I don't agree with you Kurt. This is a very good squad team they have there and if they sign a couple more next season they're going to be fully charged for the CL!

Bayern are fundamentally a strong team. They have a great board of directors and managers and if they keep their ambitions alive, soon they will win the CL. It's not like they haven't won it in 50 years...

It's typical hype that surrounds every team when they sign one or two good players. 

We'll see. When they don't win the UEFA Cup, we can all start laughing then. 

What if they don't?? I couldn't care less when Milan lost it some years ago... and I bet Bayern won't care all that much too!

Everybody wants to win it, the UEFA Cup is VERY hard to win. One poor game and you're as good as out of it, in the CL you're allowed to play poorly a few times and can still get away with it.

I hope the Milan board didn't think like that, that's very disrespectful to teams that on that level.

I don't think we were disrespectful. Back then we had a very bad season (we even lost to Hapoel Tel Aviv    ): Some crappy players and Sheva who carried the team had a big injury.

Actually, I wanted us to win it since Uefa cup is the only european trophy Milan miss.

$$$$

I saw an interview with Lalas earlier today, he's trying to make some of the newer fans understand that he's not what they think. Apparently, they belive he's going to bang in the goals every week and they're going to win all the time. I'm not certain some of them actually know what Beckham is, in terms of a player.

Unfortunately, it looks like he's going to be a disappointment to the US fans.

I saw an interview with Lalas earlier today, he's trying to make some of the newer fans understand that he's not what they think. Apparently, they belive he's going to bang in the goals every week and they're going to win all the time. I'm not certain some of them actually know what Beckham is, in terms of a player.

This is bad... really bad for the Portuguese League. 4 of the 10 best out there sold. 

I don't think so, I think the Portugese teams will come out with another Figo or Costa .. It is inevitable ... So I don't think they are in a bad situation.

Freddy Adu is about to sign for Benfica for... 2M/euros. 

I don't rate him highly at all, but E2m? So much for the star of the future, that's how much really bad players cost nowadays. 

I think it's all Nike's fault with this guy, they hyped him up so much when he was like 14/15 I remember seeing clips on their site of him and images splashed everywhere. Probably didn't help his career that much, I thought Man United were going to sign him after his trial earlier last year though, obviously he didn't impress that much!

We'll have half-America watching the Portuguese League. 

Tonight is the DC United - LA Galaxy game. LA's new transfer trained with the team and may make an appearance, especially since Steve McClaren will be in the audience. I'll be there too (free ticket!) sitting with the DC ultras. The stadium is sold out, so it should be an experience.

Hard to believe, isn't it? There are, though - at least by American standards. They always hold a big tailgate party before the game (food, BEER, snacks, BEER). They have banners, chants, rude songs for the other teams (along with the occasional chant of 'f*ck you ref' if there's a bad call), etc etc etc. (According to my friend, the new banner for tonight will be 'Bench it like Beckham'). They stand through the entire game and don't STOP with the chants and songs. The odd thing about the DC groups (there are two big groups and a couple of smaller ones) is that they sit at center pitch down low opposite the benches instead of behind the goalposts. I've been told that it's because it looks better on tv.

EDIT for Jack: My friend has two season tickets and the person she usually goes with is out of town, so I'm going with her.

Kewlll....break a leg, and I don't mean Beckham's. See if you can throw a beer can at McLaren though. You'll probably be made a knight or something.

FDL was a different story. They paid the price for being too honourable and sticking to the old guidelines. Still the Briggate aren't so bad. Maybe the choreography suffers.

(Why did FdL break up anyway? I forget the story).

There were already some problems in the group, but it all went wrong with the Milan-Juve match. As we all know, there were some flags from Viking Milano on Curva Sud. A couple of capo's didn't agreed with showing the flags. It happend anyway. The Juventini said this action was very cowardly, because the flags were found, not stolen. But later it appears that someone from FdL got those flags from some Juventini...
Because of that incident there were some discussions about how to go on, not everyone had the same mentality anymore, etc. Discussions or not, they still decided to go to travel to Eindhoven for the CL match against PSV. After that match some FdL guys were treathend (with knives) by some Vikings (probably a Dutch section... don't know about that). That was how the FdL banner got in hands of the Vikings. There was complete chaos between in the FdL organisation because of this incident. Some blamed the group who got the Viking flags, some blamed the Juventini. Despite a long meeting, they decided to end the group...

I thought FdL was ended because they were singing racist songs and the other groups banned them somehow...

Abel Xavier! One wonders why he EVER played for Liverpool. 

The hair, Kurt. The hair. 

What a screamer by Izmailov! I only watched 15 minuted of the second half and luckily enough I saw him spurt that rocket! Oh, yeah... I also saw Quaresma pass three times, all three with a back-heel... I so hate that kind of players!