The European/World Football Thread III

You think those were good?! Have you seen this rocket he scored in midweek in the Champions League?
This is all from this 17 year old that even I hadn't heard about until this season...


[video="youtube;K5TSWk0daOo"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5TSWk0daOo[/video]

I want him at Liverpool. Right now. £10m cash. Deal?

Any avid followers of Dutch football here? Care to give your thoughts on who's the most likely to win the Eredivisie League this year in your opinion and why? Thanks

Yeah, both have passable ties. I'm made up for Estoril as it gives them a great chance to be able to play a few more matches in Europe. Their fans were great in the first leg so i would like to see a bit more of that and them in their European games. As for Paços it was always going to be tough no matter who they had out of the few teams they could have been given. It does mean Hulk returns to the Dragão (if he doesn't leave between now and then) as Paços will be playing at our ground so i imagine a few Portistas might pop along to that.

The apology has come pretty late from Cardozo but why apologise now and then leave? I seem to think he's going nowhere now.

We shall see by this time next week! It's back!

First trophy of the season for Porto. No problems in this game at all. First half we completely dominated whereas the second was a lot less exciting. Helton was hardly tested. Licá was great and worked very well with Lucho. Cracking atmosphere though, it's a shame Portuguese football isn't like that every week with a full house etc. Guimarães fans were still noisy despite being 3-0 down. I'm never normally too fussed with the Supertaça, it's nice to win it but that's normally it but this one felt a bit different to the other ones for some unclear reason. I like Paulo Fonseca and i love our current squad and how strong we look. You watch, one of the first times i feel confident about a Porto squad we'll win nothing else this season!

Heard about Quaresma? His downward spiral of a career continues. Terminated his contract with Al Alhi and Jorge Mendes. Where next for him?

Any avid followers of Dutch football here? Care to give your thoughts on who's the most likely to win the Eredivisie League this year in your opinion and why? Thanks

Yeah my mums side of the family are all big Ajax fans so I watch it every week and normally attend a few as well.

Ajax will win it this year again, dodgy start though. Outstanding coaching with DeBoer/Bergkamp and a stable squad with enough quality to also maybe have a CL run as well. Great that they kept Eriksen and I think Sigþórsson will have a 20+ goal season. PSV would have had a real go at it but theyve sold almost their entire attack, lost Strootman/Van Bommel etc. Twente always overachieve though so they might actually nick 2nd. Feyenoord are nowhere, few decent youngsters though.

Siem De Jong has suffered a 'klaplong' which is some kind of lung condition apparently, not sure of the exact translation but will be out for weeks. Big blow especially for De Klassieker

Yeah my mums side of the family are all big Ajax fans so I watch it every week and normally attend a few as well.

Ajax will win it this year again, dodgy start though. Outstanding coaching with DeBoer/Bergkamp and a stable squad with enough quality to also maybe have a CL run as well. Great that they kept Eriksen and I think Sigþórsson will have a 20+ goal season. PSV would have had a real go at it but theyve sold almost their entire attack, lost Strootman/Van Bommel etc. Twente always overachieve though so they might actually nick 2nd. Feyenoord are nowhere, few decent youngsters though.

Ajax should be clear winners this season after they've kept their best players in Eriksen, Alderweireld and De Jong, they've also added Bojan Krkic who used to play for Barcelona. The coaching at the club is so stable and by keeping their best players they're progressing at Ajax into their best years, something that rarely happens in Dutch football as a lot of young hopefuls always go abroad for the money at a young age and always come crawling back to Dutch football once they have flopped.

PSV have turned over their squad but look a little bit raw with so many young players, but you shouldn't rule them out for a close call title run in.

Feyenoord have kept there big players over the summer so you'd have thought they'd have a go at the title this season but they've lost their opening 2 games and played poorly in the process.

Then there's AZ who have picked themselves up from the disappointment of last season to sign some good players over the summer, but I think they're happy enough just to finish in the European places again after last season.

Other teams such as Twente and Vitesse have lost far too many players to even be considered this season, they're simply not strong enough.

Thanks alot guys. Thinking of doing a season long accumulator, and they're decent odds @ 6/5 to win the league. Good to hear that they are keeping their young players. Always liked Ajax, and they obviously used to be european heavyweights, hope they can get back to that level again.

Ajax 2 Fejinoord 1, Kolbeinn Sigthorsson with 2 goals...needed that

x

I’m pretty sure you won’t be agreeing with me with saying it was a great opening to the 2013/14 season.

Very surprised with Benfica, I didn’t think they would drop all three points in Madeira. I know it can be a difficult place to visit but I was going for a draw seeing your opening day record isn’t great. I really didn’t think all three points would be dropped so early on, especially because it wasn’t until round 29 for you to lose last season. You can argue Sami was marginally offside but it was one of them that was difficult for the officials to see. But even with the wrong referee decisions aside, I feel Benfica were quite poor in terms of creating decent chances. They reminded me a bit of Porto in a few games last season, lots of possession but not enough chances created from it. Some credit should be given to Maritimo too.

As for Porto, we started just like that. Looked good but nothing from it and then Setúbal get a goal out of it. Kieszek getting sent off was pure stupidity which made it difficult for Setúbal to have to defend with 10 men, a different keeper and having just lost the lead. Quintero, Quintero, Quintero... Not even a minute into his debut and he scores a goal like that! I’m very excited to see him grow even more in a Porto kit.

Quintero wasn’t the only Colombian to get off to a blinder this weekend. Fredy Montero could prove to be a very important signing for Sporting this season. With RvW gone they really needed to find someone who could score goals seeing as they got very few from elsewhere on the pitch last season. So a hat-trick on his debut is just the start he and Sporting really needed. Even if he did mess up the finish, his third goal was great.

I could see that Paços loss to Braga happening on Friday night. I think we both knew that Paços would probably struggle more this season with the changes they have gone through in the summer and I think appointing a manager like Costinha wasn’t a smart move by the club. I just hope tomorrow they play with an extra something in them with it being the Champions League otherwise it may be a completely embarrassing defeat for the club.

I was hoping Belenenses return to the Liga would have gone better too. Still, a whole lot of games to go for them though.

Like I said though, I certainly enjoyed the opening round of games. A much better start by us compared to our 0-0 against Gil Vicente last season. Still feeling positive, for now!

Celtic are getting spanked 2-0 by Shakhter Karagandy. This is what happens when you remove the competition from the domestic league, the team doesn't improve. I really hope they don't qualify

We will be sat with you guys in the Europa league then
But yeah We did get to the last 16 last year and it is only 1 game (and on a plastic pitch at that)
Also "spanked" = exaggeration.

Good god did anyone catch Ochoa's performance against PSG...
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