football thread No11

[EgonSpengler]

Decided to watch some more European football/soccer after enjoying the women's Euro final. ESPN+ carries La Liga and Bundesliga matches. I went with Schalke 04 v Borussia Monchengladbach today. Pretty fun.

 

[Snerk]

Ole Gunnar Solskjær not looking too shabby anymore.

 

[Jhuffer4]

Ole Gunnar Solskjær not looking too shabby anymore.

yah you can really tell that these players needed an arm around them. tbh never gets said enough but 90% of this team are idiots/thick. obv its abelist these days but it has to be part of the recruitment process. if you dont come across as having any brains in an interview surely you must get a yellow flag at least. these lads are a mess.

 

[Grendeldef]

Sad ending to generally excellent tournament - the winner is the one team furthest away from what make women's football in some respect superior to that of men's. The refereeing wasn't up to game the game & VAR didn't help. I was left with bad taste in my mouth after a wonderful month.

In PL Pool is trying to make sure that the winer isn't going to be decided on last round, ManU is even more messed up than anyone expected. Håland opened decently & Sir Charles, hmm - interestingly.
I'm sort of voting with my wallet for the start of the season against Viasat but that hasn't preventing me seeing the important games.
Few relic refs are gone but the quality of refereeing is still crap so I wonder if there was some technical innovation to help with it... oh, wait, yeah, still crap, just more parties involved.

 

[Grendeldef]

Exciting, perhaps, last hours of this transfer window starting but nothing major so far. In PL Chelski is prolly looking for spending few hundred millions for someone who can actually score, ManU seems stuck with CR7 which makes neither happy and Klopp is even publicly coming to an opinion that a midfielder who's more fit than Keita or Ox and more creative and preferably even younger than Millie could find a job @Anfield. Meanwhile Abu Dhabi City starts booking EPL title celebration spots for next spring.

Parker was a bit surprise to be first sacked coach especially this early at the season though the 0-9 wasn't a sign competence but still, how many points did they expect Bournemouth to have after 4 rounds when opponents were Villa, Arse, City & Pool? If the reason was that Parker didn't get the players he was promised it's more understandable as he has been vocal about it.

 

[Grendeldef]

Decided to watch some more European football after enjoying the women's Euro final. ESPN+ carries La Liga and Bundesliga matches. I went with Schalke 04 v Borussia Monchengladbach today. Pretty fun.

Good man though as always as I hear someone in NA is enjoying football I get a bit scared as the less they like football the better the game is/will be. I generally hope US would get a mental block on football and completely ignore it. Canadians are far less dangerous.
Not that US is the only one messing stih up. I think Yakuza & Colombian cartels are the only ones of international philantropists who don't own a team in EPL .

 

[EgonSpengler]

Good man though as always as I hear someone in NA is enjoying football I get a bit scared as the less they like football the better the game is/will be. I generally hope US would get a mental block on football and completely ignore it. Canadians are far less dangerous.
Not that US is the only one messing stih up. I think Yakuza & Colombian cartels are the only ones of international philantropists who don't own a team in EPL .

What are (North) Americans doing to football? Besides elevating the women's game, I mean. I was at the opening match of the 1999 Women's World Cup in New York, incidentally. Nosebleed seats, but hey, I wasn't made out of money. I wanted to go to the final too, but that was in California and, again, money.

p.s. Looking solely at per-game average attendance, I think Mexico is top-5 in the world, and MLS is in the top 10. iirc, Atlanta and Seattle get 40-50,000 per game. I think at one point, MLS was averaging more fans per game than Serie A.

 

[Takhisis]

Good man though as always as I hear someone in NA is enjoying football I get a bit scared as the less they like football the better the game is/will be.

Ah, so you're a Mourinho who prefers winning 1-0 over a 6-3 romp.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Oh, hey, ESPN+ is showing Union Berlin v Bayern on Saturday morning. That might be worth watching.

 

[Takhisis]

Bayern?

 

[Grendeldef]

What are (North) Americans doing to football? Besides elevating the women's game, I mean. I was at the opening match of the 1999 Women's World Cup in New York, incidentally. Nosebleed seats, but hey, I wasn't made out of money. I wanted to go to the final too, but that was in California and, again, money.

p.s. Looking solely at per-game average attendance, I think Mexico is top-5 in the world, and MLS is in the top 10. iirc, Atlanta and Seattle get 40-50,000 per game. I think at one point, MLS was averaging more fans per game than Serie A.

Sportwise pretty much everything - you can take a closer look at the former NASL rules for example when they were sort of free to mess up the rulesanyway they liked. Or you can take look at the other two popular sports were NA league is dominant - icehockey & basketball. Nobody knows who'll play in next Continental champs, World champs, Olympics or in tournaments for access in those games or which rules are used in any stage of any given games - in short it's a massive ef up due to the most profitable league using their own rules rather than following common consensus for most everyone's benefit. In athletics the short live sport series wasn't exactly the standard bearer of anti-doping measures in the 70s and so on.

Local attendance is a population contest as well so comparing attendance with city/metro area population is misleading at best. On the other hand there're several top flight teams from cities under or roughly 100k pop. In general stadium capacities have gone significantly down in Europe since the end of WW2 due to international rules for mandatory own seat for everyone.

Ah, so you're a Mourinho who prefers winning 1-0 oer a 6-3 romp.

Not even the current Special One likes mourinhoball/bus but 6-3 isn't necessarily more entertaining than 1-0.

Oh, hey, ESPN+ is showing Union Berlin v Bayern on Saturday morning. That might be worth watching.

Eisern Union is all it takes.

---
typos

 

[Takhisis]

Not even the current Special One like mourinhoball/bus but 6-3 isn't necessarily more entertaining than 1-0.

It's what he said back when he was at Chelski in his last (so far) spell. Even if the first tiebreaker is goal difference so it's better to win by 3 than by 1.

 

[Grendeldef]

That's true but in EPL teams like Pool still struggle with the concept when it's most beneficial to score; yesterday once again a great example. Had they left the Bournemouth game @6-0 and scored once more in each of the other games before that their situation would be much better. They could've even let Parker keep his job @ 3-0 and borrowed a goal with 2:1 ratio and still be quite ok. Luckily yesterday's game against North-East Butcher & Chop United wasn't even close though I suspect some weak minded scousers lost their faith for the winner. Isak's debute was great.

The most interesting thing in EPL currently is if any team can score more goals than Håland this season assuming Pep lets him play at least 60mins per game on average. The start has been as impressive as his father's cut from the transfer.

 

[Takhisis]

Ah, yes, the team from the north-east. That reminds me: how long do you think it'll be before the cartels buy an English team outright?

Anyway, I strongly suspect that Liverpool didn't plan on scoring all the goals together. Just like Arsenal didn't expect a 5/5 start. Football's a funny game in that respect.

Håland will fizzle out or meet a Vinnie Jones, whichever happens first.

 

[Grendeldef]

I don't think FC Escobar is very likely but in case it'd be under consideration EPL's opposition to it would be equally unlikely; hey why not more global representation. I'm not at all aware who owns Mexican teams but I assume the Mexican teams are far more likely subjects.

Every time Vinnie is mentioned Clarkson's introduction of him in TG pops into my mind - it's one of the greatest short introductions ever and yes, these Gunners aren't looking like Invincible, yet anyway.

@EgonSpengler is prolly somewhere franticly learning the lyrics of Eisern Union while climatizing himself for tomorrow's game. Cheers. Not that I'm against Bayern but at this point any challenge to Bundesliga near-eternal titel holder is welcomed.

 

[Takhisis]

I don't think FC Escobar is very likely but in case it'd be under consideration EPL's opposition to it would be equally unlikely; hey why not more global representation. I'm not at all aware who owns Mexican teams but I assume the Mexican teams are far more likely subjects.

Well, a Mexican club from Sinaloa once incorporated Maradona as their head coach.

Every time Vinnie is mentioned Clarkson's introduction of him in TG pops into my mind - it's one of the greatest short introductions ever and yes, these Gunners aren't looking like Invincible, yet anyway.

To me he'll always be Bullet-tooth Tony.

 

[Grendeldef]

Is it possible that VAR decisions in EPL are still getting worse? Yesterday really wasn't a shining example of technology making things better; even Håland was depressed and only scored once and Pool is still stuggling with the concept of scoring goals. In some respects Pool's scoring record is very similar to PoE's current loot model.
Currently watching Brighton-Leicester and the times of miracles aren't over - Brighton has scored twice in a single game plus a bonus offside taken away by VAR.

 

[Takhisis]

The Graun has an article on it, and if even English papers aren't calling it ‘luck’ anymore then something must be happening.

 

[Grendeldef]

So, we're may not be at the bottom yet, great. I opposed VAR when it was introduced & well before it was implemented and now when everyone else hates it, too - at least once in every two rounds - I don't feel like a winner at all. One of those cases when I'd be wrong with my predictions.
The next WC may also see some interesting VAR decisions when FIFA & sheiks start fiddling in the background. On the other hand EPL might be crappiest of European series not that I'va vast experience of others but at least in Bundesliga it's pretty much a non-issue instead of daily headlines.

I should also say out loud that I really miss the old offside interpretation as well. One could easily think that the current situation is designed by lawyers waiting to cash in when CAS starts taking in offside complaints as well. Back then the joke was that a game is too short for a wife to understand offside but now the reality is that a season is too short for a ref to understand it.

 

[Snerk]

Pool without Mane has been a sad affair indeed. Sure plenty of injuries but I still fear top 4 is the best they can hope for. Don't think City will get much opposition this year in the long run. Arsenal har been well impressive but they'll dip eventually. Perhaps it even started today. Utd with a strong little streak but they're not good enough to win the league. Haaland (actually not Håland) with get long time injured as soon as Norway are going out to play any important games. No doubt.