2010/11 Soccer Thread - Hitting The Home Stretch

Pred

I see your point with regard to clubs between 6th and relegation, but it's pretty much the same in all leagues. If the teams weren't mediocre, then they wouldn't be there.

Oh, I don't mean to hold up England as the sole example of this, i'm just saying the kind of permanent stratification of leagues is disappointing. I would hope that we could reach a point where fans of more than 2-3 teams could dream of a top-3 finish.

Also, AFC Wimbledon! Hooray!

Watch Polish league, then (don't). Lech Poznan beaten City and Juventus this season, and now they finish season 9th in 16-team league.

I wish I could tell you it means it's competetive and everybody else started playing some decent football.

doubly double

UCRC wrote:

Watch Polish league, then (don't). Lech Poznan beaten City and Juventus this season, and now they finish season 9th in 16-team league.

I wish I could tell you it means it's competetive and everybody else started playing some decent football.

And are you telling us that, or that Lech suffered from injuries/off field issues/failure to strengthen the squad (delete as appropriate) ?

In other news, Twitcher has 'ruled himself out' of the Chelsea job. Now if ever two people deserved each other, it's a crooked manager and a money-laundering owner.

In other other news, City are set to announce that COMS will become known as 'Etihad Stadium'. Not sure yet what the naming rights income is going to be, but it won't be insignificant.

davet010 wrote:
UCRC wrote:

Watch Polish league, then (don't). Lech Poznan beaten City and Juventus this season, and now they finish season 9th in 16-team league.

I wish I could tell you it means it's competetive and everybody else started playing some decent football.

And are you telling us that, or that Lech suffered from injuries/off field issues/failure to strengthen the squad (delete as appropriate) ?

Not really, they just were crap.

And that's the thing. You either have league with couple of consistently good teams who are fighting for top places and there's no difference between 7th and 14th, or league with no good teams at all, where all places are interchangeable.

So I have a weird question. What's the standard procedure when a match has to be abandoned midway due to excessive rain or lightning? Do you replay the match from the beginning or just from the point at which you abandoned it?

In England, such a game is usually replayed in full, as whatever score it was in the first game was obviously heavily influenced by the weather. Unfortunate really, as in one FA Cup tie Denis Law scored 6 goals for Man City against Luton, before the game was called off after 70 minutes.

City, of course, lost the replayed game 3-1.

An exception to this is where a game is called off through crowd disturbances or similar - the usual procedure here would be that the side responsible would have the game awarded against them, usually by the 'default score' of whichever League the game is in - this is usually 2-0 or 3-0.

Fulham get the last spot for the Europa League through the Fair Play route.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/id/923535/fulham-awarded-fair-play-europa-league-spot?cc=5739

Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat.

Fulham are in Europe - Liverpool are not. Enjoy that.

Only 15 years late - squirm, you fat bastard, squirm.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/foot...

Only 15 years late - squirm, you fat bastard, squirm.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/foot...

Speaking of, uh, swift justice...

March-September is probably a lucky break for him anyway, much better to miss that than the other half of the year.

He's not the only one, though - every year there must be about 5-10 players in the Premiership alone who are 'injured' for significant lengths of time but are actually serving suspensions.

Still, if you break the rules, you get to serve the punishment. Kolo is already a backup now, so he won't particularly be missed.

A number of the office Reds have made the point that Rio actually got a longer ban, to which my response was that Rio got a ban for deliberately blowing off a test, knowing that what he had in him was a 2 year ban were he to be actually tested.

How to screw up a kit - and how Barca ditched their 'no sponsorship on our shirts' bullsh*t.

IMAGE(http://www.whoateallthepies.tv/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Barca1.jpg)

Oh, my mistake, it's a 'charitable foundation'. Deal done just after Spain pulled out of the bidding for 2022, apparently. I'm still waiting for UEFA to assess the £150m deal by the 'fair value' rules in their Financial Fair Play nonsense.

Not to mention grave crime against design.

Indeed, it is goppingly awful.

Of course, in reality their shirts have carried sponsorship for years, albeit hidden. Just check the size of the Nike 'swoosh' on there against their logo on any other shirts. It's little wonder that Espanyol fans refer to them as 'Bar$a'.

And as for Puyol's hair and the purple boots....

Jesus Christ that is terrible. Why they'd ever switch from the '99 design is beyond me, it was essentially perfect.

IMAGE(http://www.classicfootballshirts.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/0dc2d03fe217f8c83829496872af24a0/b/a/barcelona-99-home-fan_1_1.jpg)

04/05 was great too though.

Prederick wrote:

Jesus Christ that is terrible. Why they'd ever switch from the '99 design is beyond me, it was essentially perfect.

IMAGE(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YSOSYPcTPIo/S2J473ikNJI/AAAAAAAAAPQ/DUkK0_V9nCc/s400/Money+stacks.jpg)

For those of you watching the final....

Messi > Everyone else. Christ.

It wasn't Messi that won it for Barcelona. It was their collective possession-play mentality. No matter how energetic you are, you jsut can't expect to run around against that all game just hoping for a break.

A comprehensive win for Barcelona. Manchester United were the better team for 10 minutes, and pretty much got swept off the pitch for the remainder of the game, save for Rooney's goal.

And Messi...., we are watching a legend. There is no argument as to who the best player is. Ludicrous ability, two CL finals, two goals, instrumental in the 3rd (went past Nani like he wasn't even there). The only way United could find to stop him was to have Valencia bodycheck him occasionally.

This Barcelona are the best team in Modern history. I'd argue that La Liga has become SPL-like not because of the poverty of skill in the other teams, but because Barca is so ludicrously good.

Tiki-taka may certainly get boring, but when applied well, it pretty much takes the opposition out of the game. And while Messi may not have won the whole thing, that second goal was an absolute backbreaker.

Abidal lifts the trophy. Nice touch.

Watching it at a friends house, there were Reds present (in Manchester too...must've been lost), and I'm afraid I was sent to the sin bin for 10 minutes after failing to conceal my mirth, so this is being posted from a laptop as I sit in the garden with beer. And watching it on a snide stream on said laptop.

So many classic comments..

- Rooney is as good as Messi (before the game, admittedly)
- Berbatov doesn't score goals, that's why he's not playing (joint leading scorer in the Prem, apparently)
- We're missing Darren Fletcher (cue howls of laughter from me)
- This'll be the game where Fergie secures his legacy....

Better go back in - I need another beer.

FIFA Ethics Committee hearings coming up this week as well...oh, if only FIFA's dedication to 'transparency' was anything other than a complete lie. Wiser heads thinking that Bin Hammam has cut his own throat with this attempt, although in any organisation where the term 'corporate governance' means anything, the guilty verdicts that must surely come against Warner and the other clown would mean that the man who is their boss would have to go as well. But he won't.

Prederick wrote:

Tiki-taka may certainly get boring, but when applied well, it pretty much takes the opposition out of the game. And while Messi may not have won the whole thing, that second goal was an absolute backbreaker.

The backbreaker was David Villa imo. THe momentum, and the tempo hadn't really changed all that much after Barca's 2nd. What did change was our energy as time began to run out, and they just simply continued what they do, passing.

Aside from that one goal, Messi hadn't threatened as much.

It was just us getting outplayed by their collective play more than Messi running the show. They blocked out Chicha completely (aside from that one goal when 4 players went after him letting Rooney free), their possession completely muffled us in the second half as we began to run out of energy.

Most of what Davet quoted is indeed stupid, except about Berbatov not playing. His languid style just wouldn't have helped against Barca's possession play. We needed to take every chance we get at disrupting their possession. That's just not something Berbatov does well.

Pikey26 wrote:

Aside from that one goal, Messi hadn't threatened as much.

I'm going to have to wholly disagree with you there. If not for some masterful tackles by Vidic, Messi might've had a hat-trick. He went caroming around the field like a bat out of hell, and looked exceptionally dangerous every single time.

Also, rumor that Berbatov left before kickoff. Y'know, if i'm Berba, I might swallow sitting on the bench, but having Michael f**king Owen named ahead of me and I'm not even on the bench? I wonder what happened that made Fergie make such a decision, and I assume this has to be curtains on Berbatov's United career.

Prederick wrote:

Abidal lifts the trophy. Nice touch.

Agreed.

Poor Evra played a role in the first two goals. Pedro's goal he steps up to get closer to a possession-less Messi which allows Pedro the space to receive the pass and slot it home. Second goal Evra doesn't step up quickly enough and Messi has space to have a go at goal and put it home.

It wasn't a bad game and we didn't really see the scumbaggery of the endless Classicos. Not a bad way to end a season.

Also, thanks Dave for answering the rain/lightning delay question I had. The Vancouver-Toronto Canadian Club Championship (well, cup) was chalked off this week because of lightning and rain. I hadn't encountered something like that in the few years I"ve been following soccer.

Finally, Fox explains soccer to American Football fans: http://www.twitvid.com/BGJ0Q