30 is the new 18 in Milan

Juande Ramos is given the Real Madrid job - whatever next, Tony Mowbray at Barcelona?

Hahaha. Schuster had it coming but I'm not sure Ramos was the right move. Let's see what he can do with an injury-ravaged Real squad. I got a tenner saying that Ramos doesn't make it into Xmas next season

New Real Madrid boss Juande Ramos will return to his former club Tottenham to try to sign wingers David Bentley and Aaron Lennon in January. (Daily Star)

Don't fail me now, tabloid trash!

David Bentley at Real? The mind boggles... That sounds more like something the Fiver would write.

LMAO

Once again, the Fiver did not disappoint:

Santa Claus has just made his list, checked it twice and dispatched one of his elves to find out if the Lucky Juande has been naughty or nice.

Depending on his findings, none, some or all of Aaron Lennon, David Bentley, Bastien Schweinsteiger and Napoli's Slovak flyer Marek Hamsik might be delivered at the Bernabeu.

Which is interesting, because if Lennon and Bentley weren't guaranteed games by the Special Juande at Spurs, why would he want them now he's at an actual big club?

I for one think Ramos should pair Huntelaar with Darren Bent.

Pairing the motionless object with the erratically moving organism?

I feel sorry for Real, if only they had a genius like Daniel Levy running the ship.

Maybe they'll re-sign Woodgate, that was quite entertaining first time around.

They'd be assured goals, as long as they keep telling Woody that the opposition goals are actually their goals.

Former Tottenham boss Juande Ramos will raid White Hart Lane to take Ivory Coast midfielder Didier Zokora to his new side Real Madrid. (Daily Mirror)

Casillas better watch out, I bet Ramos wants Gomes too!

I just noticed, this topic is up to page 4-4-2

Lol, I know I'm a little late, but nice catch

Ohh Crap! <_<

My pessimism isn't working anymore

I guess pessimism doesn't solve everything after all

Don't worry about the Arsenal-Liverpool game though, because when it comes to heads up, it's:

My Bad Luck >>>> Your Bad Luck

I was actually having thoughts about mabe Liverpool shall make a move on Podolski. Looks he'll leave Bayern when the transfer window opens up, and there are trade rumors beetwen Bayern, and Köln of Bundesliga (Köln offered to give them cash, plus a player, but I forgot who he was).

Anyway, I think he'd much more rather to play in a top Premier League team, then in a mediocre Bundesliga team, and probably even Bayern would preffer to send him out of Germany.

But I think he'll be a perfect fit in Liverpool. He will make a great duo with Torres, and Liverppol actually needs some lefties.

Podolski has come out a few times saying that he wants to join Koln. I don't think we'll have the cash to afford Podolski considering our American owners might not be able to pay their next loan installment (Hicks & Gillett OUT!!! :anger:). Anyway, I'd rather see Babel being given more chances than spending money on Podolski. I'd rather a RW and a LB.

I definitely agree with you on this one. They shall start using Babel more, and I think with more playtime Babel will elevate his game to the next level. Torres-Babel may be the scariest offensive duo of the years to come

It's funny that my two teams (Barca and Club Brugge) both played Valencia within the same week.

And we only got 1 point from it all :persuazn:

Yep, how come it was funny? It was far from funny, in fact it was ASAP (As Sad As Possible)

The defenders have to be above 30 though

Ancelotti is the anti-Wenger, it's all above 30 or forget it

Quote of the year!!! Anti-Wenger

Juande Ramos is given the Real Madrid job - whatever next, Tony Mowbray at Barcelona?

Hahaha. Schuster had it coming but I'm not sure Ramos was the right move. Let's see what he can do with an injury-ravaged Real squad. I got a tenner saying that Ramos doesn't make it into Xmas next season

Well, I don't think they had much better options then Ramos. No matter how hard he failed with Spurs, he still has some credibility in Spain.

He'll probably lose it during the season though

I don't see him there next season, neither.

I feel sorry for Real, if only they had a genius like Daniel Levy running the ship.

I'll pretend I didn't hear that. 1 thing that I'm sure is that they are the last team on earth to feel sorry about them. I used to feel sorry about them circa 04-06, when they kept spending money to actually really great players, only to play crappy as a team, and in the meantime their rival became one of the best teams in Europe.

But they remain the team that fired Capello, who was the one who saved them at their worst day (twice actually).

I hope they'll fail to make quarters in UCL, and that they won't even make it to UEFA cup the next season.

Casillas better watch out, I bet Ramos wants Gomes too!

I like Gomes, but Real getting rid of Casillas?? That'd be wierd!

I was kiddin'.

BTW, I just checked the schedule of the week, and it was awesome.

In England, there are no derbies, but Totteham-Man.U is close to being a derby, considering current form of the Spurs.

M'boro-Arsenal will be a great game as well, while Liverpool plays the surprise of the year, Hull City.

The best week in general may be in Spain, where Barcelona hosts Real

(hopefully they'll win 8-2)

, and Sunday it will be followed by Sevilla-Villareal game. And to top this amazing week the desert will come in game of the week, where Juve will play Milan in Serie A, Sunday at 20:30.

---------------

OK, so now that we're done with group stages in Champions League, these are the teams that got the 1st places:

Roma

Panathinaikos

Barcelona

Liverpool

Manchester U.

Bayern M.

Porto

Juventus

. . . who will play:

Chelsea

Inter

Sporting Lisbon

Atl. Madrid

Villareal

O. Lyon

Arsenal

Real Madrid

Any draws you'd want to see, or any teams you feel that are gonna meet?

My picks:

Arsenal - Panathinaikos

S. Lisbon - Juventus

Real M. - Roma

Villareal - Bayern M.

Atl. Madrid - Porto

O.Lyon - Liverpool

Inter - Manchester U.

Chelsea - Barcelona

1st three are the games I'd want to see (I'm going easy on Juve, and Arsenal), and the last 2 are the draws I feel are likely to happen, especially considering that Barca can't face the other Spanish teams. And I'd actually like to see Inter-Man.U. draw as well. Another Ferguson-Mourinho showdown will be amazing on its own, while it'd be even more fun to watch Golden Ball winner C.Ronaldo against the golden boy of football Zlatan Ibrahimovi

I was kiddin'.

Lol, give it to my stupidity then. I just believe every transfer rumor when the topic is Real M.

My Bad Luck >>>> Your Bad Luck

I'm going to bank on Arsenal smashing Liverpool because we're really lacking in attack at the moment, but you guys seem to turn it up against the big teams.

I definitely agree with you on this one. They shall start using Babel more, and I think with more playtime Babel will elevate his game to the next level. Torres-Babel may be the scariest offensive duo of the years to come

I was actually thinking about using Babel as Torres understudy rather than as a combo. They're playing style is quite similar. Also, Torres doesn't need to defend and Babel is just poor at defending so I don't think Rafa would pair them up considering his dream team would literally be a team of Carraghers :|

Arsenal - Juventus (not my two teams against each other)

Arsenal - Barcelona (not Henry playing against Arsenal)

Sporting L. - Panathinaikos (I won't like to see neither of them in the next round)

I want those ties

I was kiddin'.

Lol, give it to my stupidity then. I just believe every transfer rumor when the topic is Real M.

After the Woodgate signing, you can't be blamed for believing anything is possible. Anything.

I just noticed, this topic is up to page 4-4-2

Lol, I know I'm a little late, but nice catch

We can have a more defensive celebration when we reach page 451

I was kiddin'.

Lol, give it to my stupidity then. I just believe every transfer rumor when the topic is Real M.

After the Woodgate signing, you can't be blamed for believing anything is possible. Anything.

I'm not convinced that Woodgate ever really signed for Madrid, I always thought it was just a hoax or a publicity stunt

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/...-messi-sid-lowe

Great article about Barca's resurgence.

Good article, but really nothing I haven't read before. It all seems like recycled material about total football. There were a couple of points that I found interesting though:

I was surprised from reading the article that Abidal doesn't get up more but with Alves as RWB you can't play symmetrically anyway It probably gives more defensive stability than Rijkaard's team though with 3 at the back instead of 2.5 players

When Xavi said they work more on strategy now than before, it didn't come as any surprise that Rijkaard wasn't the greatest strategist around and relied more on his players' abilities I would've expected no less from Guardiola to work on strategy. The man's got a great footballing brain. Does anyone that watch Barca regularly know if they have a Plan B (not that they'd need to implement it at the moment)?

I don't watch Barca that much, but I've noticed that Barca's midfield is a lot quicker to join the attack than with Rijkaard's team. Also when they defend they literally swarm from what I've seen. There are up to 5-6 people defending the zone which the ball is in and putting pressure on the opposition. There is more hunger and running from Barca, but you can bet that over the next few of seasons, even if they have the hunger, all the running and physical exertion will catch up with them.

Just my 2 cents. Feel free to point out anything I've missed or got wrong

Samuelito!!!! :heart: :heart: