TF - General Football TF General Football RSS Stream http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/index.php Wed, 01 Sep 2010 01:51:53 +0000 60 Most valuable person in your team http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62848-most-valuable-person-in-your-team/
Get a good manager in for a long time,  watch players come and go - meaning the club can get any monkey to do that job. This come and go can happen with managers too, yet they choose the players instead of the manager. A small action of saying the manager is more valuable than the player.

Buying/selling players, handling thousands and millions, while keeping a bunch of people happy and hard-working seems a lot more important work, to the club, than actually playing. ]]> Wed, 01 Sep 2010 01:51:53 +0000 http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62848-most-valuable-person-in-your-team/ Morientes officially retires http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62816-morientes-officially-retires/ Quote

Former Spain and Liverpool striker Fernando Morientes has announced his retirement from football.

The 34-year-old, who spent last season at French champions Marseille, has decided to quit because he wants to have more free time with his family.

Morientes will now move into a job in Spanish television, where he will commentate on Europa League matches and Euro 2012 qualifiers.

He told radio station Cope in an interview reported in Tuesday's edition of Spanish newspaper Marca: "After 17 years of top-level football... I want to spend more time with my family."

Morientes became a star at Real Madrid, where he won three UEFA Champions League titles (1998, 2000 and 2002) and two La Liga titles (2001 and 2003).

He joined Liverpool in 2005, but his time at Anfield proved to be disappointing and a 2006 move to Valencia followed before he switched to Marseille.

Morientes also scored 27 goals in 47 games for Spain between 1998 and 2007.


Source: SkySports]]> Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:23:58 +0000 http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62816-morientes-officially-retires/ The salary of an academy player http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62722-the-salary-of-an-academy-player/ Just thought on this while playing Football Manager today but how much would the average weekly wage of an Academy footballer in the Premier League be and woulf FM be that accurate?? Sun, 29 Aug 2010 23:08:25 +0000 http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62722-the-salary-of-an-academy-player/ Why football? http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62671-why-football/





Obviously not all would share in my vision of a "perfect weekend”. Football, is the perfect sport and if you don’t get it, then here's are a few pointers that might just let you get your head round it.

Firstly, the physical and mental skill involved is just second to none. Eleven players per team, all in top form, battling each other for ninety minuets. They are directed by a manager, who in order to have sucsess on the pitch must have character, charisma and mental strength to take the right decisions and make correct moves at correct times. The ability of a striker to absorb tackle after tackle from defenders twice their size, and, at the end of it all, still manage to hit the back of net. The sheer determination of a defender to constantly safeguard his position and ensure he wins the ball every time is a feat that not every man is up to. Finally the last line of defence, the goalkeeper, with his lightning fast reflexes, acrobatic abilities and clear frame of mind, who has the ability to stop a shot traveling over a 100km/h. These this make football, footballl.

Secondly. Every game is different and unpredictable. If anyone dares to disagree I suggest you step into the shoes of an AC Milan support during the 2005 Champion’s League final. However, I must admit that, for the unbiased football lover that game must go down in history as one of the all time classics. Speaking about Champion’s League finals, I have to mention the Man Utd v Bayern Munich final of 1999. I am assuming it must have been hell in Germany during those last three minutes, and I also got a mate of mine who can vouch for the Germans. You see, my friend and I had a tiny wager on who will lift the trophy that night. I chose United, which till the 90th minute, didn’t seem like a very good idea. When my phone rang the mocking begun. I casually accepted defeat and let him pellet me with abuse. I had the last laugh three minutes later. My mood never changed so drastically in such a short period of time. This just goes to show that football has the power to drive human emotion and a simple result can lead the supporter to spend the rest of the day over the moon, or feel down in the dumps knowing that the next day at work will be hell.

There are many other reasons why football is the most popular sport in the world. I didn’t even start to mention the fans and their undieing dedication, love and passion towards their team. I didn’t even need to mention that it is the most followed and played sport in the world with over 200 nations under FIFA.]]> Sat, 28 Aug 2010 09:26:15 +0000 http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62671-why-football/ Football Punk magazine http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62550-football-punk-magazine/ Anyone read it? When they remember to actually publish it, that is. Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:55:25 +0000 http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62550-football-punk-magazine/ Talk of the terrace http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62548-talk-of-the-terrace/ Talk of the terrace on ESPN. Anyone watch it? I quite enjoy it myself. Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:54:44 +0000 http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62548-talk-of-the-terrace/ FA Coaching http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62543-fa-coaching/ Discuss..]]> Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:24:30 +0000 http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62543-fa-coaching/ Monday Night Football with Andy Gray and Richard Keys http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62513-monday-night-football-with-andy-gray-and-richard-keys/ http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_QMuDihPPyPA/ SNy9NIbZ1hI/AAAAAAAAF-s/lceNWi7usKg/s400/statler% 26waldorf.jpg]]> Mon, 23 Aug 2010 23:11:44 +0000 http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62513-monday-night-football-with-andy-gray-and-richard-keys/ New season resolution http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62449-new-season-resolution/ I am thinking of adding 1-2 Bundesliga games and at least one La Liga game to my footy weekend schedule.

On that subject, how does your average footy weekend look like? What games do you watch and how often do you go to the stadium?]]> Sat, 21 Aug 2010 12:07:43 +0000 http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62449-new-season-resolution/ Blatter wants to scrap drawn group games at World Cup http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62206-blatter-wants-to-scrap-drawn-group-games-at-world-cup/ Quote

FIFA president Joseph Blatter wants to banish drawn games in the group stages of the World Cup and says the "golden goal" in extra-time could also be reintroduced.

In an interview with Germany's Focus news magazine to appear Monday, Blatter said a group game which ended all square after 90 minutes could go to a penalty shoot-out to determine a winner.

In the knock-out stage, a game going into extra-time could again be decided by the golden goal, the head of football's world governing body said.

"We are considering scrapping draws in the group stage - and extra-time as well," he is quoted as saying.

"The golden goal, which we had until 2002, could also be reintroduced. The first goal determines the winner, both teams must attack."

Blatter met widespread resistance when he aired similar ideas six years ago. But lacklustre matches in the group stage at the World Cup in South Africa appears to have prompted another rethink.

Teams were going into the World Cup group stage trying initially not to lose which was leading to boring football, he said.

Blatter said he would be putting the plans forward to FIFA's technical committee. He added that Germany's former playing great Franz Beckenbauer was a member of the committee and "is also not so enthusiast about extra-time."


Blatter is a nutter.

Having said that, I blame New Zealand for this.]]> Sat, 14 Aug 2010 15:31:00 +0000 http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62206-blatter-wants-to-scrap-drawn-group-games-at-world-cup/ Football fans are idiots http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62075-football-fans-are-idiots/
After all, you remain hooked on a sport that has, over the past decade, become as competitive as a F1 warm-up lap - while at the same time taking ever-larger chunks out of your salary. Smart people would stand up to such exploitation. Football fans prefer to revel in their "hardcore" commitment.

Even if a match is shunted to some unholy hour to accommodate Sky, you think nothing of travelling hundreds of miles to sit in a stadium with all the atmosphere of a wake, to show loyalty to your club. The same club that's always thinking of ingenious new ways to bleed you dry.

When it comes to football, your rationality goes awol. You worship players who are at best indifferent to you, and at worst despise you. If a referee makes a dubious decision against your team, he's a wanker or a cheat. And if a journalist writes something you disagree with, he carries a vendetta.

Your idiocy doesn't end there. For you take more interest in pre-season friendlies - games which are, without exception, about as meaningful as Gazza's comedy breasts - than the growing inequality between football's haves and have-nots and what to do about it.

In short, you're an idiot.

A prediction...

Here's what will happen in the Premiership this season: Chelsea, or Arsenal or Manchester United, will win the title. Liverpool will come fourth. One of the 10 or 11 teams who graze in mid-table will surprise us, but the rest won't. And at least one newly-promoted side will go straight back down. Surprised? Appalled? Or just thinking: 'Yeah, and?'

If it's the latter, you perhaps reckon football has always been this predictable ("Didn't Liverpool win everything in the 80s?"), but the facts don't back that up.

Everyone remembers that Manchester United pick-pocketed the first Premiership title in 1992-93 - what seems amazing now is that Aston Villa finished second, Norwich third, Blackburn fourth and QPR fifth. And that's not a skewed example - between 1985-95, 13 different clubs finished in the top three, exactly the same number as in the previous decade (and the decade before that).

In the last 10 years, that figure was just six [Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Newcastle and Leeds]. And with Champions League money and Roman Abramovich's hard-earned roubles swishing around, the gap between the rich and the rest is widening by the season. It used to be that if you lost less than seven games you'd win the league - but since Boxing Day 2002, when Manchester United lost to Middlesbrough, the eventual Premiership winners have lost just one league game between them (Chelsea's 1-0 defeat at Manchester City) in 95 matches.

But here's the rub: despite being as predictable as a Jo Brand fat-gag, the Premiership is as popular as ever. Why? No really, why?

Another season, another price rise...

Oil prices and company directors' pay-rises apart, few things in life are consistently more inflation-busting than season ticket price-hikes. But each May, most fans' response is thuddingly predictable: a moan, a brief moment of contemplation, and then a question - do you take Visa or MasterCard?

Arsenal might just be able to justify charging £1,825, the most expensive season ticket in the Premiership, by citing market forces - but how can Millwall get away with asking £29 to watch their match with Sheffield Wednesday? Or Bristol Rovers with demanding £415 for a League Two season ticket? Because you let them.

As Stefan Szmanski and Tim Kuypers show in Winners & Losers, The Business Strategy of Football, demand for football in the UK - like cigarettes and booze - is price inelastic. That is, when prices go up, demand dips only slightly. Cue smiles in boardrooms across the land.

They wouldn't stand for it on the continent. A cheap ticket for Borussia Dortmund costs under £10, Roma just £15, and a Real Madrid season ticket is a bargain £200. Fans stand up for themselves more in mainland Europe; in England they just roll over.

Oh what an atmosphere

So what do you get for your over-priced match ticket? Football that's sharper and sexier than a decade ago? Yes, if you support the big four. But elsewhere the standard has dipped, simply because of the top clubs' spending power. Ten years ago, for instance, Manchester City would have built their team around Shaun-Wright Phillips. Now he's merely a Chelsea reserve.

The atmosphere's become rubbish too. Go to a match 15 or more years ago, and by 2.30pm the terraces would reverberate with a Spector-esque wall of sound. Even if the game was dire, the chants and terrace witticisms would turn it into a spectacle of sorts - albeit one where hooliganism was rife.

These days at home matches, what usually happens? You get to the ground at 2.50pm, just in time to hear a local radio DJ induce a faux-atmosphere by shouting: "Are you ready? I said: Are you ready? Let's make some noise!" Like sheep, the crowd responds, sings one song, and then settles back into silence.

The truth is, you probably only leave your seat only when a goal is scored, five minutes before half-time (to go to the toilet and scoff down a congealed pie in four bites or less) and, 10 minutes before the end "to beat the traffic". And you pay £20, £30 or £40 for this? Every other week?

The loyalty card

Some fans will accept all the above, but defend themselves with the greatest idiocy of all. The loyalty argument. Simply put, you love your club, and believe that - on some level - there's a bond between you, the players and your team. You'd follow them everywhere, perhaps even fight for them. Sadly, it's not reciprocated.

"While the pros are polite to supporters, they think them fools," wrote Rick Gekoski in his excellent book on Coventry's 1997-98 season, A Fan Behind The Scenes In The Premiership. "I was reminded of a conversation I'd had with John Salako. 'Fans,' he said, 'most of them are sad. They think the game is more important than it is, it says something about the miserable kind of lives they must lead. They get things out of proportion.'

"Another player, who did not wish to be named, said: 'Fans? Come on. Players hate fans.'"

I know one agent who tells his players, who mostly play in the lower leagues, to kiss the badge when they first score for their new club. "Most fans buy it every single time," he chuckles. And that's not all you buy. There's the season ticket, the third alternative away strip, the premium rate text service to keep you abreast of your reserve striker's groin injury, etc and so on. When are you going to realise that when your favourite club isn't counting your cash, it's laughing at you?

Absence of reason and imagination

Football, as 'creative' advertising types never tire of telling us, is like a religion. They mean it in a positive sense - ignoring the fact that religion is antithetical to reason and rationality.

Examples abound. Whenever a star player leaves for a big club and more money, fans swarm onto Sky Sports News or the local radio, each spitting "betrayal" with Paisleyesque venom. The fact that they'd switch employers for a 200% pay rise without a millisecond's thought seems lost on them.

Meanwhile journalists who dare criticise a winning team - as acquaintances of mine did by suggesting Greece's Euro 2004 win was bad for football and that Liverpool were dull to watch in the Champions League last season - receive a steady thud-thud of abusive emails and are accused on message boards of having a 'vendetta' or a 'hidden agenda'. The truth is usually more prosaic: the hack's verdict is just one opinion in a game awash with them. Nothing more.

Sadly, intelligent, measured comment from fans - always a sickly child - is now on its deathbed. It says it all when Radio Five Live's 606, once the cr? de la cr? of football talk shows, is now a starchy mix of the vain, inane and the ignorant. And what DJ Spoony, the show's regular host, knows about football could be written on the label of a 12-inch vinyl.

A few good men (and women)

That's not to say intelligent, hard-working and crusading football fans don't exist. Just look at Lincoln, where supporters were involved in part of a community buy-out in 2001 - attendances are up and so are profits. Ditto trust-owned Chesterfield, which has gone from £2m in debt to break even, with the highest gates in 24 seasons. And then there's Luton, who having escaped the clutches of John Gurney largely due to fans' pressure and a skilful media campaign, now stand atop the Championship.

The trouble is, there are just seven clubs in the country owned by supporters' trusts - while only 23 trusts have elected directors on the board. Mutual trusts need to become the norm, not the exception, and that needs fans to get stuck in.

Another problem is that supporters remain stunningly insular. When it's your club being dragged over the coals, you fight tooth and nail. When it's the club up the road, you merely shrug your shoulders. Most fans were rightly appalled by how the FA allowed Wimbledon move to Milton Keynes - but how many protested?

What is to be done?

Football, for all its faults, is still the best sport in the world. But it has become an increasingly ugly mix of Thatcherite greed and Gradgrindian inequality. It needs to be taken down a peg - and supporters are the best ones to do it.

So, here's a plan of sorts. Start by refusing to become a slave to football's pointless merry-go-round every summer. Take the transfer gossip pages with a pinch of salt (trust me, most of it really is made up) and certainly don't bother frittering your money on pointless pre-season friendlies or the Intertoto Cup (you never know, Uefa might eventually get the message).

Instead, get out more. Enjoy the sporting summer: Wimbledon, the Open, the flat season, rugby league, cricket, whatever - all sports where Corinthian values haven't yet been splayed by a pernicious win-at-all-costs mentality. If you took less interest in football, the media might too. And with any luck, football's imperialism - an imperialism which dictates that gossip about a rich player going from one rich club to another is the most important story in the sporting world - might start to crumble.

Become smarter and less compliant. If Birmingham are charging £45 for an away ticket (as they did to Manchester United fans last season) just say no. If you think a Sky Sports subscription is too expensive, watch the games in the pub. If you're sick of the Premiership, try watching your local club again. If you believe fans should be allowed to stand again, join http://www.safestand.../safe/index. php or organise a national standing day - let's see the stewards try to stop thousands of you.

More importantly still, widen your focus to beyond your club. It's not good for English football that we now have a three-teams-can-win-it Premiership. Or that TV money is more unequally distributed than ever. Or - as Lord Burns recently pointed out - that the Premiership clubs have undue influence with the Football Association. So get involved.

In short, it's not necessarily a given that football will become more soulless and uncompetitive with every passing year. But the game needs your help. After all, no one ever changed the world by sitting on their capacious backside, eating a pork pie and shouting beetroot-face abuse at Wayne Rooney, did they?

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2005/ sep/02/sport.blueprintforabetterfootball

As a Fulham season ticket holder this is so depressingly true :congrats::thumbdown:]]> Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:45:00 +0000 http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/62075-football-fans-are-idiots/ Why a winter break? http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/61866-why-a-winter-break/ I used to think we had a Summer Break.
How - at the end of the coming season - can a manager moan about too many games when some - well before the season starts - have already organised matches into double figures - recalling squads early to play - not just to train - and, if they had the chance, they would have played those Internationals who were allowed a holiday after South Africa. At the end of the season they are going to be tired and overplayed again. Last year Roy Hodgson took his Fulham team to the Euro final after gawd knows how many Cup and League games and, assuming the his new team are a better act, he will have to do it again with longer runs in the other Cup Competition at home and yet, despite knowing two games were coming up against Cup Opposition, his predecessor landed him with a load of pointless 'friendlies' - accepetable if Charities are sometimes involved, but where does Charity begin - not poncing all over Eurpoe and America that's for sure. Fergie will be whining at the end of September when his side has lost two or three games already that they are tired and have had too much football. So where are they now - on holiday?
By all means avoid the horrors of snow and ice in Jan/Feb (if you can predict when) - bet they all go off to play friendlies in Spain or West Indies or wherever - but don't blame the administrators if managers want to extend their season backwards into Summer with all these pointless games - poor attendances, injuries which will affect the season etc...

Those are some of the points for and against - I make no comment on to the agreement or disagreement on my side, merely toss it open for debate: the proposal:

This site considers managers have no right to moan about a long season when they extend it themselves with pointless so-call friendlies.

The floor it open for debate!

Cheers.]]> Fri, 06 Aug 2010 08:31:50 +0000 http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/61866-why-a-winter-break/ A rapper and a soccer star http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/61865-a-rapper-and-a-soccer-star/ http://www.youtube.c...h?v=h1eu7opg6UE

What do you guys think? and do you reckon he will stay at Fulham or move to Liverpool or Milan?]]> Fri, 06 Aug 2010 06:07:41 +0000 http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/61865-a-rapper-and-a-soccer-star/ Funny goal celebrations http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/61864-funny-goal-celebrations/ I saw this celebration on youtube,it is bloody hilarious.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=fwqGRNtHDQg ]]> Fri, 06 Aug 2010 06:04:35 +0000 http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/61864-funny-goal-celebrations/ World XI http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/61846-world-xi/
mine would be 3-2-3-2

GK: Casillias ©

CB: S.Ramos
CB: Pique
CB: Vermaelen

DM: Schweinsteiger
DM: Fabregas

RW: Robben
CAM: Messi
LW: Ronaldo

ST: Rooney
ST: Villa]]> Thu, 05 Aug 2010 13:46:33 +0000 http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/61846-world-xi/ Worst injuries http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/61760-worst-injuries/
whats the worst football injury you've ever seen?

thankfully i've never actually witnessed a serious football injury, i've seen plenty bad tackles but not what you'd call a horrible injury.

the one tackle that sticks in my head was only last season, Aaron Ramsey's leg break against stoke. I was physically sick at watching that game live and seeing that tackle.

i've seen plenty of injuries similar, often worse! but watching that live as an arsenal and a ramsey fan that made me physically have to be sick.

the Ian Durrant tackle against aberdeen is one my dad always says was horrible, i've only ever seen a video of that]]> Mon, 02 Aug 2010 19:00:09 +0000 http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/61760-worst-injuries/ Ronaldinho http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/61734-ronaldinho/ http://a323.yahoofs.com/ymg/ept_sports_sow_experts__10/ ept_sports_sow_experts-262726941-1280434897. jpg?ymRb3hDDa8CUhkY7

Seriously, how does a professional footballer/athlete get in that kind of shape? Seeing him in his AC shirt last season, I thought he was just stocky/muscular.....

]]> Sun, 01 Aug 2010 14:14:48 +0000 http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/61734-ronaldinho/ Disappointing World Cup http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/61698-disappointing-world-cup/

___________________
Pariuri online]]> Sat, 31 Jul 2010 09:38:02 +0000 http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/61698-disappointing-world-cup/ Which teams do you despise the most? http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/61689-which-teams-do-you-despise-the-most/
Liverpool, Fc Inter, Bayern Munich]]> Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:01:02 +0000 http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/61689-which-teams-do-you-despise-the-most/ Cards in domestic competitions http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/61641-cards-in-domestic-competitions/ Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:14:05 +0000 http://www.totalfootballforums.com/forums/topic/61641-cards-in-domestic-competitions/