Glarmorgan

The default settings of most La Liga sides when playing Real or Barcelona is all out defense, with the strikers making use of their spare time to ask the gods of football to show mercy. So I agree - there are good mid-table encounters and the battle to avoid relegation is always an intense one but all in all - when the 2 top spots are occupied - there is a problem. To add to that - many of the Spanish clubs are bankrupt. "Twenty-two first- and second-division clubs are in insolvency proceedings or have been in recent years" (copied from The Guardian). Valencia debts are in the region 260-270 million Euros!!! Levante went broke a couple of years back, Just as Racing Santander and Alaves. The list goes on and on - Real Oviedo, Malaga, Deportivo La Coruna, Mallorca, Albacete. Some of them were quite successful, making big bucks in the Champions League but even that's not enough to keep the head above water.

Crappy league with zero entertainment value and zero competition. Not only you know who are the two teams that will fight for the title, you also know they'll win 90% of their matches, whether playing 18th place or 3rd. It's no wonder the whole league is collapsing. To emphasis this - in the 2011/12 season, the gap between 2nd place Barcelona and 3rd place Valencia was 30 points (91 to 61). The gap between 3rd place Valencia and 19th place Spoting Gijon (out of 20 teams) was 24 points (61 to 27). In other words - BORING!!!!

Played for Hapoel Tel Aviv last season. Couldn't noticed his inability to pass the ball forward. He always passes sideways or back to the keepers. I can't believe such a mediocre player featured for Villa.

I see you did your homework. Picking the #1 team in Israel for that past 20 years (albeit being a bit behind Maccabi Tel Aviv in recent years) is a sure bet. You could pick Hapoel Haifa - their local rivals. If you appreciate the occasional win - that's the team for you

That's pretty much on the money for me. If you then add in the FA allowing the actual talent to say no to the tournament then you've a recipe for failure. Just add a dinosaur like Stuart Pearce and you're good to go. The fact that a player had the nerve to refuse a call-up is beyond my understanding. I recall, quite a long time ago, that 3 major Israeli players (one of them was Ronny Rozenthal) refused to play in a friendly against USSR due to insurance issues. They were expelled from playing for the national team for 3 or 4 years and they were the best we had. Stuart Pearce might be a crappy manager, but the lack of quality in the England team did not make his life any easier. I find it hard to believe that any other manager could do better with these players. Maybe beating Israel which was insignificant. Both Norway and Italy are much much better sides than England.

The foreign players are not the sole problem. The lack of technical ability shown by the English players originates from the coaches working with them in younger age. But you cannot ignore that these two are related - the Dutch or Belgian teams cannot rely on the deep pockets of someone to get a hold of high level players, so they HAVE TO raise them on their own. Standarde Liege or Anderlecht cannot spend 40 millions on a proven talent - so they invest a lot of resources in their younger teams. You see the results in the rising of the Belgium national team after years of mediocrity. Championship? The prize of getting to the big money of the Premier League brings managers to loan 7 players from Italy or Spain. This leaves League One as the only place for English players to get their chance and the U-21 players, as I saw them - perfectly fit League One....

Went to see the Italy - Holland match yesterday. It will be interesting to see how the Italians will adjust themselves to the Spanish type of game. When playing Holland, the Italians took 20 minutes to learn. After this learning process - they just vanished the dutch. It was a very impressive defensive display which I enjoyed very much. Most of the crowd wanted Holland to win but I couldn't ignore the great way the Italians dealt with a more talented team than their own. In regard to your England - if you'll keep looking at the staff to try and figure out the problem - you'll keep on raising false hopes. The U-21 team suffer the same problems as the senior team. First - the lack of creativity. No one beside that Redmond fella was able to do anything which is out of the ordinary. Most passes when sideways till that aimless long ball to Wickham up front and he showed nothing but physical skill. Even our mediocre side showed at least signs of personal technique when handling the ball, not to mention Spain or Holland. The fact that our crappy national team managed to beat you is astounding. Most of the players don't play regularly for their teams. One centre half was an integral part of a relegated team while the others played for teams who managed to escape relegation on the last day of the season. The goalie is a substitute goalie for his team and the same goes for the right back. I can keep this going but this line of mediocre players looked just as good as the English players. If I was an Englishmen - this is something I could not accept. Second - the vast amount of foreign players in the Premier League depletes the arsenal of really good English players, so if a Phil Jones can't play - his replacement is just not good enough and his probable future playing career for Brentford will be the proof of that.

237 pages into this thread and 500 messages trying to figure out whether 8pints is human or not, it's time I'll upload my pic. Taken yesterday evening at the Under-21 semi finals between Italy and Holland. Lucky for me - I had an Italy shirt at home so at the end - I picked the winning side, even though I had no idea who most of the players are!!! yey!!!

I don't think I'd ever be able to watch the game again. Not because I don't enjoy football generally, but without my Villa I'd fall out of love with it. It could never be the same. Nah. I can tell you from experience that when your favourite team "disappears", the whole perception of football changes. My team is Israel still exists - playing even in the first tier of football. Still, the ways thing work behind the scenes brought me to take 500 steps back (for instance, 21 of the club employees are related to the chairman). Surprisingly enough, this allowed me to watch Israeli football more... let's say - calmly. I wasn't that moved by a specific result and all of a sudden - I could enjoy a football game. Just needed to pick the team I wanted to win the specific match, sit back and enjoy. Well, the crappy football has nothing to do with enjoyment - but that's another story.

You should really check out Elche.

The Armenian national team is usually very talented when it gets to the attacking side, but their back line is just horrible. Still, they made some progress in recent qualifying tournaments. If I recall correctly, there were in contention to qualify to the last Euros till the last group match. In general, the minnows are closing the gaps. Leaving San Marino aside, the progress made by teams as Liechtenstein, Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan makes playing them a very tricky encounter.

Hartlepool United.

True, but think of the hammering the Dutch would inflict on your wobbly side. On a personal note - this was very disappointing tournament for Israel, but when I look at the English team - I see no real talent other than Redmond. I know this is the 2nd team, but this 2nd team would have hard time handling in our mediocre Israeli league, not to mention the Permier League. I guess it was a good scouting opportunity for Preston or Colchester to learn of their players to be...

Well... everyone here still can't believe that our crappy team managed to beat England. Your team is way too weak for this level and you should be glad that you've got the group with Israel rather than the one with Spain or Holland.

Britain actually did nothing but leave here. They've entered a sparsely populated piece of land in 1918 and left a sparsely populated piece of land in 1948. There was no Palestinian state before the Brits and due to the sheer stupidity of the Arabs in 1948 - there wasn't one after they left. This is quite simple - they were offered an independent state by the UN in 1948 and refused. They were offered a state by Ehud Barak in 1999 (or was it 2000?) and refused. They were offered a state by Ehud Olmert 5 years ago - and refused - and these are the moderate Palestinians. The Hamas won't settle for less than the extermination of Israel (not to mention their desire to kill all Jews and Christians, but let's leave this aside for now). All in all - this debate has got nothing to do with the ongoing issue with Gaza. Gaza was occupied by Egypt. There is no Israeli presence in Gaza at the moment. Still they have the Hamas calling for our destruction.

And I assure you that 200-300 years from now, when we won't be needing to defend our borders and when our neighbors accept our existence - that we'll have the time to ponder of think of what we did wrong and whether things could be different. At the time being we cannot act as if we're in the middle of peaceful Europe, debating on a state far away. There are people in Israel who sleep in their bomb shelters for the past 10 days. You cannot just "put up" with this reality. No normal state would.

That is exactly the sort of propaganda I was talking about. Official numbers talk of 18 Palestinian dead. 3 days of airstrikes - 18 dead - this shows how much Israel is doing in order to avoid unnecessary casualties, unlike the peaceful and sweet Hamas (and Islamic Jihad), which keep on aiming their rockets at Israeli cities (and let's make it clear - there are civilians there. Not soldiers nor demons) The Iron Dome system tackled no less than 100 rockets. In case you do not know - the Iron Dome does not shoot any rocket. It targets only rockets aimed at populated territories. In other words - if not for Iron Dome, more than 100 rockets would land right within Israeli cities, probably bringing the casualty rate to be a bit higher that it is now. For some reason, I feel no need to apologize for our technological superiority which allows our dead count to remain relatively low.

Thought of dealing with all those Aboriginals in Tasmania, but I found out that you Brits got ahead of me and exterminated them all by yourself.

Reports claim that from now on, there is no "Melbourne". Only "New Jerusalem".

True. The operation is well planned. Now we should think of what triggered Israel to materialize this plan just now (in theory. Ground invasion has yet to start. Hopefully - there will be no need for one).

Hey, I don't really think that the end of this will come after so and so bodies. The only thing that will bring an end to it is Hamas understanding that Israel is here to stay. Unlike some people wrote here earlier - Hamas is not fighting for peace. Hamas wishes to eradicate Israel and form an Islamic state on all of "Palestine" land. It says so in their charter (which is an astonishing piece of information. A must read for anyone assuming he knows what's going on here - there you'll find a statement that the Jihad is the only solution and so on). They say it in their own words. When president Abbas dared to imply that he might consider giving up on the right of return - Hamas protested strongly. They are not seeking peace. They seek death and death they bring to us all. So, for this to end from Hamas point of view - all Israelis must die or deport. From an Israeli point of view - all we want from Hamas and Gaza is peace and quiet. Not peace in the meaning of a treaty (which is irrelevant as long as the Hamas is at helm), but peace in the meaning of no more rockets and mortars aimed at Israeli cities. This is what the majority here think - we want nothing with Gaza and we wish that Gaza would want nothing from us. I leave you (for now) with this - an interview with a main stream Israeli journalist on Australia TV. Ben Dror Yemini calls in his columns for the solution of two states and is considered to be very moderate in his opinions. http://www.abc.net.a...israeli/4372788 Yep. And from then went on to conquer Jordan, Iraq and Australia.

True, but at the same time - limiting yourself to hear or read only a specific point of view - might create ignorance. I reckon you will not have that much time to read the words of Avigdor Liebermann or any other Israeli right wing people. When you hear of the "siege" of Gaza and when you hear how Israel "forced" the Hammas from "Southern Israel" - you know ignorance is at the helm.

These reports are incorrect.

Saw that coming OK, I'll try to do my best: 1. Noam Chomsky might be a smart man, but he cannot, under any circumstances, can be considered as neutral spectator. He's considered as an extremist even by the left wing parties here. We are talking of a man who claimed Shimon Peres to be a mass murderer. 2. To say Israel "controls any aspect" and so on is not correct. First, as I said - there is an open border between Gaza and Egypt. As far as I know, it's a bit hard to obtain a siege when you have an opening towards a friendly neighboring country. In addition, true a lot of Gaza's infrastructure is connected to the Israeli one. For instance - their electricity. You do realize that Israel can turn power off in an instance - but choose not to. The same goes with water supply. I don't know of many nations who are being targeted by artillery and still continue to supply the attacker with essentials such as the things I've mentioned above. 3. As I said over and over again - nothing prevents the Hammas for importing whatever they need from Egypt. You keep giving me the automatic reply of "occupiers" but you keep ignoring two facts. 1. Israel left Gaza. 2. Gaza have an open border with Egypt. Now, can you please explain why do they prefer fighting with Israel rather than taking care of their own people there? They rather sneak in weapon convoys from Sudan. Yep. Good use of their money. 4. peterms, even though I fully respect your opinion, I still ask you not to bring up false maps as you did (that green and white). To start - most of the region called "Palestine" was practically empty before 1948. In 1941, for instance, there were 1.5 million people here (Arabs+Jews). Now days, there are about 10 million and there are many vacant lands yet. from your maps someone might come to the conclusion that the Palestinian Empire flourished till those evil Jews arrived. In 1941, about 30% of the population were Jewish. This prompted the UN to offer their plan to divide old Palestine into two states - Israel for the Jews, Palestine for the Arabs. Most of the land would have gone to the Arabs, who still declined and waged war on Israel. If only they decided to go in another path... 5. The situation here is dire. It is dire for many reasons. Here are a couple of examples for what is seen on Palestinian TV on shows for kids. (sorry, I don't know how to embed the youtube player). a. - That's a nice song by a nice girl, preying to follow the footsteps of her mother. A suicide bomber. b. http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=91&doc_id=1354 - In this page you can find an embedded player showing another great show, where they use the word "slaughter" often. It's much nicer when they a person in a dog costume say it.

OK. Take it easy on me... You need to understand one thing - as current things go around here, the term "Palestinians" is a bit tricky, since there are the "West Bank Palestinians", under Mahmmud Abas, and there's "Gaza Palestinians", under Hammas. These two entities, whether you or I like it or not, are not the same, since Abbas is a secular leader, trying to get his way through the diplomatic channel (and I'll leave the "right or wrong" debate aside at the moment), while Hammas are Muslim extremist, calling for the total destruction of Israel and so on. Israel withdrew all its forces from Gaza strip some years ago. There is no Israeli presence in Gaza. In addition, the regional changes brought up a Muslim government in Egypt, which is emphatic to the Hammas. In other words - all those words of "Blockade" and "Siege" are completely wrong, as there is a common border between Gaza and Egypt, which Israel cannot and does not wish to control. Nothing prevents Hammas and Egypt to open the gates and bring anything in and out, without Israeli intervention. Unfortunately, most of the commodities getting in are means of destruction, aiming to harm Israel. Recent week, up to yesterday, was hard to bare as dozens of rockets where launched from Gaza to Israeli cities - deliberately aiming at civilians. This things goes on for years. They just get up, drink their coffee and let some go in the general directions of Beer Sheva or Ashdod. Under these circumstances, the population here practically cried for the government to do something. It was irresponsible not to do it as an entire region, cities with 200K people - can't just live under the constant threat of rocket launches and mortar attacks. Now, a couple of short ones: 1. Since Iran decided to try and eradicate us and since the fall of Libya - huge amounts of weapons found their ways to Gaza. The rockets launched are no longer those "dumb iron pipes", but official Katyusha rockets, and 120mm mortar shells. Army equipment! Stop thinking of the Hammas as the "poor peasants who fight their oppressors". They are armed to their teeth with Iranian weapons and their goal is to kill as many Israelis as they can. Not to reach peace. 2. What's this "disproportional" response thing? Hammas knows what Israel has and still decides to attack, so Israel needs to downgrade its weapons in order to "even things out"?! Israel has a strong army and for a reason - if you wish to pick a fight with Israel - you should be aware to the fact this army will use whatever needs it has in order to reach the goals given to it.