General Football Thread

[Khain]

Arsenal de Sarandí sucks and Braghieri is basically the local Joey Barton

[Colly]

The Danish FA have banned Nicklas Bendtner from international football for six months following his drink drive arrest. Nice to see principles being put before football for once.

[Lineker]

David Beckham has become a global ambassador for Chinese football to help the image of the country's game.

[Colly]

Couldn't decide whether to post in here or the Coin Op Arcade, but anyone ever had a look at pixelreplay.com? Goals recreated via the medium of Swos, a la:

Edited March 12, 2013 by Colly

[MDK]

Hah, sweet. They've got Asprilla's hat trick on there as well

[Colly]

It's bloody hard to post a picture these days...

[hugobomb]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21822165

A Greek U-19 player banned from playing for the national team for life for making Nazi salute.

Fucker deserved it. He's making the bullshit claim that he didn't know what a Nazi salute meant. Apparently we're meant to believe that Greek schools just don't mention the Nazi's in history lessons. His coach also claims that he "He most likely saw such a salute on the internet or somewhere else and did it without knowing what it means". My arse.

[lanky316]

He also initially claimed to be pointing at his friend whom he dedicated the goal to. I suspect he's also going to be released from his contract soon, as a team founded by immigrants with a lot of Jewish support the reaction from their fans has been understandably furious and the coach has been landed in hot water for trying to ease the anger as it just made people more angry. Some fans have been more apologetic by trying to claim he was "retaking the gesture from nazis" as there are plenty of ancient Greek statues of soldiers in a similar pose. That argument fell down the minute he opened his mouth though.

[King Ellis]

He'll be calling all the young fans porch monkies next.

[Lineker]

Bridgwater Town suffered their 29th postponement of the season when Monday's Southern League Division One South & West game against Sholing was called off.

The club have seen 20 games fall foul of the weather, while nine have had to be rearranged because of cup fixtures.

It means they now have 18 matches to play before 27 April.

"We now have to play three games every week," secretary Roger Palmer told BBC West Sport.

"We've just got to struggle on and try as best we can."

Bridgwater's first postponement because of the weather came on 24 November against Winchester, but the club were hit hardest over Christmas.

"Over that period it had a massive impact on us because we went so long without playing a home game," continued Palmer.

"We got into a bit of trouble with cash-flow problems. We were having very little money coming in, with no turnstile receipts, but our normal bills still had to be paid - in the region of £3000.

"Thankfully, our sponsors have helped us out and brought forward payments to get us through the crisis."

Bridgwater are 20th in the table, with as many as 10 games in hand over some of their rivals.

As well as having to play 17 domestic matches before the April cut-off date, the part-time outfit must also prepare for the Somerset Premier Cup semi-final against Taunton.

"Up until Christmas we were on a good run and had eight consecutive wins. Since then we've fallen apart," said Palmer.

"The availability of players is also going to be an issue as they need to get time off from their normal jobs for the midweek games."

And Palmer believes the postponements will have a long-term impact on the West Country side.

"Because of the stop-start season our crowds have gone down quite considerably. We're averaging about 150, whereas at the start of the season we were getting around 250 to 300," he said.

"Unfortunately, I think part of it is that people find other things to do. Once they stop coming it's hard to get them to come back."

[Adam]

It's stupid for some teams. I noticed a few teams in the BSP like Braintree, Newport and Gateshead have played tonight, play Thursday and then play on Saturday as well. Mental.

[Colly]

That Gazza interview on Sky is hard to watch. He's the oldest looking 45 year old I've ever seen.

[Adam]

I feel so sorry for Gateshead FC. Their whole season is in tatters because their ground is ruined (I think due to the weather) and they have had a huge backlog of games to play. They were due to play 4 games in 7 days this week but their 'home' game tomorrow has already been called off for a waterlogged pitch...and it was due to be played at York City! They've been playing at York, Hartlepool and even Middlesbrough's ground. It's just a farce.

[GoN_]

MOURINHO WAS REFERRING TO PANDEV AND TWO PORTUGUESE NATIONAL COACHES

Suspicious votes, suspicious minds

José Mourinho cast into doubt the voting system used by FIFA to select the Ballon d'Or, but what remains to be seen is which votes the Portuguese believes were manipulated.

MARCA was informed that the "more than one, two or three people" the Real Madrid coach was referring to are: Goran Pandev – captain of Macedonia – and two Portuguese national coaches - Paulo Duarte, in charge of Gabon, and Carlos Manuel, who manages Guinea-Bissau.

Mourinho believed that Pandev, who worked under the Portuguese at Inter Milan, would have voted for him, but the Macedonian's official votes went to Vicente del Bosque, Roberto Mancini and Jürgen Klopp – in this order.

Meanwhile, Duarte denied that his vote had been tampered with on MARCA TV and said the reason he could not vote for Mourinho was down to missing the deadline. The only vote registered with UEFA from the country where he works was that of the journalist.

"I received the papers to select the best manager just two days before the voting finished. I sent a notification to FIFA. In the end, I couldn't send my votes because the deadline had already passed. My vote was for Mourinho, but for some strange reason I couldn't vote. I called Mourinho to tell him about the mess. The captain of my team was also unable to vote", Duarte said.

Carlos Manuel was also unable to get his vote in, as well as his captain and country's journalist.

From marca.com

[Baddar]

http://i46.tinypic.com/4rq44n.jpg

Apparently taken last month. Good to see.

Edit: And the pic on the right is the new one, obviously.

[GoN_]

So, someone's lying...

[Adam]

Does it really matter that much to anyone? Why does Mourinho even care?

[GoN_]

Well, Mourinho said to a Portuguese TV that he did not go to the award ceremony because he got a call from multiple parties telling him that their votes got changed by Fifa. The thing got pretty big coverage over here and also from the spanish press, who obviously didn't like that Del Bosque's victory was put into question. Later, Pandev comes out and says that his vote got changed, and the mess kept getting big coverage, so this pretty much should kill the story, as probably Pandev was simply lying.

[Gazz]

C'mon Grimsby!

Do it for Rich!

[Lineker]

Clarence Seedorf sent off for the first time in his career, apparently for leaving the field of play on the wrong side :/

Also strange: Southend have sacked Paul Sturrock and are expected to appoint Phil Brown, but are allowing Sturrock to return after two league games to manage the team for the JPT final at Wembley.