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ArgentinaBlade

Listed below are comments made by ArgentinaBlade between Friday, 3rd April 2009 and Tuesday, 22nd December 2009.

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Sabella excels as coach of Estudiantes 12:57pm on 22 Dec 2009 See my previous post on here regarding Sabella - we now have a baby boy also indirectly due to Sabella playing for Sheff Utd when I was a kid!

"Nice one Mr Vickery - my wife is Argentine (we got married in May) and I met her when I travelled for a year through the whole of South America in 2005-6 (a well earned sabbatical from the NHS). I think I was probably out there due to admiring Ardiles, Villa and most importantly Alex Sabella for Sheff Utd as a kid (I remember Sabella used to always play with no shin pads and his socks rolled down so we all used to copy him and get in trouble).

We are due a late honeymoon out with her family in Cordoba at Christmas and hope to catch a game, I've been to the Bombonera when Boca won the league at the end of 2005 but I have had to switch allegiances due to her Dad been River through and through. Fortunately, he is now an ardent Blade follower....

Always love the articles keep up the good work!"
Burnley show the way forward 1:31pm on 26 May 2009 Congratulations to Burnley - you thoroughly deserved it! I for one would be really interested in how well you would do with more or less the same team, preserving the spirit you obviously have in the dressing room and not interupting it with the inclusion of many expensive fancy Dan's as many clubs have made the mistake of doing on promotion.

Good luck
State Championships past sell-by date 01:28am on 15 Apr 2009 38 - Tim, what about the Yorkshire State Championships, lots of lower level teams heavily supported - reckon we could out do Rio or SP from what I've seen live at the stadia in Brasil in terms of atmosphere, we would struggle against the Buenos Aires classicos though.

1. Sheff Utd
2. Sheff Wed
3. Hull City
4. with pain....Leeds
5. Doncaster Rovers
6. Bradford City
7. Barnsley (oh god)
8. Middlesborough (at a push)
9. Huddersfield Town
10. York City
expand about 40 miles
11. Derby County
12. Notts Forest
13. Notts County
14. Leicester City
15. Lincoln City (maybe not!)
expand the other way - Man U, Man C, Bolton, Stockport, Blackburn, Wigan, Rochdale, Bury etc etc

Ok I'm been daft but the message is that in this puny island of a home we have masses of passionate football support at all levels and we don't migrate (much) when we are unsuccessful - it was one of the disappointments of a long journey in South America to witness the lethargy of support in Brasil for anything other than a big match (don't have masses of experience so can't qualify this completely but I definitely witnessed this)....Sao P - 16 million inhabitants = 4 reasonably supported teams, Yorkshire (God knows but about 2-3 million tops) = masses of crazy football fans supporting their teams for at least 4 generations (in my family about to become 5). OK there's money and I know poverty in Yorkshire isn't akin to SA but football has always been a difficult thing to prioritise for tons of Yorkshire people in terms of money.

Not sure what my point is but I'm a bit sick of hearing from Brasilian football fans talking about the big 4, robbing their players, we know nothing etc when they clearly have absolutely no grasp of the depth and passion involved in English football at all levels in this country (where we are never likely to see a Brasilian import going through the motions for a fortune), Just like I am fairly ignorant of small club football in Brasil. It seems these comments are just as ignorant and just as based on main stream media in Brasil as the English people being criticized (not so bad this week but last week it was beginning to get a bit offensive).

I had quite a few experiences in Brasil where people loved it when I enthused about what I liked about Brasilian football but were really reluctant to discuss any constructive criticism I offered (despite my faltering portugues I am a psychologist so am quite practised in not causing offence whilst offering a tough idea!). I must say having interacted with people from a lot of nations (it is a matter of course living in London) this is the most pronounced experience of footballing defensiveness I have ever experienced - even in Sheffield we are able to acknowledge that - yes on the whole we are shit!

I do know that my wife's Dad's first team is Palpala from Jujuy in North Argentina which he followed all over the place with a passion and no-one has ever heard of them, that's footy for me - as far as I am aware they formed from the local Steel Works where he worked - not far off my mighty underachieving Blades' glorious history.

Muchos saludos de todos los hinchas comun y de la verdad!

Thanks again Tim for keeping the debate good and clean!
Coping with high altitude 6:15pm on 04 Apr 2009 127

Tenemos muchos cosas para decir, no viste cuanto commentarios hay arriba?
Coping with high altitude 11:29pm on 03 Apr 2009 101 - exactly!
Coping with high altitude 10:45pm on 03 Apr 2009 My great grandfather's brother was one of them, shot in the eye age 18 in the Somme - I have/ still use his tin chest in our lounge, one of the things my wife keeps in there is her Argentina flag which comes out on match days - obvio! My great grandfather was lucky - mustard gassed around the same time, told he had 2 years at the most, died aged 90 - we were all laughing at the funeral as I'm sure he would have been if he wasn't a serious atheist...It really bugs me when people judge all British people by the ruling classes' behaviour. Oh well that's media representation for you.
Coping with high altitude 10:00pm on 03 Apr 2009 May I add that that opinion of 'Brits" ( I hate that word) is normally a stereotype based on our ancestral imperial 'betters' who were abusing the majority of us on this island in a similar manner to their behaviour in the rest of the world (for example working class Sheffielders been cannon fodder in WW1, shot if they thought their 'educated' 'superiors' were brainless idiots which history clearly demonstrates they were).

We have more similarities en masse than differences I hope!
Coping with high altitude 9:52pm on 03 Apr 2009 Hear hear - one should never have an opinion if you are British despite the rest of the world having an opinion on us (however 'un'qualified). To be fair my experiences in South America have led me to believe in open-mindedness more than before I set foot on the continent so I urge others to not allow bias to develop as a result of a few idiots (in the same way as you wouldn't build rules for living based on what you hear on an average London bus!).
Coping with high altitude 9:29pm on 03 Apr 2009 91 - keep going, I love it when people argue the toss against blunt facts and keep digging a deeper one. Eventually the statistics will have to win ... the people just get drunk and dismiss it all... its a crying shame but people don't like to admit that they are wrong - it doesn't hurt that much surely!
Coping with high altitude 9:24pm on 03 Apr 2009 Maradona - a man with opinions on politics and professional sport, its all OK with me especially when the the 2 cross over a little - as life does most of the time...

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