alumbrado wrote on 08/16/07 at 18:49:30:

Because of Manchester City?

I don't understand this thread.  Why on Earth are Derby County not mentioned as possible title winners?  You people know nothing about football!

(Sorry, they're my girlfriend's team and she was looking over my shoulder at the time ...)

Of course, most important is that the mighty Eagles (that's Crystal Palace) willundoubtedly win the Championship (or 'Division 2' as it used o be known!) now that they have sensibly removed the distraction of the Carling Cup from their fixture list ...

MNb wrote on 08/16/07 at 01:43:41:

Ajax should not fear for the second match. Slavia never managed to reach the CL even after winning the first encounter away. And the czech press put Slavia under great pressure remembering each day their poor results in the CL qualifying rounds.

I didn't get to see the game, but apparently Beckham was the hero in LA's win over DC United today.  He scored on a free kick (the goalie was waaaaay out of position, but it was still a nice goal) and assisted Landon Donovan's breakaway for a 2-0 win.

Did anyone get to see the game?  Was Becks playing well, or was this just a couple of instances of brilliance?  To put this into perspective, this is the same team that trounced LA in Beckham's MLS debut.  The scoreline was 1-0, but DC United dominated the game until Beckham came in and gave some order to LA's defense and midfield (a man down, no less).

Typical Ajax:

http://www.trouw.nl/laatstenieuws/laatstenieuws/article773927.ece/Toeristen_gewo...

http://www.trouw.nl/hetnieuws/sport/article773950.ece/Ajax_mag_vrezen_voor_nieuw...

BTW:  Sunderland beat Leeds in that Yorkshire classic, 1-0 in 1973.  I loved that game.  I spent the day at a birthday party with my friend, Paul Organ, who was a huge Leeds fan.  I think everyone else at the party was rooting for Sunderland, but we promised to keep quiet if Sunderland won.  That was a hard promise to keep!

(I haven't seen Paul since that summer.)

Smyslov_Fan wrote on 08/15/07 at 08:13:48:

No Birmingham City???

Leeds? It was my favourite english team. Every male above 30 in Sweden has a favorite english team. I picked Leeds for some reason. In the 70s and 80s we had a TV program called Tipsextra which was extremely popular. It showed a game of the english premier division every Saturday. Later another channel took over and showed first division games instead. The interest dropped to zero.

Leeds won the PL in the early 90s. I saw a few games on TV. They also had a good run in the Champions League one year. Was it in the semi-finals they lost vs Valencia? Soon after everything went downhill. They nearly made it to the PL again, losing the play offs vs Watford. Last season was terrible. A colleague of mine is a huge Cardiff City fan. He told me that in Cardiff vs Hull, when the results of Leeds was relegated was announced, both side's fans started to sing "We all hate Leeds".

I watched the first half of Valencia vs Elfsborg, yesterday. It became very apparent that swedish club football is terrible. (It was also good to see a very strong club team without eleven different nationalities.)