capriccioso

Those stats are incredible. He loses the ball once a match and has a 5 in 6 tackle success rate. And he's only been beaten 11 times.

I think you're forgetting that we have the wealth of nations in our bank account. United, Arsenal, even AC Milan, don't and therefore they're selling clubs. Our players are way out of the reach of any club in the world, we only sell if we don't want him.

Perhaps I am. I blame Floyd Landis for turning me into a cynic. I remember as a 12 year old being amazed by his exploits, a week later he got exposed. It shattered my trust in athletes, and these days I tend to go off the assumption that anyone good is on something and wait for them to prove that they're not. In my opinion, the right of presumed innocence has sailed in professional sports; and the burden of proof rests on the defence, not the prosecution; especially when you get cases like Marion Jones and Lance Armstrong who 'never tested positive' (well, actually, the courts revealed a couple of days ago that Lance had tested positive in 1999 but it had been hushed up). It's happened too often now. We need a massive fall out for it to be stamped out of sport altogether, or we'll have farces like the 100 metres men's final in the 1988 Seoul Games (where every single competitor tested positive) as the norm.

I now know just how tough it is to do anything with a stomach bug. I've had a very tough time the last 3 days just getting to uni and back. I used to criticise athletes for sitting out matches/playing well below normal for stomach bugs, now I see just how much they have to fight to put in even an average performance.

Much the same. At least the sun was out. Two days spent outdoors in that kind of weather is making me feel on the verge of catching a cold.

Outside of academia and a small group of friends, no one takes me seriously. That includes the vast majority of my friends and all of my family. It was a major problem for me when I was younger (and its still there a little with me today), I had to act out to attract attention. Not that I'm egotistical or anything, its just that it gets very frustrating when your family didn't care what your preferences or opinion on a matter, even when it concerned you, at all.

Steven Van Zandt?

Does anyone else need a warm up time of about 3-4 tests before they start hitting good speeds?

No one takes you seriously? No one takes me seriously, either.

Apologies.

On the contrary, I take everything you say quite seriously. I can't tell when you're serious or not.

You call that a spider? This is a spider. I'm no spider expert but judging by its size and its colour, I would guess that it was a Sydney Funnel Web spider.

Alright, whatever he is, he is an extraordinarily corrupt man. That doesn't take away from his awesomeness, though. Re: Chelsea and doping: http://www.guardian....newsstory.sport Cleared by the UK authorities or not, its still a drug and in other sports would see hefty punishment. I would say every top flight club in every major league in Europe indulges in the practice. There's so much money at stake. You hear stories of athletes from other sports pumping this lethal stuff into their bodies- for maybe an extra 100 grand at the end of the year. A footballer who juices his way to the top can earn that in a week. A football clubs entire financial future can depend on its league position (hi, Leeds) http://www.newscient.../article/dn7375 Lets not be naive here. Just because we love someone or something doesn't mean its does not invest in illegal medical practices.

Do you think they would have offered to pay for the treatment if Messi had been some street kid with no talent whatsoever?

Why does that shock you? We're owned by a Russian mobster and our doctor is Spanish. It would be a surprise if it was the other way.

A country where the government is over protective of its citizens, and interferes in their daily lives.

But if everyone declines and he stays the same, can that be considered an improvement? I would say no. Also for a player to play in excess of 75 games a season on average (including internationals and pre season) 5 years running whilst hardly ever getting injured and only looking fatigued for one month towards the end of that 5 year period stretches my belief. Furthermore he does a lot more running than other winger/strikers, because of Barcelona's pressing. And then there are the likes of Xavi, who also turn out for Catalunya (albeit rarely) in addition to Spain and Barcelona. EPO is used widely throughout football, as evidenced by all those sudden cardiac arrests we've seen in recent years, the Juventus doping case in the 90s, and Operacion Puerto. We'll know when he's about 40. EPO enlarges the head, causes heart disease and cancer, increases the risk of cardiac arrest, etc.

He lacks the attitude at this point. As Clevemayer said he needs to become more aggressive.

Yes, and I took that back in the above post. Perhaps someone more familiar with the workings of game theory than me could come up with more accurate probability figures. Going more into the tangent this thread has become, I love discussing what if scenarios in sport. More fascinating than the real thing.

No they wouldn't dare give him HGH now, it would look far too suspicious if he suddenly put on an inch in height and a few kilo's of muscle. How can Messi improve on his virtually perfect ball control/finishing? All the room he has to improve is perhaps physically and mentally, and even that, I doubt- his tactical knowledge is already immense and he already possesses the stamina (read: EPO) to play 65 games for 5 seasons and only burn out for about one month near the end of the 5 year cycle. Also regarding Torres we can't know until we take a look at training data. I would still back Mikel over 5 metres as he has longer legs.

Nothing is 100% certain. I would give Brazil a 95% chance of success if they subbed Felipe Melo at half time.

Let's re examine his HGH treatment: He got it at Barcelona at age 12-13, when it was already apparent he had massive potential technically. He was already at the club when they gave it to him. He was a sportsman at that point, it should be illegal. It would be in other sports. It's not like they gave him HGH before he showed the potential to be the player of his generation. It's no different to what US Postal did with Lance Armstrong. Actually I take that back, its a world apart. Lance showed no potential whatsoever to be anything other than an average cyclist. Messi on the other hand had abnormal levels of technical ability at 13, it was clear that with careful coaching and a big increase in size he could go on to be a very good player. Though he has been unprecedentedly good.

I read a lot of Cycling News. 'The Clinic' sub-forum is probably the best forum of any kind anywhere in the internet. The amount of scientific knowledge they have there and the amount of dopers they've caught out before the media is amazing.

It was a slight exaggeration, but the point is Torres can't get away from his opponents over 5-10 metre distances. He needs 20+, which is only effective in a Barcelona style counter attack where he's one on one. Also regarding peaks, no one can say that Drogba was a better player at ~25 than he was at 30. That was his peak, he plateau'd it out for 3-4 years. Messi appears to have plateau'd in the last year or so, he can't get much better. Unless they give him another round of HGH.

They were in complete control up until the o.g., at which point others also lost their heads, though not on the scale of Melo. The Dutch looked as likely to score as Quasimoto. If it had been one of our players that did that in a Chelsea match that attitude wouldn't be displayed by many.