WC2006 Player of the tournament

[Piemonte]

I'd forgotten about Marquez, he was superb.

[genf_stfc]

I liked Frei of Switzerland.

I feel compelled to use an emoti-thingy     He's an arrogant little shit, that cost Switzerland a goal against France by trying to handle it in the net when Djourou was better placed to head in, and you can guarantee for every 10 chances he gets 5 will blaze over the bar, 4 will go to one side, and the other might force a save.  Don't know how he has been top scorer in France.  I'm sure they took him off before the penalties because they thought you could rely on him to fuck it up - as it was the rest of the team had obviously been taking tips from him.

I'm sure Zidane helped france by getting the one match ban, so they knew they didn't have to rely on him, and then against Spain Zidane knew he had to play well , because they did OK without him.

Afraid my favourite has to be Maxi Rodriguez, not for the goal, but he looked dangerous every time he was on the ball.

[oxford_fan]

cannavaro. it's like watching bobby more, but with slightly less forraging runs.

[le god cuervo]

i thought lahm was well overrated to be honest. a left-back that can't kick with his left foot?! he should be playing for us!

cannovaro wins it for me. top player! will be interesting to see what he does if juve get demoted

[janaage]

Can you tell me when you boys plan to stop this Hargreaves love in?  Ok ok so he was pretty good against the average Portuguese but surely this hype is getting a little out of hand?

Maybe you could put it on hol duntil your qualifiers then who knows, normal service may resume.

[Piemonte]

Just fuck off somewhere else and talk about scotland then.

Your anti-English whinging is just fucking annoying now.  Your not even Scottish for fucks sake

No-one has said Hargreaves is the best player in the world, basically he just had a MOTM perfomance against the admittidly average portugese side.

So whats your point??

[janaage]

My point is one game doesn't turn an international flop into a superstar.  He had one good game, a large number of England fans were booing him at the start of the tournament, the press slagged Sven off for taking him in the squad, he then plays a good game against Portugal and fuck me he's the best thing since sliced bread.

If you can'[t have adecent debate about something Piemonte you're not the poster I thought you were.

As for my anti English whinging, I don't see it that way, I just see it as coming from a different angle.  Just ignore me if you can't handle it.

[Simon Pieman]

So 2 people think Hargreaves put in one of the better performances in the WC and the jock thinks this equates to a love in.

Even if it isn't anti-England whinging it sure comes across as jealousy. If you didn't want to hear about England all of the time then why stay here? You know what the media and fans are like!

[Piemonte]

My point is one game doesn't turn an international flop into a superstar.  He had one good game, a large number of England fans were booing him at the start of the tournament, the press slagged Sven off for taking him in the squad, he then plays a good game against Portugal and fuck me he's the best thing since sliced bread.

If you can'[t have adecent debate about something Piemonte you're not the poster I thought you were.

As for my anti English whinging, I don't see it that way, I just see it as coming from a different angle.  Just ignore me if you can't handle it.

And my point is no-one (especially me) is saying that Hargreves is a superstar. He had one exceptional game and a couple of competant ones.

His stock has risen due to his previous lame performances. Most people including myself were/are happy that he has started to show something like his club form for his adopted county.

I might have gone off on one there, but had to make the point regarding your constant anti-english sentiment as I had previously ignored it.

You've made some perfectly valid points about England in the past, but it just seems now that you are happy to believe that every english football fan shares the same opinions as the bullshit tabolid media

[janaage]

Pretty difficult to ignore if you want to catch up with the world cup on Sky or the BBC Si Pie.

I didn't mean you as in town enders by the way, I meant you as in England as a whole.

[janaage]

"You've made some perfectly valid points about England in the past, but it just seems now that you are happy to believe that every english football fan shares the same opinions as the bullshit tabolid media"

To be honest fella I often refer to the media as you rather than individuals, most of the england supporters I have spoken to during the tournament have been very reasonable.  It's the media I have my main gripe with, and it's predominantly them who have this "crush" on Owen hargreaves at the moment.  I'm actually quite happy for the bloke, I like to see the underdog prove the doubters wrong but feel the reaction to one decent game in x amount of years a little ott.

[Simon Pieman]

Pretty difficult to ignore if you want to catch up with the world cup on Sky or the BBC mate.  

I didn't mean you as in town enders by the way, I meant you as in England as a whole.

Oh I know that. But I meant as football fans they must be a close representation of the general population. Even my Welsh relatives slated Lampard but said Hargreaves had finally come good.

I think that's the problem with Britain - the media hypes things up and the thicker people agree with them. You only generally hear about those sorts of opinions because the other fans don't believe the hype and distance themselves from it.

EDIT: That's my 2nd hip hop lyric-drop of the day as well.

[janaage]

I would agree withthe welshies, but only go as far as say Hargreaves finally produced a good international performance.  Personally I think he will come good eventually as Bayern wouldn't have stuck by him if he was poor.  He needs a settled role in the England set up not stuck here and there when it suits the manager.

[Simon Pieman]

Yeah that's one of the reasons I was disappointed with his inclusion in the squad initially - he never played well because he was fucked around by Sven.

[Cookie]

I thought Essien was good in his 3 games, A real shame he was banned against Brazil.