Goose on the pitch at Macclesfield.
Bless.
Nice European Super Cup W for Atleti today, always nice to see Real lose. Also, in more US-focused news...
Another goal for Tim Weah, his second for PSG. Here's hoping kid manages to get a run in the team and begins to fill that potential.
Ah, the son of George Weah.
Meanwhile, if you'll excuse me, my fantasy team needs changing
Meanwhile, if you'll excuse me, my fantasy team needs changing :(
Mine too.....
Mad skills! That was awesome. The kid with the Barcelona uniform looks so bummed at the end.
Was on holiday for the end of the transfer window, but wanted to write up some thoughts (outbounds are based on my earlier list)
Shifted
* Rooney ✅ - (D.C. United) Undisclosed
* Robles ✅ - (Real Betis) Free
* Funes Mori ✅ - (Villarreal) Undisclosed
* Garbutt ✅ - (Oxford United) Loan
* Klaassen ✅ - (Werder Bremen) Undisclosed
* Williams ✅ - (Stoke City) Loan
* Tarashaj ✅ - (Grasshoppers) Loan
Remaining (from my list)
* Jagielka
* Martina
* Schneiderlin
* Besic
* Bolasie
* McCarthy
* Niasse
Inbounds
* Richarlison (LW) - Apparently £35m was the fee, rather than the £50m initially reported. Seems like a great kid and think he'll do well with us. Weird seeing Everton play with actual wingers again, after the last several seasons
* Joao Virginia (GK) - highly rated, and hopefully will take over from Stekelenberg as backup in short order
* Digne (LB) - Anyone who keeps Martina from getting minutes is a plus in my book
* Mina (CB) - Had a good World Cup, but remains to be seen whether he's worth the £27m
* Zouma (CB) - Surely this loan has to go better than Mangala's disastrous turn last season?
* Bernard (AM) - Haven't seen him play, but am hoping our scouting of Ukraine is better than our usual Russian-league signings
* Gomes (CM) - Will be curious how he fits into Silva's system, as I was expecting Gylfi to be more of a deep-lying playmaker this season. Loan makes this low-risk if he doesn't pan out, though
Overall, a decent window for us. Definitely feels like another year of rebuilding ahead, but our signings this summer feel more like they're the result of deciding what parts of the squad need attention, as opposed to signing far too many players who play the same position, and neglecting to sign a replacement for Lukaku, despite his leaving early in the window.
Based on his performances last season for Stoke, Zouma is better than Mangala - although that's like saying that it's better to be kicked in the balls once than twice.
Zouma looked as though he was going to be a great CB in his very early years at Chelsea, but for some reason never kicked on. He looks quite a bit heftier (and not in a good way) now, and ponderous both in thought and deed. In that sense, he reminds me very much of Micah Richards (who coincidentally is still at Villa, despite not appearing for the first team since 2016).
Micah Richards
Now that's a blast from the past.
One of the rags favorite transfer big money moves that never was.
He was really solid in PES for a few editions.
Micah Richards
Now that's a blast from the past.
One of the rags favorite transfer big money moves that never was.
He was actually pretty good IRL for two or three seasons, but then one season decided to come back looking like he'd been living in the gym all summer, but without considering the impact on his speed and sharpness...he looked like he was getting ready for the NFL. He started picking up loads of niggling muscle injuries, which meant that he never really got to establish a partnership with Kompany. If he hadn't have screwed himself up, City wouldn't have needed to bother with players like Lescott.
Apparently he never gets a game for Villa because Bruce doesn't believe he's fit enough.
A regular-season La Liga game is set to be played in the United States for the first time after the league reached an agreement with Relevent, the organizers of the International Champions Cup, on a 15-year joint venture for promotion in North America.Although the date and location are yet to be determined, the game would mark the first time La Liga has played outside of Europe -- and mean that one team would have to give up a home game in Spain in a stark departure from tradition.
I hope Spanish fans kick up an absolute storm about this.
juv3nal wrote:Mad skills! That was awesome. The kid with the Barcelona uniform looks so bummed at the end.
PSG jersey actually. Fooled me at first also.
A regular-season La Liga game is set to be played in the United States for the first time after the league reached an agreement with Relevent, the organizers of the International Champions Cup, on a 15-year joint venture for promotion in North America.Although the date and location are yet to be determined, the game would mark the first time La Liga has played outside of Europe -- and mean that one team would have to give up a home game in Spain in a stark departure from tradition.
I hope Spanish fans kick up an absolute storm about this.
Barf indeed. If its not known teams expect sh*t crowds. Worse than local MLS crowds. Which is 100% fair because who in their right mind wants to see a La Liga game live just because.
I would think making your product easily available to watch would be more effective at growing your league's popularity than playing a game elsewhere, but I'm not a big-shot sports executive.
At least I think that's why the Premier League has grown to be so popular - at least in Canada they sold their TV rights to sports channels people already have and almost all their games are available if you have a fairly normal cable package. All the other competitions - FA Cup, La Liga, Serie A, and such have tended to be on obscure channels or massively expensive channels. Soccer fans follow the Premier League, nobody seems to follow the FA Cup and La Liga hype seemed to drop off when it went from an obscure channel to an obscenely priced one.
It'll be interesting to see how the Champions League buzz is here now that it's only on a streaming service. The time difference never made anything but the final in recent years convenient to watch.
Barf indeed. If its not known teams expect sh*t crowds. Worse than local MLS crowds. Which is 100% fair because who in their right mind wants to see a La Liga game live just because.
The ICC only packs it out for the biggest, best-known clubs, so unless they're sending us El Clasico once a year, they're not going to fill out stadiums for Getafe v. Leganes or any of the other 17 La Liga teams your average American soccer fan knows jack-all about (I'm being kind and assuming that the ICC crowd is also familiar with Atleti).
The argument against this is, ostensibly, that by getting to see Girona v. Valladolid live, that they'll grow interest and knowledge in those clubs, except again, no-one's going to go to those games and no-one outside of insufferable euro-snobs like me who read Sid Lowe every week would even begin to give a sh*t. The only way to make up the difference would be upping the spectacle factor by about 500,000%, which is probably what they'll do.
I would think making your product easily available to watch would be more effective at growing your league's popularity than playing a game elsewhere, but I'm not a big-shot sports executive.
I absolutely cannot understand how these people do not get this. Also that the localization makes a huge difference as well. Seeing the Derby della Capitale in Los Angeles is going to be nothing like seeing it in Rome, or even watching it on TV from Rome.
Official approval has also yet to be granted by Fifa but provisional plans are already in place to host the inaugural match before the end of this season, with Miami the most likely destination given its large Hispanic community and the success of the friendly between Real Madrid and Barcelona that was held in the city last year. A repeat of the clásico has already been ruled out, although Ross, who also owns the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami as well as the NFL franchise team, hinted on Thursday: “I think you might have heard very much of one of the teams. One of the bigger teams.”Stillitano adds: “They’re rumours. But it’s fair to say one of them has to be a recognisable team. If this builds and we do it right the first time, obviously by year three or four we could have two mid-level teams but we think the first couple have to be a team people in the States will recognise. There are four or five candidates in Spain – this wouldn’t work if you had two teams who are fighting against relegation, for example. But it will be this season, for sure. We have to look at schedules and work with the clubs but Mr Tebas is certainly committed to it, as is Mr Ross. We’re going to shoot for this year without question.”
Right, so the shortlist, excluding Barca and Real is Sevilla, Atleti, and maybe Valencia.
May not be to everyone's taste (to put it mildly), but if you are interested in seeing some of what goes on at a football team, and you have access to Amazon Prime, then take a look at their documentary series 'All or Nothing'
I might possibly be biased because it's about City, but it is an interesting look at some of the things that go on, and not just a "week 1...week 2" type setup - the first episode is 45 mins long, and there's only footage from 2 games.
In terms of the Spanish game to be played abroad, unfortunately Spanish fans have been increasingly messed about in terms of kickoff times etc over the last few years as the La Liga authorities have sought to try to increase their commercial pull. The thing that may make it a little more accepted than it would be in many other countries is that the attendance of away fans is significantly less than in , say, England, Germany or Italy for all but very local derbies - even at Clasicos there are probably only 1,000 fans from the other side (stuck up in the worst seats), probably due to the relatively poor travel infrastructure.
The likelihood, therefore, is that only fans of the home team are going to be significantly up in arms - which would leave me to think that a likely setup would be a Rayo Vallecano vs Valencia (say). It would be a brave move to send one of the big three over if the other two aren't...the conspiracy theorists would be having a field day.
Note - I was typing this without seeing Prederick's last edit 
Roke: It doesn't seem to me that teams/leagues think very much about TV viewership, regardless of the sport. They only care about TV dollars. I agree that it's very shortsighted.
I'm Houston, Comcast/Xfinity bought the rights years ago for all the Astros and Rockets games, and put them on a proprietary channel so only their customers could see them. This got folks angry at both Comcast and the teams. It clearly resulted in fewer people seeing the games. It's a minority of Houstonians who had Comcast.
Heck, in this situation you're voluntarily passing up the opportunity to make new fans when only a fraction of the kids in the area can see the games.
I know a new stadium costs money but Pochettino is already saying that players are going to leave before the end of the window.
I really don't think Spurs are as locked into the top 4 as people make out. Even if they lose 2 role players and get hit with some injuries they could be scramble buying in January.
It's not like it's just Arsenal are chasing them. Chelsea should be right there also.
I know a new stadium costs money but Pochettino is already saying that players are going to leave before the end of the window.
I really don't think Spurs are as locked into the top 4 as people make out. Even if they lose 2 role players and get hit with some injuries they could be scramble buying in January.
It's not like it's just Arsenal are chasing them. Chelsea should be right there also.
I don’t have any familiarity with their young prospects, but don’t Spurs have any youth able to fill in?
Hearing about Tottenham's stadium troubles, I am consistently amazed at how football turns out these teams that have enormous stadiums and significant prestige, and yet haven't won anything of interest in 20+ years.
Hearing about Tottenham's stadium troubles, I am consistently amazed at how football turns out these teams that have enormous stadiums and significant prestige, and yet haven't won anything of interest in 20+ years.
That’s history for you. Doesn’t always work out that way to be sure (Aston Villa probably being the biggest prestige club that’s punching well below it’s weight these days. Maybe Leeds too but they were absolutely shafted by Peter Ridsdale) but there are enormous piles of money behind a lot of these clubs, and after Arsenal ‘proved’ you could move stadium, massively increase revenue streams and maintain a modicum of success, the rest were all bound to fall in line behind.
The again, West Ham......
jowner wrote:I know a new stadium costs money but Pochettino is already saying that players are going to leave before the end of the window.
I really don't think Spurs are as locked into the top 4 as people make out. Even if they lose 2 role players and get hit with some injuries they could be scramble buying in January.
It's not like it's just Arsenal are chasing them. Chelsea should be right there also.
I don’t have any familiarity with their young prospects, but don’t Spurs have any youth able to fill in?
I'm sure there are players in the youth pipeline but so good and deep they needed to sign 0 players?
Arsenal got Geundouzi who I had never heard of before and expected to just be a youth player. Ends up playing day 1 and actually looks like hes up to it.
We'll see if anyone actually leaves but it going to be 2 weeks more of clubs trying to unsettle their players.
juv3nal wrote:jowner wrote:I know a new stadium costs money but Pochettino is already saying that players are going to leave before the end of the window.
I really don't think Spurs are as locked into the top 4 as people make out. Even if they lose 2 role players and get hit with some injuries they could be scramble buying in January.
It's not like it's just Arsenal are chasing them. Chelsea should be right there also.
I don’t have any familiarity with their young prospects, but don’t Spurs have any youth able to fill in?
I'm sure there are players in the youth pipeline but so good and deep they needed to sign 0 players?
We pretty much got to watch their second/youth team play that ICC match in Minneapolis. A couple of players stood out (Amos and Carter-Vickers), but I’d be buying players if I were in charge at Tottenham.
* Martina ✅ - (Stoke City) Loan
Between taking Williams and Martina, I may have to buy a beer for any Stoke fans I run into this season.
Bielsa becomes the first manager in Leeds Utd history to win his first 4 games in charge. Him and that awesome bucket.
edit - god this is the best football we have played in years
This Chelsea-Arsenal match is loads of fun. Arsenal looking fantastic in the final third but for most of the half got bossed everywhere else.
And Ross Barkley looks bad.
Bielsa becomes the first manager in Leeds Utd history to win his first 4 games in charge. Him and that awesome bucket.
edit - god this is the best football we have played in years
Really hope he can keep it up for the full season. At Marseille they really dropped off in the last third of the season or so when fatigue took a toll.
Harry Kane broke the curse of never scoring in August! Dembele and Lamela were both fantastic off the bench; I'm sure jowner is relieved. 
Arsenal firmly owns the relegation zone.
Harry Kane broke the curse of never scoring in August! Dembele and Lamela were both fantastic off the bench
I didn't think Fulham would beat Tottenham, but I was hoping they'd have at least gotten a point by now. But they keep looking pretty damn good, so I'm hoping (praying) that they get the defense sorted out so they can start winning games!
(EDIT: I had to remove about 5 "we's" from this, as if I'm playing. 
)
Also, Leeds definitely looks like this year's Wolves.
Was reminded of this on Twitter today:
Nike's really never done better than the "Joga Bonito" ad campaign. Even if it's fulcrum was a colossally over-hyped version of the Brazil team.
I'm also still not sure what version of Premier League intro I enjoy the most though. The current one is pretty tasty...
But I think my sentimental favorite has always been "My Saturday Self" from back in 2007:
May not be to everyone's taste (to put it mildly), but if you are interested in seeing some of what goes on at a football team, and you have access to Amazon Prime, then take a look at their documentary series 'All or Nothing'
I might possibly be biased because it's about City, but it is an interesting look at some of the things that go on, and not just a "week 1...week 2" type setup - the first episode is 45 mins long, and there's only footage from 2 games.
Allow me, Dave...
"I haven't seen the movie..."
(Checks behind self in case the Classy One is about to try to poke me in the eye).
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