Romania-France, 2-2
Well. As you might have heard, yesterday the World Of Mourinho stopped rotating on its axis: first he went to Romania with the Becalis (DX!!!!!!), and second, he said that Mutu was a good player and a very nice man. It simply does not calculate.
Oh, and Romania played some match with the French team and drew 2-2...
I wish I could do a proper match report like Martha, but, alas, all I can give you is a picspam with some silly comments about people's arses. So, here we go.
Before we get to the nerve-racking parts, here are some more pics of the Tricolorii (ours, not the French ones) going to the bowling alley before the match.
Regrettably, they hadn't actually finished the building yet. XD
*Scratches head* I don't even know who this gadge is,
but evidently Mutu does...
There's some suggestion that the whole snooker/bowling thing is the dreaded Romanian superstition in effect: they played the Netherlands in Constanta when they won last year, so now they have to repeat exactly the same routine they did then, including going to the bowling alley at the same times and so forth. Don’t know if this is true,
but it would explain why they had to go there twice, once at night and once by day. XD
(Christi grinning away again. <3)
Lobby walks the plank. XD Guess he's being a pirate again...
So. *Sigh* Time for the bad news. Just watch this fucking video. Or, if you can't be arsed, here's a picture:
Yes, that is grinning José embracing all the available Becalis. DX Why?! Why is god punishing me like this???
When Gigi started claiming Jojo was coming to the match I believed him for about 0.1 of a second, then Giovanni said it was just one of his hallucinations and I dismissed it as such. Regrettably, as you can see, it was actually true.
He’s even saying that Mutu shouldn’t have been fined so much by Chelsea (at 00:23), and that he’s glad his problems are behind him. Good God. (Obviously, that's not BAD news as such, it's just... astonishing.)
He was ambushed at the airport, and made to give interviews. Fortunately, since he doesn’t speak Romanian, they're in English (though some are dubbed).
"I am here with my good friends the Becali family” (NO!!!)
“I’m friends with the Becali family for more than ten years” (NO!!! NO!!! *weeps copiously*)
Though he does say that Giovanni is the only one he knows well, and that he hasn't seen the others for donkey's years - phew. (The interview part starts at 1:10, btw.)
Then they had to go and watch the game, at which they all looked really cheerful.
Has someone decapitated José???
Ah, of course - Gigi did it, with his Rosary Of Infinite Hypocrisy.
See that little "crop" feature on Gimp? It can come in really handy sometimes. (Warning: extremely large José picture. Though, obviously, that's more of a promise than a threat.)
As to why he was there, nobody seems sure. He claimed he’d come to see Radoi, who, due to injury, wasn’t even called up. Doh!!! Becali seems to be saying that Radoi might still move to Inter, in January, presumably. However, Mourinho says he doesn’t need any more defenders and Radoi says he doesn’t particularly want to leave Steaua, so...
Some people thought he might be scouting Goian, but Gigi says (Christ, do we have to get all our Special news from Becalis now???) he wasn’t too impressed with him at the match.
By far the nicest rumour I’ve heard is that he came to see Lobby. Not that Inter particularly needs a new goalie, but it says good things about José’s taste.
Asked about Christi, he said that “He’s a very good player and a very good person”. I am impressed.
"I am pleased and happy to be with him. I’m very happy." “We’re getting married this Christmas, and we’ve bought a house...” Ahem, sorry, got carried away there.
Anyway. Never mind that - back to the match!
You may well look shifty, Horoscope Man!
(Note: we're not having any match videos. Well, except one. Obviously, there are 20,000 videos at GSP’s video page, but I can’t be arsed hosting them all.)
Adelina was in the stands, in her lucky hat, which kind of worked - I suppose she should have worn gloves with it as well, or something.
According to Yasmine, whose stream had sound XD, the noise in the stadium was incredible. The Romanians were a wee bit overexcited.
Here's your starting XI, including Ogararu (2), who I'd barely heard of before, and Muresan (6), who I'd really never heard of before. I wasn't aided by the fact that Romania, unlike France, didn't have their names on the backs of their shirts. God, can they not afford proper kit any more?!?
Note that Christi is carrying a handbag, and Mutu is stealing a ball.
XD As predicted, Christi had drilled the team until they could sing the anthem properly again. (You might recall that while he was out, they'd forgotten the words.)
Unfortunately, the match kind of started at that point, and it's a bit difficult for me to arrange the pictures sequentially. So they might be in kind of... well, totally random order from now on. Never mind.
You might notice, however, that there are rather a lot of pictures of a certain diminutive striker.
There is a perfectly good reason for this. It's because his goal made us all die of ecstasy.
Six minutes against France. Six fucking minutes!!!
I couldn't believe his shot would go in.
It did, obviously,
and he got busy running to the stands,
because he was really quite chuffed.
He did a sort of Mancini!face,
which rapidly turned into a RAWRRR!!!face.
And he did a LOT of rawr!ing.
(If you've ever wanted a practically life-sized picture of Petre going insane, there's one here.)
Then there was some jumping,
and his minions arrived,
so that they could, er, strangle him.
I hope Marica meant it in a friendly way, like, "How dare you score before me, you mean sod," but Petre and Ogararu look a bit alarmed about it, frankly.
Fortunately, some nicer things evolved,
such as hugging.
Then Mutu cheered everyone up by glomping them.
The photogs loved this; I get the feeling they quite like him.
They took it from another angle as well, allowing us to see that Cocis's head is being sacrificed, while Goian does a delightful YAY!!! motion at the side. XD Bless him.
Speak of the devil!
Him and his hideously fluorescent compression shorts.
(Seriously, who chooses them??)
He scored in the sixteenth minute - via a header, unsurprisingly.
He is just made for headers. This one was great.
He, too, was quite happy. XD (I wish this picture was bigger, it's class.)
He didn't do much rawring, but he did point his extremely lengthy finger.
Then he went zooming off
to climb the fence and celebrate with his fans,
of whom there turned out to be a lot more than I expected.
I'm not actually sure whose goal these two pictures are from, but I thought I'd put them here anyway. Note that Mutu is attempting some impromptu anulingus.
(This is Piti's happy face.)
Unfortunately, that was the second time Goian had climbed the fences, because he also did it when Petre scored :( So he was yellow carded and will miss the match with Serbia.
But in mitigation, he, er, did this XD Which I had previously associated only with this gentleman...
Anyway. When asked what he hoped for in this match, Mourinho said he wanted Christi and Paddy to play well and go home safe. Er, unfortunately they didn’t.
Vieira was crocked before he even got on the pitch. He got injured during the warm-up and the armband went to Henry. Doh!
Meanwhile, Christi was fairly awful, or certainly not especially good.
He also seems to have grown back his curtains from 1999 - I'm hoping they'll leave soon.
I mean, I noticed he was there occasionally and everything,
but he didn't really seem to do much apart from bump into people and get hurt.
Aye, that sort of sums it up. :/
Cocis was also a bit undistinguished.
His legs aren't getting any thicker, are they?
...or darker. Bloody hell!
(There was quite a lot of ballet going on.)
Chivu was at it, as was Marica,
Rat,
and Ribery, who I'm obviously not too happy with at the moment.
He and Gourcuff scored in the second half, so that wiped out our good start :/
(Are they playing Twister???)
A normal coach would say "Why, god, why?" but I suppose Piti must be praying to the Devil. Never mind.
His job still seems to be safe - the crowd were actually chanting "Piti, Piti, don't leave us" XD My, what short memories they have!!
Anyway. Let's get Mutu out of the way. (Is that picture even from this match?... oh well.)
He also did not do anything useful, though his thighs seem to be looking nice.
Actually, I expect all of him is looking nice, to people who know about such things.
The fact remains that there is no need for QUITE SO MANY PICTURES OF HIM DOING NOTHING, DX
even if he does look pretty while doing it.
OK, perhaps not all the time,
but then, you can't blame him, since he got the most ghastly foul ever D: Christ almighty! It looked as if the bloke was trying to pick Mutu's nose with his studs.
...I need to calm down after thinking about that. I think I'll laugh at Mutu's hair. He had what Martha refers to as a Diana Ross moment.
He also developed an alarming hole in his abdomen, possibly due to that bloke kicking him,
which is possibly why Piti subbed him off for Costea near the end. (The press are all OMG HE IS NOT MAKING EYE CONTACT WITH PITI IN THIS PICTURE, THEY MUST HATE EACH OTHER. Bollocks.)
(Giant Mutu picture for those who appreciate such things.)
Costea didn't have enough time to do anything significant.
His most impressive contribution was being hurled over Gourcuff's shoulder,
giving the whole world this view of his astonishing arse.
Actually, there were a lot of arses around. I'm not sure who that one belongs to,
but these are definitely Tamas's and Ogararu's,
and this one is Marica's. (Not big enough for you? Try this.)
Marica mostly got groped a lot by French people.
With thighs like those, I'm not surprised.
He also pulled some great faces.
XD
This is Bucur. I'd never heard of him before, and this is the only photo of him I can find. The man of mystery!
...There's not many more of Tamas, in all honesty.
Or Rat.
This is Muresan. He's bald. I don't know much else about him,
except that Malouda seems to have mauled him around a lot.
He did that to Ogararu, too.
See?
He was a lot more useful than most people I'd actually heard of.
Also, he can kick really high.
See?
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:
velnias needs fic in which Lobby is punished by the rest of the team for letting two goals in. Not because she thinks he deserves it, just because she wants hot man-love. The writing of this fic would occasion extreme gratitude. Slashers, step up - we know you're hiding there somewhere!
Let me give you a few pictures to encourage you. (Most of them aren't actually from the Constanta match, but there was an outrageous shortage of Lob!pics, so I had to make do.)
We can see you hiding there, Pisica. Don't try to get away!
Apparently there was brief Goian/Petre action before the match started? Goian kissed the top of Petre’s head, specifically. XD I don't have any pictures of that, but! Muresan repeated it later with Lobont. <3
It was great - Lobby made a save and ended up lying on his stomach, then he looked up and saw Muresan and grinned, and Muresan knelt down and kissed him on the top of the head. It was so sweet. You can see it in slo-mo right at the end of this video. :D
EDIT: I FOUND A PICTURE!!!! Editing it in, because it's too cute to miss:
<3
Incidentally, I recently found out that “Bogdan” means “God’s Gift”.
This meaning is completely accurate. (Mothers must somehow know it when they name their children, the same way Julio Cesar’s mum knew to give her sprog the initials JC.)
He did so many wonder saves we lost count. I stopped typing "Lobby makes a great save!!!1!" on the LR thread because it was getting too monotonous. He is a true hero. *Builds a shrine to worship him*
Here, have the biggest picture of him ever. It’ll make nice wallpaper.
This leads us nicely to our final, startlingly sudden piece of news: Lobby’s wife, Iulia, is pregnant. O_o Or that’s the title of this video; it seems to be entirely an interview with Adelina Chivu (with a brief glimpse of Figo - wtf?), so perhaps Google Translate’s just fucked up again. Any Romanian speakers, please confirm it!!!