2022/23 Soccer Thread: Finals Week(s)

Pep is one of the best coaches of his generation.

The narrative that he's taken the easy path makes sense. This is also real life though where if you can land the Barca, Bayern and City job with all the resources you take those jobs.

I don't fault Pep for not giving Ryan Reynolds a call to manage Wrexham and taking them to the top like fairy tale FM save because again it's real life. If you can get the Bayern job you take the Bayern job.

Also Pep is 52. Still plenty if time for him to turn into a Jose Mourinho pumpkin but he probably retires before doing something that really unravels his CV.

Love that Barca's still talking about getting Messi back.

Like, I get why, from a propaganda perspective, but financially, it has to be impossible.

.....I mean, legally.

Man, two years ago today. How times change.

Liverpool fans struggling with whether they want Top 4 or to try and doom Everton more.

Prederick wrote:

Liverpool fans struggling with whether they want Top 4 or to try and doom Everton more.

We just hope to win all out remaining matches at this point and see where we end up. CL would be a very unexpected bonus. At least the team will have done everything they can at this point of the season.

Leicester giving it everything here, Liverpool pinned back

Well that lasted.

Liverpool 2 goals up, should be 3. Leicester are woeful.

Genuinely quite sad. 2016 wasn't that long ago.

Prederick wrote:

Genuinely quite sad. 2016 wasn't that long ago.

Yeah. You gotta feel for Leicester a little but they bought it on themselves.

Trent Alexander Arnold has just score a wonder free kick to make it 3-0. All you’ve been able to hear for the last 20 minutes is the Liverpool away fans singing - with full gusto - the Bobby Firmino ‘Si Senor’ song. Not a peep from the Leicester fans. They’ve let their team down there.

Mind you, if Anfield doesn’t spend the entire 90 minutes chanting ‘Si Senor’ in the final home game against Villa at the weekend, I’ll be mightily disappointed.

Via the Beeb MbM wrote:

Leicester's problem is not Brendan Rodgers or the players. It was a matter of balancing the books or die. If that means relegation so be it. The club doesn't go under. Simple.

Mo Salah has just missed a sitter. I’m genuinely shocked. What the f*ck?!?

omni wrote:

Who next, bbk1980?

Owen Coyle: Queen's Park manager steps down

I genuinely don’t know going to be an interesting choice and they get to step into us coming home to the new ground. I just hope they keep playing the same type of football ( but defend better than the play offs ) I suspect Owen is off to Dundee and best of luck to him he has had a brilliant few seasons for us and I will never forget promotion last year.

Well, I think that’s Leicester done too. Remaining place between Leeds and Forest in my reckoning.

Sorbicol wrote:

Well, I think that’s Leicester done too. Remaining place between Leeds and Forest in my reckoning.

Newcastle and West Ham up next. Yeah, it's gonna take a small miracle. It's possible, but I wouldn't bet on it.

jowner wrote:

Pep is one of the best coaches of his generation.

The narrative that he's taken the easy path makes sense. This is also real life though where if you can land the Barca, Bayern and City job with all the resources you take those jobs.

I don't fault Pep for not giving Ryan Reynolds a call to manage Wrexham and taking them to the top like fairy tale FM save because again it's real life. If you can get the Bayern job you take the Bayern job.

Also Pep is 52. Still plenty if time for him to turn into a Jose Mourinho pumpkin but he probably retires before doing something that really unravels his CV.

Saw this in Sid Lowe's write-up of Barca winning the title this weekend:

Back in August 2019, Messi expressed his hope that one day people would realise how hard it is to win the league. Barcelona had just won their eighth in 11 years, but there had been no bus then. It was April, Anfield was coming up and the domestic title was, well, assumed. The night they clinched it, the players wore t-shirts saying, “the extraordinary thing is that it seems normal”.

IMAGE(https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1255071593/photo/leicester-city-v-liverpool-fc-premier-league.webp?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=jSk5ud6BH1qE9aefwGfc5FQWHT2NMl-3ePgpm-5luYM=)

When did Alisson grow that rhododendron bush?

Welcome to the USMNT, Folarin Balogun.

He wasn’t benching Victor Osimhen or Harry Kane, so picking the USMNT was the smart choice.

Italy.

whiffed on the World Cup, but are European champions and an Italian team has a chance to win all three European club competitions.

Fit check:

IMAGE(https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1255313189/photo/fc-internazionale-v-ac-milan-semi-final-second-leg-uefa-champions-league.jpg?s=2048x2048&w=gi&k=20&c=uLA96W5DFudunw4EP8OfJmhSeX4QO5pSnMVXIw56WJg=)

Amazing that I've been so trained by years of shirt sponsors that Inter not having one in this game makes their kits look almost wrong.

IMAGE(https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article7623652.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/Mixed-race-man-sleeping-in-armchair.jpg)

More importantly, Luton beat Sunderland 2-0 to win the playoff semi-final 3-2 on aggregate, meaning we're only one game away now from travelling Premier League fans having to enter a ground through Tutankhamun's tomb.

Watch Inter end up winning the whole thing. XD

Mr Bismarck wrote:

More importantly, Luton beat Sunderland 2-0 to win the playoff semi-final 3-2 on aggregate, meaning we're only one game away now from travelling Premier League fans having to enter a ground through Tutankhamun's tomb.

No no, it's in the crescent valley.

IMAGE(https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/indianajones/images/c/c5/TempleOfTheSun.jpg)

What makes me laugh about this meme is that the reality is just so much less impressive.

IMAGE(https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/sunonline-features-living-luton-town-812638649.jpg)

Do people actually live in those houses? How does that work? Hope they get free tickets, at least.

Worth remembering that Luton have been in the top division before - and not only were they playing in that tiny stadium, but they also had a plastic pitch that played like a trampoline. Things were different in the pre-Premier League era.

Well, today is the big one. At 8 pm UK time, the eyes of the football world will turn to the Clash of the Titans - two giants deadlocked after the first leg of their semifinal, each looking to book a place in a historic final. They appear evenly matched, but one of the sides will be hoping that their secret weapon - a big Scandinavian striker who has been scoring for fun all season - will be the difference-maker.

And when the dust is settled, we'll have an answer to the question everyone has been asking: will it be Middlesbrough or the Viktor Gyökeres-led Coventry City facing Luton at Wembley in two weeks' time?

Ivan Toney has been suspended from football for 8 months after he accepted the betting charges against him.

8 months. Remember, you can get 8 matches for hitting a ref, but 8 months for betting when playing a sport with the name of a betting company prominently displayed on your shirt.

Not denying he shouldn’t be punished but what a farce the game is at times.

This was Luton's shining moment. In glorious 340p.

There are 10 minute highlight videos on youtube (that spoil the result in the heading) but it was such a good game it's worth watching the full thing.

Unless you're related to Gus Caesar - this game is the final straw that got him his own chapter in Fever Pitch.

Sorbicol wrote:

Not denying he shouldn’t be punished but what a farce the game is at times.

Yeah, this has been getting appropriately dunked on online. We here in the U.S. have only just opened the floodgates on sports betting, but from what I understand in the UK it's just a total deluge, it's everywhere.

So to come down so hard on a player for doing it when, again, fans are being actively encouraged to do so at every ad break (and often during games!) is kinda weird.