Scotty

Source: Reuters BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Romania coach Victor Piturca dropped Dinamo Bucharest striker Florin Bratu on Wednesday when he named his final 23-man Euro 2008 squad. He had already sent home injured midfielder Ovidiu Petre, goalkeeper Danut Coman and uncapped midfielder Ciprian Deac from his provisional squad for the June 7-29 tournament. Experienced 28-year-old Bratu had been in good form for his club at the end of the domestic championship but Piturca decided to leave him at home, according to the announcement on the Romanian soccer federation Web site (www.frf.ro). Midfielder Florentin Petre backed the decision, telling media: "I'm so sorry for Bratu but he must understand that Piturca's strategy probably meant he had to leave him at home." Bratu's omission suggests a return to a more defensive system, a successful strategy in the past for the counter-attacking Romanians. Romania, whose last qualification for a major event was at Euro 2000, are in Group C with France, Italy and the Netherlands. Petre said: "We have all lived through bitter times watching our opponents playing on TV. "The worst was that we failed to reach the (major) finals three times in a row, but not because we played worse than our opponents." Fellow midfielder Razvan Cocis of Lokomotiv Moscow said: "We want our play to offer fans the opportunity to celebrate our success on the streets, like they were doing when Gheorghe Hagi was playing." At the 1994 World Cup, Romania, led by Hagi, reached the quarter-finals. Squad: Goalkeepers: 1-Bogdan Lobont (Dinamo Bucharest), 23-Eduard Stanciou (CFR Cluj), 12-Marius Popa (Poli Stiinta Timisoara) Defenders: 2-Cosmin Contra (Getafe), 15-Dorin Goian (Steaua Bucharest), 14-Sorin Ghionea (Steaua Bucharest), 4-Gabriel Tamas (Auxerre), 17-Cosmin Moti (Dinamo Bucharest), 13-Cristian Sapunaru (Rapid Bucharest), 3-Razvan Rat (Shakhtar Donetsk), 22-Stefan Radu (Lazio); Midfielders: 5-Cristian Chivu (Inter Milan), 6-Mirel Radoi (Steaua Bucharest), 7-Florentin Petre (CSKA Sofia), 8-Paul Codrea (AC Siena), 20-Nicolae Dica (Steaua Bucharest), 16-Banel Nicolita (Steaua Bucharest), 19-Adrian Cristea (Dinamo Bucharest), 11-Razvan Cocis (Lokomotiv Moscow); Forwards: 10-Adrian Mutu (Fiorentina), 9-Ciprian Marica (VfB Stuttgart), 21-Daniel Niculae (AJ Auxerre), 18-Marius Niculae (Inverness Caledonian Thistle).

He wants to stay .... A lot of the fans want him to stay .... Some club officials want him to stay .... It will be proven (eventually) that his wages are not the financial burden they are reported to be .... I can definitely see the problem :017: :017: :017: :017:

Surprise, surprise, where did you get that from Scotty the deepest darkest recesses of my addled brain ..... its a prediction :015:

according to our hosts, another site on the same server was "offering a rather large media file for download" and this resulted in the badwidth being chewed up and the server struggling somewhat because of high volumes hitting their site. They tell us they have disabled the offending file and kicked the cr@p out of the user so all should now be good :015:

i believe so .... although to be fair, the search facility throws up a few strange results and we havent really bothered to look at it closely ..... we are changing forum software before next season so are working on that at the moment.

yup - current sizes of each Db although by disabling the search feature it removes one table from the forum database (the search index) and reduces the size of the Db down to 89Mb

I have disabled the forum "search" facility for now as this does put stress on the server and bloats the database. will re-enable when things get back to normal.

Forum Db = 234Mb Website Db = 14.5 Mb Stats Db = 1.4 Mb League Table Db = 108Kb Prediction Lge Db = 500Kb

"....... Goal from Marius Niculae........ Niculae plays his football for (little) Inverness in the SPL. Inverness is supposed to be one of the places where they speak the most perfect English in the land ... talking of English, I wonder whether this Romanian team will ever be good enough to win the world cup like England did in 1966 ........" descends into reminiscing about England, Beckham and how tournament is devalued without their presence ......

Yeah ... me !!!! been getting intermittent "500 internal server" errors and a few minutes ago got a database connection error. think we may need to respond a little more forcefully to the support answer we received :023:

The site was indeed sluggish for a while around 10am and then down for a short time at about 10:37am UK time. It came back up shortly thereafter and seems ok now. Problem appears to be on our hosting company's side.

another wages discussion is off topic for this thread ...... (but the answer to that is yes).

right now he is going nowhere. he is still under contract for another year, our DoF is on holiday, and the player is concentrating on playing for Romania. nothing will be decided about his future until he returns from Euro2008. Incidentally, the player himself is quite happy to continue playing for ICT .... if ICT actually want him.

Glass Tiger song : http://youtube.com/watch?v=NuchAcC4Rb8 Barenaked Ladies cringeworthy effort: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9MnLuD9n4T8

and lets not forget .... he is sponsored by the users of this website :004:

fair play to you BornCaley ..... hope some bright sparks can show their songwriting skills to come up with something. Its a shame that the current song cant be used because of copyright issues but as you say, it is a bit cringeworthy and once the initial "retro-appreciation" of it died down we would probably want rid of it again. Toronto FC fans have been hunting around for an official "anthem" for a little while and one of the songs that was discussed was "My Town" by Glass Tiger .... In contrast to the copyright issues mentioned above, in this case, the band responded very positively to the guy who sent his manager an email ... presumably because they might gain some new found popularity because of it: [note: Toronto FC (the club) actually had a song written/recorded for them by the Barenaked Ladies - who are big "soccer" fans but it was instantly forgettable .... the glass tiger song is the fan choice.] Here's the guys email and the manager's response .....

Link to Source ? The only reuters story I can find from today says "Romania coach Victor Piturca on Tuesday dropped uncapped midfielder Ciprian Deac from his provisional Euro 2008 squad. Midfielder Ovidiu Petre and goalkeeper Danut Coman, both injured, have already pulled out of the squad and with Coman replaced by Eduard Stanciou, Piturca must drop another player by the squad announcement deadline on May 28." Link: http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldFootbal...724386420080527

Great post ..... some praise, some scorn, and a fair bit of insight. There's not a lot I can add to that other than to say you tell the story very well from the point of view of someone who travels or has travelled thousands of miles to watch the club from the lowest reaches to the highest heights.

and we shall call this mascot the Inverness Half-time Entertainer ...... or I.H.E. for short :015: thought your other design was better ;)

Should Grant be captain .... ? absolutely. as mentioned above, he had a rocky start but has seemed to grow into the role. He still has a bit of growing to be in the Bobby Mann or Darren Dods class but he is definitely capable. My only caveat would be if the club signed someone who oozes leadership qualities ..... not going to happen but as an example, lets say Steven Pressley

not possible unless they finish top 6 or Rangers finish bottom 6 :004:

I would need to dig out a lot of old files, but I believe Ike finished a lot higher up the rankings than Mark Brown did in most seasons he was with us.... Goalkeepers (or Broonie at least) dont seem to attract as many votes as other players ..... I guess we expect them to save everything rather than give them loads of praise for saving shots that others might not !!!

on the other side of the coin though C100 ... from what I hear, or have heard Rankin was told he was surplus to requirements long before Park moved Wyness did have an offer on the table that was removed Niculae is happy to stay if the club want him We could argue all of this around in circles and come up with half a dozen different arguments each depending on which story or stories we each heard but I think each and every one of us would probably agree that Cowie is worth signing up on a longer term deal now if that is what he wants ... and it seems like it is. His first season in the SPL has resulted in him taking most if not all of the POY awards at the club, he has had positive comments from most of us, and he is attributed as making remarks that he wants to get a longer deal at ICT. We should be working vigorously to make sure that deal is in place before the start of season 08/09 .... it would be a very positive way to start the season and I think we all need that after the crap and bullshit of the season just past.

- best post of the week ..... you have now passed the first stage of your ITV Sports commentating exam

and here is the vote from the Toronto jury ...... Rouyame-Uni - nil points ..... oops , sorry, wrong competition. SPL 08/09 This will be our hardest in the SPL. Hamilton are no mugs but might struggle a bit finding their feet and possibly with depth of squad over the course of the season. I think Hibs, Well and Dundee Utd all have good managers who will improve their teams year-on-year. Hearts and Aberdeen, even in rough spells should have enough resources and players to secure a mid-table finish and Falkirk will also achieve mid-table. That leaves just ICT, Buddies, Hamilton and Killie to fight it out in the bottom 4. I am choosing ICT to be the best of the bottom four because I am biased ! 01: Rangers - so close to everything this season. will win this next season ============ 02: Celtic - will crumble like Rangers did this season, especially if they do well in CL or UC. 03: Dundee Utd - some managers can do it at certain clubs where others cant. CL has improved DUFC and will continue to. 04: Motherwell - replace the name CL with MM and the same applies to Well as to DUFC. 05: Hibernian - replace the name CL or MM with MP and the same applies to Hibs as to Well and DUFC 06: Hearts - Vlad will not allow such a lowly finish next year. Could surprise people and finish a lot higher/lower depending on him. ============ 07: Aberdeen - a rebuilding job but still good enough to finish mid table. 08: Falkirk - What can I say, I think JH is a decent manager and Falkirk will trundle along to a respectable mid table finish. 09: ICT - 9th this season was a disappointment, next year it will be a relief if we dont fill the current holes in the squad 10: St Mirren - Denzil and Dargo will (hopefully) not click because of the ICT curse and that screws up Gus' plans ! 11: Hamilton - will be hard but will stay up. ============ 12: Kilmarnock - rumours of financial problems and administration, all is not well at Rugby Park