Good post Yuri.

Sunday's Spain-Germany final should be a good one.

On a less pleasant note, some creep has been going around slurring Russia's Euro '08 performance on account of Russia having a Dutch coach (or manager, as the title seems to be more appropriately called overseas).

Should American women's gymnastics success at the '84 and '96 Olympics be dismissed on account of a certain ethnic Hungarian coach from Romania? On a related note, Russian coaches have either coached, or are coaching top American athletes in sports like gymnastics and figure skating.

I'm glad to see the Russian soccer team receive a nice welcome back in Russia. They achieved a good deal at Euro '08.

The Russian team at Euro '08 was the youngest and had the most players, who play in their country's domestic league.

Regarding Guus Hiddink's Dutch nationality, some collectively and incorrectly call Russians "xenophobic." When Russia utilizes foreign know-how, some will belittle Russian achievements in a rather two faced way, relative to what's happening elsewhere.

If I'm not mistaken, soccer mad England recently had a non-Brit as its national soccer coach.

Mike,

I hope you're not referring to me above. If anything I've been quite complimentary of Russia and Hiddink and their achievements, which have been excellent given that most of the players are mediocre at best. What I did criticise was your article, which was hopelessly ill-informed and compared the Russian use of Hiddink to Peter the Great. Its total nonsense; Russia had little choice but to import a foreigner, as all their own top coaches such as Glazayev of TsSKA had failed miserably with the national team. I also criticised your inability to even discern which team was pictured in a photo you'd used. And by the way the pic in your last article is of Manezh Square, not Red Square. Wrong stuff is just that -wrong.

The problem with you Mike is that you wrote a bad article that genuine football fans could see through quite easily. You just dont know enough about the game to talk about it, and rather than jumping on the bandwagon you should have sat back and enjoyed the tournament rather than writing bad stuff.

No, I wasn't referring to you at all.

I regret that your deceitful trolling has reached this venue. As I noted elsewhere, my two pieces on the subject were very well received from informed soccer fans. Among them are Andrew Young and a Soviet born person, who has made frequent appearances on RTTV. Their views have considerably more value than your own.

You TOTALLY miscomprehend the Peter the Great reference in the first soccer piece of mine.

You deceitfully mischaracterize the team photo issue raised. One can see this by reading the comments section under that piece.

Once again, I don't write what's below the article. This was pointed out to you before.

The problem with trolls like yourself is that you use loaded terms like "bad article" without substantiating them.

Yuri:

As a follow-up to my last set of submitted comments to this thread:

Under my first soccer post, I'd a respectful exchange with Igor. As noted, that exchange addresses some of the points the "Irishman" repeats in a deceitful way.

I'm all for informative, point-counterpoint exchanges that can be sharp within the realm of civility. Such a scenario makes for great media.

This isn't to be confused with the troll like antics of the "Irishman," who makes a habit of cyber stalking.

As you know, there're plenty of sewers out there for his manner.

I see no reason to make another one for him.

The following set of comments should've come before the one posted. I don't want to be wrongly accused of ducking raised particulars.

Irishman:

No, I wasn't referring to you at all. I don't bother going out of my way to read what you've to say. Some exception is made when you misrepresent what I said.

As I noted elsewhere, my two pieces on the subject were very well received from informed soccer fans. Among them are Andrew Young and a Soviet born person, who has made frequent appearances on RTTV. Their views have considerably more value than your own.

You TOTALLY miscomprehend the Peter the Great reference in the first soccer piece of mine.

You deceitfully mischaracterize the team photo issue raised. One can see this by reading the comments section under that piece.

Once again, I don't write what's below the article. This was pointed out to you before.

The problem with trolls ike yourself is that you use loaded terms like "bad article" without substantiating them.

Here're the search results of the two soccer pieces I did:

The first soccer article which was simul-posted at the AC with Russia Blog's knowledge, inclusive of Russia Blog being credited:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Russia+Advances+for+Showdown+with+Spain%22&btnG=Google+Search

The second one, which was posted with two different titles and an updated change of info (Russia Blog being made aware of this):

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Russia+Advances+for+Showdown+with+Spain%22&btnG=Google+Search

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Russia+Prevails+3-1+Over+Holland%22&btnG=Search

I'm sorry. Here's the search result of the first of the two RB soccer pieces I did:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Holland-Russia+Soccer+Game+to+be+Nationally+Televised+in+the+U.S.%22&btnG=Search

This one was the more popularly of the two, on account of its title announcing what for many was interesting information, which many weren't aware of.

Mike,

if questioning wrong facts and opinions is trolling, then am guilty as charged. Whether you like it or not the article was full of factual inaccuracies, and not only that I notice that Igor asks similar questions over at that article. And not only that, your responses to one of the questions is directly plagiarised from something I wrote here:

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/05/15/bosnia-herzegovina-alexandros-lykourezos#comment-1476015

Talk about highway robbery. I suppose I should be chuffed - you're now asking me for soccer information that you can use to answer questions elsewhere. You'd never heard of the Berezutskii brothers till I told you about them!:-)

You prove yourself to be a troll once again.

You didn't prove me wrong.

Among other matters, you were shown to be wrong in how you mis-characteriszed Pavlyuchenko's value.

TKO

No "plagiarsim" on my part. On the other hand, there's plenty of underhanded comments from the troll posting as the Irishman.

The troll is so full of himself. A pathetic display on his part

Igor mentioned the Berezutsky brothers in the comments section of that very well received first soccer post of mine.

I was aware of them beforehand as well.

So much for the troll's lies.

As any rational person can see, there's not much of an intelligent conversation here on account of the troll's blatant deceit.

A pathetic display of how some warped individuals get turned on.