Football/Soccer Discussion Thread

[Nuke]

Originally Posted by Went

Meanwhile, here in Spain, 18 teams are criticizing the league and asking for more TV rights money, after Madrid trounced 0-6 the relegation prime suspect Zaragoza and Barcelona destroyed the Champions League team Villarreal 5-0 with just one defender on the pitch.

They say that the fact that both teams earn an extra €100 million a year more than the second best-paid team kind of unbalances the competition, and it's hard to deny their claims.

Is this seperate from the player strike?

One way or another Madrid & Barca will end up with more money anyway.

[Went]

Yeah, the strike was to get some pay guarantees for some players- there are a bunch of team with serious economical problems that haven't been paying their monthly salaries.

But I think it's possible that some old teams try something to balance the TV rights benefits- in the PL, the difference between the best and the worst paid team is 20 million. Here, it's 135 million.

[2Cool4Mewtwo]

Whew, mini-bump.

Yesterday we won 5-0 against Bolton on their ground). Last season they gave us a hard game and we had to work to get a 2-2 result, but this time around we just steamrollered them. I'm hoping we can do this against Benfica and hopefully Chelsea also.

Spoiler:

Whatever City do, United can do better :D

On another note, Aguero is very good, but let's wait and see if City can continue to maintain their current form. Last season they folded over by January, so I'm expecting same to happen around this season, but you never know.

On a different note (lol, again), La Liga is in shambles. Barca and Real Madrid are basically on their own league while teams below struggle to catch up. Last season, points difference between Real Madrid (2nd) and Valencia (3rd) was 21 points. That's a huge gap. Not to mention TV broadcasting money (as Went mentioned). Barca drew against Real Sociedad at their ground, but I wouldn't be surprised if they win next 20 games or something (including against Real Madrid).

[Went]

As a note, Barcelona have quite a strange habit of drawing and/or losing the first match of the season after the international games. Last year they lost at home against a now-relegated team this same week, so it's not that much of a surprise XD

[Ramzi]

Barcelona's defense -- without Pique and Pujol -- is absolutely pathetic. They should have signed a defender this summer. Also, Sanchez is facing a two-month (eight weeks) injury, so that will be an early slap on the face for Barcelona, albeit Pedro can do his part just fine.

The next fixture against Milan should be interesting but I expect a narrow Barcelona win.

[Went]

Well, it was worse- Barcelona have a serious concentration issue. This is the second macth they didn't wrap up when they were completely dominating, and the first-minute goal was unforgivable.

Last-minute goals seemed to be common yesterday, though.

[2Cool4Mewtwo]

Benfica 1-1 Man United. I'd say a deserved result for both clubs. We were gash during much of first half, but Giggs's superb goal got us back in the game, and it could've gone either way. Admittedly Giggs was bit drifting in and out of the game, maybe his old age is slightly getting the better of him, but I still have faith on him as a footballer. Lindegaard was fantastic in this match but media will probably use this to get their witch hunting continued on De Gea.

[Went]

La Liga - 3rd match:

1- Real Betis - 9
2- Valencia - 9
3- Barça - 7
4- Sevilla - 7
5- Real Madrid - 6

I sincerely wish it stays like this for a long, long time.

[2Cool4Mewtwo]

Originally Posted by Went

La Liga - 3rd match:

1- Real Betis - 9
2- Valencia - 9
3- Barça - 7
4- Sevilla - 7
5- Real Madrid - 6

I sincerely wish it stays like this for a long, long time.

It Probably won't. In the end Real Madrid or Barcelona will be 25+ points ahead of the third-placed team, be it Valencia, Villareal, Sevilla, or whatever. Though change in la liga's top 2 would be much appreciated.

Anyways, perfect week of football here in England, for me at least. Man City drop two points, Arsenal score 5 goals and lose 4-3 (2 own goals ) against a basically relegation fodder team, loserpool get owned by mighty Tottenham, and we beat Chelsea 3-1, and top it off with the miss of the season from Torres, though he scored a goal from similar position in a much harder situation - that's what makes it even funnier.

[Nuke]

I'd hardly call Blackburn 'relegation fodder', if it wasn't for the new owners then they would even be mentioned in the same sentence as relegation. Even with the owners I'm sure the squad is far too good to go down.

Pretty unconventional approach to hooliganism. I'd hate that to happen to Boro, buy a season ticket and then lose the chance to go to matches because of a small proportion of hooligans.

[Went]

4th match:

1 Real Betis 12
2 Valencia 10
3 Málaga 9
4 Barcelona 8
5 Sevilla 8
6 Levante 8

Still keeping my hopes up, specially after Madrid losing 5 points in two matches against teams fighting to avoid relegation. Meanwhile, Valencia and Barcelona ended 2-2 in a really epic match, and I watched Atlético Madrid getting our second 4-0 in a row, hopefully we'll see more of those thanks to the league's top scorer, Falcao.

[Liam Crawford]

La Liga commenced in a rather entertaining and dumbfounding manner. Madrid losing 5 points in two relatively easy games and Barcelona losing 4 points in also 2 games. I'm content to see Valencia playing well. I expect them to at least give Madrid a hard game after drawing with Barcelona.

Betis won four games impressively. They have a good squad but this winning streak will end soon, I'm guessing.

[2Cool4Mewtwo]

Originally Posted by Nuke

I'd hardly call Blackburn 'relegation fodder', if it wasn't for the new owners then they would even be mentioned in the same sentence as relegation. Even with the owners I'm sure the squad is far too good to go down.

Pretty unconventional approach to hooliganism. I'd hate that to happen to Boro, buy a season ticket and then lose the chance to go to matches because of a small proportion of hooligans.

Exactly reason why they are "relegation fodders" now. The new owners are clueless at what they're doing (Ex: Sacking Sam Allardyce for a completely inexperienced manager at helm). They were completely fine before.

I don't support the all women idea at all. If the gender roles were switched (for whatever reason), there would be massive calls out for sexism.

[Nuke]

The owners will have to cave in and sack Kean if they are in trouble come November. He was clearly only picked to be a 'yes man'.

The owners do see this as a long term investment though so, I'm sure they'll spend in January to help achieve their aims.

[Went]

Ah, today is always the most painful day of the year. I'll never understand why we always have to play against Barcelona this weekend XD It's not like there are other 18 dates to choose from.

Anyway, Messi is unbelieveable. Sigh.

And the Manchesters are together once again. I hope Chelsea can get the league fight out of that city for once.

[2Cool4Mewtwo]

It's hard to take a league draw after going on a winning run, especially with a plonker of a ref, but to be fair we didn't take our chances. I'd also say Bolton is heading for relegation this season. They lack the inventiveness and/or drive that Holden or that Korean dude's name that I forgot has.

Messi is bit overrated IMO. I'm not saying that he's bad or anything (In fact I do admit he's one of the best out there right now, with CR and Rooney), but I've even heard people say that he's already better than Maradona. Please, get a grip. ...

[Went]

Originally Posted by 2Cool4Mewtwo

Messi is bit overrated IMO. I'm not saying that he's bad or anything (In fact I do admit he's one of the best out there right now, with CR and Rooney), but I've even heard people say that he's already better than Maradona. Please, get a grip. :tired:...

I don't think you can be better than one of the all time greats (Maradona, the Brazilian Ronaldo, Pelé, Zidane), but with every match that passes by, I see more people that consider him to be the fifth one in the list.

[Nuke]

Originally Posted by 2Cool4Mewtwo

It's hard to take a league draw after going on a winning run, especially with a plonker of a ref, but to be fair we didn't take our chances. I'd also say Bolton is heading for relegation this season. They lack the inventiveness and/or drive that Holden or that Korean dude's name that I forgot has.

Messi is bit overrated IMO. I'm not saying that he's bad or anything (In fact I do admit he's one of the best out there right now, with CR and Rooney), but I've even heard people say that he's already better than Maradona. Please, get a grip. :tired:...

Lee Chung-Yong. :P I think Coyle is too good of a manager for them to go down. I still think it will be Swansea, Norwich and Wigan.

As for Messi, I'm still not sure whether he is an all-time great. He has the best team of the best decade around him yet he still didn't score as much as Ronaldo last season. He's never shown the same level of amazement at international level.

I wish he wasn't so loyal to Barca so we could actually see him in another league to test his real level of ability too.

Originally Posted by Went

Ah, today is always the most painful day of the year. I'll never understand why we always have to play against Barcelona this weekend XD It's not like there are other 18 dates to choose from.

Anyway, Messi is unbelieveable. Sigh.

And the Manchesters are together once again. I hope Chelsea can get the league fight out of that city for once.

Until this season City were never in the title hunt? :s

Is there something special about this weekend which would make it a money spinner?

Anyway, I experienced a pretty boring match at the Riverside yesterday but, we're still in the automatic promotion spots. :D

[Went]

Originally Posted by Nuke

As for Messi, I'm still not sure whether he is an all-time great. He has the best team of the best decade around him yet he still didn't score as much as Ronaldo last season. He's never shown the same level of amazement at international level.

Actually, in all competitions they played, both scored 53 goals last season. Only Ronaldo got his surplus against soon-to-be-relegated teams in La Liga and Messi got it in the Champions League (not to mention that one of Ronaldo's goals was actually given to Pepe by the referee, so Ronaldo actually scored less goals than Messi last season if we take that into account).

Originally Posted by Nuke

Until this season City were never in the title hunt? :s

I know, I was talking about this one XD

[Schmit]

Originally Posted by Nuke

As for Messi, I'm still not sure whether he is an all-time great. He has the best team of the best decade around him yet he still didn't score as much as Ronaldo last season. He's never shown the same level of amazement at international level.

I wish he wasn't so loyal to Barca so we could actually see him in another league to test his real level of ability too.

If you count how many goals Ronaldo scored with a beautiful run, a solo-defense-terrorizing attack, or anything creative, they wouldn't against the many, many tap-ins delivered by Ozil and company, and the set-pieces, including penalty kicks. Messi on the other hand was creative in most of his goals. That should be taken into account.

[greg0915]

Liverpool Vs Everton at the weekend what do you think the score will be?

I'm thinking LIV 2-1 EVE well i do support Liverpool

[Nuke]

Originally Posted by Went

I know, I was talking about this one XD

Oh. :P

Originally Posted by Schmit

If you count how many goals Ronaldo scored with a beautiful run, a solo-defense-terrorizing attack, or anything creative, they wouldn't against the many, many tap-ins delivered by Ozil and company, and the set-pieces, including penalty kicks. Messi on the other hand was creative in most of his goals. That should be taken into account.

Fair point.

I'd still love to see Messi cope with the weekly physical aspect of Serie A or the Premiership and possibly deal with better defenders (No offense Went or anyone else but the weaker teams of Liga BBVA have really bad defences, Messi and Ronaldo wouldn't score more goals than games played in the Prem).

It'd be interesting to see if very technical players could cut it in the Championship actually. A lot of players generally bulk up to suit the needs of the league (Looking close to home, Emnes is a very creative player but he's also had to become fairly strong).

Originally Posted by greg0915

Liverpool Vs Everton at the weekend what do you think the score will be?

I'm thinking LIV 2-1 EVE well i do support Liverpool ^_^

I couldn't care less but hopefully Everton will win.

[Liam Crawford]

I'm surprised the Bundesliga isn't at all discussed here. I have to ask but do any of you frequent the Bundesliga fixtures or at least read about them? I know it is not the most prominent league, but still builds one of the best talents in Europe.

[Nuke]

Originally Posted by Liam Crawford

I'm surprised the Bundesliga isn't at all discussed here. I have to ask but do any of you frequent the Bundesliga fixtures or at least read about them? I know it is not the most prominent league, but still builds one of the best talents in Europe.

Nope, oddly enough I pride myself on having a rather large knowledge of football (although this is probably 50% pointless knowledge :P) yet I never read much on the Bundesliga compared to other leagues. For example, I just assumed from their champions league performances that Bayern sweeped the league every year and then a few years back Stuttgart won and I was like what!? But when Dortmund won last year, I wasn't too surprised anymore.

I have read a lot about Dortmund of late though, how they've made a recovery playing players from their own academy (Such as Gotze) and purchasing good players (Such as Kagawa) for fairly modest fees.

I suppose it is an English dominated forum football wise so they're going to be the leagues most talked about and Went always contributes on the Spanish league. :D

I realise the US aren't exactly football crazy but I'm surprised we don't get much on the MLS.

[mondays suck]

I'm decently informed about the BuLi and usually watch the highlights of all of the games (except for the sunday ones, which for some reason never seem to be on TV), but the fact that there was never any talk at all about it here discouraged me to start any.
Right now we have Bayern being fully recovered from the weak Klinsmann and van Gaal eras leading the table with 18 points after 7 games (6 wins, 1 loss, 21:1 goals) and being the most likely candidate for the title, Werder Bremen (second best team of the past decade) and Borussia M'Gladbach (were a top team in the '80s, then sucked for two decades but right now everything seems to be going the right way for them, they even beat Bayern) and a bunch of others being in range. Dortmund is nowhere near it's strength from last year, right now they're only somewhere in the middle of the table. And the only founding member that was never relegated into the 2. Bundesliga until now, Hamburg, finally fired their Trainer Oenning who somehow managed to lose like 15 games in a row and actually managed to win against something (I think Stuttgart, but I'm not sure) this weekend. They're still at last place, though.

I hope I was able to give at least a rough impression about what's happening in the Bundesliga right now