Liverpool FC Forum

[Sabre]

On the celebrations, you might have not liked to have seen Torres with the Atletico Madrid scarf in the bus. I didn't like it neither, but on his defence I must say it seemed some sort of vindication of Spanish clubs. Del Bosque said this was a tribute to all the clubs in Spain, from the most humble, to the biggest one. And thus, Villa had a "C.D. Tuilla" scarf, a very local club that even I don't know, you could see Alonso with the Real Sociedad flag in the stage (in Madrid they didn't like it either), and Torres with his youth club scarf.

I would have liked to see some " " to the Liverpool fans from Pepe or Torres because the Liverpool fans have suffered and are suffering a lot and they deserve it. But I wanted to put in context all this scarf things.

P.D. And yes, I'm very happy and celebrated it a lot. But you know what? not as happy as I think I would be.

[fivecups]

On the celebrations, you might have not liked to have seen Torres with the Atletico Madrid scarf in the bus. I didn't like it neither, but on his defence I must say it seemed some sort of vindication of Spanish clubs. Del Bosque said this was a tribute to all the clubs in Spain, from the most humble, to the biggest one. And thus, Villa had a "C.D. Tuilla" scarf, a very local club that even I don't know, you could see Alonso with the Real Sociedad flag in the stage (in Madrid they didn't like it either), and Torres with his youth club scarf.

I would have liked to see some " " to the Liverpool fans from Pepe or Torres because the Liverpool fans have suffered and are suffering a lot and they deserve it. But I wanted to put in context all this scarf things.

P.D. And yes, I'm very happy and celebrated it a lot. But you know what? not as happy as I think I would be.

Congratulations Sabre, I wondered where you've been (probably blind drunk in a ditch somewhere!). I'm sure Spain has been a fun place to be, we've heard a bit from Andy.

Is it the Basque in you the reason your not as happy as you thought you'd be?

I think at one stage Torres also wore a Liverpool scarf??

[Sabre]

Is it the Basque in you the reason your not as happy as you thought you'd be?

No, no, I'm proud of being Basque, but I'm also Spanish.

It's more related to feelings. I think that club football is capable of reaching points of your heart that nation wide football can't.

Meaning, before the World Cup I thought winning it, it had to be maximum joy. And yes, I've been bladdered. But the promotion (!) of my local club, or Istambul, reached points of the heart that this World Cup hasn't touched.

Club level football feelings are more intense, if you see what I mean.

I think at one stage Torres also wore a Liverpool scarf??

Ah!!! Thanks for the info! glad to hear that, I was bladdered and I haven't seen much of TV (hollydays + celebrations)

[bigmick]

Congratulations Sabre, best team in the tournament won it which is the way it should be. Best performance from Spain was definately Germany in the semi's for me, and I can't help thinking that you not being quite as excited as you thought you might be may well be down to Hollands disgraceful display in the final.

It is just possible though that the Spain success may herald a raft of imitators, and it'll be funny to see Stockport and the like trying to mimic the dink dink dink pass pass pass chinese water torture style. Against the Germans I don't think I've ever seen a team pass it so much, dink dink dink pass pass pass all the time moving it around. It was almost as if they had had a bet beforehand that they wanted to accumulate 1000 passes in the 90 minutes. Some of them were three yarders, one touch, dink dink dink but it was great to watch. Maybe the way to play against it is not to "get in amongst them" like the Dutch tried to, but to leave two up top Inter Milan style and sit in two compressed banks of four and let em come.

Brilliant to watch though and Alonso was magnificent it has to be said, and coming from one of his critics while he was here it just shows how good he was.

[Benny The Noon]

Some final pictures.... what a great world cup it's been. Now begins the countdown to Brazil!!!

Do you think Bav? I thought it was one of the worst World Cups I can remember, if not the worst.

Totally agree - worst world cup I have eve seen . Reasons

1. Football on show in the main was very very poor with the odd good game but nothing spectacular
2. Hardly any decent goals - in previous comps there has been loads to enjoy
3. Half empty stadiums
4. Those bloody vuvuzelas - constant annoying drone meaning no atmosphere IMO and not being able to hear the crowds
5. Awful refs throughout the tournament.
6. The telly coverage - the whole ITV team was bloody awful and Mark Bright on BBC is shocking

[tubby]

The only time I watch ITV is CL football... I think they only had something like 3.5Million watching the final, BBC had around 18Mil.

[tubby]

On the celebrations, you might have not liked to have seen Torres with the Atletico Madrid scarf in the bus. I didn't like it neither, but on his defence I must say it seemed some sort of vindication of Spanish clubs. Del Bosque said this was a tribute to all the clubs in Spain, from the most humble, to the biggest one. And thus, Villa had a "C.D. Tuilla" scarf, a very local club that even I don't know, you could see Alonso with the Real Sociedad flag in the stage (in Madrid they didn't like it either), and Torres with his youth club scarf.

I would have liked to see some " " to the Liverpool fans from Pepe or Torres because the Liverpool fans have suffered and are suffering a lot and they deserve it. But I wanted to put in context all this scarf things.

P.D. And yes, I'm very happy and celebrated it a lot. But you know what? not as happy as I think I would be.

Congrats Sabre!

I kind of expected Fernando do don an Ateltico scarf as soon as he returned to Madrid. But the Liverpool one on the pitch and in the dressing room was a nice touch too.

[fivecups]

Congratulations Sabre, best team in the tournament won it which is the way it should be. Best performance from Spain was definately Germany in the semi's for me, and I can't help thinking that you not being quite as excited as you thought you might be may well be down to Hollands disgraceful display in the final.

It is just possible though that the Spain success may herald a raft of imitators, and it'll be funny to see Stockport and the like trying to mimic the dink dink dink pass pass pass chinese water torture style. Against the Germans I don't think I've ever seen a team pass it so much, dink dink dink pass pass pass all the time moving it around. It was almost as if they had had a bet beforehand that they wanted to accumulate 1000 passes in the 90 minutes. Some of them were three yarders, one touch, dink dink dink but it was great to watch. Maybe the way to play against it is not to "get in amongst them" like the Dutch tried to, but to leave two up top Inter Milan style and sit in two compressed banks of four and let em come.

Brilliant to watch though and Alonso was magnificent it has to be said, and coming from one of his critics while he was here it just shows how good he was.

Lawro called it 'powderpuff' on the BBC, f'ucking hilarious, punditry at it's worst. I'm not sure about letting Spain come at you though, that seemed to be what the Germans tried in the semi and it looked like a mistake. In the final, after the first 15 minutes the Dutch used the 'wrecking-ball' technique and it almost worked, it wasn't pretty but it probably gave them the best chance of winning the thing.

[fivecups]

Some final pictures.... what a great world cup it's been. Now begins the countdown to Brazil!!!

Do you think Bav? I thought it was one of the worst World Cups I can remember, if not the worst.

Totally agree - worst world cup I have eve seen . Reasons

1. Football on show in the main was very very poor with the odd good game but nothing spectacular
2. Hardly any decent goals - in previous comps there has been loads to enjoy
3. Half empty stadiums
4. Those bloody vuvuzelas - constant annoying drone meaning no atmosphere IMO and not being able to hear the crowds
5. Awful refs throughout the tournament.
6. The telly coverage - the whole ITV team was bloody awful and Mark Bright on BBC is shocking

1. and 2. = Adidas and the Jubulani. Disgrace that ruined the world cup.

[Sabre]

Congratulations Sabre, best team in the tournament won it which is the way it should be. Best performance from Spain was definately Germany in the semi's for me, and I can't help thinking that you not being quite as excited as you thought you might be may well be down to Hollands disgraceful display in the final.

It is just possible though that the Spain success may herald a raft of imitators, and it'll be funny to see Stockport and the like trying to mimic the dink dink dink pass pass pass chinese water torture style. Against the Germans I don't think I've ever seen a team pass it so much, dink dink dink pass pass pass all the time moving it around. It was almost as if they had had a bet beforehand that they wanted to accumulate 1000 passes in the 90 minutes. Some of them were three yarders, one touch, dink dink dink but it was great to watch. Maybe the way to play against it is not to "get in amongst them" like the Dutch tried to, but to leave two up top Inter Milan style and sit in two compressed banks of four and let em come.

Brilliant to watch though and Alonso was magnificent it has to be said, and coming from one of his critics while he was here it just shows how good he was.

Thank you Mick.

I think that more often than not, the pass, pass, pass, style is beautiful to see, granted, but more prone to failure. It has been a success this time, because we had the luck of having world class players all over the team. And failure wasn't that far away this world cup, you also need some luck.

But Spain failed with their style in the past too often to say it's the way to succeed. In the past a Vulture and a Michel wasn't enough to afford that style.

I certainly wouldn't try to import that style to Stockport, it would be a mistake.

Germany's style is more effective. And I admire their sporting attitude. In the 27 first minutes of that semifinal there wasn't a single foul. It was high voltage football, I also liked it more than the final, in which De Jong and Van Vommel were nasty.

On Alonso, you were simply a critic of Alonso, but you also admired his game, and in a way, you were right asking him to be less defensive, yes, you said the famous quote of the low teens, but I think that was because you didn't understand well the madness of the market of football more than not appreciating Xabi.

It was other posters (1)the ones who said he was slower than the Titanic turning, not you. Alonso was asked about his role this WC, and said, somewhat irritated: "I'm not a defensive midfielder, nor an attacking one, I'm a pure central midfielder". Which was something that you and others demanded of him in his Liverpool days.

On Holland, a mention to Kuyt. Just one hard tackle, and lots of work. You might not like it, but leaving apart the nasty tackles of De Jong and Van Bommel, Holland did a decent job nullifying the Spanish game. And Kuyt certainly closed his wing much in a way he does in Liverpool, we have to give him that. Kuyt is more than running like a headless chicken, it's also good work.

(1) And much more guilty than the posters who said that were the paid up pundits that said the very season of our second place with Alonso playing very well, that Fletcher fella was a better midfielder. Or Gareth Barry.

[NANNY RED]

Made up for you Sabes , it looked a fantastic party in Madrid ,

[Benny The Noon]

Some final pictures.... what a great world cup it's been. Now begins the countdown to Brazil!!!

Do you think Bav? I thought it was one of the worst World Cups I can remember, if not the worst.

Totally agree - worst world cup I have eve seen . Reasons

1. Football on show in the main was very very poor with the odd good game but nothing spectacular
2. Hardly any decent goals - in previous comps there has been loads to enjoy
3. Half empty stadiums
4. Those bloody vuvuzelas - constant annoying drone meaning no atmosphere IMO and not being able to hear the crowds
5. Awful refs throughout the tournament.
6. The telly coverage - the whole ITV team was bloody awful and Mark Bright on BBC is shocking

1. and 2. = Adidas and the Jubulani. Disgrace that ruined the world cup.

People are too quick to blame the ball - it was used during the bundasliga season no one complained about it before , at the end of the day it's a round ball and professional players should be able to play with it . Most of the poor play came from players off form and defensive tactics of ensuring they don't loose as opposed to going out to win

[lakes10]

I would like to say something

Its not normal for me to stand up for the referee but in my view Howard Webb done a great job in the final.
other Ref's would have killed the game with two sendings off in the firsts half, he know it was the final and the whole world was looking to see a good game, sad to say that one team felt that the way to win it was to kick the out of the other team and the way to do it was to take turns to get booked.


Well done Mr Webb you did a great job...........for once lol

[Sabre]

I would like to say something

Its not normal for me to stand up for the referee but in my view Howard Webb done a great job in the final.
other Ref's would have killed the game with two sendings off in the firsts half, he know it was the final and the whole world was looking to see a good game, sad to say that one team felt that the way to win it was to kick the out of the other team and the way to do it was to take turns to get booked.


Well done Mr Webb you did a great job...........for once lol

What's all this bóllocks about a ref having a personality and a tendency to keep 11 men in each side, as it was a good thing per se?

Sending offs are part of football, as the goals, the corners and the off sides.

If you know that a ref has a tendency not to dismiss players, what teams will do is to take advantage of that. Van Vommel knew that he could be nasty and do 10 fouls without a yellow. The rules say that a yellow can come because of reiteration of fouls.

It's a mistake to consider a good thing that a ref wants to keep 11 players in the pitch. A ref is not a daddy, but a judge.

Howard Webb's face was unhappy at the end, I think he knew he didn't do a good job. I have no doubts about his good will. I have mentioned dozens of times in this forum that the standard of refereeing in England is better than in Spain, and probably the world. But Howard Webb's reffereeing was awful. He wanted to be the new Collina or something.

And what's that bóllocks of the talking refs saying, "no more tackles like that". No talking refs please, if it's a yellow, show the fúcking yellow.

[andy_g]

And thus, Villa had a "C.D. Tuilla" scarf, a very local club that even I don't know,

ah sabes, you disappoint me. i thought you were more knowledgeable about spanish football than that   

tuilla is villa's home town, not far from langreo. a friend of mine went to see the final there (its only 40 mins from gijon) and said that watching the game with a bunch of his family and friends was just boss. the place can't have much more than 1000 inhabitants so pretty much everyone was in the same 3 or 4 bars.

i don't think villa ever played for cd tuilla though. he started with the mighty sporting gijon as far as i know.