Magic Lamps

one should always be careful with Jewish curses. Ours is a certain Yossi Benayoun on the bench, who is condemned to never win anything. Let's see which curse is stronger^^

It is never only about brute force, the faster your shot the more difficult is it to place it. As most great penalty takers, Ballack has an amazing shooting technique, hitting them very hard and precise. He might have always looked a bit crude here, playing next to Lampard, but Ballack has always been a technically accomplished player. The only German players with better skills are probably Özil and Bernd Schneider.

There is always a difference between what you say to the press what one does in training and what you actually do. Jogi Löw says they never practice corners or freekicks in training. I am pretty sure they do. Moses out is a huge blow, surely. Without him we got no useful options on the bench whatsoever...Ramires on the wing has never been a good idea this season. AS we got no real wingers a narrow formation like a 4-3-2-1 sounds a logical consequence Defense rami-Mikel(fit?)-Lamps ----Mata-----Oscar---- ----------.-----------------

Also dailyfail is yet to report on Cavani to Chelsea, so there might be something in it

That is indeed pretty unusual for a German. There is a reason why Germans are usually great penalty takers (if you are not Bastian Schweinsteiger at least): we love pens, its in the genes. At Euro 2000 when I was 6 years old, i did always wanted games to end a draw in order to have penalties, even though I did know nothing about the german history of success in shoot-outs or anything. In Germany, when people meet in the park to play a bit, they always think of rules to include penalties, such as 3 corners = penalty etc. The result is, every 12 year old boy has 20 variations of how to shoot a penalty with double feint, delayed run-up, eyes off the ball a.s.o. The fun and the confidence a German got in his effort from the spot, surely lifts the pressure a bit in whatever situation. Btw. Ballack deserves to be arrested for driving a Audi Q7, maybe the ugliest German car ever...

He fits us better than Falcao, is younger, has the right size for an EPL lone forward, surely better than Lewandowski overall... but also costs double as much. 42.5m pounds are exactly 50m, a high but reasonable price for such a special player. I think this has always been more probable than Falcao and also Lewandowski, but I won't believe anything before it's official. Hope this would not impede Lukaku's development too much. Cavani has 5 years left on the top. Remember Forlan, they are pretty similar not only in haircut and Forlan played his best season with 31 years... Of course we have to reckon that this would freeze money we could also spend on new CB, DM, DLP or winger...

and if things are not running we can bring German Messi or the deadly Benayoun from the bench... Wonder whether it is possible to win such a game with a player like Torres as lone striker... Benfica have far better balance in their team, but it consists of solid and average players, no real worldclass men...It is crucial Benitez gets his tactics spot on, then we got a chance... i feel, something is different than it has been in previous cup finals this season. Can this game fuckin start now before I start to absorb transcendental vibrations to forecast this match?!

I'd had no problem starting with Courtois next season. I've watched many of his games and IMO he is a top 5 goalie already, and will be better than Cech, who is slowly declining, before 2015. I don't get why he should be loaned within the EPL. If Atletico have such a good defense, he won't have too much to do most of the time, as he will have here, so no reason to loan him to mediocre english team. A goalkeeper has to save whatever comes towards his goal and whether that goal stands in Spain or in England does not make much of a difference.

this probably is it for Wigan

Woud kinda miss Wigan... there would be no point raiding them anyway. also walcott shall not score any more goals for Lampard to remain English topscorer

Since I have been a chelsea fan the biggest competitive rivalry has been with ManUtd for sure. In terms of hatred I feel from other Chelsea fans it is Tottenham, then Liverpool, then Arsenal. But one thing I enjoy is that we are historically rivals with every cunt club that is or has been a factor in the EPL: Milwall, Leeds, QPR and also WHam and Fulham The new rivalry will be Oil Firm vs City.

Lol@ people who believed that bullshit. Bayern usually buy wisely. it is not their style purchasing an unproven, flashy mega-hyped fashion product like Neymar out of nowhere

@anyone who already got the home kit, how's the fitting? they do not sell it here which is shit for people with my proportions. It looks rather wide on the waist on Alex but really tight on Hazard...My waist would do with an S or M but my shoulders and chest want a L or XL...this really sucks when you want to order clothing online.

Shaun maloney equalizes for Wigan with an amazing freekick.

Just an idea: Lamps scoring and Torres not scoring might have something to do with the fact that Lampard is thousand times better finisher than Torres.... btw. Lampard has once again been the Englishman with most league goals (15) and tied most goals in all competitions for club and country with Rooney (22). One gets to understand why England could not score more than one goal in Montenegro without him...

True, still our job probably will it be to take the game to Benfica. When we achieve to dominate them we can benefit from their blown confidence. We also countered Basel and Kazan, but we scored only one goal on the counter, due to our wastefulness.

But we had Drogba...

It really had to be illusions rather depression , Rooney suffered from, cos in England's last encounter with Argentina, which was in 2005, no one was sent off. Rooney actually played really well and scored that day. Not sure which red card you mean, cos he gets plenty, but I guess that one vs Portugal for kicking an opponent into the genitals must have hurt the most - both. But i agree with what you want to say, he is mentally more fragile than most think, even though his dumb simplicity suggests otherwise.

which is not true. The top four teams of England have stagnated, whilst both, Dortmund and BAyern have their best teams ever. If you regard the whole league the gap between the EPL and the other leagues has never been wieder. This year's bundesliga , apart from the big two, has been the worst I have ever seen and La liga is not covering itself in glory, too.

The former part one can argue about. I am pretty sure Mata won't improve much. With 25 you are won't develop too much as a player anymore, you only can try to get the best out of what you already got in terms of quality. Technically there is not much room for improvement anyway and physically it only gets worse once you pass that 25 years mark. Mata already is a relatively pathetic athlete. Secondly, Rambo Mikel should be in their prime, even when this means they are incomplete. Ramires relies so much on his physical attributes he surely will not get any better. This is not a problem of form but a problem of quality, then.

IMO also for a CM he is really fast and skilled He is our 2nd most skilful, 2nd fastest and 2nd best passer and 2nd best tackler in CM, so has the best all-round pakage to play there. I also think he should remain CB, but for tomorrow we need him in midfield when Mikel is out.

1.Mata, Ramires, Luiz, Cahill, Mikel are in the perfect age for a footballer, which is 25-28 imo. Ivanovic, Cech are still pretty close to it. I do not think this is a problem, actually many clubs have this age structure e.g. Barca when they won the CL and Dortmund now. 2. We certainly do have a style. It is not that brillant but we play medium-paced posession style domestically and counter-attacking style in Europe, we just lack the pace to do it effectively. I think we often do decent pressing and I like the the short-pass, long-pass balance. 3. yup. but Benfica lack most of it, too.

btw we should not expect any truth from these reports in the press about our inuries. Rafa is clever enough to keep this secret.

This sucks. Benfica are actually not the kind of opposition against which I feel too comfortable having a pivot of Lamps+Ramires. they play this free-flowing attack and both Lampard and Ramires like to go forward, whilst Lampard is likely to get overrun at times. Provided Mikel is out, I'd go with ----------Cech---- Azpi-Cahill-Iva-Cole -----Luiz----Rami---- Oscar-Lamps-Mata ---------Torres------- Maybe, it's half the team played out of position but it is far more solid than a pivot of Lamps+Rami. Guys, say welcome back to the bus

of course, but they do their player's development no favour by not letting them play to theri technical potential. you can do this with pros, but with juniors? You have to learn to play before you have to learn to win. In Germany we probably got the best youth work in there is and our youth coaches do not give a shit about trophies. First priority is always to play cultivated, technical football.