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The Real Football Thread

Page 158 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Re:

ebandit said:
del1962 said:
Nations League Semis

England v Netherlands
Portugal v Switzerland

why? nations league.............just as pointless as europa league

southgate grumbled 'players were not fresh enough for 1st international break after
early start to premier league' an early start to accomodate 3 international breaks
before xmas LOL!

disrupting premier league costing teams like spurs

not as though i should care i loved arsenal 4 spurs 2

Inter toto cup was the big one, especially 2006 :D
 
As a Liverpool fan I must say it's been a VERY good season for us so far. Obviously. City losing its last two is an added bonus. Six point lead now. Not too long ago the pundits were saying how it was important to keep up with City, every game counts, well, I honestly didn't see us pulling a two game lead this early, but I'll take it. Our tendency was to let winnable games slip by our fingertips, lose games when we were up 2-0 or let 3-0 games end up in 3-3 and playing down to our opponents. This season the defense is much better and there's no let up, no errors, no mistakes that lead to counterattacks and no choking. I don't personally like Shaqiri, he's a bit of a brat and his political shenanigans on the pitch irked me in the past, but he's good player and he's delivering so far. The last time we were genuinely contending for the title was in the 2013/2014 season. Then the last month or so happened and we missed a golden opportunity. Hopefully it doesn't happen again. This season just feels different.
 
Re:

Nirvana said:
Gasperini should leave Italy, it's not for him, first time this year i've seen a good match in Serie A with Atalantanta attacking Juventus all the time instead of doing catenaccio for 90 minutes and limit the losses to 1-0 or 2-0.
Think you're being harsh here to the likes of De Zerbi, Giampaolo and the old Empoli coach before he got sacked. There are very few teams in Serie A which properly 'park the bus' anymore compared to, say the premier league, in which basically every team outside the top 6 or so against City, Chelsea and Liverpool end up with less than a third of the possession. This is partly down to the style of those teams compared to Juve, but teams in italy now are generally more attacking. You still get a couple of anti-football teams like Bologna and Frosinone, and some teams which depend on quick players like parma but most midtable teams now like to have the ball.
 
But also without parking the bus they are boring, it's always a defensive/limit the losses play and you rarely see an offensive play, even Juventus generally plays a tiki taka style with a lot of passes around midfield to control the ball and keep an high possession, they have only some burst when needed. This season I've seen a dozen of Juventus matches and they played only two times very good football, and both times was in Champions League not in Serie A.
In recent seasons there was an exception only in Napoli under Sarri, and what they did in Italy? They joked about his "bel gioco" instead of appreciating it. Seems like the majority of Italians prefer to see a boring 0-0 with an exasperated defensive play rather than more goals, counterattacks and an offensive play.
 
In Roma probably they are starting to think to make a pilgrimage to Milan to thanks Inter for gifting to them Zaniolo, if you look at players that were able to score two goals to Casillas in a single Champions League match since 2008 you have only Del Piero, Gerrard, Inzaghi, Messi and Huntelaar.
If he continues to play in this way they could resell him at 100+M in 2020.
 
Something to look forward to -
https://www.vulture.com/2019/02/leslye-headland-scores-will-ferrells-hbo-fifa-scandal-movie.html
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD news for fans of Will Ferrell, sports and/or scams. According to Deadline, Russian Doll creator and director Leslye Headland is teaming up with Gary Sanchez on a film about the 2015 FIFA scandal for HBO Films based on authors Mary Papenfuss and Teri Thompson’s 2016 book American Huckster: How Chuck Blazer Got Rich from-and Sold Out-the Most Powerful Cabal in World Sports.

Will Ferrell is reportedly set to star as Blazer, a Queens-born son of a stationary store owner who climbed to the top of the international world of soccer, joined the FIFA Executive Committee, used that position to commit a whole bunch of fudiciary crimes including embezzlement and, in the hopes of mitigating the repercussions of his own wrong-doing, agreed to wear a wire for the FBI and the IRS to bring down his soon-to-be former associates. So, in a nut shell, The Informant with cleats.
 

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