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Beware wrote:
WRESTLING!!!!!!!!!!!
LEZZZ GET BEEFED!!!
I'VE BEEN UP SINCE FIVE DOING SQUAT THRUSTS!!!!!!!!!
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Marseille
I have to agree with you about France, they were very lucky against Ireland and looked really disjointed tactically, especially at the back. Easily the worst French side I've seen in a long long time.
Dubmood, what do you think of Gabriel Obertan and Moussa Sissoko though? Obertan looked like a player with a lot of promise in Ligue 1 and Sissoko has been linked with a lot of Premiership clubs recently.
As for Barthez, he always seemed a bit too risky in big game situations at Manchester United for me to say he was a great goalkeeper, good shotstopper but some of his decisions in the air and one-on-one left something to be desired...
The problem with Ligue1 is that spite its popularity, it has a rather low quality to be honest. Many of the big stars of ligue1 only end up as avarage players in the premier league, like Nasri. But there are always exeptions like Drogba, and Lyon that won the ligue 1 7 years in a row never managed to qualify for a 1/4 final in the champions league. Sissoko plays for lyon and I dont think he got what it takes to play in any of the big 4, and lyon is underachiving this year. And Ligue1 football is often very boring, afaik its one of the leagues that scores the least goal per matchday. Its all about playing 11 defenders and waiting for a counterattack and win 1-0. Didier Dechamps tried to create some interesting football this year in Marseille and keeps getting shot down by smaller teams, and he is the only coach who has managed to do anything interesting with a french team on the international scene since the early 90s. (monaco in CL finals).
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Huddersfield, UK
dubmood wrote:
I have to agree with you about France, they were very lucky against Ireland and looked really disjointed tactically, especially at the back. Easily the worst French side I've seen in a long long time.
Dubmood, what do you think of Gabriel Obertan and Moussa Sissoko though? Obertan looked like a player with a lot of promise in Ligue 1 and Sissoko has been linked with a lot of Premiership clubs recently.
As for Barthez, he always seemed a bit too risky in big game situations at Manchester United for me to say he was a great goalkeeper, good shotstopper but some of his decisions in the air and one-on-one left something to be desired...
The problem with Ligue1 is that spite its popularity, it has a rather low quality to be honest. Many of the big stars of ligue1 only end up as avarage players in the premier league, like Nasri. But there are always exeptions like Drogba, and Lyon that won the ligue 1 7 years in a row never managed to qualify for a 1/4 final in the champions league. Sissoko plays for lyon and I dont think he got what it takes to play in any of the big 4, and lyon is underachiving this year. And Ligue1 football is often very boring, afaik its one of the leagues that scores the least goal per matchday. Its all about playing 11 defenders and waiting for a counterattack and win 1-0. Didier Dechamps tried to create some interesting football this year in Marseille and keeps getting shot down by smaller teams, and he is the only coach who has managed to do anything interesting with a french team on the international scene since the early 90s. (monaco in CL finals).
Yeah, that's true, as club football has expanded in terms of the amount of money being put into clubs (ie. mega rich owners or television rights) Ligue 1 has lost out massively. Teams like St. Etienne and OM used to be massive teams in Europe, now Ligue 1 is full of past it players not good enough for England, Spain and Italy and the best players move on to bigger clubs elsewhere in Europe.
Nasri has proved that he isn't good enough for Arsenal, Drogba has been a great player for Chelsea, as well as Essien and Malouda (who has improved a lot in the past season to give him credit).
Unfortunately it's not always the most entertaining teams that win trophies in football, Italy are always a boring side to watch but won the last world cup. Arsenal are the most entertaining side to watch in the UK (imo) and haven't won a trophy for years! Mourinho won lots of trophies with Chelsea playing 4-5-1 though...
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Crystal Palace in administration... 
Last edited by Stevens (Jan 26, 2010 10:29 pm)
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Marseille
so what do you think of this years europa league? Liverpool? Marseille? 
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Huddersfield, UK
dubmood wrote:
so what do you think of this years europa league? Liverpool? Marseille?
I follow Liverpool myself and I have to say I can't see them winning it, it's been the worst team in recent years (probably since towards the end of Houllier's reign)...
OM will probably go just as far as Liverpool I imagine (no offense 
), there's a few quality players in your squad (Ben Arfa, Mandanda & Gonzalez) but they lack a bit of depth in the squad....
I'm going to tip Atlético Madrid but it's one of those cups where a lot of teams can spring surprises so who knows?
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Marseille
in recent times we have always been beaten by russian or other easteuropean teams in international games. often winning at home but loosing big away in winterconditions. I wouldnt be suprised if that was the case this year. Last year was nice though kicking out three dutch teams in a row!
Im not sure about ben arfa beeing a good player or not, I mean sure he has some enormous talent, but he is showing it one match out of ten and usually only for 20 or 30 minutes then he goes back to being bad. Thats not enough to be good in my book. Same goes for mandanda, last year he was the #1 keeper in ligue1 since barthez and this year he sux. Gonzales hasnt really prooved to be anything of what he was in porto so far. Instead OM got some real talent in Niang, Cheyrou, Heinze and Taiwo. Especially Cheyrou has been outstanding for 2 seasons in a row now. I bet he is going to either spain or england next year. But who knows, maybe Ben arfa and gonzales will wake up and finally giving us the first titles since 1994.
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Marseille
PSV Eindhoven, Twente and Ajax was the three teams we kicked out last year, the dutch hated us so much
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Huddersfield, UK
You can tell I don't get much chance to watch French football
We had the brother of OM's Cheyrou I think at Liverpool a few years back, he was a real flop of a signing, probably signed the wrong one hehe. Heinze and Taiwo were both good players in the premier league, especially Heinze, I was really surprised when Man U sold him... I know Mandanda got dropped from the French team recently for the Lyon keeper (name escapes me) but I think he'll make the squad overall, most of France's best goalkeepers are aging a bit now...
I'd say Dutch football is probably on a par with French football, maybe a little worse in recent years. The Russians have got really good on a club level over the past 10 years or so though, I mean Rubin Kazan came out of nowhere to get some really good results in the Champions League, not to mention CSKA and and Zenit winning the UEFA cup. Money talks I guess
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Marseille
Yeah it was zenit who kicked us out of the uefa 2 years ago and donetsk last year.
We are not talking about the same taiwo btw, The Marseille Taiwo is formed in the club. But heinze is kickass, he got a talent to draw on red cards on the oponents just by provoking them to burst out on him.
The goalkeeper you are thinking of is lloris. He is like mandada, up & down alot.
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Huddersfield, UK
Zenit and Donetsk, two teams loaded with cash... seem to have a habit of buying in a lot of young Brazilians itching to get a taste of European football.
Ah! Propz to OM for bringing him through the academy, a lot of our Premier League youngsters never make it into the first team, I think the general feeling is that if it's cheaper to buy in a foreigner that will immediately break into the first team then why bother? Arsenal are pretty good with their academy though, but a lot of those are just stolen from foreign clubs (Wenger obviously has his preferences towards French teenagers too aha)
As for Heinze, I guess that's something that money can't buy Must have been something he picked up at Real or OM because he didn't do that in the UK much. Lloris seemed to have a really great game against Liverpool in the Champions League tbh, looks a very impressive goalkeeper (although I've only seen him play once after that, against Ireland).