₦airaland Forum

The standard of officiating in this game has been abysmal.......Absolutely shocking.#

This surely can't be the best referee the spanish can offer,can it?

Bontee: Xavi, pique and busquets are dispensable and the only person that should not be dropped is iniesta because he is totally different.

Drop Xavi, the Greatest Central Midfielder of the last 30 years?.......And who should start in his place, Fabregas?

Also drop Busquets, the most tactically astute Defensive Midfielder in the world?....and as I asked before who should start in his place, Alonso?

I'm not sure you watch spain frequently bar the odd friendly match cuz if you did you'll know the Barca midfield trident of Xavi,Iniesta and Busquets are INDISPENSABLE

Kevin Durant what a player!!!.......Could not be much happier for the dude.

I can very recall the 2007 Nba draft when Oden was selected ahead of him and being absolutely gobsmacked by that decision.
To me he always far more potential with the only slight being his thin frame. Even that you knew his frame could be developed whilst his skill sets could not.

.

coogar: 4 play-makers in the same team? i doubt it.
pedro is the only player that can provide genuine width that mirrors
what david villa did for spain at the world cup. mata and silva like
to drift inwards and they would get in iniesta and xavi's way.


-------casillas------
arbeola-pique-ramos-alba
-----busquets--alonso----
pedro/cesc--xavi---iniesta/cesc
-------torres/llorente--------

The likes of Xavi and Alonso would probably be told to sit in Midfield and help maintain and dominate possesion.
The Playmaker role would be left to the likes of Iniesta and silva who can also play on the wings if need be(a key reason I feel Silva would get the nod).
Pedro,Fab and Llorente would most likely be the first names on Del Bosque's lips if Spain are chasing the game.

coogar: spain are cursed with the rotten luck of having too many good players.
it's baffling mata, martinez, navas, carzola, silva are not guaranteed
to start.

Aren't they just.
The best squad at the tourney bar none.
It's vital England win their group.

coogar: so we are talking xavi, iniesta, busquets, pique, pedro and fabregas.
that's more than half of the team that would start.
i still expect 70% tiki-taka and 30% pragmatism.

I'll be more than surprised if those two start.
Del Bosque's Midfield five would most probably be Alonso,Busquets,Silva,Iniesta and Xavi.
The only doubt there is Silva but I am more than certain he'll start.

dayokanu: When Gina-Lisa was asked if Boateng may have conducted any physical exertion, the 25-year-old responded:

"We only talked!
[size=15pt]Boateng's agent has defended the 23-year-old's right to late-night conversation,[/size] claiming he was actually in bed up until two o'clock when he went to meet Miss Lohfink.

Classic!!!....Only in Naziland.

coogar: [flash=425,400]"http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=107291747"[/flash]

Not opening.....Error!!!

coogar: they are better than the england squad hodgson is taking
to the tourney.

They mostly certainly are not.
The only Squad better than England's in that group is the French.

coogar: the inferior greek team can defend. england cannot!

Sure they can't defend yet they beat Spain whilst keeping a clean sheet.
Not forgetting the clean sheets they kept in their last two friendlies

coogar: elmander nko? seb larsson nko?
england have never beaten sweden before even
when they had a decent squad. sweden would mash
england or at worst get a draw.

Which Elmander? The one of the Bolton fame? Abeg that's the type of physical battles english center halves(JT most especially)thrive on. I'd be more concerned If JT was facing a short nippy striker.
Larsson would be aptly dealt with by the world's best left back.
Even if everything somehow contrives to go against England, they'll still come out with a creditable draw.

coogar: ukraine are the hosts....i expect them to get a draw or win too.

We both know you did not type that statement with a straight face on
UKRAINE!!!....The same ukraine that is being led by a Liverpool flop come reject and by a dude whose last great season was when he dorned the Jersey of the Great Milan.
Or are we talking about a different Ukraine?

coogar: england is going to this tournament hoping to play like chelsea
in the champions league. it will not work in the group stage as
it requires you to win 3 points, not play for a draw.

Ofcourse they are. Roy has not hidden that fact.
If it worked for an Inferior Greek team, then it surely can work for England

coogar: with parker, gerrard, and milner in the midfield?
jaglieka and terry in the heart of the defence?
oh ma days, benzema and ibrahimovic would be trembling
in their boots.

Ok First of all we all basically agree that the remaining three teams in that group are fighting for the second spot behind France Right?

Now Club Loyalty and Jokes aside, do you actually think Sweden and Ukraine will finsh ahead of England?....C'mon now U.K.R.A.I.N.E!!!

The only player in that swedish team England should be wary off is Ibra. Handle him properly and England should win that game.

coogar: if france and sweden don't beat england...their managers
should be sacked.

Chei No talk that one.
Hodgson should flogged with koboko if England don't make it past the Group Stages.

dayokanu: Chickenshrimp who is the other black dude in the Italian team aside Ballotelli?

Angelo Obinna
As u can tell by his surname, his parents are Nigerian.
He is a center Back by trade but can also play the Left Back position(Kinda Like Boateng)

coogar: what are you talking about?
when have you ever seen a dutch/german side playing negative football
in the history of the world cup. germany didn't come out to play.
they came to stop spain. it was only after puyol scored that germany
changed tactics and started playing attacking football.

holland simply parked the bus....waited for the break/counter-attack.
then they put de jong in the middle to maul spain's creative players.
it was negative tactics after negative tactics against spain. what can
you possibly do to teams who deploy catenaccio? uproot them with bulldozer?

Forget the Netherlands.
They were a disgrace to football that night. Period.
However Germany did not park the bus. Spain simply had more ball possesion.
Germany played the exact the same way throughout the tournament. Soak up pressure and hit on the fast break/counter.
The Fact Germany scored first in most of their games really helped their cause.

coogar: what we have are a buncha mechanical players. defend hard and look for breaks.
up in the air, hoping for a rebound - and score from it. that's what england
would be serving this summer.

In other words, "Winning Football"
Ask Greece and Chelsea. It works a treat .

coogar: abeggi, with the way most teams put 11 men behind the ball against spain, no
team would score more than a goal. every team spain faced bar chile were out
to stop them instead of playing their own game....xavi and iniesta were particularly
disappointed that their opponents didn't let their fans enjoy the football but they
had to rise up to the challenge.

And when did putting ten men behind the ball become Illegal?
Spain are the first and would not be the last to encounter such drastic tactics so I see no reason for the likes of Xavi,Iniesta and co to moan.
Forget the one nil score line, they hardly created any chances. All they did was pass the ball sideways and backwards. At least Barca created enough chances during their tie v Chelsea.
Also Germany did not pack the bus but guess what Spain still won by the same scoreline.

chamotex: England had the same run-in nto the last World Cup too.
They cruised through their qualifying group and warm up matches
Tourny started and the could only steal a narrow win against Slovenia.

England can't hack it at the big stage - simple
The only thing going for them is that no ones expects them to do well and probably the team might feel a little less pressure.

Big difference.
Unlike the worldcup where England were expected to do extremely well and play good footy. The QuarterFinals was the minimum expected of that lot. This current England team has little to no expectations.
I've heard a few say they'll be lucky to get out of their group. That's how low expectations are.
So unlike the worldcup where a 1 nil win vs Slovenia was met with uproar, the England fans would happily take three boring 1 nil wins as far as the group stages are concerned.

I'm not saying England will definitely win it but at the same time I know England are not as poor as people are making out.
If Greece can win it, So can England.

chamotex: So you think the way they played against Norway and Belgium has any significance to what will happen in the Euros?
They are called warm up matches for a reason.
If we have to go by that logic, Spain and Germany who you claim have 'struggled' should not be seen as contenders then.

Ofcourse it won't
However I'd rather have my team go into tournament high on morale whilst posting one nil wins than go in low on confidence having played fantastic football.
C'mon that's a silly logic as we all know the likes of Spain(recently) and Germany should never be counted out. The point I am trying to get across is that these teams are Beatable.

chamotex: The Irish team is now on a 14 match unbeaten run - lets see what they will do when the tourny starts.
This English team can't score goals and let us wait until their defence gets tested.

They don't need to score many goals.
1 nil wins in their next 6 games would do them just fine.
Or How many goals do you think spain scored on their way to winning the World cup? 8. The so called "Best team and Most Beautiful team in the Universe" could only muster Eight goals.
That tells me a Win is a win.
With the way the dealt with spain when the two teams last met, their defence should do alright.

chamotex: That Greek team that won the Euros had some good players back then - Stelios, Basinas, Zagorakis, Katsouranis etc were decent players, yes they over achieved but they were solid and played good footy.
The last 2 games England played, I fell asleep and I don't think it was a coincidence.

Yes they had some good players but this England team are most definitely better. Joe Hart for starters is much better than the white haired Dude they had in goal.
Also as the Greeks and Chelsea showed,the best teams don't always win. 1-NIL wins would do the job nicely.
Lastly the Greek did not play any Good football. All they did was bore teams into submission. I very well remember the likes of Lineker,Hansen et al complaining about how dire and negative their football was.

Why you no go fall asleep when you dey shack ogogoro+poli from dusk til dawn .

mba emeka: England as someone rightly said is a big joke. The first mistake they made was employing Roy as their manager. He cant handle real talent, he makes boyish mistakes and he is very biased it hurts.

Can he explain why his team is largely Liverpudian? Can he explain why his team was bossed by Belgium? Did they (England FA) subtley sack Fabio for this . . .?
His tactics seem similar to Fabios even though the latter had more guts to attack smaller teams. I saw Gerard play from deep against Belegium and the team had no spine. They wouldnt survive even France with such formation let alone Spain! They would need more than chelsea luck to pull it off.

Can someone pls correct me if I'm wrong but didn't england just win both their warm up games whilst also keeping clean sheets?
If England do a greece and win their next six games 1 nil, i'm willing to bet no England fan would give two hoots about the style of football they played.
Spain who are Everybody's favourite struggled against the chinese last night( England's defence is much better)whilst Germany who are everyone's second favoured had their ass,..es handed to them by Switzerland.
With a bit of luck England might just prove some of their doubters wrong.

mba emeka: As for Italy, i like what they have played like under prandelli. I think he has given them a different dimension beyond defend and counter attack. this italian team actually pulls a string of passes and its funny how they use more technical smaller strikers than past times. Nevertheless they stand no chance. They certainly cant contain Spain, Germany and the Oranje with that pattern of play, their defence seems porous to me and the hovering cloud of match fixing me thinks would hurt them seriously.

Italy's has always had technically gifted players,players who actually string passes together. Infact we had more of them before than we do now.
The only difference being unlike now we were blessed with an abundance of Great defenders to choose from and therefore we played to our strength. Defensive Solidity.
Yh the defence of late has been shocking. Need to get back to the defensive solidity we showed during qualification.

dayokanu: Who is your daddy?

[size=13pt]SPAIN!!![/size]

chamotex:
Nothing do you

Abi ooo......Norrin do us


In Other News......................

Balotelli suffered a tigh strain in training today hopefully it's nothing serious.
Plus it looks like Barza is going to miss Euro 2012. Absolutely Gutted!!!

chamotex: Are you Italian?
The same way Dayokanu will be claiming to be German

My Veins are[b]Green[/b]
My Heart is White
My Blood is Red

Literally the Biggest Azzuri fan on Planet earth.

I like this quote from a dude on the BBC website


"Those who criticise England may wish to take a look at some of the other European sides and how well they have performed lately. Italy haven't scored in 3 games and have lost to the USA and Russia (as well as managing only a draw with New Zealand at the last world cup), Germany were thumped last week, Portugal were convincingly second best against Turkey today, Spain failed to win against Costa Rica and lost to the Swiss in the world cup before grinding out a bunch of 1-0 wins. And we're moaning because we've played 2, won 2? Who cares about technical ability? This isn't gymnastics. Goals win games, not stringing 800 passes together and maintaining 56% possession"

According to Roy Hodgson, Rio Ferdinand was not includede for "FOOTBALL REASONS"

^^^^^^^

That's not switch47. That's Chidicris aka MikelCris. The most ardent Mikel Fan on NL.

Jayhexx: ur cryn out of sentiments bro....if u lyk go cary playas 4rm black burn...dnt u no dat d influence of a coach cn brng out ril quality 4rm any playa.

Definitely not sentiments. There is hardly any pressure being placed on this England team.

The remainder of your post hardly makes any sense tbh.




In Other news........

Andrea Barzagli is a big doubt for Euro 2012..........Bloody Hell

This is Terrible news for the Azzuri if this is confirmed. He is literally our second best defender behind Chiellini.

I hope it's not that serious.

coogar: roy hodgson is a tool....a geriatric tool!
he's trying to appease liverpool fans by choosing all their players for the f@cked up
job he did with them some seasons ago.

in countries where football is taken seriously, the top 2 clubs in the league would
be the major suppliers of the players in the national team. in england, we have liverpool
who finished 8th supplying dross players like henderson, kelly, downing, caroll.

i mean, downing with 0 goals and 0 assists in the premier league all season got a mention
before lennon? henderson ahead of carrick or cleverley? kelly ahead of ferdinand, micah richards?
it would be unheard of in spain for osasuna to have more players in the national squad than
barcelona and real madrid.

england is a joke....the laughing stock of europe. i cannot wait for france and sweden
to send them packing. this is the weakest squad england have had to send into a tournament.
a midfield of parker, gerrard and milner are begging to be eaten up.

That might actually be a good thing for England.
This is probably the first tourney in a while they've gone into with little to no expectation.
With no pressure on, they might actually surprise a few.

mystikal: I had always imagined Italy will steal the show at this tournament. Having seen them against Russia. . . not too sure now

Italy have never taken friendlies seriously anyways so I'm not too worried in that regard.
It's the defence I'm more worried about. Most especially Maggio who was absolutely dreadful. We definitely need Chiellini fit and on form to stand any chance.
Though it was not all the defence's fault. The Midfield also should take some of the blame(bar Pirlo). They provided not cover for the defence and left them exposed time and time again.

Russia is a team to watch out for. They are my dark horses.

P:S Italy are 6th favourite according to the bookies and that's just about right.

My Blood is boiling as I type now........ Absolutely Fuming!!!

Micah Richards feels he should be starting and has apparently made it clear to the F.A he should not be considered for selection if he is not guaranteed a starting spot.
The same thing Carrick did

I just would never the reasoning behind playing a two man midfield as far as England are concerned

Technically adept sides throughout the whole of europe and around the world are playing three men Midfields while a technically inept side like England are still stuck in the stone ages.

Anyways I guess if England do a Greece and Win the European Championships by winning every game 1-0 no one would remember what happened beforehand.

^^^^Watching the Italy V Russia match and I must say Arshavin has been superb thus far
Looks a different player to the one you lot sent out on loan.
I'll be amazed if he ain't one of the stars of the upcoming tourney.

coogar: bad news for england? lampard would have displayed
another shower of shyte performance!

He won't have.
Not after the herculian performances he gave at the heart of chelsea's midfield during the last 3 months of the season.
Dude was fit and ready to take Euro 2012 by storm.
The Three Lions would sorely miss him.