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The 2011-2012 Football Thread

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takao said:
and yeah Milner needed to score that one ... if your side is a full scale attacking side like Spain or Holland it's OK to miss one of the dozens sitters but when playing a counter attacking strategy you have to use the few you can get
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Very true. England will get few chances, even fewer that are that good. They can't afford to miss those chances.

The French aren't really making that much of their possession advantage, especially now in the second half where England are seeing a little more of the ball. It's a pretty even game so far, I can see it going either way. A draw would probably be a fair result at this point though.

EDIT: Henderson and Defoe on. And (surprise) Ribery is a diver.
 
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Ukraine 2-1 Sweden

Schevchenko with a double and Sweden are in all kinds of trouble. I never would have expected Ukraine to look this lively, especially with Scheva and Voronin up top. I had tipped Sweden as the dark horse of the group, but this changes things completely.
 
Fizzoid said:
The referee certainly isn't winning any friends in England!
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I thought it was one of the better refereeing performances. The red cards handed out in the Poland-Greece game were ridiculous, the yellow cards in all other games have been inconsistent to say the least. The refs have been quite picky and blowing far too often for fouls. At least last night the ref let the game flow and on some occasions acknowledged the fouls but played the advantage, however I've noticed a lot of English folk thinking that the ref wasn't giving them anything.

From a neutral-to-slightly pro-English stance I thought the ref was ok. And I think you would have taken 1-1 before kick-off so stop being so negative guys, you’re doing ok.
 
I think it's more the frustration of England looking to start an attack and being met with a niggling tackle/foul before they could get going, then seeing free kicks awarded to France for what appeared to be similar incidents.

Any chance of the SPL clubs giving up the money draw of Rangers?

Cheers,
OW
 
In other news, Greek austerity measures have resulted in the national team defense being replaced by volunteer stunt doubles.

EDIT: More dodgy defending, this time from Petr Cech, and the Greeks are back in the match. A draw here would be a good result for Greece and a terrible one for the Cechs.
 
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oscillatewildly said:
Any chance of the SPL clubs giving up the money draw of Rangers?
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Nope. They are hooked on the money and will do anything morally bankrupt to keep their fix. Such as allow a newco to join the SPL.

The way it has been described to me is "Rangers Football Club founded in 1872 will continue under a different corporate entity. Rangers fc plc 1899 will be liquidated. The club lives, the corporation dies."

Its a similar (but not identical) vehicle as to what Celtic did in 1994 with the exception that none of the creditors including the UK taxpayer got screwed out of money.

I can't stand by these decisions so will not be transferring my support onto the newco as it presently stands.
 
Greece 1-2 Czech Republic

And that's probably it for Greece, unless they beat Russia and other results go their way. A couple mistakes in the first 10 minutes sealed their fate.

I don't think the Czechs looked very convincing, but they are in a weak group so they are in a good position to advance.

Fuzzy14 said:
Nope. They are hooked on the money and will do anything morally bankrupt to keep their fix. Such as allow a newco to join the SPL.

The way it has been described to me is "Rangers Football Club founded in 1872 will continue under a different corporate entity. Rangers fc plc 1899 will be liquidated. The club lives, the corporation dies."

Its a similar (but not identical) vehicle as to what Celtic did in 1994 with the exception that none of the creditors including the UK taxpayer got screwed out of money.

I can't stand by these decisions so will not be transferring my support onto the newco as it presently stands.
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I don't blame you one bit. It's pretty bad from a perspective of fairness. Rangers are showing no remorse for having cheated the taxman, the league, supporters and other clubs. They are shapeshifting into a newco and taking no responsibility for the past. I can understand why a new owner would want to do this, but they are trying to take ownership of all of Rangers' physical and cultural assets while shirking as much responsiblity as they can get away with. That's not fair to supporters, the rest of Scottish football or to anybody who pays their taxes.

The new owners' statement was rich: [link]

Charles Green said:
"Frankly, I do not see what benefit will be achieved by this decision. My consortium's offer for a CVA amounted to a total of £8.5m. Now that we will have to complete the purchase via the formation of a NewCo, the purchase price and therefore the amount available to creditors will be £5.5m.

"I can understand HMRC deciding that football clubs which do not pay their taxes need to be punished, but by effectively banning Rangers from Europe for three years all that will happen is that there will be less revenue generated by the club and consequently less money paid over to the taxman.
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The benefit, Charles, is that HMRC will actually collect some tax money from people who are trying to cheat the taxman. He is choosing to ignore the fact that Rangers have simpy not been paying their taxes...so from HMRC's perspective any tax revenue they can get out of Rangers or other delinquent parties is more than they have been getting, which was more or less zero. Nor does HMRC care whether Rangers are out of Europe for three years. Rangers have created a situation where HMRC have little to lose and everything to gain by throwing the book at the club/former owners/other responsible parties.

The Old Firm seem to catch a break from everybody in Scotland, so I can't say I'm sympathetic...it's nice to see someone play hardball with an Old Firm side for once, even though they are still getting off rather cheaply.
 
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Poland 1-1 Russia

A good game if not quite electrifying. I thought Russia started well but Poland really pinned them back in the second half. Lewandowski's Blaszczykowski's equalizer was a superb strike. Both teams seemed to tire in the last 15 minutes. Russia seemed to get really lazy at times in the second half, they turned the ball over a lot it seems. Arshavin dribbled into the box on a number of occasions but seemed to run out of ideas once he got there.

Poland v Czech Republic looks set to be a good match, and who knows? Maybe the Greeks will get their act together in time to thwart the Russians.

Jaffa Cake said:
Finally, a decision we can all get behind UEFA on.
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I almost posted on this earlier. I find it funny that the English are largely unsympathetic to the plight of their band.
 
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takao said:
i hope none of you have greek defenders & goalkeepers on your rooster for fantasy football ... 6 minutes in they already received 2 goals
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What idiot would do that! :eek: He was in for goal scoring, but the crossing was :(. Also got booked. :)

Looked like Greece were done out of a goal in the first-half.

Lord Blackadder - please check your goal scorer.

Jaffa Cake - band - they can't stop me with my comb and greaseproof paper. :)

Cheers,
OW
 
well wasn't the brightest day in my fantasy squad despite avoiding greek players:

went with Kershakov as my russian striker since thought "missed a lot of chances in the first game and the other already got 2 goals" ... blargh

went with Rosicky instead of 'Kuba' in a last minute switch since i thought the poles wouldn't score ... and then my choice get's subbed after 45 minutes (0 points :mad:) and the player _not chosen_ scores a long range equalizer

with my luck denmark will win against portugal tomorrow while Lahm receives a red card and Robben at last scores a penalty
 
Schevchenko already has a brace...he's only a hat trick away from top scorer. That would be funny.

I'll send Baldrick down with his vuvuzela collection to fill in for the band. With any luck he'll encounter a drunken gang of Russian skinheads in a dark alley somewhere.
 
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Lord Blackadder said:
Poland 1-1 Russia

A good game if not quite electrifying. I thought Russia started well but Poland really pinned them back in the second half. Lewandowski's Blaszczykowski's equalizer was a superb strike. Both teams seemed to tire in the last 15 minutes. Russia seemed to get really lazy at times in the second half, they turned the ball over a lot it seems. Arshavin dribbled into the box on a number of occasions but seemed to run out of ideas once he got there.

Poland v Czech Republic looks set to be a good match, and who knows? Maybe the Greeks will get their act together in time to thwart the Russians.



I almost posted on this earlier. I find it funny that the English are largely unsympathetic to the plight of their band.
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I thought Russia got robbed, when you get a kick in the face you expect a foul to be called on the player kicking, and alas that one was understandable since the polish player seemed almost twice as tall as the russian one, the other had me shaking my head, the polish defender pushed down the forward and the russian was called for a foul.

The only good thing was the effort put on by both teams, they were exhausted by the end, and that's what you want to see both sides giving everything they had to try and win for their countries.
 
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