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International friendly today at Hyde which we won 3 nil. Same score tonight would be very nice.

Not exactly much of a game though as at half time I was wondering which school we were playing against! Not that they were that young but they were awful. City could have played without a keeper in the first half and still been one up.

Hard to say what the true value of the game was as we played plenty of experienced players in our team. Scapuzzi,Helan,Wabara plus Ibrahim,Razak,Suarez,Ellabdalloui. How it was only 1 nil at half time I don't know but Andy Welsh might well have had a go at them to shake them up.Slow with the passing and not very good movement and then when they got into good positions the final ball was poor.The goal though was quality a Ellabdalloui broke from the right through 2 or 2 tackles (not very good ones0 and then pulled it back for Scapuzzi to score well.

KVM played better 2nd half and even got a shot in but more goals were inevitable for City and Benali scored the 2nd after good work from Scapuzzi.He allowed the ball to run across the keeper who had dived anticipating an early shot.Then it was finished by Scapuuzi from the spot after Suarez was bundled over.All in all quite a poor game I thought and towards the end there were quite a few dodgy challngers from the belgian side which brought bookings. After one challenge on Helan there were some handbags and the ref seemed to suggest both players should be subbed to help calm things down.

A few players watching including Boyata and Veseli.

Whats the situation with Ibrahim? Has his loan at Breda ended or is there season just over?


I hope he's not been forgotten about with his 18 months out on loan

bobby brows wrote:Whats the situation with Ibrahim? Has his loan at Breda ended or is there season just over?


I hope he's not been forgotten about with his 18 months out on loan

Don't know the details but he's been back for a while I think. I guess he may be let go in the summer.

Douglas Higginbottom wrote:

bobby brows wrote:Whats the situation with Ibrahim? Has his loan at Breda ended or is there season just over?


I hope he's not been forgotten about with his 18 months out on loan

Don't know the details but he's been back for a while I think. I guess he may be let go in the summer.

Just read in the program that quite a few have returned to the club. It would ashame if he was released, he certainly didn't look out of his depth when he played at Scunthorpe in the cup or at home to Liverpool in the league. When he was on loan at Scunthorpe last year my mate said he'd not been any good for them.

Feyenoord were watching Scapuzzi apparently

Fidel Castro wrote:Feyenoord were watching Scapuzzi apparently

good.....as I can't see him ever pulling on a first team shirt at City

Be very interesting to see in pre-season who gets decent game time and looks to have "it". Presumably, with the Euros, there will be quite a few players who will join up late (Silva, De Jong, Nasri, Clichy, Balotelli and the English contingent) so there is prime opportunity to see the likes of Rekik, Suarez, Roman, Razak and how they look alongside quite a decent amount of the first team set up.

I'd assume that our early pre-season "team" would be able to look something like....:

Pantillimon
Zabaleta
Kompany
Rekik/Kolo
Kolarov
Yaya
Razak
Roman
Suarez
Tevez
Aguero

Be interesting to see how they perform in that kind of set-up as they've got top top quality alongside them. A bit of a shame that Guidetti will likely not join up til later as he'll be in Polkraine

Fidel Castro wrote:Feyenoord were watching Scapuzzi apparently

must say i've got a soft spot for scapuzzi, my head say's he won't make it at city, but i'll admit i've enjoyed watching him play. Maybe he'll have a storming year on loan at Feyenoord and become one of hottest prospects in football like a certain swede

bobby brows wrote:

Fidel Castro wrote:Feyenoord were watching Scapuzzi apparently

must say i've got a soft spot for scapuzzi, my head say's he won't make it at city, but i'll admit i've enjoyed watching him play. Maybe he'll have a storming year on loan at Feyenoord and become one of hottest prospects in football like a certain swede

Your head is right.

it was nice to hear the story of this game, especially since KV Mechelen is the team I support in my home country
it was about time the two greatest clubs in the world played each other :-)

it was not surprising to hear KV couldn't put up much of a fight given where the 2 clubs are at the moment
I would expect EDS to beat KV's second unit easily anway and also the best players of KV's reserves have just started training with their first team

a while ago there was some talk in the Belgian media that there would be some kind of partnership between MCFC and KVM
they mentioned possibly a couple of young city players being loaned out to KV Mechelen but nothing really came of it I guess

the official website of KV Mechelen said that the lads who played in this friendly also attended the derby of all time against the scum

lucky bastards

belgian cityfan wrote:it was nice to hear the story of this game, especially since KV Mechelen is the team I support in my home country
it was about time the two greatest clubs in the world played each other :-)

it was not surprising to hear KV couldn't put up much of a fight given where the 2 clubs are at the moment
I would expect EDS to beat KV's second unit easily anway and also the best players of KV's reserves have just started training with their first team

a while ago there was some talk in the Belgian media that there would be some kind of partnership between MCFC and KVM
they mentioned possibly a couple of young city players being loaned out to KV Mechelen but nothing really came of it I guess

the official website of KV Mechelen said that the lads who played in this friendly also attended the derby of all time against the scum

lucky bastards

It could just be that the partnership is in its early stages & there were no suitable players in positions that KV needed. I'm sure they're only interested in taking players who will be useful to them & fill gaps in their squad, so perhaps it's just a case of waiting til the right blokes come along at the right time.

Didn't Arsenal used to have the same deal with Beveran in Belgiun second division, where they would send players out to gain work permits? I think Beveran responded by filling their team with young africans for Arsenal to cherry pick.

bobby brows wrote:Didn't Arsenal used to have the same deal with Beveran in Belgiun second division, where they would send players out to gain work permits? I think Beveran responded by filling their team with young africans for Arsenal to cherry pick.

yes even when Beveren played in first division they filled their team with 11 ivorians
there was also an african academy involved in that partnership I think
it made a certain Touré guy play for Beveren too back then

Fidel Castro wrote:Feyenoord were watching Scapuzzi apparently

My Feyenoord mates have said that was incorrect, they were rather looking at the entire team, but singled out Scapuzzi saying that they're not looking at him. Their managing director, or whatever he is, said that we've got some interesting players, so who knows.
It certainly helped Guidetti out, so he might be able to convince some of our talents to go to Feyenoord.

Avalon wrote:

Fidel Castro wrote:Feyenoord were watching Scapuzzi apparently

My Feyenoord mates have said that was incorrect, they were rather looking at the entire team, but singled out Scapuzzi saying that they're not looking at him. Their managing director, or whatever he is, said that we've got some interesting players, so who knows.
It certainly helped Guidetti out, so he might be able to convince some of our talents to go to Feyenoord.

This is what I read somewhere; that Scapuzzi was the one they said they definitely weren't interested in.