Schtop, dish FC Twente side ish not ready for the Championsh League or UEFA Cup 2008/09

portsmouth fc winning the uefa cup would trump everything

come on Midtjylland

(meta: but how are people gonna find this thread 20 years from now without 'UEFA Champions' in the title?)

I don't understand why you technical white boys who have wired eyeballs find this kind of talk funny. it's racist

(good meta point, I will modreq title change)

cozen, this might explain it:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=F8oN58cyp2c

UEFA Championsh

raschisht

http://www.chelseapies.tv/jol%20crackpot.jpg

Patron saint of this thread.

Schtop, thish Keane/Torresh partnership ish not ready yet!

Resht in peash big man

eckshposht

hahaha i was going to post about mcclaren's awesome new accent!

portsmouth Queen of the South fc winning the uefa cup would trump everything

goign to betfair right now

I like to think this means Wenger gives interviews in broad cockney on French TV.

That youtube link is fucking fantastic. He sounds like Chris Morris' gush character from Jam.

"I knew I wash in truble ven the shpunk it jusht shtarted firing out like a fucking oil rig, yah, I think".

How must his wife feel about this?

That's brilliant - he looks totally chilled as well

Presumably Wenger just sounds really cockney to French people anyway "oyyy did nort see vee incident maayyyyyyt"

I'm not sure what just happened

Fascinated by the ridiculous double-bluff implications of Barry's apparent willingness to play against Hafnarfjordur tonight, like is this deliberately driving his value down or does it not matter that his value's been driven down if Alonso's value has already been driven down, or is he rightly giving up on Liverpool because he saw the Liege game or uh

Man City 0 FC Midtjylland 1 FT
Olsen 15

St Patricks have a v good chance of getting thru after 2-2 draw in Elfsborg

Hadjuk Split could dump La Coruna out in the 2nd leg

Lech Poznan thrashing Grasshoppers 6-0 may also count as a shock of sorts

St Patricks in "better than Hibs" non-shocker. Poor wee Queen of the South :-(

Oh I read thread title in the voice of Sean Connery. Slightly disappointed now.

wtf was mclaren thinking?

I don't think he was. I think he's fucking tapped. He's a broken man. His synapses have snapped. It's not even like picking up a slight Dutch accent on some pronunciations - it's an actual bad cliched impression of a Dutch person speaking English, I think.

I think he vaguely realises what he's doing at certain points and tries to rein it in. I have seen other people do similar things in foreign countries, though not in front of a TV audience, luckily for them.

He is subconsciously playing out the role that he's learned from watching foreign managers on TV. "I'm a foreign manager now, so I'll talk like that."

St Patricks in "better than Hibs" non-shocker. Poor wee Queen of the South :-(

Queen of the South in "better than Man City" shocker!

yeah, alba otm - I've done that myself sometimes

still doesn't explain "Arsenal! Champions League! Arsenal! Champions League!"

Yeah, the slipping into an accent I can understand, but... this is beyond that. It's like a bad impression. It's in vocal ticks that are really unnatural to a native speaker. 'And it is... Arsenal... I think... Arsenal, at home, the Emirates..." and the way he moves his hands. It's insane.

"I think we are not just, what you call, underdogs, but... mashiff underdogs". Insane.

I don't think he was. I think he's fucking tapped. He's a broken man. His synapses have snapped. It's not even like picking up a slight Dutch accent on some pronunciations - it's an actual bad cliched impression of a Dutch person speaking English, I think.

^^ I can vouch for this. It sounds ridiculous.

It's an actual bad cliched impression of a Dutch person speaking English, poorly, more like.

He's not even pronouncing FC Twente correctly - it's meant to be (roughly) "tuh-venter", isn't it, and he's saying "tenty"?

Yeah, poorly is the key; he's pausing over some words and phrases and altering his intonation as if it's not his native tongue and he's mentally checking the flow of his words before he speaks. He's insane. Totally cracked.

"Ja, the Arshenal... they made two goalsh? Sho, the boysh are shick ash parrotsh back there..."

He's insane. Totally cracked

Hey! I do something like this when I'm abroad - speak slow, simple sentences, latinate words, slight nod to the local accent. It gets MUCH better results than my normal voice. Not sure I'd feel the need to bother in Holland, right enough.

That said, McClaren does sound a bit demented. Some people take on local influences really quickly without realising it - Jan Molby might have sounded like Stephen Fry at first for all we know. We stopped to ask a local for directions to Ewood Park, and I was leaning out the passenger window while he was describing the route, apparently responding 'Rayytt, rayytt, rayytt' (i.e. 'OK. Right. I see.') in a really nasal voice. My companions were, how you shay, gutting themselves

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnt9se7JCYQ

thread anthem

I think McLaren is trying to sound like Mourinho in parts in that interview. Just imagine Mourinho's voice saying those things, e.g. My players, they are...

By the way, anyone fancy having a conversation in McLarenese?

Eez very interesting, no?

By the way, blueski, just purely out of curiosity, why 'come on Midtjylland'?

i was going to add 'sorry Daniel' but thought you might not be reading. it's a fair cop.

Plucky underdogs playing team owned by crook fond of murdering and torturing people?

Yeah I'll be rooting for Pompey as well on Sunday.

i'm expecting Villa to murder and totrure City on Saturday but it's too obvious.

Brough will probably beat Spurs with a 90th minute Viduka penalty

Heh heh. This was my fear, you see, Tom and blueski, when the club sold out to Shinawatra; would City turn into one of the least liked teams in the country, and the embodiment of all that's wrong with modern-day football?

Haha yeah I can't wait for us to spend 89 minutes tapping it around beautifully and then go 1-0 down to a route-one hoof.

By the sounds of things (I didn't see the match), there was nothing 'plucky underdog' about the Danish team last night.

Heh heh. This was my fear, you see, Tom and blueski, when the club sold out to Shinawatra; would City turn into one of the least liked teams in the country, and the embodiment of all that's wrong with modern-day football?

-- Daniel Giraffe, Friday, 15 August 2008 14:12 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

no, that's qpr. being tacky is worse than genocide you see.

Also, it kind of puts our performances against Barca into perspective.

But Iniesta = pure football.

Yeah drawing conclusions about the state of United from that one game is reaching a bit since pretty much every player bar Van De Sar played worse than they have for some time. But you've got to wonder why.

I'm still not convinced by Ronaldo as attacking spearhead, what's wrong with him on the right of a front-three and Rooney upfront? And when they threw on Tevez and Berbatov in the second half I had no idea who was supposed to be playing where.

But yeah the real problems were in midfield - it's not even that Man United didn't get their fair share of the ball they just didn't do anything with it, whereas every time Barca got it you felt they might score.

Add United to the list of clubs who need an Essien/Mikel style bullying physical midfielder in the side at least some of the time.

not as much as they need a paul scholes/andres iniesta

'I bet there's some seriously fucked off Chelsea fans out there. Probably more annoyed than the Man United fans.'

Matt DC OTM

'Add United to the list of clubs who need an Essien/Mikel style bullying physical midfielder in the side at least some of the time.'

Hargreaves innit.

Was that Scholes tackle as bad as it looked?

I'm sure Uefa will be taking further action if so.

i didn't think so on the replay, but the proviso is that i was reading something and didn't see it at full speed.

"We have to give credit to Barcelona, but they were a bit lucky to be here because Chelsea did not deserve to lose and no-one has mentioned that. I have to congratulate Barcelona, they were better, but football is just like this: only the winners get talked about."

I've always liked that nice lad Christiano.

only the winners and those uglier than steven taylor

Daily Mirror headline "It's All Gone Horribly Ron"

Sun headline: "Football's Glum In Rome"

... someone make them stop, please.

It was like watching Celtic play Barcelona last night! Utd deserved to lose for playing in white, who told them to do that? Rupert Murdoch?

toss of a coin - Barca were the "home" team so they got to wear the blau-grana. Red kit wouldn't have been allowed.

Stupid rule

Made it easier for Barcelona to pretend they were playing Real hence the easy ride

technically I think it means Barca gets to pick. Milan chose to play in their away kit a couple of years back iirc

I've rarely seen Siralex be so pleasant and reasonable in a post match interview

hadn't started knocking the gin away, he probably beat up ronaldo on the bus home.

Ronaldo's too big, it was probably Scholesy that got it

... Tevez of course!

Yeah it'd be Tevez, you can't see the bruising.

So I only saw the second half and couldn't believe what I was watching. Where United that bad all game? They looked like they were on tranqualisers.

No, Pete, it was a game of one-ninth/eight-ninths. United looked great for ten minutes, then Barcelona suddenly scored from out of nothing. While the TV cameras were following the goal celebrations heavy sedatives were then forced down the United players' throats which adversely affected their subsequent performance.

basically, they all went into a sulk for the next 80 minutes

I love the way Tyldsley was like "Oh a goal against the run of play, after Man United have dominated this game".

Yeah all 10 mins of it you insufferable idiot.

Then about three minutes later he was all "Barcelona are starting to dominate". It's all black and white with Tyldo.

All red and white morelike

Before this game I had never quite realized the full depth of Ronaldo's dickishness.

So this was the first time you'd ever seen him then?

Bit like the press afterwards.

'United, brink of history, best team in the world' to 'Barca, made history, best team of all time'.

No I've seen him plenty of times but I've never seen him foul other people so blatantly before. At one point he absolutely clocks Puyol in the air (one of at least three of his flagrant fouls against him), Puyol falls like a stone, and Ronaldo walks over as if to help him up or offer a pat of consolation, but instead sort of jabs at his back with his finger and a pissed off expression on his face, like he's telling him to get up and stop playacting, and immediately stalks off. I'd never seen anything like that before, from him or anyone else. The ref looked shocked as well.

Uh, really?

'United, brink of history, best team in the world' to 'Barca, made history, best team of all time'.

yeah completely correct. really stupid too. chelsea showed barca's limitations v clearly.

What I meant is that 2 milliseconds of Ronaldo is usually enough to convince anyone he's a dick (xxxp)

yeah completely correct. really stupid too. chelsea showed barca's limitations v clearly.

The performance against Chelsea was why people like the Englishman Alan Green totally wrote off Barcelona

blueski well, from the vantage point of my apartment, watching a box into which streamed an edited transmission of camera footage of the game that was happening at that moment in Rome - yes!

Well I think everyone, self included, kinda forgot Fletcher being out meant Man U couldn't do what Chelsea did anything like as effectively. Mind you the defence of Ferdinand/Vidic has covered for their lack of such a player plenty of times this season.

Tom what I mean was that I have always known Ronaldo was a dick. However, "

I had never quite realized the full depth of Ronaldo's dickishness

His comments afterwards were like icing on a cake of dick.

To be fair, Puyol WAS diving all over the place yesterday in a way that would make Didier Drogba proud.

sorry Tracer i just meant it seemed like pretty typical behaviour to me (not necessarily from Ronaldo but still). my kneejerk reaction was that Puyol milked it too.

Actually maybe Puyol made Ronaldo realise quite how annoying it is to other players when he goes down like a big girl.

Replays showed major clockage although I gather the people on this thread have seen a few more football matches than I have.

I've never seen someone actually go over to a guy who's down and poke at him petulantly before, it seems outrageous!

Diving aside, Puyol was up and down that touchline like Cafu though!

I thought Puyol dived at one point and then the replays showed he had rolled his ankle quite painfully, it's just that he continued to roll so many times afterwards

'Actually maybe Puyol made Ronaldo realise quite how annoying it is to other players when he goes down like a big girl.'

I always love it when Drogba goes over to players and starts accusing them of faking it. Got to respect that level of non self-awareness.

It's cos he thinks everyone does as he does

It's a fucking disgrace!

Ah the old "we resent in others what we are guilty of ourselves"

nothing will ever beat the Drogba-Lehmann "you call that an OTT reaction? check THIS"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8072356.stm

A Manchester United football fan in south-eastern Nigeria drove a minibus into a crowd of Barcelona supporters, killing four people, police say.

Ten other people were wounded in the incident in Ogbo town, after United lost Wednesday's European Champions League Final 2-0 to the Spanish team.

A police spokeswoman told Reuters news agency: "The driver passed the crowd, then made a U-turn and ran into them."

He is now in police custody. Both teams have a large fan base in Nigeria.

"The man confessed to doing it on purpose," police spokeswoman Rita Inoma Abbey told the BBC.

"He now says he doesn't know why he did it, but it was an intentional act."

Football fans across Africa closely follow the European leagues, which recruit some of the continent's best players.

Earlier this month, a Kenyan Arsenal fan hanged himself after his team's defeat in Champions League semi-final second leg by Manchester United.

gross

got to see these guys in their victory parade. they are gods here