Ringo - An easy one for you this week. Dundee can win the FA Cup  or Tayport can win the Junior cup. Which one do you take?

Bobby – Dundee has a slightly better chance of winning the Scottish Cup this season than Scotland does of winning the European Championship this summer. A trip to Motherwell in the next round might have the making of a wee surprise but the focus of the team must be on promotion back to the SPL.

Tayport drew at home to perennial contender Pollok (viewer discretion is advised) last Saturday and they travel to the west of Scotland for the replay this weekend. The Scottish Junior Cup is a tough nut to crack

Carljamaica - Greetings from Jamaica. Do you think this Manchester United team is as good as people are saying?  Do you think they are serious contenders for the Champions League meaning do you think they have what it takes? If not where do you think they are short. Is Ronaldo just going through a purple patch or is he really the real deal?
Awaiting your thoughts.

Bobby – Much warmer than where I am! United deserve to be considered as one of the favourites to win the Champions League. They have been given a decent draw (not easy but Lyon are a side that United can beat) but often a bit of good fortune is also needed along the way.

There is still a month to go before the first leg of the first knock out round and things can change very quickly. Injuries, suspensions and key players losing form can all hit at an inopportune moment. In terms of their most significant weakness it is probably a lack of height and power up front.

You can see in some of the league games this season that without that option it gives the opposition one less thing to worry about. Having a big strong forward on the bench that could go on just to mix things up a bit would provide that additional alternative.

Since Ronaldo joined United he has improved every season. If you look back at his play when he joined United in 2003 the raw talent was there for everyone to see. Four and a bit years on and every aspect of his game has improved – some parts by leaps and bounds.

Craigy_f – 1. Was Probert correct to book Arteta? Has a card ever been used in that situation that you are aware of?
2. Does the lack of ACoN on any American network show the ignorance of the American networks as to the value of the tournament in Ghana? 3. Was it omitted for the same reasons that the Asia tournament was omitted?
4. What’s your impression of Lord Coe?
5. What’s your:- Goal of the week, Save of the week, Game of the week, Referee of the moment.
6. Favourite clip from Flash Gordon
7. What was your take on the teams and the result for the USMNT against a Sweden B team?
8. Will you and the boys try some colour this week?

Bobby – 1. It seemed to be a strange decision. The only way that I could see the referee having a valid cause would be if he had told Arteta to wait for the whistle.

2. The value is set by the number of people who would watch the tournament and despite what we think soccer on English language stations in North America do not regularly draw big numbers. A tournament that has games scheduled during the work day is an obvious problem.

3. I don’t know the reason why the Asia tournament was omitted so I can’t answer the question.

4. He used to be a very fast runner and was able to turn left? You can’t hang-out at the upper echelons of global sport without being forced to hold your nose at the goings-on. If you decide to hold true to your principles at that level it means you will have a short and largely ineffective career in the political world of sport.

5. Sully Muntari’s winner against Guinea, can’t think of one, poor weekend nothing stood out, oops the moment just went.

6. The End

7. Meaningless friendly for all except for the players and coaches.

8. Probably not.

GSfromWinnipeg - How about opinions on possible rule changes? You can certainly throw in your two cents, as well as everyone else.Here are some of my thoughts:
1. Why do we need to get so fancy with goal-line technology. Chips in the ball? Come on. If you want to position cameras along the line, fine. But, why can't they just add a back-line official who is in charge of watching for balls crossing the line? He could also assist with fouls in the box. It seems to me this would satisfy the purists and be at least as effective as technology that often still doesn't answer the question 100%.

2. Get rid of this passive offside rule. It just adds to the confusion. Vassell's goal on Sunday was a perfect example. Since the ball does not go to him, is that the end of Phase 1? Then he is back onside by the time the ball ricochets to him, so that makes it a good goal. But this must be a nightmare for the linesmen. Especially when it seems standard practise for players to line up offside on deadball situations to try and confuse the defense. By the way, since you are supposed to play to the whistle, and, as a defender, a man is behind you heading for goal, therefore you have to make an attempt to catch him, pulling yourself out of position. But the ball never goes to that attacker so he is "passive" while the onside attacker takes advantage of the space left by the defender to score. How is this helping the game.

KEEP IT SIMPLE (which offside will never be). If anyone is offside, play is dead. Period.

3. NO TO SIN BINS. As Harry Redknapp says, that will just encourage 10 minutes of time-wasting and defensive play. Just what football needs, 10 more minutes of 10 men behind the ball.

4. 3 YELLOW CARDS BEFORE YOU GET A RED. Encourage the refs to hand out a yellow every time a foul deserves it. I think they often don't give a yellow, because they know how serious the ramifications a second yellow is. This leads to inconsistency. The good refs talk to a player first and warn him a yellow is coming next time, but we can get rid of that need. The "talking" will be the first yellow. This would especially be of use in internationals where language is often a problem.

Also, get rid of suspensions for accumulated yellows (or at least increase the number of yellows before suspension). This almost always ends up excluding the best players from the biggest games due to some idiotic decision by the player or the ref, three games ago. I am thinking of Roy Keane missing the Champions League final in 99, Ballack missing the 2002 World Cup final, Zidane missing a key match in the 98 Cup, etc.

5. GOLDEN GOAL IN TOURNAMENTS AND ENDLESS OVERTIME. I know, this is a pipe dream. But how about giving it a try. I agree with Bobby, penalty kicks is dramatic and a test of mettle and skill, but it isn't the game that was intended. I think overtime rarely works as is because at least one team plays for the penalty kicks, and both teams are so afraid of conceding, they hang back and trust to fate in the kicks. If there is no promise of penalty kicks,

Bobby – 1. Sign me up for that position. Six officials for a game of football? Don’t like that idea.

2. That’s fine make it simple but just wait and hear the cries when someone slots one home into the top corner from 35 yards out and the goal is disallowed because one of his team mates stopped to tie his bootlace and was offside on the other side of the park alone on the touchline.

3. Sin bins are one of the stupidest ideas to come out and until you brought it up again I thought it had died.

4. The language problem was the exact reason that coloured cards were brought in so now to have a mandatory “talking to” being a warning before a yellow card only compounds the problem. Players will just claim that they didn’t know they were on a warning.

Idiotic decisions - Zidane missed games in 1998 because he stomped on a Saudi player.  Your basic argument is that players should be given more leeway to foul. I don’t think that is going to encourage anyone to think twice about sliding in late.

5. I####ame goes to overtime the least that both teams deserve is the opportunity to fight back should they go behind. With the Golden Goal rule we would never had the likes of West Germany and Italy sharing five extra time goals in 1970 or France and West Germany playing an epic extra time in 1982.

Mts2284 - 1. Recently, a reader asked you about commentators and which ones you liked. What’s your take on BBC’s John Motson? I live in the States and don’t get BBC but I’m a huge fan. Just wanted your opinion on the matter.
2. Why have Thierry Henry or Premiership players like Cristiano Ronaldo not won the FIFA Player of the Year award? Its always players from Serie A and La Liga, like Messi, or Ronaldinho.
3. Why does Ryan Babel not feature more in Liverpool’s starting 11? He’s a fantastic talent with loads of potential.

Bobby –1. His biggest break came when Ronnie Radford thumped the 30 yard winner for Hereford against Newcastle in the FA Cup. I was never a huge fan (although there were many who were aweful)  when I lived in the UK – my preference would be for Martin Tyler.

2. I think basically because although they may have good domestic seasons they fail to make a real impact in the Champions League, European Championships or World Cup. Like Ronaldo I don’t think Messi has ever won a senior world or European individual award.
3. You probably nailed it with “loads of potential.” There are few teams willing to commit a regular spot to a player who is not considered the finished article although he may have potential. Having said that I’m also a bit mystified given that a couple of Liverpool players are having poor seasons so far.

Gregz - I was just wondering how much have you seen of Angel di Maria. How goes his development at Benfica and why would he choose to go to Benfica over Arsenal?

Bobby – Not very much since his move to Benfica. Di Maria has yet to score a league goal although the statistics show him with three yellow cards. He has been called up for the Argentina Olympic squad that has a friendly against Guatemala on February 6. Javier Mascherano is in the squad as an overage player. Benfica over Arsenal – probably thought there was a chance to play more at Benfica.

4Everton - Chris Coleman just left Real Sociedad after new management/ownership took over despite getting the team to within three points of promotion on the table. Coleman kept Fulham up even though he was not given a war chest of funds (see Sunderland) last year. Do you see him coming back to the Prem anytime soon?

Bobby – Managers that leave English football for some continental adventures take two routes. If you are the likes of John Toshack or Gordon Milne you don’t come back and instead you make a career of it in foreign lands.

On the other hand there are the likes of Howard Kendall and Graeme Souness who were adventurous enough to try their hand but returned after a relatively short time. I think Coleman will be like the latter.

Ollofan - Did Jeremy St. Louis leave the FSR?

Bobby – He is using up his vacation time.

Redfan2000 - While you are all watching Spurs spank Arse, I just found this on Aunty Beeb and you gotta laugh at Mark McGhee. George Burley is to be offered the Scotland job and Mark McGhee said after he found out: "If George does not win the World Cup then it opens it up for me to be one who does" Thoughts on this one?

Bobby – If it is George Burley then I like the choice. Understated but a very competent manager who has a good track record of getting the best out of his players.

Henry14 - q1 What is your assessment of Adebayor as player bearing in mind you thought he would be on the bench if rvp and da silva were firing?

q2 If you were Liverpool owner would you stick with Rafa?

Bobby – 1. If you said I said that then I guess I must have although I don’t recall that particular statement. I do remember defending Adebayor last season when you wanted him punted out the Emirates. 2. If I was the Liverpool owner I would be focused on whether or not I wanted to remain as owner rather than worrying about the manager.

And finally the resurrection of Chelsea. I may have missed it and apologize if someone got there first. But it seems to me that Glenn Hoddle was the catalyst for the Chelsea revival.

Keir Radnedge apportions the blame for card happy referees to where it belongs - FIFA.

Larry Rohter writes in the New York Times about Brazil’s politics and football.

This Globe and Mail article takes up the issue of a two referee system.

The UEFA website takes a look at Ukraine's Artem Milevskiy, the cheeky chappy who took the second penalty kick. The first player I remember pulling this stunt was Antonín Panenka with the winning penalty for Czechoslovakia against West Germany in the1976 European Championship Final.

Tony Cascarino writes about his first-hand experience of taking peanlties in a penalty shoot out at the World Cup Finals for the Republic of Ireland.  

It is always a temptation to project the present into the future and the history of the World Cup is littered with countries that treated the tournament as a sprint rather than a very quick middle distance race – league championships are marathons.

So although much of the hot money may have moved in the direction of Argentina, in particular, and Spain, it may not be worth considering some of the other countries who have had the look of Champion-in-waiting over the last half century or so, only to flounder.

1954 – Hungary won their first four games and scored an amazing 25 goals while only conceding 7. One of those wins was 8-3 over West Germany and they met again in the Final. Hungary led 2-0 but West Germany came back to score three in what become known as “The Miracle of Berne.”

1974 – A Johan Cruyff inspired Netherlands won five and drew one while destroying some good teams in the process. They scored from a penalty kick awarded in the first minute of the Final but eventually lost 2-1 to West Germany.

1982 – The best Brazil team since 1970 won their first four games convincingly before a Paulo Rossi hat trick saw them off.

1986 – Denmark won all three games in the “Group of Death” but disintegrated in losing 5-1 to Spain in the first knockout round.

2002 – Spain took a 100% record into the last sixteen and then defeated the Republic of Ireland on penalties. However, the quarterfinal was the end of the road as they lost to South Korea.

With the start of the World Cup just a day away, injuries and sickness are front and centre. The Rooney recovery still dominates the headlines although I have a feeling that the true test will come when Sven decides to give young Wayne his first serious action.

As English fans rejoice at the news of Rooney’s recovery, a doubt about Steven Gerrard’s fitness for the first game has now surfaced. Gerrard’s name joins the likes of Gattuso (Italy), Ballack (Germany), Isaksson (Sweden), Ronaldo (Brazil) and Cisse of France as either being doubtful for their countries opening game or – in the case of Cisse – out of the competition altogether. 

Moreover, these are just the players we know about. As in other World Cups, countries that can avoid injuries to key players have an advantage but often an understudy gets a chance to play Hamlet and pulls off a standing ovation or two.

 Pele was injured and missed most of the 1962 Finals in Chile. His replacement Amarildo scored and set-up goals in the final while Garrincha became the star of the tournament.

Four years later Jimmy Greaves – the Michael Owen of his generation except better – damaged his shin during group play. Alf Ramsay brought in Geoff Hurst who at that time was considered largely untested. Hurst scored the only game of the quarterfinal against Argentina and then had a hat trick in a winning cause against West Germany in the final.

A legend was born.

Few people remember that the injury to Emerson – while playing goalie during practice – sent tremors through the Brazilian camp four years ago. Gilberto Silva was the beneficiary and earned himself a move to the Premiership based on some great performances.

Of course, sometimes the injuries are just too much to overcome. Think about the 1994 Final with Baggio on the limp and Baresi struggling badly. However, World Cup history has shown that often a very dark cloud has a silver lining. Who will step forward this time?