Sports The Football Discussion Thread!

Woo!Ronaldo!

He does deserve to have won more than 1 Ballon d'Or really, doesn't he? 199 in 201 is phenomenal. I would also love it if a player of Barcelona, the "good guys" with their "holistic" approach compared to Madrid's Galacticos Empire, were imprisoned xD
If he is dodging taxes, I imagine most of his team are - the Spanish government recovering all that could probably reignite the Eurozone economy :P

Meanwhile, because you all care so much, Lewandowski is now 2/1 to go to United. Gotta be honest I sadly don't see it happening - the only reason he's not at Bayern already is Dortmund's fighting to keep him, he's expressed his desire to go (apparently). Although maybe linking up with Kagawa again means he's more likely to come to Manchester than any other English club. It would also probably spell the death of either Rooney (great player, despite the fact he keeps asking to leave), Hernandez (phenomenal goals-games ration), or Welbeck (between him and Sturridge you have the future of England's attack), sadly.

With Champions League news...Malaga was fined 300,000 euro and got a ban from participating the European competition. :/

With Champions League news...Malaga was fined 300,000 euro and got a ban from participating the European competition. :/

A football thread?

This is what I'm talking about!

Ill give you a rundown of my teams (I'm from the UK, moved here to South Africa a year back), and as we have coverage here of most leagues, I have many:
-Tottenham (YID ARMY!!!) - 2001
-Bayern Munich - 2003
-Inter Milan - 2007
-PSG - 2003
-Valencia - 2002
-Ajax - 2010

I also have a special place in my heart for Everton as my home side (I was born in Liverpool) and MK Dons as I spent most of my life in Milton Keynes and I even know a couple of their players personally :)

The year indicates when I began to support them. I actually have reasons for supporting each team as well. Quite a long story. Not sure if that would be a bit too boring, mind.

New here, hi just chiming in with my opinion.

The way uefa acts when it comes to giving out trophies, no matter what happens messi will win the Ballon d'Or this year. I'm not messi's biggest fan and honestly, sure he one of the greatest players right now in the world(2nd behind CR7), he has not deserved the 4 Ballon d'Ors he has.

But knowing uefa they will practically ignore this tax fraud incident and we will sadly see messi winning another Ballon d'Or this year.

Welcome, I'm also new here!

And yeah, you're right. Look, I personally think Messi deserves it. I (Personally) believe he edges Ronaldo, if nothing but by his modesty and professionalism...HOWEVER, this kind of scandal NEEDS to be bared in mind.

Take for example, Bale (who I feel deservedly) won most of his awards, despite Suarez being in contention for the same like PFA Player of the year. Suarez discounted himself based on his actions. Messi + Fraud should be treated in the same manner, even if Ronaldo is a bit of an ass. I actually have family who are friends with his family and even I'm telling you that Ronaldo is a bit too cocky.

Still, they're both magic to watch, and cockiness is definitely not worse than fraud.

I wish the matter would be treated in the same matter but part of me knows that it will never happen. This is how I think it will play out:

Messi will win and they will discount what happen because uefa are going to say something like "Off field issues don't discount his performances all season" something like that. Why this is different from suarez situation? Because suarez did all of his trouble making on the field. Plus the English FA and uefa go by different rules or whatever.

There's other people who think Ronaldo is better than Messi? Finally I'm not alone. :p

I think Lewandowski is on the path to bayern unfortunately Amore.

It's unfortunate that he's leaving dortmund at all it's just as disappointing as when I heard gotze was leaving.

Was hoping dortmund would have turned into a dynasty around gotze, reus and lewandowski.......something like the big three for miami

They were pretty lucky to get the two league titles they did from the squad built, Bayern's is still far superior. It's certainly far from comparable with the Heat's situation were 3 players can have such a significant difference.

Is it really that far off though? Wasn't it the combined effort those three players that brought dortmund to a competitive champions league finals, a fete which is incredible even if they didn't win its still good.

And Bayern are, as we have seen from the recent completed season, far superior to many sides in the world even barca. So i think yes you can compare them to the heat with both sides pulling off great accomplishments -Heat a brilliant 66-16 regular season- and -Dortmund reaching the champions league finals-.

Dortmund lost the finals and by all indications so far Heat are on the back foot and look set to lose against spurs.

Also don't worry, tax evasion is not something you got jail for here unless you have done it several times or you are part of a larger gang so it's very likely he'll just get a x4 fine. And it's even more likely that he'll get an off-court agreement to pay even less. I'd be very surprised if this and this alone costed him the Ballon D'or.

Sadly agree with you. And if anything this year does vindicate his Ballon d'Ors - Barcelona were a shadow of the team they once were when Messi was injured. Mourinho's dysfunctional army beat them twice in a week, then Bayern got a 7-0 aggregate win against them. If Messi had been fit I could've seen the latter going more like the Milan one.

Reports also suggesting Dortmund are blocking Lewandowski's transfer and are going to let him run down his contract. I personally think it's more likely Lewandowski, but this is a good thing for Dortmund, even if they lose out on £30million+ (c'mon, Falcao went for more than £50, Aguero cost more than Zidane - crazy money is the new normal money, he's easily worth more than the £24mil most people quote) they a) gain time to search for a replacement, b) most likely get 30+ goals out of him as he'll try everything to get Pep's attention and c) make money off him helping them get another high league finish (I'm going 2nd place personally) and far into the Champions League (provided they replace Götze with Eriksen or someone). Also, don't know if I saw it here or somewhere else, but Dortmund actually played more players poached from lower-placed sides than Bayern had in the Champions League Final. Although this isn't exactly fair as Reus was theirs initially, and Bayern got Robben from Real Madrid, it still shows how common perception can be wrong.

Yeah, I can't see him going to prison for it. Some sort of settlement will be arranged. Shame that he'll still win the award as well. Yes, he deserves it for his on pitch ability, but a scandal like this should work similarly to how Suarez was treated. Having said that, we know that won't happen. If Bale goes to Real this summer (I firmly believe we will keep him for this season) then I could actually see him in with a shout, especially if he's as consistent and amazing as he has been for us this season (and in a team of world-class, his morale will be sky high).

As for Bayern, its nice to see some dominance coming from us. Generally speaking, since I've been watching Bayern, they've always been there or there abouts, but I definitely think the 'best team in the world' label will be justified next season. German football is WAY ahead of Spanish now, but I daresay sometime soon it will switch back. We will never see that in the UK until we adopt the continent's approach to youth development - the same reason we can't win jack anymore and we get dominated by countries like Germany, Holland and Spain.

Bayern in my view are just finally getting the success and the recognition they have long deserved, world football(the media) rarely appreciates sides outside of England and Spain. Especially happy for players like Lahm and Schwinii who have deserved a major trophy and finally got it and I'm looking for them to push for another champions league and the world cup next year.

The lewandowski situation is a delicate one, you never know what your going to get from a unhappy player and even if he has a unsuccessful last season that's not going to spoil his marketability and will quickly get snatched up.

Just read that Saints have signed Dejan Lovren, what a massive signing that is for them. I didn't think they'd go down but that should will probably ensure at least a midtable finish.

Well, OL needs money and Lovren was a great chance to get some more. Also I heard it was for 10M€. I didn't think Southampton had this much money.
I hope Lovren performs better at the BPL though.

They spent close to 40 mill last season. Mostly on Gaston Ramirez and Jay Rodriguez iirc.

Southampton have quite a bit of money kicking about. Ramirez and Forren last season were being chased by some big clubs, yet somehow ended up there. I think they're spending it a lot more wisely than west ham so they might just be the team to sneak in to the top half this coming season.

Hope everyone is watching the Confederation Cup match: Japan vs Brazil.

All eyes on Neymar once again as the world looks to see if he is worthy of his Barca contract and that goal he scored was brilliant. 1-0 so far