, players, etc) will be sold to pay off creditors. Scottish football would be dramatically improved by the move down to the third division. The gate money for the smaller clubs, the lack of a second vote to keep Celtic from keeping a massive amount of the TV money, the preservation of an already low amount of 'integrity' in the Scottish game, etc etc etc.
I'm being told that the assets going to Green include Ibrox etc. in which case I think this might be the most blatant fraud I've ever seen.
1-0 to England at halftime. Carroll is murdering the Swedish defence in the air - they can barely get near him - and Gerrard may be unable to make a simple pass but he's got a lovely cross on him. England deserve the lead but there's been several instances of sloppy play and Sweden certainly aren't out of it. Swedish problems appear to be somewhat mental at the moment, if the coach gives them a rocket at halftime they could quite easily put a few past a very mediocre England team. Ashley Young is terrible and Milner only marginally better. Hmm.
Never in doubt. Ahem. So, that game broke wide open, didn't it? Sweden came out firing and got a bit lucky at a free kick leading to a pretty farcical equaliser, then just had to carry on pressing while England panicked and repeatedly gave the ball away. Cue a good free kick and some slack defending for 2-1. At this point it looked like Sweden were going to run away with it. Credit to Hodgson for the substitution but Walcott's equaliser was pretty lucky in that the keeper seemed to have no idea what he was doing. Lovely run from Walcott and a superb finish from Wellbeck for the winner, and England finished the game the better team. They're an average side for sure but they played pretty well all told. Wonder how Rooney's going to fit back in.
Oh yeah, and fuck Mark Lawrenson. "That's it England, keep the ball! It doesn't matter if you keep passing backwards!" Yes it does you fucking idiot, because then it goes back to the keeper who has to whack it under pressure into a 50-50 situation where there's plenty of opposition players. You keep the ball by passing it *around* players, not by constantly passing it backwards.
I attended DC v. Philadelphia last night (in Philly). Thank heavens Philadelphia can't finish. The first half was very scary. Philly should have been booked more. After the second time they started shoving people long after the ball was dead, the red cards should have come out. This is standard behavior for Philadelphia and they need to be slapped down for it until they learn. Carlos Valdes should be charged with aggravated assault. Brandon McDonald owns. Bill Hamid owns. Branko Boskovic owns. Philly is really fast, as a team. It's scary. They beat us to a lot of balls. Luckily the idea of shooting apparently terrifies them. DC traveling support is quite capable of outshouting the entire River End. Suck it Sons of Ben. You guys have no class and beating you felt goooooooooooooooooooood.
Predictably, the Netherlands are out. There was a shimmer of hope at the start of the game against Portugal when we made 0-1 in the 10th minute, but after that it went downhill. Ended in a 2-1 loss. It's pretty frustrating that with all the football quality we have historically had, the only major title we ever got was a one-off European championship. You know, just like the Greeks.
They need to throw out at least half the team. Once again, after 20 minutes in the first half nobody was moving any more. There is some deep seated problem here. On the positive side, I predicted this would happen ever since the abominable match against Denmark so I'm ahead in my poule.
Still. Two years ago, World Cup finalists. Today, going home with zero points in three games. That's quite a fall.
Exactly. We could throw out Van Persie and Hunterlaar for instance, but who are we going to replace them with?
Also, no side in the world would throw out Van Persie, even if he didn't have the greatest tournament. I see two issues, neither of which is mind-blowing insight: 1) Midfield balance, or the complete lack thereof. Playing 4-1-4-1 just doesn't work at this level, where any half-decent side will dispossess you and then mangle you on the break. Particularly if the second four is full of egotistical wannabe-trequartistas who clog the attacking third, don't pass to each other, don't run down the wing, don't run down the channels, don't track back, tackle, or frankly do much of fucking anything at all. (see point 2). That's why they got overrun in midfield last night and ripped to shreds - Ronaldo could have had 6 on his own. The 4-2-3-1 they used previously was much better solely because Van Bommel provided at least some cover in midfield, even if he's not much more than a warm body at this point in his career. Even in that better scenario the 3 forward midfield players still couldn't be arsed to tackle or track runners, leaving the full-backs (particularly Willems) horribly exposed. 2) The disruptive influence of Robben and Schneider. One or both of those needs to go. Afellay can be excused a poor tournament, because he's young and only just came back from a terrible injury. I'd be inclined to use him more consistently and ditch the increasingly irritating Robben, whose sole purpose in life appears to be destroying attacking moves by cutting into (the already hugely-congested, see point 1) area around 20 yards from goal and blazing speculative shots over the bar. I'd also put Schneider on semi-permanent hiatus in favour of Van der Vaart, who is similarly ineffectual in the tackle and prone to embarassing media pronouncements, but at least contributes positively going forward occasionally.
Robben's advantage is that he's a fast runner. He could probably do well in a role similar to Marc Overmars. But he sees himself taking center stage.
