AcesHigh

why isn´t Thiago Silva in the Brazil squad? Ask Dunga this question. Pato is better than Hulk, no question about that. as I said, it´s not a question of getting match fit. It´s a question of different physical preparation, for different demands. Like a runner who specializes for the 400m changing preparation for the 4000m, and vice versa. plenty of european based players who returned to Brazil also took a long time to get match fit. does he really? besides, was he really not match fit? I think it´s much more a question of the fact Gus did NOT WANT HIM, but he was pushed into the club by Kia Joorabchian, the agent. Chelsea did not need Pato. Too many players for the same position. btw, just as a side note, brazilian season starts in february and ends in december. Pato ended the season with São Paulo and had no pre-season. European players who ended a season would also take some time to get in the same physical level as other players if thrown in the middle of an already running season. We don't even call it seasons in Brazil, but simply "year", because leagues start and end in the same year. why not? Pato is too young t consider him that way. Pato's problem has usually been related to women... if he has his right head in the right place, he can still be a great player.

He had it in abundance last year, playing for São Paulo. "oh, but that's the brazilian league!" well, so why the previous year, playing for Corinthians, he was so poor that Corinthians LOANED him (paying half his salary) to their cross city rivals? If the brazilian league is so poor that Pato could just do well anywhere, Corinthians would not have just loaned him to São Paulo, where he also struggled at first and then started to score again under Osorio (currently Mexico's NT coach) and that in a club that is going through some very hard internal political turmoil (brazilian clubs do not have owners... fans are the owners and they elect presidents and councillors, so there is a lot of politics in them), including the ex-president fist-fighting with the current one who was recording him without his knowledge and such... political turmoils which were affecting the entire staff and players. And even so Pato was crucial to take São Paulo to a decent position in the 2015 league. as for accusations that brazilian league is not so "physical"... well, it´s not so fast because there is a trade between speed and endurance. Brazilian clubs play in average 15 more matches in a year than European clubs. (because of the state leagues). So the physical preparation at the start of the year takes that into consideration. They prepare players to play more matches, running less in each match. I guess in the end of the year, the "mileage" ends up being the same for european and brazilian players. Brazilian players who return to Brazil need a lot of time to re-adapt to the many more matches played in Brazil, and several struggle and do not re-adapt at all.

You tell me https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EnkNCfTjlsA

Mikel almost saving himself. Still got that dumb yellow card :)

Zico saying it's inadmissible a player at this level being afraid of the ball and turning his back to the free-kick

Exactly :)

David Luiz, Thiago Silva, Maxwell, Tiago Motta, Marquinhos, Lucas... William and Diego Costa. You could make almost an entire Seleção from this...

regarding the penalty on Oscar, from The Guardian live commentary "20 mins: Cazorla plays a pass down the right, nominally for Bellerin, but it’s errant. Rather than chasing the ball down, Bellerin complains about the poor nature of the pass, which seems a bit off, young man. Yogesh P writes, on the ‘penalty’ incident: “Well if it was a foul then the referee would have stopped play. As it were, he gave play on to Chelsea, but they didn’t score. Can you imagine the furore if he had stopped play and if they has scored, and the goal had been disallowed ? Perfect call by the referee.” Playing the advantage, perhaps? The one and only thing football can learn from rugby, that." well... sorry, but football ALREADY learned that from Rugby long ago. If ENGLISH referees did not learn new FIFA rules it´s another question. a football referee can totally wait to see what happens before blowing the whistle. He can wait to see if a goal will be scored or a pass will be completed, and if there is no advantage, blow the whistle to call a foul or penalty. that happens in plenty of leagues around the world. We should question why people even are wondering about this rule in the Premier League...

To what point Oscar being tasked with defending (because he is good at it) influences his attacking performance? I remember that in most of those games where Oscar was being voted MOTM, Hazard did not have particularly good games... maybe because he had to sacrifice himself more at defense too ?

Why are people comparing David to Frank to say he should not celebrate, as Frank didn't? Completely different situations. Frank played 13 years at Chelsea. David Luiz played only 3. It's normal that Frank feels much more attached to Chelsea than David Luiz, to whom Chelsea is just one more club he went through. He is a Corinthians supporter and that's probably the only club he wouldn't celebrate scoring a goal against You play 3years in a club, you make friends, you are sympathetic towards it, but you don't become a die hard supporter nor a loyal fan. It's different if you spend 90% of your career at the same club.

Like the place behind the goal for La Doce in Boca Juniors' Bombonera stadium. Or Geral at Gremio Arena. Or at Borussia's stadium. All of them concentrate singing hardcore fans at a single place. Non singing fans already know they will be looked down if they go at those sections and don't sing. Other fans at the stadium will usually follow their lead in singing BUT a major difference that can't be emulated at Stanford Bridge is that they are always terraces sections. It's probably psychological but fans feel easier to sing loudly when they are standing

do you people consider him brazilian or spaniard? I was reading this BBC article on the victory over Swansea http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/30758437 "The Argentine's attempted back-pass to Fabianski was picked off by the Spanish striker..." I would think normal if I had read "picked off by Spain's striker". But spanish striker? Costa is more brazilian than Spanish. He didn´t lose (nor renounced) his brazilian citizenship... his family still lives in Brazil AND he said in interviews he wanted to finish his footballing career in Brazil before retiring in Brazil Plus he already wore the canary jersey

no, it just proves that football is quite an unpredictable sport and a player can do well in one team and bad in the other. It seems you forget Torres scored tons of goals with Liverpool and Diego Costa is scoring tons of gols with Chelsea. Does that means the english league is sh*t? I do agree the Spanish League is boring because it´s too unequal, but he scored those 2 goals against Real Madrid... plus spanish teams BESIDES Real Madrid and Barcelona usually do well in the Champions League and Europa League.

that´s a bizarre photo. His hand is way too low considering the left one is his sister! (ps: I am brazilian. Never had my hands so low in my sister's "backs" (obviously, that low it doesn´t qualifies as "back" anymore) his sister is quite a hottie however. Plenty of photos of Gabriele Emboaba on the net.

and another great goal today. 13 goals in 15 PL games? Is that it? It´s a good number, but it´s also important that he helps others creating goals, even when he is not scoring.

It's the 2nd good assistance Remy wastes. First by Costa, now by Lotus

He made a good pass a few minutes ago that could have resulted in a goal

Costa almost had his shirt ripped by the Portuguese defender. Costa must have said some nice Portuguese cursing to him

no player beats Pirlo and Buffon in two ball touches by luck. this shows class and genius. There other facets to a football player of course (work rate, stamina, injuries, agressivity, etc, etc). But at least class and genius we know he have.

Not sure why Mourinho used Anfield as an example instead of for example Boca Juniors (and yes, unlike Liverpool supporters, Boca fans keep singing even when their team suffers a goal) singing DURING a match

lol, someone was playing with Hazard and while he was on his knees they pushed him to the ground (maybe Oscar?) but it was funny, clearly kids play.

great play by Azpilicueta, but we know what would happen if we did not have Costa. Liverpool would simply clear the crossing by Azpilicueta. A good striker is not only about his finishing quality. It´s about his almost sobrenatural knowledge of where the balls will be. He is always on the right place in the right time.

are they? Saw only today, when I read about Costa's birthday and the jokes about his age.

hard to believe the age difference between Costa and Oscar is only 3 years... Diego Costa 26 Oscar, 23

well, congratulations to Maribor. Gotta take the hat out to their will to win... a club from a town with 114k people in Slovenia, their budget probably pays the salary of a single Chelsea player... their two brazilian players are so unknown that both played for my club (Grêmio) but Tavares never had an appearance at senior level and that Arghus only played at youth categories, and I doubt anyone remembers them here. lol