Dion

Maybe he was so psychologically damaged by the bite that he's got Stockholm syndrome

Using his foot is also unacceptable. But in the scale of unacceptable things, it is lower than biting. Unless we're talking about kicking someone with no ball involved, then it is about the same. But I was talking about those cases when a players is already doing a sliding tackle, for example, and when he notices he won't reach the ball, he hits the other player "just because". His first motive was legit, but frustration with the game or for not being able to reach the ball with that tackle made him decide to hit the opponent. That's one thing. Most violent plays we see fall into that, tackles, elbowing, you name it. His bitings incidents are totally different. He wasn't challenging for the ball in any of them, they were gratuitous aggressions, totally uncalled for. In addition, he chose to do it in the most bizarre and out of the place way he could find, which makes everything even more shocking. As a law student or lawyer yourself you should know that the means you choose to commit a crime and the circumstances are taken in consideration too. It's not only about potential damage. It also matters whether it is your first incident or your third, fourth... And you also know when someone behaves in a manner one would question his sanity, he should undergo some sort of psychiatric evaluation. It is not authoritarianism, he brought it upon himself. He should be only allowed after being cleared from a psychiatrist in order to protect other players. Who's to know when will he attack again. The part where you question why 9 and not 10, why 4 months and not 6, I agree with. However that is not exclusive to Suarez, that could have been asked in many other cases. Punishment in football seems to be chosen with a heavy dose of subjectivity, unfortunately. I think how they sentenced Suarez was reasonable though. By the way, he IS sort of a criminal for biting people.

I see where you are coming from. There are some tackles and other stuff way more dangerous to other players than a bite, stuff that could result in broken bones or worse, and we have seen cases when things like that were done intentionally and we haven't seen any punishment as hard as this. Although all that is true, a bite is so out of the game. A violent tackle still resembles something we expect to see on the pitch. Biting is so primal and out of place, there's really no excuse you can give for that. Also, it's the THIRD time. It's not like he just snapped for a second. He's done it before and he has been punished before but he keeps doing it. It HAS to stop. They should have obliged him to see some psychiatrist on top of the punishment. He should only be allowed to return when that same psychiatrist says he's able to play like a sane human being. That should be done to players like Pepe (among others) too.

What about Ronaldo? Ronaldo and Zidane were to their era what Cris and Messi are nowadays. It's no coincidence that Ronaldo and Zidane consider each other the best players they've ever played with. We'd be lucky if Eden and Neymar could fill their shoes.

Yeah, maybe. But still an understandable mistake. I could see myself in his shoes translating something from a portuguese player slightly wrong due to minor differences in speech that I wasn't aware of. As a native speaker you would never imagine yourself not being able to translate at least an overall idea of what's being said accurately, even if you consider you're listening to a variant of your native language.

He was complaining - Ele estava reclamando (formal) / Ele 'tava' reclamando (informal) / Ele reclamava (this could also be used, very very subtle difference in meaning though). He wasn't complaining - Ele não estava reclamando (formal) / Ele 'num' 'tava' reclamando (informal) / Ele não reclamava (Same as above).

Actually it kinda makes sense that he wasn't complaining precisely because the coach was making a lot of changes. Oscar understands now that this is the way it works in Europe, especially at top teams playing in a lot of different competitions as we did, there is just way more squad rotations than in Brazil. In general, the starting eleven in brazilian clubs is a lot more fixed than the typical top european team, especially for a player like him, who was used to being pushed into every single game because he's always been regarded as a special player in every club he played for. What he meant is despite being uncomfortable with this kind of situation, he understands why it is so, thus he hasn't been complaining.

Regarding Parreira: I think the european portuguese speakers are not used to "num", which is how brazilians will sometimes pronounce "não" when they're speaking really fast as Parreira was. He said "ele 'num' tava reclamando". It's crystal clear to us because we're used to it, but if you think about it, he says it really fast, maybe it's not as easy for non-brazilians.

Niall lucky bastard. Fuck him.

It just wasn't meant to be. I mean, how many times do we see a player scoring after assisting himself with the aid of the bar? When it has to go in, it will go in no matter what. They were better and luck was also on their side tonight. We should just focus on improving for next season and hope our best players come to the decisive games rested and fit. In addition, Courtois has been a beast for their entire campaign. Bring him back asap.

Where were these people saying someone else should be there instead of Hazard before the game? It's easy to say that after the damage is done, no one could know that. Besides, conceding a goal very seldom can be attributed to a single player mistake and this is not one of those rare cases. There are more players at fault than Hazard. Be cool people.

This goal was SO stupid.

That would have been an exquisite goal.

Anyone with those stream links?

I don't think Lucas peak is the highest amongst our young players, but he can definitely play better than the last times I've seen him. Mainly because PSG were (maybe they still are, I don't really follow PSG) using 4-4-2, which doesn't suit Lucas at all. Don't mind @Barbara, she hates Lucas

I don't rate Hulk very highly either. For some reason every manager seems to like him, though. I'd rather use Bernard or Lucas Moura. But he's not too bad I guess.

From this video alone you can notice he's still not feeling as comfortable here as he is on the NT. It's true that most of the time he has plenty of space when playing for Brazil, but still he looks way more confident on the ball than in the EPL, trying to beat players 1v1 and difficult/longer passes more often.

Hazard was marvelous, you can't ask more than a hat-trick, MOTM. So was Azpi, has really settled into the left back position, love the boy. Oscar also had a very good match, I like when he drops deep to distribute the ball. Could have got at least one assist and played some good balls (for those who say he can't pass and has no vision). I have to say Cahill is turning into a much better defender than I thought was possible. Also, I don't know how we managed to go so long without a player like Matic, invaluable player for us. What else? Ehmm... Really, really liked Salah - willing to make runs and smart off the ball, but was clearly very nervous in his debut. I'm looking forward to see more from him. Ivanovic was defensively sound as always. On the negative side, I'm disappointed in Luiz, very shaky at moments and his passes were not connecting today. Our strikers didn't score as usual, but Eto'o played well nevertheless, grabbing an assist and good link-up play. Frank was kinda poor because everyone else was doing so much better, he was invisible at times. Overall solid performance from the team today. Top of the league. Now we only depend on ourselves to win it.

Ivanobeast bossing in the last few minutes.

What? A foul? For real?

If he really goes to Man Utd I hope he will at least make them take some points of Arsenal, Man City and Liverpool just so we can win the league. On a different note, Man Utd? Really?

Valencia, hahahahaha.

I'd be happy if either CR7 or Ribery had won. I think Messi should have been third, though, I can't recall anything he did last year worth of putting him ahead of Ribery. Shameful. Sure between him and Ribery, the argentinian is the better player, but he had a really bad year (for his standards) while Ribery was the best player for the Champions League winner.

According to Whoscored.com, 11 goals in 16 appearances actually. Also 8 assists. Not bad at all.

Seriously...