If you wanna see a live r@pe, watch Roma - CSKA.

Go Italian teams. I dislike both Roma and Juve, but when they're in the CL, they have my support. We need some co-efficients ASAP.

That being said, the fact that you get into the CL by winning the EL is a pretty great incentive.

Wait, what? Did they apply that rule?

Interesting. So, what if, say, Inter win the thing but we end up 3rd in the league. Does that mean they take our place?

Great week 1 for Italy, all wins aside from 1 draw from Torino who had the most difficult opposition out of all the other Italian sides in the EL not to mention they were away.

Not to mention they're not good enough.

Well, they didn't deserve it either, Parma did.

Read that Italy's performances now place us back above Portugal in the coefficients.

Maicon surely knows how to f*ck his team. First causes an idiotic penalty, then shoots instead of passing to a completely free Cole that would have just tapped it in. Moron.

Aside from that penalty, he's been fantastic.

I think there's a bit of a sinister motive from the management, nothing else. Freezing him out for some reason. But as for comparison with any of the greats you mentioned, or even Maicon, I know better than that, man.

I don't think it's that simple. Look, it happened again and again, not just with Milan managers but with the French NT managers as well. There's something wrong with this guy I suppose.

and he wasn't called by Deschamps who also left out Nasri.

Same thing happened with Dida in his final years with us. Be it Abbiati or Kalac, we still ended up relying on good ol' Dida because, howlers aside, he was the best we had.

For some reason, the guy made around 20 caps for France in 10 years. Santini, Domenech and Deschamps avoided him almost completely, while only Blanc found a way to play him more regularly. For some reason, he was being dropped tournament after tournament.

Now, considering France do not have exactly stellar defenders apart from a few (Abidal, Gallas in-form, etc.), one could imagine to find Mexes being called up and playing more regularly then some other guys.

So no, this is not the same a Dida. Dida only fell out of position because he started to deteriorate and collected a fair amount of howlers. And you know how it's with keepers: you don't change them like they're fullbacks or attackers.

The thing with Mexes is that for some reason coaches eliminate or sideline him time after time. Yes, agreed, he is a good defender on his day, but that's exactly why I think there must be more into this.

AC Milan want European places for past glories - League form should be ignored for "prestige" teams

16 October ~ In the 1990s AC Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi complained that it did not make economic sense that the European season of top clubs such as his Milan could be over by the beginning of November, or even earlier. Those were still the days of European competitions with straight knockout rounds and no seedings. So, in 1988-89, Napoli found themselves up against Real Madrid in the first round and promptly went out, a fate which also befell Inter two years later against the much more modest Malmo.

Berlusconi's wish was soon granted as the European Champions Cup became the Champions League. But some people are never satisfied, and so now, again from Milan, has come another suggestion. The author is Umberto Gandini, a director of the club who is little-known outside Rossoneri circles.

No doubt influenced by the fact that Milan are not in Europe this season, he has come up with the idea that in order to improve the prestige of the Champions League certain clubs who have had the misfortune not to qualify due to poor league campaigns should be granted wild card entry to the competition. He named seven Italian and six English clubs who fight for, respectively, three and four places, and his argument seems to be that they should all be in the Champions League ex officio.

He says: "Every year two or three miss out and either go into the Europa League or 'have to' go without European football." And of course he could not fail to mention the importance to the clubs of revenue from European football, though it seems to have escaped his notice that for most clubs "going without" European football is the norm.

That this suggestion should come from Italy, a country where the national cup competition is programmed to ensure that two of the top clubs reach the final, should not come as a surprise. If its wider implications, the idea is clearly outlandish. Imagine that a medium-sized club, say Verona or Sampdoria, finish above Milan but out of the European placings. Gandini seems to be saying that Milan should leapfrog over them simply because of their past glories. So some Serie A clubs would be in Europe whatever their final league position, while others knew that no matter how well they performed they would never be allowed in. Yet most small- to medium-sized top division clubs manage to survive without any of the European money that Gandini seems to think is indispensable.
According to Gandini's logic clubs such as Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday, Sheffield United, Derby and Nottingham Forest should be in the Premier League at the expense of five of the current members with less "sporting merit" or support. That is without mentioning all the former League clubs in the Conference and the often smaller clubs that have replaced them.

Gianni Infantino, UEFA general secretary, has said that there is no chance of Gandini's proposals being adopted, but the power that the top clubs now wield suggests caution. It is not inconceivable that it could happen. And if it does it will be another nail in the coffin of the idea of football as an exercise in meritocracy and a sport which, more than almost any other, sometimes sees little triumph over large and be rewarded for doing so.