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Which team are you supporting ?


gaurav92

Which team are you supporting ?  

  1. 1.

    • Brazil
    • England
    • Spain
    • Italy
    • Portugal
      0
    • Argentina
    • Germany
    • France
    • Dutch (Holland)
    • Other (Please Mention in the thread)


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umm...Ghana will be without Essien Ghana's Michael Essien has been ruled out of the World Cup, according to the country's football association (GFA). The Chelsea midfielder has been struggling with injury and has been told he will not fully recover until the end of July. The GFA said that the decision was taken after a joint evaluation of his fitness by them and his club. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_cup_2010/8709466.stm Major blow for Ghana. Essien is more important for Ghana than Ballack for Germany.

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It was not just a potentially crippling blow to Sven-Goran Eriksson and his Ivory Coast team when their captain Didier Drogba broke his right arm in a friendly match in Sion on Friday. t also offered the possibility of a quite dispiriting blow for Africa's first World Cup, with the Continent's totemic footballer now in danger of missing the great show. All, hopefully, may not quite be lost yet. Africa’s player of the year will have the injury examined again on Saturday morning, with the prospect, if agreed by medical staff at his club Chelsea, that he could undergo immediate surgery in a bid to salvage his World Cup. A seemingly innocuous challenge from Japanese defender Marcus Tulio Tanaka in the Ivorians' last warm-up game ended up undoing Drogba. Surging into attack, his right elbow was accidentally struck by a raised boot; he fell awkwardly, rose groggily and left the pitch clutching his right arm, agony etched in his face. Initially, after being treated at a nearby hospital in the Swiss town he seemed resigned to his fate. “He told me ‘the World Cup is finished’ ", team-mate Kolo Toure said. "We can just see on his face that he was sad." Yet Borjesson believes if he has a successful operation on Saturday - and Drogba is desperate to go ahead - there is still a long shot that he could be fit for the first group match against Portugal on June 15. Not only was he looking in thrilling form – just before the 18th-minute accident, he had already scored the 45th international goal in his 70th international to set the Ivorians on the road to a 2-0 win – but also his whole demeanour in the build up has been of a man who, at 32, recognised his last individual opportunity on the global stage and his responsibility to country and continent. Indeed, watching Drogba last week in the team's preparations had been to sense a very different figure to the Chelsea peacock who so often seems to be infused with a strut of selfishness and petulance. Beholding all the madness which surrounds him when he is playing for his country, you begin to appreciate what he means to his compatriots. It was breathtaking last Sunday, as the team took on Paraguay in a friendly in Evian-les-Bains, to see security heavies trying desperately to clear a path for Drogba while hundreds of shrieking young French Ivorians strained for just one touch. It sounded quite as barmy yesterday. To Ivorians, he is not a drama queen; he is the king. More than a superstar player, he is the man who, in a country where scars from war and violence find their balm in football, is seen as a life-changing figure. So when he calls for arms to be laid down in the civil war in the name of football, it happens; and when he wants to get hospitals built in Abidjan, it happens; and when he wants an African Cup of Nations match moved to a rebel stronghold town to affirm the peace process, it happens. But a World Cup win without Drogba? It cannot happen, surely. Eriksson was not about to hide the captain's significance when he explained last week that "with not just his skill, but his charisma and presence, he sets the tone for us". Being Mr Unflappable, Eriksson is probably the man you want on board amid much national wailing, but the upbeat, jovial mood which he had been demonstrating must have evaporated in an instant. Last weekend, with the drums beating to hail his first match in charge, he was asked what he made of his new adventure? "Oh, first class!" beamed Eriksson, making it sound like something straight out of Enid Blyton. Yes, Sven's first-class adventure. He has had his globetrotting share, involving fake Saudi sheikhs, Italian lawyers, Swedish weather girls, Mexican coups, Nottingham outlaws and Thai criminals. Yet this all had the feel of being one of the most spiffing yet, a 62-year-old Scandinavian gentleman in garish orange boots singing along to an African beat. His most jolly difficult task too. A week last Monday, Eriksson met his full squad for the first time; in less than a fortnight, they will run into Cristiano Ronaldo in Port Elizabeth. So, just over three weeks from scratch to mould an unpredictable team of exuberant, lavish talent into the world beaters the world would love them to be. How he needed Drogba as his field marshal. A measure of Eriksson's quest is that his predecessor, Vahid Halihodzic, who guided them to South Africa, lost just two games in 24 and still lost his job. The pressure is on. "The public anger and disappointment after we got knocked out of the Cup of Nations showed us that if we fail in South Africa, we shouldn't hold out much hope of going home," Romaric, their Seville midfielder, said wryly. "Les Elephants are the only thing that brings the country together. When we play, there are no more divisions in language, ethnicity or skin colour. We need to warm people's hearts even if it's a love-hate relationship." With Eriksson, it has been love-love so far. As soon as he took his last job as Mexico coach, he knew he was not really wanted. This was different. "The [ivorian] people I've met seem to have taken me to their hearts," he said. The players too, judging by their genuine enthusiasm. Drogba, kingmaker as well as king, has been positively effusive about him. It seems an incongruous partnership on the surface but the laughter which resounded through the team's chalet hotel during their pre-World Cup camp told of how they had all gelled in a picture postcard Swiss ski resort. Eriksson chose the venue deliberately. "To take these [French-speaking] players to Paris," he noted, "is not a very good idea." Nor a playboy of the Western world, presumably. In Saanen out of season, there is evidently nothing to do except make your own fun and listen to the joker Emmanuel Eboué's stories. "The spirit is above the roof. Happy. Laughing. Singing," smiled Eriksson. Sing-songs on the team bus, the team's Swedish doctor reckons. Cannot picture it at Baden Baden 2006, somehow. After feeling the hapless victim of politics in Mexico and cheated over promises in his turbulent director of football role at Notts County, this lot may just have been making him feel young again. Salomon Kalou, brothers Yaya and Kolo Toure, Didier Zokora, Aruna Dindane, Gervinho – so much quality if it could just be collectively harnessed. So does the singing stop now? Eriksson has been working assiduously on defensive discipline in team building but, without Drogba, the team will need a new figurehead. Two familiar faces fit the bill. One is Kolo Toure, who says: "Without Didier Drogba, we are not the same team but we have good players with abundant qualities." He could have been talking of himself. The other is Zokora, the former Spurs midfielder now converted into a libero in Eriksson's one nod to revolution rather than evolution. "Before, we were a team who didn't play together but under Eriksson everything's changed," said the infectiously enthusiastic Zokora. "If we attack and defend together, pull together, we can be a surprise for this World Cup." Even without their king? As Drogba returned silently to the team bus on Friday night bearing a cast and a wry smile, the clamour around him as crazy as ever, it hardly seemed likely. Could Sven's first-class adventure have been scuppered before it has even begun? It never quite has been. Romaric is not alone in watching with some despair past lapses; central defenders trying to nutmeg strikers, players showing off, putting themselves before the team. "To not win anything with this generation of players would be more than sad; it would be a waste." Now Cote D'Ivorie in real trouble without their kaptaan

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Those who call Italy boring are those who enjoy a screamer from 30 yard outside the goal and sloppy defense. Yeah, tactical football is not a cup of tea for most of the people nowadays. For all the attractive football they play(ed) - Holland, Spain and Portugal are yet to win a world cup while Italy have won four. Enough said.

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Those who call Italy boring are those who enjoy a screamer from 30 yard outside the goal and sloppy defense. Yeah, tactical football is not a cup of tea for most of the people nowadays. For all the attractive football they play(ed) - Holland, Spain and Portugal are yet to win a world cup while Italy have won four. Enough said.
Brazil has 5 :--D
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