Dion

I have mixed feelings about this. I don't see exactly where Drogba fits or what he brings to the table. Of course he's good in the air. But so is Costa, even if not as good as Didier. Maybe we could use him in the last minutes of a game to improve our chances in set pieces and to defend better, but aside from that he doesn't really improve us. And having Didier also means less chances for Lukaku and Ba (fuck Torres who cares about him). I'll always be happy to see Drogba on the pitch but I'm also afraid that if he plays too poorly or something bad happens (like missing some important sitter) it may stain his legacy.

I agree with you but at the same time I'm afraid about how Costa is going to perform. Strikers usually struggle a bit playing for us and the fact that Costa is a player who relies massively on others to create chances for him makes me uneasy. My head says he will do really good because our midfield is looking bright this season but I just have this gut feeling that everything seems too good to be true. Hazard will surely enjoy someone to overlap with him and to do one-twos.

He hasn't played Brazilian Serie A. Chelsea bought him directly from São Paulo FC youth ranks.

Some people also call it cacetinho in the RS apparently. I've lived there and can't recall anyone calling it cacetinho though. I also think whenever brazilians use cacetinho, they say "pão cacetinho" whereas in Portugal it is only "cacetinho" or "baguette" from what I understood.

Summarizing and adding a bit of information to what @Barbara has said: the difference between european portuguese and brazilian portuguese is slightly bigger than between british english and american english. But the difference between portuguese and spanish is smaller than between english and dutch or english and german. Portuguese and spanish are similar enough that you are usually able to make yourself understood to each other. European portuguese stands somewhere between brazilian portuguese and spanish. The speed and accent they speak in Portugal resembles a lot the way spanish is spoken whereas brazilian portuguese is much slower paced - however, vocabulary and phrasal structure between both are quite similar. There are funny differences though. Like @Barb said the way they call girls in Portugal means bitch/hooker/prostitute in brazilian portuguese. And when portuguese people ask for bread they're actually asking for a small dick in brazilian portuguese. @Ainsley Harriott, já provaste um cacetinho brasileiro, ora pois?

HAHAHAHAHA. I had not caught that one, good stuff!

"he made me believe that he wanted me in a very good way". José wants the D.

Your friend must be at least about 180cm, because Thibaut is freaking tall - 196cm.

Michael Jordan? Beckham kinda looks good but his head isn't completely shaven.

Most people look terrible with shaved heads. I got my head shaved when I joined my university (brazilian tradition) and omg I look freaking ugly bald. I almost felt bad going out and forcing people to look at my hideous head. Somehow I managed to forget how grotesque I look and did it again last year by curiosity. I'm never doing that mistake again. #respect for those who are ballsy enough to shave and keep it like that.

I just found out about the existence of the "suffoco" role. Have you ever heard about it? ""Suffoco" is a relatively new role in which the midfield No. 10 expands his responsibilities. No longer will he simply create, but also man-mark, tackle, intercept and hold the ball up." "In truth, there is no official name for this role is, but I'm having my stab at it by labelling it the "suffoco." It's born directly from the existence of the regista, and it's been cropping up quietly in Europe. How do you stop the regista dictating? You stick a man on him to nullify his influence. With a regista typically so deep he's within whispering distance of the central defender, the only man you deploy to irritate him is the No. 10. So the No. 10's role changes, it is to stifle, not create. Andrea Pirlo's influence during Italy vs. Croatia in Euro 2012 was severely limited due to Mario Mandzukic's dogged pressure. Marouane Fellaini has been an absolute revelation in this role over the past few weeks, nullifying Manchester United's Michael Carrick both offensive and defensively. It's essentially a midfield destroyer (ie. Gennaro Gattuso's role,) but higher up the pitch. The term suffoco was thought up in conversation with Zonal Marking's Michael Cox." Oddly enough, Oscar's best game for us was at that role exactly against Pirlo.

When I first saw the pic of him and Torres I thought it was Mascherano. He looks weird.

From your examples, only Bayern didn't make use of a classical deep-lying playmaker, but one could make a case that Bastian is in fact one as well. Even then, their midfield has good passing capabilities, Schweinsteiger and Kroos may not possess the passing range of the likes of Alonso, Xavi, Scholes and Fabregas but they're still very very good passers (T. Kroos had a 91.9% passing accuracy and 8.6 accurate long balls per game, while Bastian had 89.8% passing accuracy and 6.5 accurate long passes per game in Bundesliga 2013/14 according to Whoscored.com, these stats are similar to Xavi's and Alonso's in the last season).

Whoscored.com has it. Go under current participation, passing tab. You're looking for "TB" (accurate through balls per game).

I think I saw some people saying they don't see Fabregas being able to fill the deep-lying playmaker role well. Just take a look at this: His long passing is that good. Many if not most of those passes didn't come from where you would expect a #10 to be, he is creating those chances from really deep. We just gotta have the smart runners for that to happen, this is one of the reasons why I think Schürrle would do better than Willian in that setup. If he can't play the #8/DLP/Regista role, nobody in the world but Pirlo can.

For a moment I thought you were talking about current brazilian football and league.

I just find it odd because I don't see it. I don't notice northeastern people looking any older than people from other regions. And I think you meant German and Italian in the South. The Dutch had a minor impact in Brazilian heritage. They actually had a bigger role in the Northeast than in the South - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Brazil. However, those events trace back to times so old that their genes have almost completely blended with black/native/portuguese genes by now. The South has closer looks to their european ancestry because the german/italian immigration was more recent and it began about when black slavery was starting to decline - so there was less of a variety for it to blend with, while Northeast has mixed their european genes a lot with black slaves since back in the 1500s-1800s when sugar cane plantations and black slavery were the main economical propellers.

I find this racist, I'm reporting you! HAHAHAHA. Nope. In all honesty there's some truth to that but it usually only applies to the poorest people or countryside people in the Northeast because they will be exposed more often to the sun when working/farming thus provoking the aging of their skin cells earlier. Richer people may only achieve that if they REALLY love to tan often at the beach and are stupid enough to not use sunscreen, and some are. But it shouldn't have a major effect on young people, I'm not sure about Costa's background, but from the limited time I suppose he could have gone under those circumstances, I'd say it could be a minor factor at most, he has gone to Europe young so genetics are most probably the main factor. Looking older or younger ( ) due to genetics may occur anywhere. I was born in the Northeast by the way. In Recife, one of the host cities. I wish I managed to buy tickets for Germany vs. USA before they ran out (can run out be used in this context?).

I just wanna see how well Aké, Van Ginkel, Zouma and Piazon will perform.

Don't get me wrong, Oscar didn't have a bad tournament by any means but James was extraordinary.

Wow, that is sort of a weird ranking. Oscar above James. It's cringeworthy even for the fanboy inside of me Still not as shameful as Messi golden ball though.

I maybe could have voted Iseah if he wasn't a competitor for Axelle's affection and a brazilian hater

Clearly a trap because everyone knows the answer is 4) the Mjölnir. Or in an emergency, a kitchen meat hammer.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Honestly, from the games I've seen, I'd say he was misused a lot in Barcelona as of lately. He would often be played as a false nine (specially when Messi was injured), which doesn't fit him at all. And the Barcelona team from last season was way too disjointed. There were players still on the tiki-taka mentality while others were playing with a more direct approach, which proved to be a failure and a mess. Despite being raised in their youth team, he did look as if he was more comfortable with directness rather than with tiki-taka bullshit.