capriccioso

Aren't they supposed to be one of the richest clubs in the world if their owners were arsed injecting proper money into them?

Shakthar have perhaps the best looking club crest going around: "WAXTAP"

The good thing is we're getting the away trip to Shakthar out of the way nice and early. It would have been horrific to go there on matchday 6 with qualification still not in the bag...

I think the difference between Mercxk's era and Lance's era/today's era is that doping in the Mercxk age was localised to just the team captains (e.g. Djamolidine Abdoujaparov, Eddy Mercxk himself, Miguel Indurain, Tom Simpson). Whereas today it's systematic and team wide, even the domestiques dope (e.g. Armstrong had at least 3 domestiques that doped while riding for him, Landis, Hamilton and Hincapie). Today I guess the most suspicious riders are the roleurs and the puncheurs. Guys like Voeckler, Voigt, Rodriguez, etc. The riders that put out consistent wattage on longer climbs are less suspicious, like Nibali. (Quick glossary for non-cycling fans: a domestique is a rider on a team who's only task is to look after his/her team captain. To bring them water bottles and food from the team car, to drop back with them if they have a punctured tire or another mechanical issue, to protect them from crashes, and to shield them from using all of their energy by riding in front of them to cover them against the wind. Basically they do all the dirty work and get little credit, so think of them as the Makelele-style defensive midfielders of cycling. Roleurs and puncheurs are used to describe two types of riders, a roleur is someone who can really drive up the pace at the front of the peloton and make riders hurt, they are the most prized domestiques; but unlike domestiques they are often permitted to ride for themselves and can win races regularly; I guess a football comparison would be a Pirlo style DM who excels at attacking as well as defending. Puncheurs are riders that have explosive capability to win races on short, but steep climbs. I can't really think of a football comparison for puncheurs.)

The Pub. Basically my argument there was based on the core group of 4- Wiggins, Froome, Porte, Rogers- all putting out unlikely amounts of power wattages relative to the fact that they've showed little-to-no potential of being good climbers; and the presence of the two dodgy doctors on Team Sky. That and the hard to grasp fact that Wiggins lost weight and out TT-ing Fabian Cancellara. We know that Wiggins was outputting at least 440 watts for a sustained period, and that no one else outside of Team Sky could exceed that.

Actually, the more I think of it, the more a long drive across the Nullarbor appeals to me. That 1200km drive is over a massive block of limestone- the Nullarbor Plain isn't actually a plain, it's an unimaginably large rock where virtually nothing grows. Though the route is pan flat throughout, there are some spectacular views of the ocean to be had, if you have the balls to pull over and wade out across a few hundred metres of prime snake areas. It would be fucking scary at night, I'd imagine. Some sort of Wolf Creek scenario would be pretty likely. There are no street lights alongside the Eyre Highway. All you look at all day long is this: When you enter the Nullarbor proper, it gets worse: And the road is pan flat and dead straight the whole way through:

What can you expect from a country where you can drive for 1200km and not find so much as a drop of water? Obviously our beverage industry won't be doing great Yes, we still have life savers.

Or you could buy Cherry Coke. Which isn't sold here either!

Now we'll never know the truth! I wonder how many cosmonauts Khrushchev killed off before they managed to get Gagarin safely home.

Yeah, Dr. P really is great. Still criminally overpriced at Coles though. Do you have a Coles or a Woolworths near Cunnamulla? Or do neither of them have franchises near where you live?

Simplicity in itself. Ask for a merger with Jim It's because me and Kojo are one infraction from a perma-ban, and neither of us are that jaded with this place yet that we would consider leaving/getting perma-banned.

Thanks for those photos. Ronaldo, what a man. Stick it to the twats that control player awards.

And then repeat the process with the FIFA Balon D'or, and all those other end of year awards . Waste of time, if you're going to award it to a top 3 who did bugger all in the late stages of the CL.

Despicable. Cech and Drogba should be in the top 5 at least if not the top 3. Why fucking bother with this award if you're going to include league form and Euro form? May as well merge it with the FIFA Balon D'or. This should be reserved for the best player in European club competition, and none of Iniesta, Ronaldo or Messi were good enough in the CL last season to warrant that. But the whole world want's MESSI AND RONALDO 200 GOALS A SEASON #BESTPLAYERSEVER.

It surprises me how people cannot see that Mario Gomez is even shitter than Hernandez. At least Hernandez you can bank on to not soil his underwear every time a chance comes his way in a big match. Credit where it's due, as far as useless goal poachers go, Hernandez is far from the epitome.

No. Mexico aside, I don't think any other CONCACAF nation has produced a player that would get into our squad. American's, Canadian's, Guatemalan's, Caribbean Island nations, Panamanian's etc. aren't names you associate with good football prowess. Western Africa is the hotspot. Central America/CONCACAF has been replaced by CAF as the third best confederation.

Too many people define Group of Death as in the group with the toughest teams on paper. The hardest possible group would be: *One of the 1st Category clubs* Galatasaray Celtic Shakthar/Zenit/Spartak/Dyanmo Kiev/Cluj. We'd pick up about 2 points on the road with a group like that. Stupidly good home records those teams have.

Because I like Shakthar's aggressive policy of starting 11 Brazilians.

AC Milan have a very easy group, though they'll lose in Leningrad to Zenit. As do Arsenal. Group A is an unknown quantity, anyone could win that group. Except Zagreb. Man United have two very difficult away trips to Cluj and Galatasaray. We may well see them struggle to top the group. Ajax and Dortmund should pose no problem for City and Real. Group G is the group of death, because you have Barcelona a few dozen classes above the rest and then three teams that are all capable of beating each other, even Spartak 'We're so irrelevant that everyone calls us CSKA' Moscow. Also it'll be a bit lol to see how the princesses of La Masia handle playing in the cauldron that is Celtic Park, and their favourite away excursion to Russia. Barca should still comfortably top the group but they have a non-existent defence, Celtic have one of the strongest home records in Europe, if Benfica still have that massive Cardozo bloke they could shock Barcelona, and even 'CSKA' might take a point off Barcelona at home.

Right, we should win this group with 15 points. 5 wins, 1 loss in Donetsk. I'm predicting: Chelsea (15) Shakthar Donetsk (12) Juventus (3) Jesper Gronkjaer (3)

Arsenal have a sitter of a group. Only worry for them is if the Greek civilians riot while they're playing Olympiakos.

That is another potentially difficult away trip we've avoided. Can we have Dinamo?

Precisely, they are a shadow of what they were pre-Calciopoli; Serie A or no Serie A.

Canavarro doesn't speak English?

Galatasaray will beat them in Istanbul, comfortably. Braga are a quality team and will cause them trouble. They have a group very nearly as difficult as ours.