slovakia 1 spain 0 at halftime!

and a nice little skrtel/costa duel for bonus

don't miss

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slovakia 2 spain 1

congrats slavo

Yeah, it's weird to be talking about a 27 year old retrospectively but, in Messi's case, strangely apt. He's clearly not (quite) as good as he was 3-4 years ago. That still means he's bloody amazing and only goes to show just how incredible he was a few years ago.

Hopefully, once the CRonaldo fanboys give up on their claims that he's a better player, the real question of where Messi stands amongst the all-time can begin. He's clearly the best player of his generation by some distance.

And it just shows how pointless games against San Marino are when England can beat them 5-0 and still look a bit shit. Didn't the Germans put 13 past them recently?

FUCK YES !!! That was the most euphoric match of our squad since 2010 when we beaten Italy 3-2 in the World Cup!

I think the whole country is going to get painfully drunk tonight. (i can't though, I'm on antibiotics).

Sorry, I just can't recover from yesterday's big win.



This is how we scored the 2nd goal in 85th minute.

Mourinho won't be pleased Costa played for 90 mins. He apparently has him sleep in bubblewrap in case of injury. Chelsea look fantastic and, on current form, they could win the Prem by a distance, but if anything happens to Costa, with only Drogba and Remy to fill in, it could easily go tits up.



And is it even any surprise that Costa isn't scoring for Spain? He plays in a similar formation at Chelsea that he played in at Atletico, and he's been great at both, but Spain will have to change their whole style if they're to get the best out of him - which, going on how they're playing right now, might not be such a bad idea.

that was amazing and we jumped on our seats. the first goal was great too, one could blame casillas for going on the wrong direction but that was a fantastically fast mule kick that swerved at the last fraction of a second. it was a really great shot.

some commentators on espn were blaming casillas for the defeat but casilas had some decent saves and i don't think the first goal was so easy to stop.


this is the first time that i really pay attention to him and he striked me as a real asshole.

and i need to watch chelsea carefully to compare. but he didn't strike me as playing tikikata like everyone else. speaking of tikitaka, iniesta had some really nice moments.

Because he isn't that sort of player. It's weird that he hasn't scored for Spain, especially as his playing with Fabergas really has been brilliant. I guess it's only a matter of time.

An asshole? Yeah he's clearly a guy brought on the mean streets, and he ain't never gonna back down from a fight, no matter who it is.

If as Demonrail hinted at, Costa stays injury free then Chelsea will win the league and he'll get player of the season. Easy.

Instead of Spain I watched the England game last night. More out of moral obligation than actual want.

You forget Schurlle. He's certainly more reliable than Drogba (r.i.p) and Remy.

exactly, but should he even need to be? i mean, what's wrong with a tikitaka balloon + 1 pointed knife blade at the end? that's how i used to see villa at barça before his broken leg.


he had some good chances but was either well-marked or he just missed. skrtel i thought was man-marking him and ha ha ha… oh...

i didn't see him as "not backing down" but more as a diva causing fights and taunting opposing players and just being a general asshole. there was a slovakian guy who grabbed him by the throat however and gave him a good shove and got away with it if i recall. that slovakian is the one who didn't back down from a fight! (it wasn't skrtel-- i think it was kucka). a most satisfactory response.


i need to watch him more because although i don't like the personality he projects on the pitch i haven't said i hate how he plays. i need to watch more prem matches for sure. i'm trying to negotiate some deal that might allow me to do that without suffering streams, but we'll see.

Landon Donovan's final USA game kicks of in five minutes.. reading jurgen's recent interview about how I wished donovan "could have done more" was a veiled insult or disguised confession of error in dissing lando at WC

Costa's more a pure striker than Viila, who would often be there as much to create space for Messi and/or Iniesta as to score goals himself. Costa's more in the vein of Ronaldo and Drogba so needs a very different kind of service. He's ideally suited to counterattacking teams like Chelsea rather than the possession-style more associated with Spain.


The taunting and provocation are part of his game and he knows all the tricks. He doesn't stray into the nastier territory reserved for the likes of Pepe so I don't really mind it.

I love this clip though. Seems to sum up what he's all about (besides scoring a shitload of goals, of course).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTeVf0I_JmA

EDIT: Completely unrelated but couldn't not ...

How has nobody mentioned Poland's won over Germany? Good on Poland. The commentator was making snidey comments about Poland's defence in the first half but I honestly didn't get why. Thy defended well, pretty much shut Germany down every time (especially Muller in the second half) and very much deserved a win.


This week has been the one week where I've predicted two long odds and not bet...well I never bet but still. The bets if anyone is interested was the exact minute for England's first goal and for Poland to win. If I'd put them on I'd never had to work again.

i didn't know! i have a listing for them to play ireland but that poland game wasn't shown anywhere that i know. aggghhhhh!!!

This week of qualifiers has been very interesting in terms of underdogs from the region I live in, beating clear favourites.

First, Slovakia defeated Spain, then our brothers from Czech Republic won in Turkey and now the Polish beat Germany.

Splendid.

But not Estonia. Better not be anyway!

Thankfully not, but we made hard work of it. We deserved the win but, against a pretty shit Estonia reduced to 10 men for much of the game, it should've been much easier than it was. But that's how England have been for as long as I can remember.

?

Yes i

Belarus - Slovakia 1-3

Hamsik scored 2 goals. At last he's equally valuable for the National team as he's been for Napoli for the last couple of years.

After 3 difficult matches (against Ukraine, Spain, Belarus), we have 9 points. Unbelievable so far.