johnnythefirst

Van Gaal is an absolute twat of a man (seriously, he consistently talks about himself in third person during interviews) but he's doing it again. Without even playing good football, Utd will easily get into the CL next year... That and the fact he got to the WC semi finals with about 3 good players and a bunch of nameless guys playing in the Dutch league. Not a bad coach I guess. ;-)

There's a good reason for this, since the richest clubs buy lots of players only to be loaned out for a couple of years later. It would give them yet another advantage compared to the smaller teams. The loanees are often their best players. If you loan a player out, he's not your player for that season. And that's that. Also, seriously? Are you afraid of big bad Torres? What are you, a bunch of fairies?

I wonder why they even give it a shot... Ok, he's one of their home-grown players, but come one, Atletico is far above his level by now...

In theory, they were good. If you saw them play you wouldn't say that. They were fucking shit on that tournament, and the only thing that got them to the finals was the genius of Zidane. He defeated Brazil practically by himself in the QF. They mostly sucked because their manager was a completely incompetent lunatic. Look what happened to them after he quit: group stage in 2008, group stage in 2010. They've only started recovering this year.

Well neither Ronaldo or Messi would score 58 goals in the PL I think, but I agree. At this moment, CR7 is slightly better, but I still enjoy watching Messi much more. I wonder what we'll make of them in 10 years from now. I have no doubt Messi will high be on every best of all time list, but I wonder where Ronaldo will end. His stats are out of this world but for some reason I rate players like Zidane, Ronaldinho and pre-injured actual Ronaldo much higher (and this only looking at players from the nineties and onward). Zidane was an awesome leader and big-game winner who took an absolutely horrible France to the WC finals in 2006. Ronaldo was probably the most complete striker ever in his prime, kept scoring big league goals for years as a fat out of shape couch potato and Ronaldinho could make football look like magic and invented several moves. CR7 has fantastic goal instinct and and awesome physique, but I wonder what would happen if he somehow lost his speed. He'll never be a leader as well. When he's playing in a non top-tier team like Portugal, he just goes down with the ship.

If you play him like he does at our national team, as a technically gifted defensive midfielder, he's amazing. He's quite consistent and he rarely loses balls. This said, you don't really need him and a 40,000,000 euro player is not coming as a backup option. Naingolan would offer pretty much the same for less money btw, although I rate him slightly less than Witsel.

I'm seriously wondering why some people are acting like Messi is some kind of hasbeen. The guy is 27 years old and already scored 23 goals in 22 matches this year. It's not because Ronaldo is doing even better this year, that he suddenly stopped being world class.

I think Oliver Kahn had the highest ape index of them all! Don't know why. ^^

On the vid I'm seeing, it could have ended horribly with some bad luck...

How in fuck's name was that not a red card? He tried to murder him...

Weird, Belgian newspapers report the deal already done...

Seriously, who keeps mentioning this? Does this really happen in reality? And why would a team agree on that? If they want to buy him back, this means almost by definition that his value would be higher than the buy-back deal in the contract.

Nah, Ronaldinho just decided to play for fun again. He won everything, and he liked to party. Wouldn't call that a decline, he just gave up completely and only living for his sport. He's still fun to watch and will perform the occasional magic trick. Torres never gave up. He just can't do it anymore because he's physically and mentally broken.

Concerning the posts about those Down-kids. He was one of the faces of the recent European Summer Special Olympics organised in Belgium this September. There were posters made of his face as if he had Down-syndrome. It was trying to get more people to come and support those kids. Actually quite a good campaign in my eyes. This all just to make it clear that he didn't put that tweet out in deliberate bad taste. Or he translated it wrong, or he was referring to "Special Olympics Athletes" Here's the poster:

Belgian press is saying 'Gladbach is having talks with Chelsea about Thorgan. Apparently they want to keep him for a longer run.

Your knowledge of the human mind is staggering.

Just read this. What is said about Raul is bullshit though. He wasn't played as a 9 in his later years at Madrid. Actually he was shoved back a spot as soon as Brazilian Ronaldo arrived, hence less goals. Also, a bit premature to say Messi passed his peak. That Barca team passed his peak, Messi is part of it. That's why the poor guy only managed to score a measly 17 goals in 18 games this season.

Belgian newspapers are linking Cech to Liverpool, because of the Mignolet blunders these days...

Has anybody, ever, put a buy back clause in the contract of an expensive player? I think not, actually.

Does anyone seriously believe this? Messi will only leave Barca when he's not good enough for the team anymore. This will not happen in the next four-five years. ;-)

He's becoming more consistent and slowly growing to his regular form. Nice goal and assist. (Am I the only one posting here? )

Woopwoop! Belgian team did not finish last in its CL group. It's like actually winning it!

Arsenal fans made a thank you video for Arsene. Made me lol:

He also makes the whole game faster. We have a lot of players who want the ball at their feet and slow everything down.

A lot of the problems would be fixed with Naingolan or Defour in stead of Fellaini, and anyone in stead of Chadli in the starting eleven. Chadli is incredibly overrated by Wilmots for some reason. He's reasonably good at everything but very good at nothing. Same goes for Mirallas, whom I rate higher. If he starts playing more consistently, my main man on the other wing will always be Januzaj. He bends it like Beckham. We have no one else who comes close in that aspect of the game. With a monster like Benteke up front, and good heading defenders like Lombaerts and Kompany, we need a guy who can actually kick a corner. Mertens should always be used as the supersub ime.