Taliwakker
.....
you forgot to mention he's also a(n alledged glass throwing) thug
He's way above average though.....best midfielder in England...if not Europe.
SOCCER NATION!
- Thread starter 7thSaviour
- Start date
you forgot to mention he's also a(n alledged glass throwing) thug
He's way above average though.....best midfielder in England...if not Europe.
I've got no love for Arsenal or Liverpool whatsoever, being the diehard Man Utd suporter I am, but it does make for some spirited convo around here, and it's all in the name of the game we love, right?
Taliwakker
.....
Looks like ManU might have the title sown up this year again after we could only nuster a draw against City yesterday.....fuck it. 
AngraRULES
Member
What bothers me about Manchester United is the fact that a lot of their fans are just bandwagon junkies. Lots of people around the world who never cared for the Premier league all of a sudden love ManU just cause they're winning. I hate that!
Taliwakker
.....
AngraRULES
Member
So who watched the first 4 games yesterday in the Champions League?
Arsenal 1-0 Roma
Inter 0-0 Manchester United
Barcelona 1-1 Lyon
Atletico 2-2 Porto
Matches today:
Chelsea - Juventus
Villareal - Panathnaikos
Sporting - Bayern
Real Madrid - Liverpool
I know a website where you can actually watch them live (for free). If anyone's interested, let me know. Games start I believe around 2:30 pm today.
Arsenal 1-0 Roma
Inter 0-0 Manchester United
Barcelona 1-1 Lyon
Atletico 2-2 Porto
Matches today:
Chelsea - Juventus
Villareal - Panathnaikos
Sporting - Bayern
Real Madrid - Liverpool
I know a website where you can actually watch them live (for free). If anyone's interested, let me know. Games start I believe around 2:30 pm today.
Taliwakker
.....
Watched Man U and Inter yesterday....Ibra choked in that game...like he has in other big games...might be changing my mind on how good he actually is.
Just finished watching Liverpool get a vital away goal against Real Madrid. FUCK YES!
Ref was firmly in Reals corner....handing out yellow cards to Liverpool players for making excellent tackles & denying us a corner kick for a ball that went out before 45 mins. Liverpool defended well and snubbed out Robben well for most of the game.
Bayern kills Sporting 5-0
Just finished watching Liverpool get a vital away goal against Real Madrid. FUCK YES!
Ref was firmly in Reals corner....handing out yellow cards to Liverpool players for making excellent tackles & denying us a corner kick for a ball that went out before 45 mins. Liverpool defended well and snubbed out Robben well for most of the game.
Bayern kills Sporting 5-0
AngraRULES
Member
Bayern humiliated Sporting... hahahahaha
My Arsenal played an excellent match yesterday, I was surprised they didn't score more against the uninspired Roma squad..
My Arsenal played an excellent match yesterday, I was surprised they didn't score more against the uninspired Roma squad..
Taliwakker
.....
AngraRULES
Member
I'll give you two words to explain why you didn't.....Nicholas Bendtnerhe's fucking useless
LOL You're actually kinda right. He had PLENTY of opportunities to score and for some reason he must have thought it wasn't necessary to do so...
Ugh... Just thinking about it makes me annoyed.
Whatever. It'll be interesting to know how the next game will be.
And by the way, did anyone check out Juninho's free kick goal for Lyon against Barcelona? That must have been one of the most incredible goals ever!
Why would an American love any of the Premier League teams? The way the jersey looks on them?
I follow it loosely, but I don't have a favorite team. I live in the U.S., so most people who seem to have a favorite team overseas has to do either with the name, the jersey, or how often they are winning when they get into the sport. Whatever. I'd rather just watch talented people play the game, and follow certain players/teams, instead of getting into a superficial level of fandom. That said sometimes I, unjustly, cheer against certain teams because of certain players or coach's attitude (when the rest of the team might be perfectly fine).
p.s. I think there are legit reasons to be a fan of a team. For example, you might be the fan of the ownerships philosophy. Or a long time coach there's approach to the game or something like that.
I follow it loosely, but I don't have a favorite team. I live in the U.S., so most people who seem to have a favorite team overseas has to do either with the name, the jersey, or how often they are winning when they get into the sport. Whatever. I'd rather just watch talented people play the game, and follow certain players/teams, instead of getting into a superficial level of fandom. That said sometimes I, unjustly, cheer against certain teams because of certain players or coach's attitude (when the rest of the team might be perfectly fine).
p.s. I think there are legit reasons to be a fan of a team. For example, you might be the fan of the ownerships philosophy. Or a long time coach there's approach to the game or something like that.
No-Mercy
Feanor
i too dont really have a favorite team...i do love soccer though. i mean i would root for the US in any game they're in but beyond that, id probably stick with whoever seem to be the underdogs to me, i love upsets in any sport! (as long as its not my team being upset!)
AngraRULES
Member
I totally understand your point, and there's plenty of validity in it. I will offer my two cents on it though.
I was born in Brazil and as you can imagine, soccer is my favorite sport in the world. I've been into soccer since I can remember, and consider myself extremely passionate about it. Call it a soccer enthusiast if you want.
I can tell you that where I come from, soccer is bigger than pretty much everything else. When they say soccer is bigger than religion in Brazil, you bet your ass it's true (and Brazil is the country with the biggest catholic population in the world)! The love people develop for their favorite teams goes beyond any type of fandom for any other sports teams I've ever seen in America. For instance, let's use the Yankees as an example. They're the team with the biggest support in North America as far as I know, and when compared to the soccer fans down in Brazil, they look like a high school team. It's that big of a difference.
One more thing you have to keep in mind is that Brazilians are naturally good at soccer. It's the place in the world where you will find the most talented players. Just look at history, and you'll be able to see that. Needless to say, Brazil has won more World Cups than any other country in history.
I can't speak on behalf of Americans who're soccer fans. However, any true soccer fan who understands the game, will agree that the MLS SUCKS. The level of quality of the players and the teams, is very poor. Sometimes it's just plain ugly and boring watching some of these games, because they're just that bad! There are no relevant stars in the MLS (aside from the Beckham marketing move), the crowds seem to not give a shit, and there's no publicity at all. It's just a waste of time, really (in my opinion, at least). Therefore I understand why people here sometimes become true supporters of teams in Europe, afterall, there's not really a team that's worth the love true soccer fans develop for their teams.
I don't mean to offend anyone here, maybe I'm just used to a much higher level of soccer leagues, teams, matches, players... I just really want to understand why some people "love" the MLS and become "such avid fans" simply because it's the American league. It's like people know it's bad, but they'll get under the "It's American, so therefore it's good" mentality.
Would anybody else be able to give their opinion on Cheiron's question? I'm curious to hear what you guys, good loyal soccer fans who are born in America think.
Taliwakker
.....
I'll give an Australian perspective
Firsty i agree about the MLS...its shite.
The domestic league in Australia isn't much better.
To sort of answer Cheiron's question....If you love the game and the local product isn't offering any substance you have to look to where its happening and that is predominantly in Europe which arguably has the best 3 leagues in the world in the EPL, Spanish Primera and Serie A....so how do you find the team you want to support? That will vary from individual to individual with many factors like age, exposure to games, family influence and maybe some superficial stuff like jersey and recent results.
I've been a big Liverpool supporter since i remember. I was born in England and my grandfather took me to see his team (Oldham Athletic) play Liverpool in an FA cup game at Anfield back in 1977 when i was 2. Don't remember any of this of course but i had a program from the game which was on my book shelf as i grew up. For whatever reason i was drawn to Liverpool. I moved to Australia in 1982. Soccer wasn't very big over here but it was the year of the World Cup and an Australian (Craig Johnston) was playing for a Liverpool side who were doing really well at the time so they were getting some media exposure (we only had 2 tv channels at the time). That link for me settled my supportership.
A lot of overseas fans alliances probably in the past had a lot to do with media exposure.....if only one or two games from a league (say the EPL for example) are aired a week they tend to be games with a big name team playing....You'd see your Man U, Liverpool and Arsenal games or Real Madrid, Barcelona games but very unlikely you'd get coverage of Reading vs Sunderland or form any affinity for those teams.
I know lots of metalhead soccer fans who go for West Ham because of Iron Maiden. It can be a superficial reason at first but grow into something much more.
These days you can watch most any game from any league on the net and tv coverage (at least here) is quite good with cable tv....with lots of coverage from 4-5 Leagues, UEFA Cup, Chamapions League, English League and FA Cup games + plenty of highlight shows from other leagues in the world.
Anyway....yeah....why limit yourself to an inferior local product....love of the game overcomes any problems of distance and not being able to see games live at a stadium.
Firsty i agree about the MLS...its shite.
The domestic league in Australia isn't much better.
To sort of answer Cheiron's question....If you love the game and the local product isn't offering any substance you have to look to where its happening and that is predominantly in Europe which arguably has the best 3 leagues in the world in the EPL, Spanish Primera and Serie A....so how do you find the team you want to support? That will vary from individual to individual with many factors like age, exposure to games, family influence and maybe some superficial stuff like jersey and recent results.
I've been a big Liverpool supporter since i remember. I was born in England and my grandfather took me to see his team (Oldham Athletic) play Liverpool in an FA cup game at Anfield back in 1977 when i was 2. Don't remember any of this of course but i had a program from the game which was on my book shelf as i grew up. For whatever reason i was drawn to Liverpool. I moved to Australia in 1982. Soccer wasn't very big over here but it was the year of the World Cup and an Australian (Craig Johnston) was playing for a Liverpool side who were doing really well at the time so they were getting some media exposure (we only had 2 tv channels at the time). That link for me settled my supportership.
A lot of overseas fans alliances probably in the past had a lot to do with media exposure.....if only one or two games from a league (say the EPL for example) are aired a week they tend to be games with a big name team playing....You'd see your Man U, Liverpool and Arsenal games or Real Madrid, Barcelona games but very unlikely you'd get coverage of Reading vs Sunderland or form any affinity for those teams.
I know lots of metalhead soccer fans who go for West Ham because of Iron Maiden. It can be a superficial reason at first but grow into something much more.
These days you can watch most any game from any league on the net and tv coverage (at least here) is quite good with cable tv....with lots of coverage from 4-5 Leagues, UEFA Cup, Chamapions League, English League and FA Cup games + plenty of highlight shows from other leagues in the world.
Anyway....yeah....why limit yourself to an inferior local product....love of the game overcomes any problems of distance and not being able to see games live at a stadium.
I will love them forever, no matter what, but i DO love the fact that they are consistently AWESOME to no end!
rock:
All hail Sir Alex!
If Man Utd can just get by Inter in the 2nd leg, we should be OK, I think.
here's hoping for a repeat of '08!
I will admit, that being a fan makes the games more exciting.
Brazilians aren't naturally better. Its just their sport. They play it, a lot, from childhood. And there's a lot of Brazilians, so you are going to find a lot of good players. The U.S. is so damn good at so many sports due to money. We have a lot of it, and spend a lot of it to get better at things. We also have a fairly decent sized population. But Brazilians have a much more narrow focus on their athletic endeavours. Has Brazil stopped playing the beautiful game yet? Have they started to play a stronger, less wasteful, style?
Last year's world cup was really disappointing, of course, for US soccer fans. We were told about how good the US Soccer Team was. The problem was that it purely wasn't. They looked slow! I'll give them credit though, they played competitive often enough, but we were told that he US team was in the best condition of any other team. And yet they lost so many battles for the ball. It was hard to watch (though fun at the same time, of course). I don't know how good they are going to be at the upcoming World Cup. I hope they make it out of the first round though.
Brazilians aren't naturally better. Its just their sport. They play it, a lot, from childhood. And there's a lot of Brazilians, so you are going to find a lot of good players. The U.S. is so damn good at so many sports due to money. We have a lot of it, and spend a lot of it to get better at things. We also have a fairly decent sized population. But Brazilians have a much more narrow focus on their athletic endeavours. Has Brazil stopped playing the beautiful game yet? Have they started to play a stronger, less wasteful, style?
Last year's world cup was really disappointing, of course, for US soccer fans. We were told about how good the US Soccer Team was. The problem was that it purely wasn't. They looked slow! I'll give them credit though, they played competitive often enough, but we were told that he US team was in the best condition of any other team. And yet they lost so many battles for the ball. It was hard to watch (though fun at the same time, of course). I don't know how good they are going to be at the upcoming World Cup. I hope they make it out of the first round though.
I hope that Houston Dynamo can continue to play fairly well in the CONCAF. It does make me feel some pride when the US club teams beat other club teams. I'd really love it if a US club team could do some damage in the FIFA club cup tournament.
AngraRULES
Member
I did not say we're naturally better. I said we're naturally good, and you're right, it's our sport. The way we learn and the way we develop as players is different than any other place. And Brazil is not only about soccer, there's plenty of other sports at which we excel (and I'm talking about top 3 in the world).
And if you've been watching Brazil's matches lately, you'll notice that we're able to play the beautiful game with a lot more strength. Our game was never wasteful. If our soccer was wasteful, we wouldn't have won more world cups than anybody else.
As far as money, it helps. But believe me, even if the USA put thousands of dollars a day into soccer, it wouldn't make them best in the world, I guarantee that.
I agree with you about the 2006 World Cup though. I clearly remember watching an ESPN special a few hours before the first match of the tournament, where they pointed out who the Contenders and who the Pretenders were. They had the balls to put that pathetic US team (I call it pathetic because they didn't win a single match, I forget if they even scored) as a "serious contender" with "clear chances to win the cup." Again no offense meant, but it's almost like they simply "don't get it!"
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