Tnspieler1012

Let me echo the excitement over group D. Thank you.

for 7 minutes, Mourinho and the Real players are whispering a lot of info into Modric's ears.

A semi-truck of space between the barca centerbacks when the ball's played to Higuain who hits the post with all the time in the world. Comic.

Song coming in.

Perfect ball over the top to Pedro, shot right at Casillas, should've been 2-2. Modric warming up.

What a kick from Messi. Real thriller this now. Barca back line has been pathetically bad at times, Mascherano awful as well. Was gonna say the send off helped them slow things down a bit, but as I type, Madrid squanders a couple real opportunities.

The minute I start to appreciate him. Tottenham Hotspur agree deals to sign Moussa Dembele from Fulham and Hugo Lloris from Lyon Tottenham Hotspur are to sign Moussa Dembélé after agreeing a fee of £15 million with Fulham. A deal could be announced as early as Wednesday. Negotiations to acquire the 25-year-old Belgian international are at an extremely advanced stage although Spurs’ hopes of signing another attacking midfielder, Shakhtar Donetsk’s Willian, have stalled after the club, again, failed to agree a fee despite chairman Daniel Levy having flown to Ukraine for negotiations. Spurs have also been frustrated in a fresh attempt to sign Joao Moutinho with Porto refusing to budge on their €30m (£24m) valuation on the midfielder who is so highly-rated by head coach Andre Villas-Boas. The Portuguese is understood to regard his countryman as the ideal replacement for Luka Modric – not in style but in influence on the team and also to be a talisman for the new manager – who was finally sold to Real Madrid for a fee that could rise (with add-ons) to £33m earlier this week. As part of that deal, Spurs signed a commercial tie up with Real which will include young players being loaned between the club and also the prospect of exhibition matches being played. The sale of Modric has also unlocked transfer funds for Spurs who are set to be the Premier League’s busiest club before the transfer window closes on Friday night. Although Spurs gave up on trying to sign Moutinho – in public at least – Villas-Boas has remained hopeful that a deal could still be struck for the midfielder who was so vital to him when he was Porto coach and who he also tried to take to Chelsea. The signing of Dembélé will end a year-long pursuit by Spurs for the player who has made a significant impact on the Premier League since he was signed by the then manager Mark Hughes by Fulham in 2010 for just £3.2m from AZ Alkmaar and who has also attracted strong interest from Manchester United. Spurs’ failed with a bid of £10m for Dembélé last year. Dembélé is believed to have a £15m release clause in his contract and Spurs have now activated that. Spurs remain desperate to offload fringe players such as David Bentley and Jermaine Jenas but must concentrate on strengthening the squad after Modric’s sale. Shakhtar announced on Monday that they had rejected a bid of £11.8m for Willian, the Brazilian international, but talks are ongoing between the clubs. Although the Ukrainians insist they want £20m for the player, Spurs believe that an offer of around £15m would be successful although they are yet to submit an improved bid. It had been hoped that a deal to sign Willian would be agreed yesterday but talks have stalled with, for now, Spurs concentrating on acquiring Dembélé who, it is hoped, will be available for Saturday’s Premier League match at home to Norwich City. Nevertheless Willian, who was withdrawn from the squad for Shakhtar’s league match against Karpaty on Sunday, is still hopeful that he can force through a move. Villas-Boas also bid for the player last January when he was still the manager of Chelsea and is keen to bring him to England now. Villas-Boas is desperate to bolster his squad as he mounts a challenge to bring Champions League football back to White Hart Lane. Spurs have also been frustrated in their attempts to sign another Brazilian, striker Leandro Damiao, with his club, Internacional, insisting they want the 23-year-old international to stay for now after their valuation wasn’t met. A bid for the French midfielder Yann M’Vila was rejected by Rennes earlier this month and is unlikely to be revived. Spurs have agreed a fee for goalkeeper Hugo Lloris but only after his club, Lyon, reduced their demands for the France captain because they want him to leave. Lyon will now accept £12m for Lloris and although personal terms are yet to be agreed, the deal is expected to go ahead. Lloris’s arrival will prompt Spurs to seek a buyer for Heurelho Gomes who has failed to convince Villas-Boas that he can challenge Brad Friedel as the club’s first-choice goalkeeper. Spurs have, alternatively, been considering a bid for Birmingham City’s young goalkeeper Jack Butland who recently made his debut for England and is available for around £8m. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/tottenham-hotspur/9505024/Tottenham-Hotspur-agree-deals-to-sign-Moussa-Dembele-from-Fulham-and-Hugo-Lloris-from-Lyon.html

For years I had this little red plastic hockey stick with which I would push around tennis balls and make up scenarios of being in some dramatic tournament where I provided the winning assist in the championship (scoring the goal would have been selfish).

lol, this was forever ago.

What a strike from Suarez, shame it ended on such a cheap note. Arsenal have looked sharp, Giroud and Cazorla especially, but to say the obvious, their organization in the final third was bizarrely poor at times. Only 2 shots on goal after what seemed a pretty dominant game. Podolski hasn't been particularly bad, but not the target man I thought he might be. I missed the Tottenham game, but sounds like their play's been worth more than one point so far as well.

Welbeck's reaction :rolleyes: Rooney could be out for four weeks I've heard. With regard to players I care about, Dembele was a man possessed today. He's always been efficient (hence the Madrid interest), but we almost never saw acceleration through the midfield like that last season. I have other thoughts (I think things!), but they would amount to nothing more than a fantasy football ad for various lilywhites.

I guess I take exception to wrapping together contemporary music with the popular music industry. I don't really give two tits what inhabits the radio or the minds of the less music savvy youth in the world today. There is more beautiful, amazing, meaningful music in the world today than I could possibly consume or appreciate in my lifetime. If you're bored or unimpressed with the music you see on your horizon, you're obviously not trying hard enough. Unlike the overly-idealized 'Beatles' society some people still fantasize over today, it is not the industry's responsibility to give listeners the best of the best in music (yeah, the grammy's have about as much relevance as my little sisters opinion). Music culture has become so stratified today that it would do it an injustice to narrativise it in accordance with a single movement. The very fact that the original quoted you-tube post attempted to make a generalization about music that meaningfully addressed dubstep, hip-hop, alt-rock and whatever the hell linkin park is these days...demonstrates the problem. Every genre today has vibrancy and innovation coming into being each day if you'll only step out of the mainstream instead of whining about what the so-called industry is spoon feeding you.

Got a headache halfway through the quotes on the first post. The ideas and terminology thrown around were so narrowly conceived that it's really not worth the time to address.

Reality shows of course.

Way to go with the the least dignified picture imaginable of your players.

Reports that Dempsey is supposedly being fined by Fulham for refusing to play. Jol keeps saying that they still haven't received a concrete offer from Liverpool despite articles since July (from sources of variable reliability) saying they bid 10k and might throw in Charlie Adam. As far as I can tell Deuce was never or rarely included on the pre-season squads. Dempsey tweeted that "There are two sides to the story" and "The truth will come out soon". Fun stuff, stay tuned kids.

I'm not gonna pretend that Fulham doesn't have a history of importing American players (Mcbride, Johnson, Bocanegra, Lewis, Keller etc.), or that American networks didn't drastically increase the amount of Fulham matches they televised last year purely because of Clint's popularity. Dempsey was a drawing factor in the beginning, but my current appreciation of the club and current players is such that the fact that he's leaving won't have any effect on my support this season (for example, I'm really excited to see Ruiz and Frei step up this season without Murphy and Dempsey holding the spotlight). As an American, the initial choice of which English club to support has a degree of arbitrariness. I had a naive interest in Chelsea when Ballack was around. A period I'm grateful for because it took regular viewing to realize why I now find the club so despicable. After that experience I began to study the less marketed clubs, their management, players, playing style etc. and found that I preferred supporting Fulham to everything else. Unlike Chelsea, it didn't take long to get familiar and attached to the various personalities.

:awesome:

I know EPL is all anyone really cares about right now, but considering Fulham is an uninspiring position, I might as well mention that the US just beat Mexico on Mexican soil for the first time ever. And it feels awesome.

Obvious follow-up question is obvious. enh, Lagunis choked and the italians have cleaned up pretty well. For all else: http://www.nbcolympics.com/fencing/index.html

Sad day. France completely reverses the result of the Beijing relay, and a bajillion people want to buy Jordyn Wieber a coke.

Apart from six hours at work, I spent the whole day watching either on the couch or computer. Observations: I wish their was less music at events in general, but the 'somebody that I used to know' xylophone riff between rounds in shooting is amazingly apropos. Badminton is still awesome. The US still sucks at it (even with Indonesian expatriots). Fuck yeah Ariel Hsing (table tennis) and the lovable rednecks of the us archery team. I am developing a slightly racist dislike of Italian fencers who shout too much. Tsup with Phelps? (and the US women's basketball team for that matter) I really should research the rules of Judo.

I can't stop rewatching the independent olympic athletes goofing off like not representing a country is the best feeling on earth.