Brazil vs Holland today,great!

If it's anywhere near the level of their World Cup game I'm not sure it'll be great. but hey that was Carlos Micky Mouse's Brazil...

Yep. I expect more out of this one

England team to face La Swisse: Hart; G Johnson, Cole, Ferdinand, Terry; Parker, Walcott, Lampard, Wilshere, Milner; Bent.

I fail to see why Young has been dropped. He single-handedly won us our last qualifier and has been Villa's best player at th end of the season. While Milner and Walcott have mostly been bench players/performed badly of late.

Very pleased we're going 4-3-3 though.

England 0-2 Barnetta. 2 free kicks that should never be scored.

Superb work from Wilshire, wins the penalty. Lampard scores. 1-2.

YOUNG! 5 minutes unto coming on, 2-2. Why didn't you start him FFS.

I would be surprised if The Netherlands beat Brazil tonight. I expect Brazil to win.

The Netherlands are missing their key player Van Bommel, which is a great lost, surely when having a weak defense. There is no proper left-back to field for the Dutch side. I wonder how Van der Wiel will preform tonight. His season was not convincing, but had a key role in the last league game, having two assists (if you count the one which was an own goal).

What a goal from Young Wow,that'll teach fabio not to bench him.

Kurt must be happy ^^.

Darren.. come on man, gotta put that away.

FT 2-2. Disappointing, but gotta take it after being 2-0 down.

Not starting Ashley Young has to be one of the worst decisions by an England manager in recent times. His form for club and country lately has been ridiculous and he drops him for 2 players who've been in bad form for club and country. Only for him to come on at HT, score, and win MotM.

Wake up Fabio.

Could have won it,if Downing passed the ball .

When? At the end? There wasn't really a pass on and judging by his shot, he wouldn't have been able to get his foot around it anyways, otherwise the shot wouldn't have hit the side netting.

Oh well. I'm at the point now where I just enjoy England games for what they are. I have no interest in UEFA or FIFA so couldn't give a **** if we qualify or not.

Interesting statistic, Italy completed 829 passes against Estonia. More than any other team in Euro 2012 qualifier so far.

Well,Estonia suck pretty bad.But prandelli is doing a great job even.

Italy looking good. For the first time since I can remember only the best players have been called up (aside from Abate) no one was brought in only based on seniority like in the Lippi era. Great game yesterday imo, haven't been able to watch an Azzurri match without cringing in quite some time.

It was Estonia for Pete's sake. Of course, they pulled it off and looked good doing so, but that was the minimum system requirements. Anyway, really nice to see the team gelling together. But like I said, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. Sterner tests await.

As far as overall team chemistry, and the right players being called goes, this was good. Nice to see it for a change!

That's very.. Spanish. wow.

You mean Euro 2012 ?

Suisse*

So, Brazil-Holland ended up to be a boring fixture after all...

I've seen this Azzurri team struggle to put away the freakin' Faroe Islands FFS. I think only Malta can be qualified as worse

It doesn't really matter who or the score, just the way they played, the players that acually played instead of got left home to accomodate a senior player who's been playing for the NT longer

They'd still outplay us, we would probably choose an attacking trio of Foster, Green & Carson.

Yeah, well anything can happen in football these days. That's one thing I've learned. But at the end of it all, when a (very) big team like Italy or England brushes these smaller teams aside, that is just the norm, what is to be expected. If like you said, a big side gets outplayed, or loses, then well that's a story right there.

It's not like we've only wost 1 game in the past decade to a bad team or anything.

Exactly! Just remember the World Cup and the New Zeland match, and compare it to this team. It's something quite different in the attitude, constellation and behavior of the team. This is a great beginning for Italy, no matter how "weak" their opponent was/is.

Btw. Prandelli's look amazes me. His look...he could be part of the Sopranos cast.

Chipping in late here, but what an embarrassing performance we had against Spain. I know they're the world champs and all, but seriously.

I'm watching Bosnia - Albania game tonight. I really hope we[albanians] manage to take a positive result and to keep our hopes for a qualification on Euro2012.

Please, the US NT is the most undeservedly hyped team in north america.

Yea, because all the other North American teams are better.

We're hampered by Bob Bradley. Terrible decision to keep him.

We'll probably get our asses served. We've always been disastrous on away turf, save for against Luxemburg and Kazakhstan.

wasn't Ninis eligible to play for Albania?

We didn't play our top three midfielders or two of our defense. Not saying that it wasn't embarrassing but the biggest problem with the US team is lack of depth. Spain can easily field a world class second XI.

I guess so, considering he was born in Himarë, south Albania.

You're hampered by bad players. You hype your players worse than we do. All I heard from my American friends before/during/after the World Cup was how awesome Michael Bradley was. Villa happened to sign him and he has to be one of the worst ever players to wear the claret and blue.

I saw a list of the US team of the year. Rangers' currently dire (as he has been for most of the season) and out of form Maurice Edu made midfield.

Clearly they don't have an abundance of talent.

Wanna bet ?

I say we won't lose in Bosnia

70' Bosnia 1-0 Albania

You were saying?

Anyone watching the Italy-Ireland game?

Rossi is looking fantastic, and overall Italia is playing the better game but Ireland did score a very good goal that the keeper really couldn't be given too much fault for. The second half is about to start, Italy down 1-0, I think they can pull off a win tho still

Zlatan got a HT or did I mis-hear? Was half watching it on ESPN.

I hoped we will be better.

Italy didn't deserve to lose like this. and Ireland didn't deserve to win like this! they played it the Italian way. score a goal, sit back and defend it, and then score another on counter attack. typical Trap style.

I hadn't watched the "new" Italy before. there are improvements for sure. especially in playing a free flowing and fast game. they also pass the ball around a lot. some said it's like Spain. but it's not really. most passes are just for the sake of it, whereas in Spain there's a thought and a purpose and "unlocking the play" behind every pass, especially those made by Xavi and Iniesta. Italy are still miles behind that level and I'm not sure they'll ever catch up because let's face it, there are no Xavi-quality players in Italy. I mean Montolivo? really?

I'm also shocked that Italy managers STILL play Gilardino. what has he ever done to deserve all these callups? and when he comes on he doesn't do jackshit. I just don't get it...

Montolivo behind the strikers was a silly idea.Giovinco would probably do better.

Giovinco is great and should definitely play as tre-q from now on. Italy lacked creativity without him.

Managers? It's Prandelli who's playing a handout to Gilardino every once and a while. He's really gotta stop promoting his Viola guys.

Don and Lippi used to call him up as well. he's always in La Nazionale no matter who the manager is. but I agree it's Prandelli's tie to his Viola past, otherwise Montolivo wouldn't be there either. at least not in the XI.

Anyway, this was a friendly and he wanted to experiment with the lineup a bit. looking forward to seeing the real Italy in an official game.

Well, Trap showed him a trick or two. You can still learn from the best, I hope Cesare is doing exactly this.

It's the same story all over again. I'm surprised you and most Albanians continue hoping for a Euro or WC qualification. I gave up on our NT team a long time ago. I'm not saying you shouldn't support them, just decrease your expectations.



And Gamberini. Geez, what's he doing in the NT?

Especailly Gamberini.

I just mentioned that in the previous post, thanks for ignoring it.

sorry, my bad.