Soccer (Football) Thread

[minionofmidas]

We've had a God-awful start to the season. Word is that our new manager will be Roy Keane.

Going from bad to worse, is Sunderland?
Happy days in the National Conference!

We've drawn our first two matches. Away to Schalke, where we were expected to lose and frankly would have deserved to lose, and at home against Wolfsburg, where we were expected to win and would have deserved to win.

[minionofmidas]

It will be Keane, it has been confirmed. I get a suspicion that he'll either be a suprisingly good manager, or as bad as Satan (ie; Lawrie McMenemy) was.
As for why he's doing it; no idea.

because no one believes he's got even the tiny bit of brains needed to be a big club manager, and he wants to be a big club manager. So he has to go to some third rate club and hope to be successful there and get to be a big club manager after all. I call it the Lothar Matthäus syndrome.

[minionofmidas]

We won a game!

Hey, we haven't done that yet. 1-1, 0-0, 1-1 is hardly an exciting start to a season... then again, we had 3 red cards against us, all for fairly minor offenses and one of them downright wrong (manager of Wolfsburg about his player's dive: "In England, you can get lynched for things like that"), and two penalties against us, both of them saved, one of them undeserved.

[minionofmidas]

I cant believe West Ham pulled off that deal. The deal of the season. What i also cannot belive is how Man United missed out on so many players (hargreaves, Tevez, and Reo-Coker)

Hargreaves was not on the market period. Whoever had the dumb idea of trying to sign him anyways ... er ... doesn't know how Bayern does business.

[minionofmidas]

We were beaten by the better team, no doubt, but that goal frustrates nonetheless. Showed some positive spirit and a good effort generally, so hopefully we can be competitive in the group.

That goal was really unfortunate. But there's a part of me that feels like Steve Staunton just isnt good enough for this job.

Robbie Keane once again scored in an Ireland vs Germany game... sense of deja vu anyone?

[minionofmidas]

Jari Litmane scored twice in against Poland, yeah

Yeah. Biggest surprise of the night, well along with Italy.

[minionofmidas]

We were beaten by the better team, no doubt, but that goal frustrates nonetheless. Showed some positive spirit and a good effort generally, so hopefully we can be competitive in the group.

That goal was really unfortunate. But there's a part of me that feels like Steve Staunton just isnt good enough for this job.

You and everyone else...

Robbie Keane once again scored in an Ireland vs Germany game... sense of deja vu anyone?

I'm semiserious though. I was kinda miffed they treated it as a Podolski goal. It should be considered an own goal IMO.

[minionofmidas]

Liechtenstein is 124th in the FIFA world rankings, ahead of about half a dozen European sides. They played a surprising qualification (by their standards) for 2006, beating Luxembourg (a country 10 times Liechtenstein's size?) twice with ease and winning two upset draws against stronger teams.