Sports The Football Discussion Thread!

You wouldn't know of him but the man Norwich were honouring with the black armbands on Saturday died at the age of 71. Now that's pretty ****ing spooky if you ask me.

What like he died during / after a match he was being honoured?
 
He died a little while back but this was the first game at Carrow Road since. He had worked in the club for a long time.

it's spooky because we won the match 7 - 1.

I think his ghost blessed you guys aha

United finally easily beat a weaker team at home too! Fellaini's captaincy will hopefully be like Allardyce's England career - over as soon as it began, but with a 100% win ratio.
 
So some slags bombed Dortmund's team bus 3 times...and left another at their hotel. Luckily the only injuries seem to be mental, and Marc Bartra went to the hospital in an ambulance for an un-specified arm injury as he was nearest the blasts. Don't know how them maniacs at Uefa actually expect the players to play tomorrow...

Other than being absolutely tragic, it seems a weird one - attacking national teams makes more sense if you're the likes of ISIL and no one has claimed responsibility yet.

Also, Dortmund and Monaco's club twitters have started a hashtag to try and get Monaco fans put up for the night which is a class act right there.

The Guardian has live updates here in what was meant to be the match thread.
 
Dortmund will forever be one of the classiest clubs alive. Devastated about the explosions, hope no-one is injured of worse. Culprits need to take a look at themselves in mirror, disgusting.

Referee's are being briefed by Barcelona for the return leg as we speak.
 
Dortmund will forever be one of the classiest clubs alive. Devastated about the explosions, hope no-one is injured of worse. Culprits need to take a look at themselves in mirror, disgusting.

Referee's are being briefed by Barcelona for the return leg as we speak.
 


Genius.

Some of the names thrown up are a real blast from the past.
 
So the Dortmund thing is either Islamic terrorists, or "hardline anti-fascists" who are angry for Dortmund not distancing themselves enough from right-wing populism?! Which seems ridiculous given how they were one of the many clubs where the fans showed support for refugees whilst football clubs themselves tend never to take stances in politics.

German papers are rightfully calling out how ridiculous it is that the game has to go ahead 24 hours later - the players will be traumatised. No doubt tv companies and the German FA would have a go at Uefa if it messed up their beloved schedules, when if you really care about the spectacle you have to have the two most exciting, young teams in the tournament in the right frame of mind.

On a lighter note, yeah that song is great, some real nice relatively obscure ones, makes Ed Sheeran's music almost bearable. Shame there was no shout outs for FM legends like Mohamed Zidan though.
 
Even though the 2026 FIFA World Cup is nine years away, there is something quite interesting about one of the official bids. Canada, the United States, and Mexico have revealed a joint bid earlier this week.

I would say I hope it gets shot down given Trump...but 2018 is in Russia, which was also run by Putin at the time of the vote, and 2022 went to Qatar...

It is quite an interesting idea though - normally nations do joint bids because they're smaller and don't have enough quality stadiums i.e. Ukraine & Poland or Japan & South Korea. But Mexico will certainly have the football infrastructure and necessary corruption for a successful bid, if not the transport infrastructure and fan safety, the U.S. is going to have a plethora of top stadiums in the next 3-4 years let alone 2026, and Canada...well they've got Toronto's stadium, and I think Vancouver also have a football specific one?

Again, even if it was a stupid idea it'd beat Qatar. I honestly reckon you could get them to vote for Mars 2026 if you paid enough bribes.
 
How many teams are they planning for 2026 lol.

This is unnecessary the US alone has enough stadiums. This is just going to rack up all sorts of miles for teams that have to constantly travel to stadiums for games.

Thus, we will have a sh*tty world cup.
 
Yeah the mileage and climate change was bad enough in Brazil, where you just had varying degrees of hot. It'll be summer no doubt and you have stadiums in the desert, stadiums at high altitude, stadiums by the Pacific, stadiums by the Atlantic, stadiums by the Great Lakes, stadiums on the plains...crazy. I'd say a tournament that large pretty much guarantees one of Germany or Spain in the final due to their superior youth production and abundance of coaches meaning they'll have an incredibly deep squad. If France keep getting more and more depth like now then maybe they'd be up there as well.
 
Barcelona going out.

They need to win by four goals against the best Italian league team...that just needs to draw.

As for the others; I think Atletico will go through, Leicester thrive when teams come at them - Atletico don't need to do that.

Monaco and Dortmund should be interesting, but I'll give it to Dortmund if they play like they did in the second half.

Bayern still in a shout, Bale is apparently injured right now so don't know if he'll be fit for the second leg. Will probably bet on Madrid.

Man Utd doing fine in Europa. Drawing as I post but away goal is an away goal. Ajax comfortable and don't know when the others if any play.
 
Well, anyone who claims to have expected that result is a liar.

I'd say this is the first time I've been truly excited by a United performance and result since those golden few games from Rashford's debut onwards last season. It feels like this was a real statement victory, with us finally pulling off exactly what Mourinho wanted. Whether or not we can still perform well against "lesser" teams when the less mobile Ibrahimovic returns, who knows.

I got so much satisfaction watching Diego Costa's usual schtick failing to achieve anything but get him a yellow card - everyone who has one of these types of players on their team loves them, but as someone who doesn't support his team, him failing repeatedly is even funnier than when Arsenal or Liverpool fall victim to his antics.

As a secondary outcome, giving Spurs more of a chance is also great. St. Totteringham's day used to be reliably funny for me because Daniel Levy seemed like a dick, but now I have nothing but appreciation for what they've managed to do and would love to see a deserving group of players with a strong English core win a major trophy. If they manage to beat Chelsea on saturday then the chase is well and truly on.

Until the inevitable backlash at a young black man having a lot of money and spending it hits the papers, more of this please:
Spoiler:
 

I'm rooting for Tottenham as they play brilliant football and it's hilarious to think Chelsea blew an eleven point lead to their rivals (not to mention it piles even more misery on an Arsenal campaign that's been dreadful).

Man Utd to challenge next season. They need to play like this more and not draw so often.
 
I think it was 13 a month back haha

Yeah we definitely should be better next year - our best performances have tended to come against the better teams, Mourinho's similar to his predecessor in that respect although luckily whereas the last two years' incarnation seemed one slip away from losing to lesser sides, we seem far more likely to just turn a win into a draw. Hopefully we can get both Rashford and Martial firing, then if those Griezmann rumours do go the way of Pogba, we'll have one of the most menacing forward lines on the planet.

I'm loving the occasional rumour of either us or Chelsea poaching Alexis Sanchez, even if I think he'll run himself into injury troubles in 2-3 years unless he has a manager willing to drop him more often (Mourinho would not be that man), especially if it happened and Wenger still signed on until 2019.
 
man united have an inherent problem against lesser teams because they just sit back and take the pressure, much easier for them to break down teams that actually play positively
 
Yup, that's been our problem since 2014. I think I prefer it to the hammerings from top sides we received in 2013-14 though.

I really miss the days of the Champions League being on mainstream tv here, can't really justify going to the pub for Dortmund vs. Monaco when its exam season. I was torn on who to back before last week, but after the insensitivity of making Dortmund play less than 24 hours later than initially scheduled, I'm definitely backing them.

Apparently there was some controversy in Bayern's loss? Good. Their stranglehold on German football is worse than the Clasico in Spain, and at least in Italy it just seems like bad luck with injuries preventing Napoli from beating Juve and getting a 3rd title, despite them doing a Bayern when they bought Higuain.
 
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