Hahaha well the Sunday leaguers are more productive than the ones that get paid 350k a week to absolutely BLOW.

Hahaha salty utd fans mad they let more world class talent off the hook.

Shame.

Lol. Pogba, bebe, drinkwater, and of course my boy tim howard.

washouts tend to work hard to compensate for failures
Pogba is back United bound in the summer with Mourinho anyway
Howard is a god, too bad he didn't work out at United - made way for Van Der Sarr though.



Seething

This post was edited by excellence on Mar 27 2016 10:43am

I can see that happening. Overall I feel like all of the top teams have their flaws that can drag them down.

Germany has a manager that has held them back for a decade, even with them winning the WC. They have by far the best team, but they could choke.
France have a good team, but the pressure is going to be huge and I have my doubts regarding Deschamps. On the other hand, France is one of the countries that traditionaly performed best as hosts.
Spain has a good team on paper, but the they seem so lost. Del Bosque keeps calling up the wrong men and chosing awful starting lineups. Haven't seen la Roja have a proper good game in ages.
Italy just doesn't look good on paper. Their qualifying run was pretty mediocre aswell. The only thing that makes them having chance is Italy being Italy.
England has quality players... but just like Italy is Italy, England is England. I think the low pressure will benefit them and they'll have a good chance to shine. Hodgson could very well blow that chance though. I agree that they need to improve as a unit, and the time to do so is indeed running out, but it's not impossible that they'll step up. Spain didn't look good at all before the 2008 Euro.

I think quite the contraty, they need to perform themselves, letting pressure off Penaldo. Dont go pass to Penaldo and wait for it. Just play a good game and count on him to put it in the back of the net - he will. His off the ball movement is good, defo improved in his (last) madrid years alongside the scoring ability.

So unless 1 or 2 offensive midfielders really step it up, they are outsiders for sure.

wow is that an actual compliment to ronaldo I see?

I have only put out the improvements, no need to post negative stuff all over.

I think he declined - in spite of his impressive scoring ability - in terms of dribbling, creativity and overall influence in a game.

Of course Portugal needs Cristiano's team mates to perform, that's a given. What I meant is that if everyone played at their proper potential (because they aren't bad at all when you look at them in their clubs), they'll only have a chance of competing with the best if Cristiano can play at his best level.

With an average Cristiano, Portugal has at best a decent team. But if their world class player performs at full potential, then they will be upgraded to a team with few opponents to worry about. Guys like Messi, Suárez, Cristiano, etc are so good they can make a huge difference in any given game.

Ye, still the thing remains that both Saurez and Messi can create a chance out of nothing, chapter in which i rate Cristiano far, far inferior. Saurez used to score for Liverpool on his own quite a lot, individual efforts. And was a better finisher (although his barca 41 goal tally looks impressive, the misses he has every game make me go lol at times)
Although i don't watch madrid that often, i can't remember an important good game of Cristiano when Benzema was absent.

Plus there is a danger in the Thierry effect (Henry being a liability in his last Arsanal year just like Ronaldinho was before heading to Milan - all players forget their game and look for him)