2012/13 Soccer Thread

UCRC wrote:

I was with you until you iumped shark at

jowner wrote:

even Nasri

.

hahah. I rate his talent. Then he an Ade level brain fart and stunted his own career. Cause you know when your 24 you really need a big pay day and not regular football.

But yea at current player wage inflation even Nasri could of been a 130k a week talent.

"Stunted his own career".

IMAGE(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1a/Nasri_%26_Aguero_with_trophy.JPG/772px-Nasri_%26_Aguero_with_trophy.JPG)

Yup, sure looks stunted to me.

I was with you until you jumped shark at

jowner wrote:

even Nasri

.

davet010 wrote:

"Stunted his own career".

IMAGE(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1a/Nasri_%26_Aguero_with_trophy.JPG/772px-Nasri_%26_Aguero_with_trophy.JPG)

Yup, sure looks stunted to me.

Hes your Ade 2.0.

Just cause other players won a trophy while he was there doesn't mean you wont be paying Spurs to play in him in a couple of years.

His winner against Chelsea was worth the dosh alone. And Adebayor was another one of Agent Hughes' quality signings, see Toure (K), Santa Cruz, Bridge, Bellamy et al.

Take a note, M.Platini. This is what investing in the locality looks like.

http://www.mcfc.co.uk/citytv/Feature...

3D PEOPLE! TAKE THAT PLATINI!

davet010 wrote:

FM 2013 trailer

I love seeing my petrol dollars at work

So do I !

Haha, that's true, I got a FM vibe / warm fuzzy feeling of seeing buildings raising in RTSes from that Yesterday I got my Levante board to upgrade training facilities from "decrepit" to "behind times" and I feel so proud to myself.

Levante, that's the second club in Valencia isn't it ? Don't have to go far to do more in the way of building than Valencia CF, hasn't their new stadium been half-finished for about 5 years ?

From what I remember from the game stadium is a nice 25k all-seater owned by the club. All other facilities - not so much.

edit: so Spanish wiki tells me that there has been some movement in direction of new stadium, wonder why that didn't show up in my game... well, except for that 20-year loan which we're repaying leaving us with one of smallest budgets in first division Hey, now at least I know where all that money went.

And let me add that usually attendance hardly exceeds 20k.

edit: Reading up a little bit.
Training facilities: "Levante practices at a sports complex 25 miles outside the city because it is cheaper there."
They have 11k socios and average attendance is pretty similar to what I see in FM.
Johan Cruyff spend a season at Levante in '82 in second division, scoring 2 goals and getting into big disagreement over money.

UCRC wrote:

Johan Cruyff spend a season at Levante in '82 in second division, scoring 2 goals and getting into big disagreement over money.

I'd have been surprised if he didn't - supreme talent as a player, but an utterly selfish greedy cockend of a person.

Don't forget to set your rosters! Almost forgot cause of the interlull.

Who needs strikers when playing Southampton.

Haha, just came here to post that A lot of people were joking that after van Persie and start that Giroud had we should convert to strikerless formation, and look at that.

Obviously it's Wenger just tinkering a little (possibly with CL game midweek in mind), but with Wilshere coming back I wonder if it isn't a sign of things to come.

Arteta is great in new role. He's been classy last season, but sitting deeper he has even more time and space to dominate games. And he had the best passing success ratio last season already.

UCRC wrote:

Haha, just came here to post that A lot of people were joking that after van Persie and start that Giroud had we should convert to strikerless formation, and look at that.

Obviously it's Wenger just tinkering a little (possibly with CL game midweek in mind), but with Wilshere coming back I wonder if it isn't a sign of things to come.

Arteta is great in new role. He's been classy last season, but sitting deeper he has even more time and space to dominate games. And he had the best passing success ratio last season already.

Ohhhhh Szczesny. You need to have a talk with him.

Gervinho as a false 9? why not hes a false winger IMO anyways.

1-2's between Cazorla and Podolski was great.

Podolski putting a FK on net instead of Rvp's 'I'm going to try and put it in the exact top corner' was nice also.

everyone else is tied at half. They better not c*ck this up.

So when does the "Liverpool are too big to go down" talk start?

LIVERPOOL ARE TOO BIG TO GO DOWN!

I think they will figure it out but yea when I say figure it out that means a top... 15 finish

Rumor is the owners who also own the Red Sox might be getting out of the Red Sox. They were able to shed 250m worth of contract obligations and some people interpret this as making the team much more appealing to buy. All rumors of course and even then I'm not sure if that means more $$$ for Liverpool to spend. The reality of the situation tho is that they really do need to spend if they believe in Rodgers and want to start making forward progression in a timely fashion.

It will be interesting over this season but at the very least I think the owners are stable enough that they wont throw Rodgers out in knee jerk fashion. I think they understand the nature of this enough that hitting the reset button non stop with managers doesn't help you unless your Roman and willing to pour a countries GDP into the club.

Speaking of knee jerk fashion one paper (lost the tweet and headline) says AVB has 3 games to turn around Spurs or hes out. I doubt they are getting that desperate but yea both situations are entertaining if your sitting on the outside.

Berbatov! Hooray!

In other news....

SAO PAULO (AP) -- The mascot of the 2014 World Cup is a yet to-be-named Brazilian endangered armadillo.
FIFA said Brazilians will have until mid-November to choose the mascot's name from three choices - Amijubi, Fuleco and Zuzeco. The mascot's announcement was made Sunday on a television show with the participation of former Brazil star Ronaldo.

"I'm delighted to welcome such an important member to the 2014 team,'' Ronaldo said. "The mascot will play a key ambassadorial role in the next two years. I'm sure he will inspire many young football fans in Brazil and all over the world with the great passion which he has for the sport and for his country.''

The three-banded armadillo, which is in danger of extinction, rolls up into the shape of a ball when threatened and is commonly found in northeastern Brazil.

The mascot carries the colors of the Brazilian flag. It is yellow, with green shorts and a blue shell and tail. It is dressed in a white shirt with the words "Brazil 2014'' written on it.

"The fact that the three-banded armadillo is a vulnerable species is very fitting,'' FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke said in a statement. "One of the key objectives through the 2014 FIFA World Cup is to use the event as a platform to communicate the importance of the environment and ecology.''

Uh... okay. Sure.

Soooo.....FIFA encourages millions of people to jet around the world, the use of scarce resources to build new stadia or improve old ones.

How are they going to use WC2014 to 'communicate the importance of the environment and ecology', again ?

davet010 wrote:

Soooo.....FIFA encourages millions of people to jet around the world, the use of scarce resources to build new stadia or improve old ones.

How are they going to use WC2014 to 'communicate the importance of the environment and ecology', again ?

By dressing up an endangered species in bright colors, silly.

Here he is by the way:

IMAGE(http://www.whoateallthepies.tv/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/armadillo.jpg)

On unrelated note, even though current Brazil president seems to be overly friendly with agriculture industry lobby (amnesty for farmers breaking forestry code, turning blind eye on intimidation of activists and downright murders) deforestation of Amazon slowed down drastically in recent years (up to 60-70% if memory serves).

So what do people think of Gervinho as a central forward?

[silly giggle]

That was a unpleasant Everton game to watch. One goal called back because of a poor offsides call, another not called because the official couldn't see that the ball was over the line.

Then they finally put the go ahead goal in, only to have Newcastle equalize minute later. SIGH.

bigred wrote:

So what do people think of Gervinho as a central forward?

WAS LIKE WATCHING TH14 MATE!!!!!

in seriousness it worked... against Southampton. If anything I was more impressed on how Podolski and Cazorla were linking up. I've already stated how I feel about Gervinho previously but to give him some credit there is some skill there. Maybe simplifying his role by parking him front and center will help him. If anything his decision making is highly suspect so why not put him in as many positions where its straight forward. He has the pace and dribbling skills to give people fits. It usually breaks down when hes on the wing and is forced to actually make a decision.

Heres a through ball, use your pace, hammer it. http://arsenalist.com/video/?id=xtmlqx

So yea vs Southampton but I think that trick can work against teams that play open football vs us.

Tried to find pre-season odds to win the title and they seem to have hardly moved which I found surprising. Highest I found was Arsenal 14:1 and they are now at 11:1.
Considering were now 4 games in I think those are actually great odds for a longshot.
1. No one has been seriously injured.
2. Were closer to Sagna and Wilshere returning.
3. and maybe biggest surprise is that the defense looks pretty good so far.
Of course since I now put some money on it there will be a run of injuries, Wilshere will have a setback and the defense will unravel.

Psych wrote:

That was a unpleasant Everton game to watch. One goal called back because of a poor offsides call, another not called because the official couldn't see that the ball was over the line.

Then they finally put the go ahead goal in, only to have Newcastle equalize minute later. SIGH.

ugh saw highlights and yea. Bad taste in mouth.

Not to those of us who have Ba in our fantasy team...

Refereeing was pretty poor, to be fair.

As for that mascot, is it just me who envisages people teasing these poor endangered animals until they roll into a ball, and then booting them ?

Wow good game, great ending.