Talk about your favourite football team.

[Obfleur]

EDIT 2014-03-12: Heyo! I decided to dig up this old thread so that I can tell you that we won the gold again (post coming up, yay for me). But I also want to know about your team, when it was founded, your football arena, the current season, etc. Bring on the footy! EDIT


2010, November: My team, Malmö FF, was formed in 1910, and we are currently at first place with 64 points. The team in second place, our local rivals Helsingborg, is also at 64 points.
Malmös goal difference is much better though, so if we win today we'll be champions.

It's been a great year for us - and all of our young players really matured this season (our starting eleven contains two players that are 31 or older, four players that are 21 or younger, two players are 22 years old, our goalie is 24 years old, and the last two players are 27 [our bench has the same setup and almost always contains two or three players that are 20 or younger]).

MFF turns 100 years old, our stadium is brand new (built in 2009), we have a young, talented squad, and we are about to become champions. [composite word including 'f*ck'] me!

Some tifo pictures
The three banners are the three different stadiums MFF has had as their homeground.
Zlatan!
Eric Persson, chairman between 1937 - 1975.
The Malmö FF badge.

See you in the champions league next year!
Thanks for listening.

[Best First]

Good effort mate. But in terms of my team...

See you in the champions league next year!

If ****ing only!

[Brendocon]

2-0 against Jan Molby.

Well done Malmoo.

[Obfleur]

Heyo!!

Game highlights! One of the best days of my life. Season ticket = awesome. Watching the crowd form a human wall around the field was unreal.

Not one of our best games - but we won! Helsingborg played 0 - 0 and ended up at 65 points.

By the way! Do you guys know who Roland Nilsson is? He played for Sheffield Wednesday from 1989 - 1994, and Coventry City 1997 - 1999, and is now manager for Malmö FF.

[Brendocon]

I remember Roland Nilsson. Right back wasn't he?

[Obfleur]

You are correct

[Obfleur]

The new season's started. MFF has won four games in a row.
Today we won 1 - 0 at home against Mjölby (Jan Molby ). Guillermo Molins goal (assisted by Daniel Larsson and Jimmy Durmaz)! (you might have to watch a commercial before the clip starts).
Trivia: the guy jumping up on his back is Agon "The smoked eel" Mehmeti!

What's going on in your team?

[snarl]

Drew 3-3 with Arsenal in a ******* epic.

I personally thought we deserved the win, based on better chances created and that 2 of their goals were pretty soft.

Crazy game though, like a football version of Rocky.

[Brendocon]

We're second in League 1 with only about five games to go, level on points with Huddersfield in 3rd but with a far better goal difference and a game in hand.

w00t w00t.

But we've bottled pretty much every game in hand we've had this season, our next game is at Brighton who have just won the division by a stroll and all our best players keep getting injured.

But Huddersfield still also have to play at Brighton, so who the hell knows.

Adam Lallana has ankles made of fibreglass, Alex Chamberlain and Morgan Schneiderlin are out for the season, Lee Barnard might be too (and then is due in crown court soon over an alleged incident where he broke his hand on somebody's face). Jason Puncheon's a whiny child who copped a strop when the new manager asked him to pull his weight and then cried at being kept out of the team by a 16 year old. You know you've got an injury crisis when David Connolly gets some games.

Lee Barnard, Barnard
He's short but he's ******* hard
He's wanted by Scotland Yard
Lee Barnard, Barnard

Ob - is Michael Svensson really lining up for Halmstads again?

[sidestreaker]

David Connolly ! Haha, I remember him. He played for my club in the nineties and couldn't cut it. To small and to slow. Thought he quitted by now.

I hope you go up, because southampton doesn't belong in league one.

[Best First]

We are going to get nowt out of this season but watching Mowbray turn us into a half decent side after the Jocksaster that was Strachan's reign has actually been the most enjoyment i have derived from supporting boro since Southgate took over.

[Obfleur]

We won the gold last season (2013. We play april -> November). We finished five points ahead of AIK, and have now won the league 20 times which means that we from now on have two golden stars above our shield.

A couple of players from the 2010 squad still remained at the club: Goalkeeper Dahlin, Multi-tool Halsti (nicknamed Halstinho), Central defender "Ponne" Jansson, soon-to-be-Swedish-citizen left back Ricardinho, Captain Hamad, Guillermo "Gische" Molins, and former Captain and player Daniel "460 games for Malmö FF" Andersson as Assistant Manager (now Sports Director).

Tokelo Rantie played 21 games and scored 7 goals before leaving for Bournemouth in august. Rantie was/is a fan favourite even though he only spent 12 months at the club. A goal against Halmstad BK.
Guillermo Molins returned to Malmö FF about the same time as Rantie left (Molins played for MFF 2006 - 2011). He left to play in Anderlecht, but got injured in his first game (a friendly) and then everything went straight to hell. He returned and scored 8 goals in 11 games and has this season been named captain (our former captain, Jiloan Hamad, left for Hoffenheim January 1st this year). Molins scored two goals against IF Elfsborg in the penultimate game, thus securing the gold (crappy sound).

A nice goal in the last game of the season against Syrianska FC.

We also played in the Euro League qualification (we finished third in the 2012 season). In the first round we played Drogheda United F.C. (Irland) and won 2 - 0, both goals scored at home.
In the second round we played Scottish Hibernian F.C. We won the first leg with 2 - 0 at home, and then we went to Scotland and won 7 - 0 ("Hibs suffered a Scottish record defeat in European competition, losing 7–0 at home and 9–0 on aggregate against Malmo")!
Swansea was our next opposition, but they proved to be too much (way too much I'm afraid). We lost away 4 - 0, but managed to play 0 - 0 at home.

This season striker Markus Rosenberg (who started his career at Malmö FF) has joined from West Bromwich where he played 33 games without scoring a single goal. The fans have been begging him to come home for the last couple of years, and they are really happy that he has joined and are putting a lot of faith in him. I myself am sceptical, though he has looked good in training and he has a ton of experience compared to the rest of the team, but it'll take time before he's match fit since he's only played four games the last twelve months.
We've lost a couple of players (like Captain Hamad to Hoffenheim, Dahlin transfered to Gençlerbirliği, and Friberg went to Bologna), but we look solid and'll probably finish in the top three.
Later this year we'll be playing in the Champions League qualification! If we make it, things will go absolutely bananas over here. Our economy will explode compared to the other teams in Sweden (and we are already in a very good position), and having big European teams come play at our stadium will be a memory for life.

What's up with your team?

[Brendocon]

Southampton are currently 9th in the Premier League with nine games to go.

11 points off 5th place and also 11 points ahead of the team in 10th. So comfortably mid-table. It's nice. Especially compared to where we were the last time I posted in this thread. We were actually up in the top four for the early part of the season, but we had a massive batch of injuries that coincided with our toughest run of fixtures. But it's a squad game nowadays, so those are the breaks.

We're the only team to have won in the league at Liverpool this season.

For the record, we won at Brighton (first team to do it that season). But then Huddersfield won there in the next match as well. We did go on to finish second though and went up automatically. And then somehow went on to get promoted again the next season (finishing second). Which was a brilliant achievement as the Championship is a nightmare of a division once you're stuck there.

Of the players we had in League 1, six are still regulars in the first team squad - Lambert, Lallana, Fonte, Guly, Davis and Schneiderlin.

Adam Lallana is now in the England team and will probably go to the World Cup. Alex Chamberlain might as well, but he's at Arsenal now (boo hiss etc). But we still churn out talented youth players to fill the squad. Shaw, Chambers, Ward-Prowse, Reed, Gallagher, Isgrove and McQueen have all played this season and are still teenagers. Luke Shaw just made his England debut and will probably get into the WC squad ahead of Ashley Cole. Lambert and Rodriguez are at the edge of the squad too.

Lots of our players will be at the World Cup. Ramirez, Yoshida, Lovren. Our fourth-choice goalkeeper Cody Cropper is even being linked with the USA squad for the tournament.

We still have violent strikers. We signed Osvaldo from Roma, but he headbutted team-mate Jose Fonte during training so got loaned out to Juventus and will almost certainly be sold to them in the summer.

David Connolly is STILL playing, albeit in the fourth level for Oxford (on loan from Portsmouth, as narrative would have it).

Life's comfy.

[Mr_Tigg]

Derby are 3rd in the league - our best season since 2007. We looked set for automatics at one point but have unfortunately lost form in the last 3 games - creating a gap between us and 2nd.

Sadly don't see us going up if we end up in play-offs, but you never know!

[Obfleur]

I've read a lot about Shaw in the Swedish news And Lallana seems cool.

Speaking of Southampton: Anders Svensson is still going strong. He has retired from the national team after 146 games (Swedish record) and 21 goals, but is gonna play one more season for IF Elsborg. He turnes 38 in july and is still considered one of the best midfielders in the league.

[Ozz]

Last year Legia Warsaw won the Polish League for the first time in seven years (we should have won already year before, but tripped over ourselves near the finish line). Polish League is pretty much ****, so I see it more as European Cups qualifications qualification and would be fine with second or third place, but the other teams' supporters having a serious case of butthurt because of Legia winning is a nice bonus.

Sadly, the European Cups didn't go well. In Champions League New Saints wasn't much trouble, and we managed to go past Molde on away goals after two draws, but then Steaua showed us our place. Despite good result in away game (1-1) they scored twice in first 9 minutes of the second leg and that was basically it. We managed to equalise in the end, but they went through on away goals.

European Cup is a European Cup, so playing Europa Leauge is still something. But not when you lose first five games without scoring even once. Luckily we won the last game and didn't make history.

After disappointing Euro-campaign, despite leading in the Polish League quite comfortably, our manager was sacked, because the management decided he's not someone who can bring us up to another level, which is competing in Europe with moderate success. Enter Henning Berg (yes, that one) and after four games in the spring can't say it looks much better, but results aren't bad, the local competition isn't any better, so we'll see how it goes in the fall, (hopefully) in another attempt to get into CL group stage (the last time Polish champions reached the group stage Beast Wars was still on, Onslaught was kicking the **** out of Marvel universe, and Berg was yet to move from Blackburn to Manchester United).

I have also been a big supporter of Bayern Munich for the last 20 years or so, but I'm sure you know what they have been up to recently.

[Obfleur]

Polish Army Stadium, that's ******* hard core!

[Brendocon]

Hardcoreness slightly undermined by being in association with Pepsi, sadly.

[Obfleur]

Polish Pepsi Army... doesn't sound quite as hardcore

We're playing the third (and last) game of the Swedish cup group stage today. We're playing against a team from the division under us that are nicknamed "The shitters": five years ago, when playing in the top division and fighting for their survival, a fan took a **** on a bus seat when going home from an away game. The clubs supporter club had enough and said "We're not gonna arrange any more away trips for the rest of the season". And that day The Shitters were born.

[snarl]

I support Tottenham, and we just "smashed up" Brend's team on Sunday.

Were losing 2-0 after half an hour, turned it round to win 3-2 with more or less the last kick of the game.

All in all, we're a very odd team. We've got some great players, but often start terribly. Against the non top 4, we more often then not manage to turn it around, against the top 4 we usually end up getting ******.

We've made unbelievably bad mistake and had some really bad decisions go against us this season... there's not really much leadership at the club.

Turfed out our manager in December after he'd won us our record PL points total last year. To be fair, we'd suffered 3 beltings and it looked like quite a lot of the players weren't buying into his philosophy. New guy - can't make my mind up. Don't think he'll be there very long come the end of the season.

tbh I'm struggling to think of the last match we actually played well in. Definitely would have been a Harry match (although I think we were right to move him on). We never seem to play well, just have good players that every now and then one or two manage to step up and earn us a result.

[Best First]

Closer to makeing hyour mind up now Pops?

Boro... remain deeply avarage. I find it endearing.

[Obfleur]

The Swedish league kicked off today, and it started with a Djurgården-supporter getting beat to death in Helsingborg (Helsingborg IF played Djurgården IF). The game was blown off late in the first half when it was confirmed that the dude had been pronounced dead (also, the Djurgården-fans invaded the field, chanting "Murderers! Murderers!"). Sources say that it was a "normal" DIF-supporter, and father of four, who for no reason at all got a bottle smashed in his face, and then a bunch of people took turns kicking/beating him.
This is the second football related death in Sweden (as far as I know), and what was a sunny, warm and nice spring day, that everybody had looked forward to, took a ****** up turn.

We played two hours later against Henrik Larsson's Falkenberg FF and won 3 - 0, It was a ****** game though, and the score doesn't reflect the game. But who cares? A guy got killed over football. It's a sad day for Swedish footy.

[Mr_Tigg]

Closer to makeing hyour mind up now Pops?

Boro... remain deeply avarage. I find it endearing.

We have Boro this Saturday. Haven't beaten your lot at home for nearly 10 years (I think!).

Maybe this'll be our year? I'm feeling confident after we demolished Forest.

[Obfleur]

More useless trivia you'll probably forget in ten minutes: the north east section (a corner) of Malmö FF's stadium is called "Roy's Corner" after Roy Hodgson who won Allsvenskan five times in a row as manager for MFF. The north part is the standing section, and the north west part is called "Bob's Corner" after Bob Houghton who won the league three times, and also managed to get Malmö FF to the 1979 European Cup final (where we lost to Nottingham).

Thanks to Roy I'm probably gonna cheer for England during the world cup

Anyways, how did your season go? I know Brend is happy with Southampton (and Impy might be a tid bit upset), but what about the rest of you?

[Impactor returns 2.0]

So, athletico Madrid yeah? Jumpers for goal posts?

Amazing!

Heard some team have only won 1 trophy in 9 years of very the weekend?
1 trophy, that's a bit **** no?

[Ozz]

Polish league is yet to end, but Legia needs only one point in the last three games to win it.

[Computron]

The Bears drafted Kyle Fuller to strengthen their cornerback situation, so here's hoping Da Bears can actually get somewhere in the postseason.

Er...wrong sport...I'll just leave slowly then.

[Obfleur]

Your "da bears" reference makes it all okay.

[Computron]

Your "da bears" reference makes it all okay.

But seriously, if I could talk about our national soccer team for a moment? (Since talking about MLS is a bit pointless)

Jurgen Klinsmann took over as coach and has done a pretty bang up job overall. Much more of a decisive coach and commander whereas before our coaches always had a sense of being overwhelmed by the whole thing even if they did ok.

That being said, U.S. Soccer doesn't have a lot of stars. Those that exist don't even play for our national league and instead play in Europe. (I'm looking at you Tim Howard.) So when the national team plays it is really important for the future of U.S. Soccer to have those stars with European experience pass on their experience to the others and in turn excite the fans.

But one thing we do have is Landon Donovan. Excellent midfielder, setup man and he easily transitions into striker when we need him to. He's pretty much the top overall player the U.S. has ever produced. He's also got World Cup experience and is a solid team leader and fan favorite. Should be a shoe in for this years Cup.

Oh wait, he's not on the team?



Klinsmannnnnnnnnnnnn!

Meanwhile our backline is apparently populated with people whose total national team experience is a little over an hour of play.

So we blunted our sword and our shield is untested. Yay?

I'm already a Chicago sports fan, I'd like to experience success as a fan for once.

[Brendocon]

I defence (defense?) of dropping Donovan, sometimes teams can become too reliant on a player (or the player knows that the team is too reliant on him and can become a problem because of it). The best solution is sometimes to not involve them, forcing the younger players to step up and show that they're good enough to get on without him.

Okay it doesn't always work out that way, but I can guess that's why Klinsmann has done it. You could argue that even if he's not going to start, his experience is helpful behind the scenes, but I don't know what sort of personality Donovan has in training so it may be that JK wants a clean break. You don't want a repeat of when Roy Keane walked out on the Ireland squad after an argument with the manager and ended up publicly undermining him.

As I say, speculation. It's the literary thing of having to "kill your babies" in order to move forward. There was similar shock in 1998 when England ditched Paul Gascoigne, but it freed up place in the squad for (the then relatively inexperienced) David Beckham to start without worry about whether he'd be dropped to make room for Gazza in the next game.

And we know how that worked out in the long-run.

Klinsmann either knows what he's doing or he doesn't. He might be proven wrong, but there's almost certainly a valid reason behind the thinking.

And as far as a "blunted sword" goes, I refer you to Greece winning Euro 2004. Success and free-scoring don't necessarily go hand in hand.