Footie footie footie with the feet

[DJDonegal]

Enlargement? Isn't that cardiomyopathy? I have a very close friend aged 21 whose cardiomyopathy kicked in just about 2 months ago. Lucky to live. Has a pump now because his heart is too weak to work on its own. He was a tennis player for the university team.

Weird how it strikes sports people.

[Calibandar]

This is now the fourth young professional player to die in two or three years isn't it?

[Mme Erzulie]

In other news, Liverpool breezed by Toulouse in the second leg of the CL qualifiers. 4-0, and with a line-up with 7 subs from the Sunderland game that saw Leto get his first start. Lucas Leiva also got his debut in the second half. Toulouse looked intimidated and out-classed, and never really presented any danger. Very nice to see Liverpool so on top and in control against a supposedly weaker opponent (that has not been the case for the past few years).

In a game without Carra, Gerrard or Torres, we're still able to completely dominate a team that beat Lyon not long ago. Mascherano is awesome, and should be a regular.

[The Inquisitor]

Apparently he died from an Arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia, which is a genetic disease that I understand is extremely difficult to detect. What it basically does, is that the cells of the right ventricule are dead, so they do not receive the electrical signals that make the heart pump correctly, therefore causing cardiac arrests and heart attacks.

Yes, it's a whore... a timebomb waiting to explode.

Poor fellow. Leaves behind an 8 month pregnant wife with what was going to be their first child.

[Smudge]

Geez thats shit, especially with his girlfriend being pregnant... I remember hearing about Foe a couple of years ago and I think he was only reasonably young as well wasn't he?

[Isis]

Mascherano is awesome, and should be a regular.

I was impressed with his work rate, yeah. It was good to see them all competing for their places, trying to get in Rafa's good books as opposed to giving up when the tie was already won.

[Ser Barry]

There is a test for the condition affecting young people (not sure if it is exactly what caused this death) and there is a charity which is establishing itself to offer tests to teenagers. It is being helped out by the parents of an Irish U-19 rugby player who died. I think it is called CARE. There was an article on it in Rugby World. I will see if I can dig it out.

ETA. The charity is called CRY. http://www.c-r-y.org.uk/index.htm

[The Iceman of the North]

Another footballer died today. The Zambian international Chaswe Nsofwa collapsed during a training match for his Israeli club Hapoel Beer Sheva. He was rushed to hospital, but they did not manage to ressurect him. He was 27.

[Isis]

WTF? Is there a full moon or something?

[Maltaran]

I know, it's scary, especially when you add Clive Clarke to the list, although he survived and is in a stable condition in hospital.

[Korax]

There was that QPR player who was killed in a car crash at the weekend too. Not really the same thing, but still...

[DJDonegal]

Jammy Celtic.

And I only just heard about Clive Clarke. Eerie.

[Daeric]

Too easy a match for Arsenal against Sparta there, once Arsenal got that early goal (so should have being called up short for handball by RVP ) they just settled back and really didn't need to push and with Sparta playing a 4.5.1 with for the first half the attacking incentive of a goldfish there was need to.

Felt that Sparta came out more livlier in the 2nd but still too unimagative, things didn't liven up until Wenger risked Fab for Repka round 2 and Aby was livly in trying to justify a start against a Portsmouth team thats more likely to give a challenge.

[mormont]

Jammy Celtic.

Meh, it's not like Spartak did enough to justify the win. If they'd got through the penalty shootout, that could have been described as 'jammy', particularly as they ought to have lost heavily in normal time.

[Xray the Enforcer]

Wow. So many sudden deaths.

[squiddly]

So...

Group A

Liverpool

Porto

Marseille

BeÅŸiktaÅŸ

Group B

Chelsea

Valencia

Schalke 04

Rosenborg

Group C

Real Madrid

Werder Bremen

Lazio

Olympiacos

Group D

AC Milan

Benfica

Celtic

Shakhtar Donetsk

Group E

Barcelona

Lyon

Stuttgart

Rangers

Group F

Manchester United

Roma

Sporting

Dynamo Kiev

Group G

Inter

PSV Eindhoven

CSKA Moskva

Fenerbahçe

Group H

Arsenal

Sevilla/AEK Athens

Steaua BucureÅŸti

Slavia Praha

[cteresa]

I am so incredibly sorry to hear about Puerta, it´s horrible. Miki Feher´s death has been on my mind ( in the end it is all just a game, winning losing pfh, but watching Feher´s death of course mattered), it´s going to be 4 years next january and the draw of the portuguese league brought that Benfica will play in that stadium again, for the first time since then ( Vitoria was relegated till now) again on the last week of January, 2 days in theory apart, in practice might be moved. That is going to be one traumatic game. About Puerta, so very sorry again. Also 3 years ago, after Feher´s death a couple weeks later a youth player died in his sleep. And with Feher, it seems it was something undiagnosable on the way the fibers of his heart worked. Life. Live it like you were going to die, because you will.

Have not had much time to read papers or anything, football break for a while ( even a 1-1 tie with Armenia which i did not see, because how on earth can a game start at 4 pm on a weekday?!? time fuses, bah. Tie theoretically not brilliant, but sort of expecting, I knew those eastern trips are not easy!), but football season seems to be starting completely already. and what 28 more hours of trsnafer season?

and again, so upset about Puerta.

[cteresa]

Jon, oh the firing of Benfica´s coach - it was the opening match of the league and tieing a team which had just been promoted was a scandal ( portuguese league is sort of different. there are the big three, one with ambitions and the rest, well). I was so far out of it, it took me nearly 48 hours to hear of it and then i went all yay. maybe Koudolis can tell you something of Santos ( former coach) work in Greece, but i wanted him out of Benfica for a long long while. Though all my friends agree, he is not the WORST coach possible ( Couceiro is worse) but still. Unfortunately he did not resign but was fired and he will have to receive his money - though Benfica has a bit now from Simão and Manuel Fernandes ( yikes, Valencia?!? a surprise. but at least he will get CL now). And apparently Benfica´current president has been all chummy for a while, with former coach ( now current) coach Camacho ( he came visit Eusebio when he had surgery months ago for example) who was pretty popular, he left to be one of those real madrid coaches. In all, his first game was another tie ( that one I saw, only game I saw this month) but he won last night in Copenhagen and he is famous for making do. Transfer season has brought money but it also weakened Benfica some including with injuries. we will see - anything is an improvement. And Camacho is OK IMO.

Adu, don´t see the reason for the fuss. Not horrible, but the teenagers at benfica which interest me really are David Luiz (*bows*), di Maria and that shiny sort-of-fabulous obnoxious brat Coentrão ( who will be Dani instead of Cristiano Ronaldo, but sometimes, it makes you wonder which way he will go). We will see about Adu.

Oh, yeah, we got another Portuguese central defender, Pepe has been called for the national team - well if he has a right to citizenship ( and removing that, would remove a lot of hopes from lot of people) and wants to play, it´s another choice. The worst thing is not being brazillian, is his name, pepe, come on.... No. Selfishly I got to say, central defenders we sort of got, playmakers, Deco is world class special, but Scolari please, strikers.... Oh and Nani is promoted to the main team as well for the next games.

[koudoulis]

hi there T ,

wondered when you d comment on Santos' firing and Fernandes' transfer . anyway these things have been way out of context this past week . fuckin tough week , i hope we ll never live one like it ever again.

Santos worked on two greek teams , and while he left his first team as a 100% successful coach (AEK Athens) he was fired on the third match in his second (Panathinaikos FC) . the weird thing is that with less talented players in AEK he made a much better team than the one in panathinaikos. they were also fundamentally different teams and thats where lies the difference imo. i dont think he is the coach to handle a team whose primary target is the championship. On the other hand he can improve some medium-class players into pretty good ones and he never lets any flaws (either on player abilities or the teams game) shine outside the training ground. He came me for a third try in AEK and coached the team during a period that AEK was struggling with bankruptcy and there werent too much expectations and was later replaced by the far superior Serra Ferrer.

Happy to hear Samaras joined Middlesbrough as there wanst any room for him in Man City. i really want him to take as many games as possible , since he is our only stiker that i can stand

havent time to really study the groups for CL, football hasnt been our primary concern here these days. however the only team that will compete (Olympiacos) had a relatively normal draw. With the expected giant from the first group being Real Madrid. Werder is a far stronger team but they are not really in form right now and also not very successful on european turnaments and Lazio is absolutely and undescribebly shit. combined with olympiacos notorious inability to beat anyone on foreign soil my forecast is a fourth place for the greek team . i might be a bit biased

[Jon AS]

havent time to really study the groups for CL, football hasnt been our primary concern here these days. however the only team that will compete (Olympiacos) had a relatively normal draw. With the expected giant from the first group being Real Madrid. Werder is a far stronger team but they are not really in form right now and also not very successful on european turnaments and Lazio is absolutely and undescribebly shit. combined with olympiacos notorious inability to beat anyone on foreign soil my forecast is a fourth place for the greek team . i might be a bit biased

I agree with this, though I believe Werder will pull themselves together soon, particularly since Frings and Borowski should return from injury in the not to distant future. They will still be lacking a striker of true international class though.

@cteresa:

Thanks for the explanation.

he left to be one of those real madrid coaches

ETA:

And HSV made it into the UEFA Cup proper. Steevens performed a minor miracle there, leading the club from rock bottom in the Bundesliga to European football in just seven months. Maybe he can perform another miracle on sunday against Bayern... Dammit, I really have to stop building up any expectations for Bayern games this season. It's going to be a long year...