TorontoChelsea

Someone should tell him that! Although,to be fair to him, he's been playing better since Ba came.

Third straight game for Torres where he gets an assist.

Beautiful goal!

Not just inflation, but inflation of how much teams spent. 10M was massive then. I agree with you though, doesn't really matter. Both were awful signings.

But at that time, it was still a lot of money. (12M pounds I think). It would be about the equivalent of 30-35M now. True, not as expensive as Torres, but he was also worse.

Italian fashion. Have you seen the face-masks on the catwalks of Milan this year? Just gorgeous.

Public relations.

I forgot to mention, I often disable certain victory types. Sometimes I go just military. Sometimes, military and cultural.Sometimes military, cultural or UN voting. I hate the science win because it just seems silly and I find it too easy so I almost never use it. Let me know how it goes!

I always tweak my maps. Sometimes, I play with no barbarians because I find them a nuisance that detracts from what I enjoy about the game (good way to run up XP for troops though and obviously can't do that if you're playing Germany) . I play quick games if I am going for some non-military victory but longer if I want to go military. I occasionally take city states off completely which makes the game very different. I usually like bigger maps and large continents. Sometimes, I play earth. Sometimes everything else. The advantage of Spain can be enormous. If you find a wonder near you, it's a huge early-game boost. You get $500 (which you can then use to settle the wonder or buy a massive army to take over.) If you get El Dorado, you start off with $1,000 which makes you unstoppable. Also, if you settle next to the wonder, it doubles its output which would be a massive boost every turn (it can give you +20 gold or +10 culture, or whatever). The conquistadors are amazing for settling continents. (They are horseman that can turn into settlers) although the other special troop is pretty crap. Definitely worth giving them a spin.

Elizabeth is killer on an island map (Dutch are pretty good too). I usually like long games where I build lots of wonders and defend early but my technological and cultural advantages mean that by the end I'm walloping them with my death robots. When I want to play for fun, I choose Spain. If you get a wonder anywhere near you, it's amazing. If you don't, you've got no chance.

Which civ do you play with most? I tend to like Egypt as I love wonders, Persia, or Russia (best at end game total war).

I think the opposite. Since when did Mourinho let his players free to roam around the pitch? He demands defensive solidity and shape. Hazard is developing very well but Oscar isn't yet. I don't think it's down to coaching, I think it's that the role Oscar would be best in, is already taken by a superior player (Mata). By saying he belongs in the middle of the pitch, you are moving Mata out to the wing and where does Hazard go? Right wing? You are going to de-emphasize our two best offensive players for a player who hasn't scored a goal from open play yet in the league? It's up to Oscar to adapt his game rather than Chelsea changing our entire lineup to suite him.

I've always thought the opposite. If I wear my Chelsea shirt, I should get Samsung discounts. I mean, I'm doing walk-around advertising for them (or Coors or Emirates, or Autoglass) so I should get free stuff!!

I agree. Especially in a close game like this. If the match is 4-1 there's almost no chance of changing the MOTM, but 2-1? If Fred scored the equalizer he'd have had 2 goals. How would he not be MOTM?

The ref did his best to make sure Ghana would go through, but the right team won in the end.

Ghana and Burkina Faso going to penalties

Walcott is just destroying Adriano.

SUPER FRANK!

Oh Gary...

Happy that Cole and Lampard will only play a half each. They need the rest.

Congrats Stingray. Well deserved.

The problem is, what IS the third best league? Premier League and La Liga are clearly #1 and #2 in some order and while Italy used to be as good as any league in the world, absurd levels of corruption and much less money means that it just isn't at that level. I think the reason Bayern will dominate is simply money. Over the past 2 years, Bayern has spent around 95M pounds on transfers. That's three times more than any other team. You can't compete long-term while being outspent like that.

I hope Luiz doesn't play. Hate to see someone not fit for us but fit enough to play in an international friendly.

I'd sort of love to approach a footballer making 150K a week right before a massive game and offer them like 83p to throw it.

I'm not sure of how much of that is Le Saux's fault and how much was his teammates. It can be difficult to act intelligent and sophisticated in sporting environments because you're always seen as not "one of the guys". One of my favourite sports books is Ball Four about one baseball player's 1969 season. The writer was always seen as an outsider himself and he also recounts some funny anecdotes about one player who management didn't like because he had long hair and liked to read Dostoevsky. (The manager's favourite and almost only advice in all situations was "go pound some Budweiser".) I'm not saying athletes are mostly dumb, but there is a certain sort of jock chumminess that if you don't have, will get you disliked. Even at the relatively low levels of sports that I played, this was evident.