capriccioso

Ooh, good question. BlueLion, I'd imagine?

You're not serious about Pardew? Granted he's a good manager but he left West Ham for political reasons. Whatever's happening on the east side is nothing compared to what goes on in Roman's court.

Hello Steve's grandad Sorry to disappoint but I don't think any of us have the money to fly you and Steve out to London and get you tickets as well

What?

Yeah, it's great practice for them. Certainly better than cameos in the Carling Cup. Every cloud has its silver lining

Hahahaha

Not in my book. A hammering for me is where we are in so far in front, so early that we could play 11 goalkeepers and still win.

We didn't hammer them. They were in it for 105 minutes, lets not forget.

I don't particularly want to see Essien. Lampard instead of Meireles?

I don't think club friendlies count in the modern era. Unless your name is Romario, that is

^ What Spike said. Get 'em early or watch them bugger off to Spain/Man City.

Our national team is pretty good, amongst the best in Asia and the equal of any in CAF or CONCACAF, and CONMEBOL excluding Brazil and Argentina. UEFA we could probably beat most teams, except for the likes of England, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands and Spain- and we always lift when we play England, so I wouldn't be too sure about that With regards to Chelsea Hadjuk, they were an ethnic club founded by Croatian's, and it's now been merged with Dandenong City Soccer Club. Soccer Club?!

Yep, I don't always mock other clubs, but when I do, its Liverpool Edit: That could be a meme as well

FB, it is. Our former national team manager, Pim Verbeek, once famously said "There is more quality in a Bundesliga training session than there is in an A-League match". Its a bit harsh, but not far from the mark. Our league won't really get to a much higher standard unless we keep our best players, and that won't happen until the salary cap is lifted and billionaires can run amok.

Barca aren't all that! I have full confidence that this squad, from 34 year old Drogba down to the teenage defenders, are amongst the best in the world when motivated. Bring it on! Milan or Barca, we can still win! And Milan, they certainly have some weaknesses in their squad. Alright, their forward line is miles ahead of ours. They've got a marginally better midfield. I'd rate our defences as even, and Petr is a better keeper than theirs. It'll be tough for them. Of course there's the issue of Benfica first. We've got to do a professional job on them first, lets not get too far ahead of ourselves.

Spot on, BM. We probably need to score a goal, their attack isn't as devastating as Napoli's but you can safely bet if they attack for 90 minutes we'll have trouble keeping a clean sheet.

Hi! Welcome, and I hope you'll be another great addition to the already very large Australian community of posters on this board And set your fears at rest, if anyone can not be accused of being plastics, its us. Who else gets up at insane hours and skips uni/school/work to watch Chelsea?

Well it didn't turn out so badly. I've lost another 10% because turnitin will only open tomorrow, but at least I don't fail the course as a result of a non-submission. Makes me regret my meltdown a bit, I feel a bit stupid now lol. Hahaha I've wished that so many times! Monday's aren't my 'bogey days' anymore because I only have uni on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and I'm currently unemployed.

I am fucking livid. I spent the whole weekend working on an assignment, I was a day late and went to submit it, but it says 'late submissions will not be accepted for this assessment'. I've fucking wasted who knows how many hours and I'll still get 0 for it

Good point.

That wasn't a simple tap in tbf, he had to slide in to get to the ball and there's no telling where the ball will go if you approach it like that. And a goal is a goal, whether you score it when you're 31-0 up (thanks, Archie Thompson ) or drawing 0-0 in the 120th minute of the World Cup Final.

Even Drogba I'm iffy on. He's my all-time favourite player, and I'll probably shed a few tears when he leaves but he's just not cutting the mustard anymore and we can't afford to give him a 2 year deal. Perhaps a 1 year contract to begin with with an automatic 1 year extension clause if he scores 15 goals in the season or some such. And by the way, this is an excellent idea for a topic

I wonder how we'll go about the game. Will we look to defend and nick a goal and keep it tight, or will we try and blast Benfica out of the water and go for an early 3 or 4 goal aggregate lead? I think the former would be a far better option, Benfica are a quality side and no doubt they'll come out and attack from the whistle. We can exploit that and play on the counter, but I don't think we should try to out-attack them. Of course, an attacking approach will be the last thing they expect so maybe we should go all out for the opening 5 minutes to catch them off guard and hopefully score a goal before withdrawing and defending for the rest of the match. Huge tactical headache for me, thank god it's di Matteo's problem and not mine

Apart from Obi, Kalou and possibly Drogba, everyone else needs to be shown the door. You've also missed out on Lampard, Bosingwa and Cole in your list.

Yesterday I got a pretty good April Fool from my sister, who capitalised on my fear of cockroaches and woke me up with one of those plastic cockroaches. I wasn't laughing at the time but in hindsight it was kinda funny