2012/13 Soccer Thread

UCRC wrote:

Yeah, I'd feel the same about Arsenal. Having to pretend you're serious about Europa League after being knocked out from CL is the most humiliating thing.

I'm hoping that one day some club goes "can we just not participate in this?".

Well thats their equivalent of fielding weaker teams haha.

As for Arsenal I would be kinda torn about being in it. The club/manager/players desperately need a trophy no matter what it is. Thing is I wouldn't want to invest much in winning it and especially wouldn't want to get to the final just to lose like we did to Birmingham in the Carling cup.

I sometimes wonder if the culture/attitude whatever it is would be different if Arsenal had won a smaller trophy in the last couple years. Or if Wenger has just actually lost it.

It was funny haha when the drought was 4-5 years. Now... not so much.

It's more difficult now to field weaken teams due to having to name your 25-man squad. If you pack it with kids and deadweight, then you are basically admitting to having no chance of progression - which few teams from the major leagues would want to do. And if you do better than expected then get a few injuries, you've basically snookered yourself.

As for Arsenal, the fans became so used to success that I'm not sure whether winning the Europa League would be seen as anything praiseworthy, particularly if the demands on what is not a terribly deep squad mean that finishing 3rd or 4th is more difficult. Do you think that Arsene would be coming under less pressure now if Arsenal had beaten Birmingham in the League Cup a couple of years back ?

davet010 wrote:

As for Arsenal, the fans became so used to success that I'm not sure whether winning the Europa League would be seen as anything praiseworthy, particularly if the demands on what is not a terribly deep squad mean that finishing 3rd or 4th is more difficult. Do you think that Arsene would be coming under less pressure now if Arsenal had beaten Birmingham in the League Cup a couple of years back ?

"Hasn't won anything in 8 years" is much easier to say then "Has only won the Carling cup once in 8 years"

The real problem for Wenger is he hasn't won anything since the league actually became competitive. Thats the dirty little secret. The kind of asterisk we still put next to a guy like Guardiola cause in all honesty he did it at Barca with Messi has somehow has evaded Wenger.

Why do you think they keep trying to spin the CL consecutive qualification and round of 16 stuff?

Wenger* has won the league 3 times with Arsenal.

* hasn't won a trophy in the modern money football era.

Its a tricky situation. The owners/board are not football people so there was no chance in hell they were buying the club and sacking the manager... Especially one who makes the balance sheet so tidy. At the same time hes quickly drying up all the goodwill he has with the fans. He honestly has now until the round of 16 to start turning it around or it could get real ugly.

Between now and then he has the Carling whatever cup final, FA cup tie vs Swansea + 1 more?, Round 16 and the league games. Maybe most importantly he also has a transfer window to show some urgency that he means business after the 150m new shirt deal.

I'm not optimistic. I'm hopeful that if it does get ugly he does get out of the way though. Last thing I want to see is him clinging onto being the manager, the board to afraid to sack him and the fans pretty much in outright revolt.

As revealed a few weeks ago by ESPN and others, a senior delegation from Old Trafford went to meet Pep Guardiola in New York, where he is currently enjoying a sabbatical, with the message that the job is effectively his to refuse.

I think I saw that headline but skimmed over it a few weeks ago.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/blog/_/name/manchesterunited/id/665?cc=5901

edit: and for all the crap you can pin on the Glazers they at least understand one thing. You can be actually bleeding the club with interest payments but you better damn well stay competitive.

Even if you don't win you have to be right there competing or else its going to explode in a hurry. From the fans actually taking up arms and losing leverage in all your other business operations like commercial deals.

They realize that from Ferguson --> ? could be a massive hiccup. Especially on the financial side which is all they actually care about.

I think Guardiola may be a better choice, at least for long-term stability. It certainly seems that if you hire Jose, you're getting him for 3 seasons, maximum, before he wears out his welcome with the players, board and fans.

He really is the modern-day Béla Guttmann.

I'd love to see him sign on somewhere with no money and see how he goes on. I might try that in my next FM game - start him at some Spanish second division team and lower his reputation a bit (Mourinho, that is).

davet010 wrote:

I'd love to see him sign on somewhere with no money and see how he goes on. I might try that in my next FM game - start him at some Spanish second division team and lower his reputation a bit (Mourinho, that is).

Haha yea right.

The closest your going to get to that is him coaching Portugal ;P

Not sure how much leash Bento has from the good Euro run. Portugal is struggling in WC qualifying and have 2 games in March. Maybe two average results there and Mourinho getting sick of Real/Spain/Media and he f*cks off to the National team until 2014 especially if there isn't an adequate club job.

Well done Celtic, well done.

Shame that they had to do it by diving though.

and well done Shaktar and Juve

onewild wrote:

Shame that they had to do it by diving though.

Not really sure what part of knee on knee contact you call a dive.

IMAGE(http://cadfael.tv/image/src/1354742747691.gif)

Kinda soft and clumsy all at once.

Defender is a knob for touching anyone in the box though.

Samaras is a big fat waster. It would take a lot more contact than that to knock the dozy sod off his feet. The defender had obviously not done his homework, as he should have known that this festering dork would be of more danger to his own team than to Spartak.

Having said that, I do begrudge Samaras the oxygen that keeps him alive. I remember watching him just after we'd signed him, and thinking "there's been a switch, there's been a switch, we can't have paid £6m for that big clumsy ponce..."

But we had

I won't say it wasn't a little soft, but I watched the match, and when they show the other angle it is very clear contact. The defender lunged for the ball, and only got giant greek.

Soft, but it's definitely a clumsy challenge and a definite foul. That's the kind of stuff I would expect United's back-line to pull these days.

Him going down so quick is pretty much as dynamic as I've ever seen Giorgios Samaras on a football pitch

Reminds me of the old joke about boxer Joe Bugner - "he's got the body of a Greek statue, but fewer moves".

The only good thing (and there was only one, I did think about adding 'the fact City actually got money when they sold him', but it was much less than they paid) was that it put City off buying strikers from Dutch football, which meant it was Middlesbrough who got stung for an estimated £10m for Afonso Alves.

Who ? Exactly.

Euro 2020 to be held across Europe.

There's a way I can imagine this being a good idea, localizing each of the groups to a nation, then traveling to new venues for the knockouts with the appropriate time between, but we all know this is a blatant cash-grab, so they'll screw it up somehow.

Prederick wrote:

Euro 2020 to be held across Europe.

There's a way I can imagine this being a good idea, localizing each of the groups to a nation, then traveling to new venues for the knockouts with the appropriate time between, but we all know this is a blatant cash-grab, so they'll screw it up somehow.

Apparently the Gallic Gonk and his chums spent about a year bigging up Turkey (with their enviable safety record, completely uncorrupt leahue, superb infrastructure....stop laughing at the back), but then they decided they'd rather bid for the Olympics. And Pred, 'localizing each group to a nation' - they've expanded the thing to an unwieldy 24, do you think they'll satisfy themselves with only holding it in 6 countries ? I think not.

Now, let us peruse the BBC for our annual game of pre-Derby bingo..

Former player trying to belittle City ./
United's unique 'will to win' ./
Listing all of city's signings ./
Invoking the spirit of Munich ./

Just waiting on a Fergie mind-game masterstroke....will Vidic be ready ? Will Tom Cleverly (better than Messi, no doubt) be ready ? Will 'the New Duncan Edwards' Phil Jones be ready ? oooh, I'm sweating...

Maybe Nasri and Van Persie will have a nasty collision...

Fergie moans about City getting penalties...he's just worked out that his laughable 'mind games' don't work on Mancini, so now it's time for the ref.

I'm calling 'house !' for that.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/blog/_/name/espnfcunited/id/2117?cc=5901

Uefa moves to ban 3rd party ownership.

Pretty good piece on it. Somewhat conflicted about it.

Notably.

The Dragoes have been cited as one of the examples for successful player trading in this last decade, but despite talk of huge profits made on the sales of Paulo Ferreira, Ricardo Carvalho, Deco, Quaresma, Diego, Pepe, Jose Bosingwa, Falcao and Lucho Gonzalez Moutinho among many others, the club never owned the entirety of any of the above players' economic rights.

Yikes.

I assumed some part ownership has been involved but thats pretty much a list of all the players they have ever sold for good money. Hulk isn't in that list wonder if he was fully owned. Kinda puts things in perspective as if they actually had all the money from all those transfers they would be sitting very pretty indeed right now financially.

They wouldn't have had half of them in the first place, nor have been as successful, so you pays your money and you takes your choice.

davet010 wrote:

They wouldn't have had half of them in the first place, nor have been as successful, so you pays your money and you takes your choice.

Right but after the wave of guys they sold after Mourinho + consistent CL money you would figure they had the cash flow to bring players in at 100% ownership themselves.

So obviously they either don't mind sharing the risk 50/50 as the article gives an example of a guy who flopped.

Also they obviously don't mind dealing with these type of agents. Kinda sets themselves up in a good position where other clubs are weary to get involved but they are all for it.

Theres also the argument that even if they had the cash to own Falcao 100% there was no way at the time his handlers were giving up their stake.

Thanks for the link. Will give it a read while watching Arsenal in background.

Wow that was a bad pk call...but Arsenal needs it

Yeah, definitely a dive, but it was really stupid from the defender, whacking his foot at Cazorla's ankle, nowhere near the ball.

Gervinho is just comical.

jowner wrote:

Gervinho is just comical.

FSC needs a Joe Buck "Swing and a miss" sound bite. I also laughed really hard at Ox's stroke mid cross where he sent it 40 yards over the net.

WOW. How much stupidity can Joe Brunt display in this match. He has literally been asking for the ref to throw him out of this match.