What should LFC do next?
We must spend big, says Benitez.
Behh! Wrong answer. You should be spending wisely on young talent, who you can later flog off to the highest bidder.
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Tag Archives: fitba
Reds? What reds? Do we care anymore?
So, I don’t really care that much anymore1, but enough to look for some coverage that doesn’t involve having to refresh the BBC or Guardian pages every few minutes. Now, we can’t get Five Live over the internet (outside the UK) when they have live commentary because of the whole licence fee issue. For previous events, like the Six Nations, we’ve managed to get round it by listening to the relevant local station (like Radio Scotland, Wales or NI). This time, a quick try of Radio Merseyside was unsuccessful. That loophole has been closed. 
But without meaning to spoil the field for the future, I’ve found radio coverage! I’m not telling you where… Keeping shtum.
1 I am still interested. I may not care either way regarding the results, but I still want to follow good fitba.
2 just as well we follow Scotland then, eh?
meh…
LFC in Athens? If I cared anymore, I would be excited. But since their ill-advised purchase on the back of a loan, which they will have to service forevermore or collapse, my interest has waned. Once upon a time, I would have downed tools just to watch the game. Then again, the game would have been at a reasonable hour and not in the middle of my work day. And back in the day, LFC’s stablemates wouldn’t have been a NHL team.
Right now, without a TV and bereft of Five Live, we get all the footie highlights we need from youtube. And I must confess that I really don’t miss it all that much. It’s gotten stale for me. It’s not so exciting when you already know the score1. And the last World Cup really killed it for us. What joy in watching a game where cheats and actors flourish? And apart from the tawdry purchase of LFC, Benitez has turned a team full of potential2 into a collection of talentless oafs who play uninspired football. In fact, they may as well play American football because I just don’t care anymore.
I find myself these days spending more time discussing the woes of Gretna Green and their struggle to comply with the SPL mafia than discussing the glorification of Liverpool. P goes through phases of being dejected by Dundee United’s lack of spark, but he remains loyal. Is that the mark of a true fan? A local fan? Did I choose my team badly, not having lived in Liverpool? Does it count that they were the first team to inspire my interest in football? What does it all mean when you stop caring about your team, even if they are about to play in their second Champions League final in 2 years? Am I a bad fan? My blades no longer turn for my team.
What do you call an anti-glory seeker? ‘Cos that’s what I want to be.
1 Which is almost always the case here, always waking up after the weekend games are over.
2 I am, of course, somewhat biased.
Crouch scores a hat-trick against Arsenal? Now, that’s an April Fools’ joke..
The Italian team are dirty fecking cheats
That was a dive. No doubt about it. Grosso is a fecking cheat. That was not a fair end to the game.
I hate teams that progress by cheating. It turns me off, watching the beautiful game ruined by these CHEATS! They did not deserve the penalty. They did not deserve to win. They do not deserve to be in the quarter-finals. I’d even like to propose a ban on Italy for the nest World Cup. This kind of desperate attempt in a game they clearly could not win is ugly and puts the game in bad repute. FIFA needs to come down harder on such teams. Especially if the referee fails to make the correct decision on the pitch.
What’s the point of having a referee and two linsemen if their eyes aren’t open? This incident proves that football *needs* a fourth official, like the replay officials in rugby and cricket. Who knows what the referee was thinking… Perhaps he was trying to make up for his bad decision in sending off the alleged “last man”.
This World Cup is turning out to be the worst in terms of refereeing decisions. The referees have been put under immense pressure to come down hard on foul play. But some have been excessively harsh, yet some turn a blind eye. Lack of consistency makes it unfair on teams. And many of the referees look out of their depth, either lacking competency or just feeling the heat (literally and figuratively). The end result, whatever reason for the bad refereeing: ruined football.
What makes me even more mad is that the ESPN commentators here are saying the penalty was deserved, and in fact, was even “good play”. I don’t think American soccer players, coaches and analysts *get* the point of football. They think that hard, professional fouls are a necessity if the other team looks threatening. They think diving is good tactics. (Or maybe it’s just that the clueless ESPN commentators are total fuckwits. Don’t wish to tar all Americans with the same *dirty* brush.)
Fitba, US-stylee
Had a glorious morning off watching the opening ceremony and first game of the 2006 World Cup. (Paid the price by having to work till late tonight; but it was worth it!)
Strangely enough, none of the “sports” channels had coverage of the opening ceremony. Instead, it was up to KXLA, the local Korean news and entertainment channel, to broadcast the feed. It’s rather surprising that, apart from a few ads on Focks Soccer Channel, there hasn’t been much mainstream enthusiasm for a World Cup that features the national team.
Heck, when Scotland occasionally qualifies, all work stops for the duration of the first round (and recommences when bloody England are yet again the only home country to qualify for round two). Yet the only excited folk in my lab and its vicinity are the foreigners. No one else seems aware that a major sports competition, with an audience close to that of the Olympics, kicked off this morning.
The game itself was pretty exciting; 6 goals being abnormally heart-racing for an opener, let alone one that included Germany, the Audi of football. Perhaps their poor qualifier efforts was enough of a kick up their backsides to up their game. Even so, that’s got to be the most appalling German defence in a long time.
And while I didn’t catch the Poland game, it’ll be a fun World Cup if such “upsets” occur with more frequency. Perhaps my personal favourite underdogs: Trinidad and Tobago, will manage to win a match too. Just not against Ingerland.
Je ny crois pas!
From BBC news: Liverpool play Owen waiting game
Benitez doesn’t want him. And I don’t want him back either. He might be a good Shearer replacement for Newcastle Comedy Club (trademark the folk who write The Fiver at the Guardian) though.
Never on me
Wish I had my camera with me today. Saw a couple of homeless men at a bus stop in LA with Rangers FC shirts on (yep, that deadbeat SPL team). Newish ones with ntl:home as the sponsor. Wonder if they were supporters…
My £28 [loses to/beats] your £5
Update: I meant to come back to this to write my thoughts about Liverpool’s loss/win over the minnows that are Total Network Solution, but nothing. Nada. Not one spark of inspiration. Instead, I was engrossed in the annual saga of “Will he stay or won’t he?” that has involved every home-grown talent from Liverpool for the last few years. Funnily enough, there’s a bit of a trend there for impressive talent, peaking in the early 20s, waning quickly (usually after 4-5 years of service), and a hurry to sell to the first chump squad that believes the hype. Honestly, which of the recent born-and-breds has succeeded upon leaving ‘pool? If anything, we’ve cursed Man City with the g’awful Liverpool B -side.
SPL blots copy book
From BBC news: Dundee United to lose top striker.
I cannae believe the SPL has so much say over who can and cannot get a work permit to play footie in Scotland. And that they claim Jason Scotland is “not of the highest calibre”. He is Dundee United’s best player, for crying out loud! And he scored the crucial goal that kicked Hibs out of the Scottish Cup.
Methinks the Guardian’s Fiver team had a point, when they pointed out that the panel included five ex-Hibbies.
If such a panel were to decide on all our work permits, we’d never get anywhere. Places like Scotland would never benefit from the much needed influx of foreign talent to replace their vast migrate-to-the-south-to-make-more-money graduate population.
That SPL panel should have declared a conflict of interest, or at the very least, appointed impartial, non-partisan people.
