The Real Football Thread

[Archibald]

Re: Re:

Mike Dean can eat a penis.

(Just a gunner fan venting)

There is no disrespect to losing against a team with not one but two European cups. Two more than Arsenal, in fact

forest fans were quick to point that out too, with chants of "You'll never be champions of Europe" :lol:

 

[Brullnux]

Wtaf wolves just offered 35m to ac milan for Andre Silva. The English teams are just so much richer than everyone else (except PSG, Real, Barca, Juve and Bayern) that unless UEFA intervene there'll be a serious and problematic skewed power balance.

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

Re:

Wtaf wolves just offered 35m to ac milan for Andre Silva. The English teams are just so much richer than everyone else (except PSG, Real, Barca, Juve and Bayern) that unless UEFA intervene there'll be a serious and problematic skewed power balance.

There has already been a serious and problematic skewed power balance for more than a decade, but yeah, it's only getting worse. Clubs in the PL get something like 200m a year of TV money these days, right? That alone is more than twice the annual budget of the biggest club in my country (which, mind you, has historically been a big club in Europe).

But what are you going to do about it? Even taking away shady financial issues, PL clubs simply earn a ridiculous amount of money fair and square.

Also, Bayern and maybe Juve and PSG as well are going to falter in the future, compared to PL clubs and Barca/Real. With their national competitions getting increasingly boring due to one club dominance, their TV money is going to stagnate and they'll almost only face proper competition in the CL. Bayern is an especially awful and hypocritical team. They systematically destroyed the Bundesliga by using their superior budget to buy star players of their direct competitors and now because they have a crappy national competition, they can't compete with the PL league clubs financially. Well tough luck for them, now they know how Dortmund etc. feel.

 

[May0maniac]

Having a similar TV money system as the PL would already be a good start to make other leagues more competitive, after that you can tacle the other problems like oil money/questionable sponsorship deals and all kinds of other shady practices that some clubs use to spend a ton of money, but I don't know if UEFA will ever actuallly fight those issues for real.

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

Re: Re:

Liverpool have the attack to beat them but their defence is so poor that it's hard to see City not put 3 past them, unless Van Dijk really does bring an incredible improvement.

Haha well they certainly have the attack and it was very exciting due their defence.

Maybe if Van Dijk hadn't been injured it wouldn't have been so exciting in the end.

 

[Brullnux]

Re: Re:

Liverpool have the attack to beat them but their defence is so poor that it's hard to see City not put 3 past them, unless Van Dijk really does bring an incredible improvement.

Haha well they certainly have the attack and it was very exciting due their defence.

Maybe if Van Dijk hadn't been injured it wouldn't have been so exciting in the end.

Turns out City can put three past them, and Liverpool still win.

Well deserved, and it had been coming for City. Awful defending from both sides, especially Stones, Ederson, Gomez and whatever it is that happened for City's third goal. But exciting match. I feel games like these show why City, and Guardiola teams without Messi and/or a perfect balance, will struggle to win the Champions League. They can blow away inferior sides, but a top team will press, disposses and counter-attack and dismantle them. Like Klopp did today, and City did to Napoli at the San Paolo, Barca did to Bayern in 2015, and Ancelotti did in 2014. City will breeze past Basel but struggle against PSG or Bayern or Barca.

 

[Põhja Konn]

Re: Re:

Liverpool have the attack to beat them but their defence is so poor that it's hard to see City not put 3 past them, unless Van Dijk really does bring an incredible improvement.

Haha well they certainly have the attack and it was very exciting due their defence.

Maybe if Van Dijk hadn't been injured it wouldn't have been so exciting in the end.

Turns out City can put three past them, and Liverpool still win.

Well deserved, and it had been coming for City. Awful defending from both sides, especially Stones, Ederson, Gomez and whatever it is that happened for City's third goal. But exciting match. I feel games like these show why City, and Guardiola teams without Messi and/or a perfect balance, will struggle to win the Champions League. They can blow away inferior sides, but a top team will press, disposses and counter-attack and dismantle them. Like Klopp did today, and City did to Napoli at the San Paolo, Barca did to Bayern in 2015, and Ancelotti did in 2014. City will breeze past Basel but struggle against PSG or Bayern or Barca.

I think you are seeing what you want to see when analysing Guardiola's teams relative underperformance in Champions League. It's more due to the nature of knock-out football, where luck and happenstance play much bigger role than over a league season (when sustained quality always comes out on top). Even his Barcelona team which had Messi in it and quality-wise was clearly a step or two ahead of everyone at the time won the CL only twice in four years and only one of those was won through sheer quality. Nature of knock-out football clearly favours a style of play built on tight defence and counter-attacking, specially with the away goals rule in place.

City lost yesterday because of a brief 5 minute meltdown in the second half. But all credit to Liverpool as there are very few teams in the world who are able to force that kind of meltdown and also take advantage of it.

 

[Brullnux]

I don't think what you say and I say are mutually exclusive. A team with a good defence and a strong counter attack, as you say, is likely to beat Guardiola-ball especially in a knockout scenario. But I think 4-0 away is down to more than just luck.

Ah, I think Liverpool was on top throughout. City rarely looked like scoring (when they did, they usually scored) and the best opportunities apart from at the start of the second half basically only came from defensive howlers (also except Silva's goal), while Liverpool was more threatening and seemed more in control.

 

[jsem94]

The CBs and GK were shocking for both clubs actually. Especially Stones and Lovren. Ox was a beast, Robertson too. Firmino an absolute monster.

Liverpool's midfield was excellent and actually took KdB out of the game. Gundogan isn't David Silva and can't pick up the pace just as easily if KdB is marked out of the game. It was a great tactical display from Liverpool, but they don't have the players to be able to see out a game. Mane lost Bernardo on the far post which led to the 4-2, and he was almost free for that 4-3 had Gundogan missed it.

 

[Catwhoorg]

I have a question that someone may know.

in this new Nations League competition, the 12 teas from league A are drawn into 4 groups. 4 get relegated and 4 get promoted from League B.

Are the 4 groups going to be redrawn each time the competition is won, or assuming England isn't relegated will they face Spain/or Croatia plus one promoted team the next time ?

(I assume they will be redrawn each time, but can't find a definitive answer)

 

[Brullnux]

I'm almost certain the groups will be redrawn every time as rankings and seeding for pools will change. The really weird thing is how it screws up all the qualifying formats.

I think most countries will use it to experiment with their younger players and new formations, so it could be an interesting tournament to watch w the future in mind.

 

[Gigs_98]

Yeah, the nations league will probably be fun to watch, but I'm not sure if it's a good thing that there are less friendly matches, cause I'm not certain if trainers will try out young players and new formations in the nations league where how well you play isn't irrelevant. But if they don't do it there, where will they. There won't be many frinedly matches left.

 

[jsem94]

Joao Mario to West Ham on loan. Lmao. I hate Inter's transfer dealings in the past five years or so.

 

[Robert5091]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...ia-spent-30m-one-vote-World-Cup-2022-bid.html

Australia spent £30m to get just one vote in controversial World Cup 2022 bidding process... it begged the question of what Qatar had done

- Bonita Mersiades worked in a senior position in Australia's failed World Cup bid
- The bid got just one single vote and it cost about £30m of Aussie taxpayers' cash
- She set about finding out what Qatar had done to win the majority of votes

I worked in a senior role in Australia's failed bid to stage the 2022 World Cup and know first-hand the range of financial inducements and deals we offered in an attempt to persuade FIFA's ExCo to give us the tournament. And yet so many saw us as being a 'clean' bidder.

We got a single vote and crashed out in the first round.

More than seven years after arguably the murkiest bid process in global sport ended with the 2018 World Cup being awarded to Russia and the 2022 event to Qatar, I'm the first person to write an insider account of it.

New book, Whatever It Takes: The Inside Story of the Fifa Way.

 

[Archibald]

Watford, wow.
cue: Sacked in the morning... ("Gonte", that is)

 

[Robert5091]

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...-jurgen-klopp-jose-mourinho-tactical-approach
2 men, 2 different styles - stalemate, or match to justify Liverpool or Man Utd's playing style? Could set a trend.

 

[Robert5091]

Ha ha! Jose goes back to "route a" football and wins - simplicity is beautiful sometimes.

 

[Max Rockatansky]

Zlatan is god. :lol:

 

[Gigs_98]

I really couldn't care less about the MLS, but one just has to be impressed how someone like Ibrahimovic just managed to become a club icon within 20 minutes. :lol:
The guy can play the worst football of his life for the rest of the year and he'd still be celebrated

 

[May0maniac]

Wow, Roma just buried Barca, I did not expect that!

 

[Brullnux]

Beautiful. Roma were really unlucky to lose 4-1 in the first leg and were by far the better team over these two legs.

Liverpool also beat city, but I switched off after Salah's goal because if I had to deal with one more minute of Mateu Lahoz not calling anything I would have had an aneurysm.

 

[Brullnux]

Oh my god if real blow this against rubentus...

 

[Gigs_98]

As a Real Fan my current mood couldn't be better, but for everyone else on this planet, this result must suck. The penalty probably wasn't a foul, but in real time it really looked like one. And although everyone on twitter is now calling for video refs in the CL I'm even wondering if that decision would be overturned. It was a really hard to judge.

 

[Brullnux]

I'm really angry about that.

Game deciding 50/50 penalty decisions going against Juve in the 93rd minute should only happen in the final.

 

[Brullnux]

Buffon's interview is absolutely terrible. You cannot ask a referee to officiate out of compassion and 'understanding what is at stake', instead of the rules. It's weird seeing buffon as the moralist now seeing what has happened in the past, too...

Was it a penalty? It's tight. Contact was minimal imo, but the leg around the body probably confirmed it. Vazquez should've really scored before he fell, anyway. But this is a food example of why we need var: close call in a very important match should be looked at before a decision made. No need to overturn it, Oliver could have just waited for a stoppage and then consulted it. Yesterday too, a goal given offside when it wasn't and a couple of potential penalties not given because lahoz likes a 'free flowing' game. It's needed, even if referees will take a while adjusting. No, it won't eliminate all bad decisions or contention, but it will help.