Hazard didn't win the Ballon d'Or ... OK it's useless to waste our bribes on a meaningless gala event ... still Kompany, Wilmots and the Belgian media could have been better patriots ... that's as common as voting for a teammate or managers voting for their (former) players. Hazard received some love from Cameroon, Eritrea, Brunei, ... and the manager of the Polish NT even felt that Eden was the best player that doesn't hail from Poland ... Eden received more love from him than from Wilmots and Kompany. Seeing that Hazard is rapidly unlocking his potential ... I'm confident that he'll win Marc and Vincent over in the coming years together with the hearts & minds of many others.
Did this story fall between the cracks? Both Britain and Belgium were dragged all the way to Europe's supreme court (ECJ) by FIFA and UEFA ... although FIFA already have a monopoly on the multi-billion revenue stream that is licensing TV rights to the World Cup ... they felt the need to squeeze even harder ... luckily the ECJ ruled in favor of Britain and Belgium ... so we can continue to watch all World Cup and Euro games on free-to-air TV.
More important than the shiny one ... Eden's teammates awarded him a wooden one ... good vibes at Chelsea.
Update - France will join the group of 5 teams (to face them in friendlies) - instead of FAs negotiating ... UEFA will decide each group's fixture list (same day as the draw) - the UEFA coefficient rankings will be made public along with the draw procedure and final tournament match schedule after 23/24 January - minor changes in the coefficient calculation ... pots remain the same according to football-rankings. - the 'Week of Football' ... this concept will be introduced to boost revenue ... UEFA tightens its grip and keeps looking to make the qualifiers more lucrative ... having promised large underwritten guarantees to the biggest countries, UEFA will try to maximize profits from friendlies too ... that Nations League idea may become reality sooner than later.
I'm interested in seeing how much Malanda plays at Wolfsburg. If he starts the majority of the games, he should go to Brazil over Timmy Simons.
Usually I just watch Bundesliga highlights ... some matches are well worth watching in full though ... if KDB & Malanda play regular first team football, I'll probably watch a little less EPL and see how our guys do. @ all: for highlights from the big leagues which shows do you feel are better than 'European Football Show' (BT Sports) and 'Revista De La Liga' (Skysports)? I mainly watch EPL matches live (or full replays if more than 1 good tie is on at the same time) and MOTD so I still get to see a decent recap of the other ties. For the highlights of the other big leagues I'm looking for a quick fix ... not going to cut down much on EPL football ... because for a while now ... every EPL team in the top 7 has at least 1 Belgian on their squad.
Soon Swansea vs Spurs ... afterwards the headliner ... Chelsea vs Man Utd A decent amount of the chances that Hazard created were sitters ... Torres, Eto'o, Ba, etc. should have pushed Hazard's assists into the double digits ... still being top scorer at Chelsea will also feel good.
This was the first match of this double-header: Paolino Bertaccini gave us the lead but this one we lost.
Courtois is much better imo. The media wants you to believe it's a close call between the 2, but I think Courtois is superior in every way.
When Courtois is fit/in form, he's our absolute No. 1 ... although he's younger than Simon, Thibaut already boasts more achievements ... if 1 of our GKs has the chance of surpassing 'El Sympatico', I bet it's Courtois ... when he keeps going down this road, he might even become one of the best GKs ever. On the media spun controversies: usually those are non starters ... next season Courtois will be a 1st stringer, either at Chelsea or another club ... not giving too much creedence to the transfer gossips untill something concrete materializes ... in any case he deserves stability and would walk into the XI of most big clubs. Also it's normal that both Mignolet and Courtois want to start in our NT ... there's no threat ... instead if injuries/dip in form occurs, it's good to know there's decent 'competition'. PS against every team in 'La Liga', Courtois managed to get clean sheets (excluding newly promoted sides in 2013/14) ... this season Barcelona and Real Madrid already received clean sheets.
It seems we missed out on Van Gaal ... according to Van Buyten - the article in Dutch Experienced, tactician, has introduced many young talents, ... if only Advokaat didn't happen.
On sunday ... the EURO2016 Qualifying draw in Nice ... still feel that Belgium is among the top 9 in UEFA (= pot 1 teams) ... we should qualify (directly) though ... yet for the final draw there's a fair chance we end up in pot 2 or 3. Pot 1: Spain (holders), Germany, Netherlands, Italy, England, Portugal, Greece, Russia, Bosnia and Herzegovina Pot 2: Ukraine, Croatia, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Belgium, Czech Republic, Hungary, Republic of Ireland Pot 3: Serbia, Turkey, Slovenia, Israel, Norway, Slovakia, Romania, Austria, Poland Pot 4: Montenegro, Armenia, Scotland, Finland, Latvia, Wales, Bulgaria, Estonia, Belarus Pot 5: Iceland, Northern Ireland, Albania, Lithuania, Moldova, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Cyprus Pot 6: Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Faroe Islands, Malta, Andorra, San Marino, Gibraltar
I would just like to avoid teams we have met in recent qualifying campaigns. hope we get some teams we have rarely played against: England Belgium Israel Belarus Iceland Gibraltar
Worst case scenario, in my humble opinion: Germany: They are one of the best teams in the world and we have a horrendous record against them Serbia: A supremely talented team, the WC qualifying just came a bit too early for them. If their front six age a bit more, they will be a handful. Montenegro: Extremely difficult team to play against, with two very good forwards playing up front Iceland: Made the play-offs for the WC qualifying campaign Kazakhstan: Horrendous away trip, many teams have struggled there
So we are in group B with: Bosnia Israel Wales Andorra Cyprus pretty easy group obviously. Some nice smaller teams to play against and I fancy a revenge against Bosnia.
Went ahead and created a thread for that qualifying campaign: https://www.bigsoccer.com/community/threads/euro-2016-qualifying.2001004/
U-21 selection EURO qualifier vs Serbia: Colin Coosemans, Matz Sels Dino Arslanagic, Laurens De Bock, Björn Engels, Michaël Heylen, Brandon Mechele, Pierre-Yves Ngawa, Bryan Verboom, Marnick Vermijl Julien De Sart, Thorgan Hazard, Paul-José Mpoku, Dennis Praet, Youri Tielemans, Hans Vanaken, Hannes Van Der Bruggen Michy Batshuayi, Massimo Bruno, Yannick Ferreira-Carrasco, Maxime Lestienne, Divock Origi