And for the love of god, please no "Soccer" in the title. We destest that "name" with a passion. We prefer "Futbal", "Futball", "Futebol" and other variants...
Well that pretty much sums it up for me why I won't bother starting a new thread. I certainly don't want to be a part of any thread that people "detest".
It has been a fun month or so of chatting with you all! See you around the HTF.
If you guys are looking for some massive forums which cover each and every aspect of soccer world wide,
The forums there are the most viewed and most posted for the sport in the entire world.
At last count, these were the stats from people talking about the worlds game. It is amazing how many people can talk about a sport even if the name of the site is "detested"...Let the following numbers sink in for a second.
ps: And as a side note, if you have such a hard on for the word soccer, perhaps you should complain to the English since they invented the term. Hell, one of England's largest selling football magazines is called World Soccer.
The BigSoccer forums seemed so tempting at first... Then I opened the supposedly "heavily moderated" Zidane-Materazzi thread. Anything from "you can't compare American sports to football, we're talking about two European men who still know what honor means and who have thousands of years of civilization behind them". Then I noticed one of the moderators weighing in with the opinion that if Zidane apologized to Materazzi, he would cease to be a fan. I've seen more civilized behavior in politics forums.
There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
Le Boss has alread said that he's not in the market for any of the players at the relegated Italian clubs because their wages are too high. This might be more of his usualy smoke, but in the case of Buffon I'm inclined to believe him, given the excellent World Cup that Buffon just had, even his transfer fee will not be at a real knock-down price, and certainly he can demand wages on par with almost any star in Europe.
Thuram would be more likely, his transfer value is low in view of his age anyway, as would be his wages. He might also like one last hurrah with his old boss, or to try out the Premiership; weighing against that is that Wenger rarely signs "ageing stars", preferring instead young players with potential. But then again he once signed Davor Sukor, so who knows? I for one would certainly like to see Thuram at Highbury, sorry Ashburton Grove.
I, too, happen to prefer the term football over soccer, but the semantics are identical and use of the latter simplifies the search criteria for anyone running a query against current threads on the subject. Here are some suggestions for a new thread:
The official FIFA football / soccer thread (EPL, MLS, La Liga, Lega Calcio, etc.)
The official football / soccer thread (UEFA, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, etc.)
The 'beautiful game' (football / soccer) thread
Joga Bonito (everything football / soccer)
The official football.futbol.futebol.calcio.fusball.soccer thread
What do you think? Feel free to toss out your own ideas.
Well, I know feel a bit better about my failure to show up at the World Cup. The match on Saturday was fantastic. The stadium was sold out (79,000), the atmostphere electric, the players excellent. Getting to see Eto'o, Messi, Thuram, Zambrotta (from the aforementioned fire sale, ha!) and of course, Ronaldinho play this close is something I will never forget. it was good to see Jorkaef, as well as Bruce Arena (now the coach of the Red Bulls), whose hilarious manoeurism during the World Cup made him my favorite person of that tournament.
Was any other HTFer there? Some pix when I get home.
I was able to attend the Real Madrid/DC United tilt in Seattle back in August, unfortunately I had no camera with me. My friend and I had really good seats though, halfway up the upper deck, stradling the midfield line. It was quite a show in the first half, many good chances for Van Nistilroy, some great passes from Beckham (and one missed opportunity), and a great defensive stand by DC in the 2nd half.
I wonder who will be coming next summer. So far over the past 4 years we've had Man U v Celtic, Chelsea v Celtic, 1st round CONCACAF gold cup (with US, Costa Rica, Cuba and Canada), and Real Madrid v DC United. I couldn't get tickets for the Man U match, but the others have been a lot of fun.