Dion

I don't understand how some people can dislike ketchup or cheese. Or pizza. Fuck everyone who dislikes pizza.

Kevin, how do you decide which words you're going to capitalize the first letter or not?

I reckon Fabregas should be used in a 4-3-3 interchanging positions dynamically with Oscar depending on the situation or the team we're facing. Let's say we're playing against a side that has a Mata type of player as their cam and a creative player at the pivot, a deep-lying playmaker if you will - in the mold of Pirlo or Xabi Alonso. In this kind of situation it would be wiser to have Fabregas deeper than Oscar, that way he will avoid their pivot which more likely than not are better at defending than their CAM, which is Mata-esque, providing him more time on the ball to make plays and impact the game and at the same time we can use Oscar to shut down their deep-lying playmaker. If we're playing a team that park the bus or doesn't have a particular strong creative player in their pivot than Fabregas would play further up the pitch and so on. The reason why deep-lying playmakers were ever used was to avoid defensive midfielders in the first place, so it makes sense. Besides, Fabregas has some of the best long balls and through balls I have ever seen, he would definitely work fine there. I also believe Oscar and Fabregas are tactically smart enough to make these transitions or cover for each other seamlessly throughout the match. In the game vs. Colombia, Oscar played almost as a pivot player, covering for players from the back going forward all the time, which means he could cover for Fabregas whenever Fabregas saw an opportunity to bomb forward. This 4-3-3 would consist of Matic, Fabregas and Oscar in the middle, Hazard, Costa/Ba/Lukaku and Schürrle/Willian upfront. A scary line-up in my eyes.

Maybe we'll see more of Aké this season, from what I've seen he looks to be a really talented lad. I'd love to see him get more play time. He can play as a centre-back, can't he?

Can you tell us how will it happen?

Woody Allen

Dude, you think he's thrash, has no potential for improvement, no skill, overrated, overpriced, whatever. We get it. You don't need to spill your hate for the boy everyday in every single opportunity, it gets old really fast. Come back when you have something different to say.

No attacking player has ever been "super" effective playing for Barcelona since Messi's rise to the core of the team. Henry, Ibrahimovic, Villa, Sanchez, Neymar, you name it. Everyone of them played below their standards after moving to Barca. Oddly enough, Sanchez was only brought to life after Neymar's arrival. They assisted each other quite a lot. But even then, they both are still playing below their top performances there. I reckon Sanchez would play a lot better would he move to any other team.

It does remind me of certain users whenever they post on this thread.

The one thing I can't understand is how can one not be afraid of these things: I would only be carefree about spiders if there were no dangerous spiders in my country. Look at this little motherfucker, one bite and you could be dead in less than a hour: Look how agressive and fast it is. By the way all of that is in Brazil, they're speaking portuguese.

Hazard can do a decent defensive work but please don't use the word tackle when comparing both. Oscar has superb tackling stats even for pivot / centre-back standards. We would definitely be losing a lot in defense and gaining a lot in offense with that exchange, which is a fair trade, but please don't act like they both have the same defensive efficiency.

The only part I disagree with is the last. I think Hazard is on par with most of those names. I'd say it is mostly form the deciding factor between them currently, other than that I agree. Most of all, I loved the organization with all those (1) (2) (a), if I did write all that it would be messy as heck.

How many points warrant a ban?

I don't think the lack of pressing is Oscar's fault. If anything this is one of the few things he still does efficiently. At times it seems he's the only one doing it. Felipão should reinforce the importance of pressuring high on the pitch. Also the striker who has the most energy and who can press better should play, none of them can score anyways, so we might as well put someone who can force passing mistakes from defenders, be it Jo, Fred, Hulk or any other, I don't care who it is. But I'm afraid we shouldn't discuss Brazil NT problems on Oscar's thread.

Good article if you need some good old laughing: http://www.clarionledger.com/story/opinion/columnists/2014/06/25/coulter-growing-interest-soccer-sign-nations-moral-decay/11372137/

I have absolutely no clue why it has stopped. Same players, same manager. Why the fuck are they not pressing as much as before?

The way I see it, when Oscar has the free role he impacts more the team as a whole. Not only does he play better he makes several players play better. Neymar on the free role not so much, because he always try too much and usually by himself, he doesn't bring others into play as much. Not that he's bad, I just think Oscar would be a better choice, also Neymar plays worse in certain aspects when free. For example, since Neymar became the focus he's been dropping too deep, now he has to dribble past like 4 or 5 players to be able to shoot and he always tries to by himself. I don't think he should help creating chances from behind, he should be making runs behind defenders or receiving the ball in forward positions where he's only got to beat one or two markers before finishing/passing/crossing. He's also not as effective from the middle as from the left. This free role may even be detrimental to him. It puts him on the spotlight but it doesn't necessarily improve his final product. It could, if he was willing to pass and assist more.

Speaking for Brazil NT only, I think we played better when Oscar was on the free role instead of Neymar. Neymar is just too selfish and attacking oriented whereas Oscar does it all.

I think he needs a free role to excel. In his best games I remember seeing him everywhere, sometimes he would be upfront finishing, sometimes he would drop deep to distribute, sometimes he would be marking and doing defensive work, sometimes he would be making a run between defenders, sometimes he would be wide trying a cross. It seemed like he always knew where the team needed him, I would praise his tactical awareness more than anything else he had. Right now he seems to be too focused on defending and going down the wings. It's so weird.

Maybe you're on to something but Oscar has played better with Scolari too. I think it is more than that. I think he's still on a slump, he looks terrible compared to how he used to play.

Oscar is playing worse for Brazil than he used to. It is easily noticeable that he's not the same player he used to be and I don't know what happened. One year ago, Oscar would be my MOTM for our NT in 8/9 games out of 10. He would pretty much always outperform Neymar too. Now Neymar plays better than him in every game while performing in a level about the same he's always have with the yellow jersey and, bar the first game against Croatia, Oscar hasn't come close to being MOTM. Oscar used to produce a lot more attacking chances, I thought he would bring his Brazilian NT form to Chelsea one day but it seems the opposite is happening.

German flair?!

As a matter of fact it isn't legal in football either. It is legal to slide tackle a ball in both football and real life, not another human being. In reality, some physical contact is tolerated as a consequence of a sliding tackle to reach the ball. Extremely risky sliding tackles are punished whether you hit the player or not because the goal is to touch the ball, not the player. Sliding tackles which threaten other players more than target the ball are always punished and are discouraged.

I reckon Evander Holyfield would choose some broken bone