Which one? e had two and both were un-freaking-believable.
Is he superstar? Well he isn’t by the standards of Thierry Henri, Ronaldinho, Nedved, et al meaning the super-duper elite, but he is certainly one of the top players in the world and could start on any team in the world.
You pays yer money, I suppose. Keane never forgave Haaland for standing over him and accusing him of feigning an injury. As a steet-fighter from Cork, Keane wouldn’t let this pass. I don’t condone what he did - i.e. deliberately setting out to harm a player - but every side of a coin has its obverse. He lives by a code, and his code prescribed what needed to be done in this situation.
Watch him when he plays: no diving, no quarter given, and no quarter asked. Respected by his fellow professionals would be my guess. And a leader for whom you would “go over the top”. Not in the two-footed sense, of course!
I watched England U-21s get hammered by the Dutch last in the first half of their “friendly”. England did make it respectable with better play in the second half and a late goal from Lita. Anyway, I was a bit surprised by this, for some reason I expected England to be able to do better at that level, given all of the development opportunities within the system.
As an aside, with the USMNT getting ready for the final round of CONCACAF qualifying (starts today in Port au Spain?), I also surprised to learn that Landon Donovan once injured a guy so severely in a collision in the U-20s that he had with one of the T&T players that the other guy died sometime later. The other kid suffered a severe spinal cord injury and then later died because of breathing or blood clot problems. By all accounts it was an honest challenge, but it’s still got to way on you somewhat knowing you helped put another player six feet under.
The English youth set up is good but the dutch is very very good. Them cloggies have been turning out talented young players sine the 70s so there’s no shame in getting gubbed by them.
Did you have any opinion on Huddlestone - he got MOTM in my newspaper (he’s on the books at Spurs and we have great hopes for him)?
I’m not really bothered about tonight’s result. I do hope that SWP gives Sven food for thought and I really hope that Downing is the missing piece in the jigsaw.
But I’m more interested in THFC v WBA in the cup on Saturday - the winner is a home to Forrest which is as close to a bye as you’re going to get in the 5th round.
On Royston Keane - Vile man, great footballer. His off the pitch activities are legendary (although he’s calmed down recently and I believe no longer drinks). However there isn’t a team in Britain that wouldn’t welcome him with open arms - even now when he is declining. He’s like a paddy Robbie Savage!
My viewing was spotty, so didn’t get catch that many names. Lita, because of the goal, and Stead, because they seemed to show him a lot. Which position was Huddlestone in? Wish the Dutch had their names on the back of their shirts. The wife and I were playing a game, “Spot the ethnic Dutchman”. It took quite a while to find a couple. 
Which drives a question: is the diverse Dutch team the face of the Netherlands today, or do they recruit heavily from former Dutch colonies at a young age and then bring them in if they have mad football skillz?
You’d have to ask a cloggie for a full answer but in short:
Football is traditionally a way out of poverty (like most sports) and as such tends to be played mainly in urban areas - these poor urban areas tend to be where immigrants settle. Holland has no shortage of poor urban areas with high proportions of immigrants.
There is also the thorny question of expectation. In England (and I should imagine Holland) there is a feeling that teachers etc don’t expect too much of young black men and as such tend to push them in the direction of sport rather than academic disciplines. This is often put forward as a reason for the over representation of black footballers.
Conversely it is also the reson put forward for the almost total absence of asian footballers - ie asians are considered to be academically able and as such are steered away from sport towards a university education.
Just an opinion - but it’s one you’ll hear quite often
As much as the English team is of England (there’s half a million Turks and Moroccans in the Netherlands, plus oodles of other minorities) - owlstretchingtime’s explanation fills the blanks.
05: The one where he fakes out 5 different defenders in front of the goal! 03 is amazing too. I didn’t know the human body was capable of making a kick like that!
I thought Huddlestone belongs to Derby - did Tottenham loan him out or did they recently purchase him from Derby? From my (limited) impression, he’s a player to watch in the near future.
As to the Dutch footballers, I’ve always wondered about all the great players from Suriname. Doesn’t Suriname have a national team? And if not, is it because all the good players go to the Netherlands at a young age and eventially gain Dutch citizenship?
4-4-2 Magazine (which I read occassionally) had an article where Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink listed his all-time great team (comprised soley of players from Suriname).
we bought Huddlestone.
As to Surinam - yes all the good ones go to Holland (the same happens to senegal and France)
AJ plays right wing for half an hour.
What was the point?
:rolleyes:
England play 4-3-3 for a game. What was the point?
Sven really doesn’t see the point of friendlies. The Dutch had the right idea - try out a few players and give them the whole game. Sven treats friendlies as exhibitions. He know what his best team is and I would say that there are no more than two or three squad places up for grabs. AJ isn’t going to get one of those.
We should have won the game and would have done if SWP wasn’t a bag of nerves (and I can only assume Gerrard had been in the pub alll afternoon).
Good to see Martin Jol on the telly - he talks like the gay policemen from The Harry Enfield Show.
Oh well - next game mighty Northern Ireland - officially worse than Canada!
More to the point - Roll on Saturday evening and the 5th Round! (I LOVE the Cup)
i thought it was 4th round replays this weekend?
It is - and after we’ve trounced the baggies - it will be the 5th Round
Owl - counting both chickens and eggs.
In other news, from our side of the pond:
Eddie Johnson, coming soon to a European country near you, scored the opening goal at the 30th minute, and Eddie Lewis (Fulham?) scored the winner at 54. Eve scored a loan goal for T&T at 89’ (I think he was offsides, but the camera work there is crap, so who knows).
That puts EJ at 6 goals in about 220 minutes for the USMNT. Not bad for a 20 year old. He’s scored in all four of his caps. He still has room to improve, but you can’t fault his ability to find the back of the net. The rest of the team looked shaky to start, sort of what one would expect after a labor dispute, then controlled nicely through the 70 minutes, but after that they seemed to be worn down by the 91 F heat and huge pitch.
Next up for us is Mexico at Azteca, and they’ll definitely need to pick it up a few notches if they want to bring any points back from there. Nothing like 100,000 crazy Mexicans screaming “Usama” at you, plus lobbing bags of urine, firecrackers, batteries, etc., to get you in the mood for a little of “the beautiful game”.
WTF is a “loan goal”?
It’s what Juan scores before won’s first cup of coughy.
Eddie Lewis plays for Preston North End in the Championship (currently sixth).
I just picked up the latest 4-4-2 - in the States I think it is the best magazine available - and there is included a 100 page or so booklet called Cloughie which is excerpted from the autobiography of Brian Clough. But I honestly do not know how his last name is pronounced. Is it “Cluff” similar tough? The book is very entertaining, BTW…quite the ego, but able to back it up.
What so you want…3 goals/90 minutes played??? 
He’s on an unbelievable run; I think all the goals have been in qualifiers. haven’t they?
The U.S. did what they needed to do. I don’t expect to get any points in Mexico (but we don’t really need them…what the hell is CONCACAF doing with 3.5 World Cup spots?).
Production is fine, but he could have done a better job off the ball or creating opportunities for others. He’s good, he can be damned good.
One point out of Azteca would be great; three points would be astounding. I certainly don’t expect much, but we’ve been causing Mexico a lot of problems lately. One theory that I’ve seen is that the Mexicans are so certain that their style of play is correct that they’ll stick to it even if it’s not working. Also they’ve not been in the best form lately. FWIW there were five red cards issued in Mexico’s 2-1 win over the Ticos in San Jose, but I don’t know who got them.
I think the 3.5 spots comes out of 2 of 3 CONCACAF teams advancing out of group play.