International matches Wednesday 12/09/07

By the way, Russia shouldn't have had their goal disallowed. Different angle Replays from behind the goal have shown it wasn't even his hand but his chest.

Lucky break.

My player ratings:

Robbo: 6
Richards: 7
Ferdinand: 6 - gave the ball away dangerously once
Terry: 7
Cole: 5 - gave the ball away + did very little going forward
SWP: 7
Barry: 9
Cole: 7
Gerrard: 7
Owen: 9
Heskey: 8

DD wrote:By the way, Russia shouldn't have had their goal disallowed. Different angle Replays from behind the goal have shown it wasn't even his hand but his chest.

Lucky break.

Whistle blown long before he even shot, most people stopped bar the keeper.

swp was pretty poor, gerrard the same a.cole also, apart from that all good again for England, happy days

FT
Portugal - Serbia 1:1
1:0 Simao 11.
1:1 Ivanovic 87.

Spain - Latvia 2:0
1:0 Xavi 13.
2:0 Torres 85.

lionman wrote:Portugal - Serbia 1:1
1:0 Simao 11.
1:1 Ivanovic 87.

Another two points dropped at home for the portuguese.

eek. portugal in trouble. good result for serbia, keeps them in touch

Decent performance against a side that played a bit better than that joke of an Israeli team.

Team works well together as has been mentioned. Tonight the 2 wingers didn't do much and A.Cole had a shocking game. Gerrard was quite awful too. Nonetheless the overall performance was reasonable which maybe tells you something.

6 points dropped in 3 games for Portugal ..

We are stuffed. It's bye,bye Scolari. And he just tried to punch a player from Servia
BTW, It was an off side goal, but Portugal deserved no less.
Deco 75 minutes too many on the pitch
No attitude, no believe, no nothing. 3rd place if we are lucky

that portugal group is interestingly poised. top 4 teams all very close and they avoid each other in the fixtures until the final day. if they win the games until then (reasonably likely, except maybe finland at belgium), it'll be a showdown:

Portugal vs. Finland
Serbia vs. Poland

So without Italy and Portugal we might even have a chance this year....ow wait not as long we are Cr@p

Kimbo wrote:

Raifael wrote:Rooney is back for the Estonia game and Hargreaves

England are blessed.

Neither should be in the first 11. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Rooney should. Heskey wasn't as impressive tonight as he was against Isreal imo.

Barry has made a strong case though.

Tweedle wrote:My player ratings:

Robbo: 6
Richards: 7
Ferdinand: 6 - gave the ball away dangerously once
Terry: 7
Cole: 5 - gave the ball away + did very little going forward
SWP: 7
Barry: 9
Cole: 7
Gerrard: 7
Owen: 9
Heskey: 8

Is that for the assist alone?

I'd give him a 6/7 and Gerrard a 6.

lampiao007 wrote:We are stuffed. It's bye,bye Scolari. And he just tried to punch a player from Servia
BTW, It was an off side goal, but Portugal deserved no less.
Deco 75 minutes too many on the pitch
No attitude, no believe, no nothing. 3rd place if we are lucky

Ronaldo will rescue you, but Petit, Maniche Costinha deco they all need to go, i think Costinha already has but still. get Fernades Moutinho in there

And when was the last time Rooney was impressive for England?

This is all academic though, we all know Rooney(and Lampard) will go straight back into the side.

So England's best player...isnt a Newcastle regular??

Fey wrote:So England's best player...isnt a Newcastle regular??

no he plays for villa

debaser wrote:that portugal group is interestingly poised. top 4 teams all very close and they avoid each other in the fixtures until the final day. if they win the games until then (reasonably likely, except maybe finland at belgium), it'll be a showdown:

Portugal vs. Finland
Serbia vs. Poland

Finland are still 2nd...they may qualify.

L.r.d wrote:

lampiao007 wrote:We are stuffed. It's bye,bye Scolari. And he just tried to punch a player from Servia
BTW, It was an off side goal, but Portugal deserved no less.
Deco 75 minutes too many on the pitch
No attitude, no believe, no nothing. 3rd place if we are lucky

Ronaldo will rescue you, but Petit, Maniche Costinha deco they all need to go, i think Costinha already has but still. get Fernades Moutinho in there

Petit at least runs, Maniche and Deco.....

Hopefuly we will have R Carvalho and J Andrade for the last 4 games
WTF is this idea of Quaresma on the right, Simao on the left, and Ronaldo on the middle as a striker i don't know

Portugal needs to win their last 4 games.
Simple as

Ratings:

Robinson 6
Richards 7
Rio 6
Terry 7
A Cole 5
SWP 5
Barry 8
Gerrard 5
J Cole 7
Owen 8
Heskey 6

Finland and Poland have 1 more game than Portugal and Servia
And they all play each other on the last day of qualifying.

Deano Ashton wrote:

debaser wrote:that portugal group is interestingly poised. top 4 teams all very close and they avoid each other in the fixtures until the final day. if they win the games until then (reasonably likely, except maybe finland at belgium), it'll be a showdown:

Portugal vs. Finland
Serbia vs. Poland

Finland are still 2nd...they may qualify.

indeed. if they win their next 2 they'll go to portugal with a good chance.

what's your finnish connection?

S4P wrote:Ratings:
Gerrard 5

I don't agree with that at all. Barry and Gerrard dominated the midfield, did a lot of defensive work and generally dictated the pace of the game. Maybe two or three Gerrard passes went astray, and his shooting was poor, but '5' is harsh.

7 imo.

lampiao007 wrote:We are stuffed. It's bye,bye Scolari. And he just tried to punch a player from Servia
BTW, It was an off side goal, but Portugal deserved no less.
Deco 75 minutes too many on the pitch
No attitude, no believe, no nothing. 3rd place if we are lucky

Actually it wasn't as the ball came from a Portuguese defender. At least, that's what they say at Eurosport.

Crouching Tiger wrote:

S4P wrote:Ratings:
Gerrard 5

I don't agree with that at all. Barry and Gerrard dominated the midfield, did a lot of defensive work and generally dictated the pace of the game. Maybe two or three Gerrard passes went astray, and his shooting was poor, but '5' is harsh.

7 imo.

Gerrard is supposed to be the attacking midfielder not the defensive midfielder. Every shot he hit must have gone 10 yards wide and 5 yards high, he also failed to play a single through ball all night.

If you're saying he's in the team as a defensive player, then he had a great game but if you're saying he's in the team as an attacking midfielder in a dominant team performance then he had an awful game.

The BBC would have you believe that they dominated, did you actually have your eyes on the actual game though?

Barry was by far the more impressive player and Russia got back into the game in the second half before the 3rd goal.

I think a 6 is more than fair. Barry should be an 8.

Portugal really are in trouble, could not have been expected, at least not to such an extend.

Would be a travesty to miss the qualification with that many talented players in their ranks.

debaser wrote:

Deano Ashton wrote:

debaser wrote:that portugal group is interestingly poised. top 4 teams all very close and they avoid each other in the fixtures until the final day. if they win the games until then (reasonably likely, except maybe finland at belgium), it'll be a showdown:

Portugal vs. Finland
Serbia vs. Poland

Finland are still 2nd...they may qualify.

indeed. if they win their next 2 they'll go to portugal with a good chance.

what's your finnish connection?

None... I just like Finland.

I'd rather Iceland if they could...they are improving, but aren't as good as Finland.

Ok, fair enough.

His ball through to Heskey when Owen slipped and missed that chance was classy, but other than that he wasn't great offensively

lionman wrote:

lampiao007 wrote:We are stuffed. It's bye,bye Scolari. And he just tried to punch a player from Servia
BTW, It was an off side goal, but Portugal deserved no less.
Deco 75 minutes too many on the pitch
No attitude, no believe, no nothing. 3rd place if we are lucky

Actually it wasn't as the ball came from a Portuguese defender. At least, that's what they say at Eurosport.

When the player heads the ball (actualy when the ball is kicked) the player is already offside. The saving grace is that the Servia player heads the ball forwards, but still...
That's irrelevant. Servia deserved the draw, in view of what Portugal did not play in the 2nd half
As bad as I can remember them playing in the last 6 years