zequist

With that kind of a sense of entitlement, that guy could be a Juventus fan. Seriously, if a team's not good enough to qualify for a tournament straight up - if a team's not good enough to hold Croatia to a draw, in their own building, when they have all to play for and the opponent doesn't - then why should they be handed a spot anyway just because of the name on the front of their shirt? This is an athletic competition, it's not the UN Security Council!

My initial impressions of the UEFA groups. Teams that got favorable draws: Spain - depending on which Turkey team shows up, Group E could be a blowout Czech Republic - Poland is too inconsistent to threaten them, nobody else is talented enough Italy - Should qualify with ease over Bulgaria and Ireland Teams that got unlucky draws: Finland - looked like an up-and-comer after just missing in Euro qualifying, but will be hard-pressed to get by Russia and Germany Northern Ireland - see above, replace "Russia and Germany" with "the Czechs and Poland" Most wide-open groups Group B - could see Greece, Israel, or Switzerland all winning this one Group G - Group of death? France, Romania, Serbia, and Austria all drawn together Group I - Dutch will be favored, but Scotland and Norway could both take advantage of any slips Home nations, lots of travel miles: England has to travel to Croatia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan Northern Ireland has to travel to the Czech Rep., Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia Wales has to travel to Russia, Finland, and Azerbaijan Only Scotland got a good draw travel-wise, with only one team from Eastern Europe in their group (Macedonia)

Just mention the word "religion" and then sit back and enjoy the show! Actually, some of my best memories of college were Saturday nights spent arguing religion. We had a crazy group of us rooming together: a liberal Catholic (me), a conservative evangelical, an agnostic, and a Wiccan. Now THOSE were some epic arguments! We could go for two hours or more, and then say "good argument" and go out together for pizza and beer together when we were done.

I've asked that question of believers before, in the common variation "Could God make an object so big even he can't lift it?" The best answer I've come up with between what others have said and my own ponderings on the subject is that in order for God to be perfect he must also be immune from paradox, which means that there IS a solution to the problem that he understands and we (with our feebly limited human comprehension) do not. We as humans think in terms of "either/or," i.e. an object is either liftable or it isn't, not both, because that is our reality. But God is not bound by our reality and our rules; he can do anything. Therefore he could make an object that is both liftable and not liftable at the same time if he wanted to; such a thing would be impossible for us, but not for him. It's hard to translate from my head onto paper (or screen), but I hope I'm at least sorta getting the gist across. JD - A believer in God (though an open-minded and oft-questioning one)

Sorry, didn't know you guys didn't use that word on your side of the pond. In sports, we say that a guy is "clutch" if he has a knack for coming up with big plays at important moments in a game, especially in big games. He's a guy you want to see with the ball when it's all on the line, and even though you know intellectually that he can't deliver 100% of the time, it still feels like a surprise when he doesn't. Pressure has no effect on him, and ice water seems to flow through his veins. If you know golf, Tiger Woods is probably the ultimate "clutch" athlete in any sport today. The opposite of "clutch" are guys with star reputations who put up numbers in unimportant games or in games where their contribution means nothing (like poaching two goals in a 5-0 rout), but in a tough game where it's all on the line and their team really needs them to earn their paycheck, more often than not they fold up like a cheap suit. To give some EPL examples, Gerrard without a doubt is clutch. Shevchenko is clearly not clutch. Tevez showed the potential to be clutch in rescuing West Ham's season last year. Drogba is clutch, Solskjaer was clutch. Paul Robinson is not, Rooney isn't but might be someday. On our own team, Cahill is clutch, Neville is not, and Anichebe can be as long as he doesn't start the game. The jury is still out on Arteta.

People sometimes ask me why Cahill is my favorite player anywhere right now. Moments like that are just one of the reasons why. The man is CLUTCH! So people were saying a few weeks ago that this run of 7 games in 23 days would define our season - let's hope that 5-1-1 on a stretch that included Liverpool, Chelsea, and two games in Europe not only defines it, but inks it, publishes it, and puts the dictionary on the bookstore shelf. And to think that mark could've been even better if not for the NWO Referee running the first game. Although the team's played so much better ever since he ticked them off that maybe we should send him a thank you card.

Amen. Said it better than I did.

No easy games from here on out. Zenit will be tough, Alkmaar will be tough, and everyone we face in the knockout games, be they group qualifiers or UCL dropouts, will be tough. So to me there's no point in splitting hairs about finishing second or third. I'd rather we just try to finish as high as we can, and whoever we draw after that, we'll deal with it.

Always the harshest critics of ourselves. Whoever wrote the match report seemed to think Arteta had a great game - it's peppered with adjectives like "inspirational" and "classy" and "outfoxing" to describe his play. I didn't see it, so I can't comment myself except to say that (as always) I'm happy that we won. I just hope we aren't completely knackered for Chelsea after spending so much energy to get that win.

I felt prompted to go ahead and start this thread now, even though we're all focused on Nurnberg atm, because of the news that Petr Cech has been ruled out of Sunday's game due to an injury that he picked up against Schalke. Will it make any difference for us? Maybe not, since Cudicini's pretty damn good in his own right, but it can't hurt.

They make money hand over fist, drive fancy cars and generally live the high life. But anyone who's tempted to characterize English Premier League players as being arrogant, flashy, nouveau riche, tawdry or coarse should meet Tim Howard. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writ...file/index.html

Season's not even three months old, and we've just had our fourth managerial change already. Mourinho...Lee...Jol...and now Wigan just pulled the trap door on Hutchings. Teams got some real itchy trigger fingers this season...rumor has it that Sanchez is already on shaky ground at Fulham, too. At the rate this is going we'll be at 50% turnover by Christmas! On the topic of today's firing, apparently it was a surprise only to Wigan management that the team was most likely going to struggle badly without Paul Jewell in charge. I always thought that they and Bolton holding onto their Premiership spots had more to do with their managers than their talent levels, and the fact that both teams have gone in the tank so quickly in the post-Allardyce/Jewell eras hasn't done anything to change my opinion.

Oh, what the heck... 1) Man U (think they'll edge out Arsenal's youth...this year) 2) Arsenal 3) Chelsea 4) Liverpool (in the 87th minute of the last game of the season Garrard falls down in the box, claims it was the defender's bad breath that knocked him over, the ref awards a penalty, and Liverpool convert to win 1-0 and edge B'burn for 4th by one point) 5) Blackburn 6) Everton (what their form will be like in April and May after this marathon season is the million-dollar question) 7) Portsmouth 8) Man City (can't possibly keep this pace up, can they?) 9) Aston Villa 10) West Ham 11) Newcastle (at least they're still scoring more than they give up, which is more than can be said for the 9 teams I have below them) 12) Fulham (bottom half is mediocre enough that they could push for the top ten if they learn how to play with a lead - I've already lost count of how many they've blown so far) 13) Tottenham 14) Reading 15) Sunderland 16) Birmingham 17) Bolton (mark your calendars now...April 19 will be Bolton vs. Boro in the Jobquest derby) 18) Boro (averaging 1 goal per game and giving up 2 per game is generally a recipe for relegation) 19) Wigan 20) Derby (be sure to collect your 50 million pound consolation prize on the way back to the Championship)

No, Ukraine is far enough south that they can kick off late summer like most of the continent. The only places in Europe I'm aware of besides Russia that kick off their seasons in the spring are all of the Scandinavian countries (except Denmark) and the three Baltic states.

1-0, goal for Yakubu. Good start! Wish I could watch it (and that I wasn't stuck at work).

Muse - Citizen Erased Now that I know that I'm breaking to pieces I'll pull out my heart and I'll feed it to anyone crying for sympathy Crocodiles cry For the love of the crowd and the three cheers from everyone Dropping through sky Through the glass of the roof Through the roof of your mouth Through the mouth of your eye Through the eye of the needle It's easier for me to get closer to heaven than ever feel whole again

Pushing it forward to Jan 8/9 isn't an option, because the first legs of the CC semifinals are supposed to be played that week. I guess if they aren't willing to reschedule one of the other games, then they'll have to move it back a week, because it's the only free spot on our calendar the whole month of December. Isn't it awesome that we have these kinds of problems to discuss?

This is starting to look like a scheduling nightmare. The Carling Cup QF games are supposed to be played the week of Dec. 17 according to what I read, but here's our schedule around that time. Dec. 15 @West Ham Dec. 20 @ Alkmaar (UEFA Cup) Dec. 23 @ Man U No way we could fit a Carling Cup tie into the middle of that. Our players would keel over and die on the pitch before the fourth game ended. Hopefully they'll either move the CC tie to the week before or reschedule one of the league ties for later in the season. I'd prefer the latter, because we're already playing 8 games in December and the Carling Cup would make it 9, not to mention take away the only place all month where we actually get a week off between games. And yes, we're the only team that has a major problem because every other EPL side that's alive in both Europe and the Carling Cup has just one European match in December - we're the only team with two.

We got by without needing five of our usual starters. Howard and Yak didn't play, Arteta, Yobo, and Baines didn't dress. Maybe "B side" was a bit of an exaggeration, but it definitely wasn't the eleven we'd start by choice in a typical EPL game, either.

Far as I'm concerned this wasn't anything more than a preseason friendly that actually had a stake. We were able to rest five regulars, we were able to get some people in a match who needed the work like Grav and Vaughn, AND our B-squad still won the game. So our Cup run is alive and kicking, and now we can bring back Arteta, Howard, Yak, and Yobo for Saturday's game with a full week's worth of rest. Can't ask for much more than that.

Was reading in the news today that Sevilla are upset with Spurs and accusing them of "treachery" in plucking Ramos away. The club President said, and I quote, "I can assure you that we at Sevilla will pour all of our energy and all of our force into making sure that Tottenham pay the consequences of this situation, a situation that they have illegitimately provoked." Does anyone know what that's all about? Did Tottenham possibly do something underhanded that's got his panties in a bunch, or is he just frustrated about losing his coach? The article only reported his comments, it didn't try to explain them.

1. Everton, San Jose Earthquakes, UC Santa Barbara men's university team 2. Elitist bastards with too much of a sense of entitlement and not enough regard for the rules (see: Liverpool, Juventus, Real Madrid, etc.) <_< 3. Anderlecht, Northampton (thanks to a very successful run with them in "Football Manager"), Darlington (God love a Third Division team who has the stones to build a 25,000 seat stadium)

They're also from what I've heard the wealthiest (or at least the deepest-pocketed) club in Russia. At the moment Larissa is 9th in the Greek Super League (1 win, 1 loss, 2 draws) Alkmaar is 12th in the Eredivisie (2 wins, 3 losses, 2 draws) Nurnburg is 17th in the Bundesliga (1 win, 5 losses, 3 draws) However, those seasons are all early on like the EPL - only Russia plays as a summer league

Point made. Unfortunately, unless I'm forgetting someone, we only have six serviceable midfielders atm (though some might debate whether Jags counts as "serviceable"), and four strikers, so while it may play to our strength, it doesn't play to where our depth is right now, and it won't until Grav and Cahill are ready to come back. Now if we could get some early leads going 4-4-2 we could then sub into a 4-5-1 (criticism about 'negativity' be damned), but we haven't had many early leads this year either.

I posted my vote for our group on the Metalist thread, but since it's already buried under a flood of Yak criticism over there... I'd like to see us draw a group of Bordeaux, Sparta Prague, Copenhagen, and Aberdeen. Neither too easy nor too difficult, the travel wouldn't be too bad for the team, and there are some nice destination places for y'all to visit in that group, depending on which ones end up being the away games. Tossing us in a group against both Bayern Munich AND Zenit St. Petersburg would probably qualify as a serious "group of death" (especially if you put Panionios in there too), though I get what some are saying about wanting to face the best. I was thinking about that myself - the only problem I had with it at this stage is that while it would be cool to play Bayern, playing them once is enough, and to win the thing coming out of their group the odds are good we'd have to beat them twice. Good luck with that.